Cold Blood

Chapter 15

At first Mrs Dubois refused to let Lorraine into the house; preparations were being made for Tilda’s funeral, so it was hardly a suitable time for either of her parents to speak with Lorraine.

‘I just need to go into Tilda’s bedroom. Please, Mrs Dubois, it is important, or I would not intrude at this very sad time. I think when I was last here I left my key, it may have fallen from my purse. It’ll take no more than two minutes.’

Mrs Dubois agreed and asked the maid to show Lorraine upstairs.

The maid remained by the door as Lorraine started to search the room, itching to get to the bed and to the white Polar bear, still left on Tilda’s pillow. When Mrs Dubois called for the maid to help her with something below, leaving Lorraine alone, she picked up the bear immediately. It was too light, and she knew there was nothing inside, but she found the hidden zipper and checked just in case. She was disappointed, not even bothering to pretend she had been looking for a key when the maid returned, tapping on the open door.

‘Thank you, no luck!’ she said, walking towards the hovering maid; the girl seemed nervous. ‘How did you get along with Miss Tilda?’ she asked.

‘Fine, ma’am, just fine, but she kept to herself. I just used to clean her room, press her clothes. She didn’t act up or nothin’, not like she used to. I been asked to show you out as Mrs Dubois is busy.’

‘How do you mean, not like she used to?’ Lorraine asked, still very casual and friendly.

‘Well, the maid before me was fired, they didn’t get along, an’ I was told by Mrs Brown that I was not to interfere with Miss Tilda’s personal things. She didn’t like me even tidying up her room, but then she was real neat and tidy.’

‘When was she fired, the maid before you?’

‘Oh, last year, I only worked here since then.’

Lorraine kept on smiling. ‘What date would that be?’

The maid really was eager for Lorraine to leave, looking down the stairwell to the hall below. ‘Well, I was interviewed mid-February, ’cos Ruby had already left.’

‘Ruby?’ Lorraine followed her down the wide staircase.

‘Yes, miss, the previous maid here was a girl called Ruby Corbello, she got a job in a hair salon after.’

‘Thank you very much.’

One minute depressed, the next Lorraine was buzzing again, and to the maid’s relief hurried out without even asking to speak to Mrs Dubois.

Lorraine sat in her car thinking it was too much of a coincidence, then she sighed. Maybe it was the lead she needed. She checked her watch and told François to take her back to the hotel, realizing how late it had got and remembering her own instructions that they should all keep in touch.

Rosie and Rooney sat at the garden table in the courtyard of the St Marie with their cups of frothing café au lait.

‘I dunno, she tells us to call in, and then she goes her own way. I mean, where is she now? Mrs Caley said she left over an hour and a half ago,’ Rosie said, irritated.

Rooney looked at his watch and said nothing. He’d done what Lorraine had asked, checked at the cop shop, but there had been no gris-gris necklace on Nick’s body or listed along with the rest of his personal possessions.

‘Maybe he didn’t have it on,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘The necklace.’

‘As far as I can remember, he was wearing it when we last saw him, he kind of liked it. I miss him, Bill.’

‘Yeah, me too, he was a good guy.’

They sipped their coffee in silence, then Rosie took out her note-pad.

‘What we going to do about Edith Corbello? It’s a shame to waste time. I got her address but her phone number’s not listed, so we’ll just have to turn up.’

Rooney pushed his coffee aside. ‘You’re right, I’ll leave my notes under Lorraine’s door and we’ll go see this Mrs Corbello. Might as well be doing something!’

Lorraine found the torn pages from Rooney’s note-book under her door. She sat on the bed, reading the scrawled writing. No necklace was found on Nick Bartello’s body. There was also a brief outline reiterating what the cops had said about Fryer Jones and his alibis. In brackets he added that Fryer Jones was married to Juda Salina. Coincidences! Lorraine underlined Raoul’s name, remembering him from LA.

What Rooney had not mentioned was the fact that he and Rosie were going to see Edith Corbello. He had been going to, but Rosie suggested they just go ahead and see what they could come up with and tell Lorraine later. Lorraine waited around for a while, got a sandwich and Coke and sat outside in the garden. She checked over her notes, wondering what she should do next, deciding not to follow the Ruby Corbello lead until she had talked to Fryer Jones.

François was a little apprehensive about taking Lorraine to Fryer Jones’s bar. He watched her in the driving mirror, drinking the Coke and topping it up with vodka, but she didn’t seem in any way intoxicated.

‘I’m not a tourist, François. But you wait right outside and if I’m not out in half an hour, you come in and get me! So just take me there!’

‘Okey dokey, we’re on our way.’

The cab drew up outside the tiny dilapidated house in the old Irish Channel.

‘You sure you want this address?’ the cabbie asked.

‘Yep, but if you wait you got a return fare,’ Rooney said, passing over the money and an extra ten-dollar bill.

‘Sure, be right out here for you, sir.’

Rooney and Rosie looked at the battered front door, its glass panel broken and blocked out with a piece of board. The top four panes of a French door had also been broken at some time and replaced with an almost opaque frosted glass, so that it was impossible to see into the house. Rooney took a few steps down the alleyway between the house and its neighbour and saw a broken fence enclosing a yard out back with old wrecked cars and a string hammock strung between two leafless trees. Bits and pieces of rusted car engines were scattered amongst ripped tyres, inner tubes and bags of bursting garbage.

‘If we got the right address, you leave the talkin’ to me,’ Rooney said, hitching up his pants.

‘You said that three times already,’ Rosie said petulantly.

‘Fine, then make sure you do, no interruptions.’

The door-bell didn’t work: Rooney banged on the front door and it creaked open.

They stood on the porch and waited before knocking again, peering into the dingy hallway.

‘Yeah, what you want?’ Sugar May called out from the kitchen.

‘Mrs Edith Corbello?’

‘She’s busy right now, you got an appointment?’

Rooney looked at Rosie and said quietly, ‘Okay, now we do as I said, see what we can come up with.’ Rosie nodded as Rooney looked towards Sugar May, smiling broadly. ‘Hi, there. We came on spec, recommended by Fryer Jones,’ he said.

Sugar May wrinkled her nose, strolling down the dark, dirty hallway. ‘She don’t like being interrupted, best wait see what she says.’

Sugar May pointed to a room off the hall and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Rooney and Rosie sat on a sagging sofa whose broken springs bulged beneath them. The carpet was threadbare, cigarette butts ground into the pile, and there were beer stains on every available surface. The doorway had an old beaded curtain tied up.

‘What a dump,’ Rosie said quietly, then turned as a high-pitched scream from the room down the hall made her sit bolt upright.

In the room was a table covered with a cloth, a mirror propped up behind it reflecting a figurine of the Virgin and a picture of Marie Laveau on the wall behind. Incense and three blue candles smoked in front of the statue, surrounded by saucers of rain-water, a dish of bread and apples and others of special grasses and oil.

Edith had made the young girl lie on a cot-bed while she bathed her head with an infusion of herbs: now she pressed down on the girl’s temples with both hands, her eyes shut tight, chanting to invoke the spirits’ healing powers.

The girl’s head wobbled at the pressure of Edith’s strong hands pressing down hard on it. It felt like her neck was going to break, and it was worse pain than any of the blinding headaches she’d been having every month.

‘Oh my, we got tension in here. We got such tension. Sit up now, girl, and put your head forward so I can feel your neck.’

The young girl moaned, and Edith closed her eyes, rubbing and kneading the vertebrae down the girl’s neck until she felt a click. She twisted the girl’s head quickly and there were two more loud clicks. Edith smiled.

‘Yes, that got it, you feelin’ easy now, honey?’

Rosie looked at Rooney as the moans stopped and a soft laugh could be heard, but he was immersed in an old magazine.

‘Listen to this. Voodoo came with the slaves from West Africa in the sixteenth century and in New Orleans the name of Marie Laveau is legendary. She is said to have been the daughter of a wealthy planter and a quadroon girl. She was part Indian, and she married a Jacques Paris, who mysteriously disappeared after the marriage, when she began calling herself Widow Paris. Holy shit! Marie Laveau had fifteen children and she lived in St Anne’s Street between North Rampart and Burgundy Street. She is said to have eliminated all other queens by her powers of the gris-gris, literally voodooing them all to death. And today the doctors of respectable medical schools have consulted voodoo doctors for treatment of paranoid schizophrenics.’

Rooney was about to continue reading from the magazine when the door farther down the hall opened, and although they couldn’t see who was coming out, they heard the deep throaty voice of Edith Corbello.

‘Don’t you worry yourself about payin’. Get well, and get employment, and then you come back and see me, Tulla.’

Sugar May yelled from the kitchen. ‘Hey, Mama! You got clients in the front room, you hear me, Mama?’

Edith Corbello walked in to see Rosie and Rooney, and whatever they were expecting didn’t quite add up to the large, stout woman in an apron and old slippers, frizzy greying hair surrounding a big, round, sweating face.

‘Yes?’

Rooney stood up. ‘I am Bill Rooney and this is my friend Rosie.’

Edith sighed. ‘Mmm, what you be wanting?’

‘Can we talk to you? You are Edith Corbello?’

‘Sure I am, but I don’t see strangers. Who sent you to me?’

‘Fryer Jones.’ Rooney said.

Edith nodded, and walked back to her room. ‘Come on in, but I got an appointment in fifteen minutes.’

The room was darkened by old drapes drawn across the window, and besides the bed and the altar table, it contained a large old trunk and a row of hard chairs. Even in the dim light, it was noticeably cleaner and more orderly than the rest of the house and there were a variety of masks and pictures on the walls.

‘Sit you down, get a chair for yourself,’ Edith said to Rooney. Moving behind the desk, she opened the trunk, took out cards and a stack of leaflets. ‘These my prices.’

She passed two leaflets which were torn at the edges and the print faint. They listed rituals, consultations and readings that would reveal the future, as well as healing bathing with a long list of oils and herbal remedies for health and vitality. All the treatments offered cost between twenty to fifty dollars. Underlined in red pen were the items that would be extra to the cost of the session — herbs, teas, candles and incense, plus any necessary home visits.

Rooney opened his wallet and laid out two fifty-dollar notes.

‘You want a reading?’ Edith said, indicating the deck of tarot cards.

Rooney leaned over to Rosie and held her hand. ‘We need advice.’

‘You come to the right place.’ Edith stared at Rooney and did not touch the two fifty-dollar notes.

‘Well, Mrs Corbello, Rosie and I, this is Rosie... we want to get married.’

Rosie almost fell off her chair, and turned to Rooney with her mouth open. He planted a kiss on her cheek.

‘We’re in love,’ he said.

Rosie remained speechless: Bill needed to have no further worries about her interrupting, as his words had put her in a state of shock.

‘Mmm.’ Edith folded her hands over her big belly, looking from one to the other, and smiled, but her eyes remained suspicious and wary. ‘A lot of people want the same thing, marriage. If you want this lady, and she wants you, where’s your problem?’

‘I’m already married.’

‘You get a divorce.’

‘She won’t give me one.’

‘Ah, so you got a troublesome wife?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Mmm, mmm, I been one of them.’ She chuckled.

Rooney released Rosie’s hand. ‘I have offered her a good settlement and she has refused, point-blank, and she won’t move out of the house, and we got no children. She is just refusing to release me out of spite.’

‘That’s sad, children make a house into a living thing, they also wreck it something bad.’ She chuckled again.

This wasn’t what he had expected. There were no evil spirits or drum-beats, just a big woman who seemed, if anything, amused by him. He was unsure how he should approach what he was working his way round to asking, when Edith leaned towards him.

‘You are not impotent, are you?’ Edith said, and started to flick the tarot cards with her big, raw hands.

‘No, I am not, most definitely not. But I feel like I am with a wife that won’t give me a divorce. I got to wait, maybe two years or even longer, and then she—’

‘How long you married to this other woman?’

‘Er, twenty-five years.’

‘Long time. An’ she been a good wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, she no longer good, huh? Because she is no longer wanted?’

‘Yes, that’s right. So, what we were thinking about, what we’ve been told is that you might help us?’

Edith nodded her head, and stifled a yawn, her hand resting on the tarot cards that she only brought out for the types like these that came to her, white tourists.

Rooney coughed; the room was stiflingly hot and claustrophobic. ‘If this voodoo works, like we’ve been told it does, then we’re here to ask you to do something for us. Voodoo is what we want.’

‘Mmm, mmm.’ Edith stared at Rosie and after a moment she asked, ‘Don’t you talk?’

‘I agree with Bill, he is speaking for both of us,’ Rosie said sweetly.

‘Does he now? And so, Bill, what is it you want exactly, huh? Voodoo covers a mighty big area, you want to tell me specifically what you are wanting from me?’

‘My wife to die, Mrs Corbello, can you do that? Make us one of those voodoo dolls that make people—’

Edith slapped the table hard and she gave them a wide grimace. ‘You want me to make you a voodoo doll? Make your wife afraid of her shadow? Make her think she is cursed? Make her so frightened of the spirits that she lies down and just wastes away? All her limbs to go stiff and her thoughts twisted so she gets to be like a zombie? Huh? That what you are asking me for?’

Rosie began to get scared and looked at Rooney.

‘Yes, now if that is more than fifty dollars, I am prepared to pay,’ Rooney said.

Edith leaned back in her chair, her big hands clasping the arms. ‘You believe that I can do this for you?’

‘Can you?’ Rosie asked.

‘You want this doll too, do you, Miss Rosie cheeks?’

Rosie nodded, and then almost fell backwards out of her chair as Edith let the lid of the trunk bang back down, scattering the cards on the bare floor. For a second they both thought she was going into a trance as she rose up on her feet, her big body looming over the pair of them.

‘Get out of my house, pair of you, get out right now!’

‘But Mrs Corbello...’ Rooney said.

She moved towards him, her finger digging him in the chest. ‘You know my name, but you don’t know me and I don’t know you. You take your evil thoughts out of my house and you take your money with you!’ She threw the two fifty-dollar notes in their faces and yanked open the door. ‘Sugar May, Sugar May! These two people are leaving, an’ they are never coming back.’

Rosie and Rooney were shoved out on to the doorstep by the little girl in pigtails and rubber flip-flops. The broken front door slammed hard after them and then swung back open. It was no wonder it didn’t have any glass left in it.

‘Well, I left the talking to you!’ Rosie said as she walked down the path.

‘I just tried it on,’ he said grumpily. ‘I tried it on because of that doll Lorraine found. I mean, maybe we could have got her to talk.’

‘We? You did all the talking, Bill Rooney, and it didn’t work, did it?’ Rosie said as they looked up and down the street for the taxi driver. He had gone, and she shrugged. ‘He must have seen us coming, Bill. That was a nice tip you gave him, ten bucks more than the cab ride,’ she said, and linked her arm through his.

‘Never mind, we can walk,’ he said, feeling dumb and inadequate; he had blown it and wondered if he had lost his touch. That really got to him. ‘We should’ve waited for Lorraine,’ he said.

‘We did, and she didn’t show,’ snapped Rosie. She was getting sick and tired of having to wait for Lorraine, but nevertheless they made their way back to the hotel like two naughty school kids who knew they were going to get bawled out.

Edith was at the upstairs window, watching the two squat bodies walking down the street, furious at Fryer for sending people like that to her. She opened her dressing-table drawer and took out the telephone. She always hid it because she hated it, loathed the intrusion of its jangling ring, especially when she was working.

The telephone rang at the side of the dingy bar by the door leading up to Fryer’s room. The barman was just coming on duty and picked it up. ‘Fryer’s.’

‘You get that bastard on the line,’ said Edith in a fury.

‘What bastard are you referring to?’ he asked, grinning.

‘Zak, you son of a bitch, this is Edith and you know it, so you get him to the phone. You tell him he never sends me over scum like I just had to deal with. They had cops written all over their big fat faces, and I knew he didn’t have no wife, she’s already buried six feet deep. He could get me in a whole lot of trouble.’

Zak placed the handset on the bar, saying he’d just go check if Fryer was around.

‘I know he’s there, that son-of-a-bitch don’t ever move his ass outta there!’ Edith shouted down the phone.

Zak moved up the narrow staircase, shuffling his feet on the bare boards. ‘Eh! Man, Fryer, it’s Edith on the telephone, she’s all steamed up about you sending some cops to her place.’

‘What?

‘Just repeatin’ what she’s yelling on the telephone. She’s mad as hell.’

The door at the top of the stairs inched open. ‘Tell that fat bitch I never sent nobody over there. She’s raising bad spirits like she’s raising bad fucking kids.’

Zak shrugged as the door closed and returned to the bar.

‘Hi, Edith,’ he said into the phone.

‘You get that lazy son-of-a-bitch to talk to me,’ she yelled.

Zak took a deep breath. ‘Fryer said to tell you that he would never waste your precious time sending nobody to you he didn’t know or trust like a brother. He’s not feelin’ so good right now, but said he’d call you later. If you need him to come over he’ll drop whatever pressing things he’s got on, because you are a very important woman in his life.’

‘May God forgive the lies that spew out of your lips, Zachary. That no-good son-of-a-bitch probably never even lifted his hungover head.’ She slammed the phone back down.

Zak laughed, and then turned as the door opened at the far end of the bar by the main street entrance. Lorraine Page squinted to adjust to the darkness and then slowly began to walk the full length of the room. Zak never took his eyes off her as she hitched her skirt up and sat on a high bar stool.

‘Diet Coke when you’re through checking the price of my suit,’ she said softly, and flipped open her pack of cigarettes. ‘You got a light?’

Edith stashed the phone back in the drawer. She hadn’t paid a bill for years. The boys had done something with the wiring on the telephone cables outside their house and connected their line to someone else’s. Nobody called in except maybe Juda. Nobody ever made appointments over the telephone because Edith wasn’t listed in the book and she never paid any taxes on her earnings, meagre as they were. A bit of thieving never bothered her. What did was strangers coming to her parlour, especially strangers that smelled like cops and asked for bad work. She’d have it out with Fryer. All the years she’d known him, he’d never understood, never believed in her. That was his problem, he wasn’t a believer in public but in private she’d scared him a few times, even if he refused to acknowledge it.

Juda travelled luxuriously in the Caleys’ private plane, and their car was waiting at the airport to drive her straight to their mansion. She wondered what Elizabeth needed her so badly for and felt tired just at the prospect of having to deal with her. But she would have to, she always had to pay for the ‘luxuries’, and this was heavy — first-class all the way.

Missy opened the imposing front door, looking scared.

‘Oh, Mrs Salina, I sure am glad you’re here, she’s acting up bad. She’s crying and shouting up there, she’s thrown her tray at me and she’s in such a rage. Mr Caley packed all his things and walked out, saying he’s never coming back home.’

‘All right, Missy, don’t you get all excited now, make us a nice pot of tea, the kind Mrs Caley likes, and bring it straight on up.’

Juda began to walk slowly up the gently curved staircase. Her legs pained her, her feet were swollen from the flight, and she clung to the bannister rail as she heaved her body up stair by stair.

‘She got some medication in her bedroom, Missy?’

Missy looked up fearfully. ‘I don’t know what she got up there, Mrs Salina, but she’s acting crazy, saying there’s people there with her and there’s things inside of her. Got me to shut up the shutters, then open them again. She makes me shiver, she does.’

Juda could now hear the furniture being hurled around, and Elizabeth’s hoarse voice talking loudly to herself.

‘Get away from me, stay away from me, don’t touch me!’

Juda took a deep breath before she opened the bedroom door. Elizabeth Caley was dishevelled, her long hair loose as she staggered from bed to window to bureau, the beauty and dignity of the room making her behaviour seem even more grotesque. She appeared to be half dancing, half trying to control the body spasms that made her look as if she was working up to some kind of fit. Spittle formed at the side of her mouth, but as soon as she saw Juda she sighed with relief, stretching out her arms.

‘Thank God, Juda, help me. Please help me, they’ve come for me. They’re here again, the snakes are inside me again.’

Robert Caley unpacked his clothes, almost high on his own adrenalin. He’d done it, he’d finally done what he should have done years ago.

He called Lorraine at her hotel but was told she was not in her room, and then checked with the desk downstairs to make sure the adjoining suite was still retained for her. He called Lloyd Dulay and asked to see him. He wasn’t going to grovel, not ever again. Doubloons had not been awarded the gaming licence; it had gone to a huge leisure combine from another state which no one had even known was in the running. Clearly the Governor had made some new friends, but he hadn’t forgotten his old ones either — the land, of course, was still Caley’s, and the Governor had announced that Caley, Doubloons and the new group should get round a table and hammer out a partnership agreement. Caley’s financial future was safe.

Just hearing the tone of Caley’s voice, Dulay didn’t argue, agreeing to see him that evening. Caley then called his other partner, arranging to meet with him next day. He felt confident, knowing he now had enough on Lloyd Dulay to ensure that he wouldn’t give any trouble. It felt good. But the one person he wanted to share his new-found freedom with was still not at her hotel. He left a message at the St Marie, saying he wished to see her urgently, and left his mobile number on which he could be contacted at any time that evening.

Lorraine was beginning to feel uneasy as a few more people entered Fryer’s bar and sat as far away from her as possible.

She had asked to speak to Fryer, but the barman had said he was resting. She smoked four cigarettes, getting more and more edgy and impatient as she waited for him: she eyed the rows of liquor bottles, needing another drink, but disciplined herself not to ask for one, telling herself again and again that she didn’t need it. The telephone rang and the barman asked the caller to hold, and disappeared through the doorway at the end of the bar. She heard him call up to Fryer and a gruff voice yelled down.

‘Shit, man, what you wake me for? Tell him to come by tonight.’

Lorraine moved off her stool and walked the length of the bar. ‘He’s awake now, okay? So I am going up to see him whether you like it or not.’

Zak reached for the phone to speak to the caller, at the same time looking at Lorraine. ‘Don’t you go up there, miss.’

‘You try and stop me,’ she snapped back, and disappeared.

Fryer Jones had one hell of a hangover, more than his usual, and he sat up, angry at the yelling from below. He leaned over his bed, picked up a bottle of bourbon, and took a long swig before he flopped back on his dirty stained pillows. The door opened, and Lorraine looked in.

‘Mr Fryer, my name is Lorraine Page.’

‘What?’ he grunted, and then eased up on his elbow. She stepped into the room but could hardly see him in the darkness. He could see her and he liked what he saw. ‘Well, come into my parlour, said the spider to the pretty pushy broad with a briefcase in her hand and all.’

There was an overpowering smell of urine, tobacco, stale booze and body odour. A ragged curtain hung over the small window behind Fryer’s single bed, a broken armchair with stuffing coming out of it was stacked with sheets of music, brown with age. The walls were covered with posters, old photographs and masks. Shelves hung lopsided with books and magazines.

‘You wanna sit?’ Fryer asked, scratching his crotch. He was barefoot and his denim shirt was open to the waist, the thick leather belt of his dirty jeans unbuckled and the flies half open, but he behaved as if he was seated in some draped boudoir, and added an elegance to his gestures that lifted him above the squalor.

‘Sit down, miss. What you say your name was?’

‘Lorraine Page, Mrs.’ She passed him a card and looked hesitantly at the only chair that was not under a mound of rubbish. The rocking chair was covered by a knitted shawl, and as she sat down it creaked ominously, moving backwards so that her feet left the ground before she rocked forwards uneasily and put her briefcase down beside her.

‘Mrs Lorraine Page,’ he said softly, and then flicked the card away. ‘Uh huh, a private investigator.’

‘Yes, Mr Fryer, I have been hired by Elizabeth and Robert Caley to trace their daughter Anna Louise.’ The rocking chair creaked again and she held on to the arms, trying to keep still. She couldn’t help but notice that one of the posters, peeling off the damp wall, was from the movie The Swamp. It was a garish picture of Elizabeth Seal with a snake entwined around her body, arms reaching up to the sky.

Lorraine opened her briefcase and took out her notebook. ‘You mind if I ask you a few questions?’

‘For a lady that walks into a gentleman’s bedroom with a whole lot of purpose in her stride, I’d say I don’t have much option. Why don’t you set that nice tight little butt you got next to me?’

‘I’m fine where I am, Mr Fryer.’

He smiled, and then let out a rumble of a laugh. ‘I guess you are, Mrs Page, but I don’t see as how I can help you in your investigation.’ He saw her glance at the old movie poster. ‘I was in that movie, The Swamp, the one your eyes keep straying to, with your employer, Mrs Caley.’

‘Yes, I know. And you were arrested on February sixteenth last year and questioned regarding the disappearance of Anna Louise, Mrs Caley’s daughter.’

‘I was, but I was released with no charges. I also had a full bar of customers who all stated that I never set foot outside my establishment the entire evening.’

‘Yes, I know, but most of them were your own relatives.’

He eased his legs over the edge of the bed to sit upright, staring down at his toes. ‘Is that so? Well, maybe you should talk to the police about that, because they got a list as long as your lovely legs that says not only my relatives was drinking and making music in my bar that night, but a lotta mah friends.’

‘Did you see Anna Louise Caley that night, Mr Fryer?’

He reached for some skins and a tobacco pouch. ‘No, but some motherfucker says he saw me talkin’ to that poor child, and in this town, Mrs Page, there are a lot of them. Motherfuckers. But when the police of this mighty fine city take you in, you do not argue, you got no option. They beat you up on the way to the cells, they beat you up in the cells, and they beat you up some more just for somethin’ to do when they release you. It’s a kind of custom we got in New Orleans.’

He sprinkled tobacco, or what she presumed was tobacco, on to the paper and licked it. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark, dingy room, and to him; there was a kind of magnetism to Fryer Jones. He seemed not to care she was there, he was so laid back and casual, his deep, throaty, smoky voice quite attractive.

‘But you were held until the following morning,’ she said.

‘That I was, but they had to check out that what I was saying was true, and it was the truth, Mrs Page. I never saw Miss Caley that evening. In fact, I ain’t seen her for a long, long time. Maybe four or five years.’

‘But you knew her?’

‘Sure I did, and I knew her mama.’

‘Mrs Caley says she does not know you, Mr Fryer.’

‘Well, she don’t, I know of her, maybe she knows of me. Don’t make us friendly now, does it?’

He lit up and inhaled deeply. He took three more deep drags, letting the smoke swirl into his lungs, sucking it in with a loud breath before he sighed, releasing it. And then to her astonishment he held it out to her.

‘You want a hit?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘How about a drink?’

He brought out his bottle of bourbon.

‘No, thank you, I don’t drink.’

He laughed, watching her, and then gulped two big shots down before he screwed back the cap. Lorraine took out her cigarette pack and, as she had forgotten her lighter, had to cross to him for a light. He struck a match, looking up into her face.

‘Oh yes, you got nice eyes too, I like the way you look. Like the way you hold yourself, Mrs Page, you are a classy lady, mmm, mmm.’

Lorraine returned to her precarious perch. ‘You were married to Edith Corbello?’

‘Close, but not quite right. I was married to her sister, JudaSalina.’

Lorraine chewed her lip. He dragged on his joint, his eyes mocking her as she tried to think how she should lead up to what she wanted to ask him, thrown slightly by the fact that Elizabeth Caley had given her incorrect information.

‘So you are married to Juda Salina?’

‘Yes, ma’am. We met on that movie, best money I ever earned in my life. They hired a whole bunch of us as extras. We was due to film for ’bout a week but it got to two and then three, man, I was sitting around for more’n a month. They paid for it though, paid well. I got this bar outta the proceeds, I never earned such easy money.’ He chuckled again.

‘And Juda and her sister?’

He nodded, his face almost obscured by thick smoke as he dragged again and again on the joint.

‘The Salina sisters was brought in because of the problems, you know, to kind of quieten things down. It was gettin’ outta hand, but I didn’t care, I was being paid. None of us had employment.’ He lay back, smiling at her. ‘You know, it’s hard to believe but those two sisters were beautiful, man, they was glorious to look at. But then nature has its way, and they blow up and get so bloated it’s hard to believe that once they was a force. A beautiful force, yess, yess, I didn’t know which to fuck first.’

He stared vacantly at a spot on his filthy, stained ceiling and sighed, rubbing himself.

‘She was beautiful too, Elizabeth Seal,’ Lorraine said softly.

‘No, Elizabeth Seal was just a pretty little thing. I used to feel for her, locals was against her, she was white and she was rich, and she was not Marie Laveau. Never could be, so they thought. Marie Laveau is a goddess, she is worshipped in these parts, and to get a pretty little white girl to play the part was creatin’ bad feelings. Real bad feelings.’ He curled up his legs and lay on his side. ‘So they bring in the Salina sisters to kind of calm the waters, you know, to act as spiritual advisers, because folks here think they are related way back to Marie Laveau, and if they give their blessing, well, it’s theirs to give.’

Fryer looked at the burning stub of his joint and dropped it into the filled ashtray at his bedside. ‘I am getting very stoned. It’s age, takes less and less now. Do I have another drink? Yes, I think so. You sure you won’t join me, Mrs Page?’

He drank from his bottle again, and replaced the cap, then started to make another joint. ‘You know why Elizabeth Seal is crazy, Mrs Page?’ he asked, his attention on his joint. Lorraine’s was on the bottle: she wanted a drink badly now.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘You want for me to tell you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then come and sit near old Fryer, come on, sit close.’

‘I’m fine where I am,’ she said.

‘Are you now? Well if you say so, but I have never had a woman complain. I may be old but my snake never lets me down.’

‘Tell me more about Elizabeth Seal,’ she interrupted him.

‘Then will you sit by my side?’

Lorraine shrugged, wanting to get him to talk, not ramble. ‘Maybe I will.’

‘Ohhh, then lemme think, Elizabeth Seal. Well, she was a girl with big hopes, big dreams, and they was all falling down because she was beginning to wonder if the film would ever get made. There was a whole lot of trouble, folks gettin’ drunk and not turnin’ up for work, an’ if an’ when they did they started fighting. Then Juda found out something about Elizabeth, don’t know how, but Juda could find out anything. Nobody ever had secrets from the Salina sisters.’

‘Found out what?’

Fryer chuckled, taking much longer to roll up the joint as his movements were so slow. ‘Marie Laveau was a woman of mixed race, and Juda finds out that little Elizabeth Seal has black blood in her veins. Way back obviously, but it was there, like a sleeping cobra. So Juda gets paid a lot of money and she gets everyone together and says they got to stop the threats, stop the curses.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Hell, they had been laying coffins and conjure balls outside her trailer, beatin’ the drums so she couldn’t get any rest, making that child’s life a nightmare with their chanting and their curses. It was rumoured they’d even done some kind of sacrifice so that she’d be unable to walk or talk, or speak the shit-filled lines they was calling the script. And then one night a whole bunch of the motherfuckers took her out to the swamp, saying they was just wanting to show her rituals. Well, they done a lot more.’

‘Like what?’

Fryer hesitated, taking yet another hit from the bottle, and Lorraine could see from his difficulty in screwing the cap back on that he was getting drunk as well as stoned. He rocked backwards and forwards for a moment, sucking his teeth.

‘She was what they call a zombie, you understand what I am saying? They had scared her so bad she was wild-eyed and stiff, no life inside her. Scared the shit outta me, scared everyone that saw her, ’cos they was supposed to be taking care of her. She was no more than fifteen, sixteen maybe, and it didn’t look like she could work no more. And... oh yeah, they got this big scene all set up and they was runnin’ this way an’ that, wonderin’ if they should get a doctor in to see her.’

‘I don’t follow.’

Fryer licked his paper and rolled up another joint. ‘Then they brought back the Salina sisters, and paid them even more money. Miss Seal was locked up with her for two days. Then Juda got to a meeting, well, all the black people, called us into an old church, and they locked them doors, and Juda stood up on the pulpit and she screams and she goes into a kind of fit, and she tells everyone they done a bad thing, a very bad thing. She says Elizabeth Seal had every right to be Marie Laveau because she was as much black as she was. And she held up her picture, and her voice went real quiet and she says...’

Lorraine had to wait as he puffed his joint alight.

‘Look on the face of your Queen, look on her face and tell me if you don’t see the likeness.’ He began to chortle, curling his legs up again. ‘I said to myself, I’m gonna have a piece of that beauty. She was so good, so powerful, an’ she shut every mouth up, made them get so scared. She says every hex laid at Elizabeth Seal’s door is gonna come back doublefold on them. They screamed and hollered, man, they screamed that church down. Like the windows shook from their yelling like crazies themselves.’

‘Was it true? Was what Juda was saying the truth?’

He turned on her and his face suddenly became angry. ‘Who knows what is truth and what isn’t? Those two sisters was being paid more’n me, more’n any of us, on the condition they got that film moving. I dunno what is true an’ what ain’t.’ He sighed. ‘All I know is that the only scene in the film that’s any good is that little girl dancing with the snake. She sure as hell didn’t look white, didn’t act white, and from then on Juda and her sister stayed in her big fancy trailer until they finished the film.’

Fryer opened his bottle again and drank. His big black eyes were becoming unfocused.

‘What do you think happened to Anna Louise Caley?’

He lifted his hands up. ‘Hell, I don’t know, but I’d say something bad. A girl don’t disappear round here unless they want to, or something bad took place.’

Lorraine opened her briefcase. ‘I want to show you something.’

He rubbed himself and leered at her. ‘I’ll show you something if you’d come and sit by me.’

Lorraine took out the voodoo doll wrapped in a towel.

‘I found this at Tilda Brown’s, she was a friend of Anna Louise’s. Do you know what it means? More importantly, do you know who would make something like this?’

Fryer stared at the doll nestled in the towel. He sniffed and sat back. ‘Where you say you got this?’

‘Tilda Brown, she committed suicide. This was hidden in her room.’

Again he sniffed, and then covered the doll up. ‘Mrs Page, I am not a believer but I don’t play with this kind of thing. You get it outta here, and you go with it. Go on, get out, get out!’ He sprang from the bed, scaring her, pointing his gnarled finger at her chest. ‘Take that shit outta my place. I don’t believe, Mrs Page, but that’s not to say that I don’t get uneasy, understand me? I don’t meddle with them, and they leave me alone.’

‘No, I don’t understand.’

He leered at her. ‘No, I don’t expect you do, no white does. You all try to take it apart, try an’ understand, but you never will. Just as black is black and white is white. You want some advice, throw that thing away, burn it because—’

‘Because what, Mr Fryer? Why don’t you tell me what this thing is?’

‘I’d need a lifetime, honey.’

Lorraine picked up the doll, rewrapping it carefully. ‘I have only a few more days to try and trace Anna Louise Caley. I need all the help I can get.’

He pointed at the doll. ‘Somebody is trying to frighten someone. Whoever gave that to that little girl wanted her to hurt long and bad, so bad that destroying it would make it worse. That is one bad, bad thing: that’s terror.’

She snapped her briefcase closed. ‘Maybe that’s what it did, frightened a young eighteen-year-old girl into taking her own life.’

‘I seen worse.’

‘What could be worse?’

Fryer pulled the poster down from the wall. ‘What they did to Elizabeth Caley, slave to the drums, slave to the drums.’ He sat down on his bed and picked up his trombone. ‘You know, it’s all about being a slave. I am a slave to this instrument, it dominates my life, I am only a whole man when I am playing. Losing myself, feeling the sounds, like that little Elizabeth Caley feeling the earth beneath her feet and dancing herself into a trance until she felt the blood she had denied flowing like juices, and she could dance. Do you dance, Mrs Page?’

‘No, no, I don’t think so.’

‘That’s sad. But then you have a sadness to you. I feel something from you, Mrs Page, sit by me. Come on, now, share a drink with me.’

She did, not wanting to, but drawn to him and to the bottle. He unscrewed the cap, wiped the bottle neck with his sleeve and passed it to her, no longer being sexual towards her, just kindly. The bourbon hit hard on the back of her throat, warming her, and she smiled at him as she took another swig.

‘You know when they brought the slaves here, they dragged them from their roots and their religion by their chains. They buried their dead in big open graves with cats and dogs. They were confused and frightened, seeing their loved ones without food and water to travel to the other side. They were fearful because they believed that if the dead did not have sustenance for that journey, their souls would forever walk the earth. And superstition, brewed with fear, is a powerful weapon.’

He replaced the cap on the bourbon and picked up his battered trombone.

‘You give that thing you brought here to someone who is not afraid, it means nothing but a bad smell. But if you give it to someone who believes, it burns the nostrils and it becomes a terrible thing, a curse. Do you understand what I am saying?’

She was trying to follow what he said, wondering if Tilda Brown would have known what it meant to receive such a hideous curse. ‘Do you think that Juda or her sister could have made it?’

He stared at her, and she had to look away from his dark, unfathomable eyes. ‘No, no, they would never abuse what they believe is a gift from the spirits. They do good work, Mrs Page, not bad.’ He touched the centre of her forehead. ‘They have the sight right in there, they can see the past and the future.’

‘But you don’t believe?’ she said softly.

He closed his eyes, his hands stroking his trombone. ‘I have seen them working themselves up into trances, plucking out evil, healing pain. But I never wanted to be a part of it, because I could never be. I’m not like them, my soul is young, my soul lives in my music and I am a happy man. I never wanted all that pain, never could deal with it.’

He pursed his lips and blew two low blasts on his trombone. Then he looked at her with a smile, his gold teeth gleaming in the faint light. ‘Find the maker of the doll, Mrs Page, and you’ll have the evil, or stay beside me and we’ll make sweet music’

Lorraine smiled back, unafraid of him, liking him, and he knew it because he laughed.

‘That’s my evil, I am a ladies’ man. I sure do love the ladies, and I can tell you, I have had many, and not one went away unhappy.’

She stood up, laughing with him. ‘You sure about that?’

‘No, I ain’t ever sure about anything but this.’ He held up his trombone. He didn’t look up when she walked out, but started to polish the instrument with the edge of his shirt, seeing his grizzled face looking back at himself. He knew he had said too much, but that was always the way with him when he was stoned. He rested back on his pillow, and frowned.

Something scratched at his neck and he slipped his hand beneath the pillow to feel the necklace. He hadn’t worn it since the boys had returned it covered in sticky blood. It had unnerved him, scared him a little, and he would never wear it again. But he sure as hell wanted it close when he slept because it could have been his throat those crazy kids had cut open. It had been given to him by Juda. She had loved him then and never wanted any harm to come to the man she cared about. She’d even warned him never to part with it as it warded off any evil coming his way. So far he’d been lucky, unlike that poor limping son-of-a-bitch.

Lorraine was walking very unsteadily by the time she got back to François, but she had another drink on the way back to the hotel, telling herself she’d sleep it off — once she got some black coffee inside her she’d be fine. She was feeling pretty laid back now, smiling, but as they got closer to the hotel her mood began to plummet, and she hurled the Coke can out of the window, swearing and muttering under her breath. François saw it all in the rear-view mirror, saw her run her hands through her hair and lurch from one side of the seat to the other as he took the corners, not even at speed.

‘Maybe you shouldn’t drink no more, Mrs Page.’

She leaned forward, her face contorting with anger.

‘Fuck off, who the fuck you think you are, tellin’ me what to do? Just drive the fucking car, that’s what you’re paid for, you son-of-a-bitch.’

‘Sure, lady, we’re almost there.’

He saw her stumble as she walked towards the hotel, saw her stop, smooth down her skirt and put on dark shades. She looked like she was taking deep breaths before, straight-backed and head held high, she walked into the courtyard and disappeared behind the palms.

Lorraine found Rosie and Rooney sitting under the palms in the hotel courtyard.

‘Where the hell were you two?’ she snapped.

‘We could ask the same of you,’ Rosie replied angrily.

Lorraine sat down, kicking off her shoes. ‘Working, that’s what I’ve been doing.’

‘Well, maybe we have as well,’ Rosie said, prodding Rooney under the table for him to say something.

Lorraine leaned her head in her hands and told them briefly what she had been doing, then stretched her arms above her head, yawning. ‘Fryer’s right, we got to find out who made that doll.’ She signalled to the waitress. ‘You want another beer, Bill, or are you pissed enough already?’

Rooney looked away, pissed off by Lorraine, but by no means pissed. Rosie watched Lorraine carefully: she hadn’t been sure at first, but now she was, she could smell the drink. Lorraine scanned the terrace from behind her dark glasses, her voice just a little too loud.

‘Ruby Corbello is first on my list tomorrow. She was sacked from the Browns’ same day as Anna Louise arrived in New Orleans. Maybe, just maybe, she got the diary out of the Polar bear, and that diary is very important. It might be all we’ve got, it might also give us a clue as to who gave her that doll. And we got to find out when she was given it. Did you check out that newspaper date, Bill?’

The waitress appeared and Rooney was thankful; he hadn’t checked it out, and judging by Lorraine’s mood there would have been trouble. She ordered a black coffee and a sandwich.

‘So, Rosie, you get the Corbello address?’

Lorraine listened and lit a cigarette, her foot tapping on the table leg in mounting anger as Rosie told her what they had done.

‘I don’t recall telling you to fucking go and see Edith Corbello, or make up some stupid story about wanting a doll made. Jesus Christ, I’ve never heard anything so dumb! Gonna make it tough for me going there now. Why? What made you do it, Bill? I’d have thought you, of all people, would have known better. You’re supposed to be the professional, for chrissakes.’

‘You mean like you?’ Rosie said quietly.

‘What?’

‘I can smell it, Lorraine.’

Rooney frowned, looking first at Rosie, then at Lorraine.

‘I had some liqueur chocolates.’ Lorraine laughed, humourlessly, too loud. She peered over her shades. ‘You fouled up, Bill.’

‘Sorry.’ He shrugged.

‘It’s not good enough!’ Lorraine snapped.

Rosie was getting really uptight.

‘We waited here for you, and when you didn’t show, as we had agreed, and we found out you’d left the Caleys’ house, we didn’t know what to think. So don’t you get uptight with us, it’s you that should have come to the hotel and told us what you were doing.’

‘Piss off, Rosie, go on, just fuck off, will you? You’re getting on my nerves.’

Rosie pushed back her chair.

‘I’ll do just that, and maybe when you’ve sobered up we can have a proper conversation, like professionals.’ She marched off. Rooney looked after her, then back at Lorraine.

‘She’s talking bullshit, so come on, what’s the matter, Bill? Lost your tongue as well as your touch?’ Lorraine asked sarcastically.

Rosie was still within earshot and spun round. ‘Leave him alone,’ she snapped.

‘Oh, you talking for Bill now, are you? Well, tell me, Rosie, did he find out about the newspaper the doll was wrapped in?’

‘Shit, I knew there was something,’ Rooney said uncomfortably, noticing that people at other tables were beginning to look at them.

Lorraine stared at him. ‘You search Nick’s room for the gris-gris?’

Rosie looked at him and then at Lorraine. ‘We should get her back to her room, Bill.’

‘I asked him a fucking question,’ Lorraine cut in. ‘Well, did you find it or didn’t you?’

‘No, no, I didn’t.’

Lorraine slapped the table. ‘Why don’t you go up there right now and search? They’ll be renting it out any day, they might already have done, so ask if they found anything at reception.’

Rooney pushed his chair back. ‘Right, whatever you say, but keep your voice down. Everybody’s looking at us.’

Rosie stepped closer to him. ‘Don’t take this crap from her, Bill, she’s drunk. Can’t you smell it? Look at her!’

Lorraine had now got to her feet, knocking over her chair as she pointed at Rooney. ‘It is what I say, Billy, and I wish the two of you would stop fucking it up. From now on, please just do what I tell you to.’

Rooney walked away from the table. He seemed depressed and heavy, and Lorraine knew it, but let him go. She hadn’t finished, and she couldn’t find her shoes. Now she turned on Rosie. ‘You know, you got to stop play-acting at this investigation business. It isn’t a game, it’s serious!’

‘Oh, is it? That why you fucked Robert Caley? That was very professional! Now get yourself together and get up to your room.’

‘At least I got developments, which is more than I can say for you two, bumbling around like amateurs. You’ve both just tipped off Edith Corbello.’

‘But you said Fryer Jones—’

Lorraine slapped the table again, this time with the heel of her shoe.

‘Rosie, I don’t take everything he said as gospel. He’s a stoned old bastard I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw him. What I do take very seriously is that Rooney, as my back-up, just blew it.’

Rosie pursed her lips. Sometimes she really loathed Lorraine, but before she could say anything, the waitress brought the coffee.

‘He fucked you yet?’ Rosie blushed. ‘Oh, come on, what’s all this? Being coy doesn’t suit you, Rosie, and the sneaky little glances that pass between you both, plus the pats and the sniggers, get on my nerves.’

‘Maybe you’re jealous,’ Rosie snapped, meeting the curious glances of their fellow guests as Lorraine sat down again and reached for the coffee pot.

‘Where’s my sandwich? I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich.’

The waitress tightened her lips and said it would be right there. Lorraine slurped at her coffee.

‘I’m jealous, jealous. Got to be kiddin’, Rosie. But you didn’t answer my question. Has he? Can he?’ She laughed, adding sugar to her coffee and spilling it down the front of her shirt. Rosie leaned close.

‘That is my business, not yours, and you should apologize to him for speaking to him the way you did. In fact, you should take a good hard look at yourself, Lorraine, because what you are is a hard-nosed, drunken bitch.’

The slap came so fast it made Rosie stumble back. She clenched her fist to give one back but held back. She could hear people murmuring all around her: everyone was staring at them.

‘Now you’d better apologize to me, because we don’t need you.’

‘No, just the cut of the one million bonus that I’m doing all the work for.’

‘Don’t worry, Rosie, we’ll split it three ways, as agreed. That’s if we get it.’

Rosie couldn’t stop herself: she punched Lorraine in the shoulder, having meant to hit her face, but missing. Lorraine took the punch and then slowly fell off her chair to the floor. Rosie made no effort to help her get to her feet.

‘Yes, if. Anyone blowing our chances was you falling for Robert Caley.’

Lorraine took hold of the table to help herself up: she was beginning to feel sick.

‘But even if we don’t get the money, it won’t matter to us, because we’ve got something else going for us, and it’s something I doubt you will ever have. We’re getting married, Lorraine.’

Rosie walked away, leaving Lorraine holding on to the edge of the table. Everything was spinning, blurred and unfocused, and as the waitress returned with her sandwich, Lorraine passed out.

Rooney saw Rosie standing by reception and walked over to join her.

‘I carried her up to her room, well, me and the bellboy. She’s out cold,’ he told her.

Rosie nodded and passed him a computer print-out of their account. ‘She’s been putting it on the bill, look at it. Vodka, bottles of it.’

‘Shit,’ Rooney mumbled.

‘We’re going to have to dry her out, maybe try and find a meeting,’ Rosie said impatiently, taking her anger towards Lorraine out on Bill. ‘Why did you let her talk to you that way?’

‘Well, in some ways she was right, and, I mean, I knew something was wrong with her.’

‘I could smell it as soon as she sat down,’ Rosie fumed.

‘Well, I guess we just let her sleep it off and talk to her when she’s got herself together.’

‘What if she doesn’t get herself together?’ Rosie snapped.

Now it was Bill’s turn to turn on Rosie. ‘Then I take over and I mean take over, because I’ve had just about enough of her crap. I’m not prepared to lose my cut of the one million, even if she is.’ Before Rosie could apologize, Rooney had walked out, letting the swing doors into the lobby bang behind him.

Lorraine had been violently sick and now had a headache to end them all. She had soaked a towel and packed it with ice, and was lying flat out on the bed, hardly able to raise her head from the pillow. She sighed, not knowing why she’d been so hurtful, so cruel. She’d make it up to Bill and Rosie tomorrow. Tonight she was too tired.

She tried, too, to digest all that she’d been working on that day: she must find out who made the doll. Find that out, and she’d know who gave it to Tilda Brown. She winced at the noise as the door opened suddenly and Rosie barged in and banged down a tray of sandwiches and a pot of black coffee.

‘You are going to sober up,’ she said, pouring out a cup. ‘You are going to get in that shower, drink all of this coffee, eat these sandwiches, and you are then going to accompany me to a meeting. I got an address and there’s one in an hour’s time.’

Lorraine began to cry, sniffing and wiping her face. ‘Leave me alone, I’m not feeling well, it’s just something I ate.’

‘Yeah, liqueur chocolates, you said. Lies won’t work, Lorraine, I know you were as drunk as a skunk, in fact, the whole hotel knows. I’m surprised they didn’t ask us to leave. Now, SIT UP.’

‘No.’

Rosie hauled Lorraine to her feet and shoved her fully clothed into the shower. Lorraine howled as the jets of ice-cold water hit her, yelling that she would kill Rosie, knife Bill Rooney, twist his testicles off. Her threats became more and more ludicrous, but eventually she stopped trying to fight Rosie off.

Afterwards, Rosie helped her into a nightdress and forced her to finish the coffee and sandwiches, refusing to allow Lorraine to go to sleep until she had promised that she would attend a meeting next day and sworn on the hotel Bible that she would not touch another drop of alcohol and that she would call Bill or Rosie if the thought even entered her head. Lorraine was apologetic now, weeping like a chastised child.

‘I didn’t mean to do it, Rosie, I swear before God I didn’t, it was just Fryer offered me something at his place, I thought it was Coke. I give you my word I won’t touch another drink, all I need is sleep, please.’

Rosie sighed, cleared up the mess in the room and checked there were no more liquor bottles. By the time she was through, Lorraine was drowsy, and Rosie sat beside her on the bed for a moment.

‘You also got to apologize to Bill, you hear me? He really liked Nick and he took his death very hard. So first thing tomorrow you make up with him — me, I’m used to it, but he isn’t. You were downright rude.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Lorrraine’s voice was like a child’s.

‘Yeah, you should be, with all we got at stake.’ Rosie stood up and Lorraine held out her arms.

‘Give me a hug, Rosie, please, I feel so bad about this.’

Rosie hugged her, then gave her a warm smile as she fluffed up her pillows. ‘You sure test your friends, Lorraine Page.’

‘But I’m a lucky lady to have them,’ Lorraine answered softly.

Rosie left her, thinking she was sleeping, but sleep wouldn’t come. Eventually Lorraine got up and looked at her messages — several of them were from Robert Caley. Part of her wanted to call him because if he asked her to she would go. It wasn’t enough to be hugged by Rosie, by a friend, she wanted to be really loved by someone — by Robert Caley. Why could Rosie and Rooney find comfort with each other when she could find none? But she kept on making lame excuses why she shouldn’t call Robert Caley.

She opened her briefcase, taking out the soiled towel and opening it to stare at the grotesque doll. Someone had stuck the photograph of Tilda Brown’s face over the plastic doll’s head. Someone had glued blonde hair to the cloth body, covered it in excrement and urine, and then that someone had taken a long thin pin and pierced it right through Tilda Brown’s face. That someone had to have access to a photograph. That someone had to know the curse would terrify anyone who believed in spiritual evil and its powers. Lorraine wondered if that person might be Elizabeth Caley, or even her missing daughter, Anna Louise. It might perhaps be Juda Salina or Edith or Ruby Corbello, or even, and she didn’t want to accept the possibility, Robert Caley.

The unease remained as she changed and got ready to go to bed. The telephone ringing made her physically jump, but she didn’t answer. When it stopped she called down to reception; the call had been from Robert Caley. She closed her eyes and felt it again, the warm rush of feeling she’d had when he had kissed her again, told her that he was leaving his wife. She was falling in love with him, and it scared her. She couldn’t help but remember the pornographic magazine, the Valentine cards she had found in Anna Louise’s bedroom, all from Caley using the nickname ‘Polar’. Who had taken the diaries, if there were any, from Anna Louise’s Polar bears? He had said none had ever been found. But he knew their hiding place, so he knew that if Tilda Brown had a diary it would have been hidden in the same place. Round and round in her mind went all her suspicions until she felt like weeping from tiredness.

‘Please don’t let it be him,’ she whispered.