by Basil Copper
“I’m looking for some information, dad,” I told him.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” he said. We shook hands and as his palm came into contact with the rustling paper another expression came into his eyes. He looked down at the note which sort of quickly undulated its way into the pocket of his faded blue pants.
“That’s different,” he said. “Anything to ’blige a stranger.”
He was an American for sure, but I couldn’t place his accent. I took out the photograph of Grosvenor. The death hadn’t yet been released to the Press and in any case the news had been too late for today’s edition, so it was quite safe.
“Have you seen this man around lately?”
He took the piece of paper and squinted at it, shielding his eyes against the sun.
“What’s he done? Welshed on his washing machine payments?” he said with a snickering laugh.
“He’s an old friend of mine,” I said. “I was told he was staying on the island and I’m trying to trace him.”
He looked at the picture again. I was pretty sure he’d seen him before he spoke.
“Looks like some other friends got to him first,” he said with another whinnying laugh. I looked at him sharply.
“Meaning what?” I said.
“Saw him just yesterday,” he replied. “Think he’s staying up at Catamaran on t’other side of the island. He went fishing in the afternoon with two guys. They hired a boat just down the jetty there.”
He jerked a tobacco-stained finger in the direction of a Boat Hire sign farther down the boardwalk.
“Didn’t seem very keen on goin’, though. They was almost draggin’ him last I saw of ’em.”
I looked at him again. “A big guy and a little fellow?” I asked.
He met my gaze unwaveringly. “That’s right. They friends of yours?”
“I think I know them,” I said. “You didn’t think this was peculiar?”
“Weren’t no business of mine,” he said almost defiantly.
“Listen, son, I been setting on this jetty takin’ the sun for the last thirty years and I seen some pretty peculiar characters come and go. Don’t pay to be too nosey. I aim to go on restin’ my ass for the next thirty, God willin’.”
“Yeah, well make sure your big end doesn’t give out,” I told him. “Thanks for the information.”
He spat and settled himself more comfortably on the low stone wall he was using as a seat. I paused before turning away.
“You didn’t happen to hear where they were going?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Too far away.”
I left him and went back towards the pier and the police launches. As I came up Clay turned towards me. He handed me the glasses.
“Boat going out now,” he said.
I focussed up just in time to see a dinghy driven by a small outboard pass round the counter of The Gay Lady. I couldn’t make out the seaman in the brief glimpse but I could see the small runt in the red T-shirt sitting in the stern, except that now he was wearing a jersey with Gay Lady in white letters stitched across it. I handed the glasses back to the Colonel.
“That’s the man,” I said. “But I’d let things lie for a bit if I were you. We’ve got nothing but suspicions to go on for the moment. Best to keep an eye on who comes and goes from the yacht and bide our time.”
“Sensible advice,” said Clay. “Did you learn anything?”
He looked back down the jetty and I realised he had seen my talk with Sinbad.
“Jackpot,” I said. I told him what I had found out. He looked pleased.
“You get aboard and make yourself comfortable,” he said. “I’ll have a watch put on the yacht. One of the chaps can easily do this from the office window without anyone being the wiser. And I must get some information out. I won’t be five minutes.”
He went back up along the jetty and disappeared. Five minutes passed, then ten. I got fidgety and went back up the path. When I got near the police officer I met Clay coming back down. At the same time my friend with the broad behind came round one of the ornamental cannon.
“I just remembered somethin’,” he called out, as he met us at the corner of the path.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” Clay said with a gesture of disgust. “I’ve got bogged down. Phillips wants me to come over and sort something out on North Shore Drive. Senior officer and all that.”
He smiled wryly. “Unless you’d like to run over to Cucumber Cay with the constable. It would be a big help…”
The rest of his words were drowned as the dock-side loafer caught hold of my arm. “That’s it,” he screeched triumphantly. “That’s the place. I remember now. That’s where the three fellows were going fishing yesterday.”
I stared at him. Things were beginning to add up fast.
“Where’s Cucumber Cay?” I asked automatically, forgetting that Clay and the constable would know.
Sinbad clutched at my arm again. “It’s Cucumber Cay,” he said. “It’s called that on account it’s a cucumber shape.”
“I thought it was triangular,” I said. He blinked but said nothing.
“Well, yes,” said Colonel Clay clearing his throat awkwardly.
“Now let’s consider these points, Michael.”
We started walking back to the jetty. “The Cay is about four miles down,” he said. “Just a short trip. It may mean missing lunch, of course, but it’ll be another useful check.”
“Pleased to do it,” I said.
I jumped on board the launch. The constable was already casting off. He saluted as Clay gave him his instructions. The engine was opening up to a muffled roar and Clay’s hurrying figure was already minute. I saw that the loafer had already gone back to his seat on the wall. I hadn’t thanked him but no matter. He had my gratitude in his pocket, where it would do him most good.
As we made the harbour entrance—it was really two overlapping stone moles—we passed within a few hundred yards of The Gay Lady. She was a pretty impressive layout and sparkled with brass and white paintwork. I got down off my conspicuous position leaning on the cabin top and sat in the stern just in case anyone was looking over but nothing moved.
It was already a quarter to one and like the Colonel said looked like I should miss my lunch. As soon as we cleared the harbour the constable opened her out and we started to cream through the water, throwing up spray in a slight ground swell that had started. He kept about a mile off shore and after about a quarter of an hour I could see a long, low shape coming up to starboard.
“Cucumber Cay,” said the constable, spinning the wheel professionally to bring the nose of the big launch round. I offered him a cigarette and as we smoked he enlarged on our destination.
“Nothin’ there but the refrigeration plant. They got a jetty on the seaward side. They kill cattle on the spot as well as store meat and they’re able to load and unload cargo in deep water.”
I soon saw what he meant. We were doing about twelve knots and as the constable started his run in to the landward side of Cucumber Cay, I could see the jetty he had spoken of, jutting out, a black, fretted shape against the sea-silver on the ocean side.
He idled in to a small pier and tied up. White sand ran inshore to meet shrubby vegetation and limestone. The place didn’t exactly look a hive of industry. Half a dozen concrete buildings were visible through the trees, there were pens and outbuildings, and I could hear the deep-chested lowing of cattle somewhere above the mumble of the surf.
“Stay here,” I told the constable. He looked surprised and disappointed.
“It’s only a routine check,” I told him, “but in case of trouble you could do far more good by getting word back to Colonel Clay. Keep your eyes peeled and if I’m not back inside an hour sound the siren. If that doesn’t raise me within a few minutes get off-shore and back to Stanley Bay.”
He nodded and waved as I jumped off the boat and on to the boards of the rickety jetty. I walked away inland, until I came on a dusty path through the stunted ve
getation. A big black and white sign, faded with years of exposure to the harsh sun, spelled out; AJAX COLD STORAGE COMPANY: PRIVATE. I went on in through a gap between the buildings. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. The back of the place was filled with old oil drums and other gear.
It was bigger than I had thought. The humming of generators filled the air and I passed several open-sided lairage pens filled with cattle and sheep which gave off a warm stench, strong and unmistakable from under the big tin roof which protected them from the sun.
I came round a comer a bit sharply and almost ran into a coloured labourer coming up from the jetty I could now see on the other side. He looked startled but he didn’t change his expression when I showed him my typed sheet from Colonel Clay.
“That’s all right, sah,” he said, handing it back to me incuriously. “Look around all you want. Mr. Frost’s gone over to Stanley Bay this afternoon but I guess he won’t mind. He’ll be back in around an hour if you got the time to spare.”
I thanked him and went on across a cleared space towards a long row of concrete deep freeze chambers; these were what I was mainly interested in. They were under a big overhanging steel roof with a concrete apron and loading bay underneath. A row of electric trucks stood off on one side, evidently used for transporting sides of beef.
The whine of electrical machinery filled the air and there was a big switchboard labelled; DANGER in red letters a foot high. Then I saw why the place was so open. Vast sliding wooden doors were folded back and there was a metal groove in the floor so that the whole place could be closed up. I guessed it made operations easier when they were unloading a whole cargo into the chambers at the same time.
I picked number six, the farthest freezer on the right-hand side. It looked the oldest of the bank, but apart from that nothing distinguished it from the others. The door was painted red and it had big black metal hinges. On the outside were locks and temperature gauges, but the whole thing at the moment was merely closed by the heavy steel latch. I lifted this and found myself sweating as I pulled the big door back. That didn’t last for long.
A blast of Arctic air hit me. I saw the lamps inside shining on thousands of ice crystals, the muslin-sheeted shapes of the carcasses on rails reaching in to the far distance. Lights burned evenly down the centre of the ceiling and my breath came frostily out of my throat.
I knew I had to be quick if I wanted to work through these sheds without freezing up; I stepped inside and found it necessary to button my coat right up to the collar straight away. I saw a slaughter-man’s heavy overall knee-length coat hanging up on a rack outside the freeze-chamber and put that on over the top.
I just wanted to make sure of something else before I went inside. By its design I felt sure this chamber had been built long before the war; modern set-ups cut off the interior lighting as soon as the outer door is closed. I stood just inside the entrance and then pulled the door shut. It closed with a click but the lights stayed on. This was useful; I had a small pocket fountain-pen torch on me, but this was a place I wouldn’t want to get lost in the dark.
There was a big lever just inside the door. I pulled this over and heard the latch on the outside click into the off position. I pushed the door wide about six inches and jammed a meat cleaver in the bottom to keep it open. Then I saw a rack near the chamber and went outside again. There was a collection of compressed air pistols for killing cattle. They were used for shooting a steel bolt into the animal’s brain. I don’t know why, but I picked up a couple of these and carried them into the freezer with me.
My breath came up like steam and my footsteps echoed hollow as I went down between the rows of frozen carcasses. I was walking on ice, almost breathing ice. I took a look at the thermometer just beyond the second bay; it was way down, and I didn’t scratch the frost away from the base to see just how far. What I could see was cold enough.
There was rack after rack of mutton and beef carcasses and it soon became obvious that I was unlikely to find much here; what was I looking for, I asked myself. Bloodstains? A button? Some frail hint that Grosvenor had been literally butchered in a scientific manner, with a row of sheep’s heads looking on? I had to grin to myself. It was a pretty macabre idea and I felt like a walking corpse myself as I made the rounds.
There was only one way in and presently I came up against a steel end-wall, and retraced my way back along the second aisle of the compartments. There were racks at each side wall and then two more in the middle, dividing the chamber into two. There was no other sound but the soft hum of generators and the place felt remote from the world.
I picked up the two pistols from the bench where I had laid them and carried them out with me. I say out, but that was a pretty optimistic word under the circumstances. When I got to the entrance I saw that someone had been there before me. The meat cleaver had gone from the position I had left it, and the door was closed. I gave an experimental pull on the lever but, as I had expected, it gave an inch or two and then I heard the click of the big latch outside as it came up against the locking bolt securing it.
I would have sweated if it hadn’t been so cold.
“Thanks for leaving the light, you bastard,” I said to no-one in particular. I lit a cigarette and the little flame made a pleasing sight. I put back the two pistols on the floor and sat down on a bench to think things out and have a smoke.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Ice-Man Cometh
1
I DIDN’T sit there long. The cold was bone-penetrating. I glanced at my watch. Though the position was serious it wasn’t dangerous and I wasn’t perturbed. The aptly-named Mr. Frost should soon be back, one of the workmen could open up the deep-freeze chamber, the constable would report back to Clay, anything could happen. As a gambit by our opponents it was indecisive. But it was damned uncomfortable, I had to admit.
The only part I couldn’t really understand was the light left burning—unless it had been to entice me in. Modem plants usually worked on the opposite principle, the light switching off as soon as the door was closed. Lucky for me though. I smiled at that, though it nearly cracked my lip. Some luck Faraday; right now I should have been tucking into the Catamaran’s lunch special in a temperature way up in the top eighties. Still, they couldn’t say a P.I. didn’t get variety.
I stood up and flexed my arms and then stamped about for a bit. That was great. It made me realise just how cold it was. My watch glass already had a thin casing of ice over it; I couldn’t see the temperature on the big wall thermometer—not that I wanted to see it anyway. I picked up one of the pistols and winced as my hand came into contact with it. I wrapped my handkerchief round the barrel and crashed it against the big main door of the vault.
It made a boom like all the clappers of hell, but for all the effect it had on my situation I might just as well have been an ant trying to punch its way out of a two-inch thick felt bag. I tried another half dozen blows but the only result was to crack long strips of ice off the main door; it seemed to be made of sheet steel. I started walking the whole length of the deep freeze—that way I might get some ideas and at least it would help to keep me warm. The cold was already penetrating my clothing; I began to calculate to myself how soon it would take me to freeze. It might not be so long as I had figured.
And of course, if anyone didn’t come within the next few hours then things would be serious. I looked at my watch again. I had already been imprisoned just over an hour; though it wouldn’t have given time for Clay to have received a message yet. Assuming the constable had obeyed my instructions, he would have waited at least an hour before sounding off with his siren. That would have been about now—though I certainly wouldn’t have heard it penned up here. Any minute he would be setting off back to Stanley Bay—providing he hadn’t been prevented from doing so. That was another point I didn’t like thinking about.
There were so many imponderables that I gave up and devoted all my attention to the freeze chamber. I totted up assets; not very mu
ch under the circumstances, unless you counted the two pistols for humane-killing, my fountain pen flash and the miscellaneous contents of my pockets. The humming of the generators of the freeze-unit set my thoughts turning in the direction of the current supply, but as I expected there were no interior cables or switch gear and any trunking or conduit there might be was thickly iced over and would not be easy to locate.
I could see that it wasn’t going to be a very amusing afternoon. And I couldn’t do anything clever with the light fitting, even if I’d been that handy with electricity, because I should then be left in the dark. I tried the door lever again when my pacing next brought me opposite but it remained immovable. I gave the door another pounding but all that did was to loosen some more splinters of ice. I listened again but there was nothing but the whine of the generators. I thought of the shimmering heat only a few yards away from the door and knew what a turkey must feel like when it gets to Christmas Eve.
I gave the deep-freeze another once-over, before lighting my second cigarette. I had some idea that the generating plant was situated over the top of freezer chambers, obviously for technical reasons and this place was no exception. The humming of the generator sets was loudest at a point almost where I was standing, inside the big main door. I tested this by walking to and fro, but it always brought me back to the same spot, give or take a foot or two. Over the roof where I figured the generators might be was solid ice, the same as the rest of the walls, but there might be an inspection trap or some sort of panel for maintenance purposes underneath those crystals.
Apart from relying on luck, this was the only alternative I had; it didn’t take me long to make up my mind. I hadn’t stayed in business by pushing my chances where luck was concerned and right now I needed the exercise for warmth. Using the skirt of my long coat for a glove I dragged a half-empty meat rack over to a point I judged the most promising. The more modern freezing plants had a sort of room over the chamber where all the maintenance work could be done; but this was an old job and they might have designed it with an unlocking panel to get at the machinery, whenever they de-frosted the freezer. Anyway, it was worth a try.
