Those in Peril (Unlocked) (43 page)

‘When he sees us he is going to make his last run. Be ready for it. Let him take all the line he wants. Don’t try to hold him.’ But the fish was almost done. His last run was less than twenty yards and then she was able to turn his head and bring him back towards the bank. In the shallow water he suddenly rolled onto his back in exhausted submission, his gill covers opening and closing like a bellows as he hunted for oxygen. Hector waded forward and slipped two fingers into his gills and, careful not to tear the delicate membranes, lifted his head gently until he could take him in his arms like an infant. He carried the fish to the bank and Cayla sat beside him waist deep in the icy river.

‘How much does he weigh?’ she asked.

‘Over thirty pounds, but less than forty,’ he answered. ‘But it doesn’t matter. He’s yours for ever. That’s all that counts.’ Hazel knelt in front of them and photographed them with the great salmon across their laps and their faces alight with happiness.

Hector and Cayla carried the fish between them into deeper water and turned him to face into the current so the water flowed through his gills. He recovered his balance and strength swiftly and started to wriggle to be free. Cayla stooped to kiss him on his cold slippery nose.

‘Adieu!’ She bade him farewell for ever. ‘Go and make lots of little fish for me to catch.’ Then Hector opened his arms and the fish’s tail thumped from side to side and he shot away into the depths. They laughed and hugged each other for the sheer joy of it.

‘Strange how good things always happen when you are with us, Heck,’ Cayla said with sudden seriousness. Hazel recorded the moment with her Nikon. That was how she would always remember her daughter.

T
hey flew on down to Paris and put Cayla on the commercial flight direct to Denver. There followed four long days of discussions with officials of the French Board of Trade, discussing import tariffs and the other problems of importing natural gas into France. Nevertheless they found time to spend an afternoon at the Musée d’Orsay admiring the Gauguins and another full day in the Musée de l’Orangerie with Monet’s water lilies. Then they went on to Geneva to attend another art auction. There was one item in the sale that Hazel wanted desperately: a lovely Berthe Morisot of a Parisian flower seller. This time Hazel found herself in a grim bidding contest with a Saudi prince. In the end even she had to capitulate, but she was furious.

‘You were right, Hector darling. These people are dangerous.’

‘Naughty! Naughty!’ he admonished her. ‘That isn’t at all PC.’ Secretly he was not unhappy with the result. Surely there had to be a limit to her spending?

‘I am not objecting to his skin colour. It’s the size of his wallet that really galls me.’ It took a little sweet talking and a lot of loving before she regained her good humour.

Russia was the next stop on their movable honeymoon feast. As always the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg enchanted them with its vast array of treasures that the Bolshevik revolutionaries had plundered from their own doomed aristocrats. However in Moscow things turned a little sour once more. For the past two years Bannock Oil had been involved in a courtship dance with the Russian oil giant Gazprom. The proposed project was a joint venture in deepwater exploration of gas deposits in the Gulf of Anadyr in the Bering Sea. Bannock had spent tens of millions on bringing this proposal to the bargaining table. Now it ran into the iceberg of Russian intransigence and sank without a trace.

‘Insufferable Russkies! I have to punish them somehow,’ Hazel fumed at Hector when they settled once more into the lulling luxury of the salon in the BBJ, and took off for Osaka. ‘I think I am going to have to seriously boycott their caviar and vodka.’

‘If you destroy the Russian economy that way, just think of those millions of cute little Russian babies who will starve to death because of you.’

‘God! You are a bleeding heart, Mr Cross! Okay. I give in. I never did fancy the Bering Sea, anyway. I hear it’s dreadfully cold up there.’ Hector called the chief steward on the intercom.

‘Please bring Mrs Cross her usual Dovgan vodka and lime juice.’

‘Not bad!’ Hazel gave her opinion as she tasted it. ‘But isn’t there anything for afters?’ She glanced at the door to the Versace bedroom.

‘I did have something in mind,’ he admitted.

‘Goody! Goody!’ she said.

I
n the shipyards of Osaka the mighty tanker stood on the slipway ready for launching. The entire board of Bannock Oil and a number of other dignitaries, including the Prime Minister of Japan, the Emir of Abu Zara and the US Ambassador to Japan, were assembled to witness the event.

The interior of the ship was still unfinished. She would sail with a skeleton crew to Chi-Lung, the seaport of Taipei in Taiwan, where she would undergo the final fitting out and the installation of the revolutionary new cargo tanks. A lift took the guests to the top of the scaffold at the bows of the hull, where they were seated in the aerial auditorium. They applauded as Hazel went to the front edge of the platform to name and launch the great ship. From such a height she felt as though she were standing on the peak of a mountain with the world far below her. The substitute for champagne that she was to break against the steel hull was a magnum of Australian sparkling chardonnay.

When Hector had queried her choice of wine she told him seriously, ‘We aren’t going to drink it, darling. We’re going to smash it to little bits. I don’t want to get the reputation of being spendthrift.’

‘Extremely abstemious of you, my love,’ he agreed. Fifty photographers had their lenses focused on her as she made her speech from the front of the high platform. Her voice was magnified by the loudspeakers until it echoed and reverberated around the yard below her where thousands of workers were assembled.

‘This ship is a monument to the genius of my deceased husband Henry Bannock. He created and controlled the Bannock Oil Corporation for forty years. His nickname was The Goose. Therefore I name this ship the
Golden Goose
. God bless and protect her and all who sail in her.’ The
Golden Goose
slid broadside down the slipway and when she entered the water she raised a tidal wave that rocked every other vessel in the basin. They sounded their foghorns and all the spectators cheered and clapped. There were another three days of meetings and banquets before Hector and Hazel were able to escape again.

They flew up to the Shinto temple of auspicious memories below Mount Fujiyama. Their hectic itinerary had left both of them close to exhaustion, so after their obligatory visit to the sacred cherry tree in the temple orchard they returned to their suite and bathed together in the hot tub. As they lay there soaking in the almost scalding waters, Hazel reached out for her mobile phone and switched it on.

‘Five missed messages from Dunkeld,’ she murmured lazily as she wriggled her toes against his back. ‘I wonder what Mater wants. She isn’t usually so persistent. I wonder what the time difference is?’

‘Cape Town is about seven hours behind us here. It’s just after lunchtime there.’

‘Okay, I’ll try and return her calls.’ Hazel punched in the number and it was answered within a dozen rings.

‘Hello, Uncle John. It’s Hazel,’ she said and then broke off, and listened with dawning astonishment. Then she interrupted him.

‘Uncle John, why won’t you let me speak to her?’ Her temper was rising sharply. ‘All right! Damn it. Here he is.’ She covered the mouthpiece with her hand.

‘He won’t put me through to Mater, and he won’t tell me anything. He only wants to speak to you.’ Hector took the phone from her.

‘John? It’s me, Hector. What’s going on?’ There was a silence on the other end of the line, but then he heard the painfully laboured sounds of a grown man weeping. ‘For God’s sake, John. Speak to me.’

‘I don’t know what to do,’ John sobbed. ‘She’s gone, and now there is nobody to take her place.’

‘You’re not making sense, John. Get a hold of yourself.’

‘It’s Grace. She is dead. You and Hazel have to come. Now. Immediately. Please, Hector. You must bring Hazel. I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t know what to do.’ The line went dead. Hector looked at Hazel. She was deathly pale and her eyes were huge, and so dark blue that they were almost black.

‘I heard,’ she whispered, ‘I heard what he said. My mother is dead.’ She sobbed once as though she had taken an arrow through the heart and she reached for him with both arms. They hugged each other in the steaming waters of the bath. After a while Hazel rallied.

‘Darling, I need a little time to recover from this. Will you please speak to Peter for me.’ Peter Naughton was the captain of the BBJ. ‘Tell him we must have an expedited takeoff for Cape Town. Tell him we will be at the airfield in two hours at the latest.’

They refuelled in Perth in Western Australia, but were airborne again within an hour. Their next and last refuelling stop was on the island of Mauritius. They had tried repeatedly to contact uncle John, but he was not answering his phone. Hazel sent him an SMS from Mauritius informing him of their ETA in Cape Town, but the reply was from Grace’s secretary, who confirmed that there would be transport waiting at Thunder City for them. By the time they landed in Cape Town their nerves were ragged. Since leaving Japan they had spoken of very little else than Grace’s death, and in the end Hector had to insist that Hazel take a sleeping draught. When they touched down she was still dulled by the drug. Hector had never seen her looking so drawn and haggard.

As soon as they were seated in the Maybach and heading into the mountains towards Dunkeld Hazel tried to pump the chauffeur for information. However, if he knew anything beyond the fact that Miss Grace was dead and that her body had been taken away in an ambulance, he was not saying. Clearly he had been gagged by somebody and the obvious somebody was uncle John. In the end he let slip one small item.

‘But at least the police have gone now, Miss Hazel.’ Hazel leapt on this morsel of information and tried to wheedle more from him, but the chauffeur looked terrified and retreated behind a barrier of feigned ignorance. In the end even Hazel was forced to give up bullying the fellow.

Uncle John was waiting for them on the porch of the house. When he came down the steps to greet them they hardly recognized him. He seemed to have aged by twenty years. His features were ravaged. Hazel did not remember his hair as being so white. He moved like a very old man. She gave him a perfunctory kiss and then looked into his eyes,

‘What are you up to, Uncle John?’ she demanded. ‘Why won’t you tell me what has happened to Mater? I know she wasn’t sick. How can she be dead?’

‘Not out here, Hazel. Come inside, and I’ll tell you all that we know.’ When they were in the sitting room John led her to a sofa. ‘Sit down, please. It’s a shocking business. I cannot yet get to grips with it.’

‘I can’t wait any longer. Tell me, damn you.’

‘Grace was murdered,’ he blurted and began to sob. He slumped onto the seat beside her and his whole body convulsed with grief. Hazel’s expression changed and she hugged him to try to comfort him. He clung to her like a bewildered child.

‘Grace was my only sibling. She was all I had, and now she is gone.’

‘Tell us what happened. Who killed her?’ Hazel was gentle with him, controlling her own suffering.

‘We don’t know. There was an intruder. He poisoned the dogs, and somehow managed to short-circuit the alarm system. Then he got into her bedroom. I was sleeping only two doors away and I heard nothing.’ Hazel stared at him dumbly. She left it to Hector to ask the next question.