The Far Side of the Sun (29 page)

Emerald looked up from her baking, floury hands flapping. ‘I’m busy. Bakin’ a tart for Mr Reggie. All them blueberries goin’ to waste. Mr Reggie likes a nice tart.’

Ella was feeling self-conscious, which was unreasonable really. She’d let Dan kiss her last night, but that was all. What was a kiss? Nothing. A moment of fun. Over in a heartbeat. So now they could get on with their lives. It was absurd to contemplate otherwise. She was just going out for a lazy day away from the bustle of Nassau, somewhere quieter and cooler, where she could get her thoughts in order.

‘What you want in this picnic of yours?’

‘Just a few simple sandwiches and a flask of tea,’ Ella said, offhand because it really was an unimportant little jaunt. A picnic. ‘Oh, and maybe some cake for Detective Calder.’

‘Detective Calder goin’ to drive you on this here picnic?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘There ain’t no “of course” about it. You want blueberry pie for Mr Reggie or a picnic for you?’ Emerald stood with her floury hands on her hips, her broad face all screwed up.

Ella smiled sweetly at her. ‘Oh, Emmie dear, you know I want both.’

‘Don’t you
Emmie dear
me.’ She sniffed loudly. ‘You is just plain greedy, Miss Ella.’

‘Greedy?’

‘Yep. You want what you cannot have.’

Ella found a smile from some distant cupboard and stuck it on her face. ‘Just make the blasted picnic.’

Dan Calder opened the door of the Rover for her with his usual exquisite politeness, last night’s kiss safely in a locked drawer somewhere. He slid in beside her, his expression friendly and professional. He smelled nice in the confined space of the car, some kind of aftershave or hair-oil, something with sandalwood in it. She tried to breathe deeply without letting it show.

‘Where today?’

‘Let’s go inland,’ she suggested.

He slid the big vehicle into motion and to keep her eyes from staring at his hands on the wheel, Ella turned her head and glanced out. They were driving past the front of the house. Emerald’s face was at the dining-room window, scowling fiercely. Her bosom was pressed like a giant white cushion against the glass, her heavy lips moving.

In her head Ella could hear the sound of her maid’s words. ‘You is just plain greedy, Miss Ella.’

Flynn wanted a drink, a real drink, though it was scarcely mid-afternoon by the old grandfather clock leaning against the wall. The office fan was efficient, ensuring that the warm air rippled over his skin. They had been welcomed, seated and offered tea. Tea? In this heat? What was it with the British and tea? As though it ran in their veins or something.

‘Or can I offer you something stronger, Mr Hudson?’ Harold Christie asked amiably.

‘A beer would do.’

Christie produced a beer. It was warm.

Flynn didn’t take to this man. His smile was too sincere, his charm was too easy, his manner was too damn relaxed. Any more relaxed and the guy would be splayed out on his own floor with his face on his fancy Persian rug. And what made him think that Dodie was a fool?

Because that’s how he was treating her. From the moment they walked into the room, Christie had her marked down as someone he could bamboozle, and she just sat there, reeling him in with her soft-spoken words and her sweet smile. That smile of hers. Flynn wanted to tell her to put it away, to roll it in a ball and tuck it out of sight in her pocket. It distracted him.

She had introduced him. ‘This is my friend, Mr Hudson.’

Christie had accepted Flynn’s presence because he had no choice, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. His handshake was wary and the accompanying smile barely made it past the corners of his mouth.

Flynn had tried to dissuade her from this meeting. He didn’t think it was a good idea, but she had insisted and he was learning that he was no good at saying no when she was saying yes. Not when her lips were brushing his lips and her fingers were twisting his hair as easily as she twisted his heart. Better that he was here on one of Christie’s big comfortable chairs than that she came alone and had the land-dealer thinking she was fair game. It was significant that just the mention of her name gained them admittance to this inner sanctum upstairs on Bay Street. Her fame marched before her among these guys of wealth and position in Bahamian society, and that scared Flynn. They all wanted to know what exactly was inside that pretty head of hers.

‘Well, Miss Wyatt, what can I do for you?’

Dodie hadn’t touched her cup. Flynn watched Christie observing her the way a magpie eyes a fledgling that has tumbled from a nest. Flynn exhaled a string of smoke across the desk.

‘Thank you for seeing me, Mr Christie,’ Dodie said, giving him a smile. ‘Your reputation in Nassau is well known and greatly respected. You took me by surprise when you turned up at the Arcadia the other day, but I’ve thought about what you said and you were right. We must all take care of the good name of the Bahamas.’

Christie smiled, caught off guard. He hadn’t expected that, but he recovered easily. ‘That’s pleasing to hear, young lady.’ He drew hard on his cigarette. ‘I was sure you’d see it my way.’

‘I do indeed. That’s why I think we can work together.’

‘Work together?’

‘Yes. I’ve come to you – with my friend, Mr Hudson – to learn more.’

‘Learn more about what?’

‘You know everything there is to know about land on New Providence Island.’ She shook the loose waves of her hair and they rippled like silk around her shoulders, catching the light, drawing Christie’s gaze. Flynn had an urge to prise his eyeballs out. ‘I thought,’ she continued, ‘you could tell us something about it.’

‘Something like what? Are you interested in buying land?’ His green eyes brightened at even the faintest prospect of a sale. He turned to Flynn with expectation. ‘Or you, Mr Hudson?’

‘No,’ Flynn said firmly.

‘Mr Morrell mentioned,’ Dodie explained, ‘that he was here in Nassau to do a land deal. We thought you might know about it.’

A pause. It vibrated in the room. Like beans in a tin. That loud.

Christie moved his stare to Flynn. ‘Mr Hudson, what exactly is your role in this conversation?’

‘My role is simple, Mr Christie.’ Flynn stabbed his cigarette into an onyx ashtray. ‘There has been a murder, Mr Christie, as you are aware. I am a friend of Miss Wyatt’s and it is my business to make certain she doesn’t trip over any more dead bodies.’

‘In my office?’

Flynn gave an easy chuckle. ‘Most people have a skeleton or two rattling in their cupboards.’

It could have sounded like a threat, a civilised one, but still a threat. He wanted Christie focused on him, not on Dodie. What the hell was she up to? Using herself as bait? She hadn’t warned him.

‘So,’ Flynn said, ‘we are on the hunt for something about the sale of land that might have caused Mr Morrell’s downfall.’

‘Really? Found anything?’

‘Nothing definite.’

‘Have you mentioned this theory to the police?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I know nothing about any deal.’

Christie’s eyes flicked to the sombre portrait of King George VI in full regalia that hung on the wall, as though seeking reassurance that order and justice still prevailed. ‘But, Miss Wyatt,’ Christie smiled, spreading his charm a little thicker, ‘I do think you’re barking up the wrong tree here, my dear.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I can understand your interest in Morrell, indeed I can. But it’s time that you were aware of this fact: a black woman came to see me here two days after the murder. She wouldn’t give her name, refused point-blank. But she told me about Mirabelle.’

Dodie sat straight. ‘Who is Mirabelle?’

‘She’s a prostitute. A friend of the woman.’

‘What is her connection with Morrell?’

‘What do you think?’

Flynn didn’t allow a flicker of his anger to show. ‘What did this woman say?’

‘Mirabelle came to her the night of the murder, covered in blood.’

Dodie gasped.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Wyatt, but Mirabelle told her that she had “entertained” an American gentleman in an alleyway that night and he’d got rough. He’d been drinking. He carried a knife and threatened her with it. They struggled and…⁠’ Christie paused to make sure he had their full attention, ‘she ended up stabbing him.’

Dodie’s hand went to her mouth. Flynn gave her the faintest shake of his head.

Christie released a fog of smoke into the room. ‘Mirabelle apparently snatched his wallet and ran. The next morning she left the island, refusing to say where she was going.’

‘Are you telling us,’ Flynn gave weight to each word, ‘that Morrell was killed by a prostitute who has since disappeared? And you were told this story by a woman you don’t know who refused to give her name?’

‘Yes, that’s correct.’

For the first time Christie looked uncomfortable, aware of the thinness of his tale.

‘And you haven’t informed the police?’ Dodie asked.

‘On the contrary. I have done so already.’

‘But why did she come to
you
?’

‘Ah, Miss Wyatt, you have to remember that I am well known in this community. I have a reputation for helping Bahamians, though I say it myself. This woman is not the kind of person who would go to the police, but she needed to tell someone in authority – someone who cares about the people here – so she came to me.’ He spread his arms, as though to wrap them around all Bahamians.

Flynn rose to his feet, pushing back his chair. ‘It sounds plausible, Mr Christie. It’s a good story and a damned convenient one for everybody. It’s true that Morrell carried a knife. It’s true he hooked up with prostitutes sometimes.’ He exhaled a long hard gust and stared down at the man on the other side of the desk. ‘But you’ve got one thing wrong. Morrell would never get rough with a woman, not in a million years.’

Dodie looked across at him, but there was a tightness to her face, she was holding something back.

‘Thank you, Mr Christie, for your time,’ she said.

They walked to the door and went through the shaking hands ritual in a cursory manner. Just as they were leaving the office, Christie said in an unruffled tone, ‘Mr Hudson, no man knows what another man fantasises about when it comes to sex. Any man – or woman – can release his inner monster when there is no one else to see. Think about that.’

The words hung in the corridor and Flynn wanted to put his fist through them. Dodie took his arm and steered him out of the building.

In the street rain was striking the pavement and hissing under tyres.

‘You could be wrong,’ she said.

‘Dodie, don’t believe him.’

‘What if it’s true? He has told the police.’

They were standing under a billowing awning on Bay Street, cars hooting at each other on the crowded road, pedestrians darting between the traffic to escape the sudden downpour. The air felt damp and solid, swirling in off the ocean with sudden force. Flynn had an arm wound around Dodie’s waist, holding her close.

‘Listen to me, Dodie. Morrell was not that man.’

She narrowed her eyes, cutting out all else but him. The shock of what Christie had told them still lingered on her face, but Flynn could see there was a desire in her to believe the land agent’s words and it made him fear for her. It made him mute. She pressed her face against his neck and his nostrils caught the scent of her wet hair.

‘Don’t, Flynn,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t be fierce. Don’t be silent. Not with me.’

‘Morrell was not that man,’ he said again. ‘He would not threaten a woman with a knife.’

‘Not even if he caught her trying to steal his wallet? Maybe that was the truth.’

‘And his fear of being finished off if he went to the hospital? What about that? Where does it fit into this convenient story Christie has concocted for you and the police?’

She tilted her head back to look at him. ‘Morrell was a member of the mob. I know he carried a gun and I assume he used it. You say he wouldn’t threaten a woman.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘But he was a killer.’

Her words lay between them. She couldn’t remove them. When a surrey plodded past, the horse gleaming like a seal in the rain, Flynn hailed it and bundled them both inside. They sat side by side, unspeaking, and the knowledge that Dodie regarded Morrell as a killer filled every inch of space under the small vehicle’s canopy. Because if she thought that of Morrell, then she thought it of him too.

Flynn took her hand in his. It was cold. But she did not snatch it away.

Dodie was tough. The way she walked upright, denying the pain the slightest outward sign of its grip on her body. In the tiny shack in Bain Town Flynn eased her down on to the lumpy mattress, stripped off her dress and massaged more of Mama Keel’s ointment into her back.

‘Looking better?’ she asked, face down on the sheet.

‘Much.’

Her back looked as though someone had thrown an ill-mixed pot of paint over it, a wild canvas of blues and black and purples.

‘Stop growling,’ Dodie murmured.

‘Growling?’