We walked back together in silence, each of us deep in our own thoughts. I for one, had a lot of thinking to do. The tour was beginning to feel rather surreal to me, a regular little hive of intrigue when I'd thought everybody came for sun, sights, and shopping: Curtis threatening Rick, Briars threatening Rick, Rick dying in the swimming pool, whether by accident or design. Then there was Aziza wandering around in the middle of the night, and just happening to go into a room that's about to go up in smoke taking its occupant with it, a room that belonged to a woman who was keeping a nasty list in which Aziza and her husband were featured prominently. Not to forget Briars, who was locked in a hugely competitive search for a 2000-year-old shipwreck that, according to someone named Zoubeeir, was to be found offshore lined up with a rock shaped like a camel, and who had just heard some rather inflammatory talk from his competitor. It was all just too much.
There were so many unanswered questions, it was hard to know where to begin. If Rick had been murdered--and both my dream and what Rob had told me convinced me it was murder, then who had done it? Curtis? What were those two men doing on that path late at night? And where had Curtis gone?
He hadn't come back up the path. The fastest way to the hotel, about a fifteen-minute walk, was back the way we all came. I went that way, Rick went that way, and so, presumably, did Kristi. Curtis didn't. Or at least not for some time. I'd waited for him for quite a while. Later the next day, I'd gone and checked where that path went. It ended at the road along the harbor. To get back to the hotel from there would require a very long walk along the harbor in either direction to the main road, and then back up that road to the hotel. It was not possible to climb straight up the cliff to the hotel, of that I was certain, even for an athlete like Curtis. The cliff actually curved back out near the top. You'd have to be a spider, or have rather elaborate climbing equipment, to manage it. The other possibility would be to get a taxi down on the harbor road. I didn't know if taxis regularly cruised along the harbor that late at night, but I doubted it. But there was a telephone, and it would certainly be possible to call for a taxi. If Curtis got one right away, he could have been back at the hotel in about ten minutes. He could have got there before I did, in fact. My ankle hurt and I wasn't moving very fast. But he could also have gone off somewhere else. Where and why, I had no idea. I supposed Aziza would know when Curtis got back, but I very much doubted she'd be saying.
Could it be Briars? He maintained that Rick was trying to get him to invest with his company, and that he found this offensive and told him to get lost. Certainly I would have objected strenuously if Rick had started a sales pitch with me, too, but somehow I didn't believe Briars on this one. There must be more to it than that. Rick told Briars not to threaten him. Why threaten someone just for being a pest?
Then there was the notebook, and the question as to whether or not it played a role in all of this. It was certainly nasty enough. What had happened to it? This really bothered me. What seemed to be such a brilliant idea at six o'clock that morning, tossing the book in the bushes, that is, looked rather more like poor judgment now. The thought of anyone else finding The List with its horrible insinuations was almost more than I could bear. I kept trying to picture Kristi standing by the pool that morning, enjoying the performance. I was certain I would have noticed if she'd been carrying the notebook with her then, even if I was in something of a state at the time. It could have been that the gardeners simply tossed it out, but I didn't think so.
It was also possible that someone just decided they could use a nice leather diary. If that was the case, I'd better hope they tossed all the pages without looking at them, or, at the very least that it was found by a stranger to whom The List would mean nothing.
Could it have been destroyed in the fire? Unlikely. The fire merely smoldered: Kristi died from smoke inhalation, not burning, and the hotel staff quickly extinguished what little fire there was. The diary might have got a little singed, but nothing more than that.
And it hadn't been among her things. I'd volunteered for the unpleasant task of packing up Kristi's belongings in the hope of finding it, without success.
I decided I would have to find two things: the notebook and a murder weapon. If Rick was hit on the head before he was dumped in the pool, as I believed he was, there had to be a weapon. You couldn't inflict that kind of damage on someone's head with your bare hands. It could be anything, a rock, tools used to clean the pool, even a chair. It was possible the murder weapon would have been disposed of in some way, but not if it were something that by its absence would bring attention to it or to the crime.
Perhaps if I could find both these objects, the rest of it would start to make sense.
7
"W E MUST HEAD for shelter," the captain said. "A cove, if not a harbor. The weather is worsening by the hour." The boy, he knew, was in the corner behind sacks of grain, no doubt listening to every word. He'd told him to hide when he heard the footsteps approaching.
"We must go on," the stranger said. "You know my mission."
"I have been told what your mission is, yes," Hasdrubal replied. "Regardless, we must find shelter."
"You would risk the future of Qart Hadasht!" the stranger exclaimed. "You are a traitor."
"I do not think the future of Qart Hadasht will be secured by the loss of my ship and the death of my men. If your mission is as you have stated it, safe arrival at our destination is paramount."
This man is becoming a nuisance, Hasdrubal thought, what with the advancing storm and a murder to be considered. Well, he'd deal with all of it, with the boy's help. Smart one, that boy. He'd been right about him. Not as young as he looked, either--a man not a boy. Now that he, Hasdrubal, was a grandfather, he noticed everyone seemed younger. Well, a voyage or two would harden the young man, assuming he survived this one. No matter what his age and experience, he knew who to suspect right away. The short-sword he'd found almost immediately, hidden amongst Mago's belongings.
The murder weapon, the captain had feared, would never be discovered, thrown overboard at the earliest opportunity. But the boy had found that, too, a silver ingot. Since it was too valuable to discard, and sure to be missed when inventory was taken at the end of the voyage, the killer had instead attempted to wipe it clean before setting it back in its place. The deed was done in haste, however, and there was a trace of what the captain was certain was blood, and a strand or two of matted dark hair. Clever of the boy to figure it out and wait to see who replaced it.
Unfortunate it was not more definitive, though. Too many men had come down to the cargo hold, and the boy, having only a peephole to look through, and worried about being caught, could not see which one of them had replaced the ingot. But he'd narrowed the list of suspects, that was for certain, from the twenty-odd crew members to only three: Mago, Safat, and Malchus. Funny how it was always those three who came to mind: Mago the crafty thief--and what the boy had been able to see of his actions through that tiny opening was strange to be sure--Safat, the unpleasant accomplice, and Malchus, the jealous lover. Still, just being down there didn't make them guilty of murder, any more than the theft of Abdelmelqart's belongings did. With the storm coming, the cargo would be checked and checked again to make sure it was securely fastened so that it wouldn't come loose in the bad weather and destabilize the ship. But one of them had done it, of that the captain was certain. And he had a reason to interrogate one of them. He would confront Mago about the sword and perhaps more when he was ready, but in the meantime he had the storm and the stranger to deal with.