Ascension Day

43

Atlanta customs, Miami, Nassau… Havana.

A re-run each time of Jac’s ordeal going through the passport check at New Orleans, perspiring, his stomach doing somersaults, praying that they didn’t notice his hand shaking as he handed over his passport.

But it was worse after the call from Mike Coultaine. Far worse.

Jac had landed at Atlanta an hour and fifty minutes beforehand, had just twenty minutes before boarding for the next leg to Miami, when Coultaine’s call came through. Bad news, Jac. Bad news.

Coultaine explained that while he believed he’d successfully quelled the suspicions of the officer that had called, he thought it worth keeping an eye on. Just in case. And so he’d called an old police contact who owed him a few favours, said that he’d just had a strange call from a certain Joe Rayleigh of Eighth District regarding Darrell Ayliss, an old lawyer buddy of his. Probably nothing, but could he contact him on the QT if anything came up on police radar about it.

‘And he just called a few minutes ago, Jac. There’s an APB been put out for Ayliss. Carrying false identity, false impersonation and fraud.’

‘Oh, Jesus!’ Jac closed his eyes momentarily, glad that he was sitting when the news came.

‘But what’s odd is the “approach with caution” note. Bit extreme for the crimes mentioned… until, that is, my friend told me the contact name on the APB: Lieutenant Derminget! And it all suddenly fell into place and made sense.’

Jac only half-heard Coultaine go on to say that it looked like Derminget had somehow worked it all out: McElroy, Ayliss… the disguise. ‘Don’t know how, but he obviously has.’ The echoing terminal activity and pounding pulse in Jac’s head half-drowned it out.

That pounding heavier still, legs shaky and uncertain, as fifteen minutes later he rose to go through passport control.

And then that same ordeal at Miami, Nassau and finally Havana. Not knowing how he managed to face each one, feeling almost physically sick after passing through each time, his nerves mounting again in flight as he steeled himself to face the next one. So by the time he went through the last check-out at Havana, he was exhausted, emotionally drained.

Part of him felt like jumping in the air or doing a quick fandango in relief and excitement, but his body had hardly the strength left to put one foot in front of the other. His step heavy, laboured, eyes bleary and unfocused from lack of sleep as he headed away from customs — before the guards, no doubt with their eyes still on his back, changed their minds — and sought the car-rental desks.

Closed! Jac shuffled over to the cafe area at the end, one of the few things open, and on the second try found a waiter with good enough English.

‘They open at seven o’clock, senor.’

Jac looked at the clock on the cafe wall: 6.23 a.m. His friendly waiter said there wouldn’t be other car-rental companies open yet in the city, most in fact wouldn’t open until 9 a.m., and the train to Sancti Spiritus took eight and a half hours. With already fourteen hours eaten up getting to Cuba, Jac hated to lose even one more minute of what little time Durrant had left — but with little other option, he ordered a coffee and waited, meanwhile checking his phone messages. He’d switched his cell-phone off immediately after Coultaine’s call and hadn’t used it since, worried that with the APB out, the police might be able to zone-track where he was. He risked turning it on now briefly. Only one call: Bob Stratton. New Orleans was one hour behind: 5.31 a.m. He’d call him back in a couple of hours.

Jac finished his coffee and ordered another, his body suddenly craving more caffeine to combat his over-tiredness, kick some life back into it.

Realizing, as he finally got on the road at 7.09 a.m., squinting at road-signs as he sped across a dawn-lit Havana, that he’d have risked falling asleep on the drive without the caffeine. And, having chosen the car-rental company’s most powerful option, an Audi A6, hoping that he could make up the time. The caffeine didn’t help his already wire-taut nerves, his stomach jittery and his hands trembling on the steering wheel, but at least he was alert.

Cienfuegos… Trinidad… Sancti Spiritus… Jac’s route was by now indelibly implanted on his mind. As Jac swung on to Highway A1 and he saw the first sign for Cienfuegos, he put his foot down hard. Six and a half hours driving time, they said. Maybe he could cut that to six or even five and a half hours.

The car-rental companies were already open when Nel-M landed, but he lost time through having to buy a gun in Havana’s old town, an old Browning 9mm, before he could get on the road again.

He was just under four hours behind Ayliss as he hit the start of the A1 highway towards Cienfuegos.

With the call from Glenn Bateson while he was at Miami International waiting for his flight to Nassau — ‘It didn’t work. My guy only managed to injure him… and not that seriously’ — everything hinged more than ever on catching up with Truelle as soon as possible.

If Bateson’s man had been successful, it would have stopped Ayliss dead in his tracks, he’d have probably just slumped his head on his steering wheel in the middle of Cuba as soon as he heard the news. With Durrant already dead, what would have been the point in continuing?

But right now Truelle was like a powder-keg, and if Ayliss had enough time to light the right match, Nel-M had little doubt that he’d explode and tell all. And if so, Nel-M doubted that Roche’s one remaining contingency plan could contain that explosion.

He glanced at the gun on his passenger seat. As so often had happened in his long association with Roche, while Roche troubled himself with fringe details, the core of every problem was left for him to deal with; just as with Roche’s wife twelve years ago that had started it all. Nothing had really changed.

Mack Elliott had drifted out of the Ninth Ward into Bywater because there was a bar on North Rampart that had one of the largest screens around, always tuned to sports, usually football. He’d missed the big Saints game the night before, but there was an early afternoon highlights re-run that he knew they’d have on.

And that’s where he was, cold Beck’s in hand, watching the over sized screen among a lively throng shouting support or derision with the ebb and flow of the Saints’ performance, when the thought suddenly hit him. Highlights! That’s what he’d been watching that night!

It hadn’t been a full game, because the Saints had been playing away in Philadelphia and there was some charity telethon on — but he’d been keen to watch the condensed highlights when they’d come on later. That’s why he’d told the chicken guy to pipe-down!

Mack left his half-finished beer on the counter, went out the back to a pay-phone, got the number of the Times-Picayune from 411, and asked to be put through.

‘Do you have a sporting archives section, perhaps?’

‘We’ve got a general archives section, sir — which would include sport. They should be able to help.’

The girl that looked up the information used a keyword search on the Times-Picayune data-bank, but she could just as easily have found it on the internet. ‘Here it is… Saints v Philadelphia Eagles game. Eighteenth of February, 1992.’

‘Thanks.’ Mack banged a fist on the wall by the phone, closing his eyes for a second. It was that same night! Larry couldn’t have been at the Roche house.

He took the piece of paper from his pocket, Darrell Ayliss’s number, and dialled… but it rang unobtainable, a service provider message telling him to try again later. He tried again, just in case, but it did the same.

He started to panic, beads of sweat popping on his forehead as he checked the time: less than four hours left. He had to get the message through somehow!

He got hold of 411 again and asked to be put through to Libreville prison.

But the woman that answered said that Warden Haveling wasn’t available because of final preparations that day with Lawrence Durrant ‘…and his assistant Mr Folley is right now handling a media conference call regarding the same. But I…’

‘It’s actually about Larry Durrant that I’m phonin’ now!’

‘Yes, sir, and I… I have someone that I believe can still help.’

Some top-dog guard or other, Mack didn’t catch the name. But when after the transfer his voice answered, Mack ran too quickly at first, had to calm himself to get the information across clearly.

Mack Elliott. Bayou Brew bar of twelve years ago with Larry Durrant. Sessions with Darrell Ayliss and Greg Ormdern to try and find out what happened that night. ‘But I wasn’t able to remember what I was watchin’ until just now — and I just checked it out a minute ago with the Times-Picayune. That game was the same night that Larry Durrant was mean’a be at the Roche house. He couldn’t have been there! It wasn’t him!’

‘I understand, sir… and I’m glad you’ve come through to us now with this information.’

‘You gotta stop the execution! Larry didn’t do it! Get hold of the Warden or Governor or whatever it takes to stop it.’ Mack realized he was speaking too excitably again, almost garbling. He took a fresh breath to calm himself, his voice lower, more purposeful. ‘You’ll make sure t’do that? Get hold of the powers that be to stop this now wit’ Larry?’

‘Don’t worry. As soon as I get off the phone, I’ll pass your message directly to Warden Haveling. Get him to phone the Governor or whatever he needs to do to action it.’

‘Thanks… and thank God too that I remembered before it was too late.’

‘Yeah. Thank God you did.’

And as soon as he hung up his end, Glenn Bateson screwed up the piece of paper he’d written on and threw it in the bin a yard away.

‘Good to speak to you, Governor Candaret. Been a while.’

‘You too, Mr Roche. Always good to speak to the more illustrious among my constituents. Especially if they still support and vote for me.’

‘Oh, I do, Governor Candaret. I do. More than you can imagine.’

‘That’s good to hear.’ Both of them were old hats at this, thought Candaret. Both of them knowing that these smooth introductory gambits often meant almost the opposite of what was said. From the heart, Roche would have been more likely to say, ‘You’re a slimy, jumped-up toad whose station in life has risen far above your God-given ability,’ and, in truth, Candaret would probably have said much the same about Roche. But that would have got neither of them what they wanted from this conversation now, which brought Candaret sharply back to wondering what Roche did want by calling him now, the very day of Larry Durrant’s execution. He kept prodding with the niceties, as if he was keeping a rattlesnake at bay with a long stick. ‘Good indeed to hear. And what, pray, might I be able to do for you today, Mr Roche? Or is this just a social call?’

‘The latter, mostly. Though if I’d called earlier, it might have seemed otherwise.’ Roche swallowed, getting his breathing even. Getting the right words in place. ‘You see, if I’d called you before you made your recent clemency decision, it might have looked as if I was trying to pressure you to do the right thing regarding the murderer of my dear wife. But now that you’ve actually made that decision, I felt it only right to thank you for what I consider to be a good and true decision and not shirking from your duty. Making this call now when there’s no longer danger of it being misread — it can finally be taken in the spirit it’s intended. No more, no less than an honest thank you.’

‘I… I appreciate the sentiment. And thank you too — for not earlier bringing any undue pressure to bear. That was very thoughtful.’ Still prodding, though more gently now. Maybe Roche wasn’t as bad as he thought; maybe a heart did actually beat beneath that stone-dwarf shell.

‘And indeed there’s another reason, partly tied into that, why I didn’t call until now.’

‘Oh?’

‘I wondered if the names Amberley, Cleveton, Rossville and Leighgrove strike a bell with you?’

‘Yes, I… I seem to remember a couple of them from my campaign fund list.’ Candaret felt the first nervous twinge in his stomach at where this might be heading. He’d recognized the names far more than he’d made out. Four corporations that, between them, comprised almost half his Presidential campaign fund for the following year.

‘Obviously, I’ve had to go to some lengths to shield my name from being behind those corporations, for two reasons: firstly, the regulatory issues and awkward questions raised by too much funding coming from one source, and secondly, because of what I’ve already mentioned — you might have felt I was putting inadvertent pressure on you to make the right decision regarding my wife’s murderer.’

‘I… I understand.’ Though Candaret wasn’t sure any more that he did. He felt that twinge in his stomach bite deeper as he thought about what would happen if a journalist or Senate committee now uncovered the source of his funding; but, again, if Roche was now raising it as some sort of background threat or pressure, why hadn’t he done that earlier?

‘And that’s also why I didn’t tell you about my involvement in that funding until now. So that you wouldn’t misread it and see it as somehow connected with Durrant, feel unduly pressured. You could accept it with the good and honest grace with which it is intended: you have a good friend out there who would like nothing more than to see you in the White House.’

‘Why… why, thank you. I… I don’t know what to say.’ The first truth to pass Candaret’s lips since they’d started talking. He didn’t. His thoughts were still in turmoil with Roche’s revelation, in particular the timing.

And after a minute more of mutual fawning and treacly niceties as they said their goodbyes, in contrast to Candaret’s still bemused expression as he hung up, Roche beamed broadly.

He’d got exactly what he wanted from the conversation. Even if Ayliss did manage to crack Truelle and phoned at the eleventh hour, it was going to take a hell of a lot now to convince Candaret. Kiss goodbye to the White House and a truckload of regulatory problems one side; an elaborate, hard-to-believe story, the other. No contest.

Don’t pick up any hitch-hikers. Watch out for potholes. Street-lighting is poor or non-existent. And there’s a lack of signposts — particularly beyond Havana.

It was the same road all the way, but at a couple of angled junctions where the continuation was ambiguous, car-rental cautions one and four became at odds, because as soon as Jac stopped to clarify directions, he was asked for a lift. With only one in thirty owning a car and infrequent buses, it seemed that half of Cuba was waiting at street-corners and junctions for the next passing car to catch a lift.

‘Pardone, no possible… problema urgente.’ One hand lifted apologetically as he sped away. And at the one stop he made thirty kilometres before Cienfuegos — to use the toilet and for a hastily grabbed coffee, Coke and ham roll — two dusty workmen looking for a lift took a step back when he had to be more insistent, shouting at them that a man could die unless he hurried. His bastardized Spanish scream of ‘Muerte… muerte!’ making them worry for a second that he was threatening to kill them.

When he’d earlier tried Bob Stratton — twice at ten minute intervals — and there was no signal or dialling tone on his cell-phone, he realized that there were patches of poor reception on the open road. He finally got hold of him as he approached Cienfuegos, but it was mixed news: while Stratton had managed to get the internet cafe girl to pick out two possibles, one wasn’t at his last known address and the other, as soon as he opened his door in Long Beach, Stratton knew wasn’t the same man as on the internet cam.

‘So the only option left is to try and track down the first guy gone AWOL from his last known — Roland Cole. If I can find a credit card linked to Cole’s last address, then trace it to a new address, I might get lucky. But, you know, with only the few hours we got left now?’

‘I know.’ Crystal clear: tall order, don’t hold your breath. ‘Phone me if you get a break, or I’ll phone you. I’m suffering some connectivity problems here.’

Palms, sugar-cane, towering tobacco plants with fronds as high as two-storey houses — the scenery was spectacular, but most of it sped by in a patchwork blur as Jac’s speedo needle crept over 130 k.p.h. on every clear, flat stretch where he could get away with it, one eye peeled for traffic police.

But as the miles rolled by, Jac felt the waves of tiredness come back. As if the caffeine could only keep him going for so long — his hands shaking increasingly on the steering wheel, combined with the high-speed vibrations of the car on the often rough road surface, starting to set off tremors through his entire body. That shaking, along with the wild adrenalin rush of the past days and hours, all that was keeping him going — and when that fever-pitch hit overload and he finally burnt out, the rest would come crashing back in: the tension, the lack of sleep, the emotional drain, the dog-tired exhaustion — mental and physical — the feeling at times that he could hardly make it another yard, let alone hundreds of miles.

And as the caffeine and his body’s nervous tension lost its last grip, he’d fall asleep. The snap of a finger, blink of an eye as he sped along.

Twice already he’d pulled himself sharply back awake, a shudder running through him as he realized that sleep had grabbed him for a second, maybe two; and as it mugged him for a third time, forty-five kilometres before Trinidad, he was suddenly reminded of caution two, potholes, with a bang.

As Jac’s eyes snapped sharply open, he thought for a second that he’d swerved into a ditch or side-shoulder — but then he saw the truck coming straight towards him. The pothole had jolted him into the oncoming lane! Jac swung sharply back again, braking, the truck also braking then and missing him by only a couple of yards, its horn blaring hard as it swept past.

Jac kept going — the truck had slowed to almost a stop as Jac looked in his mirror — and a mile further on, when it was safely out of sight, he pulled over, closing his eyes as he waited for his wild trembling to settle. Madness! Madness!

But it was hardly any better after almost two minutes of slow, deep breaths, and Jac feared that if he kept his eyes closed any longer, he might fall asleep. And so he pulled out again, turned the radio up loud so that hopefully Perez Prado and Benny More could keep him awake, grabbed a coffee at the first stop seven kilometres up the road, then stopped again 80k beyond Trinidad for another to keep him going.

Fuelled by that mix of caffeine, mambo-rhythms and adrenalin-staved exhaustion, his eyes red-rimmed, nerves ragged, he finally ran up the steps of the Sancti Spiritus post office at 12.53 p.m.

The man he approached at the counter ahead had limited English, but when Jac showed him the mailbox number, he pointed to a side counter. ‘Amparo… she do correos apartados.’

Thankfully, Amparo’s English was far better, but as Jac explained what he wanted, she started to frown.

‘I’m sorry, senor. I’m not allowed to give out the addresses of people holding boxes — apartados. It’s against regulations.’

‘But, please. This is very important. I’m an American lawyer,’ Jac slid Ayliss’s card across the counter, ‘and a man’s life depends on this information. It’s vital that I locate the holder of this mailbox urgently.’

‘I understand, senor. But it really is difficult… impossible for me to give that information.’ Amparo inclined her head in apology as she said it. A striking woman in her late forties, with soft brown eyes and the first tinge of salt in her black hair, Jac could imagine that twenty years ago she’d been stunning.

Plan two. But as Jac turned his palm on the counter to reveal two fifty-dollar bills, he knew instantly it was a mistake. Her eyes hardened again; she looked genuinely offended.

‘That… that won’t do any good. The regulations are very strict.’ This time as she said it, her eyes glanced to one side, as if unseen eyes might be watching them.

Jac closed his eyes for a second. Oh God! For it all to end here with soft-eyed, hard-eyed Amparo.

‘There is one thing I could suggest,’ Amparo said, a more hopeful tone as she flicked a page in a leather-bound register to one side. ‘I notice there’s a package arrived for that apartado today — which means the postman will put a notification through their door tomorrow. If you want to leave a message here, I can make sure they get it when they pick up the package in a day or two.’

‘That’ll be too late,’ Jac said with a heavy sigh, his eyes closing fleetingly again. Plan three. He could still feel all the bubbling tension of the long drive, and his hand shook heavily as he unfolded the newspaper clipping from his pocket and spread it before her. ‘You see this man here — Larry Durrant! He’s going to die tonight at six o’clock, unless I can speak first to the man who has this mailbox.’ Jac prodded the article with one finger, his voice rising. ‘You see the day for him dying here… la fecha. It’s today! And that… that’s me mentioned there — Darrell Ayliss.’ Jac took Ayliss’s passport out and turned it towards her, as if her doubting him might be part of the problem. ‘You see now why it’s vital I contact this man, and why I… I don’t have much time left. Because after six o’clock tonight, it’ll be… be too — ’

The emotions suddenly rose in Jac’s throat, choked off the rest of his words. He hadn’t planned this part of it, even though, as the tears welled in his eyes and started running down his cheeks, his breaking down had softened Amparo more than anything else so far; she looked close to relenting.

As he’d mentioned time and looked towards the clock, he’d suddenly had an image of Larry looking at the clock by the death chamber at that moment, wondering what had happened to him, whether Jac was just another in a long line of people to desert him, let him down; until now, in his dying hours, there was finally nobody left. Forty hours since he’d last spoken to Larry, when he’d told him he was chasing down some final, vital leads… and now!

‘I’m sorry, senor. So sorry.’ Amparo reached one hand across the counter to touch his arm. ‘If I could help — I truly would.’

And looking back at Amparo at that moment, her eyes glistening with emotion, he believed her. She would. If she could.

‘That’s okay. I… I understand.’ And, embarrassed by his tears and worried that if he stayed a second longer, he’d break down completely, Jac turned and walked away, his step echoing emptily on the marble floor of the correos… footsteps through Libreville… Larry’s last steps towards the death chamber, with now nothing left to stop him dying…

He should have turned his back and walked away on day one, left Larry as he was then, at peace and ready to go to his God, instead of filling his head with false hope and empty promises.

The tears streamed down Jac’s face as he walked away, his shoulders slumping more with each step. All over. All over. Apart from Stratton’s snowball in hell — more false hope — nothing left to do.

Jac wiped at his tears with the back of one hand, and, the catharsis already half spent as he reached the steps of the Sancti-Spiritus correos and took a fresh breath of the air outside, all that was left was to take a leaf out of his father’s book, look to the bright side, consoling himself that he’d done everything he could, everything; far, far more than anyone else would have. And now at least he’d be able to sleep… no doubt for three days solid. Find a small local hotel and -

The touch against his arm made him jump. Amparo!

She handed him a piece of paper, still glancing around for those unseen eyes. ‘This is the holder of that apartado. On the coast near Tunas de Zaza.’

Jac looked at it: Brent Calbrey, Villa Delarcos. ‘How far?’

‘Forty, forty-five minutes drive. Six kilometres from Punto Ladrillo heading to San Pedro. You can’t miss it. Big white villa with four or five holiday casitas in its grounds.’

What had changed Amparo’s mind? — the tears and his deflated slump as he’d walked away, or being able to give him the message away from prying eyes — Jac didn’t know, and at that moment he didn’t care. He leant over, giving her a big hug.

‘Amparo, you’re beautiful. Guapa… guapa!’

Amparo smiled awkwardly, a couple of people approaching the correos also smiling, probably thinking they were two long lost lovers with the embrace and both their eyes glassy. But as they parted, Amparo’s eyes had shifted from soft to thoughtful, faintly troubled. She touched his arm.

‘And, senor. Good luck. Suerte.’

When Nel-M approached the Sancti Spiritus correos counter almost four hours later, Amparo wasn’t as helpful.

Nel-M suspected that Ayliss might well have played the death-row card, so he kept to a similar story, saying that he was connected with the DA’s office seeking urgent information before the execution that night. But Amparo just kept repeating something about regulations, didn’t budge, despite him at one point showing her $500 in his cupped palm.

One consolation, Nel-M thought: it looked doubtful that Ayliss would have got anything either — but when he’d asked Amparo if anyone had called earlier asking for the same information, she’d shook her head, No, despite the flicker of recognition in her face he thought he’d seen when he’d first mentioned Durrant and death-row.

As Nel-M headed down the steps of the Sancti Spiritus correos, he had much the same feeling, nothing left to do, that Jac had had in that same spot four hours earlier — but then that nagging doubt pinched again, and he looked back thoughtfully. He wondered whether, however much he’d tried to shield it, Amparo had sensed how frantic he was. Certainly, that’s how he felt: the nightmare in Vancouver, the run-around with Truelle and the long flight to Cuba, now the breakneck drive to Sancti Spiritus; the three-day fly-kill holiday from hell. But, aware of that, he thought he’d covered with his best warm and gracious smile, the cool and collected DA official trying to get information, rather than the patience-long-gone, bubbling-acid-nerves hit-man.

Nel-M’s eyes shifted to a bar across the road. One way he might get to know.

A dead-and-alive town, Sancti Spiritus’s ramshackle buildings looked like they’d been slowly crumbling since the 50s, with a hotchpotch of blue and pink shutters that tried, but failed, to offer some relief. Apart from the post office, the bar’s blue shutters appeared to be the only ones in the street to have received a recent lick of paint.

Over a beer, Nel-M talked to the barman, and — after a lot of finger-pointing and juggling between the barman’s basic English and the few Spanish words that Nel-M was able to translate — he got some idea of who’d visited the post office earlier that day.

Americanos, Nuevo coches, Nel-M quickly picked up were the key words. He’d noticed that there were very few new cars on the road apart from his own. The barman explained that nearly all new cars were rental cars for tourists or taxis; the rest of Cuba either didn’t have a car or relied on old relics, most of them left over from the Batista days.

Nel-M nodded and sipped at his beer. That explained the Buddy Holly time-warp when it came to cars. But that also meant, as with his own BMW series-5 now parked in front, Ayliss’s car would have been one of the few new ones to have pulled up outside the post office earlier.

Nel-M stood up from his bar stool as he described Ayliss. ‘Big man… quite fat. Gordo. Black hair oiled back.’ Nel-M swept one hand over his own hair. He didn’t know the Spanish for cream suit, so tugged at his own light-grey jacket and said, ‘Blanco… white suit. New car. Nuevo coche. Four hours ago… cuatro horas!’

And finally there was a gleam of recognition in the barman’s eyes. ‘Si… si. Car like yours. Muy similar.’ He pointed to Nel-M’s car outside, then frowned as he tried to remember the make. He took a beer mat and drew a few interlocking circles.

Audi! That would at least narrow it down, Nel-M thought. But as the barman continued, with something about the man in the white suit hugging a woman, Nel-M began to think that maybe it wasn’t Ayliss after all. As he looked towards where the barman was gesticulating, Nel-M suddenly jolted, his expression as if he’d seen a ghost. He held one hand up towards the barman. No need for further explanation.

Nel-M squinted sharper as a man across the road took the last step and entered the post office. Truelle!

Nel-M kept the same hand held in the air as he moved closer to the window, as if he was a conductor holding an orchestra in silence; a pregnant, expectant pause as they waited for it to come down again for the crescendo finale.

And a minute later, as he saw Truelle emerge holding a padded buff envelope, walk thirty yards down the road and get in a white classic Corvette, that hand did finally come down, as with an, ‘Old friend… amigo!’ he rushed out to his car to follow.

When Jac arrived at the door of Villa Delarcos at just before 2 p.m., Brent Calbrey, a tall gaunt man in his early sixties with a heavy tan and wavy grey hair, informed him that he’d just missed ‘Lenny’.

‘By about half an hour. He’s headed into town.’

‘Sancti Spiritus?’

‘Yeah. Few things he wanted to pick up. Things he likes that I didn’t already have in the fridge. Oh, and he said he was also going to the post office.’

‘Oh, right.’ Post office. Jac looked back down the road. ‘I… I probably passed him on my way up. What’s he driving?’

‘My car.’ Calbrey smiled tightly. ‘White Corvette, ’71 classic.’

Jac couldn’t remember if he’d passed one or not. There were a lot of old American cars on the roads. ‘Do you know when he’ll be back?’

‘A couple of hours, he said.’ Calbrey raised an eyebrow. ‘Can I give him a message?’

‘No, it’s okay. I’ll try and catch him later.’ Jac didn’t want to leave a name, possibly frighten Truelle off. He turned away.

‘Old friend?’

‘Yeah, old friend,’ Jac said over his shoulder, smiling wanly.

And, as he was a few paces away, Calbrey called after him, explaining that ‘Lenny’ might return direct to the ‘casita’ rather than the main house itself. ‘Its entrance is forty yards along.’

Jac looked towards where Calbrey pointed and the white Moorish-style bungalow, a smaller version of the main house, on a small promontory with panoramic views over the sea lapping fifteen yards its other side. Everything was white, Jac thought: the villa and ‘casitas’, Calbrey’s Bermudas and cheese-cloth top, the Corvette. Jac nodded his thanks and, as he got back into his car, looked anxiously at his watch.

He couldn’t just sit there for two hours, knowing that meanwhile Larry’s life was ticking away. He started up, heading back to Sancti Spiritus. But halfway there, his foot suddenly eased from the pedal. Two hours? Hardly would he have arrived there before Truelle was heading back out to the villa. And if Truelle heard that meanwhile someone had called for him, he might rush off again, go to ground.

No, the only safe thing was to wait there and watch. At the next side road, he did a hasty three-point turn, headed back; and, eighty yards along from the bungalow, with a clear view of it and the main house, he parked and waited. Watching hawkishly every car that approached and passed, though there weren’t many: seven in the past hour.

But as an hour became an hour and a half — two hours — he found himself looking repeatedly at his watch, tapping his fingers anxiously on the steering wheel in rhythm with his pulse and mounting tension, the constant tremor in his body becoming heavier.

Waves of tiredness were again swilling over him as he watched the unchanging scene ahead punctuated by the occasional car. Three times he’d shook himself back awake as he felt himself close to the brink.

He put the radio on again as a precaution; though he’d have thought that with the tension running through him and his constant finger-tapping, that alone would have kept him awake.

But that rhythm after a while formed its own soporific monotony, along with the long spells of static vista, the occasional passing car, the hum and click of cicadas, the surf lapping gently fifty yards away; and as that rhythm finally combined with the music from the radio, became one medley, it dragged him gently towards what, for the past twenty-four hours, he’d been staving off with raw tension and adrenalin, caffeine, mambo and salsa. A deep, satisfying sleep.