| |
Marcus went in front with his sons behind him. Ruby picked up her gun and brought up the rear. They walked downstairs to reception, then through the lounge into a small room at the rear with a staircase leading into the floor. A cellar with a trapdoor whose hatchpull they tied to a closed hook in the wall.
“The boss’s office,” the taller of the two sons said. “I’m Cedric, by the way. This is Joseph.”
Underground would be a good place for them to kill her without the messy necessity of shooting her. But then, if they were going to strangle her, they could already have done it. It wasn’t as if the neighbours would overhear her initial fightback.
She knew what was making her uneasy: all these men calling her ‘hot’. Hot also meant uncomfortable, and that’s how it made her feel. It was simply the wrong thing to say when you’d only just met someone.
They went down into the cellar – the ‘study’ - with the men leading the way. For a moment, she had a sense of déjà vu: she was in a little shop in Kingston, descending stairs with a soon-to-be-dead woman. Her stomach turned, then she took herself in hand. A deep breath and it was manageable. Cedric switched the light on.
All her memories of Millicent dissipated. The walls were decorated in swirling Anaglypta and hung with pictures of ships. Rugs of different shapes and sizes covered the floor. In the middle of the room stood an antique desk with a swivel chair. Against the far wall, two filing cabinets served as mounts for a pair of model galleons, and the safe – built into the wall - was next door to the one on the left. Cedric and Joseph were pulling gloves on.
What was she doing here? The transition from her room to here had been so swift and unexpected, its momentum so irresistible, that she hadn’t had time to collect her thoughts. Either her passport and money were in the safe or they weren’t. In the latter case, she’d gain nothing. If they were there, she could hardly retrieve them without William Hebblethwaite knowing. Cedric, Joseph and Marcus would be the obvious prime suspects. They’d probably be sacked.
“I should do this on my own,” she told them. “I can’t get you involved.”
“We’re only going to set your mind at rest,” Cedric told her. “Show you they’re there and so not to worry. We’re not going to let you take anything. That would be stupid.”
“So if my money and passport are in there,” she said, “I’m not allowed to have them?”
“No way, José,” Joseph replied. “All you get is peace of mind.”
“Shouldn’t one of us be keeping watch?” she asked. “What if the Hebblethwaites come back?”
“The dogs will tell us,” Cedric said. “Nothing happens in this house without them hearing.”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?”
“Because you didn’t kill Pop,” Joseph said. “And you’re hot.”
She sighed. “Am I allowed to join the search?”
“So long as you don’t start pulling drawers out like some crazy burglar,” Cedric said. “Leave things as you found them.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Marcus said miserably, the first words he’d spoken since coming down here. “We shouldn’t be interfering. This is between Miss Ruby and Mr William.”
“It’s her passport and her cash,” Cedric replied. “She at least has a right to know where they are. We’re just being good hoteliers.”
They set to work. Cedric and Joseph got down on their knees next to the desk drawers and rooted through them. Ruby took the left hand filing cabinet. If you were going to hide a set of keys, she didn’t think an open desk drawer would be the place. Under the carpet might be a good bet, but when she thought about it, the keys probably weren’t down here at all. You wouldn’t go to all the trouble of installing a high security safe, then leave your keys to hand for whoever came along. The fact that the trapdoor was unlocked probably meant Hebblethwaite didn’t fear being burgled. And that in turn probably meant the keys were as well secured as whatever was inside the safe. Somewhere a long way from here.
They must know that too. Probably the only person who didn’t was Marcus, and that was only because fear was blinding him. So what were they looking for?
It wasn’t the safe keys. She could see them, out of the corner of her eye, removing notepads and booklets, flicking through them and consulting in hushed tones.
Nothing in the filing cabinet resembled anything she could be remotely interested in. Mind you, that was quite interesting in itself. She took out a file and read a sample.
Gobbledegook. Some sort of code. She took a leaf from one of the folders, folded it up, and put it in her pocket. Obviously, if you took the time to encrypt what you filed, it had to be pretty important. But she couldn’t take too much.
Which meant she was done here. They were using her as a pretext to search for something that had nothing to do with her. She needed to get out, for her own safety.
Then she changed her mind. She’d had an idea.
“Do any of you know anything about a ‘Glenford’?” she asked.
Cedric looked up. “What sort of anything?”
“I was at a party in Kingston last night, and I met a man. I didn’t catch his name, but a few of his friends came over to see him at one point. They called him ‘Glenford’s boy’.”
“That the party in East Central?” Joseph said.
“The same,” she replied.
He grimaced. “Man, you’re stupid if you hang about with those PNP losers. Don’t you know they want to sell the country out to the communists? There are five thousand Cuban soldiers in the hills of Jamaica, just waiting for the word. What you hanging out with the PNP for?”
“I’m a journalist,” she replied coolly.
“If Manley gets back in, we’re screwed,” he replied. “Well and truly one hundred per cent roasted. Might as well be dead. Kill us all now.”
“To get back to my original question,” she went on. “Glenford?”
They all looked as if they still thought she was a traitor, but eventually Cedric said: “Glenford Weddermon. He was American, this ‘man’ of yours, yes?”
“That’s right.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I’m none the wiser. Who’s ‘Glenford Weddermon’?”
They looked at each other and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
Joseph shook his head. “Sorry, baby, but you sound just like the Queen of England when you open your mouth. Cracks me up to see that face of yours with Elizabeth Regina’s voice coming out. And your ‘I’m sorry, I’m none the wiser’. Nobody in Jamaica ever says those words, not even the old planters.”
“Kind of sexy,” Cedric said. “In a way.”
“Yeah ... kind of,” Joseph agreed.
“Who is Glenford Weddermon?” she asked.
“A Kingston gang leader,” Cedric replied. “PNP. Bad, bad man, unless you keep on the right side of him. But how you going to do that and remain a Jamaican patriot? Best steer clear of his ‘boy’ altogether, that’s my advice. Forget you met him.”
“You asked if he was American,” she said. “Do you know anything about him?”
Cedric opened another drawer and took out another notepad. “Sure. I’ve not met him, but I’ve heard about him. Even seen him about once, few years back. His name’s Andrew Walker. He’s Weddermon’s nephew. He - ”
But he never finished the sentence. Three shots discharged with a pumping noise, as of a gun with a silencer, and Joseph, Cedric and Marcus fell dead. William Hebblethwaite stood in a suit and white trilby at the top of the steps, pointing his gun at Ruby. She hardly knew what had happened.
“I’ll spare you for the time being,” he said, “since, being a British agent, you can probably tell me what this is all about. Drop your gun, lie down on the floor and put your hands on your head. Don’t try anything clever. My own safety’s my paramount concern right now, and if you do anything to jeopardise it, I might as well have four dead bodies as three.”
She did as he instructed. He went over to the corpses and turned them over with his toe.
“A shame,” he said. “They’ve been with the family a long time. Mind you, I’ve never liked them. Anyway, they got what they deserved, burgling my study. Now, I want you to go into the bottom desk drawer. There’s a pair of handcuffs in there reserved for just such an occasion as this. You’re going to take them out, thread the connecting chain through the steel conduit over there, and put them on. Crawl, do you understand? Crawl on your hands and knees.”
She considered rushing him. It would probably be useless, but at least she’d die fighting. This way, he was going to rape her and probably pistol-whip her. When the police arrived, he wouldn’t have to explain anything about her corpse – neither the wrist-injuries nor the symptoms of aggressive sexual assault – because her corpse wouldn’t be here. It would be deep under the soil, somewhere in the woods behind the house. In any case, everyone already knew roughly where her corpse was. It was somewhere in the Jamaican countryside, laid out at the centre of a Nine Nights ceremony.
Suddenly, the dogs began barking. He looked up furiously.
“I’m going to start counting,” he told her. “If you’re not chained to that conduit when I’ve reached five, I’m going to shoot you where you lie. Get those handcuffs. One ... two ...”
She crawled to the desk and opened the bottom drawer and felt about in it. “I – I can’t find them!”
“Don’t mock me!”
She put her hand on them – it was them: my God, she was going to die – and pulled them out. “I’ve got them! I’VE GOT THEM!”
“Three ... four ...”
She almost lunged for the conduit and dropped the handcuffs in her terror. She realised with a weird jolt that she was still alive. She picked them up, still trembling, and threaded them through as he told her. Suddenly, he was behind her. He banged her head against the wall as a means of disabling her, presumably to shackle her wrists himself and hurry it up, but the adrenalin was flowing so thick and fast now that she felt capable of anything, and the blow had no effect. She turned and punched him in the face. He fell back, but still clearly in control. She dipped as he fired, and the bullet ricocheted off the wall. She was by the filing cabinets now, a sitting duck.
Over, it was all over. But at least she’d gone down honourably. Let him explain this to his wife and daughter!
He laughed artificially – just to let her know he still had a laugh in him, obviously - and pointed his gun at her head. A shot rang out, but not the silenced kind.
He fell over backwards. Some kind of wound in him. And lay unmoving.
Er, was he – could he be - ?
She looked to the top of the stairs.
Vilma? My God, yes. She raised herself on her elbows as good-shock gently obscured bad-shock.
Vilma put the tip of her gun barrel to her lips and theatrically blew away the smoke. “You had me worried there, for a moment,” she said. “I thought I’d actually lost you.”
