Six

 

The squalls which drove the Boy George across the strand of coral left Flynn cursing his luck in Papeete, whither the Teura To’oa had been driven back by the rising wind, a fact which brought on a blazing row between Captain Seagull and the impatient Flynn that was concluded with threats and left them both determined never to set foot on the same deck together again.

“We had ’em cooped up in Tyburn,” Flynn said furiously, “and now, thanks to that old fool, we’ve lost ’em again.”

He was sitting near the overgrown coral sea wall, under a frangipani tree that starred the ground with ivory blossoms, sitting where he could glare at the Teura To’oa moored with her stern to the quay among the vista of masts and rigging and cabin tops, the solitary light that shone from Seagull’s cabin porthole dusting the moving water with diamonds. Voss sat smoking silently, watching the Tahitians in denim trousers talking in groups to the girls.

The sun was slipping rapidly behind the steep hills and the valleys above Papeete wore an ever-changing pattern of light and shade. With the sunset, the shadow of the stumpy spires groped towards the slopes at the opposite side of the bay, and crept higher and higher until only the mountain tips where the clouds swirled like smoke were touched to gold by the sun. And then even they were dark, and the saw-edge peaks of Moorea, nine miles away, disappeared into the night.

As Flynn watched, the lights of the honky-tonks and the bars began to appear and behind them in the poorer streets, the lamps of the shanty quarters and the Chinese stores. A jukebox started up somewhere in a jangling French tune that marched across the quiet air like an advancing army until it was cut to pieces by the chatter of a mini-bike.

“Papeete’s not so romantic when they turn on the radios,” Voss said.

“What did you expect?” Flynn demanded. “‘The Pagan Love Song’?”

Voss grinned and Flynn stared at the flame of his match as he lit his cigarette, then he savagely obliterated it.

“Damn Seagull and his lousy boat to everlasting hell,” he said. “I’ve never been nearer to taking Keeley in. I suppose the old fool’s picked up some trade and wanted to be back here to clinch it. I’ve heard he’s preparing to disappear as soon as the weather clears. We had them in the palm of our hand. Now we don’t know where they are.”

“Perhaps they’re at the bottom of the sea.”

Flynn stared at Voss, shaken from his anger by the other’s expression.

“Not they,” he growled uncomfortably. “A blow like that wouldn’t sink ’em. They’ll be all right. If that damn’ silly radio announcement hadn’t been made they wouldn’t have gone scuttling deeper into the Tuamotus.”

He stood up and stared at the Teura To’oa for a while before continuing. “I’ve been with the police to the radio station,” he said eventually. “They’re going to make a series of announcements about the search. And they’re going to send it out in English and repeat it from Fiji so that if they’ve got a radio – and we know they have–”

“Sure, we do,” Voss commented, without looking up. “Lucia told us they had. Or, at least, they had when they left Sydney. Mama hasn’t mentioned it since.”

Flynn glanced at him. “Well, now they’ll hear a new broadcast. This one will tell them we’re concentrating on the Tuamotus and that we’re searching everywhere but the Societies round Tahiti. That’ll send ’em scuttling back here where the islands are well populated and nice and close to each other.”

Voss watched him silently, saying nothing.

“And this time,” Flynn ended, “we’ll tell ’em about the reward that’s offered for Keeley.”

“It’ll never work,” Voss said immediately.

“Why not?”

“Because Mama Salomio isn’t that kind, I’ll bet. After all this time with that kid aboard, she’ll be bursting at the seams with maternal instinct. God help ’em, women wear themselves out with emotion. But I’ll bet he’s a better kid than he was.”

“OK. If it doesn’t work with the old lady,” Flynn said confidently, “it’ll certainly work with the old man. He’s just the type to be interested in five hundred pounds.”

Voss said nothing and Flynn took his silence for disapproval and broke out defensively. “I’ve got a job to do,” he said. “If your son had been stabbed or beaten up or robbed and the police allowed themselves to get sentimental over the man who’d done it or the people who were helping him to escape, you’d feel pretty sick, wouldn’t you? There isn’t room for sentiment in the police force.”

Voss bowed slightly with his head. “Touché,” he admitted. “You have a point there. But I can’t help feeling just a little admiration for the Salomios.”

“Hell, neither can I,” Flynn snorted. “But as far as I’m officially concerned, they’re a set of interfering busybodies and I wish Keeley had never heard of them. By God, if he hadn’t, he’d have been in custody four months ago now and there’d have been at least one pair of parents a lot happier because of it. But the blasted newspapers have completely clouded the issue by playing up the Salomios.”

“It’s made a wonderful story,” Voss smiled, undisturbed. He took two or three newspaper clippings from his pocket and showed them to Flynn. “Look at these: ‘Salomios Sail To Glory,’ Sydney Sun; ‘The Courage of the Salomios,’ Morning Herald; ‘Where Are They Hiding?’ Brisbane Courier-Mail. Notice that? ‘They.’ No need to mention their name any more. They’ve become simply ‘they’. Everybody knows ’em now. Look–” He flipped through a whole bundle of clippings and sat back, watching Flynn’s reactions. “Melbourne. Adelaide. Perth. Everybody’s interested. New Zealand papers too. Wellington Post. Auckland Star. Dunedin. Christchurch. See this? Fiji Times and Herald. Even the Americans in Honolulu and Los Angeles. Even the French in Noumea. I can’t read French but I can see ‘Salomios’ there in the headline.”

He stuffed the clippings away and lit a cigarette quickly.

“They’ve reached London and America, Flynn,” he went on happily. “They’ll soon be pushing the politicians off the front pages. Believe me, it’s the biggest thing since the end of the war. From being an old couple in debt they’ve become famous. They’ll be met by the Lord Mayor when they get home.”

He paused before continuing. “It might interest you to know that the money they owe on the boat has been offered by some philanthropic old jerk who owns a couple of sheep farms. All this has done his old heart good. The pioneer spirit’s not dead, etcetera, etcetera, blah, blah, blah. And he’s not alone in his sentiments either. Have you noticed that there are now three other newspapermen in Papeete?”

“I have. What do they intend to do?”

“Apart from attending the Préfecture de Police for news – which they certainly won’t get before you and therefore before me as well – they’re waiting for the Teura To’oa to leave harbour. And when she does, they’ll set out after her. That’ll be fine if we’re not aboard as it seems we won’t be.”

“How do you know all this?”

“They cornered me in a bar – last night when you were in conference with the police on the next move. Pity they didn’t realize that there’s nothing I like better than being cornered in bars. Besides, I can afford not to worry. I’m always one jump ahead of them. I’ve got Lucia in Sydney.”

“She hasn’t come across much lately.”

“They’re probably out of touch with post offices, or money, or both. Or they’re scared. Probably a little of all of them. Especially since that broadcast. It could be that Mama’s started getting wise to us. We’ll have to watch that daughter of hers in Brisbane in case she sends her news via her. Fortunately we’d thought of the daughter as well as the daughter-in-law.”

“And now you’ve got all of them neatly parcelled up and working for the paper?”

Voss looked over his shoulder at Flynn. “We’ve even started the poll I told you about,” he said gloomily. “We’ve removed Lucia, by the way, and taken her with the boy out of reach of the other newshounds.”

“It’s a dirty game,” Flynn said slowly. “You’re making capital out of their suffering.”

Voss wagged a finger. “Flynn, you’re jumping through my hoop now. But, take it easy, they’re suffering far less now that they’ve got some money in the bank and plenty to do and see than they were when they’d no money in the bank and nothing to do but sit and bite their nails. Lucia’s going to be all right.”

Flynn frowned. “Sometimes, you seem so anxious for these damned Salomios and all their hangers-on I wonder whose side you’re on.”

“Yours every time when it comes to personalities,” Voss laughed. “Theirs, when it comes to sentiment. If only they’d write a few letters and give us some real stuff. They’re playing cautious now and I live for lost causes. They mean good solid circulation. That’s why the Charge of the Light Brigade always packs ’em in. That’s why all the readers in Australia and even further afield are jumping out of bed every morning and fighting each other for the paper as they’ve never done before. The Salomios are a lost cause. They can’t win. We all know that. But we’re all wishing like hell that they could and hoping by some miracle that they will.”