Unofficial and Deniable

by John Gordon Davis

  ‘Jack?’ Josephine called from below. ‘That you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He winched the dinghy up to the davits, lashed it into position. He hurried into the wheelhouse. He pressed the glow-button, counted twenty seconds, twisted the ignition. Under his feet the engine cranked into life.

  ‘Jack,’ Josie called from the bathroom, ‘what’re you doing?’

  Harker called down the hatch: ‘The harbour master has asked us to move a couple of kilometres downchannel to make way for a big incoming ship. I can handle it by myself, take your time.’

  He eased the gear lever and the boat began to churn forward. He stabbed the windlass button and the anchor chain began to come clanking aboard. He felt the anchor break out of the sand. Then up it came. As it clanked into its cradle on the bows he opened the throttle wide and swung the wheel. The yacht went into a turn, then began moving south into the dark, shallow Bahamian sea. He put the helm to automatic pilot, then dashed below to their cabin. Josephine was still in the bathroom. He pulled open his bedside drawer, grabbed his .38 Smith & Wesson pistol and rammed it in his waistband under his shirt. He stuffed Clements’ tape-recorder in the drawer, alongside his .25 Browning pistol. He hurried back to the wheelhouse.

  The lights of Nassau were several miles astern when Josephine came up into the wheelhouse. She was carrying a glass of gin and tonic. She paused in the hatchway, looked around and said, ‘Hey, where are we? This is dangerous, these shallow waters at night.’

  Harker said grimly: ‘It’s time to get out of the Bahamas, I’ve just been mugged.’

  Josephine stared. ‘Mugged? Who by?’

  Harker snorted. ‘Actually they tried to murder me. Came at me with a knife. Fortunately I got the knife away.’

  Josephine was staring. ‘Good God … Who were these guys?’

  ‘Pirates. They were going to steal this boat after they’d got rid of you and me.’

  Josephine slapped her brow. ‘How do you know they wanted the boat?’

  ‘They told me!’

  ‘But we must report this to the police! Would you recognize them again? How many were there?’

  ‘Two. No, I wouldn’t recognize them again. It was dusk.’

  ‘White or black?’

  ‘Black.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Who can tell in the dark?’

  ‘Clothing?’

  ‘Jeans and T-shirts. I tell you, I wouldn’t recognize them again. And I’m getting you and me out of their clutches. They’ll come after me again because they’ll be scared I will go to the police. And they’ll kill you too!’

  ‘Don’t be angry with me!’ Josephine cried. ‘It’s damn dangerous to sail over these shallows at night, with coral heads everywhere, there’s only seven or eight feet of water over these flats! Why did you tell me you were just moving anchorage?’

  ‘In order to avoid this very argument taking place in the Nassau channel where the bastards could see and board us! And please don’t raise your voice at me.’

  Josephine waved her hand. ‘But I’m horrified at what’s happened to you! Look at you, all bruised. And I’m terrified what might happen now in these shallows!’

  ‘These shallows are the least of our worries. The more shallows we put between us and those bastards the better.’

  ‘Not if we run aground! We must report them to the police; they’ll hit somebody else if we don’t!’

  ‘We are not going back to Nassau, we’re going into the Gulf Stream and getting the hell out of here.’

  ‘Then for God’s sake let’s anchor right here for the night and push on in the morning when we can see the coral! We’re miles away from Nassau now. Why can’t we report to the police by radio?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I said by radio – we don’t have to return to Nassau to do that!’

  ‘And I said I’m not going to report anything to the police because then we’ll have to go back to identify them and give evidence and God knows what. It could tie us up for months!’

  ‘But …’ Josephine waved a hand incredulously. ‘But it’s our civic duty to report dangerous criminals before they kill other people! I don’t care if it does tie us up, we can afford to fly back to Nassau from wherever to give evidence!’ She scrutinized him closely. ‘You’re concealing something from me.’

  Jesus … ‘Yes – I haven’t mentioned that I’m shit-scared. And the best way to get unscared is to get as far away as fast as possible!’

  Josephine took a grim breath. ‘It’s our moral duty to report those guys to the police. This is our boat, remember, not just yours and I am not just your damn crew member! If you won’t report it to the police I damn-well will!’ She snatched up the handset of the two-way radio: ‘Nassau Police, Nassau Police, this is yacht Rosemary.’

  Harker tried to snatch the handset from her but she jerked backwards. ‘Jesus.’ He lunged at the radio and pulled the cable out of the machine.

  Josephine glared, holding the handset with the transmission cable dangling. Then she hurled it across the wheelhouse. It smashed against the bulkhead, cracking the transmitter. She turned, clattered furiously down the companionway and strode through the saloon. He heard their cabin door slam.

  Harker took a deep breath. He reached for the whisky bottle and poured a big slug into his glass. His hands were shaking.

  A minute later he heard the cabin door burst open. Josie crossed the saloon and wrenched open the booze cabinet. He heard the refrigerator door open and close again. Then she strode into her writing cabin. The door slammed.

  38

  It was shortly before dawn when Harker swung the yacht from the shallow waters of the Bahamas into the deep Gulf Stream just north of the island of Andros, and turned her bows south, directly into the trade winds.

  He had been drinking all night and had consumed half a dozen beers and more than half a bottle of whisky. When he had been below for something to eat and to change into warmer clothing he had heard Josephine moving around, but he had not seen her all night. She had closeted herself in her writing cabin. But now, bashing into the trade winds, the boat began to pitch, the spray flying like grapeshot. He heard her cabin door open. She came into the saloon, lurching into bulkheads, then started up the companionway into the wheelhouse. She was tousled, she looked drunk. She was clutching her cellular telephone and Clements’ little tape-recorder in one hand; in her other hand was Harker’s .25 Browning pistol. Josephine lurched up into the wheelhouse, her face ashen.

  ‘You’ve lied to me … All the years we’ve been together you’ve lied to me.’ She stared at him furiously, then held up Clements’ tape-recorder. ‘It’s all on here. You were in the CCB. You were part of that dreadful Long Island massacre …’

  Harker was aghast. He held out a shaky hand. He whispered: ‘Give me that pistol and that tape-recorder.’

  Josephine took a step backwards, and thrust the recorder behind her back. ‘It is vital and conclusive evidence that you –’ she pointed the pistol at him dramatically – ‘you committed that atrocity which killed four people and blew Looksmart’s hand off.’ She shook the recorder at him. ‘I’m giving this to the police. And it’s doubtless you –’ her eyes narrowed in contempt – ‘you, you bastard, who committed the burglary of the Anti-Apartheid League’s offices all those years ago! While all the time pretending that you were on our side.’

  ‘We were on the same side,’ Harker said wildly. ‘Still are.’ He kept his hand out. ‘Give me that gun, Josie. And the tape.’

  Her eyes slitted. ‘Me on the same side as the thugs who committed cold-blooded murder of those anti-apartheid activists on Long Island?’

  Harker rasped desperately: ‘They weren’t anti-apartheid activists, they were full-blooded terrorists plotting the butchery of innocent women and children. Two Cuban military officers – big bad bastards in the espionage business! And two ANC bastards, all communists, all plotting the murder of civilians!’

  A salvo of spray hit the wheelhouse. Jos
ephine lurched against the chart-table and sneered, full of hate, ‘ANC officials. Not soldiers!’

  ‘They were MK!’ Harker roared. ‘And a soldier does not challenge orders he gets from headquarters! He does not say “Please, sir, are you sure these Stalinist murderers with their Gulag Archipelagos and their KGB death chambers and all their Cold War surrogates like Cuba and North Korea and Vietnam – are you absolutely sure that these chaps are really plotting to blow up women and children in downtown Pretoria because I’m a bit squeamish, sir, maybe they’re jolly good sorts just getting together for a game of poker in Long Island, sir!”’ He glared at her furiously, panting.

  Josephine closed her eyes. ‘The Long Island massacre …’ she whispered witheringly, ‘God, that was the week we first met.’ She looked at him, her eyes suddenly bright with tears. ‘You were a wing-ding publisher and I was a young writer with stars in her eyes. That night we made love for the first time. And you had committed the Long Island massacre just the week before …’ She looked at him, horrified. ‘You committed cold-blooded murder the week before you made love to me … One week after committing a hideous crime you lay in my arms and made love to me!’

  ‘Give me that recorder!’

  ‘Oh no, you bastard …’

  That night was bad, crazy-making. The boat pitching, the sky black as ink, lightning flashing, spray flying, the drink, the anger, the outrage, the fear, the shouting.

  ‘I’m horrified! Mortified. Not only have I discovered my husband is a cold-blooded murderer but he’s an apartheid hit-man! And I have been deceived into marrying this monster! So you were only “obeying orders”? That’s what the Nazi war criminals said!’

  ‘They were legitimate military targets for the South African army!’

  ‘You murdered them in America!’

  ‘Total War is the Law of War, like the allies bombing Dresden in World War Two! Whether I shot those bastards in Angola or Pretoria or Washington makes no moral difference!’

  ‘The Allies were bombing the Nazis whereas the CCB were the Nazis! And now I learn that my whole literary career has been built on blood-soaked feet of clay! My fame built on a front-business for apartheid’s killing machine! Which I now own!’ Her horrified tears were brimming. ‘You’ve made a laughing stock of me!’ She shook her tearful head: ‘Well, I’ve got some very bad news for you, Major Jack Harker of the CCB! I’m going to denounce you to the whole world!’

  Harker shouted, ‘Those guys who were trying to silence me this evening will silence you if you start shouting your fucking mouth off!’

  ‘I’m going to tell the world the truth and see you in jail for life!’

  ‘A wife cannot testify against her husband! Save your breath – and your life!’

  Josephine snatched up the Nautical Almanac and hurled it at him. Harker dodged and the big book shattered the dial of the speedometer. She shrieked: ‘You only married me for my money! Well tough luck, Major.’ She shook the tape-recorder aloft. ‘The evidence is all on here!’

  ‘Give that to me!’

  ‘Like hell!’

  Harker bounded at her, grabbed both her wrists. He wrenched them backwards and the tape-recorder and pistol fell out of her hands. They clattered to the deck. Harker snatched up the tape-recorder, blundered out to the rail and hurled it into the black night-sea.

  Josephine shrieked with laughter. She had picked up the small pistol and it was pointed at him.

  ‘No luck, Major – I made a copy of that tape and you will never find it!’ She shook her cellphone at him maliciously. ‘And I am going to telephone the police right now!’

  Harker knew she would not shoot and he bounded back into the wheelhouse to take the cellphone from her. She turned and scrambled down the companionway into the saloon. She lunged across it, flung herself into her writing cabin, slammed the door and bolted it. She leant back against it and cried out, ‘You’re going to jail for the rest of your life, you murderous bastard!’

  Harker grabbed the handle and shook it. ‘Open up!’

  ‘Like hell!’

  Harker stepped backwards then rammed the door furiously with his shoulder.

  Josephine shrieked: ‘I’ll shoot you through the door, you bastard!’

  PART VI

  The trial of Sinclair Jonathan

  Harker on the charge of

  murdering his wife,

  Josephine Valentine Harker.

  39

  Edward Vance was a very tough, very handsome Assistant District Attorney, and he had ambition. He wanted to be elected the District Attorney, thereafter a congressman, then Governor of the State of Florida, and finally the first black President of the United States of America. Not that he was black in colour. He looked as Caucasian as anybody else in Florida with a deep suntan. His great grandmother had been a mulatto slave, but the rest of his progenitors were lily-white – though there was a questionable Spaniard in there somewhere. That was good enough for Vance. ‘I’ve a foot in all camps,’ he was fond of saying, ‘white, black, Hispanic.’ Edward Vance reckoned that his political future mostly lay with the black and Hispanic vote. (Ed Vance was known in Miami legal circles as Advance.) The liberal, arty vote, and the female vote generally was also very important to him, and Josephine Valentine Harker, the deceased in this murder trial, fell nicely into all categories. Not only was she very liberal and highly arty but she was famous as a novelist, a household name to most of middle-class America. And very beautiful – or she had been until her husband murdered her on the high seas in order to collect the insurance she had taken out on her life, plus the shares in Harvest House which he had sold to her just before they had set out on their expedition around the world. If Josephine were to perish on that hazardous journey, who would collect that life insurance, who would inherit all those shares that the defendant had so recently sold to her? And why had he sold those shares to her at all but to get the money before regaining them costlessly through her will?

  That was the substance of the Assistant District Attorney’s excited reasoning after receiving the file from investigating officer Commander Orwell Jackson of the US Coast Guard. This Major Harker was clearly as guilty as sin – the only problem was proving it beyond reasonable doubt to twelve assholes plucked from the telephone directory and turned into a jury who might shrink from convicting a man of murder in a case where there was no corpse. Because, as Ed Vance put it a dozen times to his tripod-mounted video camera before the critical eyes of his prosecution team – and to his full-length mirror at home – when rehearsing his opening address in the case of The People of Florida versus Sinclair Jonathan Harker:

  ‘There is a popular misconception, members of the jury, that there cannot be a conviction for the capital crime of murder unless there is a body, a corpse to prove that the victim is in fact dead, to show how he or she came to die. In other words, there is a popular misconception that murder cannot be proved by circumstantial evidence alone. And I am sure that defence counsel is going to try to worry you with this question: How can we be sure that Josephine Valentine Harker is in fact dead?’ Vance shook his head at his video camera. ‘This strategy, this argument, will be nonsense: death can be proved beyond reasonable doubt by the surrounding circumstances, by irresistible inference, as I shall do in this case.

  ‘Ah, but proving actual murder – intentional, unlawful killing – is more difficult if there are no witnesses. If the defendant says he does not know what happened, how can we gainsay that?’ Vance smiled at his camera. ‘That scenario appears to be a perfect murder: no corpse, no witnesses.’ Then he turned and pointed dramatically at an imaginary Harker. ‘And that is what this defendant thought he had achieved, members of the jury – a perfect murder! Ah,’ (perfect smile) ‘but he is so wrong! Because in this case the fact that he murdered his wife can be proved irresistibly by all the threads of circumstantial evidence surrounding the case – his behaviour before and after her disappearance, the numerous falsehoods inherent in his story! In short,
I am going to prove to you that those gossamer threads of circumstantial evidence hang as heavy as a millstone around his neck.’

  When Ian Redfern learned that Ed Vance was going to be prosecuting counsel he said to Harker, ‘Jack, I’m not the right guy to defend you at the trial. Vance is a rabid leftie, half your jury is likely to be black. Vance is young and good-lookin’ whereas I’m not. And you, my friend, are a white man who fought in the apartheid army. What you need for this trial is … are you ready for it? A black lawyer. Now, do you have any problem with that?’

  Harker’s heart sank. ‘No, provided he’s good.’

  They were sitting in a white-painted conference room in Miami Prison. Redfern said: ‘It may be she. There’re two black lawyers here I’d recommend. One is a grand old guy of about seventy, snow-white hair and a courtly manner, but rather slow and doddery in appearance. The other is a smart chick of about thirty-five called Esme. Gorgeous, big eyes, big tits, long, plaited hair, smart as a whip and hard as nails. Always dresses in white and drives a white Cadillac with white upholstery – stops a lot of traffic. But I recommend the old guy for this case.’

  Harker didn’t want a black lawyer of any description. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because half your jury may be white males and they may find Esme a turn-off because she looks like a ball-breaker who knows she’s good-looking. Whereas old Charlie Benson, he’s the opposite, the sort of guy who is always untidy, looks a benevolent type who would never mislead anybody. He’s kind of slow but he’s smart, he won’t miss any tricks. Everybody will like him, the whites because he looks like the traditional Uncle Tom, and the blacks because he’s one of their own who’s come up the hard way. Whereas, by comparison, Ed Vance will appear brash and harsh.’

  Harker sighed. ‘If I must have a black, let’s have the old guy. Will you be there beside him?’