Laura Marlin Mysteries 2: Kidnap in the Caribbean (15 page)

The volcano was smoking. That was a shock. So was the sight of the former capital city, its shops and houses crushed and upended, all coated in a thick blanket of greeny-grey volcanic ash.

‘That’s Plymouth,’ explained the pilot. ‘Forty feet of ash and mud poured over the place and crushed it as if it was a toy village. I always think it looks like the abandoned set of some science fiction disaster movie.’

To reach Montserrat they flew across an expanse of aquamarine sea so clear they saw a couple of feeding whales. From the air, Antigua really was a paradise. A tropical island fringed with exquisite beaches and inviting lagoons. Montserrat was small by comparison, but the part of the island undamaged by the volcano was the emerald green Joshua had talked about. Pastel-painted houses dotted the third of the island deemed safe from the lava flows. Cows and goats grazed on the edges of patchwork fields.

The helicopter doors were glass from floor to ceiling and the craft tipped and rolled as the pilot pointed out the sights. It was like being whooshed across the sky in a glass bubble. As they buzzed around the volcano’s grey rim, Laura had to fight back a feeling of vertigo.

The closer they drew to the crater, the more ominous it looked. A column of smoke plumed into the late afternoon sky. At its centre was an orange glow, though whether that was the volcano’s molten heart or the setting sun Laura found difficult to tell. She had a flashback to her nightmare in St Ives – the one in which the Fantasy Holidays travel woman had dangled her over a molten pit. She fervently hoped that it hadn’t been a premonition. If the chauffeur was here, who was to say that the Fantasy Travel representative hadn’t come too.

Laura put her arms around the husky. He licked her cheek and buried his face in the crook of her arm. He wasn’t a fan of air travel at all.

As the pilot tilted away from the volcano, the sun glinted off the white outline of a building. It was in the far north of the island, constructed partly on the cliffs and partly on a marina. The architect had designed it in such a way that the roof of the clifftop building was in the shape of the letter ‘M’, and the marina section spelled ‘C’. Marine Concern, Laura guessed.

It was a baking hot afternoon but goosebumps rose on her arms. Was her uncle a prisoner in that sterile white building? Was he terrified? Hungry? In pain? Was he beside himself with worry, not knowing what had become of his niece and the boy with whose care he’d been entrusted? She and Tariq were going on nothing but guesswork. If they were wrong and her uncle was still in Antigua, precious time would be lost – time that could get him killed.

She nudged Tariq and pointed. There was a microphone attached to the bulky headphones that shielded their eardrums from the helicopter’s machinegun roar, but she didn’t want the pilot to hear her. Tariq gave her the thumbs up. He pressed his face against the glass door, straining to see something that might hint at what went on behind the walls. The sleek modern buildings and manicured lawns gave nothing away.

The pilot said into his mouthpiece: ‘If you’re wondering which company is brave enough, or idiotic enough, to erect their headquarters beside a volcano, it’s a scientific research company called Marine Concern. They’re on a mission to save rare sea life. There are a lot of rumours about them. The locals don’t like it that they seldom offer islanders jobs, but if they’re doing good work for endangered ocean species, I say we should leave them in peace.’

He steered the helicopter away from the volcano’s menacing shadow. In no time at all they were landing at Montserrat’s tiny airport. The pilot led them out of range of the spinning blades and escorted them into the terminal. The last flight of the day had just arrived. The low, cool building was buzzing with families and disoriented tourists trying to get their bearings. An aroma of coffee and conch burgers hung in the air, but the cafe had closed. A lone woman with a vacuum cleaner circled the tables like a bee collecting honey.

It was only now that Laura realised what an immense gamble they’d taken by leaving the relative sanctuary of the Blue Haven resort, where there was safety in numbers and they’d had free food and shelter. There was enough of Celia’s money to pay for a couple of nights in a bed and breakfast on Montserrat, but none for a return ticket to Antigua. The free helicopter ticket had been for a volcano tour only. They’d had to do a lot of fast-talking to convince the pilot to drop them off in Montserrat. What they were going to do if they didn’t find Calvin Redfern, she couldn’t imagine. They hadn’t thought further than getting to the island.

‘You said you were doing the volcano tour for research purposes. What kind of research would that be?’ the pilot was asking.

‘It’s top secret,’ Laura told him, forcing a smile. ‘It’s to do with the case my uncle is working on. We could tell you but we’d have to kill you afterwards.’

He laughed. ‘Where is your detective uncle? He’s meeting you here, right? I’m curious to meet such a famous policeman. It’ll be like encountering James Bond. Life and death, right?’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Laura. ‘Only thing is, he might be very late. My uncle, I mean. If he’s held up with work, we could be here for hours and hours. We don’t mind because we’re used to it, but he certainly wouldn’t expect you to do the same. Don’t you have to get back to Antigua before nightfall?’

‘It’s highly likely that he’ll be very, very late,’ Tariq added, ‘and he might also be in disguise. Especially if he’s working undercover.’

It belatedly dawned on the pilot that there was something peculiar about two children and a husky travelling alone to Montserrat. ‘Is that so? Well, I don’t care if he’s disguised as Donald Duck, I’m not leaving until he comes. There’s no way I’m going to abandon a couple of kids on an island with an active volcano.’

‘We’ll definitely be okay,’ Tariq insisted. ‘You should get going. Thanks for all your help. We have money and we’ll get a taxi if necessary.’

The pilot folded his arms across his chest. ‘Okay, spit it out. You’re in some kind of trouble, aren’t you? There is no uncle, is there? I should have figured that out back in Antigua. That’s it, I’m calling the police.’

He started towards a security guard, a sinewy Caribbean who was laughing into his mobile phone near the terminal exit.

‘Wait!’ cried Laura, but the pilot only turned to say: ‘Don’t move or you’ll be in big trouble.’

‘Laura, look,’ Tariq said under his breath.

Laura followed his gaze to the double doors that separated the terminal from the runway. They opened briefly to admit a couple of smartly dressed aircrew. Behind them, heading across the tarmac, were the LeFevers’ bodyguards.

Laura’s heart began to pound. ‘Tariq, I think we’re in one of those devil and the deep blue sea situations again.’

At the terminal exit, the security guard had put away his phone and was frowning as he listened to the pilot’s story. He took out his radio and spoke rapidly into it.

‘We could make a run for it, but we wouldn’t get very far,’ Tariq said. ‘On the other hand, if we wait here, we’ll either be deported or end up as shark food, and who knows what’ll happen to your uncle then. What do you reckon Matt Walker would do?’

The security guard was putting away his radio and fingering the handcuffs on his belt. Little and Large were having a heated debate and hadn’t seen them yet, but that could change in a heartbeat. Laura pulled Skye and Tariq behind a potted tree. ‘Matt Walker would create a diversion. Trouble is, someone’s already doing that.’

Opposite them, a goateed, bespectacled young man in a navy blue polo shirt and an orange firefighter jumpsuit, rolled down to the waist, was engaged in a heated discussion with the woman behind the counter of the Post Express – ‘We Deliver’– booth.

‘But you told me that if I made it here by five-thirty, it would be in Antigua by morning,’ he cried passionately, brandishing a small box. ‘You promised. And now you tell me you’re closed.’

‘I say five-turty and I mean five-turty,’ the woman in the booth said placidly. ‘Now it’s five-turty-tree and we done shut up shop for da day.’

‘But don’t you understand, you’re putting people’s lives at stake. All for the sake of three lousy minutes. Are you happy to have that on your conscience? Do you have any idea what it’s like to be swallowed by a pyroclastic flow? That’s a flow of rock and gas travelling at 700kmph at 1,000 degrees Celsius, in case you’re not familiar with the term. That’s what could happen if this package doesn’t get to Antigua on time.’

The bodyguards passed the potted tree, still arguing furiously. Laura caught the words, ‘… find those brats or we might as well throw ourselves …’ She had not the slightest doubt that they were referring to her and Tariq.

‘Here goes,’ Tariq said, as the security guard and pilot strode purposefully towards them.

‘I don’t know about any pyromaniac whatsit,’ Mrs Postal Express’s voice boomed out across the terminal. ‘Arl I know is dat you, Rupert, would be late ta yo own funeral. Every week we has dis same prublem. And every week you tell me, “Clara, for tree lousy minutes, or ten lousy minutes or twelve, why you making such a fuss? My samples need to get to Antigua yesterday or the volcano will go up in smoke and I won’t be able to warn nobody.” Nunsense. Now if you don’t get yo hide outta my sight and back ta da Volcano Observatory, da only volcano on dis island is gonna be me.’

And with that, she wrenched down the steel shutter of her booth with a clatter and vanished from view.

‘What’s going on here?’ demanded the security guard, advancing on the children aggressively. ‘You kids ain’t in any trouble with the law, are you? Mr Lynch here says der is nobody here to greet you, and dat ya gave him some cockeyed story about a detective uncle and a missing person. Dis sounds like a po-lees matter – ’

But Laura wasn’t listening. She was processing the conversation she’d just heard. Something clicked in her head.

‘Rupert!’ she cried, evading the security guard’s hand and rushing over to the owl-like young man in the orange jumpsuit. ‘We thought you’d forgotten us. I’m Laura and that’s my husky, Skye and my best friend, Tariq, over by the tree. We’re friends of Joshua. He did tell you we were coming, didn’t he? He told us you’d help us.’

Rupert stared at her in bewilderment. ‘What? Joshua? I haven’t spoken to him in months. I guess he forgot to mention it.’

‘But you will?’ Laura said imploringly. ‘Help us, I mean? You see, we’re getting a hard time from those men over there. They don’t believe that we’re being met by an adult, and are threatening to turn us over to the police.’

Rupert scratched his head. ‘How did you say you know Joshua?’

Laura was a nervous wreck, especially since Large had returned to the terminal. By the looks of things, he was demanding food from the cleaner in the cafe.

She shifted so her body was screened by Rupert’s. ‘We met Joshua in Antigua. He’s the kindest man on earth. And he spoke very highly of you. He said you were a brilliant volcanologist.’

A broad smile brightened Rupert’s open, boyish face. ‘Did he really? He is the best man I know. And his wife could outcook any fancy chef.’ He came to a decision. ‘If Joshua sent you, of course I’ll help. What do you need me to do?’

Large was on his way out of the terminal with two takeaway containers in his hand, a smug expression on his brutish face.

Laura led Rupert over to the group behind the palm. She gave Tariq a wink and murmured to the pilot: ‘We did explain that my uncle might be in disguise. Sometimes even we struggle to recognise him.’

The pilot stared at Rupert as if he were James Bond come to life. The security guard looked crushed. If the children were being met by a responsible adult, there would be no arrest. His moment of importance had passed.

‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ said Rupert. ‘What seems to be the problem here? Apologies if there’s been any confusion. I was a bit tied up with a postal problem and didn’t realise that Laura and Tariq had arrived. I’m going to be taking care of them while their detective uncle is busy solving a case here on the island. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. Here is my card.’

‘HADN’T YOU BETTER
tell me what’s going on?’ said Rupert, in a soft Canadian accent, as they drove out of town in his battered truck.

Laura took a big breath of the air rushing by the window. The golden light of evening lent a rainbow glow to the gaily-painted houses slipping past. A boy playing with a puppy looked up and waved. Laura put her arms around Skye and waited for her heartbeat to slow. There’d been another near miss at the airport before they left. She and Tariq had managed to get into Rupert’s Land Rover without been spotted by the bodyguards, but the husky had leapt out of the vehicle before they could shut the door, unable to resist chasing a cart loaded with goats and chickens.