Operation Nassau (17 page)
It was a philosophy with which I found myself in perfect agreement. A 5-iron, thoughtfully used, brought me within two yards of the pin. Both the men followed on to the green, but neither remotely so well. I got my birdie.
It was a pleasant moment of success. The sun blazed down: the white fringe of the cart moved to the faintest of sea breezes. Ahead, triangular against the blue sky, was the roof of the airport control tower; behind us, on the ridge, one could see the twin sloping roofs of the clubhouse. Brady dropped back the yellow flag and we resumed our seats. The two carts side by side set themselves into motion, and crossing Santa Maria Drive, we turned uphill past a low scrubby wood to No. 2 tee, par 3,155 yards. Lady Edgecombe drove off.
Since golf sagas may be as boring as holiday slides, I have no intention of narrating the whole of that game. Enough to say that although I did no better than that, I kept up a good average at every hole; and that Lady Edgecombe found a hard and competitive game which was nevertheless vulnerable to the unexpected. At the third, when I fell by sheer mishandling into the second large trap, she played her best shot yet, a brilliant No. 3-iron which landed straight on the green. But when my next chip shot, by a combination of skill and good luck, actually ran on to the green and within striking distance of the hole, she was again put off, and took three to get the ball down.
It was irritating, in that a neurotic player is always an unspoken blight; but the men played steadily, if unspectacularly, and were unfailingly pleasant companions. Neither, for example, prattled.
The great joy, of course, was undoubtedly the condition of the fairway and greens. Ploughed up from jungle and swamp, the course had been designed and then sown by blowing-machine, the sprigs raced here by barge from their seed farms in Georgia. Turf. I knew, had come in the same way, rolled like carpets the way I had seen it, and even the coconut palms, their roots wrapped in polythene, had been imported by the barge-load; the tugs dragging them across from the Florida coast. For no coconut palms grew on Great Harbour Cay before the development. Nothing grew. The islanders fished for sponges, and, when that failed, for lobster and crawfish. Now, down on the road we saw the trucks going by from the big netted nursery off Royal Palm Drive. Trucks full of potted plants, and bags of horticultural perlite, and Canadian sphagnum peat moss. And the grass on the fairways, cut weekly one inch in height, was like the grass on the greens where I used to play near Loch Rannoch; and the grass on the greens, three-sixteenths of an inch and shaved daily, in green powderings which lay in small heaps on the roads, was like heavy green suede.
We moved round the course in the sun, like children on a toy railway, stopping and starting; pretending to play plastic golf under the perpetual hot sun of childhood. An inlet of seawater ran past the second green, its beaches white, a rocky island of grey and yellow stones in the middle. The third fairway led up to the airport: beyond a banking of white limestone the line of flags showed, and as we played a Dakota flew in slowly from the left, skimmed our heads and landed. You could see the passengers disembark. I watched Lady Edgecombe scanning the numbers, and she played well at that hole. Reminded of her status: reminded that if the company at present did not come up to her expectations, there was more and better elsewhere. Not that she seemed disappointed in Brady. He had good American manners, and he was polite as her rank demanded, although he was unable, I saw, quite to get her measure. I guessed this was one of many attempts on her part to draw him into their circle. I guessed she would get tired of trying, again, as she had, petulantly, at Nassau.
In the permanent company lodged on the island, there were probably few enough whom she felt might amuse her. And Brady’s style, one had to admit, was engaging enough. He played an even game, without rancour, and cracked one or two mild jokes; then ceased to crack them when Lady Edgecombe leaned on the theme just a little too long. Mr Tiko, ever polite, merely smiled and made congratulatory remarks. To me, in the cart, he talked a little about the game in Japan and put one or two gentle questions about courses in Scotland. He was no trouble.
For the fourth hole we recrossed Santa Maria Drive: busier now; lorries rumbled round the white dusty corners with their loads of men and machinery. On the fairway, however, it was quiet: the twitter of an unknown bird came from the small wood beside us. A small red service cart with two Negroes sitting relaxed side by side moved almost without sound down the next fairway. Ahead, a spray was working, jets of water rising in pulses as if a small monkey engine were throwing up steam in short bursts. It swung slowly, and left on the slope of the green a long sparkling bloom of pale blue; the beaded grass reflecting the sky. Wallace Brady had shown me the red metal caps, sunk in scores round the tees, greens and fairways, from which emerged the sprinklers at night, set to spray in rotation all through the darkness and keep the turf perfect under a tropical sun. We played down the fifth and crossed Harbour Drive to the sixth hole, and the first set by the sea.
The Fiat was sitting at the side of the road, and in it Sir Bartholomew, waiting for us. He waved to Denise. ‘It’s all there according to orders when you’re ready. Who’s winning?’
‘Dr MacRannoch,’ said his wife brightly. ‘She’s beating us hollow. Lots of Scotch perseverance.’
I noted I had been demoted from Beltanno again. We played the hole, and then joined Sir Bartholomew on the beach.
The last thing I want, I suppose, when playing a competitive eighteen holes against unknown opponents is to break off a third of the way round for refreshments. For one thing, it takes quite some effort to collect one’s concentration and rhythm again. I had a feeling that Brady and Mr Tiko, although agreeable as ever, felt much the same. We stepped down to the beach through a thicket of grey-green cactus and water-lily-like mangrove, sprawling over ridged layers of crumbling white rock. Beyond stretched the dazzling white sand with the sea hissing transparent upon it, and changing as it deepened to all the brilliant aniline shades: greenish chrome to pure turquoise to cerulean, to hazy grape-blue on the horizon. Someone had put out long beach chairs and umbrellas just here, and Sir Bartholomew was unpacking a hamper with tins of soft drinks and a big flask of coffee. There were also some biscuits and fruit. Lady Edgecombe unstrapped her golf-bag and drew a neat Thermos from one pocket. ‘And this.’
Sir Bartholomew looked at it. I said to Mr Tiko, ‘Look. There’s some fan coral.’ The beach was like white silk, weathered into tissue by the unceasing water and mapped with spidery black curves, skeletons of dead waves. Sir Bartholomew said, smiling, ‘Well, for before-lunch, Denise. Don’t let’s put everyone off their superb strokes.’
She uncorked the flask without listening. ‘I don’t suppose Beltanno has tasted planter’s punch. Don’t be a spoilsport, darling,’ she said. She started to pour. ‘Not for me,’ I said, turning quickly. Lady Edgecombe smiled at me. ‘I dare you,’ she said.
I looked at Sir Bartholomew. ‘All right,’ I said. Brady and Mr Tiko both held out for coffee, and she didn’t press them. But her husband, I saw, also took planter’s punch. It left less in the flask. But not little enough.
It was hot now. I was glad of the green linen dress, lying back on my chair, glass in hand, one finger trailing in the glistening sand. It was full of treasures: white sea urchins; transparent shells so small and perfect that I wished I had a microscope and some means to identify them. The sea-rim hissed and withdrew, leaving the sand like satiny porridge patched with sparkling patterns of froth. Seaweed stirred, like grey snippets of ribbon, and a dog bounded by, followed by a splashing group of sunburned young men and women: the visitors, or some of them, who had been at our table last night. They stopped to call greetings and ask after Sir Bartholomew: Denise, drawling and languid, offered a selection of amusing remarks, fanning herself with the tie of her shirt. Diamond locket, in python bathing-trunks, said to me, ‘Are you swimming?’
‘Don’t be frivolous, Paul,’ said Lady Edgecombe gravely. ‘Dr MacRannoch is playing an awfully scientific game of golf.’ She managed, with clarity, to the end of the sentence. Wallace Brady stood up. ‘And I think we’d better get on with it,’ he said. ‘Unless anyone’s tired? There might be someone on our heels, don’t you think?’
Lady Edgecombe shook her head. ‘No one on that plane who plays golf. No. We have the course to ourselves. Finest course in the world. Isn’t it, Bart? Good, clean healthy living. No gambling, no blackjack, no roulette, no casinos. Nothing to do but swim and fish and play tennis, when the tennis-courts have got themselves built, and sail, when the marina is built, and go to the night-club when the night-club is built, and make love . . . when...’
Sir Bartholomew put a hand on her arm. ‘Look out. Your nice brooch is slipping.’
It stopped her, and she looked down. Mr Tiko had already moved off, returning the collected glasses to their basket: Wallace Brady was gazing, eyes shaded, at the reefs out to sea. Bart Edgecombe said gently, ‘Take it out and put it in your pocket; then it won’t get lost. Or would you like to call it a day? We could go back and see who’s in the clubhouse.’
She drew herself up, her brown, middle-aged muscular body throwing off the suggestion. ‘When I’m doing something exciting, I want to finish it. You go and rest. You haven’t been well. We’re doing splendidly. One for all and all for one!’ said Lady Edgecombe, sportingly if rather confusingly, and set off back to the fairway. I caught Wallace Brady’s eyes on me and we exchanged glances; then he went on to take Denise by the arm. Sir Bartholomew passed me on his way to the car without saying anything; as he went by, one of the red service buggies drove up and stopped by the crossed rakes at the edge of the green: before we were out of sight the hole was being manicured back into pristine perfection again. We gathered on the seventh tee and set off again.
I played the rest of that round with a sense of unease, which was not due to Lady Edgecombe’s new and lighthearted approach to the game. It was, I think, because I had forgotten Bart Edgecombe’s danger. Or, seeing him at home, with wife and servants, or among familiars in the clubhouse in an enclosed society, on an island in which every guest, every stranger was known, it seemed the danger must be less than in the unconfined rat-race outside.
And now, seeing him walk alone to that light open car, and get in alone and drive off alone, I wondered what protection Johnson thought he was offering him from the shelter of Crab Island. Or was I his protection? And what did Johnson suppose I could do if an excavator turned that corner and drove headlong into the Fiat?
I sliced my drive and Wallace Brady gave a cheer and said, ‘The first crack!’ I grinned back, but I was thinking still. Of all our suspects, only Brady was on Great Harbour Cay, and he was here beside me. But that meant less than nothing. Whatever induced Pentecost to attempt murder in the Bamboo Conch Club could buy exactly the same sort of services here. If Bart Edgecombe was going to be killed, it would be at second hand, by somebody whose employer was very likely not even here on the island. Crab Island, after all, was only twenty minutes away by fast speedboat.
I lost that hole. Progressing along the course, I was struck not only by its superb condition, its peace and its greenness, but by how much lay near it which could be used by a killer. Here on the seventh the green overlooked a large sandy dip full of blue water: a flock of white egrets with swan necks and spider legs dangling rose as we approached and circled until we had gone: the water looked deep.
The fairway for the eighth lay between two half-made reservoirs. You could hear the soft roar of the machinery before driving off; then on the right loomed the raised lake, with yellow hopper and red chute in full operation. On the left, a sunken yard dug from the limestone was filled with machinery and equipment: hoppers, stacks of timber, bundles of pipes, red oil-cans and big silvery drums of gas. A three-sided warehouse held more plants and tools and some cars; rows of spares for the sprayers; rows of the long fan-shaped brushes I had seen being used on the greens. They were marked Little Helper.
We holed out and moved on. The ninth led to another lake. On the left, rows of stilted roundettes were in the process of roofing; the air was filled with the dry pleasant smell of sawn wood. The tenth was beside the new embryo tennis-courts, but from the fairway to the skyline on all sides was palmetto scrub. High on the left, someone had built a crow’s nest, a look-out platform for condominium clients, or snipers . . . Another lake. The eleventh: harmless, secluded, with the sun blazing down on its greenness the only shade in the centre, from a single buttonwood tree, low and wide with its grey scabbed bark and dark green willow-like leaves. Mr Tiko went off to study a strange yellow butterfly; Lady Edgecombe was playing silently and not very well; Wallace Brady was winning.
Across Fairway Road and more heavy traffic. Workmen swarmed over a half-finished house: heavy tools lay about. The twelfth, and past Edgecombe’s own house. Seen from the golf-course the red poles on which it stood looked all of twelve feet in height. They had put in more hibiscus: the villa perched with its feet in palm trees and flowers, with the hum of its generator coming plainly down from the hut on the right. From the balcony, before the picture windows with their elegant drapes, Sir Bartholomew waved from his chair. Isolated, overlooking the whole empty fairway and the jungle of low trees and bushes set round it. A killer need only lie there under the bushes at night and then, if he were agile, climb up the poles.
Brady waved back, and so did I. Lady Edgecombe gathered herself and played one excellent shot, the best for several holes, down the heart of the fairway. We sat in the carts and drove on.
The thirteenth, a raised tee, and on its right a deep dry excavation for a reservoir; the sides scored with the wide-ladder marks of caterpillar tractors crossing and recrossing. At the bottom lay an unattached green harrow with spikes on its wheels. Why should I think of Johnson?