CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Mid-afternoon on the third day, Ben was sitting barefoot on the warm sand in front of Palm Tree Lodge when he felt the tingle of the phone’s silent ringer in his pocket and fished it out to answer.

‘Have you made your decision?’ said Roth’s gravelly voice.

‘I have,’ Ben answered.

‘Then what is it to be, Benedict: are you in or out?’

‘You don’t leave me a lot of choice, Roth. I’m coming on board.’

‘Excellent. The Hydra is at anchor a couple of miles offshore. My colleagues are all looking forward to meeting you.’

‘I’m looking forward to it too,’ Ben said.

‘The boat’s on its way. Twenty minutes.’ Roth hung up.

Ben padded across the sand to the house. Walking into the kitchen he tore two sheets of kitchen roll from the dispenser. When he’d finished with them he poured himself a glass of chilled grapefruit juice and drank it slowly. In the hallway he slipped on his shoes and laced them up, then left the house and walked back down the beach as far as the tag would allow, close to the lapping tide-line. The sea breeze ruffled his shirt and his hair. Shielding his eyes from the bright sun, he scanned the horizon.

Soon afterwards, a tiny white dot appeared on the sea and grew rapidly larger until Ben could make out the splash of foam from the motorboat’s bows and the faces of the two men on board. A few yards from the shore, its pilot cut the motor and let the boat glide to a halt in the shallow water. Ben didn’t recognise him, but the second occupant was familiar enough. Stinker gave a leer as he climbed out and crossed the wet sand towards Ben. The black rubber butt of a 9mm protruded from the holster in his waistband. ‘Been a good little doggy?’ he said.

‘Good as gold,’ Ben told him. ‘You flossed today?’

Stinker’s face reddened. He motioned for Ben to hold out his leg, took a key from his pocket and bent down and roughly undid the ankle tag.

‘Let’s go,’ the pilot said, and fired up the outboard.

Ben splashed over to the boat and climbed in, his leg feeling strangely light after getting used to the lump around his ankle for three days. The pilot steered the burbling boat around and away from the shore. ‘Pickup complete,’ Stinker said into his phone. ‘We’re on our way.’

Ben sat quietly as the motorboat rode over the sea and Little Cayman shrank into the distance behind them. For the first few minutes of the journey, Stinker eyed him with suspicion; then, realising Ben wasn’t going to be any trouble, he grinned smugly to himself and looked away.

That was when Ben slipped his hand in his pocket, took out the small package he’d carefully double-wrapped in kitchen roll, and laid it on the seat next to him. He started unwrapping it.

Before Stinker could take notice of what he was doing or react in any way, Ben had stepped across the boat towards him, drawn back his elbow and punched the pointed end of the four-inch sliver of broken Red Stripe bottle hard into the side of his neck, just below the ear.

Stinker would have let out a scream, but Ben’s hand was over his mouth and once the razor-sharp glass sawing rapidly across his throat had sliced through the gristle of his trachea, he had no air to make a sound. Ben moved out of the way of the blood spray. He let the man’s upper body flop backwards over the side and held onto his belt long enough to grab his phone from his pocket and the pistol from its holster.

The pilot hadn’t heard a thing over the noise of the outboard, but sensing the rock of the boat he turned to see what was happening behind him. Ben shot him twice in the head and heaved his body into the water with Stinker’s. The motorboat’s wake turned frothy red. It wouldn’t be long before the sharks turned up.

Taking over at the wheel, Ben used Stinker’s phone to make a call. ‘It’s me. Everything ready?’