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“Are you sure you’re all right to drive?” Vilma asked, as they left the last of the Kingston suburbs behind and began the long ascent into the mountains.
“Are you?” Walker replied. “You look like you’ve been hit by a truck. Are you?” he asked Ruby. “You’ve just narrowly escaped death.” He pulled abruptly into to the side of the road and got out.
“Hey, it was just a friendly question,” Vilma said. “No offence intended.”
He went to the boot and took out a boombox. How many did he have? He handed it to Ruby and lowered the car hood to let the sunshine in. Then he gave her a bag of cassettes.
“Thanks,” she said unenthusiastically.
He got back in the driver’s seat and pulled out again. “Press ‘play’,” he said. “It might make us look more normal.”
They drove listening to 007 Shanty Town. After two miles, Ruby spotted a garage with a shop behind it. They switched off the music and Walker pulled onto the forecourt. Two Labradors sat chained to a post. A notice in the shop window said ‘PNP, Where Is Thy Rod?’ In a red brick kiosk, a Chinese Jamaican sat looking wary.
“Keep your heads down,” Walker said. “I’ve got my own money,” he added, declining Vilma’s.
“Where did you get all that cash from?” Ruby asked her, when she’d gone. “It’s like you’ve got an everlasting supply.”
“This is the last of it,” she replied. “My life savings. After this, we starve.”
It wasn’t meant as a quip, and there was no obvious reply. We’ll get you some more. From where? You’ll be okay. Patronising and probably false. I’ll see you’re okay. How, when she couldn’t even look after herself? They sat with their heads down until Walker came back with two carrier bags which he plonked on the passenger seat. He got in and pulled out at speed.
“Press play again,” he said.
Stir It Up, Marcus Garvey, War Ina Babylon and Blackheart Man accompanied their journey, then Vilma found a Millie Small cassette and put that on. They rose along winding roads bordered by forest and bathed in shade, above which blue sky peeped in. After twenty minutes the trees thinned, the ground levelled and patches of dry grassland appeared.
“It’s beautiful here,” Vilma said. “And cool. Stop the car.”
They pulled in. Ruby switched the boombox off. Complete silence. Had it not been for what they’d all been through less than an hour ago, it might have felt paradisiacal.
Walker picked up the carrier bags and passed them into the back. “We’ll sit in the car and eat. Ruby, you can listen to Boney M if you want. I bought two cassettes, one of which I left behind in Maroon territory. I bought them just for you. Even though, at the time, I was running for my life from the CIA.”
“What the hell’s Boney M?” Vilma asked.
“Three women and a man,” Walker said. “Including two Jamaicans and a Montserratian. The guy’s from Aruba. Put it on, Ruby.”
“Playing loud music out here’s an invitation to the police to look in,” she replied. “Forget your boombox now. Just eat. Then let’s talk.”
“I didn’t even know you were into music, Ruby,” Vilma said. “Apart from Brahms and Mozart and that kind of stuff.”
“Knew it,” Walker said.
He’d bought two packets of cheese cracker sandwiches, a bag of plantain chips, three patties and a bottle each of lemonade. They stayed in the car and ate and drank in silence. Their picnic segued into self-absorption and complete repose. What they’d previously taken for silence came alive in a random parade of forest whispers, heat crackles and distant urban noises. The air hardly stirred.
Vilma burped. “So what’s your plan, Ruby?” she asked. Walker leaned solemnly over the back.
“When Parton thought we had him,” she said, “he asked for a getaway car and free passage. That was his sole request.”
“So?” Vilma said.
“MI6 and the CIA have agreed that Jamaica should receive a delivery of small arms. If Parton’s doing no more than presiding over that, what’s he got to fear? No, there must be something else in there. Something it’s too late to stop.”
“You’re talking drugs,” Vilma said. “The weapons-drop is a front for a massive drugs delivery. That’s what you’re saying.”
“Possibly headed here,” Walker said, “but equally likely bound for the United States or Europe.” He laughed. “Gee, that must make it serious, I suppose. It’ll make the British and Americans sit up for sure. Bring in a boatload of guns so black people can murder the shit out of each other: hey, no problem. Bring in a boatload of drugs so white guys can screw themselves stupid: whoa, major crime.”
“Come on,” Vilma said, “drugs affect black people too.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean,” Walker said.
“We’ve already decided to stop the guns,” Ruby replied. “That’s why we’re here.”
Walker scoffed. “Let’s hear your plan, Ruby, because if it involves going to the middle-aged, middle-class white guys in the British and US embassies and saying, ‘unfortunately, behind that pile of guns you hoped ordinary Jamaicans would butcher each other with, there’s a big pile of coke intended for your well-heeled dropout sons and nephews at college’, well, count me out.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Ruby asked. “We just let the guns and the drugs through? Or maybe we play along with Parton? Pretend we know about the guns, and we’re trying to stop them, but turn a blind eye to the drugs?”
“We don’t even know there are drugs,” Vilma said. “It’s just your theory based on the slender evidence of Parton’s requesting a getaway car. And we certainly don’t know it’s cocaine.”
“It wouldn’t be marijuana,” Walker replied. “There’s more than enough of that here. That’d be of no interest to someone like Parton. No, if he is involved in drugs, he’d probably be dealing with Colombia.”
“We don’t know that Ruby’s right,” Vilma persisted.
“I can’t see what else it could be,” Ruby said. “It has to be something that’s been going on for some time, that Parton and Hebblethwaite could conceivably have worked together on, and that was worth killing Collins for, and torching the Duke of Albemarle.”
Vilma shrugged. “How is any of this a plan?”
“I haven’t got to that yet.”
“We’re going to find some old, conservative white guys,” Walker said. “Preferably Americans or Brits. Then we’re going to beg them for help. And they’ll help us, despite what we represent to them, because it’s not about us, it’s about them, and they always help their own. That’s your plan in a nutshell, Ruby, right?”
“Right,” she replied.
They sat in silence for five minutes. He was spoiling for a fight, but that would only make things worse. They needed his car and probably his company. On the plus side, he hadn’t repeated his ‘count me out’.
She needed Vilma to speak next. Not being a party to the plan – whose details Walker had only caricatured, but never mind that now – only Vilma could break the deadlock. Two cars drove by in different directions. Walker finished his lemonade and threw the bottle irritably into the trees.
“So what’s your plan, Andy?” Vilma asked.
“I haven’t got one,” he snapped.
More silence.
“Let’s stretch our legs,” Vilma said. They got out of the car.
Ruby waited till they were facing each other. “Amongst the documents Parton had in his room were two letters from the British Consulate. Both discussed the arrival in Jamaica of a retired British agent called ‘Jack Maddison’. Maddison’s an ally of mine, and I can’t say I’ve ever done anything for him in return.”
“He probably fancies you,” Walker said.
She ignored him. “Once he arrived here, he went missing – at least, as far as the authorities are concerned. They’re desperate to find him, and they’ve mooted the plausible possibility that he’s here to help me.”
“Help you?” Vilma said. “How? Why?”
“He supported me for this mission when no one else in MI6 would. Perhaps he feels his reputation’s at stake. To put it in your terms, Andrew: he’s a white guy supporting a black woman, and the establishment tends not to like that. Of course, we could just hang him to out to dry on the grounds that he’s old and middle-class and Caucasian.”
“Has he ever made a pass at you?” Walker asked.
“No,” Ruby said.
Vilma smiled wryly. “Andy’s big on tackling racial assumptions. Not so hot when it comes to gender.”
“I was just asking,” Walker said.
“And I was just telling,” Vilma said. She turned to Ruby. “So where are we expecting to find this Maddison guy?”
“When I first came here, I was briefed by a man from the High Commission. A Lawrence Poynter. He spoke warmly of Maddison, and I got the impression they’d worked together closely at some point.”
“And you think Poynter might be sheltering Maddison,” Vilma said.
“It’s possible.”
“I take it he’s a member of the diplomatic staff. So put it another way: how are we expected to find him?”
“We’ve got Parton’s address book.”
Vilma smiled. “Okay, that’s a plan. Andrew, are you in or out? Because if you’re out, could you give us a lift? And possibly play a little Boney M, so I know the sort of thing to get Ruby for Christmas.”
“I thought you didn’t celebrate Christmas in Cuba,” Walker replied sulkily.
“We’re not in Cuba,” she said. “In or out?”
“In,” he said. “But only till I think of something better.” He looked at the ground, put his hands in his pockets and sighed. “Look, I came out here hoping to help Michael Manley win the election, maybe help put a feeble brake on the tide of reaction that’s engulfing every goddamn country everywhere. Then I got sucked into this. Spy games. Now finally, I’m booked in to kowtow to the same sons of bitches who are screwing the world over, in the hope that their side of the fence stays rosy. That’s how far I’ve sunk. I’ll do it, but don’t expect me to feel good about myself, or about you, or especially them.”
“You’re talking like a fanatic,” Ruby told him. She was starting to lose her temper.
“Who’s a fanatic?” he replied.
“We’re sitting here trying to work out a way of stopping guns coming into the country and Colombian drug barons raking in cash, and you’re half-prepared to sit on the fence because you’re obsessed with middle-class white guys. You need to get a grip on yourself.”
“Middle class white guys set the agenda, that’s why. People like you and me and Vilma only follow it.”
“You can’t use your abstract conclusions about the relations between the different ethnicities to deduce what we should do here and now, October the seventeenth, 4.30pm, 17 degrees north, seventy-six degrees. That’s crazy.”
“Of course you would think that,” he replied.
“Why? Why would I think that?”
“Maybe we should give in to you because you’re a man,” Vilma cut in.
“I’m not saying you should ‘give in’ to me,” he replied. “Listen to my arguments.”
“No, you listen to Ruby,” Vilma said. “She’s arguing too. Why are your arguments better than hers? I’ll tell you why. Because you’re a man, that’s why. You need to take a good, hard look at yourself, Andy, because there’s a whole other dimension to this debate, and you’re missing it. Look at Ruby. Look at her now. Do you still think she’s ‘hot’? If not, don’t you think that might have just a little something to do with the fact that she’s defying you? Listen to her, Andy. I’m not saying you’re completely wrong. You’re not. But if you have a bit more humility when someone’s gainsaying you, you might actually end up learning something.”
They both sensed that he felt ganged-up on rather than convinced. He went to the car, took a packet of cigarettes from the glove compartment and lit one. He didn’t look at them, but neither did he look like he thought he might be wrong. Ruby drank her Ting.
There was a good chance Poynter would be at the British Consulate during the daytime. He might even work late. Either way, after dark was their best chance of catching him. They didn’t want to hang about in an unfamiliar town for too long, so they took a nap in their picnic spot and didn’t set off till 9pm. They arrived in a well-to-do suburb of May Pen an hour later.
The house was walled and guarded discreetly by two men in casual clothes, and more obviously by two pet Rottweilers. It stood on two floors and had heavy wooden doors like a castle, and clean white walls like a Spanish villa. The windows were large single panes of glass. The branches of an old orange tree touched the rear walls.
Once they’d done several circuits of the building on foot, they rendezvoused in Walker’s car for a conference.
“There’s no way we’re ever getting in there illegally,” Vilma said. “Which means we’ve two options. Either we can call nicely at the door, tell them who you are, and hope they don’t set the dogs on you. Or we can do another boring stake-out and nab Maddison as he emerges. Assuming he’s in there to begin with. And assuming we can overpower him before the police arrive.”
“I’m hoping he won’t need strong-arming,” Ruby said. “If he does, we might as well not bother.”
“I doubt we’ll get as far as the door,” Walker said. “The guards will take one look at us and assume we’re thieves. The words, ‘Tell your boss Ruby Parker wants to talk to him’ won’t mean anything to them.”
“I agree,” Vilma said. “They won’t be bound to relay any old message from any cold caller. Especially at this time of night.”
“I guess that means a stake-out,” Walker said. “Is anyone hungry? I’d like a giant burger with fries and a fizzy drink, preferably one with alcohol in. Then I’d like another sleep. We can watch the house in shifts.”
“We’re not thinking,” Ruby said.
Vilma looked at her. “Another plan?”
Ruby didn’t answer. She got out of the car and walked along the street.
“Any idea where she’s going?” Walker said. He started the car and followed her at a crawl. He put his head out of the window. “What’s going on?”
She turned to him, waved Parton’s Contacts book in the air, and sidestepped into a phone booth. Walker braked. He and Vilma watched Ruby pick up the receiver, dial and then talk. She stayed like that for three minutes. When she came out, she was smiling.
“Mr Poynter says drive through the gates,” she told them. “We’re all welcome.”
