Angel of Destruction

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘It’ll grow again.’ She surveyed the little house. A tree had actually come down very close to it, but no damage had been done, and it growled reassuringly. Anna topped up both the oil and water from the cans that always waited beside the machinery, then led the way over the slight rise to look down at the beach.

  ‘There’s a sight,’ Johann said.

  Beyond the reef the seas were still a mass of tumbling whitecaps, crashing into the rocks, and the beach itself had been scoured so that there were coral head poking up through what was left of the sand.

  ‘Where’s it all gone?’ Johann wondered.

  ‘It’ll come back,’ Anna assured him. She was more interested in the evidence of the surge, indicated by where the bushes had been flattened. ‘That was about eight feet,’ she said. ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘It shouldn’t have got to the cistern. Let’s go find out. But we’ll check the east beach first.’

  They stood on the rise and looked down on the dock. The sound was still turbulent, but, as she had observed during the night, the dock was undamaged and so was Fair Girl.

  ‘Think the staff will get across today?’ Johann asked.

  ‘I sincerely hope they don’t try. Not only are they likely to be swamped in that open boat, but we need the cay to ourselves for at least today.’

  He raised his eyebrows, and she smiled at him. ‘They don’t know anything about what our visitors might have wanted, and I aim to keep it that way. Just for starters, there is a bazooka and a tommy gun lying around somewhere. But they can wait. There should be some interesting objects on the beach.’

  He followed her as she climbed down the rocks. ‘But that boat. Where did it go down?’

  ‘It went on to the reef.’

  He followed the direction of her pointing finger. ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘She broke up in the storm. I imagine there are bits scattered along the shore. And . . .’ She pointed as they reached the sand.

  ‘Oh, my God! That’s a leg.’

  ‘It looks like one. There’ll be others.’

  ‘But . . . how many?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think there were something like twenty people on board. But only six definitely came ashore.’

  ‘And you hope to hush that up?’

  ‘Of course not. There was this boat, apparently trying to make shelter, and she hit a rock or something coming through the reef, and went down. As this was just as the full force of the hurricane hit, there was nothing we could do about it.’

  ‘But if you shot these people . . .’

  ‘I did not shoot anybody, Papa. I was going to, but the storm hit first, and threw me into the bushes. I couldn’t move for four hours, by which time . . . Well, the boat had gone and so had all the people I could see. On the other hand, they were carrying guns when they left the boat, and some of those may have come ashore. We’d better have a look.’

  Over the next hour they uncovered four more bodies, and two tommy guns. ‘Leave those,’ Anna said, ‘and we’ll take them up to the house when we find my gear. After we’ve checked the reservoir.’

  ‘But . . . what are we going to do about these bodies?’

  ‘There is nothing you and I can do about them, Papa. They all drowned. When the boys come back, probably tomorrow, we’ll be able to do something. Meanwhile, we’ll call Nassau, tell them there’s been a tragedy here, and ask for help. You come up from there,’ she told the dogs, who were sniffing around the corpses.

  ‘You said you thought that six men came ashore.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘There are only five bodies. He could have been dragged back out to sea by the undertow, or –’ she looked up at the trees – ‘if he’s ashore, he’ll turn up.’ She tucked the shotgun under her arm. ‘Just let’s check that reservoir.’

  Johann followed her up to the land, wiping his brow with his handkerchief.

  *

  They regained the path. The Rawlings’ cottage appeared undamaged, and if the orchard was carpeted with fallen fruit, only two of the trees had come down; the rest had been protected by the grove of casuarinas in the midst of which she had spent the night. The vegetable garden was far more devastated, although Anna reckoned that most of the damage had been done by the rain.

  But the hen run . . . it was deserted. ‘Oh, fuck it!’ she muttered.

  ‘All of them!’ Johann said. ‘Fifty fowls! That is tragic.’

  Anna looked out to sea, wondering if they were all floating out there, but even the lagoon was still too disturbed to make out anything. Then she was startled by a sudden squawk behind her. She swung round, instinctively levelling the shotgun, and saw the cock rising from the bushes, whence it had been disturbed by the dogs. And now it was joined by a host of hens and chickens, clucking and squawking. They weren’t all there, but she did not think more than a dozen were gone. ‘Oh, you darlings,’ she cried, feeling close to tears.

  ‘I have an idea,’ her father remarked, ‘that you value these animals more than most human beings.’

  ‘I think it’s that I haven’t been all that lucky with most of the human beings I happen to have encountered.’

  She hurried on to the reservoir. This was overflowing, but when, having laid down the shotgun, she waded ankle-deep to the actual cistern and stooped to taste the water, it was all fresh. ‘Do you know,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘We have been quite phenomenally lucky.’

  For reply there was a startled exclamation from Johann, and a low growl from Jupiter. Anna turned, still stooping in the water, and saw that a man had emerged from the bushes and was standing with his arm round Johann’s neck and a Browning automatic pistol pressed to his head. His appearance had surprised even the dogs, who were uncertain whether to attack him as that would have involved attacking Johann as well. Anna couldn’t risk that, so she said, ‘Stay Jupiter! Stay Juno! Wait.’ While she slowly rose to her feet, mentally cursing her own carelessness; her tommy gun was still slung, and the shotgun was on the dry ground eight feet away.

  ‘Take off that gun and throw it over here,’ the man commanded.

  Anna obeyed, tossing it a few feet to his right. But he did not, as she had hoped he might, make any move to pick it up. ‘Would I be addressing the famous Countess von Widerstand?’

  Anna had been taking him in. He was not a big man, but looked very fit. He was also quite handsome in a dark fashion, with a little black moustache, and she also figured that in happier times he was something of a dandy, in that his clothes, if torn and dishevelled, had been very well cut and were obviously of good material.

  And he was clearly not a Russian. Therefore . . . ‘You would be correct,’ she agreed. ‘And you are from the Ravanellis.’

  ‘I am Luis Ravanelli,’ he announced proudly. ‘You have sunk my ship, and destroyed my people.’

  ‘The fortunes of war,’ Anna said, sympathetically. ‘It was very silly of you to put to sea with a hurricane about.’

  ‘Ha! The storm was supposed to give us cover, Solly said.’

  ‘Well, whoever Solly is, or was, he was a twit.’

  ‘You have courage. I was told this. And you are as beautiful as they said.’

  ‘You say the sweetest things,’ Anna said.

  ‘But I have come here to kill you. You know that.’

  ‘I thought it might be likely.’ Her brain was racing, but as long as he held his pistol to Johann’s head – her father was looking petrified – there was nothing she could do save keep things going until either she saw an opportunity or he made a mistake . . . as he was already doing by preferring to look at her than merely shoot her. ‘May I ask, is this something personal? I mean, I have never seen you before in my life.’

  ‘Sure it’s personal. Now. You’ve killed nineteen of my people, plus Lorna Strezzi. She was a good girl. Anyway, I’m being paid. Twenty grand. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ Anna
said. ‘Twenty grand? I’m worth a lot more than that.’

  Almost the pistol moved. ‘To whom?’

  ‘Put that gun down and we’ll talk about it.’

  ‘Oh, no. I’m not stupid. I know all about you.’

  ‘Do you? How exciting. There’s just one thing more, though. Have you given any thought to how you are going to leave the island? Now the storm is gone, my staff will be coming back this afternoon, and they’re not going to take kindly to finding me dead.’

  ‘You keep thinking I’m stupid,’ Luis pointed out. ‘You have a boat in that dock. I’ll use that.’

  ‘Silly me,’ Anna commented. ‘I never thought of that. But do you know how to helm a boat? How to navigate?’

  ‘What’s difficult about handling a boat?’

  A chink of light. ‘Nothing at all. Well, then, I suppose you’ll need the keys. They’re right here in my bag.’

  She held her breath; anyone who really knew boats would know that whenever they were securely moored the keys remained in the ignition. But she suspected he knew absolutely nothing about it.

  ‘So hand them over. Throw them on the ground, here.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She sighed, opened her bag and put her hand inside. ‘Jupiter,’ she said. ‘Kill!’

  Jupiter, who had been gazing at Luis with total hostility, dashed forward, teeth bared. Luis swung to face him, retaining his hold on Johann’s neck but moving the pistol to fire at the dog. But before he could squeeze the trigger Anna had drawn her Walther. She had only the head to aim at, but she wanted nothing more. Brains and blood flew, and Luis went down, the pistol flying from his hand.

  Johann fell to his knees, holding his neck. Jupiter, realizing the crisis was over, licked his face.

  ‘Anna,’ Johann said. ‘My God, Anna!’

  ‘He talked too much,’ Anna said.

  *

  ‘Mr Ravanelli,’ Botten said, ‘Would you happen to have a head for me?’

  Don Giovanni, chewing on a Rennie’s, gazed at him with undisguised venom. ‘You don’t read the papers?’

  ‘I read the New York Times.’

  Don Giovanni gestured at a paper on his desk. ‘That is last Monday’s Miami Herald.’ He picked it up. ‘The headline says, “Yachting tragedy in the Bahamas”. And then: “Fifty-foot motor yacht Calypso reported lost in Thursday’s hurricane. The yacht, owned by Miami businessman Joe Solly, left the mainland on Wednesday on a trip to Eleuthera in the northern Bahamas. With Mr Sully were several friends, including Chicago millionaire Luis Ravanelli.”’

  Botten frowned.

  Don Giovanni went on reading. ‘“It appears that Mr Solly, an experienced yachtsman, thought he would reach Nassau harbour before the storm broke, but when he realized he could not make it, he attempted to take shelter at Fair Cay, a small island owned by a Miss Anna Fitzjohn. Unfortunately, the yacht struck the reef south of the cay, and was lost with all hands. ‘It was terrible,’ said Miss Fitzjohn, an Irish lady, to our reporter. ‘We could see what was happening, but there was nothing we could do about it in those conditions.’ According to the Nassau police, Miss Fitzjohn, who lives on the island with her parents, behaved with great courage, actually putting to sea in her own boat the moment conditions improved, in an effort to find survivors. But there were none. Nineteen bodies have been recovered out of the twenty, and these have all been identified. The missing man would appear to be Mr Ravanelli, who is married and a father of two.”’

  He laid down the paper and stared at Botten.

  ‘What a shitting mess,’ Botten remarked. ‘Still, look on the bright side. Your boy could have survived. I mean, if they haven’t found his body, well, anything is possible.’

  ‘My boy is dead.’ Each word was a drip of vitriol from Don Giovanni’s lips.

  ‘You’re being pessimistic.’

  ‘He must’ve reached the shore,’ Don Giovanni said, ‘And he ran into this dame, and she put a bullet in him. What she did with the body I don’t know, but there ain’t no reason for the police to suspect foul play.’

  ‘That has to be pure conjecture.’

  ‘If everything you told us about this dame is right, it’s facts.’

  Botten’s frown was back. ‘You reckon this Fitzjohn is the Countess von Widerstand?’

  ‘According to Strezzi, this woman Fitzjohn is the girl in the photo you gave me. And you say that was this countess.’

  Botten’s forehead cleared. ‘Well, well. That is good news. Now we have a name and we have an address. That’s great, Don Giovanni. Give me back my twenty grand, and we’ll take it from here.’

  ‘My son is dead.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m inclined to go with the paper and reckon he was pretty ambitious putting to sea with that kind of storm knocking about.’ He held out his hand. ‘Give me my money, and we’ll call it quits.’

  ‘You mother-fucking son of a Communist bitch. My son is dead, and you talk about cookies crumbling.’

  ‘You’ll get over it. Money.’

  Don Giovanni stared at him for several seconds, then opened his desk drawer, drew an automatic pistol, and shot him through the head.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘So there I was,’ Anna said. ‘The heroine of the hour. For two or three days.’

  ‘And no one ever suspected the truth?’

  ‘There was nothing for them to suspect. That morning Papa and I found all the discarded weapons and took them up to the house. That five bodies should have been washed ashore was perfectly natural.’

  ‘But the yacht . . . the bazooka damage.’

  ‘She had been reduced to driftwood by the sea pounding her on the reef. One or two of the timbers appeared to have fire marks, but the police reckoned there could well have been an explosion where she hit.’

  ‘And Luis’ body?’

  ‘As soon as the seas went down a little, Papa and I took him out in Fair Girl, weighted his body, and sank him in deep water. We were just coming back from that trip when the police arrived, so we told them that we had been out trying to find any survivors. That made me even more of a heroine.’

  ‘But if the Ravanellis knew where you were, surely they would have passed that information to the Russians?’

  ‘Do you know, that puzzled me as well, but for some reason they never did anything about it.’

  ‘So all ended well, and Clive . . .?’

  ‘Was back in a week. And we were married the week after that.’

  ‘With your carte blanche?’

  ‘No. The bastards wouldn’t give it to me.’ She shrugged, an entrancing sight. ‘As it happened, as I was in the clear, I didn’t need it. Then.’

  ‘But?’

  Anna sighed. ‘Life is full of buts. Nothing lasts forever. But . . .’ She smiled. ‘I was coming up to the happiest time of my life.’

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