The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (34 page)

Shut
it, Ben tells hisself. You shut it right now. Just click the sodding bullets and cut the lucky out of here. Sodding darkies with their sodding colours and all their fruits and their big happy sodding families.

But deep down, he knows it’s not the darkies he hates. It’s him. Ben Kelly. Cos here he is, walking along in the sunshine, all warm and clean, so fucking clean – and Robbie’s dead.

It’s got a lot worse since he come this side of the island. On the
Marianne
he had to work so hard that he never got the time to think. And in Kingston he was just so glad to get back onto dry land, and so busy staying alive. But then one day he got wind of the parson’s family, and
bang
! All of a sudden it’s real.

And for the first time he thinks about what it’ll be like to kill the parson. What it’ll be like, really. And every time a pony-trap goes by, his chest gets all tight in case it’s Sophie or Madeleine. Course it never is, and he’s well narked at hisself, cos he don’t want to see them again, not ever. She went and married the parson, didn’t she? She’s the enemy now.

But still. He can’t help wondering what’ll happen to them when he kills the parson. She’ll be a widow. What if the parson’s family chucks her out, and she’s poor, and Sophie gets worse and dies, and it’s all on account of him?

Everything’s so mixed up. He can’t get it straight in his head.

And so far, no sodding bullets at this sodding market. Just bunches of chickens hanging by their feet, and darkie girls with trays of hog plum jelly on their heads, and darkie men with baskets of swamp oysters and parrotfish and turtles lying on their backs and waving like drowning men.

He’s pushing his way through the commotion, and picking up speed past the courthouse, when somebody calls his name.
His
name, ‘Ben, Ben!’, right out loud above the din.

Something in his chest shifts painfully.

He looks up and there she is on the verandah, not ten yards away. Long yellow hair pulled back in a black velvet ribbon. Frilly white pinafore over a tartan frock. Black stockings, shiny black boots, a couple of crutches, and that clumpy iron thing still on her leg. And she’s waving her big straw hat with this green ribbon fluttering, and yelling, ‘
Ben! Ben! Over here!
’ and nearly toppling off the bloody verandah, she’s waving so hard.

It’s like he can’t hear nothing, can’t see nothing but Sophie on the verandah, waving at him. Nobody’s been pleased to see him since Robbie got killed. But Sophie is. He don’t know what to do.

‘Ben! It’s me! Sophie!’

He shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches up his shoulders. No harm in saying hello, is there? And it’ll stop her yelling. Which is all to the good since she’s outside the bloody courthouse. Not that he’s actually clicked nothing yet. But still.

He pushes his way through the crowd and jumps up onto the verandah. Takes off his hat and sits down at the other end of the bench. ‘What’s up, Sophie,’ he goes.

She sits down too – more like falls down, on account of her splint and the crutches and all – and she’s laughing and crying, and so glad that she can’t hardly breathe. ‘Ben, you’ve grown so tall! And brown! And you’ve got new clothes – and, and everything—’

‘And I don’t pong no more,’ he puts in, seeing as she’s too polite to mention it.

She giggles.

And again that something shifts in his chest, and makes him wince. ‘And look at you,’ he goes. But then he can’t think what else to say, cos up close she looks so done in that it fair gives him a turn. She’s nothing but a bag of bones. Face like a skull, lips all pale; big blue shadows under her eyes.

She says, ‘Oh, Ben, I thought I’d never see you again. You never came to say goodbye.’

‘Couldn’t. Got into chancery, didn’t I?’

‘What’s chancery?’

‘Trouble. Bluebottles after me.’

‘Bluebott— oh, you mean policemen. I guessed it must have been something like that. Is it all right now?’

He turns away and looks out over the market. No, he thinks. It’ll never be all right now.

Then she says what he hoped she wouldn’t. ‘Where’s Robbie?’ she says.

His chest goes tight again and he sucks in his breath to keep from crying out. ‘He’s not here,’ he goes.

She shoots him a look, and don’t ask no more. She’s all right, is Sophie.

For a bit they don’t say nothing. Then she goes, ‘How did you find us, Ben? How did you get to Jamaica?’

He looks at her funny little face and wonders how much to tell her. How he was on the doss for days after Robbie got killed, and he clicked enough for a proper burial, and got Robbie settled, and then just wandered off, and fetched up at the docks. No reason, just fetched up there. The stink of sugar so thick you couldn’t hardly breathe; the quays all brown and sticky with it. Then he spotted that mark on one of the sacks,
F-H
, and a ganger said that’s the Monroe mark. The Monroes of Fever Hill, big name in sugar, or used to be, top quality muscovado. That’s when he got the idea. Sugar boats leaving every day of the week. Always needing extra hands.

But he can’t tell Sophie all that. It’d only get them round to why he’s come after the parson, and straight back to Robbie again. So he just shrugs and says, ‘I worked on a boat.’

‘Gosh, how exciting. Did you get seasick?’

He shakes his head.

‘I didn’t either. Or Maddy. But Sinclair did, a little.’ She twists her hands together in her lap.

Something’s up, he thinks.

He watches her take the little beaded purse on her wrist and snap it open. ‘We’re quite rich now,’ she says, talking too quick. ‘I get pocket money and everything. Here. This is a present.’ She holds out two silver crowns. ‘I’m sorry it isn’t more, but it’s all I have until next Tuesday.’

Angrily he pushes it away. ‘I don’t want your sodding money.’

‘Don’t be silly, Ben. You need it—’

‘I said no!’

She blinks. ‘I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.’

She’s missing the point. Point is, he’s narked at
hisself
, not her. Who does he think he is, turning down good money? But he can’t take it from her. Silly little cow. Silly, crippled little cow.

She shuts the purse and puts it in her lap, and clutches it in her bony fingers.

She’s holding on too tight, he thinks.

‘Oh, Ben’ she says, ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’ Then she bursts into tears.

Shit, but it’s horrible watching her cry. He hates it.
Hates
it. What’s he supposed to do?

He touches her arm, but he’s all dusty and her sleeve’s too clean, so he brushes it off. ‘What’s up, Sophie,’ he goes.

After a bit she stops sobbing. Just hiccups for a bit. Nose pink, eyelashes all spiky. Then she just ups and tells him. That’s Sophie for you. First she’s blubbing away, then she gets herself together, then she spits out what’s bothering her. No mucking about.

To begin with it’s hard to follow, but soon he gets to the meat of it. And he can’t hardly believe it. First the parson done for Robbie, and now he’s gone and done for this little darkie that was Sophie’s mate.
Why?
It don’t make no sense.

But she’s not making it up. She may be a nob and a bint and that, but Sophie’s sharp. She knows what she saw.

‘I’m sure he didn’t
mean
to do it,’ she says, twisting her purse in her fingers. ‘He couldn’t have done, could he? He couldn’t have known that Victory was inside.’

She searches his face with her big brown eyes, but he don’t say nothing. No point scaring her, is there?

Then he gets a thought that makes him go cold all over. As long as the parson thinks nobody seen him shut that little darkie in the lock-up, everything’s fine. But if the parson gets wind that Sophie was there, then – well, Ben don’t like to finish that particular notion. ‘Here, Sophie,’ he goes. ‘Who else d’you tell about this?’

‘No-one. Only you.’

‘You sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Good. Keep it like that.’

She looks puzzled. ‘I don’t—’

‘I mean it, Sophie. Don’t go breathing a word to a living soul. And don’t tell nobody about me, neither. You never seen me, all right? Just like you never seen the parson shut that door.’

‘Can’t I even tell Maddy?’

‘You cracked, or what? She’s
married
to him! He’d worm it out of her in no time.’

‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’

Keep it that way, he thinks. ‘Listen,’ he says. He takes her arm. She’s so thin, it’s like grabbing a cat. ‘Your mate. The one that got killed.’

‘Victory.’

‘Yeh. Well, he’s dead, all right? Nothing won’t bring him back now. So you got to forget about him and start thinking about you. You got to start getting better, girl.’

To his surprise she shakes her head, and all of a sudden she looks well grown-up. ‘It’s not that easy, Ben. I was getting better. But then someone took my shadow.’ She bites her lip. ‘I think that’s why Victory – I think he was trying to get it back. I
told
him not to go there on his own, but I bet he did. He was always trying to impress me.’ Her eyes fill with tears.

He gives her another shake. ‘Stop that.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Right. Now just tell me what you’re on about.’

She takes out a little lawn handkerchief from her purse and blows her nose. Then she tells him this queer little story about shadows and darkie magic and that. When she’s finished she gives him this worried look, like she don’t know what he’ll make of it.

Truth is, he don’t know
what
to make of it. He learnt a bit about darkie magic off of Amos the cook on the
Marianne
, and as far as he’s concerned it’s a load of bollocks. But Sophie don’t think so. And if she don’t watch out, she’ll fret herself to an early grave.

That’s when he pulls hisself up short. Whoa, Ben, whoa. Don’t you get mixed up in all this. It ain’t your problem. She’s doing all right, is Sophie. She’s got plenty of dosh, nice clothes, plenty to eat, and a topper big sister to look after her. She’s in clover, she is.

Only she’s not.

‘Right,’ he says, sounding a lot cockier than he feels. ‘You leave it to me. I’ll get your shadow back, and I’ll sort it out about the parson, too. But you got to do your bit. All right?’

She nods. ‘What do I do?’

‘You don’t say nothing to nobody, you stop fretting, and you start getting better.’

Sinclair picked up the little silver branding-iron from his blotter and turned it in his fingers, and wondered what this unsettling news from town could possibly mean.

He told himself to stay calm, and to have faith. Hadn’t God protected him from the menace in the hothouse? Hadn’t God so ordered events that all he’d had to do was wait and keep silent, and wonder how long it would take?

But this report from Kean was peculiarly disturbing. ‘A white boy,’ Kean had said, ‘cheaply dressed and very meagre, with black hair and a sharp, wicked-looking face. He seem to know Missy Sophie well.’

It was impossible. Inconceivable. Those urchins in London had been seen to; the officer had assured him of that.

And yet – if it hadn’t been the urchin from Fitzroy Square, to whom had the sister been talking? And why?

A soft knock at the door.

‘Enter,’ he said.

Kean came in and bowed low. Missy Sophie, he said, had been awakened, and was expecting Master Sinclair. She would be alone, as Master Sinclair had requested. Miss Maddy was taking her bath.

Sinclair replaced the branding-iron on the blotter and rose to his feet. ‘Very good,’ he said.

The child was sitting up in bed when he went out to her. She was still dazed with sleep, her sallow face creased from the pillow. After the visit to town, his wife had insisted that she should go straight to bed for a nap.

Sinclair stood looking down at her for a moment. Then, in a low, gentle voice, he said, ‘You were seen outside the courthouse, talking to an undesirable.’

A hit, a palpable hit. He watched her face drain with shock.

‘You appeared to know this individual,’ he said. ‘Can that be true?’

She shook her head.

He gave her a kindly smile. ‘A wastrel and a no-account, and yet you knew him? I think you ought to tell me who he was, and what was said.’

She did not reply.

He repeated the question.

Another silence. She was watching him like an animal, scarcely daring to breathe.

‘I think’, he said, ‘that you really ought to tell me everything. You will feel a great deal better when you do.’

She swallowed. ‘He was asking the way,’ she said. Her lips barely moved.

‘He was asking the way,’ repeated Sinclair. ‘For a quarter of an hour.’

She nodded.

He leaned over her: close, but not so close as to inhale the effluvium of her disease. ‘I am surprised that you, of all people, should attempt to deceive a man of God with a falsehood. You must know that you have not long to live. You could go to hell for that.’

Beneath the dressing gown her bony breast rose and fell.

He straightened up. ‘I think I ought to leave you, to reflect upon what you have done. And when you decide to tell me the truth, you shall find me an attentive audience.’ He walked down the gallery, then paused at the door to his study. ‘In the meantime,’ he said, putting a little hardness into his voice, ‘do not imagine that you shall go unpunished.’

The effect on her was immediate and astonishing. She sat up so abruptly that she jarred the bedside table and sent her glass and the water jug flying. ‘Oh no please!’ she cried. ‘Don’t lock me up! Don’t, I couldn’t bear it, I should go mad!’

Lock her up? Whatever did she mean?

He swayed. Dear God. What did she mean?

‘I won’t tell anyone ever,’ she cried, ‘I swear on the Bible! Just don’t lock me up in the hothouse!’

He forced himself to take a deep, slow breath. Calm, calm. Trust in the Maker.

He walked back across the gallery, and drew up a chair beside her and sat down. ‘Tell me,’ he said very gently. ‘Tell me what you think you saw.’

Chapter Twenty-Three