Almost since he had arrived, twenty-eight-yearold Bobbie Valentine had been kneeling among the rubber sheets, looking like a mourner, looking as if he would be sick to his stomach. Meral Johnson kneeled and spoke to the man in a clear, relatively clean, Oxbridge accent. No trace of island patois.
'What is your thought here, Bobbie?' he asked. A short pause, then he answered his own question. 'I think Colonel Dred, perhaps. He's contacted the newspapers and claimed responsibility, at least.'
Before the constable had a chance to agree or disagree, the German hotel manager spoke over both their heads.
'I am Maximilian Westerhuis,' he announced with authority-almost titular emphasis. 'I manage the Plantation Inn. These two dead... '
The large black policeman stood up faster than seemed possible. His dark eyes flashed. Looking convincingly nasty, Johnson said the first thing that entered his head.
'You wish to make a confession here?'
Westerhuis took a confused step backward. 'Of course not. Confessions?... Don't be absurd with me....
'Then I am talking to this very good policeman now.' Dr. Johnson's voice returned to its usual polite whisper. 'Please wait for me, Mr. Westerhuis. On the far side of your service crew.'
The inn manager, tall, white blond, said nothing further. He stalked off angrily.
'Nazi, ' Johnson muttered-an obvious idea that nonetheless went completely over the head of Constable Valentine. 'I must do something about this crowd,' Johnson said. 'Something smart would be preferable.'
Smoking his black pipe, the police chief started to walk from sheet to sheet again. Very gently he lifted the bulky rubber covers, then put them back exactly as they had been. It looked almost as if the policeman were checking on small sleeping children.
He stayed over the severed head of the young woman for what seemed like a very long time. Shining a small pocket light on the bodies, he studied the bloody faces and skulls.
The crowd of hotel guests became silent as he worked. Every man and woman watched him, but the police chief never looked up. For the first time in hours, you could hear birds in the air at Turtle Bay; you could hear the sea lapping.
Finally, with his head still down, as respectful as the old black waiters, Dr. Johnson walked back to his constable.
He'd spent the previous ten minutes, the entire slow dance back through the mutilated bodies, simply trying to gain some confidence from this crowd. to give them the impression that he'd handled murders like this before.
Now, maybe, he could begin some kind of investigation.
Using his handkerchief, he started by wriggling the sugar-cane machete out of the sand. He held the sharp broadsword up to the light of the moon.
'Hmmm,' he muttered out loud. 'Make sure no one takes any souvenirs.' He spoke in a lower voice to Constable Bobbie Valentine. 'Americans like souvenirs of disaster. We learned at least that much at the airplane fire....
'And one final thing, Bobbie. Will you spread this word for me?... If any of these men sell their hats as souvenirs, tell them they'll be selling pukka beads and seashells on the streets by this time tomorrow night. I counted sixteen hats coming down here!
Coastown, San- Dominica
At 7:45 the young man who looked like Montgomery Clift sat alone at a shadowy table on the veranda of the Coastown Princess Hotel.
As he sipped a Cutty Sark Scotch with Perrier water, he tapped his swizzle stick to the soft calypso beat of 'Marianne Brooks Campbell was starting to get nervous.
Small problem: He was afraid the other people on the patio were beginning to notice that he was sitting there all by his lonesome.
Slightly larger problem: His Afro-haired waiter was hassling him, trying to get him to leave so a bigger party could sit at the table.
Very large problem: Darnian Rose was half an hour late for their first, presumably their only, face-to-face meeting.
Brooks Campbell didn't know all the details about Turtle Bay yet, but the general way the Roses worked was beginning to grate on his nerves. At first there were supposed to be only ten or twelve deaths on San Dominica, something like the 1973 uprisings on St. Croix. Now it looked as if it would be worse than that. Much worse. Rose was handling everything his own idiosyncratic way, and that was why Campbell had asked for the meeting. Demanded a meeting.
At 8:15 Damian Rose still hadn't appeared.
Campbell sat and watched a huge artificial waterfall dump endless gallons of water into an epic swimming pool directly below the patio. He watched couples in bathing suits as they wound their way along pretty paths lined with palm and Casuarina trees.
The small combo was playing a reggae tune now-'The Harder they Come.' Revolutionary music.
By 8:45 Brooks Campbell realized that he wasn't going to meet Damian Rose.
Campbell had a sneaking suspicion that no one was ever going to see the mysterious soldier of fortune.
At nine o'clock the handsome thirty-one-year-old paid his bar bill at the Princess. He walked the twelve blocks to the U.S. embassy; heard war drams in the air out on the streets. Back at the embassy, he was greeted with the most disturbing news of his career.
Someone had seen a tall blond man at Turtle Bay that afternoon.
