Domino Island

by Desmond Bagley

  ‘How long is the runway?’

  ‘Pretty long. Six thousand and two feet, if you want to be exact. They could run commercial flights from here just as easily as from Benning, if ever they decided to develop this end of the island. But I guess with Mr Salton gone, that’s not going to happen any time soon.’

  I smiled wryly. ‘Oh, I’m not sure about that. I know a man in London who’s very interested in keeping Mr Salton’s investment plans alive.’

  We turned the corner of the hangar and I saw the aircraft: a Lear executive jet, about half a million dollars’ worth of luxurious machinery. Its purpose was to transport a busy man about his empire. But the man was dead and his wife apparently not air-minded. No wonder Haslam looked worried: it was odds-on that Mrs Salton would cash in this white elephant and divert the proceeds to something more useful.

  He introduced me to Philips, a short, stocky man with a London accent – not Cockney, but unmistakeably metropolitan. We exchanged brief greetings and then Philips engaged Haslam in a technical conversation. I stood looking at the plane for a while, then butted in. ‘Do you mind if I go aboard?’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Haslam. ‘Just don’t smoke while we’re on the ground.’

  I climbed the boarding ladder and entered the fuselage to find a flying office complete with all modern conveniences, most of them built-in. There were two desks, one with an electronic calculator and a recording machine, the other fitted with a typewriter, another tape recorder and a photocopier. I guessed that was Mrs Forsyth’s post. I opened a filing cabinet nearby; it was empty.

  I moved aft and opened a door in a bulkhead. There was a corridor leading to the tail. I went along it and found myself in the galley, gleaming in stainless steel. I checked a cupboard at random and found what would have been a well-stocked cocktail cabinet had there been any bottles in it. Of course, if the aircraft had been due to go back to the manufacturers, the booze would have been tactfully removed.

  The galley was spotless but there was not a scrap of food in it. Even the refrigerator was empty. I pulled down a flap and found myself looking into a microwave oven. After another glance around I decided there wasn’t anything for me here so I went forward again along the corridor.

  There was a door on the starboard side which led into a sleeping cabin with accommodation for two. The beds were narrow but comfortable, as I found by testing, and they were made up ready for use. I slid open a wardrobe door and found three suits in various weights of cloth. When I checked the pockets I found nothing, not even a shred of lint. Whoever valeted Salton knew their job.

  I drew a blank in the dressing table too. Neatly folded double-cuff shirts, underwear, ties, shoes, socks and nothing much else. All clean and tidy. But there was something missing and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

  When I got back to the main cabin, Haslam was climbing aboard. ‘What do you think of it?’ he asked.

  ‘Where’s the ticker tape and the teletype?’ I asked jokingly.

  He grinned. ‘It wasn’t for the want of trying.’

  Something clicked. ‘There’s something else missing,’ I said. ‘There are shirts back there but no cufflinks; ties but no tiepins.’

  ‘Mr Salton’s personal jewellery is kept in the safe,’ said Haslam.

  ‘A safe? I’d like to see inside that. Can you open it?’ He hesitated, so I said, ‘It’s all right, you won’t get into trouble. And you can breathe down my neck.’

  The safe was well hidden under the floor. It had a good combination lock and if you’d wanted to extract the whole contraption you’d have had to take the plane apart to do it. Haslam opened it and stood aside. I said, ‘How come you have the combination?’

  ‘There’s currency of different sorts in there,’ he said. ‘At most airfields we can operate on credit, but at some of the smaller ones – particularly in South America – we have to pay cash for gas, servicing and airfield charges. Sometimes Mr Salton wasn’t aboard, so he gave me the combination.’

  That sounded reasonable. I dug into the safe and produced several sheafs of foreign currency – American dollars, Brazilian cruzeiros, Ecuadorian sucres, Bolivian pesos, Peruvian soles and so on. It was quite a wad, even if it did look like Monopoly money. There were no Campanillan pounds but then those wouldn’t be needed.

  There were several objects in protective wallets: two cigarette lighters, one of gold and the other of what appeared to be stainless steel but was probably platinum, and two cigarette cases likewise. Four sets of cufflinks and four tiepins, two signet rings and an American silver dollar with a hole bored through it – a good luck piece?

  Nothing else.

  I put it all back then looked at Haslam. ‘Was all this stuff here when you took the plane back to the manufacturer?’

  The expression on his face was a mixture of shock and surprise. ‘You know, no one even thought of it. Mr Salton didn’t mention it and it never occurred to me.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I guess we’ve got to thinking of it as part of the standard equipment of the airplane – like the radio, say. Mr Salton’s clothes weren’t taken off, either.’

  ‘But the alcohol was,’ I said.

  Haslam shrugged. ‘The galley is cleaned out as a matter of course after every flight.’

  When I stopped to think about the kind of man I was investigating, it all sounded completely logical. The very rich are not just folks like the rest of us. One of the super-rich once said in surprise, ‘You know, a man with five million dollars can live just as though he were a rich man.’ That’s pretty high-level philosophy.

  ‘Anything else, Mr Kemp?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not for the moment.’

  Haslam went forward to join Philips in the cockpit or the flight deck or whatever fancy name they give it in planes that size. I sat down and began to go through drawers. I didn’t really expect to find anything, but old habits die hard. There’s a curious fascination about going through a man’s effects, delving into the minutiae of his life – not that there was much to find about Salton because the cupboard was bare apart from blank stationery, office knick-knacks and the like. Everything personal had been cleared out, presumably by the efficient Mrs Forsyth.

  Presently the plane began to move. We taxied up the runway and then turned. A loudspeaker over my head crackled and Haslam said, ‘Fasten your seatbelt, Mr Kemp.’

  I snapped the seatbelt closed and the plane roared off, climbing rapidly. It levelled off and the warning lights went out. Haslam said over the speaker, ‘Okay, Mr Kemp, you can come forward if you want to.’

  I found Philips at the controls and Haslam chatting to someone on the radio. He signed off and I said, ‘Who were you talking to?’

  ‘Air traffic control at Benning Airport.’

  ‘Do you have to do that, even on a flight like this?’

  ‘They like to know what’s in the air,’ he said. ‘It’s mostly for the benefit of the missile tracking station at Fort Edward. We’re down-range of Cape Canaveral and they don’t like unforeseen blips on their radar.’ He put his hands on the controls. ‘I’ll take her, Les.’

  I studied Philips. ‘You’re a long way from home, Mr Philips.’

  He half-turned in his seat so as to face me and somehow combined the movement with a shrug. ‘If you’re in the flying business you get around.’

  ‘Have you been working for Mr Salton long?’

  ‘Three years.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Haslam. ‘Ever since he moved back to Campanilla permanently.’

  We chatted for a while. Both Haslam and Philips seemed depressed by the death of Salton and their depression seemed to be an amalgam of worry about their jobs and a genuine regret for the death of their employer: they had both liked Salton and thought him a good boss.

  We flew a triangular course and came back to El Cerco flying low over the lagoon. By then I was back in the cabin with my belt fastened for landing, and I had a good view of the house on the tiny island.

  I could
even see the swimming pool and a diving board on which was a tiny figure that must have been Mrs Salton. As the plane went over, she dived and I caught the splash as she hit the water. Then the plane had passed and I lost sight of her.

  Back on the runway I said to Haslam, ‘Thanks for the flip.’

  ‘Did you find everything you wanted to know?’ he asked.

  I grinned at him. ‘Who does?’ I nodded pleasantly and walked away.

  He called out, ‘Okay, Les, let’s get the bird back into the nest.’ I turned and looked back to find him staring at me. I waved and he waved back, then I turned the corner of the hangar and looked out over El Cerco.

  THREE

  I

  ‘Kemp,’ said Mrs Salton lazily. ‘Is that Celtic, Norse?’

  ‘English of the English,’ I assured her. ‘There was a Will Kemp in Burbage’s company at the Globe Theatre. I like to think I have an ancestor who, perhaps, acted with Shakespeare.’

  ‘Did Shakespeare act?’

  ‘He’s supposed to have played the ghost in Hamlet.’

  We were sitting in voluptuous chairs by the swimming pool and sipping something cool and alcoholic from tall glasses. I had swum six lengths of the pool, paced easily by Mrs Salton, and then had flopped thankfully ashore trying not to feel ashamed of my winter-white English skin. The heat dried the bubbles of moisture from my torso even as I watched.

  I was waiting for her to come to the point, to come out with what she wanted to ask me. She wanted something or she wouldn’t have invited me back to the house.

  ‘Kemp,’ she repeated. ‘William Kemp. What do your friends call you?’

  I turned my head and looked at her. She filled her bikini rather better than Mrs Haslam, I thought uncharitably, but then she had youth on her side. ‘I’m known as Bill.’

  ‘And I’m Jill.’ She stretched out a hand, which I reached for amiably. It was a little late for this kind of introduction, but I went along with her.

  ‘On Campanilla we’re more informal than in England, especially when lounging by a pool.’ She put down her glass with a click. ‘Mr Stern is a wee bit stuffy but he means well. He’s trying to look after my interests.’

  ‘I’m sure he is,’ I said, not feeling at all sure. A widow with as much money as she had could prove to be quite a temptation.

  ‘You said you spoke to Don Jackson at the Chronicle. What did he tell you?’

  ‘This and that,’ I said offhandedly. ‘Political stuff, mostly. Background material.’

  ‘About David?’

  ‘Apparently he was on course to be the next Prime Minister.’

  She nodded. ‘It was very likely.’

  ‘I read one of your husband’s speeches,’ I said. ‘He was having quite a go at the government. But there was one reference I didn’t understand – he said something about hired bully boys. What would he have meant by that?’

  ‘Merely political rhetoric.’

  ‘No basis in fact?’

  ‘Maybe a little,’ she admitted. ‘The elections were coming closer and tempers were rising. Politics can be rougher here than in England, Bill.’

  ‘I can understand the bully boys,’ I said. ‘But what about the hired bit?’

  ‘David was a politician,’ she said. ‘He used words like weapons.’

  ‘And to hell with the truth. Is that it?’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ she said, with force in her voice. She took a deep breath. ‘I see that Jackson has been dropping poison in your ear.’

  ‘Is that what you think? You don’t seem to like Jackson.’

  ‘I don’t.’ She was silent and I waited for what she had to say next. At last she said, ‘All right. He once behaved towards me … rather objectionably.’

  ‘He made a pass at you?’

  ‘If you want to put it that way.’

  ‘It must have been a heavy pass,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you have him fired?’

  She stared at me. ‘Good heavens! It’s not a criminal offence to make a pass at the boss’s wife. Besides, he’s a good editor for the Chronicle.’

  ‘Did your husband know about this?’

  ‘No. And after that I kept out of Jackson’s way. I haven’t given him another chance.’ She picked up her glass. ‘So what did he really tell you?’

  ‘Nothing about you,’ I said, and wondered whether to pursue the matter. Conceivably I might have a further use for Jackson and if I didn’t tattle-tale to Jill Salton then I’d have a club to hold over his head. ‘Let’s talk about someone else. Do you know of a man called Negrini?’

  She sat up. ‘Mr Black – who doesn’t? But, for a stranger, you’ve been getting around.’

  ‘Not really,’ I said modestly. ‘It’s just that I’m exceptionally brilliant at my job. Do you know him personally?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did your husband?’

  ‘Of course. Gerry is very much a part of the social life of this island.’

  ‘Good. I’d like to meet him.’

  ‘Now that might be difficult, Bill. You see, Gerry is not available to all. He picks and chooses very carefully those with whom he associates. I doubt if you’d get near him. What do you want to see him about?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that,’ I said honestly. ‘It’s a private matter.’ I didn’t want to tell her that I was investigating her husband’s connections with the gambling interests. If she didn’t know about it the news might come as a shock, because she had given all the indications of believing him to be a genuine liberal.

  ‘Does it concern David?’

  ‘No,’ I lied. ‘It’s about something that came up just before I left England.’ Lying was something else that went with the job.

  ‘Is it urgent?’

  ‘Yes, in the sense that I have very little time on Campanilla.’

  ‘All right, I’ll introduce you. Would tonight be soon enough?’ She was smiling.

  ‘You can do it as quickly as that?’

  ‘Why not? All we have to do is to go into San Martin – to the Blue Water Casino. We’ll have dinner here first – I’ll even cook it myself. I don’t get into the kitchen nearly enough.’

  John came down to the poolside carrying a telephone. ‘A call for Mr Kemp,’ he said.

  That was Ogilvie. I had rung his hotel to find he was out so I had left the Salton number for him to call. As John bent to plug the telephone jack into a socket in the wall of the house, I said quickly, ‘I’d rather take it inside.’

  Jill sighed. ‘Oh, more secrets!’ She turned to John. ‘Mr Kemp will use an inside phone – and tell Anna she needn’t stay on.’

  ‘Very well, ma’am.’

  ‘And you can go off yourself, John, at any time.’

  John gave me a look of pure dislike and said evenly, ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  I followed him into a hall where he picked up a receiver, spoke into the mouthpiece, and then held it out. ‘Your call,’ he said. ‘Sir.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, and watched his upright back disappear among the greenery. ‘Kemp here.’

  ‘You wanted me?’ Ogilvie asked.

  ‘What’s new on the Rialto?’

  ‘I wish you’d stop quoting,’ said Ogilvie peevishly. He sounded tired. ‘Especially when you misquote. I’ve been talking to the police. They think the inquest went off fine.’

  ‘No foul play?’

  ‘None that was detectable. Winstanley’s report ought to be printed in Punch, though.’

  ‘The pathologist? Why – is it unreliable?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet heavily on it, let’s put it that way. The body was in a bad condition but from what I hear, Winstanley is worse. Seventy and shaky.’

  ‘But highly respected,’ I said. ‘What happened to Salton – buried or burned?’

  ‘Buried. Are you thinking of poison?’

  ‘I’m not thinking of anything much. Did you see Jackson?’

  ‘I saw him. As you said, a creep. But an informative creep. He’ll lose hi
s job if he doesn’t stop that sudden rush of words to the mouth.’

  Ogilvie told me what Jackson had said, which didn’t add anything to what I knew already.

  ‘I’d better tell you how I’ve been doing here.’

  ‘Where’s here?’ asked Ogilvie. ‘All I have is a telephone number.’

  ‘El Cerco – the Salton place.’ I brought him up to date and he said, ‘Bill, do you suspect murder?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘Look, you’re the boss but does it make any difference to us? We pay out anyway.’

  ‘It all depends on who has done the murdering.’

  His voice was incredulous. ‘Mrs Salton?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ I said. ‘Not out loud, anyway. Do some checking on the political side if you can. I’ll tackle the Salton Estates end tomorrow. Tonight I’ll be at the Blue Water Casino tying up Mr Black. I’ll be there pretty late, say, about ten o’clock. I’m having dinner here. Mrs Salton is preparing it with her own fair hands.’

  ‘If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you’d better watch for the arsenic in the artichokes. What’s she like, anyway?’

  I considered before I spoke. ‘She’s fiftyish, runs to about two hundred pounds on the hoof, sallow complexion, dark moustache. You’ll be seeing her tonight at the casino.’

  ‘Ouch!’ said Ogilvie. ‘Bill, you work bloody hard for your money. See you later.’

  He rang off and I grinned as I put down the telephone. But he was right; I do work bloody hard for my money. There was more to this than the possibility of a plain old insurance scam. My reputation as the best consultant in the business was at stake.

  Back at the pool there was no one around so I sat down and contemplated the water. I had waited for Jill Salton to come to the point and all she had come up with was Jackson. Very curious. I thought of Jackson and Jill Salton, separately and in conjunction, and came to no conclusion.

  Presently John came along. ‘Mrs Salton says to tell you she’s in the kitchen if you’d like to go along there.’

  ‘Where’s the kitchen?’