A Tap-Tap bus may get its name from the fact that you tap on the metal-work to stop it, or according to other opinions, because tap-tap means quick in Creole. One could argue that the low speed of the buses in town should exclude the latter source, though excessive speed and overloading are major causes of frequent bus accidents on country roads. Whatever the source of the name, a Tap-Tap is a work of art, an engineering miracle, and an essential part of public life in Haiti. They are mostly privately owned Mercedes, or of Japanese origin and whatever the dubious state of mechanical units that propel, control, and stop the buses, the bodywork is kept in supreme condition by one hundred per cent paint coverage in colourful graffiti. The themes are often religious or related to voodoo, but with a heteroclite blend of subjects and styles; for example, sex, crime, and especially shooting, or for example, a scene in which Brazilian football heroes peer over the shoulder of the Virgin Mary. Open ventilation windows on some buses are positioned so low that passers-by can see only the legs and lower bodies of passengers, a form of public entertainment for passing motorists. Some buses carry a steel tube bumper extension supporting a full-width platform on the front of the vehicle, which serves the dual purpose of nudging people and animals out of the way while at the same time carrying a further five standing passengers between the outer fender and the engine compartment, thus partially blocking the driver’s view of the road ahead.
Kotor made himself comfortable in a bar out of the heat of the sun and sent his two colleagues to talk to drivers who plied the route between Port de Paix and Cap Haitien international airport, and told them to hand out a few packets of cigarettes in the event of a truly useful disclosure. After an hour or so, they came back with credible information that only a bus driver could deliver.
About a month or so ago, a slim dark-haired white woman wearing a white dress revealing her bosom had travelled from Cap Haitien airport to Port de Paix. She was remarkable because she carried only an expensive handbag and did not look like a tourist. She smoked cigarettes and used bright red lipstick. As always, the bus was crowded on departure, but as the passengers thinned out she moved to sit closer to the driver to be sure she would get off at the right place. The driver remembered talking to her and he showed Kotor’s associate how he had to adjust his internal rear view mirror so he could keep an eye on the woman as he drove the bus.
The driver couldn’t help laughing as he recalled the details. “Every time we go over bump she bounce.” He demonstrated the action with his huge hands. The two men laughed. “So I find more bumps.” The driver was now laughing uncontrollably, revealing his few remaining teeth and with tears running down his cheeks. So infectious was his laughter that all conversation stopped until the two were able to recover.
“One last question: where did she get off?”
That place was about five kilometres short of the outskirts of Port de Paix.
Now she was coming towards Kotor from a low, painted-timber house where a garden table and chairs were arranged under an awning. She was barely dressed, like so many shameless European and American women he had seen at holiday hotels, and she was smiling nervously as she approached the strangers. She shaded her eyes with her hand against the white glare of the sun and asked what he wanted.
Bantam-sized chickens and guinea fowl mingled with small dark pigs and a goat wandering the bare earth, while crickets provided continuous music interspersed with squawks from unidentified creatures in the jungle close by. Sonia took in the fact that there were three men, one of whom, dressed in black shirt and jeans, was leaning against the car scratching his groin. The other two wore expensive civilian clothes and stood side by side in front of her.
Sonia was puzzled by the appearance of these men. Not many people here drove recent model Land Cruisers, and certainly not the police.
“Are you from the police?” Sonia enquired, her throat tightening.
Kotor ignored the question, wasted no time on introductions, and got straight to the point. “What happened to Monsieur Bodin and where is he now?”
Sonia blanched and reached for a cigarette in the purse she carried. Her hands were trembling and her mouth was more rigid than when she greeted him. “I don’t know anything. He left here and said he would not be back for a while. The police came here and told me he was reported missing.”
Kotor knew all about the car parked at the airport and her journey back by bus, so he decided to confront Sonia with that, knock her off guard and save a lot of time. “Why did you fake the trip to the airport and lie to the local police about what you already knew?”
She looked down at her cigarette and didn’t answer, though she was breathing faster.
Kotor motioned to his two colleagues, who quickly moved behind Sonia and attached her elbows behind her back with a frayed red Terylene rope. The lighted cigarette fell to the ground as they bundled her into the Land Cruiser, so she was sitting between the two men on the back seat while Kotor got into the driving seat. The engine was off and the heat inside the car without air conditioning was like an oven.
Kotor reached down to the glove compartment and turned with a Colt M1911 pistol in his hand, pointing it at Sonia’s head. Beads of sweat rolled down from his forehead. The whole car smelt of sweat.
“You have one minute to tell me where he is or where his remains are.”
Sonia slumped and mumbled incoherently. One of the men pulled her hair to raise her head.
“Speak!”
“What’s going to happen to me if I talk to you?”
“Probably nothing, but we can’t guarantee what the authorities might do. You’ll have to take your chances with them. But you do have to tell us, now.”
“I can’t. I can’t. I don’t know,” pleaded Sonia.
Kotor holstered his pistol and got out of the car. His colleagues pulled Sonia out roughly and threw her to the ground. They dragged her to a water trough used for the animals, picked her up and threw her into the dirty water, face up and pushed her under. Her hands were still tied behind her back and the men handled her with some satisfaction as they pushed her down. She thrashed her legs, but they caught and held them.
They were excited by what they saw, but Kotor remained coolly focused, “Lift,” he commanded. They pulled Sonia out. She was gasping for breath, her eyes were closed and her head was thrown back. For a moment, Kotor was not sure she would survive.
As soon as her fit of coughing subsided and she appeared to breathe normally again, Kotor repeated his questions. This time Sonia’s face remained puckered for some minutes. She wasn’t crying, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t speak. She wore sandals, a red bikini and a partially transparent robe to shield her from the sun, now soaked and clinging. One of the men ripped off her clothes. Then they picked her up and dumped her in the trough again, holding her down while she thrashed about. This time Kotor counted up to thirty and when they lifted her out and held her upright there was no sign of breathing. Kotor punched her in the solar plexus and she doubled over, making a terrible retching, vomiting sound, then emitted a loud gasp as she inhaled and remained bent double.
Shortly after, the men carried her to a rough wooden bench by the house and stretched her out on her back, arms still attached and legs spread either side. Kotor pointed his pistol between her legs.
“This may not kill you immediately, but it will not give you much time to think. Speak now or I will pull the trigger.”
This time, Sonia started sobbing and coughing. Kotor gestured and they let her sit up. She could only speak quietly and with interruptions for more coughing. No one offered any help.
It wasn’t her fault. She and Michel were walking up to the top of the mountain, which they usually did once a week to make some phone calls. On the way up Michel, who was overweight and unfit, started wheezing. He had been suffering from a dry cough for a few days and was complaining of breathlessness. Suddenly he fell over. Sonia thought at first that he had tripped on a boulder, but when she bent over him she could
find no pulse. He appeared to be dead.
The mobile phone still did not work and she didn’t know where to turn for help. She sat with him for several hours, and then descended, leaving the body where it was. She did not contact anybody else, but instead came up with the idea of making it look as though Michel had left the island as they had planned to return to Paris that month anyway. She had indeed concocted the idea of parking Michel’s car at the international airport and returning by bus.
“Why did you do that, what did you have to gain? You could have had him declared dead. Instead you made it look like something suspicious.”
“Before leaving Paris he took out a life insurance policy. It wasn’t much, but it would have allowed me to live here, but that is impossible now.”
“Why? Surely if you had a life insurance policy you had no interest in concealing his death. You were going to benefit financially if his death was natural. Was he also going to leave something to you in a will?”
“No, he wasn’t. We had several arguments because he was unwilling to hand over any lump sum to me or discuss what he would do for me in the future. He was naturally secretive. It was his way of controlling me. I had to do what he wanted and some of that was pretty disgusting. He dribbled money in my direction to keep me dependent on him.”
“You chose to go with him and stay with him. You knew what he was like. It must have been worthwhile,” pursued Kotor.
Sonia now straddled the bench with her hands tied behind her back, trying hard to breathe and keep herself under control. It was a very emotional woman who finally answered Kotor’s questions. “The way it turned out it was not worthwhile, but most of the time I had no choice. At first he was kind to me and I understood that the basis of our relationship was that he would look after me financially and I would help him deal with his devils, but as time went on and my dependency on him increased, he would abuse me more and more. He was impotent. He got his kicks from seeing me having sex with his friends, male and female. Then, when we moved here, he used me to entertain and pacify neighbours from the village who showed an interest in what we were doing here, and he started inviting them to do whatever they liked with me while he watched.”
“Is that why you killed him?”
“No, I didn’t kill him, he just died and to be honest, at first I felt a great burden had been lifted from me. I wanted a bit of freedom and enough money to enjoy it. But then I guess I just panicked. I realised that I couldn’t stay here, not after what happened. It won’t be long before those men from the village come back for more of their entertainment and I will be alone to deal with them. The locals resent us being here and buying ‘their land’. They don’t like foreigners and they think that an offer to abuse a white woman is an opportunity for vengeance. Michel stood by and watched while those men raped me. Sometimes it went on all night,” she cried again, deep bitter sobs. She took a deep breath and recovered enough to speak between sobs, “and do you know the cruellest irony in all this?” Kotor waited. “I found out after he died that we don’t own this land at all. We are only entitled to rent it. The certificates of ownership turned out to be a kind of tenancy agreement.”
Kotor was unmoved. “So what happened to the body?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t go back. It’s months ago now.”
“Let’s take a look anyway.”
They picked up the limp and unresisting Sonia and threw her robe over her shoulders. She was still completely naked underneath.
They got back in the Land Cruiser and Sonia gave them directions. She sat with her arms folded across her chest, shivering with fear despite the heat.
After more than half an hour bumping along at walking speed, the track was intersected by a narrow, barely visible footpath leading to higher ground. The vehicle could not turn onto it because the path was too narrow and strewn with boulders. They got out of the car and one of the men picked up a coil of rope from the back and slung it over his shoulder. It was as well that Sonia was still wearing her sandals if little else; the hard earth, warmed by the sun, was hot enough to burn naked feet. The four made their way up the steep path with Sonia leading, conscious that the men were watching every movement.
Sonia’s mind went back to the day when she had last come here with Michel. They had had a severe argument which continued most of the way up the climb.
Michel did not like arguments. He preferred silent brooding. It was more effective in unnerving his opponent and keeping up the pressure on them. At every step up the steep slope, he was more conscious of a deep depression. There was nothing new in his feeling depressed. He had often been depressed and he wasn’t surprised that at this moment of great tension, he should feel depressed again. He let his mind drift away from the practical reasons for climbing the hill and let his thoughts move to the new start he wanted to make and his entry into an exciting new unknown future. He was searching for a more definite account of his expectations and desires, but at that moment, though he felt a natural apprehension of the future, he was more worried about the next moves. He did not know what to do about Sonia. She was disrupting his state of mind and getting in the way of his personal plans. She had run her course and although he would miss her in the role she had fulfilled in the earlier stages of their relationship, sexually he had run out of things to do with her. He was sick of her and he was trying to work out his next move. He was struggling to satisfy his volition, but as he thought about it a dark map emerged in his imagination and he gained confidence that he would be able to act decisively and find new affections. He could not clarify his plans just yet except by concluding, I am sick of Sonia and yet I can’t say what I want. Better not think about it anymore just now.
As the pair crested a ridge and the fantastic perspective opened up before them, Michel paused and moved towards the cliff edge to survey the ribbon of jungle below, stretching almost to the sea. Over the horizon somewhere out there to the north was Tortuga Island, the Bahamas and eventually Miami. He edged closer to the brink, daring himself to place one foot in front of the other and sensing the feeling of vertigo creeping upwards from his intestines. His arms began to shake and he breathed deeply, folded his hands behind his back, each holding the other in a trembling, frenzied grip to help him retain control. He continued to relish the intense sensation until he became aware that Sonia had sidled up to him without any sign of nervousness. Suddenly he knew exactly what to do. No word was spoken. He took a long, deep breath as if savouring the pure air, and then suddenly thumped Sonia in the back with his right hand, pushing her towards the rocky edge and the one hundred metre drop below.
Instead of punching her square in the centre of the back where he intended, Michel’s hand hit Sonia’s shoulder, so although she lost her balance and fell, she failed to reach the edge as he expected. Instead she spun and fell to her knees, rolling onto her side with her feet towards him. She turned to look up at him with a pained expression on her face, then, first folding her legs as if to rise, Sonia lashed out in a nervous frenzy and kicked him hard behind the knees. Michel’s legs buckled and with nothing to hang onto, he first flailed his arms in a wide arc, then leaned back as his feet briefly scrabbled the edge, and he was gone, followed by a scurry of small stones.
It all happened in slow motion, Sonia recalled. Then, suddenly, she returned to consciousness.
“So where did you leave him?” asked Kotor.
“Somewhere around here, I think.”
Kotor moved behind Sonia, grabbing her hair in one hand and applying a choking grip to her neck with the other.
“Now you listen to me. You used to come here regularly. You were up here for several hours with the body, you say. So you had plenty of time to look around and remember where it happened. Take your time and when you think it’s the right place we are going to throw this rope over the edge to mark the spot. Then we are going to search down there because either you threw him down or maybe someone else did. If we don’t find remains up here, that’s where we are
going to look. If you suffer a lapse of memory or if we don’t believe you, you will be on the end of the rope. Get it?” He released Sonia from his grip.
Sonia’s arms were still tied behind her back and had become numb. She turned her neck with some difficulty and looked at Kotor’s black, sweaty face and bulging eyes. He probably meant what he said. She bowed her head submissively and moved slowly away. She covered about twenty metres, then raised her head, and turned as if she were looking around for a landmark. The man with the long length of rope had lifted it off his shoulder and was organising it on the ground. Kotor and the other man were talking a couple of metres further away. The man with the rope stood up and made a lewd gesture, pointing in Sonia’s direction. Whoever they were and whoever had sent them, she had no doubt that they considered her as part of their rewards package, to be claimed before disposing of her. She first walked slowly towards the band of scrubby trees running almost parallel to the cliff edge, thus increasing the space between her and the men. She looked studiously each way along the band of short dry grass, turned to face them as if to announce some finding, then ran straight to the cliff-edge and jumped into the void.
Mastrolli called Thérèse a few days later. “I thought I should give you this verbally, and then you can tell me if you want anything else done.”
“OK, go ahead Patrick.”
“My contacts in Haiti think it’s possible that Sonia killed Michel by pushing him off a cliff, although her story is that he died of a heart attack. Whatever it was, she admitted placing the car at the airport as a diversion, so it’s likely she was trying to cover up something.”
“Have they found a body?”
“No, and it’s most unlikely we’ll find anything now. We are not certain where it happened and the terrain at the foot of the cliff where he might have fallen is rocky and covered with impenetrable jungle. Bodies and bones disappear quickly there.”
A Clean Pair of Hands Page 21