Johnson Johnson 04 - Dolly and the Doctor Bird (13 page)

We moved around 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 sea water ran past the second green, its beaches white, a rocky island of gray 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 rancor, 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 the Santa Maria Drive, busier now: trucks rumbled around 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 around 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 the 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?”

“Doctor 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 around 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 gray-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 Planters’ 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. “You’re afraid of losing that lead. Confess, now.”

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 Planters’ 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 gray 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. “Doctor 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 nightclubs when the nightclub 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 up her brown, middle-aged muscular body, throwing off the arm he had placed around her waist. “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 a closed 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 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 plant 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 rondettes were in the process of roofing; the air was filled with the dry, pleasant smell of sawed 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 center, from a single buttonwood tree, low and wide with its gray scabbed bark and dark green willowlike 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 curtains, Sir Bartholomew waved from his chair. Isolated, overlooking the whole empty fairway and the jungle of low trees and bushes set around 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 drove 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?

Ahead, the pale green of a new lake in a deepish cut; the roofs of one or two other houses; the sound of dogs barking. Peanuts and Popcorn, perhaps, the pro’s chocolate poodles. And the fourteenth, turning back. We were on our way home; the sea, invisible, must be on our left. Then across Great Harbour Drive for the fifteenth and there was the water, pale turquoise ahead; to the right an unexpected deep cutting and more machinery; another house, its roof newly timbered, its walls not yet completed. The sixteenth: separated from the sea only by a strip of flowering bushes, and the occasional pine.

We stopped there, while Denise waded over the scrub without speaking, and went to stand alone on the beach. She gazed out to sea. Mr. Tiko, who had played an unvarying average game with placid good humor, waited patiently. Wallace Brady walked over to me. I said, “I don’t want to play it out, unless anyone else does.” He was four strokes better than I was; Lady Edgecombe poorest of all.

Brady said, “I don’t mind, either way. The last two are a straight walk back in to the clubhouse. We have to go that way anyway.” He hesitated and said, “D’you think we should all ease up?”

“Good lord,” I said. “What good would that do?” Giving Lady Edgecombe the game wasn’t going to improve her ego. Only a dramatic improvement in her golf would do that. I don’t know what Brady was going to say, but just then Lady Edgecombe said something aloud.

Mr. Tiko, who was nearest, walked politely toward her. She repeated what she had said, and this time we could hear it. “She’s lost the brooch out of her pocket,” I said. “End of game, end of problem. Leave things long enough and they’ll find their own answer.”

“It worries me,” said Wallace Brady, “to think that you think I’ll swallow that. Maybe you forget that civil engineers don’t get to be civil engineers with that kind of philosophy, any more than doctors do.”

“But lady ambassadresses can,” I said. But under my breath. Mr. Tiko was volunteering to tramp back and look for the brooch. Brady, putting a good face on it, walked up and offered to do the same; so did I.

We were about to split forces when Lady Edgecombe said, “No, you mustn’t, Beltanno. All that stooping with your poor head.” I had forgotten my poor head and so, I swear, had she until that moment. She said, “Look, someone must go and tell poor Bart. He’ll be up at the clubhouse in a few moments, patiently waiting. Suppose Beltanno takes one of the golf carts, and leaves us here with the other.”