The Bone Readers

by Jacob Ross

  ‘Jason suffered major damage to the back of the head. There was no evidence of him having on clothes, which leads me to believe he was naked when he died. He was probably with Alice at the time.

  ‘Two months later, Alice was gone. People thought she went chasing after Jason – that was until The Mother found Alice’s phone.’

  I paused and looked at them. ‘I s’pose y’all wondering why Pike killed her? Well, Alice was pregnant and she either told Pike the child was Jason’s, or he worked that out himself.’

  ‘Where Nathan fit into all of this?’ Chilman said.

  ‘Nathan an Miss Alice was good friend,’ Miss Stanislaus said. ‘He the first to suspeck somefing happm to Miss Alice. H’was a brave lil fella; he face up to Pike.’

  ‘The Mother confirmed a drastic change in Nathan’s attitude to Pike after Alice disappeared,’ I said. ‘Very hostile. Not long after, Nathan wasn’t there no more.’

  I held up Alice’s phone. ‘This is what kicked off things. When Amos spotted the phone in Miss Stanislaus’s hand and said it was his mother’s, Bello was not the only one who heard. A few of the women did and they got suspicious.

  ‘The Mother say where she find it?’ Chilman wanted to know.

  ‘I had a hard time getting that out of her,’ I said.

  ‘I interested, Digson. Tell me.’

  ‘In a minute. Bello wanted to know who gave Miss Stanislaus the phone. The Mother never told him and Amos was so afraid of the man, the child’s mouth used to lock up in his presence.

  ‘I believe Deacon Bello had a crisis. He saw the scandal coming, the church falling apart. He also realised that Miss Stanislaus was no ordinary member of his congregation.’

  Malan flicked his pen, ‘Time to land, Digger. You say you got doubts about who kill Bello Hunt?’

  ‘Yes. What kept bothering me was the absence of the Watchmen and children on the beach during the baptism. That’s not normal.

  ‘What I know now is that the Watchmen stayed at the church with the children. That was the understanding between Pike and his other woman.’

  I left them with that; went to the sink to wash my face. When I returned, Miss Stanislaus was squinting at me and Chilman’s head was shaking. Pet looked puzzled.

  ‘His other woman?’ Malan said.

  ‘The Mother. It was an open secret that Bello and the Mother slept in the same room, but that was all. She admitted to finding Alice’s phone under Pike’s pillow and that it was her decision to ask the Watchmen to stay with the children. She wouldn’t tell me why she made that decision.

  ‘As far as I could see, Pike was running the Mother for years. The woman literally gave Alice to him. When she killed Bello, she was ripe for it.’

  Miss Stanislaus was shaking her head at me.

  ‘It wasn’t Adora who killed Bello,’ I said.

  ‘Missa Digger, that’s not true.’

  Malan shifted in his seat, his eyes switching from Miss Stanislaus’s face to mine. Chilman went completely still as if he was listening to something outside our words. The red eyes never left my face.

  ‘Miss Stanislaus, you prepare to swear to me that you actually saw Adora strike down Bello? That you saw the blow that knocked him down?’

  She said nothing for a while then frowned. ‘I thought…’

  ‘Adora admitted to throwing herself at Bello, and wanting to tear the flesh off his face, but Mother Bello was in the way. I believe Adora.’

  I raised my head at them. ‘The Mother carry that stone all the way from the church yard. I could prove it. She had it on her person; it wasn’t obvious because she not a small woman. Is not Adora kill Bello. Is The Mother.’

  ‘So we got an arrest to make,’ Malan said.

  ‘Nuh,’ Miss Stanislaus said.

  ‘How you mean, nuh!’

  ‘Let’s vote on it,’ Chilman cut in abruptly. ‘Who favour arresting the woman who kill she husband for raping seven girl-children in his care and being complicit in the murder of three members of his congregation and, after all that, attempting to drown an officer.’

  Malan raised his brows. I saw him stifle a smile. Chilman pointed his pen at me. ‘You been making sense so far, Digson, except the logistics. How Pike manage to carry them people to them places…’

  ‘The Volvo in the yard. Pike used to work as a bus driver. The Mother knew that too,’ I told him.

  Malan said he wanted it noted that he had one concern.

  ‘Wozzat?’ Chilman said.

  ‘We could not interview Pike Hunt because he got five bullets for the price of one.’

  Chilman crossed his legs and chuckled.

  ‘I don’t see the joke.’

  ‘That’s because you think is a bad thing, Malan – right?’ Chilman looked like an old rooster preparing for a fight. ‘So what you expect?’

  ‘How you mean what I expect!’

  ‘Okay, Malan, lemme put it this way. That incident in the market square that none ov y’all bother tell me about: if Cocoman knew the way DC Stanislaus use a gun, you think he would’ve tried to cut ’er throat in the middle of the market square because she is a woman trying to arrest him? And look what happm – you and Digson had to run from y’all desk and go play Bruce Lee to get her out of trouble. So what would’ve happened if y’all wasn’t around? Eh?’

  Chilman stood up, his body swaying. ‘Y’all should advertise the fact. Make every badjohn and henchman on this island know that once she raise that gun and point it at their arse, they good as dead; no escaping it; they dead – not once, Malan; not twice. They dead five fuckin times. I done talk.’

  ‘You getting worse in your old-age, Sir.’ I said.

  Chilman laughed. ‘You not doing too bad yourself, Digson. I bet that never cross your mind? Anyway, I travelling with y’all to Easterhall. I want to survey the damage meself.’

  When we stepped out into the yard, there was a cameraman at the door and a young woman with a microphone from Island Voice TV. Did we have a statement to make about the second body we found in Easterhall?

  Malan stepped forward. Miss Stanislaus tapped the young woman’s shoulder.

  ‘Missa Digger’z the one who know all about it. Or mebbe you talk to both ov us, because we wuk togedder.’

  Malan fixed her with that dark-eyed glare he reserved for her father. He was probably going to shoulder her aside. I felt my lips peel back. ‘Yuh even breathe on her, you’ll wish you never born.’

  He pretended he didn’t hear me. I kept my eyes on him until he moved aside.

  49

  Now that the Dry Season was upon us and the mint grass shrunk down to stumps, we could see the field of stones – black pockmarked protrusions that ran all the way down to the ocean.

  Somebody had made chalk marks on the boulder at the foot of which they’d uncovered Nathan, and yes, Nathan had been wearing his brown leather sandals like Miss Iona said and there were remnants of his khaki shorts.

  It would take them several days to comb these stony acres for whatever else Pike might have buried here. But for now it was enough to know that we’d found Nathan and secured the scene. Later tonight, or at some unholy hour in the morning, I would return and interrogate his bones.

  Chilman made his way towards the excavation with a floundering urgency. The old fella stood for a while over it, the wind pulling at his clothing and making of him a scarecrow. Miss Stanislaus and I remained on the road.

  She raised inquiring eyes at me. ‘You know ’bout dat?’

  I told her, yes, I knew about Frigate Island.

  ‘Missa Digger, it look to me like everybody on Camaho searching for somebody.’

  Maybe loss needs something to attach itself to, I told her, something it can see or touch before it’s able to put whatever is lost to rest.

  ‘You goin tell me about your modder?’

  ‘Nothing much to report, Miss Stanislaus. Demonstration in San Andrews. Fella named Buckman Hurd shot them up so bad, they couldn’t let the public see th
e carnage. So they decide to chalk them. It is the only explanation.’

  ‘Chalk?’

  ‘You make a mark with chalk – one wipe with your hand and it’s gone. The first coupla years they claimed she wasn’t at the demonstration. When the papers printed pictures to prove they lied, they changed their tune and said she fell off the sidewalk into the sea and drowned. Tide took her. Problem is the Carenage don’t have no tide.’

  ‘What you goin do now, Missa Digger? You finish wiv it?’

  I looked away; said nothing.

  Chilman returned, cleared his throat and focused rum-reddened eyes on his daughter, then on me. ‘Digson, you’z a dog.’

  ‘Same back to you, Sir.’

  ‘Precisely,’ he said, and winked at me.

  The old DS turned his back on us and strolled over to his car.

  We watched the tail lights of his vehicle grow dim in the distance then disappear.

  ‘He like you, Missa Digger. He, erm, he like you a lot.’ Miss Stanislaus was staring beyond the rocks at the sea. ‘But he dunno how to say it.’

  ‘He love you, Miss Stanislaus. A lot. But sometimes, yunno, life is a bitch; it take over.’

  ‘What I don unnerstand, Missa Digger, is why Pike hide Miss Alice in the mountain up there and a different place for Nathan and Jason.’

  ‘Mebbe he couldn’t stand the idea of another man near her, even in death. I dunno, Miss Stanislaus.’

  ‘Missa Digger, you tired?’

  ‘Lil bit.’ I said. ‘Why?’

  ‘I been thinkin dat we go relax. Me an you.’

  ‘What you got in mind?’

  ‘Ristorant, mebbe, with knife-an-fork and nice plate, and waiter-boys-and-gyuls servin us. Yunno?’ She glanced at me, smiled. ‘You wear your perfume. I dress up lil bit – put on someting nice. Den we go take some breeze, remind weself dat life not bad. That awright?’

  ‘That very awright, Miss Stanislaus. We could, erm, take Daphne with us?’

  ‘You want ter?’ I could not read her expression.

  ‘I been thinking about Daphne,’ I said.

  I remembered the child being always beside Miss Stanislaus or one step behind her whenever we were at the church. She would rest her head against her mother as soon as she got the chance. There were times when Miss Stanislaus dropped her hand across her daughter’s shoulders and Daphne’s face became blissful.

  I watched Daphne change the rules of a game of Po-Man-Po so that the younger ones could join in and enjoy themselves. And this, more than anything, made me see her differently.

  ‘Mebbe we can take her out, yunno? After work. She like ice-cream? Mebbe a glass of cold cane juice down in the mall in the Drylands. Or the cinema, a dance show, a play, or even the airport – she might like to watch them planes coming and going. Give ’er something to dream about.’

  Miss Stanislaus reached down and adjusted the ankle strap of her sandals. ‘What you sayin, Missa Digger?’

  ‘That’s all I’m saying, Miss Stanislaus. Nothing more.’

  She straightened up, passed a tissue across her eyes. ‘I remember tings sometimes, Missa Digger, then…’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Tings not finish yet, Missa Digger. I got to go to Kara Isle an finish it. That’s all I have to say.’

  Miss Stanislaus fanned her face, glanced at me and chuckled. ‘An’ I have to say, Missa Digger, I like it. I like it very much.’

  ‘What you talking ’bout now?’

  She tapped her bag. ‘Uhm, when you catch Missa Malan watchin me cross-eye, an you growl at him like dog, I have to say you sound very fierce indeed. Very fierce an nice! You take me home right now?’

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘Then what you waitin for?’

  50

  My head was ripe for nightmares, so I didn’t go to bed but followed the progress of the night by the sounds of the world outside: crickets stopped their chorus around three, after them the bats – in a final feeding frenzy – made me dizzy with their chittering. The wing-whisper of owls returning to their roosts took over, followed by the early-morning seawind rolling up the valley, stirring the trees.

  I showered and dressed, boiled some cocoa, dropped in milk and sugar and sipped it until the cup went cold in my hands. I read and made notes for three hours, left my house at nine and answered a phone call from Dessie’s mother on my way to Wax Apple Hill.

  I sat on the wall above the courtyard of Luther Caine’s church until the Sunday morning service was over and the congregation had their fill of gossip and handshaking. I kept my eyes on him back-patting fellow congregants – hair slicked back, a blue long-sleeve shirt with gold cufflinks, patent leather shoes polished to a high shine. Bright wide smile.

  I wanted a clearer picture of the face behind the cruelty. I found it hard to square the Luther Caine I saw with his wife recovering from an overdose in a clinic in Barbados. Why was there no law in Camaho that made the mental torture he put her through a crime?

  Shona Manille had called from Barbados to thank me. The grimness in her tone made it plain they would destroy Luther without touching him. Here was Luther – smiling, laid-back – unaware of what was about to hit him. It left me wondering at the ways in which a life can be so readily dismantled.

  Back home, I unsealed the taped-down pages of my black notebook. Thick as a Bible and just as heavy, it used to be my mother’s. I was fourteen when I dug it up from the pile of her belongings that my grandmother could not bring herself to throw away.

  The first forty pages were notes to herself about my father, as if she were at war with her own feelings about him.

  As a boy, I’d been uncomfortable reading the details of their intimacies, my mother’s expressions of desire. What struck me now was the way she wrote about his house. His bed was theirs, the living room not just a place she cleaned and tidied, but one she sat in, watched television and had him feed her fruits.

  Then came the break when his wife found them together. She wrote of the hurry with which she’d dressed and left. I detected no shame in my mother’s words, only defiance and regret. She’d dedicated nine short lines to a man named Prince who took her sometimes in his car to a quiet beach in the south, but it was clear to me now that my father had occupied some place in my mother that could not be breached.

  I’d sealed the pages when I could not bear them anymore. What happened between humans frightened me. They still did, but when I closed the book, I did not reseal the pages.

  My mind drifted back to Pike and Alice Massy, then Dessie – Dessie drowning and reaching out to me.

  I got into my car and drove through one of those thunderstorms that were as sudden as they were violent, my wipers a crazy blur. Some things Lonnie had left in my house – a bottle of Nivea lotion, a cream nylon slip she used to come to bed in, and a yellow sleeveless body-hugging top – were on the passenger seat beside me.

  When I got there, the beach in front of Lonnie’s house was drowned in a layer of seething foam and broken coral.

  She was on the veranda with two women – one with a head of thick unplaited hair, let loose to the wind making a small tornado in the veranda. She was combing Lonnie’s hair. The other was thin, light-skinned, with rust-coloured hair and brownish-golden eyes that reminded me of the pictures I’ve seen of lions.

  The women stepped back, one with her shoulders against the door frame, the other close beside her.

  I nodded to them and held out Lonnie’s bag. ‘Coupla things you left behind.’ I tried to smile.

  Lonnie looked at the bag, then at my face.

  I hadn’t planned what I said next. ‘I don’t regret nothing, Lonnie. You been good for me.’

  I turned and started walking back to the main road. Through the wind I heard my name. I looked round to see Lonnie hurrying along the path, the red comb in her hair.

  She stood before me, breathless. ‘Digger,’ she said. ‘I – I awright now, yunno. I straighten out myself. I straighten out from… since�
� since…’

  ‘So stay straighten out then! These things take time.’ She blinked at me as I patted her arm.

  As I pulled out onto the road, I thought how fear – along with all the ways a fella tried to own or control a woman – might make her stay, but it could not make her love him.

  I might say that to Miss Stanislaus later – impress the lady, yunno. But come to think ov it, she been tellin me that in her own watch-y’arse, don’-gimme-no-bullshit way. From time!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jacob Ross has been hailed as ‘a writer of formidable technical range and emotional depth’. His novel Pynter Bender was published in September 2008 to much critical acclaim. It was shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers Regional Prize and chosen as one of the British Authors Club’s top three Best First Novels (2009). Jacob is also the author of acclaimed short story collections, Song for Simone and A Way to Catch the Dust. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been a judge of the V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize, the Olive Cook, Scott Moncrieff and Tom-Gallon Literary Awards.

  He was born and grew up in Grenada. He came to England in 1984. He currently lives in Leicester.