Escape from Shadow Island (9 page)

SEEING THE FISHING BOAT OUT ON THE SEA had suddenly reminded Max of something. Alexander Cassidy had chartered a boat during his stay in Santo Domingo and gone out fishing. Max had never known his father to take the slightest interest in fishing. Boats had never appealed to him either. He'd been a bad sailor, seasick even when it was calm, and the waters off Santo Domingo were anything but calm.

What had his mum said at Levington Prison on Sunday? Max's dad had wanted to get away from Playa d'Oro, so he'd gone into Rio Verde and hired a boat at the harbor. He'd hired the boat's captain, too. Fernando Gonzales.

In the afternoon, after he and Consuela had returned
to their hotel, Max went looking for Fernando Gonzales. Consuela didn't go with him. Something—maybe the long flight from Britain, maybe the hotel food the night before—had upset her stomach. Like most of the population of Rio Verde, she had retired to her room for a siesta. It was baking hot outside, and the locals knew better than to venture out into the midday sun. But Max didn't want to stay inside and rest.

Leaving his room key at reception, he went out into the city. The streets were quiet. There was very little traffic. All the shops and offices had closed for a few hours, leaving only a handful of restaurants and bars open. He walked down the hill. Max didn't have a map of Rio Verde, but he knew that if he kept going downhill, sooner or later he'd have to arrive at the harbor.

The city had been built in tiers up the hillside next to the river. Large parts of it—particularly the Old Town, where the Hotel San Rafael was located—predated the invention of the motorcar. The streets running horizontally along the slope were narrow, intended for horse-drawn carts or donkeys, and the streets running vertically weren't really streets at all—they were steep alleys, many of them simply long flights of twisting steps.

Max went down one set of steps, then another. The high buildings on either side blocked out the sun, but
even so it was unpleasantly hot and humid. After a few minutes, Max could feel sweat running down his back, and he wondered whether he might have been better off staying in the hotel with Consuela and having a siesta.

He came to a T junction, where a street cut across his path from right to left. On the far side was an uninterrupted line of houses and shuttered shops. To keep going down the hill he'd have to turn left or right and look for a break in the buildings, maybe another flight of steps. But which way to go?

He turned right and almost immediately realized he'd made a mistake. The street was starting to veer
up
the hill. He turned and went back the way he'd come. As he reached the steps he'd walked down only seconds earlier, a man burst out in front of him, obviously in a hurry. Max couldn't stop in time. The two of them collided.

“¡Perdón!”
Max said, using one of his few words of Spanish.

“What?” the man exclaimed in English. “Oh, sorry.”

Max stepped back and saw who it was: Derek Pratchett. The salesman was red in the face and sweating heavily. His cheeks and forehead were dripping,
and there were damp patches under the arms of his shirt.

“I say, what a surprise. Fancy bumping into you.
Literally
bumping into you.” Pratchett gave a feeble laugh. “You're not hurt, are you?”

“No, I'm fine,” Max said.

“What're you doing down here?”

“Just exploring.”

“It's like a maze, isn't it? Nothing seems to go in a straight line.”

“And you?” Max asked. “Where are you going?”

“Me? Well…” Pratchett seemed flustered. He had to think for a moment. “I've got a meeting. I'm looking for the Calle Something-or-other. These Spanish street names are so hard to remember, aren't they? I know it's around here somewhere. Must go. See you about.”

Pratchett scurried away, but Max stayed where he was for a few minutes. Had that encounter been an accident? Or had Pratchett been following him? Max was on his guard now. As he descended the next flight of steps, he looked back continually, but he saw no sign of the salesman.

Nor did he notice the small, inconspicuous man in a white shirt who gave him a moment to turn the corner
before coming down the steps behind him.

Max stayed vigilant when he reached the harbor, pausing to look around carefully before he went in search of Fernando Gonzales. There were two sections to the harbor—the older, smaller part that had a stone quay with local fishing boats moored alongside it, and a newer, larger part that was the marina for the yachts and cabin cruisers of Santo Domingo's wealthy visitors.

Max walked past the marina. The boats tied to the wooden jetties were uniformly large and luxurious, but they were nothing compared to those moored farther out in the river. Those vessels were like mini–cruise ships—sleek and streamlined, with berths for a dozen or more people. Their owners were sitting on deck beneath striped awnings, eating lunches prepared by their on-board chefs and served by uniformed waiters. Max could hear the faint clink of cutlery, the tinkle of champagne glasses, and laughter drifting across the estuary.

At the mouth of the river, in the wide channel between the mainland and Shadow Island, the largest, most impressive boat of all was anchored. It must have been at least twice the size of its nearest rival—two hundred fifty feet or more, with portholes along the
sides and a helipad and helicopter on the stern deck.

Beside these floating palaces, the boats belonging to the local fishermen looked scruffy and forlorn. Actually, most of them
were
scruffy and forlorn. Their wooden hulls were scratched and patched with tar, their cabins faded and weathered by the sun and the salt. One or two looked so old and fragile, it was a wonder they were still floating, never mind being used for fishing in the fierce waters off the Santo Domingo coast.

A gnarled-looking fisherman in a dirty shirt and oily jeans was repairing a net on the quayside, his face shaded from the sun by a wide-brimmed hat. Max went up to him and said politely,
“¿Habla inglés?”

The fisherman looked up. His skin had the color and texture of old leather. “English? A little,” he said.

“I'm looking for a man named Fernando Gonzales. He has a boat.”

The fisherman frowned, his whole face wrinkling. “Fernando? He no here. He dead.”

“He's
dead
?” Max said. “When did he die?”

The fisherman shook his head vaguely. “One, two year ago.” He bent over his work, his fingers expertly sewing up a tear in his net.

“Did he have any family?” Max asked.

“Yes, family.”

“Do you know where they live?”

The fisherman gestured up the hill. “That way. Calle San Miguel. Number three.”

Max thanked him and walked away, heading for the steps up the hill.

He was out of sight of the harbor, behind a row of houses, when the small man in the white shirt crossed the quay, flashed his police badge at the fisherman, and started questioning him.

 

Calle San Miguel was in the lower part of the Old Town, just above the harbor. There were no grand colonial houses here, no open squares. The buildings were shabby and rundown, packed closely together around dark courtyards. Signs of poverty and neglect were everywhere—broken shutters, boarded-up windows, missing tiles on roofs, children in ragged clothes playing games in the narrow, litter-strewn streets.

Max took a while to find number three. He went through a brick archway into a courtyard enclosed by tall, dilapidated apartment blocks. Above him was a spider's web of washing lines strung between balconies, the dangling clothes almost blotting out the sky. An elderly woman dressed entirely in black was sitting out
by her door, chewing on a crust of bread.

“Gonzales?” Max said to her.

The woman jabbed a finger into the air.
“Segundo piso
.”

Segundo?
Max thought. That meant “second.”
Segundo piso
had to mean “second floor.” He thanked the old lady and went up the open staircase to the next floor. He knocked on a door and waited.

The woman who answered was thin and scrawny, her face lined and careworn.

“Señora Gonzales?” Max said.

“Sí.”

“Do you speak English?”

“¿Qué?”

“English. I'm sorry, I don't speak much Spanish.”

The woman turned her head and called out a name: “Isabella!”

A girl about the same age as Max appeared in the hallway. She was tall and lithe in her jeans and T-shirt, her long black hair tied back in a ponytail. The woman said something to her in Spanish and she came to the door.

“I speak some English,” she said. “What do you want?”

“To ask you a few questions,” Max said.

The girl eyed him warily. “Questions about what? Who are you?”

“My name's Max Cassidy.”

“Cassidy?”

Isabella seemed to recognize the name. She licked her lips and peered over Max's shoulder, checking the staircase behind him. “Like the one who disappear?” she said.

“That's right. Alexander Cassidy. He's my dad. Your father took him out fishing in his boat.”

“Why you come here?” Her eyes flicked over his shoulder again.

“Can I come in?” Max said.

“What for?”

“I'm trying to find out what happened to him. I won't stay long. Please. Just a couple of minutes.”

Isabella studied his face.

Max smiled at her. “I've come all the way from England.”

She hesitated. “You are alone?”

“Yes.”

“Not here. We go for walk.”

Isabella said something to her mother and stepped out of the apartment, closing the door behind her. Max followed her down the stairs and back through the
courtyard to the street. Isabella paused, looking around cautiously. Max could see she was on edge.

“What's the matter?”

“This way.”

She led him along the street and through the remains of a doorway into a ruined building. They clambered over the mounds of rubble and sat on the stump of a brick wall. Max noticed that Isabella's jeans and T-shirt were faded and threadbare, and there were holes in the toes of her cheap sneakers.

“You remember my father?” Max asked.

“Everyone remember. Was in all the papers. Was big news. Famous Englishman disappear, police say wife kill him.”

“My mother didn't kill him.”

“No? But she…There was, what you call it? In courtroom.”

“She was put on trial, yes,” Max said. “And convicted. But she didn't kill him.”

“Why you come to us?” Isabella asked. “We know nothing about it.”

“I'm just curious. My dad wasn't interested in fishing. Why would he get your father to take him out?”

“My father take lot of tourists in his boat. Not all like fishing. Some just want trip on boat.”

“My dad didn't like boats either. Did your father ever say anything to you about him?”

Isabella glanced nervously over her shoulder, looking back toward the street.

“Are you scared of something?” Max said.

“This not good thing to talk about. The police, they question my father after yours disappear. They question us too—my mother, my brothers and sisters and me—after Papa died. We no want trouble from police.”

“I'm not here to make trouble. Do you know where they went that day?”

“Out to sea. That all I know.”

“When did your father die?”

“Two years ago. June.”

“June? The same month as my dad?”

“Yes. Was not long after.”

She looked down. Max sensed that this was still a very painful subject for her.

“I'm sorry. Do you mind if I ask how he died?”

“He drown. He go out in boat and fall into sea. Another fisherman find his boat up the coast, no one on board.”

“Was his body found?”

“Yes, it wash up on beach.”

Max nodded sympathetically. Isabella turned her
head away, but not before he saw the gleam of moisture in her eyes.

“That must have been hard for you,” he said. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“There are five of us. Six with my mother. She work at night, as cleaner for offices in Rio Verde, but pay is not good. Without my father, it is hard. We try to sell his boat, but no one want. Boat is old, need a lot of work. And no one want to go fishing now. Is too hard, too dangerous. Young people, they all want job at Playa d'Oro. Is easier there, even if the pay is no better.”

They were silent for a time. From where they were sitting, there was a clear view over the estuary toward Shadow Island. Waves broke over the rocks on the shore, and up on the battlements of the fortress a figure paced up and down like a guard on sentry duty.

“Did your father ever take tourists out there, to Shadow Island?” Max asked.

“Isla de Sombra? No,” Isabella said. “You can't go there. Is private. They have a boat. You go near, men on boat tell you to go away.”

“Really?”

“You get too close, they—I don't know how you say. They do this.” Isabella held up her left hand, the
fingers extended, and smashed her right fist hard into the palm.

“They ram you?” Max said.

“Yes, ram you. It happen once to my father. He get crack in boat, have to come back to harbor and mend it.”

“That's pretty nasty. How can they get away with that kind of thing?”

“Man who own island, he is very rich, one of richest men in world. And very powerful. He do whatever he like.”

“What's his name?”

“Señor Clark. Julius Clark. That's his boat out there. The big one with the helicopter.”

“And Isla de Sombra is his holiday home?”

“I don't know what he do there. Not holiday. There other people on island. They work there.”