Paradise Island

by Peter Guttridge

  Lewis looked up at the ceiling then down at the woman’s belly.

  ‘I’m guessing bitch.’

  He looked back at the drug dealer.

  ‘Do we have a deal?’

  The drug-dealer was marginally more alert. He looked uncomprehending but jerked his head.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ Lewis said.

  ‘So now what?’ Hanson said.

  ‘Now we take a look,’ Lewis said. And for the first time Hanson noticed the knife down by his side.

  Jimmy looked up and down the street and gave the all-clear. Karen and Chris hurried across the road, each carrying flat leather cases. Jimmy grinned. He and Donny hadn’t been allowed near the paintings. They’d been given trussing up duties on the artist and his squeeze.

  Jimmy looked back into the house.

  ‘Donny!’ he hissed.

  ‘Bathroom break,’ Donny called back.

  ‘Jesus,’ Jimmy muttered.

  He stepped off the stoop and went to stand in the shade of a low-hanging tree with a massive, gnarled trunk. The couple slid the cases containing the pictures carefully into the back of the van and climbed in, pulling the doors closed behind them.

  A cyclist appeared a few hundred yards away at an intersection and turned down the road towards them. Jimmy looked at the house. He started back. He was just stepping onto the stoop when Donny hurried out, zipping up his flies.

  ‘Hope you’ve washed your fucking hands,’ Jimmy said sourly.

  Donny reached out and tousled his brother’s hair.

  ‘I don’t need to now,’ he said.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Jimmy said, leading the way across the road and glancing at the cyclist, now only a hundred yards away.

  He and Donny got into the front seats of the van and both looked into the back as the cyclist passed by. It was a man in his early thirties and in his own world. He didn’t give the van a second look.

  ‘What now?’ Donny said.

  ‘Let’s get the hell out of Dodge,’ Karen said from the back seat.

  Natasha Innocent arrived at Barbara’s house just as Tom Haddon was leaning his bicycle against the side of his property next door. Her day off had been screwed by this WITSEC thing but she was going to meet Josie here later.

  She walked with Haddon into Barbara’s back yard. She saw Barbara under a maritime oak, half-hidden by the Spanish moss dripping from it. She held off calling out to her when she realised Barbara wasn’t alone. She was in intense conversation with a man whose identity was hidden by the low-hanging moss.

  The new Bob Dylan album wafted out of the open doors.

  ‘Hello the house,’ Haddon called.

  Ruth came through the open sliding doors.

  ‘Hi there.’

  ‘Are we the first?’ Haddon said.

  ‘Always,’ she said, grinning, then blushing.

  Innocent looked at her surprised that this was the same uptight woman who’d been scuttling from shadow to shadow around town. She had a glass in her hand. Maybe it was the booze.

  ‘You a Dylan fan?’ Haddon said.

  ‘My husband. Picked it up on Main Street today. Do you like Dylan, Natasha?’

  ‘I guess. I’m more the Joni Mitchell sort.’

  ‘I like reggae.’ Haddon said. ‘Bob Marley was on the island last year.’

  ‘Marley’s ghost?’ Barbara said, walking up behind Haddon and patting him on the butt.

  Haddon jerked at the unexpected familiarity.

  ‘Hello, handsome,’ Barbara said, ignoring Innocent. ‘I played Belle in a mime version of A Christmas Carol at Richmond Theatre when I was starting out.’

  ‘A mime version?’ Innocent said.

  ‘The Sixties, sweetheart,’ Barbara said, acknowledging her now. ‘Let’s all go inside, shall we?’

  Innocent saw Ruth glance beyond them before she turned and led the way into the house. Innocent resisted the urge to look behind her to see who the man was under the tree.

  She was talking to Phoebe when first Grady Cole sauntered and then David shuffled in from the yard. David headed straight over and introduced himself.

  ‘Have a California roll,’ Innocent said, her own mouth full.

  ‘There’s an offer I can’t refuse,’ David said, grinning at her. His voice was slurred.

  ‘What do you do, David?’ Phoebe said.

  ‘Work for the BBC,’ he said. ‘The Blinkered Broadcasting Corporation. ‘

  ‘Neat,’ Phoebe said.

  ‘The wireless part.’

  ‘Radio?’ Innocent said. ‘You a DJ?’

  David snorted.

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘What then?’ Innocent said, mildly offended by his scornful response.

  ‘Producer in the Comedy department.’

  ‘What kind of stuff?’ Phoebe said.

  David laughed.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand if I told you.’

  ‘Too highbrow for us Yanks?’ Innocent said, her voice tight.

  ‘Too weird.’

  ‘We get Monty Python,’ Phoebe said. ‘This parrot is an ex-parrot.’

  ‘It’s a show called The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.’ David looked at her and waved his empty glass. ‘Excuse me.’

  Innocent watched him shuffle away to the kitchen. She and Phoebe exchanged a look. What an asshole.

  ‘Well, whaddya know?’ Donny said. Jimmy followed his look. The woman on the skateboard was drifting along the middle of the road. Jimmy had been pretending to look out of the window but actually he was watching the side mirror to see if any cops were following.

  Donny accelerated.

  ‘Donny, leave it,’ his brother said in a low voice.

  Hunched in the back, Karen and Chris didn’t hear the words but caught the tone. They looked ahead and saw the woman looming in front of the van.

  It was hard to be sure exactly what happened next. Maybe Donny was pulling round her, intending to pass so close she’d be frightened again. Maybe she chose that moment to swerve. Maybe it was the tug of the van’s slip-stream. Whatever it was, the van smacked into the woman and sent her head over heels across the pavement.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Karen said, looking through the rear window. ‘What have you done? Stop for fuck’s sake.’

  Donny slowed the van but Chris saw a man coming out of a health food store squinting at their registration number as a pedestrian rushed over to help the woman sprawled on the pavement.

  ‘No,’ Chris said. ‘Keep going. Off this fucking island.’

  Ruth was standing by the sink when David came over.

  ‘Didn’t realise you were still working for the Beeb,’ she said without turning. ‘You must have forgotten to tell me.’

  He looked surprised at her sharp tone.

  ‘What, I should tell them my contract wasn’t renewed?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you think you should own up to the truth?’

  ‘What truth?’

  ‘That you got fired from Hitchhiker for drinking on the job. Then your contract with Sport wasn’t renewed.’

  ‘Everybody drinks on the job. That’s why there’s a 24-hour bar in the basement.’

  ‘There’s a swimming pool in the basement but not everybody swims in it.’

  ‘Nobody ever gets fired from the Beeb,’ he said.

  ‘They don’t know that. And you did.’

  ‘Fuck ‘em. Bunch of tossers.’

  ‘Who’s a bunch of tossers?’

  Gus, the vicar, had come up alongside them.

  ‘Sorry, reverend,’ David said. ‘English expression.’

  ‘Gus is fine. I know the expression. Buddy of mine in seminary college was a Londoner. A Cockney? ‘Cor Blimey?’

  ‘I’m sure I heard Dick Van Dyke say that,’ David said. ‘But, yeah, you got the right idea. What – and your friend thought Judas was a bit of a tosser?’

  Gus smiled politely.

  ‘The seminary was a bit more sophisticated than that.’

 
; ‘Angels on pinheads kind of thing?’

  Gus glanced at Ruth.

  ‘That kind of thing. But who are the tossers?’

  Ruth threw David a warning look. He hesitated.

  ‘My employers.’ David looked at Ruth. ‘My ex-employers. They haven’t renewed my contract.’

  ‘That sucks,’ Gus said.

  David gave his odd grin again.

  ‘The very expression. Do excuse me, vicar.’

  His glass refilled, David wandered across the living room and out into the yard. Ruth watched him go then turned back to Gus.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No sweat. Your husband has a chip on his shoulder about something.’

  ‘You do know the English lingo,’ Ruth said, with a grin that felt so false and wide it seemed to tear at the edges of her mouth.

  ‘Everything going well for you?’ Gus said.

  ‘Hunky Dory.’

  Gus looked at her and nodded.

  ‘Great. You know if you need to talk –’

  ‘I think we had that conversation,’ Ruth said, closing down the false smile.

  ‘Okay – what if I need to talk?’

  Ruth looked at him and frowned.

  ‘I’m not the listening type.’

  ‘You’re a woman,’ Gus said. He put his hands up immediately. ‘Joke.’

  ‘Yeah – I got it.’ She came up close. ‘What are you doing being a pastor? Anyone less likely…’

  ‘I told you – we sneak in. Wolves in lambs clothing.’

  Ruth laughed.

  ‘How’d you end up here?’

  ‘That’s a long, sad story.’

  ‘You can have sex though, right?’

  He stepped back.

  ‘That’s a bit of a non-sequitur. You mean: am I physically capable?’

  Ruth moved closer.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I’m a pastor not a priest so, Yes, I’m allowed to have sex. But if that’s a proposition, flattered as I am, the answer is No. You’re married and I’ve got that Ten Commandment thing going on.’

  He started to put his hand up but she got there first.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘That first bit was a joke. But the Ten Commandment Thing?’

  He grinned at her, partly in relief she thought.

  ‘Right.’

  Wilson was back in his house, thinking about Mr Smith and Luke Hanson in equal parts. He was also wondering whether he could face the party down the street. Or, more particularly, the force of nature that was Barbara.

  His radio buzzed. Nadine in the office.

  ‘Chief Wilson we just had a call. Woman on a skate board seriously injured, on her way to the hospital.’

  ‘We know who she is, Nadine?’

  ‘Negative. She was in shorts and a T-shirt. No identification.’

  ‘And nobody recognises her?’

  ‘Tourists called it in.’

  ‘Okay. Johnny Finch is still on shift. Find him and get him over to identify. We know what hit her?’

  ‘White van, out-of-State plates, at least two male passengers inside. Possibly a woman.’

  ‘She driving?’

  ‘No. Big fella in a baseball cap. The woman was looking out of the back window.’

  ‘And the van didn’t stop?’

  ‘Didn’t even slow.’

  ‘Okay. You know what to do. Alert our people at the tollbooth. I’ll be down at the causeway directly.’

  ‘Should I call Natasha in?’

  He thought for a moment.

  ‘Let her have her day off. I can handle it. Get hold of Johnny though.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘What is all this stuff?’ David said, looking suspiciously down at the Japanese food.

  ‘Sushi,’ Barbara said. She indicated the long-haired man standing by the table. ‘Eddie here made them for us.’

  ‘Sushi?’ David said.

  ‘California style,’ Eddie Hopper said.

  ‘I’m no wiser,’ David said.

  ‘It’s the hot new thing,’ Barbara said. ‘Sushi is Japanese – raw fish wrapped in rice.’

  ‘Ugh.’

  ‘It’s delicious actually,’ Barbara said. ‘When I made that gangster film with Mitchum in Tokyo we ate it all the time.’

  ‘This is the California version,’ Hopper said. ‘The great Californian invention, actually: the California roll. Avocado instead of raw fish. Imitation crab instead of real crab. Crab juice. Rice and Japanese cucumber. All wrapped in a roll with uramaki.’

  ‘Which is?’ David said.

  ‘Dried seaweed.’

  David looked at him for a beat.

  ‘Sounds great.’

  Hopper laughed.

  ‘It is – honestly.’

  ‘Is this what you sell in your restaurant, Eddie?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘That’s mostly Szechuan cooking. You haven’t lived until you’ve had Kung Pao Chicken or Tea Smoked Duck.’

  ‘Szechuan?’ David said. ‘That’s Chinky isn’t it? Ruth’s more of a sweet and sour pork girl.’

  Ruth raised her eyes at Barbara.

  ‘I am not.’ She pointed at a small bowl. ‘What’s the green stuff?’

  ‘Wasabi,’ Hopper said. ‘It’s a great thing. It has anti-food poisoning properties.’

  ‘Because it’s doing the poisoning job itself?’ David said.

  Hopper laughed.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What do you do with it?’ Ruth asked.

  You dip the sushi in it. It’s hot: be careful. The more water you add to it the hotter it gets. And don’t get it on your fingers then rub your eyes. It’s like horseradish. It actually burns. A lot of people think it’s because a component is sulphuric acid.’

  ‘They do?’ Ruth said.

  ‘They do. But it’s not.’

  ‘It’s not?’ she said.

  ‘No. It does have a sulphur atom in it but the active compound is allyl isothiocyanate.’ He saw her face. ‘That’s mustard oil to you and me.’

  ‘Well – to you. You’re really, really into your food aren’t you? And there I was thinking you were just a chef.’

  ‘All cooking is chemistry.’

  She smiled.

  ‘I like that.’

  ‘You do?’ David said, sniffing.

  ‘Mr Chef here knows his stuff,’ Barbara said.

  Hopper grinned. He gestured towards the dishes.

  ‘All I’m saying is don’t get that stuff anywhere near your eyes.’

  ‘Because of the allyl isothiocyanate,’ Ruth said.

  Hopper looked surprised, probably that she’d remembered the name and pronounced it more or less correctly.

  ‘Allyl isothiocyanate. Right.’

  As the white van approached the tollbooth road, Chris cursed under his breath. A police car was drawn up across the causeway by the booth and a solid looking barrier was down.

  ‘Damn, they moved quickly,’ he said to Karen.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she said.

  ‘I can crash through,’ Donny said, ‘keep rolling. It’s only one cop.’

  ‘I doubt you can easily crash through that barrier,’ Chris said. ‘Besides, they’ll just be waiting at the other end.’

  ‘You’re sure they’re checking for us?’ Jimmy said.

  Chris ignored him.

  ‘Get off the road quick,’ he snapped at Donny. He turned to Karen. ‘I made a mistake with the van. We stand out too much. If they’re looking for a white van – which thanks to you, Donny, they probably are – we’re cooked.’

  ‘Where do you want me to go?’ Donny said, petulant now. They were headed down a side street to a road junction. A dirt road went off to the left.

  ‘Take the dirt road,’ Chris said.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Karen said.

  ‘We’re going to hole up somewhere until things have quietened down a bit. Get another car – maybe two.’

  Donny took the turn too fast and the
van fish-tailed for twenty yards or so. Chris tapped Donny on the shoulder and pointed past him.

  ‘Pull up under those trees.’

  Donny did as he was told.

  ‘Let’s get out for just a minute.’

  They did so and shuffled around to the passenger side of the van.

  ‘Houses up ahead,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Okay, let’s ditch the van,’ Karen said. ‘Hole up in one of the houses for a while, take somebody’s car and get off this damned island.’

  ‘We leave the van here, the cops will go door-to-door down this road,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Probably do the whole shit-hole island in an hour or two,’ Donny said, spitting a big gob of chewing tobacco a couple of inches to the side of Chris’s shoes. ‘We’re going to have to shoot our way off.’

  ‘No shooting,’ Chris said, looking down at the brown wad. ‘This thing is fucked enough as it is.’

  ‘Whole job was fucked up from the start, you ask me,’ Donny said.

  Chris straight-armed him across the throat. Donny clutched his neck and staggered back, gagging. Chris turned, swung his left leg behind Donny’s ankles pushed him in the chest and took his feet out from under him. Donny fell like a tree.

  Jimmy looked startled at the speed of it.

  ‘Goddamn,’ he said, lunging towards Chris. Before he could reach him, Karen had stepped in, thrusting her pistol in Jimmy’s neck.

  ‘He had at least that much coming,’ she said calmly, looking quickly up and down the street.

  Jimmy stopped, face forward.

  ‘You cool?’ Karen said, pressing the pistol against his neck – but gently.

  Chris looked across.

  ‘He’s cool,’ he said.

  Karen moved the gun away. Jimmy went to his brother who was half lying, half-sitting on the floor, red-faced and spluttering for breath. His eyes fixed implacably on Chris.

  Jimmy held out his hand. Donny looked at it, coughed.

  ‘What?’ he rasped. ‘You think your skinny ass can lift me off the ground?’

  He pushed Jimmy aside hard and pulled himself to his feet. Chris watched him. He was ready. Donny gave Chris a hard look then lowered his eyes and walked past.

  ‘Let’s get on with this,’ he muttered.