by Jack Treby
‘The...cousin?’
‘That’s right. On the wife’s side.’ The owner of the Finca Weiman estate was a German, but his wife was from God’s own country.
‘Welcome to the farm!’ Steven Catesby declared. He was a gaunt looking fellow with rugged black hair and a small moustache. His voice sounded a little strained but he was not unfriendly. ‘Nice to see you again,’ he said, greeting Freddie and some of the other guests.
The Second Secretary quickly introduced Miss Bunting and I.
‘A pleasure to meet you,’ Catesby said. ‘Glad you could come. Gunther’s been held up for a few minutes but he’ll be along shortly. In the meantime, I’ll take you up to the house. We’ve got some drinks laid on and then you can settle in.’ He glanced across at the horses, which were now being led away. ‘Don’t worry about the luggage. The boys will bring it up to the house for you.’
‘How many people do you have in the office now?’ Catesby enquired, as we settled ourselves at the metal tables in the centre of the patio. The courtyard was completely enclosed, with three internal walls and a couple of archways leading through from the front porch. It was open to the air above, however, and the tiled floor was tilted slightly, so that any rain water would run off to the sides. A balcony encircled the square on three sides and a couple of “mestizos” – people of mixed race – were slogging up the stairs to deposit our luggage in the various bedrooms. Maurice, who had arrived shortly after us with the baggage train, had been whisked off out back to sort out his own accommodation for the night. A small cottage a little way from the hacienda served as a bed for the domestic servants.
A large pot of steaming coffee had been produced as soon as we had arrived inside the house. I have to confess, I have never much liked coffee – it is a bitter, depressing drink with none of the flavour or subtlety of honest to goodness tea – but having arrived at a plantation dedicated to its production I could hardly turn my nose up. It would be like refusing a plate of bacon and eggs at a pig farm. The cups were mercifully small, but the coffee was served black. Miss Bunting, who was perhaps a little less socially astute than the rest of us, immediately asked for a touch of milk. The pause that followed would have downed a heavyweight boxer; but the maid recovered her composure and scurried off to the kitchen to find some cream. I stuck with the black stuff, which tasted absolutely vile.
‘Just the three of us, as ever,’ I replied, in answer to Mr Catesby’s question. ‘Miss Bunting, myself and a Mr Battersby.’ I took another sip of the devil’s brew and tried not to grimace.
‘The three “B”s,’ Freddie pointed out mischievously.
‘Yes. The rest of the legation have already started referring to us as “The B Team”.’ I set down my coffee cup and smiled tightly. ‘That’s Foreign Office humour for you. Still, it has its advantages, being away from the main building.’
‘They don’t have to be quite so diplomatic.’ Freddie laughed.
‘That’s the main advantage,’ I agreed. ‘We don’t have to deal with the other legations or any of the local dignitaries, thank goodness.’
‘So you haven’t met General Ubico then?’ Catesby asked.
‘The president? No, I haven’t had the pleasure. I’ve heard a lot about him, though. What is he like?’
‘I’ve only met him the once,’ Catesby admitted. ‘At a trade fair. He gave a short speech. He seemed a little abrupt, but very driven.’
‘I’ve heard he’s got a bit of a Napoleon complex.’
Catesby shrugged. ‘He admires strong leaders. And he does have quite a commanding presence. With the poor economic conditions at the moment, he’s probably what this country needs. Did you see the new roads being built on your way up here?’
‘I could hardly miss them. That’s his doing, is it?’
‘In part. It’s a first step, anyway. This country badly needs infrastructure. Ubico understands that. He doesn’t have the resources to invest, but he is helping out where he can. He provides the expertise and the workers provide the labour.’
‘Yes, we saw a bunch of them hacking away at it on the way up.’
‘Gunther applied to have an extra track dug out between the road and our estate. It’s a bit tricky getting motor vehicles up here as things stand. We provide the labour, of course.’
‘You pay their wages?’
Catesby shook his head. ‘We couldn’t afford to just at the moment. No, they do the work in lieu of tax. It keeps them busy until the picking season begins next month.’
‘Do you have many black workers?’ Miss Bunting enquired, placing her coffee cup back down on the table.
‘A fair number. We have some living on the estate. Jamaicans mostly. The rest are Indians and mestizos. We have to provide separate accommodation for them. The Indians don’t like working with ladinos.’ “Ladino” was the local term for anyone who wasn’t an Indian.
‘How many workers do you have?’ Miss Bunting asked.
‘It varies, depending on the season. At the moment, about – oh, here’s Gunther.’ Catesby pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.
Gunther Weiman was making his way towards us through an archway at the rear of the courtyard. He was a striking figure in his mid fifties, tall and white haired with a neatly trimmed beard. His face was thin but his eyes were alert. He smiled warmly as he arrived at the tables. ‘Good evening everyone!’ he said, in a light, welcoming voice. ‘Hello, George. Arthur. And Mr Reeves, always a pleasure.’ His accent was mild and his grasp of English excellent. The advantages of being married to an Englishwoman, I supposed. Mr Catesby made the introductions.
‘A pleasure to meet you,’ I said, gripping the German’s hand firmly. ‘It was kind of you to invite us. This is Miss Bunting, one of my clerks.’ Miss Bunting and I were the only newcomers. Everyone else seemed to know each other already.
‘An enchanting young woman,’ Mr Weiman observed. ‘My wife Susan is just seeing to the supper. She will be along shortly.’ He shifted his gaze to me. ‘So you must be the new passport control officer?’ He regarded me shrewdly.
‘For my sins,’ I said. From his amused expression, I gathered Mr Weiman knew rather more about my job than perhaps he should. I hoped to goodness Freddie had not been speaking out of turn. ‘I understand you knew my predecessor, Mr Markham?’
The German’s face fell. ‘Giles, yes. I was sad to hear about his death. He seemed in such good spirits, when I last saw him.’
‘When was that?’ I enquired.
‘At the end of March, I believe. I am sure Freddie must have told you. He came down here, the weekend before he died.’
‘Ah, yes,’ I said, barely managing to mask my surprise. Freddie had told me no such thing.
Chapter Three
The wooden fans rotated mechanically above the long dining table. The hum of the generator was louder here than in the courtyard and the electric light bulbs flickered occasionally as the home made power supply ebbed and flowed. The dining hall was at the rear of the hacienda. Wide archways led out onto the back terrace and down into the garden, where the generator was situated in its own small outhouse. Windows peppered the length of the room on two sides, but at this hour everything outside the main building was shrouded in darkness. Inside, however, the room was alive with conversation.
A house boy, Moses, was ladling soup from a fine silver bowl. He was a short, rather spindly lad of about fourteen, in a pristine white shirt, high waisted trousers and a black bow tie. A maid, slightly older and also coloured, was cutting up several loaves of fresh bread to go with the soup. She wore a plain brown dress and had her hair neatly tied back away from her face.
I was sitting in the middle of the table, facing the back windows, and was doing my best to make polite conversation with an alarming variety of house guests. A veritable League of Nations had been gathered for supper: German, Italian, American, even a couple of Guatemalans. Since leaving England, I had had to get used to consorting with people of all ranks but this w
as hitting a new low. A coffee farmer, an engineer, a fruit seller and a bank manager, not to mention several steely wives of varying provenance. The seating had been arranged in the traditional fashion, with no two men sitting next to each other, meaning I had been squeezed between my own Miss Bunting on the one side, in a pretty floral dress, and the banker’s wife on the other. She at least was English, a severe looking woman in her mid forties with an aristocratic nose and an abrupt side-parting. Her tongue was rather sharp, however, and her voice cut across the babble of conversation with practised ease.
I was in a foul mood as I took my first sip of the broth. The weekend was not working out the way I had imagined it at all. Freddie Reeves had promised me a relaxed couple of days away from the city, gambling and drinking with the boys. I had not expected to be part of a full blown dinner party and, much as I missed the country weekends of old England, I had no desire to spend two consecutive evenings making polite conversation with the wives of various local bigwigs. Unfortunately, it appeared, I was not to be given the choice.
That was not the only reason for my ill humour, however. It was this whole business with Giles Markham.
I had had a few words with Freddie about that before we had descended for supper. His bedroom was next door to mine, on the west side of the house. I had been given a front facing room, with Freddie in the middle and Miss Bunting towards the rear on the same landing. I wasn’t sure of the wisdom of placing those two quite so close together but the larger bedrooms on the east side had been reserved for the married couples. Freddie had left his door open a crack and, once Maurice had helped me into my best bib and tucker, I had knocked briefly and bustled into his room.
Freddie regarded my entrance with some surprise. He was already in his shirt sleeves but had not yet fastened his cuffs into place. The man was a meticulous dresser – he had a certain vanity, despite his lowly origins – but he did like to take his time about it. ‘Everything all right, Henry?’ he asked as I stepped through the door.
‘No, everything is not all right,’ I hissed, keeping my voice low. ‘What the devil do you think you’re playing at, Freddie? You never told me Giles Markham came here the weekend before he died.’
‘Didn’t I?’ His eyes twinkled. ‘I thought I’d mentioned it.’
‘You know damned well you didn’t.’ I closed the door behind me. ‘What’s going on Freddie? Why did you bring me here? It wasn’t just to play cards, was it?’
Freddie sat down quietly on the bed. ‘No, it wasn’t,’ he admitted. He frowned and took a moment to gather his thoughts. ‘The thing is, Henry, I was down here that last weekend. I don’t know what it was, but there was a strange atmosphere. Oh, everyone was very civil. We played games and we drank. Had a good laugh. But something wasn’t right. And then, the next day, Giles shot himself.’
I moved across the room to the bed. I could not pretend I liked what I was hearing. ‘You think there was something suspicious about his death? The circumstances of it, I mean?’
Freddie shook his head. ‘No, not at all. He took his own life. There’s no doubt about that. He shot himself at point blank range. I just haven’t the faintest idea why. I mean, all this talk of gambling debts. We did gamble that weekend, but only for pin money. He can’t have lost more than ten dollars the whole weekend.’
‘He must have had debts of some sort,’ I pointed out, sitting myself down on the bed next to him. ‘He’d been creaming cash from the visa account for months.’
Freddie grimaced. ‘Yes, I know.’
‘The accounts were almost two thousand pounds adrift. I’ve seen the books.’
‘But isn’t some of that money meant to be diverted?’ He scratched his chin. ‘I mean, to finance your...extra curricular activities?’
I scowled. ‘You’re not supposed to know about that.’ He was right, though. A sizeable chunk of the visa receipts was routinely appropriated by British Intelligence and used to fund a small network of spies across Central America. I was only just beginning to get to grips with that side of things, but Freddie – as a bona fide diplomat – was not meant to know anything about it.
He grinned mischievously.
‘But I assure you, everything of that nature is properly accounted for.’ We were, however, straying from the point. ‘So what exactly did you hope to achieve by inviting me here this weekend? You weren’t just being friendly, were you?’
‘Oh, that too. But no, I did have an ulterior motive. Look, Henry. I’m sorry if I invited you here under false pretences. The thing of it is, I really liked Giles. He was a good bloke.’ Freddie sighed, glancing down at his neck tie, which was resting on the blanket between us. He stood up, took hold of it and moved across to the bedside mirror. ‘I had to clean out his flat after he died, you know. There was nothing there. No sense of a life, after three years out here.’
‘In our profession, it doesn’t do to put down roots.’
‘No. But I just thought, maybe if you had a nose around, well...’ He regarded me hopefully in the mirror. ‘You might be able to work out what happened to him. See if there was anything amiss.’
My eyes narrowed. ‘Why me?’
‘Well, after all...’ He chuckled quietly, adjusting his tie. ‘You did sort out that business on the Richthofen earlier this year.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘You’re not supposed to know about that either.’ Maurice and I had crossed the Atlantic from Spain on a Zeppelin airship. En route, my superiors had charged me with the task of recovering some important documents for Scotland Yard; but things had quickly got out of hand and several people had died. It had been in all the papers when we had arrived in New York. Thankfully, I had been travelling under an assumed name. ‘What is the point of changing your identity if everybody still knows who you are?’
Freddie grinned. ‘You don’t have to worry. It’s only the top people at the legation who know.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, only the top people?’
‘Well, and me too.’ He laughed, pulling back from the mirror. ‘But we were told to expect a Mr Reginald Bland as our new passport control officer.’ That was the name I had been travelling under on the Zeppelin. ‘But then you turned up, Mr Henry Buxton. And of course the minister received a report. Nothing confidential. Just the broad strokes of the affair. But from what I hear, it was thanks to you the whole business was sorted out.’
‘Don’t believe everything people tell you.’ I snorted. ‘It was a fiasco from start to finish. I was lucky to get out of it alive.’
‘But you do have experience as...’ He smiled again. ‘Well, for want of a better word, as a detective.’
That was too much. ‘I am not a detective!’ I exclaimed, jumping angrily to my feet. ‘For goodness sake, I don’t know one end of a magnifying glass from the other. And this is meant to be my weekend off. The last thing I want to do is get involved in any skulduggery. I’ve had my fill of that for one life time, thank you very much.’
‘But you are...’
‘I’m not a policeman,’ I insisted. ‘I’m just a passport control officer.’
‘And a spy!’
‘Keep your voice down, for God’s sake. Yes, I am a spy. But it’s not like I’m any kind of secret agent. Not like you see in the pictures. I’m an administrator. You know that. It’s not my job to get my hands dirty. I have other people to do that for me.’
‘What, like William Battersby?’ Freddie smirked.
‘No, outside the office. People you know nothing about. And shouldn’t know about.’
‘But you must be curious,’ he insisted, grabbing hold of the cuff links on the bedside table. ‘About what happened to Giles? Why someone would break into his flat after all this time?’
I moved back to the door. ‘You know what curiosity did to the cat, Freddie. In any case, you invited me here before any of that happened.’
‘I know.’ The matter had clearly been stewing in his mind for some time. ‘But this is the first chance I’ve had to get d
own here since...well, since Giles popped his clogs. It may sound crazy, but I’m convinced this place has got something to do with his death.’
‘Why would you think that?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.’
‘Look, Freddie.’ I sighed. ‘I appreciate you want to find out the truth. Giles was a friend of yours. It’s all very admirable. But believe me, I am the last person you want to get involved in any of this.’ If past experience was anything to go by, I would only make the situation a whole lot worse. ‘The best thing you can do is forget all about it. If something dreadful is going on here, we’ll find out all about it in the fullness of time. And if nothing is happening, then we have nothing to concern ourselves with. Now I suggest we go downstairs and get something to eat. And I don’t want to hear another bloody word about Mr Giles Markham this whole weekend. Is that clear?’
Frederick Reeves nodded glumly. He clipped the last cuff link into place.
We joined the other house guests at the dinner table. Freddie was seated near the head of the table, next to Mrs Weiman. I was two seats down, on the other side of Mrs Talbot, the banker’s wife. Her husband George was sitting directly opposite me, leaving me with little choice but to converse with the two of them. Mr Talbot was a smart, grey haired man in his late fifties, plump faced and sober in manner. He was a director at the Anglo-South American, the biggest bank in the region. He wore a pair of rounded spectacles and had a slow, ponderous voice.
‘Of course, being a British banker in this part of the world makes one persona non grata,’ he declared, stuffily. ‘The locals are happy enough to sign on the dotted line and take the money, but when it comes to repaying the loan...’ He lifted his soup spoon. ‘They resent every shilling.’
‘It’s the same the world over, I imagine,’ I responded politely. Bankers and moneylenders were rarely popular.
