“Who warned you, Lady Coltrane? On Tuesday evening you put the gun back in the case. It was there on Thursday. Now it is gone. Who warne
d you?”
“Mr. Hannah, give my love to London when you get back. I haven’t seen it since the Blitz, you know. And now I never shall.”
Desmond Hannah had Oscar drive him back to Parliament Square. He dismissed Oscar by the police station; Oscar would have to polish up the Jaguar in time for the new Governor’s arrival the next day. It was about time Whitehall reacted, he thought. He began to cross the square to the hotel.
“Evening, Mistah Hannah.”
He turned. A complete stranger, smiling and greeting him.
“Er ... good evening.”
Two youths in front of the hotel were dancing in the dust. One had a cassette player around his neck. The tape was playing a calypso number. Hannah did not recognize it. It was “Freedom Come, Freedom Go.” He recognized “Yellow Bird,” however—it was coming from the Quarter Deck bar. He recalled that in five days he had not heard a steel band or a calypso.
The doors of the Anglican church were open; Reverend Quince was giving forth on his small organ. He was playing “Gaudeamus Igitur.”
By the time Hannah strode up the steps of the hotel, he realized there was an air of levity about the streets. It did not match his own mood. He had some serious report-writing to do. After a late-night call to London, he would go home in the morning. There was nothing more he could do. He hated to lose a case, but he knew this one would remain on the file. He could return to Nassau on the plane that brought in the new Governor, and fly on to London.
He crossed the terrace bar toward the staircase. There was that man Dillon again, sitting on a stool nursing a beer. Strange fellow, he thought as he went up the stairs. Always sitting around waiting for something. Never actually seemed to do anything.
* * *
On Tuesday morning, a de Havilland Devon droned in toward Sunshine from Nassau and deposited the new Governor, Sir Crispian Rattray. From the shade of the hangar McCready watched the elderly diplomat, crisp in cream linen with wings of silver hair flying from beneath his white panama hat, descend from the aircraft to meet the welcoming committee.
Lieutenant Haverstock, back from his marine odyssey, introduced him to various notables from the town, including Dr. Caractacus Jones and his nephew, Chief Inspector Jones. Oscar was there with the newly polished Jaguar, and after the introductions the small cavalcade drove off toward Port Plaisance.
Sir Rattray would discover that he had little to do. The two candidates appeared to have withdrawn their candidacies and gone on vacation. He would appeal for other candidates. None would come forward—Reverend Drake would see to that.
With the January elections postponed, the British Parliament would reconvene and, under pressure from the opposition, the government would concede that a referendum in March might well be appropriate. But that was all in the future.
Desmond Hannah boarded the empty Devon for the journey to Nassau. From the top of the steps he had a last look around. That strange fellow Dillon seemed to be sitting with his suitcase and attaché case again, waiting for something. Hannah did not wave. He intended to mention Mr. Dillon when he got back to London.
Ten minutes after the Devon left, McCready’s air taxi from Miami arrived. He had to return his portable telephone to the Miami CIA office and say a few thank-yous to friends in Florida before flying on to London. He would be home in time for Christmas. He would spend it alone in his flat in Kensington. Perhaps he would go down to the Special Forces Club for a drink with some old mates.
The Piper took off, and McCready had a last look at the drowsy town of Port Plaisance, going about its business in the morning sun. He saw Spyglass Hill drift by, and a pink villa on its peak.
The pilot turned once more for his course to Miami. The wing dipped, and McCready looked down at the interior of the island. On a dusty track a small brown child looked up and waved. McCready waved back. With luck, and for the moment, he thought, the boy could grow up without ever having to live under the red flag or to sniff cocaine.
Epilogue
“I am sure we are all deeply grateful,” said Timothy Edwards, “to Denis for his excellent presentation. I would suggest that as the hour is late, my colleagues and I mull the matter over between ourselves, to see if there is room for a variation of the Service policy in this matter, and deliver our view in the morning.”
Denis Gaunt had to return his file to the clerk from Records. When he turned around, Sam McCready was gone. He had slipped away almost as Edwards finished speaking. Gaunt traced him ten minutes later to his office.
McCready was still in shirt-sleeves, his creased cotton jacket over a chair, puttering about. Two cardboard wine crates stood on the floor.
“What are you doing?” asked Gaunt.
“Clearing out my bits and bobs.”
There were only two photographs, and he kept them in a drawer, not ostentatiously propped on the desk. One was of May, the other of his son on his graduation day, smiling diffidently in a black academic’s gown. McCready put them into one of the boxes.
“You’re crazy,” said Gaunt. “I think we may have cracked it. Not Edwards, of course, but the two Controllers. I think they may change their minds. We know they both like you, want you to stay.”
McCready took his compact disk player and put it in the other box. Sometimes he liked to play soft classical music when he was deep in thought. There was hardly enough bric-a-brac to fill both the boxes, though. Certainly there were no me-shaking-hands-with-a-celebrity photos on his walls; the few Impressionist prints were service-issue. He straightened up and looked at the two boxes.
“Not a lot, really, for thirty years,” he murmured.