The Bone Readers

by Jacob Ross

  Cornwall kept to himself. He was Chilman’s age – a man under whose weight the floorboards creaked whenever he crossed the office. Mornings, with his eyes on his door ahead of him, Cornwall heaved past us, grumbled a single sour greeting. He spent the rest of the day in his office. I’d checked his initials against the list I copied from the archives, then studied his employment history. He lived in Saint Patrick’s parish but had spent most of his working life in San Andrews.

  I waited until he closed his door, went over and knocked. Knocked again until I heard a grunt. He looked up at me, his forehead creased, the thick face sullen.

  ‘Yeh?’

  ‘I’m Digson, Sir, I…’

  ‘I know who you is. You one ov Chilman lil boys. What you want?’ He threw me a steady appraising look.

  ‘Sir. I figure that Buckman ‘Boko’ Hurd was the armourer in your time?’

  ‘“Your time!” You saying this is not my time too?’

  ‘Nuh, but I talking about May ’99. Y’was posted in San Andrews at the time?’

  He’d dropped his folder. I watched his hands – heavy, thick-fingered – rubbing against each other.

  ‘You trying to tell me something?’

  ‘Nuh, Sir. I asking if you know Buckman Hurd and where I could locate him.’

  He was looking at me closely, a gaze that made me feel pinned down.

  ‘Why you don’ ask the man who bring you in here?’

  ‘Is just one simple question, Sir. I want to know if you remember Boko and if so where I could find him.’

  ‘That’s two question, not one and I not goin’ answer none of them. Go talk to your boss.’

  He turned back to his papers.

  I felt dismissed. I swallowed and look down on the bowed head. ‘Officer Cornwall, Sir, somebody do you something?’

  He erupted from his desk. I pulled back, felt the heat flare up in my head. The door swung open suddenly and Chilman’s turkey neck pushed in. What came from him was a sound that grated out of his guts.

  ‘Take my advice, Conman! Keep pushin them useless paper until your pension ready. You ain got long to go.’

  Chilman nudged me out of the space with his elbow. I left him there, shoulder against the frame staring down the man.

  9

  DS Chilman suddenly got the separate office he’d been fighting for. It was a long white concrete building that workmen gutted, painted and refurbished in a week. It stood above the open marketplace, separated from it by two streets, with a small courtyard that was fenced in by a five-foot wall. There was no sign on the door, no indication of the work we did inside.

  Ms. Maureen chose the change to announce her retirement, said she wouldn’t have the pleasure of being with us in our new place. She smiled at us all, then broke down on Chilman’s shoulder. The old fella fell into a nasty mood and remained sour for the rest of the day.

  Malan, Pet, Lisa and I fought over our preferred spaces while Chilman drew what looked like an octopus on the whiteboard that we’d stuck against the wall.

  He shut us up with a loud wet cough and pointed at the creature. ‘The brains – an that don’t mean the head – is San Andrews CID.’

  Each police division was a tentacle feeding us the information we needed to do the job.

  Malan raised a finger, ‘I don’t see no teeth. How we going to bite?’

  Chilman laughed. ‘Malan, I always suspect you got rabies.’ He looked around the office and grinned. I could almost see the ole fella dancing inside his dried-up frame. Chilman slapped the leather bag against his leg and headed for the door.

  He tossed the words over his shoulder. ‘Prepare y’all self for hard work, because from now on, they going throw everything at us. From children thiefing marble to ole ooman who can’t find she fowl cock. Just to make us crash. We got a torrid year ahead, but they dunno that’s egg-zackly what I want to knock y’all lazy arse into shape. And after that is the next step.’

  And I have to say, I found those words exciting.

  10

  I was two and a half years in the job when DS Chilman asked me for a personal meeting.

  ‘My parish,’ he belched. ‘Tonight.’ He wagged a finger in my face. ‘No questions now. Ask all the questions when you come.’

  His ‘parish’ was halfway up the island. My little Toyota struggled through the rain and darkness while I cursed and called him every indecent name I could think of.

  I’d never gone to visit Chilman before, but I knew where to find him.

  The rumshop was like every other drinking hole on the island – a one-room shed with a single, fly-spotted bulb dangling from the centre of the ceiling. The three wooden benches against the wall looked as if they were built by drunks. The wall itself served as a back rest.

  ‘My temple,’ Chilman said, with a wave of his hand. He pointed at a woman with her elbow on the counter. ‘The High Priestess. Call her Mary.’

  Mary took me in from head to foot, dropped her eyes and continued picking her teeth.

  Chilman offered me a shot of Clarks Court rum. I ordered a Coke instead. Mary pretended she didn’t hear me. Chilman winked at her and laughed.

  ‘Detective Constable Digson, sit down.’ Chilman pushed his glass away from him. ‘Talk to me about the case yesterday morning. I want you to describe it. Don’t worry about Mary. Ain’ got nothing she never hear or see before. Now don’t give me all that police shit-talk. Say it as if you talking to one of your pretty lil girlfriends when y’all lay down in bed. Go ahead, I listening.’

  ‘That’s what you call me for, all the way up here this time of night, in this weather?’ I asked.

  ‘You didn’ have to come. Now tell me, youngfella. I listening.’

  ‘Well, we were notified…’

  ‘“Notified”’ my arse. Remember you talking to your woman. That’s how you talk to her? When she invite you to come and lay down, is notify she notify you? Start again, man. I listening.’

  ‘Call came through around six in the morning, Sir. I was on early-shift. I took the call. They found a young man lying on the beach.’

  ‘In what condition?’

  ‘Dead, Sir. But you know all that already.’

  ‘Dead how, Digger?’

  ‘Incision to the throat. Sharp instrument. Tongue pulled out through the, erm – the oesophagus. Unusual, Sir. Only recorded instance in the region is in Trinidad and that was drug-related.’

  The image flooded my head. I choked, tried to swallow back the bile. I stood up.

  ‘Give him one, Mary.’

  Mary handed me a small glass. I knocked back the drink and gasped. My head lightened, the suffocation eased, replaced by a warm roiling in my stomach.

  Chilman pointed at my glass. ‘Now you know, youngfella. The font of all forgetfulness. You think we’ll find the culprit or for that matter ’prits’?’

  ‘You the boss, Sir. The assessment is yours to make.’

  Chilman curled his lips. ‘We won’t; they gone. Whoever done it not from here. You the one who tell me you believe some crimes is cultural. Is the first thing I remember when I look at that fella on the beach. You know what they call the way they kill dat lil fella? I take the trouble to find out. My granddaughter goggle it on the Internet for me.’

  ‘Google, Sir; not goggle.’

  ‘That’s a word?’

  ‘Yes. Necktie they call it, Sir.’

  ‘Okay, so you goggle it too. You see, Digger, y’all think my job is to push y’all around. That’s just the entertaining part. Nuh, my job is to see the trouble coming long before it reach. If y’all don’t know it yet, we have a new Federation. Where Marryshow fail, the Mexicans and Colombians succeed. Every island in this region integrated now. They tie together more than ever before by trafficking. Drugs. Look at the size of the engines on dem lil fishing boat. You think they chasing after mullet?

  ‘So, Digger! A lil boy got greedy and they kill him in their own style. They didn have the decency to respect we own clumsy is
land method. And when I see that, you know what I say to myself? I say something change. I say dis island get visited by something different that is not likely to go away. I say to myself “new crimes”. Chilman downed his drink, slapped the glass on the wooden table. ‘And new crimes require new minds. Dis old dog too sick to learn new tricks. Is no more bootoo and kick-an-cuff-deir-backside-till-dey-confess. Them days done. You think I didn see it coming? Why you think I fight to separate from them slowcoach?’ He pushed himself forward. ‘Is y’all fight now; I decide to hand in my resignation as soon as y’all come back.’

  ‘Come…?’

  Chilman rasped a laugh. ‘England for you, Digger. School of erm… what? Forensics – sound like a headache tablet, not so? Well I hope to God it help you solve my last big headache – if I don’t resolve it before y’all come back. In my forty years, I close every crime that come to me. In fact, some of them didn come to me; I went out and find them. Is the Nathan case that beat me. ’

  He was staring at nothing, the red eyes wide, unblinking. He passed a hand across the stubble on his chin and shook his head.

  ‘I want to leave y’all a clean desk but, like I say, you might have to tidy up that one for me. Now lemme give you the details.’

  ‘I know the details, Sir. Everybody knows it.’

  ‘Know it, my arse. You think you know it? Then tell me what you know.’

  ‘I read the file, Sir.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing.’ I was struggling to suppress my irritation. It was clearly a wasted trip. ‘A youngfella left the island and he didn tell his mother ba-bye – that’s all.’

  ‘He didn leave; he disappear.’

  ‘Technically yes, but I don’t see nothing unusual about that. People walk off this island all de time. They jump boat; they stowaway in plane. I hear some of them even swim. If you bother to look you find them hugging lamppost in Toronto or New York, or hiding from the cold in some little matchbox room in England wishing they never left home. And…’

  ‘Digger! First thing Monday morning, a woman leave home and walk all the way from Five Springs to your office. She so damn worried-an-tired, she trembling. She tell you that big, bright Saturday afternoon her son left the house and he never come back. She cryin off her face and swearing on the Bible that her one boychild would never do a thing like that – and you don’t see nothing unusual about that? Eh?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘Digger, you’z a jackass.’

  ‘Sir, you’z my superior, so I can’t answer back and tell you to haul y’arse the way I would’ve liked to.’

  Chilman laughed. ‘Digger, you so damn smart, it make you stupid.’ He leaned into my face and dropped his voice. It was full of steel and gravel. I pulled back from him. Times like these – Chilman with his red eyes and rum-breath – unsettled me.

  ‘All of y’all think I turn chupid over that Nathan youngfella. Chilman Jumbie is what y’all call him. Don’t think I don’t know. Well, yes, it eatin out my brain. I can’t get rid of it.

  ‘Now hear this: soon as the news break about Missa Necktie on the beach, Prime Minister phone the Commissioner. He want him to send out Coast Guard right away. He don’t want them to come back, not even to refuel, until they catch Missa Colombian. That make PM look like international crime buster, yuh see. But as far as he concerned, to hell with lil Nathan because Nathan too local. Well lemme tell you something: Nathan more important than all dem Necktie boys y’all pick up on de beach. Even if y’all find one every foreday morning, Nathan still more important.’

  Chilman stood up.

  ‘Anyway, England for you. One year intensive immersion – that’s what they offering courtesy of She Majesty Govament. Remember to take a coat. The Ole Queen might be generous but the weather not so welcomin. Some of the natives not so friendly either.’

  Chilman laughed, drained his glass and slapped it on the counter. ‘By the way, don’t think I favour you. Malan off to America to learn everything about guns. Canada will train the rest.

  ‘Y’all coming back to a different Department, youngfella. No replacement for me. In other words no Superintendent. Just a small core ov you in San Andrews CID, but, like I say before, you call on the other services as and when you need them. Malan will run the office, but you, Forensics, going to be your own department at the service of all the regional Forces on the island. Malan doesn’t like the restrictions at all. He want full control. But knowing you, Digson… anyway, just call it an experiment that got to work because y’all ain’t have no choice.’

  With a quick impatient gesture, Chilman tottered out onto the road.

  He shouted his last words from his doorway, just as the thick arms of his wife reached out to ease him into his house.

  ‘At least, y’all could point at Missa Necktie grave and say, he there! You should know what I talking about. In fact a jackass like you should feel it too.’

  I was scheduled for the late plane to London with a short stopover in Tobago, then a direct flight across the Atlantic.

  My phone vibrated; I picked up.

  ‘Digger?’

  ‘Dessie!’

  ‘You’ll keep in touch?’

  I’d never heard her sound like that before.

  ‘Dessie, you been crying and I know is not because I going away. What he done you?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Dessie, you awright?’

  ‘Promise you will keep in touch,’ she whispered.

  ‘Dunno, Dessie, I…’

  A muffled scramble broke through my words, then Dessie’s voice. ‘Yesss, Luther! I’m in the toiiilet!’

  The phone cut off abruptly.

  11

  Chilman resigned the week before I returned, and it struck me how long the year abroad felt. When I walked into the office, Nathan’s file lay in the middle of my desk with ‘DC Digson’ scrawled on it in the old man’s wild and hostile hand.

  So, he didn’t solve it after all and that made sense. As far as I could see, it was all inside his head.

  I filed it away, or tried to. Like I’d tried to file away Dessie in my mind, who from time to time texted me question marks.

  The old DS gave me reminders every month, by way of a ‘friendly’ phone call, wanting to know how things going with me and the lil Nathan fella. For a couple of months I dodged his calls. Then one afternoon I returned from my lunch break and found the old man at my desk, his head swivelling on his scrawny neck like an evil turkey’s, as he took in the new arrangement of desks and chairs, and the fresh paintwork Malan had insisted on.

  Malan sat in his office, tense, sour-faced, his shoulders pulled back, chin pushed out – glaring at Chilman. The old DS was pretending not to notice, not until he stood and locked gazes with Malan. A tic of a smile creased Chilman’s lips. He waved a hand before walking out the door.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said to me.

  ‘Nuh, Sir,’ I said.

  He curled his lips; threw me one of those nasty sideways looks.

  ‘Digson, you too?’

  ‘I call that provocation, Sir.’

  The old DS raised his voice. ‘Provocation my arse! Is a promise I calling in. Is almost two years now since I send y’all off on scholarship that I work my arse off to get for y’all. I left a matter in y’all hands. Y’all promise to follow it up, gimme the benefit of the doubt – but naah, y’all take me for jackass. Y’all decide to bury it. Bury it arse! Well as far as I concern; my job not finish until we address the case. Until that happm, I still got my work to do.’

  Malan had come to his door, his face tight with a dark malevolence. Chilman turned around to face him, his eyes narrowed down and so rum-shot they looked reptilian.

  ‘Jus try it,’ the old man growled, the veins at the side of his neck prominent and pulsing. ‘You take another step, Malan Greaves, and you won’t leave this office on two feet. Just try it.’

  It was Chilman’s tone that did something to Malan. He shuttered down his face,
turned around and walked back to his desk.

  With his hand on the door, the old fella sidled another look at me. ‘You let me down, Digson. Is help you want? If is help you want, just tell me.’

  For a moment, he looked forlorn and desperate. Then Chilman raised his shoulders and dropped them, addressing the air above my head. ‘So is help they want. Okay, is help I going to give them.’ He stepped out the door and pulled it hard behind him.

  Chilman’s disappointment – that last look of his especially – had scooped a hollow in my guts. It struck me that I was part of the old man’s plan long before he met me. That trick of memory I pulled when I closed my eyes and pointed out the killers of that school boy in San Andrews must have raised his hopes. And because I did not fulfil his expectations, and didn’t look as if I was in a rush to do so, Chilman decided on desperate measures.

  Monday morning, exactly two months after he slammed the office door and left his rage behind, we settled down as usual to our desks. We were listening to Malan’s update about a case in the north-west of the island. A vegetable farmer had caught the thief who’d been raiding his garden for months. It had been a week since he’d been holding the young man hostage in his house with the aid of several pot-hounds. He fed the youth and brought him out each morning to till his land as repayment. The Northwest police decided not to intervene until the young man had forked and hoed two acres, at which point they would go in and rescue him from the farmer. The officers in that area had obviously adopted Chilman’s attitude to crime.

  Malan, Pet and Lisa were chuckling at the story when the door opened. I looked up, found myself squinting at a yellow dress with bright sunflowers strewn all over it. I raised my eyes and saw a smooth round face shaded by a little hat that was slightly paler than the dress. And the oddity of the image struck me because the woman couldn’t have been much older than I was.