Heartman: A Missing Girl, A Broken Man, A Race Against Time (40 page)

“I think she looks like a young black woman who’s been chained to a wall!”

I took a step forward; my hand squeezed at the grip of the 45.

“Don’t take another step, you bloody fool, not unless you want the whole place go up like a scene from Dante’s
Inferno
 . . .”

Blanchard raised his left arm, the palm of his hand outstretched.

“‘I come to lead you to the other shore, into eternal darkness, ice and fire.’”

“What the hell are you talkin’ ’bout, man? Now put that lighter down on the ground real slow and back away over to that side wall.”

I nudged the barrel of the 45 towards where I wanted the barrister to move, but he ignored me.

“Interesting that you should mention Hell . . . Well, I couldn’t have put it better. Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. Neutrality! That’s what I’ve been trying to achieve while you’ve been sniffing around, Mr Ellington, to maintain a sense of the impartial, to be . . . detached. I’ve let others concern themselves with the complications that have arisen from Stella being here, with me.

“I have mixed in circles you cannot imagine, Mr Ellington, from princes to the kings of the underworld, and I know a lot about the criminal mind: too much, you might say. Suddenly you realise there is no difference between them; all have their failings, their weaknesses, so it was easy to find people to supply my private little gatherings and the discreet errands I needed carried out using men like Mr Grey, or Papa, as you know him. I take it from the strident gunshot that I heard resonating around the building a short while ago that Mr Grey has joined his . . . fellow lowlifes, in Hades. That’s a pity, but no great loss in the grand scale of things. However, the gun you’re holding in that hand of yours didn’t create such a deafening noise, that came from a more powerful weapon, no doubt fired by the other black bastard that tags along with you.”

Vic swung around from behind the wall and slowly came and stood at my side, the pump-action pointed directly at Blanchard’s head.

“You want me to blow this crazy ole fucker’s face off, JT?”

Blanchard didn’t give me the chance to reply and took a step forward with the lighter poised in front of him.

“Stop right there! At your feet and liberally dispersed around this room, and doused over myself and young Stella there, is enough petrol to eradicate any trace that any of us have ever been here. I have no intention of letting either of you walk out of here alive, and I do not relish the thought of having to face any of my fellow barristers in court, so, as I said before, one has to have a back-up plan.”

Blanchard swiftly put his hand in to his pocket, drew out a small slip of paper and held it out at arm’s length, and then pushed down the plunger of the lighter. A small blue and yellow flame flared up into the air. Vic edged forward and Blanchard drew the paper towards the short jet of rising fire, holding them inches apart. I held out my arm to keep Vic from moving any further.

“So, gentlemen, enough is enough, this is where it all ends . . . I don’t know about either of you, but I’m not afraid to die. And the truth is I like secrets and I think I’ve told enough of them tonight . . . Goodbye!”

Then before either of us could say anything to him or move, Blanchard touched the paper into the lighter’s flame, then dropped both at his feet, igniting his whole body in a ferocious ball of fire. The floor awakened and erupted into a carpet of flames.

Blanchard’s piercing screams were lost in the commencement of the firestorm; now, with his arms reaching out, his engulfed form began to run towards me. Vic stepped in front, knocking me out of the way, and pulled the trigger of the pump-action, hurling Terrence Blanchard’s fire-consumed body across the cellar and slamming it into the wall.

I snatched the shotgun out of my cousin’s hands and screamed, “Git the fuck outta here, Vic!” Then I burst through the intense blaze towards where Stella was shackled. I forced another round into the pump-action’s breech as I ran and fired towards where the chain was secured, blowing the manacle out of the wall and releasing the heavy metal restraint. I threw the gun down at my feet and stood over Stella’s fragile, unconscious body. I grabbed up the blanket at edge of the mattress and covered her with it, then hooked my arms underneath her back and drew her slight frame close to me.

When I turned to face the bonfire that was raging all around me, I could just about see Vic through the choking smoke and brimstone. He was yelling out to me from the doorway, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the conflagration that was exploding in front of where I was standing. In my head I heard the cries of my wife and child, calling out to me to come for them. I closed my eyes, pulled my coat over the back of my head the best that I could, then ran out into the fiery holocaust. As I launched myself across the burning room through the scorching heat of the cellar, I could feel the intense heat burning at the tail of my coat and the skin starting to blister on my calves. Then Vic’s huge hands reached out to me from the doorway and we fell into his waiting arms. He yanked Stella from me, then turned and carried her up the stairs towards Blanchard’s study.

I tore off my burning coat and turned to follow Vic up the stairway. It was then that I saw, standing in the furthest recess of the cellar, my wife, Ellie. She was holding the hand of our little girl Amelia. I screamed out their names and went to run back into burning catacomb, but Ellie calmly raised her hand to stop me, shaking her head, telling me to come no closer. She smiled and drew our beloved child close to her side. Amelia held on tightly to the crisp white linen of her mother’s long, flowing skirt with her tiny fingers. Then I watched as they both disappeared into the flames.

Our drive back to St Pauls was made in silence. The only noise that disturbed our otherwise peaceful nocturnal journey came from the intermittent banging that occasionally emanated from our fellow passenger, the crooked cop Mickey Warren, who Vic had dumped, bound and gagged, into the boot of the Cortina. We had left the Blanchard estate at speed and drove out into the night with the house ablaze, the fire destroying any trace that we had ever been there, just as Terrence Blanchard had foretold.

I was sitting on the back seat being shunted to and fro as Vic sped through the darkened country lanes. I was holding Stella in my arms, and she was still out for the count from the soporific drug that Blanchard had given her. Looking at her sleeping face, I could not imagine the cruelty that she must have endured, and I drew her close to me like a parent with a sick child.

It was just after ten thirty by the time Vic pulled up outside my digs. He got out and opened up the rear door, and I slid out, still holding onto Stella tightly. As we began to walk towards my front door, I felt something drop from out of the blanket and fall to the ground. Vic bent down and picked up a small cloth rabbit. He looked at it, then handed it back to me, shrugging his big shoulders, puzzled. Something told me I’d seen the toy before somewhere as I tucked it back in between the blanket and let it nestle close to her. I stood in the street, thinking for a second or two.

When I looked down at the toy again I realised it was the same as the one in the photograph I’d found underneath the wardrobe in her house a short while ago. Stella was the young child sitting on the knee of the guy who resembled Earl Linney. I lifted my head and looked across at Vic, who said nothing but nodded towards my bedsit. Standing there, with her frail hand opening the door for us, was Mrs Pearce.

I lay Stella on my bed. Safe now and gently breathing, she looked to be in a dreamless sleep. I chose to let her rest for as long as was necessary before calling for a doctor. I closed the bedroom door behind me and walked into the kitchen, where Vic and Mrs Pearce sat across from each other at the small dining table.

“Mrs Pearce . . . Can you do me a small favour?”

I stood over her tiny frame and smiled down at her.

“Is it to do with that poor girl? Your cousin ’ere says she’s had a bit of a time of things. What is it you want me to do?”

“Yes, Mrs Pearce, Stella’s a little shook up, but she’s fast asleep now. Could you stay here? Then look in on her in the next quarter of an hour to check she’s OK, but I’m sure she’ll be fine. I need to go with Vic to the family, but I won’t be long . . . I promise.”

“She’ll be fine with me, Mr Ellington . . . You run along now, I’ll see you shortly.”

She nodded at me gently, and I looked over at Vic to let him know I was ready to leave. As we were walking out of the kitchen, I stopped and turned to my neighbour.

“Oh, there’s another kindness you could do fo’ me, Mrs Pearce.”

The old woman looked up at me. “And what’s that, Mr Ellington?”

“Call me JT . . . All my friends do.”

Vic and I sat in the car outside of my place on Gwyn Street. He looked across at me from the driver’s seat.

“OK . . . JT, what do we do now?”

I took in a deep breath, working my game plan out in my head.

“Listen, Vic, I want you take that bastard we got stashed in the back o’ the boot and drive him over to Bridewell police station. You leave the motor outside in the street, find the nearest phone box, then call the operator and ask to be patched through to the station. When you git through, say you wanna speak to Detective Inspector William Fletcher. Tell ’em that it’s real urgent. If he ain’t there, you say to whoever’s on the front desk to go git him, no matter where he is! Understand?”

Vic nodded at me.

“Then tell ’em that Fletcher needs to git his ass outside the nick and that in the boot o’ this Cortina is Mickey Warren, awaiting arrest for his involvement in the murders of Carnell Harris, Clarence Mayfield, Jocelyn Charles and Virginia Landry and the attempted murder of Joseph Ellington. Fletcher’s gonna shit when he sees a serving police officer tied up in the boot of a car on his doorstep and he’s bound to come looking fo’ me soon afterwards. I’ll worry ’bout all that later. Once you done that fo’ me, you don’t say another damn ting and you walk away, you hear me?”

“Yeah . . . I hear you. But I ain’t too pleased having to be so close to no police station, let alone speaking to ’em. I’m only doing it cos you my kin. I woulda slit that pig Warren’s throat and not thought another ting ’bout it. You know that, don’t ya?”

“I know . . .”

I put my hand into my jacket pocket, pulled out my notebook and flipped over the pages until I found the slip of paper with the address I needed on it. I tore it out and passed it over to Vic.

“Now take me to this place in Montpelier, brother.”

I sat back in my seat and shut my eyes. The thought of what I had to do next was eating at my guts as Vic pulled away and drove me over to Earl Linney’s home.

*

It was just after eleven as I watched Vic pull away, leaving me outside of the Linneys’ house. A hard frost had crept in and the ground below me sparkled with ice crystals as I made my way across the road to the old Georgian town house that stood behind a tiny garden, which was surrounded by a four-foot-high red-brick wall. I opened the gate and walked down the short path to the front door, then took the brass lion’s head knocker in my hand and let it fall against the door a couple of times. A few moments later a light came on and shone out through the stained-glass panel above me, and a small, thin, well-dressed black woman opened the door. She peered out at me suspiciously over her half-rim reading glasses. I stared back at the slight and unassuming lady who faced me and wondered if this could really be the inhuman monster that Terrence Blanchard had described to me earlier. I stood back from the doorstep and tried to force a smile, but failed.

“Mrs Linney . . . ?”

“Yes, can I help you?”

Her tone was polished and formal, and she spoke without the Caribbean accent I’d previously heard when she’d answered the telephone to me a few days previously. She nervously stood back into her hallway, unsure of my reason for calling at such a late hour.

“Good evening, Ma’am, I’m hoping to speak to your husband on an urgent matter. Is he in?”

“I’m sorry, no, he’s not. He’ll be on his way home shortly; he’s attending a social event at the council chambers. Can I tell him who called?”

“My name’s Ellington, Joseph Ellington . . . I’ve been working fo’ Mr Linney these past few weeks. You and I spoke recently on the phone, I don’t know if you remember me?”

“No . . . No, I’m afraid I don’t remember, Mr Ellington . . . Would you like me to pass on a message to him when he returns?”

Her tone had hardened, like she was suddenly ready to be rid of me.

I decided to play my ace and walked up onto the step directly in front of her.

“Yes, if you don’t mind. You can tell your husband that I’ve found Stella.”

Alice Linney took another step back from the door, visibly shaken. I watched as she swallowed hard, then, without being asked, I walked by her into the hallway and set the door ajar to allow us a little privacy.

“I don’t know what your game is, but you can get the hell out of my house!”

I ignored her and continued to walk boldly on through into the cosy sitting room; then I felt her fingers jab into my arm. I turned to face her as she waved an accusatory finger in my face.

“Who the hell do you think you are pushing your way into my home at this time of night? I’m going to call the police.”

She spun on her heels, marching back towards the telephone in the hall. I called after her, stopping the old woman in her tracks.

“Make sure you ask fo’ a Detective Inspector William Fletcher out at Bridewell station. Now, I know he’s gonna be busy tonight, but he’ll sure be mighty interested to hear your story, Mrs Linney, I can promise you that . . . After you git round to telling him that you got an unwanted guest in your house, don’t forget to mention to him ’bout how you took young Stella and hocked her on to a depraved animal like Terrence Blanchard!”

Alice Linney turned to face me, then slowly walked back into her living room and stood a few feet from me, her face contorted with anger.