Crimson Jade

by George B Mair

  Cyp arrived as Grant cut one end of a Hoyo de Monterrey. ‘Good afternoon, Minister. Sorry you didn’t come up this morning, because we did have a tentative breakfast date around nine, you may remember. But Petra would tell you I was out of sorts.’

  Cyp’s face crinkled into smiles and Grant remembered all those other faces he had known which had used smiles to mask the meanness of cold eyes or the cruelty of thin lips. ‘I thought you had gone to B.A. for the day.’

  ‘Tell me, Minister,’ said Grant, ‘where was the letter posted which laid down conditions for your daughter’s safety?’

  The man glanced towards Petra, almost as though watching her reaction yet at the same time trying to control his own surprise. ‘B.A.,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘And did you give it to the people who’ve been looking for your mysterious “fifth man”? Forgive me,’ he added, ‘but Petra gave me part of the story.’

  He shook his head and Grant felt the temperature of the room begin to drop as he sensed that his fishing was drifting on to dangerous ground. ‘I stopped using them some time ago. Their results were few and expenses high.’

  ‘One result?’ said Grant. ‘Or few? According to Petra there was only a suggestion many years ago that this man might have gone to Argentina.’

  ‘Only one. The Argentine angle.’

  ‘Then why should a man in your position be afraid of what someone might say about your life thirty years or more ago? Petra told me a good deal and as I understand it this man wasn’t very important. Are you frightened that he’s now made the grade and rates socially?’

  ‘I’m afraid of everything.’ The Minister stared at Grant with a helplessness which looked almost sincere. ‘I would do anything to protect Petra, but the conditions in that letter are impossible. I couldn’t raise the money without selling enormous holdings in my businesses. And I don’t want to make my family name a public scandal.’

  ‘But you don’t want to die,’ said Grant.

  ‘That is why I’m asking for your help.’

  ‘Well then,’ said Grant, ‘correct me if I’m wrong. When you found that I didn’t want to listen until you had had time to think things over, as I see it you passed the buck to Petra and decided to keep me here overnight. Right?’

  ‘Which wasn’t unreasonable.’

  ‘Anything is unreasonable to me,’ said Grant, ‘which is done without my agreement and Petra used Bas to try and scare me. I played along only because I was curious to see what would happen. And the first thing was Petra’s confessional. But the second thing,’ he said softly, ‘I don’t like at all. I was doped and I wasn’t doped with peyote cactus, because peyote only creates pleasant fantasies, but the stuff I was given made me crazy. Now I don’t believe that Petra would give me anything without an all-clear from yourself so I want to know why you drugged the person who was supposed to help you.’ He turned unexpectedly towards Petra. ‘Another thing. Why were you so sure I didn’t need a doctor? You either knew what I had taken, though you slipped up badly in trying to blame peyote, or you didn’t care what happened to me. But from the way you behaved today I gather you didn’t expect me to die. Throw some light on all that and then we may or may not begin to programme the future.’

  ‘I’ll explain,’ said Petra curtly. ‘You wanted Corrientes Goya cheese last night. Well, when Bas told me we hadn’t any I went to the pantry and kitchens to check, because I was sure that we had. Now several trays had been set in the pantry, but only two were carrying the wine I promised, our own type Bernkastler Doktor Auslese if you remember, and I supervised while Bas made toast. I wanted the tray to look attractve because I wanted to please you, and I preferred the china on one labelled Walnut Suite, so I switched labels and you accidentally got a tray holding a bottle of doped wine. But I didn’t know that at the time and I told you the truth when I said I was a whisky chap as from midnight. But you’ve got to believe me when I say that that’s how it all happened. The whole thing was a complete accident.’

  ‘Who uses the Walnut Suite?’ asked Grant.

  ‘Sureen.’

  ‘And who would wish to dope Sureen?’ asked Grant. ‘Because if she had behaved as you say I did, but in front of the wrong people, it might have been dangerous.’

  Cyp smiled slightly. ‘An understatement. But to get to the point. Mikel doped the wine. He put in an aphrodisiac which causes some loss of memory afterwards. A rotten thing to do, but he was playing for big stakes! Sureen would not have been photographed after the drug began to work and pictures published in the proper places at the proper time. Probably in a few days, because Mikel wants to see a change of government, and if the President’s wife had been photographed during an apparent orgy it would have been ammunition for the left wing. There’s already plenty of poverty up north anyhow, and pictures of the President’s lady knocking off liquor in luxurious surroundings and then qualifying as a sex kitten would have caused a revolution.’ He paused. ‘Sureen isn’t very popular anyhow. There have been rumours about extravagance with clothes and cars.’

  ‘And why would Mikel want a revolution?’ asked Grant.

  ‘Ask him,’ said Cyp briefly. ‘My own guess is that he wanted a contract for extensions of the Pan-American Highway. And another contract for development of iron ore deposits which, to date, have been untouched but ought to be developed. Well, Sureen’s husband has got other ideas, and Mikel isn’t included. The two men have nothing in common.’

  ‘You know,’ said Grant with reluctant admiration, ‘one has got to hand it to Mikel. He thinks big.’ He turned again to Cyp. ‘Petra said that he had hopes of using you. Have you played along yet?’

  ‘Not in any big way. A word at different times may have helped to get him orders where tenders were close run. But nothing dramatic.’

  Grant decided to change the subject. ‘That fifth man! What has he done to scare you?’

  Cyp flushed slightly. ‘Photography was in its early days when those Indians were killed. But he took some pictures. I was in them and he sent me copies some time after his four friends had been removed.’

  ‘Let’s keep things in focus,’ said Grant. ‘Not removed. Murdered.’

  Cyp’s eyes were like blue flecks of ice. ‘Were murdered. There was no writing but the postmark was Cordoba. Which is really why we think he went to Argentina.’

  ‘So there was no private investigator after all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you would know this man if you saw him again?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Cyp. ‘He was young at the time.’

  ‘And periodically he has dropped a reminder just to keep you happy?’

  ‘Happy!’ Petra exploded with rage. ‘He sends duplicates of these bloody killings on every anniversary of the day his own four friends died.’

  ‘Were murdered,’ said Grant. ‘Let’s keep everything accurate. Remember?’

  The girl’s eyes became very calculating. ‘A first murder is said to be the easiest,’ she snapped, ‘so don’t provoke us any more.’ A small gun suddenly appeared in her right hand and she held it without a tremor. ‘I told you I’d do anything for my father and that includes saving him from insults. You’re still expendable, David, and you’re not the only gun who can be bought. So watch your manners.’

  Grant lit another cigarette. ‘Put it away. You were talking about pictures arriving on every anniversary. Carry on.’

  The girl slipped the gun back into her handbag. ‘We’ve both lived with fear for almost twenty years,’ she said at last. ‘I grew up with fear. Or at least after I found out. And that was when I was about thirteen. My father was sitting in his study, and his face frightened me when I went into the room. I know now that he was thinking about suicide. The pictures were lying on the floor and he told me about them.’ She smiled slightly. ‘Last night you said I had no tension lines. Well, that’s only luck, because I can tell you the doctors sometimes get worried about my blood pressure, and for weeks before
that Manaos anniversary I can’t sleep a wink. I once took an overdose of sleeping pills and nearly died. My father blames himself when I’m unhappy and that makes things worse than ever. But there’s more to it than that, because every few months a scrap of paper also arrives. It’s a photostat copy of a news clipping about the original air crash which killed my grandparents. The date sticks out like a sore thumb and I tell you we’ve both lived with terror. The photostats might come two or three in a month and then nothing for a year. I tell you the man who’s doing this is a devil.’

  ‘The man who is doing this,’ said Grant, ‘is just taking a long-term revenge. So the whole set-up must have cut him deep. Who was he, this man who has scared you for over thirty years and who now seems to be forcing a showdown?’

  Cyp paled slightly. ‘He is probably the son of Petra’s mother, Maria Teresa Bosca. The estates, you may remember, were fused in 1938, a year after the Indian killings. Well, things went wrong from the beginning and Pedro Bosca killed himself in ’39. But by that time his son, Ramon, was working in Manaos almost a thousand kilometres away. We heard from him from time to time and letters were friendly until Petra was born, but when he found that he had a half-sister and that his mother had died in childbirth he went half-crazy, though that’s only hearsay, because none of us actually met him. We only knew that he was working with four labourers who had been fired from the estates at different times and that they had a small shipbuilding yard. River craft. Nothing big. Well, on the night I fixed the killings Ramon was at Iquitos delivering a new launch and I later heard that someone went upriver to tell him what had happened. It seems that he then went to Lima, but the next thing we knew for certain was delivery of the photographs. And since then we’ve lived on our nerves.’

  ‘So even if he was still a small man the pix and photostats could convict you.’

  ‘Plus an entry in the central register of births and deaths, which it’s absolutely impossible to destroy.’ Cyp paused and a faraway look came into his eyes. ‘But I’ve an idea he made good. There were years of opportunity and Ramon Bosca was no fool. His actions prove it. He must also be something of a psychologist, because he knows how to conduct a war of nerves and I think he may well have reached the social register.’

  ‘No clues from writing on envelopes?’

  ‘Typed,’ said Petra. ‘With a different machine each time.’

  ‘But when you think back on young Ramon at twenty can you begin to build a mental picture of what he might look like now?’

  ‘Impossible.’ Petra seemed to have returned to normal. ‘He might have gone fat and pale and greasy. Or he could be thin and slight and tough. We only know that he had black hair. And who hasn’t out here? But his father was balding, so by now he might either have a wig of have done a Yul Brynner.’

  ‘Teeth?’ asked Grant.

  ‘Latin Americans have good dentists and my father says there was nothing special about Ramon. No buck teeth or so.’

  ‘Well, changing the subject,’ Grant had been puzzled by some angles of Helena Mauriac’s conversation, ‘Helena was going on about her gala and hinting at possible political assassination. Seems that the Corps Diplomatique will be out in force, so there would be plenty of chances. Any ideas?’

  ‘Helena Mauriac is a fantastic singer,’ said Petra, ‘but she sometimes has delusions of grandeur. It would please her a lot if somebody important got bumped during one of her arias. Best publicity possible! And there’s no such thing as bad publicity in any rat-race nowadays so long as it brings a name to people’s attention.’

  ‘She also reminded me that a blow in the right place could kill even a mamba.’ Grant had been more impressed by this than he cared to admit. It was almost as though the woman knew something and had tried to warn him.

  ‘No comments,’ said Cyp, while Petra shook her head. ‘Mauriac is a temperamental prima donna. She can say something which sounds all important just by accident, and she thrives on sensation.’

  ‘Well, I don’t thrive on dope,’ said Grant bitterly, ‘and one point remains. How did you discover that Mikel had loaded a bottle of wine? Or don’t you have any secrets from one another nowadays?’

  ‘Try not to be sarcastic,’ Petra snapped. ‘But after leaving you last night I found Mikel waiting for me in my own suite. He was in a filthy temper and wanted to know what I had been doing in the pantry. I’ve never seen him so angry and he may have said more than he meant, because I’ve a perfect right to look over my own pantries. After all, I am mistress in this house. But anyhow it seems that he had had drinks with Sureen in her room and been surprised when she was still normal after a couple of hours. So he went downstairs to check, because he had doctored one bottle of Bernkastler Doktor Auslese and had expected Sureen to react to his aphrodisiac. He was wondering what the hell had gone wrong and got the night-steward to produce the pantry record. It reported that I had been down and helped Bas to fix a snack for the Teak Rooms. So he put two and two together, figured that the trays had got mixed and came up to your suite here. He seems to have unsnecked the door and heard enough to know that you got the drug instead of Sureen, so he went to my place and sat it out till I got back around threeish. When I can tell you I wasn’t in a mood for trouble from my so-called husband! And I told him so.’ She laughed sarcastically. ‘Odd really, how little things can produce disaster! I simply wanted to make your tray as attractive as possible so as to put you into a good mood, because you’re always so off-hand and snappy. If I hadn’t chosen the other china Mikel’s plans would have gone through on schedule.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Grant quietly. ‘You seem to have an answer for everything. Now tell me about Bas.’

  Cyp took up the story. ‘Petra was born in the jungle. Or at least on my estates there. But when she was only months old I decided to centre her life on Manaos and began to organise the house properly. One night walking home alone from the opera … and a silly thing to do I grant you … two thugs tried to beat me up, but Bas interfered and saved me a lot of trouble. I gave him some money. He had come upriver from Belem as a ship’s steward but he seemed to have no roots, and asked me for a job, so I took him on. Petra told you that she’d do anything for me: well, I’m now telling you that Bas would do anything for Petra. He played with her before she could walk and he’s watched her grow up. He knows her ways and understands her. He’s her man, and she’s his goddess or something.’

  ‘Okay.’ The two stories needed re-thinking, but for the moment Grant was prepared to let it go. ‘I was brought up never to tell lies to my doctor, lawyer or accountant.’ he said briefly. ‘But I would now include any personal confidants! If you wanted my help why couldn’t you tell the whole truth? Or are you just compulsive liars?’

  Petra tensed with anger. ‘You can’t help being offensive, can you? Don’t you understand that we thought you wouldn’t believe us? After all, the wine thing hit you badly and I didn’t want you to turn against us.’

  ‘But that had nothing to do with many details in a story which had to be pretty well forced out of you. Why?’

  Cyp raised his hands expressively. ‘We don’t all think clearly when an important emergency affects ourselves. some more clippings arrived last night after dinner.’ He fumbled in an inside pocket and handed over an envelope. ‘Look. Now it’s one thing to tell a person something, but another to show proof in a photograph. I’m ashamed of my past though I’ve tried to live it down and these pictures show me at my worst. I didn’t want even you to see them.’

  Grant studied the envelope. It had been delivered by special messenger and three full-plate glossy photographs told a story. In the first an Indian was stretched out against a board while a young man prepared to fire a shot with a rifle from about thirty paces. The man was a younger version of Cyp and the likeness unmistakable.

  The second showed the same young man laughing while he pointed at a bullet mark on the Indian’s body. The Indian was still alive and his eyes gleaming with hate. The picture had b
een taken from a different angle and included a second Indian hanging dead from ropes which tethered him to a tree. A knife stuck out from his chest and Grant counted what looked like seventeen bullet holes on less vital parts of his body.

  The third picture was a close-up of Cyp holding a tapir-hide whip of the type which Grant knew could still be bought in Amazonia as a tourist souvenir and which was still called ‘an official wife-beater’. A woman was crouching at his feet, her head bent over her ankles, and there were whip marks on her back. ‘I hadn’t heard this story,’ said Grant.

  Cyp flushed to the roots of his neck. ‘She was the wife of the dead man. She had thrown it to put him out of pain and our people caught her so she was flogged as punishment.’