by Jacob Ross
He shifted in his chair. ‘That’s how your grandmother brought you up? That’s…’
‘Don’t talk to me like that, Sir. You have no right.’
His mouth opened and shut. He made to get up then sat back.
‘I’m here to brief you on a matter relating to work. That’s all.’
He grumbled something, got up from the chair and went into the living room.
The girls were staring at me. I nodded at them and sipped the juice. I looked out past the whitewashed walls towards the bungalow next door, shaded by a giant mahogany, its lawn dotted with stunted Julie and Ceylon mango trees.
A yard-boy, who looked about forty, was unspooling a long green hose across the grass.
My throat felt full and tight. I could barely swallow. I sidled a glance at the girls. Lucia looked close to tears.
He returned with a glass of liquid in his hand – a large white tablet fizzing at the bottom. He placed the glass close to the foot of the chair and sat back.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Talk.’
I began to take out the documents from my folder, aware of him following every movement of my fingers. Then I raised my head at him.
‘I didn’t make the meeting because I was uncovering the body of a young woman that Deacon Bello buried in the Mardi Gras mountains. I’ve also gathered evidence of serious sexual abuse by him of seven or eight under-aged girls in his church. I had a choice between coming to that meeting or completing the job. I decided to complete the job.’
I pulled out some photographs and dropped them in his lap. I watched his fingers falter, watched him wither with the inspection of each image. When he raised his head he looked ill.
‘The marks you made on these, what are they for?’
‘They point to probable cause of death; they’re also for identification. Miss Alice was, at most, in her mid twenties. I narrowed it down to twenty-three.’
‘How?’ The question sounded like a challenge.
‘Wisdom teeth not yet emerged. Sutures on the skull not fully closed, plus a few other indicators. Deacon Bello really wanted Miss Alice dead.’
The Commissioner looked up at me with a tortured, puzzled gaze. ‘What’s behind all this, Michael? How a man could do this to… to anybody. And even think it’s alright…’
‘Miss Stanislaus believed that Alice was going to expose Bello. Her behaviour changed a couple of weeks before she disappeared. More outspoken. Defiant. She lost the fear. Something brought that on. I think I know what it was.’
The Commissioner leaned back. ‘I’m not sure I want to hear, but tell me all the same. I s’pose you have to.’
It was one of the things I didn’t tell the people at the church. I saw no sense in causing more distress.
‘She was pregnant again, Sir. I-I prefer not to go into the details.’ I held out the report. ‘It’s all in here.’
He took it with hesitant hands. ‘Where you learned all that – the science, I mean?’
‘I had an education, Sir. I sent myself to school.’
‘Go on,’ he grunted. ‘Rub it in. You can’t help it anyway. What about the woman, Chilman’s daughter?’
‘Miss Stanislaus?’
‘She’s as good he says she is?’
‘Better than good, Sir. She points and I follow the pointing finger.’
‘She’s got Chilly brains then. We have a joke: Chilman gets drunk only from his shoulders down. I thought it was his conscience trying to make up to his daughter for all the grief he…’ He stopped abruptly, then looked away. ‘You like this job?
‘Not really, Sir.’
‘You good at it, Michael. Much better than you realise. Why you dislike something you so good at?’
‘I don’t want to stop feeling.’
A long breath escaped him. He raised himself from the chair. ‘I want you to eat with us. The girls would like that.’
He angled his head at his daughters. ‘Do that for them, if you can’t for me.’
‘Nuh thanks. I got other things to do.’
He held me with a long hard stare, his mouth tense with irritation. His lips barely moved when he spoke this time. ‘Chilman told me why you joined the Force.’
‘Coercion,’ I said. ‘He didn’t give me a choice.’
‘You lie to yourself. You actually…’ He sounded disappointed. ‘How far you got?’
‘Got where?’
‘You’ve been doing some digging, haven’t you?’
I almost asked him for what, just to hear what he would say, but I did not answer.
I switched my gaze to his wife at the far edge of the lawn, bent over a ring of red and white anthuriums. The sunlight fell across her hair and shoulders creating the illusion that she was sliced in half.
He raised his shoulders and dropped them. ‘When you said you were coming, I was er, hoping we would clear this up.’
‘I got as far as Boko Hurd,’ I said.
He’d gone still. I knew he was waiting for something more.
‘So you got that far. You want to know what happened after?’
I shrugged.
‘I called a meeting a couple of days after the shooting. Just three of us. Chilly would’ve been the fourth if he wasn’t on leave. They voted we bide our time – sensible thing to do because Boko was protected. I voted to kill him. Lucky fella. He got away.’
I remembered what Pablo John said about a vehicle that ran over Boko Hurd. I shrugged; said nothing.
He did not try to push it further. Instead, he raised a brow at me, a trace of a smile on his lips.
‘What happens if you need to have the MJ on your side one day?’
I shrugged. ‘’S’far as I see, I didn have no choice…’
He cut me off with an impatient movement of his hand. ‘What I’m really asking is – you think confrontation is the only way to win a fight?’
‘I didn say so, Sir.’
He showed me his teeth. ‘When you shame or disrespect a man in high office, you make of him an enemy. There are better ways. Keep that in mind.’ He tapped the folder. ‘I’ll show you what I mean.’
He turned for the door. ‘Give me a couple of days to digest this. And that boy, Malan Greaves: tell him I say that after this, he’s on my list of things to do.’
He parted the curtains and disappeared.
Lucia and Nevis followed me to the gate, Nevis cradling a black and white rabbit in her arms. ‘We call her Michael.’
Lucia grinned. ‘We didn’t know it was a girl. Sorry. We could change it if you wish.’
‘How long since she got that name?’
‘From birth. She was too tiny to tell.’
‘Name suits her.’ I fluttered my lashes at them.
I left them at the gate shaking with giggles.
43
Early Wednesday morning, the Commissioner took over the six o’clock news, spoke for thirty minutes about the history of politics and law enforcement on the island, and purely to impress the population, I thought, he slipped in words like kleptocracy, megalomania and political presumptuousness, evils of which Camaho was fortunately devoid; devoid too of individuals tempted to conflate important ministerial duties with the humble business of law enforcement. At which point the Commissioner paused, excused himself and blew his nose.
If he hadn’t introduced himself, I would not have known it was the man I’d sat with a couple of days before. This voice was for the public, each word rolling off his tongue and dropping on the ear like a polished stone.
In his capacity as Commissioner of Police, he said, he had reinstated forthwith the Officer who had been dismissed – understandably so, in the light of the misinformation circulating at the time – while in the pursuit of a case concerning one Bello Hunt, Deacon of The Children of the Unicorn Spiritual Baptist church. Furthermore he, The Commissioner, was appointing to San Andrews CID, another officer. A woman. He did not need to point out the shameful lack of female representation in San Andrews CID and the Forc
e in general, did he? And he was assured of the understanding and – dare he say – support of the MJ in his commitment to rectifying this imbalance in The Force.
If time would allow, and in the interest of transparency and accountability, he, The Commissioner, would like to preface the distinguished MJ’s announcement on Friday with some facts about the case in question – facts that had only recently come to the attention of both the MJ and himself.
The Commissioner presented my report in full, reducing the technical language to simple words. Even for me – hearing him read in a voice riding on a barely suppressed indignation – it was shocking stuff.
At the end of the report, he barely paused for breath. ‘I hasten to add that at the time of the officer’s suspension, the MJ was not aware of Deacon Bello’s crimes against the seven children.’ The Commissioner paused on ‘children’.
‘Nor did the distinguished gentleman have in his possession Detective Constable Digson’s report along with photographs of the murdered woman. The MJ, I’ve been informed, is still digesting its contents and will, I’m sure, be referring to it in his statement on Friday.’
The Commissioner thanked everyone for listening and signed off.
I switched off the radio.
My phone rang on the hour, every hour, until midday. I left it lying on my kitchen table. The pattern of the ringing changed to every half-hour or so.
Several hours later, I got off my bed, picked it up and strode out to the porch.
‘Yes, Pet!’
‘Yuh radio turn on?’
I moved the handset a couple of inches from my ear. ‘Nuh.’
‘Keep your fuckin radio turn on,’ she said, and rang off.
I tuned into the biggest commercial station. Outside, through the thickening darkness, I heard the raised voices of women hurrying their children to finish off their chores before nightfall.
In the houses down the hill, transistors were on full volume – the Commissioner’s words repeated as news, as commentary, followed by phone-ins. I heard occasional bursts of indignation from the women in the houses down below.
The MJ came on the late news – his voice thick with shocked outrage at the contents of the report that he’d only just finished digesting. He thanked the Commissioner and commended the exemplary work of San Andrews CID .
I listened to the man and chuckled. I was still smiling when I heard my name. I switched on the outside light and stepped out to face three boys and a big-toothed, bright-eyed girl I knew as Pinny.
The shortest, Marcus, greeted me under his breath, resting the basket he was carrying on the lowest rung of my step. It was packed with fruits and vegetables.
‘Mammy send that,’ he said. ‘She say she want back the basket.’
They said g’night and melted in the dark.
Chilman phoned. I picked up. The old goat chuckled in my ear, cleared his throat and switched off.
44
The scandal around Bello was still making the rounds when Miss Stanislaus and I returned to work.
A memo sat on our desks informing us of the Commissioner’s decision to employ more staff and complete the restructuring of San Andrews CID. Furthermore, despite his retirement from the force, but given his experience and demonstrable expertise in the matter, DS Chilman would be tasked to oversee the aforementioned restructuring and recruitment.
In the meantime he’d granted Lisa Crawford, Malan’s PA, the paid leave she’d requested the year before. Furthermore, in the meantime, and from henceforth, Miss Kathleen Stanislaus and Michael Digson would report directly to him.
Miss Stanislaus made a show of folding the memo and dropping it in her purse. Her theme today was butterflies – or rather pretty things that flew. Her maroon skirt had a small menagerie of hummingbirds and dragonflies probing the blood red petals of hibiscus flowers. She’d pinned a little silver feather in her hat, and a butterfly broach to her collar.
Malan could not take his eyes off the butterfly.
It was his mistake to involve the MJ in Department business, he said. Man is not God; Man is flesh so Man does make mistake. But at least Miss Stanislaus and Digson here resolved a crucial case and the Department was very pleased about that.
‘I don see the connection between the trouble you cause, and us absolvin Miss Alice case,’ Miss Stanislaus replied.
‘Well, let’s just say it speed up matters.’
‘How?’
‘Like I just say, we resolve the Bello case…’
‘Nuh, case not finish. Missa Nathan still not ’counted for.’
Malan wiped his brows and shifted in his seat. ‘He not up in the Mardi Gras for sure. We spend a week up there; we done dig up the whole damn place. No sign. Anyway, is my duty to welcome you as staff member, Miss Stanislaus. So as CO of this department, I say welcome.’
Miss Stanislaus gave Malan a pretty little smile. Malan smiled back.
He hadn’t been watching her eyes.
Lunchtime, Chilman paid us a courtesy call. He dropped a small bag stuffed with rotis on my desk, congratulated the department on the ‘steerrrling’ results achieved so far, and strolled back to his car. The vehicle coughed a couple of times before clattering into life. The little Datsun must have travelled halfway across the island before I could no longer hear it.
‘Who de fuck he think he is,’ Malan snarled. He remembered Miss Stanislaus, threw a quick look in her direction, before stalking back to his office and slamming his door.
‘Boy!’ Miss Stanislaus muttered, rolling her eyes at Pet.
We ate the food, licked our fingers and watched Malan prowl his office space.
Pet followed me to the sink.
‘What your Marais woman look like, Digger?’
‘Dark-an-smooth. Same height as you; mebbe lil shorter. Quiet.’
‘Red-strap sandals?’
I dried my hands and turned around to face her. ‘How you know that?’
Pet’s eyes glassed over and she shrugged.
‘Pet, you talking to me or not?’
Malan killed the conversation by strolling over and handing me my special issue.
Pet glared at him so hotly I wondered what had gone on between them in my absence.
‘Leave it on my desk,’ I said.
‘We could have a chat after work?’ Malan said.
‘Missa Digger, you promise to take me to buy some fish in Beau Sejour Bay,’ Miss Stanislaus said.
‘I didn’t remember,’ I said. ‘But that’s fine.’
We took our time driving up the West Coast Road. Miss Stanislaus bought her fish, stood beside me watching the incoming twenty-footers pleating the waters.
Her expression was distant.
‘Missa Digger, one day I make pepper-fish soup for you. You never goin ferget it.’
‘You thinking about Kara Isle?’
‘Mebbe,’ she said and smiled.
We drove back through a fine drizzle. Miss Stanislaus was at rest beside me, her head turned sideways, her hands on her bag. Small trucks and vans littered the Carenage. Inter-island ferries hulked over the sidewalk. Crewmen with their elbows planted on the high railings of their boats were shouting down words at the upturned faces of women who’d managed to squeeze their flesh into lycra suits designed for infants.
I braked for a cluster of school boys tussling over a basketball in the middle of the road. I leaned out the window to shoo them off. Through the gaps between their limbs, I glimpsed a flowered frock, a braceleted wrist, then the smooth ripe face turned up to a man’s.
Lonnie must have felt my eyes on her. She shifted her shoulder, held my gaze a second, then dropped her head.
‘Missa Digger, you holdin up traffic!’ Miss Stanislaus’s voice was like a slap in my ear. I didn’t realise I’d braked.
When Miss Stanislaus spoke again, her voice was softer, almost pleading. ‘Missa Digger, let’s go.’
I drove on. The drizzle had begun to slick the road while the last of the evening sun threw
a wash of yellow on everything.
‘I didn know you know Lonnie,’ I said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since Miss Petty tell me ’bout she an Malan.’
‘How long ago was that?
‘Since I start puttin two-an-two togeder.’
Once clear of the traffic, I eased the car onto the side of the road. I pressed my head against the seat closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe. ‘So why you didn’t tell me, Miss Stanislaus?’
‘Missa Digger. Nobody did want to tell yuh. Not even Miss Pet, cuz she say she didn know what you would’ve gone an done.’
I’d never heard Miss Stanislaus sound so defensive.
‘I see how Pet loss respeck for Malan. I ask her what the problem is. She tell me, but she aks me not to tell you.’
‘You s’pose to be my friend.’
‘Miss Pet not your friend too? Missa Digger…’ She rested a hand on my arm. I shook it off, watched the wheels of passing vehicles lifting spray off the road.
‘Mebbe that’s why Miss Lonnie ask you for baby?’
‘You, you talk to her too?’
‘Yes, Missa Digger. I was worried ’bout you. You didn look yourself. I went to find Miss Lonnie. You was in the bush up dere lookin fo Miss Alice an Nathan. Sh’was in her house. I ask she what the problem was, same like I ask Miss Pet. She tell me everyting.’
‘In other words, you went digging up my business.’
‘What I know, Missa Digger, is dat luv not always straightforward and woman tink funny sometimes. When Miss Longy come ask you fuh baby is because she feel dat Malan goin leave ’er alone if she carryin baby fuh you. Sh’was Malan woman before you. Mebbe she love you more, but she just don’t have the strength. S’far as I unnerstan, she was a lil girl when he start interferin wid she. He plant imself in she head from small. He break ’er out. Miss Longy grow up takin orders from Malan. Mebbe she can’t help it? Mebbe is better so? What happm if you an she married an Malan come round to order she about? Den is murder dat goin happen, not so? On dis islan y’all man use de law to suit y’all self. An ’s’long as dat don’t change, problem never absolve.’
She turned fierce, unblinking eyes on me, ‘What I don’ unnerstand, Missa Digger, is why you so full of grievin all this time. Cuz as long as that girlchile in your head, she goin be ridin you like donkey. Nice fella like you, you got no problem gettin gyulfren.’