“Let’s see. Windflower is here, in number thirty-six. You mean the berth on the other side of the pontoon? Number fourteen?” He indicated a space on the plan that had a little paper flag marked BLUEBIRD in it.
Henry nodded. “The berth’s empty at the moment,” he said.
“Not for long,” remarked the Harbour Master. “Bluebird went to George Island for lunch, but the skipper axed me to be sure to keep the berth free, as they’d be back this evening.”
“So it’s Bluebird—” Emmy began.
“Not if you’re interested in last Thursday.” The Harbour Master was back at his desk, thumbing through his ledger. “Bluebird only came in on Friday. Last Thursday…let’s see…” There was a little pause. Then he said, “Last Thursday the Chermar was on that mooring.”
“The Charmer?” Henry said.
“No, sir. Chermar. C-h-e-r-m-a-r.”
“That’s a funny name for a boat.”
The Harbour Master smiled indulgently. “Young couples often do it,” he said. “Name their boat after both their names. Happen I hear these two talking, and they called Cheryl and Martin. Cher-mar—get it? Big white motor cruiser. Well, when I say big—thirty-five foot. Nice craft.” He paused, and then, with inevitable West Indian curiosity, added, “Friends of yours?”
“Not exactly,” Henry said. “So they left on Thursday, did they?”
“Seems so.”
“How do you mean?”
Quite suddenly, the Harbour Master became suspicious. He shut his ledger with a bang, stood up, and said, “If the people on Chermar aren’t friends of yours, sir, I’m afraid I can’t discuss them anymore. Wouldn’t be proper.”
“Of course, you’re perfectly right,” Henry said. “The reason I asked is that they left something behind at the mooring.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know where to find them to give it back, sir,” said the Harbour Master firmly. “I could try to raise them on VHF radio, but I’d be surprised if they’re still in range. They only stayed overnight—put in for a small repair, the gentleman told me.” He stopped abruptly, then said, “Here, if you found something on the jetty today, it’ud be from Bluebird. What made you ask about Thursday? And what’s the thing you found, anyway?”
“Just a souvenir,” said Henry. He grabbed Emmy’s hand, and the two of them were out of the office in an instant, leaving behind a highly suspicious Harbour Master. From the doorway of his office, he watched them making for the row of telephone booths. He saw Henry ruffling the pages of the local directory while Emmy fished her small-change purse out of the snorkel bag. After a moment of indecision, the Harbour Master walked back into his office and picked up his own telephone to make a call.
Inspector Herbert Ingham was on the point of leaving the police station for the day when Henry’s call came through. He listened with amused indulgence and then said, “Well, that clears that up, then, doesn’t it? Silly of me not to think of it before.”
“Think of what?”
“That the lady might have gone off on a private yacht with friends. Funny how the most obvious explanation often… What’s that?…Well, really, Chief Superintendent, I don’t think I can… Now, see here, the lady is a free agent and able to look after herself, isn’t she? If she chooses to cruise the islands with friends instead of going home to England, that’s nobody’s business but her own… No, I can’t put out an alarm call for the boat… Well, yes, I could inquire if she’s at St. Matthew’s or George Island, but…oh, very well… What’s the name of the boat?… How do you spell it?… Oh, I see, one of those composite names… Well, I can tell you one thing, a boat with a name like that isn’t going to be doing anything except holiday cruising. This Cheryl and Martin will be a rich young couple, probably from Florida… Customs and Immigration?… Yes, they’ll still be there if you hurry… ” He sighed. “All right, I’ll call them… Officer Cranstone is the man you want, he’s Immigration… O.K., see you tomorrow… ”
Chief Inspector Ingham put down the telephone, irritated. He had enough serious things on his mind without having to bother with a Chief Superintendent from Scotland Yard fussing over an old lady, who was quite obviously enjoying an extended vacation on board a friend’s boat. It was with no enthusiasm that he picked up the telephone and called the Customs and Immigration office.
“Cranstone? Herbert Ingham here. There’s a fellow on the way to see you, name of Tibbett… Chief Superintendent from Scotland Yard… No, quite unofficial, he’s on holiday with his wife, but he’s after some information, and we can’t very well refuse to cooperate… Yes, anything he wants to know… Sure I’ll be at the fish fry tonight…see you there, man… ”
The Customs and Immigration office was situated on the town quay next to the fish market. Officer Cranstone, cool and trim in white shirt and black trousers, was happy to explain Immigration procedure to Henry and Emmy.
“Skippers of visiting boats report in here to me,” he said, “with passports and the ship’s papers. We stamp the passports, issue Immigration cards which have to be surrendered when the person leaves the Seawards, and give the ship clearance. The Customs Officer makes a spot check at the marina every so often, but you understand we can’t possibly search every boat, any more than they can go through every suitcase at the airport. These people are on vacation, and we do our best to make things easy and pleasant for them. Coming by boat is a sort of guarantee, anyway.”
“Guarantee? How do you mean?”
“Well, sir, the sort of people we want to discourage are the vagrants…hippies and the like, and people with no proper means of support, who try to slip in as visitors and then take odd jobs and stay in the islands. That’s why the airport has to be more strict. There, we demand that visitors show a return ticket and prove they have somewhere to stay and means of support. But a boat is a return ticket and somewhere to stay, and it’s easy to check. So we try not to bother them too much.”
“But you do keep records?” Henry asked.
“Of course. Here’s our register of incoming boats, with the names and passport numbers of skippers and crews… ”
“What about outgoing boats?”
Cranstone, who was chubby and good-natured, rubbed his plump chin and smiled. “Yes, indeed, sir. The skipper checks the boat out and hands in the Immigration forms.”
Henry said, “Supposing the skipper of a yacht just ups anchor and leaves, without checking out?”
“He’ll be in trouble at his next port of call, that’s what,” said Cranstone. “If he can’t produce a valid clearance for his boat, he’ll be liable to a stiff fine—and you may be sure the Customs will give his ship a proper going-over.”
“I see,” Henry said. “Well, I’m interested in a motor cruiser called the Chermar, which was berthed at the marina on Wednesday last week and left on Thursday. I don’t know where she arrived from. Can you help me?”
“Surely, sir.” Cranstone thumbed through his records and a few minutes later came up with results. “Here she is. June 18, last Wednesday. Chermar, thirty-five-foot motor cruiser, port of registry Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.A., last port of call British Virgin Islands, owner-skipper Mr. Martin Ross of Washington, D.C., crew Mrs. Cheryl Ross, same address, British passports.”
“British?”
“Yes, sir. I remember Mr. Ross now—it’s not often we get Britishers coming in on boats. He told me he was working in Washington, living temporarily in the States. But his wife was American, he told me, from Florida, if I remember right. She had two passports, American and British, and he made quite a joke of it, asking which one I wanted to see. A very nice gentleman.”
“Did he speak like an Englishman?” Henry asked.
Cranstone looked puzzled. At length he said, “He spoke like a white man.”
Henry did not press the point. He should have realized, he thought, that to a West Indian English and American accents are no more distinguishable than the regional variations of Creole from different islands would be to him. He said, “Did the Cherm
ar check out with you?”
“No, sir. I’ve no record of her leaving. Mr. Ross did mention that they’d put in for a small repair and would be away again in a couple of days—but maybe the repair is taking longer. Or maybe they’re still in the Seawards. You could check with St. Matthew’s.”
“Mr. Ross came alone to your office, with the two passports?”
“Yes, sir.” Cranstone paused. “Nothing wrong about the Chermar was there, sir?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said. “I hope not.”
That evening, the Tibbetts dined ashore at the marina restaurant.
It was clear that people from cruising boats welcomed a chance to escape from the galley and eat ashore, for the place was crowded; and since most visiting yachtsmen stayed only a few days, Henry had little hope that any of the restaurant staff would remember an individual tourist. Luckily, however, Betsy Sprague must have stood out among the crowd of bronzed young Americans like a crow in a cage of canaries. The waitress who served the Tibbetts remembered her.
“The funny-looking old lady in the long skirt and big hat? Sure, I do recall her. I only saw her the one time. She was with two people off a boat. They’d paid their check and were leaving when she came up to talk to them. They all sat down again and I brought them drinks. Next thing I saw, they were all going off down the jetty to the boat, I reckon. The young man was carrying the lady’s suitcases.” The waitress, a small and very black girl with a round face and a cornrow hairdo, smiled attractively. “I remember thinking she must be a relation, like an aunt. Otherwise it seemed kind of funny that an old lady should go cruising with a young couple. But that’s what must have happened because I never saw any of them again.”
Henry said, “Do you think you could recognize the couple she was with?”
The waitress laughed merrily. “I could try,” she said, “but, matter of fact, most white folks look pretty much alike to me. Beside, we get so many in here, different every day. The gentleman was dark and had a beard, but then most of them do. No, it’s the old lady I recall.”
Henry and Emmy had finished dinner and were drinking coffee when they noticed the Harbour Master—who had long since closed his office and left for the day—coming back into the marina, accompanied by a grim-looking Inspector Ingham, now in civilian clothes. The Harbour Master unlocked his office and switched on the light, and the two men went inside. Through the open door, Henry could see them in earnest conversation, poring over papers and charts on the desk. Then they both came out and made their way purposefully down the jetty.
Emmy said, “I do believe they’re going to Windflower, Henry. They must be looking for us.”
Henry stood up. “You settle the bill,” he said. “I’ll go and see what’s up.” He overtook the two men as they were leaving the deserted Windflower.
Inspector Ingham said, “Ah, there you are, Chief Superintendent. Come into the office for a moment, will you?”
“What’s all this about?” Henry asked.
Ingham did not reply, but led the way back down the jetty and into the Harbour Master’s office. He closed the door carefully, and then said, “You’d better take us into your confidence, sir. We can’t work in the dark.”
“I don’t understand,” Henry said.
“What do you know about the Chermar?” demanded the Harbour Master. Not being a policeman, he was quite unimpressed by Henry’s rank.
Ingham said, “You’ve been making inquiries about the Chermar—”
“Yes, but—”
“I must ask you why, sir. You told Anderson here that the Chermar had left something behind on the jetty, and then you simply disappeared without answering when he asked you what it was. You then telephoned me—”
“All right, all right,” Henry said. “I was interested in the Chermar—in fact, I still am—because, as I told you, I thought Miss Sprague might be on board. That’s now virtually certain. A waitress at the restaurant saw the Rosses with Miss Sprague last Thursday, carrying her baggage down the pontoon in the direction of the boat, which must have left shortly afterwards. She had certainly gone by Friday. That’s my information. What’s yours?”
The two black men exchanged a look, and then Ingham said, “Anderson and I were both at the fish fry this evening when the Duty Constable got word to us. She thought it might be important.”
“Word about what?”
“She was listening out on VHF and heard the U.S. Coast Guard message. There’s a general alert and search out for the Chermar. She’s overdue in St. Thomas, where the Rosses should have picked up some friends on Thursday evening. When she hadn’t turned up by this morning, these friends told the Coast Guard and asked them to try to make radio contact—the Chermar carries ship-to-shore radio. The Coast Guard has been trying for more than twelve hours now and can get no response from any area that the Chermar might conceivably have reached after leaving here.”
“In any case,” Anderson put in, “she never cleared the Seawards, either here or in St. Matthew’s, so it looks like she never even set out to go to St. Thomas.”
Ingham went on. “So now there’s a general alert. It could just be a broken radio—but that’s unlikely in view of the fact that Mr. Ross knew where his friends were staying in St. Thomas. He could easily have gone ashore somewhere and telephoned them if he was delayed for some reason. But he didn’t. So it looks as though we’ve got another one.”
Henry nodded. “Another yacht disappeared without trace. Like the Isabella.”
“And some others,” said Ingham.
The telephone bell shrilled in the small office. The Harbour Master picked it up. “Harbour Master’s office… Yes, he’s here… ” He held out the receiver to Ingham. “For you, Herbert.”
“Ingham…yes…yes…well, it’s only what we expected, isn’t it?… How much?… How many?… Anybody we—?… Oh, no. Oh, shit. Young Duprez as well?…and Laurette MacKay?… O.K., go ahead and book them. I’ll get up as soon as I can… right…be seeing you.” He put the telephone down and turned to Henry. “It’s time we had a talk, Chief Superintendent. If you can help us, we’d appreciate it.”
“About missing boats?” Henry said.
“That was my Detective Inspector. We had a tipoff there was going to be a lot of pot-smoking at the fish fry tonight. So he waited until I’d left—they wouldn’t light up while I was actually there—and then made a bust. He’s collared a whole group of youngsters with large quantities of marijuana and some heroin as well. It makes me sick.”
“Kids of important people, by the sound of it,” Anderson said.
Ingham put his hand on the Harbour Master’s shoulder. “Kids of good friends, too,” he said.
“Not—?”
“I’m afraid so, Elwin. Your boy Sebastian. You’d best get up to the station right away and see about bailing him out. Now, Chief Superintendent, as soon as I’ve dealt with this lot, I’ll come back here. What d’you say we meet on board the Windflower in about an hour’s time?”
“O.K.,” said Henry. “We’ll be waiting for you.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE CABIN OF the Windflower was roomy and comfortable, with a folding dinette table and bunks upholstered in blue canvas. Through the open hatch the tropical moonlight flooded in, making a mockery of the small kerosene lamp. Emmy had made coffee, and now she and Henry sat facing a tired, worried Chief Inspector Ingham across the plastic-topped table.
Ingham said, “Fifteen of them. Boys and girls. All under twenty. All from families I know personally.” He swirled the dark coffee in his mug. “If I could lay hands on the people behind this—”
“Did any of them tell you where they got the stuff?” Emmy asked.
Ingham shook his head. “It was being sold at the fish fry, no doubt about that,” he said. “Ideal, you see. It’s in the open air, it’s dark and crowded, and the smell of the frying fish masks the smell of the cannabis. The kids all say they bought their joints off a stranger—a white man. A tourist. I don’
t believe them. I think that’s what they had agreed to say if they got busted. There must be local people involved, although certainly the big guys are in the States.” He sighed. “This is big business, man. Last boat the U.S. Coast Guard picked up—a private yacht out of Florida, sailing out of Colombia towards these islands—she had a cargo of hash worth five million dollars on the street.”
Henry said, “The young people on this island don’t have five million dollars.”
“I know it. This is only a small market retail, as it were. What I’m afraid of is that we’re being used wholesale.”
“How do you mean?” Emmy asked.
“Well, let’s put it like this. A boat that’s known to be sailing out of Colombia, say, back to the States is going to be searched by Customs. So she wants to stash her cargo at a staging-post, somewhere nice and safe, and then bring it back bit by bit, in innocent-seeming boats. We’re a small group of islands, with a small police force and a big tourist industry, mostly in charter boats. We haven’t the men or the facilities to check on every damn boat that comes in or out—and even if we did have, we wouldn’t want to spoil our main source of income. How many innocent cruising yachtsmen are going to come back to a place where they’re treated as criminals? We’re walking a tightrope, and the smugglers know it. So we’re an ideal halfway stop, with a small but growing retail trade on the side. The main purpose of that is to get the kids hooked, to make sure of local cooperation in the future. The bastards.”
Henry said, “Did these kids you arrested describe the man who is supposed to have been selling joints?”
Ingham grinned suddenly. “Sure. Middle-aged, not too tall, sandy-colored hair, blue eyes.”
“Henry!” Emmy exclaimed.
“Could be,” said Ingham dryly, “except that I happen to know Mr. Tibbett wasn’t at the fish fry.”
“Does the description fit anybody else you know?” Henry asked.
“No, sir. Nobody on this island. But, of course, tourists come in all shapes and sizes.”
Henry said, “Supposing you describe a typical drug-smuggling operation, as you see it.”
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