Diamonds Are But Stone

by Peter Vollmer

  Of course, most local incidents during the last twenty-four hours were contained in the files before him but these did not contain rumours, and rumours were an important source of information. You needed to listen to the grapevine.

  “Sir, the only thing I’ve heard this morning was a remark by Detective Constable James saying that he heard from one of his stoolies that Carruthers was searching for a Caucasian couple on the islands and that the word was out to find them. Apparently, there’s a substantial reward out for whoever can point them out,” she said.

  Whittle pricked his ears up. Carruthers was so important to the police and the subject of so much investigation and discussion that the Black man could have passed as close family - truly, a thorn in Whittle’s side, as he and his men had never been able to pin the man down on any charge. Certainly, they had apprehended thugs and runners of the Carruthers’ syndicate, but the kingpin and his immediate right-hand men had always eluded him.

  Whittle’s one wish during his stay on the island was to arrest and convict Carruthers and with only another year to go, he wondered whether he was ever going to be able to do so.

  “Marilyn, get James in here.”

  Detective Constable James moved into the office with the usual West Indian swagger, a sort of disjointed motion of legs and arms and a slight sway of the upper body from side to side: a cocky gait. He was as black as spades with large eyes, white teeth and a flat nose and exuded a constant air of jovialness. Still, he straightened up in an attempt at deference.

  “You wanted to see me, Sir?”

  “Sit down, James. What’s this that I hear about Carruthers?”

  “I heard from one of my finks, Sir. Carruthers is desperately looking for a white couple who landed on the island a few days ago. They’re said to be in their early thirties. Apparently, she’ll knock your socks off. Mon, a real stunner - dark hair, swarthy complexion, a Hispanic but with an American accent. He’s South African, speaks English with a South African accent. Tall, has the body of an athlete, dark brown hair, cut short and parted on the left, thin face,” James recited.

  “Why are they looking for them?” Whittle asked.

  James shook his head. “Nobody knows - all that is being said is that finding them will pay handsomely.”

  “Thanks, just keep listening and I want to hear as soon as you hear something new.”

  James strode out of the office. Whittle drummed a pencil on his desk and took a sip of his tea, deep in thought. Damn Carruthers, he thought, what was the man up to again? This did not sound like any of his usual activities; these were usually confined to drugs and prostitution, and invariably those involved in his deals were the local coloured or black islanders.

  Where did these white tourists come in? He assumed they were tourists. Of course, they could’ve come here to deal with the banks, but that wasn’t much help - the banks never volunteered anything, they were as bad as the Swiss. But whenever Carruthers looked for somebody, it could reasonably be assumed that whoever it was could get hurt. If word was out on the street and the price for information as high as this, it would bear investigation.

  Call it premonition; something extraordinary was on the go that didn’t bode well for this couple. The problem was that he had no idea who they were, there so many tourists streaming in and out of the island every day. It would be impossible to find them without some tangible lead.

  Whittle proceeded to scrutinize the files his secretary had placed on his desk. Most of these related to incidents that had taken place during the last twenty-four hours - not petty crimes and drunken brawls but matters of a more serious nature requiring the intervention of the plainclothes division.

  One item caught his eye. It was a typical gang related offence, the systematic beating up of a tax-driver, so severe that the man was now in intensive care unable to speak to the police. He thought it could only be another drug or prostitution related matter. Nonetheless, he put the file aside. He saw that it had Detective James’ name on it.

  He finished with the files and called Marilyn to fetch these.

  “Get James back in here,” he said, handing her the files. “I’ve got the one on the taxi-driver. I’ll discuss it with James.”

  James came in and sat down and Whittle waved the taxi-driver file at him.

  “When does the doctor think you can speak to this driver?”

  “Sir, the man’s truly badly beaten up. Suspected concussion, broken jaw, cracked ribs and more. It’s a bad one.”

  “Okay, what does your gut-feeling tell you? Off the record now - just think aloud.”

  “I really don’t know. This individual is clean, no record, good family man; why he was beaten up is a mystery. But I’m sure it’s Carruthers related: only his mob does this. But it could be anything - refusing to pay protection money, a whore, who knows.”

  “James please, not a whore, a prostitute.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you think it can have anything to do with the couple Carruthers is looking for?”

  “Sir, your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Go back to the hospital. Tell the doc we’ve got to speak to the driver, got it? By the way, I want you to look for this couple as well, and let the word get out; I want Carruthers to hear it. I want him to know we’re looking for the same couple. I think we may just put the cat amongst the pigeons. By the way, tell Davids that I’ve decided he is to understudy you on this, just temporarily. He’s not working on anything urgent, okay?”

  “Yessir!”

  The following afternoon when James arrived back at the offices, he asked Marilyn if he could see the Superintendent urgently. She showed him through.

  Whittle looked up, then lent back in his chair, his hands behind his head. He had shed his suit jacket, as the afternoon was still hot.

  “Well, what have we got? I had hoped to hear something earlier,” he said gesturing to the chair.

  James sat down. “God knows what the doctor gave him but he woke up and was coherent for only a few minutes. The man’s clean, but he’s been chauffeuring the same couple around the island for the last few days and they are the people Carruthers’s looking for. He doesn’t know where they are now. He last saw them two days ago when he dropped them off in town. I believe him. He wouldn’t confirm it but I’m sure that’s why they beat him. He must have withheld the information from Carruthers and his stooges. Of course, as usual his assailants are unknown to him, couldn’t even give us a description.”

  “Shit!” Whittle turned to stare out of the window. “Anything else?”

  “Yes sir, the word’s out that we’re looking for the couple. Also, Davids came up with something. There’s a South African executive jet standing on the apron at Owen Roberts, it’s been there for a few days. It belongs to some South African conglomerate. A Hendrik Trichardt is the chief executive. Yesterday Davids asked Interpol if they had anything. He got this from Interpol; the telex arrived a few minutes ago.” James slid a telex message over the desk. “Apparently this Trichardt has close connections to the UNITA movement in Angola, that’s what it says here. He’s said to be a gunrunner, supported by the South African government. I’m still trying to find out what it’s all about.”

  “Don’t worry, I know,” Whittle said bitterly. “The South African apartheid government and the American CIA are supplying the UNITA movement in Angola with everything they need, including weapons. A bloody civil war is raging there. That’s why the reference to a gunrunner. The question is, what are they doing here? Do you know who the passengers were who arrived on that plane?”

  “No sir, we’re still waiting to hear from Immigration.”

  “Okay, keep me informed.”

  Whittle continued to stare out of the windows, the wheels in his mind churning as he waited for some revelation. Supplying UNITA meant big money. The
rebels had to pay cash for everything they got. These were vast sums. Maybe this money was the reason they were in the Caymans - no questions asked, the perfect place to keep these funds. That seemed to make sense to him.

  Now, why was the couple here as well? If Carruthers was looking for them then they were definitely not on holiday! Was there a connection between the couple and the passengers off the jet still on the apron?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Gerber and Rockell entered Trichardt’s hotel suite. He sat on a sofa, a Chivas Regal with ice in his hand, watching a program on the television set.

  “Well?” he asked, switching off the set. He did not ask them to sit.

  “Mijnheer, we can’t find them. They seemed to have disappeared. Yes, we had a few leads but they have both disappeared from their hotels. Van Onselen even cleared out his room; there’s nothing in it. She seems to have left in a hurry; she’s left everything behind. It certainly looks like they were running,” Gerber said.

  “Do you mean to tell me you have no idea what’s happened to them?” Trichardt asked with astonishment. How do you disappear into thin air on an island like this?

  “Oh,” said Rockell, “we did find out that they rented a white Ford Transit van, but there are hundreds of these on the island, most of them white.”

  “Do you think they could’ve left the island?”

  “Certainly not by air; we’re sure of that and no boats have departed the Caymans during last two days except for local craft going out and coming back.”

  “What about the ferries or an island hopper?”

  Rockell did not immediately reply. “I had not thought of them,” he finally said.

  Gerber interrupted. “Actually, I did check on those, but why go to another island? Better to stay here amongst the crowd. The other two islands are so damn small!”

  “Check them out again,” Trichardt replied curtly.

  Van Onselen and that damn Cuban woman must have learnt that he had mobilised local assistance to track them down. The bastard’s smart, he thought and so was the woman. Of course, she was a professional operative, probably trained at Langley by the CIA. He clenched his fists striving to keep his temper under control. If he caught them alive, he would make them reveal the whereabouts of his money! But if they died before that, well, that would be too bad but he’d live with it.

  He lifted the phone on the side table and dialled a number, which he read from a scrap of paper he extracted from his jacket pocket.

  “Mr Carruthers, please.”

  “That’s me,” was the reply.

  “Trichardt here. I think our birds have flown. You should have found them by now.”

  “I don’t think so. They’d never get off the island without me knowing about it. I’ve people in Immigration. Yes, I’m aware that they were warned that we were looking for them, but they’re still here - we’ll find them.”

  “What about the other islands or maybe a boat?”

  “No, not a boat but the other two islands are a possibility. Actually, I would’ve thought that a bad choice, not many people -difficult to hide on those. I know people on the islands; I’ll get something going. Just have patience, these things take a while.”

  “Okay,” Trichardt sighed. “just get back to me as soon as you hear something.”

  Gerber wanted to speak but hesitated for a moment. Trichardt picked this up.

  “Well, what’s it... speak up, man.”

  “Well, I should tell you that Carruthers’s people beat up some taxi-driver, I mean seriously beat him up. He’s in intensive care at the moment.”

  “What’s that got to do with us?”

  “It’s just that the local police have taken a keen interest in this, especially the chief of their detective division. It just makes you wonder what the hell is going on. This guy’s ex Scotland Yard - apparently quite a livewire. Apparently, this driver was employed by van Onselen to drive him around during his stay on the island. I’ve got a bad feeling the cops will eventually tie us into this.”

  Trichardt shook his head. “Forget it, I can’t see how - that’s Carruthers’s problem. Anyway, we should be out of here in the next few days.”

  This seemed to satisfy Gerber.

  What he did not know was that it left Trichardt feeling uneasy. He didn’t want to tangle with British cops on foreign soil.

  The phone rang. It was Carruthers.

  “I just want to tell you, I’ve just heard your two friends are armed. That definitely changes things; the use of firearms on these islands will have the police on all the islands out in force. That’s definitely not good.”

  The news took Trichardt by surprise. He could not imagine how the two had managed to get the weapons through customs; this definitely added a new dimension to the problem. How had Carruthers found this out?

  “Does this worry you?” he asked.

  “Damn right it does,” Carruthers replied.” But if you can live with it, so can I. It’ll just cost more.” With that, he cut the connection.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bess Sherman was the owner, barman, and receptionist of the Beach Hotel. She had just put the phone down, the only phone on the premises. Her hand had flown to her chest, a look of dismay on her face as she hastily tried to hide her shock.

  She was the main drug dealer on Cayman Brac and had been so for a few years now, a low-key representative of Carruthers’ organization. She also managed a prostitution ring on his behalf. It was not that she was directly in his employee but rather could be termed a franchisee, paying a percentage of each transaction to him. She had a few minor dealers spread out on the island, in her employ. The sex trade she controlled herself and while she did not consider herself in the category of a pimp, she alone dealt with her girls. The demand for women of easy virtue here was nothing like on Grand Cayman. Besides, she had found the girls were happier with her running the show. In reality, the hotel was no more than a cover for these activities: she never advertised, but neither did she turn guests away.

  The phone call was from Carruthers, and it was alarming that he himself had phoned. She could only recall two or three occasions when he had personally phoned and each occasion had been significant, the consequence of these invariably unhappy.

  She would never have been able to hang on to the hotel without the income she derived from acting as an intermediary in the drug trade and on the funds the women brought her. Often the young Americans who visited the island would lose themselves in a week of orgies and drugs, the island and its hotels far enough out of the way and relatively free from police raids. The police were not after the drug user or small middlemen, but after those that used the island as a conduit to the American mainland.

  She immediately realized that the couple currently staying in the corner room were the people that Carruthers was looking for: the description he gave her matched them to a tee. It was a shame; she thought them decent people - what could they have done?

  She did not know why she had hesitated to tell him that they were here but knew she would have to do so soon.

  She gazed out of the entrance and beyond the porch and could see them on the beach; the man and woman both sprawled on their stomachs on chaise-longues, sunbathing. She noticed that the woman had removed her bikini-top. She thought her exceptionally beautiful. She wondered again, why Carruthers so desperately sought them; they certainly did not seem to be the type to have any interest in the specialities that Carruthers and his mob offered.

  She turned and looked back at Christopher, her younger brother, who was cleaning the floor of the bar with a bucket and mop, methodically pushing, and pulling the mop back and forth, limping on his gamey leg. She shuddered; that had been the work of Carruthers and his hoodlums, who she likened to Duvalier and his Ton-Ton on Haiti - death and mayhem were part of their game and
you didn’t mess with them. Carruthers’s methods were no different - retribution was swift and brutal, as Christopher could attest. Only once had she and her brother not paid Carruthers his proportionate share of a drug deal; her brother’s misfortune was the result.

  She was terrified of the man and knew she dare not cross him again.

  She walked across the floor to her brother, carefully checking that they were the only occupants of the bar and told him about the telephone call from Carruthers.

  “I’se sorry for them, they’se nice people. But I have no choice. Mon, I have to tell him that they are here at the hotel.”

  Christopher listened in silence, concealing the rage, which rose within him at the thought of Carruthers. He remembered Jerome, one of Carruthers’s lieutenants, who had arrived on the island with another two of his boss’ goons. First, they had slapped Bess around, even after she had willing parted with the money they were looking for. Then, to make sure she never entertained the idea again, they dragged him to the beach where they beat him senseless, finally throwing him off a coral outcrop, twenty feet to the jagged coral-strewn floor below, resulting in multiple fractures to his lower leg.

  Both knew what the consequences would be if they withheld the information. Carruthers would not give them a second chance.

  “Tell them,” he said resignedly. He could not let anything happen to his sister.

  She walked back to the reception counter and picked up the phone.

  Christopher limped to the porch and looked at the couple on the beach.

  She still had not dialled the number. “Christopher, don’t you be getting any ideas,” she said, afraid that he might warn them.

  He ignored her. He returned to the bar and resumed cleaning the floor, but now vigorously attacked the task, wanting to get finished. He knew he did not have much time.