Absolute Money: Part I: An Oliver Holmes Caribbean Thriller

by C B Wilson

  “I would like an answer,” said De Laney.

  “You didn’t ask a question.”

  De Laney said that he wanted to know why Matthew had been re-assigned and where he was being sent. Malkin said, “I don’t know why you’re still talking to me. I told you, your colleague has been re-assigned. There is nothing to discuss.”

  De Laney was muttering something when Malkin cut across him. “Did you know that Cristal champagne was originally commissioned for Czar Alexander II?”

  “I don’t see what that—”

  “He wanted bottles on his table made of clear glass so that he could see if there were bombs inside.”

  De Laney said, “Very interesting but—”

  “Mr Volkov particularly likes Cristal Rose.”

  De Laney looked down his nose at Malkin and condescended with both barrels. “I am aware of that.”

  “How many bottles of Cristal Rose have we got on board right now?”

  Thrown by the change of direction, De Laney stuttered his reply. “I-I don’t know exactly, I would have to check that.”

  “Two hundred and sixty-one,” said Malkin. “There should be two hundred and sixty-three, but your stock control procedures are sloppy so you’re missing a couple. And how do I know that? Because it’s my job to know everything. Everything that happens in Mr Volkov’s empire. And I do.”

  De Laney said, “May I speak frankly?”

  “Why would you speak to me any other way?”

  De Laney continued, “Two bottles of missing champagne out of the millions of dollars of turnover that we have, well, it’s basically peanuts.”

  Malkin said, “You’re right. But they’re Mr Volkov’s peanuts, and I can promise you, he does care. And when he does, I really do.”

  “I don’t see the relevance of this to what we were talking about,” said De Laney.

  “I see the big picture and the details. That’s why I’m in charge. This isn’t some kind of democracy where we sit around and discuss things. I make the decisions, you accept them. Now carry on organising the flowery napkins or whatever crap it is that you do, but if you answer back to me again, I’ll have you thrown over the side.”

  De Laney said, “I do not like your attempts to intimidate me.”

  Malkin said, “You’re right. I’m just joking. I would never have you killed. Not for another twenty-four months anyway.”

  Malkin chuckled about that until he was back in his suite on Plutus.

  22

  The stewardess looked at the photograph of Nadia on Nikki’s phone and shook her head. “I never saw her.”

  Nikki wasn’t sure what to say about that so she let the young woman fill the silence.

  “My station was twelve to four on the upper sky deck. I saw you there on Friday night. You were drinking virgin mojitos. You seemed kind of aloof, like you were watching everyone else and not really getting into the party spirit.”

  Nikki said, “Maybe you’re right. But I don’t understand why you said you had something to tell me but now you say you never saw Nadia.”

  When they met at the marina, the stewardess had given Nikki a slip of paper with the name of the bar and the time they should meet. It was a tourist spot, almost entirely fake, on the Hip Strip running through Montego Bay. From her accent, Nikki placed the girl as Spanish. She had an open face and long limbs like a tennis player. She was the kind of girl that normally looked confidently at the world, only this one was worried as hell and kept looking anxiously at the car park and over her shoulder.

  “Why won’t you tell me your name?”

  The stewardess said, “We have a non-disclosure agreement with the owners. If I talk about anything that happens on board, to anyone, they can fire me and keep all of my money.”

  Nikki said, “I’m not going to tell anyone.”

  “One of the maids put something on her Facebook page about how she’d enjoyed her day off in Cuba, and they fired her for that. She didn’t even say anything about the boat.”

  Nikki said, “I’m really worried about my friend. If you know anything that might help me to find her, it would be great.”

  The stewardess fidgeted around in her chair, plucking up courage to say what was on her mind. She said, “Do you promise this won’t come back on me?”

  Nikki promised.

  The stewardess started talking and it all came out in a rush. “It just happened yesterday. My friend Matthew is a steward. He’s not my boyfriend or anything, but ever since I’ve been on board he’s been fun, kind of the only bright spot, because despite what you might think it’s kind of tough on board. The hours… you wouldn’t believe the hours we work, and the pay…”

  Nikki wanted to head the stewardess off from complaining about her working conditions so she steered her back to the point of her story.

  “When Mr Volkov has these parties, there’s always another party which is kind of closed off to everyone else. He has, like, this private deck and a penthouse. They just invite, like, his old Russian friends and we aren’t normally allowed in to clean up or serve drinks or anything.”

  Nikki said, “Did Matthew go into this VIP party?”

  “No. He was cleaning the gangway outside Mr Volkov’s apartment where someone had spilled some drinks and he said this woman stumbled out of the party like she’d been drugged, and she…he caught her and she tried to say something, but he said it sounded like ‘help me’, and then a security guard came through the door and grabbed her and took her back into the party.”

  “Was it Nadia?”

  The stewardess said, “I don’t know. He said she was European, you know. Not Russian. Most of the girls in Mr Volkov’s party are Russian.”

  Nikki said, “I need to speak to your friend Matthew. It’s very important. I want him to see this photograph so he can identify her. I need you to arrange that for me.”

  The stewardess said she couldn’t.

  Nikki said, “I will make sure that neither of you lose your jobs, OK? I understand that you’re worried.”

  The stewardess said that she couldn’t speak to Matthew because he had gone. “He told me what happened over breakfast. Yesterday lunchtime I went to his cabin. It was cleared out. Empty. His manager wouldn’t tell me what had happened. I’m really worried.”

  Out of the window the stewardess saw two guys pull up in a black SUV and park next to her car, looking at it.

  “Shit,” she said, “don’t ruin this for me,” and ran.

  The guys got to the doorway of the bar before she did. Muscled, short hair, sunglasses and with a physical presence to them.

  “They want you on the boat,” said one of the men to the girl. “People getting worried about you.”

  “Sorry,” she said as he escorted her out. “I forgot the time.”

  The other one looked around the bar at the drinkers, scanning faces. Nikki looked out of the window as though she had no interest in him or the girl. It must have worked because when she looked round again, the three of them had disappeared.

  23

  “I know where she is,” Nikki said.

  They were in a hotel in Montego Bay, sharing the bar with pink tourists having their whole Jamaican experience without venturing past the fence.

  Holmes and Ellie were down after their wasted trip to Plutus. Charlotte was the only one around the table smiling, but Oliver hadn’t known her long enough to tell if it was the buzz from her lunchtime cocktail, or if she was usually that happy when her best friends went missing.

  Nikki wouldn’t tell them straightaway. “Tell me what happened on Plutus first,” she said.

  Oliver said, “Nothing. They bounced us out of there after five minutes. Couldn’t have got rid of us quick enough.”

  Nikki said, “That figures.”

  Ellie said, “Tell us where Nadia is.”

  Nikki paused, got everyone’s attention and said, “I think she’s still on Plutus. I don’t think she ever left. The whole jet-ski story was a cover.”
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br />   Ellie said, “They were positive that she left with Vincent Henin on a jet-ski when we asked them.”

  “I don’t think she left with anyone,” Nikki said and told them the stewardess’s story about the drugged woman in the private party, but Holmes didn’t buy it.

  “You have no identification. That’s not evidence. That’s not proof. How many other European women were at that party?”

  Nikki said, “If you don’t count Russians as European – and the stewardess didn’t – then we were the only ones. I think.”

  Holmes said, “That’s too thin.”

  Nikki said, “We’re not trying to make a legal case out of it.”

  Ellie agreed with her. “I can see those guys using Rohypnol or some date-rape drug…”

  Holmes said, “What kind of guys are we talking about?”

  Nikki said, “They were kind of rough.”

  Charlotte said, “They were gangsters. Out of control.”

  Holmes said, “I thought this was the most amazing party on this amazing yacht. And now you’re telling me they were out-of-control gangsters drugging women.”

  The three women looked at each other a little awkwardly. “You never had a holiday that sucked and you made it seem better when you told people about it?” said Ellie.

  Holmes said, “I hate holidays, but I know what you mean.”

  Charlotte said, “And Nikki did get into a fight…”

  Holmes said, “OK…” and he thought about it some more with his thumbnail between his teeth like he always did when he was thinking.

  Holmes said, “What the hell were you doing at a party like that in the first place?”

  Nikki said, “It’s not what you think.”

  Ellie backed her up. “It was a mistake. We wouldn’t have gone if we had known.”

  Charlotte said, “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Which is it? Was it ‘out of control’ or was it OK?”

  “A lot of drunk men, a lot of Russian hookers dancing and…it was kind of out of control but not wild,” said Charlotte.

  Nikki tried to look at Holmes but he avoided her gaze. “It’s not what you think,” she said. “We’re not like that.”

  Holmes ignored her. “What I don’t get, is why would they do that?”

  “Do what?”

  Holmes said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but surely they don’t need to drug girls. You said the place was full of Russian hookers, young ladies not noted for being coy, so why would they need to drug anyone?”

  Nikki said, “We need to get back on board and start asking questions.”

  Charlotte’s phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and said, “It’s Superintendent Roberts.” She handed the phone to Nikki. “You take it.”

  Nikki walked away from the table and started talking on the phone. Holmes said, “Superintendent Roberts is a big cheese down in Kingston. What’s he doing calling you?”

  Charlotte told him about her trip to the police station.

  “It was a small waiting room, hot and there were no chairs so I was standing for what seemed like hours and all these people kept coming in who’d been stabbed and shot and murdered and pushing in front of me and shouting. At first, I thought there was a queue. It was an awful place.”

  Oliver couldn’t stop himself. “Are you sure you’re not exaggerating just a little bit?”

  Charlotte wasn’t going to let Oliver put her off her story. “And then my taxi driver came in and he told everyone to get out of the way, and everyone started shouting and I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. And then some people started laughing and saying I was the queen, so in the end they took me into a tiny little room, and this man, I don’t even know if he was a policeman, told me not to worry because tourists always turn up.”

  Ellie said, “Just like they said on Saturday.”

  Oliver said, “Usually they’re right.”

  “Well it didn’t make any sense to me,” said Charlotte. “So I told them that it wasn’t good enough and if they didn’t pull their fingers out and start a proper search, then I was going to cause them all sorts of problems.”

  Oliver said, “And then Superintendent Roberts appeared.”

  Charlotte was a little deflated that Holmes had stolen her punchline. She said, “Well why don’t you tell the story if you know so much about it?”

  “I’m sorry. Go on.”

  Charlotte said, “Well, Superintendent Roberts appeared.”

  Oliver asked, “What did he say?”

  “He said that this case had been passed to him and he was going to put all possible resources into finding Nadia. They’ve got the navy on it and police patrols along the shore and something else I can’t quite remember, but he said he’d keep me updated.”

  Oliver said, “That’s good news,” and Ellie congratulated her friend on her persistence and ordered her another Caribbean Cosmopolitan, but Nikki finished her conversation before the cocktail arrived and she was on the verge of tears.

  “Roberts doesn’t think she’s still on board.”

  Holmes said, “For once I agree with the police.”

  “They just found the jet-ski and a body. There was an accident.”

  Nikki burst into tears.

  24

  Senior Superintendent Roberts was waiting for them by the shack where the police cars had pulled off the road. It was a nothing more than a wooden lean-to full of conch shells and bananas for tourists that never came.

  Roberts was using his slow, deep, compassionate voice on Nikki. “We have a witness,” he said. “An old man out fishing on Saturday morning, early. He saw two people, a man and a woman on a jet-ski heading fast along the coast.”

  Nikki said, “Why didn’t he say something before?”

  “He didn’t know it was important until he heard about the accident.”

  Roberts walked Nikki and Holmes towards the sea. Ellie and Charlotte stayed in the car, crying. They didn’t want to see the site of the accident.

  The jet-ski was pulled up away from the rocky shore on a small promontory, hidden from the view of the road by low windswept bushes. A few policemen waited patiently a few metres from the wreck. A blue tarpaulin was stretched over a body next to it. An arm emerged from the tarpaulin, stiff and straight, still attached by the kill cord.

  Roberts stopped twenty metres from the jet-ski and pointed at the sweep of the shoreline. “Following on from what the witness said, we think he must have been coming along the coast fast and hit some rocks in the dark where the promontory sticks out into the sea. From the injuries to the driver, it looks like he would have hit his head and drowned.”

  Holmes said, “How come he’s still attached?”

  Nikki said, “Where’s Nadia? Where is she?”

  Roberts said, “The currents here are fast and strong.” He pointed at a few small boats in the distance. “We’ve got patrols all along the coast, but my guess is anybody in the water would have been swept out to sea. I’m sorry.”

  Nikki turned away from Roberts and buried herself in Holmes’ arms and sobbed.

  Roberts said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Nikki pulled her tear-stained face out of Holmes’ chest. “Maybe she’s not dead.”

  Roberts said, “If she was injured in the collision and didn’t make it out of the water…I already mentioned the currents. We lose too many people like this every year. But we’ll keep looking.”

  When Nikki had stopped crying, Holmes suggested that she go back to the car and tell Charlotte and Ellie what had happened. He asked Roberts, “Is it OK if I see the body?”

  Roberts didn’t think that was a good idea. “He’s been in the water a long time. It’s not pretty.”

  Holmes said, “Don’t worry. I’m used to dead bodies.”

  Nikki, who had stayed, said, “I want to see the body as well.” Neither Holmes nor Roberts had a good reason to persuade her not to and they walked to the shoreline together.

  Holmes
inspected the jet-ski. There were huge dents on the front of the jet-ski where it had hit the rocks head on.

  Roberts said, “The injuries to Mr Henin suggest that he hit his head on the steering bar, which in my opinion concussed him and he fell into the water and drowned. But we’ll have to wait for the coroner to tell us that definitively.”

  Roberts got a policeman to pull back the tarpaulin. Henin’s cheeks had been chewed away where his face had been in the water, but the massive dent in his forehead was still clear enough.

  The smell was enough to make them gag and Holmes realised that was why the policemen had been standing upwind from the body.

  Roberts flicked a finger and the policeman pulled the tarpaulin back over Henin’s corpse. Everyone backed away from the body until they were out of range of the smell.

  Holmes asked, “Isn’t the kill cord supposed to come off?”

  Roberts said, “I guess this one didn’t work properly. The fuel tank is empty which means the engine probably kept running.”

  Nikki said, “So the accident might have happened somewhere else and Nadia could be anywhere.”

  Roberts gave her a sad shake of the head. “The witness saw them just along the coast heading in this direction. I’d say the accident happened here and the engine just idled away.”

  Roberts answered a few more of their questions and then guided them back towards the road. “The coroner’s van takes a few hours to get here. Then we’ll have the post-mortem in a couple of days. I’ll try to get things hurried up for you.”

  When they got back to the road, Charlotte and Ellie ran towards Nikki. The three women hugged each other and cried. Holmes was left out of the circle. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He hadn’t ever met Nadia, and although he was sad, he didn’t feel he was part of their grief.

  He walked away a few paces and wished he smoked.

  25

  The women were still crying on each other’s shoulders and didn’t pay attention to the black Range Rover when it pulled up alongside the shack. Pleased to have something to do, Oliver spoke to the passenger who introduced himself as Jerry Northey, the onshore liaison director for Bluestone.