The Magpie Trap: A Novel (39 page)

Rose
Hill

Chris and Danny ran away from the Midas Hotel
like excited schoolboys. They careered through the streets, pulling their bags
behind them, panting and laughing. Danny was amazed that he felt no guilt at
their treatment of Mark Birch, but instead saw it as a necessary evil. He told
himself that they were taking advantage of the opportunities presented to them;
they were now real outlaws, living outside society’s rules.

As
Danny continued to run at full pelt down a steep hill towards the harbour, he
was carried by a heady adrenaline rush at the Wild West lawlessness of their actions;
he could feel the bubbles from two bottles of champagne racing around inside
his veins, driving him on. But as the road levelled out, and then began its
incline towards the financial district, the chokehold of the two Cuban cigars
he’d smoked began clawing at his throat. He always inhaled cigars; what was the
point of smoking them if you didn’t inhale? It wasn’t doing him any good now
though, as he bloatedly slowed to a trot, leaning against the wall of a row of
small shops for support.

‘I
have to stop,’ he wheezed to Chris, who was still maintaining an excellent
pace.

Chris,
who had jogged back to him, began to laugh, ‘I was wondering how long it would
take you… Come on, we’ll get a beer in that bar there, and I’ll call our
favourite taxi-driver; he gave me his business card.’

Chris
obviously suspected that Danny’s nose for alcohol had led him straight to a
bar, but Danny was so exhausted and drunk that a beer was the furthest thing
from his mind. They smartened themselves up a little, taking advantage of the
mirrored frontage of what was obviously a Sex Shop and then stepped through the
swinging saloon-style doors into a bar next door which was thick with Wild West
atmosphere to suit their mood. A girl on a small stage in the corner was just
finishing some kind of stripping routine which involved cavorting with a live
snake, and the audience descended into whoops of appreciation.

‘Yeeeehaww,’
laughed Chris, approaching the bar.

Small
groups of customers were gathered around round tables, and now the
entertainment had finished they had resumed their lightning fast games of
dominos. All went quiet; all the little clicking sounds of the dominoes being
clipped together stopped; the brief snippets of conversation ceased, as the two
foreigners walked towards the bar. An unwelcoming gloom descended; this was
clearly not a standard tourist bar, it was more like a secret haven for the
locals.

Danny
felt uneasy and looked down at his shoes; Chris however, was obviously enjoying
himself. Danny watched him mould himself into a cowboy stance at the bar; a
slouching, cocksure, pistol-happy lean which implied that he was not to be
messed with. The barman finally decided that he would deign to take their
order.

Danny
could hardy resist a smile when Chris faked a John Wayne accent whilst ordering
the beers. All Chris needed, thought Danny, was a Stetson hat to complete his
look.

The taxi driver arrived outside to spoil
Chris’s fun, beeping his horn repeatedly until they came out from the bar. He
smiled that same broken piano-key grin at them through the tinted windows and
clicked open the lock to the back doors. Chris and Danny slithered into the
four-by-four, hissing with anticipation.

‘We’d
like to go to Rose Hill please mate?’ Chris asked, at once more talkative with
the driver than on their last journey.

‘Where’s
your friend?’ asked the chubby driver, still chewing on his lunch, which had a
strong fishy smell.

‘He
won’t be coming, he’s too drunk,’ Danny replied, winking at Chris. ‘He fell
asleep on the balcony!’

‘Did
you know, my friend, that Rose Hill is a wine in
England
?’
Chris joked.

‘Rose
Hill is actually the third town of
Mauritius
,’
said the driver, not really understanding the joke. ‘It’s a big shopping
centre- try the
Arab
Town
;
buy a present for your wives!”

The
sudden reminder of what he’d left behind calmed Danny down. He thought of
Cheryl back in
Leeds
, perhaps learning about what he’d done. He thought of her waking up that
morning at her sister’s house when he’d just walked out and left her there on the
sofa. Already, their Mauritian adventure was turning into just another episode
in his catalogue entitled
Things I’ve
done which I’m ashamed of;
the only thing which kept him from feeling the
full effect of this shame was to keep drinking.

Chris,
meanwhile, just didn’t seem to care at all. He was actually enjoying their
haphazard progress, embracing the chaos, revelling in the ruin they were
leaving behind. But, thought Danny, this wasn’t a Boy’s Own Adventure story;
they were still on-the-run, and they were already one man down. And soon he’d
have to meet that mysterious
BBC
-voiced caller that had started the whole thing in the first place.

‘Rose
Hill was developed in the eighteenth century, when a malaria scare made the
rich of
Port Louis
run to the hills,’ said the driver. He was continuing his guided tour,
unaware that Chris and Danny had both slipped into their own memories. ‘All of
your colonists went there, and they built their houses. Beautiful towns, just
too far from the sea for me…. Hello?… You listening, Mister?’

‘Sorry
mate, but would you mind just driving,’ Chris snapped. The sweeping bends in
the road as it ascended the hills towards the centre of the island were
sloshing the drinks around in his belly and making him feel sick.

They arrived in Rose Hill in the early
evening. They were greeted by the blood-red, throbbing purple and golden
streaked bruising of a stunning sunset. It was a sky full of warning, but which
also suggested the sensual beauty of evil. A full moon was trying to bide her
time before showing herself fully, peeking just over the highest of the
mountains in the distance, casting a watchful eye over the night. Stars tried
to hide their shimmering infirmity behind the bloated fried-egg power of their
big brother, the setting sun.

They
were dropped off by the taxi as close to the town’s main square as it was
possible to drive. Everywhere there were street entertainers, stalls and crowds
of bustling people, who paid no attention to the taxi’s attempted progress. All
around them was dripping in rich greenery, was bejewelled in fruits.

Colour
was everywhere. The whitewashed buildings at the edges of the road added depth
to the images. Miniature candles adorned every tree lending the place a magical
atmosphere. The light danced playfully, seductively, casting long irregular
shadows into doorways and down secret passageways.

The
night’s atmosphere was sticky - clingy even - but luckily it was not as humid
as in the lower altitude by the coast. Nevertheless, both Chris and Danny were
covered in a thin film of sweat as they walked through the streets of Rose
Hill, dodging the street sellers. They were walking with a purpose.

‘This
is the place,’ whispered Chris, reverentially, as they walked through the
town’s main square. ‘This is where we’ll live. We can be the new colonial
kings.’

Danny
looked pleased. They had passed magnificent houses on the road into the town
centre, relics of colonial times. Large, lovingly constructed white buildings
hiding behind the rich purples of the bougainvilleas. He could well imagine
himself in one of those places. He too could feel himself more at ease here
than in the touristy capital city. He could almost feel the artist within
himself stirring again. Once they’d met his mysterious caller he’d have a good
think about settling down here, maybe even bringing Cheryl out.

‘It’s
magnificent,’ he agreed. ‘Even Cheryl wouldn’t disagree with me on that one…’

‘Shut
up about her, Danny. You’re supposed to have forgotten about her by now,’ Chris
sounded angry, jealous even, that Cheryl’s name had been brought up. This was
his
man-time;
no women allowed.

‘I’m
not talking about now… just sometime in the future, when we’re settled, then
she could come over,’ Danny was pleading.

‘Forget
about that bitch,’ Chris snarled, ending the conversation.

           
Chris’s
comment may have ended the conversation, but it sowed the first seeds of doubt
in Danny’s mind. Just for a moment there, he’d seen the same selfish,
all-consuming, evil gleam in Chris’s eyes that he recognised from Chris’s
father, Mal. It worried him; did he really know this man that he had run
half-way around the world with? This was a man with whom he’d chosen to commit
a terrible crime, a man who had driven him away from everything that he had
ever loved. Danny pretended to back-down on the argument, but inside, unseen,
he developed a steely resolve. He would be careful with his trust in this man
in the future. Perhaps he’d go and meet his mysterious caller all on his own.
It was time to retire to another bar and think up a new strategy.

In the bustling bar, Chris began to vocalise
his own thoughts.

           
‘There
must be someone, somewhere on this goddamn island where we can find a decent
computer-hacker that can sort out this printer for us. You know; someone a bit
like Mark.’

           
‘Reckon
they advertise in the phone book, cock?’ asked Danny, loudly. The crackly music
was being played far too loud and everyone in the place was clamouring to be
heard by the clearly drunk barman who looked asleep at the corner of the narrow
bar area. Chris and Danny had managed to find a seat outside where they could
watch the street-scene;
people-watch,
as
Cheryl used to call it.

‘Reckon
there’s a section in there for criminals and that?’

           
Chris
frowned and took another handful of popcorn from the ever-refilling bowl. The
barman couldn’t even stand up and there appeared to be nobody else working, but
still, some unseen hand was frequently replenishing their bowl with salty
snacks so they’d drink more.

‘No,’
sighed Chris, through a mouthful of half-chewed corn, ‘but there must be some
way of finding out about people like that; how about I start looking into it?’

           
‘Let
me,’ said Danny, quickly. He tried to buy himself the time to shake Chris off;
he needed to call the
BBC
-voiced man and alert him to their arrival. He needed the man’s advice.

           
‘If
you really want to,’ said Chris, slouching back into his seat, looking more and
more like one of the
Young Guns
with
every passing moment. He’d already forgotten the horror of
Edison
’s Printers and was now
wholly focused on developing this new image of himself which was somewhere
between International Drug Runner and
Last
of the famous international playboys.
Unfortunately, the image still did
not fit him properly. He was trying too hard. Underneath it all, Chris seemed
distracted by something.

           
‘What’s
up with you, squire?’ asked Danny. ‘You look wired, mate.’

           
‘I’m
knackered to tell you the truth. I might get us booked into a hotel and then
come back for a nightcap. There’s no need to kill ourselves partying. We’ve got
the rest of our lives to do that.’

           
Danny
smiled and did not argue. Chris’s absence would allow him to make the call that
he so needed to make. He watched Chris lift his glass of wine and drain the
contents in one fluid motion and then he watched him leave. Then Danny made the
call.

           
The
BBC
-voiced man answered, sounding more relaxed than at any point previously.
In fact, he sounded in an almost celebratory mood.

‘We
have a problem,’ said Danny. ‘I think Chris Parker wants to try to crack the
code on the printer for ourselves. He doesn’t know anything about you and he’ll
start to ask questions if I suddenly start talking about another party being
involved.’

‘Easy,’
said the voice on the other end of the line. ‘Just tell him that I am a
computer-hacker. Tell him that the barman told you about me. Tell him the story
of the Dodo, for that is how they know me in these parts.’

Danny
felt that creeping feeling at the back of his neck that he’d felt when he was
drunk outside the Adelphi in what seemed like another life. He felt like he was
being watched. What was it the man had said about
knowing
when they’d arrive in Rose Hill?

‘Mr.
Morris?’ prompted the man.

‘The
Dodo? That’s your name?’ asked Danny, starting to look around the bar at the
faces of the drinkers. Was one of them watching him and somehow reporting back
to this ‘Dodo’? Or was the Dodo here, in person? No: he couldn’t hear the tinny
music in the background on the other end of the line. Still, something felt
not quite right
.