Early afternoon. The sun was glinting brilliantly on the water as the guests made their way down the steps from the Whirlpool Bar and on to the Zodiac area at the back of deck four. Some were in shorts, some in loose trousers, some in skirts. On their heads they wore everything from bog-standard baseball caps to Daphne’s magnificent floppy straw hat, which made her look as if she were going to a wedding in New England rather than a remote village on an island off Guinea-Bissau. They all had the tubelike grey lifejackets slung round their necks and tied tight around their waists. Most were also wearing or holding the little black Adventurer backpacks, which had a pocket on each side for a standard aluminium water bottle.
Francis was excited. He had returned from breakfast and his chat with Klaus to find an email waiting for him from the probate authorities in Illinois with a copy of the will he’d asked for attached. Once he’d read that, a busy morning had followed, as he’d chased around the Internet to pursue the hare that had now been unleashed. So well had things gone that he’d been tempted to skip the Bijagos outing and get his case completely watertight before taking his findings to a higher authority.
But a couple of hours wasn’t going to make that much difference, was it? Everyone on the expedition team had told him how amazing the archipelago was. They were landing on a remote island and then returning to ship, so no one was going anywhere. More important, in the informal atmosphere of the excursion he might get a chance to double-check his suspicions with the reality.
As they passed down the steps and along the deck the passengers’ identification cards were slid by another po-faced Asian crew member into a reader attached to a laptop. For a moment their grinning, solemn or perplexed mugshots filled the screen, then they were allowed through. For trips like this, Golden Adventurer counted them out and they counted them back. Just to make sure they didn’t leave anyone stranded in the jungle. As long as they were still alive, they were still valued customers.
The expedition team were waiting in the Zodiacs, which were grouped in a loose circle around the embarkation steps, which ended a couple of feet above the heaving surface of the sea. Mike, Carmen, Leo, Viktor and the others, each standing at the back of an inflatable, hand on the throttle of a powerful outboard motor. As each of these bobbing craft filled up and moved off, another came in to the steps where two wiry crew members in brown boiler suits were ready to help the next lot of guests on board.
There were about twelve to a boat. Francis found himself stepping down into Carmen’s Zodiac, just behind the redoubtable Daphne, who was as ever urging on her husband.
‘That’s it, Henry. Attaboy!’
Henry, meanwhile, had fixed Francis with that familiar look; of someone who has spotted, after a long while, an old and favourite friend.
‘Now you,’ he said, waving an enthusiastic finger. ‘Didn’t we meet you on the Antarctica cruise? At Christmas? Tom, wasn’t it?’
‘It’s Francis, honey,’ said Daphne. ‘Fran-ciss. He joined us on this cruise. Not the Antarctic. He wasn’t on the Antarctic cruise.’
‘Wasn’t he?’ Henry seemed taken aback. ‘We’ve met before,’ he said, ‘I’m sure of that.’
‘On this cruise, sweetheart. You met Francis on this cruise.’
‘Did I?’
The old man seemed cheered now. You had to hand it to Daphne. She was dutiful, devoted even with her constant corrections, though that understandable edge of impatience wasn’t far behind.
Others were bundling on. Sebastian in an embroidered African smock, long bell-bottomed maroon trousers and pale blue reef shoes; his stocky boyfriend neat in starched khaki beside him.
‘Good morning!’ the designer called in Daphne and Francis’s direction. ‘What a relief to be getting off the bloody vessel for a bit. I am so excited about this village.’ Kurt followed silently in his wake, his features impassive as ever. As he plonked his substantial backside on the fat plastic tube that made up the boat’s side, the whole craft rocked visibly.
Next up were Brad and Damian, in identical white singlets and blue shorts, which showed off their muscled physiques to fine effect.
‘Afternoon boys!’ called Sebastian.
‘Good afternoon, Sebastian,’ Brad returned, a little coolly.
Shirley and Gerald were next.
‘D’you mind sitting this side?’ Carmen asked Shirley tactfully. The craft sank several inches in the water, but she and Kurt were now balancing it beautifully.
The last pair down the steps were Bruce and Candy. They took their places opposite Shirley and Gerald.
‘Hiya, folks!’ said Bruce, who clearly wasn’t going to be fazed by any hostility from the critical Brits.
There was only Leo’s Zodiac to fill and then they were off. It was no surprise to Francis that Sadie had somehow engineered to be in that boat, up by the tiller in knee-length cut-off jeans and a flowery bikini top, surely not the ideal costume for a visit to a remote island village. And whatever Klaus thought, the devoted looks she was giving the driver of her little craft spoke volumes.
The flotilla of seven boats raced across the gentle swell towards the low green line of the islands. Nobody spoke. It was enough just to feel the rushing sunlit air on your face and look out over the sea, shimmering silver-gold under the sun. The mother ship receded to a tiny silhouette, the island shore grew more distinct. Soon they were entering a channel between banks of mangroves: low, dusty green trees with their dense tangle of leafless brown stems just above the waterline. The boats slowed, the engines reverted to a purr, above which could now be heard the cries of circling birds. Damian’s paparazzo lens was out again. He half-stood, knees bent as he clicked away furiously at his visual prey.
After twenty minutes or so they came round a corner to a muddy little beach below a tall tree with a thick trunk spreading out to branches which made for a shady canopy. In the sunlit foreground, a couple of long wooden canoes lay stranded, face down, on scattered stones.
There was a welcoming committee of small boys, some squatting on the hulls of the boats, others standing on the beach. Most wore long trousers and T-shirts, a few had shorts, one pair a brilliant yellow. Some of the tinier ones had nothing but tight pants, above which belly buttons protruded on skinny frames. There were a couple of adults there too, to greet the expedition team. Francis wondered if they had mobile phones out here, or perhaps the whole visit had been set up this morning on Mike and Viktor’s recce.
The guests disembarked, clambering over the sides of each inflatable and on to the stony mud along a portable landing stage made up of three or four low black plastic boxes.
Carmen’s boat was fifth, and by that stage, the first groups of visitors had walked up past the big tree and on along a narrow path into the forest.
Viktor and Mike stood in the shade, arms held out, pointing. ‘Welcome to Bijagos,’ Viktor was saying. ‘The village is two hundred yards up this track. Please be careful to stick to the paths and as always in Africa, keep an eye out for snakes. Our last boat out to the ship leaves in three hours, at five o’clock sharp, so make sure you’re back on the beach by then, as there is no arguing with the tide, and we wouldn’t want to leave you alone on the island. I have heard that the cooking isn’t at all bad, but not as delicious as that of Gregoire’s amazing team.’
Dry brown leaves crunched beneath the well-shod feet of the guests as they filed inland, eyes down. In a bright clearing, butterflies swooped above tall yellow grass in the sunlit air. Just ahead, one of the boys was waiting for Francis’s group. He was naked bar a pair of grubby crimson briefs. He grinned broadly as he rolled a rusty steel hoop in front of him, turning every thirty yards or so to make sure his selected charges were keeping up with him.
‘I love these little characters,’ said Bruce to Francis. ‘Give him half a chance and he’d be running the country.’
As they got closer to the village, they could hear the heavy rhythmic beat of drums. More boys with hoops appeared from left and right. One wore a crimson T-shirt on which was written: Junior Arctic Aviator – Snow Zone. Another had a portrait of Barack Obama on his chest, with the very faded strapline Yes, we can!.
Suddenly they were there: in a wide clearing stood a series of mud brick rondavels, with conical roofs of low-hung, untrimmed thatch. At the centre of the hard-packed dry earth of the village floor was an enormous tree of who knew what antiquity. Branches as big as trunks spread up from its base, which had a diameter of twenty feet at least. This behemoth cast a wide circle of shade, dark at the centre, dappled with pools of sunlight towards the edge. A long line of teenaged girls was dancing round it in a loose circle, toyi-toying in that effortlessly rhythmic African way. They were wearing Western tops: T shirts or low-cut sleeveless. Their skirts made an African contrast: straw, in two tiers, dyed black, orange and purple, with shell necklaces hung loose around their shimmying waists. Some had bare feet, some colourful flip-flops. A number of the bigger girls also had anklets around their right legs; giant seed pods strung together. What did this signify? That they were already married, taken, promised?
When all the guests had made it up to the village, there was a shout from Viktor. A presentation was now going to be made, he announced, to the – good God! – king, an even older man than the Togoan chief, with rheumy eyes and a sprinkle of white stubble. He was sitting on a low chair to one side of the clearing, extravagantly attired. On his head a patterned oval kofi was topped by a khaki felt cowboy hat, with feathers stuck into the leather headband, on which you could just still read the engraved legend Vegas. Below, he wore a baggy blue shirt, hung around with scarves and cloths of various bright colours. Next to him, on a mat on the ground, his queen was even more burdened down with fabric, swathed in what looked like a red and white tablecloth, with a patterned yellow and green blanket over her shoulder. Her eyes darted suspiciously from a smoother, younger face. On the top of her head, above a tightly-wound orange scarf, sat an upturned gourd. As in Togo, the king had a taller, younger, beefier henchman to one side, similarly wrapped in cloths and scarves. He wore a battered old pair of crimson Doc Martens and carried a stout stick.
Viktor made a short speech, thanking the king and queen for allowing the Golden Adventurer’s guests to visit. The presentation was then made: one box containing colourful cloths (surely coals to Newcastle?), the second the inevitable pens and pads of paper. And this is what we bring you: not a digital camera or video, those magical white man’s machines we are all slung around with, but something simple for the children’s lessons. Which we must all approve of, of course, education surely being the thing. To lift you out of your colourful poverty and let you approach the elevated world we have called First. Did they even have a generator here? Francis wondered. Or would a gift digi soon run down and be left as a treasured but useless possession?
A wild burst of drumming announced the resumption of the dancing. And now there were new characters, gleaming, muscled young men decked out in theatrical costumes. One wore a dome of reddish-brown straw on his head, from which protruded shiny – and real, it looked like – black horns. More straw circled his neck, with a couple of red and white scarves thrown in for good measure. Wrapped tightly round his bare arms were strips of patterned cloth and a trio of straw pom poms.
Another had a big wooden shark’s fin strapped to his back. A cowhide apron was tied to his jiggling bottom over khaki shorts. Below were knee bandannas and elaborate straw anklets.
Others appeared, in equally glorious assortments of straw, cloth, necklaces and other add-ons. One had a wooden model of a naked girl in a red bikini attached to his head. Another wore a full – and horned – cow’s head, with a mouth that served as a lookout for his eyes within. Another’s face was invisible behind a headdress of fluorescent green, which matched his skirt, but not his crimson Fly Emirates top.
‘And so,’ said a familiar voice in Francis’s ear, ‘ze whiteys stand around, wishing they had this much fun in their lives. But of course they do not. Not legitimately, anyway. The nearest they will get to it is some embarrassing dance at their daughter’s wedding.’
It was Klaus, in khaki, with a fluorescent green money belt at his waist, his large excursion bag slung over his shoulder, a compact digi in his right hand.
‘You know,’ he went on, ‘this is an interesting society here. Matriarchal. The women have real power in Guinea-Bissau. They propose marriage to their men by giving them some soup made of fish eyes, and then later if they want to divorce them, they can. These dancing boys here are all about to go off for initiation, which will take them seven years. By the time they get back, the wives they already have will be living with someone else, so they will take another one, and have a second family. If only it were so easy in the West.’
Francis laughed. ‘How on earth d’you know all this, Klaus?’
The German tapped his nose. ‘I do my research. No point in travelling if you don’t understand what you’re looking at. Not in my bible anyway.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Pretty frightening looking, some of these costumes, don’t you think?’
‘They are.’
‘But little do they realize that it is not they who are the frightening ones in this case. They are playing at killing. It is we who have the murderer among us.’
‘You think?’
‘I do.’
Francis looked at him, at that smug but oddly nervous smile playing under the bushy white moustache; at the clear blue-grey eyes that radiated the confidence of a well-off professional but simultaneously craved your attention. Klaus prided himself on being dry and worldly, and after his long career as a surgeon, he had every reason to present himself in that way, but there was still a small boy in there who was trying to please.
‘You know who it is?’ Francis asked.
‘I have my suspicions.’
‘Which you want to share with me?’
‘Perhaps later. When we are back on the ship. Not here, I don’t think. Let sleeping hounds lie. If they are cornered, they might otherwise get savage. Don’t you think?’ He smiled. ‘And you?’
‘If and when I have solved this puzzle completely, I promise you will be the first to know.’
‘Can I believe that? Maybe you have already solved it.’
‘Maybe I have,’ Francis replied, looking levelly at him.
‘This I like,’ said Klaus. ‘The famous evasive English sense of humour.’
The drumming around them had reached a crescendo. At the centre of the clearing the shark-man was throwing himself to the ground in a frenzy. One of the guys in straw had mock-stabbed him with his all-too-real spear, and now he was ‘dying’. Dust rose up in clouds, sunlit red-brown as it cleared the shadow. The surrounding circle of young women was hunched over, arms out before them, intense in their concentration as they moved their hips.
Around them the guests took it all in in different ways. Many were following the action with their videos and cameras, trying to capture something of this extraordinary spectacle to take home to their families and friends and computers. Damian was diving around with his big lens like a man possessed. Sadie stood beside Leo, talking, laughing, clearly enjoying the scene without feeling the need to record it. Shirley, likewise, was living in the moment, doing her own crazy toyi-toyi with Gerald. Terminal illness, Francis thought, did nothing if not make you unselfconscious.
Just beyond him, Francis noticed a familiar figure leaving the edge of the clearing, pacing away through the huts, looking round nervously from time to time.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, backing away. Klaus took no offence. He smiled and hoisted up his camera, before heading back into the fray. Francis walked nonchalantly away, past older women and men standing watching from between the thatched huts, wrinkled, bent, with just a tooth or two between them. He picked up speed as he went deeper into the village, catching glimpses through darkened doorways on each side of the different households inside: some cluttered, some as tidy and swept clean as a London show flat. Here and there, thin trails of smoke rose from ashy fires.
He paced on, pretending to be taking photographs as he kept his object in clear view. Scrawny-looking hens clucked around, pecking madly at the dry ground; in front of one little homestead a skinny dog looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes and yelped.
Francis reached the far side of the village, where he lurked by a rondavel, watching and waiting. After five minutes or so, he continued through the undergrowth, under the canopy of tall trees, looking ahead to make sure nobody had spotted him coming, and behind to make sure that no one was following. The drumming was more distant out here, but still loud enough to cover the noise of his footsteps. He took care not to step on any dry branches or leaves that might give away his approach with a crackle or a rustle. At the same time, he kept a careful eye out for snakes. It was all very well to tread quietly, but he didn’t want to step on a sleeping puff adder.
After a hundred yards or so he came upon them, sooner than he’d thought he would. The two women were right in front of him, across a small clearing, pressed up against another mighty tree, oblivious in their intimacy. He suddenly felt nervous, wondering what had led him to confirm his suspicions, his burning curiosity, dammit, now, here, of all places. In a very short time, if he didn’t duck down or retreat, this was going to upgrade to a confrontation, which could easily be postponed till later, back on the ship, when he would have supporters around him. Maybe, on second thoughts, he would do better to leave his showdown until then …
He was about to back away when Carmen turned and saw him.
‘What the fuck!’ she cried.
The little doctor looked up too, then pulled away from her girlfriend. She looked terrified.
‘I’m very sorry to interrupt,’ Francis said. ‘But I need to talk to you.’
‘What are you playing at?’ said Carmen, ‘following us out here like some peeping Tom?’
‘I’m sorry. But I think you know why—’
‘Do we?’
The charm had gone; an unsmiling she-wolf was revealed.
‘Yes,’ said Francis; there was no going back now. ‘You’ve been very clever, covering your tracks, but I’m afraid I can’t pretend I don’t know any longer who murdered Eve. And then Lauren. And then the poor man who had the misfortune of seeing you with Lauren.’
Carmen laughed, but it was a hollow rattle of a laugh. ‘You are – seriously – joking me. Where on earth do you get this mad idea from?’
‘I get this mad idea from the fact that Ray, whom we interviewed, was told by his cabin mate George that he’d seen someone with Lauren on the night she went overboard. And not just with her, throwing her over the edge. This person was young, strong, and blond. But no one he knew from staff or crew.’
‘So?’ said Carmen.
‘It was not Gregoire, as I’d originally thought. In any case, George would have known all the officers and cruise staff, uniformed as they are. But being very far below stairs he wasn’t perhaps aware of the distinction between a passenger and a member of the expedition staff who slept on the same corridor as the passengers.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Carmen, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Had Ray told me,’ Francis continued, ‘that George had seen Lauren pushed over by a little old lady with grey hair I would have had my work cut out. But there are no other young strong blonds on the ship. Apart from Mike – and I ruled him out some time ago. This also explained another problem I had, that a passenger couldn’t have done away with George, deep down on deck one, where no passengers, except possibly the adventurous German, Klaus, ever go.’
‘I don’t know where you think you’re going with this, mate,’ said Carmen. ‘But I had absolutely nothing to do with George’s death. For Christ’s sake, I was with you when he was murdered.’
‘Of course you were. Setting yourself up with a foolproof alibi. The murder was the work of your accomplice, also your girlfriend, the medical expert who knows all about poisons and carries the snake antivenoms with her on all expeditions. Wasn’t it, Alyssa?’
The doctor’s dark eyes darted sideways at her companion. She wasn’t a great actress. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said. ‘What makes you think …? This makes no sense at all.’
‘I’m afraid it makes perfect sense. That the doctor, who has access to all the drugs she could want or need, could find a way of sedating George, before injecting him with snake venom, through the single hole that I observed in his ankle.’
Alyssa was doing her best to look outraged. ‘As I told you,’ she stuttered, ‘there were two incisions—’
‘Don’t bother,’ Francis cut in. ‘I know an injection mark when I see one. More to the point, you were also responsible for kicking the whole sequence off by murdering Eve, whose only crime was to be rich and old and trusting. You told me yourself how much you liked her, Alyssa. What good friends you were. And she told me the same thing. How the staff were like family to her. You had been close for more than one cruise, hadn’t you? She was in the Antarctic at Christmas, and also in Greenland last summer. The caring doctor was on both those trips, looking after her elderly guests, making friends, lining up the next victim, one of the ones who would return.’
‘Francis, really,’ said Carmen, and now, with a brittle laugh, the charm had returned. ‘When we were working together, trying to solve this mystery for the captain, I thought you were pretty sharp. But now, mate, I’m sorry, you seem to have lost it. Yes, Alyssa and I are lovers, and I’m sure you understand why it’s easiest if we keep that relationship a secret. There’s always gossip on a ship – and although we are supposed to be living in the twenty-first century, a lot of the attitudes onboard are pretty unreconstructed. If all the crew knew we were a couple, it would impact on the way they treat us. I’m sorry to say that, but it’s true.’
‘I understand that,’ said Francis. ‘That’s one of the reasons I wanted to speak to you alone.’
‘But that’s where it stops. Really. This idea that either of us is involved in all this is ridiculous. So please, go back to the village, see a bit more of the dancing. Then, when we return to the ship this evening we can review all the evidence and see where we’ve got to. Not that any of this is your problem any more, because as you may or may not know, the FBI are joining us in Dakar.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Francis. ‘Bringing with them a crack detective squad from the Bahamas and a couple of DCIs on secondment from the London Met. Pull the other one.’
‘It’s true,’ Carmen replied, but she wasn’t convincing.
‘This is why I decided to seize the moment and talk to you now,’ Francis continued. ‘Away from the ship. Because we can still be discreet. It may very well be that this is a puzzle that gets left to other authorities. Or, more likely, glossed over and forgotten, as has happened who knows how many times on cruise ships before. The bodies will be repatriated, as per international medical protocol, and life will go on.’
‘Will it?’ said Carmen; for a moment she looked relieved, as if she wanted to believe him; and in that relief Francis knew for sure that she was guilty.
‘But if that is to happen,’ Francis continued, ‘I need to understand your motivation. Both of you. Because as far as I can see, your actions were never particularly selfish. In fact, it strikes me that they were imaginatively, even daringly unselfish.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Dr Lagip, leaning forward towards him. Her hands were shaking, but there was hunger in her eyes.
‘Alyssa,’ said Carmen, but her warning note had barely impinged.
‘Shall we sit?’ said Francis.
It said something, he thought, that the two of them immediately did as he suggested, and in a moment they were all three cross-legged on the dry brown leaves, the dappled shade all around them. He took them through the reasoning that had led to his conclusion. How, as Carmen knew, he had initially thought that it was Gregoire who was Eve’s murderer; that he was some kind of Harold Shipman figure, getting wealthy passengers to alter their wills, then quietly bumping them off.
‘It was only later,’ he went on, ‘that I realized I had the right story, but the wrong protagonists. It was you, Alyssa, who was grooming these old and vulnerable people. It was all quite an art, because among the many wealthy guests on each cruise, you had to pick singles, obviously, and also, ideally, those who had no immediate relatives who might kick up a fuss or contest the altered provision of the will. Eve totally fitted the bill. Her husband Alfred was dead. Because she had cared for her mother for all those years, she had never had children. So who had she planned to leave her fortune to? The donkey sanctuary down the road. Poor, mangy, mistreated animals, yes, doubtless, but compared to many of the human horrors you’ve seen around the world, laughable, not even on the scale. And the sanctuary wasn’t likely to question things when the bequest was changed.’
Francis could tell from Alyssa’s face that his words were hitting home but she wasn’t as yet ready to crack. Neither of them were.
‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ she said primly.
‘I was initially confused, of course,’ Francis went on, ‘just as the captain was, just as you meant him to be. Because you had been very clever, drawing attention to any suspicions around the first murder, just to put him and the rest of us off the scent. Of course the lab at Takoradi – of all places – wasn’t going to find anything untoward in the autopsy. You knew that. That’s why you insisted on it. And once you’d put your foot down about that – and so publicly, and in such a principled way – it was going to be clear to everyone that you also had nothing to do with the other deaths that had taken place on previous cruises. Poor Mr Krugbender in the Antarctic at Christmas. Old Mrs Drew-Huggins on the Ecuador to Chile leg in October. Major Fisher in Longyearbyen last summer.’
‘How on earth …?’ said Dr Lagip with a gasp.
‘There’s a useful website that has all these deaths registered. Marikit Wyldestone is also there, though that was on a different ship, as you know, Alyssa. But four deaths on the Golden Adventurer in just under a year, no wonder the captain was concerned. More significantly, so was Security Officer Alexei. So you decided to call their bluff. Which you did brilliantly.’
‘You are one hell of a funny guy, mate,’ Carmen said, with a laugh. ‘Deaths occur all the time on these ships. The morgue has room for three bodies, d’you want to know why? Sometimes it’s not just three a year, but three a cruise.’
‘Alyssa has already told me there isn’t a morgue,’ Francis said.
Carmen looked over at her partner, and then shrugged. ‘Whatever. It doesn’t affect the numbers. So let me try and get my head around this mad little theory of yours,’ she continued. ‘Alyssa was “calling the captain’s bluff”. So she sent out a corpse she had been responsible for murdering herself for post-mortem. Is that what you’re saying?’
‘You know that’s what I’m saying.’
‘But in that case what exactly did she do to poor Eve? The old lady was lying there intact in bed. She wasn’t shot, stabbed, strangled or even, as far as I’m aware, suffocated. There aren’t many poisons that escape the analysis of a modern autopsy. There were no marks of an injection there, as I recall. So what did she use? Something by mouth? Some rare African plant that European forensics has yet to be aware of?’
‘Good question,’ said Francis. ‘And one that kept me guessing for a while. I’d actually worked out the method before I realized it was you who’d used it. I thought Gregoire was responsible. But it all ties in. Because you had to come up with something completely undetectable. You needed Eve to have “died of old age”.
‘Now as the ship’s doctor you had all the means at your disposal to quietly do away with someone. A lethal dose of an anaesthaetic like pentobarbitol, perhaps, or an overdose of diamorphine. But painless and easy as both of those would have been, for respectively the patient and you, they would have been picked up, as you say, by a post-mortem. And though that might have worked in the past, when only you were certifying the deaths, that was no good this time, was it?’
‘OK, so how did I achieve my perfect murder?’ The doctor asked this wryly, joining Carmen in the idea that Francis’s whole thesis was a huge joke. But beneath that brave facade, Francis could hear the controlled breathlessness of her delivery. She was desperate to know how much Francis had worked out, and if so what evidence he had.
‘When we were standing in Eve’s cabin,’ Francis went on, ‘looking at her body laid out on the bed, there was one odd detail that puzzled me. The champagne bucket on the side, which is not standard issue. Your butler only brings you one if you ask for it. But Eve didn’t drink. More than that, she had once been an alcoholic. There’s no way she would have wanted any alcohol in her room – so why the bucket?
‘It wasn’t on the floor, which is probably where it would have been earlier. You’d had time to clear up. You just hadn’t seen fit to remove this anomaly. So what, I asked myself, might a champagne bucket have been used for? As I thought about it, and also about other possibilities any murderer might have had at their disposal, it suddenly dawned on me where I’d seen such a container before. Gregoire had used one to pour out the dry ice during the Togoan dance show. Now these solid blocks of carbon dioxide are harmless, of course, in a well-ventilated room. They’re used all the time on stage, in the theatre, at rock concerts and so on. And on the night, for this performance, the gas just produced a little coughing among our elderly guests. However. In a sealed room, such as a cabin, with no windows open or able to be open, and the doors airtight also, you would have been able to build up enough carbon dioxide to suffocate poor Eve. And this would have no after effects other than a high level of carbon dioxide in the blood. Which might lead to bloodshot eyes, but is not in itself suspicious.’
‘You can’t poison someone with carbon dioxide,’ said Alyssa. ‘You’re thinking of carbon monoxide.’
‘Good try. But I’m aware of the distinction. Also that carbon dioxide can be a killer too.’
‘Let’s humour him for a minute, darling,’ Carmen said. ‘So Alyssa poisoned Eve, just as she had done away with others, you say, on previous cruises. But how on earth did she persuade her to change her will? And what possible proof can you have that she did, given that she’s only been dead for four days? Have you been in touch with her solicitors in Malmesbury?’
‘In Malmesbury,’ repeated Francis. ‘Interesting that you knew where Eve lived.’
‘Everyone knew she lived in Malmesbury. She was always talking about it.’
‘But not to you,’ said Francis. ‘Because it wasn’t you who was Eve’s friend, was it? In fact, she barely knew you. Because that was another part of your strategy. Work separately. Your plan would have been altogether too obvious if anyone had realized you were operating together. Or if anyone had picked up on your relationship. Even I hadn’t understood that until this morning, when I was told about it by somebody who’d seen you together last night during the storm.’
‘Who?’ Alyssa cried. Then, as if to cover that half-admission up, she asked, ‘What do you mean, “during the storm”?’
‘What I say,’ said Francis. ‘During the storm. You were observed on deck seven together.’
‘But it was wild up there,’ said Alyssa. ‘Who could have wanted to go—?’
‘Well, you two, I think, since you knew it was wild up there. I promised not to reveal my source. But when I saw you today, leaving the celebration, Alyssa first, and then, a discreet ten minutes later, you, Carmen, I knew I had to tie everything up by confirming what I’d been told. And here you are. Very much together. I don’t think there’s any denying that now.’
‘We may be dykes,’ said Carmen bluntly, ‘but we’re not murderers. Give us a break.’
‘To go back to your earlier question,’ Francis said. ‘How did I know what was in Eve’s will? I didn’t. Even if I had known the name of the Malmesbury solicitor, this wasn’t information I could get at from here. Until a will is proved, it remains confidential – even the most expert hacker would find it hard to access. However, the completed wills of Mr Krugbender and Marikit Wyldestone were easy to find online. Ditto that of Major Fisher, though even with the fast-track service I haven’t had any luck yet with Mrs Drew-Huggins. Not that that matters. Because in among the beneficiaries of these three very different people, from very different parts of the world, was a common one: the Rising Star Trust.’
There was a gasp from Alyssa. Carmen’s features didn’t move.
‘And what or who,’ Francis went on, ‘was behind this interestingly named charitable foundation? Ten years ago, I would have had to travel to Grand Cayman, where the trust is incorporated, to find out. Now that information is also online. Among the four trustees I discovered this morning is one Dr A. Lagip.’
Alyssa was shaking her head, slowly, from side to side; why, wasn’t clear, as it was too late for denial now.
‘So what does this Rising Star Trust do?’ Francis continued. ‘Is it for the personal benefit of Dr A. Lagip, Dr E. Ongongo, Paula Cordoba and Rachel White? Apparently not. Because the credentials of Dr E. Ongongo, for example, are impeccable. He turns out to be an extraordinary character, well-known in central Africa for distributing funds to NGOs and other charitable causes. He has worked not just with Rising Star, but with Bill Gates, Bono, Bob Geldof and Madonna, among others. Paula Cordoba, it appears, has a similar role in Central and South America. And it turns out that one of her Facebook friends is Carmen Contreras, Australian anthropologist, lecturer and expedition leader on cruise ships.
Carmen’s face was a picture. A picture, it had to be said, of one whose back was now against the wall.
‘How on earth did you discover that?’ she breathed.
‘All too easy,’ said Francis. ‘Facebook is hardly a heavily encrypted department of the US military. Completing the team,’ he continued, ‘is another of Carmen’s Facebook pals. Rachel White. Who is, despite her name, a native Australian who works, she tells us on her much-liked page, on projects with Aboriginals in the Northern Territory of Australia, mainly to do with getting them off alcohol and into productive work. Indeed, it appears that she is directly responsible for two model settlements in the Tanami desert, one of which produced Australia’s first Paralympic one-legged long jump champion, Bambam Badjalang.’
There was no mistaking the rapid look that passed between Alyssa and Carmen. Francis had them bang to rights.
‘So Rising Star is, it seems,’ he continued, ‘a thoroughly noble enterprise, funding a string of carefully researched charitable projects across the globe. Is that why it’s called Rising Star, Alyssa? Because it is leading the way in the fight against international social injustice? Or is there a darker reason? That Operation Rising Star is the code for a dead body on a ship. Or is it both? That here we have a remarkable charity, apparently dedicated to doing good, but funded by the unfortunate victims of a cruise ship doctor who is also a murderer. Is that about the size of it, Alyssa? The ends justify the means?’
Both the doctor and her girlfriend said nothing. From the village came the sound of renewed drumbeats, mixed now with a wonderful wailing African chant.
‘Sounds like the ceremony is reaching its climax, doesn’t it?’ Francis said. ‘We’d better get a move on.’
‘So how does Lauren fit into your little theory?’ Carmen asked. Her brave face had crumbled totally now.
‘That was another ongoing puzzle for me, as you knew. Who would want to kill that poor boozy little rich girl Lauren, and why? It didn’t seem as if it was your strategy to pick on more than one victim per cruise. Eve had gone off nicely. So it could only be that Lauren had somehow worked out what you were up to. And why would she have done that? Had one of you been trying to recruit her to the trust, perhaps to persuade her to set up a legacy? She had a big heart, Lauren, and a history of helping charities. You, Carmen, had become quite matey with her and Don, both in the Antarctic and on this cruise. I saw you dine with them – one night I even saw you dancing with her. So had you been unable to resist telling her about the trust, and then been caught out when she realized exactly how the trust worked? She was, by Don’s account, a canny operator. She liked to scrutinize every charity she helped. So had she double-checked Rising Star and worked out, as I did, that Mr Krugbender, who had died on the Christmas Antarctic cruise, was a benefactor? Had she added to that Marakit Wyldestone, from the Kimberley cruise she had also been on? I doubt she would have found Major Fisher, because she and Don never went to Longyearbyen, nor were they with Mrs Drew-Huggins in Ecuador. To be honest, I was surprised that you let all these people be named.’
Alyssa shrugged and looked over at Carmen. ‘We had to,’ she admitted after a moment. ‘It was what they wanted.’
Inside Francis let out a private whoop. ‘You never imagined,’ he said, ‘that anyone would cross-reference them with a list of cruise ship deaths?’
‘Of course I didn’t,’ the doctor replied. ‘Who looks at lists of benefactors? Anyway, not all of them wanted recognition. Major Fisher, for example – how did you find out about him?’
‘It’s all there,’ said Francis. ‘If you know where to look. Ralph Walden Fisher is hardly a common name. And he did leave a lot of money.’
‘I know he did,’ Carmen said.
‘His fortune was inherited,’ Alyssa added, ‘from a cousin, and he always felt a bit guilty about it. It came to him late, so he’d lived an ordinary life in the real world; he’d travelled extensively, so knew what suffering could be, and how money could help alleviate it. He was a sweet guy.’
‘Until he was murdered,’ said Francis briskly. ‘So if Lauren had found at least some of these things out, had she challenged you, Carmen? And had you realized that, although you had never been involved in the killing side of things before, now was the time, it had to be done? For the very best reasons: to protect your lover and her wonderful idea. For what really was the ending of the life of one unhappy alcoholic compared to the salvation of large numbers of Aboriginal, African and South American children? Weren’t their young lives worth more than hers? Not to mention all those other rich old people who were sooner or later going to die anyway? And what a nice way to go, Alyssa. On a cruise. Falling asleep after a pleasant dinner with friends, with a view of the sea. What could you fault about that? Or about taking the money that was only going to go to greedy relatives or pointless First World charities and spending it where it would really count. A donkey sanctuary! I mean, I ask you.’
‘How did you know about the donkey sanctuary?’ asked Carmen. ‘That stuff’s not online, surely.’
‘Eve told me.’
Suddenly, the doctor was crying. Great sobs shook her tiny frame.
‘Alyssa,’ Carmen said, holding her. ‘Stop it, darling. Please. Get a grip.’
‘No!’ she cried, and the strangled noise that emerged from her was like a dog’s yelp. ‘You’re right, Francis. You have worked it all out. It was so stupid to call the trust Rising Star. We were going to call it Better World, but then, I don’t know …’
‘Better World seemed so naff,’ Carmen cut in. ‘Sounds like a health club. And I’m a sucker for black humour.’
Alyssa was laughing through her tears, her eyes affectionately on her lover. She wiped her cheeks with the handkerchief that Carmen passed her.
‘It didn’t start like that,’ she said. ‘I never planned to hurt anyone, let alone kill them. I trained as a doctor, for goodness’ sake! But I got into it in stages. It began when I persuaded this one guest, a beautiful old Canadian lady who came on a trip around the South Sea Islands, to support a charity that I know about back home in the Philippines. It’s an amazing operation. They take foundlings and orphans and look after them, then place them with stable families. There are so many children that are helped by that. You see them coming into the charity, sad and lonely and frightened, and then a year later, screaming around happily in their new homes. How can you deny them that? So I was so thrilled when Julia agreed to give us some money. She had been British, originally, but she was evacuated to Canada in the war. And then her father had died, and her mother had been on a ship that had been torpedoed crossing the Atlantic, so she had lost them both and grown up in care. She had been luckier later in life and ended up married to a rich and successful businessman, but she’d never forgotten the difficulties of her childhood, so she was more than happy to help. She left us pretty much everything. She must have known she was dying, because she only lasted a couple of months after we docked. We got the money quite promptly and it made such a huge difference.
‘And then, on the next but one cruise, from Auckland to Dunedin round the coast of New Zealand, I was talking about her amazing contribution to another guest, an American lady, and she suddenly decided she wanted to give us the bulk of her fortune too. I was very excited, obviously; but then, when she got home, one of her children persuaded her out of it. I was so disappointed about that, because she had been very sincere when she’d been chatting to me, and it was a lot of money we’d been promised. So then, one night, discussing it all with Carmen …’
‘I talked her into it,’ said Carmen. ‘Why not just make sure of things while the benefactors are still at sea? Jesus, they’re way past their sell-by date.’
‘They’re all alone in the world,’ the doctor continued. ‘They hate going home. That’s what they always say: “It’s so much fun on the cruise, but then I have to go home to an empty house.” So why not save them from that? I have the drugs. A hundred milligrams of Propofol finishes them off, in an entirely painless way. I certify their deaths, so there’s no need for an autopsy.
‘But you’re right. Captain Andrushenko had started asking questions. More to the point, Alexei was seriously suspicious of me. So yes, I thought I would, as you put it, call their bluff.’ She turned to Carmen. ‘Shall I go on?’
‘You might as well.’
The doctor looked almost relieved. ‘I had the idea about the dry ice on the trip from Argentina to Cape Town. One of the guests passed out at one of the evening shows that Gregoire and Viktor organize and had to be revived. That little faint only lasted a minute, but it gave me an idea. In a sealed room, as you said so correctly, you suffocate, if the levels are high enough. And yes, the only sign is a slightly raised concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood. A lab wouldn’t question that, especially if I’d already correctly noted appropriate symptoms, such as the bloodshot eyes. It was me insisting on the autopsy. What more could I do to reassure the captain that I had nothing to do with these onboard deaths? Especially if it wasn’t what he wanted. My stand was proof that I was not what the first officer thought I was.’
‘Thank you,’ said Francis. ‘That’s very brave of you to tell me that. I totally understand how you could have done it. And now the Rising Star Trust supports charities right across the world.’
‘It does.’
‘You weren’t to know that Lauren would work out what you were up to, or that poor George would be up late checking the lifeboats.’
‘No,’ said the doctor, her voice trembling. ‘I could never … George … I mean, I didn’t think in a million years … It was two a.m.’
‘Alyssa,’ said Carmen. ‘Come on. We weren’t to know.’
‘But still. He had children …’
‘And they’re alive.’
‘Orphaned,’ she said with a sob.
‘May I ask,’ said Francis, after a few moments, ‘if your parents are alive?’
Alyssa met his eyes. ‘No. They died when I was little. In a car accident in Manila. And so, yes, I was myself in a home for two years. Before I was moved to my new family.’ She had taken a handkerchief from Carmen, and was wiping her face, trembling as she did so. ‘I was lucky,’ she went on. ‘They were not just kind, but also wealthy. So I was sent at a young age to the best schools. I would never have become a doctor if I had not had the support of my new family.’
‘And your new parents are still alive?’
‘Yes. They are very proud of me. Of course, they have no idea about the Rising Star Trust.’
‘For what it’s worth,’ said Francis, after a few moments, ‘I was adopted too. My time in care was mercifully short, and I have no memory of it, but I’m always aware that things might have been very different for me. I’m on your side, put it that way.’
There was silence. Way over in the village, the wailing and chanting had tailed off, but the pounding of the drums was continuing. Francis glanced at his watch. It was a quarter to four. They had just over an hour before they had to leave the island.
It was Carmen who broke the silence. ‘I’m impressed, mate,’ she said. ‘It makes me wonder how much of this you’d worked out when we were going around together interviewing people. And whether your petulant little protests about me passing on information to Viktor and the captain were just a smokescreen.’
‘No, I was sincere about that. It was bloody annoying.’
‘Maybe it was. But we have a problem now. Because we can’t really let you go back to the ship, can we?’
She reached down to her waistband and drew out a hunting knife. It was a good six inches long. As she held it up, it glinted dangerously in a beam of sunlight that shafted down from the thick foliage above.
‘Expedition blade,’ she said. ‘Don’t think I’d be afraid to use it.’
Francis didn’t move. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said. ‘We’re all grown-ups here. I’m not a policeman.’
‘It’s hard to explain how it feels,’ Carmen said, ‘when you’ve killed someone. Especially when you are not a naturally violent person. You wake up each morning and it takes you half a minute to remember. That that’s what you’ve become. A murderer. There’s no escape from that. And no escape from the fact that people are trying to find you out. Clever people like you, Francis. That one stupid slip could give you away.’
She was pacing back and forth, holding her knife up in front of her, dramatizing her position of power. Francis glanced rapidly across the clearing and wondered whether he could outpace them through the woods, a seven-hundred-yard dash back to safety in the village. He doubted it. He could shout, of course, but that would hardly be heard against all that wailing and drumming.
‘I shan’t forget,’ Carmen went on, ‘that scream Lauren let out when I tipped her over the railings. Never. Even though she was an unhappy woman, she didn’t want to die.’ She shook her head, slowly. ‘I caught her totally by surprise, so it took her a second to realize … It was horrid, that noise as she went down. And yes, poor George. I don’t think either of us anticipated the … collateral damage.’
Francis was thinking fast; somehow, he needed to talk this maniac round. Softly, softly, he told himself, don’t show your fear.
‘Why d’you think I followed you into the woods?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. Because you were curious. Because you wanted to confirm that what Klaus had told you was true?’
‘Who said it was Klaus?’
Carmen laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I saw him. Silly old fool. I hardly thought that he would tell anyone – let alone you.’
‘OK,’ said Francis. ‘You’re right about that. But I also came because I wanted to sort this out before we went back to the ship. I wanted to tell you that in the circumstances I didn’t necessarily want to turn you in.’
‘Necessarily?’ Carmen repeated. ‘That sounds very convincing. And convenient. Given what we’ve just told you.’
Francis shifted his weight. Some forest insect had bitten him on the bottom. Involuntarily, he reached down to scratch the itch.
Carmen tensed. ‘I wouldn’t try running for it, mate,’ she said. ‘I’m pretty fast, and pretty fit.’
‘I know you are. And I guess that if you wanted to finish me off, here, now, the two of you, you probably could. But there’s no point. Unless I choose to tell the captain what I know, I don’t see why you would ever be caught. The results from the lab are going to confirm that Eve died of old age. However much Don protests to the contrary, poor Lauren will be seen as a suicidal drunk; there’s no actual body to investigate. No one except myself and Ray know that George saw something. The snakebite was a surprising thing to happen on board ship, but not impossible – and you are, Alyssa, as you said, the ship’s doctor. This would not be the first time you’ve certified a murder as a death. Even if there are any outside enquiries, which I very much doubt, there’ll be no case at all.’
‘Why d’you think I’d believe for one moment that you won’t say anything?’ said Carmen. ‘Even if your natural sense of justice doesn’t force you to turn us in, if you don’t, you’re incriminating yourself. Accessory to murder, isn’t it? And what about Ray?’
‘Ray is a very frightened man. It may cost you a little, but we can square him. And why should the rest ever come out? I’ve heard your story, and I understand what good work the Rising Star Trust is doing. Why would I want to put a stop to that? For the sake of revealing that a few old people died a couple of years earlier than they might have done?’
Carmen looked doubtful. ‘And a middle-aged heiress, and an innocent Filipino father of two,’ she said.
‘I have factored those two into my thinking. And I have one condition for my silence. That you stop now. Not Rising Star. Certainly not that. But your unorthodox fundraising activities. I really couldn’t be party to any further murders, however innocent you present them as being.’
‘It’s a bit late to be making conditions, don’t you think?’ Carmen replied. ‘Anyway, that’s rather a big ask, when we could sort things out right now. So that we can continue as planned. In any case, I don’t believe you. Sorry.’
‘You told me you didn’t like killing,’ said Francis. ‘You had to kill Lauren. And Alyssa had to deal with George. I understand that. But me. Would you really want my death on your conscience too? And how in any case would you cover it up? It would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. If I don’t return to the ship, they’re not going to steam on this time, are they? A fourth death will mean they have to act. And who knows who saw you both leaving the village? Besides me. As you said, Alyssa, the first officer already suspects you.’
‘Very convincing, mate,’ Carmen said. ‘And thank you for your offer – and for pointing out that we could pay Ray off. As for you, I’m sorry, but you’re just a little bit too clever for us to trust you. I can even believe that you might not say anything back on the ship. But what happens when you get home and reflect on all this? Even though you may think what we’re doing is fine, here, now, in the remote jungle of Guinea-Bissau, your conscience will eventually get you. You’ll have to turn us in.’
‘OK,’ said Francis, eyeballing her. ‘So what are you going to do? You’ve got just over an hour before the last Zodiac leaves this island. Even if you managed to clean yourself up, how are you going to explain away a bloodied corpse?’
‘Who says we’re going to have to explain it away? You might have been attacked by anyone. One of the villagers even. Anyway, who says we’re going to use the knife?’
‘You brought some spare poison with you, did you, Alyssa?’
‘As it happens, she did,’ Carmen said. ‘The plan was to get rid of it. After they stopped us docking at Freetown, we’ve got no idea who might come on at Banjul. Or Dakar.’
‘So that Ebola story was made up?’
‘Didn’t you realize that? The captain and first officer are making sure that everyone stays on board.’
Francis wasn’t going to admit anything. But it was interesting that both Colonel Joe and old Henry Forbes-Harley had been right about the Ebola. ‘So what’s your plan?’ he asked, trying to keep his cool. ‘I don’t imagine dry ice would work out here. Another snakebite?’
‘It would be, yes,’ said Alyssa quietly.
‘She will tell them,’ said Carmen, ‘that the venom is from a local puff adder, though actually it’s deinagkistrodon acutus, the same that killed poor George, milked from the South East Asian pit viper. You wondered earlier how he’d gone so quickly. The pit viper is known in Asia as “the hundred pacer”. Because that’s how far you get when you’ve been bitten by it.’
‘I did also, as you guessed,’ added Alyssa, ‘sedate him first. He was so upset about seeing the MOB he couldn’t sleep. He asked for a pill, so I offered an injection.’
‘Did he tell you why he was really so upset?’
‘Yes. That’s how we knew.’
‘He confided in you, the doctor?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ironic.’
‘It was, probably, yes.’
Her eyes were full of shame.
‘He didn’t know it was Carmen?’
‘No. He thought it was a man. A blond man. In any case—’
‘He didn’t know about you two.’
‘No.’
‘So where did you get the venom?’ Francis asked, after a moment.
‘Off the Internet,’ said Alyssa. ‘It gets posted from China. Anybody can buy this stuff. It’s terrifying, really.’
‘A phial of venom, tucked away with the antivenoms. Who would have thought it? So why did you even have it?’
‘We were going to use it …’
‘On Eve,’ Carmen finished. ‘She would have been found dead out at the village on that first day.’
‘And then you had a better idea?’
‘Yes. Alyssa did.’
‘Not the nicest of deaths, I imagine?’ Despite his best intentions, Francis’s voice was cracking.
‘Not like propofol or pentobarbital, no,’ the doctor replied. ‘But it will still finish you off in about fifteen minutes. There is some pain and then you rapidly asphyxiate. But I’ll give you a morphine shot first, so you won’t suffer.’
‘There’s nothing else we can do, mate,’ Carmen said. ‘You will not return to the boat at five. Viktor will be furious, because it means he will miss the tide, and the ship will have to stay anchored here overnight, upsetting the itinerary even further. But he will have no other option. A search party will be sent out. And very soon, one of the dogs will find you. Out here, several hundred yards from the village. How very foolish you were to take a walk against the advice of the expedition team, and go and get yourself bitten by a puff adder.’
Francis’s nerve was failing him now. His mouth was dry, his arm was trembling uncontrollably, he could see his heart pounding against his sweat-soaked shirt. He was suddenly so breathless he could hardly speak. ‘I’ve told you … I’m happy … not to say anything about … Rising Star. With one simple … understandable … condition …’
‘Still making conditions,’ said Carmen, scornfully. She turned to her companion. ‘I’m sorry, Alyssa. We’re going to have to do this.’
‘Are we?’ said the doctor. Now she looked both uncertain and scared.
Carmen turned impatiently. ‘Of course we must.’
‘Alyssa, please,’ said Francis. ‘You don’t need to. I’ll square Ray. I promise I won’t say …’
He tailed off. Even in extremis he was unable to offer his word that he wouldn’t turn them in. Because of course he would. If he ever got away from here.
‘I give you … my word,’ he managed finally, ends justifying means. But it didn’t sound convincing.
The doctor turned to her partner. ‘I trust him,’ she said. ‘We can give him this chance.’
‘No.’ Carmen shook her head. ‘Look in his eyes. He’s lying. Surely you can see that?’
From across in the village, the beat of the drums sounded louder. The carnival was reaching a climax.
‘It’s too much,’ the doctor said. ‘We should accept his offer. He’s right, anyway. Eve didn’t deserve that. She was a kind old lady with lots to live for. Who knows how many more years she had?’
‘Five at the most,’ said Carmen scornfully.
‘And Lauren. Lauren was young. Younger than you.’
‘A spoilt, depressive alcoholic.’
‘And George,’ the doctor’s voice rose to a squeal.
‘Stop this, Alyssa! Now is no time for sentimental bullshit. If you want to call a halt to the programme after the cruise, you can.’
‘But Francis is giving us a way out. That lets us go on. And he’s right. If there’s another death, it will be one too many. In any case, it won’t be just one. Ray has to go too.’
‘We can pay him off. As Francis said.’
‘They’re bound to investigate, Carmen. We will be found out. Rising Star will be finished. And us too.’
‘Of course we won’t be found out, darling. Viktor was even warning the guests about snakes as we came up.’ Carmen turned towards Francis. ‘I’m sorry, mate …’
The look in her eyes was both purposeful and contemptuous.
‘Come on, Alyssa,’ she said. ‘Prepare the hit.’
The doctor seemed to have given in. She opened her bag and found a syringe, then looked up at her partner again.
‘We don’t need to do this.’
‘For God’s sake, get on with it! We haven’t much time. Lie down, please,’ she ordered Francis. She was holding her big knife right above him. He did as he was told.
‘Put your hands up behind your back. Face on the ground, that’s it.’ He turned sideways to see her reaching into her bag for a coil of blue nylon twine. She sawed off a length with her knife.
‘Face … on the ground,’ she repeated, resting the sharp point on the back of his neck. Involuntarily he shivered, feeling the steel pricking his skin.
‘Are you ready, sweets?’
‘OK,’ came the doctor’s voice.
At the moment before his death, Francis’s life didn’t flash before him. Instead he was thinking, furiously: how could I have been such an idiot, to approach these two here, now. Unprotected and unsupported. If they had been men I would never have dared. I’d have waited till we were back on the ship, made sure the showdown involved Viktor, the captain, Alexei and a posse of beefy officers. Casual sexism has cost me my life.
Is this really it? he wondered, as his nostrils, pushed against the earth, filled with the scent of dried leaves; no different out here, in Guinea-Bissau, than it was at home. This was the strange thing about the world, wasn’t it? You travelled to the farthest corners and found exactly the same familiar things. Fields in India that looked like Berkshire, blackberry-fringed beaches in Tasmania that could be in Cornwall. When had he last smelt this pungent, evocative aroma? As a teenager, at school, playing in the woods at the bottom of the Big Field. With Norman, his bestie of that time. They had gone out there to smoke. On summer afternoons. Players No. 10. And what were those menthol ones called? With the coloured shafts. They had kept those for the girls. Giggly parties, cider, smoky peppermint kisses. So was that it then? An undistinguished end in the jungle of Africa, like some benighted nineteenth-century explorer. A paragraph-long news item in the papers if he was lucky. Absurdly, he found himself wondering whether he would merit an obituary; how long it would be; which photograph it might feature. Minor Crime Writer Bites The Dust. Literally.
No, no, no, this was not how he wanted to go. In pain. Gasping for breath. Oh, God, help him, what a fool he’d been—
‘Step back, please.’
He squinted sideways to see both women spin round. Klaus was on the edge of the clearing, holding a smart little silver pistol.
‘It’s loaded,’ he said; he wasn’t smiling.
Carmen froze. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘Surprising what you can buy in an African village market. I didn’t like the idea of being unable to defend my person from pirates.’
‘It’s illegal to carry a gun on a cruise ship.’
‘It’s illegal to murder someone. Drop the knife, please.’
Carmen was staring at him now, as if she might be about to risk all with a mad lunge.
‘I said, drop the knife. You have five seconds before I shoot. As I’m sure you know, I have military experience. One. Two. Three …’
Carmen dropped the knife.
‘On your feet, too, please, Doctor.’
Alyssa scrambled up.
‘Drop that syringe. Then I’d like you both to unclip your walkie-talkies and put them on the ground. Turn around slowly, kneel down and put your arms up behind you. Francis is going to tie your wrists together with some of that useful nylon twine. And then we can get going.’
Even as the two intercoms were placed on the ground, they crackled into life. The sudden noise startled them all.
‘Expedition team, expedition team,’ came Viktor’s voice. ‘Dark Leader here. Start encouraging the guests back towards the Zodiacs now please. The tide is falling rapidly. I repeat, the tide will soon be at a critical state.’
‘Dark Leader!’ Klaus repeated, shaking his head.
‘We have forty-five minutes,’ came Viktor’s voice, ‘until the last Zodiac must leave the island. Alyssa, I’ve lost sight of you. Please respond. Over and out. Carmen, you too, please. I need you down at the beach for the embarcation right away.’
Francis, standing now, was looking at Klaus.
‘How on earth …?’ he mouthed, shaking his head.
The German smiled.
‘Didn’t I tell you I always know more than I let on,’ he replied.