by P. C. James
It’s Murder, On a Galapagos Cruise
P.C. James
James Gang Enterprises
Contents
1. Toronto, Canada. November 1988
2. Toronto to Quito, Ecuador
3. Ecuador and Galapagos Islands, November 1988
4. First Evening. At Sea
5. Next Morning. At Sea
6. Santa Cruz and Giant Tortoises
7. South Plaza Island
8. Isabela Island, Punta Vicente Roca
9. Fernandina Island, Punta Espinoza
10. Isabela Island, Urbina Bay
11. Isabella Island, Punta Moreno
12. Morning at Sea
13. Floreana Island, Post Office Bay
14. Floreana Island, Cormorant Point
15. Espanola Island, Punta Suarez
16. Espanola Island, Gardner Bay
17. At Sea
18. Santa Cruz Island, Cerro Dragon
19. At Sea. Maria’s Story
20. Ecuador and Toronto
Polite Request
Bonus Content
More of my Books
Newsletter
Even more information
About the Author
1
Toronto, Canada. November 1988
‘Loneliness is a cloak you wear.’ That phrase from the old Sixties song kept running through Pauline Riddell’s mind as she waited for her recently widowed sister Freda’s plane to land. Freda had reminded her of the song on the phone only days ago when Pauline called to see how she was. It was true of both of them now but, Pauline thought, much more so for Freda. Freda and her husband, Keith Holman, had been that ‘one person’ the old church ceremony talked of and his death left Freda bereft. Her children were grown and gone. Really gone. In this new world, nobody lived nearby anymore. Freda’s three children were scattered far from Yorkshire: one in London, one in America, and one in Australia.
Watching from the windows of the newly named Toronto Pearson International Airport, Pauline was relieved to finally see the Air Canada flight from London touching down. She began to walk to the arrivals area, musing on her own situation. She was alone but she didn’t think she was lonely; she’d always been a self-sufficient person, even as a child. However, since moving to Toronto to take up an executive position with a Canadian company some eight years ago, she’d begun to realize the difficulties that being alone can bring. It was easy to shrug it off when she’d been younger but now, at age fifty-five, it felt like life was closing in on her.
That silly song was making her gloomy, she thought, giving herself a mental shake. It was typical of that awful period, a time when, in her mind, the societal illness that had begun growing in her fellow citizens in the Fifties had broken out into full-blown disease. Hedonism and decadence began in earnest during those years and hadn’t subsided since. The Seventies had been worse, and the Eighties were unbelievably crass. She grinned. And somewhere along the way, while she wasn’t watching, she’d become a cranky old woman. She rather liked that.
Freda appeared from the sliding doors and looked around. Pauline waved and caught her eye. With a beaming smile, Freda followed Pauline’s gestures down the ramp to where they met in a firm hug.
“How was the flight?” Pauline asked, as she took control of one of Freda’s cases and led the way to the parking lot elevators.
“Long,” Freda said, “but everything was nice and, despite what people told me, I thought the meals were fine.”
“And how is everyone at home?”
“They’re good. They send their love and hope you’ll come over again soon.”
“It’s expensive,” Pauline said. “Maybe next year. All my vacation time and money this year is being spent with you on our Galapagos adventure.”
“It will be an adventure, won’t it?” Freda said, as they arrived at Pauline’s car and began loading the bags into the trunk. “Did you ever imagine when we were growing up we’d ever be able to visit such places?”
“I didn’t,” Pauline said. “Jet travel is the most amazing improvement of our lives, I think.”
“There have been so many,” Freda said, “and yet I think you may be right. Do you remember when Aunt Mabel went to the Canary Islands in the Fifties by boat and how far that seemed to us?”
“I’d forgotten,” Pauline said, as she drove out of the parking lot and merged into the stream of traffic heading back to the city.
“I had as well,” Freda said. “Then sometime on the flight, it came back to me and I realized it took her longer to get there than it was taking me to come here. The contrast just astounded me. Now, I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Only sailors like Matt visited these out of the way places then, and real explorers like Jacque Cousteau,” Pauline agreed. “Now we’re visiting as tourists.”
“And what I find even more amazing is I’m visiting Galapagos by way of Canada,” Freda said. “It isn’t so long ago people emigrated to Canada and hardly ever came back. The sea voyage took longer than the time they had for vacation.”
“Now you fly here, meet me, and we fly to South America tomorrow. It’s a huge change and in such a short time,” Pauline said, edging her way through the busy afternoon traffic of Toronto’s rush hour.
“How far is it to your apartment?” Freda asked, as the traffic finally ground to a halt.
“Not far in distance,” Pauline said, “but it will be a while. Your flight landed at an awful time. It’s the afternoon rush hour here.”
“Oh. I never thought of Toronto having a rush hour,” Freda said. “When you live in the country, you don’t think of such things.”
“Don’t think about it. It’s always busy here,” Pauline said. “Think about flying out tomorrow to Ecuador and all the wonderful things we’re going to see.”
“I’ve thought of nothing else for days now so instead tell me about that case you’ve just been involved in,” Freda said.
“I told you on the phone,” Pauline said, unwilling to talk about her success.
“Why did you take the case?” Freda asked. “You always say you don’t do sordid criminal stuff and a jewel robbery sounds exactly what you don’t like.”
“The robbery is what the media reported,” Pauline said, “but there was a side to the investigation that was more than just one lot of greedy people robbing another lot of greedy people. It had to do with justice, which is something I do feel strongly about.”
“Isn’t theft a matter for justice?” Freda asked, puzzled.
“Of course,” Pauline said, “when it’s real people suffering. In this case, it was two groups who were fighting for control of something and hurting only each other. The police could have arrested either or both of them with equal justice being served.”
“And somewhere in the mess was something you saw that was really wrong?” Freda asked.
Pauline nodded, as she pressed the gas pedal and rolled the car forward another short distance.
“A man died. Just an ordinary man who seemed to die in an accident. I couldn’t let that pass. The law has to apply to everyone, including the rich, the powerful, and politicians, though so many of them are hard to catch.”
“You’re beginning to sound like your old colleague Chief Inspector Ramsay,” Freda said, laughing.
“He said to me after one case that as I grew older I’d grow to see what he saw and have the same di
sdain for our masters that he had,” Pauline said, “but I wasn’t to forget that justice must apply to all and that means even the poor, no matter how much we may sympathize with their plight.”
“What a strange thing for him to say.”
“I thought so at the time because he was always so sarcastic when I suggested our leaders were generally doing their best. ‘Our masters, you mean,’ he’d say. But over the years I did notice he tried always to be even-handed, not favoring either side. I hope I shall always act that way as well.”
“You’re luckier than him, though, Polly,” Freda said, reverting to her sister’s childhood nickname. “You don’t have to take cases where your conscience might be troubled.”
Pauline nodded. “We’re here,” she said, turning her car into a side road and then down into the entrance to an underground garage. She leaned out and activated the door.
“I bet this is useful when the winter arrives,” Freda said.
“It is. I leave my apartment in the morning, go down the elevator to the garage, get into my car and drive to work where I park in another underground garage before taking the elevator up to my office. I never have to feel cold or shuffle through snow or any of those things less fortunate people have to put up with.”
“I’d miss the seasons and the way they make you feel,” Freda said.
“Come back in January or August,” Pauline said, smiling. “Not everywhere has seasons that are as kind as those in England.”
Later that evening, as they sat quietly together in Pauline’s apartment, Freda said, “If I lived here, I could become a coffee drinker. This is so mild. Not like the European coffee we got in Spain.”
“The oodles of cream help a lot,” Pauline said.
“Very luxurious,” Freda agreed.
“It is, isn’t it. So many things here are more affordable than at home,” Pauline said. “I see why Mum and Dad always said things were better before the war.”
“But you don’t have a television,” Freda said.
Pauline laughed. “Not because it’s expensive,” she said. “In fact, it’s free here. No license fee to pay.”
“I’ve just remembered; you didn’t have a TV in England either.”
“I didn’t like it much then and over here it actually seems to be worse,” Pauline said. “I’m happier with the radio and a book.”
“I’d go mad without the telly,” Freda said, “especially now.”
“Which is why we’re on our way to the Galapagos Islands.”
“Exactly. There was this amazing documentary about them and Darwin only a few months ago. Then, when Keith died, and you suggested it, I decided I would visit them. After all, none of us know how long we have left, do we? We have to live for the day.”
Pauline smiled. “I hope we both have lots of years left,” she said, “and maybe lots more adventures together.”
“It would be easier if you came home, Polly. You said it was only going to be for a few years. ‘To see the world’ was how you described it.”
“I did indeed,” Pauline said. “I’d always been a bit jealous of our dear brother, Matt, sailing around seeing the world while I sat at home going nowhere.”
“Well, you’ve seen something of the world now so why not come home?”
“I did try,” she said. “When I visited in 1985, I called and met with my old colleagues, but it was right after the 1984 recession and no one was hiring. You wouldn’t know this Freddie,” Pauline said, lapsing into her sister’s childhood nickname, “because you work in the National Health Service, but Britain’s industries have been wiped out. Joining the Common Market put an end to many of them and the oil crisis did the rest. The companies I worked for are gone.”
“But the country is growing again now,” Freda said. “It’s on the news and everything.”
“They’re new businesses and not ones I have any experience in,” Pauline said. “I’m afraid I just have to sit it out until retirement. Ugh! What an awful thing to say. Anyhow, only then can I consider where my future lies.”
“You’ll have forgotten us all by then,” Freda said, sadly.
“Nonsense, Freddie. You’re growing maudlin.”
“I’m getting tired,” Freda said, with a smile. “I don’t know why sitting about in airports and planes for hours on end should be so exhausting but there it is. I shall turn in and be up hours too early in the morning.”
“It will help you sleep on the flight tomorrow evening,” Pauline said, “which isn’t a bad strategy. I shall join you in early rising. Wake me when you get up.”
Pauline sat quietly, waiting for Freda to finish in the bathroom. Having Freda here, and talking about Inspector Ramsay and family back home, brought back many buried feelings just as Freda losing Keith had brought back the pain she’d felt when Stephen had been killed in that pointless Korean War. And her pain was without being married for thirty-five years as Freda and Keith had been. Knowing something of how Freda felt should have helped her say the right things, do the right things, but it seemed her insides were numb.
In truth, Freda was here because Pauline didn’t know the right things to say. Freda’s chance remark, made months earlier, about wanting to see the Galapagos Islands had seemed like a lifeline to Pauline when she’d tried to console her sister. And it seemed to work. As the weeks passed, and they talked more about the possibility, Freda did recover her spirits until they’d made the decision and booked the trip.
2
Toronto to Quito, Ecuador
“Wow,” Freda said, as she gazed through the plane’s window at the towering peaks, some snow-capped, far below.
Pauline leaned across her sister to see what had caught Freda’s attention. “Spectacular,” she said. “I didn’t know the Andes were so amazing.”
“I didn’t know anything about them at all,” Freda said. “Now I want to visit them next.”
“Hmm,” Pauline said, amused. “Will Keith’s life insurance stretch that far?”
Freda’s expression changed immediately from awe to grief-stricken and Pauline inwardly cursed herself. Living alone did tend to make one insensitive to others as she’d noticed on more than one occasion.
She hugged her sister,” Sorry,” she said. “That was stupid of me.”
Freda shook her head. “It’s just too soon for joking about,” she said.
“I do understand,” Pauline said, “I’m just not very good at expressing it.”
“You were never the empathetic one of the family, let’s be honest,” Freda said. “Maybe that’s why you’re so good at what you do, at your work and in your investigating.”
“Then like all things, it’s a mixed blessing,” Pauline agreed. “Now, in an hour or so, we’ll be at the hotel and with luck we’ll be able to see those snow-capped mountains from our balcony or maybe a terrace where they’ll serve amazing South American coffees. Let’s look forward to that.”
3
Ecuador and Galapagos Islands, November 1988
The following morning, early, the sisters were on a coach heading out of the city for the port of Guayaquil. Outside the bus window, a crowd watched a market stallholder whipping a young girl with his belt. Cursing and shrieking, the girl struggled wildly to escape the man’s tight grip on her collar as the belt landed on her behind. Pauline Riddell watched dispassionately through the window, while her fellow passengers on the tour coach grew more and more angry.
Finally, a man unable to watch anymore, leapt from his seat and headed for the door. The tour guide promptly took up a station at the door to prevent him leaving before addressing the passengers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, damas y caballeros,” the guide said, his accent becoming more pronounced as his agitation grew, “we cannot lose more time. We are very late, and this traffic will be like this until we reach the outskirts of the city. I understand what you see is very upsetting for you but please stay in your seats.”
The man who wished to leave and rescue the chil
d began shouting and other voices took up his demands for something to be done. The bus driver placed his hand firmly on the handle that opened the door to ensure it stayed shut. The driver’s expression was thunderous; it had been from the outset when one passenger was fifteen minutes late and had then demanded to go back to the hotel because he thought he’d left his passport.
Pauline cursed that passenger. She could see him sitting at the front glowering at the driver and guide. Why he should be so angry with them when it was him who’d brought them all to this point of stagnation, she couldn’t fathom. As she was pondering this inconsequential question, a woman in the seat across the aisle suddenly spoke to her.
“You seem unmoved by what we’re witnessing,” she said accusingly. “How can you as a woman, watch a child, a girl, be beaten by a grown man?”
“The spectators aren’t unhappy and nor is the policeman I can see,” Pauline said. “I presume the child tried to steal from the stall and was caught.”
“But she’s a child,” the woman cried, growing even more red in the face.
“We don’t let children steal; why would these people?”
“She was probably starving,” the woman said. “It’s barbaric.”
“You don’t know she is starving and it’s only recently that corporal punishment of children ended in our countries,” Pauline replied, hoping strict neutrality and a calm demeanor would lower passions all around.
“I’ve no doubt you’d be happy to whip them yourself, you callous creature.”