Harvest of Scorn by F.G. Cottam

Author:F.G. Cottam [Cottam, F. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Agora Books

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In calm weather, Dave Carter and his lads had taken to doing exactly what Derek Johnson had told Helena Davenport could be done to make their radio transmitter function effectively. They’d haul the kit aboard an R.I. and head for a point 800 metres offshore and drop anchor and fire it up battery powered to report into Baxter Enterprises H.Q. away from whatever interference contaminated the island’s atmosphere, the signal crystal clear, strong and completely steady.

Thus they got four hours warning that the chief was paying them a visit. This short-notice was completely characteristic of the man. He paid well enough that people shouldn’t be sleeping on the job. Any disorganisation or dishevelment, any sign of poor practice or sloppy maintenance and someone would pay for it with dismissal, shipped back to the mainland ignominiously and without a penny’s compensation.

There was no chance of that happening. Their barbecue had been Dave Carter getting as sloppy as he ever did and that had been on their own time, off-duty. Professionally, he was punctilious and more than competent. So when the helicopter chuntered into sight on the eastern horizon there was no panic or nervousness among the little delegation gathered by the old colony dock to greet it. They were actually looking forward to seeing Felix Baxter. He was a lively character, down-to-earth, full of energy and brimming with wisecracks, generous with the bonuses he tended to splash about.

They’d cranked up the heating at the complex. The windows there, subdued in sunlight because of the glass Helena Davenport had deliberately chosen, nevertheless sparkled. The façade was free of bird shit and spindrift scum and salt. It looked immaculate in its splendid isolation, Johnson thought, except it didn’t really look isolated, because it looked so much as though it belonged. Helena was a talented woman. Terrible taste in movies, but a genuinely gifted architect.

They’d told no one about the message left on the bathroom mirror. After considering it for the forty minutes it took to reach the spot on the way back to the camp on their quads, Johnson pulled up and first told Carter about the discovery of the incisor and then dug out and showed it to him. He thought it irresponsible and amateurish to do otherwise, really. If the maintenance crew faced a real hazard, their leader should know about it, he reasoned. This was particularly true since the tooth had probably belonged to the man Carter had recently replaced.

Carter had winced looking at the tooth, smelling the pungent stink the rotting circle of gum gave off close-to.

‘You’re an ex-copper, Deggsy,’ he said. ‘Your boys are all either that or they’re ex-forces. You’re trained for what people like you call hostile scenarios. I’m not. If that was pulled out of Greg Cody’s jaw, I’m completely out of my depth.’

‘We’re all out of our depth,’ Johnson said. ‘The message on the mirror proves we’re not alone on the island. Cody’s disappearance suggested the intruder means us harm and this only goes to prove it.

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