Whale Boy Page 11

  That’s your mother, he told himself, but he didn’t feel that there was any truth in the words.

  Spargo emerged through the door, unfolding his chunky body from the tiny, cramped interior. ‘Not a thing,’ he said, and sat beside her, pulling a pair of disposable gloves off his big hands. ‘Nothing at all that could connect you with the lad. No pictures of you. Nothing written down. So your identity is safe.’

  JJ sighed and adjusted her sunglasses on her pretty nose. ‘Good. Very good,’ she said in her usual business-like manner. ‘I’ll make sure the birth certificate goes missing from the Registry Office. And my people in London will take care of his father – as soon as they can track him down. The old woman will be dead soon anyway.’

  Spargo looked out over Gran’s garden. ‘Nice little spot here!’

  ‘Hmm. I didn’t like it much as a young woman,’ JJ said, ‘but I’m warming to the place as a business opportunity.’

  ‘Well, in five more days your opportunities will be opening up!’ said Spargo. ‘We’ll have enough whale meat for the first shipment. And there’ll be many more to come – and many more whales and dolphins to put into the Exhibition Centre. I’m starting to build three more tanks next week.’

  ‘And in time we can expand the business,’ JJ said. ‘All sorts of things could be smuggled in and out of Rose Town with the whole population depending on us for their jobs.’

  She got up. ‘Let’s go. I need to make sure our Carnival float will help keep everyone friendly.’

  ‘And I’ll need to be on board the Ahab shortly. We must be in position by tomorrow night, according to the medallions! But first,’ Spargo said, ‘I think you need a spot of lunch, madam. Come along.’

  Michael heard their footsteps going down the steps to the road, car doors slamming, the growl of an expensive engine, and then silence. He let out the breath he’d been holding and tried to take in everything he’d heard. What was all that about people ‘taking care’ of Samuel? Did JJ plan to kill his dad? It all chased around in his head like a pack of barking dogs. What should he do now? It was hard to think . . . Get some of his own clothes – that’s what he’d do. He wasn’t going to wear this wretched skirt and T-shirt for a moment longer.

  There was nothing but the distant scribble of sound from town and birds peeping in the treetops; no cars approaching, no footsteps. Cautiously he climbed the fence and approached the door.

  Spargo had turned Gran’s neat little house where ‘everything has its place’, as Gran always said, upside down. Every cupboard had been emptied and every drawer overturned. Gran’s old feather mattress had been slashed down the middle like a possum ready for the spit, and her small store of clothes thrown onto the floor. It was almost the last straw, and for a moment Michael wanted to wrap his hands around his head and wail like So-So. And then he remembered Freedom and his desperate shallow breaths – Pff-pfff-pfff; and his father’s face disappearing again at the MEC.

  No, no! He would not give in. He would not be afraid. He would get to the bottom of all this. Gran would be well. His father would be found. Freedom would be freed, and his family would not end up in little plastic packets.

  Michael threw Eugenia’s hat down on the floor and began putting things back into cupboards, slamming drawers and doors shut, stamping around the rooms. In fact, he made so much noise that he didn’t hear footsteps on the path, or the screen door opening and closing.

  ‘Michael?’

  Of course, he knew the voice instantly, even after all this time. And, just as instantly, realized he was still wearing the skirt and pink T-shirt.

  ‘They’re Eugenia’s,’ he said, even before turning round. ‘I had to have a disguise so Spargo and JJ . . .’ He trailed off; when he saw his father’s face, he doubted if Samuel had even noticed what he was wearing.

  His legs felt like rubber, and he sat down without having planned to. His father came and sat beside him, and for a while they just looked at each other. Dad’s bright, open face had clouded. There were wrinkles, lots of them, and streaks of white in his hair and beard.

  Michael knew that his dad must also be counting up the changes in the son he hadn’t seen in so long. When at last they spoke, they did it at the same time, and it took a few attempts to stop overlapping.

  ‘You know who JJ is?’ Samuel managed to get out.

  That confirmed it. It was true. A wave of light-headedness washed over Michael. He couldn’t speak, and had to nod his reply.

  His father let out a long sad breath. ‘It’s not safe here, son,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a car parked on the other side of Garth Hill. Let’s go.’

  Dad was different. Harder. Quicker. And his voice had almost lost its island accent. He sounded English now. Like JJ. Like Spargo.

  ‘Can’t we clean up here?’ Michael asked.

  Samuel shook his head. ‘No. They may come back . . .’

  So he already knew about Spargo and JJ? There were a hundred questions on the tip of Michael’s tongue, but his dad hustled him out of the door.

  ‘Grab what you need, son, then we can talk somewhere safer.’ Samuel’s face was closed and anxious, almost the face of a stranger. ‘I didn’t want you mixed up in all this, but it looks like you already are.’

  21

  The car was a jeep with tinted windows like those on Spargo’s car. Dad had never had enough money for a car when he lived on the island, but now he drove the jeep up the mountain roads and tracks as if he’d been born behind a wheel. He frowned at the road and didn’t speak.

  They drove up tracks that got rougher and more rocky and finally ran out in a clearing. A tiny cottage stood with its back to the forest; beside it a stream from the deep volcanic heart of Morne Matin bubbled and steamed over the rocks.

  Samuel got two cold sodas from the fridge, then they sat together on the veranda, sipping their drinks in silence.

  ‘I owe you some explanations,’ Samuel said at last, ‘but it’s hard to know where to start.’

  Gran’s voice popped into Michael’s head; he looked sideways at his unfamiliar-familiar father, and said, ‘Remember what Gran always says when you’ve got something to tell? Come on, spit it out.’

  His father smiled, and it was a bit more like the old smile; the smile that made him ‘Dad’ again. He nodded and took a deep breath.

  ‘Josephine left right after you were born,’ he began. ‘We’d been together for less than a year. Everyone knew what her family did in England: big-time drug dealers mostly. I hoped she was different, but she wasn’t. She went back to the business; only ever came here to be out of the way of the police for a while.’ He shook his head.

  ‘I was young and foolish, and she was very pretty. What can I say?’ Samuel sighed and went on, ‘Anyway, a few years later, your uncle Davis got in touch out of the blue. First we’d heard from him in years, although I’d always made sure Ma got a card from him at Christmas – she never noticed they were posted in Northport.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘He wasn’t a taxi driver, but he was working as a driver – for Josephine. She’d taken over the whole business, killed quite a few of her own relatives, it seems, and managed to make the whole thing look legal, so nobody could catch her.’

  JJ was making a lot of money, Samuel told Michael, but she made enemies too, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard that Davis had been shot.

  ‘I never told Gran. Couldn’t bear her to know that her son had come to such a bad end. That’s why I went to England. To find out what had really happened . . .’

  But when Samuel arrived, he found the British police waiting for him. They told him that JJ had had Davis killed; they wanted his help in exposing JJ’s criminal empire. So he agreed to train as an undercover policeman and pretend to work for JJ!

  ‘She didn’t want to be my wife,’ he explained, ‘but she did seem to trust me enough to employ me. I know now that she was just after the other half of the medallion all along.’

  His father an undercover policeman? Michael could hardly
take it in.

  Samuel smiled at the look on his son’s face. ‘Bit of change from being an island fisherman,’ he quipped with a fleeting spark of his old warmth, ‘but the pay was better! I never expected to do it for more than a year or two.’

  He went on with the story, and Michael tried to get over his astonishment and remember to close his mouth!

  The more Samuel found out about JJ, the more he wanted to stop her. ‘I became involved in the whole set-up. I just couldn’t come home to you and Gran.’ His face looked closed and sad again. ‘I was afraid I’d be putting you in danger, even if I replied to your letter. Pretty soon JJ got together with Spargo. He’s an old-fashioned villain. Would have been a pirate if he’d lived two hundred years ago. He’d disappear from London for months, then pop up again. All that time I think they were planning this operation in Rose Town.’

  Michael could just see Spargo with a cutlass tucked in his belt, making people walk the plank.

  ‘Spargo owns an illegal whaling ship, the Ahab,’ Samuel went on. ‘He kills whales and sells the meat – outside the law and very, very successfully. And just like JJ, he pretends to be a businessman, doing nothing wrong.’

  Then JJ had started asking Samuel about his grandpa’s past as a whaler; about the old riddle for finding whales.

  ‘She’d got Davis’s medallion. I guessed that much. That’s why she had him killed. But I played dumb. I’d never showed her my half when we were married; she wasn’t even sure I had it. Never trusted her enough for that. I told her that the whole thing was just a story,’ Samuel said, ‘and I believed that’s all it was, but it made me wonder what she and Spargo might be up to, combining their two businesses. And when they both disappeared and I heard about New Marine Enterprises in Rose Town, I knew I had to come back and find out what it was.’

  Michael’s father had followed JJ and Spargo to the island, travelling under a false passport given to him by the British police.

  ‘Daniel Paul’ – he smiled – ‘that’s who I’m supposed to be. An IT engineer from South London, here for Carnival.’

  Samuel had received Michael’s letter, but he had to keep a low profile, so all he could do was contact the hospital pretending to be Davis and pay Gran’s bills.

  ‘I rang the hospital when I got to Rose Town,’ he said. ‘They told me you were missing. I had to find out what had happened, and when I got to Ma’s and saw JJ and Spargo . . . I was very glad when I caught sight of you.’ Samuel took a deep breath. ‘And now I think you might have more pieces of this jigsaw than I have!’

  Michael’s brain was whirling. He wanted to lay out the story of the last few weeks carefully – like a map that shows how the rivers go round the mountains to the sea; how roads divide and lead to towns – but it swirled around in his head and wouldn’t come into any sort of order. It all just tumbled out. Poor Mr Levi and the little blue boat. Taking the job to pay Gran’s bills. Having to trust Spargo and his promises. Finding Freedom, and the terrible night when he was taken and Michael finally found out the truth about his employers.

  It was hard when he got to the part about Freedom being captured because it made him feel so bad; and the part about being almost drowned because of the look on his father’s face.

  ‘Josephine is a monster,’ Samuel said. ‘I’m so sorry you had to find out like that! I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help.’

  Michael saw that he and his father were the same: what hurt them most was not being able to protect someone they loved.

  As Samuel listened, Michael saw the new dad, harder and sharper than the one he remembered. The new dad was very interested in details, like the whale-meat packaging and the fact that Spargo’s workers were mostly Spanish speakers. He asked what JJ and Spargo had said; nothing seemed to surprise him.

  Then Michael came to the hardest part of all, about the moon medallion and how he had given away its secret. Suddenly the old dad shone out like a familiar kitchen lamp showing through the cracks in a shutter.

  ‘Don’t feel bad,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to be sorry for, son.’

  He took the two silver shapes from Michael’s hand and fitted them together. ‘Wow, I haven’t seen these two together since I was a little kid. I couldn’t read when Grandpa gave them to us. Davis never showed me his half of the medallion. For years I wasn’t even sure he’d kept it.’

  Samuel squinted at the words that ran across the moon’s two parts. ‘I must be getting old!’ he said. ‘Here, Michael, you read them!’

  ‘When Peter hides the Devil and the angels kiss the lions’ bite,’ Michael recited.

  His father shook his head and looked thoughtful. ‘Hard to believe it means anything. Spargo and JJ must know something we don’t. JJ’s family were once harpooners. Maybe she’s got some other information from her family.’

  ‘Eugenia thinks she can work it out,’ Michael told him. ‘I was going to meet her at the Flying Fish with So-So and Mr Joseph. Could we go?’

  Samuel’s face hardened again, back into New Dad, and he answered solemnly, ‘Well, they’re already involved, just like you are, so yes, I think we should. Let’s see if we can put this puzzle together!’

  His eyes flashed the way they used to out in the boat, when they’d hit a big shoal of jacks. Then Michael knew that New Dad wasn’t really so different from the old one. All along this new dad had been inside the old one, just as the more grown-up Michael had been inside the little kid in the boat.

  They got back in the jeep and drove down the mountain towards Rose Town.

  22

  They arrived at the Flying Fish before Eugenia, but Mr Joseph and So-So were already there. So-So was overjoyed to see his old friend again, and Mr Joseph almost shook Samuel’s hand off the end of his arm.

  Samuel asked for the blinds to be drawn, and they all sat around the table speaking quietly, as if they could be overheard.

  ‘I’m working for the British police,’ Samuel began. ‘We’ve been following the activities of Spargo and JJ – Josephine Jaquard, my ex-wife – for some time.’

  Mr Joseph and So-So gasped together.

  ‘JJ is Josephine!’ exclaimed Mr Joseph.

  ‘That girl.’ So-So shook his head. ‘I always know she have a dark heart. I always say—’

  Samuel cut him short. ‘I would rather none of you had become involved in this, but as you are, none of us is safe until Spargo and JJ are behind bars.’

  Mr Joseph was bursting with questions, but New Dad Samuel’s serious face made him hold them in. Instead he sat up very straight and said, ‘The moment I saw Mikey tied into that sinking boat, I was ready to do whatever it takes to get the people who did that to him.’

  So-So took in the information about Samuel’s new profession as if he’d always known his friend would do something like that. He looked very serious, a warrior in a sequinned vest and running shorts. ‘We will fight with you, my friend,’ he said, ‘no matter how strong the enemy. That Josephine always had a soul of wire and wickedness – bad, bad, bad.’

  ‘OK,’ said Samuel. ‘So let’s put together what we know. Spargo wants a supply of whale meat, and JJ wants a base where she can make everyone depend on her for work and money. Somewhere small enough that she can control the law . . . so it won’t matter what the law says about whales, for example. With so many people coming and going, and lots of exports, she can move the money from her crimes around easily.’

  ‘So the island could be perfect,’ Mr Joseph chipped in, ‘if they can only find whales to hunt . . .’

  ‘And if,’ Samuel added, ‘they can get the whole thing up and running so fast that by the time anyone thinks of opposing them, everybody’s job depends on them.’

  ‘Devils!’ exclaimed So-So. ‘And the more folks come flocking to see the whale in the MEC, the easier it is for their bad-badness to come and go!’

  ‘Yeah,’ Samuel agreed. ‘It all fits . . .’

  Bang! The back door of the kitchen slammed open. Before Michael reali
zed what was happening, his father had leaped up and was standing beside the swing doors into the restaurant with a gun in his hand! With the other hand he pointed to the bar, motioning Mr Joseph, So-So and Michael to get behind it. They crouched by the glasses and bottles of beer. Seconds passed like days.

  The swing door creaked, there was a little scream, and the sound of something heavy falling to the floor. It wasn’t Spargo or one of his ‘helpers’, but Eugenia! Mr Joseph, So-So and Michael popped up from behind the bar like jack-in-the-boxes to see her standing amidst a pile of dropped books, shakily greeting Samuel, whose gun had now disappeared.

  ‘Is it really you, Mr Fontaine?’ she breathed.

  Samuel smiled. ‘Yes it is, Eugenia, but I’d appreciate it if you kept that very quiet!’

  She looked at them all in turn. ‘I’m sorry if I scared you,’ she said. ‘I had to kick the door open ’cos my arms were full of books!’

  Michael helped her pick up the ones she’d dropped, and quickly explained about his father. Just like Mr Joseph, she was immediately bursting with questions, but she had news of her own.

  ‘I’ve found out about the riddle!’ she whispered. Michael could see her brain whirring and sparking behind her eyes. She couldn’t wait to tell them!

  The moment everyone sat down and the back door was locked, Eugenia began.

  ‘The riddle isn’t just about where to find the whales, it’s about when!’

  She pulled some papers from a blue folder and spread them out on the table with the books. ‘The Peter hiding the Devil part is just the kind of navigation island fishermen have always used. Lining up the mountains and headlands to find their way around.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ So-So said eagerly. ‘You steer towards Morne Matin to get home to Rose Town!’

  ‘Peter is Morne Pierre, just like you thought, Michael, and we know that the Devil is the old name for Morne Liberty.’