The Far Side of the Sun (35 page)

Dodie offered a greeting to the black faces gathered around the tap. Their expressions were solemn, one was crying.

‘Good morning.’

‘Nothin’ good about it, child,’ responded a white-haired woman with earlobes that were stretched by round wooden reels. ‘Nothin’ at all.’

‘Why, what has happened?’

‘You ain’t heard?’

‘Girl, it’s movin’ like a summer bushfire. They’re tryin’ to keep a lid on it, but the good Lord knows we gotta be told too.’

‘God bless the poor man’s soul.’

‘Amen to that.’

Another hymn broke out and the white-haired woman dabbed at her eyes. ‘May his kind generous soul rest in everlasting peace and salvation in the bosom of our Lord.’

Dodie took her turn at the tap with her jug. ‘Whose soul?’ she asked. ‘Who has died?’

‘Sir Harry Oakes. Ain’t you heard?’

Dodie shook her head.

A woman with braided hair and a child on each hip uttered a loud ululation of sorrow. ‘Sweet Jesus preserve us. These islands are goin’ to suffer real bad without the kindness of Sir Harry, bless his soul. You white folk don’t know how much he did for us.’

‘It’s not just us,’ another gentler voice offered. ‘My Jake swears the whole of the Bahamas will suffer now, you white folks as well, because it needs Sir Harry’s millions to keep everythin’ turnin’ sweet as honey.’

Dodie set down her jug. ‘What happened? How did he die?’

All the voices started up at once. Eyes rolled, hands slapped at broad bosoms until they quivered, tears slid down cheeks, in an outpouring of grief that made Dodie feel heartless in comparison. None of these women knew personally the man whose death they were sorrowing over and yet they cared for him as if he were one of their own. Dodie could not imagine the white community of Nassau caring half so much. Or blessing his soul with even a fraction of the fervour.

‘What happened?’ she asked again.

‘He was burned alive in his bed.’

‘What?’

‘No.’ It was a male voice. It belonged to a tall man with a square head and an eye for the pretty woman with braided hair. He waited until he had everyone’s attention. ‘Don’t go spreading bad rumours, Josie. Sir Harry was bludgeoned to death.’

‘I heard he was shot,’ a skinny girl chewing gum piped up.

‘Then you heard wrong. Take my word for it. But whatever happened, the killer will be found.’ He flashed perfect teeth at the bevy of women. ‘If not,’ he looked speculatively at Dodie, ‘heads will roll. I am a policeman, so I know how these things work.’

Dodie squeezed out a smile of thanks. Her unsteady hands gathered up the jug of water to her chest, but how she made her feet walk slowly back to the hut without spilling a drop, she’d never know.

The one thing the Bahamas was good at was rumours. By midday they had spread like wildfire: Sir Harry was murdered in his own bed, he was shot, he was battered to death, he was beheaded, he was drowned in his bath. He fell into a bonfire and burnt all the skin off him. His house was set on fire. A masked killer slit his throat and drank his blood. He shot himself.

Dodie heard them all and shuddered.

‘That’s a ritual killin’, that is.’

That was the opinion of the driver of the surrey that Dodie and Flynn were taking into town. Flynn was pale and quiet, but at that he lifted his head.

‘A ritual?’

‘Yep, no doubt about it, man. Feathers and blood all over him, I heard. For sure I’m tellin’ you, it’s obeah. That’s what you white folk call voodoo.’ He glanced quickly behind him, the whites of his eyes showing, and clipped the tired old horse with the reins to urge her on.

‘It’s powerful, you can be sure of that,’ he added. ‘You don’t mess with that stuff, man.’

Dodie put a hand in Flynn’s.

‘Goddammit, Dodie, let’s hope he’s right. Because anything else is worse. Far worse.’

Dodie felt it the moment she walked into the house where Flynn had his lodgings, a kind of low-pitched buzzing. As though a fly were caught in the net curtain, frantic to free its wings. She had no idea where the sound was coming from. Only when she climbed the shabby stairs and the noise moved with her did it dawn on her that it might be inside her own head. Yet she could hear it clearly, as distinctly as she could hear their footsteps on the boards. It felt like a warning.

Flynn unlocked the door to his room and checked the bed, the cupboard, the window, the walls, even behind the door. Only then did he allow her to enter. Oddly the buzzing grew worse inside and Dodie looked intently at Flynn to see if he was hearing it too, but his face had shut down. He appeared to be far away. The smell of cooked fish was seeping up from downstairs and the plink-plonk music of a steel drum jangled further down the street, but Flynn paid them no attention. There was a change in him. Dodie could see it, but didn’t know what it meant. His movements were sharper, his body on edge, a quickness in the turn of his head. Yet his mouth was slack, as if it had received a blow.

‘Flynn, sit down. Sit with me.’ She perched on the edge of the bed, but instead of sitting, he knelt on the floor in front of her and she could see the gash on his head oozing blood. She had the sense not to mention it.

‘Be ready,’ he told her, ‘for the world to crash down on this place like a ton of bricks. You and I got to be smart enough not to get caught under them.’

She frowned. ‘Why would the world bother with us?’

‘Because whoever did this will be looking for scapegoats and we’re both in the firing line.’

Her heart kicked against her ribs. ‘I know the police have got my name on their suspect murderer list because I found Morrell, but why you?’

‘This is Sir Harry Oakes we’re talking about. This murder will bring every damn newshound in the business down on our necks from all over the globe. Sniffing out every secret on the island, including ours, you can bet your sweet life on it.’

‘Don’t scare me.’

For the first time he smiled. ‘I want to scare you, Dodie, my love. I want you to be so scared you’ll leave.’

‘No.’ She seized his chin and shook it. ‘Not without you.’

‘Listen to me, Dodie. Oakes’ death changes everything.’ He stood up, lifting her to her feet. ‘If it was the mob who got to him because he wouldn’t play ball – wouldn’t put pressure on the Governor to change the gambling laws – then there’s every chance they’ll come after me too, if they’ve found out I was working for Oakes. We just don’t know what’s going on. That’s why I have to go out on the street and pick up the rumours real fast.’

‘Who else?’

‘Who else might have murdered him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Someone who needs land that Oakes was unwilling to sell.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m guessing, Dodie, but it kind of figures.’

‘So, Christie?’

‘Who knows? It’s a possibility, sure.’

‘You have to get out of here, Flynn. Please. It’s too dangerous now.’ She was astonished that her voice could be so calm when everything in her was falling to pieces. ‘Quickly.’

She could see the mobsters coming for him with their slick double-breasted suits, their guns and shark smiles.

‘Quickly,’ she urged again.

He pulled a soft bag from under the bed. ‘We go together,’ he declared and started pushing things into the bag.

She felt a bolt of excitement and he laughed at her expression, his head twisted round to look at her, his eyes bright with amusement. Or was it love? She didn’t know. But that was how she remembered him afterwards, that was the image she carried in her head of him. His hair falling across his forehead as he bent over the bag. His lips curved in a bold smile that told her clearly that he had made his choice. He would not be going to the police with information about what he stumbled over last night at Westbourne House.

The front door downstairs slammed.

Dimly Dodie recalled hearing a car’s engine in the quiet street. The moment froze, dragged its feet in the dust, then sprinted ahead of her, so fast that she felt left behind. Flynn reacted with lightning speed, as heavy footsteps crashed up the stairs, so that by the time the knock rattled the door on its hinges, he was holding a gun in his hand. He had pushed Dodie down in a far corner and was waiting behind the door, flattened against the wall.

‘Who’s there?’ he snapped.

Only then did it occur to Dodie to question the knock. Did mobsters knock? When they’ve come to murder you.

‘Flynn,’ she whispered.

His eyes found hers and she knew in that second that he believed they were about to die. He lowered the gun and took two rapid strides towards her.

‘Open up! This is the police.’

The three policemen tore the room apart with the precise brutality of a child tearing the legs off a spider. They emptied drawers, inspected the backs of them, the underside, and stripped the bed, lifted the mattress. Their big fingers rummaged through the pockets of the clothes, over the top of the curtains, gouged into shaving soap and unscrewed the metal balls on the corners of the bed. They peeled back the cracked linoleum on the floor and tested the boards underneath for hiding holes.

Dodie couldn’t watch. She stood at the window beside Flynn, her arm against his, and stared out at the street, at a dog chewing on half a coconut and a woman rolling a barrel along the middle of the road. But all the time Dodie could feel tension in Flynn.

‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘They won’t find anything, because there’s nothing here to find.’

His gun was in his waistband under his shirt. But his eyes narrowed sharply when the black sergeant in charge of the search took out a knife and sliced open a row of rough stitches in the side of the mattress. He thrust his hand into the horsehair stuffing and smiled grimly. Dodie heard Flynn’s intake of breath and turned in time to see the sergeant withdraw his hand. In it lay a tan leather wallet. It was streaked with dried blood. He flipped it open and read the name inside.

Dodie looked at Flynn and her only thought was to drag him through the open window. Run and never look back. At least that way he stood a chance. His face had drained of colour and his hand gripped her wrist.

‘Flynn Hudson, you are under arrest for the murder of…⁠’

‘Sergeant!’ the excited voice of one of his officers interrupted him.

The sergeant’s stolid face puckered with annoyance. ‘What is it?’

‘Lookee here, Sarge, at what I found.’

He had extracted something from inside the hem of Flynn’s jacket that was hanging on the back of the door. He opened his hand to show his boss. Gleaming on his black palm were four gold coins.

Dodie ran through the streets of Nassau. The pavements were crowded and people were gathering in huddles to talk and point at the strangers who were flying in on every plane from Miami, cameras around their necks and notepads in hand. An ebony-skinned woman selling sponges shouted out to one of the strangers, ‘He was one of us, Sir Harry was, God bless his soul. A God-fearing man. Don’t you go writin’ nothin’ bad about him, you hear me now.’

Dodie raced across Rawson Square and pushed her way through the doors of the police station. It was just the same as before. The same fan in the ceiling churning up the humid air, the same flies loitering with intent, the same row of chairs occupied by troubled faces, but this time Dodie was different. She didn’t politely wait her turn. She hurried to the counter where the young desk-clerk was filling out a form for an elderly man reporting a lost dog.

‘Excuse me,’ Dodie interrupted, ‘I need to see Detective Calder. It’s urgent.’

‘I’m sorry, miss, but I’m just dealin’ with this gentleman. If you would like to take a seat, I —’

‘I would not like to take a seat. Didn’t you hear me? It’s urgent. I need to speak to him right now.’ Her knuckles came down on the counter. It sounded loud in the sudden silence of the room.

The young constable hesitated. He had the look of a new recruit, and glanced uneasily up the corridor to his right. ‘I’m sorry, miss, but Detective Calder is busy right now. If you would just wait a —’

‘I can’t wait. Don’t you understand?’

The constable’s natural urge to help had not yet been blunted by years on the beat. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said to the old man, ‘I’ll just be a minute.’ He set off down the corridor. ‘Wait here,’ he told Dodie. He disappeared into Interview Room 3 and bobbed back out five seconds later. ‘He’ll see you in a short while if you wait in the —’

Dodie strode straight past him and into Room 3. She expected to see the detective interrogating someone or maybe several policemen in discussion of Sir Harry Oakes’ case. But what she found when she barged in without knocking was Detective Calder standing in the centre of the room talking softly with a woman. She had her back to the door and his hand rested on her shoulder. The woman had thick blonde hair and slender hips in a pleated fawn skirt. She turned quickly, stepping away from the detective, and looked directly at Dodie.

‘Miss Wyatt!’

‘Mrs Sanford,’ Dodie nodded, but turned instantly to Detective Calder who appeared to be embarrassed rather than annoyed at the interruption.

‘Detective Calder, I need your help.’

He seemed to gather himself, instantly more formal.

‘What can I do for you, Miss Wyatt?’

‘There’s been a terrible mistake. Flynn Hudson has been arrested for murder but he’s innocent. You must do something, you must make them understand that he had no idea the wallet was there, that someone else planted it in his mattress to incriminate him, you must…⁠’ Her voice was shaking. Her hands were shaking. ‘Flynn Hudson has been arrested for murder,’ she said more coherently. ‘It’s a mistake. He’s innocent.’