‘Who was that?’ I asked when the woman in the turban had disappeared back indoors.
‘No luck there, either,’ said Grace.
‘What did she say anyway?’
‘Very little.’
‘It didn’t sound like very little. It sounded like quite a lot for very little.’
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘Any of these people have names? Or does she just go by the name of Queen Creole?’
‘I don’t think their names are that important.’
‘Maybe not. I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now. Maybe Jérôme Dumas was watching us from the ship. You know I wouldn’t be at all surprised. If he’s on the island at all it looks like the best place to stay. And very probably the best place to get dinner, too. I don’t know why anyone would come here, really. He certainly didn’t come home for the food, that’s for sure.’
‘All the same, like you say, this was his home.’
‘So far that doesn’t mean very much.’
‘No, I mean that old hairdresser’s salon. That was his home when he and his mother were living here in Pointe-à-Pitre. That was his mother’s business.’
‘What?’ I stopped in my tracks and turned around. ‘That old place?’
‘When she and Jérôme left Guadeloupe Mrs Dumas sold the business to that woman. Then last year an earthquake broke the pipes from the hot water tank. Wasn’t any money to fix them. So the place went out of business. It’s a common enough story in this part of the world. Life’s hard here, Scott.’
‘I had noticed that, Grace. It beats me why anyone without family left here would want to come back at all.’
‘He’s got family here. He must have. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we’ve already met two of them.’
‘That’s a depressing thought. I mean, if I’d even thought that was possible I’d have—’
‘You’d have done what? Asked them questions? In French? They wouldn’t have told you a damn thing. You may be black and you may be handsome but you’re not from around here. Take my word. The only way you’re going to get anywhere in Guadeloupe is to say it in Creole.’ She sighed. ‘We may have to come back here, so it would be best to take things slowly. In case you didn’t notice, that’s the Creole way. No one here’s in a hurry except you. So why don’t you remember that there’s not a ball at your feet and slow down.’
‘All the same, in the future, I’d like to know things like this, please. Otherwise I’m just a substitute.’
‘Fair enough. But look here, there’s something that I’d like to know. You said that you thought Jérôme Dumas might have been in trouble, back in Paris. What kind of trouble did you mean, Scott?’
‘He was depressed and taking meds. His girlfriend had dumped him because he was fooling around with other women.’
I thought about what that meant for a moment; I was fooling around a bit myself.
‘Hookers mostly. He was on loan to another club — no player likes to be on loan. It really plays with your head.’
‘I said “trouble”, real trouble, not the ups and downs of normal life.’
‘I was coming to that. You know, you could learn a bit of patience yourself, Grace.’
We walked up the street a way, back to the Yacht Club where we were hoping to find a taxi. The heat was at its most intense now so we sought out the shade of the buildings. For some reason I kept thinking that this was only in the high twenties, low thirties. In the Qatari summer the temperatures reached as high as forty-seven degrees; 2022 was going to be fun, but only if you were a local.
‘Jérôme also liked to hang out with some Paris bad boys. To smoke some weed. I’ve done a bit of that myself in my time. But it’s also just possible he was involved in a murder. A man named Mathieu Soulié was shot not long before Jérôme left Paris. A satin patch torn off a designer T-shirt bearing a Gothic letter D was found in the dead man’s hand. Unfortunately for Jérôme I think the patch came off a shirt which he’d been modelling in a magazine.
‘It’s possible that Jérôme wasn’t involved at all — he certainly doesn’t strike me as the type who would shoot a man — but that wouldn’t matter if he was scared that someone might tell the police he was. I don’t know. He’s not actually wanted for questioning by the police. I mean, the police haven’t yet made a connection. But sometimes that doesn’t stop someone from running away. I’m sure a lawyer would understand something like that.’
‘Sure. That’s my bread and butter.’
‘I think maybe he’d actually given the T-shirt to the real killer who might have blackmailed him to get rid of the murder weapon. It’s just a theory. But it would certainly explain why he was reluctant to go back to Europe.’
Grace nodded but she didn’t look convinced.
‘I’m here to help him, Grace. Not to get him into trouble. But then you knew that, otherwise you wouldn’t have told your client about me. And he wouldn’t be helping me now. If that’s what he’s doing.’
The Guadeloupe Tourist Board stood near the Yacht Club on a large square that was dotted with mango trees and royal palms. It was a handsome two-storey white stucco building with Ionic colonnades and a handsome portico and, except for the fact that it was closed, it was unrepresentative of the rest of the buildings in Pointe-à-Pitre. Out front was a taxi rank with just one battered blue taxi. The driver, who smelt of last week’s sweat and probably the week before’s too, agreed to take us to the next address on the search list that was in my companion’s beautiful head. Overcoming our disgust at his body odour, Grace and I sat in the back seat and held hands like a couple of young lovers while he chattered away in Creole.
‘He says those are the brothels,’ said Grace, as we drove through a shanty town of squalid wooden shacks that were patrolled by the most unlikely-looking prostitutes I’d ever seen. ‘I think maybe he’s got your card marked as someone who might like to come back here on your own.’
‘Thanks.’
‘All part of the translation service.’
‘Let’s hope they’re not on your list,’ I said, staring out of the window at probably the ugliest pair of whores I’d seen in my life. ‘I’d hate to think we’d have to go looking for him in there.’
‘Why? Because these poor women are less glamorous than the hookers in Paris?’
‘Actually I was thinking that the area doesn’t look very safe. But probably that, too.’
‘A hooker’s a hooker. It’s just that some are more expensive than others.’
I smiled. ‘There’s a reason for that.’
‘Ah. You’re a beauty fascist.’
‘If you want to call it that, yes, I suppose I am. Most men are, I think.’
‘Not around here they’re not.’
‘If I told you I had a real thing about ugly, fat women who wear too much make-up, how would that make you feel now?’
Grace smiled a quiet smile. ‘Since I’m neither ugly nor fat I’d feel exactly the same way as I do now. I’m just trying to understand you a little better.’
‘Good luck with that.’
‘I’m teasing you. Most men like being teased a bit, don’t they?’
‘Only in strip clubs.’
‘This girlfriend he had in Paris,’ said Grace. ‘What was she like?’