“You got it, boss,” says Ferdy. “Yeah, she got real lucky, that Bella Sanchez. Couple of feet either side of that tree and she could have died that day. Lucky, lucky lady.”
“Up to a point,” says Rosie.
“Okay,” says Ferdy. “Final kilometer. Buckle up, it’s a bumpy ride.”
Rosie claps her hands with delight.
Amy sees Steve once again staring, determinedly, at his phone. She squeezes his arm. “You just keep pretending to read your emails. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Steve continues staring. “I’m not pretending to read. Email from Hampshire Police.”
“About Jeff?” Amy asks. Still no contact from him.
“The blood in the car,” says Steve. “It was Jeff’s. They checked it against his file at work. And there was an awful lot of it in that car.”
“This sounds exciting,” says Ferdy from the front.
Steve is reading on. “They’re saying he must be dead.”
“Lot of people die in cars,” says Ferdy, turning round to Steve and nodding.
“Jeff’s not dead,” says Amy. Though with a little less conviction than she has managed before. If he’s not dead, where is he? Why isn’t he helping her? And if he is dead, who killed him? Henk? They were best friends, the two of them, before all this.
A silence descends. The car is shaking and rattling on the dirt road like a washing machine on spin cycle.
“This is the most action I’ve had in weeks,” says Rosie. “Where would a woman buy drugs around here, Ferdy?”
“Some boys in Soufrière, down by the jetty; they’ll get you anything you need,” says Ferdy.
“No,” says Rosie. “Real drugs. Kilos, that sort of thing. If I had a bag full of cash, where would I be taking it?”
“Nelson Nunez,” says Ferdy. “Lives up at Bluff Point, about five miles up the coast. But if you visit without an appointment, he’ll kill you. And if you do have an appointment, he’ll probably kill you too, but at least you’ll know when.”
“Is he a friend of yours?” asks Rosie.
“I know him enough,” says Ferdy. “You want to meet him?”
“Very much,” says Amy from the back. Bella Sanchez brought money into the country. That money wasn’t found. Nelson Nunez sounds like a good place to start looking for it.
“If someone was murdered on St. Lucia,” says Rosie, “is Nelson the sort of man who might know who did it?”
“Nelson?” says Ferdy. “Sure, if he didn’t do it himself. When’s this movie coming out? You need a driver?”
“Driver?” says Rosie. “I see you more as an actor, Ferdy.”
“I’ll talk to him,” says Ferdy, nodding in agreement. “Tell him a big-name writer wants to talk to him.”
Amy has yet to encounter a door that wasn’t open to Rosie D’Antonio.
“How do you know Nelson Nunez, Ferdy?” Amy asks.
“He’s the one who always beats me in the elections.”
45
Steve has never been anywhere like it.
There is a swimming pool actually inside his room, brilliant sapphire blue, marbled with dancing veins of sunlight in gold and silver. Tiny birds are cheeping and chirruping on the wide, high terrace, and three bottles of beer sit sweating with frost in an ice bucket. In the far distance twin volcanoes jut out into the sea, two perfect triangles dipping their toes into the Caribbean.
They hadn’t crashed, and this suite is Steve’s reward. He takes out the Dictaphone and looks down to the bay, where colorful dive boats criss cross the waves.
“Hey, dollface, I’m sitting on a balcony, next to a private pool in the biggest hotel room I’ve ever seen. It’s bigger than our house. Well, until we put the conservatory on, then it’s probably about the same. I’m even wearing shorts, so get your laughing out of the way. I’ve still got shoes and socks on, though.
“You wanted to go to the Caribbean; you sent me links and all sorts. It was always the wrong time of year, though. You know I did my research. I couldn’t find a single month that wasn’t either too rainy or too hot or too expensive. And I read about the hurricanes too, because that would be just my luck. And you said, ‘One day’ and I agreed ‘One day, for sure,’ didn’t I? But that day never came, eh? Sorry, Debs. Sorry for not living when I had the chance.”
Steve opens one of the ice-cold beers and calms himself down.
“Rosie knows the bloke who owns this, so we’re all in suites. She’s in the Presidential Suite. They threw out the prime minister of Japan to put her in there. We’re all off to see a man called Nelson Nunez tomorrow. A drug dealer. I’m assuming drug dealers are roughly the same in St. Lucia as they are in London. I’ll let you know. Unless I’m cut down in a hail of gunfire, in which case I’ll see you, won’t I? I’ll be walking through the door, full of bullets, great big smile on my face. Give you a big cuddle.”
Steve switches off the Dictaphone and breathes deeply before switching it back on. He feels shaky and tearful. He’d been warned about jet lag.
“There’re restaurants here that do all sorts: they’ve got barbecue on the beach, they’ve got Italian—I missed bolognese night at The Brass Monkey, as you know—they’ve got fresh sea fish in a little shack. We should have come out, shouldn’t we? We should’ve. God, I’m sorry, I’m hopeless. I could have sat by the pool while you went scuba diving or talked to people. I don’t know why I didn’t just do it. We should have taken our chances with the weather. It’s nice out here now. Hot but with a breeze off the sea. When you get here, luxury resorts aren’t actually as bad as you think.”
What does Steve need to ask Debbie about the case?
“So Bella Sanchez had a bag full of money too, and got picked up by the same driver as Fairbanks, which means it’s all connected. So we’re looking for this François Loubet. And trying to work out who was involved at Maximum Impact.”
Steve pauses for a moment, listening to what Debbie has to say about it all.
