by Cave, Hugh
When told he might have to stay in Jamaica longer than planned, Vicky seemed indifferent. Too much so, he thought—as if she had rehearsed both her words and her attitude in the event he did make such a call. "Stay as long as you like," she said with a vocal shrug. She was still very angry, he guessed, at not being allowed to accompany him to the island.
"Have I had any mail of importance?"
"Nothing that won't keep. But give me your phone number, in case."
"I don't have a phone. I'm calling from a pay station."
"Your address, then."
He told her she could reach him in care of Juan Cerrado, Christiana.
"No street address?" she asked coldly.
"There's no delivery here. You go to the post office and stand in line. Unless you have a box."
"Well, does Cerrado have a box?"
"He does, but I don't know the number. It doesn't matter. They'll know."
"What about telegrams?"
"Same address. They do deliver those."
"All right," she said. "Enjoy yourself. I'll try not to miss you." And she hung up.
Driving back to the house he had an uneasy feeling he had said too much and had not heard the last of it.
Vicky had always been a cold woman, and since her sessions with Margal, she had been a dangerously cunning one as well.
"What now?" he said to Ken Daniels.
"Perhaps we should call on the Christiana police."
They went to the station and the police listened attentively but only shrugged. That the U.N. Land Rover had been found keyless at the entrance to Emmanuel Bignall's track obviously struck the lawmen as being unimportant. Arrest the obeah man and his friend Nevil Walters because of it? On what charge?
"Can't you even question them?"
"You seem to have done that already, Mr. Platt. At least, you've questioned the one most likely to know anything."
"What about Gourie Forest? Will you investigate that lead?"
"We will search the forest, certainly. If your friend Mr. Norman is there, or even the missing Mr. Cerrado, we may be able to find them. Be warned it won't be easy, though. Gourie is no small place."
From the police station Ken and he began on the shops. Covering the ones in town, including small bars on side streets that he never would have found by himself, took more than two hours. Then they used up most of the afternoon touring the shops on surrounding country roads.
The bearded taxi man was unhappy. "One of our troubles, I think, is that Mr. Norman did not circulate enough for people to get to know him."
"He did after Cerrado disappeared, Ken. Trying to find him, I mean."
"But it has been such a short time."
"He's white. Wouldn't that—"
"There are some white teachers in schools around here, and among the bauxite people. He wouldn't stand out that much. Anyway, it's evident no one has seen Mr. Norman since he went to talk to Bignall." Ken paused, knuckling his beard. "Look. Why don't we call on Nevil Walters, just in case he knows something?"
"Whatever you say. You're better at this than I am."
Nevil Walters was at his farm. About thirty years old, he showed no hostility—in fact, seemed more than willing to answer questions. As though he was expecting us, Will thought.
The man had a vocabulary, though, that was all too common among certain barely schooled country folk in the island. "We have island-wide spelling bees every year," Ken Daniels explained. "The kids are given lists of words to learn, and they learn them. Then, God help us, they go through life using them to show how educated they are, without a clue to what half of them mean."
In Nevil Walters's case the use of so many meaningless words could have been intentional—a way to avoid honest replies to unwelcome questions. In any event, the interview produced nothing of value.
They returned to Cerrado's house and sat on the veranda to talk about what they could do next. Ima Williams brought them drinks. Before the drinks were finished, a rapping on the gate interrupted their conversation.
"It is Tanny, from the telegraph office," Ken said, leaning forward on his chair to peer at the caller. "Must be for you, Mr. Will."
Will went down the steps, and the fellow handed him a brown envelope and a pencil.
"You must sign the flap and give it back to him," Ken called from the veranda.
Having done so, Will tipped the man and returned to his chair. Intuition told him what the telegram might be, and he scowled in anger as he tore the envelope open.
On the pink sheet inside was the message. ARRIVING MONTEGO BAY NOON TOMORROW IF NOT MET WILL TAKE TAXI TO CHRISTIANA LOVE VICKY
Love? he thought bitterly.
16
The Opal
The plane from Miami was half an hour late. Waiting outside the customs area, Will saw Vicky as she emerged into the afternoon sunlight, following a skycap with a pair of matching suitcases. Beautifully garbed, of course, though her expensive, pearl-gray summer suit looked out of place here.
He made his way forward and touched his wife's hand. Her mechanical smile said, "Look, I'm smiling." In a gesture just as mechanical he brushed her cheek with his lips. "The Land Rover over there," he said to the skycap. Then to Vicky he said, "How was the flight?" It was probably the safest thing to say right now.
"I've had better."
"How have you been, yourself?"
"Bored. That's why I'm here." She turned her head to give him one of her sharp-eyed, warning looks. "I just hope this Christiana of yours is exciting. Is it?"
There was no point, he decided, in reminding her he had not wanted her to come. She was here and he must make the best of a bad—perhaps even a dangerous—situation. "I don't think you'll be bored here."
"Is there voodoo in Jamaica?"
"Obeah."
"Is that the same?"
"Not exactly," he replied wearily, recalling the time she had disappeared in Haiti without telling him where she was going. At four in the morning he had found her at a voodoo ceremony ten miles from the town of Jacmel, where they were living, possessed by a voodoo loa and unable to remember who she was.
At the Land Rover he tipped her skycap and stowed her luggage away himself. "What's this thing?" Vicky demanded, eyeing the vehicle with open displeasure.
"An English jeep. Belongs to the U.N."
"I hope we don't have far to go."
He refrained from commenting as he helped her up onto the seat and they left the airport in silence. Not until they were on the main north-coast road did Vicky say, "Well, are you going to tell me what's been happening since you got here?"
He took his time telling her, so the journey would seem less long to her. She had spent a fair amount of time with him in the islands; this ride through the Cockpit to Christiana would not impress her as it might someone more curious. Between intervals of silence he told of Juan Cerrado's clash with the obeah woman. Of Cerrado's mysterious disappearance. Of Sam Norman's more recent vanishing. Of his own fruitless efforts to find them both.
"You're doing this by yourself?" she asked with a frown at one point.
"I have a fellow named Ken Daniels helping me."
"Can you trust him?"
"You'll be meeting him. You can decide for yourself."
"I'd like to meet this Sister Merle."
He had expected that and already decided how to handle it. "Sister Merle is a dangerous woman, Vicky. She's no one to play your little games with. The one thing I am not going to do is take you to see her."
"Well, you can at least tell me about her, can't you?" That would be a way to keep her from constantly frowning at her watch as the hilly miles rolled out behind them, he decided. In detail he told of his visit with Sam to the obeah woman's house in the Cockpit.
"She sounds like a female Margal," Vicky observed.
"She is. If you want her services, you go to her and pay her. It was because so many of his farmers were giving her so much of their hard-earned money that the U.N. fellow
declared war on her."
"And now he's missing."
"Now he's missing. And so is Sam."
"Have you been threatened?" Vicky asked, turning her head to study him.
"I'm not sure." He told her about his visit with Ken to the home of Emmanuel Bignall. "Nothing now would surprise me much."
It was mid-afternoon when they reached Christiana. It was Friday, the first of the two market days when people flocked in from miles around. Obviously excited, she kept turning her head from side to side as he drove through. "Why, it's like Jacmel!" she exclaimed.
"Wait until you see it tomorrow morning. Getting past the market gate in a car will take forever. On foot you'll need a suit of armor and a baseball bat."
"But where do they all come from?"
He had been studying maps of the district. "Just about everywhere within reason. Even such wonderfully named places as Balaclava, Auchtembeddie, and the District of Look Behind."
She was pleased, and for the first time since leaving the airport he felt some of his apprehension melt away.
With Vicky you never quite knew. You could anticipate a certain mood and encounter one entirely different. She was smiling now. She was thrilled. Maybe her coming to Jamaica would not be a disaster, after all.
Her mood changed abruptly, though, when she met Ken Daniels at the house. Will saw the change in her face when Ken offered his hand on being introduced. It became even more noticeable when Ima Williams did the same.
She was like that about blacks. If they seemed to feel themselves her equal, she instantly withdrew. To be her equal, a person with skin other than white had to be someone whose services she needed or wanted, as she had wanted those of the bocor in Haiti.
Ima Williams picked up the two suitcases and led Vicky to the bedroom. Ken Daniels said to Will, "While you were gone, I took the liberty of going to Wait-a-Bit."
"To talk to the police, you mean?"
"Yes. And I think we should go there together, first thing in the morning."
"Why, Ken? What's the problem?"
"The fellow hasn't talked. Hasn't said a word. And there is something wrong with him, it seems. They wouldn't let me see him. Said it was none of my business."
"How do you know they'll let me see him?"
"I asked. At first they said no, but when I told them about Mr. Norman's disappearance, they finally agreed. Not with any enthusiasm, mind you, but you'll be permitted to see Mowatt if we go early in the morning. Perhaps even both of us."
"Why early, Ken?"
"They say they are taking him to Spaldings, to the hospital."
"The hospital? But there was nothing wrong with him when Sam and I left him at the station."
"There seems to be now, Will." The bearded man shrugged, then glanced toward the veranda door. "I'd better run along. You'll want to be with your wife."
"No, wait. Stay for supper and tell me more about this."
"In the morning. I'll come by about six."
A good man, Will thought, watching him open the door and depart. A sensitive one, too, well aware of Vicky's instant hostility. What the hell was wrong with Vicky, anyway? And what had happened to the man who wore Juan Cerrado's field boots?
It was unusual for him to be sharing a room with his wife, and when they retired he felt compelled to explain to her why it was necessary. Discounting the housekeeper's room there were but two bedrooms, he told her. The one they were using had been Juan Cerrado's; the other was being used by Sam Norman. True, Sam was missing now and not able to occupy it, but he might turn up at any moment. So, whether she approved of the arrangement or not, they would have to share a room.
"I suppose if we must, we must," she replied with a shrug.
"I didn't ask you to come here, you know," he reminded her.
She merely glared at him.
There were two beds in the room: a mahogany double and a truly handsome single made more recently of guango. He was using the smaller one himself, so it was no sacrifice to offer Vicky the other. After testing it by lying on it fully clothed and squirming a little, she pronounced it adequate.
Not since Haiti had they used a common bedroom, he mused as he sat on the edge of his bed to take off his shoes. Was this to be another Haiti in more ways than one?
Vicky, too, had begun to undress. "May I ask what your plans are for tomorrow?"
"Ken and I have to go to the police station in Wait-a-Bit."
"That sounds interesting. I'll enjoy that."
He shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Vicky. They would never understand. Anyway, we're leaving very early. You'll still be in bed."
"I'm to spend the morning here with Ima, then?" Her beautiful face was a thundercloud.
"Well, the town's within easy walking distance. I'm sure you'll find something to do."
She turned away with a shrug of her shoulders, which were exposed to his gaze now because she had removed everything but bra and panties. Guessing what would happen next, he watched her. As expected, she took her nightgown—an expensive and sexy pink one, with all the frills—and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. When she at once turned a tap on in the hand basin, he knew she had done so to smother any sound she might make when seated on the toilet.
Remembering something that had happened on his way to the airport to meet her, he had to smile in spite of himself. On the outskirts of a village called Barbecue Bottom he had passed a woman squatting by the roadside with her dressed hiked up. She, caught in the act, had gaily waved to him, showing a mouthful of teeth in a happy grin.
Undressed, he got into bed in the raw, the way he always slept, and linked his hands behind his head while watching the bathroom door, waiting for her to come out. There had been times not so very long ago when he had still wanted her. After all, she was as beautiful today as when he had married her—tall, graceful as a dancer, with a body that seemed made for love.
But he had no such feelings now, knowing the beautiful body housed a heart of pure evil and any man who tried to be intimate with it was flirting with destruction.
The door opened and she came back into the bedroom, a vision of beauty in the nightgown. Easing herself into the double bed, she said, "Good night, Will," and reached out to switch off the lamp on the table between them.
"Why don't you like Ima?" he asked.
"What?"
"Ima Williams, the housekeeper. Why don't you like her?"
"Her attitude, for one thing. And yours toward her. No one would ever guess she's a servant here, for God's sake."
"She cooked and served your dinner, didn't she?" he challenged, feeling himself bristle.
"As if she were doing me a favor."
"I assure you she's a very fine woman." And wouldn't you be devastated to know, he thought, that she is a servitor of the loa, high up in the voodoo hierarchy!
"Well," she said curtly, "I don't like her and don't intend to pretend I do. By the way, I suppose you know she's Haitian, and in voodoo."
He felt himself stiffen:"She told you that?"
"She didn't need to. When she was getting dinner I went into the kitchen for some ice. She was hard-boiling some eggs for the salad, and I saw her put her hand into the boiling water to take them out. It would be boiling oil at a kanzo service, wouldn't it? So I took a good look at her and guessed she was Haitian, and she admitted it."
"Did she tell you she was kanzo?"
"Yes, when I accused her of it."
"And then?"
"Why, then," Vicky said, her lower lip curling, "I showed her my ring and warned her not to try her simple white magic on me because I could top it in a way she wouldn't like."
She was wearing the ring now, Will observed. She almost always did. It was an opal he had bought for her some years ago in a Mexican town called Pachuca, just a few miles north of Mexico City.
He had since had reason, more than once, to remember that occasion vividly. They had turned in off the main highway because Vicky had heard of an Indian
woman in Pachuca who was said to possess certain occult powers. Even then, that long ago, she had been curious about things occult.
The woman turned out to be a crone who lived in a rather decent house, certainly not a hovel, on a dark little street off the zocalo. Vicky spent the evening with her while he walked about the town soaking up its unique atmosphere, thinking he might one day need such an offbeat setting in one of his books. And at the hotel that night, a pleasant place mellow with shadows, kitchen smells and mariachi music, she had shown him the opal.
It was only a stone then, not a ring in an expensive setting. "She says it has unusual powers, Will, and, you know, I think it may have. When I hold it in my hand, I actually feel something."
He was amused. "You feel what?"
"Well, I don't know. A tingling, sort of, but really more than that. Something like. . . as if I have acquired a certain kind of power, myself."
"Like the power to persuade me to buy it for you?"
"Will you? You don't have to, you know. All she wants is three hundred dollars, and I have more than that myself."
"It's worth that much, and she trusted you to walk off with it?"
"She said she knew I wouldn't steal it. She could read my thoughts when I held the stone in my hand." Vicky gazed at him with a peculiar intensity. "The opal is said to be a gem of prophecy, you know. Arabs used to believe they came from the sky in flashes of lightning."
"They're also thought to be bad luck," he had reminded her.
"Well, yes, they used to be. But that was mostly because of a novel by Sir Walter Scott—Anne of something or other. Its heroine had an opal that reflected all her feelings, like turning fiery red when she was angry. Then after a lot of unhappy adventures she died and—if I remember it right—the stone lost all its colors and turned gray as a gravestone."
"I should read the book," Will said. "Anyway, what will you do with it if you acquire it?"
"Wear it, of course. In a ring." She gazed at the stone as if longing to see it on her finger. "Isn't it just beautiful? Did you know the Empress Josephine owned one that she named 'The Burning of Troy' because its colors were so incredible? And did you know an opal is said to protect its wearer from evil?"
