Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time

by M. P. Wright

  “Fo’ Christ’s sakes, Carnell, why don’t I just stand here with this damn gate door open fo’ the rest of the day? Maybe if you hang round long enough, some more of that white shit out on the sidewalk can blow in here and you can make yourself a goddamn snowman.”

  By the time I’d finally got him inside and closed the door, my frozen heels had stuck to the tatty linoleum flooring and I couldn’t feel my toes any more. Not only was my patience wearing thin but so was the skin on the soles of my feet.

  “Go on up, man.” I impatiently put my hand out in front of me as a polite gesture that my my sloth-like buddy should go on ahead of me and that I would follow him. Every step on the cold lino felt like I was walking across a frozen glacier and my efforts to get quickly back upstairs and return to the now-dying warmth of my bed were hindered by the weighty trudging of Carnell’s fat ass in front of me.

  “Carnell, you ain’t climbing the north face o’ the fuckin’ Eiger, man. Git a goddamn move on befo’ I freeze to death out here on the landing.”

  “Sorry, JT, I ain’t as fit as I used to be. Loretta says I need to git myself a set o’ weights and a skipping rope to knock some of these pounds off o’ me.”

  He undid his coat as we finally reached my room. His chubby hands held a length of his fat stomach, which he wobbled up and down in his thick fingers to emphasise his obvious weight problem. I looked at him playing with his fatty flesh and at first didn’t know quite what to say to him, but not for long.

  “Carnell, man, if you use a skipping rope to jump around with a big-assed gut like you got going on there, you gonna do yourself and anybody stand’ within twelve feet of you some serious fuckin’ injury, you know that, don’t you?”

  I couldn’t help but see the funny side of my large friend trying to skip and burst out laughing, while Carnell just looked on at me in bewilderment.

  After I’d dressed, the two of us made our way back downstairs and out into the street. Carnell opened up the double rear doors of the Bedford and inside was a large ruby-red-coloured settee and four wooden kitchen chairs. Balanced on top of the sofa were a small oak writing desk and a cardboard box that contained cooking utensils pans and a set of six drinking glasses, which Carnell cheerfully informed me Loretta had sent “special” for me.

  It took us around half an hour to lug the heavy couch and the rest of my newly acquired furnishings up the stairs and into the various rooms. When we’d finished, I filled the kettle at the kitchen sink, lit the gas hob and sat opposite Carnell at the table on one of the dining chairs he had carried up.

  “Carnell, where the hell did Vic git all that stuff we just dragged in?”

  As soon as I’d asked the question, I wished I hadn’t.

  “You remember old girl Walker, JT: that sweet lady who lived opposite Loretta and me in one of those run-down tenements?”

  “No. Should I?”

  I didn’t like where any of this was going.

  “Well, she passed on t’ree weeks back. See Vic and me, we did the house clearance as a favour fo’ her sister on account the deceased was a good friend o’ your aunt Pearl’s.”

  “So all this shit we just dragged through the snow and up them stairs used to belong to an old dead woman? Tell me she didn’t croak it on that lounger that’s sitting in my front room.”

  “Hell, no, JT. She died in bed. Now, I asked Vic if we should bring that along, and the mattress fo’ you too. But he didn’t think that you’d want it. Said it was shagged out and he knew you got tings sorted in the eiderdown department.”

  The well-meaning oaf nodded his woolly-hat-covered dense head in the general direction of my bedroom and grinned at me again.

  “Well, thanks, Carnell. I’ll rest easier knowing I got friends who know me well enough to realise that I ain’t too keen on sleeping on some poor old stiff’s night-time chaise longue. That’s sweet, man, real sweet.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome, JT. Any time, man.”

  I made coffee for the two of us and we chatted for a while ’bout anything and nothing, and the latest news of the cricket back home, both subjects Carnell specialised in. As he prattled on about everything under the sun, my thoughts became lost again in the mystery that was Stella Hopkins’ disappearance and how I needed to speak again to Earl Linney at some point before the end of the day. I watched as Carnell drained the last dregs of coffee from his mug and then raised his bulk up from off of the chair before sticking his hand in his donkey-jacket pocket, pulling out a set of keys and throwing them across the table to me, then buttoning up his coat as he spoke.

  “They’re fo’ the Cortina you and Vic were sitting in last night. He said you may need a set o’ wheels fo’ a while, and befo’ you say anyting, it’s only gonna sit outside my place rusting up just like my damn van does. You’ll be doing me a favour taking it off my hands fo’ a while. You’ll find it still parked up outside o’ Gabe’s. I’ll be seeing you around, JT.”

  He gave me a final gormless smile as I sat and watched him aimlessly wander out of my kitchen. I heard him fumble with the catch on the front door as he was leaving, finally closing it behind him with a loud, ham-fisted slam. I was speechless and humbled by my lumbering friend’s act of generosity and kindness.

  A cloak of shame dropped over me for the unkind comments that I had made to him earlier. The cruel ignominy I had meted out to Carnell was not deserved, and I felt a lesser man for it.

  It was after midday by the time I had had a shave and cleaned myself up. The bruises on my body had started to lose their aggressively dark hue and were not as painful as they had been. I dressed for the bitterly cold weather outside, putting on a pair of jeans, a powder-blue herringbone shirt and then a thick crew neck Arran jumper before slipping on my shoes and double-knotting the laces. I took my hat and coat from off of the hanger in the hall and picked up my wallet and the car keys, which were sitting on top of the writing desk that had been placed against the back wall of my bedroom. As I was about to walk out, I turned and stared back at the dusty piece of antique furniture that old Mrs Walker had unknowingly bequeathed to me. It suited the room, and for the first time my inhospitable abode started to feel, just a little bit, like a possible home.

  I picked up the Cortina from outside of Pearl and Gabe’s, reminding myself as I started up the engine that I needed to pay them a visit real soon after not turning up for dinner last Wednesday evening. I drove the two miles out of St Pauls into the centre of Bristol, parking up close to the city’s cathedral on Deanery Road, and found a phone box to make my call to the alderman.

  The red iron and glass-framed phone box stank of piss and lord knows what else as I dialled the second of the two numbers on the slip of paper that Linney had given me. It rang six or seven times, before the pips sounded in my ear to tell me that my call was being answered. I pressed a coin into the slot to pay and was then greeted by a woman’s voice.

  “Hello, Bristol 8424.” A warm, richly lilting Caribbean voice, which was akin to my own deceased mama’s, threw me off kilter for a moment and I stood silent for a moment. “Bristol 8424, can I help you?” the woman repeated.

  “Can I speak to Mr Linney please?”

  This time it was my turn to hear silence on the other end of the line. She finally replied, but had lost the warmth in her lyrical expression.

  “Who’s calling, please?” Her tone had become more cautious, suspicious even.

  “My name’s Ellington.” I kept it short and sweet. She didn’t sound like the kind of woman who wanted to get into a deep and meaningful conversation with me.

  “I’ll just get him for you. One moment please.” I heard her put down the phone and walk away in heels onto a hard wood floor while I continued to stand in the cold with the smell of urine wafting up my nostrils. A few seconds later I heard a door close in the background before the alderman finally came to the phone and greeted my call with a disposition that was as chilly as the weather outside.

  “Mr Ellington. I had expected to h
ear from you a little sooner.” Linney was his usual brusque self. It was good to hear that he’d missed me.

  “Is that so? Well, I’m sorry ’bout that. I took a day’s bed rest after we last met and I’ve been chasing my tail in the snow doing what you asked me to,” I replied sourly.

  “And you have reliable information for me?”

  He was still keeping it to the point and his blunt manner towards me was really starting to wind me up.

  “Yeah, and this job has brought me nuttin’ but grief up to now. We need to meet, today.”

  “We do?” he asked, then fell silent again.

  I wasn’t in the mood for any more of the councillor’s taciturnity. Thankfully, my growing ill-temper with the man was fortuitously held back when Linney finally spoke, giving me another of his to-the-point commands. I played along.

  “Do you know Dundry Hill? I’ll meet you on Downs Road as you leave the village at four thirty sharp.”

  He was about to do his favourite trick and have the last word, but I interrupted him, speaking back down the telephone before he had a chance to cut me off.

  “Why in the name o’ hell you wanna meet up there I don’t know. But I’ll be there, Downs Road, four thirty on the dot, and Mr Linney . . .”

  “Yes?” He snapped back at my audacity, surprised to be outmanoeuvred by such a hasty retort. I could hear his impatience on the other end of the line. I held off a moment longer, giving him a taste of his own medicine before I finished my sentence.

  “Just make sure nobody knows you’re coming to meet me, and bring your wallet with you!”

  I dropped the receiver into the cradle, smiled to myself and pushed open the door, taking in a noseful of clean air as I got out.

  15

  I needed to kill a little time before meeting Earl Linney later that afternoon, and my brief, uneasy telephone conversation with the man had left me feeling irritated and in need of a pint. It was a short distance up to the Hatchet Inn, which was busy with Saturday lunchtime trade. A group of men were crowded around the bar in a semicircle, each of them wearing a red and white scarf displaying their proud allegiance to Bristol City football club.

  I pushed my way through them and waited patiently for the overworked barmaid to catch my eye and finally serve me. I ordered a pint of stout and the last cheese and onion cob, which sat on a covered plate next to a tired piece of pork pie on the back of the bar. A sign above the food read “Freshly Made”, though I wasn’t convinced and it didn’t give me a lot of confidence in my forthcoming lunch. But I was hungry, so I took my chances.

  I paid up and found myself a seat in the snug area, took off my hat and coat, and quaffed over half of my drink before sitting down. I took a bite of the roll and wished I hadn’t. I dropped the stale sandwich onto the plate and pushed it across the table away from me, then washed the fusty taste out of my mouth with my ale. While I drank, I went over in my mind all that had happened in the last few days and the things I would tell Linney and, more importantly, what I was going to keep to myself. He knew more than he was letting on about Stella, so I had to play the wily old fox at his own game, gain some ground and try to come out of our next meeting knowing more than when I went into it. But it wasn’t going to be easy.

  Alderman Linney had depicted Stella as a mild-mannered mute with little family and few friends, and who was rarely ever seen out, except to attend work or church, and she never ventured far from home. But then the last time she had been seen anywhere other than her usual haunts was by local hooker Jocelyn Charles in an illegal drinking dive with one of the nastiest pieces of work in the area, and she had left on the arm of a suspected crooked copper. So far I’d had the crap beaten out of me and nearly been run down by a police car, and Jocelyn had been found dead in a ditch less than twenty-four hours after giving me the information. I could now end up as a key suspect in her murder and I still didn’t know what the hell was going on.

  I sat, thinking how I could play things with Linney, my drink in my hand, swilling the last inch of beer around the bottom of the pint tankard. I lifted it to my mouth and sank the last of the dark, toffee-tasting liquid and then stared down into the bottom of the empty glass. The memory of my first meeting with the well-connected politician came back to mind and I wished I’d never set eyes on the man or taken a penny of his lousy money.

  The escarpment of Dundry Hill rises to over seven hundred feet and normally forms a green backcloth for the whole of the south of Bristol. Today those emerald downs were covered in a white blanket of snow, and my journey to meet Linney was hampered by the icy roads and my inexperience at driving in such treacherous conditions. Back home, we call Barbados Bim, and we don’t see too much snowfall on Bim. I shook all thoughts of my place of birth out of my head and concentrated on my driving. By the time I reached Dundry village and our meeting point, dusk was falling and the alderman was already waiting for me. He was sitting behind the wheel of his Austin Cambridge, which was parked on the side of the road with the car bonnet facing an impressive view that looked out across towards the city in the dimming light. I reluctantly got out of my car, pulled my coat collar up around my face and trudged through the snow towards Linney’s vehicle. As I got a little closer he flung open the passenger side door and impatiently called out to me.

  “Come on, man. I’m losing all the heat in here with this damn door open for you.”

  It was the kind of friendly greeting that really had me warming to him. I didn’t rush to get in, and when I finally did, I sat opposite him, rubbing my chilled hands vigorously before cupping them together and blowing warm air through them. Linney was dressed in a thick plaid winter coat, with a beige felt fedora hat neatly positioned on his head, so the peak fell over his right brow. I looked out through the partially misted-up windscreen at the lights that shone up from the buildings and homes below us.

  “Quite a sight, even at this time of the day, don’t you think?”

  His congenial question to me was unexpected, and despite the diminishing light I continued to hold my gaze on the view beneath us, unsure what to say. Linney went on talking, unfazed that I had not replied to his question.

  “I intend to build houses down there. Lots of them, and I’m building them for those who are currently living in run-down properties that barely survived the Blitz. You got six, seven members of a family all sleeping in a one-bedroom tenement, and who can’t afford to pay the extortionate rents asked by greedy landlords, probably similar to your own, Mr Ellington.”

  Linney was on his soapbox and, like all politicians, he wasn’t eager to get off.

  “Did you know in between November 1940 and April of the next year the Nazi Luftwaffe dropped over 920,000 tons of bombs down there? They destroyed 82,000 homes and killed nearly 2,300 people. On the fourth of January 1941, Bristol suffered its longest raid: over twelve hours, they say. They even dropped an eight-foot bomb that never exploded. The disposal teams, who I’m told dug down over twenty-nine feet to retrieve it, nicknamed the monstrosity Satan. Amazing, don’t you think, that a city can suffer such devastation, and return from the brink of destruction to such glory?”

  “Oh yeah, I’m seeing all that glory, brother, glowing down there in them streets right now. What’s your point?” I said sarcastically.

  The old man went on, ignoring my question.

  “On the thirteenth of February 1945, I was stationed at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, and part of the ground crew that loaded up some of the 4,000 tons of explosives that were dropped on Dresden in Germany over two nights of savage bombing. We tore the heart out of that city just as the enemy did to Bristol. I wonder if they managed to find an unexploded shell like they did down there and gave it a demonic title.” Linney was quiet for a moment before looking at me and continuing. “My point being, Mr Ellington, that we all need to give evil a name, don’t you think?”

  He didn’t give me the chance to answer him.

  “Now let’s hear this reliable information you have for me
.”

  I told him how I’d been followed by the mystery fellow after our previous meeting and about my subsequent beating by him with the slapjack and how I suspected that he was a member of the Bristol constabulary. Then there were the details of the sighting of Stella at the shebeen and my chat with Jocelyn Charles at the Speed Bird club. I needed to keep on my toes with Linney and quickly fired off my next question to him, aware of how the old man liked to play a game of cat and mouse on his terms.

  “You know a man named Otis Grey, most people call him Papa?”

  “No, never heard of him. Should I?”

  The alderman was quick to make it clear he wasn’t acquainted with the Jamaican pimp. But it was too late: the look on his face had told me different.

  “If you did, it would explain a lot. He’s the kinda man who has a fairly limited social circle. You’re not gonna meet him at the Rotary Club or Gospel Hall. Ting is, Stella was seen with him shortly before she went missing.”

  “And you think this Otis Grey or whatever he’s called may have something to do with her disappearance?”

  For the first time I saw Linney’s cool demeanour waver. His nerve unsteadied at the mention of Papa’s name, despite claiming he’d never heard of him.

  “Could be, but I hope not fo’ Stella’s sake. From what I know of him, he’s bad through and through. He’s exists in the kinda world your Stella has no place being in. But it’s why she was with him that’s puzzling me. You t’row any light on that? Do you know if Stella had ever visited places like the shebeen?”

  “Not to my knowledge, and as you only have the word of a two-a-penny call girl, it would be highly unlikely in my opinion. I’d treat Stella’s supposed sighting there very suspiciously.”