“I don’t exactly recall,” Abraham replied, “but back in the 1950s, the Smith-Aidoos and Sarbahs were competing in the timber industry. Maybe there’s been bad blood to the present day.”
“In other words,” Dawson said, a smile playing at his lips, “Jason Sarbah kills Charles and Fiona in a modern version of the generations-long feud between the two families? And then on top of that, Jason gets to replace Charles at Malgam? It seems too convenient. You’ve been watching too many movies.”
They all laughed.
“I’ve been wondering about how the murderer could get two bodies out to the deep sea,” Dawson said. “Do you know anything about fishing canoes, Abe?”
“A little. I own a canoe myself.”
“Oh,” Dawson said, surprised. “What do you use it for?”
“About a year ago I began renting it out to fishermen who can’t buy their own canoes. They’re expensive, now that the price of wood keeps going up. I thought renting the canoe would bring in extra income, but it has been disappointing.”
“In that case,” Dawson said, “let me ask you something-maybe you know the answer. The Malgam oil rig is about seventy kilometers offshore, right?”
“Closer to sixty.”
“Okay. Let’s leave aside where exactly the Smith-Aidoos were shot. How would this canoe with the dead bodies get out that far? Can a fishing canoe go out sixty kilometers?”
“Oh, yes, easily.”
“With an outboard motor, then? You couldn’t possibly row that far.”
Abraham was amused. “City boy, you don’t row a canoe, you paddle it.”
“Sorry. Paddle, then.”
“Fishermen paddle out there all the time, Darko. Have you seen how strong these guys are? You are partly right, though, because in practice many fishermen split up the journey between paddle and outboard motor. Another alternative is use a sail.”
“If someone wanted to steer the canoe to the Malgam oil rig, how long would it take?”
“Six to eight hours. The sea currents are predominantly northeasterly, so if you set out for the rig from, say, Cape Three Points, whether paddling or by motor power, you have to continuously compensate for the current if you want to arrive at the intended destination. Are you thinking that the dead bodies were transported to the rig deliberately to display them?”
“It seems too coincidental that Dr. Smith-Aidoo’s aunt and uncle show up dead at the very rig on the very day she was working there.”
It wasn’t only that. Something else led Dawson to believe that a fundamental message invoking family ties was encoded in the bizarre scene of the canoe bearing two corpses: the old watch found in Charles’s mouth with the inscription
