by M. P. Wright
“No, Gabe . . . Why?”
“Because like that bastard Monroe, he can, Joseph . . . because he can. It’s as simple as that, boy.”
Gabe rested both of his arms on his legs and drew himself forward, then patted my arm while he stared into the dying embers of the fire. It was the second time such a tactile and caring gesture had been shown by a member of my family in such a short space of time. I knew that both Pearl and Gabe cared about me dearly, but tonight, for the first time, I realised that they shared the burden of my own grief in a way I had not until now fully recognised. Earlier when Aunt Pearl had touched my arm I had braced myself to prevent any show of my real feelings, but now the truth of Gabe’s words had reawakened all of the pent-up guilt and grief from my recently tragic past I had hidden and shattered the defences that kept those who knew me isolated from my true inner heartache. I began to sob such uncontrollable tears that I thought they would never stop.
33
The warmth of the sun caught the side of my face as it shone through the open window of our room. The temperate balminess of a Barbadian summer’s morning cosseted my body as I lay alone in the large rattan bed, a thin white sheet pulled down low across my hips, and I could hear the whisper of the cicada’s song hypnotically mixing with the gentle sound of waves lapping against the shore of the golden-sanded beach that rolled up towards the edge of our tiny garden. Outside my bedroom I overheard the comforting chatter of familiar voices coming from the kitchen and the tempting smell of breakfast cooking. A calming sense of contentment enveloped me as I relaxed with my arms splayed out across the bed, my hand stroking the warm mattress where my wife had been lying next to me. I looked up at the ceiling and watched as a swallowtail butterfly floated gracefully above me; I followed its unmapped journey across the room until it drifted down to the edge of our dressing table to rest.
My wife Ellie and six-year-old daughter, Amelia, entered the room. My little girl carried a glass of mango juice, which she carefully brought to my bedside. I pulled myself up the mattress by my elbows and propped my back against the headboard as the two of them joined me, their heads resting on my chest, nestling closer into my body as I wrapped both arms around them and drew them towards me. I closed my eyes as Amelia began to sing to me, while my wife ran her fingers tenderly across the back of my hand, but her touch began to fade as the nursery rhyme my child sang grew more distant. I felt the two of them draw away from me, and the once gentle warmth of the morning sunshine suddenly burst into the unbearable heat of a firestorm as my wife and child screamed out. In panic, shouting their names, I tried to pull myself up from the bed, but my powerless body was held down by a weighty invisible pressure and I was forced to watch in horror as my two beautiful girls were dragged into the flames that were about to engulf our bedroom.
“Joseph . . . Joseph, are you all right there, son? You were shouting in your sleep.”
Pearl was kneeling at my side as I sat slumped in the armchair. Disorientated after being woken, I wrenched myself up in the old chair and rubbed my face with the flats of both hands and felt the coarse stubble on my clammy cheeks and chin with my palms. My eyes gradually refocused on their surroundings in the weakly lit room and I once again felt the unsympathetic heat from the coal fire discharging towards me.
“Yeah, I’m OK . . . What time is it, Pearl?”
I sat forward in the chair and felt the damp wetness of my shirt pull away from the sweaty skin on my back.
“It’s just after six . . . You been sound asleep this past hour or so. I heard you calling out for Ellie and Amelia, bless them. Gabe and me could hear you rambling away to yourself from where we were sitting back there in the kitchen. I really didn’t wanna wake you, but you were starting to scare me, hollering out like you were.”
Pearl lifted herself back up from where she had been kneeling next to me, put her hand into her front pocket, pulled out a brass Yale lock key and held it in her hand in front of me.
“Here, take this: your cousin Victor came round earlier to give you this, said you’ll need it to git inside your digs tonight. You got yourself a new door and Loretta and me cleaned up after the police had made all that mess in there. Vic wanted to wake you, but I told him to leave you be while you was sleeping, says he’ll catch up with you tomorrow. Now let me git you a cup o’ coffee; it’ll bring you back round to the land o’ the living.”
Pearl’s face flushed and she tried to hide her shame at using the word “living” by quickly getting up to avoid my eyes. As she was about to leave, I took hold of her delicate hand and gently squeezed it in my own.
“Yeah . . . That’d be great, Aunt Pearl, and thanks fo’ what you done fo’ me.”
She brushed my hand away, making a series of huffing noises as she ambled out of the sitting room to make me the hot drink that she hoped would revive my spirits.
At that moment in time, the land of the living was the last place I wanted to be. I’d grown used to the nightmares and how they relentlessly permeated my sleep and they were now the companions of the daylight torment of my conscious being. I believed that there was nothing that could have drawn me away from the contrition and anguish that would continue to dominate my waking hours, and I once again felt the urgent desire to inflict my wrath upon those who had taken my wife and children from me. But I knew that it was too late for such aimless thoughts of vengeance. In truth, I’d had little time to plot my method of revenge against those who had killed my wife and children and had razed my house to the ground. It had only taken a few hours for my shady superiors to make me falsely complicit in my own family’s tragic demise and they had quickly hung me out to dry on trumped-up charges of murder. I was handcuffed and taken out to a remote station house in Bathsheba, on the eastern side of the island, and after days of being grilled by white detectives about my supposed involvement in the killing. During my questioning, I had continuously denied any wrongdoing. I was interrogated for hours and then returned to my cell, where I was not allowed to rest and was instead hosed down with heavy jets of cold water. In my despair, I imagined that I would eventually be killed and my body dumped down a drain that would finally wash my corpse out to sea. But I had continuously denied any wrongdoing and their determined grilling was just part of a plan conjured up by the man I had been trying to uncover as running a drug ring along with a number of officers in the police department. Conrad Monroe was determined to see me broken and humiliated, and after days of being beaten and deprived of sleep, in the end it came down to a simple ultimatum.
I was told that the charges against me would be dropped if I agreed that the fire at my home was the result of human error and that the deaths of both Ellie and Melia had been a tragic accident. My lengthy investigation into the drug kingpin and his organisation was to be closed. I was ordered to make a statement saying that I deeply regretted pursuing a long-time personal witch-hunt against a local businessman, namely Conrad Monroe. On top of that I had to hand in my resignation, losing the job I’d proudly held for over fifteen years, and get off the island on the next available boat.
The crooked bastards had got it all worked out and I’d had little choice other than to run with my tail between my legs. The alternative would have been to spend the next twenty years in a Bajan prison shacked up with many of the violent criminals who I had probably pinched.
On the long journey at sea, alone in one of the cramped shared cabins of a battered, rusting old freight ship that would eventually bring me to Great Britain, I thought of nothing other than vengeance and much how better I would have felt if I had been rotting away in a cell with Monroe’s blood on my hands. But at night, unable to sleep, the doubts crowded in thick and fast. An ex-copper locked up with mainline crooks: how long could I have lasted inside even if I’d kept my head down and my wits about me? Alone with my miserable thoughts, I continually asked myself whether the twenty-year sentence that I would have received for taking out the men who had murdered my loved ones would have been worth it. The ans
wer was always the same: yes, I’d have happily done that lengthy stretch and been willing to have lived or died in jail if there had been the slightest chance to avenge my kin. Monroe and his minions would have been dead and that would have been the end of it, the score settled. But that was not to be; I had not been able to exact the kind of swift revenge my wife and daughter’s violent deaths had demanded, and the cowards who had murdered them would continue to hide behind the corrupt fellow police officers I had once worked with and be protected by the powerful drug lord who would continue to control them. I had tried and failed to do my duty as an honest police officer and in my failure I had paid the highest price.
Staring blankly into the fire in front of me, I thought about Stella Hopkins: could I save her? Had she already succumbed to the same vicious fate at the hands of ruthless men in the same way that Virginia Landry had? I sensed a tight knot develop in the pit of my stomach, and felt my throat tighten and the my fists instinctively clench as an overwhelming fury ascended from some place deep within me, and at that moment I swore that I would not be as restrained in seeking out those who had snuffed out Virginia Landry’s life so cruelly and that my retribution against them would be merciless.
*
Heavy sleet bounced off the windscreen as I sat in the Cortina across the road from the Speed Bird club and waited. Something I’d learnt many years ago was that patience was a police officer’s best friend and that the ability to attain a sense of forbearance when dealing with the criminal classes was a valuable partner. I didn’t know how far up the club’s owner, Elrod “Hurps” Haddon, was on the lawless ladder of crime or what his involvement with Papa Anansi, Stella and the deaths of two innocent woman was, but patience or not, I was damn sure I was going to find out.
The one fact I did know was that I’d seen old Hurps with the crooked copper who had given me a beating a couple of nights ago sheepishly sitting in a motor in almost the very same spot that I was now parked up in. I glanced at my wristwatch when I saw Elrod hauling his big butt down Grosvenor Road; it was just after seven thirty. My eyes skipped between the sweeping movement of the wiper blades that were knocking the slushy rain onto the pavement as Hurps Haddon fumbled in his coat pockets and finally drew out a big bunch of keys. I quickly got out of my car, pulled the old duffle-coat hood over my head and ran across the street while Hurps was unlocking the front door to the club, and stood close behind him as he opened up.
“How’s tings going, Hurps?” I called out to the burly landlord as the sleet pelted down in the street. He almost jumped out of his skin with surprise.
“Jesus . . . What the . . . Is that you, JT? What the hell you doin’ creeping up on my ass like that? You scared the shit outta me!”
“You look like you just seen the bogie man, Elrod . . . I was just passin’ by an’ seen you ’bout to open up your doors fo’ the night. Though I’d git myself a rum, try to warm up my bones.”
I moved closer towards him, rubbing my hands together and feigning a chill that tonight I didn’t feel.
“We ain’t serving till Dolores gits here, an’ I got my books to account fo’. Why don’t you come back later, I’ll git you a Mount Gay in; you tell that old bitch behind the bar it’s on me.”
He flashed a smile at me, turned and began to walk inside, his hand already on the edge of the frame, ready to slam the door in my face when he was safely behind it. I grabbed hold of the door just above where Hurps’ hand was and thrust the toe of my shoe hard into the back of his knee, bringing him down on to the floor and making him howl out in pain. I pushed my way in, slammed my fist into his neck and the side of his face a couple of times, then kicked his now hunched-up body further into the corner entrance so that I could close the door. Once it was shut, I fumbled around on the wall in front of me until I found the light switch. I flicked it on, then leant down and dragged Haddon off the floor, pulling him down the stairs by the collar of his heavy coat towards his empty bar.
“C’mon, brother, don’t git all mean on me. Now you can git me that drink; all that tussling round outside your gate door has given me one helluva thirst.”
Hurps gasped. “You bastard . . . Where the hell you git off tinking you can knock me ’bout outside my own place? If you got ideas ’bout robbing me, then you don’t know whose money you gonna be messin’ with, you stupid prick!”
“Take it easy, Hurps, only ting I’m interested in taking from you without paying fo’ is that shot o’ rum you just promised me now.”
I hauled his weighty carcass across the small dance floor, then slung him into one of his booths and watched his hefty arms and legs flail about as he desperately tried to right himself in the tired crimson leatherette seat.
“You sit yo’ ass still, while I git the drinks in.”
I strode back towards the bar, opened up the hatch and walked the length of the antique counter to pick up a bottle of Barbadian rum from off of the middle shelf. I noticed the cricket bat that Hurps always kept underneath the cash register in the event he ever had any trouble from a drunken punter. I grabbed for the bat and put it under my right arm, then lifted the bottle to my mouth and pulled off the stopper with my teeth, spitting it out on to the floor, taking a hefty swig as I made my way back towards where Hurps was sitting, rubbing at his aching knee. He looked up at me and at the bat under my arm and decided to get wise with me. It was a big mistake.
“What the fuck you think you gonna do wid that paddle?” he snarled at me. “You think I’m scared o’ you cus you used to run with the police back on that poxy island you got kicked offa? You start gittin’ rough wid me and you gonna wish you never set a foot t’ru my door!”
The sizeable ex-boxer squared up at me in his seat, then thought better of it: tough as he had once been, he was in no fit state to go head to head with me, and he knew it. He’d already seen the look of the devil in my eyes and gambled that his best bet was to make sure his oversized backside remained glued to his chair.
He thought he’d wagered well by not rough-housing with me, but his decision wasn’t going to do him any favours – no way was I going easier on him just because he’d backed down. I took another slug of the rum and sat the bottle down on the bench in front of Hurps, then pushed the curved end of the bat underneath the heavyweight’s massive double chin.
“I want you to tell me what you know ’bout a missing young woman called Stella Hopkins and why you been seen hanging round with the kinda jazzed-up lawmen that like to mix it up with whores and pimps?”
I released the pressure on his flabby gizzard to let him speak.
“I don’t know what the hell you talkin’ ’bout; you a damn’ fool. Why don’t you sling yo’ skanky pig hide outta my place befo’ I—”
He found a little courage and tried to defiantly raise himself up from where he was sitting, but I forced the end of the bat harder into the fat man’s throat, pushing him back down into his chair.
“Befo’ you do what? Start hollering out fo’ that pox-faced ponce who’s got you in his pocket? You hoping he’s gonna come and heave you outta the big pile o’ shit you got yourself into? How long you been in cahoots with ole Papa, Hurps?”
“Cahoots . . . What kinda shit is that? I ain’t got nuttin’ else to say to you, Ellington . . . Crazy talk ’bout me and whores, you stark raving mad . . . Take a hike!”
Hurps stared up at me insolently and lifted his head away from where I held the tip of the bat at his neck, then proceeded to drag a wad of snot from the back of his throat and spat it out in a huge globule of green phlegm at my feet.
“Now that ain’t polite.”
I lifted the bat and smashed it across Hurps’ right kneecap, making the chubby innkeeper scream out in agony. I raised the club above my head and let it hang menacingly above his skull.
“I ain’t fuckin’ about with you, Hurps,” I warned. “What you got going down with Papa Anansi and that bent copper? C’mon . . . I seen you and that crew-cutted blond fucker that calls himself a police
officer sitting in the silver wheels he drives about in. You were having it up real good outside o’ the Speed Bird the other night. What was going down?”
“Noth—”
I snatched the bat back sharply, ready to bring the flat side of it around the back of the pudgy liar’s thick head.
“Papa brings his girls in here all the time . . . You know that, JT!”
“Cut with the ‘JT’ shit . . . I ain’t interested in making nice with you no more, Hurps, start giving me someting I don’t already know. Did he ever bring Stella Hopkins down here?”
“I don’t know . . .”
He began to lie to me again, but I was getting real sick of hearing his bullshit. I swiftly carved the bat through the air and slammed it down onto Hurps’ left shoulder blade, snapping his clavicle in two. The old boxer bellowed out an ear-splitting scream that echoed around the basement room and then disappeared into the dark obscurity of the night.
“I’m gonna ask you one last time, Elrod. Did Papa ever bring Stella Hopkins to your club? Now think hard befo’ you speak, because if you keep lying to me you’re gonna end up a cripple. You dig me?”
“You talkin’ ’bout that creepy deaf bitch?”
A smacked-up knee and a broken collarbone and he was still brainless enough to get mouthy with me.
“Oh, you really testing my patience, Hurps.”
I grabbed hold of one of his thick earlobes and yanked him up from where he sat, then heaved him back across the dance floor and shunted him into his precious bar.
“Did he bring her in here?”
I shouted so loudly at him that he covered his head with his arms and curled himself into a ball on the floor. I leant forward and wrenched him back to his feet, taking his jaw in my hand and squeezing it until the veins on either side of his temples looked like they were about to explode. The canny old prizefighter was starting to get the message.