Ascension Day

by John Matthews

  Jac had heard quite a few arguments coming from next door over the past couple of months. He could hear them clearly when they were in the lounge or kitchen directly adjacent, the bedrooms less so, and the bathroom at the far end not at all.

  He listened out for a moment more, but all that reached him was the low drone of traffic, like a muffled swarm of bees, passing on Highway 90 a few blocks away. These were the main disadvantages of his apartment block. At the low-cost end of housing in the Warehouse District, the minimal partition walls meant that you could hear your neighbours when their voices raised, as well as the traffic on the nearby main arteries heading out of the city.

  Jac brought his attention back to the files, opening the police report with due veneration and turning over the photos that earlier he’d flipped firmly face-down. He hadn’t wanted to look at them initially, in case they influenced his judgement of Larry Durrant before he started. He wanted to get a feel for the man first, then the crime. Get the sequence right.

  One gun-shot to the stomach from eight to ten feet, according to ballistics, then the final shot to the head from close range, only a few inches. The photos of Jessica Roche’s splayed body were painfully raw and would have had a strong impact on even the most hardened juror: one of her legs was crooked behind her at an impossible angle, her blood on the black-and-whites merging with where she’d soiled her dress, and one side of her face collapsed where her skull had shattered, stark horror in contrast to the beauty of her unblemished side.

  Jac rubbed his forehead and reached for his coffee cup, before realizing that it was already empty. He could imagine the first shot being fired by somebody already on edge, suddenly disturbed. But that final shot seemed out of character for someone who’d never killed before, and that thought preyed on Jac’s mind as he went through the rest of the police report.

  He tried to piece together the sequence of events in his mind from Durrant’s confession and the evidence presented at trial.

  But still something didn’t quite fit, and the same sequence kept replaying in his thoughts long after he’d given up trying to make conscious sense of it, along with the rest of the police report, and had gone to bed.

  In the final re-runs, Jac was playing the role of Durrant, standing over Jessica Roche’s sprawled body with the still-smoking gun, begging for clues as to why he’d killed her. ‘Please tell me… if you know? Any small sign. Anything!’

  But then suddenly the body beneath him became the girl from next door, her long auburn hair cascading either side of her naked body, and she was reaching up for him. ‘Make love to me… Fuck me!’

  Jac could feel the heat and sweat of her skin, her hazel eyes piercing straight through him before slowly closing in abandon. ‘Oh lover, fuck me. Fuck me!’

  And her gasps of pleasure seemed so real, Jac so wrapped up in it that he didn’t hear Durrant’s footsteps from behind, the shot slamming into the body beneath him changing it abruptly back to Jessica Roche – her blood sticky against his skin, replacing the sweat and passion – and Jac struggled to get away from her clutch as the head-shot came…

  Jac awoke with a jolt – suddenly realizing that it was his neighbour’s door slamming again, raised voices following straight after like a tidal wave.

  ‘No, no… please, Gerry, please!’

  ‘I ask you one small favour. Just one. But with you… no. No movement. No negotiation.’

  ‘Please, Gerry, I’m begging you. Don’t be like this.’

  ‘That’s your problem. You never listen to me. Most other people, I tell ‘em once – that’s it. But you…’

  ‘No, Gerry, please… I’m begging you. If I’m bruised, I won’t be able to work for a few days.’

  ‘Maybe that’s what I want. In fact, that would probably suit me just fine.’

  ‘No, Gerry…. No!’ Desperate now, almost a scream. ‘You’ll wake Molly.’

  Snorting derision. ‘You make me sick. You use that girl like a shield. And your beauty. And your precious fucking work and your college course. And all I feel like doin’ is putting a fist right through it, smashing it all …’

  ‘No, Gerry, no!

  Jac heard a thud, together with a shriek from her, and was convinced she’d been hit.

  He was now bolt upright in bed, his breathing rapid and fractured with the drama unfolding next door, wondering whether he should go and help her.

  The sharp pistol-shot came a second later, and with the long silence following, Jac remained uncertain – his pulse galloping almost in time with his breathing – whether this time it had been a gunshot.

  But after a moment he was relieved to hear from next door the sound of her gently weeping.

  This was the heart of Libreville. Heart of darkness.

  Its six oil boilers pumped and spewed hot vented air to the cells, corridors and general open areas, and hot water to the showers, kitchens and laundry area, which was adjacent.

  Some air-conditioning units had been linked up to the venting eight years ago, but they were insufficient to cool the vast prison, and the temperature rarely dropped more than 5 degrees below the outside temperature, which hovered in the 90ºs for much of the summer.

  The heat and stench of the prison rose insufferably during those months – but in the boiler room and laundry it was insufferable at all times of year. A permanent hell.

  It was meant to be lit twenty-four hours by rows of emergency lights – but over half of them were out, either blown naturally and not yet replaced, or broken by inmates who’d wanted to make sure that a particular section remained dark so as to mask one activity or another: a sexual liaison, a drugs handover, a beating. A murder.

  Despite the heat, Larry felt a cool tingle run down his spine. He couldn’t see anybody at first, only hear muffled voices and make out some indistinct, jostling shadows from the far corner. A couple of the shadows became heavier, longer, as they fell under the starker light from one of the emergency lights still in place there.

  The shadows his end, hopefully, were equally as heavy, but he had to ease himself down cautiously from the ventilation shaft ledge to the floor. The slightest sound, and the mumbling voices would suddenly halt and someone would break free from the shadows to head his way.

  As his feet touched the ground, the voices were slightly louder; he was able to risk a few brisk steps to behind the nearest pillar. Then froze again, swallowing back against his rapid heartbeat so that he could listen: was Roddy’s voice there, or was he already too late?

  ‘Always such a wise mouth, huh? Always the clown. D’yer think this is a funny place, then? Barrel o’ laughs a day?’ Tally’s voice, rising from the earlier muted tones, gave the answer.

  ‘Not particularly. But I reckon – why not try an’ brighten the days some. I mean, if I can…’

  The rest from Roddy was lost as one of the boilers fired up. Someone had turned on a hot tap or a thermostat had dropped somewhere in Libreville’s labyrinths.

  Whatever had been said, Tally didn’t appear to like it. The sudden burst of air from Roddy as he was hit in the stomach almost mirrored the hurrrumph from the boiler.

  ‘B’fore I slit your throat, I’m gonna beat you like y’never….known… before.’

  Tally timed his blows to emphasise his last few words, and Larry used the sound-cover to shuffle quickly forward to the next pillar.

  ‘I wantya t’feel this first. Each blow like the rotten, fuckin’ jokes yer told… day in… day out…’

  The sound of the blows landing, accompanying Roddy’s guttural groans, was sickening, and his coughing and retching straight after sounded as if it already carried blood.

  Larry clenched his jaw as he risked a glimpse past the pillar. There were three of them with Tally: Dennis Marmont, one of the guards in head-guard Glenn Bateson’s pocket – he should have guessed Bateson wouldn’t risk being present personally – and Jay-T and Silass, two of Tally’s main muscle men.

  Jay-T worried Larry the most. The only true broth
er of the group – Tally was a Creole-African mix – at six-five, a full four inches over Larry, he was surprisingly fast for his size, and had good technique for someone who’d never been formally trained.

  ‘What’s that? I thought I saw something.’

  Larry ducked quickly back into the shadows behind the pillar as Marmont’s torch flicked on and shone his way.

  A frozen few seconds with only the sound of the group’s suppressed breathing before Tally said, ‘Only a rat … or maybe you jus’ seein’ things among the shadows.’

  ‘Fucking big rat, when I can see its shadow halfway up a pillar,’ Marmont retorted, and Larry heard his footsteps start towards him.

  But after a moment the steps became uncertain, then stopped completely.

  ‘You check it out’ – Larry saw the beam of the torch swing back and then towards him again – ‘I’m only meant t’be here as a witness. To ensure fair play.’ Faint chuckle from Marmont, but along with his faltering step, it betrayed his nervousness.

  Another set of footsteps started forward. Larry stayed deathly still, struggling to make out whose they were beyond his pounding heart. He looked at the advancing shadow in Marmont’s torchlight beam – but exaggerated and elongated, it told him little.

  Marmont also started moving forward again, no doubt feeling braver now that someone else was a few steps ahead of him.

  Larry held his breath, his whole body rigid as the footsteps approached.

  He’d have to make his first punch count and jump Marmont almost in one – otherwise Marmont would have a clear shot with his night-stick or gun, and it would all be over. But if it was Jay-T or Tally, he’d be hard pushed to do much with just one punch. His breath fell fast and shallow, his flank pressed firm against the pillar shielding him as the footsteps moved closer.

  And as the torch-beam came to within a few feet, bathing the area just to his side in light, suddenly he was a fresh-faced twenty-two year old contender again, facing his first big fight in Atlanta’s Omni arena – the clapping and stomping of the crowd almost in time with his thudding heartbeat.

  His mouth was dry, his skin bathed in sweat – as it had been then – as the adrenalin rush fired up every nerve-end and muscle.

  But as the approaching footsteps and the torch-beam’s angle passed the point of no return, and Larry lunged fully into its light with his first punch, he wasn’t sure if it was the roar of approval of his first fights, or the groans and shouts of derision of his last – when only four years later he lay on the canvass for the last time.

  Glory or demise? Like so much else in his life, the line between them had been slight, almost impossible to discern.

  Jac was running late.

  He was fifteen minutes later than planned getting into the office because he’d dozed off again for a while after his alarm sounded; he’d slept fitfully after being awoken in the middle of the night by the slamming doors and voices from next door, which, in turn, meant that he didn’t have time to get Penny Vance to type up Langfranc’s dictation notes on Libreville – he’d simply grabbed a hand-held cassette before rushing out again, and planned to listen to it on the journey.

  He caught his train connection with only a minute to spare and it left on time – but then it was held up for twenty-five minutes while the Santa Fe railroad shunted a never-ending stream of freight trucks past them on a dual-track junction.

  So now Jac found himself rushing to make up time, pushing his rented Ford Taurus for the most part past sixty on the country roads that made up the last forty-five miles between Baton Rouge and Libreville. Jac anxiously checked his watch as the flatlands and swamps of the Mississippi Delta flashed by.

  ‘Haveling runs a tight ship at Libreville. Everything by the book and strict routine. And God help anyone who upsets that routine.’ Faint chuckle from Langfranc on tape. ‘So while you and timekeeping might often not be the best of buddies – try and be on time for all your meetings with him and Durrant. Get everything off on the right foot.’

  Jac edged his foot down. If he pushed it, he might be no more than five minutes late. He’d started playing Langfranc’s dicta-tape on the train – until a man across the aisle started paying him and the tape too much attention. He’d saved the rest for the car journey.

  ‘But the upside of that is that Haveling will deliver everything you need – reports and recommendations on Durrant – strictly on time. No delays or hassle. And talking of God, Warden Haveling’s even more devout than our dear Governor Candaret. Stories abound of him taking a bible with him into the execution chamber, and, if the condemned is stuck for an apt last passage to be read by the prison Pastor, Haveling will recommend a few. He even offers to hold the condemned’s hand in the final moments – if they should so require.’ Langfranc paused markedly. ‘Which I suppose raises more awkward questions about Haveling’s character and state of mind than it should – but at least it supports that pushing Durrant’s religious bent as hard as you can is without doubt the main ticket. And in Haveling’s defence, he’s a lot better than his predecessors. Claims of turning a blind eye to, or even supporting, institutionalized violence hung over most of them. Haveling’s immediate predecessor was as straight as they come, but lacked the backbone to push through what he wanted. High levels of violence still continued. A year ago there was a New Orleans magazine piece on Haveling picturing him with a bible in one hand and night-stick in the other, which just about summed him up. “Iron fist, with – he believes – God’s backing and approval”.

  ‘There are still incidents of violence, but probably no more than most maximum-security penitentiaries. Certainly, things now are a far cry from the dark days of the seventies and eighties when there were regular pitched battles with Cleaver-style radicals and assorted psychos going at each other with machetes sneaked in from the fields. Inmates then regularly slept with steel breastplates to protect them from getting hacked to death in the night.

  ‘Libreville was in fact originally a slave plantation dating back to the 1830s, and its name came from the West African port where most of the slaves were shipped from, with the change from plantation to penitentiary coming in the early 1900s when…

  Jac’s cell-phone rang. He looked at the display: his mother or younger sister. He stopped the tape and answered.

  His mother, Catherine, quickly launched into a subject she’d broached at the weekend past when he’d visited.

  ‘Have you given it much thought yet?’ she pressed.

  ‘A bit,’ he lied. Even without the Durrant case, he wouldn’t have given it much consideration. Arranged date; he thought that sort of thing had died out a century ago. ‘But I haven’t decided yet.’

  ‘Well, let me know when you have. She came by the other day with her father to Aunt Camille’s place, and she seems a very nice girl. And attractive, too.’

  Jac sighed. ‘Come on, mum. This is more about pleasing Camille than you or, more importantly, me. One more step in her social-climbing ladder.’

  ‘That’s true. She’s from a very good family, and no doubt that’s what Camille saw first. But now having met the girl, it would be easy for you to forget that this is all about Camille. You could get on very well.’ Catherine sighed. ‘And it has been a while now since Madeleine.’

  Madeleine. Madeleine. Thirty-seven months, to be precise, just before they’d left France. Perhaps his mum was right: If she was nice and they got on, what harm could it do? But most of all, he could hear the uncertainty, almost desperation, in his mother’s voice. The need to do this to please Camille. And that part of him made him want to rebel, say no.

  His mother and sister stayed in one of Camille’s houses in Hammond at only half rent, and Camille also paid half of Jean-Marie’s college fees. He paid the other half; his was the only family work-visa so far granted, and it was all he could afford while doing criminal law bar exams. Meanwhile his mum and sister lived partly in his aunt’s pocket, part of the legacy left by his father’s early death and disastrous state o
f affairs at the time – which his aunt took every opportunity to remind them of: ‘What a mess Adam left. All of his wild dreaming. So lucky I was there to help all of you.’

  Jac’s aunt was the exact opposite of his father. Maybe that’s why he rebelled and railed so against any of her suggestions: in part, it kept alive his father’s spirit.

  ‘Okay, I’ll think seriously about it. But if I agree to it, I’m doing it for you or because I feel it’s right – not for Camille.’

  ‘That’s very noble. But you need to please yourself first and second on this, Jac – not anybody else.’

  ‘I know.’ With a promise that he’d let her know that weekend when he came over, he rang off.

  After the argument through the wall the night before, the only girl he’d given any thought to had been his next door neighbour, starting to wonder what she might look like. He’d purposely listened out for her movements as he got ready that morning: she was still moving around inside when he left, but if he timed it right one morning, hopefully he’d get to see her on the corridor.

  He shook his head, smiling. Obsessing over a girl just from a few sound-bites through a wall. His mother was right: he had been too long without a date.

  Jac switched on Langfranc’s tape again, and, as he approached Libreville, the details started to mirror what he saw through his car window.

  ‘Spread over 17,000 acres in total, with the closest towns Libreville, four miles away – which sprung up shortly after the plantation was founded – and St Tereseville, seventeen miles away. The term “plantation” hung on until the mid-sixties, when it was dropped because it smacked too much of the early slave days, and was replaced with ‘ranch’ – possibly due to its sheer size, the fact that they rear their own cattle as well as farm, and have an annual rodeo. The term could easily evoke a laid-back High Chaparral-style atmosphere – but don’t be fooled. This is hard-graft, rock-breaking Cool-Hand Luke territory all the way.’