Passenger 13

CHAPTER NINETEEN

‘Where to, mon?’ Raoul drawled over his shoulder with a Jamaican lilt as Ben climbed in the back of the taxicab outside Claude’s thirty minutes later. The Peugeot 504 made Ben’s rental Toyota look showroom-new. Reggae thumped over the speakers and the tang of cannabis smoke was imbued into the worn-out fabric of the seats.

‘How about a little scenic tour?’ Ben said.

‘Sure,’ Raoul said, lurching away from Claude’s. ‘You wanna go right round the island? It ain’t a big place.’

‘Just as far as it takes for you to answer a few questions,’ Ben said, tossing a thin wad of cash over the backrest of the front passenger seat. Raoul thumbed the money expertly with one hand as he drove, and flashed Ben a dazzling smile in the rear-view mirror. ‘What you wanna know?’

‘Tell me about the guy who smashed up Claude’s place.’

‘You a cop?’ Raoul looked worried for a second, probably thinking about the pot he’d got stashed away in the glove compartment or somewhere. Ben knew that the Cayman laws on ganja-smoking were pretty Draconian.

‘A cop’s the last thing I am,’ Ben told him. ‘Relax. Talk to me about this guy you drove to the airport the day the plane went down.’

‘A real rat’s ass,’ Raoul declared, launching enthusiastically into his story. ‘He was already totally canned when I went to pick him up. By the time we got to Claude’s, the guy’da picked a fight with Mike Tyson.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because of what was on the radio,’ Raoul said simply.

‘He didn’t like your music?’ Ben said.

‘No, mon. He didn’t like the news.’

‘The news?’

Raoul nodded. ‘The news about London. You know, the terrorist thing? Bombs and shit? They were talking about the sisterfucker that did it. This guy, he suddenly goes crazy. Starts yelling at me: “Turn that crap off! Turn it off right now or you can kiss my ass for your money!” So I turned it off. Like I’m gonna lose my fare over what goes on in fuckin’ London, right?’

‘Claude says he got you to drop him off at the bar and wait for him. What happened next?’

‘Drunk fuck. After they threw him out, he gets back in the taxi. I take him to meet the plane, like he wanted.’

‘You saw him get on the plane?’

Raoul shrugged. ‘Sure. He got on the motherfucking plane and it flew away. Then it crashed.’ He shrugged again. ‘Feel sorry for the rest of those folks. Not for Mister A-hole.’

‘You wouldn’t happen to know Mr A-hole’s name?’ Ben said.

Raoul waved towards the glove box. ‘Guess it must be in my book,’ he said.

‘Another ten bucks in it for you if you let me see it,’ Ben said.

‘No problemo.’ Raoul flipped open the glove box, battered about inside, yanked out a tattered and much-thumbed notepad and passed it back over his shoulder for Ben to examine. Raoul had his own special book-keeping system. Ben turned back a few pages, tracing his finger down the date entries scrawled in the grubby left-hand margin until he’d worked his way back to July 23.

And there it was: there in Raoul’s chicken-scratch capitals, the name he was looking for.

‘Moss,’ Ben read out loud. Beside it was the name ‘Palm Tree Lodge’.

‘That’s the guy,’ Raoul said.

‘This address. That’s where you picked him up from?’

‘Uh-huh. So what now, mon?’

Ben had a feeling he wouldn’t be returning to the airfield that day. ‘Scenic tour’s over,’ he said. ‘Take me back to my car. Then you can show me the way to Palm Tree Lodge.’