Cole nodded slowly.
‘The afternoon will do fine,’ he said.
Wilson watched him glide along the sidewalk for a moment before he went on his way to visit the mayor.
‘You think I don’t know how to handle city slickers?’ the mayor said now.
He showed her the palm of his hand.
‘I doubt there’s anything you can’t handle, Madam Mayor. From guys to ‘gators. I suppose I was asking whether there was something I should be aware of.’
She shook her head, a little smile playing on her face that he had no notion how to interpret. He shifted in his seat.
‘In that case how can I help you today, Madam Mayor?’
‘I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to fund that work on the wildlife reserve. I know how your deputy is passionate about it. But we just don’t have six million dollars to spare for work that might not be effective anyway. I wanted to give you a heads up.’
‘If they don’t do that barrier work the ocean will have washed it all away in twenty years,’ Wilson said.
‘Maybe, maybe not.’
‘But you’ve seen the figures Josie has put together. We’ll get the money back in increased tourism.’
‘She says.’ The Mayor shrugged. ‘We’re a small island. We don’t have much spare money.’
Wilson frowned.
‘Wouldn’t have anything to do with the casino Bartram’s keen to put on the island would it?’
‘It would not,’ Horton said.
‘You’re asking me to tell Natasha?’
‘No. I’m just giving you the heads up.’ Horton sat back. ‘Everything else going smoothly round here?’
‘Like clockwork.’
‘I’m hearing about drugs becoming a problem in the Carolinas, coming in from the sea via the Barrier Isles.’
Wilson tilted his head.
‘Not here. Sure we got stoners in the community but we don’t come down heavy on recreational users. Cocaine use is happening at the high end but it’s under control.’
Parker watched Horton’s face. She made a point of knowing all the big wheels on the island – she was something of a big wheel herself. He was guessing Horton and her friends might be some of those high end users.
Her expressions betrayed nothing.
‘No big dealers eying us up?’ she said.
‘Why would they? We’re not a big enough population for it to be worth their time focusing on us and we’re not boat-friendly, so they aren’t going to use us as a way-station.’
He smiled.
‘Unless you’ve heard something to the contrary. Maybe Frank, with his little private harbour, has a little business on the side he’s not telling us about?’
Horton was about the only person he knew who had actually been inside Frank Bartram’s enclosure on the northern tip of the island.
She shook her head.
‘Frank’s legit as far as I’m aware.’
‘I’ll take your word on that,’ he said. ‘But why are you asking, Madam Mayor? You looking for trouble?’
‘I never look for trouble, Harry, but I’m always alert to ways of heading it off.’ Horton stood and smoothed her skirt down. ‘Thanks for your time, Sheriff. You have a nice day.’
Natasha Innocent was teasing Johnny Finch about a recent sparring session they’d had under Josie’s supervision when Sheriff Wilson walked in. Josie had lived in Los Angeles for a couple of years. She’d taken a lot of self-defence courses and done some kung-fu. She’d been teaching Innocent some moves down at the gym whilst Finch was working out there. Innocent had invited Finch to join in.
Finch turned out to be hopeless. Uncoordinated and awkward. The more he couldn’t get the hang of the flowing moves, the less he liked it. Innocent thought at one point he was going to explode with frustration.
He said now:
‘Why do I want to learn this oriental stuff? I’m an American. I’ve been brought up to use my fists. If a straight left and a right cross are good enough for Clint Eastwood, they’re good enough for me.’
He looked at Wilson, settling himself in his chair.
‘What do you say, Sheriff?’
Wilson tipped his seat back.
‘I can’t recall the last time I raised my fists in anger.’
‘I find that astounding,’ Finch said. ‘You working in the big city and all.’
‘Then you’ve clearly no big city experience,’ Wilson said. ‘No such thing as a fair fight there. And only a fool would get into a fistfight. It’s all about matching force with superior force. Someone throws a punch, you use your stave. Someone pulls a knife, you pull your gun. Someone pulls a gun, you use your gun.’
‘Shoot to kill, Sheriff?’ Finch said.
‘As taught.’
‘You shot many bad guys, Sheriff?’
Finch was pushing and Innocent wasn’t sure why he would want to needle the sheriff. Wilson remained patient, however.
‘I’ve used my weapon when required, yes.’
‘So you’ve killed quite a few.’
‘Jesus, Finch,’ Innocent said.
Wilson eased his hat a fraction off his head and set it back down.
‘Should have – but I’m a lousy shot. Still a wonder to me how so many of my arrests lived to tell the tale as I was always aiming dead centre.’ He shook his head. ‘I shot a man’s fingers clean off his hand once. Every darn digit. Explain that to me, if you would, when he’s three yards away and I’m aiming for body mass.’
Finch snorted.
‘I wouldn’t have missed that one.’
Innocent looked down and smiled. She knew how good a shot Wilson really was. If Finch had been more observant he’d have noticed the cups and medals for markmanship pushed to the back of the glass cabinet in Wilson’s office.
She knew the truth of that finger story too. She knew more about Wilson than perhaps he realised.
This punk had drawn down on Wilson, Western shoot-out style. Wilson had shot his fingers off just as they were curling to draw his pistol out. Luck, most people said. Innocent wasn’t so sure.
Finch saw the smile on Innocent’s face but misunderstood its cause. Always quick to take offence, he stood abruptly.
‘I mean it. I won’t miss when the time comes.’
‘Let’s hope the time never comes,’ Wilson said.
Finch’s expression was almost a sneer.
‘What, so you don’t have to admit I’m right?’
Wilson sighed.
‘No, Johnny. For a whole range of other reasons.’
Finch stood in front of Wilson, hands on hips, face clouded. Wilson looked at him without expression. Finch exhaled and turned for the door.
‘I’m going down to the toll booth.’
‘Say hi from me,’ Wilson called after him.
Innocent looked at Wilson. He didn’t return her look but he said:
‘What?’
‘You know, Sheriff.’
‘You got him riled when you chipped in your little smirk.’
‘That was a smile, not a smirk.’
‘Same result.’ He leaned forward and returned her look now. ‘He’s a good kid. You’re both good kids. But I don’t want his itchy trigger finger getting either him or anyone else killed needlessly.’
‘You don’t worry about that with me?’
Wilson leaned back and chuckled.
‘The way you shoot?’
It was Innocent’s turn to bridle. Wilson saw the look on her face and held his palm up to her.
‘You know I’m joking. I don’t worry about you because you have the exact right approach to policing. You talk first. You only resort to force when talk hasn’t got you anywhere.’
Mollified, Innocent walked over to the water cooler. She glanced out of the window and saw the English guy shamble by on the other side of the street.
‘What do you think of the English couple?’ she said.
Wilson wasn’t one to gossip or venture an o
pinion on people unless there was a crime related reason to do so. So he surprised her when he said:
‘They’ve maybe got problems. I saw him downing beers at Harry’s almost the minute they arrived. She walks around like an ant’s fart would give her a heart attack – excuse my florid language.’
‘I’ve heard worse. Maybe I should find out from Barbara what their story is.’
Wilson shook his head.
‘Maybe that’s none of our goddamned business, Deputy Innocent.’
She mimicked Wilson’s earlier hand gesture.
‘Okay, okay. Just trying to practice that pro-active policing I was taught. Stop a crime before it becomes a crime.’
‘You were trying to practice Natasha’s lifelong curiosity about other people’s business. Which is probably the main reason you applied for the deputy’s job anyway – so you could legitimately poke your nose in. For such a nature girl you’ve got an uncommon interest in folk.’
Innocent flushed. He was right, of course.
‘I didn’t apply, actually. I was headhunted by the Mayor.’
Wilson chuckled.
‘I’m familiar with the Mayor’s Nosy Neighbours Make Good Neighbours attitude to policing.’
‘Is that how come she appointed you?’
Innocent thought for a moment she had overstepped the mark. Wilson was friendly enough but he did have a sense of the proprieties with regard to his position on the island. After a moment, however, he chuckled again.
‘That’s a whole other conversation.’ He started moving the papers around on his desk. ‘How’s that Josie of yours? Back from the mainland yet?’
Innocent felt like a kid as a grin spread across her face.
‘Back by noon, she said. ‘She’s raised some more money. We’re getting there.’
Wilson nodded slowly.
‘Pleased to hear it.’
‘She has a surprise present for the both of us.’
He grinned back.
‘That’s always nice.’
Innocent nodded.
‘Sheriff?’
‘Deputy?’
She examined his face. Always that sadness there behind his ready smile. She knew it must be to do with the scandal. She knew there’d been one. She just didn’t know the details. However, now was not the time to ask.
‘Nothing.’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘Then hadn’t you better get out there to protect your precious wildlife? Make sure some tiny tot isn’t being mean to an alligator?’
Chapter Seven
Julian Earwaker had air conditioning in only one room. This studio. He called it air conditioning but actually it was a temperature control. He loved this space, loved losing himself in the detail of the pictures he was working on. Phoebe never came in here; Evangelina only when she was posing for him.
Julian had been an artist for twenty years. He made a reasonable living, especially once he’d come to the island. He’d moved here five years earlier. Discovered the tourists in pant suits and baggy shorts were happy to pay double for his work because they were so thrilled to be visiting a real live artist in this bohemian setting.
Paradise Island had a rep as an artists’ colony. It had been established in the fifties when a bunch of beatnik painters, poets and musicians moved into the decaying ‘cottages’ abandoned by their millionaire owners at the end of World War II. They set up an artists’ commune. For which read free love. Julian and Phoebe arrived at the tail-end of that and did a little swinging before things moved on.
It hadn’t taken long for Julian to establish himself. But nothing he had ever painted had fetched more than a few hundred, however much he’d hyped it. And he was a master of hype, brilliant at jumping on every bandwagon, from Abstract Expressionism to Pop. He knew how to busk it – because with modern art, who knew?
But he also recognised he wasn’t the real deal. He was not an original. He wished he were because he had found it hard to accept the fact that he was fated to be a painter of no originality – and a forger of unrivalled brilliance.
Still, for the right amount of money he had come to terms with it.
In fact, now he enjoyed his status. To copy, it wasn’t enough to mimic. Sure you needed to be able to do that close examination to see exactly how the artist had applied the paint. But it only worked for Earwaker if he became the artist. If he let the brushstrokes flow. He looked at the cathedral he had created on his canvas and at the one he was copying and picked up his brush again.
Ruth was sitting at the back of the church when a tall man in Bermudas, flip-flops and a T-shirt walked out of a door behind the altar. She was contemplating a quote from the Bible printed on a postcard she’d picked up from a table beside the font.
1 Corinthians 13-4-7: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy; it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
She sighed. Not in her experience. As the vicar fussed with something at the lectern she got up to leave.
‘Hello there,’ he called to her as she stepped onto the aisle.
She turned.
‘H-hello,’ she said. ‘I was just …’
He walked down the aisle, a warm smile on his plump face.
‘No need to explain,’ he said. ‘Some people come in here just to get out of the damned heat.’ He put his hand to his mouth. ‘Excuse my language.’
He held out his other hand.
‘I’m Gus. I’m the pastor here.’
She smiled.
‘I’m Ruth.’
He glanced down at the card in her hand.
‘That’s a popular choice,’ he said.
She gestured at his casual outfit.
‘You don’t look like a vicar.’
‘Maybe not where you come from – England, is it? But over here we’re cunning like a fox. We blend in. Act just like everybody else. Lull you into a sense of false security then, shazam, we steal your soul.’
‘Shazam?’
He grinned.
‘Well, there is a certain sleight of hand involved. I’m still working on the water into wine stunt.’
Ruth smiled uncertainly. This man was like no vicar she’d met in Sussex.
‘I thought God was a spaceman,’ she said.
‘That’s a point of view,’ he said.
He reached out to waft some insect away from her hair. She jerked back then felt foolish. He didn’t comment on her response.
‘Hope you’ve got a good bug repellant. Around here they’re rapacious little devils – oh dear, there I go again.’
Ruth smiled. She’d felt self-conscious that the vicar had caught her in his church. She’d come in on impulse and, actually, had got nothing from the visit. Her view of a church was traditional English – some comfortingly gloomy medieval building with worn benches, ancient memorials and stained glass. This was a prefabricated building with an airy, chrome and white wood interior. Her God wouldn’t be seen dead in here.
She smiled at the thought. Gus seemed to relax when he saw it.
‘You’re a friend of Barbara’s?’
Ruth nodded.
‘Will she be joining you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Ruth said. ‘Have you been the vicar here long?’
‘I’ve been pastor about two years.’
‘You’re not from the island?’
He shook his head.
‘Nor even the State. I’m from the Bronx. New York. Frankly, all this fresh air and sky still puts the zap on my head.’
‘You were a pastor there?’
Gus shook his head again.
‘I got the calling late.’ He flushed a little and smiled. ‘I was saved when I’d made things pretty rough for myself.’ He reached out slowly and lightly touched her arm. ‘We don’t do confession – not that kind of church – but, you know, if you ever need a quiet word wh
ilst you’re here I’m bound by the same rules as a priest.’
He dropped his arm.
‘And I don’t preach. Well, except on Sundays.’
Ruth felt suddenly hot.
‘Do I look like I need someone to talk to?’ she said, conscious her tone was somewhere between hostile and plaintive.
‘Forgive me for making assumptions,’ he said, his hands out in a placatory gesture. ‘It’s just that people in here when there isn’t a service…’
Ruth laughed, though the sound jarred her.
‘… Are here to get out of the heat. Right?’
He looked relieved.
‘Right. Drop in anytime when the air’s getting too sticky. But just be aware that font at the back isn’t a drinking fountain.’
‘He wouldn’t want strangers helping themselves to His special supply – I get that.’
‘Oh, He doesn’t recognise the concept of strangers and He’s happy to share his water. It’s just not drinking water – who knows what bacilli is in there?’
‘Holy Water isn’t fit to drink?’
Gus flushed again.
‘So much for my attempt at humour. I wish I hadn’t got into what is now becoming deep water.’
Ruth started to reach out but stopped herself. Instead she turned and headed for the door, calling back:
‘Deep Holy Water – you’ve got some explaining to do to your boss.’
She saw him smile as he watched her go.
Parker sat in the Schezuan restaurant eating sushi at the bar. California rolls, really. He liked Gook food best but Nip wasn’t bad. He’d picked up a taste for both back when, in Vietnam. A couple of years before the shit hit the fan. He’d been one of Kennedy’s special advisers. An assassin, in other words.
That’s where he’d got into the French existentialist thing, hanging out with French legionnaires who’d been fighting the Vietcong for a decade. He knew the legion was supposed to take anybody, no questions asked, so was full of thieves and murderers. He didn’t get a sense of that. Tough fuckers, every one, but some of them cultured too.
A few of these guys had served in Algeria in the fifties, trying to hang onto it. Same kind of war. One of them had introduced him to the work of Camus, a French-Algerian writer who had died in a car crash a couple of years earlier. The legionnaire said Camus wasn’t an existentialist but an absurdist. Since, at the time, Parker didn’t understand either term he didn’t worry about it.
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