The sun went down into the sea.
The little white clouds which the trade-winds carry unceasingly across the Caribbean – which hung now like a raggedy lace flounce along the horizon – turned rapidly from flame to purple to black. The strip of sea between the two dry, uninhabited little islands turned from yellow to blood to black. A young moon lay just over the tangled trees of the larger island. The sky was immediately full of stars. The wind dropped to a whisper. Tiny, irritating insects came out of crannies and drifted over the dark beaches: but there was no one for them to sting, no one for miles.
Some prehistoric electricity was switched on among the vicious, inhospitable, useless vegetation of the two little islands – among the mangroves and sea-grapes and dusty cactus – and suddenly all the tree-frogs began to bong over the quiet water, bleep-bloop, bleep-bloop, an interminable electronic music, monotonous, magical. The noise of the cicadas, like a million tiny bicycles, chirred under the song of the frogs.
At the edge of the water, on the wet volcanic rocks and the dead coral, sea-snails with conical shells twitched and slithered. In the water, creatures with feelers and teeth and spikes and spines and poison waited, with endless patience, for the chance to kill each other.
A rhythmic thudding became dimly audible. It grew very slowly louder. A diesel motor, throttled right back. A yacht? But no yacht navigates for choice among the islands at night – it is dangerous: it is unnecessary.
Yes, a yacht, visible now in the channel between the islands (but there was no one to see it) – a big boat, a ketch, white-hulled in the moonlight, sails furled, inching along the narrows. No navigation lights, no lights on deck, no lights showing through the portholes or the windows of the saloon. No sound except the muffled thud of the diesel.
The timbre of the engine changed. The yacht stopped moving, the anchor-chain went down with a roar and the anchor splashed. The engine cut.
Still no light from the yacht. Now no sound except for the frogs and crickets to whom a yacht, more or less, was a matter of indifference. Little tired ripples from the yacht’s screw and her hull and the dropping of her anchor sucked at the beaches and died under the starlight.
‘Mr Warren,’ said the slim man in the pink shirt, bouncing down the steps from the cockpit into the big saloon, ‘Mr Warren, you’re not drinking!’
The fat, fiftyish American raised his head from his hands. It was true that the glass in front of him was empty. So also was the bottle. His eyes swivelled and his mouth hung open.
‘Not drinking?’ he finally said. His voice was blurred and uncertain and a long way away, like an announcer on a badly tuned radio. ‘I have been.’ He laughed, as though scoring a debating point of uncommon shrewdness. ‘I have been drinking, George.’
‘And will again. And will again. We got here! It’s party time!’
The big man looked round the saloon. He was sitting on a long, blue-cushioned seat; another faced him, with a shiny table between. There were also basket chairs, and low chairs of aluminium and plastic; a wall-vase with an arrangement of bougainvillaea; a bamboo magazine-rack full of copies of Playboy; yacht photographs on the walls. There were heavy, impenetrable curtains over the ports. It was not one of the cramped and functional saloons of small yachts and ocean racers: nor was it distinctive in any way. It was exactly like the saloon of nearly every other expensive charter-yacht in the Caribbean. Except that there were no people. There was no party.
‘No party,’ said Mr Warren with grief. He shook his head slowly. The heavy flesh between jawbone and collarbone wobbled as he moved. His lower lip wobbled damply. ‘Where’s girl? Where’s lil girl?’
‘She’ll be right up,’ cried George with glee. The thin face and arms that stuck out of George’s pink shirt were so deeply tanned that his original colouring was impossible to guess. His smile was wide and bright, and his dark hair waved prettily. He looked as queer as a coot.
He tripped to a door at the after end of the saloon and opened it. It gave on to a short companionway into a cabin. ‘Caroline,’ he called. ‘Caroline, honey. Come join the party, dear.’
A man appeared at the foot of the steps. ‘She’ll be right up. She’s all ready.’
‘Cooking nicely, Lyn?’
‘On the boil, George.’
Lyn’s tan matched George’s. He was so brown he was almost blue. His hair was fair and he wore very tight white cotton pants and his shirt was made of somebody’s yellow bath-towel.
George shifted a cushion, lifted the lid of a locker and pulled out another bottle of Johnny Walker. ‘New bottles for old, Mr Warren.’ He poured a stiff drink and dropped three ice-cubes into it, delicately, clucking when a little splash threw a drop of whisky on to the table. ‘Excuse fingers, please.’
‘You not drinking, George? Hey? Where’s party?’
‘Sure I’m drinking, and so is Lyn, and so is Caroline.’
He poured himself a very long weak drink and raised his glass with bonhomie. Mr Warren raised his glass too, since it was clear that the party had begun. Mr Warren took a long pull of his own big strong drink.
Lyn appeared in the doorway, gently pushing a girl.
‘Here they are,’ said George. ‘Who’s drinking?’
Mr Warren looked at the girl. The point of his tongue appeared and very quickly licked his upper lip and then his lower lip, and he drank some more of his drink. He fumbled for a cigarette from the pack in the breast pocket of his shirt. George was very quick with a tiny jade-green lighter with a design of mignonettes. Mr Warren went on looking at the girl.
Caroline was very young and very juicy. A pink-and-white girl, gold from cautious exposure to the sun. She was certainly not more than eighteen, and probably not less than sixteen.
(But it is no longer easy to be sure, these days.)
She had long, straight fair hair and big blue eyes and there was no expression in her face at all. Her mouth was a little open, like Mr Warren’s. It was much prettier than Mr Warren’s. She was a very pretty girl indeed. She did not look a clever girl – indeed, at the moment, she looked moronic – but she was very pretty. Her legs were good, golden, well-rounded, visible to high-mid-thigh under a wild-coloured cotton shift. Her bare arms were golden and rounded: hanging limply now, but imaginable in many useful and vigorous activities. Her shift hung from juicy shoulders by narrow straps, one of which was waywardly slipping over the point of its shoulder. The edge of her golden tan was visible. The untanned upper hemisphere of her breast was smooth and white as a china soup-plate.
Mr Warren’s tongue very quickly licked his upper lip and then his lower lip, and he took a drag at his cigarette. Without taking his eyes from the girl he raised his glass. It was empty. George, watchful, nipped forward and filled it, and put three lumps of ice delicately in after the whisky.
‘Excuse fingers.’
There was no definite evidence that Caroline was wearing anything under her shift; there was, on the contrary, some evidence that she was not.
‘Where you been?’ said Mr Warren huskily.
‘Me?’ said the girl unexpectedly, in a high clear voice.
‘Where you been?’
‘Caroline’s been resting up so’s to be right in shape for the party,’ said George. ‘Right, Lyn?’
‘Right, George,’ said Lyn. ‘Right, Caroline?’
‘Absolutely right,’ said Caroline. Her voice sent a shiver through Mr Warren. It was the unmistakable, arrogant, be-damned-to-you voice of the English upper classes. High and light, a schoolgirl’s voice, the assured and very young voice of a girl at a very expensive English school.
Her feet were bare, like Lyn’s and George’s. Mr Warren wore white leather loafers. Mr Warren was very red from the sun; you could assume he was visiting the Caribbean from some cooler and dimmer climate. You could assume, from his face and clothes and manner (drunk as he was) that he was rich and important. He smelled of money and authority. Through his mumbling you could glimpse the rigid and ingrained selfishness of the powerful.
‘Sit right here, Caroline,’ said Mr Warren.
Caroline sat right there, beside him on the seat George darted forward with a full glass for Caroline. It was medium strength, between the dark brown of Mr Warren’s drink and the pale straw of his own and Lyn’s.
Caroline’s eyes were made up, not skilfully. There was no make-up on her face or her lips. She was slightly shining with sweat – all her face and her arms and her golden thighs as she sat by Mr Warren, and the white of her breast below the edge of her tan, all her flesh was damp with a slight sheen of sweat. She drank her drink and smoked a cigarette without inhaling, and presently Mr Warren put his hand on her thigh.
She turned to face him, her mouth open, her big blue eyes half closed. Mr Warren put his hand under her wayward shoulder-strap. Mr Warren kissed her. Mr Warren began to take liberties with Caroline’s dress and her person.
George caught Lyn’s eye, then eased up out of the saloon into the cockpit. Lyn slipped quietly out by a door at the forward end of the saloon. On his way he pressed two switches with the effect not (as might have been expected under these romantic circumstances) of leaving a dimmer light, but on the contrary a much more brilliant light over the two long seats. He closed the door softly behind him.
Forward of the saloon was the galley. Bolted to the metalwork of the cooker was a 16-mm movie-camera, its lens probing through a hole in the forward wall of the saloon. A pale untidy man with a blue chin and thinning hair was operating the movie-camera, which made very little sound and which could swivel and tilt freely without any sound.
‘They’re in shot, Julie?’ whispered Lyn.
‘They’ll be centre-screen. Hey, see that? Hey, this guy is a fast worker.’
‘You envy him, Julie?’
‘Certainly I envy him. Even though it’s rape.’
‘It is not rape! Look at her! Jesus, look at her! How can you say this is rape?’
‘Virtually it is rape. Certainly I envy him.’
‘Make a good movie, Julie, will you? You get it all.’
‘What I do for money.’
Julie kept his eye to the viewfinder. He swung the camera a little and twitched the focus. His balding head was covered with big drops of sweat.
‘Photography,’ he murmured. ‘Making pictures. I been crazy about pictures since I was in school. My ambition, always my one single ambition was to get to be the guy behind the camera.’
‘So here you are,’ said Lyn. ‘Small-town boy makes good.’
‘98th Street boy makes blue movies.’
‘We all got to live.’
‘My sister got to live. Third operation coming up.’
‘Tough.’ Lyn lowered his eye to a peephole. ‘That’s my baby, Mr Warren. Keep at it, kid. You know something, Julie? You’re right. This time it is rape.’
‘Sure it’s rape, the lucky bastard.’
Lyn was sweating now, too, in the close air of the galley. George in the comparative cool of the cockpit was barely damp. Caroline was drenched in sweat. Her gay little shift was now an untidy bandage round her waist; otherwise she was naked and slippery, and a little of her was very white and soaking wet and much of her was golden and soaking wet. She was weakly pushing at Mr Warren and fighting him and trying to push him off, but he was lying on top of her now and had taken off his own clothes and he was strong and heavy and not full of dope. He was sweating too and his expensively cut grey hair was wet and he was breathing harshly through his mouth and raping Caroline.
Caroline moaned but was unable to scream. Mr Warren put a big hand over her nose and mouth in case she screamed.
There were rings of moisture on the table from their drinks, and Mr Warren’s last cigarette had rolled out of the ashtray and burned a long black furrow into the shiny table.
The movie-camera hummed, hardly audible over the hum of the icebox in the galley.
Caroline stopped struggling and everything was easier for Mr Warren. He kept his hand over her mouth in case she screamed. Presently he lay on top of her, panting. Then he took his hand from her face and withdrew from her and looked blearily round the saloon. Caroline’s head lolled sideways and her mouth was open. Her arms were limp and she lay flat on her back and the whites of her eyes were showing.
‘She’s out cold,’ whispered Julie. His shirt stuck to his back and the camera hummed.
Mr Warren reached for his clothes and started to pull them on. He found it difficult to dress. He tried to pull Caroline’s skirt down, but it was rolled up and soaking with sweat and it was too difficult for him.
‘Come on, baby,’ he said thickly. ‘How do you feel? Come on, how about it, wake up, will you?’
‘You know what I think?’ whispered Julie. ‘I think that kid is not good.’
‘She’s a good kid,’ said Lyn, who was not really interested in Caroline and who had turned away from the peephole and lit a cigarette.
‘She’s still out cold. She looks bad. You ought to do something.’
‘Wait till uncle’s dressed. We don’t want to embarrass him.’
Soon Mr Warren was decent, if not dapper. Caroline had not moved and was not decent.
Lyn came back into the saloon. At the same time George came down from the cockpit, arriving with the little leap used by people who want to show they are athletic in a confined space.
George made Mr Warren another drink. Lyn tried to wake Caroline up. After a few moments it occurred to him that she was dead, and it was immediately clear that this was so.
Lyn showed some disposition to panic. ‘Jesus, what we do? Jesus, what we do? Jesus, what we do?’
‘Lash her to the spare anchor and sink her under the west cliffs where it’s real deep. Don’t fret, Lyn. You didn’t do it.’
‘I didn’t, did I?’ said Lyn, brightening.
‘Mr Warren did it.’
‘He did, didn’t he?’
‘He did it, by his lone some, nobody else was even in here.’
‘But his secret is safe with us.’
‘Safe as Fort Knox.’
‘And he’ll need Fort Knox, all the gold in the world,’ said Lyn, quite cheered up. ‘And the boss won’t be mad at us?’
‘I can’t think why he should, Lyn. Mr Warren was all alone with Caroline. Check, Mr Warren?’
‘Check, Mr Warren?’ said Lyn gaily.
But Mr Warren had once again buried his face in his hands, and it was doubtful if he was aware of anything going on round him.
‘I don’t believe he took it in,’ said George with gentle sympathy. ‘What a shock it will be, Lyn.’
Julie came into the salon, carrying the camera which he had unbolted from the galley.
‘Cut these lights, Julie, please’, said George. ‘No point in waste.’
‘This time is one time too much,’ said Julie flatly. ‘And I want plenty of light.’ ‘Don’t fret,’’ said George. ‘Mr Warren had a little accident. It isn’t any business of ours.’
‘It’s between Mr Warren and his conscience,’ said Lyn primly. ‘Who are we to judge?’
‘You lousy little fairies,’ said Julie. ‘I shoot these stinking movies, okay, I need the dough and I don’t give a goddam what you do with them. But this time is one time too much.’
‘You know, Lyn,’ said George, ‘maybe after all the boss could get a little mad. He trusted us to find a guy who could get the pictures without fail and keep quiet without fail. Will you keep quiet without fail, Julie?’
‘I got a conscience too,’ said Julie. He looked down at the pathetic damp empty flesh on the seat, with the damp roll of bright fabric pathetically round its waist.
‘And you got a sister, and her third operation coming up,’ said Lyn.
‘Tough,’ said George. ‘It’s a hard old world, Julie.’
‘Not that hard,’ said Julie.
Julie looked from George to Lyn and back to George and his expression was glum and determined.
‘This kind of talk makes me nervous,’ said Lyn, who did not look nervous.
‘Don’t fret.’
‘Remember what the boss said about bad security risks?’
‘Yes, indeed. I know exactly what the boss would want we should do.’
George turned to a chart-table and opened a drawer. Keeping his body between Julie and the drawer he took out an automatic pistol and screwed a silencer to its muzzle.
‘Got the film, Julie?’ he asked over his shoulder.
Julie shrugged. ‘In the camera.’
‘Good boy.’
George turned and shot Julie in the chest. Lyn caught him and they carried him quickly up on deck. There was almost no blood on the saloon floor; Lyn sponged up what little there was with a damp cloth from the galley. He rinsed the cloth and hung it up neatly, as though he enjoyed housework and liked a nice clean home.
Mr Warren was aware of the dull plops of the silenced gun, which were quite loud in the saloon. He looked round and drank from his drink.
‘We got two spare anchors?’ asked Lyn.
‘No. We’ll sink Julie with a few yards of chain.’
They picked up Caroline and laid her on the afterdeck beside Julie.
‘I’ll get the chain,’ said Lyn.
‘Change your pants first, Lyn. You’ll get all dirty.’
‘Sure.’
Lyn went below. As he passed Mr Warren, Mr Warren focused on him and said: ‘How’s girl?’ He said it a second time, carefully, concentrating on clarity: ‘How is the girl?’
‘Be fine, Mr Warren. Over-excited, I guess, maybe a drink too many. Getting a little fresh air. Be fine.’
‘Okay.’
Mr Warren lay down, exactly where Caroline had lain, and fell gustily asleep.
George started the diesel, raised the anchor with the power winch, clicked into forward gear at very low revs and steered slowly and carefully out of the narrows. He knew the place well and it was easy to see by moonlight and starlight. On a dark night, and for a stranger, it would have been dangerous.
Lyn came up on deck in picturesquely tattered jeans. He got the chain and the spare anchor from their lockers, and lashed the two corpses to them. He joined George in the cockpit and adopted a pose which emphasised the slimness of his hips.
‘So now we’re fresh out of help,’ said Lyn.
‘No problem. Oily Feld can find us a photog in New York. And the boys in London can ship us another piece of aristocratic ass. We’ll cable first thing.’
‘The boss is in Britain right now.’
‘Sure, so he is. Inspecting the machinery. So now he can really see it operate.’
‘Will he like that?’
‘Sure he’ll like it. And he wouldn’t want we should wait around not earning.’
‘He would not, George. He would not.’
When the yacht was clear of the islands the motor changed to a higher and louder note, and they were travelling away at eight knots. The noise of the engine soon became inaudible under the monotonous electronic bleep-bloop, bleep-bloop of the tree-frogs and the chirring of the cicadas. Little waves from the yacht snaked over the smooth water and rustled among the sea-snails and the conches and the roots of the mangrove trees.