Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time (22 page)

I got out of the car and wandered over towards the sandstone two-storey house with a lime-green door that stood behind a wild spread of weeds on an uncut lawn and a multitude of overgrown rose bushes in the small, unkempt garden. I approached the tired-looking door, the paint peeling off it in big thick strips, gave a sharp knock, then waited.

I wasn’t standing there for long before the door was wrenched open by a nervous-looking small, skinny white girl in bare feet, who I assumed to be Carla Havers, the prostitute in Hoo Shoo Dupree’s employ. She was no more than sixteen or seventeen years old and dressed in a tired-looking grey dressing gown, with an off-white towel wrapped around her head soaking up the wet residue of her recently washed hair. She looked me up and down for a moment, her fingers tapping on the unpainted woodchip in the hall, getting the measure of me, and soon gained confidence once she realised that I wasn’t the kind of guy who was calling to arrest her. She threw me her best “I couldn’t give a shit who you are” face and leaned against the wall, not taking her eyes off of me.

“What d’you want?” she spat at me as she drew her dressing gown closer across her chest.

“I’m looking fo’ a Miss Virginia Landry.”

I spoke lightly and smiled as I did.

“Yeah, and who the hell are you?”

“My name’s Ellington . . . I was hoping to have a moment of her time to ask a few questions.”

She kept her face hard and I felt compelled to try to reassure her a little.

“I ain’t the police and I’m not looking to git her into any trouble.”

“Well, that’s big of you. What kind of questions you wanna ask?”

“That’s between me and Miss Landry . . . Is she in?”

“No, she ain’t, but I’ll tell her that you called when I see her.”

The young girl went to slam the door on me, but I caught it just in time and held it open, going with my gut instinct and taking a chance, calling out down the hallway to anybody else who may be listening in the house.

“Well, when you do, let her know your boss Clementine Dupree told me where I could find her and that I’m looking to find out what she might know ’bout a trip to the country she took a short while back.”

I let go of the door and felt the force of its closure on my mug. I began to walk back to my car, thinking whether or not to sit and wait outside of the house for the rest of the afternoon for Landry to perhaps return when a woman’s voice called across the road after me. My gut instinct had paid off.

“Hey, you . . .” she called to me from across the street.

I turned around to face a young mulatto woman who was standing in white stilettos on the kerbside outside of the house whose door had just been pushed into my face. She was around twenty-five years old, petite, and wore a pretty white dress with green and yellow flowers on it. She looked cold as she held the lapels of a lemon-coloured cardigan tightly across her breasts. Her attractive elfin looks were set off by stunningly high cheekbones and a tight afro that was cut close across her scalp.

“I’m Virginia Landry . . . Seeing as you’re letting the world know my bidness, I suppose you best come on inside.” It surprised me when she smiled and outstretched an arm, the palm of her delicate hand guiding me back towards the house. I returned the smile and followed her as the heels of her shoes tapped hypnotically on the concrete path. She held the door open as I entered, and I put out my hand to properly introduce myself.

“Hello . . . My name’s Ellington.”

She gingerly took my hand and shook it briefly before closing the door.

“So you said a moment ago when you were quizzing Carla. I don’t know what you want from me or what you think I can tell you, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t feel the need to raise your voice again trying to find out.”

She looked at me severely and her pretty hazel-coloured eyes attempted to mask the fear my unwelcome visit had brought about in her.

“I’m sorry, Miss Landry. I was just hedging my bets a little back there. Hoping you may have been earwigging in on the conversation. You proved me right and I’m grateful fo’ your time.”

She nervously rubbed at the back of her hand as I spoke, clearly unsure of my intentions. Carla Havers stood at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the large domed sphere of the wood-turned banister; she was guarding the entrance to the property with the same kinda determination as the damn dog that had bitten me had done a couple of nights before. My hand unconsciously took hold of the top of my arm and I briefly rubbed at the healing wound over the fabric of my coat.

“You better come on through, but I can’t give you very long. I have to be at work fo’ one o clock. Carla, it’s OK. Mr Ellington’s only stopping fo’ a short while, you go on back up and dry your hair befo’ you catch your death, child.”

She pulled back the sleeve of her cardigan to look at her watch, which read twelve twenty-five, then turned the handle on a door that opened up into a small sitting room as the young Havers girl made her way sullenly back upstairs. I followed Miss Landry in and she pulled out a rickety metal chair with red foam back and cushion from underneath a brown glass-topped dining table for me to sit on.

“Where is it you work?” I asked inquisitively as I tried to make myself comfortable on the chair, which I seriously doubted would take my weight for long. She joined me, sitting with her arms rested on the table in front of her, answering me as she stared at her reflection in the glass.

“The Bee Hive Inn; you passed it on the way up here. I’m a barmaid there; I don’t normally do the lunchtime shift. Today’s a favour fo’ one of the girls who normally works during the day: she has some appointment and I’m covering fo’ her. I normally work from 6 p.m. till closing time.”

She lifted her head and stopped gazing into the glass, and swallowed hard as she looked at me.

“I don’t know what you’ve been told about me by Miss Dupree, Mr Ellington. I’ve never met her, and other than the fact I’m aware of her unpleasant bidness dealings through a friend of mine, I fail to see why she should feel that I could possibly help you.”

“By friend . . . you mean Carla upstairs?”

Virginia Landry didn’t answer and returned to staring at the tabletop.

“Look, it’s like I said earlier at your door: I ain’t here to make trouble fo’ you. But I think you may be able to help me out.”

“How . . . ?”

She kept her head down, her hands still unmoved from the table.

“Carla Havers, Your house guest, flatmate or whatever you wanna call her, works the streets fo’ Hoo Shoo Dupree, right?”

“I think so . . . yes.”

She was cagey in answering me, confused and still uncertain as to why I was asking the kinda questions I was.

“Well, I heard that while you were at a party in St Pauls some time back you met a white guy who drove you out into the middle of nowhere, perhaps to another shindig but with a more, how can I say, a more upmarket clientele. I also heard that you got yourself blindfolded in the back of that car. I’m trying to find out who took you there and what goes on inside that house.”

“And why would you wanna know that, Mr Ellington?”

“Cos I believe you weren’t the first to be taken out there. I’m looking fo’ a missing woman who may not have been as lucky as you were in getting home.”

Virginia Landry lifted her head and stared back at me, tears welling in her eyes, her lip quivering. I reached across and placed my hand on the back of hers, but she snatched it away, folding her arms protectively across herself and sitting bolt upright as a single tear fell and ran down her cheek and stopped briefly on her chin before falling to the floor.

“How’d you find yourself in the back o’ that car, Miss Landry?”

I waited, letting the girl fully absorb my words, hoping that she’d come clean. My patience was finally rewarded when she took a deep breath, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and began to speak.

“’Bout four weeks ago, Carla took me to an all-nighter in Montpelier . . .”

“Was this all-nighter held at a shebeen on Richmond Road?” I interrupted.

Landry nodded and I watched as she recounted the facts in her head before beginning to talk again.

“Believe it or not, but I’d never been to a shebeen befo’, until I met Carla that is. She came into the Bee Hive one night ’bout six months ago with some guy who ended up knocking her about in the car park after she tried to pick his pockets. She was in a bit of a state and came home with me so I could clean her up. She stopped that night and she’s been coming back here on and off ever since.”

She shook her head to herself as she spoke.

“Carla invited me to a private party at Richmond Road. It was a Saturday evening and I had the night off, I thought, ‘A free night out, what the hell, why not?’”

“Yeah, why not . . . I agree. I spent my youth hanging round the shebeens back home; it’s a right o’ passage where I come from.” I smiled to myself as I thought of those happy times, now long gone.

“Where’s home, Mr Ellington?”

“I’m from St Philip parish, Barbados . . . and you?”

“Tortola on the British Virgin Islands; my mama worked as a cleaner in a couple of bars in Road Town. I never knew my father. He was in the Royal Navy. Believe it or not, when my mama passed away five years ago I decided to come to Britain to start afresh and try to find him.”

“And did you?”

“No . . .”

She cursed to herself under her breath at her past naivety before continuing.

“He was long gone and never wanted to be found, I’m pretty sure of that.”

“So tell me ’bout what happened that night at the shebeen.”

I reached into the inside pocket of my coat and pulled out the black notepad and Ellie’s propelling pencil, opened the cover and prepared to write. Miss Landry stared at the pad suspiciously.

“Don’t worry; it’s just so I can remember what you tell me. You don’t git mentioned in this . . . I promise. If I write some of what you tell me down in this book, it helps me out later, that’s all. My memory’s starting to slide . . . it’s an age ting.”

I smiled at her and Virginia Landry’s blank face looked again at the notepad on the table like it was some kind of instrument of torture.

“You were going to tell me what happen while you were at the party . . . at the shebeen?”

“That’s just it . . . Nuttin’ happened at first. I smoked a little weed, drank some Bacardi, danced. It was a nice night. Then, just befo’ I was getting ready to leave, Carla brought this big guy over who’d been stood outside at the front of the house letting people inside when we arrived. This guy gave me the creeps, he said he’d got somebody special that wanted to meet me, said I’d no need to be afraid. That he was a bidnessman and that he ran the all-nighters at the shebeen. Carla said I’d be fine, that she’d come with me, and by this time I’d perhaps overdone it a little with the drink and dope. I wasn’t thinking straight. We went with the creepy guy upstairs, and he took me along the landing to a room at the rear of the house; that’s when he told Carla to go on back down to the party, that he’d look after me. I was taken through into this badly lit little bedroom and that’s where I met him.”

“Met who, Miss Landry?”

“The man they call Papa . . . Papa Anansi.”

She swallowed hard. Her face had turned pale and sickly, her brow perspired a little. I needed to keep her on track, so I pushed her to go on.

“What did Papa want with you?”

“At first he just sat on the end of what looked like a child’s bed, staring at me. He never said a word . . . just looked at me. I got scared and tried to git outta there, but that big guy had locked the door from the other side. I just stood facing it. I was too damn scared to call out, to scream fo’ help. I was praying to myself fo’ a hole to open up below me, to let me fall through it and take me outta that place. I closed my eyes and that’s when I heard him git up off of the bed and speak fo’ the first time.”

“What did he say to you?”

I wrote as she continued to recount what had happened.

“He said how he’d seen me working behind the bar in the Bee Hive. That I was beautiful and made fo’ better tings and that if I wanted, he could offer me better. He said he had a bidness proposition fo’ me, that I could earn myself some real big money and that I’d be a fool to refuse him.”

“What was this bidness proposition?”

“He told me that he had some special ‘associates’, as he called them, men who enjoyed the company of attractive black girls and that they paid a lot of cash out fo’ the pleasure of having refined female company. He said I’d be perfect, said all I had to do was spend the evening out in the country with these ‘associates’ of his, drink fine wine, eat some nice food . . . talk, that’s what he said. Told me it would be like being on a date and that I’d enjoy myself and that I’d come away richer in my pocket fo’ giving up my time fo’ a few hours. I said I wasn’t interested and wanted to leave and that’s when . . . that’s whe . . .”

Miss Landry began to cry again, tears streaming down her cheeks; she put her head in her hands and sobbed.

I heard Carla Havers running down the stairs and by the time she barged through the living-room door she was itching for a fight. I’d got up outta my chair and quickly moved away from her as she faced me full of bile and spite, an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Scotch clenched at the neck in her right hand and the stink of the joint she’d just smoked hitting my nostrils square on. She glared across the room with doped-up eyes and flashed a vicious, accusatory look at me.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, making her cry like that? Take that pad and pen and piss off outta here, you black cunt!”

She raised the whisky bottle and came closer towards me, and I could smell the booze roll off of her breath. I lifted my hand in front of me; my index finger stretched upwards towards the ceiling and I held a hard gaze on the stoned hooker.

“You take another step towards me waving that length o’ glass around in your hand and I swear to you that I’m gonna break every bone in your face befo’ you can drag it above your head. You hear me?”