Page 120

“Convertible, of course,” said Parker.
“Of course,” murmured Hannah. I’ve got a dinky on my hands, he thought. Dual-income-no-kids. A high-flyer.
Parker had gone straight from school to a red-brick university and gotten a degree, starting with PPE (politics, philosophy, and economics) and switching to law. He had joined the Metropolitan Police straight from there, and after the mandatory cadetship he had worked for a year in the outer suburbs before going on the Bramshill Police College Special Course. From there, he had spent four years in the Commissioner’s Force Planning Unit.
They were over County Cork when Hannah closed the Foreign Office file and asked gently, “And how many murder investigations have you been on?”
“Well, this is my first, actually. That’s why I was so pleased to be available this morning. But in my spare time I study criminology. I think it’s so important to understand the criminal mind.”
Desmond Hannah turned his face to the porthole in pure misery. He had a dead Governor, a pending election, a Bahamian forensic team, and a rookie DI who wanted to understand the criminal mind. After lunch, he dozed all the way to Nassau. He even managed to forget about the press. Until Nassau.
The Associated Press news bulletin of the previous evening had been too late to make the British newspapers in London, with their five-hour disadvantage, but it had been just in time to catch the Miami Herald before that paper was put to bed.
At seven in the morning, Sam McCready was sitting on his balcony sipping his first prebreakfast coffee of the day and gazing out over the azure sea when he heard the familiar rustle of the Herald coming under his door.
He padded across the room, took the paper, and returned to the balcony. The AP story was at the bottom of the front page, where a piece about a record-breaking lobster had been scrapped to make way for it. The story was just the AP dispatch, referring to unconfirmed reports. The headline said simply: BRITISH GOVERNOR SLAIN? McCready read it several times.
“How very naughty,” he murmured, and withdrew to the bathroom to get washed, shaved, and dressed. At nine, he dismissed his cab outside the British Consulate in Miami, went in, and made himself known—as Mr. Frank Dillon of the Foreign Office. He had to wait half an hour for the arrival of the Consul, then he got his private meeting. By ten, he had what he had come for, a secure line to the embassy in Washington. He spoke for twenty minutes to the Head of the SIS Station, a colleague he knew well from London days and with whom he had stayed the previous week while attending the CIA seminar.
The Washington-based colleague confirmed the story and added a few more details that had just arrived from London.
“I thought I might pop over,” said McCready.
“Not really our cup of tea, is it?” suggested the Head of Station.
“Probably not, but it might be worth a look. I’ll need to draw some funds, and I’ll need a communicator.”
“I’ll clear it with the Consul. Could you put him on the line?”
An hour later, McCready left the consulate with a wad of dollars, duly signed for, and an attaché case containing a portable telephone and an encrypter with a range that would enable him to make secure calls to the consulate in Miami and have them passed on to Washington.
He returned to the Sonesta Beach, packed, checked out, and called an air taxi company at the airport. They agreed on a two P.M. takeoff for the ninety-minute run to Sunshine.
Eddie Favaro was also up early. He had already decided there was only one place he could start—the game-fishing community down at the fishing quay. Wherever Julio Gomez had spent his vacation, a large part of it surely had been there.
Having no transport, he walked. It was not far. Almost every wall and tree he passed bore a poster urging the islanders to vote for one candidate or the other. The faces of both men—one big, round, and jolly, the other smooth, urbane, and paler in tone—beamed from the posters.
Some had been torn down or defaced, whether by children or by adherents to the other candidate, he could not tell. All had been professionally printed. On a warehouse wall near the docks was another message, crudely painted. It said, WE WANT REFERENDUM. As he passed, a black jeep carrying four men raced up.
The jeep screeched to a halt. The four men wore hard expressions, multicolored shirts, and wraparound black glasses that hid their eyes. Four black heads stared at the message, then swiveled toward Favaro as if he were responsible for it. Favaro shrugged as if to say, “Nothing to do with me.” The four impassive faces stared at him until he rounded a corner. Then he heard the jeep, revving hard, drive away.
At the fishing quay, groups of men were discussing the same news that had occupied those in the hotel lobby. He interrupted one group to ask who took visitors fishing. One of the men pointed farther down the quay to a man working on a boat.
Favaro crouched on the quay and made his inquiry. He showed the fisherman a picture of Julio Gomez.
The man shook his head. “Sure, he was here last week. But he go out with Jimmy Dobbs. That’s Jimmy’s boat over there, the Gulf Lady.”
There was nobody on the Gulf Lady. He leaned on a mooring post to wait. Like all cops, he knew the meaning of patience. Information gathered in a matter of seconds was for TV thrillers. In real life, you spent most of your time waiting. Jimmy Dobbs showed up at ten.
“Mr. Dobbs?”
“That’s me.”
“Hi—my name’s Eddie. I’m from Florida. This your boat?”
“Sure is. You here for the fishing?”
“That’s my game,” said Favaro. “Friend of mine recommended you.”