by M. P. Wright
I bent down and spoke quietly against Stephens’ ear. “Just so you know, a Collins is the name we Barbadians give to any big knife.” I smiled at the already petrified administrator then reached across and pulled the old rag from out of her mouth. I watched as Vic pressed the red record button on the cassette machine.
Vic stared up at me. “You got questions?”
“Yeah, I do. An’ I’m expectin’ some straight answers outta Mrs Stephens too.” I knelt down next to Vic and stared at Ida.
Vic squeezed Ida’s jaw a little tighter and she yelped in pain. “Then git ta askin’ the woman what you wanna know befo’ I mush her face to a pulp.”
I leant my hand against the wall next to Ida’s face. “Let’s start with Dr Theo Fowler.”
“What about him?” snapped Stephens.
“How long had he been workin’ for you at the orphanage?”
“Three, four years . . . He was our house GP.”
“It was Fowler’s name signing off on those children’s death certificates I got back from him, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, you know it was!”
“And he falsified those certificates for you, didn’t he?
Ida dropped her head and looked down at the floor of the van. “Yes.”
“Only those kids weren’t dead, were they, Ida?”
Stephens nodded without lifting her eyes.
“Speak up, Ida, that microphone needs to hear every word that comes outta your mout’.”
“Yes, they were all alive.” Ida bit at her bottom lip in a desperate attempt to stop herself giving away any more incriminating evidence. Vic stuck his hand underneath Ida’s chin, squeezed at her throat and lifted her head up towards my face.
“What happened to those children?”
Ida baulked at answering the question. Vic squeezed a little tighter and her face became scarlet, her neck stretching upwards.
“They . . . they were sold.”
“Sold? Who to?” I barked.
“To Jack Paxton.”
“You’re talkin’ ’bout the American who shot Doc Fowler? The one that’s been on my tail all this time, yeah?”
“Yes. He’s a military policeman.”
“What’s a Yankee lawman doing buying orphan kids from a place like the Walter Wilkins?”
Vic locked his other hand at the back of Ida’s neck and smashed the back of her head against the van wall.
“He’s selling them on in the US.”
“Selling them on? What the hell you talking ’bout?” I nodded to Vic to apply a little more pressure. Vic kindly obliged and began to steadily knead at Ida’s throat with his huge fingers. Stephens’ face became redder as she choked out her reply to my question.
“He’s running a business. He pays the orphanage money for each child he takes off us. He’s trading the children back in the States.”
“Trading, who with?”
“I don’t know . . . Couples, I think.”
“Couples? What do you mean?”
Vic shook Ida’s head like a rag doll in his hand.
“Couples . . . Men and women who can’t conceive a child of their own.”
“Jesus . . .” I rubbed at my chin, not believing quite what the woman was telling me. “How’d Paxton get involved with the orphanage?”
“Through my boss, Edward Matherson. Matherson has a fuel business that supplies the airbase Paxton is stationed at. They met there a few years ago.”
“Which airbase?”
“I’m not sure . . . Somewhere in Gloucestershire, RAF Fairford, I think.”
“Who else at Wilkins is involved in all of this?”
“There’s another of my colleagues, a social worker called Andrew Balfour, and a few police officers from Bridewell station in the city.”
“Bridewell . . . What are the police officers’ names?”
“I don’t know!”
Vic suddenly released Ida’s neck and replaced his hand with the edge of the machete blade. He slid the knife slowly along her skin from the tip of her right earlobe down to her left breast. Ida began to sob. Spittle rose at each corner of her mouth and sweat poured from her brow, the perspiration falling down her face and neck, soaking into her silk blouse. I watched as her secretive, repellent world began to slowly unravel in front of her. Vic returned the blade to Stephens’ throat, bringing Ida back to my question.
“There . . . There’s one policeman whose name’s Martin, David Martin, and another called Beaumont.”
“Beaumont’s dead.”
Stephens swallowed hard when she heard me say the word “dead”.
I leant closer in towards her sweating face. “How’s all this work?”
“I don’t understand . . . What do you mean?”
“I mean, does Paxton come and collect the children from the orphanage or are they delivered to him?”
“It all depends. If he’s coming for just one of the orphans he’ll come to the home on his own. If we have to deliver more than one child, we take them to Burwalls for him to collect.”
“Burwalls? What’s Burwalls?”
“It’s a house out by Leigh Woods. We exchange the children for the money there.”
Vic forced the blade of the machete up against Ida Stephens’ jugular. “Tell de man why dis Paxton bozo is wantin’ de trute so badly.”
Ida Stephens’ face went ashen. Vic let the edge of the razor-sharp blade nick at her woman’s skin; a trickle of blood ran down the length of the machete and began to drip down onto her chest.
“Truth . . . She belongs to him.”
“Say what?”
Ida began to sob uncontrollably. “Paxton bought and paid for her, weeks ago. When Fowler found out that Paxton was going to keep her for himself, he took off with the child. He disappeared with the girl overnight and the two of them went to ground. Paxton and the police searched, but they couldn’t find them. That’s when I came to you for help in tracking him down.”
I shook my head, sickened by what I was hearing. “Well, wasn’t I the lucky one?”
“Listen to me! You don’t understand. When Paxton found out Truth was gone and it was Fowler that had taken her, he went berserk, he started threatening all kinds of things. Matherson and Balfour panicked. They came up with your name after Beaumont gave it to them. It was the police at Bridewell station that gave us your name.”
“Did they now? That don’t come as any surprise, Ida. Me and the boys in blue at Bridewell, we don’t see eye to eye.”
Vic moved the blade up and down Ida’s neck.
I pushed her to keep talking. “When did you last hear from Paxton?”
“Last night. He told me that you’d been causing him a lot of trouble. He said that if you got in touch, I should call him straight away. He told me to tell you that if you called that he was prepared to pay you for the girl’s safe return to him.”
I laughed. “Safe return? You gotta be kiddin’ me. I give up Truth to Paxton fo’ a pocketful o’ cash, that’s what he expects me to do?”
Ida nodded her head, the tears streaming down her face. “Paxton doesn’t care about how much it costs. He just wants the child. I saw the way he used to look at Truth when he came to the home. He offered Matherson thousands of pounds for her, month in month out. Matherson always refused his offers.”
“Why’d he refuse?”
“Because it’s harder to hide the death of an older child than it is a toddler. Most of the orphans that have been sold to Paxton have either been babies or very young children: six, seven years of age at most. Matherson only caved in and sold Truth when the price on the table became so great that he couldn’t resist.”
“How much did he pay this Matherson?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
Vic made another paper-thin nick underneath Ida’s neck with the machete blade.
“How much?” I screamed.
Ida bellowed back at me, spraying snot and tears at my face. “It was six thousand! He paid Matherson
six thousand pounds for her.”
I fell back against the wall of the van. My stomach began to churn over and I felt like I wanted to be sick. I cupped my hand over my mouth as I started to retch. I cleared my throat and spat a wad of saliva out of the van door. Vic slowly lifted the edge of the machete from Ida Stephens’ neck and rested the blade on his shoulder then looked at me, his eyes filled with disgust and bewilderment.
Ida slumped down onto the metal floor and looked up at me. “Paxton’s a monster, Mr Ellington. A real monster.”
I glared back at Stephens, unable to contain my disdain. “And even though you knew what kinda animal the man was, you still went ahead and allowed those bastards you work for to sell Truth to him.”
Ida turned her head away from me and screamed through another wall of tears.
I got up and stood over her. “How do I get in contact with this . . . monster?”
Ida Stephens lifted her head and stared up at me. “I have his telephone number . . . It’s in an address book, in my handbag.”
Vic got up off his haunches, reached cross into the cab of the van and retrieved the bag then tossed it over to me. I rifled through the contents until I found a small blue pocket address book. I dropped the handbag at my feet and leafed through the pages.
I heard Ida Stephens whisper to me. “You’ll find the number listed under the letter H. Paxton’s number’s next to the entry that’s called ‘Holiday Fund’.”
I turned to the page headed with a capital H and scrolled down the handwritten names and numbers until I found the words “Holiday Fund”. Next to it was the number GLO 4567. I couldn’t bring myself to quiz Ida any further. Why had she chosen to name Paxton’s number with such a strange coding? It all seemed like madness.
I kept reading the two code words and the number over and over in my head until they became indelibly lodged into my brain. I felt hot and dizzy, my mouth dry, my stomach knotting and griping as a wave of nausea came over me. I climbed out of the van, retching and coughing. I stumbled over to the workbench and felt my head become lighter as my knees start to give way. I rested my arm against the edge of bench, bent my head towards the ground and vomited. I stood, puking my guts up, unable to catch my breath, until there was nothing left inside me to expel. I fell onto the garage floor clutching onto Ida Stephens’ little blue address book. I stared blankly at the plain, unassuming card cover and shook my head, unable to comprehend the horror inside. It had sickened me to my very core.
40
I sat at an old teak desk in a small office at the back of the garage and watched out of the window as Vic wiped down every inch of the interior of the postal van with a chamois leather and polishing rag. My guts ached and my throat burnt after being sick earlier; my body felt tense and weak, like every ounce of strength had been wrenched out of me after listening to Ida Stephens come clean. I stared down at the phone and the open address book in front of me and swallowed hard. I cleared my throat then picked up the receiver, dialled the four-digit Gloucestershire number and put the telephone to my ear. I listened nervously as the dialling tone rang a half-dozen times or so before being answered. When the man’s voice on the other end of the line spoke, it was with a lyrical, homespun Yankee accent.
“MPC Duty Office.”
I waited a moment before talking. “I need to speak to a man, name o’ Paxton.”
When I mentioned Paxton’s name, the man on the other end of the phone went silent for a moment. When he finally spoke again his tone was more refined, more matter of fact. Suspicious.
“Sergeant Paxton isn’t on duty at the moment, sir. Can I help?”
“Yeah . . . I need you to get a message to the man, real quick.”
“A message . . . Is this a base police matter, sir?”
“Oh, you bet it’s a police matter, mister.”
Ruffled by my blunt remark, the man on the other end of the line hesitated before replying.
“OK. What’s your message, sir?”
“Tell him that Mr Ellington called. Tell him that I’m in possession of the missing cargo he’s gone an mislaid an’ I wanna get it back to him befo’ the end o’ the day.” I listened as the man on the other end of the line busily scribbled down what I was saying. “Tell Paxton he can reach me on . . .” I looked down at the printed disc in the centre of the telephone and read out the number. “Bristol 6847.”
The man repeated the number I’d just given him, thanked me for my call then cut me off without saying another word. I gave a deep sigh, sank back in my chair and waited for the phone to ring.
I was lost in my own thoughts and didn’t hear Vic walk into the office. He quietly crept up behind me and spoke, nearly making me jump out of my seat in shock.
“Be a good idea to put this ting under lock an’ key?”
I spun round in my seat just as my cousin was lifting the cassette recorder up in his hand. He shook it at me then casually reached across the desk and opened up a drawer next to me. He pulled out a large Manila envelope then ejected the tape from the player, dropped the cassette into the envelope and sealed it. Then he took both the recorder and envelope over to a small, floor-standing Chubb safe behind me and took out a bunch of keys from his hip pocket. I watched as he selected two keys: a long iron key and a smaller brass one. He unclipped both from the ring then knelt down and unlocked the safe. I watched as he moved a sizable wad of bank notes to the back of the safe then placed the envelope and recorder inside. Vic locked the safe, stood up and handed me the two keys.
“One to git you in the place, one to unlock the safe. Gimme ’em back when you finished.” Vic sat on the edge of the desk, looked out of the office window and nodded at Ida Stephens sitting in the back of the van. “So, what we gonna do with that crazy bitch now?”
“The police are gonna be havin’ a long chat with her. I need to get ’em to put the heat on her and those fellas Matherson and Balfour she was talkin’ ’bout.”
Vic raised both hands in the air, the palms in front of his disgruntled face. “Forgit it, JT . . . I ain’t goin’ near no Babylon.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry, you ain’t gotta go nowhere near the police.” I gritted my teeth and pointed out of the window. “That van out there, has it been stolen?”
Vic gave me an insulted scowl. “Not everyting I own has to be pinched, ya know. I picked that ole heap up for fifty quid at an auction in Redland last month.”
“It registered to you?”
My cousin smirked. “Not yet.”
“Good, cos I want to leave it as close to Bridewell police station as we can.”
Vic raised an eyebrow. “Well, yo’ can drive the damn ting round to the cop shop. Me, I’ve got me own wheels. I’ll follow ya an’ pick ya up when you drop that rustbox and the ole hag off.”
Vic rose from the edge of the desk, stuck his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a silver Ronson lighter and a Wills Traveller brand tobacco tin. He opened the tin, picked out a hand-rolled cigarette, put it between his lips and lit it. He stood next to the door and took a long pull on the reefer then picked up an old leather and canvas stovepipe golf bag that was resting against the wall. He put the bag under his arm, exhaled a mouthful of pungent marijuana smoke then walked out of the office, leaving me alone with the thin, grey whispers of piquant vapour floating gracefully above my head.
*
It was just after one in the afternoon when the phone in the office finally rang. I sat back down at the desk, rested my hand on the phone, took a deep breath and let it ring out a couple more times before picking up the receiver and answering. When I spoke, I kept cool and calm.
“Yeah?”
On the other end of the line I could hear the shallow breathing of the caller. When Paxton eventually began to speak to me it was in the same guttural southern drawl that his deceased partner, Jardine, had spoken in.
“How ’bout giving me a name?”
“You talkin’ to Ellington.”
“Ah, that righ
t . . . the runaway Negro? It’s ’bout time too, I was gittin a little sick o’ hound-dogging you, boy.”
“I didn’t much like being treated like I was part of some ram hunt either.”
Paxton grunted. “You bin tearing a helluva shitstorm fo’ me and my boys. I’ve gone an’ lost myself some good men tryin’ to bring your black hide in.”
“My heart’s bleeding fo’ your loss, Mr Paxton.”
I could feel Paxton’s agitation seeping up the phone line towards me.
“Ain’t no need to go speakin’ ill o’ the dead like that. Show some respect.”
“I’m getting a little over the hill for being nice, Paxton. You wanna hear what I gotta say or not?”
“I think you already talked yourself out, boy. I got your message saying you know the whereabouts of some missing cargo I’m in need o’ retrieving. All you gotta do is stop blabbering and give it to me.”
“And what’s in it for me?”
Paxton’s breathing became heavier as he considered my question. When he finally answered me, there was a vitriolic timbre in his voice. “You already had all the fuckin’ money you gonna git outta me, nigger.”
“Then we got nuttin’ else to talk ’bout.” I went to put the phone back in its cradle then heard the American bark after me.
“How much you want?”
I plucked out a random amount from my head. “Two thousand.”
Paxton laughed. “Say what?”
“You hard of hearin’ or just plain shit stupid?”
“Who the hell you think you talkin’ to, boy?”
“I’m talkin’ to a man who’s got enough cash burning a hole in his pocket to pay me what I just asked him fo’. Now you want your damn cargo. You bring me what I just asked for tonight. I’ll be in Leigh Woods opposite Burwalls house, 8 p.m.”
“How you know ’bout Leigh Woods?”
“Let’s just say that your previous supplier had a real big mout’.”
Paxton’s voice became ill at ease. “You say ‘had’?”