A Poison of Passengers Read online

  ‘Hey, I wouldn’t have bothered if it had been anyone else. So where did you go, when they carted you off? To Europe?’

  ‘Yes. The south of France to begin with. Then I spent a few months in Gibraltar. Finally ended up in Guatemala, of all places, working as a Passport Control officer.’

  ‘Jeez, you get about.’

  ‘Not through choice. The job was a complete wash out. I left there in July and fished up in British Honduras. Just in time for the hurricane season.’

  Harry mimed his surprise. ‘You were there in September?’

  ‘Yes.’ I grimaced. ‘Right in the middle of it.’

  ‘Jesus. I read about that.’ A hurricane had struck the capital city. ‘The whole place was flattened, wasn’t it?’

  I was trying my best not to remember. ‘It wasn’t the hurricane that did the real damage. It was the tidal wave that came after it. My God, Harry, you should have seen it. Fifteen feet tall. I never saw anything like it. I was lucky to escape with my life.’

  ‘How did you escape?’

  ‘I didn’t, in point of fact.’ I coughed in embarrassment. ‘I just shinned up the nearest coconut tree and hung on for dear life.’

  Harry laughed out loud. ‘You have got to be kidding me!’

  ‘It’s true, I swear. Any other tree and I’d have been swept away, but that one held fast. It was the aftermath, though. The absolute devastation.’ I shuddered at the memory. ‘It was awful, Harry. So many dead. I decided then and there, I was done with the Americas. My life has been an unmitigated disaster these last few years. I just want to go home, whatever the consequences. So at the earliest opportunity, I hopped on a plane and headed for New York.’

  ‘I thought you hated aeroplanes.’

  ‘I do. But needs must.’

  ‘And now you’re booked on the Galitia?’

  ‘For my sins. Though what reception I’ll receive when I get back to England, I have no idea.’

  Harry sucked in a breath with mock seriousness. ‘It’s not easy being a dead man. How do you manage for money?’

  ‘I do all right.’ Sadly, the bulk of my estate had been passed on to my next of kin, but I had not been left entirely destitute. ‘I have a couple of small annuities the lawyers know nothing about. And I’ve kept myself busy, doing the odd bit of work for the old firm. I can’t talk about that, of course.’

  Harry nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. Need to know.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘Jesus, Hilary. And I thought my life was complicated.’

  ‘Henry, please. I am trying very hard to simplify things. Hopefully, once we’re onboard the Galitia, I can start to relax.’

  ‘No explosives allowed.’

  ‘Well, exactly. And that’s what I mean.’ I waved my hands in the air. ‘I can’t even have a meal at a restaurant these days without all hell breaking loose.’

  ‘I know the feeling. So what did Terrance Greenfield want with you?’ Harry met my eye. For all his casual charm, there was always an edge to him where business matters were concerned. And Terrance Greenfield was definitely business.

  ‘Ah.’ I coughed again. ‘You saw him there did you?’

  ‘At the restaurant, sure.’ So he had noticed us dining together, before the evacuation. ‘I’m not going to miss a high up from the SIS. Don’t tell me. He asked you to keep an eye on me, on the way home? Is that right?’

  ‘Er...yes, something like that. Just the Colonel being nosey, I expect.’ Harry had worked for MI5 during the war. The old firm had kept an eye on him ever since. It was in no-one’s interests for Harry Latimer to end up behind bars. ‘And I’m sure you’re going to behave yourself onboard ship.’

  ‘Oh, of course, old man. Of course.’

  ‘When you’re not conspiring to steal pearl necklaces.’ I chuckled. ‘So when are you planning to do the deed? You can’t spend a week socializing with the woman onboard ship if you’ve stolen them on the first day.’

  ‘No, I figure it’s going to be a slow burn, this one. In any case, the necklace is just a side show. I was planning on leaving the country quite soon in any case. You’re not the only one leading a complicated life. No, I think a nice sea voyage will do me the world of good.’

  Harry had been looking rather shifty back at the restaurant, when the police had appeared on the scene. ‘So what have you done? Robbed a bank or something?’ I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the details and I doubted Harry would tell me anyway.

  ‘Oh, nothing like that, old man.’ He smirked. ‘You know me. I would never get involved in anything outside the law.’

  I laughed loudly. He had said it with such a straight face. ‘You’re a rogue, Harry.’ I raised my glass a second time. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  Terrance Greenfield was on the other end of the line. A waiter had called me over to a public phone. Harry was sitting quietly, nursing a second brandy and soda.

  ‘Sorry for disappearing like that,’ I said, keeping my voice low. ‘I bumped into Harry Latimer. I’m with him at the bar now. I thought we’d keep things on a social level.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Greenfield agreed. ‘Was he surprised to see you?’

  ‘I’ll say. He saw you and I together though, so he knows what we’re about. Knows I’ve been told to keep an eye on him.’

  ‘That can’t be helped. You stick close to him, regardless. Tell the Colonel everything when you get back to Southampton.’

  ‘I’ll do my best. What’s happening at your end? Did you find out what happened at the restaurant?’

  ‘Yes, in a manner of speaking. Everything’s calmed down here now. I’ve spoken to the chief of police.’ Being a member of the security services, even on foreign soil, had its advantages.

  ‘And what did you find out? Was it a bomb? Did they call in the bomb squad?’

  ‘They did. But it was all a hoax.’

  ‘A hoax?’

  ‘There was a package. Looked just like a parcel bomb, but there was nothing in it.’

  ‘Lord.’

  ‘I spoke to one of the waiters at the restaurant. Apparently, it was left on the doorstep at the side of the building. It wasn’t sent through the regular mail. Someone off-shift saw it and brought it in. One of the waiters panicked when he realised it was the same sort of parcel he’d read about in the papers. It was the same size and had all the same markings. But the bomb squad were able to determine that there was nothing dangerous inside. Different weight, no obvious trigger. In fact, there was nothing in it at all, just packaging.’

  ‘That is odd,’ I said. ‘So what have the police concluded?’

  ‘They don’t think it’s anything to do with the communists. It’s what they call a “copy cat”. Someone reading about the letter bombs and doing it themselves.’

  ‘Lord. You mean some sort of sick joke?’

  ‘It looks like it,’ Greenfield admitted. ‘A little more than a schoolboy prank, though.’

  ‘I’ll say.’ All those people struggling to get out of the restaurant. Someone could have been seriously hurt.

  ‘There was one peculiarity though. That’s why I thought I’d better call you. They found an address written on the package. Well, not an address, a name.’

  ‘Oh?’ I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It’s all a bit awkward. The police are going to want to speak to her, I’m afraid. She’s staying at the Alderley, didn’t you say?’

  ‘The Alderley? Who do you mean?’

  ‘Your Mrs O’Neill,’ Greenfield said. ‘The parcel was addressed to her.’

  Chapter Two

  ‘Isn’t she wonderful?’ Mrs O’Neill gushed, as we stepped out of the taxicab. The docks on the west side of Manhattan were swarming with life. It was a mild January morning and the sun was beaming down on a veritable cavalcade of overcoats, fedoras and cloche hats. Mrs O’Neill was taking no chances, however, and was dressed in a heavy fur coat and muffler. Harry had been as good as his word, sending a boy back to the restaurant last night to collect her things. He was making his
own way here this morning, from the Waldorf Astoria.

  I turned back to the taxicab and offered a polite hand to a second woman as she stepped out onto the concourse. Cynthia Wellesley was Mrs O’Neill’s paid companion, a fresh-faced English girl in her early twenties, dressed in a light overcoat and two piece rayon dress. She would be accompanying Mrs O’Neill on her European odyssey, having answered an advertisement in a newspaper just before Christmas. It was always nice to have someone to talk to, I supposed, though the American woman was not exactly shy when it came to conversing with strangers.

  ‘Good morning!’ she had bellowed at me, the day before last, when I had emerged bleary eyed from my hotel room a little after nine o’clock. I had barely got a word in before she had introduced herself and minutes later, much to my chagrin, I had found myself taking breakfast with the damned women. It never ceases to amaze me how forward some Americans can be. In England, even in a small hotel, we would have exchanged a polite nod and then settled at separate tables. There was nothing improper in her advances, however – she was a respectable widow – and politeness dictated that I show her some civility.

  The taxi driver let out a cough and I reached for my wallet, as the women placed their hand luggage on the pavement and took a moment to peruse the energetic scene before us.

  Even in 1932, the embarkation of a steamship was a major social event and it was not just the passengers and crew who had turned out to witness the spectacle. We had arrived on the concourse just outside Pier 54, where the crowds were gathering for the morning’s departure. The building was a long, brick built colonnade with several gated entrances. A steady stream of people were passing beneath the steel archway leading onto the pier, many of them friends and relatives of those about to depart, as well as the passengers themselves. It was the sight of the ship, however, with its four red and black funnels peeping above the roof of the building, that had caught Mrs O’Neill’s attention. ‘Isn’t she marvellous?’ she exclaimed again.

  The RMS Galitia was a British built steamship, nine hundred feet from top to tail and almost a hundred feet wide. ‘She is impressive,’ I agreed, glancing back from the taxi.

  ‘Oh, but you’ve travelled on her before,’ Mrs O’Neill recalled.

  ‘A long time ago.’ Shortly before the war, in fact, on my first trip to the Americas. ‘She was fresh out of the shipyard then.’ I peered up at the funnels, a familiar and reassuring sight. ‘She’s worn well, by the look of her. You wouldn’t think she’s been afloat for almost two decades.’ The Galitia had been ploughing a regular furrow between New York and Southampton for many, many years. During the war, she had even seen service as a medical ship.

  Mrs O’Neill beamed. ‘I’m so glad we were able to get tickets. The White Star Line is all very well, but the Galitia is something special, don’t you think?’

  ‘Indeed.’ The RMS Galitia was a veritable grand hotel of the waves and I was looking forward to the voyage immensely.

  Behind us, the taxicab chugged away in a cloud of smoke.

  Mrs O’Neill’s companion had not spoken a word since our arrival. I took a moment to observe the girl now as she stood listening to our conversation. Cynthia Wellesley was quite a serious minded young woman. Bookish, I would have said, albeit on the briefest of acquaintances. Brave too, coming all this way to America on her own. She had travelled here on an exchange, apparently, to study for a term at one of the American universities. Botany, no less, a subject which bored me rigid. She had confided in me, however, that she was a little apprehensive about the return voyage. That was probably why she had not come out to the restaurant last night; or perhaps she was allowing Mrs O’Neill the time to get to know Harry Latimer properly, without any unhelpful distractions. In the normal state of affairs, I knew which one of these women Harry would have his eye on. Miss Wellesley was quite a pretty young thing, blonde and wide eyed. Definitely Harry’s type. ‘I get so terribly seasick,’ she told me. ‘And this time of the year, the weather can be so rough.’

  ‘It’s not looking too disastrous at the moment,’ I said, ‘according to the forecast. How was the journey out?’ Miss Wellesley had come to America the previous summer.

  ‘It was quite mild,’ she admitted. ‘I was ill for the first couple of days, but after that it was all right. Just a question of finding my sea legs. Do you get seasick, Mr Buxton?’

  ‘Not as much as I used to. It’s aeroplanes that give me the real tremors.’

  Her eyes lit up. ‘Gosh, I’ve never been in an aeroplane.’

  ‘Take my advice,’ I said. ‘Don’t.’ I had been sick on the journey over from British Honduras. If my man Maurice had not been there with a brown paper bag I might have splattered the entire cabin.

  Mrs O’Neill had stopped speaking and was staring expectantly at the two of us. ‘Do you think we ought to get in line?’ she asked. ‘Or should we wait for Mr Latimer?’

  ‘You go on,’ I said. ‘I’ll wait for Harry...er Mr Latimer. I want to have a last cigarette before I head in, in any case.’ A big sign above the entrance made it clear that smoking was not permitted on the pier itself. The ship, thank goodness, had no such rules. As soon as we were out of port, we could smoke and drink as much as we liked. ‘Are your friends here yet? I thought I saw a limousine leaving just as we pulled up.’

  Mrs O’Neill nodded. ‘I think so. We’ll have to see.’ An English couple, a lord and lady something, had booked a suite on B Deck. They had been staying with Mrs O’Neill for the last few months, apparently. I hadn’t met them yet, though doubtless we would become acquainted over the course of the next few days. ‘Come along Cynthia!’ Mrs O’Neill called. ‘We’ll see you onboard, then, Mr Buxton.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ I lied.

  Miss Wellesley smiled at me as she moved to accompany her mistress. I watched the two of them go with some relief. Mrs O’Neill was a force of nature and better dealt with in small doses. I pulled out a cigarette and lit it quickly. I was glad that the woman had recovered her spirits, though, after the events of the previous day.

  ‘Me?’ she had exclaimed in disbelief, when I’d passed on the news about the letter bomb. I had popped up to the third floor last night to tell her what I had heard. ‘It was addressed to me?’

  ‘So I’ve been told.’

  Mrs O’Neill was standing in the doorway of her hotel room, in a knee length silk dress, utterly flummoxed. ‘But that’s...it can’t be.’

  ‘The police will be on their way up shortly,’ I warned her, repeating what Greenfield had told me on the telephone. ‘Is there any reason you can think of why someone would leave a parcel there with your name on it? Is there anyone you’ve offended recently?’

  ‘No-one, Mr Buxton. Unless...’ She hesitated, looking up and down the corridor. ‘My late husband. His business interests. I know they sometimes...’

  At that moment, the lift pinged just across the way and the police arrived in the corridor. Two grisly looking detectives. Mrs O’Neill brought a hand to her mouth. It was the second time in less than a day that she had had to contend with the boys in blue, after the business with the handbag that morning. The first time she had spoken to a fresh-faced constable; but these fellows – as Harry would put it – were “the real deal”.

  The detectives flashed their badges and were invited into the hotel room.

  I was left out in the corridor, but Miss Wellesley gave me an account of the interview later on and Mrs O’Neill confirmed the details at breakfast.

  The American woman was not suspected of any involvement with the parcel itself. The police thought it possible, however, that someone had added her name to the letter out of spite. Did she know anyone who might do such a thing? She told them there were a few people who might have held a grudge against her late husband. His business interests were quite broad and he had stepped on a fair number of toes in his later years. After his death, Mrs O’Neil had assumed responsibility for those businesses – albeit at arms length – so it was
possible they might have decided to switch their attention to her. But why here and now she had no idea. Another possibility, she said, was her husband’s connection to the Italian community. Ulysses O’Neill had been friendly with one or two prominent officials at the Italian embassy, though that was purely a matter of business. He had never been a supporter of Mussolini.

  Happily, the police took Mrs O’Neill’s statement at face value and voiced no objections to her leaving on the Galitia the following morning. If they found out anything more, or needed further information, they would contact her onboard ship, they said. The authorities had concluded – as Terrance Greenfield had already surmised – that the restaurant hoax was not directly related to the terror campaign. As such, it was no longer a priority. They were simply going through the motions with regard to Mrs O’Neill.

  The whole business had drained the woman considerably, however, though she put a brave face on it at breakfast. Miss Wellesley was also fretting, about the forthcoming voyage, so it was left to me to normalise the situation. I was not best pleased having to play nursemaid over the toast and marmalade to a pair of virtual strangers, but I did my duty, waxing lyrical for some minutes about Europe and all the many sights they would see during the course of their trip. And now, thank the lord, Mrs O’Neill had regained her vigour, as she tootled off to board the steamship. Hopefully, from here on in, she would direct most of her attention at Harry Latimer.

  I dropped the end of my cigarette and stubbed it out on the ground. My American friend was running a little late this morning. I looked up and caught sight of him hurrying along the concourse towards me. Harry smiled broadly as he came to a halt.

  ‘Morning, old man. All on your own?’ He glanced around. The crowd outside was starting to thin, as people moved through into the departure hall.

  ‘Mrs O’Neill’s gone on ahead. What kept you? I thought you’d be lapping at her heels this morning.’

  ‘Any other morning I would be.’ He had a suitcase with him under his arm, but was otherwise dressed in a smart suit, an overcoat and a rakishly angled fedora. Even in a hurry, Harry Latimer managed to show some style. ‘I had a bit of an errand to run,’ he added.