Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time (26 page)

The fifteen ten-pound notes were still sitting in a neat bundle on top of my old record player when I returned from disposing the body parts that had belonged to the dead doorman. The money was a stark reminder as to how far down a very murky road I had gone in my search to put hard cash in to my wallet. I felt grubby and strangely corrupted by my earlier actions and needed to wash away the sullied deed that I had just undertaken.

I returned to my sitting room after having a shave and a hot bath. I felt cleaner but still strangely tainted by what I had just done. I’d lain in the tub for the better part of an hour trying to forget about the malevolent reminder of Clarence Mayfield’s murder and the voodoo chicken’s foot warning I’d been sent, as well as the matter of Stella Hopkins’ disappearance and the further sizable retainer that my wealthy employer had left for me earlier. But I still couldn’t get my mind to settle and I again began to question what the hell I’d gotten myself into and why the taciturn alderman was prepared to cough up his hard-earned riches for me to do his bidding and why he needed to keep the local law on the back burner. In the short time that I had been searching for the missing girl, two people had been murdered and I been beaten up and attacked by a dog. Moreover, it was likely that there was a group of local bigwigs that were up to their necks in seedy acts of depravity, and their shady activities were probably being covered up by bent law who were most probably on my tail and attempting to warn me off with hacked-up flesh and black magic. If I’d had any sense left at all I would have heeded their threats and left things well alone, but I’d never liked being threatened and I never could let sleeping dogs lie.

I genuinely believed that Earl Linney’s need to find Stella was heartfelt and sincere. During our last two brief encounters he’d fleetingly shown to me an inner vulnerability that from my policing experience I knew was only visible when an individual had their back against a wall, was desperate and with nowhere else to run. I kept asking myself what Linney’s story was in all this. The photograph I’d found at Hopkins’ place made me question whether he was more than just Stella’s guardian. If he was her real father, if in fact they were kin, then what kind of parent allows a stranger to try to locate his lost daughter while he hides in the shadows? None of it weighed up. If that had been my kid out there lost, not seen for days, I’d have been tearing up both the streets and anybody that had got in the way of finding her. I knew one thing for sure: I’d certainly unsettled Linney when I’d informed him of my belief that the wealthy lawyer Terrence Blanchard could possibly be involved in Stella’s disappearance.

I knew deep down in my guts that the wily Jamaican councillor was still holding out on me about his true relationship with the slick honky barrister and I was damn sure it went deeper than the two of them sitting cosy around a table at a town-planning meeting at the council chambers. I knew I needed to start digging a little deeper and try to find something else that linked the two of them together in all of this mess.

To bring that kind of information out of the woodwork would require me to start nosing around again, and that in turn would invariably lead me to me getting beaten out of joint for my trouble. I rubbed at my brow with the tips of my fingers, wondering what to do, then looked back down at the tidy bundle of dough on the lid of my Dansette player and decided that for the kinda cash I was being offered, my nose could take another beating to find out what I needed to know.

I walked into my bedroom with the money in my hand and dropped it onto my bedside table, then pulled on my new strides and took the blue sea island cotton shirt from off of its hanger, which was hooked on the handle of the door, and put it on, noticing as I did that the swelling on the lower part of my left arm from the dog bite had gone down nicely. In years past when I was still on the force I’d taken my fair share of beatings and had always healed up real quick. The bite on my arm was proving to be no different. It was another war wound to add to a collection of many scars, which seemed to increase as each of my years passed. I looked into the mirror on the front of the wardrobe and carefully knotted my knitted navy tie so that it sat flush in the centre of my collar. I rubbed Bay Rum through my hair and then massaged a palm full of Old Spice aftershave into my stubbleless jowls before pulling on the shiny brogues I had bought earlier and tying them in tight double knots. I stretched out on my tiptoes to start to break in the new leather a little.

The stiffness of the hide pinched at my ankles as I took the first few steps across the room to collect my hat and grey herringbone jacket from the bed, and I reminded myself that I’d need to buy some sticking plasters later to prevent the inevitable painful blisters from erupting on the sides of my feet. I slipped my jacket on, collected the cash from the bedside table, folded it in two and put it into my inside pocket. I dropped the black felt trilby onto my head, pulling its brim down low across my eyes, and walked out into hall, turning off each of the room lights as I made my way towards my front door. I felt in the dark for my newly acquired hand-me-down tatty old duffle coat that was hanging on the hat stand and threw it over my shoulder as I closed up and made my way downstairs. Outside in the street, I stood for a moment taking in the peaceful calm of the winter’s night; then from the corner of my eye I saw my elderly neighbour Mrs Pearce watching me suspiciously from her living-room window. I waved up to her as she eyed me in the street and I felt the top of my lip break out into a riled sneer as she quickly darted back behind the curtain, embarrassed at being caught spying on me. I slipped my arms into the threadbare sleeves of the coat, pulling it across my back and buttoning it up. A rebellious smirk crept across my face as I thought of Vic’s appalled reaction later to what I had to tell him, and to the fact that I was still wearing the garment that he detested so much.

I’d decided to walk the short distance from my place to the Speed Bird club on Grosvenor Street. The night air was cold and a sharp frost had begun to set in; the pavements were starting to freeze over again, making walking on them difficult, other than at a snail’s pace. As I cautiously stepped out onto the harsh hoar surface I thought to myself that no matter how long I’d be living in this godforsaken country I would never get used to the bone-chilling winters or get the hang of keeping upright on an iced-up sidewalk.

By the time I reached the Speed Bird it was after nine and I wasn’t surprised to see that the place was quiet. The club did its major business at weekends, when the regular punters happily spent their meagre wages Friday through to Sunday evening. Good times were to be had by those wanting to imbibe in the heavy alcohol of over-proofed rums. This was when the place would be packed to the rafters and throbbed with the sound of soul music while the basement club would be filled with the heady, herbal fragrance of ganja. Over the years the penetrative hemp aroma had seeped into every nook and cranny of the cellar room and its intoxicating effects would’ve comforted many from the painful homesickness they would feel after leaving the sunny Caribbean islands on the promise of an even better life to go to in the land of a falsely welcoming empire. No more than a handful of drinkers, all black dudes, were in tonight; most were sitting quietly hunched over their half-filled glasses as Don Covay and the Goodtimers’ “Mercy, Mercy” played at low volume.

All but one of the booths were empty: a heavyset Jamaican I didn’t recognise sat in one of the far-end cubicles on the back wall with a slight, mousy-looking white girl who looked scared to death at the thought of being in the joint and I guessed was only there in the first place because she knew there was nowhere else they could to outside of St Pauls without causing trouble for themselves. Openly dating a black guy meant a woman risked being subjected to the kind of vicious scorn my people had put up with for centuries. I was of the opinion that if any woman was prepared to take that kind of crap on a day-to-day basis then she was to be respected; it was a damn shame that the girl looked so ill at ease in a place that welcomed both the courage of her convictions and the money in her purse. I casually smiled at her as I walked to the bar and as I did I got the disgruntled attention of her big suitor. I offered him a friendly “How you doin’?” to placate his irritated demeanour and he returned my greeting with a fiercely dark look of pent-up aggression that I ignored.

I stood patiently at the bar and waited for the barmaid to look up, as she was lost in a world of her own, filing her crimson-painted nails with steady, rhythmical strokes. She was well into her sixties, white peroxide-haired and wearing a cheap purple satin low-cut dress. I stared at her and finally had to tap the bar real hard with my knuckles to get her attention. Not at all pleased at being interrupted from beautifying her talons, she looked up from her chair with a powdered face like thunder, but when I flashed a grateful smile her sour appearance quickly altered. When she spoke it came as a surprise to find her tone less aggressive than I’d expected it to be. The warmth of her Bristolian accent instantly put me at ease as I took a seat across from her, folding my arms on the bar, maintaining a cheerful beam on my face when I flashed her a grateful smile that I traditionally broke out for mean-tempered women who were about to reluctantly serve me a drink.

“Sorry, lovely . . . Now, what’ll you be havin’?”

She put down the nail file next to a half-finished mug of tea and returned my smile, showing off a double row of badly kept teeth. A single gold tooth caught the beam of one of the club’s dimly flickering lights; it glinted back at me from the left-hand side of her lower gum and she reminded me of an aging, bleached pirate. I kept a fixed grin and tried not to let my dislike for the gilded crown show on my face.

“Pint o’ stout and a couple of fingers of Mount Gay rum in one of those pretty crystal glasses Hurps keeps hidden way under this old bar of his. Where’s your boss tonight?”

“He’s outta my way, thankfully, and a bleedin’ good job too. The times he is down here he’s making a nuisance of himself. If he ain’t got his hand up my skirt he’s in the till raking the takings out to put on the next bloody horse race that takes his fancy. He’d be a rich man if he spent the same amount of time grafting behind this bar rather than trying to get his mucky paws inside my knickers or betting on the next losing nag out of the stalls . . . Know what I mean?”

She winked at me, and I shuddered at the thought of the kind of antics that she’d just described between the over-amorous club owner and the scary-looking sexagenarian pint-puller. I paid for the rum and stout chaser and retreated over to one of the booths, took off the heavy duffle coat and sat down with my back against the wall so that I could keep an eye out for Vic.

An hour and another pint and double measure of rum later, my cousin finally sauntered through the door and greeted me from across the room with an embarrassingly mighty holler, which nearly knocked the blonde-tinted pirate from behind the bar off her perch and made the few remaining customers jump with fright. Vic was dressed all in black: a polo-neck sweater, kid leather flared pants and his matching knee-length leather coat. He made his way to the bar, engaging the lady with the gilded gums with his flirtatious banter while he waited for his drinks. I watched as he paid up, then caressed his fingers with his lips and blew a kiss, which he guided towards the old barmaid with his massive hand. He casually strolled over towards me chuckling to himself as he held the two pints steadily between his huge stubby fingers. Hauling his big frame into the seat opposite me, he placed the two jug-handled glasses of darkened ale on the table, then reached into the side pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out his silver hip flask. Unscrewing the tiny cap in a couple of twists, he then poured a large measure of rum into my empty crystal tumbler before taking a hefty swig of his favourite tipple. I watched as he carefully screwed the top back and then returned it to the deep pocket of his coat. When he finally spoke, his voice was filled with the sense of mischievous fun and joy that I remembered with such fondness from our childhood.

“Shit, JT, did you see that? Where the hell did Hurps git that ugly old fucker behind the bar from? She’s got a face on her like a pig pissing, damn near turned that beer sour as she pulled it up the pipes.”

He made a squirming face of disgust before taking a long draught of his pint, then laughed again to himself no sooner than he’d gulped it down.

“Hey . . . Now I gotta say, you is looking real sharp tonight, real sharp. I was starting to think you was considering a life as a hobo from the shit you been wearing on your back lately.”

He put both hands flat out onto the table and pushed himself up, peering down in the low light of the club to get a better look at me, nodding to himself in approval at my new clothes. His cheery outlook was brutally halted when he caught sight of the tired old military-style overcoat nestled beside me on the seat.

“What the fuck you doin’, man, bringing that tatty rag windcheater out with you? Didn’t I tell you to lose that piece a shit? Makes you look like an outta-work Paul Robeson . . . There ain’t no way I’m being seen anywhere with you if you thinking of putting that shagged-out pelt on your back again, no way!”

“It keeps the cold out and I don’t see no point in t’rowing away a good jacket like that when it’s still got some life in it.”

I watched as my vexed cousin struggled to comprehend what I was saying, trying not to laugh as he seethed silently to himself at my apparent lack of fashion sense.

“Oh, it’s got some life in it all right . . . enough to let the damn ting crawl off o’ that seat on its own with all the nasty shit that’s probably nesting in it.”

Vic grimaced at the thought of what he’d just said and sat back in disgust, staring at me. I cheekily winked across to him as I took a sip of my pint and watched as his eyes widened with the realisation that I’d been pulling his leg. He looked down at the table, slowly shaking his head from side to side, laughing quietly to himself, relieved that I’d been having him on. When he finally looked up and spoke, his face had hardened and his voice had a matter-of-fact, determined edge to it.