Touching the Sun: A Harry Beck Thriller (The Bahamas Series Book 1)

by Len Maynard

  Once she was free I eased her as gently as I could back over the rail and laid her down on the deck, then took off my shirt and wrapped her in it, cradling her in my arms.

  ‘Who did it, Stevie?’

  She looked up at me, tears glistening in her eyes. ‘Don’t know, Harry,’ she said, and then she fainted.

  I got her below, laid her on the bunk and covered her with a blanket, then went to fetch the first aid box from the wheelhouse.

  It was a warm clear night, the stars blinking in a sky of black velvet. There was a full moon, reflecting on the ocean, capping the waves with silver. I entered the wheelhouse feeling murderous. Whoever had done this to Stevie was going to pay for it in kind. I was certain of that.

  Beneath the wheel was a panel set into the woodwork; one of my few modifications to The Lady’s structure. A small button, hidden from view, was to the right of the wheel. I pressed it and the panel sprang open. Clipped to it were two guns; a Smith and Wesson .38 revolver, and a small Beretta automatic. I kept them there in case of emergencies.

  Pirates still operated in these waters, though the fashionable term now was yacht-jackers. Drug runners and smugglers would steal boats to use for making their deliveries, and they weren’t too fussy if anyone happened to be aboard when they decided to make the theft. Boat owners had been known to go for a moonlight swim with twenty kilos of chain wrapped around them. With the guns I was hedging my bets. They were my ace in the hole.

  I unclipped the Beretta and stuck it in the waistband of my trousers. It made me feel more secure. Then I carried the first aid box below and started to dress Stevie’s wounds.

  I was cleaning the blood away from her mouth when she came to. She stared up at me, panic in her eyes, and then, with a sob, threw her arms around me. ‘Jesus, Harry, I was so scared.’

  I held her tightly. ‘It’s okay now, they’ve gone.’ But she held onto me for a long time.

  Reynolds would want to know about this, this and the break in at the bungalow, and I would have been happier if Stevie was being looked after at the hospital. She was slipping in and out of consciousness, but the first time I tried to get to the radio she roused and panicked. I cleaned her up as best I could and, eventually, she drifted off to sleep. I left her for half an hour and tried to raise Alan on his radio. If he was on his boat it was safe to assume he’d have it switched on, but in the end I gave up, went below, and sat by Stevie, holding onto her hand, praying she’d suffered no internal injuries.

  When dawn broke, just after four, I eased myself up from the floor, where I’d spent the night awake, sitting with my back to the bunk, and went through to the galley to brew some coffee. I’d left Stevie sleeping peacefully, but when I returned her eyes were open and she was struggling to sit up.

  ‘Take it easy,’ I said. ‘Can you drink this?’ I offered her the coffee I’d made for myself. She took the mug from me, holding it in both hands, sipping at it, wincing as it scalded her damaged lips. ‘When you feel like travelling, I’m going to take you to the hospital. Get them to fix you up properly.’ She said something but I didn’t catch it. ‘Sorry?’

  She took the cup from her lips and fixed me with a fierce look from her one good eye. ‘I said, like hell you will.’

  ‘You’re not going to be difficult, are you?’

  ‘No hospitals,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll be all right. Doc Roberts can give me something for the pain.’

  ‘Why do you have to be so bloody tough?’ I said. ‘What’re you trying to prove?’

  She avoided my gaze. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Hospitals give me the itch, that’s all.’

  I wasn’t going to argue with her further. ‘Okay, you win. But once I get you home I’m getting in touch with Roberts myself, and you’re not going anywhere or doing anything until you’ve seen him, okay?’

  She shrugged and finished the coffee.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘I feel like sleeping all day.’

  I knew what she meant. The question and answer session could wait until she felt like talking, and my mind was in a fit state to make some kind of sense of her answers. I lay down on the bunk opposite hers, tucked the Beretta under the pillow, and closed my eyes. Within minutes I was asleep.

  I awoke to the mouth-watering aroma of frying bacon. My first thought was that Stevie was out in the galley cooking breakfast. Then I checked the opposite bunk and saw her still lying there, sound asleep. From the galley I heard the rattle of plates. I felt under the pillow, found the gun, and went to investigate.

  I eased the galley door open with the toe of my shoe. The woman standing at the small cooker frying bacon and eggs turned around and smiled. ‘Hello, Harry,’ Katy said.

  8

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ It wasn’t one of the most gracious welcomes ever recorded, but it suited my mood, and camouflaged my shock at seeing her again.

  ‘I see you’ve lost none of your natural charm,’ she said acidly.

  It had been just over five years since we’d split up, and the passage of time hadn’t touched her at all. She was thirty-two but looked ten years younger. Her hair, once waist length, had been cut to a short bob, but it still shone like spun gold, and, if anything, the haircut made her look younger still.

  Katy was one of the most beautiful women I had ever known. Her eyes were midnight blue, set in a perfect face; the type of face fashion photographers drooled over. She wasn’t tall, only five three, but those sixty-three inches were perfectly proportioned; long slim legs, narrow hips, small but firm and perfectly formed breasts. She looked as elegant as ever, dressed in a pencil-slim grey skirt and a white silk blouse. On her feet were black patent leather shoes, the heels giving another three inches to her height.

  As soon as I saw her, my stomach lurched, leaving me feeling hollow inside…an old familiar feeling. I repeated the question, but phrased it more politely.

  ‘I heard about Anna and Sally. Harry, I’m sorry.’

  I searched those blue eyes looking for the lie, but the sentiment appeared genuine, so I decided to take it at face value.

  She turned her attention back to the frying pan but kept talking. ‘I looked for you at the bungalow. The place is a wreck.’

  ‘Someone broke in.’

  ‘So I gathered.’ She looked at me squarely. ‘Harry, are you in some kind of trouble?’

  I shook my head. I suddenly realized the Beretta was still in my hand, pointing directly at her. She hadn’t even mentioned it, as if it were an everyday occurrence to be held at gunpoint by an ex-lover; but then, maybe for Katy it was. She’d always run wild, even when we were together. Seeing her now, in such a domestic setting, was part of the reason for the sense of shock I felt. I put the gun away.

  ‘Who’s the boy with the smashed-up face?’ she said.

  ‘Stevie, and she’s not a boy. She’s Tom Bailey’s daughter. Do you remember Tom?’

  ‘Yes’ she said with ill-concealed disgust. ‘I remember him. He’s hard to forget. And that’s his daughter?’

  I nodded.

  ‘She’s changed. She was just a kid.’

  ‘She grew up.’

  Katy raised an exquisitely shaped eyebrow. ‘You prefer them young these days,’ she said.

  I glared at her. ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘It’s none of my business, Harry, not now.’

  ‘Let’s leave it like that then. You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’

  ‘This is ready,’ she said, forking the bacon onto a plate. ‘Should I make her some too?’

  ‘Ask her yourself,’ I said, and went topside for some fresh air, leaving her standing there holding the plate. On top of everything else that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, the last thing I needed was Katy Donahoe back in my life. God knew she’d messed it up for me pretty well the first time around.

  A short while later I heard her come up on deck. ‘We don’t have to be at war with each other, you know,�
�� she said.

  ‘Don’t we?’

  She sighed. It was a sound I remembered well. ‘Grow up, Harry. Five years is a long time.’ She walked up and stood next to me at the rail. She even smelled the same. ‘I see you changed the name of the boat. What was wrong with Island Girl? You named her after me, remember?’

  ‘She’s still named after you,’ I said sullenly.

  ‘I thought changing the names of boats was unlucky.’

  I ignored her. I could have said that meeting her in the first place had been the biggest slice of bad luck ever handed down to me, but what was the point?

  She rested her hand on my bare arm. The hand was cool and smooth. ‘I hurt you, didn’t I?’

  I didn’t want to swim in those waters again, so I changed the subject. ‘How’s Max?’ Maxwell Donahoe was her father, the owner of Donahoe Holdings, and one of the wealthiest and most powerful men on the Islands.

  ‘He’s fine,’ she said. ‘Actually, he’s the reason I’m here.’

  I frowned. ‘He sent you to see me?’

  ‘Not exactly. He wants to see you though. He was going to get in touch, but I heard the news and said I’d come over and deliver the message personally.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have troubled. He’s got my phone number, though he hasn’t bothered to use it much over the last few years.’ The sun was catching highlights in her hair. She was standing close, still holding my arm, and I felt myself becoming aroused, in spite of my better judgment. I pulled away from her. ‘In fact, he probably breathed a huge sigh of relief when we split. Somehow I never could see me fitting into your family’s social circle.’

  ‘Then that only goes to prove how little you know him. He made my life hell for a few weeks after I finished with you.’

  A few weeks! I was going to tell her that my life had been hell ever since our relationship ended, but I was damned if I was going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that. ‘So, Max gave you a hard time. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Liar.’

  I shrugged. ‘Well, you’ve given me the message. I’ll call Max and make arrangements to see him, but tell him not to hold his breath. I might be tied up for a few months yet.’

  She grabbed hold of my shirt and spun me round to face her. Her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing heavily through her nose. ‘Look, your argument is with me, not my father. Don’t take your childish temper tantrums out on him…he doesn’t deserve it. You never got less than a fair deal from him. He liked you, Harry. Still does, though God knows why. You’re one of the most pig-headed, arrogant, and selfish bastards I’ve ever met.’ She climbed over the side of the boat, jumped down onto the concrete harbor, and walked away quickly, back towards land.

  ‘You didn’t tell me what he wanted to see me about,’ I called after her.

  ‘Go to hell, Harry,’ she said, without looking round. ‘If you want to know then phone him.’ There was a black Porsche parked at the edge of the harbor. She opened the door and climbed in. A second later she took off with a squeal of tires, raising an ochre cloud from the dusty road.

  I watched her go, then slammed my hand against the rail and swore loudly. Often in the past I’d wondered what it would be like to see her again. I’d run imaginary conversations over and over in my mind, playing out different scenarios. In all of them we’d end up reconciled, in each other’s arms, making love. How different it had worked in reality. I could taste the dust her car tires had thrown up. It took away some of the bitterness, but not much.

  I went below to check on Stevie. She was sitting up, plowing through the plate of bacon and eggs Katy had cooked for her.

  ‘Feeling better?’ I said.

  She nodded and finished her mouthful. ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Just a laugh and a joke about the good old days,’ I said, crouching down beside her and checking her wounds. ‘I’m surprised you remembered her. I think you only met her once when we called in on your old man one evening. You’d have only been about twelve.’

  ‘Once seen never forgotten, that one,’ she said. ‘What did a woman with looks like that see in an old wreck like you?’

  ‘They asked the same question when my mother married my father. I guess there must be something about Beck men that makes us irresistible to beautiful women.’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself, Harry. Remember, you’re talking to someone who’s had to put you to bed when you’ve been pissed out of your brain…and on more than one occasion.’ She gave me a quick half grin with her damaged mouth. It was all she could manage, but it was an encouraging sign. The bastards last night might have busted her up physically, but they hadn’t been able to touch her spirit.

  ‘She thought you were a boy,’ I said, and took the empty plate from her.

  ‘The bitch!’

  I laughed and ruffled her hair. ‘Do you feel up to travelling now?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Right, I’ll take you home. We can talk on the way.’

  9

  It had just begun to rain in the slum settlements of Haiti.

  Cholera was becoming widespread, contracted through drinking unclean water. Hygiene was always difficult in the conditions the families existed in, but since the earthquakes and the temporary camps sanitation was non-existent. The temporary camps had been in place almost a year now. Humanitarian aid was a vast enterprise, but still thousands of people sat in their own filth, ate barely enough to survive, and lived inside their heads.

  To hear the orphans at play, even in the warm tropical storm, was almost enough to give people hope. The innocence was something to cling to when nothing else had a future.

  Everyone had become used to the Americans and the Europeans who lived and worked amongst them. Many of them had strange accents that made what they said unintelligible to the local people, but they recognized the kind tones with which they spoke.

  Most of the foreigners were such frequent visitors that they went unnoticed, part of the landscape. Walking amongst people who were shocked and traumatized, they were like unseen ghosts, leaving a residual presence that barely dented the damaged lives they touched.

  Regular visitors included three groups of two men who didn’t exude quite the same kind tones as some did. The six men were never seen together, and always came in the same pairs. The pattern of their visits was random, the times of day differed, and the dates in the months varied. The only similarity to their visits was when they left; always it was with one child. Sometimes it was a young girl, sometimes a young boy. Over the weeks they took with them babies, two, three, four-year olds, and upwards to children around thirteen years of age.

  They talked at length with the people running the orphanages that had sprung up out of necessity. They had credentials of the highest order, impeccable papers that were correctly completed, stamped with authority, and signed with impunity.

  Children who had lost their parents didn’t ask questions. If they did, and some wondered where they were going, they were told they were being taken to a better life, many to America, others to Europe, some as far as Asia and Australia.

  Imagining a better life wasn’t difficult for the children; their world had been hard, had fallen apart, and was now hell. When they took the hand of the men to be taken to a new life, they thought they had a lot to look forward to.

  10

  Stevie lived about half a mile away from my place, so I took the drive slowly to allow her enough time to tell it properly.

  ‘After you left I came down to give the engines a final check. I’d been down there a while when I heard a boat approaching. It was an outboard motor, not running properly; sounded like a blockage in the fuel line. I heard it pull in close, then it thumped against the side of The Lady and someone climbed aboard. I thought it might be Ernie or Raoul, so I went up to check.’

  Ernie and Raoul Rodriguez were a father and son who worked a small fishing boat further along the coast. Sometimes if they got back early, they’d come by and we would all go for a dr
ink together.

  ‘When I reached topside there were three characters standing there. One of them was holding a gun; a shotgun, short barrel.’

  ‘What did they look like?’

  ‘They were all dressed the same, in black, with black ski masks…y’know, covering the head, with holes cut out for eyes, nose, and mouth. One of them was about six three, built like a brick wall; the one who did all the talking was smaller, about your height.’

  I was five eleven.

  ‘And one of them was a woman, about my height but thick set, like a Russian shot-putter. Vicious bitch! She was the one who did these.’ She pointed to the cigarette burns on her arms.

  ‘Did they say what they wanted?’

  ‘They didn’t, not at first. The smaller man told me to strip. I told him to go to hell. But the big one held me while the woman stripped me. I got in one punch, but I hit the big one. It was like hitting a tree. Anyway, they dragged me through to the cabin and started throwing questions at me.’

  ‘What kind of questions?’

  ‘General stuff at first, about you, about me. It’s funny. They seemed to know an awful lot about us, and yet there was lots they didn’t know.’

  ‘I think you’d better explain that. It sounds like someone tipped them off.’

  Stevie thought for a moment. ‘It was as if they’d read about us – all the facts, dates of birth, and so on – but they didn’t really know us. They kept calling me Stephanie, for a start!’

  She said the name Stephanie with the contempt one normally reserves for a despised relation.

  ‘And there were a few other things, I forget now.’

  ‘Carry on, I get the drift.’

  ‘Then they changed tack and started asking about Alan.’

  ‘Alan Lancaster?’

  ‘Right. It was then I started to get really scared.’

  We reached Stevie’s apartment, one of a block of eight. Holiday apartments, most of them, but Stevie and another girl, Jackie, were permanent residents. Jackie acted as the block’s unofficial janitor.