The Bone Readers

by Jacob Ross

  She mopped her face and sucked her teeth. ‘Or mebbe you got a problem, yes. Mebbe you can’t stand losing woman. Mebbe since yuh modder gone an don’t come back…’

  ‘My mother not your business! Y’unnerstand!’

  ‘Missa Digger, you shoutin.’

  ‘I shout loud and long as I want; is my car. You got no business in my business.’

  ‘But you got bizness in mine? You take boat and go all the way to Kara Isle to find out about me, not so? Well, I damn well got a right to find out ’bout you too. Yuh modder lef’ you an you vex. You vex to bust all yuh livin life.’

  ‘You any different? Lemme ask you this: Since Juba lay his hand on you, you been feeling good ’bout yourself? And if so, how come you never go near man since?’

  She fumbled for the handle of the door, pushed it open and stepped out. Miss Stanislaus stood against the bonnet her head lowered against the rain.

  I got out of the car and stood beside her, heavy-hearted and choked. ‘I shouldn’ve said that. I sorry, Miss Stanislaus.’

  ‘Gimme yuh hand.’ She reached out and grabbed it. Hers was cool. I felt the pulse in her wrist.

  She placed herself in front of me, wide-eyed, fierce.

  ‘Missa Digger, I askin you a favour. Is important. Tomorrow, you let Malan know you know about him and Miss Longy. Nothing more. Then I asking you to carry on like if nothing happm. You could manage dat?’

  She must have felt me heave.

  ‘I askin you, please. But mebbe you don have the strength?’

  ‘Strength! What strength! I’z a big man!’

  ‘Den tomorrow, show me.’

  ‘I not as bad-minded as you think, y’unnerstan…’

  ‘Yuh fink you not!’

  She got back in the car; I followed. She turned her face toward me, ‘Missa Digger, I hurt your feelins and you hurt mine. We balance now?’

  ‘We balance.’ I said.

  We drove the rest of the way in silence.

  At her gap, Miss Stanislaus made her usual preparations to get out. I nodded at her, forced a smile. With a movement so swift it caught me off-guard, she reached over and pulled me towards her. For a moment I felt her breath on my face, her hand inside my shirt. Then just as smoothly, she eased back and I saw that she had my special issue in her hand.

  She dropped the revolver into her bag and was out of the car before I caught my breath. I sat staring at the road ahead, stunned – not so much by the unexpectedness of Miss Stanislaus relieving me of my weapon as the shock of her skin on mine.

  I fixed my shirt, blinked at the two top buttons that her fingers had unhooked; took my time driving home.

  45

  I realised they planned it – Pet and Miss Stanislaus – leaving Malan and I in the office and going off to the market square.

  I’d bent my head to a crossword puzzle. Malan was on his cell phone. Occasionally I heard a chuckle burst from him and I couldn’t stand to hear him enjoying himself. I strolled over to the window, pressed a shoulder against the frame and looked down on the Esplanade.

  A tourist liner was edging backwards from the jetty, its engine creating a small storm-surge that threw water over the sidewalk onto the street.

  I heard my name, shifted the angle of my gaze to see Malan at the periphery of my vision. He was making beckoning movements with his hand.

  I returned to looking down on the Esplanade.

  Malan approached, stood a little way behind me.

  ‘Digger we have to talk.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘The erm, the Guinness, yunno – Lonnie.’

  ‘So you got personal, like you promised – right?’

  ‘I come to see you coupla times to talk man-to-man about me and she, yunno. Man even come to that Fire Baptist bush-church to find you. But she,’ he flashed an evil glance at Miss Stanislaus’s desk. ‘She tell me to haul my arse.’

  Malan moved to touch my arm. I stepped back.

  ‘Easy, fella.’

  He spread his fingers, ‘All I saying is things happen, yunno. Is life. I should’ve let you know from the time you start with she; it don’t matter which fella Lonnie go with, she still mine. She always go be mine. I know her since she small, yunno.’

  I looked him in the eye. ‘In some parts of the world man get jail for that. What about your wife?’

  He clenched his brows. ‘What wife got to do with that? Digger, you tryin to tell me someting?’

  ‘Yep!’ I uncrossed my legs and took my shoulder off the window frame. ‘What I telling you is, when Man play with my head, Man give me permission to play with his too. Y’unnerstan?’

  ‘So, what you sayin…’

  ‘You heard me first time. Don’t ever raise that kinda talk with me again. Let’s stick to work.’

  I returned to my desk.

  I was settling down to my crossword puzzle when the glass door swung open and Pet rushed in, eyes wide and streaming, her body heaving. I shot to my feet.

  ‘Digger-Dig… Miss Stanislaus, she…’

  ‘What happm? Talk to me, Pet!’

  ‘Fella in the market chop up his woman. Miss Stanislaus try to arrest im. Now he got Miss Stanislaus…’

  Malan erupted. His desk drawer banged open, his office in-tray hit the floor and he was out of his office with his SIG Sauer in his hand. He headed for the entrance of the driveway. I took a hard left, vaulted the wall of the compound and hit the road sprinting. All I had to do was listen out for the uproar. I spotted the tightly packed bodies at the western end of the market square.

  I jumped the railing when I got there, began making my way along the edge of the crowd.

  Rivulets of blood had darkened the concrete. High above the din, the rake of a man’s voice. I recognised it instantly: Cocoman, the coconut seller. I pushed past sweating torsos and resisting shoulders.

  I spotted Malan on St John’s Street above the square, sidling along the railings, his gun hand across his chest, the muzzle of the pistol tilted upward.

  From the buzz of words I picked up that Cocoman had turned his machete on his woman. She was a stall holder herself, and the day before she’d left him for another man.

  Miss Stanislaus had witnessed the attack and tried to arrest him. Cocoman turned his rage on her.

  I broke through the circle, my belt in my hand. Miss Stanislaus’s back was pressed against the man’s chest. The coconut seller had an elbow locked around her throat. The man’s body was slick with sweat, his string-vest clinging to his skin, his mouth frothing with obscenities. The machete in his other hand made glinting arcs above her head.

  Miss Stanislaus flowed with the man’s movements, almost as if she’d become boneless from the waist up. She didn’t have her purse.

  Malan had positioned himself on the other side of the street, in my direct line of vision. He’d pressed his back into a corner of the Syrian storefront, his face wiped of all expression. I risked a quick shake of my head, hoping he would read my signal to stand down. Malan didn’t seem to notice.

  As long as the man was facing me I could not move on him. As if Malan knew what I was thinking, he shouted something, his voice derisive, goading. Then he fired in the air. The crowd spread out abruptly. Cocoman’s head swivelled round, Miss Stanislaus stumbling with his movement. I threw myself across the space, driving the buckle of my belt forward. It buried itself in his shoulder, sent the machete helicoptering through the crowd.

  The sonuvabitch stiffened with the shock, rocked backwards, began howling like a scalded dog. I was on him in a grunting, hollow-headed frenzy – the shouts around me echoing and smeared. I felt arms around my waist, my shirt ripped off my back, my body dragged backwards. Then a man’s voice in my ear, ‘You hit im one more time, Sah, you kill im. That what you want to do?’

  It sounded like a tease – an invitation. I allowed myself to be pulled to my feet.

  Miss Stanislaus had slipped into the crowd as soon as the man released her.

  ‘Y’awright?’
I said.

  She nodded.

  I looped my belt around my waist and strode back to the office.

  At the sink, I washed off the grit, stared into the mirror at a face I barely recognised – a tight-lipped, bare-chested man with a bruised cheekbone and half-crazed eyes.

  I was looking out the window again when Malan returned. He opened his drawer and slid in his revolver. From the corner of my eye I saw him pick up his in-tray from the floor and lay it on his desk, his movements gentle, as if careful not to disturb the quiet in the office.

  He turned his attention to Miss Stanislaus when she came in. She’d managed to retrieve her bag, and that bright-eyed serenity had returned to her face. She sat back in her chair both hands folded in her lap. I felt her eyes on me.

  Half an hour later, Pet shouldered the door, tripped in and dropped a parcel in front of me. ‘Sixty dollars,’ she said.

  I handed her the money.

  Miss Stanislaus got up, took the packet off my desk and returned to her seat. She unfolded it, extracted the pins from the new shirt and spread it on her lap. She passed a palm along the creases and unbuttoned it. Pet followed every gesture, Malan too. Miss Stanislaus came over and held out the shirt to me.

  ‘Miss Stanislaus,’ I muttered. ‘You still got my special issue. And look what almost happen.’

  Miss Stanislaus leaned over and dropped her voice. ‘Missa Digger take the shirt. We goin take a lil breeze togedder after work?’

  Miss Stanislaus sat beside me, looking out across the water. In the distance, San Andrews town was just a scattering of lights at the foot of High Lake mountain range gone blue-black with the oncoming night.

  She’d asked me to take her to this quiet place of trampled grass and scuffed earth, which used to be a colony for lepers. Now it was a communal love-nest for San Andrews.

  A genleman offer to take her here a lil while ago, she said, and she was curious about the place.

  ‘Then he wasn’t a genleman if he want to take you here,’ I grinned.

  Cars arrived, rising and dipping over the uneven ground, their headlights doused. We watched them manoeuvre until their windshields faced the ocean.

  Miss Stanislaus turned bright interested eyes on me. ‘Missa Digger, people don’t have bed?’

  ‘Mebbe they just taking some fresh air, Miss Stanislaus. Or mebbe is more exciting outside here. I dunno. Why you don’t go and ask them?’

  ‘They won’t mind?’ Miss Stanislaus reached for the handle of door.

  I lunged over and pulled it closed. ‘I not advising you to do that.’

  She raised a brow. ‘Is so San Andrews people take fresh air?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘How you know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That is more exciting?’

  ‘Is only guess I guessing, Miss Stanislaus. I can’t say for sure. You ready to go home?’

  ‘Nuh. You don’t mind me watchin people take de breeze a lil longer?’

  ‘Miss Stanislaus, which part of the world you from?’

  A chuckle bubbled out of her. ‘Missa Digger, why you take everything so serious?’

  ‘Didn’t sound like you joking. You ready to go home?’

  ‘Nuh.’

  ‘Enjoy yourself then. Wake me up when you finish.’ I adjusted my seat and settled back.

  Miss Stanislaus prodded my rib with an elbow. ‘Missa Digger, Adora left the church.’

  I sat up. ‘When?’

  ‘Few days ago. I wasn’ dere. The Modder say she left in secret, and after she left she call and cuss them stinkin. She say all ov them is cockroach and they goin stay cockroach for the rest ov them life. She say that me an you – we like bat in daylight.’ Miss Stanislaus pushed herself forward and looked me in the face. ‘Missa Digger, them is hurtful words from a Sister ov the church.’

  I felt a sudden blood-rush in my head, sat still for a while.

  ‘Miss Stanislaus, tell me again what Adora say.’

  Miss Stanislaus repeated what Mother Bello told her.

  ‘Them is clever words, Miss Stanislaus. Right now I feel ashamed; I feel as if I let Adora down. I underestimate the woman. I…’

  ‘You goin stop runnin yuh mouth an start talkin sense?’ Miss Stanislaus’s lips were quivering with irritation.

  ‘Easy, Miss Stanislaus.’

  She folded her arms and stared stiffly out of the window.

  ‘She said the same thing in the church before she left us in the room and walked off. No centipede – or rather santopee – could frighten her. Now she’s calling y’all cockroaches.’ I leaned forward. ‘You ever see what happm when a centipede is in your house?’

  Miss Stanislaus shook her head.

  ‘Well, every part of the house come alive with the insects that been hiding in the cracks and crevices of your place, especially cockroaches. Miss Stanislaus, if you want to know what frighten look like, then watch cockroaches running from a centipede. What Adora been saying is that me and you – we’re like bat in daylight because we don’t see the centipede in the house.’

  Miss Stanislaus raised enigmatic eyes at me. ‘Missa Digger, you just gimme a picture of how I been feeling about this church from time. But I just couldn wuk it out.’

  She was quiet for a while. ‘The santopee Miss Adora talk about, you know how to catch it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘You goin tell me how?’

  ‘You smoke it out, Miss Stanislaus. Is smoke you smoke it out.’

  I spent the night sitting at my worktop, feverish with thought. I dug out my notebooks and reread everything I’d observed and written since the case began. I reviewed the photographs of the first body we’d found in Easterhall, my measurements and the topology of the stresses and damage the bones had sustained: fractured upper ribs, adjacent vertebra and shoulder blade. A pattern of cracked bones along which I could run a line from one extremity to the other. I was astonished at my carelessness. Now I saw the way this body linked with Alice’s, not just by the nature of the trauma to the bones, but also by the fact that Alice’s body, like the first one, had been disposed of face down.

  I called Pet.

  ‘Digger, what you want now; you know what time it is?’

  ‘G’night Pet, you could run a check for me tomorrow?’

  ‘On?’

  ‘Bello Hunt. Find out as much as you can about him and his family, starting with his parents.’

  ‘That might take all day.’

  ‘Clear it with Malan. If he ask you what we up to, tell him we chasing Nathan.’

  ‘You still on that case?’

  ‘I never dropped it, Pet.’

  ‘You mean Missa Chilman never let you.’

  46

  It took two hours of crawling up a dizzying road before I found myself in the mountains where the soil was always wet, and trees were ten times the size of those in the lowlands.

  The two-roomed house was as decrepit as the woman who rested her elbow on top of the closed half-door.

  ‘Adora not here,’ she said. ‘Nobody hardly hear from she. Adora foot too hot; she never stay one place. Mebbe she gone to her first cousin place in Kanvi. Them two always help out each other. Adora not the kind ov woman a fella like you should be askin for. She don’t take no lash from no man. Adora temper turn her chupid.’

  I searched through my pockets and pulled out a few dollars and a handful of coins.

  ‘Is all I have,’ I said handing everything to her.

  The old woman looked surprised.

  ‘Take it, Granny. Please.’

  She nodded as if she were doing me a favour.

  On the way back, I called Miss Stanislaus to say I would pick her up from the office at eleven.

  It was one of those mornings when the sea breezes travelled inland and took the sting from the sun.

  Miss Stanislaus threw a quick look at my face when I turned into the old mud track that would take us to the church. A spell of rain had fallen in the
night that made the going tortuous. The mangroves were unusually loud with the lapping of the waters between their roots.

  ‘The santopee? she said. ‘You goin to smoke it out now?’

  ‘I might have to light the fire first and let it burn a while. Miss Stanislaus, we been careless.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We been ignoring Amos, we been forgetting Mother Bello and that first body we found in Easterhall. Well, let’s see what happens now.’

  I got out the car and opened the door for her. The air was peppery with the fumes of burning wood.

  I greeted the two Watchmen with a wave and a nod. Pike gave us a thumbs up; the other watchman pretended he hadn’t seen us.

  Miss Stanislaus curtsied, then turned her attention to a smiling, animated Daphne, handing over a little multicoloured rucksack to her daughter. ‘School start Monday. Me an Missa Digger drop you off at Miss Grace.’ She bent down and whispered something in Daphne’s ear. The little girl nodded, shouldered the bag and went to sit in my car.

  The Mother stood at the church door, one hand planted on a hip; in the other she held the bell.

  ‘I looking for Adora,’ I said to The Mother.

  ‘Adora gone home fuh a while, I fink.’

  ‘You think! You not sure?’

  ‘I sure.’

  ‘And her little girl?’

  Mother Bello frowned. ‘She take de chile with her, ov course. What you fink…’

  ‘I not thinking right now, Mother Bello. I asking questions. When she left this place?’

  ‘Three days ago.’

  ‘Four,’ Iona said. ‘Counting the night she left.’

  ‘Anybody saw her leave?’ I looked at the faces about me. They shook their heads.

  ‘Mebbe she didn want nobody to know she leavin,’ Iona said.

  ‘Miss Iona, when last you been to your house?’

  ‘Church business keep me kinda busy, yunno.’ She was scuffing the earth with her feet.

  ‘Who feed your dog, then?’

  ‘Dog know how to look after imself.’ She gave me a brief underhand look.