Laura Marlin Mysteries 2: Kidnap in the Caribbean (14 page)

‘You said something about a dolphin place,’ Laura reminded him. ‘An aquarium or dolphinarium, you mean?’

‘No, no, it’s a scientific company. Researching how to save whales and sea life and such like. My friend, Rupert Long, he’s a scientist his self – a volcanologist – he say dey all crazy nutters down dere. Da Government advised dem not build dat laboratory right next to da volcano, but dey insist it’s important for der work.’

Why is it that people who are passionate about saving whales and other mammals are always labelled as ‘crazy’, Laura wondered.

The security guard strode up to them, bristling. ‘Move it along,’ he said sharply. ‘No loitering. This is private property.’

‘We’re guests of the hotel,’ Laura informed him. Skye loomed out of the darkness, snarling, and the guard jumped back.

She hugged the old man. ‘Joshua, you’ve saved our lives. I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘Go to Montserrat,’ he said, shaking Tariq’s hand. ‘We need tourists if we is ever to recover. If you need help or want to get up close and personal wit a volcano, find Rupert Long and tell him Joshua sent you. Take care y’all. Nice dog, by da way.’

With a click of his tongue and a squeak of wheels, he and his horse were gone.

‘Now look here, kids,’ said the guard, ‘I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, but you’re not staying at Blue Haven. The kind of people who come here arrive by limo or private taxi. They don’t turn up on the back of a cart and they don’t bring wolves.’

Laura thrust their passports into his hand, lifted her chin and stared at him with as much authority as she could manage. ‘My name’s Laura Marlin and this is Tariq Miah and my husky, Skye. Back in England we won a prize for a dream holiday, which has so far been a complete nightmare. The final straw was when our limousine burst into flames. We’re hoping for more from your lovely resort. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re very tired and we’d like to check in.’

The manager behind the reception desk hadn’t been quite so easy to convince.

‘Your name is on the booking so I don’t have a problem with that,’ she told Laura. ‘But it’s most unorthodox to have children checking in on their own, especially with no luggage. Tell me again how you came to arrive here without your uncle.’

Laura decided that if they were ever to get a meal, a shower and a decent night’s sleep, now was the time to be economical with the truth. ‘He’s a detective,’ she explained, omitting to mention that Calvin Redfern had left the police force over a year earlier and now investigated illegal fishing. ‘He’s tied up with an important case – a kidnapping case – and has been delayed, but he’ll be with us as soon as he can. He apologises and asks for your cooperation and understanding at this difficult time.’

As she’d suspected, the word ‘detective’ had a magical effect. In a matter of minutes, she, Tariq and Skye were on a golf cart being whisked through the palms and vines to their villa. They’d fallen asleep to a soundtrack of cicadas and frogs and the soothing swish of the sea.

‘The problem,’ Laura said at lunchtime the next day, ‘is that we don’t know where to start looking. Antigua is a huge island. My uncle could be anywhere. We might as well search for a star in the sky or a grain of sand on one of the three hundred and sixty-five beaches.’

She rested her elbows on the railings of the Driftwood Kitchen, a thatched diner open to the elements, and gazed down at the lagoon. She felt very despondent. It was bizarre being in the island paradise she’d dreamt of, but being too frantic about the fate of her uncle to enjoy it.

On the white shore below her, families and bronzed young couples paddled in water dappled with every conceivable shade of blue. Teenagers made comical attempts to windsurf or lay sprawled on deck chairs, baking in the honeyed sunlight, oblivious to the darker side of the Caribbean.

‘We will find him,’ Tariq said determinedly. ‘I don’t care what it takes, we are going to do it.’

He perched restlessly on the stool beside Laura, absent-mindedly rubbing the husky’s ears and scanning every face that passed. They both knew that it was only a matter of time before the Straight A gang figured out where they were. If you were eleven years old and a stranger to it, Antigua felt as big as Africa. If you were an adult with limitless money and knew the island like the back of your hand, it was child’s play. And Celia and Sebastian could afford to hire every able-bodied man in Antigua to comb the island until they were found.

Tariq sipped the water from a hairy coconut. As they’d hoped, all meals and drinks were included in their prize, and Celia’s money had paid for some extra essentials: clean T-shirts, shorts, trousers, socks, underwear, sunblock, toothpaste and toothbrushes, swimming costumes, sweatshirts and a backpack.

‘Let’s start with what we know,’ Tariq said. ‘Or with what we think happened. We’re pretty sure that Calvin Redfern was kidnapped by a couple of Straight A gang members posing as pirates. If that’s true, we could make enquiries about the pirate galleon and ask if there were any changes of staff that day.’

‘That’s a good idea in theory, but what if the pirates have friends on the boat or actually work on the boat themselves?’ Laura said. ‘We’d be walking right into the Straight A gang’s hands.’

‘Okay, how about doing the obvious thing again? We could go to the police.’

‘And say what? That my uncle, who we have no proof was ever on the ship, has been kidnapped by the Straight A gang? Dozens of people saw the LeFevers claim us as their children on the ship, and heard us call them Mum and Dad. They’re about as likely to believe that the LeFevers are part of an international crime syndicate as they are to believe that pirate actors put Calvin Redfern in a conjurer’s trunk.’

She sighed. ‘What we need is a clue. Just one tiny clue.’

A waitress with a gap-toothed smile and a name tag identifying her as Ira put two spicy shrimp salads, a bottle of Susie’s hot sauce and a basket of bread on the narrow ledge that served as a table in the Driftwood Kitchen. ‘Enjoy!’

‘Thank you,’ said Laura, forgetting her worries for a moment and smiling as Ira offered a large bone to Skye. He took it delicately and carried it over to a nearby patch of lawn. ‘Skye says thank-you too. You’ve just made a husky very happy.’

‘Happy is good. Happy is what we aim to do.’ Ira brushed Laura’s fair skin with her dark hand. ‘Very sensible you are, darlin’. Staying out of the sun on the first day. A lotta our guests, they so excited to see our gorgeous clear water, they do nothing but swim and roast, swim and roast, like they hogs on a spit. By nightfall they’re about ready to be carved. They has to spend the rest of their vacation in the shade, plastered with aloe vera.’

‘Are there sharks in the bay?’ Tariq asked her.

‘Only on Sondays,’ she retorted, straight-faced. Turning away she giggled, delighted at her own joke.

‘Hey Laura, look at the back of her T-shirt,’ Tariq said in a low voice. ‘“Marine Concern”. Wasn’t that the name on that badge you showed me on the ship, the one that had a smiling dolphin on it?’

He hopped up and went over to the counter, where the waitress was loading a tray with iced drinks. ‘Excuse me, Miss Ira,’ he said, ‘I noticed the dolphin on your shirt. What is Marine Concern? Is it a charity?’

She beamed at him over the top of a tray of Pina Coladas. Polite children were a rarity at Blue Haven so she made a special effort when she came across them. ‘You like dolphins and whales? Marine Concern, they doin’ research on how best to save ’em. They very popular here in the islands. People give ’em millions to continue their studies.’

‘Laura and I love dolphins and whales,’ Tariq told her. ‘Where is Marine Concern located? We’d really like to visit.’

Ira hoisted the tray onto her shoulder. ‘You’ll need a helicopter or a boat. And a life insurance policy. They is based in Monsterrat – right close to the volcano. They is either brave or crazy, that much I know. That volcano, it could go any day. Believe me when I tell you, you don’t wanna go anywhere near it.’

He thanked her for her help and returned to Laura and his shrimp salad.

‘Montserrat?’ Laura said. ‘You mean, the Emerald Isle with the dancing skeletons and the volcano that could erupt at any moment? Sounds like the kind of place I’ve been waiting to visit my whole life.’

Tariq couldn’t help laughing. ‘All I’m saying is it’s the only clue we have. You thought there was a chance that the pirates might have dropped it. What if you’re right? The pirates didn’t strike me as the kind of people who care about dolphins.’

‘Mmm, I doubt if those pirates care about their own mothers. And if Marine Concern is the place Joshua mentioned – the one with “crazy nutter” scientists working in the shadow of the volcano, it might be worth a visit. Where better to hide my uncle than a place where nobody wants to go because, any day now, a river of orange lava is going to come pouring down the mountain and swallow everything.’

Tariq sprinkled hot sauce all over his shrimp. His eyes met Laura’s and she saw behind his smile a steely determination. ‘How soon do we leave?’ he said.

AT 4 P.M. THEY
were at the helicopter pad for the last volcano tour of the day. Laura had been worried that without their competition vouchers – snatched by the Straight A gang – they wouldn’t be able to afford the flight, but it turned out that Calvin Redfern had been so excited about seeing Montserrat, he’d reserved a couple of spots in advance before they’d even left Cornwall.

It was eerie to see her uncle’s name on the register. It was almost as if he was speaking to her from … From where? Laura had no idea. ‘Beyond the grave’ was the phrase that popped into her head, but she pushed it out. Thinking positively had saved her life once before, and she was determined to use it to save her uncle’s.

‘Sorry kids, no pooches allowed,’ the pilot told them when he arrived. A button nose and a cow’s lick at the front of his fair hair gave him a cartoon character appearance. He barely looked old enough to drive, let alone fly a helicopter.

Laura had her response prepared. ‘He’s not a pooch, he’s a police dog, and my uncle, Detective Inspector Redfern, urgently needs him to help solve a case in Montserrat. It’s a matter of life and death.’

In a way, every word was true.

‘A police dog you say. A matter of life and death. That puts a different slant on things.’

He gave them a sideways grin. ‘You’re not messing with me, are you?’

‘We’re not messing with you,’ Tariq assured him. ‘Skye is urgently needed to track down a missing person.’

‘So urgently you thought you’d take a volcano tour first?’

‘That,’ Laura informed him, ‘is for research purposes.’

He looked over at the hangar, which also served as an office. ‘If my manager was here, he’d kill me for even considering it. Health and safety and all that.’

‘He’s not?’ Laura asked hopefully.

The young man tugged at his cow’s lick and scowled. ‘He’s on vacation again. Oh, what the heck. You’re my last passengers of the day. If it’s a matter of life and death …’