All Through the Night

by M. P. Wright

  “You come and take a look at this; I’ve got something that may interest the pair of you.”

  Truth and I followed Lazarus onto a dust path that ran across the last meadow. We made our way underneath a dense canopy of oak trees and continued to walk further into the shaded coppice, which sat only a few feet away from the landlord’s outbuildings. Some twenty yards in, Lazarus abruptly stopped in his tracks and pointed down towards a small dip between the trees. Sat amongst the moss and lush green grass was a low, square stone structure with a four-foot wooden fence and gate around it.

  “Is that a well of some kind, Lazarus?” I asked.

  Truth took a few brave steps closer and peered gingerly over the fence then stared back at the publican.

  Lazarus chuckled to himself then beamed down at Truth, who was now eagerly hanging on the big man’s next words. “That ain’t a well, Joseph old son, that’s one big old cave down there.”

  “A cave, down there? You’re kidding me, right?” I moved closer to get a better look and stood next to Truth, the two of us intrigued.

  “I ain’t kidding you. Here, come and take a look.” Lazarus opened up the gate then bent down next to the stone edging and began to brush away at the dirt and leaves with his big hands to reveal a small wooden hatch that was held shut by two large black bolts. A large metal looped handle sat in the centre of the previously hidden door. Lazarus drew back the two iron bolts and hauled the hatch open. As Truth and I peered in to get a better look, Lazarus stuck his hand into his jerkin pocket and took out a packet of Park Drive cigarettes and a box of matches. He casually stuck one of the filterless cigarettes between his lips, struck a match and lit it, taking a deep drag before throwing the burning match into the pitch-black forest-floor doorway.

  “That down there is part of the Mendip cave system. They run underground for miles around us, they do. There are vast caverns and chambers right beneath where we’re standing now. Labyrinthine, they are; dangerous too.” Lazarus stabbed his index finger towards the darkened cave entrance. “You go down there, you had better know how the hell to get out, that’s for sure. That one down there’s called Hunter’s Hole: takes you right out towards Cheddar Gorge, it does.”

  “And you’ve been down there?”

  “Yeah, course I have.” Lazarus pulled on his cigarette again then blew out a thick trail of smoke, making Truth cough. “That’s a sixteen-foot drop down to the cave floor. I fixed a series of wooden ladders to the wall so I could get to the bottom. Hunter’s Hole ain’t like most of the caves round here: dry as a bone, it is, no stream running through it. Makes it a little different.”

  “Different, how come?” I got the feeling that Lazarus was a master of the tall tale, but I was happy to go along with a story that was being so imaginatively recounted. Lazarus had another hefty pull of his cigarette and continued.

  “Well, people round these parts say that Joseph of Arimathea used to travel to the village, that he was here to trade in precious metals. On one occasion he was supposed to have brought a young child with him: his nephew, by all accounts. That child was Jesus of Nazareth, so word has it. Story goes that the two of ’em used that cave down there as a place to bed down. A place Joseph could keep his precious metal from thieves and vagabonds. I don’t know how true it is, but I can think of bloody better places to rest my head for the night, that’s for sure. Still, it’s a useful thing to have so close at hand; let’s just say I sometimes keep my ill-gotten gains down there.” Lazarus winked at Truth and then dropped the hatch cover back down. He snapped the two bolts back into their hoops then re-covered the doorway with the dirt and leaves and got to his feet. “Let’s go find Benny, shall we, have ourselves a nice spot of lunch. You like roast-chicken sandwiches, Truth?”

  Truth nodded her head enthusiastically.

  “Good, roast chicken it is then.” Lazarus shut the gate behind him and we began to stroll back through the coppice towards the Hunters Lodge inn. As we broke back out into the warm sunlight, I felt Truth pull at the sleeve of my jacket with her hand. I turned to see what the matter was and found the little girl standing behind me, her arm outstretched, the posy of dandelions and daisies she’d picked earlier held out towards me.

  “For me?” I asked. Truth just stared back and jabbed the flowers insistently at my hand. I reached down, took the tiny bouquet from her and stood for a moment, admiring how she’d carefully interlinked the flowers together. It was a fine job. When I looked up to thank her, Truth had already begun to make her way back inside the pub with Lazarus.

  As I followed on after them both, I thought I could just make out the gentle laughter of a little girl at play in the meadow behind me. Something in the pit of my stomach told me not to turn and see who was out there in that field, so I just kept on walking. As I reached the doorway of the old inn, a gentle breeze whirled up around me and I could have sworn I heard the sweet, hushed voice of my own departed child, Amelia, call out “Daddy” to me. I closed my eyes as the warm air wafted around me and caressed my face. I held on to the posy in my palm a little tighter. The fragile stems felt like the delicate fingers of my little girl’s hand cradled in my own.

  19

  I had the jitters as I stepped back into the Hunters Lodge inn. Since childhood I’d had a habit of holding on to old ghosts. My mamma called them duppies, inexplicable manifestations that dogged both my waking days and nocturnal slumber. These unbidden lost souls would on occasion return, crossing into the threshold of my own unguarded mind, making me feel ill at ease in my own skin and my surroundings, which was perhaps why I’d picked up on the edgy atmosphere inside the pub as soon as my feet hit the doormat.

  Lazarus had told me that the pub didn’t open for business at lunchtimes. Walking into the empty inn gave me an unwelcome, frosty feeling, like a solitary black cat caught mooching about the place, bringing its bad luck in with it. The aroma of oak-aged beer and stale cigarette smoke couldn’t mask the sombre mood of the old tavern. Despite the sun beating down outside, the inside of the pub felt like it had been draped in an eerie, twilight-soaked shroud. What little illumination there was emanated from the two wall-mounted lights that hung on either side of the fireplace. I looked around the taproom; there was no sign of either Lazarus or Truth, which notched up my anxiety a little more. I was about to call out to see where everybody was when I caught sight of Benny standing in the shadows. He was leant against the bar between two hand pulls, his huge mitts resting against the edge of the brass top. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up high on his outstretched arms, revealing muscles that were taut and unyielding. Behind him a small transistor radio, which was turned down real low, was playing Peggy Lee’s “Don’t Smoke in Bed”. He looked across at me coldly, like he was staring out an opponent in a boxing ring. I put the posy Truth had given to me into my jacket pocket and started walking over. I got the feeling I was about to be hit with bad news and Benny was the man to break it to me.

  “Lazarus is out back makin’ Trute some lunch; the child gotta eat and we need to talk.” Benny reached up to the shelf above his head and took down a couple of small glasses then filled both of them with generous measures of Navy rum from the optic behind him. He turned to face me, gently sliding the filled glass across the bar. “Here, git that firewater down you, son. You gonna need it.” Benny put his own glass to his lips then knocked back his shot of hooch in a single gulp, turning for a refill before the warm liquor had the chance to hit his belly.

  “Did you call Estelle? She OK?”

  “Yeah, she is now, but she wasn’t a few hours back.”

  “Why, what’s happened?” I nervously took a sip of my rum, felt it burn as it went down, and waited.

  “She was paid a visit by those coppers that are lookin’ fo’ Trute.”

  “Jesus, not Estelle, they didn’t . . .”

  Benny quickly held up the palm of his hand in front of my face, silencing me. “It’s OK, Estelle’s fine, she ain’t in harm’s way no more. Same goes fo�
�� that witch of a momma of hers.” He lowered his hand and took another sip of rum then looked back at me. “Soon as I knew that those mangy cops had put the strong arm on Loretta, got her to talk an’ hurt her like they did, it didn’t take no fool to guess they’d be headin’ outta Bristol and comin’ hammerin’ at my gate door fo’ the cock got the chance to crow.”

  Benny turned back to the optics behind him and unhooked the bottle of rum from out of its cradle. He walked back out from behind the bar, took a chair from underneath one of the tables and sat down in front of me then sank the remainder of his rum. He poured himself another three fingers’ worth into his glass, pulled out the chair next to him then jerked his head at me to join him. “Sit yo’ ass down.”

  I dropped down next to him. Benny put the lip of the bottle to my glass and topped it up with the dark liquor. I bit at the bottom of my lip and shook my head.

  “Benny, I’m sorry, man. I never meant for Estelle to get hooked up in all this mess.”

  “We is all hooked up in this mess, brother, ain’t no way o’ runnin’ from it now. I knew it wouldn’t take ’em long to come lookin’ fo’ the two of you. They drove down an’ headed straight fo’ the Ship Inn, like they was told to. Found out you and Trute weren’t there. Then they muscled in on the landlord, Sid. He tole ’em where you was headin’, but that wasn’t good enough. They needed to be sure. So they hurt him: hurt him till he coughed up all he knew. He told ’em ’bout me, where I lived, and that’s just where they went next. The cop you was tellin’ me ’bout, one by the name o’ Beaumont. It sounds like it was him.”

  “Did they get heavy?”

  “Not at first. They kicked off with the ‘good citizen’ bullshit. You know the kinda ting. Told her if she had any information on yo’ whereabouts then she had to cough it up. Said how you were a dangerous man who’d took off with a vulnerable kiddie. When they could see their flim-flam wasn’t workin’ on her, they got mean: pinned her to the wall by the throat to git her to talk.”

  “Jesus, Benny. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Ain’t nuttin’ to say. You can rest assured I’m gonna be having words with that pig. Estelle, she ain’t no fool. I tole her if the heat came a knockin’ that she was to let ’em play their hand then give up where we was headin’ to. That’s just what she did. Estelle said there were two guys that gave her the third degree. She said she thought there was a bunch more outside in the car. The one askin’ all the questions was a skinny little runt, blond hair, had a face like a whipped ass. The other one was a big-set fella. He just stood givin’ Estelle the evil eye. She said he looked real mean, not like your common-or-garden copper.”

  “That could be the Yank, Paxton, the fella Doc Fowler told me ’bout.”

  “Could be. We ain’t gonna know fo’ sure till they git here, are we?” Benny shot me a curt smile before continuing. “Look, I heard you tell Lazarus last night that you thought these guys meant bidness. Well they do, ain’t no doubt ’bout it. Now they gonna find out we mean bidness too.”

  “What you talking ’bout, ‘mean bidness’? There ain’t no barterin’ with these guys, Benny.”

  “Who said anyting ’bout barterin’?” Benny stretched his legs out in front of him and knocked back the dregs of his rum, refilling his glass afterwards.

  “Look, I need to get Truth the hell outta here. Get her somewhere safe.”

  “Safe? While these bastards are on your tail there ain’t gonna be no safe. Not fo’ either of you. You gotta make a stand now or they’re gonna hunt you down like a pack o’ dogs after a fox.”

  “Hunt us down. This is Britain you talkin’ ’bout, Benny, not the Deep South.” Even as I was speaking the words I knew how naive I sounded. Benny hauled himself up in his seat, took a mouthful of rum and leant across the table to me.

  “Joseph, if you still tinking you’re in the green and pleasant land, son, you’re wrong. This might not be Montgomery, Alabama, but it might as well be if you’re coloured and breaking some damn honky’s laws.” Benny spat out the words at me then sank another shot of rum. “Come on, you ain’t stupid. You tole me you bin up against dirty cops back home an’ right here in Blighty. Shit, you were a policeman fo’ long enough. You know the way the Babylon work, especially ones like Beaumont and Paxton. They don’t give two shits ’bout hurtin’ nobody. Man or woman. They’re just plain cruel. They bin prepared to kill an ole man, beat up an’ scare women, an’ go crawling across half o’ the West Country to snatch some little girl from you. Now, you got trouble o’ the worst kind going down an’ runnin’ from it ain’t gonna fix nuttin’.”

  Agitated, Benny filled his glass again and tapped at the corner of the table with his index finger as he thought to himself.

  “Joseph, I tole you on the way here how I needed to level up the battlefield fo’ us. Beaumont and the others are comin’ whether you like it or not. We gotta fight on our hands. This here’s our battlefield now, right here. We’re gonna fight, take those bozos out at the neck.”

  “Out at the neck? These are policemen you’re talkin’ ’bout going head to head with here, you gotta be some kinda mad.” I frantically rubbed at my eyes with my fingers, not believing what I was hearing, but Lazarus’ booming voice behind me sharpened my focus on the matter at hand.

  “Benny’s mean, Joseph, he ain’t mad. The former quality might be a bit more useful to you than the latter, if you get my drift?” Lazarus winked at me as he walked to the bar; he leant over and grabbed himself a glass then joined the two of us at the table. Lazarus stuck his glass out in front of him and pointed at the bottle in Benny’s hand with his stubby finger. “Give me a drop of that coon juice, will you?” Benny poured the spirit into Lazarus’ tumbler then the two friends burst out laughing at each other. I felt like I was the only one in the room who didn’t get the joke.

  “This is insane, Benny. You’re right. I know the way the law works. Good and bad. There’s gotta be another way. Not every copper’s dirty. I gotta find some of them. Get them to see what’s going on, investigate what happened to Fowler and why the orphanage and Beaumont want Truth so badly. Taking these guys on is gonna get us in a shitstorm of trouble.”

  “And you ain’t in a shitstorm o’ trouble already? Git real. You bin in trouble from the moment you found that kid. What makes you tink anybody’s gonna wanna listen to some nigger makin’ noise ’bout the Bristol Police giving him a hard time when they is already investigatin’ some black guy who’s just got off the boat and is runnin’ ’bout the countryside with a stolen child. Pigs’ll sling your black ass in the pokey quicker than a goose can shit. You run now, you’re dead. So is Trute.”

  Lazarus chipped in, eager to add his two pennies’ worth. “Joseph, old son, Benny’s right: you haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance if you run. Let’s just say you bolt for it now, where the hell you going to go? You might be able to put some distance between you and these coppers for a couple of days, but they’ll catch up with you in the end, sure as God grew little green apples.”

  Benny stuck his finger in my face. “You a black man with a little white girl in tow. You tink you ain’t gonna stand out from the crowd?”

  Both men had rammed home their point. Both of them were right. I was in a real jam and they knew it. Now I was scared to hear how they planned to get me out of the mess I was in.

  “So what do you wanna do, Benny?”

  “I wanna kill the fuckers, that’s what I wanna do.”

  “You can’t go round killin’ police officers. This ain’t the Wild West.”

  “You got a better idea?” Benny snapped back at me.

  “There’s gotta be some other way.” The thought of having blood on my hands again turned my guts over.

  “There ain’t, believe me. They gonna be coming for that child real soon. Next few hours, that’s all we got. Lazarus and me, we cooked up a way outta this. You just gotta hold your nerve, do as I say.”

  More violence, more corpses. I’d had my fill of dea
th, but it was becoming clear that death had other plans for me.

  Benny topped up our glasses with rum. He savoured his first sip then downed the rest. “Beaumont and the others have gotta be workin’ off the books on this. It’s a strictly ‘nobody needs to know’ kinda operation and a stitch-up job for you. They got plenty to hide but ain’t bothered how much shit they let fly around keepin’ it secret. They’re gonna come here with some bargainin’ chip to play, probably money, someting to twist your arm with, an incentive to give up the girl. Let ’em play their hand, Joseph. Once they got their cards on the table, you make ’em swallow that you’ll go for the deal. Offer ’em Trute fo’ a price and get ’em to come back fo’ her later.”

  “That’s a pretty slim kinda plan you got going on there, Benny. What makes you think they won’t just muscle in an’ try to take Truth by force?”

  “Oh, I ain’t got no doubt that they’ll have consider that. It’ll be an option; that’s why you gotta make ’em tink they got the winnin’ hand from the off. Make ’em tink you just a greedy nigger, happy to make himself thirty pieces o’ silver fo’ that child’s hide. Whatever they offer, ask fo’ a bit more. Don’t go crazy now, just up the ante a little. Get ’em to come back fo’ Trute later, preferably after dark. We in the middle o’ nowhere here, get ’em to see the benefit of a night-time switch. The rest you gotta make up as you go along. Hey, you’re the detective, making stuff up gotta come easy to a fella like you.”

  Benny and Lazarus chuckled to themselves. I still wasn’t convinced. Benny shuffled in closer and elaborated on his plan.

  “These boys, they gonna be tinking you have someting up your sleeve, gonna be suspicious that you could be stallin’. That’s why you gotta convince ’em otherwise. They ain’t gonna want any witnesses to what they got planned. Well, the same goes fo’ us. They’ll have already thought you’ll maybe try and run with the girl, that you’ll wanna git to the authorities. They ain’t gonna let that happen. They’re gonna be leavin’ somebody to watch this place, keep a firm eye on what’s going on. They ain’t stupid; don’t treat ’em like it either.”