The gentle slapping of wavelets on the hull broke into my thoughts, and then music from the hotel as the breeze dropped. I put my back against the superstructure and leant into the saloon, my fingers fumbling for and finding the light switch, lighting up the area in a soft pale glow.
There were things on the floor: a couple of plates that T-shirt had knocked off the table as he had raced out through the doorway – one of them broken; a fork and two spoons they had missed in their tidying up; one tin of baked beans; but no Baiya.
Up or down? The wheelhouse or the fo’c’sle? If I leant down into the fo’c’sle and he was in the wheelhouse he would come crashing down and send me flying into space as I had done to him.
I picked up the tin of baked beans to use as a weapon and climbed into the wheelhouse. Nothing. The rear door was shut. He couldn’t be out on deck. It only left the fo’c’sle.
I tiptoed over to the hatch and looked down, my heart sad and yet relieved to see the body still there, the cord still twisted around his left wrist, the handle of the broken carving knife still firmly clasped in his right hand.
“Sorry, Baiya,” I said, although I didn’t really know why.
When I turned him over I gagged at the concave mess of skin and cracked bone that had been the left side of his head; but it seemed as though hardly any blood had soaked into the sea-grass matting. I would have expected a gallon at least, but there was no more than a cupful drying on the coarse aromatic grass. I left him and climbed out to the saloon and took the whisky bottle out of the cupboard, pouring a good quantity down my throat, gasping as the burning liquor hit my stomach.
What the hell was I going to do with Baiya and his brother? I couldn’t leave them where they were until the boys came back. Bloody Henry! He was the bastard I should have killed! Henry could take care of the bodies. They could wait for him. It might rid his mind of some of its childish sense of adventure.
But they would bring Sai and Mere back with them.
The dinghy was still tied to the Tradewinds’ pontoon. I could swim in and drive it back; but did I have the strength to swim five hundred yards? I didn’t think so; and why swim? The two Indians had come out by boat. I could take that in to shore and bring the dinghy back. It mightn’t have a motor, but oars would do. I looked down at the two pieces of broken box-wood lying in the bottom of the ply-wood boat and decided against it.
The small boat appeared too good to have belonged to Baiya and T-shirt; and if it had been theirs they would at least have had oars for it. I looked over its stern and read the name printed there: Sundowner. The name struck a bell. They had used the tender from the scuba-diving boat moored down at the other end of the hotel. If someone caught me rowing ashore in the Sundowner’s dinghy they might think that it was me who had stolen it.
There were two options. I could take them out a couple of hundred yards and sink both them and the borrowed dinghy; or I could sink them and let the dinghy drift away; but there might be bloodstains and then questions if I did that; and yet if I sank them with the dinghy the owners might continue to search for it in the bay; and it belonged to a diving boat, with scuba gear.
I tossed the makeshift paddles into the water and slipped the line, letting the dinghy drift with the tide. It left me with only one problem. No, not just the one – two.
What in Christ’s name was I going to do with two bodies?
Nine
I looked at my watch – a quarter to twelve; forty-five minutes since the two Indians had come on board. If Rick and Henry got back at, say, one-thirty, it would leave me with nearly two hours to get rid of the bodies. Another couple of belts on the whisky bottle might just give me the strength to swim to shore for our dinghy. Five hundred yards. It would be a long swim; half an hour at least, maybe more; and what about the sea-snakes that we had seen by the sea-wall? The waiter had said that they weren’t dangerous; poisonous yes, yet too lethargic to do anything about it; but might there be other species more willing to attack?
It would take another half hour to drive the dinghy out into the middle of the harbour, dump the bodies, and motor back here again. I would have to weight them down. Ten more minutes while I arranged that. No, make it fifteen. What was the total? An hour. No, that wasn’t right. It would take longer than thirty minutes to swim for the dinghy, and another ten minutes back to the trawler, and fifteen for the weighting – if I could find something heavy enough, something that wouldn’t lead the authorities back to us if the bodies were ever found.
It was going to take well over an hour and a half.
Far too long.
What would I tell the boys if they came back whilst I was still out in the harbour in the dinghy and they had to wait for me to return? What could we tell the girls? What if they passed me in the dinghy while I was still in the water swimming to shore and they found the bodies? Christ!
Maybe it would have been smarter to have paddled them out into the harbour in the Sundowner’s dinghy and let it drift away whilst I swam back to the Sally May.
Stupid. The Bay of Islands would be the first place the police would start asking their questions. There would be a search of the boats, and they might find the bloodstains.
I’d had my chance. I should have taken them out in the Sundowner’s dinghy to the far side of the Bay of Islands, weighted the bodies and dropped them into the water. They would have sunk into the mud. There needn’t have been any bloodstains in the dinghy. I could have wrapped Baiya’s head in a plastic bag; but it was too late now. The dinghy was fast drifting out into the harbour on the falling tide.
It was senseless thinking about it any longer.
I simply didn’t have the time to swim for our dinghy and ferry them out to deeper water. It would be sheer stupidity to dump them over the side and hope that their bodies would be carried out into the harbour on the tide; and even if they did drift away, they could surface anywhere in a day or two: washed up into one of the creeks, caught high and dry in the mangroves when the tide went out again; or maybe bob up on one of the local beaches.
I would have to wait for the boys to return. Boys? Not Rick; but Henry? Yes. If he had kept his mouth shut, none of this would have happened. Why had we let him go off on his own? Rick should have realised that something like this might happen. Why the hell hadn’t he stopped him?
I took another mouthful of straight whisky. The jolt brought me back to reality.
It had happened and there was no turning the clock back. Recriminations weren’t going to change anything. I was as much to blame as Rick was. Who else had that stupid bastard talked to? Mere? Who else had Baiya and his brother talked to? How many other people thought we were going after a German treasure: Hitler’s lost millions? Baiya hadn’t mentioned any other partners, and if there had been they would have been on board with Baiya and T-shirt, or at least on shore ready to stop us from coming out to the trawler if we had returned from the Golden Dragon earlier than expected; but Baiya had been worried when I had said that the others were expected back at any moment, and had sent his brother out to check on the dinghy tied to the pontoon under the Tradewinds’ lights.
No; Baiya and T-shirt had no mates.
It brought me back to the two brothers. I couldn’t leave them where they were: Baiya flat on his face on the floor of the fo’c’sle and T-shirt lying in the scuppers, his head loose on his shoulders. The lights were on in the saloon and down in the fo’c’sle. The boat had been in total darkness, except for the torchlight, until after I had killed them both.
Saturday night. Just the night for some lonely yachtie to get it into his head to come across for a quiet drink and maybe try and sell me some marijuana. It was all I needed. Hi there, yachtie! Meet my dead friends!
Bloody hell!
I stumbled across to the light switch and turned it off; swayed out through the doorway and threw the half-full whisky bottle out as far as I could; then went and leant down into the fo’c’sle and doused those lights as well, hiding Baiya’s body i
n the gloom, and throwing the Sally May into darkness once more.
Fresh air, coffee and quiet contemplation were what I needed. I put the kettle on and stepped out onto the deck, trying not to look towards the stern, wanting to deny T-shirt’s existence until that first cup of strong black coffee was cool enough to sip.
There was nothing close by, and only the sounds of the night reaching my ears; no splash of oars hitting the water; no roar of an outboard heading my way; a few clouds cutting down the moon’s soft glow.
The kettle whistled. I made that first cup and carried it around to the bow and up on to the roof of the wheelhouse, and sat on the lip of the roof, searching again for moving dingies. We were only two hundred yards from the mangrove shore to the north, but it was empty of habitation save for a million tiny crabs.
Those few quiet minutes of thought convinced me that hiding the bodies was the best way out of the mess. The police would only have my word that they had been intruders, only my word that I had killed them both in self-defence. At best it would be a charge of manslaughter, and at worst...? I had to hide the evidence before Sai and Mere climbed on board the Sally May. If one of them stumbled over a dead body their screams would be heard for miles.
There was only one place the two black corpses would be safe from prying eyes; from four sets of eyes, for Rick and Henry might both be half drunk and unable to keep their voices down. Who was I kidding? Henry would be stoned to the eyeballs again. If I dropped them down into the engine room and Henry spotted the bodies of his two drinking mates when he staggered below to set the auxiliary going, I wouldn’t be able to stop him running amok and telling the world.
The storage hold was the only place. There was no reason for either Henry or Rick to climb down into it. There was nothing they might need to get, except maybe more petrol for the outboard to take the girls back to shore, and I could get that. Besides, in their drunken state there would be no way either of them could have inserted the key into the padlock.
Baiya was going to be the hardest to shift, so I took him first. I stood looking down at him: as tall as his younger brother, but broader at the shoulders and he had spent longer at the curry pot. Thank God they weren’t Fijians and forty pounds heavier.
Looping the length of cord under his shoulders, I pulled him across to the ladder and lifted him upright, then wound the cord round the top rung while I climbed up into the saloon. It was heavy work hauling him up through the fo’c’sle hatch; and my weakened state didn’t help.
Dragging them both along the deck to the storage hold was the easy part. I shuddered as Baiya’s body rolled over the lip of the hatch and crashed into the darkness below; and shuddered again as his brother thudded into him, squeezing air from his lungs with a rushing sound. I cursed at having thrown the whisky away.
I didn’t want to go down into the hold with them, but it had to be done. With one last glance towards the hotel I dropped down into the steel vault, grabbed them by legs, shoulders and arms and rolled them both into the far corner, covering the tangled corpses with a square of old canvas; more to hide them from my eyes as from anyone else’s.
Twelve-fifteen.
There was no way I wanted to go down into the fo’c’sle alone again; but it had to be done. There was still the bloodstained sea-grass matting. I climbed down. Baiya’s memory lingered on: the overpowering odour of curry, garlic and ginger. The smell and the thought of what I had just removed made me want to vomit again.
I sat in the saloon, sipping at the third cup of coffee, my nerves bouncing as the caffeine took effect. There was a slap against the hull and I dashed out, ready to run and dive if it was more of them; but it was only the small waves driven by the wind.
Finally, when I could take no more, I climbed back to the top of the wheelhouse and put my back against the radar pillar, the other two diving knives by my side – unsheathed. If they wanted me, they would have to come up and get me. I gazed up at the sky, counting the stars and waiting for the familiar sound of the outboard, begging them not to stay until the Golden Dragon finally closed at two.
I must have dozed off, for suddenly faint drunken shouts reached my ears, but no sound of the outboard. Hell, I thought, we’ve got visitors from one of the yachts. I kept quiet, hoping they would go away; but the shouting grew louder.
“Hey, Andy!” a voice called.
I huddled down into the white roof and gripped one of the knives.
“Hey, Andy, you old bastard! Where the hell are you?”
Rick! I was never so pleased to hear his voice, tears misting my eyes as he called again. I took a deep breath, wiped my face, and started down.
They were still fifty yards away by the time I reached the back deck: Henry leaning drunkenly over the bow; Rick pulling at the oars; Sai and Mere sitting down at the stern like a pair of ladies at a Sunday picnic – except that they giggled every time Rick swore. The stupid buggers had been too drunk to start the motor.
The dinghy bumped against the hull as I leant down to take the rope Henry tossed up. It took him three tries before he finally managed to throw the end within grabbing distance.
“Bloody hell!” Rick muttered, hair plastered flat to his head, his brightly coloured shirt saturated with perspiration, beads of moisture running down his cheeks. “I’m buggered.”
Henry reached up for my hand as he stepped on to the dinghy’s gunwale, almost upsetting the small craft in the process. I had to grab him quickly before he toppled sideways into the water. I held him steady while he got first one leg and then the other over the trawler’s rail, and then let him collapse to the deck, thumping one knee as he did so.
“Shit, Andy, ol’ mate,” he slurred. “Should’ve been a bit more careful, eh?”
“Bugger off, Henry!” I snapped.
“Hey, Andy!” Rick shouted, still leaning over the oars as Sai made her unsteady way on board, quickly followed by Mere. She wasn’t going to let Henry out of her sight.
“Yes?” I replied.
“What in Christ’s name did you do to the bloody motor?”
“Nothing. I didn’t come out in the dinghy. Why?”
“Bastard ran okay for about fifty yards and then died. Wouldn’t start again.”
“You’re just too bloody drunk.”
“No, honest. The bloody thing’s stuffed. Don’t know what’s wrong with it.”
“Did you check the plug?” I asked.
“Come off it, mate!” he laughed. “I’m not that bloody drunk. Bit of oil on it, but plenty of spark; and before you insult me again, there’s plenty of petrol.”
“Okay, I’ll have a look at it later.”
As we walked around to the saloon I asked quietly: “Just how drunk are you, Rick?”
“Hardly drunk at all, old mate,” he replied, beer fumes jolting my head back. “Hardly drunk at all.” He turned around and winked. “Well, anyway, not as pissed as Henry.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Bloody Henry.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” I said. “Come and have some coffee and then you can take the girls back.”
“What?”
“Take the girls home. They’ve got to get off the boat! Now!” His hands went to his hips as he stopped in his tracks. “Take my word for it, Rick, please; and for once don’t bloody argue. I want them off the boat tonight!”
He wasn’t drunk, but he was too far gone to be told about the surprise down below. It would certainly sober him up in a hurry, but I knew that his loud voice would just as certainly crash out into the night’s silence. The girls couldn’t help but hear him, and so would Henry; and that would be the end of it. I had to keep it to myself for a few more hours.
“Don’t be bloody stupid!” he spluttered. “I didn’t spend five hours in that bloody dive just to wave goodbye to Sai at two in the morning!”
I looked at my watch. He wasn’t far off the mark.
“Rick, for Christ’s sake! We’ve got problems!”
“No, ma
te. You’re the one with the problems. You’re the one with the cheap bloody stomach that can’t take a half-hot curry. You’re the poor bastard who’s missing out tonight. It’s not my bloody fault that Kini had to go on duty. If you missed out, it’s your own fault. You should’ve brought her out to the boat for a couple of hours, and then taken her back to the nurses’ quarters.”
There was no convincing him otherwise, unless I told him about Baiya and his brother.
“Yeah, okay, mate,” I replied, resigned to having the girls on board for the night.
“She’s apples, Andy,” he slurred, throwing an arm around my shoulder. “Say, why don’t you go in early tomorrow and pick her up. That little honeymoon island will still be there in the morning.”
He had a one-track mind; but it was damn good to have him back – even if he couldn’t yet share the horror.
I was burning to get stuck into Henry, but I knew it wouldn’t have been of any use. He was far too drunk to even realise I was mad at him.
“Don’t worry, mate,” Rick said with the cheerfulness of the happy drunk. “Come and have a drink. You didn’t miss out on much tonight. Bloody hell! I sure do stink of cigarette smoke.”
“Later,” I replied. “I’ll have a look at the outboard first; and if I were you I’d go easy on the booze. We’ve got things to discuss tomorrow.”
“What things?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Just go easy.”
“Uh? Yeah, okay.”
He walked away looking puzzled. He was going to be more than just confused in the morning.
******
Rick was right about the outboard. It hadn’t been his drunkenness that had been the problem. I lifted the small motor over on to the back deck and removed the cover. It only took five minutes to discover what was wrong. No wonder the plug had oiled up. If he had taken it out a second and third time he would have found it exactly the same.
The Stone Dog Page 12
