Now he forgot all his former reserve, and gently I drew small snippets of information from him that I might have use for in the-future. In my experience it’s what you don’t know that can really hurt you, I chose the subject that I guessed would open him up completely.
“See that reef across the channel, there where she’s breaking now?
That’s Devil Fish Reef and there is twenty fathoms sheer under the sea side of her. It’s a hangout of some real big old bull grouper. I shot one there last year that weighed in at over two hundred kilos.”
“Two hundred-” he exclaimed. “My God, that’s almost four hundred and fifty pounds.”
“Right, you could put your head and shoulders in his mouth.”
The last of his reserves disappeared. He had been reading history and philosophy at Cambridge but spent too much time in the sea, and had to drop out. Now he ran a small diving equipment supply company and underwater salvage outfit, that gave him a living and allowed him to dive most days of the week. He did private work and had contracted to the Government and the Navy on some jobs.
More than once he mentioned the name “Sherry” and I probed carefully.
“Girl friend or wife?” and he grinned.
“Sister, big sister, but she’s a doll - she does the books and minds the shop, all that stuff,” in a tone that left no doubt as to what James thought about book-keeping and counter-jumping. “She’s a red-hot conchologist and she makes two thousand a year out of her sea shells.” But he didn’t explain how he had got into the dubious company he was now keeping, nor what he was doing halfway around the world from his sports shop. I left them on Admiralty Wharf, and took Dancer over to the Shell Basin for refuelling before dark.
That evening I grilled the kingfish over the coals, roasted a couple of big sweet yams in their jackets and was washing it down with a cold beer sitting on the veranda of the shack and listening to the surf when I saw the headlights coming down through the palm trees. The taxi parked beside my pickup, and the driver stayed at the wheel while his passengers came up the steps on to the stoep. They had left James at the Hilton, and there were just the two of them now - Materson and Guthrie.
“Drink?” I indicated the bottles and ice on the side table.
Guthrie poured gin for both of them and Materson sat opposite me and watched me finish the last of the fish.
“I made a few phone calls,” he said when I pushed my plate away.
“And they tell me that Harry Bruce disappeared in June five years ago and hasn’t been heard of since. I asked around and found out that Harry Fletcher sailed into Grand Harbour here three months later - inward bound from Sydney, Australia.”
“Is that the truth?” I picked a little fish bone out of my tooth, and lit a long black island cheroot.
one other thing, someone who knew him well tells me Harry Bruce had a knife scar across his left arm,” he purred, and I involuntarily glanced at the thin line of scar tissue that laced the muscle of my forearm. It had shrunk and flattened with the years, but was still very white against the dark sunbrowned skin.
“Now that’s a hell of a coincidence,” I said, and drew on the cheroot. It was strong and aromatic, tasting of sea and sun and spices. I wasn’t worried now - they were going to make a deal.
“Yeah, isn’t it,” Materson agreed, and he looked around him elaborately. “You got a nice set-up here, Fletcher. Cosy, isn’t it, really nice and COSY.
“It beats hell out of working for a living,” I admitted. Or out of breaking rocks, or sewing mail bags.”
“I should imagine it does.”
“The kid is going to ask you some questions tomorrow. Be nice to him, Fletcher. When we go you can forget you ever saw us, and we’ll forget to tell anybody about that funny coincidence.”
“Mr. Materson, sir, I’ve got a terrible memory,” I assured him.
After the conversation I had overheard in Dancer’s cabin, I expected them to ask for an early start time the following morning, for the dawn light seemed important to their plans. However, neither of them mentioned it, and when they had gone I knew I wouldn’t sleep so I walked out along the sand around the curve of the bay to Mutton Point to watch the moon come up through the palm trees. I sat there until after midnight.
The dinghy was gone from the jetty but Hambone, the ferry man, rowed me out to Dancer’s moorings before sun-up the following morning and as we came alongside I saw the familiar shape shambling around the cockpit, and the dinghy tied alongside.
“Hey, Chubby.” I jumped aboard. “Your Missus kick you out of bed, then?”
Dancer’s deck was gleaming white even in the bad light, and all the metal work was brightly burnished. He must have been at it for a -couple of hours; Chubby loves Dancer almost as much as I do.
“She looked like a public shit-house, Harry,” he grumbled.
“That’s a sloppy bunch you got aboard,” and he spat noisily over the side. “No respect for a boat, that’s what.”
He had coffee ready for me, as strong and as pungent as only he can make it, and we drank it sitting in the saloon.
Chubby frowned heavily into his mug and blew on the steaming black liquid. He wanted to tell me something. “How’s Angelo?”
“Pleasuring the Rawano widows,” he growled. The island does not provide sufficient employment for all its able, bodied young men - so most of them ship out on three-year labour contracts to the American satellite tracking station and airforce base on Rawano, island. They leave their young wives behind, the Rawano widows, and the island girls are justly celebrated for the high temperature of their blood and their friendly dispositions.
“That Angelo’s going to shag his brain loose, he’s been at it night and day since Monday.”
I detected more than a trace of envy in his growl. Missus Chubby kept him on a pretty tight lead - he sipped noisily at the coffee.
“How’s your party, Harry?”
“Their money is good.”
“You not fishing, Harry.” He looked at me. “I watch you from Coolie Peak, man, you don’t go near the channel you are working inshore.”
“That’s right, Chubby.” He returned his attention to his coffee.
“Hey, Harry. You watch them. You be good and careful, hear.
They bad men, those two. I don’t know the young one - but the others they are bad.”
“I’ll be careful, Chubby.”
“You know the new girl at the hotel, Marion? The one over for the season?” I nodded, she was a pretty slim little wisp of a girl with lovely long legs, about nineteen with glossy black hair, freckled skin, bold eyes and an impish smile. “Well, last night she went with the blond one, the one with the red face.” I knew that Marion sometimes combined business with pleasure and provided for selected hotel guests services beyond the call of duty. On the island this sort of activity drew no social stigma.
“Yes,” I encouraged Chubby.
“He hurt her, Harry. Hurt her bad.” Chubby took another mouthful of coffee. “Then he paid her so much money she couldn’t go to the police.”
I liked Mike Guthrie a little less now. Only an animal would take advantage of a girl like Marion. I knew her well. She had an innocence, a childlike acceptance of life that made her promiscuity strangely appealing. I remembered how I had thought I might have to kill Guthrie one day and tried not to let the thought perish.
“They are bad men, Harry. I thought it best you know that.”
“Thanks, Chubby.”
“And don’t you let them dirty up Dancer like that,” he added accusingly. “The saloon and deck - they were like a pigsty, man.”
He helped me run Dancer across to Admiralty Wharf and then he set off homewards, grumbling and muttering blackly. He passed Jimmy coming in the opposite direction and shot him a single malevolent glance that should have shrivelled him in his tracks.
Jimmy was on his own, fresh-faced and jaunty.
“Hi, skipper,“he called, as he jumped down on to Dancer’s deck, and I went into the saloon with him and poured coffee for us.
“Mr. Materson says you have some questions for me, is that right?”
“Look, Mr. Fletcher, I want you to know that I didn’t mean offence by not talking to you before. It wasn’t me
