The Far Side of the Sun (41 page)

With no warning he released her and strode out of the warehouse into the brilliant sunshine outside, drawing in great lungfuls of the sparkling air. Ella didn’t follow. She let him have his moment alone. To flush out the images of the crime scene from his head and the squalid taste of corruption from his mouth. A warehouseman in uniform approached him to move him on, but backtracked rapidly when the police badge was flashed. Dan had told her he loved his work, but how do you deal with something like this? How do you stop it eating into you?

She waited in the stillness of the warehouse with the lemons and eventually Dan turned, a tall and imposing figure silhouetted against the blue waters of the harbour. She couldn’t see a difference in his walk as he came towards her or in the line of his shoulders, but she had a sense of a decision being made.

‘Ella, I want you to go home and stay there. The slaughter of your chickens was a warning to you. Heed it. Go home. Keep away from me. And above all, keep away from Dodie Wyatt and Flynn Hudson. Ella, are you listening to me?’

No, she wasn’t listening.

She wasn’t breathing.

She wasn’t thinking.

All she could hear was this –
Keep away from me
. The words were gnawing at her.
Keep away from me.

Don’t you know that when I am away from you, I die?

‘Don’t look like that, Ella.’

She hooked two fingers between the buttons of his shirt, finding the warmth of his flesh.

‘Why can’t I stay with you? You’re a policeman, I’d be safe.’

His hand closed over her wrist. ‘Oh Ella, it’s precisely because I am a policeman that you must get away from me. Listen now.’ He held her wrist tight. ‘Sir Harry Oakes was shot four times behind his left ear. We believe he was killed somewhere else, because there was blood all over the stairs and doorknobs, as well as the fact that the dried blood showed a flow from his ear up over the bridge of his nose, which indicates that he was moved. If your chickens were killed as a warning, someone could be watching you and getting jumpy when they see you with a policeman.’

‘No, I…⁠’

‘That someone is not playing games here, Ella. This is deadly serious. I don’t want you involved.’

‘I’m already involved.’

‘Damn the Red Cross. To hell with your blasted fundraising. If only you hadn’t gone there the night Morrell was at Westbourne – with all that gold on show.’

‘Too late for that.’

‘But not too late to keep you safe.’

‘What about the wallet and coins in Flynn Hudson’s room? Don’t they give you any clues?’

He gripped her hand. ‘You say Hudson is American mafia, so get it into your head that the odds are that he probably committed both murders and that it’s his lot who killed your chickens.’

Ella clamped her fingers on his shirt and couldn’t let go.

Dodie was loitering in a shop doorway. It sold handbags. That was as much as she noticed. The point was that it stood next to the Bay Street entrance to Harold Christie’s real-estate office and she had already spotted a handful of men in seersucker suits trying to make themselves invisible in various shop doorways and across the street. One was wearing a green plastic eyeshade as if he’d just stepped away from his newspaper’s typewriter and forgotten to take it off.

As the hours passed, several of them drifted together and huddled into small groups, reporters from all parts of the world, hillocks of dog-ends emerging at their feet. The street was busy and a man with a camera and a hard nasal accent took over a piece of her doorway. He told her he was from Boston, but she didn’t listen to his chatter, because already she’d heard the click of the door that bore the brass plaque that declared
MR
H
.
CHRISTIE
.
REALTOR
. The back entrance through the alleyway was also well covered by newspapermen, so Dodie guessed he would head for a car right outside his door on the wide main street. And she guessed right.

It was over fast. Two big Bahamians shouldered a path to a waiting car, its motor running, while reporters pushed and shoved each other worse than feeding sharks, shouting questions to the small crumpled figure, thrusting microphones under his nose.

‘Did you see anything that night, Mr Christie?’

‘Why didn’t you smell the fire?’

‘What was your relationship with Sir Harry?’

‘Look this way.’

Cameras clicked.

Dodie slipped under the arm of one of the big bodyguards and called out, ‘I need to talk to you about Portman Cay, Mr Christie.’

He halted on the pavement, glanced at her, then plunged into the rear of his car. He wound down a window a crack, muttered something to one of the other bodyguards and before she could open her mouth, Dodie found herself being tumbled into the back of the car alongside Christie.

‘Sit down,’ he said. No trace of charm today.

As the car pulled away she didn’t waste words. ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Christie. Flynn Hudson is in jail. He has been framed for the murder of Mr Morrell.’

‘What the hell has that got to do with me? I have my own worries right now, as you can see.’

He rubbed a hand across his creased face, roughing up his sandy eyebrows, but didn’t manage to remove the look of nervousness and distress that hovered under his irritated manner. Was it the natural reaction of a man who has found his friend murdered in bed? Or something more? Dodie wanted to peel off his bald pate and take a look inside.

‘It is a coincidence,’ she pointed out, ‘that just after turning up in your office asking awkward questions, Flynn Hudson is locked up in a prison cell.’ The car was slowing down. Her time was running out. ‘Did you get someone to make that phone call to the police, Mr Christie? You and your mafia friends from Prohibition days. Was Flynn Hudson becoming too much of an irritant?’

Christie sat very still in his corner. ‘Be careful what you say, young woman.’

She was trying to provoke him, to tempt him into an indiscretion, but he kept a tight hold on his temper.

‘I did no such thing,’ he stated. ‘And I will call my lawyer if you go around saying I did.’ He took a moment to light himself a cigarette, and when he had sent a stream of smoke swirling through the car, he asked, ‘What is this about Portman Cay?’

She trod carefully this time. ‘You handled the sale of that land.’

‘Where did you hear that?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Is it true?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, it is. It’s no secret.’

‘The vendor is a Mr Michael Ryan, the purchaser a Mr Alan Leggaty.’

The car halted. They were outside a bank. Dodie could sense Christie’s wariness.

‘Are you Mr Alan Leggaty, by any chance?’

It was a shot in the dark, but she hit the bullseye. He tossed his cigarette out of the window and turned back to glare at her.

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he snapped. ‘You and Hudson trespassing on the land up at Portman Cay.’

‘Land that you are planning to use for…⁠’

‘ ⁠. ⁠. ⁠⁠. for nothing, Miss Wyatt. ‘I think you’ve said enough.’

‘That’s it, isn’t it, Mr Christie? Flynn Hudson was asking too many questions, so he was set up as Morrell’s murderer. But whoever set him up possessed the wallet and the gold coins. Only the killer would have those.’

His eyes flickered but didn’t look away.

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ he said coldly. ‘Or he could be guilty as charged.’

‘Is that person you, Mr Christie?’

His mouth stretched wide into a grimace and it took Dodie a minute to recognise it as a smile of sorts. ‘No, it’s not.’ He glanced at the glass partition between them and the driver, and she had the impression he would have said more had they been totally alone.

‘I’m telling you this much – Sir Harry Oakes and Freddie de Marigny hated each other’s guts. Oakes couldn’t forgive the greasy foreigner for cradle-snatching his daughter. Marigny was in the area of Westbourne between midnight and one o’clock, and he, above everyone, had a motive for murder – his father-in-law’s money. So don’t come to me with tales of mobsters and land deals. This is a straightforward matter of family feuding.’

‘That’s what everyone seems to want us to believe.’

‘And where does Morrell fit into this? He got in the way of someone. Stabbed by a prostitute or by your friend Hudson when they’d had too much to drink. You mark my words, that’s what will come out in the trial.’

There was a firestorm going on behind his eyes. ‘I suggest, Miss Wyatt, that you go see that nice shiny new lawyer of yours and tell him what you’ve told me and see just how long he can keep you out of jail.’ He jutted his head towards her, for all the world like an angry tortoise. ‘Now, get the hell out of my car.’

‘Dodie, child, you sure are stirrin’ things up.’

‘That’s right, Mama Keel, I sure am.’ They were standing outside the purple door of Flynn’s lodgings, the afternoon sun taking bites out of the shadows and leaving the street as parched and dusty as one of the lizards that skulked in the gutters. ‘I’m poking sticks in nests and seeing what bites.’

Mama gave a grunt of disapproval and spat out a stream of green ganja juice onto the dirt. She had the aches in her head today.

‘If I don’t, Mama, they’ll hang him for sure.’

‘Then you and me better make this work.’

Dodie knocked on the door and waited. There was no answer, yet music drifted under the door.

Mama Keel nodded to herself. ‘You got a white man’s knock.’

Mama Keel lifted her hand and tapped a rhythmic tattoo on the wood in time to the beat and seconds later the music ceased and the door swung open. Behind it the landlord was standing in just a pair of vivid green shorts and a vest. In his arms slept an infant with dusky mixed-blood skin and gingery curls.

Dodie smiled. ‘Good day. Remember me?’

‘Yes.’

Still one for monosyllables, it seemed. Dodie had hoped it would be easier this time.

‘I’ve brought my friend, Mama Keel, with me. May we come in and have a word with you?’

His eyes skipped from Dodie and settled on Mama Keel. Mama said nothing. Just stood on his doorstep under his inspection. She was a good head taller than he was. After a moment, he hitched the child up in his arms, gave a nod and retreated into the dark hallway of the house. Dodie let Mama lead the way and together they entered, though Dodie’s eyes instantly took to the stairs that led up to Flynn’s room. The landlord’s wife joined them with arms folded over her plentiful bosom and the four of them were jammed into the small space between the stove and the log basket.

‘Please, help me,’ Dodie said. ‘Mr Hudson will be hanged, if you don’t admit to the police that someone else came here, someone who put the wallet in the mattress.’ She fought to keep any anger out of her voice. ‘I know the person must have threatened you.’

They continued to regard her with scowls on their faces.

‘I understand how terrifying that can be, but Mr Hudson is innocent. Please. You can’t wish him to die for a crime he didn’t —’

Mama Keel placed a warm hand on Dodie’s knee.

‘My friend here is upset,’ Mama said smoothly. ‘Her man is in trouble, and that ain’t good. She’s here askin’ for help because we know you’re decent folk.’ A calmness radiated from her, as she reached down into the straw basket at her side, drew out three bottles of local beer and opened a small battered tin which released the smell of ganja weed into the room.

‘Dodie, girl,’ Mama smiled affectionately, ‘why don’t you slip outside and let me and these folks have a quiet chat?’

This wasn’t what Dodie expected, but she trusted Mama. With a nod she rose from her seat and left the room. Outside in the dim hallway the ache in her chest sharpened and her feet took to the stairs with quick silent steps.

His door was locked. So someone else had moved in. She wanted to shout out that he wasn’t dead yet, that this was still Flynn’s room. He would be back. Her fingers touched the handle one last time before she hurried back downstairs. Instead of going outside to wait in the shadeless street, she drifted to the back of the gloomy hall but jerked to a halt when she saw Flynn’s jacket. It was lying in a cardboard box shoved among the jumble of objects in the space under the stairs.

She lifted up the box. It had an official Bahamas Police Department stamp on one end. Inside it she let her fingers riffle through Flynn’s shirts, a jumper, trousers, a towel. Nothing of significance. No gun, no letters, nothing other than clothes. The police had kept the rest. She leaned back against the wall, eyes closed and slowly slid to the floor, holding the box tight to her chest. She bent forward so that her face was buried in his jacket and she breathed him in until she could feel him inside herself.

The Arcadia Hotel was packed. Olive Quinn was frantic but smiling broadly. The world’s media-men needed somewhere to stay and the Arcadia welcomed its fair share of them with open arms. Dodie was working flat out, as tea on the crowded terrace was much in demand. She almost didn’t see Ella arrive.

Ella was looking thin. Dodie was shocked by the way her clothes hung loose on her and her blue eyes had retreated deep into their sockets. Dodie moved quickly to Ella’s table and rested her notepad on its surface, as though waiting for her customer to choose her order.