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Half an hour later, he recovered consciousness and crawled to the nearest house. The frightened family called Dr. Caractacus Jones, who had the preacher brought to his clinic on a handcart, and he spent the rest of the night patching him up.
Desmond Hannah had a call that evening during supper. He had to leave the hotel to go to Government House to take it. It was from Dr. West in Nassau.
“Look, I know they’re supposed to be preserved,” said the forensic pathologist, “but this one’s like a block of wood. Frozen solid.”
“The locals did the best they could,” said Hannah.
“So will I,” said the doctor. “But it’s going to take me twenty-four hours to thaw the bugger out.”
“As fast as you can, please,” said Hannah. “I need that damned bullet.”
Chapter 4
Detective Chief Superintendent Hannah elected to interview Mr. Horatio Livingstone first. He rang him at his house in Shantytown just after sunrise, and the politician came to the phone after several minutes. Yes, he would be delighted to receive the man from Scotland Yard within the hour.
Oscar drove the Jaguar with Detective Parker beside him. Hannah was in the back with Dillon of the Foreign Office. Their route did not pass through the center of Port Plaisance, for Shantytown lay three miles down the coast, on the same side of the capital as Government House.
“Any progress with your inquiries, Mr. Hannah, or is that an unprofessional question?” Dillon asked politely.
Hannah never liked to discuss the state of an inquiry with anyone other than colleagues. Still, this Dillon was apparently from the Foreign Office.
“The Governor was killed by a single shot through the heart from a heavy-caliber handgun,” he said. “There seem to have been two shots fired. One missed and hit the wall behind him. I recovered the slug and sent it to London.”
“Badly distorted?” asked Dillon.
“I’m afraid so. The other bullet seems to be lodged in the body. I’ll know more when I get the results of the postmortem from Nassau tonight.”
“And the killer?”
“Seems to have entered from the gate in the garden wall, which was torn off its locks. Fired from about a ten-foot range, then withdrew. Apparently.”
“Apparently?”
Hannah explained his idea that the torn-off lock might have been a ruse to distract attention from an assassin coming from the house itself.
Dillon was most admiring. “I’d never have thought of that,” he said.
The car entered Shantytown. As its name implied, it was a village of clustered homes made of wooden planks and galvanized sheet roofing, with some five thousand inhabitants.
Small shops selling an array of vegetables and T-shirts jostled for space with the houses and the bars. It was clearly Livingstone territory—no posters for Marcus Johnson were to be seen here, but those for Livingstone were everywhere.
In the center of Shantytown, reached by its widest (and only) street, stood a single walled compound. The walls were of coral blocks, and a single gate wide enough for a car admitted entry. Beyond the walls could be seen the roof of the house, the only two-story edifice in Shantytown. Hannah knew of the rumor that Mr. Livingstone owned many of the bars in the village and took tribute from those he did not.
The Jaguar halted at the gate, and Stone sounded the horn. All down the street, Barclayans were standing to stare at the gleaming limousine with the pennant fluttering from the front right wing. The Governor’s car had never been into Shantytown before.
A small window in the gate opened, an eye surveyed the car, and the gate swung open. The Jaguar rolled forward into a dusty yard and stopped by the verandah to the house. Two men were in the yard, one by the gate and one waiting at the verandah. Both wore identical pale-gray safari suits. A third man in similar dress stood at an upstairs window. As the car halted, he withdrew.
Hannah, Parker, and Dillon were shown into the principal sitting room, cheaply but functionally furnished, and a few seconds later Horatio Livingstone appeared. He was a large fat man, and his jowly face was wreathed in smiles. He exuded bonhomie.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, what an honor. Please, be seated.”
He gestured for coffee and seated himself in a large chair. His small, button eyes flickered from one to the other of the three white faces before him. Two other men entered the room and seated themselves behind the candidate. Livingstone gestured to them.
“Two of my associates—Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown.”
The two inclined their heads but said nothing.
“Now, Mr. Hannah, what can I do for you?”