‘Yu nuh think maybe yu taking it all too serious?’
‘No, Papa, it’s really horrible.’
‘And yu think this Helena saying things to people to make them start treat yu this way?’
‘I can’t say for sure. I haven’t even seen her again since the dinner, but it does seem uncanny in its timing.’
Uncanny? I think she completely outta my league now.
‘But how do you know her anyway?’
‘I help her and her father fix a couple problems they had down here.’
‘Then surely she should be pleased to have met me.’
‘It wasn’t ’ and then I run outta words but it no matter. Mui cut straight ’cross me.
‘This thing with her happened a few months ago and my life has been unbearable since then. I don’t see how I can carry on like this so I thought the best thing to do is just to come home. That is what I have been wanting to do all along anyway.’
‘Mui, yu not that long qualified. Don’t yu think yu should stay there a while and get yourself some experience?’
‘You don’t understand, Papa. I hate what I am doing. I hate having to get up every day and go to work to face people who have become so cold towards me, who can barely bring themselves to look at me, who walk out of rooms when I enter them. It takes the pleasure out of everything. Everything. At least if I come home I can feel that I am doing some good.’
‘Calm yourself down. Yu getting yourself all irate over some stupid woman. What yu mother say about it anyway?’
‘I haven’t said anything to her about it.’
‘Yu nuh tell your mother ’bout it? Mui, yu got to talk to her. She right there with yu. Not like me four thousand mile away on a telephone. Anyway, how can people change just like that? They nuh know yu long before all of this happen? How can one woman make them turn like that?’
‘Power, Papa. She has it and I don’t. Besides, like you always used to say, white people stick together and that is as true in England as it is in Jamaica.’
I think to myself Mui need to simmer down and take it steady. Everything got its edge. You just have to find it. Sun Tzu say, ‘ The general must rely on his ability to control the situation to his advantage as opportunity dictates .’
35
I reckon that getting out from under Ian Maynard Sam Fitzgerald was going to take a bigger authority than me. And what with the phone call with Mui and Gloria pointing out to me that Margy Lopez didn’t kill nobody, it put me in mind of Charles Meacham and the thing I realise is that Meacham stop paying me. Him just stop, just like that. Years back. And me so busy feeling bad ’bout Fay taking the children, and Zhang and Ma, and all the excitement with Manley and everything I never even notice. And then I think well, that sorta rude of him. So now I think it time to catch up with Meacham and that murdering daughter of his, Helena.
I call Clifton and say to him let’s go get a drink over the Blue Lagoon. And I ring George Morrison and tell him the same thing.
When we meet up I say to Morrison that I glad to hear John finish him training to be a doctor now and that he and Margaret coming home after this long while. And I congratulate Clifton on him big promotion. ‘You almost at the top of the tree now, Clifton, eh? Chief of police going be your next stop.’ And we clink our glass and drink, and then I tell the two of them what I want them to do.
‘Charles Meacham! We nuh finish with him yet?’
‘I reckon him still owe us one.’ But George and Clifton not so sure, so I say, ‘Come on, George, you know all ’bout England. And, Clifton, you know all ’bout policing. I reckon between the two of you we can find Meacham. I even give you a head start because Helena Meacham a barrister with chambers in Lincoln’s Inn in London.’
The two of them just sit there and look at me. Then George start waving him arm at the bartender to bring him another Appleton, and Clifton say, ‘Yu joking? Yu can’t be serious. A barrister? For real?’
‘For real.’
Him think on it a little while and then him say, ‘Well, they say hide in plain view. So maybe that what she doing. No safer place than right there in the lion’s den. But yu know this a serious business. You playing with fire if yu going take these two on.’
‘Trust me.’
When Clifton ring me a few days later him say him got news and when I go meet him over the Blue Lagoon him tell me.
‘Charles Meacham rise up the ranks to become a major in the British army but now him retired and living in Winchester. The daughter, Helena, go study law at Oxford University and then she go to the Inns of Court School of Law. She called to the Bar in 1968 and now, like yu say, she have her own chambers in Lincoln’s Inn specialising in family and criminal law for women.’
When Clifton finish reading from him little notebook I tell him to give me the address of Helena Meacham chambers in London, and when I get back to Matthews Lane I get on the telephone and order up a big bouquet from one of them international flower people and I send them to her with a note.
Helena,
So good to have caught up with you after all these years.
Warm regards,
Winston Morgan and Aubrey Williams (Club Havana)
When Meacham telephone me the next day I just say to him, ‘Charles, how you doing?’
‘My daughter received your flowers. What silly little game are you playing now, Yang?’
‘Game, Charles? I not playing no game. Is this a game to you? Is that why you just decide to ignore me and hope I wouldn’t notice?’
‘That was years ago. I decided that enough was enough.’
‘True. But I just need one more favour from you. I have a little problem down here that I think you can help me with.’
Meacham quiet at the other end of the telephone so I tell him what I want, and I tell him the name of the culprit and him two henchmen.
‘I couldn’t possibly do something like that! What do you think I am?’
‘Well before you hang up the telephone let me just say, which I sure you know anyway, there not no statute of limitations for murder. Plus, with everything I hear tell ’bout the new-fangled things they doing with this here DNA, I sure pretty soon they will be able to do something with this knife I still got from the last time I meet your daughter. But anyway, Helena doing so well with her lawyer work and everything I reckon she must know ’bout all of that as well.’
Meacham still quiet so I say, ‘And then when that is done you can rest easy and just ignore me because you right, fair is fair and enough is enough. You won’t hear nothing from me after that.’ I catch my breath, and then I say, ‘Tell Helena to give my daughter a rest as well. She will know what I mean.’
Meacham just hang up the telephone. But two weeks later Finley come tell me that Sam Fitzgerald and the two constables disappear. It seem the three of them up in Miami having themself a good time and they just disappear. Just like that, not a trace, and the authorities think it probably drug related.
I think to myself yes sir, the British army is good. I think they must be as good as the CIA, maybe even better, they get their business done so fast.
A couple days later Mui ring me and she seem happier. She say everybody alright with her again. She getting work like she used to. People talking to her just like nothing ever happen. She like her job again. She going stay in England but I mustn’t forget, she still want to come home when the time right in Jamaica, and I just say, ‘Yah, man.’
36
But the whole thing unsettle me, and I start think ’bout what would happen if I should end up marking off the days on the wall of some Kingston jail cell and mopping the floor in the penitentiary. I think well the boys alright, they been making good money all these years, but Merleen only got her little job at the vacation company and Margy nothing more than an employee at Yang Cosmetics.