Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time (21 page)

I watched as Clementine Dupree stared into the fire, her focus fixed deep into the white heat of the burning coals, and saw that her hands shook with rage. When she finally looked back up at me her eyes had changed, and unwillingly I felt a cold shiver run through me. The image of the flames had been fixed into the centre of her pupils and her slight frame had stiffened and appeared stronger. She seemed to have absorbed a vengeful inferno from the inglenook and then replicated it within her to become a fearful force to reckon with. I broke away from my desire to stare at her and shuffled in my chair. When she finally spoke again, her voice had become deeper and more stern.

“You need to hand that tiny book over to me. I’ll pay you handsomely fo’ it; you won’t be leaving here outta pocket, Mr Ellington, I can promise you that. As fo’ the pervert Mayfield, I’ll be dealing with him privately.”

“You gonna be wasting your time going down that road. Somebody beat you to it.”

“What’d you mean?”

“I found him earlier tonight in his kitchen pantry tied to a chair with his throat cut from ear to ear . . . well, that’s if he’d had any ears to cut to. Whoever slaughtered him sliced those off and most probably kept them as a souvenir.”

“Nobody weeps fo’ the severed head of a serpent, Mr Ellington . . . I still want that book.”

She pointed at it and shifted in her seat, then moved towards me and balanced the middle of her hand on the crystal handle of her cane.

“You can want all you like. I didn’t come here to sell you a book . . . You ever heard of a girl called Stella Hopkins?”

I followed her lead and brought myself forward out of my chair, replicating her posture, standing my ground.

“Only what I hear the gossips talk ’bout. She’s the missing mute child outta St Pauls . . . What’s she gotta do with Mayfield?”

“I think he was probably one of the last people, along with Papa Anansi, to see Hopkins befo’ she disappeared.”

I continued to watch the time-worn juju woman as she considered my words. Finally she spoke without looking at me.

“You give me that notebook, I’ll tell you someting that could help you along a little.”

She put out her wizened hand to collect what she’d demanded.

“OK, Miss Dupree . . . You tell me what you know and I’ll hand it over to you. You can ease up with the dramatics, I don’t make a habit o’ welshing on my deals.”

I sat back and waited for her to get on with it.

“Papa’s got a ting going with the Babylon: the police leave him alone fo’ a reason, and over the years he’s cast his net out far and wide and caught himself some powerful and influential allies. Now he’s got his claws into a lot of tings . . . let’s just say that one of ’em is supplying good-looking, clean girls to well-heeled white men who want someting a little different.”

“How you mean, ‘different’?”

“These men I’m taking ’bout, they ain’t looking fo’ no cush-cush. They’re wanting a special kinda woman, one who’s innocent, pure and, most importantly of all, they gotta be black.”

“Say what?”

“You heard me, Mr Policeman. You think you can come into my home an’ fool me with your talk. I could smell the self-righteousness of a white man’s law coming off your hide soon as you step’ over my gate door. I can see inside o’ you like you opened up your insides to spill ’em in front o’ me.”

She flicked her tongue over her top lip a couple of times as she gauged the reaction off of my face. I still played it cool and kept pushing her.

“So none of your girls ended up with these white fuckers?”

“Course not, you fool . . . but I may know of one who did.”

“Give me a name . . . and where can I find her?”

“Not until you give me that book,” she growled.

“Why you holding out on me? You ain’t afraid of Papa or anybody else from the look o’ you. You got the gift . . . Play ball with me and you git what you want. We both come away from this happy. So, her name . . . please.” I threw in some good manners to sweeten the deal.

The old woman stared out across the room towards the window for a while, then said, “Child’s name’s Virginia Landry, lives out on Wellington Hill; she’s in a little council place opposite Horfield Church. One o’ my girls, Carla Havers, she beds down at the house; Landry sublets a back room out to her and makes a little extra cash on the side. One morning, couple of months back, Virginia Landry rolls into her place at the crack o’ dawn, scared outta her mind. She tells Carla ’bout some place out in the wilds where she’s been taken night befo’, said she’d been blindfolded then driven there, said she could only tell she was not in the city by the smell o’ the fields and the chattering o’ the birds in the early morning. Carla said the girl was just too plain scared to tell her anyting else . . . and that’s all I know. You want more, you go to the horse’s mouth and git it . . . Now gimme that book.”

I rose from the chair and stood over Dupree while she went back to looking at the fire and put the notebook back into the inside pocket of my coat.

“You’ll git this book after I’ve spoken to Virginia Landry and she confirms what you just told me is the truth!”

I began to walk across the sitting room to leave, but the silver-haired old hag wasn’t going to let me get away that easily and soon stopped me in my tracks.

“You from the little Island, ain’t you? You a Bajan?

“Yeah . . . That’s right, what about it?”

“So you know ’bout the Heartman?”

“Yeah . . . I know it’s some mumbo-jumbo boogey man that my mama used to scare me ’bout when I was a kid. She said that the Heartman would come into our home in the night and steal me and my sister’s souls if we misbehaved. I may have believed it existed when I was eight years old, but I sure as hell don’t now.”

“Oh, you need to believe in him, brother, you surely do. The Heartman’s grasp is closer to you than you think, and he’s been close to your kin too . . . Close to that dead woman o’ yours. She no more at peace as a fly is round a bowl o’ mouldy fruit. She clings to your rotting soul just waiting fo’ you to join her in the white heat.”

I turned on my heels to face her, and as I did the old woman threw what was left of the rum in her glass onto the blistering cinders in the grate of the fireplace, erupting the ashes into a ball of cobalt blue and red flames bringing me to a dead halt on the edge of her fine rug. Dupree pointed at me and then back into the fire.

“She with the Heartman and she burns in there with him, her skin blistering off her back, hair crackling in a furnace o’ torment, and she screams out your name now, just like she screamed fo’ you back then, when you did nuttin’ to try to save her or that poor child cooking in her scorching belly, she gon—”

My right hand was around Dupree’s throat and I was squeezing the breath outta her before she could say another word; my other hand took up the slack of her shiny locks and I drew the old woman close towards my face, my teeth so tightly clenched with rage that I could barely talk. I saw the fear awaken in Hoo Shoo’s eyes as she stared back up at me, and at that very moment her bladder gave way and the strong stink of piss crawled up my nostrils as it fell down the inside of the old woman’s legs and splashed off the toe of my brogue. I released my grip on her neck, flung her into the armchair and stood back away from her as I tried to contain my wrath. I looked down at the urine-drenched rug and saw Dupree’s cane, then bent down and picked it up. I held it at its tip and slowly shook the end of it in front of the shocked madam’s face before pushing the crystal handle of the stick hard into her breast.

“You ever speak o’ my wife again and I’m gonna t’row you on that fire myself, then watch you kick and thrash about on those searing coals. See how you like the white heat.”

I flung the cane across the room and left Dupree sitting in the wetness of her leaked, reeking body fluid, the beast inside of me restrained, but only just.

It was after two in the morning by the time I dropped Vic off outside Gabe and Pearl’s house on Banner Road, and other than to tell him that I’d got the information that I needed from the old woman, we barely spoke again as I drove back into St Pauls. I knew that my cousin sensed that something bad had gone down back at Hoo Shoo’s place, but he had the good sense not to ask me about it. After Vic had got out of the car, he turned and stood with his elbow resting on the roof, peering back in at me, a look of unease etched upon his face. I put my hand inside my coat and pulled out the pocketbook.

“You know where to stash this fo’ me till I need it, yeah?”

“Sure. No problem. You got any plans fo’ tomorrow night, JT?”

“No . . . Why’d you ask?”

“I gotta spot o’ bidness with Hurps down at the Speed Bird, selling him some hooch. Meet me there after ten, we can kick back, have ourselves a few rums and take it easy . . . OK?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

My cousin went to walk away and I called after him before he had chance to leave.

“Hey, Vic . . . Thanks, man.”

I nodded my head at him in gratitude for being around for me earlier that evening.

“Don’t sweat it, brother . . . Just do me one ting befo’ we meet up at Hurps’ place tomorrow, will ya?”

“Yeah, what’s that?” I asked him cautiously.

“Git rid o’ that nasty fuckin’ ting you been wearing on your back and sharpen yourself up, brother. You’ll be giving me a bad name if I have to be hanging around with you looking like you just got off of some crab trawler.”

He tapped the roof of the car with the flat of his hand a couple of times before slamming the passenger side door shut and walking away, his head shaking slowly from side to side, those massive shoulders rising up and down as he laughed to himself in the street.

*

I woke early on Monday morning, after a poor and short night’s sleep that was disturbed by the visitation of my usual nightmares. I drank a mug of hot coffee, had a wash and a shave and was outta my digs before 9.30 a.m.; then I drove into the centre of Bristol, parked in a side street behind St James’s church and walked up through the Haymarket to Lewis’s department store. I took the lift up to the men’s outfitters on the second floor to spend some of Earl Linney’s cash and kit myself out with some new threads.

I’m no eager shopper and wanted outta the place real quick. I picked up a couple of pairs of military-cut navy trousers; two cotton sports shirts, one in light blue and another in white; and black leather oxford brogues to replace the pair that were leaking slush and iced water through to my socks at the minute. But it was the charcoal-grey wool herringbone overcoat that really caught my eye and that I just had to try on. I pulled it over my shoulders, doing up one of the buttons, and stood in front of a large mirror admiring myself for a moment, immediately feeling at home in it. I dismissed the hefty twelve-pounds price tag, concentrating on how good it felt on me, then took it along with my other duds up to an effete shop assistant who looked at me as if I was about to rob him blind. I paid the man without hardly a word said between either of us, then got back into the lift and pressed the button to take me the two floors up to the Pageant Café.

It came as no surprise to me to find that mine was the only black face in the place. Unlike some of the local pubs, there was no sign up to say I wasn’t welcome, but it was pretty clear from the reaction of the white clientele that I was not. The lunchroom that I had just walked into, which had been busy with the gossiping chatter of diners, was now silent. I stood in the small queue, waiting to be served, and glanced around at the staring faces. A young woman holding the hand of a pretty little girl came to join the line of patrons, saw me and walked out again.

When it came to my turn to be served a middle-aged woman, a bitten-down pencil and jotter in her hands, asked what I wanted without even looking at me. I ordered a pot of tea and a bacon sandwich and took a seat at the back of the place and stared at a large portrait of the Clifton Suspension Bridge that hung on the wall opposite me. An elderly couple were watching me as I put my bags down at my feet and I heard the old man mutter the words “dirty fuckin’ monkey” under his breath to the woman next to him. I ignored his offensive comment, thinking it better to disregard his ignorant and malicious remark, and kept looking at the picture of the famous Bristol landmark.

The food and drink I’d ordered was brought over to me by a middle-aged brunette with bad teeth and the kinda attitude that required no words to tell me how unwelcome I was dining in her establishment. She handed me a cheque for one and six. I reached into my wallet, put the coins onto the paper bill and thanked her. She gave me a pinched smile before quickly sliding my money across the Formica into her cupped hand at the edge of the table and dropping it into the pocket of her apron. She wiped her hands on a pristine-looking white cloth that was looped through the belt of her pinafore, then strode away from me, taking the cash and leaving her prejudice behind to keep me company.

I deliberately took my time over my late breakfast, pulling the crusts from my bread before eating the sandwich, aware that I was being watched as I ate. I was thinking about Clementine Dupree and the things she’d told me last night. The fact that she knew so much about my past simply reinforced my own superstitious belief in the power of voodoo and I was having trouble shaking the old girl’s words outta my head. I finished the last of the tea in the pot and picked up my bags, and as I got up from the table I gave a polite wave of thanks to the waitress at the serving counter who had brought my refreshments over to me earlier. She ignored my gesture of gratitude, but watched me suspiciously as I walked out of the restaurant. The bitter stare of her bigotry burnt into my back as I got into the lift to leave.

*

It was just after midday by the time I drove out to Horfield. The roads were quiet and the last of snow had been blown off the roads and was thawing in the gutters. I pulled up on the opposite side of the road outside of the old church only a few yards away from the home of Virginia Landry. There been little more snowfall over the last few days and a slow thaw had started to turn the ground to slush. The harsh brightness of winter sunshine crept out from behind grey clouds above me. I’d stopped off at a stationer’s on the way over and bought myself a small black flip-over police-style notepad, which I picked up off of the passenger seat and slipped it into the inside pocket of my second-hand duffle coat. Despite Vic’s hatred of the thing, I was increasingly growing fonder of it and saw no reason to discard it for the moment, despite just forking out twelve notes for a classier new one.