by Jacob Ross
‘Missa Chilman send me,’ she said.
Malan actually blinked. ‘You have a case to report?’
‘Nuh.’
‘You have a complaint?’
‘Nuh.’
‘You want something investigated?’
‘Nuh. Like I just tell you, Missa Chilman send me to help y’all.’
‘Sorry, Miss Lady, Chilman don’t work here no more. I run the department now.’
‘I know. Missa Chilman retire after forty years.’
‘So what he send you here for? S’matter of fact, you sure Chilman send you?’
Despite the air-conditioning, there was a film of sweat on the woman’s upper lip. Pet, now Department Secretary, got up in a rush and hurried to the toilet.
‘Take a seat Miss, erm…’
‘K. Stanislaus. Fank you.’ Miss Stanislaus walked to the interview desk, sat down and brought her knees together.
Malan remained standing. ‘Now tell me again, Miss erm…’
Miss Stanislaus raised bright brown eyes at him. ‘Missa Chilman send me to help out with the Nathan case.’
‘Oh!’ That was from me. The woman’s presence suddenly made sense.
I was on the way to the office that morning when my phone buzzed
It was Chilman.
‘Get her in, like I got you in.’ He literally coughed the words into the phone. Then he rang off.
I called back straightaway. He didn’t pick up.
‘Malan,’ I said, ‘I think…’
Malan swung his head in my direction. His eyes flashed a threat. Right now he would be deaf to anything I said to him. He’d already made up his mind about this woman’s presence in our office. She was another of Chilman’s provocations.
I could almost see the old DS raising a dry-stick finger in the air and grinning: Fellas, y’all can’t resolve the Nathan case, so I send a lil woman covered from head to toe in yellow to show y’all how to do it.
‘You could go back to Chilman and tell him what I telling you right now. He days with San Andrews CID done. He fish done fry. In fact it ain just fry; it burn, y’unnerstan? Chilman gone; case gone too. Is not we fault he couldn find that Nathan fella who disappear – like that!’ Malan snapped a finger in Miss Stanislaus’s face.
Lisa, now Malan’s PA, turned down her head and began wiping her keyboard.
Miss Stanislaus’s eyes were following every twist of Malan’s lips, every shift of his clenched eyebrows.
Malan glanced at himself in the glass wall of his office, then back at Miss Stanislaus. ‘He send you to join the Department? And you take him serious? You know what it take to become a Detective Constable? It take time, Miss Santa Claus! Time! Y’unnerstan? At least two years as a uniformed officer before even thinking about transferring here for further training. And even then you just a Temporary Detective Constable a Tee-Dee-Cee, y’unnerstan? And I not even mentioning the extra year on the ground with a coupla experienced officers. So! Is not no wash-your-foot-and-come job. You got to have ah education. You got to know procedure. You got to learn inference and deduction. You got to have a brain.’
The woman got up suddenly. I watched her straighten her dress with a quick flick of her hands. Left handed, I concluded, and damn vex. She headed for the door.
I turned to follow her. Malan curled a finger at me. I forced myself to fix my face. The embarrassment was burning up my skin.
‘Yeh?’ I said.
‘Is Chilman who send this joker for true? Next thing you know, he…’
I don’t know how she heard him. Malan’s voice was barely above a whisper. But as soon as he said those words, Miss Stanislaus closed back the door and turned around to face us.
Those eyes were like the twin muzzles of a gun. She began walking towards Malan. Malan’s face darkened and I could no longer see the whites of his eyes. It felt as if the temperature in the air-conditioned room dropped further. Pet returned from the toilet and stood with her back against the window that looked out on the Esplanade. I could hear the hum of the photocopier, the surge of voices in the market square. I thought I heard laughter.
People were out there going about their business, not knowing what was about to take place in San Andrews CID. But come tomorrow, the whole island would read it in the papers.
First Malan would break the assaulting arm. I saw him do that once and I still remember the scream from that youngfella on the Anse. Then he would drop her on the concrete floor, and if she survived, he would charge her for assault. It really didn’t matter who it was. These things were never personal, he told me. To make a difference in this job a man must mind his reputation. A man had to be heartless. It was the only profession in the world where heartlessness was a virtue. It got you respect. Ain’t got no better feeling than stepping off a sidewalk and watching the cars pile up, or hear the silence that your entrance cause in a room full of drinking men. Heartlessness is the only way to get that.
Just when I was about to throw myself between them, Miss Stanislaus stopped.
She looked Malan up and down with a daub of a smile across her lips. Apart from that little smile, her face was as smooth as the surface of Malan’s mahogany desk. Through the gap between her body and his, I saw Pet and Lisa leaning against each other. They looked like twins with their mouths half-open.
‘Missa Malan,’ she said, ‘what fool make you feel you so clever? The overseas school you been to?’ She glanced at the certificate above his office door. ‘Or the woman you make press-up your clothes so neat? You sure was a wife you want or a lil servant-girl? Because accordin to how I work it out, you almos twice dat girlchile age. She got a baby for you, not so? And you plan to give she another one before she catch she breath with this one, just so you could keep she tie down to you.’
Miss Stanislaus’s eyes dropped to Malan’s hand. ‘You married. But I don’ see no ring. You only wear it in your house. Soon as you walk out, you take it off. Too much wimmen out dere who don’ need to know. Right?’
Her voice was soft and pleasant, almost musical. I could listen to her all day.
‘Hear something else, Missa Malan: I bet that young-girl, who keep you lookin pretty, not working. Mebbe she used to work but you make she leave the job. Is the way you like it. Dat girlchile got to depend on you. You even think you better than she. Dat’s why you choose her in the first case.
‘You sleep out whenever you want. And de first time she complain about it, what you do to she, eh? Because I bet she don’ question you no more.’
Her voice suddenly filled the room. ‘An don bother fool yourself thinkin somebody tell me all of this.’ She stabbed a finger at the floor. ‘I work it out right here. You want me to go on?
‘Now I askin you Missa Malan. How come – wid all them years of infrencin and deductin y’all don’t find that boychile yet? What you goin say when I find out what happm to him, and it reach de papers dat is just a lil joker who do it, and not you with your pretty shirt, air-condition desk an dat lil gun you got under your armpit? You don think is better if you do like Missa Chilman say?’
Malan shook his head as if he’d just been slapped out of a drunken sleep.
‘You was on your way out,’ he snapped. ‘Not so?’
The office was quiet after that. Pet tidied her already very tidy desk. Lisa studied the paintwork on her nails. Now and again she raised her eyes to rest them on the entrance.
I caught Malan looking at his reflection in the glass. He noticed me staring, glared back and mumbled something. He adjusted the holster under his arm and strode out of the door.
I watched him ease himself into his Mitsubishi and drive off. It was the first time he did not rev the engine and shoot out onto the road in that crazy way of his.
*
Next morning I found Malan pacing the front office, making cut-eye at his phone.
‘That phone do you something?’ I asked.
‘Commissioner call this morning. That woman coming back.’ I thought I saw some
thing like terror flash across his face. ‘I sure Chilman behind it. S’matter of fact I know it. Lemme finish make a space for she, while I tell you what the Commissioner say.’
Malan had dragged a desk across the room and placed it against the wall at the far end of the front office. I watched him walk around it, adjusting it, stopping every now and again to look over at his door. Then he pulled the felt partition across the floor and turned it in such a way that it blocked a direct line of vision to his office. When Malan finished he looked up – quick and secretive – at the entrance. Satisfied, he strolled over to me, jiggling his keys.
Malan threw an arm across my shoulder. ‘Sooo, Digger, you believe half of what that woman say yesterday?’
‘Which woman?’ I shrugged him off.
‘She,’ he said, pointing at the desk.
‘Ah her!’ I scratched my head.
Not just half of what she say, jackass. And believe me, she ain’ start on your pompous lil backside yet.
‘Oh! Miss Stanislaus, you mean? Naaah, man! Is old talk she talking. Is just guess she guessing. She spinning top in mud.’
Malan leaned in close. ‘People like she…’ He stabbed a finger at the desk again. ‘You don’t want them to get vex with you in public. They could make a big man feel small.’ He snapped a finger in my face. ‘Even if everything they sayin about you is lie. And the problem is – a pusson can’t arrest them for obstruction because they working in your department.’
Malan retreated to his office and slammed his door.
I rushed the reports I had to do and cleared my desk. I took out a stack of forensic science magazines and organised them according to dates before placing them in folders.
Like Pet and Lisa, I couldn’t prevent myself from keeping an eye on the entrance. All I could think of was the colour yellow.
Well, the colour that came in was purple. It was easy to believe that Miss Stanislaus had dyed the outfit overnight.
I straightened up. The woman bowed slightly at the girls and smiled at me. Malan’s office door resisted his attempt to open it smoothly, and so spoiled his big-boss entrance.
He looked at Miss Stanislaus; she looked back at him. She smiled; Malan’s forehead creased.
He cleared his throat and pointed. ‘That desk across there is yours.’
‘Fank you,’ she said, her eyes resting on his pointing finger. Malan dropped his hand and eased it behind his back.
‘Miss Stanislaus,’ I said, ‘I’m Digger and I’m assigned to you.’
‘So – we start today?’ she said.
Malan flicked a finger at the cabinet. ‘Chilman left a file on the Nathan case. Pet, get the file!’
‘Not nerecerry, fank you.’ Miss Stanislaus offered each of us a smile.
Malan shook his head. ‘Is procedure – you taking up the case, so you have to read the file.’
‘It didn help y’all find de boy; not so?’ she said.
Miss Stanislaus turned to face me. ‘So, Missa Digger – that’s your name for true?’
‘Michael Digson, but I awright with Digger.’
‘You take me to see Nathan mother first?’
‘For now, Miss Lady,’ Malan cut in. ‘But is I decide whether Digger assign to you.’
Out in the car park Miss Stanislaus slid an eye at me and smiled. ‘Go ahead, Missa Digger. You been hungry to ask me something. Say what you want to say.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Yes, Miss… erm… Stanislaus – Malan – I mean yesterday… you met ’im for the first time and…’
Her chuckle sounded like gurgling water. ‘You mean you didn know them tings ’bout im?’
‘Well, I been around him long enough to know. But you…’
She chuckled again. ‘De shirt – that was the firs thing. I half-guess he’s the sorta fella who wear press-up linen shirt every day. Most man don’t have the patience with a linen shirt to iron it like dat. And things that man don’t have no patience for, they leave woman to fight up with it. Linen shirt – first you got to starch it, then hang it up to dry in a certain way so it don’ get wrinkle. Then you got to iron it. Most woman I know don’t have de patience for dat. To do dat every day – nuh! Dat mean the woman got no choice.
‘Missa Malan love-up imself a lot. Always lookin at imself in de glass-mirror. He can’t help it. His perfume smell like he shouting at every woman in de world to notice him. He talk to me as if he accustom bossin woman and don’t expect no answer-back. Which woman goin take dat for long except some lil girl?’ Miss Stanislaus looked at me as if she really wanted to know.
‘Then I look at his ring-finger. Ring-finger ring should leave a strong mark if you wear it all the time, den take it off, not so? So how come his finger just have fainty-fainty mark? Besides…’ Miss Stanislaus dropped a hand into her bag, pulled out a bunch of tissues.
‘Besides?’ I said.
‘He’s a Camaho man.’
The way she said ‘Camaho man’ she could have been talking about mangoes or breadfruits.
Her eyes were on me. I saw the challenge and decided not to meet it yet.
‘Okay, Miss Lady.’ I gunned the engine. ‘We heading for Nathan mother house.’
The house stood behind a row of blossoming acacia trees. Each wall was a different colour: bright blue, yellow, red and white. The roof was a dazzling green. Five bamboo poles rose high above it, each bearing flags whose colours matched the house exactly.
A bony dog lay curled up at the foot of the steps. It barely lifted an eye at us. A thin woman who sat on the yellow veranda was watching us approach, with the same indifference as the dog.
‘Dog don’t bark?’ Miss Stanislaus said.
‘Only night-time,’ the woman replied. She rose to her feet as we climbed the steps and entered the veranda. A faint aura of soft candle, camphor and ground spice surrounded her.
‘I’z Iona,’ she said.
Miss Stanislaus fanned herself and smiled at her. ‘Missa Digger from The Department. Chilman Department – yunno? I come along with him for company. I’z Miss K Stanislaus. We come here about the boy.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Just trying to tie up some matters, Miss Iona, about Nathan’s… erm, absence. I take it that you haven’t heard from him, or about him since?’
Miss Stanislaus glanced at me. An expression that I could not decipher crossed her face. ‘Is awright for Missa Digger to look inside Nathan room?’
Iona fumbled with her headwrap and pointed through the open door at the furthest room.
There was something solicitous about Miss Stanislaus now. She dipped into her bag, pulled out a small packet and handed it to the woman. They both looked up as if surprised to find me there. I headed for the room, feeling dismissed.
Nathan’s room smelled different from the rest of the house – slightly perfumed. On one side there was a narrow bed covered with a floral sheet over which a mosquito net was hanging. I noted three pillows with matching pillow cases.
A magnifying mirror sat on a little wooden cabinet to the right of the glass window. In front of it a small tub of cocoa butter, a stick of Brut deodorant, another of Old Spice, a pack of Ambi skin-toning soap, a tiny pair of scissors.
There was a large flat can of Kiwi shoe polish perched on the edge of the narrow table. Hanging on a nail from the door, a brown satchel – all leather and brass buckles. I unhitched the bag, brought it to the window and ran through every pocket: a small bottle of Ponds hand lotion, a heavy nail clipper, a pair of tweezers, a small packet of unopened tissues. A bundle of neatly folded receipts.
I committed it all to memory. Later I would make my notes.
Outside, the women raised their voices. They sounded amused about something.
I poked out my head and lifted a finger at Miss Stanislaus. She got up quickly and came in with Iona close behind.
‘Done,’ I said. ‘You ready to go?’
Miss Stanislaus narrowed her eyes at me.
‘Seeing as Missa Digger done, and we still
got a lil time, I could see Missa Nathan clothes?’
Iona reached under the bed and dragged out a large suitcase. She released the catch and threw back the soft canvas cover. Miss Stanislaus lowered herself in front of the case, her chin propped up by the heel of her hand. After a while, she reached out a plump brown finger and poked a shirt, as if she did not want to disturb it. ‘Nice,’ she said. That was all she said before rising to her feet and turning to Iona.
‘Sorry to ask you. Where he keep his undergarments?’ The woman opened the door of the cabinet. Miss Stanislaus leaned forward and looked in. Again she poked a finger.
‘Like I tell you, he used to be a decent boy,’ Iona said.
Miss Stanislaus nodded vigorously, then pointed a finger at the tin of polish. ‘He wasn’t the one who put dat dere. Not so?’
Iona looked confused at first, then her eyes widened. ‘No-no-no. I mean, yes. He ask me to buy it for him. I lef it there for im to see it when he come in.’
Miss Stanislaus fingered the buckles of the leather satchel before taking it down, lifting the flap and peering into it. She pulled out the wad of receipts and inspected it.
‘An dis?’ she said, replacing the satchel, then lifting her chin at it.
‘The bag?’ Miss Iona sucked in a lungful of air and lowered her head. ‘That’s what make me worry from de start. You never see im without it. Missa Simday give im it. They used to be good friends.’
‘He got a friend name Sameday?’
‘Simday,’ she said. ‘He from Canada. He a teacher. Been livin on the islan long time.’ Iona spoke as if we ought to know who Simday was. ‘Missa Simday was convince something wrong. He’d ha gone to the police, if I didn go myself.’
‘What make im so sure?’
Miss Iona shrugged. ‘He know Nathan. They friends. When things really rough for me, Simday help me out.’
Iona turned up her face at the bag. Her eyes were streaming. Her shoulders shook with the effort to hold herself together.
I felt the stirrings of a misgiving that I hadn’t felt before. Perhaps it was the same thing Chilman felt when this woman walked into his office and told him about her missing boy. Grief is grief, regardless of its source. Dead or alive, this woman’s son was missing. She hadn’t heard from him for more than three years. Either way, Nathan was lost to her.