“Light a fire, then!” Dupont commanded, his voice slightly shaky. “Fetch driftwood, use flint and tinder! If this is truly a thing of the devil, let us treat it as we would a witch!”
Bertrand was fascinated and yet also repulsed by the melee around the wounded entity. He forced himself to step forward and get a clearer look at the creature. It was not easy. Soldiers now thronged around the animal, which was chittering furiously and still struggling. As well as the colonel’s sword, two more bayonets now impaled the beast, but it showed no sign of dying. It was in pain, though, and seemed to be full of rage and hatred at the men who tormented it.
“Burn it! Burn it!”
The chorus went up, and Bertrand shuddered. As a young man in France, he had heard much the same cry, only with the variation ‘Burn the witch!’ And the so-called witches had burned, most of them harmless old women who offered herbal cures, some who had been unwise enough to spit out a curse in a dispute with a neighbor.
But now, he thought, I am facing something that is truly evil. This creature—what can it be but an emissary of Satan? Thus, my faith is confirmed by the presence of evil.
Flaming torches were thrown onto a pile of driftwood, which caught fire unevenly and emitted choking clouds of smoke. Despite this, the colonel and his men shoved the impaled creature into the flames. It still moved and even managed to pull itself free of one bayonet. There was a smell of burning cloth and burning meat. The beast screamed in agony and rage.
The spectacle was truly nightmarish as the young captain strode forward, aimed his pistol at the tiny head, and fired. The ball went straight through, spattering dark blood and brains. But despite the massive damage to its skull, the diminutive monster did not die. One of the soldiers lifted it out of the fire on the end of his bayonet and threw the smoking, wriggling creature onto the sand. More bayonet stabbings ensued but to no effect.
“The wounds are healing. It cannot be killed!” gasped the young officer.
Heads turned, and Bertrand felt the pressure of expectation upon him. Hands urged him forward. The secular powers had failed to destroy the creature; now, it was up to God’s representative. He was still saying his rosary under his breath. Suddenly, he thought of a possible solution, a simple one.
“Let me through, men,” he said, trying to sound courageous, decisive, and not a fat old man out of his theological depth. He lifted the rosary so that the soldiers could see the shining cross, the tiny image of the Savior in the uncertain firelight. Then he bent down and threw the rosary over the neck of the creature. The familiar screeched and tore at the beads with tiny paws, but Bertrand saw that it could not dislodge the rosary. Instead, it lay quivering, finally subdued.
“It is powerless; the holy symbol has prevailed!” he shouted, sounding more confident than he felt.
“All very well,” said one of the onlookers, “but what do we do with the little demon now?”
There was a pause, then the governor shouted for a rope.
“Sling it over a bough, on that tree,” he went on, pointing. “Hang the thing up so those bastard boucaniers can see it. Make it clear to them that their hero is vanquished, and his black magic counts for nothing now.”
It was simple to make a little noose and fling the rope over a tree limb. Then Bertrand put the noose around the beast’s neck, extemporizing a silent prayer as he did so.
Oh Lord, let this be the end of all this madness.
It only took one man to hoist the semi-paralyzed familiar up so that it swung, neck bent, from the jungle tree. The soldiers stood and stared, mouths open, as the creature twitched feebly and seemed to shake a tiny fist. There was no sense of triumph.
The quality of the light had changed as the fire on the beach died down. The sun had set now, with that tropical swiftness that often surprised folk from cooler climes. Bertrand became aware of another kind of radiance, an unearthly light illuminating the pale sand around him. He turned to look in the opposite direction of the sunset.
Rising over the jungle near the edge of the cove, huge and ominous, was the full moon.
***
“That’s it?” Sara asked. “They all went home and lived happily ever after?”
Joe frowned at the screen, clicked another link.
“Seems like the connection between the full moon and the shipwreck was historical fact,” he said slowly. “This guy says there was a weird storm, the Vengeur broke up on our reef, and there were no survivors. But something else happened later, a ‘horrific incident’, that kind of established the legend of Lemaitre. This guy says it may not be true, that it’s likely they really did just hang a monkey that got washed ashore. Story goes they were drunk, it was just the captain’s pet, but the booze and their belief in Lemaitre being a kind of sorcerer made them crazy. Hey, it quotes a song the British made up when they captured Sainte Isabel from Napoleon. Wanna hear it?”
“Only if you sing it,” Sara insisted. “You have such a lovely voice.”
“I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, and you know it,” he replied. “But I will read it in the sonorous tones of Sir Patrick Stewart if you like?”
“God, no, spare me that,” Sara moaned.
Joe cleared his throat and began to read in a voice, as Sara interrupted to point out, that suggested Jean-Luc Picard had suffered a serious hernia.
‘In former times, when war and strife
And privateers did threaten life
And all men armed to the knife,
The Frenchmen hanged the monkey Oh!
‘When the poor beast squealed in abject fear
The Frenchies said it was plain to hear
The Devil’s curse in every ear
For the Frenchies had got drunky Oh!
‘Those Frenchmen who with courage high,
Seized on the beast for a demon spy
“Hang him!” says one; “He’s got to die”
They did and hanged the monkey Oh!’
“Now that,” Joe said, smiling, “is what I call common sense. It goes on to say that for years the Brits called the Francophone islanders ‘Monkey Hangers’, but apparently, that’s not so common now. A little un-PC, maybe. So, drunken soldiers, hapless hairy victim.”
“Yeah, but the Brits would so make up that kind of story about the French,” Sara protested. “What about the rest of the legend? I want my folklore fix!”
Joe did some more clicking and scrolling, but then shut the laptop with finality and set it on the bedside table.
“Look, these legends that go back centuries? You can keep exploring them pretty much forever. And you’re right,” he went on, seeing her expression, “we should understand local folklore, especially if it’s been used against us. But remember, we’ve got to make a real business succeed in the real world, and no amount of spells or charms or prayers will change the facts. There’s corruption; we have to fight it. And fight smart.”
Sara had to agree. What rational person wouldn’t?
“What do you mean by smart, exactly?”
“I’ve already contacted a few guys, and Ryan has agreed to get in touch with his old man. If I can get hold of Laplace, well, he might blab as to who’s behind this whole thing. The Deep Star outfit must have bribed someone high up, probably quite a few people…”
They discussed the possible scope of the corruption behind the salvage venture, but Sara quickly grew tired of the speculation. She proposed that they do something more interesting while they had the house to themselves. Joe seconded the motion. An hour or so later, they were both in a deep, satisfying sleep.
It was just after two in the morning when Sara surfaced from a murky, muddled dream. The dream had featured Keri and Joe standing on the end of the unfinished jetty, both frantically gesturing to her as she sank under the waves. There was some kind of alarm sounding, perhaps to summon the lifeguard. Then she realized it was Joe’s phone. He was already groping for it and managed to knock it onto the floor. He half-fell out of the bed to retrieve it.
“It’s Laplace,” he exclaimed, face illuminated by the small screen. “I’ll set it to speakerphone. Philippe? Slow down.”
The islander’s voice sounded high-pitched, stressed. There was none of the urbane charm Laplace had tried to project before. In fact, he sounded frightened to Sara. There was some unidentifiable background noise, and Laplace slipped into the local French dialect at one point. But most of what he said was comprehensible.
“I need to meet you, both of you… I’m sorry, I didn’t want to get into this. Some bad people are involved… I did my best, but there’s too much at stake…”
“Philippe?” Sara said. “Where are you? We can come see you.”
Then came what might have been a French sentence, gabbled out rapidly. The last part of it sounded to Sara like ‘shellac ran’, which made no sense. Then Laplace reverted to English.
“I will come and see you tomorrow, tell you everything…”
The call ended abruptly. They sat in silence for a few moments, then Sara spoke.
“Call him back?”
Joe grunted, dialed the number. It rang, then went to Laplace’s voicemail. Joe left a carefully worded ‘call me’ message. Then they lay in silence for a while.
“We still need to get a good night’s sleep,” Sara said. “I think I’ll get some water. Want any?”
Joe demurred and Sara went into the kitchen. The moon had risen over the jungle, and she noticed that it was almost full. She wondered how many people would be locking their doors in a few days’ time, along with Hyacinth’s mother and aunties. Then she dismissed all thoughts of ghosts and demons. The rest of her night was untroubled by dreams.
***
“Wakey wakey, rise and shine!”
Joe brought her breakfast in bed. He had been up since dawn, he explained, and it was now after seven, so she would have to shake her tailfeathers to be ready for the crew to arrive.
“Did you call Laplace?” she asked.
“I called him three times,” Joe frowned. “Maybe he chickened out, went back into hiding. Hell, maybe he’s just gone for good. We might be better off without him.”
Sara enjoyed her eggs, waffles, juice, and French toast. Joe was a good cook, better than Sara, and she often thought he would be the natural homemaker if they started a family. But that, like the Ryan problem, was another issue that he never wanted to talk about.
It was just before half-past eight when Jimmy, the foreman, arrived, his white Ford van leading a small convoy of vehicles. Joe’s offer of extra money for an early start had worked its magic. Jimmy had arrived with a whole extra list of problems and queries, and the Hansens walked over to the main site to deal with them. But before they could get down to details, one of the workmen who were milling around pointed at the jungle and shouted something.
“What?” Sara asked, wondering if the boucaniers were up to something. “What is it?”
“I’m, I’m not sure, madame,” said the man, but his face was gray with shock. “There’s… something hanging from that tree.”
The workman, Sara quickly discovered, was a sharp-eyed young man. She had to walk nearly ten yards closer to the tree that he indicated to see for sure what was dangling from a bough. Then she stopped and stood, struggling to accept reality.
“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Joe, putting a protective hand on her shoulder.
They would never find out what Philippe Laplace had wanted to tell them, or at least, not from the man’s own lips. Sara found herself staring at his feet. One was still shod in a stylish, mushroom-colored loafer. The other shoe had fallen off and lay on the sandy soil under the tree. Laplace’s body spun lazily in the sea breeze, turning first one way and then the other. The man’s neck was twisted at a crazy, sickening angle and his eyes protruded. Sara looked back at his feet again, at the bright Argyll pattern of the exposed sock. Then she turned aside to throw up her breakfast.
Chapter 9: Aftermath of a Hanging
This time, the Sainte Isabel police department arrived in force, sirens wailing and lights flashing. A convoy of three vehicles arrived, followed by an ambulance to collect the body after the crime scene had been inspected. Sara had seen this played out in so many movies and TV shows, but it felt banal to see it happening in front of her.
It had taken nearly half an hour from the initial call for the police to get to the cove. Joe had been pacing up and down and cursing out anyone who tried to take phone footage of the dangling corpse. Sara’s first instinct, after she recovered from her nausea, had been to cut down Laplace, in case he was still alive. Joe had dissuaded her by walking up to the body, lightly touching the man’s hand, and pronouncing it cold.
“Fair enough,” said Charity Lomax, who was taking her statement. “No way a man could survive being hung up there for more than a few minutes.”
Several yards away, a senior officer, Inspector Banks, was talking to Joe. Three police constables were interviewing Jimmy and his construction crew. In the background, Sara saw another man wearing a police uniform replete with medal ribbons. He was stocky, assured, with short-cropped white hair. He looked vaguely familiar.
“That’s the commissioner,” said Lomax. “And yes, he is my dad. A lot of people notice the resemblance. As you can imagine, a lot of people think I got my job because of him. I have to be twice as professional as the next guy. Sorry if that makes me seem unsympathetic, but that’s how it is.”
Sara took the information in but couldn’t think through the implications. She was still too numb from shock.
“You’re sure you didn’t hear anything in the night?” Lomax asked, pen poised over her notebook. “No vehicles, nobody talking out here?”
“No, we… well, we got a phone call from… from the victim, from Philippe,” said Sara.
“Did he sound frightened?” Lomax asked.
“Yes! He was scared and wanted to meet up and talk. He ended the call abruptly, but when Joe called back, it just went to voicemail.”
“Did he name any particular individual that he was afraid of?”
“No,” said Sara, hesitantly, “but he did say something in French I didn’t understand.”
“What?” asked Lomax, pen at the ready.
“I, I couldn’t make it out,” Sara said. “I don’t really know French, and it was kind of garbled.”
Lomax nodded, made a note, went on to try to pin down specific times as to when people arrived and departed from the site. It was all very businesslike. But Sara could see fear on the faces of several of the workers and knew that this latest incident might prove the final straw.
This could be the end for us, she thought. We might be bankrupt by this time next month.
Sara felt guilty about seeing Laplace’s death as a financial disaster for her and Joe. She realized she knew very little about the man’s family, not even if he was married or had kids. She almost asked Lomax, but the detective briskly ended the interview and informed her that, as a ‘person of interest’, she should not leave the island for the time being.
“We’ll require your passports immediately,” the detective added. “Just until we eliminate you from our inquiries. Once the investigation is over, we will return them of course.”
“We’re not suspects, surely?” Sara protested. “Why would we murder him?”
Lomax gazed levelly back at her with dark, dispassionate eyes.
“You were in dispute with Laplace over financial matters. You felt he was corrupt and hampering your business venture,” she said. “Of course, there are other possibilities. But when someone is murdered, nine times out of ten the killer—or killers—are known to the victim.”
“Why would we hang his body next to our house, for God’s sake?”
Sara realized she was shouting now, all the stress of the morning conspiring to make her seem unbalanced. Lomax shrugged.
“Maybe to throw us off the scent,” she suggested. “But this phone message might prove crucial in exonerating you both. If it says what
you claim it does.”
Sara watched open-mouthed as the detective walked over to Banks. The officer compared notes with the commissioner, who kept glancing over at Sara. Joe, his interview over, rejoined Sara, and they hugged.
“Can’t believe this,” he said. “Like a nightmare. Just when you think you’ve turned the corner, got things back on track.”
Sara tried to find words but couldn’t. Instead, she pulled away from Joe and watched two paramedics carrying away a stretcher covered with a blanket. A single loafer had been placed on top of the corpse. She looked over at the tree, now sealed off by police incident tape. A photographer was packing up his equipment. It was over, and Sara felt even more disoriented. A place where a man had died was now nowhere in particular again.
The photographer was boxing up his fancy camera.
“Paw prints,” Sara said. “There were paw prints.”
They had not registered at the time. But now, she saw them in her mind’s eye. She started to walk toward the police cordon, Joe following. The photographer saw her coming, frowned, and gestured.
“You can’t cross the tape, ma’am,” the man warned.
Sara did not reply. She stood against the striped tape and scanned the ground for the marks she remembered. But of course, they were not there. All she saw was the way a dozen sets of human footprints had disturbed the ground. If a tiny creature had scampered around the scene of Philippe Laplace’s grim, lonely death, there was no evidence now.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. I guess.”
***
Foreman Jimmy, to his credit, tried to persuade the crew to stay on. But his efforts, like Joe’s offer of double pay for regular hours, had been in vain.
“This place is cursed,” said the sharp-eyed guy who’d spotted the dangling corpse. “Everybody knows that. My old woman, she gives me an ear bashing about this every morning. Imagine what she’ll say now. I can’t take the risk, man!”
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