Domino Island

by Desmond Bagley

  ‘I wouldn’t want to take you in for breaking the law,’ he said, and turned on his heel and walked away, leaving me standing in the hot sun.

  II

  Marshalltown was a plushy development at the base of Spanish Point, the eastern trunnion of Campanilla’s bell. The houses were big and stood in well-manicured grounds and looked as though they’d been plumbed for hot and cold running champagne. The school here was no corrugated iron shack but a modern building, pleasantly tree-shaded. Most of the kids on the green playing fields had white faces.

  Gregory Plaza was a spanking-new high-rise apartment block with its own golf course on one side and a private beach on the other. I parked the car and went in, through the foyer and out the other side to the beach. The long white combers surged up on to the pink sand with a soft roar, bearing with them the joyous surf-riders. I looked at the recumbent figures scattered over the beach, each flanked by the inevitable bottle of sun tan oil. Any one of them could have been Leotta Tomsson.

  I went back into the foyer and pressed the button for the lift and then instructed it to take me to the fourth floor. Number 432 was an uninformative door with a bell push which I pressed to hear soft chimes. It was pleasantly cool in the corridor and there was nothing to be heard but the soft and expensive sighing of the air conditioning.

  There was a click and the door opened three inches. ‘Yes?’ enquired a warm, female voice.

  ‘Miss Tomsson. My name is Kemp. I’d like to see you for a few minutes.’ She was invisible behind the door, which was secured by a burglar chain.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I represent a London insurance company and …’

  ‘I have enough insurance.’ The door began to close.

  I rammed the palm of my hand flat against it. ‘Hold it! I’m not selling.’ The door began to open again and stopped with a jerk at the regulation distance of three inches as the chain tightened. ‘I want to talk to you about something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘David Salton, to start with.’

  There was nothing but silence from the other side of the door. I waited a while then said, ‘Miss Tomsson?’

  ‘What about David Salton?’

  ‘You tell me.’ I glanced up and down the quiet corridor. ‘But maybe you’d prefer to do it in private.’

  There was another calculating pause. ‘All right,’ she said, and the chain rattled as she took it off. I pushed gently on the door and it swung open and I saw Leotta Tomsson walking away, silhouetted against the light from a big window overlooking the sea. I closed the door and followed her.

  When she swung around to face me she took my breath away. Six feet of unadulterated loveliness – copper-gold skin, tawny-streaked blonde hair, hazel eyes and the physique of an athlete. She was as unlike Jill Salton as it was possible to be. Although both were beautiful, to compare them would be ridiculous, like asking which is the more beautiful, a perfect tree or a perfect sunset. I was learning a lot about David Salton and I gave him full marks for his taste. I also suspected I was looking at the cause of the quarrel with his wife on the day he disappeared.

  Leotta wore a short white robe and fidgeted nervously with the belt. ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Kemp. William Kemp.’ I looked at her consideringly. ‘Don’t the jungle drums reach this far? You must be the only person on Campanilla not to have heard of me.’

  ‘I haven’t been out for a couple of days,’ she said. ‘There wasn’t anything on the radio.’

  I smiled. ‘I haven’t got that far, Miss Tomsson, but I dare say I will.’

  Her fingers plucked at the belt. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘What do you want?’

  I looked around the apartment, which was big and simply furnished in an austerely expensive way. I thought I could detect a sort of incense – the scent of burning five-pound notes – but I always have that illusion in the vicinity of the rich. ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Of course.’

  She sat on the edge of a settee while I sank into a starkly simple chair. ‘I represent the Western and Continental Insurance Company of London. I’m here to look into the death of David Salton because a lot of money is involved. This is just routine, you understand.’

  She nodded. ‘But why come to me? I’m not a beneficiary.’

  ‘Not with Western and Continental,’ I said. ‘I know that. But I wondered if, perhaps, Mr Salton had taken out insurance with another company in your favour.’

  There was a flash of something that may have been anger in her eyes.

  ‘So you thought that, did you?’

  ‘You were friendly with Mr Salton?’

  The corners of her generous mouth quirked for a moment, then she said stonily, ‘I was.’

  I said, ‘Miss Tomsson, don’t get me wrong. I have no interest in this matter other than safeguarding the insurance company. I leave moral judgements to others. Your association with Mr Salton is irrelevant to me – unless it had something to do with the cause of his death. How do you think he died?’

  She bent her head and looked down at her hands. ‘Foully,’ she whispered.

  ‘Do you mean foul play?’

  ‘I mean the way it happened.’ She lifted her head and her face was paler. ‘To die like that. To die and to rot adrift at sea.’ She looked out of the window at the sharply etched blue horizon. ‘I haven’t swum in the sea since it happened.’

  I kept my voice casual. ‘Do you know Mrs Salton?’

  She kept her face averted. ‘I’ve not met her. I’ve seen her around.’

  ‘Did she know about you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. David wasn’t likely to tell her.’ She turned her face towards me. ‘David was a good man,’ she said quietly. ‘I wouldn’t want his reputation dragged through the dirt. Must this come out into the open?’

  ‘Not through me,’ I said. ‘Others I can’t tell about.’

  She looked a little surprised, and then frowned. ‘By the way, how did you know about me?’ she asked. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘A man called Joe Hawke.’

  She rose abruptly and walked to the window, where she stood looking down at the beach. ‘Hawke will use it,’ she said flatly. ‘He always hated David and everything he stood for. He’ll use this when it suits him.’

  ‘Why should he?’

  ‘It’s a weapon, a political weapon. He’ll use it to smear David.’

  ‘But David Salton’s dead.’

  ‘What difference does that make? Mud sticks. It will stick to anybody who was close to David. It will stick to the party.’

  I nodded. Perhaps that was the way it was. And Hawke was using me as a stalking horse: it would be better for him if the disclosure came from someone who wasn’t Joe Hawke – someone already looking into Salton’s affairs and known to be politically neutral. If news of a moral flaw in the great David Salton was leaked by Hawke, then it would tend to be discounted because everyone knew Hawke had an axe to grind. But if it came from someone else entirely, someone who had never even met the Prime Minister-in-waiting, then it would pack a much stronger punch.

  I decided then and there that Hawke was going to be unlucky, because I was going to keep my mouth shut. No one was going to use me as a patsy.

  ‘When did you get to know Salton?’ I asked.

  ‘Five years ago, in New York. He helped me to find a job.’

  ‘What sort of job?’

  ‘He introduced me to the head of a modelling agency.’

  She would make a good model. ‘Five years ago?’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘That was before he was married.’

  She returned to the settee and sat down with a fluid grace. ‘He met me and Jill Salton – Jill Pedlar, as she was then – in the same week.’ With a curious gesture of resignation she said, ‘He married her.’

  She reached out to the table beside the settee and picked up a soft pack of cigarettes. She didn’t offer them, but took one out and lit it wi
th a heavy gold lighter, which she then snapped shut with a jerk of her wrist.

  ‘I got this,’ she said, waving the lighter dismissively. ‘The inscription is particularly touching.’

  She tossed it in my direction and I caught it one-handed. It was as heavy as it looked. I inspected the inscription; it read, ‘L – Always yours. D.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that so I leaned forward and put the lighter down on the table again. The comment about the inscription had been sarcastic, but other than that, I couldn’t detect any bitterness towards her lover who had married someone else.

  I said, ‘Are you a Campanillan?’ She nodded assent. ‘When did you come back here?’

  ‘Two years ago.’ The corners of her mouth turned down. ‘Maybe you think I shouldn’t have come running when he called.’

  ‘I’m not thinking anything,’ I said. ‘I’m just trying to see the situation as a whole.’

  ‘David was a hell of a man,’ she said. ‘So when he whistled I broke into a gallop, even though I knew it would do no good in the end. I loved that man. When I heard he was dead I broke down and cried for two days.’ She looked at me dry-eyed. ‘Did Mrs Salton cry for him?’

  I looked down at the carpet. ‘I’ve seen her cry.’

  ‘I used to watch her,’ said Leotta. ‘I knew about her but she didn’t know about me. That was something I used to hug to myself, a sort of cheap triumph.’ She looked a little sick as she gazed inside herself. ‘So I watched her, cool as ice, and tried to figure what David saw in her and what he saw in me. In the early days I used to ask him about her but he wouldn’t talk. He never talked of her, so I stopped asking.’

  ‘So you still think she doesn’t know about you?’

  ‘She might, she might not. I don’t care either way.’

  ‘And what opinions do you have on Salton’s death?’

  ‘I think it was as they said at the inquest. He had a heart attack.’

  ‘Did you know he’d had one before?’

  She looked at me for a moment, startled, then stubbed out the cigarette. She waved her hand about the apartment. ‘He had it here – in the bedroom. I thought my heart was going to stop too.’

  I frowned and thought that must have been awkward for her. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I telephoned his doctor, of course. What else could I do?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Oh, I see what you mean. Well, it was a bit tricky and we had to skirt round the edges a bit. Before the doctor arrived, David was able to talk so I got some clothes on him and we made up the story that he’d had the attack in the elevator. I stopped it at my floor and got him into this apartment. It was the only thing we could think of.’

  ‘Ingenious,’ I commented. ‘But what would he be doing here at all?’

  ‘Going up to the eighth floor, of course. To see Mr Stern, his lawyer.’

  It was my turn to be startled. ‘Stern lives here? Does he know about you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Most likely not. David wouldn’t have talked about me.’

  I thought about it, then said, ‘And Mrs Salton – what about her?’

  ‘I took good care not to be around when she got here,’ said Leotta. ‘I stood the other side of the golf course and watched them take David away in the ambulance, and I only came back when everyone had gone. She telephoned me three or four times but I put on an accent and pretended I was the maid and that Miss Tomsson was out. Miss Tomsson was always out when Mrs Salton called. Then she wrote me a letter thanking me for helping David and after that I heard nothing more.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘That was the last time I saw David.’

  I stared at her. ‘You mean you haven’t seen him for nearly eight months?’

  ‘That’s right. He phoned me a few times but I didn’t see him. We both figured it wouldn’t be any good for either of us.’

  I said uncertainly, ‘I don’t quite understand.’

  ‘You’re not that dumb,’ she said. ‘David didn’t bring me from New York just for my beautiful brains. When he had that heart attack we were – you know – making love. After it happened, Dr Collins told him to cut out sex for a while.’ She smiled thinly. ‘I often wondered how his wife felt about that. I knew how I felt.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, David thought that if he came here he wouldn’t be able to help himself and it was best to keep away.’

  ‘You’ve been very frank, Miss Tomsson,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

  I stood up and she said, ‘There’s no point in telling lies now, is there, Mr … I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name already. I’m no good at names.’

  ‘Kemp.’ As she walked with me to the door I said, ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘The rent’s paid on the apartment until the end of the quarter. I might stay until then. I might go back to the States, although I think not. I might go to London – I’ve never been over there.’ She drooped a little. ‘There are too many memories here and in New York.’

  I took out my wallet and extracted a card. ‘If you come to England, look me up,’ I said. ‘I know some people in the modelling game who might help you.’ I didn’t, but I would by the time she landed at Heathrow. ‘No strings, Miss Tomsson.’

  She took the card. ‘Thank you, Mr Kemp. I appreciate the gesture and I might take you up on it.’

  I regarded her. Like Jill Salton, she was a physically healthy specimen glowing with vitality but again, as in Jill Salton, I detected a weariness of spirit, a guttering of the inner flame. Abruptly, I said, ‘How many times have you been out of the apartment in the last three weeks?’

  ‘A couple of times, to get groceries. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Listen – what’s done is done,’ I said. ‘I don’t pretend to know what happens to the dead, but I do know that the living must go on living. Get out of here, Miss Tomsson. Get out and live a little. You’ll find it comes easier with practice.’

  ‘You’re a nice man, Mr Kemp,’ she said. ‘Do you know that? Not everyone would have that much regard for a person like me.’ There was an undertone of self-contempt and her eyes had gone misty.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ I said. ‘All you did was to make a man a little happier. Monogamy doesn’t suit some men. We might try to blink it but it’s one of the facts of life, and it seems that David Salton was one of those men. You did the decent thing and you didn’t flaunt yourself before Mrs Salton and so nobody got hurt. Don’t blame yourself for anything.’

  She put her hand on my arm. ‘You are a nice man. Maybe I will look you up in London.’ She was as tall as I am and her eyes were level with mine. She blinked a few times and then turned away, ostensibly to open the door.

  I left her apartment and went down to the ground floor, where I paused for a few minutes to look out over the beach. The surfers were still relentlessly riding the waves and the bronzed bodies were still lying in the same positions under the hot sun. The only change was that the level of sun tan oil in the bottles had gone down a quarter-inch.

  III

  ‘Mr Salton owned quite a bit of land on Campanilla,’ said Idle. He pointed to a large map on the wall of his office behind a chair occupied by Stern. ‘The parts that are shaded in colour.’

  Idle was about thirty-five, an amiable Englishman with a Guard’s moustache and a slight limp. Neither the moustache nor the limp were indicative of army life, he’d been quick to explain when I asked: the moustache was fortuitous and the limp a result of childhood polio.

  I walked over to study the map, forcing Stern to shift his chair out of the way. I wasn’t too sure why Mrs Salton’s lawyer was even there, unless he wanted to keep a close eye on me. ‘Why three colours?’

  Stern said, ‘Blue is for Salton Estates Ltd, red is the Campanillan Land Company, and green is Jildav Ltd. That’s the holding company which represents Salton’s personal fortune.’

  The map was splashed with blue and red in roughly equal proportions. El Cerco was coloured green, as was a small area of Marshalltown. Id
le said, ‘The Campanillan Land Company is purely commercial – organised to make money. It’s doing very well. Salton Estates Ltd was, I suppose, Mr Salton’s private charity and dedicated to the building of low-cost housing. It also financed hospitals and contributed to educational needs.’

  ‘How does it really work?’ I said.

  Idle limped over and stood beside me, looking at the map. ‘Mr Salton bought land steadily for about twenty-five years, mostly in small parcels as they became available. Naturally he bought as cheaply as he could and he had a keen eye to values. He split the holdings roughly equally between the Campanillan Land Company and Salton Estates. When the boom started, the price of land rose appreciably and he was on to a good thing.’

  He pointed to a tract of blue on the coast. ‘He bought this bit for two million dollars just before the boom. When we went to Western and Continental for a loan it was put up as collateral and valued at five million. Last week I was offered eight and three-quarter million for it. That more than covers the loan, of course. We turned it down.’

  I did a quick mental calculation. ‘That’s an appreciation of about fifteen per cent a year.’

  Idle grinned. ‘That’s why we borrowed money. We could have got it by selling land, but the value of the land is rising faster than the interest we’re paying you people for your money. It pays us to borrow.’

  It surely did. I surveyed the map. ‘What’s the total value of the Salton holdings?’

  Idle shrugged. ‘Difficult to say. Maybe about forty million dollars right now. The way things are going, in ten years’ time you could put it at a hundred million.’ He stretched out his hand and indicated areas. ‘These are the tracts that were put up as collateral for the loan and valued at eight million dollars. I could get twelve million for them now.’

  It seemed as though Costello didn’t have to worry too much about the security of his money. ‘Do you always work in dollars?’ I asked.

  Stern said, ‘Mr Salton lived in the United States a long time and thinking in dollars came easier to him. But Cam-panilla is converting its currency within the year, moving from Campanillan pounds to Campanillan dollars on a par with American dollars.’