‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing,’ he said again.
‘Did he promise to give you the pictures if you didn’t help the police?’
There was a long pause, which was answer enough.
‘You’re stupid,’ I said. ‘Do you really trust him? The only way to stop your wife seeing those pictures is to get Morris locked up.’
‘And how long would that be for?’ he said. ‘A year, two maybe? Then what? And you can still arrange to have things sent from prison, you know.’
He was right.
‘But even if he sends you a set of prints, he’ll still have the original image files. He could print off some more, or send them to your wife in an e-mail.’
‘I’ll have to take that risk.’
Bill McKenzie was in a very deep hole whatever he did. I suppose I couldn’t really blame him for wanting to accept a ladder from the very man who’d put him down there in the first place.
‘Bill,’ I said, ‘I’ll have no chance of saving your jockey’s licence unless you cooperate.’
His only reply was to whimper down the line.
‘Your best course of action is to bite the bullet and tell your wife about your French adventure. Then Morris would have nothing on you.’
‘I can’t,’ he said. It was more of a plea than anything.
‘It would be much better coming from you than from Morris. I’m sure your wife will forgive you when she knows you were drugged and set up.’
‘She won’t,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what she’s like.’
That made me wonder if his marriage was even worth saving, but there was his child to consider, and another on the way.
Henri returned at half past twelve.
‘Good meeting?’ I asked.
‘It was OK,’ she said. ‘Our board meetings are never much more than rubber-stamping exercises anyway. Most of the day-to-day decisions are made by the management board. The main board is just there to ratify them. Much of today’s meeting was taken up with the recent sale of our Hong Kong based operation to a Chinese consortium. Uncle Richard thought it was a good time to realize some of the company’s assets. The money involved is mind blowing.’
‘No need to cancel the private jet just yet, then?’ I said flippantly.
‘No.’
‘Who’s on the main board other than you?’
‘Uncle Richard and Martin, of course, plus a couple of directors appointed from our law firm over here. But those two don’t say much.’
‘How about Bentley?’
‘He’s not actually a board member. He’s the company secretary and he takes the minutes.’
‘It must be interesting for you, being a director of such a big organization,’ I said.
‘Not really. It’s all rather boring and mundane, to tell you the truth. The others don’t take much notice of what I say, even though I do know what I’m talking about. Even though I run my own business in London, I think the others just look upon me as a token female on the board. Uncle Richard effectively makes all the decisions anyway.’
‘But you are a shareholder?’
‘Yes, that’s true. We are still a hundred per cent family-owned business. My mother and Uncle Richard used to run it between them, so I suppose I’m now there to represent my side of the family. The main board only meets three times a year and I don’t usually get to all of them.’
‘Are they always here in the Cayman Islands?’
‘Mostly, although I prefer it when we meet in Singapore. We stay at Raffles and I absolutely love it there. But we have the major meeting of the year here. It also acts as the company’s AGM. That’s what we did today.’ She gave me a cuddle. ‘What have you been up to in my absence?’
‘Chilling out and making a few work phone calls,’ I said.
‘You shouldn’t be working,’ she said in mock crossness. ‘You’re meant to be on holiday.’
‘You’ve been working,’ I pointed out.
‘That’s different.’ She smiled. ‘Now, I’m hungry. What shall we do for lunch?’
‘You know the place better than I do.’
We lazily walked next door to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and split a club sandwich and a Caesar salad at their pool bar, washed down with an excellent bottle of Côtes de Provence rosé.
‘So what’s on the agenda for the rest of the day?’ I asked.
‘I’m afraid I’ve agreed for us to go with Uncle Richard and Aunt Mary to the traditional Christmas Eve carol singing in the garden of the governor’s residence. That’s at seven. We could go out for dinner afterwards, just the two of us, or we could just go back to bed.’ She giggled and stroked my hand.
‘What happens tomorrow?’ I asked.
‘We have champagne with a few friends at noon, followed by a traditional family Christmas lunch. Both at Martin and Theresa’s house. Then we laze around for the rest of the afternoon complaining that we’ve eaten and drunk too much, before we eat and drink even more in the evening. Then we might watch a movie. Much the same as in England.’
‘Sounds great to me.’
‘Martin asked me if you were a diver. He always goes out diving early on Christmas morning. It’s a sort of ritual. He wonders if you would like to go with him.’
It seemed strangely out of character for him to ask me.
‘I was taught to dive by the army,’ I said. ‘But that was ten years ago at Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea. I haven’t done it now for ages.’
‘Shall I tell Martin you’d like to go?’
I had to admit that I was quite keen.
‘Do you think I’m well enough to go diving?’ I said.
She laughed. ‘I’d say you were quite well enough, if your exertions in the night are anything to go by.’
‘I won’t be able to carry the tanks when they’re out of the water.’
‘That’s no problem. We always have a dive master and a safety officer with us on the boat. They’ll help you.’
‘Will you be coming?’ I asked.
‘If you want me to,’ she said. ‘As long as you don’t plan to go too deep. Otherwise I’ll stay up on the boat while you and Martin dive.’
‘OK, then. Yes. I’d love to go.’
The carol singing on the lawn in front of the governor’s official residence was delightful. And it was packed with a mixture of expatriate British families and local Caymanians.
Sir Richard and Lady Mary picked Henri and me up from the Coral Stone Club and we drove about half a mile down West Bay Road.
Government House was an elegant colonial-style bungalow set amongst mature trees, close to the beach. A uniformed Cayman Island policeman stood guard at the gate, but there was no other sign of significant security. Indeed, the white-painted wall to the road was only about five feet high and, on the beach side, there was simply a low white-painted picket fence, along with a couple of notices requesting that passers-by should respect the governor’s privacy.
‘Who is the governor?’ I asked Sir Richard as we walked into the garden, which was lit up with strings of festive lights, attractively wrapped in spirals around the tree trunks.
‘The current one is a chap called Peter Darwin,’ he said. ‘The governor is nominally appointed by the Queen but it’s actually decided by the Foreign Office in London. It’s often the final posting before retirement for a career diplomat — a swansong in the sun. Peter is about halfway through his term.’
‘What’s his role?’ I asked.
‘He is Her Majesty’s personal representative in the Cayman Islands.’
‘So he’s quite important, then?’ I said.
‘Formally, Peter calls me Sir Richard, but I call him Your Excellency.’
That was one sort of answer.
I took a glass of thick red liquid from an offered tray.
‘What is it?’ I asked Henri.