The Atlas Murders (52 page)

 Juan could barely conceal
his emotions and as he turned away clearly upset the raw pain was still very
much to the fore. “You must excuse me but I still get upset speaking about her.
She worked in the island’s customs service. We have a teenage daughter, Annabel.
“Oh look,” he said pointing to a pretty blonde girl, here she is now.”

 She came bouncing across the
lawn like a gazelle, her blonde hair cascading around her face and neck. She
stopped a little out of breath and spoke to her father. “Mr. Tukola is in the
lounge and wants to speak to you.”

 “Excuse us please,” Annabel
said to Kerstin then she put her arm inside her fathers and ushered him back
across the lawn as he bade Kerstin farewell.

Kerstin wanted to see their
main target
Tukola, so she took herself back inside and sat at the large window
looking out over the beach. He made no appearance so she thought there was
nothing for it but to go swimming which she did to pass the time until dinner.

It was dusk when she wandered
outside into the gardens. There were couples sitting around at tables sipping
cool drinks and she noticed Tukola by himself, drinking a coffee. He looked
much like the computer aged police image. Stealing her resolve, a chill went
down her spine as she approached nervously and asked if he minded her joining
him. He lifted his head; his cold eyes fleetingly met hers and somewhat
reluctantly, he invited her to sit down. Although he forced a smile, there was
nothing in his eyes - only deadness.

He placed his cup of coffee
down and settled into the comfortable chair. “I am the owner and I hope you are
enjoying your stay.”

 “Yes, it’s a fine hotel. The
name’s Kerstin, I’m pleased to meet you sir,” she lied again as he offered an
outstretched hand. His hand was cold like a reptile. His touch caused her to
shudder within. “I’m Hadar Tukola, pleased to make your acquaintance.”

 She started to shower praise
on the gardens. She now knew this was a favorite subject and if he wanted accolades
and bullshit, she would provide it - anything to get him talking.

“Whoever designed this garden
and surrounds deserves great praise, it’s absolutely magnificent.”

 He smiled a slow languorous
twisting of his lips. “It’s kind of you to say so. I actually designed and
supervised this whole area, the gardening and beautiful flowering shrubs. What stimulates
your interest Kerstin?

“Sailing is one of my great
passions.  Do you sail?”

 “Yes, I wouldn’t call it
sailing as such it’s more a launch with high powered engines, no canvas or oars.”
He smirked, “she can do thirty five knots on a calm sea; I named her Windsong.
She’s the wife I never had!”

 “My goodness she must be
pretty impressive. I’ve ever only sailed in the slower yachts. I suppose best
speed would be ten knots with all sails and a fair wind.”

“I am being very ungentlemanly
what are you drinking?”

 “I’ll have the house special
cocktail.”

 He clicked his fingers and a
young waiter appeared out of nowhere as if he’d been waiting for this click, “a
house special cocktail for this lady and my usual with plenty of lime.”

 The garden tables were all
occupied with chatting couples. Kerstin noticed very young girls no more than
fifteen and sixteen, waiting on tables. The drinks came back and the young
waiter almost bowed with reverence to this dark, stern man.

 A young waif-like like girl
came quickly across to the table. She was no more than fifteen. Her colorful
cotton dress hung on bare thin shoulders and her brown innocent eyes danced
with trepidation. She spoke in a barely audible whisper to Tukola. “Mr. Chen
Yun asked me to come and tell you he is very sick sir.”

 He snarled at the timid child.
“You know you are not allowed to come here, get back to the house immediately.”

 She turned and half ran out
of the lighted garden and disappeared into the encroaching darkness.

“Excuse me I must go.” His
lips trembled with rage. “Such stupid people.”

 He left walking briskly
across the lawn. Kerstin was shocked at the sudden change in this man. He
scared her. The poor child, she thought, would he punish her? She was powerless
to do anything.

 After an early morning swim
she felt nicely refreshed as she walked back to the hotel for breakfast. Kerstin
sat by herself at breakfast, watching and making mental notes. She couldn’t
help notice that most of the staff both waiting on tables and doing room
service were young girls of no more than fifteen or sixteen - some even looked
younger.

 It was eleven when she
decided to order a taxi and as she asked the girl at the front desk if the
hotel had any transport to the town. A voice from behind said, “I’m on my way
there in five minutes Kerstin if you would like a ride?”

 She turned surprised to see
Juan standing behind her. “That’s very kind of you. I’ll just go and get my bag.”
He drove slowly avoiding the odd bullock and donkey. “You can’t be too careful
with animals on the road, especially at night.”

 She wanted to get back on
the subject of his wife’s drowning. “Do you live in the hotel or have you your
own house?”

 “I couldn’t live in the hotel;
I’d never be away from work. We live near the hotel. You see, Mr. Tukola owns
all the land around and he gave me a site to build. You cannot see it from the
road it’s set back far.”

 “I met him briefly last
night he can be a charming man. Surprising that he never married, he surely
would have made a good catch,” she said, as she wondered where her newly
acquired acting skills had come from.

 “No he never married and as
far as I know. I’ve worked for him for over twenty years and he’s never been involved
with any woman. He can be a moody man though, and his temper is just below the
surface.”

 “Yes, I noticed. A young girl
came to the table last night to tell him a man, I think his name was ChenYun
was very sick and he should go to his house. He was very cross with the child.”

“She is one of the young
girls working at his house. They nearly all come from Venezuela. They are from
very poor families and most have little or no education. It is sad to see young
people so deprived; their parents just sell them into this labor for a paltry
sum and expect the kids to send money back home to them.”

 She had been side tracked so
tried to get back to his wife’s death again. “Did you say your wife worked for
customs? It must have been a great job and I dare say they don’t have many
administrative jobs here?”

 “Yes you’re right they’ve
very little in the way of government here as you can imagine, and she loved her
work.”

 “Was she diving as a hobby?”

 “No actually it had
something to do with her job. At the time it was supposed to be confidential
but now I don’t think it makes any differences to talk about it. The powers
that be got a directive from the CIA who are busy monitoring drug trafficking
around the whole Caribbean. The drugs are coming from South America and being
stored on some islands and then picked up and eventually ending up on the
streets of U.S. cities. They said they had information of a gang operating from
this island and that some suspicious activity was seen in and around Milligan
Cay. The Agency sent the local customs a request to search around the island
underwater and that was when my wife and her colleague were lost. The police
dived and searched but found nothing. Strange their air bottles were never
found, even if sharks got them the bottles would float and turn up somewhere;
their names were on them so even if they went out to sea someone could have
picked them up. Here we are. Where will I drop you. I’d ask you to lunch only I
have some business to attend to and I’m actually late already?”

“This is Bay Street, perfect,
thank you Juan.”

When Henry saw her coming
through the door of the bar his joy was palpable.

“Did you miss me she pouted
at him?”

 “Miss you? Don’t tease me,
I’m miserable without you. But please tell me, did you see Juan? Was he like
me? Did you speak to him?”

 Steady on Henry, all will be
revealed. I have a lot of news, so all ears now. I’m going to switch on the
recorder in my head and let go, are you ready?”

 “Yes, I’m all ears.”

She related every last little
thing she learned including her feelings of revulsion for Tukola and his
treatment of the young girl child.

When she had finished he sat looking
serious; his detective brain in overdrive. “We’re going to have to proceed with
caution. If only we could get Juan on our side, but that might be almost
impossible. This man is his employer and jobs here especially any kind of
decent ones are scarce, so he’ll not easily offend Tukola.”

 “Yes, I agree and I’d say
Juan knows more than he’s willing to admit to. The only chink in his armor is
the mysterious death of his wife and if we could probe that more we might come
up with something to get him on our side.”

Henry pulled his chair a
little closer to the table and leaned over to her. “Kerstin.” Whenever he used
her name before asking her to do something, she knew it was going to be
dangerous or risky.

“What would you say if we
were to go to this Milligan Cay and have a look around; you’d never know what
we could turn up, you see the people searching were probably only searching the
water. Maybe they never searched on the islet. Now it’s a long shot but what do
you think?”

 “Yes, it’s definitely worth
a try, I have diving gear should we need to search the sea.”

 They agreed to set out right
away. It was only a short run down the coast and they’d be back for Kerstin to
resume her mission at the hotel.

Chapter-Forty

Henry took wheel duty while
Kerstin spread out her diving gear and checked it over. There were a number of
yachts cruising around but when they came to Milligan Cay all was quiet.

“There’s a small inlet and a
bit of beach just round the point we could get close to the shore there.”

 “Henry, we’ll search the
islet first before deciding to dive, but it’s so clear you’d hardly need to
dive you can see right to the bottom.”

 They rowed ashore in the
dinghy and beached it on a small stretch of sand between high cliff rocks. They
stood taking in the area.

There were no pathways up the
moderately sloping cliff and they had to break the thorny bush in places to get
through. They made their way to the midpoint and there under the brush was a
shelter; a shabby length of canvas stretched over some short poles and tied to
the thicker branches of the brush. The ground around was flattened and a small
path led out to a space which gave a view out to the south.

“Look Kerstin!” Henry bent
down and picked up three cartridge shells. “These are from a high powered rifle.”

Further up the cliff they saw
a cleft in the rock. Pulling away the branches they could see down about ten
feet. Adjusting their eyes to the darkness, they could just make out what
looked like metallic objects. 

“Henry, we’re going to have
to get that stuff up; I think they might be divers’ air tanks. If you grab that
large branch over there, I can use it to shin down to the bottom. There’s just
enough room between the rocks.”

At the bottom Kerstin
discovered two air tanks and two wetsuits. One by one, she hooked the objects
on to a lower notch of the branch and Henry pulled them to the top. With
Henry’s help, Kerstin just about managed to heave herself out from the cleft.

They examined the air tanks and
read the name, Lilja. “Henry, it’s her tank! Oh Christ, look!” She pointed to a
bullet hole in the side of the tank.

 “They were shot! Can we get
this stuff back to the Witch and we’ll examine it in detail?”

 Back on board Kerstin said,
“Let’s not haul up the dinghy yet there must be something in the water around
here to make someone want to shoot these two people.”

 “Your right and judging from
where the shelter is, it must be around the south side; the view from there was
looking out to sea.”

 She started to put on her
diving gear. “I can’t see any boats around so it’s as good a time as any to
have a look.”

She pointed to the bottles. “Here,
lift them onto my back.”

 They rowed over to the south
end of the islet and there was a partially submerged cave. “If there’s anything,
it’ll be in there.

 “Right, but be careful and
don’t try any heroics - make it short.”

She splashed over the side
nearly turning over the small dinghy.

He leaned over looking down
into the clear water, he could see her swimming down and in towards the cave,
then he lost sight of her for what seemed like an age.

 Then he saw movement over
the reef. To his relief it was Kerstin heading back. She surfaced about twenty
feet away. He rowed to where she was and hauled her into the dinghy.

She pulled off the goggles
and removed her gear as Henry rowed back to the Witch.

They were soon underway
heading out along the coast and after a few miles they were back among yachts cruising
about with tourists. Kerstin came down from the bow and stood alongside him; he
could sense her trepidation. “Sit there now, what did you see down there?”

 “There were three concrete
blocks with large ring bolts like they used for moorings in a yacht club. The
blocks were encrusted with weed and marine growth but the rings were clean,
showing that they are being used.”

 Henry was looking intently
into her eyes, “you’re thinking the same as me, these are being used to moor
bales of drugs waiting for the pickup boat to come, and a man is assigned to
keep watch from the lookout position on the cliff until they arrive. Lilja and
her friend happened to dive and saw a consignment waiting for collection and
were killed for it.”

 “Yes, Henry that just about
sums it up.”

She stood up. “Come on and
I’ll make a pot of coffee.”

“Henry we’re dealing with
very dangerous people here. Do you think we should just forget it or report
what we know to the authorities?”

 “I think we should have a
quite chat with Juan and see if he can throw any light on who might be
responsible.”

We’ve uncovered two murders
here, look at the bullet holes in the wetsuits; two in Lilja’s and one in the
other.

Kerstin was visibly shocked.
“The poor man, when he hears she was murdered it will wreck him. We’ll head
back to town but I don’t like the thought of going back to that hotel tonight -
it’s giving me the creeps.”

 “We’ll discuss what next to
do and if you don’t want to go there we’ll work something out. You’ve done more
than could be expected of you and knowing these people were killed because of
drugs is frightening.”

 She went to the wheel and
started the engine. “You put that stuff away and put on a good lock, we’ll talk
about the whole business when we’ve got back to thinking straight; if that’s
possible just now.”

 It was dusky dark when they
finished dinner and sat with their unfinished glasses of wine on deck. They’d
decided they would have to tell Juan about Lilja and how she died. They were
not going to go to the police just yet until they had spoken to Juan and see
how much he might know about this drugs business - if anything. Henry hadn’t
pressed Kerstin about going back to the hotel, he’d let her decide. Kerstin saw
a launch coming into dock she stood up and walked to the rail, “Henry come here.”

They listened to the sound of
the big powerful engines easing down and falling silent as she came to tie up
alongside the pier.

Henry looked in awe at the
big launch.

“That’s her! Kerstin
exclaimed, the Windsong.

 They saw a man climb over
her rail and walk along the pier.

 “He looks like he’s Chinese,”
said Henry, “strange to see one of them, you’d think he’d have local crew.”

 “Now that you mention
Chinese, the young girl who came looking for Tukola at the hotel said a Mr.
Chen Yun was sick, maybe that’s him?”

  She finished her wine and
said with a renewed determination in her voice, “I’m heading out to the hotel. Come
on, get dressed put on a clean shirt and come with me to get a taxi.”

 “Are you sure you want to go
now after what you’ve been through today?”

“Yes Henry, I’m going to have
to approach Juan and get him to come here to the yacht to see for himself the
evidence. Are you ready to meet your son?”

 Henry betrayed a doubting
fear. “I won’t know what to say to him, you know I’m not good with words,
especially when it’s something so, what would you say, emotional.”

 “Yes, I’d certainly say it
will be emotional meeting the son you never knew you had after forty years, but
think of him meeting a father he only dreamed of or heard his mother tell him
about.”

 “I’ve never looked at it
from his side.”

 They walked up to the taxi
rank on Bay Street.

 “I’ll be here at noon
tomorrow,” she kissed him on the cheek, “get a good night’s sleep.”

 “You too he replied.”

 There were very few guests
around the hotel, so she went to her room. She lay on the bed but after half an
hour of disturbing thoughts about the day’s events, she couldn’t relax so she
freshened herself up and went to the bar. A middle-aged couple engaged her in boring
‘tourist talk.’ The sight of Juan crossing the floor to talk to the barman was a
welcome one. She purposely got up to go to the restroom and as she passed the
bar, he spoke to her. “Excuse me Kerstin can I have a minute of your time?”

“Sorry to hold you, but I’m
having a birthday party for my daughter, Annabel tomorrow, she’ll be fifteen
and I would like to invite you.”

 “I’d be delighted to come,
what time?”

 “Say four in the afternoon,
will that suit?”

 “Yes of course, thank you. She
leaned in close to him and whispered. “I have something very important to tell
you. It concerns Lilja
but don’t be alarmed. Come to my room at midnight
tonight if possible.”

 He looked stunned, “I’ll be
there.”

 Later in her room, the knock
on the door startled her even though she was expecting him.

“Thank you for coming. I’m
sure you must be wondering how strange this all seems. If you sit down, I’ll do
my best to fill you in on what I’m actually doing here. Firstly, and there’s no
easy way of doing this, I think your wife was murdered.”

“Murdered? Are you sure?” The
color drained from his face.

 “I’m afraid so Juan. I’ll
start at the beginning, but be warned, it won’t be easy listening.”

 He sat and listened intently;
his face conveying the shock and horror of the unfolding story. Then Kerstin
stopped abruptly and asked him what his thoughts were. She had deliberated not
mentioned that Henry was his father. That would be for Henry to do.

“I am completely shocked especially
about my employer, although I did suspect that he might somehow be involved
with drug smuggling. You see, he makes a lot of trips to Caracas to collect
young girls to work here and take them back; usually after they’ve work here
for a year. They say that much cocaine is smuggled via this city”

 “There is more you may be
able to help us with. If you could come to the yacht tomorrow morning to meet
Henry, you’ll see for yourself the wetsuits and bottles.”

“You know about Annabel’s
birthday party I’ll have to be back in time to organize that. So I could
collect you after breakfast at eight thirty and go to meet Henry.”

 “Yes that will be fine.” She
opened the door and looked out to make sure there was no one about. “It’s all
clear now goodnight see you in the morning.”

 Kerstin had a restless night
and woke and showered before the sun had cleared the treetops. She was first
into the dining room and ate a somewhat sparse breakfast. She walked to the
entrance gates and Juan was waiting. They spoke little on the way to the yacht.
He asked her about Henry and how he seemed so determined to catch Tukola and
bring him to justice. He understood about the new DNA advances and how it could
prove a man guilty even after such a long time.

 She directed him to a spot
on the pier well away from Windsong as he couldn’t afford to be seen
accompanying her onto the Amber Witch. Henry had just finished eating when they
arrived in the cabin.

 “Juan, this is Henry.”

 They shook hands and Juan
and Henry exchanged eye contact as they peered into mirror images before and
beyond.

Henry spoke first. “I don’t
know where to start.”

 Kerstin looked at Juan who
had his eyes fixed on Henry “I told Juan the whole story from the time you
decided to leave England and then join the ship Rangoon up to where you caught
him in The Cayman Islands and what happened in London; how he was let go free. But
I didn’t tell Juan anything of your story in Havana.”

Henry knew immediately what
she was pushing him into and he had no choice now but to bite the bullet.

“Juan, I hope what I’m going
to tell you now is not going to upset our future relationship.”

He related the whole story
about meeting Alicia and he told him about having met his grandmother and how
she longed for some word from him.

Juan’s voice was cracking as
he stood up. Kerstin left - they needed to be alone. He embraced Henry. “So you
are my father?”

 “Yes Juan, I’m a proud father.
Words cannot express how I thought about this moment when I first heard from
Martha that Alicia had a son nine months after we met and the photograph told
all.”

Juan stood back and looked at
Henry’s hair. “But you have such dark hair and I am so fair. Also your granddaughter
is so blonde. You will love her; she is such a great kid.”

 Henry smiled. “I can’t wait
to meet her, I’ll explain to you later about the hair color or maybe I should
get Kerstin to do the explaining.”

She heard her name mentioned
and came back in. “did I hear my name spoken?”

 “Yes, Juan wants to know who
dyed my blonde locks black.”

 They all laughed a little.
Juan looked at the picture of Alicia and himself that Henry got from Martha, “I
remember that day well, my mother got killed in the hurricane Allen in1980. A
wall in our house collapsed when torrential rain caused huge flood water to
cascade through the streets. I wrote to my grandmother and told her, but
because I never got a reply I presumed she was dead.”

Henry told him about the
censorship of mail and how Martha never knew where they were.