and the clapper was formed by Buque Island, separated from the main island by Pascua Channel. Opposite Buque Island was the capital of San Martin. Two misshapen peninsulas on opposite coasts represented the trunnions by which the bell would be hung. Northwards, at the top of the ‘bell’, was a coral formation, almost atoll-like, forming a perfect ring called El Cerco, which represented the ring to which the bell rope would be attached. Nature was imitating art in a big way.
Further study was profitless so I slept.
III
My hotel in San Martin grandly called itself the Royal Caribbean. It was new, which just goes to show that there is no one more royalist than a good republican. The foyer was lined with one-armed bandits which, on inspection, proved to be fuelled by silver dollars. All around could be heard the cadences of American speech from the guests and the slurred English of the Campanillans who worked there.
On my way in from Benning, the island’s international airport, two things had struck me: the smell of prosperity and the oppression of the heat. Both were almost tangible. San Martin, a clean and well-scrubbed town, was fringed on the skyline with cranes as new high-rise buildings went up. The traffic in the streets was heavy – flashy American cars driving incongruously on the left, British-style. The shops in the main streets were opulent and the crowds thronging the pavements were, on the whole, well-dressed. As for the heat, it had hit me like a wall as soon as I stepped off the plane. Even at this time of year, it was enough to make a pallid Englishman gasp.
I checked in at the hotel, showered off the stickiness, and went down again to sniff some more atmosphere. On the way out I stopped at the desk, and asked, ‘I suppose you have a newspaper here?’
‘Yes, sir; the Chronicle. You can buy a copy at the news stand there.’
‘Where is the Chronicle office?’
‘Cardew Street, sir. Two blocks along and turn right.’
There is nothing like reading the local paper for picking up a quick feel of a place. A newspaper is a tribal noticeboard which tells you what people are doing and, to a certain extent, thinking and saying. I’m a behaviourist myself and take more notice of what people do rather than what they say. The old saw ‘actions speak louder than words’ is truer than most proverbs, and I wanted to find out what people had been doing round about the time Salton had died.
I walked along the street in the hot sun and stopped at the first men’s outfitters I came to. I bought a light, linen suit more in tune with the climate than the one I was wearing, and paid for it by credit card, which was accepted without question. I wore the new suit and asked that the old one be sent to the hotel. Then I carried on towards the Chronicle office.
It looked and smelled like newspaper offices all over the world, a composite of library paste, newsprint, ink and suppressed tension. A press rumbled somewhere in the bowels of the building. When I asked to see the back file for the previous month, I was shown into a glass-walled office and seated in front of a scarred deal table. Presently the file was put before me. On its front was a pasted notice promising unimaginable punishments for anyone criminal enough to clip items from the pages.
I opened it and took a random sampling. Prices were high generally and food prices exceptionally so. The price of housing made me blink a little. Cigarettes, liquor and petrol were cheaper than in England but clothing was more expensive. That I already knew; the cost of my linen suit had been damn near the Savile Row level and the quality not a tenth as good.
I turned to the employment columns and did a quick rundown of wage levels. What I found didn’t look good: while prices rose above North American levels, wages were lower than European, which didn’t leave much scope for gracious living on the part of the working populace.
This was reflected in the political pages. It seemed there was an election coming up in a month or so and the government party appeared beleaguered. A small extreme left-wing party made up for shortage of numbers by a lot of noise, and a larger and more central opposition party threatened reform when it came to power. Meanwhile the Prime Minister made soothing sounds and concessions.
Pretty soon the name of Salton popped up, making a pugnacious speech against the ruling party:
‘This toadying government must stop licking the boots of foreigners for the sake of private profit. There must be an end to cheap concessions by which foreign gangsters can make their fortunes while our schools are understaffed. There must be an end to the pernicious system whereby foreign companies can filter untold millions of dollars through our country at no cost to themselves, while our own hospitals are neglected. There must be an end to the continual rise in prices at a time when the wage structure is depressed. I promise the Prime Minister that he will know the true mind of Campanilla during the forthcoming election, despite the activities of his hired bully boys.’
Evidently Salton had caught it from both sides. The Prime Minster, the Honourable Walden P. Conyers, responded smoothly: ‘It has been brought to my notice by the Department of Immigration that Mr Salton has not given up his American citizenship. He would be advised to do so before complaining about those enlightened foreign companies who have done so much to bring prosperity to this island.’
On the other side, a left-winger snarled acidly about two-faced millionaires who wrote wishy-washy liberal speeches while sipping martinis on the terraces of their expensive villas as their well-paid overseers were grinding the faces of the native poor. That sounded familiar, as did the call for instant revolution by the down-trodden proletariat.
I flicked through some more recent editions and came to a big splash story, emblazoned with a full-page picture of Salton. He must have been a really big wheel for his death to have made the commotion it did. The first thing I felt was the sense of shock that permeated the initial accounts; it seemed as though the reporter couldn’t really believe what he was writing. Then the accusations began to fly, each wilder than the last, while riots broke out on the streets and the police had their hands full.
It was hard to reconcile these accounts of civil unrest with the well-oiled gentility I’d seen outside on Cardew Street, but I soon found out the reason. The inquest had quietened things down considerably and the rioting stopped on the day that Dr Winstanley stood in the witness box and announced that Salton had died of natural causes. When asked if he was sure about that, he replied stiffly that he had performed the post-mortem examination himself and he was quite certain.
Mrs Salton gave evidence that her husband had had heart trouble six months earlier. This was corroborated by Dr Collins, his personal physician. When Mrs Salton was asked if her husband habitually went out by himself in a small dinghy, she replied that after his heart attack she had asked him not to continue this practice, but that he had not given up sailing alone.
The verdict, as Jolly had informed me back in London, was death by natural causes.
Salton’s funeral was attended by all the island dignitaries and a few thousand of the common people. Conyers made a speech, sickening in its hypocrisy, in which he mourned the loss of a noble fellow-countryman. After that, Salton pretty much dropped out of the news except for an occasional reference, usually in the financial pages, concerning the activities of his companies. No one can be forgotten quicker than a dead man.
I turned back to the obituary and was making a few notes when I became aware that someone had come into the room. I looked up and saw a podgy, balding man watching me intently. He blinked rapidly behind thick-rimmed glasses and said, ‘Interesting reading?’
‘For those who find it interesting,’
