by C B Wilson
Simmons said, “Who do you think you are? You think you got some superior way of doing things, some colonial bullshit?”
Holmes said, “I’ve busted white policemen in London, Finland, the US. I go where they send me.”
Simmons said, “I want to see your files.”
“No way.”
“The name of Constable Beckford’s killer is in there.”
Holmes promised him that it wasn’t.
“Why are you so bothered? You don’t even work for Justice Unlimited anymore.”
“Irrelevant. Those files have got interviews with all kinds of people, and I promised them confidentiality. I’m not having the police rummage around in my files. You’re going to have to find another way.”
“You’re quite something,” said Simmons and took his cap off to run his fingers through his hair. “An honourable guy.”
“Don’t tell me, you’ve got an eight-year-old niece with a more sophisticated world view than me.”
“If I arrest you for the murders, how long you think you’re going to survive in custody?”
“Arrest me for what? You know I didn’t do it.”
“So? Constable Beckford was a popular officer. Lot of his colleagues would like to see you take a knife in the ribs. Then there’s Morris and his friends. They want you dead, full stop. Omar Hall was a gang member. Well connected. Lot of his friends in prison. Floyd Powers. Everybody knew Floyd Powers. Honestly, I think you’ve annoyed just about everybody in Jamaica. You won’t last five minutes inside. Literally.”
“Why not ask Shelly for the files?”
“She’s already washed her hands of this thing and she’s on a plane to the States. It’s you and me. You give me the files, you walk. Otherwise I have to take you in.”
There was a long pause. Then Simmons said, “Do yourself a favour. Take the easy way out.”
47
The car park of the hotel was the only place the helicopter could land.
Lev and the Russian dragged Jerry to the helicopter as soon as it touched down, rotor blades still spinning. The Russian strapped Jerry into a seat.
His head lolled to one side. His tongue came out.
“Is he going to be alright?” shouted the co-pilot, who seemed worried about his cargo.
Lev said, “Short term, yes. Long term, no.”
He strapped himself in opposite Jerry and the helicopter took off, heading for Plutus.
48
In the car ride to Oliver’s office, Simmons came across as someone who liked the sound of his own voice, or maybe he wanted to tell Holmes how clever he had been to get Beckford to go undercover. It amounted to the same thing.
“We faked a shooting. Like, it was a bad shooting. Beckford was under investigation and Morris and Matthews got to him. Said they could destroy evidence, talk to witnesses, make sure he was cleared. Once they did that, they thought they owned him. We were just about to arrest them until you got involved.”
“Why was Beckford in my house?”
“Morris was hot for you. He wanted to shoot you down at the same time as he killed Hall. I think Floyd was feeding him information. Anyway, Beckford was supposed to arrest him on it.”
“Before or after he shot me?”
“That was Beckford’s call. But putting someone away for murder is a lot easier than conspiracy…course, we wouldn’t have wanted to lose a valuable colleague who was here to help us poor backward policemen.”
“So I was the sacrificial goat,” Holmes said.
Simmons liked that description and grinned.
Holmes said, “So why wasn’t Morris there last night? He wasn’t the gunman.”
Simmons didn’t have any answer to that. He said, “Nikki Grainger. She’s your girlfriend? Beautiful woman.”
Holmes ignored him.
“Seriously, is she with you?”
Holmes said, “I have done everything I can to keep her out of this mess but she’s not my girlfriend.”
“So you don’t mind if I…?”
“You’re asking my permission?”
Simmons said, “No. I was making conversation.”
“Apparently she’s in a different league.”
Simmons grunted and that was it for conversation until they arrived at Holmes’ office. Simmons parked in the car park and the dozing security guard barely looked up from his hutch. Holmes said, “So I get you the files and you let me go – right?”
Simmons promised. “No point in me arresting you for the murder. I know you didn’t do it.”
“This must never come back on me. I’m breaking every rule in the book by giving you access to my files.”
Simmons promised again. But he was a bad liar. He cut off the handcuffs and Holmes walked him to the front door. It was the strongest part of the building. It looked like it had been recycled from a freighter and it was studded with huge rounded rivets.
Holmes unlocked it and motioned Simmons to stay back. “Let me get the alarm,” he said.
Holmes didn’t trust Simmons any more than he trusted any policeman, which was not at all. He knew that as soon as Simmons got his hands on the files, he would arrest him and Holmes would be dead in a police cell within twenty-four hours, which would suit almost everybody, except Holmes.
Simmons gave Holmes just enough room to get inside. Holmes spun around, shoved Simmonds in the chest, pushing him away from the door and then he slammed it shut.
Simmons shouted and hammered on the door but that got him nowhere. The whole building was designed to stop burglars. The windows were barred, shutters down. There was no way Simmons could get in without help.
Holmes ran up the stairs, grabbed the bag with his passport and cash and raced for the back of the building. He watched as Simmons stomped around outside, looking up at the windows and shouting. When he was sure that Simmons was round the front of the building, getting a key from the security guard, Holmes was out of the fire exit and over the wall and into the next door compound before Simmons heard a thing.
A few hundred metres away, Holmes took a taxi from the hotel. He heard police sirens but they were heading in the wrong direction.
49
Jerry came round in the clinic on Plutus. His shoulder and neck hurt, he felt sick and his mouth was dry. Every part of his body screamed at him. He opened an eye and saw exactly what he didn’t want to see.
Malkin was sitting by his bed, Lev standing behind him. Jerry was screwed and he knew it. He closed his eyes and turned away but they didn’t leave.
Malkin talked to Lev, but they spoke in English, so Jerry knew they were talking for his benefit.
“Last time this happened, I told him it could never happen again,” said Malkin. “He’s supposed to clean up problems, not make them.”
Lev said, “Is it always redheads?”
“There have been only three, so that’s not enough to establish a pattern, but, yes, always redheads.”
“You want me to have him removed?”
Malkin said, “If you mean killed, say killed.”
“Do you want him killed?”
Malkin said, “You know about a dead man’s switch?”
Lev didn’t know what he meant.
“On a train to Siberia they have them. Every thirty seconds, the driver has to push a switch to show he’s awake, otherwise the train stops. Somewhere, Jerry has a file of pictures, dates, names, places that would finish us all. If he dies, the file becomes public.”
“You want me to get the file?”
“What I used to like about Jerry was that he didn’t ask stupid questions.”
Lev said he would get the file.
Malkin said, “And the redhead.”
“And the girl.”
Malkin walked out without a farewell for Jerry.
Lev poked Jerry in the side. Jerry rolled over and grinned at Lev. “Congratulations on your promotion.”
“Shut up.”
“You think I didn’t guess this would happen?�
�
“Are you going to tell me about your dead man’s switch?”
Jerry said, “Better than that. You have to find Nikki. I know where she’ll be.”
“I can find her.”
“But I can make her come to us…”
50
The phone shop was a small place at the end of the mall. It didn’t take Holmes many dollars to buy himself some internet. He used the manager’s computer at a desk out of sight in the back office.
What he found was worse than Holmes could have imagined. He was shut out of his bank accounts and all he got was frustration: “Incorrect Password”. “Access Denied”. “Contact the account holder”. “Bad Gateway Error”. “If the problem persists please contact your bank”.
So he called his bank in Miami again. They told him he would have to turn up in person with proof of identity before they could do anything for him.
Holmes wondered if Shelly would have blacklisted his passport to stop him getting into the US. There was no way of telling how much she had turned against him, even if he could get out of Jamaica.
The news sites were even worse. There was nothing about him internationally but the Jamaican online sites were full of him.
Head in his hands, Holmes found out how far into the darkness he had slipped. The first news item on every site was about how he was wanted for murder. His picture was on the front page of all the online news sites.
He skim-read the text. Standard stuff about how police wanted to talk to him about four murders. The journalists seemed particularly keen on the unusual twist that it was a white man who was wanted for murdering four Jamaicans.
A spokesman for the human rights organisation Justice Unlimited was quoted that they would be co-operating fully with the Jamaican Constabulary Force in the hunt for Oliver W. Holmes.
The manager of the phone shop was a young man with a big smile. He sat on the edge of the desk. Holmes shut down the browser he’d been using.
“You OK?” said Ernest.
Holmes said, “Since you mention it, not really.”
“You want something to smoke?”
“No thanks, Ernest.”
Ernest wasn’t put off by Holmes’ tone.
“My dad is in prison in New York State and I’m the one that has to look after my sister. She’s still at school.”
“That must be tough for you.”
“She’s studying, and she wants to be in computers, you know?”
“I don’t mean to be rude but…I don’t have time for this now. Things are bad. I have to get out of here. You got a back exit?”
Ernest wasn’t about to let Holmes get away that easily. “I have to pay seventy dollars for her textbooks, and I don’t have that kind of money.”
Holmes said, “I like your style, Ernest. But you don’t have a sister who needs textbooks.”
Ernest picked up a photo in a frame of himself with an arm round a young girl in school uniform. The two of them looked kind of similar. “That’s Sandra. She works hard.”
Holmes said, “Really? My life is falling apart right here and you’re hustling me for textbooks?”
Ernest looked as wholesome and trustworthy as a choir round a Christmas tree.
Sighing to himself, Holmes gave him fifty dollars. He said, “You’d better have a sister who needs textbooks.”
“It’s OK,” said Ernest, “I’ll find the other twenty dollars myself.”
“You want to earn another twenty dollars?”
Ernest said he did.
“I need you to do something for me. Take this phone and put it on a boat that’s going to Cuba or Haiti.”
“You on the run from the police?”
“Something like that.” Holmes handed him his old phone and the battery. Ernest put the battery back in to check it out. He said. “You got a text message.”
Holmes didn’t recognise the number. The text said: I know where they are keeping Nadia. Call me.
51
The main routes into the Blue Mountains run through a little suburb called Papine, a village surrounded and swallowed up by the university in the eastward creep of Kingston.
Crowds of people swarmed around the tiny concrete park in the middle of the roundabout where the buses and taxis waited. Holmes was in the fried chicken place, eating too much greasy chicken and keeping away from the window.
Nikki arrived a few minutes after Holmes got his order. He wiped his hands and his fingers but the thin napkins weren’t up to the job and disintegrated, leaving fluffs of white stuck to his hands.
Nikki didn’t want to kiss him anyway. She was still in shock about Jerry and her hotel room and the threats she had received from the Israeli. Holmes put his arm round her and Nikki cried a little when she talked about what had happened.
She pulled herself together and took a sip of Jerry’s fizzy drink through the straw. “This is all horrible,” she said. “But most of all, I’m still furious with you for walking away from me.”
Holmes said he was sorry and meant it.
“What are you going to do?”
“First of all, we go and see if Hutchinson’s story checks out.”
“This is Hutchinson, the ex-cop you saw yesterday? Who did he say was keeping her?”
Holmes didn’t know. “He just said to come and see him. He seemed messed up when I talked to him yesterday. Maybe he’s deeper involved than I thought.”
“Do you think we should go?”
Holmes couldn’t see that they had any other choice. “It’s not like we can call the police.”
Nikki said, “And what about you? You wanted to keep away from me.”
“I’ve been fired by my employer, I’m wanted by the local police for murder and my bank accounts have been hacked. I could do with some help.”
“Like what?”
Holmes offered her a deal. “We find Nadia, and you get me out of the country.”
“I thought you were protecting me from the Jamaican police.”
Holmes said, “There won’t be any police in the mountains.”
Nikki said, “You’re in serious trouble. I don’t think you should be doing this.”
“You’d never find the guy’s house on your own. It’s way up in the mountains.”
“Please, Oliver. You need to think about protecting yourself.”
“Once we’ve found Nadia, you’re going to help me get to Montego Bay. My fisherman friend Mr Gingerman can take me to Cuba.”
Nikki said, “It’s true. You’re only here because you need my help.”
“I can’t win with you.”
Nikki said, “I told you we were better together.”
Holmes said, “No. I told you that years ago. You should have listened.”
Nikki let him have that one. Holmes finished his chicken, slurped down his drink and they were ready to go.
Nikki kissed him. He held her. She whispered in his ear, “You’re still greasy.” She grabbed some more napkins and wiped his face.
The car Nikki had hired was parked round the corner, surrounded by a dozen youths who all wanted paying for having looked after it. She handed out some US dollars and Holmes asked the young men not to mention them to the police.
That got a laugh out of the youths. “We never talk to no police, man,” they said.
Holmes drove out of the town and up into the mountains. Twilight raced towards them. As they started climbing, the clouds thickened and it began to rain heavily.
Holmes said, “In films, rain means a change is coming.”
Nikki said, “Maybe Hollywood is right for once.”
Then she said, “Why the hell are you driving?”
52
Trees hung over the road up towards Silver Hill Gap making it seem darker than it really was. Streams ran down the hillside and over what little tarmac remained. Mud glistened slickly in the headlights.
Holmes was not a good driver at the best of times. Steep roads on hairpin bends over sheer drops brought ou
t the worst in him. He was trying to keep the car in the middle of the road, but sometimes the potholes and the slivers of remaining surface took him way too close to the edge.
Nikki’s hands were white from gripping the sides of her seat. She said, “Pull over and let me drive.”
Holmes didn’t suffer from any macho hang-ups about having to be the one at the wheel. He stopped and switched places with Nikki. While she drove, Nikki kept worrying away at what Hutchinson had said to Oliver.
“He wasn’t real chatty,” said Holmes. “I told you everything he said.”
“What was his tone like? What did he sound like?”
“The time before when he spoke to me, he was going to shoot me, so I would say his tone this time was better.”
In stretches, the road was good. When they were back on a solid surface, Nikki went faster and said, “But why would they keep her locked up somewhere?”
“What’s the simplest answer? Sex slaves? Some kind of human trafficking?”
They kicked that idea around until they reached the last turn-off leading to Hutchinson’s house. Holmes made Nikki wait while he double-checked that it was the right way to turn.
The rain had stopped. A hundred metres past the junction, across the crown of a hairpin, a car blocked the road. Nikki drove towards it. Holmes was suspicious. The car was new and undented, not like the battered pick-up trucks and minivans crammed with people they had passed lower down the mountain.
Holmes flashed back to his training. This looked like a classic ambush situation and now they were stationary in the kill zone.
“I don’t like this,” Holmes said. “Back up. Quick.”
As Nikki turned her head to start reversing, another car roared up behind them, blocking them in. Nikki screamed. Two men came out of the woods on either side of the car. They were both in combat gear, faces camouflaged. They had weapons slung round their necks, but they had their hands up and away from the guns in a gesture that said “peace” but Holmes wasn’t in a trusting mood. “Drive!” he shouted, even though there was nowhere to go.
