Deadly Deceit (37 page)

“I wanted to fit in,” Rebekah said simply. “I was only 11 when I was sent to live with an American family. I was nothing like them, but I soon understood what they wanted: the cute, little American girl they’d never been able to have. So I became that girl.”

Jess sat back in the chair.

“Then I discovered men wanted an attractive woman on their arm. I played that part too. To survive, you understand.”

“Dominic too?” Jess asked.

Rebekah sighed. “I hid my past from him at first, but he found out eventually. Of course he was upset, but he wanted to give it a go anyway.” She smiled, fondly. “He’s an important man and I didn’t want to let him down. So I became the wife
I
thought a British judge, and the Chief Justice here, should have.”

The more Jess heard, the more she thought Rebekah was unhinged. Was she telling the truth now? She sat forward. “I have to tell you, Rebekah, I saw you kissing Charles in this garden the other day.”

“I just told you,” Rebekah said, flatly. “I can’t escape him.”

Jess suddenly felt a breeze rustle her hair. The storm was coming back. She stood up. “Was Charles here during the hurricane?” she asked.

“Don’t ask me any questions about Charles.”

“Why not, for God’s sake? He may be in danger. Don’t you
care
?”

Rebekah closed her eyes again. “Charles is a powerful man, Jess. He’s taken his gun, so nothing will happen to him. He’ll come back for me when he’s ready.”

Charles has taken his gun.
Those words filled Jess with dread, Sally had gone off with him yesterday afternoon. How come he had a gun? Why would he need one? This wasn’t America. People weren’t permitted to have guns in this Territory. Was Charles expecting trouble in his search for Brad? Or going to cause it?

Brad!
Everything kept leading to Brad. Surely his treasure trove lying on the seabed couldn’t be the connection with Maggie and Mrs Pearson?

Rebekah hugged herself. “Those bastards murdered my darling Benji.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “I l-loved that dog more than anything in this world.” She winced. “They s-sacrificed him,” she moaned.

Jess was torn between staying with Rebekah, who looked a tragic figure sitting there, and leaving to find Sally before the storm came back. In the end she ran back to the car. She was responsible for Sally.

Her hands shook on the wheel as she headed back into town. She was driving too fast, bumping over the debris, or swerving to avoid it. She was desperately worried about Sally now. Was she too dead somewhere, like Maggie?

At the main roundabout in town, she stopped to let a mud-covered truck coming from the other direction turn right onto Lighthouse Road. The driver’s ponytail was instantly recognisable through the open window.
Brad!

He looked grim as he drove past, without a glance in her direction.

Her foot hesitated on the accelerator, then she turned left and followed Brad up to the Ridge. He seemed in a real hurry. Fortunately, with less vegetation higher up, there was less debris on the road.

As they climbed, she became aware of the light fading, as if night were rolling in. She looked at her watch. Still only midday.

Passing the Haitian settlement, she saw the makeshift shacks flattened. But the Haitians were already out, picking through the debris. Such resilience, she thought. She’d stop on the way back to speak to them and assess the damage. Right now, she was hoping Brad would lead her to Sally.

Glancing in her driver’s mirror, she noticed a motorbike following. Her heart quickened. The sound of a motorbike revving outside the Disaster Management Centre yesterday came back to her. Gunshots had followed. She slowed to let it catch up and pass. But it slowed too. She strained to see who was riding it, but all she could make out was their helmet and jeans.

She looked ahead, then thumped the steering wheel in frustration. She’d lost Brad. Had he pulled into a driveway? There was no sign of him.
Damn!
When she checked the mirror again, the motorbike was still there. Seeing the turning for the DMC approaching, she swung across the road, tyres squealing on the tarmac, into the track and slammed on the brakes. She peered through the rear window. The motorbike sailed past.

She waited to see if it slowed down or doubled back. It didn’t. She flopped back in the seat with relief and looked at the building ahead. There was no reason why Brad should have gone in there, but it was worth a look. Anyway, she wanted to chat to the folks inside and find out what was going on. She looked at her watch, still half an hour before she was due back at the police station to meet Tom. Releasing the brakes, she let the car roll forward and bump along the dirt road towards the building.

To her surprise, there were no parked cars outside, although common sense told her it would have been dangerous to leave them there during the hurricane. She parked and got out. A panoramic view of the island greeted her, and she looked out over the devastation. Many of the flimsier houses were down, or had their roofs blown off. The brick houses were mostly still standing. The little vegetation there was on the island had been ripped up and flung everywhere. Fortunately, it didn’t look like the sea had risen any higher than the coast road last night. But the dark sky on the horizon looked threatening. The storm was approaching again, like a black cloak.

She was shocked to find the place completely empty. Where was everyone? The lights were on, and she could hear the generator running. A half-eaten plate of rice and chicken lay on the table, so someone must have been there. Annoyed, she went over and sat down at the computer. She desperately wanted to email London and report what was going on. She tried several times to get online.
Page can’t be displayed
was the only response.
Damn!

Casting her eyes around the room, she noticed a white, hooded sou’wester hanging on the coat rack by the door. Just like the one Alvita had on when she came to the Residence yesterday morning looking for Maggie. Had she been in here all night keeping everything going on her own?

“Alvita?” she called out, but there was no reply.

Jess turned back to the computer and started scrolling through some of the documents. She was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn’t hear or feel a presence at first. Then she suddenly whipped round…

Charles Regan stood right behind her.

“Charles,” she jumped up and faced him. “You startled me.”

He said nothing.

Careful, she thought, he has a gun. “Have you seen Sally?” She tried to appear unfazed. “I’m worried because she didn’t come back to the Residence last night. I’m guessing she’s with Brad. Have you seen the pair of them?”

His intense blue eyes fixed on hers. “No.”

Jess persisted. “She left me a note yesterday afternoon, you see, saying you were giving her a lift to look for him.”

He frowned. “I dropped her at Brad’s house. She was going to wait for him there.” He paused. “She had his keys to get in.”

“Oh, I see.” She started moving towards the door to get out, but he stood blocking the way. “Can you tell me where Brad’s house is?” she asked.

“One street back from the Dive Centre. No point going round there. I’ve just been. They’re not there.”

Jess studied Charles. His hunched posture made him look more exhausted than threatening, which made her relax. “I’ve just been to Rebekah’s looking for you,” she said, calmly. “She told me about your long-standing relationship.”

He looked away. “I love Rebekah, Jess. It’s as simple – and as complicated – as that.”

Jess nodded. That was clear, but she was still suspicious of Rebekah’s reasons for marrying the Chief Justice. “Why didn’t you two ever marry, then?”

“Ambition,” he said, bitterly. “We were young when we first met, in our twenties. I wanted to be a banker, and Rebekah an actress. I went to New York. She went to Los Angeles.” He paused. “We thought our love was strong enough to survive. It wasn’t. Rebekah got married to some film producer.”

“And you?” Jess asked.

“Well, eventually I married too, but it didn’t last… because, well, because my wife wasn’t Rebekah.” He sighed. “And by the time my divorce came through, Rebekah was on her second marriage, to the Chief Justice.”

“I see.” His explanation seemed plausible, and his feelings for Rebekah genuine enough. But did Rebekah feel the same way? Or was it more a case of Charles pitching up all the time to spoil Rebekah’s relationships? He seemed as obsessive about Rebekah as Brad was about that sunken galleon.

Charles’s eyes narrowed. “I can’t believe Rebekah told you about our relationship?”

“She didn’t. Not at first, anyway. We ran some police checks after Mrs Pearson’s murder.”

“On
me
?” He sounded cross. “Just who do you think you are? You have no right.”

His arrogance riled her. “We have every right. This is a British Overseas Territory, and we’re investigating two murders.”

“
Two
murders?” He stared at her. “So the Governor
was
murdered?”

“Almost certainly.”

He sat down heavily on a chair at the table.

He looked a shattered man, Jess thought, as she sat down opposite. “The thing is, Charles,” she went on, “we were denied access to information on you and Brad.” She paused. “Why was that?”

He ran his hands through his hair, but said nothing.

“Why, Charles?”

He put his elbows on the table and looked at her. “I guess I can trust you of all people to be discreet, Jess.”

She nodded.

“I work for the CIA.”

She sat back in the chair.

He shrugged. “I was the obvious choice. My brother lives here, and we have a business together. It would be natural for me to visit regularly and find out what was going on.”

That made operational sense to Jess. Charles’s cover was the New York bank he worked for. “And what
has
been going on down here?” she asked.

His eyes became guarded. “How much do you know?”

She said nothing.

“All right,” he went on. “Do you know about those Haitian sloops being deliberately scuppered on the reef?”

She nodded.

“Then you’ll know the Governor did nothing about it.”

She could see him considering his words carefully. “Yes. I’d worked that out,” she replied.

“How?”

She hesitated, wondering how much she could trust him. “I found a confession letter from him to his wife, Jayne.”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “So he was going to do the right thing, finally?”

“Looks like it.”

“Not before time,” he snapped.

“It cost him his life,” she said, simply.

She saw a fleeting look of panic in Charles’s eyes that she didn’t quite understand. She had to find out what else he knew. “How did
you
find out about the sloops?” she asked.

“The US
is
just across the water. Do you think we’d let this Territory operate
without
knowing everything that goes on here?”

Jess wasn’t surprised, but a question hung in her mind that needed an answer. “Did you tell the British Government?”

He hesitated. “It was sensitive, with the Governor… implicated.”

She frowned, unable quite to believe what he’d said. “If you’d told them, they’d have stopped this madness.”

He shrugged. “For all we knew, they might have sponsored it. No country can cope with thousands and thousands of migrants pitching up on their shores.”

“Oh come on!” He couldn’t be serious, could he? “Our Government couldn’t get away with that. Not with our media and NGOs on their case all the time.”

He looked at her, unconvinced. “That’s not what brought me down here in a professional capacity, not at first anyway. We were worried about shady financing being laundered through your British tax havens, and its connection to terrorism.” He stood up and pushed the chair under the table. “Now I have to go and find Brad.”

“And what about Sally?” Jess said, crossly. “All your brother cares about is that bloody sunken galleon. He was so angry with Sally for telling me about it, he wouldn’t speak to her. That’s why she’s been running around in this hurricane looking for him.”

Charles started pacing around. “Brad’s obsessed with that shipwreck. Not that he told me about it. My colleagues found out.”

“He’d have needed a lot of money to find that wreck,” she said, pointedly, “and a whole lot more to get the bullion off the seabed.”

Charles stopped pacing and stared at her. “I haven’t given him any money, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“So, who’s bankrolling him, then?” Immediately she asked that question, she knew the answer.

“Oh my God! You think Brad’s involved in all this, don’t you? That’s why you’re so upset. You think he was being paid off, and using the money for that shipwreck.”

“Yes. It’s what I’m afraid of,” he said, quietly.

There was a pause.

“Tell me honestly, Charles. Do you have any idea who killed Mrs Pearson, or why?”

He shook his head. “I really don’t know.”

But she could see the fear in his eyes. He was terrified it was his brother. She took a deep breath. “The Governor’s housekeeper, Maggie, was murdered last night… in the same way as Mrs Pearson.”

“Jesus!” His face crumpled.

Jess could hardly speak the words. “I found her in the attic in the Residence. She was hanging by her bound feet from the beam.”

Charles turned ashen, and sank down onto a chair.

“Her throat was cut too.”

“I’m so sorry, Jess,” he whispered. “Have you told the police?” he asked.

She nodded. “Tom’s back at the Residence with them now.”

Charles got up slowly, like an old man rising from his chair. “I must go and find Brad.” He turned to her. “If you have any idea where he might be, please tell me?”

She nodded. “I followed his truck up here in the hope of finding Sally, but I lost him before I turned in here.”

Charles stared at her. “Why didn’t you say so before?”

There was a pause. “I think I know where he was going,” she added.