Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time (31 page)

I took a blue and white checked tea towel from off of the draining board and dried my hands with it, folded it, then sat it back next to the sink. My aunt Pearl stared down at the table, and as I walked past her she gently touched my arm as if to say something, then turned away and faced the wall as I left the kitchen to face her troubled spouse.

Gabe was sitting reading the sports page of
Bristol Evening Post
in one of a pair of green cord armchairs that directly faced the freshly made-up coal fire that was now throwing a welcome amount of heat into the small sitting room. A single standard lamp behind him shone an amber glow of light around his head and onto the back page of the newspaper.

The woody aroma from my uncle’s cigar combined with the sooty scent that was slowly wafting up from the hearth lent the room a strangely welcoming ambience. I took a seat opposite and looked over towards him as he took a heavy draw on the thick cigar that was hooked into the left-hand corner of his mouth. Gabe stared back at me, then exhaled a thick spiral of smoke up into the air, and the dense beam of light from the lamp caught the grey vapours that were beginning to float around the room. When he finally spoke to me, his timbre was brittle and short.

“I suppose this is what the police was questioning you about last night, was it?”

He closed the paper, then threw it over to me, and I lifted it up in the half-light. The bold print of the newspaper’s headlines stared back at me cruelly from the front page: “Woman Found Dead in Grounds of Ashton Court”. I swallowed hard and reluctantly began to read the grisly account.

The body of a young woman has been found in the densely wooded area known as Clarken Coombe in the grounds of the Ashton Court estate on the western edge of the city late on Monday evening. The shocking discovery was made by two wardens who were patrolling the parkland as part of the council’s attempt to prevent the poaching of the country park’s deer. The Evening Post can confirm that the identity of the deceased has been ascertained by Bristol City Constabulary. DI Fletcher, who is heading the inquiry, told the post earlier today, “At this stage in our investigations we are not prepared to release further details regarding the discovery of the body found last night due to the brutality of the crime and the significance of evidence found at the scene. I can assure the general public that everything is being done to apprehend the perpetrator of this atrocious crime. We are at the moment exploring many avenues of inquiry and will be issuing a further statement to the press shortly.”

I folded the newspaper and dropped it at my feet, sickened at what I had just read and at myself, knowing that my brief involvement with the dead girl had most certainly contributed to her untimely and horrific murder.

“The girl they found out in that wood . . .” I pointed down at Gabe’s paper, which sat at my feet. “Her name was Virginia Landry; I met her earlier this week. She told me she believed she’d seen that missing girl I’m looking fo’.”

“Seen her where?” Gabe took the stubby stogie out of his mouth and rested it between two of his fingers.

“You really don’t wanna know, Uncle Gabe”

“Don’t wanna know or you ain’t gonna tell me?”

Gabe sat back in his chair and took another drag on his cigar, waiting for me to answer him.

“The less I tell you, the less mess you can git yourself into.”

I knew I sounded glib, but my sentiment was sincere.

“Don’t play games with me, boy. I got myself into your mess as soon as that snotty lookin’ copper came knockin’ at my door askin’ if I knew where you were on Monday night. He was wantin’ to know all kinds of tings ’bout you, so I just played along with that bobby. He looked at me thinking I was nuttin’ but a miserable, scared ole nigger who was gonna tell him how I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of you in days, then put you in the frame for whatever he wanted to finger you fo’. You shoulda seen his face when I told him you was here all night playing cards with me. Anyhow, I stood on that step out there in the street and lied my ass off, so you try tellin’ me I ain’t in enough o’ your mess as it is. Besides . . . you really think I’m gonna let my brother’s boy sit rottin’ away in some police cell?”

“Years ago, when I was a child, my mama told me that you would always use the ‘we were playing cards all night’ number when the law came lookin’ fo’ my papa when he’d been up to no good. When I asked you last year ’bout it, you said you couldn’t remember ever doing it, said my mama had been pulling my leg. I sure am happy as hell you did the same fo’ me.”

My uncle smiled at me and leant forward in his chair, weighing up whether I was just placating him with a little of my usual charm.

“Boy, I know you ain’t murdered no young woman, but I’m in the dark ’bout the rest o’ what’s been going on . . . So why don’t you tell me what all this madness is about, Joseph?”

He again rested back in his seat and rubbed at his top lip, waiting for me to begin my account of what had happened to me during the last ten days or so. A stern look of determination was etched upon his heavily lined face, which I recognised only too well. I took a deep breath and spilled my guts, leaving nothing out. Afterwards he continued to mouth and suck on what was left of his cigar, puffing out more clouds of thick smoke around us, mulling over what I had said. When he finally spoke, he surprised me with what he had to say.

“Joseph . . . You took a big chance when you came over here to start a new life fo’ yourself. Now, your aunt Pearl and I knew you never had any choice but to leave Barbados. We knew you were honest, knew you weren’t nuttin’ like that rascal brother o’ mine. Your papa was as crooked as the hind leg of a mule and as mean-tempered too. But you were never like him – Vic maybe, but never you. We knew you wouldn’t be on the take like some of ya colleagues back in Bridgetown and I knew you could never turn a blind eye to all the illegal stuff that was going on around you. We were proud when we heard you made a stand, son, real proud. Ellie, she wrote to us time and time again.

“That girl told us everyting that was going on. How stubborn you had become and how determined you were to bring down those crooks on the force you was working with. Ellie knew you wouldn’t give in. She was scared fo’ you and fo’ herself and fo’ ya children, Joseph, but she respected you fo’ not turning the other cheek and fo’ standing up against that bastard thug who had his hand in all those other policemen’s pockets back at your station house . . . What was his name?”

Gabe’s question caught me unexpectedly and I instinctively pushed my tongue under my top lip, not wanting to utter the name of the man who had caused me such pain.

“Monroe . . . His name was Conrad Monroe.”

I fell silent again.

“Yeah, that’s it, Monroe. Well, you don’t need me to tell you how that bastard destroyed everyting you held dear. He took your old life, your wife, the child growing in her belly and your six-year-old daughter. You think I’m getting any pleasure saying this stuff to you? Look, I know you’ve been trying to do what’s right, you trying to find this lost mute woman an’ all, but if you think playing at being a policeman again is going to give you the chance to right old wrongs from the past, then you fooling yourself, Joseph. There are bad guys the world over and you can’t think you can take every one of them on because you still hurting fo’ the bad tings that have happened to you, boy.

“Monroe and this man, Terrence Blanchard are the same, bad through to the bone, and there you sit thinking you’ve got nuttin’ to lose, and all because of that damn stubborn streak you got . . . But men like Blanchard will find someting to cause you some more pain . . . and you know why he will?”

“No, Gabe . . . Why?”

“Because like that bastard Monroe, he can, Joseph . . . because he can. It’s as simple as that, boy.”

Gabe rested both of his arms on his legs and drew himself forward, then patted my arm while he stared into the dying embers of the fire. It was the second time such a tactile and caring gesture had been shown by a member of my family in such a short space of time. I knew that both Pearl and Gabe cared about me dearly, but tonight, for the first time, I realised that they shared the burden of my own grief in a way I had not until now fully recognised. Earlier when Aunt Pearl had touched my arm I had braced myself to prevent any show of my real feelings, but now the truth of Gabe’s words had reawakened all of the pent-up guilt and grief from my recently tragic past I had hidden and shattered the defences that kept those who knew me isolated from my true inner heartache. I began to sob such uncontrollable tears that I thought they would never stop.

The warmth of the sun caught the side of my face as it shone through the open window of our room. The temperate balminess of a Barbadian summer’s morning cosseted my body as I lay alone in the large rattan bed, a thin white sheet pulled down low across my hips, and I could hear the whisper of the cicada’s song hypnotically mixing with the gentle sound of waves lapping against the shore of the golden-sanded beach that rolled up towards the edge of our tiny garden. Outside my bedroom I overheard the comforting chatter of familiar voices coming from the kitchen and the tempting smell of breakfast cooking. A calming sense of contentment enveloped me as I relaxed with my arms splayed out across the bed, my hand stroking the warm mattress where my wife had been lying next to me. I looked up at the ceiling and watched as a swallowtail butterfly floated gracefully above me; I followed its unmapped journey across the room until it drifted down to the edge of our dressing table to rest.

My wife Ellie and six-year-old daughter, Amelia, entered the room. My little girl carried a glass of mango juice, which she carefully brought to my bedside. I pulled myself up the mattress by my elbows and propped my back against the headboard as the two of them joined me, their heads resting on my chest, nestling closer into my body as I wrapped both arms around them and drew them towards me. I closed my eyes as Amelia began to sing to me, while my wife ran her fingers tenderly across the back of my hand, but her touch began to fade as the nursery rhyme my child sang grew more distant. I felt the two of them draw away from me, and the once gentle warmth of the morning sunshine suddenly burst into the unbearable heat of a firestorm as my wife and child screamed out. In panic, shouting their names, I tried to pull myself up from the bed, but my powerless body was held down by a weighty invisible pressure and I was forced to watch in horror as my two beautiful girls were dragged into the flames that were about to engulf our bedroom.

“Joseph . . . Joseph, are you all right there, son? You were shouting in your sleep.”

Pearl was kneeling at my side as I sat slumped in the armchair. Disorientated after being woken, I wrenched myself up in the old chair and rubbed my face with the flats of both hands and felt the coarse stubble on my clammy cheeks and chin with my palms. My eyes gradually refocused on their surroundings in the weakly lit room and I once again felt the unsympathetic heat from the coal fire discharging towards me.

“Yeah, I’m OK . . . What time is it, Pearl?”

I sat forward in the chair and felt the damp wetness of my shirt pull away from the sweaty skin on my back.

“It’s just after six . . . You been sound asleep this past hour or so. I heard you calling out for Ellie and Amelia, bless them. Gabe and me could hear you rambling away to yourself from where we were sitting back there in the kitchen. I really didn’t wanna wake you, but you were starting to scare me, hollering out like you were.”

Pearl lifted herself back up from where she had been kneeling next to me, put her hand into her front pocket, pulled out a brass Yale lock key and held it in her hand in front of me.

“Here, take this: your cousin Victor came round earlier to give you this, said you’ll need it to git inside your digs tonight. You got yourself a new door and Loretta and me cleaned up after the police had made all that mess in there. Vic wanted to wake you, but I told him to leave you be while you was sleeping, says he’ll catch up with you tomorrow. Now let me git you a cup o’ coffee; it’ll bring you back round to the land o’ the living.”

Pearl’s face flushed and she tried to hide her shame at using the word “living” by quickly getting up to avoid my eyes. As she was about to leave, I took hold of her delicate hand and gently squeezed it in my own.

“Yeah . . . That’d be great, Aunt Pearl, and thanks fo’ what you done fo’ me.”

She brushed my hand away, making a series of huffing noises as she ambled out of the sitting room to make me the hot drink that she hoped would revive my spirits.

At that moment in time, the land of the living was the last place I wanted to be. I’d grown used to the nightmares and how they relentlessly permeated my sleep and they were now the companions of the daylight torment of my conscious being. I believed that there was nothing that could have drawn me away from the contrition and anguish that would continue to dominate my waking hours, and I once again felt the urgent desire to inflict my wrath upon those who had taken my wife and children from me. But I knew that it was too late for such aimless thoughts of vengeance. In truth, I’d had little time to plot my method of revenge against those who had killed my wife and children and had razed my house to the ground. It had only taken a few hours for my shady superiors to make me falsely complicit in my own family’s tragic demise and they had quickly hung me out to dry on trumped-up charges of murder. I was handcuffed and taken out to a remote station house in Bathsheba, on the eastern side of the island, and after days of being grilled by white detectives about my supposed involvement in the killing. During my questioning, I had continuously denied any wrongdoing. I was interrogated for hours and then returned to my cell, where I was not allowed to rest and was instead hosed down with heavy jets of cold water. In my despair, I imagined that I would eventually be killed and my body dumped down a drain that would finally wash my corpse out to sea. But I had continuously denied any wrongdoing and their determined grilling was just part of a plan conjured up by the man I had been trying to uncover as running a drug ring along with a number of officers in the police department. Conrad Monroe was determined to see me broken and humiliated, and after days of being beaten and deprived of sleep, in the end it came down to a simple ultimatum.