Angel Death Read online

  ANGEL DEATH

  Patricia Moyes

  FELONY & MAYHEM PRESS • NEW YORK

  I would like to take this opportunity to express my most sincere thanks to Helen and Charles Marwick for the time and trouble that they took to research the medical data for this book.

  For Jim

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title

  Dedication

  CONTENTS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  WARNINGS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  Copyright

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

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  Guide

  Cover

  Title

  Dedication

  Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  WARNINGS

  Start of Content

  EPILOGUE

  Copyright

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I have written before about the entirely imaginary territory in the Caribbean which I call the British Seaward Islands, and I want to stress yet again that the islands and all the characters in this book are absolutely fictitious. Nevertheless, some of the problems mentioned in the book are real. The plot may seem outrageous, and yet it is not beyond the bounds of possibility. Fortunately, the authorities are alert and vigilant, and I am convinced that in no territory would things reach the point described here without official intervention. Those of us who love the islands and their people pray that this will always b
e so.

  Born in Dublin in 1923, Patricia (“Penny”) Packenham-Walsh was just 16 when WWII came calling, but she lied about her age and joined the WAAF (the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force), eventually becoming a flight officer and an expert in radar. Based on that expertise, she was named technical advisor to a film that Sir Peter Ustinov was making about the discovery of radar, and went on to act as his personal assistant for eight years, followed by five years in the editorial department of British Vogue.

  When she was in her late 30s, while recuperating from a skiing accident, she scribbled out her first novel, Dead Men Don’t Ski, and a new career was born. Dead Men featured Inspector Henry Tibbett of Scotland Yard, equipped with both a bloodhound’s nose for crime and an easy-going wife; the two of them are both a formidable sleuthing team and an image of happy, productive marriage, and it’s that double picture that makes the Tibbett series so deeply satisfying. While the Tibbett books were written in the second half of the 20th century, there is something both timeless and classic about them; they feel of a piece with the Golden Age of British Detective Fiction.

  Patricia Moyes died in 2000. The New York Times once famously noted that, as a writer, she “made drug dealing look like bad manners rather than bad morals.” That comment may once have been rather snarky, but as we are increasingly forced to acknowledge the foulness that can arise from unchecked bad manners, Inspector Henry Tibbett—a man of unflinching good manners, among other estimable traits—becomes a hero we can all get behind.

  WARNINGS

  ANCIENT:

  What the sage poets taught by th’ heavenly muse

  Storied of old in high immortal verse

  Of dire chimeras and enchanted isles

  And rifted rocks whose entrance leads to Hell—

  For such there are, but unbelief is blind.

  —John Milton, Comus, 1634

  AND MODERN:

  CAUTION: Just to be aware of all facets of cruising the high seas these days; a soft warning to the thoughtful skipper on the possibility of hijacking should be in order here. The U.S. Coast Guard advises owners of yachts cruising in the Bahamas and Caribbean to be very careful about taking on hitchhikers… Even a rescue at sea should be approached with caution, and a “Float Plan” should be filed with someone who could report to the proper authority if an “arrival” were overdue.

  —Yachtsman’s Guide to the Greater Antilles, 1979

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE NORTHEASTERLY TRADE winds blow steadily and beautifully across the island of St. Mark’s, one of the gray-green knolls that breaks the shiny sea surface to form a fragmented barrier between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, between the modernity of Florida and the antiquity of Venezuela. This chain of islands, known collectively as the West Indies, comprises such political extremes as Cuba and Haiti, such diverse cultures as the French of Guadeloupe, the Dutch of St. Eustatius, and the American of St. Thomas. British influence, too, has always been strong—and nowhere stronger than on St. Mark’s, the principal island and seat of government of the British Seaward Islands.

  Government House stands white and foursquare among the coconut palms and tamarinds, with the Union Jack fluttering bravely from its flagpole. Expatriate ladies, arriving home after driving a sick goat in a bucking jeep over miles of boulder-strewn track to visit the vet, still find time to take tea in the garden under the shade of a mahogany tree. There is a big difference, however, between these expatriates and those of former colonial times. Apart from the Governor, who is the representative of the Crown and a career diplomat, none of them ever refers to England as “home”—which is hardly surprising, since a great many of them are Americans. To all of them, irrespective of national origin, the islands are home.

  The single greatest asset of the islands is their climate. Year-round sunshine and beaches of white coral sand bring in the Sybarites; the never-failing trade winds bring in the yachtsmen. Of the latter, the most intrepid sail across the Atlantic from chilly, winterbound Europe, or down the North American coast from the fogs of Maine. The adventurous set out from Miami Beach or Tampa and follow the chain of the Bahamas to Puerto Rico, but the great majority fly down from the United States and charter a boat for a couple of weeks. The bare-boat charter business is booming, and St. Mark’s is taking full advantage of the fact.

  The most obvious outward sign of this lucrative trend in tourism is the newly built marina at St. Mark’s Harbour, continually abustle with movement along the line of gleaming white hulls and curtseying dinghies. Visiting boats coming in for the night nose tentatively toward the moorings, directed by a gesticulating Harbour Master. New arrivals from New York, pale-faced and anticipatory, clutching duffel bags and crates of provisions, are shown aboard by charter-firm staff. Backward out of her berth comes a lemon yellow sloop with a merry crew on board, preparing to sail to St. Matthew’s Island for dinner at the Anchorage Inn. From seaward, a dark green catamaran roars in, back from a day sail with a load of strictly nonmaritime hotel guests who have been only too happy to concentrate on the refreshments and leave the sailing to the skipper. On other boats, holiday-makers in wisps of bikinis relax on deck, making a striking pattern of bronze, white, and lobster red, depending on the duration and concentration of their suntanning. Bright burgees and ensigns crinkle in the breeze. There is a pervasive and not unpleasant smell of mingled gasoline and coconut oil.

  Ashore, a spanking new building complex on the quayside houses a bar and restaurant, showers, a Laundromat, a beauty salon, a gift shop, and a liquor store. The yachtsman’s every need, as the brochures proclaim, is catered to. If any visiting skipper has a grouse, it is because the one thing that the marina lacks is a Customs office. That is situated, as it always has been, on the town quay some two miles away, where fishermen unload their catches onto the old stone jetty, battered fruit boats tie up to sell bananas, mangoes, and sweet grapefruit from Dominica, and big black barges bring in the provisions, furniture, and vehicles that are the lifeblood of the island. The only other Customs and Immigration office is five miles out of town, at the airport.

  So yacht skippers must come ashore with their ships’ papers and passports and pile into taxi-jeeps to make the bumpy journey to the town quay to get their clearance. Once in a while, a Customs Officer will come to the marina and do a certain amount of spot-checking on visiting private yachts—but these are holiday-makers, not smugglers. There are smugglers, of course. This is an ancient stamping ground of buccaneers, pirates, contrabandists, and freebooters. However, the excise men have a shrewd idea of the identity of habitual offenders, and a sharp watch is kept. No need to upset the tourists.

  Even the much smaller island of St. Matthew’s has been infected by the current sea fever to the point of constructing a small yacht basin not far from the public wharf in the harbor of Priest Town. In many ways it is more convenient than St. Mark’s marina, for the Customs office is on the quayside. On the other hand, it lacks the polish and amenities of St. Mark’s. There are no boats for charter and no waterside facilities—only the old gray stone fish market and the new concrete police station. Visiting sailors wanting to buy provisions or have a meal ashore must walk up one of the narrow cobbled lanes to the main street of Priest Town, and even there the choice is limited and hardly inspired. There is no way of taking on water except by filling your jerrican from a single tap.

  The casual traveler might wonder what prompted the elder statesmen of St. Matthew’s to spend a part of the island’s scant revenue on the construction of the marina; the answer is that nothing did. The marina was built and is maintained by the wildly expensive and exclusive St. Matthew’s Golf Club, with the sole purpose of keeping mere mortals in charter boats away from the Club’s private moorings and jetty, where weekend invasions from St. Mark’s had begun to annoy the members. The presumptuous visitors were sent packing, of course, but the Club became acutely aware that its soft underbelly, so to speak, was to seaward. Now, affixed to the outer port and starboard buoys
marking the channel to the Golf Club jetty are large notices proclaiming CLUB BOATS ONLY. PRIEST TOWN PUBLIC MARINA 1 MILE, with a red arrow pointing the way. So the members are left in peace and feel they are getting their money’s worth out of the new facility. The citizens of St. Matthew’s are pleased to welcome visiting yachtsmen and so partake of the charter-boat bonanza. Everybody is happy.

  At half-past nine on a sparkling morning in January, a small and incongruous figure might have been seen, dodging with quick, birdlike steps, up and down the double line of moored boats in Priest Town marina—a little old lady, thin and very spry, wearing a navy blue cotton skirt reaching almost to her ankles and sensible tennis shoes. Her arms, tanned, skinny, and freckled with deeper brown age spots, emerged from her sleeveless white lace blouse and her big-brimmed straw hat was anchored by a pink chiffon scarf that passed over its crown to tie under the old lady’s chin. Along the swaying wooden jetty she darted and swooped, her small bright eyes peering at the names on the yachts’ transoms. At last, she found what she was looking for.

  “Ahoy, there! Isabella, ahoy!” The voice was a cracked treble, thin but penetrating. “Isabella, I say! Ahoy!”

  The Isabella was a graceful white ketch, which lay quietly nuzzling the end of the landing stage. She wore the United States ensign, with a British courtesy flag at the shrouds, and flew a yacht club burgee. Her home port was apparently Miami Beach, and a certificate of American registration was stuck to her topsides. She was therefore not an indigenous charter boat, but a visitor from Florida, and the fact that the Harbour Master had not tucked her neatly into a berth suggested that she was making only a short stay in St. Matthew’s. There was no sign of life aboard.

  “Isabella, ahoy!” This time, the little old lady emphasized her cry by banging on the side of the boat with her bony fist. Slowly, the cabin door opened from the inside, and a fair-haired, sun-tanned girl with brown eyes and a pretty, pert nose, appeared in the hatchway, wearing a pale blue bikini. In a voice slightly blurred, as if from sleep, she said, “Who is it? What do you want?”

  “Janet Vanduren! Janet, my dear!” Beaming, the old lady flung wide her arms in a welcoming, all-embracing gesture. “How good to see you again!” The girl looked at her blankly. In a voice tinged with more disappointment than surprise, the old lady said, “You don’t remember me, do you? Well, why should you? It was quite a while ago. I’m Betsy Sprague, dear. Your mother’s old schoolteacher from England. I stayed at your home in East Beach…oh, six years ago, it must be. Don’t you remember?”

  The girl smiled, squinting into the sun. “Why, sure—yes, of course I do, Miss Sprague. I just didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “You didn’t? Didn’t Celia write and tell you? The naughty girl—she always was forgetful.”