Black Rain Falling

by Jacob Ross

  I realised immediately that Shadowman was dragging me to the fall above the ravine. I made myself a deadweight for a second, pulled my feet up under me and drove my weight into him. He stumbled forward, and by the time he braked, I’d broken loose. Perhaps he expected me to run. Perhaps he was accustomed to a fast and frightened retreat. Me – I hurled myself at him. His arms closed around my waist, and it was all I could do to hold back the scream as the pain rode up my body in waves. I felt my feet leaving the earth, glimpsed for a second his upper lip peeled back, his narrowed eyes, the tendons pushing against the skin of his neck, as he tensed himself to fling me. I brought my forehead crashing down on his. Felt his body shudder, butted him again, the recoil travelling down my spine. A gurgling groan came out of him.

  I pulled myself loose and rammed my shoulder into his gut. I watched him totter backward, a forearm swiping at the blood on his forehead. Then, suddenly, he was no longer there.

  I stumbled back to Jana Ray’s greenhouse. It took me a while to empty the demijohn. I struck a match and tossed it inside the enclosure, retrieved my gun and began limping my way down the Belvedere.

  I opened my eyes to the familiar pattern of my rafters and Malan’s face above me. I was on my sofa.

  ‘What happen?’ I said.

  Malan pulled a chair and sat beside me. ‘You in your house, Digger. You pass out. Driver find you by the road. He figure you been lying there a long time. He call San Andrews Central.’

  ‘You know the driver’ name?’

  ‘Mokoman, I fink. Hear dis: San Andrews Central forward the call to Pet. Digger, I never hear nothing so. Pet cuss them police arse in Central for negligence. Receptionist say she hear Pet on another phone, same time, instructin ambulance how they must pick you up and put you down. Receptionist call me. I decide to pick you up meself.’ He chuckle-hissed and straightened up.

  ‘Miss Stanislaus awright?’ I said.

  ‘Lisa say they lettin De Woman out today.’

  ‘Lisa back?’

  ‘Nuh, Pet tell ’er and she tell me.’

  ‘Miss Stanislaus know what happen with me?’

  ‘Not yet. Pet say she not coming to see you till she cool off. She say you behave like an arse becuz you could’ve dead up there and nobody would know. She say you should’ve gone with reinforcement. Digger, she right! An’ doctor say—’

  ‘Doctor!’

  ‘Doctor was here. Pet send doctor with instructions.’ Malan scratched his head. ‘Anyway, de dognoses is you more tired than beat-up – somefing about exhorshun an con-cushion.’ Malan chuckled again. ‘You an’ De Woman plan this?’

  ‘Enjoy yourself,’ I said.

  I rolled off the sofa. The room rolled with me and I hit the floor. I felt a ripple of pain across my back.

  Soft hands helped me up. A breath of perfume.

  ‘Take it easy.’

  I wasn’t aware that Sarona had come with Malan. I smiled at her and thanked her.

  ‘Malan said somebody attacked you?’ she said. ‘You better now?’

  ‘Fink so – is part of the job.’

  ‘Seriously?’ She’d directed the question at Malan. Her manner with him was soft, delicate. Almost like Dessie was with me. Sometimes.

  ‘Digger never take precautions,’ Malan said. ‘That couldn’ve happen to me.’ His tone was low, reassuring. She seemed satisfied.

  I gestured at the door. ‘Where you find my keys?’

  ‘Your pocket,’ Malan said. ‘Tell me, what happen to you in de bush?’

  I told him, struggled to my feet and poured myself a glass of water. I could barely lift my arm. There wasn’t a part of me that wasn’t hurting.

  Malan jangled his car keys, dropped an arm around his woman’s shoulders and strolled out the door. They looked good together – he nutmeg, she cinnamon.

  I dropped myself back on the sofa, suppressing the urge to call Miss Stanislaus.

  I lay in the darkness of my living room, letting the sounds of the Old Hope evening wash over me: children squeezing in the last bit of play before adults bawled them inside. There came the wash of birdsong in the valley, the bang and rattle of closing doors and windows.

  Pet called. ‘Digger, y’awright?’ Her voice was worried, intimate.

  ‘I better, thanks, Pet. Thanks for everything.’

  ‘I-I kin come see you? If you . . . never mind, Digger.’ She hung up.

  When Pet spoke to me like that, she became a different woman. Her voice lost its edge, dropped an octave lower and the uncertainty in it was unbearable. The only time I’d heard Miss Stanislaus chiding her was the lunchtime I walked into the office and overheard them in the toilet.

  ‘Make yourself forget him, Miss Pet. Where woman concern, Missa Digger dunno what he looking for.’ I’d dropped my keys on the desk, cleared my throat and bit into my fish burger.

  My thoughts looped back to Jana Ray, the beauty and the promise of the youth, and the way Shadowman had killed him. Not just to steal his work. Those imprints on the base of the young man’s skull were where Shadowman’s nails had bruised the scalp. Each small cut marked the number of times he’d adjusted his grip on the boy’s head. My blood curdled at the image of Shadowman bringing Jana Ray’s head up for just that little bit of air each time, to prolong his asphyxiation. The third time he had kept Jana Ray down.

  Crime was not just wickedness, it was wasteful.

  In my head, I tried to bring together all the events of the past few days: that first call by the bus driver named Mokoman about a body by the road, the fear that squatted over the little seaside village, the helplessness and outrage of the woman who had confronted me in Jana Ray’s ramshackle house, the cave in the mountains that Eric called The Hole. The messages Jana Ray had left me in my book.

  Those drawings were as clear to me as daylight now. Like Lazar Wilkinson, Jana Ray had gone down fighting.

  Slow footsteps coming up the driveway, halting at my door.

  DS Chilman let himself in and cleared his throat. His hand fumbled at the wall. The lights came on.

  ‘I didn hear your car,’ I said.

  ‘I coast, Digson. The coupla pints of gas I got, just enough to take me home. Offer me a drink, youngfella.’

  ‘I have juice.’

  He curled his lips at me, walked into my spare room, rattled round a while and returned with a bottle of my finest vintage rum.

  ‘Easterhall X10,’ he breathed. ‘Digson, you’z a petty bourgeois.’ With a twist of his wrist the bottle was open. I slid a glass across the worktop.

  He smacked his lips, gave me a slow wink.

  ‘Difference between me’n’you, Digson, is that I not a hypocrite. I prefer honesty. Rum is rum. I take it straight. Not like you who prefer to dress up the holy spirit with cosmetics. You, Michael Digson, does make a whore of the blaastid thing and call it cocktail.’

  He raised the glass face level and addressed it. ‘Gimme the real reason that drive you up in the hills all night last night till morning with a gun in your hand – a gun, mind you, that nobody could persuade you to carry before.’ He turned around to face me. ‘Why?’

  ‘Dunno what you getting at, Sir. I was doing my job.’

  ‘Nuh! Is becuz the fella lay his hands on Kathleen. Biggest mistake that Missa Shadowman could make was to hit a woman that you care about. You think Kathleen dunno that? Is why she was so agitated soonz you left the hospital.’

  I strode across to the fridge and got myself a glass of water. He followed my movements like a cat watching a lizard.

  ‘First time my daughter ever ask me for anything. And that was to beg me to stop you from sinning yourself or getting killed. First time I hear my daughter nearly cry.’

  He poured himself a drink, knocked it back and gave me one of his awful yellow-eyed grins.

  ‘Well, I tell her the truth. I tell her is nothing me or Camaho Police Force kin do when Digger Digson catch afire. He can’t help it. She just got to wait and pray to all them orisha-women she
believe in, and hope he come back alive.’

  ‘You giving me grief for doing my work!’

  ‘Nuh, I givin you grief for forgetting your work! If you wuz doing your work, you’d ha gone up there with officers, corner the fella and bring him in for questioning becuz he got all the answers. You’d’ve break his leg if you had to. You’d’ve lay down a red carpet for Shadowman if it was the only way to bring him in. And the case would’ve been wrapped up in a coupla days.

  ‘What I saying, Digson, is you went to kill the fella, and if you did manage to kill him, you’d’ve killed the case.’

  He downed the drink and slammed the glass on the worktop surface. ‘What I want to know is when you going to let go of her.’ He was pointing at the picture of my mother on the wall.

  ‘Leave my fuckin mother out of this.’ I got up, opened the door, walked out into the night and pulled it hard behind me.

  Half an hour later Chilman came out. He lowered himself beside me on the step, his old satchel on his lap.

  ‘Good rum,’ he said. ‘A lil too polite, though. But nice.’ He pressed his shoulder against my side and nudged me with an elbow. ‘Digson, you think I come here to downpress you? You think I don’t unnerstand? I had a pardner name Cello. We work fifteen years together. We face everything together: madman, thief, gunman, bad weather – whatever! Cello was the one pusson in the world I know would die for me, no question. Was the same for me. I kin call him any time of day or night if I in trouble and he’ll get off his woman, ask her for excuse and come and find me. I do the same for him. My wife couldn understand it. She got my money, she got my children and my body, but she feel that whatever Cello getting from me, she want that too. I tell her I can’t give her that. Is the job, is what happen when you spend your life facing trouble together, and you know you only come out of it alive because the other person throw their life in the ring with yours. If you lose that pusson, is like you lose part of your brain. Ain got no name for it, Digson. All I saying is, you got to watch that. Keep a very close eye on it becuz the woman you sharing life with never going to understand it.’

  ‘You think I dunno that?’ I said.

  ‘Digson, what’s going to happen to my daughter?’ he said. And he’d suddenly become a tired and scared old fella looking into my face.

  ‘I doing my best, Sir.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, dropping a hand on my shoulder and pushing himself to his feet.

  He picked his way down the driveway. The Datsun shuddered into life. We called it The Donkey, because Chilman swore on his children’s life that the vehicle knew how to get him home. I never doubted that.

  My thoughts flicked back to the first time Dessie spotted me with Miss Stanislaus at the entrance of the Fire Station.

  She came over to my place that night.

  ‘Tell me about that woman, Digger – the one who was with you.’

  I told her about Miss Stanislaus. Dessie listened as if she were absorbing my words with her eyes, a finger pressed against her lower lip. She curved her body forward on the sofa, her arms around her knees. ‘Digger, I want the truth. You in a relationship with that woman?’

  I never thought of Miss Stanislaus as ‘that woman’, I said. I never stopped to examine the way we worked together. It was like asking me how I felt about my head. You don’t think about it unless it’s hurting you. And when it hurts, you do something about it. Like when a market seller named Cocoman had the blade of a machete against Miss Stanislaus’s throat. It didn’t feel as if another officer was in trouble, it felt as if I was the one that Cocoman was fuckin with.

  ‘Dessie, I don’t have the words for it,’ I said. ‘But what I know is that I would do what I need to do to make sure Miss Stanislaus awright. And I sure she’ll do the same for me.’

  Dessie sniffed and covered her face with her hands. Then she rose to her feet. ‘So, y’all have a relationship?’

  ‘You my woman, Dessie. She’s not.’

  ‘I would’ve preferred you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I would’ve preferred you didn’t ask me. Is like you pushing me to choose between air and water.’

  ‘Which of us is air, Digger? And which is water?’

  ‘No choice, Dessie. They both important.’

  ‘Digger, any number of man wants me.’

  ‘Then go with any number of man. I got strong feelings for you, but that don’t mean I going to lie.’

  A couple of hours later, I walked her to her car. Dessie looked stricken.

  44

  A tap on my door pulled me out of my thoughts. I turned off the stove, straightened myself and pulled the door open. Miss Stanislaus was out there. The late-evening gloom behind her was speckled with fireflies.

  I pulled the door wider and stepped aside, zoning in on her face. She looked calm but I sensed the agitation in her.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I decide you going to cook for me.’

  ‘Just in time,’ I said. I gestured at the pots sitting on the stove, then pointed at a chair. Before she sat, I caught a look from her, self-conscious, almost shy.

  ‘How’s the face?’ I said.

  ‘Face fine, Missa Digger. And you?’

  ‘I good.’ I laid the food on the table. She extracted a tissue from her bag and slipped it up her sleeve.

  ‘I hear he come to talk to you?’ ‘He’ was Chilman.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘What he say?’

  ‘You like my salad dressing?’

  She plucked a string of grated carrot, dipped it in the dressing and tasted. ‘It good,’ she said.

  I loaded a Country and Western CD into my player. Her kind of music.

  I switched it on and turned the music low. She raised her head at me. ‘Missa Digger, you never tell me you know dat Malan lef iz wife.’

  ‘Malan never tell me that he left his wife, Miss Stanislaus.’

  ‘Pet tell me that she keep callin de office to talk to him. Is not right to cause dis kinda sufferin. Is why I never consider meself to be no proper police. Becuz,’ she was hissing with indignation, ‘police do what’s right becuz they get a salary. I do what’s right becuz is right!’

  ‘That’s why you upset?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘You sure?’

  Miss Stanislaus didn’t answer me.

  I spooned out the stewed fish into a bowl. Then the steamed vegetables. Miss Stanislaus looked at me with something like reproach in her eyes. I got up and fetched a couple of napkins. That appeased her.

  ‘Miss Stanislaus, your father came here last night, drink a bottle of my best rum and cuss me stinking. He say I wasn’t acting as an officer when I went chasing after Shadowman. He say what I did was selfish. It hurt but he was right. Only thing I don’t accept is that I would’ve mash-up the investigation.’

  ‘He’s right!’ she said. ‘How you know where to find the Shadowman?’

  ‘I figure he’s the one killed Jana Ray for his marijuana garden, and if that was so, I would find him up there. Jana Ray was an asset. Why they going want to murder him? I figure it had to be for something else. Jana Ray been setting himself up selling marijuana oil and kush. There’s a lotta money in it. Shadowman was after his plants.’

  ‘I really upset wiv you, Missa Digger, for goin after that man on your own.’

  ‘You ask me a question, Miss Stanislaus. I tryin to answer it.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ she muttered.

  ‘Well, when I searched Jana Ray’ house, the whole bedroom ransacked, none of the obvious things taken, but somebody been in there looking for something. I believe it was Shadowman looking for Jana Ray’ stash of seeds.’

  ‘What make you so sure, Missa Digger?’

  ‘The lil fella name Eric told me that Shadowman was always oppressing Jana Ray for his seeds and plants, accusing the youngfella of giving him dead seeds because they wouldn’t grow. What Jana Ray never told Shadowman was that the plants survive only in certain conditions. I believe Shado
wman started concealing himself to watch what Jana Ray was doing. Then it must’ve crossed his mind that all he needed to do was to take the whole damn garden from the youngfella. Thing is, Jana Ray might’ve left it because h’was planning to run away. Something must’ve told him that Shadowman was going to kill him. H’was a sensitive fella.’

  ‘You finking is different people who got rid of Missa Laza Wilkins?’

  ‘Lazar Wilkinson was a different kind of killing. I still believe Miss Tamara and the two foreigners got something to do with it.’

  ‘Missa Jamma Ray – you say he didn have no interest in the marijuana weed bush – what he got interest in?’

  ‘Marijuana oil, Miss Stanislaus – a cure for the epilepsy that killed his mother. His notes told me that.’

  ‘But his mother pass way!’

  ‘It don’t work like that in people’s head, Miss Stanislaus. You don’t want it to happen again to whoever matter to you. You rather kill or die to make sure it don’t happen again.’

  I gathered the plates and laid them in the sink.

  Miss Stanislaus eased her hands under the running tap. ‘Missa Digger, I finkin you ’fraid that this job going make you a worser man, yunno. Mebbe is not that. Mebbe the job wake up the fings you already got inside you.’

  I followed her out to the veranda. On the road below a car rushed by, leaving behind the quiet and the darkness.

  ‘Why those drug people want to interfere with Camaho, Missa Digger?’

  ‘Camaho is small, we already got a smuggling culture, we have a whole heap of youngfellas on the island who can’t get a job. We got a million lil bays and coves where you could hide a boat. And we got the personality – secretiveness is first nature. Besides, the market for the drugs not too far from here: we got Trinidad next door, and once you go past Kara Island, is a straight run up to Florida and Miami. What I saying, Miss Stanislaus, and what your father always knew, is that Camaho is ripe for a takeover.’

  I went to my shelf and pulled down the book that Jana Ray had marked. Miss Stanislaus came in. I opened it and held it out to her, my finger on the first two of the six drawings of fans with the numbers above them. ‘I was wrong, them is not fans. Them is propellers. The first two look different. I dunno why, I dunno what them numbers above them saying either but I feel sure is connected with the boat.’