Running Scared (The Eddie Malloy series Book 4)

by Richard Pitman

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I’ve pulled together a little story of my own that might interest you. Want to join me for dinner tomorrow?’

  34

  Although there were just two of us in his cavernous wood panelled dining room Broga had hired a catering firm to prepare dinner. He didn’t employ a cook because half the time he wasn’t at home.

  He sat across from me at the big teak table as impeccably turned out as ever in an expensive dark blue suit and white shirt. His tie was pale blue with small yellow diamonds and a Rolex hung on his wrist.

  I looked at him, wondering who the women were in his life and what did they give the man who has everything?

  With the season winding down, I could afford some carelessness in my diet and I enjoyed four excellent courses, accepted a large brandy but declined a cigar. By the end of the meal, I had plenty to think about.

  Throughout it, Broga had been pushing crockery aside to slide papers and photographs across to me. The first thing he showed me was a black and white ten by eight picture of a man whose face I knew but couldn’t quite place.

  Broga prompted me. ‘Think back to this time last year. We’d been out for a meal then came here for a drink, you, me and Charles. This guy was with us.’

  I looked again. A thin man in what looked like a safari suit: black curly hair receding at the front, olive skin, close set dark eyes, long chin, Arabic looking though as my memory scratched around I recalled he had an English name. ‘Er, Clarence, no . . . Clen . . .’

  ‘Clemence.’

  ‘Ah, I remember, you’d taken him on that day as an agent for the transport work.’

  ‘That’s right, drumming up cargo business between here and Barbados.’

  ‘He’s based, there, isn’t he?’

  ‘Has been for years. Worked in shipping since he was a teenager.’ He gestured at the picture. ‘That’s him leaving the Harbour Master’s office in Bridgetown last week.’

  ‘Right.’ I waited.

  ‘I know it’s a long time ago but do you remember when we came back here that night did Clemence come through the front door behind me?’

  I smiled. ‘Broga, it’s all I can do to remember that night at all.’

  ‘I know, we’d had a few but the first thing I did that night when I opened the door was punch in the code on the alarm system.’

  I looked at him, at the photos, the investigators’ reports and I said, ‘And you think Clemence remembered the code and passed it to the people who burgled you back in February?’

  Broga smiled and tapped his nose with a beautifully manicured finger. ‘I think he didn’t bother passing it on, I think he did it himself.’

  ‘You do or your private eyes do?’

  ‘Let’s say they pointed me in a certain direction. Look . . .’ He slid more papers toward me.

  ‘. . . The records from Archangel’. That was Broga’s cargo boat. ‘22nd February, the weekend of 11th and 12th March, on each of those dates Clemence was in England.’

  The dates were highlighted in yellow on the pages, as were three more.

  Broga pointed at them. ‘14th April, the fire at the plantation. 29th, the explosion. 1st May, the threatening call to Carroway. Guess where Clemence was on those dates?’

  ‘Barbados.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Who else does he work for?’

  ‘That’s what my guys are now concentrating on but here’s the interesting part from your point of view.’ He passed me another piece of paper. ‘That’s an inventory of the Archangel’s cargo when she left Southampton for Barbados on 10th January last.’

  The yellow highlighter picked out ‘Horsefeed: 100 kg in large packing case’. The case had been uplifted from the offices of a company in Newbury, a company unfamiliar to me and the delivery note said it would be collected by an agent in Bridgetown.

  Another sheet of A4 floated over. ‘That’s an inventory of the stock that was unloaded in Bridgetown.’

  I scanned the page: no packing case with horsefeed samples.

  Next, a sheet headed, Loss Report stating that the packing case had been lost overboard during the night of 13th January in heavy seas and that a crew member had been disciplined for not securing it properly.

  Broga said, ‘Four months ago. We’re still waiting for the insurance claim.’

  ‘Which makes you think the case didn’t contain horsefeed.’

  He smiled indulgently and I knew there was something I hadn’t cottoned onto. ‘When did your man Conway go missing?’

  I thought back. ‘The 8th January I think it was.’

  ‘The case was collected from Newbury on the 9th. Also, didn’t you say your little secret squirrel guy at Huntingdon told you Conway had gone on a sea voyage and wouldn’t be coming back?’

  35

  We spent the next few days making plans. The Archangel was due to leave Portsmouth on 2nd June and part of the cargo would be three horses Broga had bought at Newmarket. He was sending them to be trained in Barbados. I was to accompany them then spend a few weeks holidaying at Broga’s estate with a ride in a jockey’s invitation race at the Garrison Savannah racetrack thrown in.

  At least that would be my story to Clemence who’d be one of my travelling companions. The plan was to play it open and friendly, see what signals Clemence gave out, maybe get him drunk, do some eavesdropping on his conversations with the crew and just generally nose around, hopefully without alerting suspicion.

  Broga was confident Clemence had no idea he was being watched. Even if he did come across as wary, maybe I could glean something from the crew. The guy who’d been disciplined for the loss of the packing case in January might just be sufficiently aggrieved to mouth off.

  While Clemence was away from the island, Broga’s investigators would concentrate on his activities there. They’d discovered that the Newbury Company the packing case had been collected from had ceased trading leaving no information on the whereabouts of its directors.

  It had been a private company registered in the Isle of Man. Broga said it could prove impossible to find out who had set it up. He told me the directors might simply have been strangers picked off the street whose names were used to set up the Company, which they would then sign over to the real owner without his or her name having to be revealed anywhere. All legal in an offshore company.

  The company had registered its business as ‘Bloodstock Products’ though the investigators could find no one among the other tenants of their building who could recall seeing regular deliveries or pickups. Their office had been small and staffed only by a receptionist.

  In the week before departure, I tried several times to set up meetings with McCarthy. I left messages on his machine saying I had important news on Conway but Mac proved elusive. He had his secretary ring me to say he was extremely busy and would call me soon.

  The twice I managed to get through on his mobile we were mysteriously cut off and I began to wonder if he was following leads of his own, ones he didn’t want me to know about.

  The more I reflected on how neatly and suddenly Bill Keating’s case had been tied up the more I thought it stank. Conway had been very wily and it was unlikely he’d leave damning evidence lying around.

  If he holed the exhaust in Bill’s horsebox why not simply dispose of the crowbar? Why keep it? Why keep Bill’s fake brain scan at home? Surely, it would have been much easier to hide at his place of work. And why only Bill’s scan?

  If it had been Conway’s habit to retain the damaged scans then the chances were that more than one jockey was involved so where were those scans?

  The most puzzling to me was how had Conway got hold of the fake scan from Bill’s file in the Jockey Club’s offices? There had to be a strong possibility Conway was set up. When it was just puny little Malloy who was after him all that came my way were threats and blind alleys. As soon as the Jockey Club and the police get involved evidence is suddenly plentiful and easy to find.

  Supposing Con
way didn’t kill Bill Keating? Supposing whoever did kill him wanted the police to think Conway was the culprit? Simple, take Conway out of the picture and plant the evidence at his home. If Conway’s body was in the packing case lying at the bottom of the Atlantic then the police would be searching for him for an awful long time.

  But if I was right, we were back to square one: who killed Bill Keating and why?

  Maybe a few days spent with Harold Clemence would offer some clues. We didn’t want to make a big thing of the fact that I’d be supervising the horses on the voyage. Clemence only found out on the day before departure.

  Next morning, horses safely loaded and all cargo on board, Clemence hadn’t appeared. As the skipper went through the final preparations, I asked him where Clemence was. He told me Clemence had informed him last night he had unfinished business in England and would be flying back to Barbados in a couple of days.

  I tried to reach Broga but couldn’t. I had no choice but to sail and hope I could pick something up from the crew. At 7.22 on the morning of 2nd June, we left Southampton for the nine-day trip.

  36

  What I know about boats could be written on a square inch of sailcloth. All I can say about Archangel was that you could walk the length of her in sixty-four strides, her engine sounded like it was trying to burst upwards through the deck and the crew seemed competent and, for the most part, friendly.

  There were six of them, all black Bajans. The ship had always been a working cargo vessel and on outward trips the big hold was filled almost exclusively with bananas, the smell of which pervaded everything below decks.

  I spent the first couple of days trying to get on good, matey terms with everyone in the hope of picking up something on Clemence, making the best of his absence. But it turned out that only two of them had travelled with Clemence on previous trips, the skipper, a muscular little bloke who liked to be called Mister Dann rather than captain and a big guy known as George. George was six five tall, skinny with a booming voice that could be heard all over the boat, and he was more than happy to talk openly about Clemence although he didn’t reveal any secrets. Mister Dann was much more reserved and sometimes I’d catch him watching me.

  The fine weather held and the horses, on deck in wooden stable-boxes, gazed out by day and night as though looking for the gulls, which had fascinated them for hours as we left port.

  Since getting back my licence a couple of years ago I’d almost forgotten what it was like to work so closely with horses. Whether riding races or schooling for trainers, jockeys arrive to find the horse waiting, fully tacked up and ready. When they dismount, the groom takes the horse away and the jockey mounts the next on the production line.

  Each day now, I’d feed, water and groom the three, working hard to brush out the salt caking in their rapidly growing coats. One of them, aptly named Old Nick, proved a poor traveller whose temper worsened the further we went. Four days out, I gave up grooming him and I opened his door only to carefully put food and water in.

  The whipcord gelding had made his mark on the crate carrying him before it was even loaded.

  Swinging high above the ship on the end of the crane jib he’d kicked a hole in the side of his box and was still lashing out as the crate was bound hard against the starboard railings by a half inch thick steel hawser.

  About halfway through the voyage Old Nick gave us a real fright when he got cast in his box at two in the morning. Big George had come running for me, shouting and banging on my cabin door. He had a gun and wanted to shoot Old Nick who was thrashing around on the floor.

  Sometimes horses lie down and roll in their stables. Occasionally they find themselves stuck against a wall unable to stretch their legs to get up. Some lie quietly till help comes. Some panic and lash out. Old Nick had smashed through the wall.

  When we got him to his feet I saw that his mad thrashing around had cost him an eye. I patched the socket up and prayed it wouldn’t get infected.

  The remainder of the voyage passed without me learning anything except the guidebook facts about Barbados and as the lights of the island came into view around dusk on 11th June, I stood at the rail and recalled what I’d learned.

  Barbados measures twenty-one miles by fourteen. It is the most easterly of the West Indies. Top exports: sugar, rum and oil. Two hundred and sixty thousand people live there, most of them Christian. They spend Barbados dollars and their life expectancy is seventy-three years.

  Reflecting on life at seventy-three, I went below to start packing. When I came back on deck, I was contemplating death at twenty-nine.

  I was in my cabin when I heard the explosion and felt the boat lurch to the left then swing round throwing me against the upright of my bunk. My first thought was that somehow we’d hit the harbour brickwork before I remembered that we were still too far out for that.

  The boat seemed to right itself then quickly slip downwards again. Pushing away from the bed, I grabbed the door handle. The long passage outside tilted badly leaving me a slope to climb as I tried to get back on deck.

  I turned and, using the walls for support, forced myself along the passageway toward the stairs and the shouts and curses of the crew.

  I smelled smoke and fumes.

  Away to my left I heard what sounded like a monster slurping and sucking in water.

  Stepping onto the deck I almost fell sideways down its forty-degree angle. The crew were desperately trying to launch the lifeboat on the low side, shouting, screaming in panic.

  The horses.

  Hanging from the rail, I hauled myself across to where the three boxes were and yanked the doors open. The horses turned their quarters to me and the door thinking that was where the enemy was, that was where the defensive kicks should be aimed. But they kept overbalancing, crashing sideways against the wall to make the planks creak and heave at the squealing nails.

  If the boxes were still fixed to the deck when we went under they’d have little chance of survival. If I could get them out, they might manage to swim ashore.

  I needed help.

  Making my way as best I could I reached the dipping rail and the panicking crew, four of whom were hacking with axes and knives at the tangled ropes which still held the lifeboat suspended swaying just feet above the water.

  I grabbed the shoulder of the first man I reached. ‘I need help! I need some help with the horses!’

  Without even turning to look, he cursed and lashed out backwards with his elbows trying to push me away. I said, ‘Hey, come on! Don’t panic. We’ll all get off.’

  He ignored me and kept struggling with the ropes. Behind me, I heard two mighty whacks in quick succession and as I turned to look, I saw a steel shod hoof bursting through the rear section of the middle box. Four more kicks followed smashing a large hole in the wood. It gave me an idea.

  Beside me, one of the big guys was raising a long axe to strike again at the ropes. I knew he wouldn’t surrender it easily and I needed it very quickly.

  The sea was through the rails now.

  When he was at full stretch, I punched him hard just below the right armpit. He grunted and the shaft of the axe slipped through his loosening fingers. I grabbed it and hauled my way back up to the box.

  Old Nick continued kicking at the planks and I worked on the edges higher up battering till the nails came out. As the planks sprung free, the horse sensed escape and pushed his rump against the weakening timbers. I stopped swinging the axe and stepped to the side as the big chestnut quarters came through, a jagged splinter piercing the sweating skin.

  The boat bucked and lurched sickeningly and I fell backwards as the horse burst through the wall. Panic-stricken, he fought to keep his feet but the deck moved like a splintering treadwheel under his hooves, and he slithered down to the rail and the gathering sea.

  The water was quite calm, bubbling and gurgling in satisfaction as it gradually swallowed him and the boat. The other two still cowered in their boxes.

  A steel hawser anchor
ed the boxes firmly although the deck angle was so ridiculous now my mind was having trouble processing it.

  I was lying flat, my feet resting on the lower rails of the port side. Without knowing for sure, I sensed that the crew had gone. Just the two horses and me. I knew I could make it. We were no more than five hundred yards from shore and the water would be warm. I was a strong swimmer.

  I stretched full length to swing the axe one-handed at the cleats holding the hawser end. The axe head missed and bit deeply into the wood surrounding the cleat. Wrenching the blade clear I swung again aiming for the damaged part hoping to weaken it but the head hit the steel cleat this time, ringing the vibrating shock along my arm to numb my shoulder.

  Changing hands with the axe, I swung again hitting the wood on the other side of the cleat. Beneath my feet, the sea sucked, clearing its throat as the boat turned slowly till the deck stood vertical, slamming the two horses against the walls of their boxes.

  I watched the bulging planks, willing the nails to break free. But they were holding and the poor beasts were going to go down with the boat. I tried a final swing of the axe but as I raised it, the boat surrendered and turned slowly over.

  I pushed clear hearing the sound of metal tearing through wood then the pinging swish and crack that told me the cleat had finally given way, torn from the deck by the weight of the boxes.

  As I tumbled into the water more sounds of rending timber and squealing nails came and I hoped and prayed that the boxes had crumpled releasing the horses.

  Horses can swim fairly well and there had to be a fighting chance we’d all get back safely.

  If the boat didn’t drag me under.

  37

  It was going straight down as though launched vertically toward the ocean bed. The speed it sank at caused a minor whirlpool that sucked at me as I tried to swim free.