Rees’s head began to tremble, and he made as if to rise.
‘Please stay where you are, Sir Archibald, and hear me out.’ Treasure’s tone was quiet but firm. ‘I believe our well-intentioned caller quickly realized the cold body had been dead for some time, and that he naturally assumed the cause was a heart attack. I think he quickly and accurately calculated the effect of O’Hara’s sudden death at this particular time – that the dynasty would continue, but led by someone he rightly considered unworthy. I believe he then – perhaps unwisely – surrendered to an urge to affect the course of events with a dramatic and highly symbolic action. That, action was suggested by the date. It was made possible by the handy presence of a machete, and it was arguably justified by the character of Paul O’Hara.
‘I think, also, our man was motivated not by impulse but by a cool sense of opportunity – and there’s a world of difference. You see, he’s neither impulsive nor irresponsible by nature. For years, though, he’s been seeking an opportunity to help point this community in a new direction – defensibly, towards an order more suited to the times than paternalism or whatever form of unbenevolent dictatorship Paul O’Hara could be expected to dish out. In chopping off the head of the very dead Joe he considered he was airing a very live issue – without hurt to anyone.’
‘Except himself. He was a bloody fool.’ There was total despair in the Governor’s every syllable.
Treasure shrugged. ‘He’d assumed he’d not been seen. He knew his action would precipitate a post-mortem but he relied on that proving Joe had long since died of a coronary. It was reasonable to think the authorities would soon tire of looking for the culprit. Oh, they’d go through the motions but it would’ve been like looking for a needle in a haystack.’
‘Except for Sarah.’ Again there was resignation in the voice.
Treasure smiled. ‘Sarah thought she’d identified Luke Murphy in the half-light. She now knows it couldn’t have been Luke, and she’s not chancing her arm at any other guesses. She also knows she didn’t witness a murder.’
‘You mean . . . ?’
‘I mean the detail of what Sarah thought she saw is known to only four people besides herself – that’s you, me, my wife and Small. Since Sarah now chooses to believe it never happened, the Chief Inspector would be glad if we’d follow the same line.’
There was a ten-second silence; Treasure was counting.
When the Governor began to speak it was in the dignified tone of a determined martyr. ‘I appreciate Small’s attitude – and the advice you have given him.’ A flicker of a smile accompanied the last comment. ‘However, foolish, precipitate action on my part –’
‘Would be highly undesirable at the present time.’ Treasure had interrupted without ceremony. ‘What’s needed is a cool show of firm leadership. Did you know Joyce is quitting the island for good?’
The Governor looked anything but cool, and far from firm. It was disarming to be stopped in mid-confession. ‘He was here earlier to tell me as much. I tried to dissuade him, but he seems determined. He feels the situation here will be untenable for him.’
‘And so it will.’
Rees shook his head solemnly. ‘A strange man. I feel now I hardly know him.’ Perplexity next gave way to disenchantment. ‘He seemed untouched by the least sense of grief or guilt about his wife. He was preoccupied – outraged even – over his . . . his mistress’s withdrawing from some financial commitment. A plan to finance the compulsory purchase of O’Hara Industries with her own money. I didn’t quite understand . . .’
‘Her own money or funds from the Franks-Barrett Trust?’ Treasure began to fathom the reason that might lie behind the Chief Minister’s earlier determination to remain on KCI.
‘That was it. A family trust . . .’
‘And a very rich one.’ The banker nodded knowingly. ‘But the trustees involved are quite as respectable as the Church Commissioners – and if anything, more fastidious. I doubt they’d extend their discretionary powers to back whatever eccentric scheme Joyce and Lady Cynthia may have in mind for KCI. Not in the present circumstances, anyway. The Trust tends to keep a low profile.’ He smirked. ‘It doesn’t much go in for funding elaborate love-affairs – especially those subject to unexpected and undesirable advertisement.’
Rees appeared to be ruminating rather than listening. ‘I’d had such high hopes. Now it appears the island is doomed in every way.’
‘Not at all.’ Treasure was adamantly enthusiastic, and for not entirely altruistic reasons. ‘One can’t disguise the unpleasant nature of what’s happened, but it’s the future that matters. If you want my view, the O’Hara system couldn’t have survived much longer – for a variety of reasons, and not all of them to do with marijuana. Joyce, on the other hand, and from what I’ve been told, wanted to move much too quickly – but some of his ideas were sound.’
The Governor looked like a small boy who had just been told his tricycle was not beyond repair. ‘You see any future for us with Paul O’Hara controlling affairs?’
Treasure was touched and encouraged by his companion’s evident identification with the community interest. ‘A perfectly sound future – economically and constitutionally. Just as Joe O’Hara fancied himself as Charles the First, and came to a not dissimilar end’ – Rees flinched – ‘I think we might extend the analogy and have you moved into the William of Orange slot. Joyce has already quit as Cromwell, and somehow I don’t see Paul O’Hara succeeding as Charles the Second or James the Second.’
Comprehension was visibly waning. ‘I’m afraid . . .’
‘I’m being too abstruse. Sorry, I was getting carried away – but you know there are aspects of this island’s situation that . . .’ Treasure shrugged and let the words tail off. It suddenly occurred to him that he had just cast Lady Rees in the substantial role of Queen Mary: historical analogy was rarely perfect. ‘Given a month or so, I think you’ll find things’ll straighten out – but not by themselves. You’re the key – ‘ he paused – ‘your Excellency. And I think you know it.’
Sir Archibald Rees pondered for a moment, then slowly began to straighten in his chair.
It took rather longer than a month for a new and enduring order to be established on King Charles Island, but Treasure had been speaking figuratively. Nevertheless, the tranquillity and contentment that prevails there today more than proves his earliest expressed conviction.
In his capacity as Chief Magistrate, the Governor dismissed most of the charges against Paul O’Hara, and effectively ensured that none of them was transferred for hearing in a higher English Court.
O’Hara pleaded guilty inadvertently to burning down his house, thereby causing a nuisance and a great deal of public inconvenience and expense. His insistence that it had been a very ugly house was solemnly taken into account however, and the resulting fine was quite modest. In mitigation, the ruin – now covered in creeper – has a charm and character never possessed by the original building.
Since O’Hara made no claim against the insurance underwriters they could hardly charge him with attempting to defraud them, and sensibly accepted his deposition magnanimously excusing them from all liability in the matter. After deliberation, however, they pronounced they found themselves unable to meet his request to refund the unexpired part of the premium.
In consideration for this packaged and manipulated turn in events – and slightly in advance of its actual realization – O’Hara agreed to sell O’Hara Industries Ltd. to the newly formed King Charles Development Corporation at a price so low as to suggest his philanthropy bordered on insanity.
The Development Corporation – the brain-child of Mark Treasure – had no difficulty raising the loans to meet its very temporary obligations. The sums involved were modest, and quite quickly repaid after the organization’s partnership enterprises with outside interests were formed and began to flourish.
The distillery has proved a modestly profitable venture, as has the yacht marina at Rupertstow
n and the exclusive villa, hotel and golf-club development at Roll-over Bay.
The much enlarged airport, while receiving only a strictly prescribed number of scheduled flights from Europe and the USA, specializes in the quartering and servicing of what with delicacy might be described as only the better class of private jet aeroplane – a seemly enough match for the type of vessels catered for at the marina.
Ignoring the views of five hundred relieved if inconvenienced Florida mountebanks, it came as no surprise that the previously scarce and sought after King Charles Elegantes enjoyed a singular success when offered in quantity to a wider market. Much enlarged and modernized production facilities led to allegedly staggering cost savings which were magnanimously passed on to the consumer. It was also averred that there had been no reduction in the quality of the tobaccos employed – a perfectly honest assertion; the tobaccos had always been indifferent and were now actually improved through the need to import additional supplies from Jamaica.
What underwrote the massive demand was the knowledge that a product previously within the reach of only the most affluent was now available to what in modern marketing terms is usually described as that distinguished (meaning large) group of smokers whose individual high discernment and impeccable good taste far outmatches their modest incomes. This assertion was objectively reinforced – in part, perhaps, even suggested – by an equally discerning and tasteful international advertising campaign.
While the Sunfun Hotel Corporation of America did not feature as principals in any of these successful ventures, Glen Dogwall and his attractive wife are frequent visitors to their villa on the island where they repair to get away from the people who frequent the kind of resorts where the Sunfun Hotel Corporation of America do feature as principals. Although it was initially a source of irritation to Mr Dogwall that Sunfun obtained no concessions on the island, it became a growing source of satisfaction to him that Mongo Joyce enjoyed none either.
As for the ex-Chief Minister’s own career since leaving KCI, this is too well known to need recounting in detail. Following the latest judgement by the International Court at the Hague, it now seems unlikely that the Shetland island purchased by Joyce’s second wife, and which the two have made their home, will be permitted either to secede from the United Kingdom or to be invested with the North Sea oil revenues the owners have claimed belong to their domain.
Father Aloysius Babington came gradually to accept the new order of things, as did Angus McLush who, although deprived of his income as a spy and conscious that he had somehow let a scoop slip through his fingers, was formally appointed Chief Information Officer to the Development Corporation. It has not been in his nature to cavil that he is the only Information Officer.
Through the intervention of Molly Treasure, Sarah Rafferty achieved her ambition to train as a nurse in London – an arrangement very much approved by Sir Archibald Rees who was glad to have her fully occupied some distance away from KCI. Apart from other considerations, this avoided the girl being tempted to return to purposeless speculation on who it might have been whom she saw serving up the head of Joe O’Hara on that fateful morning – and through her daily proximity to Government House possibly arriving at the right conclusion.
The Governor continues to be regarded as a model colonial administrator – so much so that it is sometimes regretted by older heads at the Foreign Office that, due to the acute shortage of colonies, there is little opportunity left for his exemplary performance to be emulated. For his own part, it is reward enough that the British Government met the cost of salvaging and refitting the indestructible Sir Dafydd, now once more the soundest and oldest narrow-gauge steam-engine in working order west of Talyllyn.
The burgeoning romance between Debby Rees and Peregrine Gore is a fitful affair. Despite the warmth of their correspondence before Debby arrived in Britain en route for Cambridge, the path of true love took a swerve when he met her at London Airport and drove her at high speed to Oxford: they are still good friends.
The Treasures visit KCI from time to time as the guests of the Governor. Most recently Treasure has tried to ensure that such trips coincide with the presence on the island of a Harley Street surgeon friend who bought a villa there. Such precaution he considers prudent following a stomach-ache which was first wrongly diagnosed as a grumbling appendix: one cannot be too careful about such things. Molly simply checks before leaving that there is a bottle of antacid tablets in her make-up case.
Lord Grenwood continues to be immoderately pleased with the way Treasure handled the KCI situation – on his behalf. He also takes credit for somehow having sensed Archie Rees’s true potential from the very start – as well as Peregrine’s underestimated acuity. How many young bankers these days, he once enquired, could be called upon to start a steam-engine? Although the question was clearly rhetorical, Treasure, to whom it was addressed, registered the rueful reply that he guessed the number was marginally greater than those who could be relied upon to stop one.
It was during this same conversation that Grenwood had summoned his secretary – name of Caroline – to find him a fresh box of Punch Havana cigars. He did not much care for the King Charles Elegantes kept on his desk for offering to less important visitors.
‘Can’t see why people rave about those stinkers, Mark,’ he observed. ‘Considering our interest, wouldn’t mention it to anyone else of course, but if you ask me they’re only fit for . . . for . . . burning. What!’
While his lordship surrendered to the uncontrollable mirth engendered by his quip, Treasure, though agreeing with the sentiment, silently steeled himself to resist inviting Sister Helena to suggest ways of improving the product.
Treasure Up in Smoke Page 20
