Cold Blood

Chapter 16

Rooney had had to wait for more than an hour as the printers took away the shreds of newspaper wrapped around the voodoo doll. It was almost eight when eventually a small crumpled man with ink stains on his hands and apron emerged from a back room, holding a full sheet.

‘You know there is a price for this?’

Rooney nodded. ‘How much?’

‘Well, I’ve had to go back into the files and double check the photographs for you... say, fifteen bucks.’

Rooney smiled, he’d expected to be asked for a lot more. ‘Sure, that sounds fair to me.’

He took out his wallet and laid out fifteen dollars. The printer pocketed it, and gave a furtive look around: he had, as he’d said, gone through a lot of back issues, but it was on his employer’s time.

‘Okay, this newspaper issue was out on February fifteenth last year, ’cos of the casino pictures and the—’

Rooney interrupted, taking the sheet. ‘That’s all I wanted to know, thanks.’

He stood outside the printers, folding the single sheet of last year’s paper into a small square. The evening was hot and clammy, and he was sweating all over, so he trudged down the street until he saw the streetcar, and stepped up inside. He sat on the bench seat close to the entrance, hoping for a bit of a breeze, but the air was hot and sticky. He ran his finger around his collar, not sure if it was the heat that was getting to him or the fact that he had made up his mind to propose to Rosie.

Shaved and showered, he tapped on her door. She opened it, wearing a big bath towel around her plump body.

‘How did it go?’

‘Well, it was the date we all wanted, Feb fifteenth last year. Can I come in?’

‘Sure.’ She stepped aside, drawing up her towel. ‘I just had a shower.’

He sat on the edge of one of the many beds in her room, waiting as she dressed in the bathroom. He told himself he was a lonely old fool, and tried to make himself back out of what he wanted to ask Rosie.

‘You divorced?’ he blurted out as she returned.

She looked surprised. ‘Yes, I told you, years ago. Why?’

He took a deep breath. ‘No reason,’ he said grumpily, unfolding the newspaper print-out and passing it to her.

‘That’s a lie, there is a reason.’ She was looking at the double-folded centre-piece. ‘What?’

‘You want to get hitched to me, Rosie?’

‘You bet I do.’

‘What?’

She sat next to him and took his big hand. ‘I said yes, I do...’

‘Shit, you do?’

‘Yes... you worried about that?’

‘Hell no, that’s what I wanted you to say.’

There was a moment of silence and they slowly looked into each other’s face.

‘So, we’re engaged?’ she asked coyly.

‘Yeah, I guess we are,’ he said flatly. It had all gone as he had hoped, but a fraction too fast!

‘We’d better tell Lorraine,’ Rosie said, and he hesitated.

‘Maybe don’t rush it, wait until we both get used to the idea, okay?’

She nodded, smiling. ‘I meant about the newspaper article, Bill!’

Lorraine was deeply asleep when Rooney called to tell her the newspaper date coincided with the day Anna Louise had arrived in New Orleans. She refused to go and dine with them, saying she needed a good night’s rest. It was after nine and she couldn’t get back to sleep for a long time. She thought about going to see Robert Caley but decided against it. Instead she tossed and turned, pushing him from her mind, going over what had happened during the day — with the exception of her lapse back into drunkenness.

She got up, feeling restless, and began to pace the room. She came to the conclusion that only one person could have hated Tilda Brown enough, and that person was Anna Louise Caley. But how in the hell could she prove it without Anna or Tilda alive? And Tilda Brown’s suicide must not be given priority over tracing Anna Louise, unless they were linked. And Lorraine intuitively knew that they were... but how?

She wanted a drink and searched round the room for any bottle that Rosie might have overlooked, still convincing herself that she was in control, and that the problem had been caused by the bourbon at Fryer’s bar, not the dilute vodka she had been drinking all day. She knew though that she was going to have to be a lot smarter, as Rosie and Rooney would be watching her every move. She couldn’t call down to reception for a bottle, as she was sure that Rosie had found out about that, perhaps had even warned them not to send anything up to her room, and she didn’t have the energy to leave it.

She didn’t realize that energy was nothing to do with it, but she was moving into another phase of the addiction — that of fear. She was frightened to leave the hotel room, frightened to face Rosie and Rooney, and her confidence in her ability to analyse the case was wavering badly. The more she sorted through her notes, running over details, the less confident she became, not knowing what the next move should be. It was later, when the sweats began, that Lorraine knew she needed something to get her back on her feet: she called down to ask the receptionist to see if her driver, François, was outside the hotel, and if so could he be directed to her room.

It was over half an hour before François was tracked down, and by the time he had seen Lorraine, agreed to buy her a bottle of vodka and brought it back to her, more than an hour had passed. She called down then to reception for a six-pack of Coke, assembling everything she needed, but didn’t open the bottle immediately. Just knowing it was there was enough: she’d be all right now.

But still sleep eluded her as she continued to turn the case over in her mind for hours, and she eventually fell asleep planning to see Ruby Corbello first thing next day. In the morning, she told herself, everything would be all right again.

Robert Caley left the city that night and drove up the coast to a casino in Gulfport, Mississippi, where he and Dulay had often played in the private rooms. High-stakes gamblers rarely bothered with the riverboat casinos in New Orleans, but once the casino in which he would now be a partner was open, all that would change. A lot of things were going to change for him now. By 9.30 he had lost more than 10,000 dollars, but that didn’t matter now: he was going to be rich. There was no limit to demand for gambling, and he knew he would never have to worry about money again. Dulay came in after ten o’clock and it felt good to see him smile warmly, falsely, a cigar clamped in his mouth. Even Dulay had not succeeded in cutting him out in the cold because he had put his money where his mouth was: the leases that had been such a millstone round his neck had saved his skin.

‘Hey, Robert, how are you doing?’

Caley smiled. ‘Fine, I’m doing fine.’

‘Well, looks like we’re both in the money... after the announcement, I mean.’ Even Dulay’s polished manner betrayed a trace of awkwardness. ‘We’re all on the same side now — the way it ought to be, hey Robert?’

Caley smiled; the man was a snake. There was no reason why the Doubloons group should have been cut in on the deal, but clearly pushing the Governor’s golf cart was a useful skill. Still, it felt good to come out a winner, and he was sure, very sure, that at long last he had played with a full deck.

‘Yes, Lloyd,’ he said with equally false graciousness. ‘It seems like we are. You’ll excuse me now, I was just on my way out.’

He checked his watch, wondering if Lorraine had called. He wanted to see her, wanted her to know and to celebrate with him. He drove back to New Orleans, thinking of the new world they would share. He wanted her tonight, because it was all going to be different now — he was dependent on no one, he was free. He had been trapped for years, caught in Elizabeth’s Caley’s secret nightmares, but that was over. Besides, they were nightmares he had never understood or cared to find out about.

Caley called Lorraine but was told she wasn’t taking any calls so he left a message to say he had returned to his hotel and had arranged for her usual suite to be waiting. He called again at midnight but the message was the same — Mrs Page was not to be disturbed. He let the receiver fall back on to the cradle, confused. He would wait for her to come to him, he would make no further calls.

Early the following morning, before Rosie and Rooney had even come down to breakfast, Lorraine had left the hotel. She had got herself dressed and out with just a couple of shots of vodka and half a pot of coffee: she’d been shaking badly and had a hell of a hangover, but at least she was able to get out of the room. She sat in the parked car, looking out of the window at the Corbellos’ house.

‘Wait here, François.’

She knocked three times before the door was opened.

‘Hi, I’m looking for Ruby Corbello.’

The young girl was wearing a barely decent slip dress and rubber flip-flops.

‘You from the festival organization?’

‘No, but I need to speak to her, and if necessary I can pay.’ Lorraine took out a twenty-dollar note.

‘She’s getting her picture took for a magazine this afternoon. She’s not seeing nobody unless it’s press.’

‘I’m a reporter,’ Lorraine lied.

‘She’s in the back room.’

The girl skidded past Lorraine, snatching the note, leaving the door wide open.

‘Ruby? Ruby?’ Lorraine called out.

‘Who wants her?’ came a high-pitched voice.

‘I’m from the Mardi Gras press organization,’ Lorraine called.

Ruby Corbello had a sheet wrapped around her when she came slowly down the narrow staircase. She was stunningly beautiful.

‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Lorraine Page, can I speak to you?’

Ruby glided down the last steps and hung on the newel post, suddenly kittenish.

‘I don’t want mah picture took until I got make-up on.’

Lorraine looked at the room off the hallway. ‘Can we talk?’

Ruby nodded, gathering the sheet around herself. ‘Sure, but no photographs until I’m wearing my gown.’

She indicated the old worn sofa, and posed beside it. The torn sheet could have been draped by Yves Saint Laurent; anything on this girl would look classy.

Lorraine opened her note-book. ‘You used to work for Mr and Mrs Brown as their maid?’

‘Uh huh, that I did, but I don’t no more, that is all behind me now.’

Lorraine smiled. ‘Tell me about Tilda Brown.’

‘Miss Brown?’ Ruby asked, irritated.

‘Why did you leave the Browns’ employment, Ruby?’

Ruby’s perfect face puckered. ‘Why you wanna know? They been saying things about me, huh?’

Lorraine sighed. ‘Well, in a way, and if I am to do this profile of you for the newspapers—’

‘I didn’t get fired or nothin’ like that, I left, I walked out because that young woman was crazy and I wanted me a proper career.’

‘You mean Tilda?’

‘Uh huh, she was always jabberin’ at me and she made my life a misery, because she believed she was so high and mighty. But she wasn’t that high or that mighty. I know that, I know all about Miss Tilda Brown.’

‘Do you know she committed suicide?’

‘Uh huh, I know.’

‘Why do you think she would kill herself?’

Ruby shrugged, and perched on the edge of a chair. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you know Anna Louise Caley?’

‘Mmm, I met her, and they was as alike as two peas in a pod, she was another Miss High and Mighty.’

‘Did she come here?’

Ruby threw back her pretty head and laughed. ‘Lordy, no, those white girls wouldn’t dare come here.’

‘Did Mrs Caley come here?’

Ruby drew back. ‘What? You joking me? The famous Elizabeth Caley come here? No way, ma’am.’

Lorraine chewed her lip, wondering how she should play it. Ruby tossed her thick hair over her shoulder, as if ready for a movie camera.

‘I was told you were fired from the Browns’ residence for stealing.’

‘WHAT?’ She jumped up and danced around, asking over and over who had said that about her. Then she stood in front of Lorraine and pushed her face close. ‘Who dare say that about me?’

‘I can’t tell you, Ruby, but I have to ask everything because if we are going to put you on the front page of the newspaper, we have to be sure that there can be no repercussions. You are one of the queens in this year’s Mardi Gras, and the whole of America will be watching.’

Ruby slumped into a chair. ‘I done nothing wrong, nothing at all, and it was by accident anyway ’cos she was cheekin’ me.’

‘What was?’

‘That I found it.’

‘Found what?’

‘Tilda’s diary. It was in this silly toy she had on her pillow, you know, a bear. I felt something inside it, so I looked.’

Lorraine felt her knees tremble as she leaned forward. ‘You have Tilda Brown’s diary?’

‘Hell no, I don’t have it.’

‘But you did.’

Ruby nodded, sucking at the end of the sheet. ‘She screamed at me and accused me of a whole lot of things, like her jewellery gone missing and I never took nothing, I swear on the holy saints I never stole nothing, but her parents just told me to go. I got angry and I went up to her room, I didn’t mean to steal nothing, just mess it up maybe, and then I found the diary. I was gonna give it back.’

‘When was this exactly, Ruby?’

‘Day she come back home.’

Lorraine took a deep breath. ‘You were fired on the day Tilda came home, that would be February...’

‘Fourteenth, St Valentine’s Day. Yeah, she fired me day she got back. An’ I remember it was that day because I had so many hearts sent to me and even Errol Bagley sent me a little posy of flowers, an’ I said to her that I was going anyways. I believe she was jealous of me, an’ all my cards an’ my posy of flowers because she didn’t get nothing at all.’

‘Ruby, are you sure it was the day before Anna Louise arrived in New Orleans?’

‘I don’t know when she came, all I know is I was no longer working for Mr and Mrs Brown. They give me a week’s salary! One week! They should’ve given me a month’s.’

Lorraine asked Ruby how long Tilda had owned the bear but she couldn’t recall exactly, only that it had been a while. When she asked what Ruby had done with the diary, she became evasive, flopping back and sprawling in the chair, chewing at a corner of the sheet. She wouldn’t look at Lorraine.

‘Did you read it, Ruby?’

‘Sure I did, most of it anyways.’

‘What did you do with it?’ Lorraine asked again.

Ruby slunk lower in the chair. ‘It wasn’t nothing bad, nothing illegal, and we hadda put a downpayment on my dress for the ceremony. My gown is costing almost one thousand dollars, you should make a note of that.’

Lorraine scribbled in her note-book, worried that she was pushing too fast for information, so she asked a few questions about the style and cut of the gown, and gradually Ruby became more eager to talk.

‘It’s blue handloom silk and it’s got gold stitching all over it. I’d show you only it’s at the dressmaker’s still.’

Lorraine smiled encouragingly, feigning interest. ‘It sounds as if it’s going to be magnificent, Ruby.’

‘Yes, yes it is, and, and I got shoes to match!’

‘Can I see the diary?’

Ruby was already floating round the room, the bed sheet trailing. ‘Oh, goodness me, why you keep asking me about that thing? I don’t have it.’

‘Who has it, Ruby?’

Ruby stared from the window, examining the fresh lacquer of her nails for smears. ‘I don’t know about that, don’t know nothing at all. Why you asking me about that diary? He said no one would ever know, so who been talkin’ to you?’

Lorraine’s blood went cold, because she knew who Ruby was talking about. ‘How much did Robert Caley pay you for it?’

‘Two hundred dollars,’ Ruby said quietly.

‘Do you remember when he gave you this money?’

Ruby nodded, and then sighed. ‘Next day, I went to his hotel. He’d only just arrived at the hotel and was going for a swim. Be the day after I was fired, I guess.’

Lorraine took a deep breath. ‘Was it last year, February fifteenth?’

Ruby nodded.

‘How did Mr Caley know you had the diary?’

She pursed her lips and stared blankly.

‘Did you know Anna Louise went missing the same night?’

Ruby nodded. ‘He told me not to say to anyone that I’d called him, and I didn’t.’

‘You called him at the hotel?’

‘Sure, yeah. Well, not exactly. There’s a bell-boy there I know, Errol, he’s got this crush on me and he sent me the posy of flowers I just told you about. Anyways, I asked him to give Mr Caley a message, that I was outside waitin’ and needed to speak to him on an urgent matter.’

‘What time was this, Ruby?’

‘Oh, ’bout sixish. See, I knew they were coming. Miss Tilda was supposed to travel with them but she came back a day early.’

Lorraine’s head throbbed trying to keep Ruby on track; trying to assimilate it all and piece it together was draining. She took a deep breath and smiled again at Ruby who was growing bored by now.

‘Why would he pay you so much for Tilda Brown’s diary?’

Ruby yawned, and stretched her arms above her head. ‘I guess, he didn’t want his wife to find out.’

‘About what?’

Ruby giggled. ‘Him and that Miss High and Mighty was screwing. Mr Robert Caley was banging Miss Tilda Brown, that’s what!’ She put her hands over her mouth and shrieked with laughter like a little girl. She thought it was so damned funny.

Lorraine sat with her head resting against the seat of the car. François looked at her, presuming Lorraine had been at Edith Corbello’s house for a reading.

‘Love not going smooth, huh?’

‘No, François, not smooth at all. Can you stop at the next liquor store?’

As they drove off, Edith Corbello trudged past with two big plastic carrier bags full of groceries. She’d been out shopping to get supper in for Juda and half expected to see her when she went into the house.

‘Ruby, is Juda here yet? Ruby?’

Ruby’s head appeared over the broken bannister rail. ‘If she was here, Mama, she’d tell you herself.’

‘She not called or nothing?’ Edith asked as she trudged into the kitchen and dumped down her heavy bags.

‘No, she’s not called, but I just had a long interview with the lady from the noospapers, they’re doin’ a profile of me for the front page.’

Edith turned as Ruby sauntered in and posed in the doorway. ‘You see a reporter half naked, girl?’

Ruby rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

Edith sighed and began unloading the groceries. ‘If that’s the clean sheet for Aunt Juda’s bed, get it off and make up Jesse’s room like I told you! Go on, get up those stairs.’

Ruby sauntered out as Edith continued stocking up the old humming fridge. She was hot and exhausted and one look around the dirty kitchen made her want to weep. She was going to have to spend hours cleaning up the house. Juda was real particular, and as she was paying for most of their keep, Edith always had to get everything nice and tidy. But it was becoming such an effort. What with trying to control her boys, and Ruby and Sugar May never helping out, the house was falling down around their ears.

Ruby walked in just as her mother’s head rested on her bosom as she fell asleep. She banged the table, making Edith’s head shoot upwards with shock.

‘I got these from under Jesse’s pillow, Mama, he’s been thievin’ again. It’s somebody’s wallet, drivin’ licence and...’

Edith snatched the leather wallet and flipped it open.

‘If it had any money in it, it’s empty now,’ Ruby said.

Edith saw the old worn ID with Nick Bartello’s address, and thudded to the back door, kicking it open.

Jesse was sprawled in an old moth-eaten hammock, writing on his arm plaster with a felt-tip pen. He hit the ground hard when Edith kicked him out of it.

‘You get your butt in that kitchen right now, an’ bring your no-good brother with you.’

‘Why? What I done, Mama? I just been sleepin’, you near broke me other arm, for chrissakes.’

Edith waved the stolen wallet under his nose. ‘I warned the pair of you not to do no more stealin’, an’ so you’d better get in that kitchen or I’ll call the cops.’

‘I found it,’ Jesse said backing away.

‘Oh, did you now? Then you won’t mind me callin’ up the police then, an’ sayin’ so, right? Right? She boxed his ears and he ran like a scalded cat, shouting for his brother.

Ruby was furious, standing with her hands on her hips. ‘They get into trouble, Mama, and then it’s gonna get in the papers and with me having my big day it’s just not fair. They’re gonna spoil everything.’

Edith turned on Ruby, wagging her finger. ‘Nobody is gonna do anythin’ to ruin your crowning, Ruby Corbello.’

‘Only maybe herself,’ Fryer said as he sauntered through the back gate and stood there, squinting at Edith.

Ruby shrieked. ‘I never done nothing Fryer Jones, an’ you’re a fine one to talk, letting Sugar May drink in that bar of yours an’ she just a kid. Next thing she’ll be strippin’ off like them whores you got working for you.’

‘Get your butt inside!’ Edith stormed, shouting for her to finish cleaning up the bedroom for Juda. A very disgruntled Ruby slammed into the house. Edith sat heavily on the steps outside the back door and stared at the old wallet.

‘They’re out of control, Fryer, I get tired out just waking up of a morning these days.’

Fryer leaned on the rail, looking down into Edith’s face. He reached for the wallet and flicked it open. ‘This is bigger trouble than you ever had, Edith. Your boys killed this guy.’

‘No, no, they wouldn’t do that!’ she said firmly.

Fryer squashed in beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘They did, Edith, they were high and shooting their mouths off down in my bar, and Jesse had a gun. They get up to all things when you’re sleeping, but we can take care of it. You’re gonna let me handle it my way.’

Edith nodded, Fryer helped her to her feet and they went into the kitchen. Ruby was flinging dirty crockery into the sink.

Fryer opened a beer sitting at the rickety table. ‘We burn that wallet for starters. As far as I know nobody saw them do it an’ the police don’t know nothin’. I’ll say they was in my bar all night if they come askin’. They already had one good thrashin’ from me, now I’d better give them another.’

Edith nodded as Fryer eased his old leather belt from his trousers. Ruby ran the tepid water into the sink. The pipes gurgled and clanked as she half-heartedly rinsed the dirty dishes, trying not to chip the varnish on her nails. Edith seemed weighed down by it all, fanning herself with an old newspaper and staring out of the window.

‘They’re comin’ through the back gate now,’ she said flatly.

Fryer fingered the beer bottle neck. ‘There’s a private investigator going round askin’ all kinds of questions, she been here?’ Edith shook her head. ‘Well, you be warned about her, she’s been hired by the Caleys to find that girl of theirs. Tall blonde woman, kind of fancy-looking, with a scar down her cheek.’

Ruby dropped a plate, it smashed to the floor. Fryer turned a baleful look on his niece.

‘You know anythin’ about this woman, Ruby, called Lorraine, Mrs Lorraine Page?’

Ruby held on to the sink. ‘No, I not seen her.’

Edith picked up the broken plate and tossed it into the garbage pile as the two boys appeared in the doorway.

‘Right then, Edith, and you, Ruby, get out the kitchen.’

Ruby was scared, tucking in the sheet on the small cot bed, listening to the thrashing being given to her brothers, as they howled like dogs. It went on for at least fifteen minutes.

Edith had begun to hoover with an old upright machine that billowed more dust out of its packed bag than it sucked up, but it covered the screams of her boys. The brothers were wiping their eyes with their shirt sleeves as Fryer eased back his old belt into his trousers.

‘I’ll keep my mouth shut but you got to pay me, that’s the bargain, boys. As from now, you work for me. You clean up my bar and you do like I tell you to or I will take this to the police.’ Fryer held up Nick Bartello’s wallet. ‘First you start with your own kitchen, I want this sparkling and swept, not a thing out of place, you hearing me?’

They nodded their heads like glum children.

‘From now on you both working for me until I say you’re free to go find employment elsewhere.’

They began to carry out the garbage as Fryer opened another bottle of beer. He’d burn the wallet but he wouldn’t tell the boys.

Sugar May appeared with a carton of chocolate milk, teetering on a pair of high-heeled silver shoes. She sniggered as they began getting out the brushes and mops and fetching buckets.

‘What you find so funny, Sugar May?’ Fryer asked.

Sugar May giggled. ‘I heard the whoopin’ and hollerin’ like squealin’ pigs.’

‘Did you now? And where you been for the morning?’

Sugar May shrugged. ‘Oh, walkin’ around.’

Fryer looked at her shoes. ‘Uh huh, you been strolling around in them platform soles, have you?’

She flicked her hips and drained her chocolate milk, sucking on it loudly before she tossed the carton towards where the rubbish bags had been.

‘Lemme see those new shoes of yours, Sugar May.’ Fryer held out his hands and Sugar May balanced on one foot and swung the other up into his crotch. ‘You steal these, Sugar?’

‘I did not, I bought them.’

‘Where d’you get the money to buy leather shoes of this quality?’

‘I was given it by a reporter lady that came to see Ruby, twenty bucks, and that’s God’s own truth.’

Fryer watched as the skinny girl sashayed to the door, the shoes making her feet look ridiculously large.

‘When did this reporter lady come here?’

‘This morning. You ask Ruby, I’m not lyin’.’

Fryer drained his beer and pointed the bottle towards Sugar May. ‘You go help your mama clean up the house, you got company coming, your Aunty Juda’s arriving for supper.’

‘I don’t make any mess so why should I?’ she said pouting in the doorway.

Fryer stared at her, and then wagged his finger. ‘Because I am telling you, an’ if you don’t you’ll get just as bad a thrashing as your brothers. You want that?’

She was about to get lippy with him, but something about his mood made her change her mind and she teetered back to the sink to finish off what Ruby had begun.

Fryer passed Edith, now hoovering in the hallway. ‘Ruby upstairs?’ She nodded. ‘You no need to worry yourself about those boys of yours, Edith, they’ll behave well for a while.’ He moved slowly up the stairs, then leaned over the bannister rail and looked down at her big, sweating body. Hard to believe she had, like her sister Juda, been as beautiful as Ruby.

‘Growing old is a tough business, isn’t it, Edith?’

‘Uh huh, sure is when you got two boys unemployed. Ruby don’t give me nothing much.’

‘But you’re still working, aren’t you?’

‘Sure, but you know, Fryer, half the poor souls that come here ain’t got a pot to piss in. They all as hard up as we are.’

Fryer wasn’t hard up, he’d got money, just hated to part with it, but he dug into his old torn jeans. ‘Edith, go get some nice fresh flowers for Juda and maybe a new dress for yourself.’ He tossed a thick wad of money down the stairs, which landed in the hall, and Edith switched off the hoover.

‘You’re a good man, Fryer.’

He continued up the stairs. ‘No, I’m not, Edith, I never was and I never will be, but I ain’t no sucker either.’

Ruby was half-heartedly clearing junk off the dressing table, taking the opportunity to stare at her own reflection. She glared when Fryer walked in, closing the door behind him and slipping the bolt across.

‘Don’t go sitting on the bed, I just made it,’ she said sullenly. Fryer sat squarely in the centre, and never took his eyes off her pretty, angry face.

‘You had a visit this morning, Ruby. Woman said she was a reporter, is that true?’

‘Uh huh, gonna put me in the papers.’

‘Well, you might get into the papers, Ruby, but not the way you think you’re gonna be in them. Be a big picture of you being arrested, maybe in handcuffs.’

Ruby was about to snap back at him, but she didn’t. She wasn’t afraid of Fryer Jones like her brothers were; he was nothing but a dirty old lecher who had pawed her since she was a little tot.

‘So, Ruby, you want to tell me how much you were paid for that doll you made?’

Ruby’s mouth fell open. ‘I never made nothing.’

Fryer smiled, resting back on his elbows on the clean white pillow. ‘Yes, you did, child, but you had better tell me who you made it for, not that I don’t already know.’

‘If you know, why you askin’?’

He sat up and now his face was angry. ‘Because you played with fire, honey child, and you might have to pay for it. You tell me, and from the beginning, just what you been up to, Ruby Corbello, or do you want me to beat it out of you?’

‘You lay one finger on me and I’ll make you regret it.’

He couldn’t help but laugh. She was so beautiful when she was angry, she turned him on just looking at her. She reminded him of Juda, that same fire in her loins, those same wondrous snake-coloured eyes. He turned away from her, and sighed, but he got up fast when she tried to get out of the room. He dragged her back to the bed by her hair, throwing her down hard, and he leaned over her.

You got death on your hands, Ruby.’

She looked up into his face, unafraid. She began to unbutton her cheap white cotton blouse, licking her sweet full lips.

‘Want to play with me, Fryer?’

He placed his hand over her throat and pressed hard, making her gasp. ‘No, Ruby, I don’t want to play, I’m here to save your soul, so you tell Fryer what you’ve been up to! And if you lie, then I’ll squeeze the breath out of you.’

Ruby rolled away on to her side, and he waited. She didn’t seem to care or worry about his threats, twisting a strand of her thick hair into curls round and round her long slim fingers.

‘That Tilda Brown accused me of prying into her private things when I done nothing but work like a slave for her and her family. She had no respect for me and I cheeked her back, told her she was being high and mighty to the wrong person. She said in that high-pitched voice of hers, “Oh, am I? Well, you just got yourself fired, Miss Ruby Corbello.”’

Fryer sat with his head slightly bowed, listening to her soft voice rise and fall like music. He felt her body roll over and move closer to him, her fingers no longer twisting her curls but gently stroking his back. She told him, almost playfully, that when Tilda Brown’s parents had taken their daughter’s side and asked her to leave she got angry and went up into Tilda’s bedroom. She hadn’t planned to steal anything, she had intended to piss over her nice frilly white clothes. She giggled at the thought. But then she had found Tilda’s diary.

Fryer listened in astonishment as Ruby told him how she had read the diary and knew she had something worth money, so she had contacted Errol at the Caleys’ hotel and asked to have a meeting with Robert Caley in private. She sighed, saying she now realized she could have asked for so much more money, but at the time she had thought two hundred dollars was a good price.

‘I should have asked for thousands. I was dumb. He paid me there and then, told me never to say a word of this to anyone, never to admit to anyone I’d had a meeting with him, and he wouldn’t ever mention it to nobody.’

Fryer still felt her fingers smoothing his back, making him stretch upwards, and she giggled.

‘Go on, Ruby.’

She explained that she had gone to the dressmaker’s and asked for gold stitching on the dress but the dressmaker had said that with just two hundred dollars they could only do the front of her bodice. ‘I wanted gold all over, Fryer. I wanted to shine like I was the sun.’

She rolled away from him and he turned to face her. ‘Anyways, Errol had given me this cute little posy for Valentine’s Day, so I went back to the hotel to thank him and we were standing in the courtyard when Anna Louise Caley called down to me. She wanted me to see her in her room, said it was urgent.’

She’d had a moment of worry in case she saw Robert Caley, having just given him Tilda’s diary. So Errol had sneaked her in through the staff entrance and she had gone to Anna Louise’s bedroom.

‘I made a mistake, Fryer. You see, I thought maybe she had seen the diary somehow and I started saying that I had nothing to do with it, just like I promised Mr Caley. But she got all crazy, Fryer, you ain’t never seen anyone go so white-raged in your whole life. She was spittin’ anger and asked over and over what had been written, and so I told her.’

He gently touched her cheek with the back of his gnarled hand. ‘Go on, honey, then what did you do?’

She sucked on one of his fingers and smiled. ‘She wanted me to make a voodoo doll, she gave me a photograph and a little envelope with some of Tilda’s hair, skin and blood. But I don’t know, they was just funny little black bits and pieces.’

Fryer could feel his heart thudding as her sing-song voice described how she had come back home and sat stitching and making up the doll. She giggled like a child when she told him she had crapped and pissed all over it before wrapping it up in newspaper and tying it with string.

‘She give me another three hundred dollars, Fryer, an’ I saved it all up. That’s what I been usin’ for my gown, now I got gold all over the skirt.’

‘How did you get the doll to her?’

Ruby smiled, describing how Anna Louise had lowered some string and she had tied the doll to it and then Anna Louise had pulled the string over her balcony at the hotel. Ruby had then gone home and never thought any more about it.

Fryer’s head ached, and he moved away from the bed. When he saw her reflection in the dressing-table mirror, she was leaning up on one elbow, her mini skirt eased up round her crotch, her blouse half open and her legs spread wide.

‘You must never tell this to another soul, Ruby. You hearing me?’

She cocked her head to one side. ‘I never told anyone but you, Fryer, I’m not stupid. But you know something kind of strange?’

‘What?’

Ruby swung her legs from the bed and bowed her head. ‘Well, Anna Louise was full of hatred, she was all deep down angry. She said she wanted Tilda Brown to hurt bad, to cause her pain. When I was making up the doll, I got one of the pins from my dressmaker and I looked at this doll, and I closed my eyes and I let my fingers feel the little head and then I stuck that pin in hard. As it went in, I said, “This’ll hurt her bad.” I wanted to hurt her too for being so mean to me. Getting me fired like she did. So I did an extra twist just for me.’

Fryer watched as the young girl lifted her head. As her hair parted from her face her eyes glittered, and he got the feeling he was looking into the eyes of a dangerous snake.

She whispered, smiling, ‘And then she hanged herself. Now ain’t that funny?’

Fryer walked into the kitchen where the boys were now scrubbing the floor and Edith was frying up a pan of chicken. It all looked so ordinary, so domestic, so innocent.

‘I’m going back to my bar now, Edith. You give Juda my regards.’

‘I surely will, Fryer, and Sugar May’s out buying a nice bunch of fresh, sweet-smelling flowers for her room.’

‘That’s good.’

Edith wiped her hands on her apron. ‘You gonna come to the ball with us, Fryer? It’s gonna be something special and Ruby is gonna look like a dream when they crown her.’

He nodded, knowing she would, and knowing just how much that dream had cost made him uneasy. He had always felt uneasy round the sisters when they were younger. All their potions and their visions, all the trail of people coming to them for guidance, weeping and wailing, treating them like they were royalty, and in a way they had been. Now Ruby was grown, and contrary to what Edith and Juda believed, that their powers stopped with them, he knew they hadn’t. The Marie Laveau legacy would live on. Upstairs in that tiny bedroom was proof, and it unsettled him, just as it always had done.

‘You watch over Ruby, Edith. Maybe you and Juda sit down and talk to her, make sure she don’t abuse what God given her. You make sure of that now.’

Edith frowned, not fully understanding his concern. ‘She’s just a pretty girl, Fryer... Fryer, why you actin’ this way?’

‘I’m not actin’ any way, Edith honey, just watch over that child. Maybe it’s time she learned to have some of your big heart.’

He had gone before she could ask him any more questions, and she went back to stirring the pan of fried chicken, the beads of perspiration rolling off her big, round face. Someone rapped on the back door and she banged down the slatted spoon and crossed to the door.

The woman had a small child in her arms. She looked up at Edith, her face strained. ‘Please, Mrs Corbello, my youngest is so sick, it’s some kind of fever.’

Edith ushered the frightened woman into her altar room. She was about to close the door, when she hesitated and called up the stairs, ‘Ruby honey, will you come on down to me now?’

Ruby peered over the bannisters. ‘I’m busy fixin’ mah hair, Mama.’

‘Well, you do that later. I want you down here with me.’

Ruby blinked; her mama had never asked her to come into the back parlour before.

‘You want me in there with you?’ Ruby said hesitantly.

‘Uh huh, come on, we got a sick child in here.’ Edith’s tone of voice was not going to take no for an answer.

Ruby came down the stairs, buttoning up her blouse and straightening her skirt, a little frightened.

Edith was sitting behind her table, the woman was weeping, rocking the sick baby in her arms.

‘How long has he not been feeding from your breast?’

‘Days, Mrs Corbello. He just gone all listless on me and vomitin’ up all night. Now he just lies still. I got him a bottle to try and feed him, but he won’t take it.’

Ruby watched as Edith took the child and unwrapped his blanket and eased off his clothes, while the mother wept, rocking backwards and forwards in her chair. Edith beckoned Ruby to her side.

‘Hold him up real gentle, Ruby, lay him flat on his blanket.’

Edith walked out of the room and hurried into the kitchen. She put a pan of milk on the stove and examined the bottle, sniffing at it, then she boiled up a big pan of hot water to sterilize the bottle and the teat. She turned as Ruby walked in, holding the child in her arms, just the blanket around him.

‘Mama, this little one’s been bruised bad, all down his belly and his back.’

‘I know, we got to talk to her easy, see what she says. We’ll use some herbs and oils on his hurt body and keep him cool. I’ll need an iced cloth and fresh water.’

‘He should go to a doctor, Mama.’

Edith busied herself at the stove, testing the milk.

‘She got no money for a doctor and she scared what she’s done to the child. She’d be arrested if a doctor saw that, that’s why she’s come to me. So do as I tell you, Ruby.’

Edith talked quietly to the weeping woman as Ruby tended the baby. He was still listless, but the soothing creams lowered his temperature. The mother eventually admitted she had hit the child after days of sleepless nights when she could no longer cope with his crying. Edith examined her breasts and then told her that as she was dry of milk her child was crying for sustenance, and they must begin to encourage the baby to suckle from the bottle. She never admonished the woman, but was gentle and understanding throughout.

Ruby held the bottle to the baby’s lips as the woman held on to Edith’s hand and watched as her mama said she would ease her mind so she would be able to cope with her child. Her big hands massaged the woman’s head and shoulders until her eyes drooped, and then she worked on her neck and back, a rough, hard massage. She then sipped from a cup of liquor, and Ruby’s mouth dropped open as Edith hissed out the water in a spray, covering the woman’s face and head. She drank and hissed the liquid three times before leading the woman to the cot bed in the corner of the room and helping her to lie down. She was in a deep sleep almost as soon as her head rested against the pillow.

Ruby looked down at the child. She said nothing, but Edith saw her gaze deep into the child’s eyes, no trace now of the sneering teenager in her manner, but a quiet intensity. The child’s eyes opened and he looked back at Ruby, not listless now, drinking in her eyes. Then suddenly his lips puckered and he began to suck from the bottle in Ruby’s hand.

Ruby looked up at her mother as she felt the child’s pulse, and it was as if this was the first time in many years she had really seen her — not overweight and irritating, but almost regal, someone to be admired, and it made Ruby feel humble and ashamed. She couldn’t stop the tears filling her eyes. Edith kissed the top of her daughter’s head and caught the tear that trickled down her cheek on her finger. For a second it was a shining clear crystal.

‘They don’t come for tears, Ruby, just your love and a little of your strength. Mine’s fading now, but...’

‘I’m strong, Mama, I’m strong.’ Even Ruby’s voice had changed; it seemed quieter, more melodious.

Edith nodded. ‘I know you are, Ruby. You purify your heart, because maybe you are stronger than you know.’

Lorraine was silent on the drive to Elizabeth Caley’s home. François had tried to make conversation, but receiving no reply fell silent, watching her through his driving mirror. She clutched a bottle inside a brown paper bag. He’d seen her go to open it on two occasions, and then stop. She acted like a woman who had just got bad news. She had, and it took all her self-control not to want to go and face Robert Caley out there and then, but even more not to take a drink. She had to find further proof of Robert Caley’s guilt. Yet again, he was their number one suspect, and this time she would not allow herself to be side-stepped by her emotions. She wanted to nail him.

Lorraine stood in the hall at Elizabeth Caley’s mansion. Juda Salina came slowly down the sweeping staircase. She was as tired out as her sister had been.

‘Well, she almost did it for real this time. They been an’ pumped it all out of her, and now she’s sleeping like a baby.’

Lorraine waited until Juda reached the bottom step. ‘It’d be a pity if your golden goose died, wouldn’t it?’ she said sarcastically.

Juda gave her a scathing look. ‘I earn every cent I ever made from her, Mrs Page, believe me, I earned it.’

Missy brought them some tea in the double parlour and then left them. Juda sipped her tea; she seemed truly exhausted and her thick make-up had run on her big, round face.

‘I never thought I’d be seeing you again.’

‘Why?’ Lorraine asked.

‘No reason,’ Juda said, and then smiled to herself. ‘Powers dimming, get confused and too tired now days. Anyone close to you with the initial U ‘

‘No.’

‘That’s good. I had a bad premonition about someone, I thought maybe it was you.’

Lorraine shrugged. ‘Well, as you can see, Mrs Salina, I am fine. Where is Robert Caley?’

‘I dunno, maybe at his hotel, maybe not. I left messages but he never came here, so I guess he really don’t care any more.’

‘About Elizabeth?’

‘Uh huh, she thought maybe he’d come, you know, if I said she was in a real bad way, but I guess she done it once too often.’ Juda clasped the arms of her chair. ‘You know, Mrs Page, it may be hard to believe, but Mrs Caley is one sweet woman. Just, she got demons inside her. I’ve tried to help her for twenty years but they get so strong that she just goes crazy and sometimes she frightens even me. Maybe she should let out who she really is, but she won’t, she keeps it hidden away, so she has to use anything that’ll ease the pain, anything that’ll stop the demons.’

Lorraine stared. ‘You keep them alive, Juda, don’t you? I know about her, I know she is too scared to admit she’s got black blood, but I can’t believe that is all there is toit!’

Juda smiled. ‘Oh, you been talking to Fryer, he’s the only one that knows. I’m right, huh? You been to see Fryer Jones?’

Lorraine nodded. ‘He told me that he knew, but I don’t know if he was aware that Anna Louise was not Robert Caley’s child.’

‘Oh, he knows. But, Mrs Page, maybe half of what he said was just him piecing things together. Old Fryer likes to be in on things, always hated not knowing.’

‘Were you, or are you, blackmailing Mrs Caley about her past?’

Juda laughed softly, closing her eyes. ‘No, Mrs Page, I wasn’t doing nothing like that, I wouldn’t stoop so low.’

Lorraine half-raised an eyebrow; if Ruby could contemplate getting money out of Robert Caley, she was damned sure that Juda or Edith had shown her the ropes.

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘No, Mrs Salina, I don’t. What I have seen is your apartment and limo — are you telling me that fancy address on Doheny Drive is paid for from your business?’

Juda stared at Lorraine. ‘She pays me, I admit that, and she pays me well, but it’s not the way you think.’

‘What is it then, Juda?’

Juda sighed and looked away. ‘Mrs Caley was hexed, a long time ago. Because she played Marie Laveau in that movie she got to believe, and as a believer she needed me. That’s all I ever been to her, someone she could talk to, someone who knew her secrets and could soothe her fears. She is a woman who is very fearful.’

‘That’s it? Elizabeth Caley was fearful, of what?’ Juda shrugged her big shoulders, refusing to look at Lorraine. ‘What about Anna Louise Caley, Juda?’

Juda sipped her tea. ‘She was obsessed with her father, nothing more to be said, she wanted him to herself.’

‘Did he want her in a sexual way?’

Juda smiled, shaking her head. ‘No, honey, the girl was just infatuated. He is a real handsome man, and a nice strong body to him, and Anna was just going through a stage in her young life. But she kept on coming to me, begging me to help her, wanting love powders and herbs and gris-gris bags. I just let the child talk.’

‘Did you give them to her?’

Juda looked away. ‘I have to earn a living, but I never encouraged the girl, always told her that no good would come of it, that it wasn’t natural for a girl to dote like that on her father.’

‘But he wasn’t her real father, and you knew it. Did you tell her?’

Juda shook her head. ‘No, ma’am, the child didn’t know, that was a big secret we all kept close. Mrs Page, all I could do was tell her not to go after something that was unobtainable, but she was kind of crazy, you know. Asking for potions, things she’d been reading about, anything that would make him respond as a man to her. You got to remember Anna Louise spent a lot of time here in New Orleans when she was a little one, she was often at this place by herself for months on end. The help was black, she had a sharp mind, she took everythin’ in, a real inquisitive little girl she was.’

Juda sighed, and closed her eyes. ‘I told her over and over what she wanted was bad work and only evil would come of it, but you know, she kind of liked that. There was a side to that girl, a bad side. I hate to speak of it now, but there could be a look to her face that was mean-spirited and bad. She was spoiled, used to getting anything she wanted, but the one thing she couldn’t get was her own father on top of her! It was sick all right.’

‘What do you think happened to her?’

Juda opened her eyes and stared hard at Lorraine. ‘If I knew, honey, I’d be in line for that one million dollars you are trying to get.’

‘How do you know about that?’

Juda sucked in her breath. ‘Honey, there is little connected with Miss Elizabeth Seal that I don’t know about. Truth is, all I know is that child is dead, an’ she’s been dead a long, long while.’

‘Like eleven months?’

Juda nodded. ‘Yes, she’s been gone a long time, I don’t get any feeling that she is alive, so now you know. But I got to earn a living, I got a big family to feed, and sometimes it helped Mrs Caley to have something to hope for.’

‘Even if it was a lie?’ Lorraine asked coldly.

‘I wasn’t going to be the one to tell her I felt no feelings, no heart, because I knew she’d start up those bad drugs again. All I did was try and keep her steady.’

Lorraine rubbed her head. ‘So let me ask you again, what do you think happened to Anna Louise?’

‘They didn’t bring me down here until she’d been gone awhile. By then it was too late, I got no response.’

‘What about Ruby?’

Juda gave a tight-lipped smile, and suddenly Lorraine could feel that she was very tense.

‘Well, Ruby is Ruby. She’s my niece. Why you ask me about Ruby?’

‘She worked for Tilda Brown’s family.’

‘Mmm, mmm, she did. In fact I got her the job. Anna Louise told me her friend was needing a maid, so I rang Edith, and Ruby called by their house. Be about three years ago. Work is hard to come by in these parts, a lot of unemployment.’

‘But Tilda Brown came to you, didn’t she? With Anna Louise?’

Juda pursed her lips, the deep shiny lipstick running up the lines around her mouth like cracks in baked red earth. ‘Once or twice, I read the tarot cards, looked in her hand, but nothing serious. They was just young teenagers, it was harmless, and they paid me fifty dollars!’

‘Did Tilda believe, like Anna Louise, Juda? I mean, they were close friends, they may have thought it was fun, or interesting. Did they both come to see you together always?’

Juda sighed. ‘One time Miss Brown booked an appointment by herself, encouraged by Anna Louise, I think. If anything little Tilda seemed frightened, and when I next saw Anna Louise I said to her not to weave stories, that she was giving her friend nightmares. You got to understand, Tilda was born in these parts too, she would have been brought up by black servants, and children hear things, get things distorted.’

Lorraine was tick-ticking again. She got to her feet and started to pace up and down.

‘What kind of nightmares?’

‘Oh, she couldn’t sleep in the dark, silly things. She asked if somebody hexed you what you should do about it, that kind of thing.’

‘Who was hexing her?’

‘I don’t know. When I asked her she said she’d been reading some book, that’s all.’

‘Did Anna Louise ask you to make something special for her, Juda?’

‘Yes, I told you, love stuff.’

‘Not a death doll? A voodoo doll in the image of Tilda?’

Juda gasped, and clenched her hands. ‘No, no, and I would not play with that kind of thing, Mrs Page. I would not be a part of it, no matter what money was offered.’

‘Really? No matter what money? Anna Louise was rich, she could have offered a lot, couldn’t she?’

Juda stood up angrily, planting her big fat feet wide apart. ‘I don’t have to sit here listenin’ to you saying that stuff. I would never, so help me God, abuse what powers I have, not for a child, not for anyone. I don’t play with darkness because if I do, I got to go into it too, maybe you don’t or can’t understand what I am, but it’s not a gift I would wish on anyone, it’s a vocation. I help people — I don’t play with fire.’

Lorraine raised her eyebrows. ‘You sure about that, Juda? I mean, you don’t seem to be doing too badly. How about your sister? These powers you are supposed to have, do they weigh heavy on her?’

‘You joke on, honey, we don’t expect you whites ever to understand. When you do come to us, it’s not for good, or for helping others. It’s not for spreading joy or healing or loving, but for evil. That’s the only time you people want to believe, when you want something from us, and it’s been that way for centuries.’

Lorraine laughed softly. ‘Come on, it’s not us wringing the neck of chickens and drinking blood. Or was it new-born babies they used to slaughter for their joyful “love thy neighbour” ceremonies?’

Juda pursed her lips, her whole face as shiny as her lipstick, her blue eye-shadow running into a smudge from her black mascara-ed false eye-lashes.

‘You won’t make me angry enough to say something that’ll go against me, Mrs Page, because I have done nothing.’

‘What? Don’t kid me, you have withheld evidence, Juda. You have stated to me, and to the police, that Anna Louise did not visit you, nor did her friend Tilda Brown. You have also been blackmailing Elizabeth Caley for years. You say you haven’t, but I don’t believe you. But right now all I am trying to do is find out what the fuck happened to Anna Louise Caley, because I think she made this\ And I think she gave it to Tilda Brown.’

Lorraine took out the voodoo doll wrapped in the hotel towel and thrust it at Juda. The big woman’s large melon-like bosoms heaved as she slowly unrolled the towel on a side table, her breath rasped and Lorraine saw that her black wig had shifted slightly, and her own short fuzzy grey hair showed through. Juda was drenched in perspiration, her curls wet around the nape of her neck and across her forehead. There was a dark V down the back of her dress, the underarms of her dress were damp, and her ankles were swollen, her feet puffy in her tight court shoes. Lorraine watched as Juda looked over the doll, noted how she too sniffed it as she had seen Fryer Jones do, then pushed it away.

‘This is not made by a professional voodoo practitioner: it’s more likely to be a conjure ball here than a doll if someone wanted to do bad work. This is an amateur thing, disgusting. The pin’s just a dressmaker’s pin too, not the right kind. Whoever made this didn’t know what they were doing.’

Juda flipped over the towel, covering the doll. ‘I didn’t make this thing, Mrs Page, and I honestly don’t know anyone who would. I’m getting old now, like Edith, we get real tired doing trances and rituals. They’re all taken over by the young, me and Edith are tired old women now.’

‘What about Ruby? Does she have the powers, as you say you have?’

Juda chuckled. ‘I say I have them, Mrs Page, and if you get off your high horse you kind of know I have them, and you are just that little bit scared yourself. Took a long time, Mrs Page, but you are beginning to believe.’

‘No, Mrs Salina, I am not.’

Juda shook her head, took out a paper tissue from a pocket and dabbed around her mouth. ‘I don’t care either way, but maybe you should ask my golden goose, as you rudely describe Mrs Caley, whether I am blackmailing her or not. You ask her, honey.’

‘Perhaps I will.’

Juda put her hands on her wide hips. ‘I don’t want to go back to LA, Mrs Page, I want to stay here with my relatives. I’m one tired old woman and I pray what powers Edith and I have end with us, I think they do. Little Ruby don’t have the sight, and you know something, I am glad, because sometimes the pain is so bad. We don’t say what we feel when we have somebody crying at our tables, but we always know. Knowing is an affliction we were born with.’

She came up close to Lorraine and pinched her chin in her fingers, staring into her eyes. ‘You’re a clever woman, Mrs Page, sharp-eyed like a pecking bird, an’ you don’t miss nothin’ with those sharp bird eyes o’ yours, but I can look at you and say you are hurting right now, hurting for some love, and it is tearing you apart. You been a woman with no love for a long, long time, and you ain’t gonna find it in the bottom of a bottle.’

Lorraine blushed and Juda laughed softly. ‘I’m right, huh, but you know what I don’t understand — why can’t I tell when my own nephew is gonna rob me of all my savings, eh? So what good is having this extra vision for every poor bastard that comes to me? How come I can’t know things that’d warn me? Life is not easy, is it?’

Lorraine sat forward, not wanting to ask, but unable to stop herself. ‘What do you see for me, Juda, in the future?’

Juda laughed softly. ‘Honey... it’ll cost you fifty bucks.’

Lorraine went to open her wallet, but Juda put her hand on Lorraine’s head.

‘No... don’t. You got to walk away, you make your own future, sweetheart, believe me. You don’t want to know what’s in store for you. Besides, I don’t have the energy to get into it.’

Missy appeared. ‘Mrs Salina, she’s askin’ for you, she says you got to stay here, she doesn’t want you to leave.’

Juda nodded, and pointed to the door. ‘I’m keeping her alive, Mrs Page, and if she pays me for it, who am I not to take it? I got a niece set her heart on being a queen in a fancy dress and a dressmaker asking for more money than is decent. So if you want to go up and see her, you go do it. I need to wash, freshen up.’

Lorraine watched Juda walk to the door. She seemed weighed down, not just by her bulk but something else, a sadness. And Lorraine remembered Fryer saying that once she had been beautiful.

Lorraine tapped on Elizabeth Caley’s bedroom door.

‘Juda, is that you?’

The voice was like a frightened child’s, and when Lorraine eased open the door she saw the room was in semi-darkness, the shutters closed. Even in the gloom it was clear that Elizabeth’s stricken face was as white as paper, so pale that Lorraine was alarmed.

‘It’s me, Lorraine Page, Mrs Caley. Are you all right?’

‘Go away, I want Juda, I need Juda. I can’t see anyone else right now, go away. Juda, Juda!’ Elizabeth was curled up hugging the pillow, her voice barely audible. ‘Please, please get Juda, I need her — I am sick, very sick.’

Lorraine took a couple of steps further into the darkened room as Elizabeth moaned and then uncurled her body. Her hands were clenched into fists, and she began to make deep, guttural sounds, her body thrashing as if she was having a fit.

‘Juda! Juda!’ she screamed, and her eyes rolled back into her head, showing only the whites. It frightened Lorraine, who didn’t know what she should do, but then Juda appeared behind her. She’d changed into a big tentlike dress and a blue silk turban, and was barefoot.

‘I’m here honey, rest easy now, Juda’s right here.’

Lorraine watched as Juda ran water over a cloth in the bathroom and then dipped it into an ice bucket by the side of the bed.

‘You want to ask Mrs Caley something? You go ahead. You ever seen anyone act like this, huh? Take a good look, Mrs Page, these are her demons.’

Lorraine looked over to the bed. Elizabeth moaned and thrashed around the crumpled sheets but Juda seemed unconcerned.

‘She’s been like this for thirty-five years. Started on that movie she made. They hexed this poor child, made her think the spirit of the snake was inside her, and sometimes it takes her over. Right now that’s what is screaming out. Not the drugs or the booze, but her fears. This is what evil can do. This is what comes of playing with the spirits, Mrs Page. This poor woman was cursed.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Lorraine whispered.

‘No, your kind wouldn’t. Now, if you got nothing to ask her, leave me to calm her. This is what I am paid for, an’ I do it because she can’t trust no one else.’

Lorraine took one more look at Elizabeth Caley and walked out. She closed the door behind her, still not fully understanding what was going on. But she didn’t want to see any more because it was unnerving to see someone so out of control, as if in a fit. By the time she had walked to her car, that is what she believed was wrong with Elizabeth Caley — she was suffering from some kind of epilepsy.

Juda sat by Elizabeth Caley’s bed, rinsing out the cloth and gently wiping her sweating brow. She would never cease to be in wonderment at Elizabeth’s beauty, it always touched her soul, just as the demons inside Elizabeth wrenched and exhausted her. All those terrible curses laid on little sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Seal’s head had created such agony, such fear, that she had lived inside of it all of her adult life and there would never be an end to it. Juda knew that all she could do, all she had been able to do, was calm her and stop her sinking into such a state of terror that it froze her mind and body. She eased that terror now, talking in a soft voice, whispering that it was going to be over any moment. Juda felt the evil, sometimes had taken it through her own body, just as she had felt the loneliness inside Lorraine Page. When she’d looked into Lorraine’s face she had seen deep insecurity, and it made Juda feel compassion — not a lot, but some.

‘Juda,’ murmured Elizabeth.

‘I’m here honey, like I always am, right up close, you can reach out and hold me, I won’t leave you.’

Juda felt Elizabeth’s nails cutting into her palm as she clasped her hand tightly. Her body heaved as she retched, but there was no vomit; it was as if she was releasing something from inside herself, her mouth frothing and the spittle trickling down her chin as she heaved and her tongue hung out. Then she lay still and her hand slowly released Juda’s. It was over.

Ten minutes later the wondrous eyes opened and the fear had gone. Juda saw the sweet, innocent smile of thanks.

‘Everyone leaves me Juda, but not you. I love you Juda, I love you.’

Juda kissed the perfect cheek. ‘I know. You’re nice and calm now, no fears, nobody will ever hurt you, Marie. My own little Marie Laveau.’

Elizabeth closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Tell me some more about her. Tell me how strong she was.’

Juda smiled. ‘Well, you remember the day I first met you with that snake and you said to me, “Juda, I can’t let that thing wrap around my body.” And I said, “Come on now, if Marie Laveau could, then so can you. What’s more you’re gonna dance with it, fall in love with it, feel its body inside yours,” and you said—’

‘Dance with me, through hell and back.’

Juda was rocking her gently in her arms. ‘That’s right, honey, you showed you weren’t afraid. You want to dance now, sugar, or are you too tired?’

Elizabeth eased away the bedcovers and helped by Juda stood up, her crumpled chiffon nightdress hardly hiding the outline of her glistening, sweat-soaked body.

‘I want to dance, Juda.’

How many times she had had to watch this she couldn’t count, but she watched again as if it was the first time, still whispering encouragements as Elizabeth Caley stumbled round the room, her arms undulating like snakes and her thin white gown swirling around her. And Juda wanted to weep, weep for the exotic beauty that had once been Elizabeth Caley, who for one moment had allowed her real blood to shine through, caught on celluloid as the reincarnation of the greatest voodoo queen of all time.

It had not been Juda alone, but many others who had sworn they saw Marie Laveau come to life for a few brief moments: the cameras had kept rolling, the director said nothing, none of the crew spoke as the big voodoo scene began to take on a life of its own and young Elizabeth Seal danced herself into a state of total exhaustion. It had not ended there, nor had it ended when Juda helped her back to her trailer. She had not come out of the trance, and Juda had been unable to stop the men coming in, unable to stop them encouraging her into a night of debauchery. Even when the crew and director had packed up for the night and left, the ‘dancing’ continued until the men had carried Elizabeth Caley into the swamps. Juda had been barred from going and Elizabeth was not brought back until dawn: she had been repeatedly raped, blood covering her gown and face. Whatever terrible things had been done to her left such a mark on Elizabeth Caley that thirty-five years afterwards she was still living in fear and was sometimes transported back into the shadow world of that night.

Elizabeth Caley believed she was cursed for playing the famous Marie Laveau, and when she had been given the opportunity to admit she had the right to do so, because black blood flowed in her veins, she had refused, publicly denouncing the allegation as scurrilous lies. To this day she was still scared that it would be proven, but as both her parents died shortly after the film of The Swamp there was no one who could betray her, only the sun. Elizabeth Caley was not allergic to the sun. It did not burn her delicate, whiter-than-white skin — it showed her heritage. If this had been known in the days when Elizabeth was a star in Hollywood, she would have lost her contract with the studio. The birth of her daughter, Anna Louise, had quietened the gossip — the child’s blonde hair and blue eyes buried Elizabeth Caley’s secret deeper, for Anna Louise took after her real father, Lloyd Dulay. Blond and blue-eyed, he was the man Elizabeth had loved for more than twenty years, but like everything else in her sad life, even that had been forced into secrecy.