Domino Island: The unpublished thriller by the master of the genre

‘He didn’t,’ said Jackson. ‘He was losing like crazy. He rented those houses and the return was completely uneconomic. But it gave him a solid vote.’

‘He must have been rich,’ I commented. ‘That’s an expensive route to politics.’

‘He had a lot of dough,’ conceded Jackson. ‘But not that much. Mr Black was behind him with a slush fund.’

I sighed. ‘And who is Mr Black?’

Jackson stared at me. ‘Don’t you know anything about what goes on here? You’d better learn fast. Gerry Negrini is Mr Big in the casino crowd.’

‘Negrini?’

‘Negrini – Mr Black, get it?’

‘Oh, I see. But where do casinos come into it?’

‘Negrini represents certain New York and Chicago interests who are bucking Las Vegas and Reno.’

I still couldn’t see the connection. ‘But why should he support a liberal like Salton?’ I tapped the file. ‘I’ve read Salton’s speeches.’

‘You need a crash course in local politics,’ said Jackson earnestly. He was getting into his stride, teaching this dumb foreigner how things worked around here, and I wasn’t about to stop the flow. ‘Look, Mr Ogilvie, this island is wide open and a buck moves faster here than any other place in the world. Mr Black and his boys have got the whole thing sewn up – they’ve put Campanilla on the map for the jet set and all the well-heeled suckers who go for gambling.’

He hesitated. There was evidently more to come.

‘But there’s another angle. The bankers and the big corporations have also got it made here, and they don’t like gambling and the associations that go with it. They don’t want the off-shore trust funds confused with the spin of a roulette wheel. That’s bad for business.’

‘I can see their point.’

‘So they made sure they had their own man – Conyers. He was their boy, and he had his instructions: get the election out of the way and then crack down on the gambling. Mr Black had to pick an opposition leader and he picked Salton.’

‘Salton? But he’d only been back on the island five minutes.’

Jackson shrugged. ‘You can make a lot of noise in five minutes, Mr Ogilvie. Especially with someone like that behind you.’

‘So the cheap housing was just an expensive red herring.’

‘Make no mistake about it: if Salton had lived he’d almost certainly have been the next Prime Minister.’ Jackson waved airily at the file. ‘But all that flapdoodle in his speeches was for the suckers. You can bet that as soon as he got into power those house rents would have been raised pretty swiftly.’

He was on a roll so I kept up the masquerade. ‘I’ve been reading the account of the inquest. Do you believe Salton died of natural causes?’

Jackson sat down opposite me at the table and leaned back: he looked like he was settling in for the duration. ‘Winstanley is a doddering old fool at the best of times but even if he was the best pathologist in the world I doubt he could have made much of what was left of Salton.’ He grimaced. ‘I saw the body when he was brought in.’

‘He’d been out there for days, hadn’t he? Wasn’t anyone looking for him? Didn’t Mrs Salton raise the alarm?’

‘Which of those questions would you like me to answer?’ said Jackson. There was more than a hint of condescension in his voice. ‘No. The first anyone knew about it was when the body was found.’ He stared at me. ‘Don’t you find that strange?’

‘She must have had an explanation that was acceptable to the police.’

‘The police?’ Jackson snorted. ‘They’re in Conyers’s pocket, from Commissioner Barstow down to the last man on the beat.’

‘That’s an interesting take, Mr Jackson. In fact, you’ve raised a lot of interesting points.’

‘Glad to be of help, Mr Ogilvie,’ he said genially. ‘You’ll be visiting Mrs Salton?’

‘Probably tomorrow.’

‘You’d better telephone first,’ he advised. ‘No one gets to El Cerco without an invitation.’

‘Have you got a telephone directory?’

He grinned. ‘You won’t find the number in there. It’s unlisted.’ He picked up my notebook and scribbled in it. ‘That’ll find her.’

As I stood up to go, I asked casually, ‘How did you know I was Ogilvie?’

‘I have a pipeline into the Department of Immigration at the airport. I knew that Western and Continental Insurance would be sending a man so I put out the word.’

So that was how Ogilvie had been tagged. ‘That’s all very well, but how did you know I was Ogilvie? It’s not tattooed on my forehead.’

‘Hell, I knew you’d be coming in here to check the files so I had Mary Josephine tip me off. Then there was this.’ He lifted my notebook and grinned at me. Stamped on its cover in gilt were the words Western and Continental Insurance Co. Ltd. ‘I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes.’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘You didn’t.’ I took the notebook from him and put it away.

Jackson heaved himself to his feet and said, ‘I’d be very much obliged if you let me know anything you turn up, Mr Ogilvie.’

‘I don’t think I will,’ I said. ‘You see, I told the truth when I said I was only interested in Mr Salton’s companies in a business way. I have no connection with this insurance company beyond having taken out a policy with them, and my name is not Ogilvie – it’s Kemp.’ I smiled. ‘The notebook was a handout. Western and Continental lash them out to all their clients.’

Jackson’s eyes flickered. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said flatly.

I took out my passport and handed it to him. William Kemp, business consultant. ‘But thanks for the tutorial. It was most interesting.’

Jackson seemed to have had the wind knocked out of him as I took back the passport and pocketed it. He said, ‘Hell, anyone can make a mistake – and you went along with it.’

I nodded. ‘I go along with most things as long as it suits me, Mr Jackson.’ I walked to the door and turned. ‘By the way, I will be seeing Mrs Salton tomorrow. I’ll give her your regards.’

‘Hey, Mr Kemp, you won’t tell her … I mean … you won’t repeat what I’ve said?’ He was shaken right down to his liver and obviously terrified of losing his job.

I smiled. ‘I’ll reserve judgement on that – as long as it suits me.’ I gave him a curt nod and walked out of the room, leaving a shocked man. I don’t know who he thought I was, but I reckoned I’d given him enough of a fright to keep his nose out of my affairs.

I went back to the Royal Caribbean and telephoned Ogilvie. It was a long time before he answered and when he did his voice was grumpy. ‘Kemp here,’ I said.

‘You’ve woken me up,’ he complained. ‘I’m dead on my feet.’

I knew how he felt. Air travel is tiring and my time sense was shot to pieces because of the transatlantic flight. ‘Just something for you to do tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Go to the Chronicle office in Cardew Street and ask to see the back issues for the last month. You’ll find a lot of interesting stuff about Salton.’

‘What’s the point if you’ve already done it?’

‘You’ll probably be contacted by a creep called Jackson. Don’t try to hide who you are, but if he asks about me you’re ignorant. Jackson is a bit hard to take, but disguise your finer feelings and get pally with him. He’ll like you better if he thinks you’re here to torpedo Mrs Salton’s claim.’

‘Well, aren’t we?’