“Oscar?” Hannah asked. “Do you know Missy Coltrane?”
“Oh yes, sah. She fine lady.”
“Do you know where she lives?”
“Yessah. Flamingo House, top of Spyglass Hill.”
Hannah checked his watch. It was half-past eleven, and the heat lay heavy. “Will she be in at this hour?” Oscar looked puzzled. “Of course, sah.”
“Take me to see her, will you?”
The Jaguar wound its way out of town, then began to climb the lower slopes of Spyglass Hill, six miles west of Port Plaisance. It was an old Mark IX model, a classic by now, made the old-fashioned way, redolent of aromatic leather and burnished walnut. Hannah sat back and watched the landscape drift by.
The lowland scrub gave way to the greener vegetation of the upland slopes, and they passed small plots of maize, mangoes, and papayas. Wooden shacks stood back from the road, fronted by dusty yards where chickens scratched. Small brown children heard the car coming and scampered to the roadside to wave frantically. Hannah waved back.
They passed the neat white children’s hospital that had been endowed by Marcus Johnson. Hannah glanced back and saw Port Plaisance sleeping in the heat. He could make out the red-roofed warehouse on the docks and the ice house next to it where the frozen Governor slept, the gritty sprawl of Parliament Square, the spire of the Anglican church, and the shingles of the Quarter Deck Hotel. Beyond, on the other side of town, shimmering in the haze, was the walled enclosure of Government House. Why on earth, he wondered, would anyone want to shoot the Governor?
They passed a neat bungalow that had once belonged to the late Mr. Barney Klinger, rounded two further curves, and emerged on the top of the hill. There stood a pink villa, Flamingo House.
Hannah pulled the wrought-iron bell chain by the door, and somewhere there was a low tinkle. A teenage girl answered the door, bare black legs emerging from a simple cotton frock.
“I’d like to see Missy Coltrane,” said Hannah.
She nodded and admitted him, showing him into a large and airy sitting room. Open double doors led to a balcony with spectacular views over the island and the glittering blue sea that stretched away to Andros in the Bahamas, far off below the horizon.
The room was cool despite having no air conditioning. Hannah noticed it had no electricity at all. Three burnished brass oil lamps stood on low tables. Cooling breezes wafted from the open balcony doors through to the open windows on the other side. The array of memorabilia indicated it was the home of an elderly person. Hannah sauntered around the room as he waited.
There were pictures on the wall, scores of them, and all of birds of the Caribbean, skillfully painted in delicate watercolors. The only portrait that was not of a bird was of a man in the full white uniform of a British Colonial Governor. He stood staring out at the room, gray-haired and gray-moustached, with a tanned, lined, and kindly face. Two rows of miniature medals covered the left breast of his tunic. Hannah peered to see the small label beneath the oil painting. It said, SIR ROBERT COLTRANE, K.B.E., GOVERNOR OF THE BARCLAY ISLANDS, 1945-1953. He held his white helmet, adorned with white cockerel feathers, in the crook of his right arm; his left hand rested on the pommel of his sword.
Hannah smiled ruefully. “Missy” Coltrane must in fact be Lady Coltrane, the former Governor’s widow. He moved farther round the wall to a display cabinet. Behind the glass, pinned to the hessian board, were the former Governor’s military trophies, collected and displayed by his widow. There was the deep purple ribbon of the Victoria Cross, Britain’s highest award for gallantry in the field, and the date of its award, 1917. It was flanked by the Distinguished Service Cross and the Military Cross. Other items the warrior had carried on his campaigns were pinned to the board around the medals.
“He was a very brave man,” said a clear voice behind him.
Hannah spun around, embarrassed.
She had entered silently, the rubber tires of her wheelchair making no sound on the tiles. She was small and frail, with a cap of shining white curls and bright blue eyes.
Behind her stood the manservant who had pushed her in from the garden, a giant of awe-inspiring size. She turned to him.
“Thank you, Firestone. I’ll be all right now.”
He nodded and withdrew. She propelled herself a few feet farther into the room and gestured for Hannah to be seated. She smiled.
“The name? He was a foundling, discovered on a rubbish dump, in a Firestone tire. Now, you must be Detective Chief Superintendent Hannah from Scotland Yard. That’s a very high rank for these poor islands. What can I do for you?”
“I must apologize for calling you Missy Coltrane to your housemaid,” he said. “No one told me you were Lady Coltrane.”
“No more,” she said. “Here I am just Missy. They all call me that. I prefer it that way. Old habits die hard. As you may detect, I was not born British, but in South Carolina.”
“Your late husband”—Hannah nodded toward the portrait—“was Governor here once.”
“Yes. We met in the war. Robert had been through the First War. He didn’t have to come back for a second dose, but he did. He got wounded again. I was a nurse. We fell in love, married in 1943, and had ten glorious years until he died. There were twenty-five years between our ages, but it didn’t matter a damn. After the war, the British Government made him Governor here. After he died, I stayed on. He was only fifty-six when he died. Delayed war wounds.”
Hannah calculated. Sir Robert would have been born in 1897, got his Victoria Cross at twenty. She would be sixty-eight, too young for a wheelchair. She seemed to read his mind with those bright blue eyes.
“I slipped and fell,” she said. “Ten years ago. Broke my back. But you didn’t come four thousand miles to discuss an old woman in a wheelchair. How can I help you?”
Hannah explained.
“The fact is, I cannot perceive a motive. Whoever shot Sir Marston must have hated him enough to do it. But among these islanders, I cannot perceive a motive. You know these people. Who would want to do it, and why?”
Lady Coltrane wheeled herself to the open window and stared out for a while.
“Mr. Hannah, you are right. I do know these people. I have lived here for forty-five years. I love these islands, and I love their people. I hope I may think that they love me.”
She turned around and gazed at him. “In the world scheme of things, these islands matter for nothing. Yet these people seem to have discovered something that has eluded the world outside. They have found out how to be happy. Just that—not rich, not powerful, but happy.
“Now London wants us to have independence. And two candidates have appeared to compete for the power: Mr. Johnson, who is very wealthy and has given large sums to the islands, for whatever motive; and Mr. Livingstone, a socialist, who wants to nationalize everything and divide it up among the poor. Very noble, of course. Mr. Johnson, with his plans for development and prosperity, and Mr. Livingstone, with his plans for equality—I know them both. Knew them when they were boys. Knew them when they left in their teens to pursue careers elsewhere. And now they are back.”
“You suspect either of them?” asked Hannah.
“Mr. Hannah, it is the men they have brought with them. Look at the men who surround them. These are violent men, Mr. Hannah. The islanders know it. There have been threats, beatings. Perhaps you should look at the entourages of these two men, Mr. Hannah.”
On the drive back down the mountain, Desmond Hannah thought it over. A contract hit? The killing of Sir Marston had all the earmarks of one. After lunch he thought he would have a talk with the two candidates and take a look at their entourages.
As Hannah returned to the sitting room at Government House, a plump Englishman with several chins above his clerical collar jumped up from a chair. Parker was with him.