Martin Edwards’ latest Lake District Mystery is The Frozen Shroud. The series includes The Coffin Trail (short-listed for the Theakston’s prize for best British crime novel), The Arsenic Labyrinth and The Serpent Pool. He has written eight novels about Liverpool lawyer Harry Devlin, and two stand-alone novels, including Dancing for the Hangman. He has won the CWA Short Story Dagger and edited twenty-two anthologies.
Another day in paradise. Joolz adjusted her sunglasses as she hurried out of the excursion office. Time was tight, but she must text Giddy before she met her group.
Giddy’s face grinned at her from the phone. Dark, tanned, and handsome enough to make your heart stop. His real name was Gideon, but everyone had called him Giddy since he was a kid. He was famously unreliable, but he said he simply liked to dream. She just needed to take care he didn’t try to make one particular dream come true.
Waiting for a gap in the traffic, she scrolled through the pictures. Giddy was wary of being photographed with her, said it wasn’t safe, but over the past three months, she’d captured a dozen shots of him, starting that very first night they met, at a full moon party on Seven Mile Beach. She’d snapped him through the writhing flames of the huge bonfire. It wasn’t just the martinis and the thudding rhythms from the kitchen band that made her knees buckle. He still had that effect on her. But now she had to save him from himself, before it was too late. First, she’d tell Wesley it was all off, whatever he and Giddy had discussed. Then, at the Lobster Pot, she’d insist Giddy make his choice between love and money. He’d surely decide to go with her – wouldn’t he?
She crossed the road, and a dozen loping strides took her to the North Terminal. The tourists were chattering outside the souvenir shop. The tender had brought them in from the liner, and they were ready to roll. Most of them looked as though they would roll very easily. Joolz dared not think how much they had eaten since their cruise began at New Orleans. Wait till they discovered the island’s cassava cake. Joolz rationed herself to one slice a week. She thought she was too skinny, but Giddy said he loved her this way. He didn’t care for fat women.
‘Hi there! My name is Joolz, and I’m your tour guide for today.’
Expectant faces beamed back at her. An American woman with dyed red hair as dazzling as the sun said, ‘I wanted to go snorkelling, but this guy is all for the easy life.’
The man at her side, rotund and balding, said, ‘We’re in Grand Cayman for less than six hours, honey. Makes sense to pack in as much as we can. See the sights.’
‘Hey, is this our bus?’ a small nervous woman asked.
Since this was tour number 7, and the approaching bus had a large placard behind the windscreen bearing that number, the answer seemed obvious, but Joolz beamed and said, ‘You’re absolutely right.’
Her smile froze as she recognised Seymour’s grizzled hair behind the wheel. No dreadlocks, no Wesley. Where was he?
Seymour opened the door. ‘Hey, beautiful, ain’t you pleased I’m driving y’all today? What’s with the frown?’
‘What happened to Wesley?’
‘Called in sick, I guess.’ Seymour grinned. ‘Smoked one joint too many last night, huh? Big mistake. Mr Pottinger won’t be pleased.’
Joolz caught her breath. What was Wesley up to? She must have been mad to introduce him to Giddy.
‘Do we get on now?’ The nervous woman had come up behind her, and the rest of the party were only a step or two behind.
‘Yes, yes, that’s fine.’ She hoped she didn’t sound as panicky as she felt. ‘Please can you show me your tickets as you board?’
They filed past her, and she checked their tickets against the details on her clipboard. All present and correct. Taking a deep breath, she jumped up the steps, and grabbed the microphone.
‘Good morning again, ladies and gentlemen, and a very warm welcome to Grand Cayman from me and our driver Seymour. We’ll start by heading out of George Town and passing the hotels and condos of Seven Mile Beach. Why it’s called that, I’m not quite sure, because it’s less than six miles long.’
Everyone tittered, and a wrinkled Englishman in a floppy white hat said in a stage whisper, ‘So they have a serious inflation problem here, as well?’
Joolz rewarded the old man with a big smile. Every tour party had one guy who prided himself on his sense of humour. On a really bad day, you were landed with three or four of them.
‘After driving by the beach, we have a special treat lined up for you. We’ll sail through the amazing mangroves, and you’ll get up close and personal with all sorts of wonderful creatures in this very special habitat.’
A woman in an aisle seat put up her hand. Obviously British. ‘It is a boat trip, isn’t it? Not a kayak.’
‘Definitely a boat trip,’ Joolz promised. ‘Anyway, after the boat trip, we rejoin the bus, and then we set off for … a glimpse of Hell.’
Cue excited murmuring from a handful of passengers who hadn’t bothered to study the itinerary. ‘Actually, Hell is a tiny place in the West Bay district. The name comes from a very unusual and distinctive black rock formation. We’ll stop there for ten minutes, so you can buy postcards and gifts. Who knows, you may even meet up with the Devil himself!’
The guy from the shop at Hell wore a devil’s costume, but Wesley didn’t need to dress up for Joolz to suspect he was a devil too. He was always laughing and joking, and the tourists loved his risqué humour. Yet there was a dangerous glint in those dark eyes, and his smile resembled a shark’s. What if Giddy had entered into some sort of pact with him?
Enough. No point in dwelling on it. Nothing she could do now until she and Giddy talked. Switching to auto-pilot, she launched into her all-you-need-to-know-about-Grand-Cayman spiel. It only took five minutes.
‘So this place is British and you’re British?’ the red-haired woman deduced. ‘Like a home from home, then.’
‘You could say so,’ Joolz said. She’d been happy here, but she was ready to move on. After all, this was just a small, flat strip of land in the sea, where people only came to chill out or make money.
‘Tax haven, eh?’ the wrinkly Englishman asked, as they reached the car park at the new marina.
‘Off-shore finance makes a valuable contribution to the local economy,’ she said sweetly. ‘Look, we’re here!’
Giddy worked for a financial services firm called McCulloch Stott. Just a small cog in a big wheel. He’d trained as a lawyer in the City, but found it too much like hard work and fled to the Caribbean. He spent a few years as a beach bum before charming the pants off a girl who just happened to be the daughter of McCulloch Stott’s senior partner. She’d persuaded her father to find him a job, and six months later they were married. They still were, Giddy confessed to Joolz, just before they slept together for the first time. Joolz didn’t mind too much, she’d already figured out he was too good to be true. Easy come, easy go, that was the story of her love life.
Except that Giddy said he would never let her go.
‘How’s my lovely lady?’Klaus, the skipper, gave her a peck on the cheek. He was sixty, and smelled of raw fish, but she was fond of him. After they had helped the guests on board, he murmured, ‘You okay?’
‘Never better,’ she lied. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘You look like you didn’t sleep too good last night.’ Klaus frowned. ‘That boyfriend of yours treating you right, I hope?’
‘Everything’s fine, thanks, sweetie.’ Klaus had never met Giddy, but he knew there was someone. Had Wesley opened his big mouth? He ought to be smart enough to keep quiet, but with Wesley, you never knew. He was a loose cannon. When he was stoned, he might say anything. Or do anything.
‘Good.’ Out of sight from the guests, Klaus made a swift throat-slitting gesture. ‘Any fellow makes trouble for you, he answers to me, okay?’
‘It’s all good.’ Oh, if only …
‘And where is Wesley?’
She shrugged. ‘Off sick, Seymour reckons.’
Klaus gave a sceptical grunt and strode to the wheel. Joolz picked up her microphone, and announced that they were about to sail into the mangroves.
‘The nursery of the reef, some people call it. We have everything here, from baby barracuda to green iguanas. Along the way, you’ll have the chance to pet a jellyfish.’
Iguanas, yes. It had taken a while for her to spot the similarity between Giddy and an iguana. After all, he was so gorgeous and the iguana – well … But there was a sort of sleepy-eyed menace that her lover and the reptile shared in common. Iguanas were harmless, though. As for Giddy, she was no longer sure. He insisted he wanted her, not the spoiled rich neurotic he’d married. The only snag was the money.
‘I signed a pre-nup.’ He shook his head, as if bewildered by his own naivete. ‘Her daddy’s one of the smartest businessmen on the island, never believed I was good enough for his darling daughter. He insisted on drawing up a deal. If I divorce Mary-Alice inside five years, I lose pretty much everything. Of course, there’s a pay-off, just enough to make sure I keep my mouth shut, but I’d be finished. He pulls the strings of the management board, and they’d have me out on my ear. Word gets around in the business world. I’d be good for nothing.’
She’d never had money, she wasn’t like Mary-Alice, with a trust fund to keep her insulated from the real world. But money didn’t matter, as long as she and Giddy were together. And hadn’t he always dreamed of becoming a beach bum once again, carefree and wild? When she reminded him, he looked at her as though she were mad.
‘I bet you were born within five miles of Leeds city centre,’ a grey-haired woman in a flowing floral dress said, as the boat drifted over the water. ‘Small world, our house is across the road from Oakwood Clock. How long have you lived here?’
‘You’re quite a detective,’ Joolz admitted. ‘Harehills, actually. Came over three years ago, to teach Maths. I only meant to stay for twelve months.’
‘But you fell in love?’
‘With the island,’ Joolz said hastily. She waved at the swaying green ferns. ‘You can understand, can’t you? I decided I’d much rather spend my days outside the classroom.’
‘And will you stay here permanently?’
She fobbed the woman off with a smile and a shrug. But her question demanded an answer. It was time to move on. Like Giddy said, you only had one chance in life. Carpe diem. He knew more Latin than she did, that was a private education for you.
‘You said the island was named after alligators,’ the red-haired woman said, giving the water a suspicious stare as the boat puttered to a halt. ‘Are there …?’
‘None whatsoever, you couldn’t be safer. Though some of the biggest iguanas look a bit like crocs!’ Joolz reassured her so thoroughly that the woman seemed disappointed. She frowned all the way through the homily on the wonders of the mangrove forest’s ecosystem.
‘There are sharks, though,’ the man in the floppy hat said. ‘Tells you about them on the internet.’
‘Not all of them live in the sea, though,’ said Klaus. ‘The worst sharks work in those glitzy offices in George Town.’
Too right. Danger on Grand Cayman didn’t come from the wildlife. It came from the likes of Wesley, Mister Shark’s-Teeth Smile. It had begun as a joke, this idea of Giddy hiring someone to kill Mary-Alice while he established a water-tight alibi, drinking the night away with financier friends at a bar on the other side of the island. He spoke so lightly about it that at first Joolz played along. It was a game, nothing more. He couldn’t be serious, and there was no harm in dreaming.
‘Those houses must cost a packet,’ the floppy hat man said as the boat headed back towards the waiting bus. There was plenty of new building around the marina. ‘But why so much concrete?’
‘The highest point on Grand Cayman is sixty feet above sea level. When Hurricane Ivan hit us, the island was devastated. Building a house strong enough to survive another hurricane costs a small fortune.’
While the others contemplated the possibility of having everything they’d worked for destroyed in a matter of moments, the woman from Leeds said, ‘You need to find a wealthy boyfriend, then.’
‘I certainly do!’ Joolz said with a laugh.
The woman patted her hand. ‘With hair that blonde, and eyes so blue, you won’t have any trouble, dear.’
‘She’s spoken for, lady,’ a guttural voice said. Oh God, Klaus had decided to join in the fun. ‘Though we have not been allowed to meet him yet. I only hope we are honoured with an invitation to the wedding.’
‘See that little lizard on the bank?’ Joolz said. ‘You can take a photo of him, if you’re quick.’
Of course, she had options. She could even break with Giddy if he refused to leave Grand Cayman with her. But she’d hate to leave him alone with Mary-Alice, and a house full of hang-ups. Giddy needed her as much as she needed him.
Joolz wished Mary-Alice no harm, really, but the woman was a flake. No wonder Giddy was sick of her. Even before the wedding, she’d made a half-hearted attempt to slit her wrists. On their first anniversary, after a huge row, she’d taken an overdose, and had to have her stomach pumped. When she wasn’t self-harming, she was flying into violent rages and hurling crockery whenever Giddy put a foot wrong. She’d even had a couple of one-night stands with blokes she’d met in clubs and bars. Her father said Giddy was a lousy husband, made him a scapegoat for a money-rich, attention-poor upbringing guaranteed to warp his daughter’s personality. Giddy said he felt like a prisoner in a gilded cage.
The tour party climbed back on the bus, and the red-haired woman leaned over to speak to Seymour.
‘Say, you come from Jamaica, don’t you? Your accent reminds me …’
A slow smile spread across his face. ‘Ya man. But I live here now. Better way of life. More money, less crime.’
Twelve years ago, Seymour had arrived in Grand Cayman with his wife and two daughters. Lots of people did the same. Wesley had made the journey eighteen months back. Rumour was, he hadn’t simply been making a lifestyle choice. Apparently, he’d upset someone important in Kingston, and his survival depended on making a run for it. There were stories that he mixed with drug-dealers and other criminals, that he was a criminal himself. Joolz suspected he encouraged the gossip, thinking it did wonders for his image. What the truth was about his past, she didn’t know, and didn’t want to know.
‘Y’know what we say back in Jamaica?’ Seymour asked the woman. ‘There are no problems.’
‘No?’
‘Nah. Only situations.’ He gave a wheezy laugh and switched on the ignition.
His homespun philosophy didn’t work for Joolz. Wesley could become a very big problem. Why had she been so stupid as to mention him to Giddy? The pair of them had been knocking back mudslides and fantasising about life with enough money to buy a mansion with a private beach and helipad. Joolz had mentioned that she’d never met a hitman, as far as she knew, though she wouldn’t be surprised if Wesley …
That’s all it took for Giddy to talk her into arranging a meeting. He could be so persuasive. Against her better judgment, the three of them had got together at Pedro St James, in a dimly lit bar where they weren’t known. Wesley told funny stories about life in Jamaica, they drank too much Tortuga rum punch, and her heart didn’t skip a beat. Mary-Alice’s name wasn’t even mentioned.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Seymour boomed into the microphone. ‘So far you’ve seen our island paradise. Now you are about to arrive in Hell.’
He turned off the main road, and parked in the open space behind the bright red post office and shop. Everyone trooped off to buy souvenirs and take photos. Joolz sat on the steps of the bus, watching people take it in turns to clamber on to the viewing platform and gaze out at the strange, spiky black limestone behind the barrier.
Yesterday evening, Giddy had let slip that he’d met Wesley at West Beach last week, while she was escorting tourists round a turtle farm, and both men should have been working. When she quizzed him, he passed it off as a casual encounter between two guys who just happened to run into each other, and shot the breeze for half an hour. What could be more innocent?
In the end, she nagged Giddy into admitting that he’d talked to Wesley about Mary-Alice. He said he’d been thinking aloud, just musing about how much simpler and better life would be if he were still a single man. She told him she wasn’t stupid, and neither was Wesley. He could read between the lines. For God’s sake, they hadn’t talked money, had they?
Giddy said he might have mentioned ten thousand dollars.
‘I just love the devil!’ the red-haired woman said, mopping her brow as she returned to the bus. Her bag was overflowing with gifts from the shop. ‘I mean, what a nice guy. He posed for some pictures with us.’
Did Giddy have any idea what he was messing with? During her teens in Harehills, Joolz had come across one or two men capable of anything. Wesley, for all his smiley face and winning ways, was a dead ringer for them. If he thought there was ten thousand dollars to be had from killing Mary-Alice …
‘You didn’t enter into no bargain with that devil, I hope, ma’am?’ said Seymour, the life and soul of the tour party.
The red-haired woman barked with laughter. Joolz had stayed awake half last night, trying not to think about Giddy and Wesley thrashing out a deal. That had decided her. When she saw him at the Lobster Pot, she’d say he must leave Mary-Alice and McCullochs, and they’d make do with whatever pay-off he squeezed out of the doting daddy. If he promised to go quickly and quietly, he could negotiate reasonable terms. Okay, they’d need to leave Grand Cayman, but never mind. Plenty of islands in the sea. Countless beaches, innumerable bars. Opportunities would always knock for a hard-working tour guide and a great-looking guy with public school manners and charm.
‘So now you can say you’ve been to Hell and back,’ she told her passengers. ‘Our next stop is the beach. We’ll be there for fifteen minutes before heading back to the terminal.’
While the group wandered out on to the sand, and an adventurous few ventured a quick paddle, she stayed in the bus with Seymour. Having made up her mind what to do, she felt calmer already. This was the only way.
‘You going to the full moon party tomorrow night?’ Seymour asked.
She shook her head. ‘I used to love those parties, but I’m thinking it’s time to move on.’
‘You don’t mean, leave the island?’ Seymour put on a sad face. ‘We’d miss you, Joolz.’
‘Guess I’m stuck in a rut. It’s comfortable, but then so is a grave. There’s so much else in the world I want to see.’
The passengers straggled back to the bus. Time to head back past Government House. At the terminal, Joolz did better than usual with the tips. A good omen. Every dollar would come in useful in her new life.
‘Stay safe,’ Seymour murmured as she said goodbye.
The company office was on the other side of the road. She’d tell Mr Pottinger she was resigning, and someone else would have to do this afternoon’s Stingray Tour. Then she’d dash to the Lobster Pot. Giddy hadn’t texted back, but she’d show up at McCullochs’ office if she had to. Threading through the crowd, she saw a Compass placard bearing the latest news.
Oh Jesus, don’t say she was too late? Surely Wesley hadn’t done something terrible?
Two police officers in crisp white shirts were waiting for her in Mr Pottinger’s tiny office. They nodded her into a chair without a word. Mr Pottinger’s face was ashen. The older of the two cops, a man whose bulky frame filled half the room, flourished his ID.
‘Joolz Ibbotson?’
Her throat felt as if someone were squeezing it hard. ‘What is it?’
‘I understand you know a man called Gideon Tremlett?’
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The expression on the man’s craggy face baffled her. It was almost like … pity.
‘I’m sorry to tell you that we recovered his body from a mangrove near Rum Point earlier today.’
No. She wanted to scream. It was impossible. Wasn’t it?
‘I’m sorry to tell you that Wesley Stollmeyer has been arrested in connection with his murder, and so has Mr Tremlett’s wife. I’m afraid I have to ask you some questions, and it would be easier if you’d come with us to police headquarters.’
The cop might just as well have clubbed her. She felt too dazed to utter a word. Sure, there’d been a Faustian pact. But Giddy, poor Giddy, had not been part of it. Wesley had got into bed with a devil woman.