Operation Nassau by Dorothy Dunnett Read Free Book Online Page A

and Brady the next, which reduced my slight lead, but not enough to concern me: I was clearly the better player of the two. As we turned from the sea I noticed, a little way out in the channel, the long white lines of a gaff-rigged ketch tacking idly in the light wind: her power boat was quite clearly missing. Someone on Dolly had risen early this morning. I wondered who was ashore. Spry or Johnson; and where. The thought gave me confidence, and at the next hole I got a birdie which Brady, unlike many of his sex, took in good part. After the doubtful start at the Trueman Hotel, I was finding him mildly congenial.
    He kept his good temper even at the end when we finished our nine holes, he one over and I one under par. There was time for coffee, but he would not consider help-yourself instant on the terrace and asked me instead to wait and accompany him to the hotel. Thus it was that I entered the pro’s shop to look round while he paid for the cart.
    As usual, the golf-bags looked like elephant howdahs, and there was a display of crossed irons which would have done credit to the Great Hall at Inverary itself. The guest-book was open on the counter, where he had written our names, and below it were the names of the players behind us, including the foursome whom I could now hear playing the ninth. Three of the names gave Nassau addresses: the fourth gave no address at all, not even Scotland.
    But the name was MacRannoch. T. K. MacRannoch. The name of James Ulric’s despised heir.
    It was the merest coincidence, but I always prefer to make certain. I walked out of the pro’s shop, almost bowling over Wallace Brady, who was coming to find me. I had no time for Brady just then. I was looking at the fourth, sober member of the gaily dressed foursome, who was occupied, head bent, in holing an extremely difficult putt. He looked up, smiling, and I saw that my native sixth sense had not failed me. The player was Japanese.
    ‘What’s the pitch?’ said Wallace Brady eventually, after we had driven in silence to the hotel complex, walked through the darkened casino with its covered tables and clicking, glimmering rows of one-armed bandits and up through the simulated leopard-skin to a lounge where we could sit and have coffee. ‘You don’t like playing golf with poor performers? I thought gilt-edged was weakening there for a bit.’
    He had, after all, paid for the round. ‘I beg your pardon,’ I said. ‘I enjoyed the game very much. I dare say I have more practice than you do. I play whenever I can.’
    ‘Outside Mickey Wright, I don’t know who you’d have trouble beating,’ said Brady. ‘Did you ever think of becoming professional?’
    I have, of course. There is a great deal of money in golf. But one needs money, or backing, to start with. I said, ‘Some day, perhaps. My father has multiple allergic sensitivity, and it will be difficult to leave Nassau until he improves.’
    He had an extremely deep suntan, in which his eyes were quite pale, but the eyeballs unveined and apparently healthy. It was hard to guess his profession. ‘You miss your home, Dr MacRannoch?’ he said.
    Across the lounge I had just spotted the back of Johnson’s head. The question reminded me of my anger. ‘Unfortunately,’ I said, ‘I have little chance to do so. My father is head of a Scottish clan , Mr Brady, and is prone to bring his surroundings with him, wherever he goes.’
    ‘His drapes, you mean?’ He looked slightly bewildered.
    ‘His clansmen, I mean,’ I said, no doubt with some grimness. ‘Didn’t you see the register at the clubhouse? T. K. MacRannoch.’
    ‘You don’t say?’ He looked duly astonished. Then he said, ‘Well, I wouldn’t bawl out the old man too quickly. There are an awful lot of Scots in the Bahamas.’
    There may be, but they are not all MacRannochs. The word gets round. Even among the unwanted, like T. K. MacRannoch, the word travels like typhoid. I said, ‘I knew it. Father is planning a