by Jacob Ross
I felt the prickling of the hairs on my neck and arms, my nerves flaring as I too picked up the scent of Juba Hurst.
Then I saw him – a giant upright shadow at the beginning of the bend in the road. Behind us, the long dust track to the airport; on our left, the wall of manchineel and the sea. Our only chance of retreat was the tangle of grass and stones from which we’d just emerged.
I felt my heartbeat quicken, my mouth go dry. ‘Jeezas,’ I muttered. ‘She fuckin plan this!’
With fast heavy movements, the giant shape began bearing down on us. Miss Stanislaus pulled away, her voice rising to a shriek. ‘Use your speed, Missa Digger.’ I heard the rapid padpadding of her retreating feet, then I could no longer hear her.
I spun on my heels, thrusting forward in a crouching zigzag dance away from Juba; was about to hit my stride when something struck me between my shoulders, hollowed out my head and my legs gave way. I hit the asphalt hard.
When I rolled onto my back Juba was standing over me.
‘Catch you.’ His voice seemed to rumble out of a tunnel. He was holding the big steel gaff in his right hand, the metal hook winking back the moonlight.
‘I goin gut you like a fish.’ A slow roll of the massive shoulders, a deep-chested intake of his breath and the big man lunged. I threw myself sideways. The metal struck the road and sparked. I leapt to my feet, began backing away, my eyes on the half-raised weapon, my nostrils flared, and all I could hear in that moment was Chilman’s snickering condemnation unspooling in my head. Not wearing your gun going kill you one day . . .
Another belly-rumble came from Juba. ‘Lemme see you dodge dis one.’
He switched the weapon to his left hand, the curve of the big hook brushing his knee, his right arm spread wide. I shuffled backwards, dizzy with the stink of him, my instinct dropping my hand to my waist for the belt that wasn’t there.
Something hot and sudden flushed my head and I felt the snarl rising from my gut. ‘Fuck you. You smell like a pit latrine. C’mon, you fucker. Kill me!’
Crouched low, I followed the arc of the rising weapon, bracing myself to leap sideways.
On the peak of Juba’s swing, the night crackled and splintered.
The big man straightened up, his arm still raised. From behind me came the quick soft shuffle of footsteps. And there she was, Miss Stanislaus, barefoot and rigid in the moonlight, her Ruger levelled like the finger of God on the swaying man.
The second shot convulsed him. The third seemed to pin him there against the night. The steel hook left his hand and struck the road – its clatter flat and sharp. Miss Stanislaus’s Ruger barked again, and the pause between each shot was terrible because Juba wouldn’t fall.
I counted all five shots, visualised the placement of each bullet by the recoil of the big man’s body. And yet he didn’t fall.
I watched Miss Stanislaus reload, her eyes not on the weapon but on Juba’s face. The next shot brought him to his knees. And it struck me then that she was killing Juba and wanted him to know it.
She shot him again, and he sank onto his haunches, the big face turned up to her. All I could see were the whites of his eyes.
‘Finish it,’ I snapped. ‘Finish it right now!’
My voice seemed to rouse her from that taut, wide-eyed trance. She straightened up and the night crackled with the quick succession of bullets.
And then silence, disturbed only by the suck and surge of the waves between the mangroves.
Miss Stanislaus lowered herself on to the road and buried her face in her hands, sobbing with great soundless heaves of her shoulders.
I eased her to her feet, held her for a long time, my chin in her hair, the early-morning chill creeping under my shirt and settling on my skin.
None of this felt real: the sudden preternatural stillness of this foreday morning, the mass of flesh lying on the road bathed in moonlight. Not a movement anywhere, and stars so close a pusson could reach up and stir them with a hand.
Miss Stanislaus’s voice broke through my thoughts. ‘Missa Digger, you awright?’
I shook my head and stared at her, her face gone smooth in the moonlight and that glow in her big brown eyes. I was reminded suddenly of Caran’s story about Princess Orchids.
Miss Stanislaus stepped back. Now she wouldn’t look at me. ‘Missa Digger, you think I wicked, not so?’
‘S’not what I thinking now, Miss Stanislaus.’ And I wasn’t, my mind had shifted forward to the days ahead, the impossibility of any of this making sense to DS Chilman. And that would be just to start with.
There was a disturbance in the air. What sounded like murmurings. I closed my eyes and listened, and recognised the shuffle of feet on dust. When I looked up I saw them: shadows emerging in the morning half-light, bare-chested men in shorts, women in fluttering nightdresses. Hardly a word between them, just the occasional mumble that ended with ‘Juba’. A few raised their hands in our direction. Five women approached us. I picked out Dada and Benna among them. They gathered around Miss Stanislaus and began leading her away. It was then that I noticed Miss Stanislaus’s shivering. She must have said something to them because Benna turned her head, raised her stick and pointed ahead. I followed close behind, drifting to the side of the road when we passed the dead man.
‘They’ll clear dat up,’ Benna said without looking down.
At Dada’s house, they took Miss Stanislaus into a room at the back. I heard the sound of running water, caught the smell of cerasee, chado beni, nutmeg, and other odours for which I had no name. These smells dredged up a wave of childhood memories. They brought to mind my grandmother, who had mothered me, muttering in a closed room with other women that she’d gathered around her. I remembered the secrecy of their ritual cleansing – women, preparing one of their own for the trouble to come.
DS Chilman remained silent on the phone. Once or twice he coughed and cleared his throat. At the end of my report, he said, ‘Blame me, Digson.’ Then he cut off.
It was the first time I’d heard him take responsibility for anything he did or did not do in relation to Miss Stanislaus. I’d always thought it was what explained his drunkenness – dulling his guilt from abandoning a young girlchild who, judging from the depth of her resentment, had probably loved him to distraction. I dunno!
Miss Stanislaus would take no gift from him, would not look her father in the eyes, pretended not to hear him whenever he addressed her. She spoke to him through me. I’d never heard her say his name and he did the same. Yet she would not tolerate a put-down of her father by Malan in his absence.
I understood that. My father hadn’t been all that different from Chilman. To let go of that resentment required something stronger than forgiveness. To pretend it didn’t matter was to deny what I had become because of my father’s rejection.
8
A blustering early Monday morning in Kara Island. Benna and her women friends walked us to the jetty. A whipping wind had them grabbing at unruly skirts and dresses. In the near distance, Blackwater looked like a giant boiling cauldron.
Before I boarded the ferry, Benna placed herself beside me. She smelled of the herbs they’d bathed Miss Stanislaus in earlier. ‘We countin on you to hold ’er up – proud girl, yunno. She’ll never make you know she need some holdin up. Specially now.’
Benna rested sly, enquiring eyes on my face, her cheeks spread in a wide gap-toothed smile. ‘She say, never mind that pretty baby-face ov yours, you stubborn like a Kara Islan ram goat. That true?’ Benna was looking at me as if she really wanted to know.
I opened my palms and shrugged.
‘Y’all headin back to trouble, not so?’
‘Big trouble,’ I said.
‘We here and . . . ’ She raised her stick and pointed it south, in the direction of Camaho. ‘We over there with y’all too.’
They were still on the jetty when the big catamaran swung into Blackwater.
Miss Stanislaus slept all the way, her head against my shoulder. From
time to time she woke with a start and muttered, ‘Sorry, Missa Digger,’ before dropping off again.
I watched as Camaho took shape on the horizon, the scattering of villages along the coast as the ferry drew nearer, the mountains above them all – purple and forbidding – and I felt a tug of regret that Miss Stanislaus and I had over-nighted on Kara Island.
The Osprey slid into the Carenage at 10.12am. Outside, on the sidewalk, Miss Stanislaus brought her hands together and raised them. ‘You handcuffin me?’
‘Nobody handcuffing you, Miss Stanislaus. Nobody touching you! You unnerstan? I want you to stay away from work for a coupla days. That alright?’
She nodded. We took a minibus to the airport to pick up my car.
Somefing get kill’ inside you . . . Miss Stanislaus’s words had made a small nest in my head. I dropped her off and retrieved the Glock from Daphne. The child came out running, stood looking up into her mother’s face, her arms straight down her sides. I couldn’t bear to watch the adoration and vulnerability in Daphne’s eyes. Miss Stanislaus reached out and touched her daughter’s cheek, then pulled the child against her and she too began crying. I felt awkward watching Miss Stanislaus trying to wipe the child’s wet cheeks with her bare hand and Daphne burrowing her face into her. And it was clear to me that something between these two had been lifted. I left them on the veranda, aware that I’d avoided talking to Miss Stanislaus about the trouble I saw coming.
It was still early afternoon. I told Chilman I was coming to see him.
I drove through indecisive weather – rain one minute, bright sunshine the next – to DS Chilman’s drinking hole, a rickety single-room rumshop that looked more like a shed. It seemed to have been built for his convenience because it was no more than fifty yards from his house, which looked straight out to sea from its perch on a low granite cliff.
He’d asked Miriam, the woman who ran the place, to put us in the ‘backroom’ – a tight space separated from the rest of the shop by a plastic curtain full of holes. Two upended crates served as seats. We rested our elbows on what looked like a cross between a table and a bench.
Chilman looked old, with none of the cantankerous energy I loved and hated him for. For the first time I had a sense of his fragility and with it came a sinking feeling in my gut.
‘Y’awright, Sir?’
‘Talk,’ he said.
I ran through the incident with Juba again.
‘Anybody else see what happen?’
I shook my head.
‘You say Juba hit you?’
I curled a hand behind my back.
Chilman got up, walked around me and rolled up my T-shirt. He prodded my shoulder blade, then released the fabric when I winced.
‘You got Kathleen to take a picture?’
I nodded.
‘Digson,’ he said, passing a vigorous hand across his head, ‘we deep in shit, and I got to tell you I don’t see no way out of it. Apart from that lil bruise you got on your back, you can’t prove a thing. Kathleen’ history with Juba Hurst mean she got a very strong motive. She left ’er girlchild on her own, travel twenty miles by boat, armed with a police gun to kill him. She didn get through first time, becuz you stop her, so she spend another night to make sure.’
‘I was there, Sir, I—’
‘Tell that to a hearing, Digson, or a jury, and they’ll laugh at you.’
‘The fella attacked us. I saw everything.’
‘Tell that to a jury too! They’ll laugh you outta court. Everybody know that you and Kathleen together like bimand-bam. Everybody expect a cover-up story from you and you not going to get no support from the Force, especially the fellas in Central, because you arrested one of them a few days ago. They going to make sure it turn back and bite y’arse. My problem is Officer Mibo.’
I frowned at him. ‘I know Mibo. Spoke to him coupla times.’
‘You speak to Mibo, but you dunno Mibo. You will note that you didn see him when y’all wuz there. Mibo is a snake and a greedy coward! I call him soonz you put down the phone and ask him if he prepare to support y’all. Mibo inform me that he done send in his report about the murder. You notice the word? Murder! He not telling me who he send it to. Is not to the Commissioner of police, like he should’ve done, and is none of the superintendents in Camaho either. Because I check.’
‘Justice Minister,’ I said.
‘That’s my guess.’ Chilman licked his lips, glared at me as if I’d done him something. ‘That Justice Minister jackass won’t do the work people elect him to do. He won’t keep his hands off police bizness. He will sell his mother and his children for a vote. He keep picking on police – wait till police turn on him.’
‘Why Mibo got that attitude?’
‘Mibo is Juba’ family – second cousin, I think. He got a big house and cars that his salary can’t afford. Juba gone, so Mibo’ bowl of gravy empty now. No more backhanders for passing a blind eye to all of Juba’ dealings.’
‘We didn’t mention Malan,’ I said.
He went sullen and deep-eyed, then tilted his head at the roof, his eyes roving along it. ‘Ever read the Royal Reader, Digson?’
‘Nuh.’
‘Then your education not complete!’ He showed me a row of yellow teeth. ‘Is the schoolbook English-people try to corrupt we mind with, Digson, but it got one good story in it. Ever hear about de Englishfella and the tiger?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Englishfella bring up a tiger from since it was a puppy, yunno?’
‘Cub—’
‘Eh?’
‘Go ahead, Sir.’
‘Tiger-puppy grow up and behave just like the dog Missa Englishman bring it up to be. Englishfella love that animal like his own child. One day he siddown comfortable reading while he petting the tiger. Digson! I bet you never know that tiger got tongue like sandpaper! Anyway, tiger lick so hard, it bruise the whitefella hand. The hand start to bleed, lil bit at first. Then a lot more. Guess what happen?’
Chilman rapped the table with a knuckle. Miriam pulled the blind and pushed in her head. ‘Miri, gimme a quarter bottle. A Malta for the youngfella.’
I shook my head. ‘Let’s finish this bizness first, Sir. Else I going.’
Miriam soured her face, sucked her teeth and pulled the curtain closed.
‘You not going nowhere, Digson! Miri, bring the drink. That’s the reward I get for teaching him every blaastid thing he know!’
Miriam stretched a hand through the slit in the curtain with a tiny glass and a quarter bottle of spirits.
I lifted my bag, rose and headed for the door.
Chilman launched himself after me. He caught up on the threshold. He was smacking his lips, his eyes feverish and blinking. ‘I don’t have to drink it till we done the conversation, Digson.’
‘I need to talk to the Commissioner—’
‘Your father.’
‘At the end of the day he’s—’
‘Your father.’
‘Jeezas Christ! I trying to have a conversation here!’
‘Digson, he can’t get Kathleen off. I talk to him already.’
‘I not asking him to get her off. I asking him to do his job.’
Chilman cocked his head. Frowned. ‘You going pick a fight with him?’
‘Whatever it takes – what happened in the story?’
‘I not the one who decide to run off!’
I’d turned to leave when he prodded me on the shoulder. ‘You got to see the tiger-puppy.’
‘What you talking bout, Sir?’
‘Malan Greaves.’ He cleared his throat, spat and hurried back inside.
9
I drove back to San Andrews with DS Chilman’s words throbbing in my head – I don’t see no way out of it . . . you got to see the tiger-puppy . . .
Malan Greaves didn’t just want Miss Stanislaus out of San Andrews CID, he would have preferred if she didn’t exist. ‘She the kind ov female that man dream about an’ wake up in a sweat about,’
he told me once. I knew he meant it.
A couple of years ago, Malan had almost succeeded in getting Miss Stanislaus arrested for the killing of Deacon Bello, the paedophile preacher. He’d even bypassed the Commissioner of Police and taken the case straight to the Minister of Justice who happened to be the preacher’s ‘spiritual advisor’.
From then, I’d watched the poison between them ferment. In the office, Miss Stanislaus would not step aside to give way to him. She’d stopped him bringing his women to the office by greeting each one with a pleasant bright-eyed smile, then turning that smile on Malan. How were his wife and girlchile doing? she would ask. When last did he go home to check on them? Was this lovely lady his wife’s family?
I would watch the Chief Officer go sick with rage.
These days, if Malan approached Miss Stanislaus too abruptly, or came too close, her hand would drop to her handbag and I saw the effect that had on Malan. I’d even tried to talk her out of the hand-to-bag gesture. ‘Is a threat,’ I said.
‘Is self-protectin that I self-protectin, Missa Digger,’ she retorted. ‘You fink I dunno that he want me dead?’
Besides, did I know that Malan didn like wimmen? S’matter of fact, he didn even like his wife. ‘He want to ownand-control every Camaho woman, Missa Digger. Is why he try to plant imself inside all ov dem. That’s what make im feel he’s man. In odder wuds,’ she’d sniffed and brought a tissue to her lips, ‘Missa Malan sick. And is not just him, is most ov y’all.’
Well, look what she just gone and done! She’d given to Malan what he wanted on a tray!
As soon as I got home, I shrugged off my shirt and texted Pet. Buzz me, wn u kn.
I stepped out onto my little veranda and lifted my head at the Mardi Gras mountains. When I was a child my grandmother taught me to read the weather by what was happening on those high blue peaks. Thick mists rolling all the way down and smothering the foothills promised heavy rain.
Down below, in the cleft of the valley, I could hear the little river swollen by the water it had gathered in the mountains. I closed my eyes and imagined its raging journey towards the sea.