Escape from Shadow Island Read online

  “It’s the police for you,” the manager snapped furiously.

  “Where’s Consuela?” Max yelled. “What have you done with her?”

  He struggled to escape, but the men were too strong for him. They picked him up and carried him downstairs.

  10

  THE HEAVY STEEL DOOR SLAMMED SHUT AND a key turned in the lock. Max looked around the tiny police cell. It was only about six feet square, with green mold on the walls and a bare earth floor. There was a low wooden platform at one side for prisoners to sleep on and a barred window high up the rear wall. The room smelled of damp and something sour like sweat or vomit. A cockroach scurried out from beneath the bed and away through a crack in the wall. Max shuddered. He’d never been anywhere so vile before.

  He went to the back wall and stood underneath the window. Bending his knees, he leaped upward, grabbing hold of the bars over the window, then pulling himself up. The view wasn’t worth the effort. There was nothing to see except a narrow alley and a brick wall.

  Max dropped back down and paced across the floor like the caged animal he was. Anger was still simmering inside him. How dare they do this! How dare they arrest him and throw him in this stinking cell when he’d done nothing wrong! Nothing wrong? He almost laughed. What did right or wrong count for in Santo Domingo? His mother had done nothing wrong, and look what they’d done to her.

  But underneath his anger he was worried. What had happened to Consuela? Where had she gone, and why was the hotel pretending that she’d never been there? And just as worrying, what was going to happen to him now? He was locked up in a filthy cell five thousand miles from home in a country where he had no friends, didn’t know his rights, and couldn’t speak the language. He dwelled on these questions for an hour or more before he heard a key in the lock and the cell door swung open. A police officer in a crumpled uniform beckoned him out. Max followed the man along a corridor and up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the police station. The officer knocked on a door and, when a deep voice from within called out, “Come,” ushered Max inside.

  “The prisoner, Colonel,” the police officer said in Spanish, then bowed and left.

  There was a man sitting at a desk on the far side of the room. He wore a smart green uniform with medal ribbons on the breast and a lot of gold braid at the shoulders and cuffs. “Come here,” he ordered in English.

  Max walked across the office. It was a huge room, thirty feet long, with French windows that opened onto a balcony at one side and a polished wooden floor that creaked as Max crossed it. His legs were shaking. He didn’t know who this man was, but his voice alone was enough to terrify him.

  “Stop there.” The man lifted his head from some papers he was studying and fixed Max with a penetrating stare. He was big, with a broad chest and muscular arms that bulged beneath the sleeves of his uniform. He had cropped black hair, dark stubble along his jawline, and a long ugly scar on his left cheek that looked like a knife wound. But it was his eyes Max noticed most. This man had the darkest, most frightening eyes Max had ever seen.

  “My name is Colonel Pablo de los Mantequillas,” he said. “I am the chief of police for Rio Verde.”

  Max swallowed but didn’t say anything. Colonel Mantequillas didn’t look like a man who engaged in idle small talk. He asked questions, and you answered those questions. Or else.

  “I understand you have been causing trouble at the Hotel San Rafael,” the police chief said. “We don’t like foreign tourists who come here and make trouble.”

  “I wasn’t making trouble,” Max said.

  “Be quiet!” Colonel Mantequillas’s voice was like a whip crack. “You speak when I tell you and not before. You are not in England now. We do things differently in Santo Domingo, and you’d better not forget that. You were making trouble. Upsetting the guests and disrupting the efficient running of the hotel. Those are serious offenses.”

  Serious offenses? Max thought. Upsetting a hotel guest? What kind of a country is this? He was tempted to argue but thought better of it.

  “What is this absurd story you told the hotel manager?” the police chief went on. “Something about a woman named”—he glanced at the papers on his desk—“Consuela Navarra. Explain yourself.”

  “It’s not a ‘story,’” Max said, his voice cracking with nerves.

  “No?”

  “I came to Santo Domingo with her. And then this afternoon—”

  “Yes, I know what happened this afternoon,” the police chief interrupted. “There is not a shred of truth in what you say. There is no such woman as Consuela Navarra.”

  “But there is,” Max said. “She traveled from England with me. I live with her in London. She was in the room next to me at the hotel. Ask the staff.”

  “We have. My men have made inquiries at the San Rafael. All the employees say you came alone.”

  “What? But that’s rubbish. We checked in together, we had breakfast together. Did you ask the waiter who served us? Or the other guests? There were two men in the dining room. They saw Consuela.”

  “We have questioned all the staff. None of them has seen this woman you claim was with you. There is no mention of her in the hotel register.”

  “Someone must have changed the register,” Max said.

  “And why would anyone do that?” Colonel Mantequillas asked.

  “I don’t know. But she was with me, I swear.” A thought came to him suddenly, and his hopes rose. “We had our passports examined at the airport when we arrived. Check with the airport. They’ll have a record of Consuela.”

  “We already have. There is no record of a Consuela Navarra entering the country.”

  “But that’s—”

  “Silence! You’ve made the whole thing up.”

  “No, I—”

  “I said silence!” The police chief’s dark, piercing eyes bored into Max’s face. Max felt his skin go cold and he had to look away. “Why are you here?” Colonel Mantequillas demanded. “Why did you come to Santo Domingo?”

  Max said nothing.

  “Answer me!” the police chief snapped. “Why are you here?”

  “To see my mother’s lawyer. You must know about my mother.”

  “Oh, yes, we know all about your mother,” Mantequillas sneered. “A convicted murderess. A woman who killed her own husband.”

  Max wasn’t going to allow that to go unchallenged, however frightened he was of the police chief. “That’s not true,” he said forcefully. “She didn’t kill my dad.”

  The colonel’s eyes narrowed. “Are you calling me a liar, boy?”

  “No, no,” Max said hurriedly. “But there are—” He stopped, biting his lip. It didn’t seem wise to go on.

  “Yes?” the police chief said. “There are what?”

  “Nothing,” Max said.

  “There are reasons to doubt her guilt? Is that what you were going to say?”

  “Sort of,” Max admitted.

  “And these reasons, what are they?”

  Max hesitated. But why not go on? Why not tell the chief of police what his force had got wrong?

  “What they said happened that night can’t have been right,” Max said. “My mum couldn’t have dragged my dad’s body all that way along the beach. She couldn’t have pulled the rowboat down to the water. She’s not strong enough.”

  “You’re saying my officers are incompetent? That their investigation was flawed?”

  “Yes.”

  Max braced himself for another sharp reprimand, or worse, but the police chief merely laughed. A low, chilling laugh that made Max shiver.

  “You have some nerve, boy, I’ll give you that,” Mantequillas said.

  “I’ve seen where it supposedly happened. I’ve been to the beach, looked at the rowboats.”

  “So you’ve been snooping around Playa d’Oro, have you?”

  “Why shouldn’t I go there?” Max said defiantly. “Or is that a serious offense here too?” he added rashly.

  �
�Careful, boy,” Colonel Mantequillas growled. “Don’t push me too far.”

  “I want the case reopened,” Max said, undeterred by the police chief’s tone. “My mum’s innocent. And I want a lawyer. You can’t lock me up like this. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “You’ve wasted your trip, I’m afraid. The case will not be reopened. As far as the Santo Domingo police and the Santo Domingo courts are concerned, the case is solved. We caught the right person and she has been duly punished. Nothing you say will make us change our minds.”

  “But you’re wrong,” Max said fiercely. “You have to look at it again.”

  “Don’t tell me what I have to do. Face the facts, boy. Your mother is guilty and will be in jail for the next eighteen years. You think about that on your flight home tomorrow.”

  “I’m not going home tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yes you are. You’ll be taken back to your hotel now and confined to your room. In the morning you will be put on a flight to Miami, and from there to London.”

  “You can’t do that,” Max protested.

  “I am the police chief of Rio Verde. I can do anything I like here.” Colonel Mantequillas pressed the intercom on his desk and spoke to someone in rapid Spanish. Moments later, the door opened and two uniformed police officers came in.

  “What about Consuela?” Max said quickly. “I have to find out what’s happened to her.”

  “Consuela Navarra does not exist.” The colonel glanced at the two officers. “Take him away.”

  The officers took hold of Max and escorted him from the room.

  The door had barely closed behind them when another door, to one side of the police chief’s desk, opened and a short, plump man entered the office. He was wearing a dark-gray suit, a waistcoat, and a tie, and he looked hot and flushed, his face gleaming with perspiration. “My goodness,” Rupert Penhall said. “It’s sweltering in here. Haven’t you people heard of air conditioning?”

  “You don’t like the heat, you should stay in London, Mr. Penhall,” Mantequillas said acidly.

  Penhall sat down in front of the desk and wiped his brow with a pink silk handkerchief. “I hope I won’t have to stay long,” he said. “You did well, Colonel. The boy was well and truly frightened.”

  The police chief grinned wolfishly. “Frightening people is my specialty,” he said.

  “You think he’s found out anything?”

  “Nothing we should worry about. He’s just a child. What can he possibly do to harm us?”

  Penhall pursed his fleshy lips. “He’s tougher than he looks, you know. We shouldn’t underestimate him.”

  The police chief waved a hand dismissively. “Pah, he knows nothing.”

  “He went out to Playa d’Oro. He’s a bright kid. Everything he said about the beach and the boat was correct.”

  “So? What difference does that make? Whatever he does or says, he will get nowhere in Santo Domingo. And you will make sure he gets nowhere in England.”

  “He went somewhere else this afternoon, when my man, Pratchett, lost him. You should have questioned him about that.”

  “Fortunately my men are more efficient than yours. He went to see the Gonzales family.”

  “The fisherman’s family? They know something?”

  “They were questioned vigorously after we killed Gonzales. They know nothing about his activities. They won’t be a problem.”

  “Keep a sharp eye on the boy, Colonel. He’s brave, determined, like his father.”

  “I have everything under control,” the police chief said.

  “What about the woman?”

  “Consuela Navarra? She is no threat either.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In a cell in the basement. After nightfall, I will have her taken out to the island.”

  Penhall gave a smile of satisfaction. “Good. They will know what to do with her.”

  11

  MAX WAS BACK IN HIS ROOM AT THE HOTEL San Rafael. The fear and anger he’d felt during his interview with the police chief had gone. He’d made sure of that. They were dangerous emotions that could do nothing to help him. He was calmer now and clearheaded. His thoughts were focused on one objective: getting away from his police guards.

  He sat back on his bed, propped up against a pillow, and stared across the room at the wall. He was locked in and he was being watched. He wasn’t onstage now. He had no props, no hidden keys to assist him. This wasn’t a show-business act, it was the real world.

  After a few minutes he slid off the bed, padded quietly over to the door and put his eye to the keyhole. There was a police officer stationed outside in the corridor, sitting on a chair facing Max’s door. He looked wide-awake and alert. Max straightened up and crossed to the window. The hotel, like much of Rio Verde, was built in the Spanish colonial style. His room had two French windows that opened inward, giving access to a small balcony edged with a waist-high wrought-iron railing. Max stepped cautiously onto the balcony and peered out. There was another officer standing in a doorway on the far side of the street, his gaze fixed on Max’s window.

  Max retreated and sat back down on the bed. This wasn’t going to be easy. But he couldn’t allow himself to be put on a plane home in the morning. He had to find out what had happened to Consuela—and to his dad. He knew it wasn’t a coincidence: There had to be a link between the two.

  He looked around the room. The French windows and the door were the only ways in or out. There were no ventilation grilles, no skylights, no bathroom with its own separate exit. Bathroom? The San Rafael was a cheap, old-fashioned hotel. None of the rooms had en suite bathrooms, but there was a communal bathroom just along the corridor—and that had a window overlooking the rear of the building.

  Max got to his feet. He went to the door and hammered on it. “Hey, you out there,” he called.

  “What you want?” the policeman in the corridor shouted back.

  “The toilet. I need the toilet. Do you understand?”

  There was a pause. Then a key scraped in the lock and the door opened.

  “You want toilet?” the policeman asked.

  “Yes.”

  Max wondered whether he could make a run for it; dodge round the copper and away down the corridor. But the policeman was watching him closely. He was a wiry man with an athletic build. He looked quick on his feet. Max knew he wouldn’t outrun him.

  “I come with you,” the policeman said.

  He grasped Max’s elbow tightly and led him along the corridor to the bathroom. There was an ancient, stained enamel bath with a shower over it at one side of the room and a separate toilet stall at the other. The window was between the two, immediately above a grimy washbasin.

  “I’ll be all right,” Max said. “You can wait outside in the corridor.”

  “No, I wait here.” The policeman leaned back on the bathroom wall and crossed his arms.

  Max could see there was no point in pushing him further. The copper wasn’t going to leave him alone for a second. He went into the stall and had a pee, then came out and washed his hands. The window was right in front of him now and it was already ajar. All Max had to do was push it wider, climb out, and drop the couple of yards to the ground. But before he could make his move, the policeman stepped forward to stand beside him.

  “You finish?” he said.

  “Yes, I’ve finished.”

  The policeman grabbed his elbow again and took him back to his room.

  He slumped down onto his bed and heard the key turn in the lock. So much for that idea.

  Escaping through the bathroom was out. So was any chance of evading the policeman. He seemed too smart to fall for a crude trick. That left the window as the only possible escape route, but there was still the policeman outside keeping watch.

  Max thought hard. He pictured the front of the hotel. There was an entrance in the middle with windows on either side; above that were three stories of bedrooms, each with its own balcony. How far apart were the balconie
s? That was important.

  Max went back over to the open window but dropped to the floor so the policeman in the street wouldn’t see him. He snaked forward and poked out his head cautiously. The balcony of the adjoining room—now apparently Señora Córdoba’s room—was two or three yards away. Max reckoned he could fling himself across that distance and grab hold of the iron railing around the balcony. But what good would that do? Even if the policeman in the street didn’t see him—and that was unlikely—Max would still have to sneak past Señora Córdoba and out into the corridor—the same corridor in which the first policeman was standing guard. Could Max slip out of Señora Córdoba’s room without the officer seeing him? He didn’t think so. Going sideways across the front of the building wasn’t going to work.

  How about hanging by his arms and dropping to the ground? He was only on the third floor. It couldn’t be more than ten feet to the street. But that seemed even less likely to succeed. The policeman at the front of the hotel would certainly catch him.

  That left only one other option. Max would have to climb up the building. He twisted his head and looked upward. The underside of the balcony above his was about eight feet away. If he stood on the railing of his own balcony and stretched out his arms, he might just be able to pull himself up. But that had the same drawback as climbing down. The policeman in the street would see him and raise the alarm.

  Max slithered back inside his room and weighed his options. He could remain where he was until morning and hope that a better opportunity to escape would present itself before the police got him to the airport and put him on the plane. But would such an opportunity arise? He’d be foolish to depend on it.

  Going up was his only option. It didn’t matter if the policeman in the street saw him climbing up the building. Seeing wasn’t the same as catching. The officer might start yelling; he might run into the hotel to alert his colleague. But if Max moved fast enough, he had a chance of getting away. And Max could move very fast when he had to.

  He checked his watch. It was nearly nine o’clock and it was dark outside, but Max knew he had to be patient; wait a few hours until the policemen began to get bored and sleepy. He had to catch them off guard.