by Paula Lennon
The nice car was parked deep in the bushes, covered with dried banana leaves. It was meant to be his home, of that there was no doubt, because he had prayed to God every day to help him and now God was looking after him. Edible food and a solid roof over his head. Life in Montego Bay was not so bad at the moment.
CHAPTER 14
Wednesday, 29 July, 3:05 p.m.
Lester adjusted his hard hat as he stood watching the four workmen laying foundations for the playground on spare acres of Chinchillerz property. He did not need a hard hat, but the men were wearing them and he wanted to show that he was a labourer too. The playground was his idea, partly because he wanted to capture the primary and high school market by supplying their canteens with cold food products. He also loved the energy and vibrancy of little people.
He remembered his own high school days well and knew that the kids must be tired of eating patties with cocobread and bun with cheese every day. Lester was sure that a good percentage, particularly the weight-watching females and the sporty males, would be glad for a healthy meal replacement drink and some iced desserts. He and Carter had sat with the product development team and agreed to start with three protein-infused smoothies: mango and carrot, wheat germ and pomegranate with honey, and the ever popular lemongrass and ginger. The next trial would be bissy, as there just had to be something delicious and healthy to made from the much-heralded kola nut.
Carter had insisted there was no point in trying to stock schools with a full range of Chinchillerz products because many parents did not have spare money for extras. Lunch money and bus fares were the extent of parents’ largesse, he had declared, and although Lester eventually conceded that his younger brother was right, he was not keen on the condescending tone Carter chose to adopt when it suited him. As if he, Lester, did not understand that parents could be short of money.
They had argued over this perceived slight said in front of the marketing executives, but laughed it off over a few drinks that same afternoon just as they did with any disputes that arose between them.
“Is two swing going to go hereso?” asked a workman.
His colleague looked at the area to which he was pointing. “No, man. A six suppose to go dereso, and two slide next to dem.”
Lester sauntered over to the men. “Yes, six swings right here. I want a lot of space in between them, though. You know how kids are, they’re going to be standing too close to the swinger no matter what signs you put up.”
“Yes, boss. Me understand,” the workman nodded.
“And remember, we’re going to use the truck tyres round the storage area. When they have been cleaned up, they’ll make good seats.”
“Dat will work well,” another workman agreed. “Bwoy, is a nice big area de kids dem going get to play inna.”
“Yes, man,” said Lester proudly. “They’ll get a seesaw and a roundabout as well. I want them to have a big climbing frame too and lay soft tarmac underneath so they can’t hurt themselves.”
“Dat suppose to expensive, sir.”
“Absolutely,” Lester agreed.
He still needed to convince his parents to charge for the playground. Ida and Terence wanted the local children to use it whenever they chose between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day, as a way to give back to the community. They had rejected his idea of paying an entrance fee, but he was not put off. He would bring forward his latest proposal soon and hope they saw sense. The new vision was to have children enter only if they could produce receipts for Chinchillerz products purchased at least seven days before entry. The marketing people would go for it and surely his parents could have no objection to that? After all, there was no such thing as getting something for nothing nowadays. He made his way back to the main building, leaving the workmen to their project.
The men had spent a hard day toiling in the sun installing the metal framework for the children’s swings. They had rested for a half hour or so, eating barbecued chicken and rice, drinking rum chasers that they brought in themselves, in between sipping chilled limeade generously provided by the company canteen.
“Come make we go get de tyre dem.”
“Dem heavy you know.”
“Me know, man, come. You have de storeroom key?”
No-one had the key. One of the workmen marched wearily down to the security guard at the front gate. It was quite a distance to go and he was feeling decidedly tired by the time he obtained the key and made it back to the storeroom. Turning the key inside the lock of the concertina door, he beckoned to his colleagues who sauntered over and helped to push the sturdy door to one side. Three of them rolled the heavy tyres into the yard and prepared to wash them down.
“Bring de hose over here, no?”
“Come for it. Me tired, man.” The weary workman took off his cap and sat on a box in the storeroom gazing around him. “Me soon come.”
“You nah come?” asked one of the men, sweat pouring from his face.
“You no hear me say me soon come, man? Under hereso nice and cool. Me need a five minute, man.”
He saw no reason to rush back to the job, not least because his immediate supervisor was still out on the road and none of the Chin Ellis family was likely to reappear at this time of afternoon. Surveying his vast surroundings, he wondered what it would be like to work in a place like this and have access to healthy chilled food and drink around the clock. He stood and moved around the gigantic enclosure which appeared to hold at least twenty container loads full of products. The warehousemen and shelf-stackers had mini-cranes as well as ladders to help them pile products up on high. Rows and rows of boxes of milk powder, desiccated coconut, brown sugar, flavourings and spices everywhere.
The workman felt his breath quicken. He walked quickly to the back of the storeroom and lifted a thick black tarpaulin covering up some smaller boxes. The labels suggested that the boxes contained milk powder and were due to be transported to Kingston in a week’s time, although there was no delivery address.
He tore open a box, reasoning that there were thousands of boxes to be shifted before the staff got to these and noticed that one was open. They would blame one another for the theft, as by then the playground would be finished and he and the other workers would have long left. He regretted that he could not reverse his old car into this treasure trove and load it up with as much products as it could hold. Instead he would have to make do with taking as many packets as could be contained in his trouser pockets, socks and boots, until he could transfer them to his rucksack. As he left the warehouse, laden with stolen goods, he picked up a small box of vanilla spice and placed it under his cap.
For the next few hours the men scrubbed the tyres clean, bore holes in them, and expertly attached them to the cables hanging from the steel frames. They tested their weight on each of the swings before moving on to the next one.
“Night soon come down, you know. A time we gwaan,” said the thief.
“A true. A 6 o’clock me get up dis marning.”
“Me gaan yah. Tomorrow.”
The thief made light banter with his colleagues before walking up to his car. The engine spluttered as the vehicle shuddered, before finally giving an unhealthy cough. It departed, filling the air with a rush of stale grey fumes. His family would be pleased with the milk powder, and the vanilla flavouring would be an added bedtime treat. Peace would reign in his household tonight, thank Jah, and everyone would wake up happy.
CHAPTER 15
Thursday, 30 July, 8:10 a.m.
The children had ackee and saltfish with fried dumplings and peppermint tea for breakfast. Preddy had tried the ganja tea on them before, but they didn’t like it and didn’t care that it was good for the blood. His mother swore that one dose had cured his asthma as a toddler, so he had been a fan practically his whole life.
Preddy was back over the stove, sipping his tea as he cooked. He enjoyed cooking and helping out at the charity kitchen one morning a week. He would cook his own pots at home and serve up the food in th
e well-maintained public grounds adjacent to the kitchen. His speciality was red peas soup cooked with chicken backs and feet, parts of the bird the middle-class usually rejected, but were cheap, nutritious and enhanced the flavour of a meal considerably. To this pot he would add carrots, thyme, red pepper, onions and seasoning salt. Most ground produce could be obtained cheaply if bought just before the food market closed in the evenings and he had recently managed to befriend a vendor who would drop off the produce at a nearby corner shop for the detective to collect at his convenience. The styrofoam containers in which the meals were served were supplied free of charge by the larger supermarkets in town.
The crowd of homeless people was always there in the mornings eagerly awaiting the arrival of any benefactor. Even if there were only one or two indigents in sight when a vehicle pulled up, the situation would change within a few seconds. A new arrival had a magnetic effect and people would appear from the shadows, eager to eat and unwilling to form an orderly queue.
Preddy had long given up trying to enforce order in this situation and just tried to dispense the hefty food portions as quickly as possible. He enjoyed watching their faces light up as they held the steaming bowls to their lips, unable to wait for the soup to cool. When time would not allow him to act as server he would cook the food and ask his domestic helper to attend on his behalf, dropping her and the food off outside the kitchen. At other times he would leave the food at home and ask her to transport it in a taxi.
Today he was loading up his teens with pots of rich food to take to the venue themselves. It was good for them to give back to society and realise that life was not all about the latest must-have electronic gadget. In recent years, he had tried to set aside more time for his offspring, who had lived with their mother since the break-up, but it was not uncommon for him to work twelve-hour days for several days in a row. He participated in their fundraising events and sports days whenever possible, even if it meant disappearing at half-time to make urgent calls and returning before the end of the game.
As much as he would have liked to accompany them today there were not enough hours in the day and he had to get back to business. He walked the children to the waiting taxi and made sure the containers were secure before waving them off.
“Don’t eat out de food!” he shouted above the noise of the vehicle’s engine.
“Nobody not eating out you food, Daddy!” replied Annalee cheekily. “Gwaan, driver!”
As he re-entered his apartment Preddy received a phone call from a doctor at the local hospital. The medic remembered him from his days on the anti-narcotics squad and had recently heard his name mentioned in the news as the detective heading up the Chin Ellis case.
“We admitted a six-year-old girl suffering from a high temperature and agonising convulsions,” said the doctor. “Her father drove her here and I saw him come running and screaming into the lobby with her.”
Preddy waited, wondering why this was his concern.
The doctor continued, “I asked him what was wrong. He didn’t answer. He just cried. Then the mother came in with her two other children, but nothing was wrong with them. I carried the little girl into the ward and asked her what was wrong and she said a knife was inside of her belly! I knew that wasn’t true. Anyway I got a nurse to interview the parents and they told her that the child had a terrible stomach ache and gripe medicine didn’t help her. They said she ate corned beef, callaloo and banana with a glass of milk, and that was all, no other substance had passed between her lips.”
“And you say dat something did?” asked Preddy.
“Absolutely, Detective,” said the doctor. “I had the child sedated and then pumped her stomach to clear out the contents. They have been tested. No doubt in my mind that there are traces of cocaine in her system.”
Preddy did not know what to expect, but it was not that. “I will pass on dis information to de anti-narcotics team and somebody will be wid you shortly.”
“Thank you,” said the doctor. “I didn’t know who to call, but because I heard the father say he has to go finish off his work at Chinchillerz, I thought of you.”
Preddy flinched. “Actually, de narcotics guys have whole heap on deir plates, Doc. I’m on my way dere. How is she doing?”
“Well she’s not completely out of the woods yet, but her temperature has decreased significantly and she has fallen into a deep sleep.”
“Okay. Don’t tell de parents anything. We soon come.”
Preddy phoned Rabino and the two detectives arrived at the Cornwall Regional Hospital within minutes of each other. Preddy knew that the weeping father was lying from the moment he opened his mouth as he was incapable of making eye contact at any point. The man tried to convince the detectives that the doctor was mistaken and there was no way his daughter had ingested any cocaine as everything she had eaten came from the supermarket. It was Rabino who had gently coaxed the now silent and stunned mother into speaking, reminding her that someone had nearly killed the child that she had carried and nurtured for nine months. What was to stop the same thing happening to her other children and what if they died?
The mother sat holding each of her infants on her knees to comfort herself rather than them. They could be no more than two and four-years-old and would not be aware that their sister was seriously ill. Their mother squeezed them tightly and told the detectives about the milk powder.
“Dat is de only drinks me see she drink and it no come from no supermarket,” mumbled the distraught woman. “She a bother me say she want milk rather dan soda after her meal, and me send her go open de packet and mix it wid water herself.” The woman caught her breath and Rabino rubbed her hand encouragingly. “Me hear she say it taste funny, but me no pay her no mind. Me busy wid dem other two little one, you know?” The mother began crying again, uncontrollably this time.
The father looked at Preddy through miserable eyes. “None a we never take de cup from her and try it to see what wrong,” he said. “De cup no see-through, so me never see say it no look like milk.”
It took quite a while for him to admit that it must have come from a batch of milk powder obtained from his job. It took even longer to admit he stole it from the Chinchillerz storeroom unknown to his supervisor or the business owners. He finally confessed that a dozen more packets were at his home, but some were the real thing as he and his wife had used one of them in their own cocoa tea.
“Me a no thief, you know!” the man cried. “A de Devil tempt me. A de Devil tell me say de Chiney dem rich and dem not going miss it, and me family poor and dem need it!”
Preddy felt some sympathy for the man, not because he bought into the idea of being poor and needy as an excuse, but because it had been a cruel lesson to learn and one which would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Strictly this was a matter for the anti-narcotics team, but there was no way Preddy could let go of this new aspect of the case. If he informed the superintendent of this latest development, he would be ordered to back off and let the appropriate team deal with it. Somebody within the frozen food empire was dealing in drugs, perhaps with the knowledge and consent of Carter and Lester Chin Ellis. Preddy wanted to see the evidence for himself and asked the father to take them to his home.
The detectives drove the contrite man back to his modest dwelling, a starter home in a small housing scheme. There they collected the suspect packages, placing them carefully into evidence bags. None of the packets were marked with the Chinchillerz logo and Preddy reminded himself that these products would have most likely been imported from another country, somewhere in South America most likely, and repackaged.
“You can read what write on it?” he asked Rabino, handing over the package.
The detective screwed up her eyes and peered at the tiny writing on the label. “No, sir. It’s definitely not English or Spanish. It’s too blurry though, I can’t make it out.”
“Are dese all de bags, sir?” Preddy asked the father.
The man
silently opened the cupboard and removed the additional products, including the vanilla spice.
“Were dese hidden or boxed differently in de storeroom?” asked Preddy.
“A did whole heap a dem, inna one section to demself,” he replied. “Cover up under tarpaulin inna box dat say delivery Kingston August 6. Me fix back de box good-good.”
Rabino looked at her superior. “Independence Day.”
“Me wish me never see dem things dere, Jah know!” the man wailed. “Me shoulda just do me work and go home. Me shoulda never go walk ’bout inna de people dem place.”
Rabino said nothing, but she could not agree with him more. She hoped for his sake that his daughter did not turn out mentally or physically impaired when she did come to.
“We’ll have to let narcotics know to come and get these,” she said.
“No, not yet,” said Preddy quickly. “I will handle it.”
His mind worked furiously. The goods were due to be moved in a few days. Raiding Chinchillerz and seizing the remaining products was not an option when they did not know who was moving them. Once the news made it into the public arena there was a danger the miscreants would cover their tracks and no-one could be charged. The child had not died, and there was no reason to believe the drug had got mixed up with legitimate ingredients stored elsewhere. He glanced at Rabino and wondered how he was going to ensure that this information stayed within the team. The less people that knew about it the better, but he could not carry out this investigation without the help of his detectives. He began to gather the stolen goods.
