The Far Side of the Sun (17 page)

‘Who was it?’ she asked.

‘My boss. At the sewing factory where I worked.’ It brought relief to let the words see daylight. ‘Afterwards he spread it around that I was trouble and made it impossible for me to get a job anywhere. I almost starved.’

‘And now?’

‘I work at the Arcadia.’

‘That’s Olive Quinn’s place.’

‘Yes. She took me on when no one else would touch me.’

‘Typical Olive. Always running against the tide.’

‘I am grateful to her.’

Mrs Sanford was standing near a bed of pure white roses. Their delicacy and freshness was such a sharp contrast to the vigorous growth and vivid tropical colours of the rest of the garden that Dodie wondered whether they belonged to Mr Sanford, rather than to his wife. But Mrs Sanford wasn’t looking at the roses, she was staring back at the house, her gaze narrowed on the kitchen window.

‘It was shocking,’ she told Dodie, ‘to see a man reduce a woman to nothing in my own garden. To strip her of respect the way Detective Calder did to you. He was just doing his job, protecting me, I know that. But it was so ugly.’

Dodie was not willing to talk about the ugliness. It felt like dirt in her mouth. ‘Do you need protecting?’

Mrs Sanford smiled. ‘Do I look as if I do?’

‘No.’

Mrs Sanford looked once more at the kitchen window behind which they both knew the detective sat and she asked abruptly, ‘Why are you here, Miss Wyatt?’

‘To ask if the person who introduced Morrell to you was Sir Harry Oakes.’

The woman’s eyes popped wide, her mouth open. ‘No. Of course not. Why would you think that?’

‘Because he offered me a job.’

‘I don’t see the connection.’

‘Neither did I at first.’

‘No, you’re mistaken. No, no, it wasn’t Sir Harry.’

Too many no’s, Mrs Sanford. But Dodie liked her, despite her lies. Liked the way she looked at you as if she was really listening. Not many people did that to her.

‘Coming in for breakfast, darling?’

Both women jumped. The unexpected request had issued from a man standing beside the rose bed. A solid and confident figure in a beautifully tailored pale suit, his hair combed to perfection with just a touch of macassar oil to keep it in place, and a way of looking at Mrs Sanford that lit up his smooth face. Dodie had never seen that in a man before.

‘Ah, Reggie, I’m just coming. Let me introduce Miss Wyatt.’ She turned to Dodie. ‘This is my husband.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Wyatt. Are you joining us for breakfast?’

‘No thank you, I have to go to work.’

She saw him glance at her waitress uniform but he smiled kindly and pointed to the chicken enclosure. ‘At least take some of those blasted eggs with you.’

‘What do you do with all the eggs?’ Dodie asked.

‘She gives them away,’ her husband answered. ‘She goes to all this trouble and then gives all the wretched things away free.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ He smiled indulgently at his wife. ‘Really.’

Mrs Sanford returned the smile, but a flash of colour had appeared high on her cheeks.

‘I’m starving,’ her husband announced cheerfully. ‘Breakfast time. Delighted to meet you, Miss Wyatt.’ He beamed at her before taking himself off towards the house.

Neither woman spoke. Mrs Sanford watched her husband’s straight back recede across the lawn, growing smaller with each step. An arrow of sunlight squeezed its way through the canopy of the trees and set the kitchen window on fire.

‘You’re right, Dodie,’ she said after a full minute. ‘It was Sir Harry Oakes who introduced me to Morrell.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So what next?’

‘I have to find out who killed Mr Morrell and burnt down my house. Before they come for me again.’

Ella sat stiffly in the passenger seat of the car. She was awkward around the policeman now. In the back of the Rover, as noisy as a cricket, Emerald was flirting with Detective Dan Calder. He was busy driving but that didn’t stop her. She’d perched her broad backside on the edge of the seat, so that she could lean forward and swat his shoulder whenever he made a comment that amused her, and right now all his comments amused her.

Something was the matter. Something was hurting. But Ella didn’t know exactly what. Except that everything this morning made her feel as though the top layer of her skin was being scraped off by a blunt knife. Ever since she had spoken with the girl. Ella sat with an arm trailing out of the car window as if trying in her own discreet way to escape. She didn’t talk much. It didn’t matter because the other two were doing enough of it for all of them, and anyway it was too hot today.

The air hung limp and humid in the car, the sun dazzling on the windscreen and her blouse sticking to the back of the seat, so that it took an effort to move. They left behind the lavish pastel mansions that drowsed behind vivid green swathes of palm trees and pines, and the car slipped over the modest hill that divided white Nassau from black Nassau. Here in Bain Town the houses were really nothing more than small huts cobbled together from wood or corrugated metal, but they burst on to the eye bright and colourful. They were painted brilliant yellows and greens and blues, gaudy colours that seemed to dance in the street.

Dark-skinned ragamuffins were playing a game of hopscotch in the middle of the road, but as soon as they spotted Ella’s sleek car purr around the corner, they all swarmed around it and jumped up on its running boards for a ride. Watermelon grins split their young faces and small arms reached in to touch the golden waves of her hair.

‘You had better stay in the car,’ Ella told Calder, ‘if you don’t mind.’

‘You think I’ll scare them off?’

She gave him a half-smile. ‘Police don’t go down too well round here. I know you’re not in uniform but…⁠’

‘They’d gobble you up for dinner, Mr Detective,’ Emerald chuckled in the back, ‘and very tasty you’d be too.’

‘Why, thank you, Emerald.’

Ella climbed out of the car and opened the boot. Bright little faces followed her every move as she removed a bag of sweets and handed them around.

‘You spoil them kids somethin’ rotten, Miss Ella,’ Emerald muttered as she hoisted a sack of rice out of the boot.

Women came ambling over from the houses, greeting her with smiles.

‘How you doin’ today, Miss Ella?’

‘The dear Lord takin’ good care of you?’

She doled out eggs and rice into their bowls and all regarded Calder with undisguised interest, bobbing their heads to inspect him through the car windows.

‘You caught yourself a fine fellow there, Miss Ella. Been in a fight, by the look of him.’

‘Ladies!’ Ella laughed.

Bahamian women wore loud colours and possessed loud voices with big rolling laughs that could knock the birds from the trees. They worked hard, growing vegetables to sell in town and weaving their Bahamian bags, hats and dolls of straw to take to the straw market down by the harbour. But times were hard. The war had put an end to foreign visitors who were the easy-money customers, but the city was busy with the military presence on the island, so many women had abandoned the traditional crafts and taken to employment in the hotels and bars instead.

‘Leah, have you got a minute?’ Ella called out to a woman in a scarlet dress.

‘Sure, Miss Ella.’

She ambled over to where Ella was standing by the car. That was the thing about Bahamian women, they never liked to be hurried.

‘How’s that son of yours?’ Ella asked pleasantly.

‘My Joshua? He’s just fine.’

‘Still working for Sir Harry?’

‘Oh yes, he surely is, thanks be to our dear Lord in heaven.’

‘At the British Colonial Hotel?’

‘Sometimes there or sometimes out on the land beyond Oakes Airfield, drivin’ one of Sir Harry’s tractors. He likes that.’

Leah had ten children and a backside broad enough to carry the lot of them. Her husband was a quiet respectful man but one who unfortunately liked his ganja weed too much.

‘Is Joshua still aiming to join the Bahamian police force one of these days?’ Ella asked.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Calder turn in his seat to stare at the woman.

‘Sure is,’ Leah answered. ‘Got his heart set on it.’

‘My friend here might be able to help with that.’

Leah ducked her head to the open window and took a long look at Calder. ‘You a cop from England?’

Obligingly he stepped out of the car and stood tall next to her. ‘I am.’

Leah eyed his muscular frame and ran a fat pink tongue over her lips. ‘Okay, what you wantin’, Miss Ella?’

Ella chose her words carefully. ‘I was just wondering whether Joshua sometimes heard things at work, picked up gossip. That kind of thing.’

Leah’s eyes grew huge. ‘Gossip about what?’

‘About Sir Harry Oakes.’

Leah shuffled her feet. ‘Well, yes,’ she lowered her voice, ‘sometimes he does.’ She hesitated and let her eyes roam back to Calder, as though checking whether he was part of the deal. ‘Joshua says Sir Harry has had a lot of trouble lately.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Rows and arguments.’ Leah leaned forward, her bosom swaying dangerously. ‘In the hotel. Behind closed doors.’ She frowned. ‘My Joshua takes coffee into Sir H’s office of a mornin’ and he’s heard him a heap of times yelling down the phoneline. Real bad, he says.’

‘Sir Harry can get irate sometimes, I know,’ Ella encouraged. ‘Did Joshua hear what any of the rows were about or who was on the receiving end?’

Leah pointed a finger at Calder, almost stabbed him in the chest with it. ‘You remember this, Mr Policeman, when my boy comes calling. Just needs a helping hand. His name is Joshua Tuttle. He’s a smart kid.’

Calder nodded solemnly. ‘If your son is a good candidate, I will do whatever I can to help his application, I promise.’

‘You won’t get my Joshua into no trouble, will you, Miss Ella?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Them quarrels were about a contract. And the other man was a Mr Christie.’

‘Harold Christie? The land agent? But he and Sir Harry are good friends. They play golf together.’

‘Not no more, by the sound of it.’

‘Did he ever mention someone called Morrell?’

‘Not that I heard.’

‘Thanks for your help, Leah, I appreciate it.’

‘I’m trustin’ you, Miss Ella.’

Leah hitched her bowl of rice on her hip and, aiming a nod at Calder, she set off walking back down the street, shimmering in the sun. But after twenty paces she turned and her voice rang out clear as a church bell.

‘Hey, Miss Ella. You know about the room he keeps there for his own personal use, if you get my meaning?’ She jiggled her bosom suggestively, then she meandered away, chuckling to herself.

Ella looked at Dan Calder warily and to her astonishment found that he was laughing. She gave him a wry smile.

‘So, Mrs Sanford, what the hell was all that about?’

The two of them were in her car and it was stifling hot. Flies, drunk on heat, staggered in and out of the open windows and the metal of the car was now too hot to touch. Ella leaned her head back and felt sweat trickle down her neck, pooling in the hollow between her collarbones.

They were waiting for Emerald. As usual when she’d finished her egg work in Bain Town, Emerald waddled off to visit an ancient bedridden aunt who was tucked away somewhere in one of the narrower streets. The maid had been as pleased as punch when Reggie announced that he’d found some kind of work for her aunt’s niece-by-marriage. She’d baked him a steaming hot jam roly-poly and Ella had looked on with amusement as he scoffed the lot with relish.

‘Mrs Sanford?’ Dan Calder’s voice prodded her out of her stupor.

‘Mmm?’

‘Do you actually believe you are in any danger?’

It was too hot to move her head. ‘No.’

She heard the rhythm of his breathing change.

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Do
you
think I’m in danger?’

‘I’m here to protect you. So no, I think you are safe.’

‘Like you protected me in my garden this morning, you mean?’

She heard a click, the sound of his teeth snapping together. She rolled her head to look at him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean that to sound rude. You did what you had to.’

A muscle below his ear moved back and forth under his skin. ‘I hope,’ he said, ‘that you sorted out the problem that is Miss Wyatt.’

‘You think she is a problem?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that you are taking care of me so well that I have no problems.’

With a flick of his head, he looked across at her. But when he saw she was teasing him, his grey eyes relaxed.

‘Do you carry a gun?’ she asked.

‘Ah, that’s top-secret information, I’m afraid. If I told you that, I might have to kill you.’

Ella burst out laughing, just as Emerald came trundling down the street towards them.

The moment Ella reached home, she stripped off her clothes, took a shower and towelled herself dry.