The Far Side of the Sun (20 page)

‘Mrs Sanford, good day to you, ma’am.’

He gave her a broad Texan smile and ushered her to an upright chair in front of his desk. He was a man with kind eyes and a loud voice, who was prone to sneezing fits at all the wrong moments. Pinned to the walls around them was a colourful display of maps of the Atlantic and two large grey metal filing cabinets stood where the smoking armchairs used to be before the war.

‘Thank you for finding time in your busy schedule, Major.’

‘The pleasure is all mine, ma’am. Though I must say I didn’t expect to see you again quite so soon.’

Ella smiled prettily and crossed her legs, ignoring the oppressive heat in the room and the fact that a large rather pungent black retriever had just lain across her foot.

‘Hello, Ike,’ she said to the dog and its tail lurched into action. ‘I hope your boys enjoyed the party, Major.’

‘Indeed they did. A real shindig, and the Duke was there as well to put the frosting on the cake for them. Damn me if this isn’t a posting like no other.’ He settled into his chair and Ella saw his glance skim towards a tall pile of buff files on the desk.

‘I won’t keep you long, Major, I know how many demands you have on your time.’ She patted the dog’s head. ‘I have a favour to ask.’

Major Leigh uttered a deep belly laugh. ‘Holy smokes, Mrs Sanford, don’t you ever give up?’

Ella shook her head and her fair hair swung loose, allowing a welcome breath of air to ripple through it. ‘No, Major, I’m afraid I don’t. But don’t worry, I know you’ll really approve of this cause.’ She smiled at the photograph of his two young sons on his desk. ‘It’s for a school out in the bush. They badly need new equipment. Seats and writing pens.’

‘Black kids?’

‘That’s right. They really need your squadron’s help, Major.’

‘Mrs Sanford, you sure are a powerful persuader with those beautiful blue eyes of yours.’ He laughed once more, happy to have a pretty woman in his office, and opened a drawer.

‘How much this time?’

‘Thank you, Mrs Sanford.’

The chorus of young voices made Ella smile, as the row of pupils lined up outside the schoolhouse with huge grins on their faces to wave her goodbye.

‘They are all eager to write to Major Leigh to thank him for his kindness,’ the schoolteacher said as she walked Ella to her car. ‘We can buy paper and pens for each one of them now, as well as books and benches.’ She regarded the bright expressions of her flock proudly. ‘They are hungry to learn.’

‘It is the way forward,’ Ella said. ‘It’s people like you who are the future of the Bahamas.’ She waved again to the children. ‘Thank you for my picture.’

The twelve pupils had made a drawing of their schoolhouse under the spreading branches of a cottonwood tree and included themselves waving with toothy moon-shaped grins for Ella. She laid it carefully on the back seat of the car and climbed in beside Dan Calder.

‘It’s hot,’ she sighed, even though the car had been parked in the shade. She fanned herself with her hat as he drove back through the rough bushland, without being conscious of the fact that she was still smiling broadly at the images in her head of the children. When Dan Calder spoke, she wasn’t prepared for it.

‘Tell me, Mrs Sanford, all this handing out of eggs to villagers and cheques to schoolteachers and arranging entertainment for the airmen before they enter battle, does it make you feel good about yourself at the end of the day when you get home? Or is it just a job?’

Ella was stung by the question. She stared out at the spiky vegetation instead of the man in the seat next to her and retorted, ‘Tell me, Detective Calder, at the end of another day of protecting the life of Mrs Sanford or saving Nassau from breaking out into lawlessness, does it make you feel good about yourself or is it just a job?’

His head turned sharply to look at her and he braked hard, bringing the car to a sudden halt in a cloud of beige dust that swirled in through the open windows.

‘I apologise, Mrs Sanford. It was a thoughtless thing to say.’

‘Yes, it was.’ She brushed dust from her hair. ‘But your apology is accepted.’

She expected him to start the car again, but he let it sit there, throbbing in the heat, the sun drumming on the roof.

‘I asked only because I wanted to know you better. To understand what drives you to work so hard for others. I didn’t mean to be rude.’

He wasn’t looking at her any more. His eyes remained focused on the dirt road ahead and the patch of shade where a goat was tethered. Ella wanted to thank him. To say no one else had ever asked her that question, not even Reggie, and that she was deeply touched that he cared enough to think of doing so. But the solid sun-baked earth seemed to be shifting under the car and she had a strange sense of being unsafe. Not unsafe because of Dan Calder. But unsafe because of herself.

So instead she said lightly, ‘Don’t worry about it. Let’s go into town. I have a present to buy.’

The shop was not exactly what Ella expected. It was in a street that Detective Calder suggested.

‘It’s our twentieth wedding anniversary next week,’ she’d told him as they drove into town. ‘My husband wants me to buy myself something. Something gold.’

He didn’t comment on the twenty years or on the generosity of the gift, but only asked with a wry smile, ‘Why doesn’t he choose it himself?’

Ella had no answer to that. So she said briskly, ‘He’s a busy man.’

Instead of heading for the stylish but expensive jewellery shops on Bay Street where she would usually go looking, he took her to one she’d never heard of in a street she didn’t know. At first sight it didn’t look as promising as she’d hoped. The street was slightly run-down, not somewhere you’d come to choose a special anniversary present, but when he pointed out the jewellery shop to her, even from the outside she could see that the interior was lit up like a Christmas tree.

‘How exciting,’ she laughed and gave Calder a teasing look. ‘Is this were you always come to buy jewellery?’

But he was slow to join in her laughter. ‘No, but I have been inside a number of times when trying to trace stolen goods and I was impressed. I found the owners helpful as well. I’m sure you will too.’ His tone was scrupulously polite. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’

For a moment she’d hoped he might come in with her, but knew that was foolish. She left the car and entered the shop alone. It was small inside but felt larger because of all the mirrors and the array of bright light reflected in them. The heat hit her, as did the smell of coffee, and she noticed an exquisite Royal Crown Derby cup sitting on one corner of a counter with steam rising from it.

‘May I help you, madam?’

At first glance Ella thought it was a man, the ginger hair was so short and the voice so deep, but she realised her mistake when she saw the nail varnish and the pearls. The woman bobbed up from a low seat behind the counter, abandoning a copy of
Moby Dick
beside her coffee.

‘I hope so,’ Ella said. ‘I’m looking for something special, an anniversary gift from my husband. I was thinking of maybe a gold ring.’

The woman smiled. ‘Certainly, madam. We have a good selection.’ Within seconds she had spread out on the counter a variety of high-quality gold rings and was watching her customer try them on. ‘That’s a beautiful emerald you are wearing, may I say,’ she commented silkily.

Ella glanced down at the engagement ring on her finger, a large square emerald set in a cradle of diamonds, a showy ring that Reggie had a goldsmith design especially for her. She hadn’t chosen that one herself.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

The woman was scrutinising Ella carefully, taking her time and unconsciously rippling her fingers, so that her numerous rings brushed against each other, singing a soft metallic chorus that she clearly enjoyed.

‘I think,’ she said with no preamble, ‘that I have exactly what you want.’

She disappeared, and Ella thought of Detective Calder outside in the car, waiting for her. It unsettled her, though she wasn’t sure why, and she pushed the rings away impatiently. He was right about the shop and he was right about Reggie. Why on earth shouldn’t her husband choose her anniversary gift himself? Just because he hated setting foot inside a shop of any sort, it was no excuse. She had grown too accustomed to doing his shopping for him.

With a little huff of annoyance she turned to leave, just when the woman reappeared with an object on a black velvet cushion. It was a bracelet.

‘Here we are, madam. This is perfect for you.’

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘It’s eighteen-carat rose gold, a gate bracelet design from the end of the last century.’ She smiled at it, almost purring. ‘It’s Russian.’

At its centre gleamed a vibrant sapphire and two diamonds. Ella knew instantly that it was the right choice. Reggie would love it on her.

‘I’ll take it.’

‘Don’t you want to try it on?’

‘No need.’

‘I’ll wrap it for you then.’

‘Thank you.’

You see Reggie. It’s not hard.

The woman vanished behind a bead curtain at the back of the shop. There was a murmur of voices, then a black man emerged and smiled warmly.

‘Good day to you, madam.’

‘Good day. You have a lovely shop here.’

‘Thank you. We like it.’

He ambled over, holding something on the palm of his hand and as he came closer Ella saw that it was a coin.

‘May I see that?’

He closed his hand immediately, unwilling to give it up. ‘It’s just a coin.’

‘May I see? It looks similar to one that I have.’

Reluctantly his fingers unfolded and he handed it over. ‘It’s gold,’ he told her. ‘French.’

‘What is it called?’

‘A Napoleon.’

‘Is it for sale?’

He started to shake his head, but the ginger-haired woman breezed through the bead curtain and said, ‘Of course it’s for sale.’

‘I’ll take it.’ Ella closed her hand over it before the man could snatch it back.

‘Happy?’

Ella slid back into her seat in the car, surprised by the question.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you find what you wanted?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘Thank you for bringing me to this shop.’

‘It’s my pleasure.’

Something in the way he said it made her turn to look at him. He was smiling at her, a smile with real warmth, not his polite bodyguard one.

‘Why is it your pleasure?’ she asked.

‘I was rude earlier and I regret it because I hurt you. I would never mean to do that. So I’m glad to make up for my mistake by finding this shop for you now.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Happy?’

‘Yes.’

Ten o’clock. Darkness had swallowed the city as Dodie walked out of the Arcadia. Her shift wasn’t due to finish until eleven, but business was still sluggish and Olive Quinn had sent her off early. She inhaled the night air, full of rich and exotic scents, and decided she needed a detour to the ocean.

She felt tired. Harold Christie had set up too many vibrations in her head. But she walked quickly through the deserted streets, keeping to the well-lit thoroughfares, her footsteps echoing, and headed in the direction of the beach. She ached to see the ocean, to hear its voice, to feel its cool breeze on her skin, and when she finally stepped on to the sand, the noises in her head at last ceased.

She gazed out over the ocean that lay like a shining sheet of steel in front of her. The moon hung bloated and over-bright in the black sky, its tissue-thin light spilling on to the surface of the waves. Dodie could feel its pale fingers reaching inside her, drawing her forwards the way it drew the tides.

Dodie kicked off her shoes, tucked up her dress and waded out into the water. Even at this hour it was warm and exhilarating. The inky waves billowed around her, buffing her edges as smooth as the sand. Somewhere close she could hear the call of a nightjar and the stirrings of a sultry breeze in the trees, and gradually the tensions of the day started to fade in her mind, so that when she finally emerged from the ocean she could feel her thoughts clean and refreshed. She had a clearer sense of what needed to be done. She knew that there were questions she had to ask, and the first person she needed to question was Flynn.

Would he arrive with breakfast tomorrow? She wanted to believe it. With shirt sleeves rolled up, his long legs striding up the dusty street, a string bag full of crab meat and bananas swinging at his side and a look in his eyes that told her he didn’t intend to miss her this time. Dodie smiled as she walked back up the beach in the moonlight and it was only when she reached the spot where she had left her shoes that she experienced the first trickle of unease. Her black shoes were gone.

Her eyes scanned the dark dips and hollows of the beach. No sign of them. Her unease shifted to alarm. Twenty feet away rose the black line of palm trees and in front of them stood two male figures, indistinct in the darkness. But one held his arm stretched out towards her, something dangling from his hand before he let it fall to become a black stain on the sand. She had no doubt what it was. Her shoes.