She shut her eyes and allowed him to touch her cheek. ‘No.’
Leaning towards her, he kissed her on the cheek and whispered, ‘I don’t want to lose you.’
‘You won’t.’ Jo hesitated. ‘You couldn’t.’
‘But it will complicate matters, won’t it?’
This time Jo put her hand around his neck and pulled him into an embrace. ‘From where I’m sitting,’ she murmured, ‘it’s already complicated.’
Pyke opened his mouth and allowed his tongue to touch hers. Jo let out a slight gasp. ‘Yes, how did it happen?’ But he was already too far gone to think about the wisdom of what he was doing.
PART II
*
Falmouth, Jamaica
JUNE 1840
FOURTEEN
The captain of the two-mast brig had to wait until early afternoon for the right wind in order to negotiate a path through the treacherous channel between the adjoining reefs, but finally, they docked safely at the wharf at Falmouth. It was hot by then, hotter even than it had been at midday, and the sky was cloudless, a brilliant glazed blue that merged at some indistinguishable point with the gin-clear, turquoise waters. Ever since they had first entered the tropics, about a week earlier, the days had become hotter and hotter, and now Pyke felt as if he’d stepped into a giant brick kiln. In the distance, the shoreline, covered with mangrove swamps, shimmered as though it were not really there.
The steamer had docked in Kingston late the night before, after less than three weeks at sea, and at dawn Pyke had transferred to a much smaller brig, which, making use of favourable trade winds, had managed to negotiate a path around Morant Point and along the north coast of the island to Falmouth. The scenery had been spectacular - waterfalls tumbling from lush, mountainous terrain on to white-sanded coves - but after the greyness of London it was almost too much for Pyke’s senses to take in. The sky was too blue, the sea too clear, and somehow none of it seemed real.
There were a couple of tall ships anchored beyond the reef but neither was the Island Queen. Nor did Pyke expect to see that particular vessel for a week or two, for although the winds had been favourable for both vessels for much of the journey across the Atlantic, there had also been lulls where the wind had dropped to almost nothing. On those occasions, the steamer had turned to its giant paddle wheel and proceeded at pace, while the Island Queen would have been left idling, with nothing to do but wait for the wind to return. Alefounder would not set foot in Jamaica for at least another week, possibly two, which would give Pyke time to prepare for his arrival.
As they neared the shoreline, buildings came into view, a mixture of one- and two-storey dwellings built mostly from wood in the Georgian style with gingerbread fretwork, hip roofs and sash windows. Soaring above these was the occasional cabbage palm, a church tower in the far distance, and what appeared to be the town hall or courthouse, an impressive edifice with four Tuscan columns supporting an ornamental portico and pediment. ‘The most fashionable port in the New World,’ one of his travelling companions from Kingston had claimed. Pyke had told him that he’d reserve judgement until he saw the place for himself.
The whole town, it seemed, had come to meet the brig, for as soon as Pyke stepped off the gangplank, he was surrounded by a swarm of children fighting for the privilege of carrying his solitary suitcase. Pyke swatted them away and took a deep breath; if anything, it was hotter on land than it had been on the ship. There, at least, a stiff sea breeze had kept them cool but, here on terra firma, there was a barely a puff of wind.
Taking out his handkerchief, he mopped his brow and looked around the dusty wharf, where people and animals - mostly dogs, goats and fowl - were milling around on ground baked hard by the fierce sun. Workers, with their sleeves rolled up and floppy hats pulled down over their eyes to protect them from the glare of the sun, had already started to unload crates and sacks from the hold of the brig.
Someone had recommended a guest house on Seaboard Street, run by a jovial Scottish widow called Mrs McAlister, and having taken instructions, Pyke needed only a few minutes to find his way there. The street was dusty and deserted, and the guest house, a freshly painted, two-storey brick and timber building, looked directly out over the sea. Pyke put down his suitcase on the covered veranda and called out, ‘Hello?’ He’d taken off his coat, which was slung over his shoulder, and had unbuttoned some of his shirt. Pools of sweat were clearly visible under each armpit but he didn’t care. A plump, matronly woman who introduced herself as Gertrude McAlister greeted Pyke a few moments later and led him to a room on the upper floor with a veranda overlooking the road below and the ocean. A young woman with braided hair and glistening, blue-black skin, brought him a glass of fruit punch, which he drank down in one gulp.
About an hour later, after Pyke had bought a light cotton jacket and matching trousers, together with three cotton shirts and a straw hat, and had bathed in a copper tub in the deserted yard of the guest house, he decided to have a walk around the town, to the dismay of his host. She tried to dissuade him from venturing any farther afield than the veranda but wouldn’t give a reason, alluding only to ‘trouble’ that might take place later that evening.
When Pyke asked whether the town had a newspaper, the landlady’s chest puffed up and she told him it boasted three or perhaps four newspapers, if you counted the Baptist Herald, which she didn’t because it was published only monthly and she didn’t care for its tub-thumping agenda. Only marginally better, she added, was the Falmouth Post, which was still new and was agitating for further reform - ‘as if there hasn’t been enough upheaval already’, she said, shaking her head. No, if he wanted a newspaper that reflected the concerns of respectable folk he should consult either the Cornwall Chronicle or the Cornwall Gazette, both of which were solidly committed to defending the Crown. Pyke asked her where he could find the offices of the Falmouth Post. She told him, of course, but admonished him under her breath.
The orange sun was low in the sky by the time Pyke ventured out, and the air felt a little cooler, though it was still balmy. He wandered along Seaboard Street as far as the courthouse and, from there, made his way up to the main square. The town, as far as he could tell, had been constructed according to a grid pattern, with streets running parallel and perpendicular to each other, making it easy to navigate. It was also surprisingly clean and the houses were, on the whole, respectable and well maintained. Most of the people he passed on Seaboard Street and on the main square were white, but as soon as he ventured farther afield, even by a block or two, the houses were smaller, and the faces in the doorways and windows were predominantly black. Though Pyke didn’t feel unsafe, he didn’t feel comfortable either. On the steamer from Southampton he’d been told over and over that Jamaica was an extension of the ‘mother country’, but in these hot, dusty streets, surrounded by alien faces and accosted by unfamiliar scents, he felt a long way from what he considered to be home.
*
The offices of the Falmouth Post occupied a timber and brick building on Market Street. Pyke found its proprietor, a tall, heavy-boned man with curly, black hair and light coffee-coloured skin, who introduced himself as John Harper. He was busy instructing his younger assistant in the craft of typesetting.
‘Now, how can I help you, sir?’ Harper eyed Pyke cautiously as he pushed his wire-framed spectacles farther up his nose. They had moved into his private office.
‘Call me Pyke.’
‘How can I help you, Mr Pyke?’
‘Just Pyke will do fine.’
Harper nodded.
‘Do you know a man called Michael Pemberton? I’m told he’s a lawyer here in town.’
It was the name Pyke had been given by McQuillan, captain of the Island Queen; according to him, it was Pemberton who had arranged Mary Edgar’s passage and seen her off at the wharf. Pyke felt that a newspaper was as good a place as any to start asking questions about the town’s dignitaries; and a newspaperman committed to a reformist agenda might be mo
re willing to talk candidly than one set on maintaining the status quo.
Harper’s expression remained wary. ‘He’s an attorney here all right, but he spends most of his time up at Ginger Hill.’
‘Ginger Hill?’
‘It’s a plantation about two hours’ ride from here, up in the mountains.’ Harper spoke in a deep, clear voice that suggested only the faintest trace of an accent. ‘He’s the estate manager.’
‘But he has an office in the town?’
‘You can sometimes find him at his house on Rodney Street, and he also owns a small plot of land a few miles south of here, just outside Martha Brae.’ Harper studied him carefully, perhaps trying to work out Pyke’s interest in the attorney.
‘What kind of a man is he?’
‘That would depend on who you’re asking.’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘To a complete stranger, I’d say he was ambitious and hard working.’
That made Pyke smile. ‘I think I understand.’ He sat forward on his chair. ‘What about Mary Edgar?’
Harper’s expression remained unchanged. ‘What about her?’
‘You do know who I’m talking about, then.’
The big man’s eyes never once left Pyke’s face. ‘This is a small community, sir. People tend to know each other.’
‘But did ... do you know her in particular?’ Pyke waited, hoping Harper hadn’t noticed his slip.
A short silence hung between them. ‘Perhaps I should ask why you’re so interested in these people.’
Pyke considered telling him the truth but didn’t yet know whether he could be trusted. ‘If I said I was an old friend, would you believe me?’
‘No, but I’m curious none the less. You do know Mary Edgar sailed for London about three months ago?’
‘And Pemberton arranged her passage.’
The newspaperman frowned. ‘Pemberton?’
‘I’m told he saw her off at the wharf.’
‘Pemberton might have made the arrangements but Charles Malvern would have been there to see her off.’
Pyke tried not to show too much interest but felt his skin prickle with excitement. ‘So Charles Malvern and Mary Edgar are attached?’
‘Engaged to be married, as far as I know,’ Harper said.
‘And Charles is Silas’s son?’
‘That’s right.’
Briefly he assimilated this new piece of information. He wondered whether it explained why Elizabeth Malvern had sent Crane and his men to try to frighten Sobers and Mary Edgar into fleeing the city. He certainly couldn’t see Silas Malvern welcoming Mary into his family with open arms. But it raised other questions, too. If Mary had been engaged to Charles Malvern, why had she taken a room in a lodging house on the Ratcliff Highway? And why had she been dallying with Alefounder?
‘I was told Silas’s daughter, Elizabeth Malvern, had sailed for this part of the world.’ By Pyke’s calculations, she would have left two or possibly three weeks before him, and if she’d come by steamer, she should have been there for a number of weeks already.
‘Not as far as I’m aware.’ Harper’s elbows were resting on the desk. He was trying to appear relaxed but Pyke could see the tension in his shoulders.
‘Are you certain about that?’
‘You want her, ask for her up at Ginger Hill.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Pyke said, still trying to work out whether he liked the big newspaperman. ‘It can’t have been easy for people to take, a mulatto girl being engaged to a rich white planter.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘I’m guessing his family have objections, too. The father, for example. You knew him when he was here?’
‘Not personally.’ Harper’s eyes narrowed.
‘I wouldn’t think you’d be one of their supporters.’
‘Who said I was?’
‘Then what’s to stop us from having a private chat?’
But Harper was rubbing his chin and looking at Pyke with ill-concealed suspicion. ‘You know something? This conversation is beginning to make me feel uncomfortable. So either you tell me what you want and why you’re here or I ask you to leave.’
Pyke nodded. ‘All right.’
From his desk, the newspaperman produced a bottle of rum and two glasses. He filled them with the murky spirit and pushed one of them across the desk. Pyke took it, closed his eyes and swallowed the rum in a single gulp. The fiery liquid burned the sides of his throat. Harper laughed when he saw Pyke shudder. ‘Most white folk take it with water,’ he said, still grinning.
‘Kill-devil and water.’
The words hung in the air. Pyke thought about McQuillan’s claim that ‘kill-devil’ had been some kind of code word used by Mary Edgar and Arthur Sobers.
‘That’s right,’ Harper said, eventually. ‘So what were you about to tell me?’
Pyke started with news of Mary Edgar’s murder and proceeded with a summary of his investigation to date. He left nothing out, apart from Alefounder’s involvement with the dead woman and the fact that the sugar trader would shortly be arriving in Falmouth. He also didn’t say anything about his suspicions regarding Elizabeth Malvern or indeed about the manner of Mary Edgar’s death; for now, this was something he wanted to keep to himself. When he’d said all there was to say, Pyke took a sip of the fresh glass of rum Harper had poured him then swore the newspaperman to silence.
‘I didn’t know Mary Edgar personally but I’m sorry she’s dead. Like you said, she was a beauty.’ Harper hesitated, not quite meeting Pyke’s gaze. ‘Do you know who killed her?’
This time it was Pyke’s turn to be reticent. He tried to swat a fly that had landed on his arm.
‘What I meant to ask was why, given she was killed in London, have you made the trip all the way out here?’
This was also a question Pyke wasn’t prepared to answer. Instead, he waited for a moment and said, ‘I wonder whether Charles Malvern knows his fiancée has been murdered.’
Harper poured himself another rum. ‘I publish a daily newspaper and I hadn’t heard about it. But someone might have written him a letter, his father or sister ...’
Or someone might have travelled from England to break the news to him in person ...
‘Tell me about the father.’
‘At one time Silas Malvern was the largest slave-owner in the county. About four or five years ago, just after the first emancipation act, he decided to move to England. Perhaps he saw the writing on the wall. In any case, he sold everything but Ginger Hill and moved to England with his daughter Elizabeth.’
‘And Charles stayed here?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What kind of man is he?’
‘Silas or Charles?’
‘Silas.’
Harper looked at him and shrugged. ‘Well, he wasn’t the worst of them, not by a long way.’ Then he rose to his feet and told Pyke he wanted to show him something, if Pyke had a few moments to spare.
It had already fallen dark in the short space of time they had been talking, although the air was still warm and filled with the trilling of cicadas. They walked in silence along Market Street. It was noticeably quieter, eerily so, and when Pyke mentioned this to Harper, and asked why all the shutters and windows of the houses had been boarded up, Harper assured him that all would soon become clear.
Pyke heard them before he saw them; a mob of men, white men, gathered in a semicircle around a fight or some kind of spectacle in front of the courthouse. It turned out not to be a fight, though. Harper, who for obvious reasons kept his distance, said, ‘This is Jamaican justice.’ A black man, stripped naked to his trousers, was lying on the ground chained to a rock. Next to him, a burly white man holding a whip was catching his breath, as were the crowd who had assembled to witness the spectacle. ‘The Custos found him guilty of theft, so this is his punishment.’ The next lash of the whip, when it finally came, made Pyke look away. The following made him wince; twenty-five lashes later, he wanted
to be sick. The mob roared their approval at every one of them and by the end there was almost nothing left of the man’s back.
‘There’ll be retribution later,’ Harper said, as they made their way to a place that he’d euphemistically called ‘the hole’. ‘That’s why all the shutters have been closed. Once the white folk have all gone home, they’ll move in from the edge of town and untie the man you saw being whipped. You can smell the anger in the air. I wouldn’t go for a walk later, if I were you.’ Pyke noticed Harper had referred to the town’s black population as ‘they’.
In fact, the ‘hole’ was not as euphemistically named as Pyke had imagined. The space had been dug into the ground and was covered by a roof made of corrugated iron and bamboo. It was the only place in the town, as Harper later explained, where whites and blacks could mix without causing upset. Harper also said it served the cheapest and best rum. Pyke sat on an overturned crate while Harper bought the drinks at the counter. In spite of the late hour, the room was like a furnace and Pyke’s new cotton shirt was already damp with perspiration.
Kill-Devil and Water Page 20
