The Bone Readers

by Jacob Ross

  She turned away from me.

  ‘Miss Stanislaus,’ I prodded her on the shoulder.

  She didn’t look at me.

  ‘Miss Stanislaus, I believe I found Alice.’

  Those brown eyes held mine for a long, long time.

  ‘Missa Digger, you… you too much!’ Miss Stanislaus shot to her feet and ran out the church.

  A woman-shape in the doorway. A pause, a few steps, another pause.

  ‘Adora,’ I said.

  Adora strolled over and stood over me. She dropped her voice, ‘What you find?’

  ‘I not sure, Adora. Not yet.’ I sat up and untied the wrap around my head..

  ‘What you find?’ she insisted. I looked into large, darkly intense eyes, traced the beautiful arch of the woman’s neck and wondered again what it was that had brought her here.

  ‘Come to church tonight, Adora. We’ll find out together.’

  She lowered herself beside me. ‘I see the way you watch me; you treat woman good?’

  ‘Sister Dora, leave the man alone.’ Mother Bello had pushed her head through the doorway. ‘Missa Digger, Pike bring you some food to ketch your strength.’

  Pike was standing just behind her, his beard like the needle end of a compass in front of him. He walked to the table near the altar and rested a covered bowl on it. ‘Fish-broth,’ he said. ‘Nothing make you better quicker. How you feelin, Missa Digger?’ Pike’s hand was warm on my forehead.

  ‘A bit better.’

  ‘Fever gone,’ he said. ‘You a strong youngfella.’

  The two women left the room.

  ‘What you know ’bout all this, Pike?’

  ‘’What you mean?’

  ‘You a Watchman. Watchman see and hear everything. How come…’

  ‘Even Watchman have to sleep, Missa Digger. And if people intend to hide tings from me, ain’ got nothing I could do. Besides, if tings happm, dem happm inside deh.’ He swung his head in the direction of the Mourning Ground. ‘I never go in dat place, because I not suppose to.’

  ‘Thanks for the food.’ I said.

  Pike slipped me a sideways glance. ‘Everybody want to know if you got a result.’

  I blew on the spoonful of hot soup and sipped it. ‘I dunno what I got yet, Pike. We’ll find out at the same time – all of us. Tell the Mother to take the children somewhere else or keep them in the house.’

  40

  They sat me down on a chair in front of the altar. Candlelight filled the room with an amber shine. Mother Bello was a hulking presence at the edge of my vision. Other women spread themselves around the small incense-filled space. Most stayed on their feet, shoulders propped against the wall.

  Adora said she wanted her daughter to be there. The other children were in the main house playing a muted game of hide and seek.

  Someone had lit a fire in the yard; the smell of lemon grass and wild pine blessed the air.

  I’d already interpreted Ramlogan’s report for Miss Stanislaus.

  Seven of the children’s DNA profile matched Deacon Bello’s. Ramlogan concluded a 99.9 percent probability of parentage. The profile that puzzled him was Amos’s and he said so in an additional note. Not sufficiently matched to conclude with certainty that he was Bello’s offspring, but enough markers to link him genetically to the Deacon.

  ‘You right about the children,’ I told Miss Stanislaus.

  ‘You don’ have to tell them nothing about all that,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t intend to,’ I told her. ‘No sense in telling them what they know already.’

  ‘Missa Digger, you ready?’ The Mother said.

  I said ‘Yes’ and took in all the faces in the room. Pulled out my notepad and held it near the light. ‘Young woman between twenty-one and twenty-four years old. Black jeans with v-pockets, gold thread at the seams, a dragon pattern on the right back leg of her trousers. She’s the height and size of that lady in the back there.’ I pointed at one of the women in the far right-hand corner of the room.

  ‘That young woman used to suffer from toothache. She wear a cowrie shell around her neck, hanging from a shoelace. And – I guessing now – she didn’t walk straight. Stiff left shoulder.’ A few women at the back of the church had broken into murmurs. I did not look up.

  ‘She had a broken shoulder blade. That account for the way she walked. She was still growing when that happened – probably in her early teens – judging by the way it healed.’

  I stopped and scanned the faces in the room. ‘Anybody y’all know fit that description?’

  ‘Is she,’ Iona said. She covered her face and turned her back to the room.

  ‘I need somebody to gimme the name that fit the description I just gave.’

  ‘Ali’, someone said.

  ‘I want the full name.’

  They murmured among themselves. ‘Alice Massy.’

  I repeated the name, waited for confirmation, then wrote it down.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘In a few days from now, y’all can reclaim Miss Alice in San Andrews mortuary.’

  Miss Stanislaus was at my elbow when I walked out.

  ‘I ferget to tell you Malan come to see you.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. You wuz sleepin. I tell im to go way.’ She raised her chin at me, her face a soft sheen in the firelight. ‘Missa Digger, you strong enough to go home? I ask because…’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Is for the best. I-I see how Miss Adora eyes fall on you. I fink you know it too.’

  ‘And?’

  Miss Stanislaus shook her head. ‘I don want to upset you, Missa Digger. I sayin is for the best, dat’s all.’

  41

  I unhooked my windows and swung them open. I wished for wind, rain, a hurricane – something cleansing and redemptive to hit the island. Shake it up a bit, dig up its secrets and spit them out like that river in Les Terres that had pulled the Indian girl from its bank and handed her back to us.

  I stacked the evidence I’d collected into the small fridge bought for that purpose. When I finished it was almost full. My report took me the rest of the night. I went to bed at daybreak and slept right through till evening.

  Night had fallen when I called Pet. She picked up immediately; sounded so angry she could barely speak. I waited till she ran out of breath.

  ‘Pet, I need you right now,’ I said.

  She went dead quiet.

  ‘It mean we have to go into the office tonight. Late as you can make it.’

  ‘You hear from Malan?’ she said.

  ‘Not directly, no.’

  ‘He fight for you, Digger. At the meeting I mean. I never see him so upset… so…’

  ‘Tell me, Pet, you doing this or not?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Okay, I pick you up just after midnight. That alright?’

  ‘That alright, Digger.’

  I put down the phone, gathered my papers and sorted them.

  Malan phoned. I stared at the screen until voice messaging kicked in. There were nineteen waiting to be picked up. I hadn’t bothered to retrieve them.

  *

  10.30 next morning, I parked outside the ministerial complex – a glass and concrete construction looking down on what used to be a zoo.

  A security man I didn’t know came up to my car and shoved his head through the window.

  ‘I could help you, sah?’

  I still had my ID. I pushed it under his nose. ‘I here to see the MJ.’

  ‘He expecting you?’

  ‘Homicide.’ I replied. ‘The MJ very interested in this one.’

  I said the same thing to the women at reception; they pointed me to the lift.

  The MJ’s office was on the third floor. I followed the signs, tapped his door with my keys and walked in.

  It was freezing in there. ‘Air condition working overtime?’ I said to the young woman at the front desk. She raised a broad, impassive face, looked me up and down, then reached for a folder. ‘You ha
ve an appointment?’

  ‘Nuh. But the MJ dying to see me. Tell him Michael Digson here.’

  The woman stiffened. ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘Murder,’ I said. The tight mouth tightened even more. I stared her down.

  ‘Hold on,’ she said and got up.

  Her voice came through the walls of the office. An answering grumble. The secretary’s again, pitched higher. Defensive. Another grumble – more sustained.

  I got up quickly, turned the handle of the door and slipped in.

  Deep brown pupils set in yellow irises settled on my face. Even in the freezing room the MJ wore short sleeves, his black tie loosened around his collar. Meaty, hairy arms; the rest of him thick as a bluggoe.

  ‘You walk into my office without an appointment. You want to get arrested?’

  ‘No, Sir.’

  ‘What happened yesterday? You had a meeting with important people. You didn’t have the decency to call…’

  ‘I wasn’t ready, Sir. I apologise. I was gathering evidence pertinent to the outcome of the meeting.’

  The MJ raised a brow. ‘You already have an outcome, young man.’

  ‘You promised a public announcement at the end of this week, Sir, concerning the circumstances surrounding Deacon Bello’s death. I’m here to present you with the facts.’

  The MJ steepled his hands, leaned back against the chair. I’d never felt so diminished by a look before.

  ‘You here to beg for your job? Well, you going about it the wrong way.’ He reached for the phone.

  ‘I here to tell you, Sir, that if you go out there tomorrow and make a public announcement supporting Deacon Bello, you’ll be allying yourself with a murderer. I have the evidence to show.’

  He withdrew his hand from the phone.

  ‘You already know from Chief Officer Malan Greaves that Deacon Bello was the casualty of a police operation. He was in the process of drowning a woman. It was clear that members of his congregation could not get him off her. My judgement, as a trained officer, was that the use of force was necessary.’

  ‘So you shot him?’

  ‘That detail is not necessary, Sir. The autopsy will have confirmed that the weapon used belonged to the Department. It has never left the possession of the department before or since.’

  The MJ showed his teeth – yellow like his irises. ‘You fancy yourself a lawyer? Well, Michael Digson, I’m the lawyer here. I asked CO Malan the same question. He wouldn’t answer me outright. He said he did not have the full facts. In the meantime people are out there waiting for answers. I promised them answers; they will get answers.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Sir. I not taking the blame.’

  He spread his hands, rolled his eyes and smiled. ‘Nobody’s called your name.’

  ‘Yes, by implication.’

  I dropped my report on his desk. ‘First five pages show that Deacon Bello fathered at least seven children with under-aged girls in his church. One as young as fourteen. Statutory rape. You’re a lawyer, so you know that.’

  The MJ flicked a couple of pages, glanced up at me and chuckled.

  ‘You trying to make a case with that?’ He rose to his feet – slowly, heavily and planted his palms on the desk. He sounded almost friendly. ‘Go down to the lobby, young man. Have a look at the pictures of all the Prime Ministers who served this island. Take a good look at the first one – the Saga Boy. He was in office the longest. How many children you think he got?’

  I shrugged.

  The MJ chuckled. ‘Some people say two hundred. Others say more. In every parish in the island. That guaranteed him the male vote. Look at Putin and those strongman virility grand-moves he keeps making for the Russian people all the time. You think he doing it for joke?’

  Thick fingers tapped the folder. ‘Anyway, Mister Digson, you miss the point. This is not about the misdemeanours of a preacher. It is about his death in questionable circumstances.’

  ‘I’m willing to accept responsibility on condition that you make it known that officers received a distressed call by Deacon Bello’s wife and that he was intercepted drowning a member of his congregation. Furthermore…’

  ‘You writing my speech?’

  ‘Just presenting you with the facts, Sir. I have further evidence to implicate Deacon Bello in the murder of Miss Alice Massy. She was a member of his congregation.’

  I reached into my folder and dropped eight pictures of Alice’s body in front of him.

  He looked at the topmost one for a long time, then without raising his head made a shooing movement with his hand. I’d forgotten the secretary behind me. The woman stepped back, lingered at the doorway before pulling the door behind her.

  ‘What’s that?’ The MJ looked as if he really wanted to know.

  ‘Positively identified by Bello’s congregation as Alice Massy. Killed by your friend and spiritual councillor, Deacon Bello. The man you fired me for. Look at the neck, Sir. I marked it out for you. Cervical vertebrae, numbers five, six and seven from the top smashed. Hyoid bone in the neck broken, which leads me to believe the woman was strangled after she got the other injuries. I got eighteen more here to show you. From every angle.’

  Beads of perspiration were settling in the creases of his brow. The office next door was very, very quiet. I pressed my back against the wall and waited. Finished, the MJ raised his head and cleared his throat. ‘Where’s the link?’

  ‘What link?’

  ‘Basic principle in criminal law. You can’t incriminate a suspect, far less convict them without linking said suspect to the crime.’ He grinned at me. ‘Where’s the link?’

  ‘Circumstantial evidence good enough for my purposes. More than enough for the public who keep you sitting in this freezing office. Rumour will do the rest. After today, I dare anybody to go out there and make excuses for Deacon Bello. Or to call my name.’

  ‘You here to beg for your job, not so?’

  ‘To hell with the job. I already tell you what I want. As far as I can see you got a choice between two kinds of embarrassment: admit you made a big mistake and apologise, or go down with Bello.’ I pulled open the door. ‘Keep the pictures, Sir. They might come in handy.’

  ‘You still don’t have a job,’ he said.

  ‘I not finish yet,’ I threw back. ‘Just watch.’

  42

  It was one of those sizzling afternoons that narrowed the eyes against the glare from the high white walls and sprawling concrete mansions in Morne Bijoux.

  I hadn’t seen him in five years. The last time I heard his voice was on the phone when I asked him to pay for my tertiary education. When I told him how much it cost, he chuckled in my ear and I put down the phone on him.

  I’d paid a few boys to wash my car and bring it to a shine. I wore a pressed long-sleeve cotton shirt with cuffs rolled back, my best trousers and patent leather shoes. Dressing had been an effort.

  The Wife was in the veranda. It seemed as if, in the five years since I visited, the woman hadn’t moved from the same latticed metal chair, except this time her hands weren’t in her hair but in that of a teenage girl’s sitting on a mat in front of her. The girl had her mother’s high cheekbones and the long, fine-boned face of the man who called himself my father.

  The woman leaned over the veranda wall and smiled. ‘Mistuh Farringdon?’

  ‘Nuh,’ I said. ‘Mistuh Michael Digson.’ I pointed at the two folders in my hand. ‘I’m here to see the Commissioner.’

  The woman’s face glazed over. She rose from the chair, shuffled backwards, the hand with the comb straight down at her side.

  The girl shot up from the mat and rushed through the open glass door.

  I watched the woman not watching me. I felt relaxed and easy.

  The elder sister came out, barefoot and beautiful. Wide-spaced eyes, a mouth like mine. Slim-limbed, with a head of hair that stood up like a black bush-fire.

  ‘Michael?’

  I nodded.

  She took
my hand, looked me in the face then rested an index finger on her chest. ‘Lucia,’ she said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Dad – our dad’s in the study. I’ll get him.’ She’d flashed a hard glance at her mother.

  The younger of the two hung at the side of the sliding door, legs crossed at the ankles, staring at me from under long, fine lashes.

  ‘You Nevis, right?’

  She said yes with her eyes, lifted her shoulder from the wall and was no longer there. The woman brushed past me and ambled down the steps. I followed the slip-slop-slipping of her flip-flops until she disappeared behind the house.

  Nevis returned with a glass of cherry juice and held it out. Before I could say thanks, she’d spun on her heels and disappeared.

  My father had grown a small paunch. Hair gone grey – even those on his legs and stomach. A deeply lined face. Brown, translucent eyes.

  ‘Come in, Michael.’

  ‘I rather sit out here, Sir. It’s work-related.’

  ‘As you wish.’ He pulled up a chair, rested his glass of fruit juice under it, and nodded at another chair.

  I sat with the folder on my knee. He took his time looking me over. When he’d finished, he leaned back and clasped his hands across his stomach. He angled his chin at the shadowy figures of the girls behind the curtain.

  ‘What you make of that, Michael?’

  ‘I’m here to talk about work, Sir.’

  He held my gaze for a long time, then crossed his legs. ‘Have it your way. But before you start,’ he lifted a rigid finger. ‘You put me in a very embarrassing position yesterday. I want an apology and an explanation.’

  ‘What I was doing was more important, Sir. I said the same thing to the MJ.’

  His eyebrows shot up.

  ‘I told him what I’m telling you now: I’m not going to be used even if I have to take him down with me… I…’

  The Commissioner raised a hand. ‘Hold on a minute; you threatened him!’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘The MJ!’

  ‘Yessir.’