by P. C. James
“I wouldn’t have thought so,” Pauline said. “However, as you say, people who see slights and persecution in everything, may lash out and cause harm.”
“I’m sorry,” Ferguson said, “what is this about bus drivers?”
Somerville explained the incidents at the start of the bus journey from Quito and how Arvin had characterized the exchange later that evening at dinner.
“Oh dear,” Ferguson said. “I do hope a passenger isn’t involved in this unfortunate incident.”
“A passenger being responsible would be better than a crew member being responsible though, I would have thought,” Pauline said.
“Yes, but the passenger will, in their own defense, claim they were provoked by the crew member. Even if it isn’t true, the mud will stick.”
“Everyone on the bus and around the dinner table that night will be happy to give Mr. Weiss a ‘character reference’, Captain, I promise. I was ready to order the driver and tour guide to leave without him that morning and I was ready to blow a gasket at the table that evening,” Somerville said.
Captain Ferguson smiled. “I hope it won’t come to that. Mr. Weiss was perfectly happy when the true situation with the baggage was explained to him. I’m sure there was no lingering rancor.”
“Maybe, but I’m going to question his movements that evening.”
“I think the captain is right,” Pauline said. “If Arvin had any grievance left, I’m sure we would have heard about it over dinner.”
“You can assume that if you wish. Nevertheless, I’m going to question him, though maybe I’ll do it informally first. You know, just two men shooting the breeze over a drink at the bar.”
“Did you learn anything new when you spoke to my officers, Miss Riddell?” Captain Ferguson asked quickly, eager to change the subject.
“Officer LaPorte gave me the names of three other Peruvians among the maintenance and engineering crews. I’d like to speak to them in the coming days.”
“You think Jose may have recognized one of them as a soldier or guerrilla and they killed him when he told them that?”
“I think it’s possible or maybe some less horrific ancient grievance that got out of hand. I haven’t lost sight of the possibility it could just be a scuffle that led to a tragic accident.”
“I pray that is the answer if it isn’t a straightforward accident.”
From the briefing, Somerville led the way straight to the bar, Pauline following reluctantly behind. If Arvin was in the bar, she wanted to hear first-hand what he would say when Somerville questioned him.
“Hey, Arvin,” Somerville said, placing his drink on the small table at which Arvin was sitting alone, “mind if we join you?”
Arvin waved his hand at the empty chairs indicating his agreement but noticeably failing to say anything.
“I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Weiss,” Pauline said, “but I’m sure you can understand why we’d like to talk to you.”
“You want to pin that guy’s death on me.”
Pauline sighed. “No. We simply want to hear what happened when you saw the victim removing your bags from what you believed was your room.”
“It was a mistake. What the hell? Haven’t you guys ever made a mistake?”
“Of course,” Somerville said, “only this happened after the bus incident and before the fall incident so you can see why we’re asking you to tell us what happened.”
Arvin’s expression became grimmer than ever. “The bus has nothing to do with anything, that guy was hating on me. What happened to the dead guy later has nothing to do with the bus or my mistake over the bags. You’re lumping them together to get me.”
“We’re really not, Mr. Weiss. Detective Somerville is just saying there were three incidents in one day and because two of them involved you,” she held up her hand to stop him jumping in and continued quickly, “people may jump to the wrong conclusion. We need to be able to say that it is a wrong conclusion. Won’t you help us do that?”
Arvin scowled but nodded.
“You were walking toward your cabin when you saw the victim leaving it with your hold-all bag. Is that correct?” Somerville said.
Arvin nodded.
Suppressing a sigh, Pauline said, “Why don’t you continue?”
“What can I say? I saw the guy carrying my bag. I thought out from my room. I shouted. I realize now I was still upset from the coach ride but I really thought he was taking my bag.”
“Only, it wasn’t your room.”
“That’s right. My bag had been put in the cabin next door and the guy was just moving it to mine.”
Arvin had stopped again. He was clearly uncomfortable about the event. Pauline wondered if indeed that might mean he was involved in Jose’s death.
“And then?” Somerville said.
“He stood there grinning, saying ‘yes’ when I asked what he was doing. He had this big grin on his face and to me it looked like him saying ‘come and get it if you want it’. I grabbed my bag and he let go. He was still grinning. After the bus driver’s scowls all day, having this guy smirking at me was too much. I lost it and shoved him against the wall. That’s all there was.”
“One of the other crew who could speak English intervened and sorted it out, I understand,” Pauline said.
“Yeah, exactly. When I realized, I apologized. Look, this was nothing. Just a hard day that led to a misunderstanding. Everybody was okay. I tipped the guy generously and we parted as friends.”
“What about the evening?”
“What about it? I was on your table at dinner, don’t you remember?”
“We do,” Somerville said. “We remember you were the first to leave the table as well.”
“I went to the bar. Everything that could go wrong that day had gone wrong and I was churning inside. I wanted a drink and an early night to settle my nerves, which is what I did.”
“What time did you leave the bar?” Pauline asked.
“I don’t know. Early. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I had a scotch. Drank it practically in one go and left.”
“Did you speak to anyone at all?”
“No. I just said that.”
“Very well,” Pauline said. “Did you see anyone when you returned to your cabin? Anyone on the deck, in the corridor?”
“No. Everyone was still in the lounge, I guess. I told you. It was early, right after dinner.”
“Is there anything you can tell us that might help?”
“No. I went to bed and slept. I didn’t hear or see anything.”
They thanked him and walked away. Outside, where there were few people around, Somerville said, “I can’t stand that man, but I believe him.”
“He’s not a likeable man,” Pauline agreed, “but I think a very lonely one.”
“Maybe those two traits are related,” Somerville said sarcastically.
Pauline smiled. “True. I’m going to keep an open mind about Mr. Weiss, though. He has no alibi for the evening and he’s one of the very few people on this ship who doesn’t.”
8
Isabela Island, Punta Vicente Roca
The morning’s zephyr ride – the one Pauline had been so sarcastic about a day earlier – took them along the sides of the hopefully-now-extinct volcano’s caldera and it was spectacular. Dramatic cliff faces soared towering above them as the boat slowly cruised the edge, nosing into vast sea-caves that echoed their voices. Even Pauline could feel herself caught up in the excitement of photographing the seals and turtles that swam around the boats. Fellow explorers with bigger cameras and zoom lenses were capturing pictures of nesting birds on the cliff face and seabirds high above, as they wheeled and swooped against the brilliant blue sky. It was a moment to remember.
As they returned along the cliff face, they saw their more adventurous fellow travelers snorkeling among the sharp up-thrust rocks, where the ever-present, garishly colorful Sally Lightfoot crabs scuttled about hoping for their next meal. Pauline and Freda weren�
��t strong swimmers so just watching the snorkelers being lifted up by the sea onto rounded peaks of waves before sliding down into deep troughs of dark water made them feel queasy.
“I’m glad I wasn’t tempted by that,” Freda said, as a particularly large swell lifted the boat and then sank it down. “It’s bad enough in the boat.”
“Maybe you don’t feel it so much when you’re actually moving with the water,” Pauline said, with more hope than conviction.
“My plan is never to find out,” Freda said. “That water looks black; the bottom is so far away.”
“A bit how my brain feels, to be honest,” Pauline said quietly. “I know we’re looking at a murder but I don’t yet see who or how.”
“Oh, that,” Freda said. “I’d forgotten.”
“It is a lovely teashop, isn’t it?” Freda said, back onboard and looking around the corner of the ship’s principal lounge area. “They make it very homey with just a few screens between the pillars. You’d never think it was one big open space really.”
Pauline followed Freda’s gaze. It was true. This open area was used in many different ways throughout the day on the ship. It was a small ship so space was at a premium.
“It is nicely done,” Pauline agreed, “and I do love a teashop.”
Freda sensed her sister wasn’t as thrilled by the surroundings as she was. “You don’t like it?”
“I like it,” Pauline said. “They could hardly do better when there’s no place for a cozy, separate room. But like everything in today’s world, it’s a facsimile of the real thing and that always makes me uncomfortable.”
Freda nodded. “I know what you mean, but they mean well.”
“I’m sure they do, dear,” Pauline said, smiling. She looked again at the menu. Two pages of passionately described coffees and half a page of various exotic teas, none of which sounded particularly appealing. She sighed. A server approached and Pauline looked up.
“What can I help you with today?” the server asked.
“Hello again, Maria,” Pauline said. “You have a busy time of it. Cleaning cabins in the mornings and serving in the ship’s restaurants the rest of the day.”
“We do many different things throughout the day,” Maria said. “We have to. There’s so much to do and we have quite a small staff.”
“At least that must keep things interesting,” Freda said.
“It does and I’m never bored. We’re never without something to do,” Maria replied. “I like that.”
“I can imagine,” Freda replied. “That’s what I loved about nursing, in the beginning.”
Pauline decided it was time to re-direct the conversation before Maria was given Freda’s life history.
“I’d like English Breakfast tea, with milk, and one of those small macaroons I saw as we walked in.”
Freda said she’d have the same and Maria left.
“Maria seems nice,” Freda said.
“Their livelihoods depend on them being nice, Freda dear,” Pauline said. “As do their tips.”
“You’ve cruised before and become cynical,” Freda said. “For me this is a new experience and having everyone we meet smiling and being pleasant is wonderful. It doesn’t happen enough in life, in my experience anyway.”
Pauline watched the others arriving to take the tables around them. They were uniformly old and plump, as the people were on the other cruises she’d taken. All the eating and drinking didn’t bode well for their future health but maybe they were just doing what any sensible person would do at the end of their life – enjoy themselves. After all, she thought, no one gets out of here alive, as some sad pop singer had said not so long ago – before killing himself through the usual unpleasant lifestyle they imagined they were enjoying.
“You seem lost in thought,” Freda said as Maria was returning with their pots of tea and pastries.
“I was a bit,” Pauline said. “Murders always give me gloomy thoughts. But now we have tea to put all that right.”
“Tea does soothe and calm, doesn’t it?” Freda said, as she waited for Maria to place the many items she was carrying on her tray onto the table.
“It does and I think history proves it,” Pauline said when Maria was gone.
“History?”
“Yes, history. It may sound a grand theory born out of a humble cuppa but our empire was created by coffee drinkers in the 1700s and ended with tea drinkers in the 1900s. Coffee makes people aggressive and energetic. Tea makes people calm and restful. You can’t build or keep an empire by being calm and restful.”
Freda laughed. “You were always the one for wild flights of fancy,” she said.
“When some learned professor writes a book about it to great acclaim, before you’re impressed by his great learning, remember you heard it first from me.”
During lunch, while the ship sailed from Punta Vicente Roca to Fernandina Island, Captain Ferguson had invited the ship’s three Peruvian crewmen to meet with the detectives. They sat in a semi-circle with their interpreter alongside staring impassively at Pauline and Somerville.
“So,” Somerville said, after Captain Ferguson had asked them to outline their own personal histories as it related to the voyage, “none of you knew the victim before you joined the ship. But did you talk with him during your training?”
“I did,” one of the men said.
“Me also,” said a second. The third shook his head.
“Did he tell you anything about himself that might help us?” Pauline asked, and waited while the interpreter translated.
The men shook their heads.
“Nothing at all?” Somerville asked.
One of the two men began to speak. The translator said, “He said he was a refugee from the south and he’d had a horrible life.”
“Are any of you from southern Peru?” Somerville asked.
When the translator had finished speaking, the men shook their heads. They spoke and Pauline could at least understand, “Lima.”
“Did he say what had happened to him in his life that he was anxious about or anything in his present circumstances?” Pauline asked.
The men shook their heads when the translator put the question to them.
“Are any of you anxious in your present circumstances? After all, the events unfolding in your country right now are awful.”
Again, the men shook their heads.
Pauline and Somerville glanced at each other.
“Gentlemen, thank you,” Somerville said.
All four men filed out of the cabin and Somerville closed the door behind them.
“What did you think?” he asked.
“Maybe they were telling the truth,” Pauline said, “but, I think there’s something there and, as with Arvin, two of them can’t provide an alibi.”
“That’s how I feel too,” Somerville said. “They’re unlikely to have had anything to do with it but it’s not impossible, or even improbable. We heard nothing that would conclusively rule them out.”
“We need the company to find out if all three really do come from Lima and not the south. And we need to know if Jose spent time in Lima after escaping the south and leaving Peru. We can’t just take these people’s words.”
“Agreed,” Somerville said.
Captain Ferguson took down the information they required and had the questions radioed to the company’s head office.
“On a happier note,” Ferguson said, “did you enjoy this morning’s excursion? Were you on the boat ride or the snorkeling?”
“I did the boat ride,” Pauline said. “I didn’t think I would enjoy it but I really did. I may even have some good photos. I hope so anyway. The guide told us our next stop, Fernandina, is an island of newly hardened lava rock. That sounds different.”
“Yes, Fernandina is a barren place,” Ferguson said. “There you’ll see how all these islands began. Later, when you visit the other islands you’ll see how life turns barren rock into habitable land. It’s fascinating. The
other, older, islands have a good covering of vegetation and even good soil. I visited here on a number of occasions during my years at sea. You know it was an old haunt of pirates and whalers before civilization caught up with the region.”
“Our guides have told us,” Pauline said, smiling. “I can’t help feeling a bit nostalgic for those days when they talk about them.”
“That’s the romantic in all of us,” Ferguson said. “Like dinosaurs, pirates seem attractive, lovable even, when they’re extinct.”
Listening to their conversation, Somerville was growing impatient to leave. “I’ve one more person to interview,” he said, heading for the door.
“Who would that be?” Ferguson asked but Somerville was gone.
“I don’t know, Captain,” Pauline said. “He never mentioned this until now.”
“I fear he is torn between competing with you and collaborating with you, Miss Riddell.”
“Oh dear. I hope not.”
“And you? Have you any new thoughts on our incident?”
“Lots,” Pauline said, “but I prefer to let them stay thoughts for now. Suspicion is a dangerous emotion once it’s loose.”
9
Fernandina Island, Punta Espinoza
The zephyr bumped against the newly installed landing spot and the crewman threw a rope ashore where another crewman tied it quickly to a bollard. The zephyr was soon pulled close to the wave lashed platform where, of all people, Detective Somerville was assisting people to step out of the boat, which rose and fell dramatically in the swell.
“Miss Riddell,” Somerville said, as he clasped Pauline’s arm and steadied her, “welcome to Fernandina Island.” Pauline gave him a tight, humorless smile in reply, before asking, “Why are you helping the rest of us ashore?”
“The guys were busy. They asked and I volunteered, and they said I looked strong enough.” He laughed.
Pauline didn’t like his laugh; it sounded triumphant, but she couldn’t deny his strength was a comfort to the passengers as he brought them off the boat. When Somerville assisted Freda ashore, they made their way to where the naturalist guide was waiting.