Ascension Day

though, was hopelessly blinkered and, having gone that route herself, she no doubt saw it as the way forward for everyone else: the use of their royal lineage, however tenuous, to snag a wealthy partner; money meets respectability. But as he went to answer, he caught his mother looking across anxiously, hoping that he wouldn’t make a scene. ‘Yes… I can see how that might intrigue him.’

The sarcasm was lost on Camille. Her knife and fork hovered only a second above her plate before she continued. ‘Of course, Jac. This isn’t France, you know, where there’s fallen royalty in practically every other hamlet. Here in America, such things are a rarity. You’ve got to make best use of it where you can.’

‘Yes, I appreciate that better now.’ Again, it went at a mile above Aunt Camille’s head, or didn’t penetrate her rhino skin. But as Jac pushed a tight smile, he caught his mother suppressing a smirk at the corner of her mouth. He’d handled it the best way.

‘So… good.’ Camille placed her cutlery in line on her plate as she finished. ‘I can take it then that you’re keen to see Jennifer for a date?’

‘Well, I don’t know, I…’ He was about to comment that he didn’t want to rush into it, but caught again his mother’s anxious look.

‘You know, opportunities like this with girls like Jennifer don’t come along every day,’ Camille said. ‘And if we snub her or dally around, the door will probably be closed straight in our faces — never to open again.’

Jac felt the pressure like a tight coil at the back of his neck. His aunt pushing, persuading, controlling, like she did with so much in her life — almost second nature now. And his mother subservient, living in her shadow, afraid to go against her. The way they’d lived practically since his father’s death. Over three years now, but at times it felt like a lifetime — probably because so much had changed. Their life now held no resemblance to their life before. Sun-glowed days at their Rochefort farmhouse or Isle de Rey beaches, his parents both carefree, relaxed, his mother smiling and laughing at his father’s comments and quips. Not a care in the world. And his mother now: her eyes dull and haunted, shoulders slumped as if holding the weight of the world, chewing at her bottom lip as she panicked over what he might say next.

‘I know, I… I…’ Jac felt terribly torn: his mother urging him to acquiesce, anything for an easy life, his father telling him to fight back, don’t stand for it anymore, break the cycle now or you might never be able to.

Perhaps his aunt had been right on one front, even if her comment had been intended as just another snipe: ‘Surely you can’t be serious, doing criminal instead of corporate law? Corporate is where the money is, and you’ve already got your feet under the table. You don’t want to end up a pipe-dreamer like your father. I mean, look where that got him.’

At least with the money from corporate law, he’d have been able to free his mother and sister from Camille’s clutch. And now, like his father, his life was becoming a series of diminishing options.

‘I… I think I should…’ A tingle ran up Jac’s spine. The vital element he’d missed earlier with Durrant suddenly hit him. He delved into his pocket for his cell-phone, holding one hand up in apology as he dialled. ‘One minute. Sorry… someone I remembered I have to call.’

As it rang, Aunt Camille contemplated him with rueful impatience, as if convinced the call was just a ruse, a diversionary tactic. His mother looked away awkwardly, her face flushed. On the third ring it went to an answerphone.

‘You’re through to the office of Thomas. J. Haveling, Chief Warden of Libreville prison. I’m either away from my office right now or unavailable, so please…’

Jac was about to ring off and try his assistant Pete Folley, but then had second thoughts: he didn’t know how far Bateson’s grapevine of influence went, whether Folley could be trusted. Any passing of information between them, and the game would be up.

He left a message asking Haveling to call him back urgently.

‘So. What do you want me to tell Jennifer Bromwell?’ Camille pressed.

‘Sorry — just one more minute.’ Haveling might not pick up the message for hours, or perhaps not until the next morning. Jac couldn’t risk the wait; he needed to put something in motion immediately. Every second could be vital. He dialled out to John Langfranc, who thankfully was there and answered quickly.

Jac explained the problem, looking away from his aunt as she held one hand out in exasperation and lifted her eyes heavenward.

‘The best guy I know for that sort of thing is a private eye and writ-server called Bob Stratton in Morgan City,’ Langfranc commented. ‘It could take him a couple of hours to get out to Libreville. And from the sound of it, you don’t want to lose even that time. Worth a try though, in case you’re stuck or he knows someone closer.’

Halfway through Jac scribbling a contact number on the back of a business card from his wallet, Camille silently mouthed, ‘Well?’ She whisked the air with her raised hand as she added voice. ‘What do I tell her?’

‘Thanks, John.’ Jac sighed as he rang off. ‘Okay. Okay. Tell her we’re on for a date. But not this coming week. Too much to sort out. Next weekend.’ What would it harm, one date, thought Jac. How bad could it be? At least the pressure was off for all concerned. His mother risked a faint smile, relieved that battle was done. But as he saw his aunt’s fuller, more satisfied smile, basking in the glory of yet another triumph — once again he heard his father’s voice telling him that he should have put up more of a stand, shouldn’t have given in so quickly.

Perhaps in one way his Aunt Camille was right. Like his father, he was a dreamer. Any chances of saving Lawrence Durrant’s life were fast ebbing away before he’d even started. Jac dialled Bob Stratton’s number. But with each extra ring with no answer, Jac felt any remaining hope slipping further away.

5

Larry Durrant could feel his mother’s eyes on his right shoulder, all but burning a hole right through it. She’d always been there in the same position in the courtroom through those days of the trial, give or take a few seats either way. And Francine, too, had sat in a similar place — but they’d hardly ever been together at the same time because of them alternating on taking care of Joshua, except for the few times Franny’s mother had helped out.

Franny’s stare had been different: shifting, uncomfortable, not meeting his gaze directly for too long when on occasion he’d turned around, as if uncertain whether he was guilty or not. But his mother’s stare had been direct, unflinching: either she believed in him no matter what, or was trying to see through to his very soul to understand what might have possessed this being that she’d brought into the world to kill that poor woman.

He’d had the first dream then: a shadowy figure holding the gun on Jessica Roche, firing just as he was screaming out for him not to. Unsure if it was someone else, or he was merely looking at himself, that shaky, unstable side of himself that he had little control over and might have actually done it. The evidence said he’d done it, his memory, such as it was, said that he’d done it, and then he’d said it himself in his confession. But suddenly that shadowy figure was there to say maybe… just maybe.

When he’d first had the dream, shaking his head from fitful sleep as he sat by a bailiff ready for the next day’s court battle, his first thought was that it was a protective device for his psyche; creating another character who’d actually fired the gun, because part of his mind couldn’t accept that he’d done something so horrific.

But as the court case continued, with his mother’s eyes each day boring into his shoulder, he wondered if it was also partly for that; that if the shadowy figure in his dreams looked his way and he was able to see its face, he’d have been able to turn and call out to his mother that he’d seen who it was and it wasn’t him! ‘I didn’t do it!’

Yet the figure in his dreams never did turn his way, and so he was never able to rid himself of that penetrating stare and all the guilt, recrimination, anguish and lost hope that went with it.

And years later when he was still having the same dream, by then often mixed up with his mother staring at his back on those courtroom days — he was still never able to see its face. He was never able to phone his mother before she died, five years after the trial, as he’d hoped and prayed he’d be able to, and say, ‘Ma, I don’t think I did it.’

Bob Stratton was in his local bar watching his favourite football team, the New Orleans Saints, play the Arizona Cardinals, when his cell-phone rang.