Читать книгу Domino Island: The unpublished thriller by the master of the genre - Desmond Bagley, Desmond Bagley - Страница 14

‘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 his 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?’

He told me. He had taken off his white coat and was dressed neatly in smart civvies. ‘Are you going off duty now, John?’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said stolidly.

‘Were you here the day Mr Salton walked out – the last day he was seen alive?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do you know what Mr and Mrs Salton talked about just before he left?’

There was a sudden widening of his eyes, a movement quickly cancelled. He said quietly, ‘I don’t talk about the doings of my employer, sir.’

One in the eye for Kemp. I ought to have known not to pump the servants. Christ, what a lousy job I had. He stared at me steadily with defiant brown eyes, daring me to make something of it. He knew, all right! He knew what the Saltons had quarrelled about. But he wasn’t telling.

I said, ‘That’s good, John. Keep it that way.’

‘Is that all, sir?’

‘Yes.’ He turned away and I said, ‘How long have you worked for the Saltons?’

He was walking away as he said without turning his head, ‘Twenty-two years. It’s twenty-two years since I started with Mr Salton.’

I watched him until he was out of sight and thought what a right bastard I was, then I went into the changing room, showered, dressed and headed for the kitchen.

It was exactly what you’d expect to find in a house like that: a lot of stainless steel, eye-level ovens, islanded preparation counters, all gleaming and clean as a whistle. Jill Salton had changed, too. She was wearing a short frock, a simple little number you can buy anywhere for $1,000. As I arrived she said, ‘How do you like your martinis?’

I’m not a martini mystic. I shrugged and said, ‘As they come.’

‘You must get a lot of different martinis that way,’ she observed, and poured a healthy slug from a gin bottle into a shaker.

‘I like variety.’

She mixed the drinks and poured them, strained through cracked ice into chilled glasses taken from the refrigerator. ‘How often do you see my uncle?’

I smiled. ‘As little as possible. We don’t exactly rub shoulders.’

She handed me a glass. ‘He thinks a lot of you. He said so this afternoon.’

I sipped the martini. It was very good. ‘Face to face?’

‘Via satellite. He sang your praises a lot. He says you’re the best man in the business.’

‘I’ll have to remember that when I negotiate my next contract.’

She lifted her glass and her cool, green eyes appraised me over the rim. ‘What business would that be?’

‘What else but insurance? I’m a money man at heart.’

She smiled. ‘I doubt that. Are you married?’

‘Not at present.’

‘You sound as though you’ve been burned. You were married?’

I hooked over a chair with my foot and sat down. ‘Twice. My first wife died and my second divorced me.’

‘I’m sorry to hear about the first, and surprised at the second.’

‘Surprised?’

‘I can’t see how a woman in her right mind would let you get away.’

I thought she was joking but she seemed serious enough. Abruptly she put down her glass and walked across the kitchen to open the lid of a big deep freezer. I played it lightly and said to her back, ‘There was nothing to it. I didn’t wriggle off the hook – she threw me back.’

‘Why? Were you tomcatting?’

You ask some damn personal questions, Jill Salton, I thought, then reconsidered. Come to that, so did I. Perhaps this was her way of giving me a taste of my own medicine. ‘No,’ I said. ‘She didn’t like bigamy. I was married to the insurance industry.’

She took some packets to a counter and switched on an oven, then began to prepare the food. From what I could see, millionaires didn’t eat any better than the rest of us – just the same old frozen garbage. ‘Some women are fools,’ she said. ‘When I married David I knew what I was getting into. I knew he had his work and it would take up a lot of his time. But there’s a certain type of woman who doesn’t understand how important a man’s work can be to him.’ She paused with a knife upheld. ‘I suppose it means as much as having a baby does to a woman.’

‘You’re not the liberated feminist type, then. When were you married?’

‘Four years ago.’ She got busy with the knife. ‘Believe it or not, I was still a virgin at twenty-four.’

She was right – I did find it hard to believe. I wondered why the hell she was telling me all this. My acquaintanceship with beautiful young heiresses was admittedly limited, but I’d come across a handful in the way of business and none had felt impelled to tell me the more intimate details of her life. Still, statistically, anything can happen given a long enough period of time, and maybe she’d get around to telling me about the quarrel with her husband.

She said, ‘David was exactly twice as old as I was, give or take a couple of weeks. My family said it would never work.’

‘Did it?’

She turned her head and looked at me. ‘Oh yes, it worked. It worked marvellously. We were very happy.’ She looked down at the counter again and wielded the knife. ‘How was your first marriage?’

I looked back along the years. ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Very good.’

‘Tell me about her.’

‘Nothing much to tell. We married young. I was a second lieutenant and she was an army wife.’

‘So you were a soldier.’

‘Until ten years ago, when I started working with Western and Continental. I’m still in the reserves.’

‘What rank?’

‘Colonel.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘You must have been good.’

I laughed. ‘Good, but not good enough, tactically speaking.’ I found myself telling her about it.

I had worked my way upwards from my green commission with a rapidity that pleased me until I found myself a half-colonel commanding a battalion in Germany. I did not get on very well with my superior officer, Brigadier Marston, and the bone of contention was that we disagreed on the role of the army. He was one of the old school, forever refighting World War II, and thought in terms of massed tank operations, parachute drops of entire divisions and all the rest of the junk that had been made obsolete by the pax atomica. For my part, I could see nothing in the future but an unending series of counter-insurgency operations such as in Malaya, Cyprus and Aden, and I argued – maybe a bit too forcibly – that the army lacked training for this particular tricky job.

When Marston wrote my annual report it turned out to be a beauty. There was nothing in it that was actionable; in fact, to the untrained eye the damned thing was laudatory. But to a hard-eyed general in the War House, skilled in the jargon of the old boys’ network, the report said that Lt-Col William Kemp was not the soldier to put your money on. So I was promoted to colonel and I cursed Marston with all my heart. A colonel in the army is a fifth wheel, a dogsbody shunted off into an administrative post. My own sideline was intelligence, something at which I was particularly skilled, but my heart wasn’t in it. After a couple of years I negotiated very good freelance terms with Western and Continental, who paid willingly for my expertise. I would still be pushing pieces of paper around various desks but I’d be getting £15,000 a year for doing it. Marston, meanwhile, was in Northern Ireland, up to his armpits in IRA terrorists and wondering what the hell to do with his useless tanks.

I finished my story and looked up at Jill, who was staring hard at me. My army experience had exposed me to some brutal interrogation techniques, but Jill Salton could give my instructors points. ‘So that was it,’ I said. ‘I quit.’

‘But your wife had died earlier.’

‘I was stationed in Germany and my wife was flying out to meet me. The plane crashed.’

She said thoughtfully, ‘You must have married your second wife after you left the army.’

‘I did,’ I said. ‘But how did you figure that?’

‘Any woman who can’t stand the pace of living with a man who works for an insurance company would never be an army wife.’ She put dishes into the oven and closed the door. ‘Dinner in thirty minutes. Time for another drink.’ She came over and picked up my glass. ‘For you?’

‘Thanks.’

As she mixed another shakerful of martinis, she said, ‘What was it like when your wife died?’

‘Bloody,’ I said. ‘It gave me a hell of a knock.’

‘I know.’ She was suddenly still and when she finally turned her head towards me her eyes were bright with unshed tears. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Bill. You understand.’ She slammed down the shaker and said passionately, ‘This damned house!’

The tears came, flowing freely, and I knew what the matter was. Plain loneliness. The reserve that stopped her communicating her inner feelings to her friends melted with a stranger. She was open with me because I would be gone within days and she would probably never see me again, never have to look into my eyes and know that I knew. People who travel receive a lot of confidences from total strangers who would never dream of relating the same stories to their friends.

But there was something else. As she said, I understood: I had been there too, and this made a common bond.

So she cried on my shoulder – literally. I held her in my arms and felt her body tense as she wept. I said the usual incoherent things one says on such an occasion, keeping my voice low and gentle, until the storm blew itself out and she looked up at me and said brokenly, ‘I’m … I’m sorry, Bill. It just … happened suddenly.’

‘I know,’ I said.

I saw her become aware of where she was and what she was doing. Her arms, which had been about me, went limp and to save her embarrassment I released her. She stepped back a pace and touched her tear-stained face. ‘I must look awful.’

I shook my head. ‘Jill, you’re beautiful.’

She summoned a smile from somewhere. ‘I’ll go and clean up and then we’ll have dinner. Don’t expect too much: I’m a terrible cook.’

She was right. She was the only woman I knew who could ruin a frozen meal. But it was another thing that made her more human.