‘The fellow with the whip,’ Harper explained, after he’d put two glasses of rum filled to the brim down on the crate between them. ‘That was the Custos.’ When he saw Pyke didn’t understand the term, he clarified, ‘The chief magistrate.’
‘And the man being whipped - were the charges against him fair?’
This made the big man laugh. ‘They reckon he stole two goats from a landowner near Martha Brae.’ Harper sat forward, his gigantic forearms resting on the crate, so that Pyke could smell the rum on his breath. ‘Actually, you know him, or know of him. Your friend Michael Pemberton made the accusation.’
They sipped their rum. It was certainly more palatable than the drink Pyke had imbibed at Samuel’s place in the East End. ‘What had this man really done?’
The newspaper proprietor considered Pyke’s question. ‘How much do you know about this island?’
‘I know the apprenticeship system was abolished two years ago.’ As Pyke understood it, this was a system introduced after slavery had been outlawed three or four years previously, mostly to appease the planters. Former slaves were ‘apprenticed’ to their masters for a period of time which, in effect, meant they had to work in conditions similar to slavery in order to ‘earn’ their freedom. Pyke had read that abuses were commonplace and the system had been almost as unpopular as slavery itself, or perhaps more so; under slavery those working on the estates had at least received medical care from trained doctors.
‘And how have your newspapers reported this emancipation?’ The irony was difficult to miss.
‘Are you saying nothing much has changed?’
‘Everything and nothing.’ Harper swallowed what remained of his rum and shuddered slightly. ‘You can’t put a price on a man’s freedom. I still remember the first day I bought my freedom; the air tasted cleaner, the sun shone more brightly, the sky was that much bluer. But the landlords still have all the power and they expect us to work on their estates for next to nothing.’ His eyes were shining. ‘Under slavery, they were obliged to provide housing and provision grounds so that we could grow our own food. These are places where folk have lived their entire lives, where their relatives and their ancestors are buried. Now, under this new system, the landlords are charging rents almost as high as the wages they’re prepared to pay. So it’s true, folk ain’t happy, and rightly so. The man you saw being whipped, Isaac Webb, was trying to do something about it. He’s organised a strike up at Ginger Hill - they’re refusing to bring in the harvest until their wage demands have been met - and now the dispute’s threatening to spread across the island.’
Harper paused to wipe his face with a handkerchief. ‘You see, the cane’s ripe and ready to be harvested. If it ain’t cut down and pressed in the next week or so, the whole crop will be lost. Malvern’s workers know this and they’re holding out against going to the fields, hoping he’ll buckle and agree to pay them a fair wage.’ From nowhere, two more rums appeared on the table. Harper grinned.
Pyke hadn’t finished the one in his hand and already felt a little drunk. ‘So Malvern, Pemberton, the Custos, there’s no difference between them?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ Harper picked up the full glass of rum and drank it in a single gulp. ‘The dispute started at Ginger Hill because they reckon he’s a soft touch.’ His eyes were a little bloodshot and his accent was stronger now, too. ‘Like I said, Silas wasn’t the worst of them and neither is his son.’
Pyke took a sip of the next rum. Harper watched him, smiling. ‘But I heard Charles is looking to leave, sell up and join his fiancée in London, or at least that’s what his plans were before ...’ Harper hesitated, suddenly not sure what to say. But there was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. ‘In fact that’s who I thought you were, when you first walked through my door, asking questions about Pemberton and Mary Edgar.’
‘Who?’ Pyke asked, confused.
‘A potential buyer.’
‘A potential or a particular buyer?’
‘Malvern’s had lots of potential buyers over the past year and a half; all have pulled out. I’m told a gentleman from Antigua is expected here soon. I’m also told Malvern has high hopes for this one. He’s desperate to sell the estate. I have no idea how your news will affect his plans.’
Pyke turned this information over in his mind, while Harper ordered another round of drinks. ‘You know this buyer’s name?’ he asked when Harper returned, this time carrying four glasses of rum between his calloused fingers.
‘Not off the top of my head but I can find out. Why you ask?’
‘This buyer is expected here soon. And if he’s coming all the way from Antigua, it isn’t likely anyone’s actually met him, is it?’
‘Exactly what I was thinking.’
Later Pyke would wonder why the newspaperman had been so keen for him to do what they eventually agreed upon, but at the time they were both swept up on a giddy tide of rum.
‘What I still don’t understand is why, if Mary was killed in London, you came all this way to Jamaica.’
Pyke noticed Harper had just called her ‘Mary’ but didn’t comment. ‘I came for the sunshine.’ He upended the glass into his mouth and shuddered involuntarily. ‘And the rum.’
Harper’s bloodshot eyes contracted slightly and his smile curdled at the corners of his mouth. ‘You don’t look or act like a policeman. You should take that as a compliment, by the way.’
‘I’m not, but I was hired by a policeman to try to find out who killed Mary Edgar.’
‘Why?’
Pyke went to finish the latest of his rums. He closed his eyes and the dark, unfamiliar room began to spin. ‘It’s a long story, but I used to be a Bow Street Runner.’
‘A Bow Street Runner, eh?’ Harper said it as if he knew what a Bow Street Runner was. ‘So you ever had to kill another man?’ As he said it, he tried to grin but the effort was stillborn.
After Harper had guided him back to Mrs McAlister’s guest house on Seaboard Street, Pyke sat for a while on the veranda staring out at the ocean and listening to the waves breaking over the rocks. He felt more than pleasantly drunk, and as he sat there, listening to the cicadas and watching the stars dotted across the entire night sky, he almost didn’t know where he was, or what he was supposed to be doing. He also knew that sleep was beyond him and decided to walk, or stumble, along Seaboard Street as far as the courthouse. The men with torches who’d been there earlier had gone elsewhere but the man who’d been whipped, Isaac Webb, was still lying there chained to a rock. Pyke had a small bottle of rum that Harper had pressed into his hands when they’d left the hole, and he bent over Webb’s battered body and brought the bottle to his lips. The smell of the rum seemed to revive the man a little. Webb was lying on his front. His back, meanwhile, was criss-crossed with a lattice of raw and just about healed scars; clearly it wasn’t the first time he’d suffered such a punishment. He opened his mouth and Pyke wetted his lips with some of the rum. Just for a moment, he managed to lift up his head sufficiently to see who was doing this for him. He managed a smile and croaked, ‘T’anks, man.’ The smell of fresh blood, together with all the rum he’d consumed, made Pyke want to vomit. Pressing the bottle into Webb’s hand, Pyke stood up and looked around him, into the darkness. He noticed something move, someone; a group of people, in fact, edging towards him from the other side of the courthouse, their faces hidden by the darkness. It was only then that he remembered Harper’s warning and stepped away from Webb. He held up his hands, as though to distance himself from what had happened.
The first stone hit him squarely in the chest and after that Pyke remembered running; not in any particular direction and not to the relative safety of his guest house because the mob was blocking his path back along Seaboard Street. He just ran, and behind him he could hear shouts and the sound of people following him. He ran along one street and up another, where the row of houses came to an end. Then he followed the dirt track as it disappeared into a dense mass of unfamiliar trees and
vines and went as far as the seashore, where he stopped and listened. Over his own panting he could hear the muffled sounds of his pursuers and saw that some of them were carrying machetes. Pyke quickly took off his boots and socks, pulled up his trousers and waded into the sea, navigating a path around a rocky promontory. The water was warm and the sand soft against his bare soles. He was sweating profusely but kept moving along the beach, and soon he couldn’t hear anything apart from the waves gently lapping against the sand and the mosquitoes buzzing in his ear. Using the moonlight to guide him, he followed the beach as far as it took him and stopped at a rocky peninsula. There was no one following him now, and everything was perfectly still. The chase had sobered him up a little but the rum had done something to his mind; shapes shifted in and out of focus. He felt disoriented. Up above him the sky was filled with more stars than he had ever seen before in his life. Staring up at them, Pyke thought about Felix and whether he would ever see his son again.
FIFTEEN
Pemberton’s office was located on the ground floor of a Georgian-style building on the corner of Victoria and Rodney Streets, across the track from the police station. The lower floor was built from stone and the upper floor from wood. The veranda, which ran along the front of the building, was supported by wooden columns and afforded the man who was sitting there a view across the ocean. Pyke called up, asking where he could find Michael Pemberton.
‘You’re looking at him,’ the man said, standing up and leaning against the wrought-iron railing. ‘And who might you be, sir?’ Even from a distance, Pyke could tell he cut an imposing figure; six and a half feet tall, broad, with well-developed shoulders, a wide neck and hairy, sunburnt forearms.
Pyke held his hand up to his face, to protect his eyes from the sun. ‘The name’s Montgomery Squires.’ He waited for it to have an effect; he didn’t have to wait for too long.
Pyke had just come from a sober lunch with Harper at which the newspaper proprietor had told him everything he’d managed to dig up about Squires, which wasn’t very much. It was early afternoon and another cloudless day, perhaps even hotter than it had been the day before, and Pyke felt dry-mouthed and irritable, both because of the heat and all the rum he’d consumed with Harper the previous night.
‘Squires, you say?’ Pemberton studied Pyke carefully from the veranda. His body was stiff with tension and his stare cold and suspicious. ‘We weren’t expecting you for at least another week.’
‘I caught an earlier ship and the winds were more favourable than I’d expected.’
‘The door’s open. Let yourself in; I’ll meet you in the hallway.’ Pemberton disappeared from view and Pyke did as he’d been instructed. The room was cool, compared to the street, and as Pyke watched the attorney descend the stairs, one at a time, he tried to take the man’s measure.
Despite his size, Pemberton moved with easy grace and possessed an air of self-confidence that suggested he was used to getting his own way. He carried himself with a quiet authority but Pyke didn’t doubt he’d know how to use his fists, if the occasion presented itself. In his study, Pemberton called to his servant to bring them some fruit punch and invited Pyke to sit on one of the armchairs. He wore his shirt open at the collar, with a silk neckerchief under it. As they waited for the punch to arrive, he said he was sure they could find a way of addressing their dilemma.
‘And what dilemma is that?’ Pyke asked.
‘You’re not expected at Ginger Hill for at least another week.’
‘I came here first as a courtesy but surely I don’t need your permission to visit an estate that I may or may not make an offer on.’
‘But if you’re not expected ...’
Pyke cut him off. ‘Let me be blunt. The fact that I’m not expected is exactly what I want. Then, I can see things as they really are, not some charade put on for my benefit. If I’m to pay, let’s say, ten thousand for Ginger Hill, then I want to see it, warts and all.’
Pemberton shuffled uneasily in his chair. He removed a neckerchief and went to mop his forehead. ‘I quite understand, but if I could prevail upon your patience to stay in Falmouth for another night ...’
‘Out of the question. I’ve arranged the use of a horse and if you’ll give me instructions, I plan to set off as soon as I’m finished here.’
‘But Mr Squires ...’
Pyke held up his hand. ‘Call me Monty. And I’m afraid you’ll find my mind’s made up on this one.’
‘But Monty ...’
‘Of course, there are others in town who’ll be able to direct me to Ginger Hill, so strictly speaking, I don’t need to be here.’
The servant came in carrying a tray with two tall glasses filled with a red-coloured fruit punch.
‘Surely decorum will stop you from calling on the great house at Ginger Hill entirely unannounced ...’
Pyke stood up, took one of the glasses and drank about half. ‘Delicious. Quite delicious.’ He turned to Pemberton and smiled. ‘When it comes to my money, sir, there is no such thing as decorum.’
As he let himself out of the front door, he heard Pemberton’s voice. ‘But it’s not safe, sir, to ride unaccompanied ...’
This much had struck Pyke as probably correct, given what had happened to him the night before in front of the courthouse, but he wasn’t about to let Pemberton talk him around. Still, as soon as he’d ridden out of town on a track baked hard by the sun, heading due south for the village of Martha Brae, Pyke had wondered about the wisdom of what he was doing. As he quickly realised, the town belonged to the whites but the countryside - or at least those areas not part of the sugar plantations that extended from the coastal plains up into the mountains - belonged to the former slaves. Those men he rode past on the track acknowledged him with a curt nod or ignored him. Harper had assured Pyke he would probably be safe - probably - and as it turned out, he was right; no one paid him much attention.
The horse was an elderly spotted gelding, and perhaps because of the afternoon heat, it needed plenty of encouragement to remain at a sedate canter. The flint track flattened out after a while, with fields of tall, ripe sugar cane appearing on either side which swayed gently in the breeze. Farther along, they began another ascent, but this time the track was shaded by towering guano and cotton trees and logwoods whose recently discarded blossoms had been trampled into the clay verges. The occasional cloud floated across an otherwise limitless blue sky, and apart from the gentle clip-clop of hooves and the rustling of cane leaves, all was quiet. Up above, what looked like a vulture circled effortlessly in the sky, but elsewhere the heat of the sun had killed all activity.
He barely passed a soul for the first hour and a half of the ride, but as they neared what he guessed was the boundary of the Ginger Hill estate, more faces appeared at the sides of the track; black faces, curious but unsmiling. Pyke wondered whether these were the workers who, under Webb’s instruction, were refusing to harvest the ripe cane and whether Charles Malvern had, in any way, been responsible for the scene Pyke had witnessed in front of the courthouse. No one spoke a word to him, in anger or otherwise, and in light of what had happened to Webb, he understood their reticence. Labourers in England were kept under the cosh, too, but never in such an explicit manner. A few years earlier, Pyke had witnessed at first hand the working conditions experienced by the navvies building the railways, but hard as they were, those men had volunteered to do their work and were paid, albeit poorly. Here, emancipation was just a word, as Harper had said, and nothing seemed to have changed in the years since slavery had been outlawed. Seen in this light, it was hard not to think of the island as a vast prison camp dedicated to earning its proprietors as much money as possible, with no thought spared for the lives ruined in the process.
About a mile farther along the track a stone gate guarded another, smaller path up to the Ginger Hill great house, which sat atop a steep hillock and commanded views of the surrounding terrain. It took Pyke ten minutes to ride up to it. It was a sprawling colonial-s
tyle edifice built out of stone and wood, with two wings attached to the main building. The house looked more impressive from a distance than it did close up, for although it was still an imposing building, it had fallen into a state of disrepair. Roof slates hadn’t been replaced; timber window frames were rotting; vines had been allowed to crawl unchecked up walls; grass sprouted through flagstones in the courtyard and the front lawn was choked with weeds.
Pyke tied his gelding to a cotton tree and took the steps at the front of the great house two at a time. A servant had heard him approach and had opened the front door. His incurious face registered the name ‘Montgomery Squires’ without interest. Pyke waited in the central hall, which ran along the entire length of the building, and admired the dark wooden floor, which had been polished so vigorously he could see his reflection in it.
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