She sat down to wait.
* * *
Mrs. Sanford and her maid emerged from the back door into the early-morning sunshine, both wearing long brown pinafores, both with a bucket in each hand. A humid breeze was ruffling the trees as they strode over the wet grass past the shrubbery and down to an enclosure at the bottom of the garden. Here they proceeded to release a huddle of bright-eyed hens from their coops. As the birds swirled around their ankles with trills and chatter, Mrs. Sanford scattered grain into troughs and poured water into trays, talking as she did so.
Dodie watched, totally absorbed by the contented scene. One woman so golden and slender, the other black and broad, as different as oil and water. Yet even from where she was hidden under the trees, Dodie could sense the affection that existed between them. For that moment she forgot why she’d come to Bradenham House or why she was loitering in a patch of shadow on her own. That was why she heard nothing behind her. Sensed no movement coming at her.
The hands that seized Dodie’s elbows from behind pinned her arms together, disabling her. She screamed with shock and tried to swivel around to catch sight of her attacker, but he knew exactly what he was doing. He yanked up her arms, forcing her forward as she fought in vain to wrench free from his grip.
She lashed out with her heels and connected with bone. Someone was screeching, yelling abuse, threatening to rip her heart out, but it was only when she hit the grass face-first with this man clamped to her back, the weight of him crushing her into the earth, that she realized the abuse and threats were coming from her own mouth.
She couldn’t stop them. Out flooded the words that she didn’t say when this happened three years ago. When she had fought in silence, too ashamed to scream. The words that had been stored in her head since then cascaded out of her mouth this time in a torrent of curses.
“Leave her!” a woman’s voice was shouting. “Let her go!” A pair of grass-stained canvas shoes came into focus inches from her nose, a pair of dainty ankles above them. “Detective, release her right now.”
Instantly the weight lifted off her back, but a strong hand still gripped one arm and dragged her to her feet. She was shaking and her cheeks were soaking wet—whether from tears or from the dew on the grass she had no idea. Her heart was grating against her ribs and she tasted blood in her mouth, slimy on her teeth, but the words had stopped. Where they had been inside her head was now an empty dark space.
* * *
They sat at the table in the kitchen, the three of them. Emerald stood by the stove, arms folded across her hefty bosom, her face puckered in a frown, her large teeth on show as if thinking of taking a bite out of someone.
“What are you doing here, Miss Wyatt?”
It was Detective Calder speaking, but Dodie didn’t look up. She stared at the cup of coffee in front of her and thought about throwing it in his face. The skin of her arms still held the impression of his fingers and her mind still fought against the submission he had forced on her.
“I came to see Mrs. Sanford.”
“Hiding under the trees? At seven o’clock in the morning. Trespassing? Spying on her? With a knife in your pocket?”
Put like that, it didn’t sound good.
“What,” he continued, “did you want to see Mrs. Sanford about?”
“That’s between me and Mrs. Sanford.”
She heard him exhale. Smelled the coffee on his breath. She was hunched in a ball and knew she looked guilty.
“Why the knife?” he asked.
“It’s only an old penknife. It was my father’s. I found it in the ashes of my house and just kept it in my pocket. There was no need”—she flicked her long hair forward to curtain her cheeks—“to attack me.” Still she didn’t look at him.
“Dodie—” Mrs. Sanford said softly.
“Miss Wyatt,” the detective interrupted, “I would like to point out that you were the one who did the attacking.”
“No.”
Again Mrs. Sanford’s steady voice. “It’s true, Dodie.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Calder’s tone was calm and reasonable. “I watched you for some time spying on Mrs. Sanford from under the trees and when I approached you from behind and held your arm, you exploded like a firework in my face.”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Miss Wyatt, but I was forced to restrain you.”
“Forced by whom?”
“By you. You became dangerous.”
“You had my arms pinned behind my back, so how could I be dangerous?”
A coffee-scented silence settled on the table.
“Look at Detective Calder,” Mrs. Sanford said.
Dodie forced herself to look. His face was bloodied. A bowl of ice sat at his elbow. On his left cheekbone a bruise was sending out purple tentacles as she looked at it and on the side of his neck was the clear oval outline of a bite. Each tooth had left its mark.
Color flooded Dodie’s cheeks. She wondered why he was even being polite to her.
“You done used that head of yours like a batterin’ ram,” the maid told her. “Don’t it hurt you none?”
“I’m sorry,” Dodie whispered through her hair.
All she could remember was his body crushing hers and the taste of grass and soil in her mouth. A moan crawled out between her teeth. At the sound of it, Mrs. Sanford abruptly left her chair and opened the back door.
“Miss Wyatt,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “I think you need some fresh air.”
Dodie was on her feet and out the door before the policeman could tie her to the table leg.
* * *
“Was that the crime?” Mrs. Sanford asked.
“What crime?”
Dodie didn’t want to talk. She was happy admiring the garden. There was a lushness to it and a beauty that slowly reeled her back from the edge. Dense swathes of tropical shrubs encircled the lawn and her gaze was drawn to the vibrant greens of their leaves and the shimmering shades of jade rather than to the bold splashes of scarlet and magenta of the heliconia and the hibiscus blooms. Their colors were almost overwhelming right now.
“The crime you told me that you reported before, but no one believed.”
“What about it?” Dodie asked.
“It was rape, wasn’t it?”
Dodie’s hand was poised over a succulent leaf that was almost purple, its color was so deep. She held her breath. It was the way she dealt with it. Whenever that image of a man tearing at her clothes, ramming her on to his desk, and ripping into her flesh flared up in her head, she held her breath. Starving it of oxygen was the only way she knew to put the flames out. So she held her breath and felt the pain recede.
“Yes,” she said bleakly, “it was rape.”
“I’m so sorry. But Detective Calder wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“I know. But he seized my arm and—”
“I understand. You panicked.”
Dodie steadied her breathing and looked at Mrs. Sanford, but her large blue eyes held no pity. No scorn. No fear of being in the presence of the unclean. Just concern and a flicker of sorrow.
“Who was it?” she asked.
“My boss. At the sewing factory where I worked.” It brought relief to let the words see daylight. “Afterward he spread it around that I was trouble and made it impossible for me to get a job anywhere. I almost starved.”
“And now?”
“I work at the Arcadia.”
“That’s Olive Quinn’s place.”
“Yes. She took me on when no one else would touch me.”
“Typical Olive. Always running against the tide.”
“I am grateful to her.”
Mrs. Sanford was standing near a bed of pure white roses. Their delicacy and freshness was such a sharp contrast to the vigorous growth
and vivid tropical colors of the rest of the garden that Dodie wondered whether they belonged to Mr. Sanford rather than to his wife. But Mrs. Sanford wasn’t looking at the roses, she was staring back at the house, her gaze narrowed on the kitchen window.
“It was shocking,” she told Dodie, “to see a man reduce a woman to nothing in my own garden. To strip her of respect the way Detective Calder did to you. He was just doing his job of protecting me, I know that. But it was so ugly.”
Dodie was not willing to talk about the ugliness. It felt like dirt in her mouth. “Do you need protecting?”
Mrs. Sanford smiled. “Do I look as if I do?”
“No.”
Mrs. Sanford looked once more at the kitchen window behind which they both knew the detective sat and she asked abruptly, “Why are you here, Miss Wyatt?”
“To ask if the person who introduced Morrell to you was Sir Harry Oakes.”
The woman’s eyes popped wide, her mouth open. “No. Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“Because he offered me a job.”
“I don’t see the connection.”
“Neither did I at first.”
“No, you’re mistaken. No, no, it wasn’t Sir Harry.”
Too many no’s, Mrs. Sanford. But Dodie liked her, despite her lies. Liked the way she looked at you as if she was really listening. Not many people did that to her.
“Coming in for breakfast, darling?”
Both women jumped. The unexpected request had issued from a man standing beside the rose bed. A solid and confident figure in a beautifully tailored pale suit, his hair combed to perfection with just a touch of macassar oil to keep it in place, and a way of looking at Mrs. Sanford that lit up his smooth face. Dodie had never seen that in a man before.
“Ah, Reggie, I’m just coming. Let me introduce Miss Wyatt.” She turned to Dodie. “This is my husband.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Wyatt. Are you joining us for breakfast?”
“No thank you, I have to go to work.”
She saw him glance at her waitress uniform but he smiled kindly and pointed to the chicken enclosure. “At least take some of those blasted eggs with you.”
“What do you do with all the eggs?” Dodie asked.
“She gives them away,” her husband answered. “She goes to all this trouble and then gives all the wretched things away free.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” He smiled indulgently at his wife. “Really.”
Mrs. Sanford returned the smile, but a flash of color had appeared high on her cheeks.
“I’m starving,” her husband announced cheerfully. “Breakfast time. Delighted to meet you, Miss Wyatt.” He beamed at her before taking himself off toward the house.
Neither woman spoke. Mrs. Sanford watched her husband’s straight back recede across the lawn, growing smaller with each step. An arrow of sunlight squeezed its way through the canopy of the trees and set the kitchen window on fire.
“You’re right, Dodie,” she said after a full minute. “It was Sir Harry Oakes who introduced me to Morrell.”
“Thank you.”
“So what next?”
“I have to find out who killed Mr. Morrell and burned down my house. Before they come for me again.”
Chapter 23
Ella
Ella sat stiffly in the passenger seat of the car. She was awkward around the policeman now. In the back of the Rover, as noisy as a cricket, Emerald was flirting with Detective Dan Calder. He was busy driving but that didn’t stop her. She’d perched her broad backside on the edge of the seat so that she could lean forward and swat his shoulder whenever he made a comment that amused her, and right now all his comments amused her.
Something was the matter. Something was hurting. But Ella didn’t know exactly what. Except that everything this morning made her feel as though the top layer of her skin was being scraped off by a blunt knife. Ever since she had spoken with the girl. Ella sat with an arm trailing out of the car window as if trying in her own discreet way to escape. She didn’t talk much. It didn’t matter because the other two were doing enough of it for all of them, and anyway it was too hot today.
The air hung limp and humid in the car, the sun dazzling on the windscreen and her blouse sticking to the back of the seat, so that it took an effort to move. They left behind the lavish pastel mansions that drowsed behind vivid green swathes of palm trees and pines, and the car slipped over the modest hill that divided white Nassau from black Nassau. Here in Bain Town the houses were really nothing more than small huts cobbled together from wood or corrugated metal, but they burst onto the eye bright and colorful. They were painted brilliant yellows and greens and blues, gaudy colors that seemed to dance in the street.
Dark-skinned ragamuffins were playing a game of hopscotch in the middle of the road, but as soon as they spotted Ella’s sleek car purr around the corner, they all swarmed around it and jumped up on its running boards for a ride. Watermelon grins split their young faces and small arms reached in to touch the golden waves of her hair.
“You had better stay in the car,” Ella told Calder, “if you don’t mind.”
“You think I’ll scare them off?”
She gave him a half smile. “Police don’t go down too well round here. I know you’re not in uniform but . . .”
“They’d gobble you up for dinner, Mr. Detective.” Emerald chuckled in the back. “And very tasty you’d be too.”
“Why, thank you, Emerald.”
Ella climbed out of the car and opened the boot. Bright little faces followed her every move as she removed a bag of sweets and handed them around.
“You spoil them kids somethin’ rotten, Miss Ella,” Emerald muttered as she hoisted a sack of rice out of the boot.
Women came ambling over from the houses, greeting her with smiles.
“How you doin’ today, Miss Ella?”
“The dear Lord takin’ good care of you?”
She doled out eggs and rice into their bowls and all regarded Calder with undisguised interest, bobbing their heads to inspect him through the car windows.
“You caught yourself a fine fellow there, Miss Ella. Been in a fight, by the look of him.”
“Ladies!” Ella laughed.
Bahamian women wore loud colors and possessed loud voices with big rolling laughs that could knock the birds from the trees. They worked hard, growing vegetables to sell in town and weaving their Bahamian bags, hats, and dolls of straw to take to the straw market down by the harbor. But times were hard. The war had put an end to foreign visitors who were the easy-money customers, but the city was busy with the military presence on the island, so many women had abandoned the traditional crafts and taken to employment in the hotels and bars instead.
“Leah, have you got a minute?” Ella called out to a woman in a scarlet dress.
“Sure, Miss Ella.”
She ambled over to where Ella was standing by the car. That was the thing about Bahamian women, they never liked to be hurried.
“How’s that son of yours?” Ella asked pleasantly.
“My Joshua? He’s just fine.”
“Still working for Sir Harry?”
“Oh yes, he surely is, thanks be to our dear Lord in heaven.”
“At the British Colonial Hotel?”
“Sometimes there or sometimes out on the land beyond Oakes Airfield, drivin’ one of Sir Harry’s tractors. He likes that.”
Leah had ten children and a backside broad enough to carry the lot of them. Her husband was a quiet respectful man but one who unfortunately liked his ganja weed too much.
“Is Joshua still aiming to join the Bahamian police force one of these days?” Ella asked.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Calder turn in his seat to stare at the woman.
“Sure
is,” Leah answered. “Got his heart set on it.”
“My friend here might be able to help with that.”
Leah ducked her head to the open window and took a long look at Calder. “You a cop from England?”
Obligingly he stepped out of the car and stood tall next to her. “I am.”
Leah eyed his muscular frame and ran a fat pink tongue over her lips. “Okay, what you wantin’, Miss Ella?”
Ella chose her words carefully. “I was just wondering whether Joshua sometimes heard things at work, picked up gossip. That kind of thing.”
Leah’s eyes grew huge. “Gossip about what?”
“About Sir Harry Oakes.”
Leah shuffled her feet. “Well, yes”—she lowered her voice—“sometimes he does.” She hesitated and let her eyes roam back to Calder, as though checking whether he was part of the deal. “Joshua says Sir Harry has had a lot of trouble lately.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Rows and arguments.” Leah leaned forward, her bosom swaying dangerously. “In the hotel. Behind closed doors.” She frowned. “My Joshua takes coffee into Sir H’s office of a mornin’ and he’s heard him a heap of times yelling down the phone line. Real bad, he says.”
“Sir Harry can get irate sometimes, I know,” Ella encouraged. “Did Joshua hear what any of the rows were about or who was on the receiving end?”
Leah pointed a finger at Calder, almost stabbed him in the chest with it. “You remember this, Mr. Policeman, when my boy comes calling. Just needs a helping hand. His name is Joshua Tuttle. He’s a smart kid.”
Calder nodded solemnly. “If your son is a good candidate, I will do whatever I can to help his application, I promise.”
“You won’t get my Joshua into no trouble, will you, Miss Ella?”
“No, of course not.”
“Them quarrels were about a contract. And the other man was a Mr. Christie.”
“Harold Christie? The land agent? But he and Sir Harry are good friends. They play golf together.”
The Far Side of the Sun Page 13