Ascension Day

calm. And, as he opened them again and started up, he checked his watch: four more hours. Then perhaps finally it would all be over, the nightmare of the past twelve years ended. Maybe then at last it would all be fine, fine. Bueno, bueno.

Jac was sitting with Larry having a brandy, both of them looking anxiously at the clock. As Jac passed across Larry’s glass, Larry said:

‘Tell my mother, Jac. Tell her it wasn’t me, before it’s too late.’

‘But I can’t see her, Larry.’ Jac, looking over Larry’s shoulder, suddenly realizing that this time they were in the courtroom. He couldn’t see anything, in fact; it was just mist and shadow beyond Larry. Vague shapes, none of them clear.

‘But she’s there, Jac. I know it. I can feel her eyes boring into the back of my right shoulder. Tell her, Jac, please… please, before it’s too late.’

‘I… I can’t see anything any more, Larry.’ Jac perplexed why it had all suddenly become misty. ‘There’s nothing there but hazy shadows. I’ve… I’ve become like you, Larry. Can’t see anything clearly any more.’

‘Please, Jac… don’t do this!’ Tears streaming down his face as he clasped Jac’s hand. ‘Please don’t let me die without her knowing that it wasn’t me!’

Ringing in his pocket.

The tears welling too in Jac’s eyes as he clasped back. ‘But now that I can’t see anything clearly, Larry… what do I even tell her? If you’d been able to see things clearly, you’d have been able to tell her yourself long before now, before…’

Telephone! As the dream fell away, Jac shuddered awake and answered the call.

Bob Stratton’s voice competing against Justo Betancourt on the radio. Jac reached out and turned it down, blinking heavily, fading afternoon light, approaching dusk. As Jac looked at his watch, 5.52 p.m., he jolted to suddenly, fearing in that second that’s why Stratton was calling: only an hour till Durrant’s execution!

Then he remembered the one-hour time difference, his caught breath and his pulse settling back as Stratton told him about his efforts with Roland Cole. Close, very close, but in the end no cigar.

‘And don’t look like he’s planning to return any time soon. Not in the next few hours, at least. That’s it.’

‘Yeah, looks like it.’ Soft, resigned exhalation. ‘Thanks. You tried your best.’

That’s it. Jac, surveying again the white villa, casita and road ahead, now knowing with certainty that his very last chance rested with Truelle.

Almost two hours asleep? Still no sign of a white Corvette. But what if Truelle had returned in the meantime and headed off again? If he’d seen the Audi up the road and had come close enough to see him inside asleep — no doubt the first thing he’d have done!

The sleep had taken some of the edge off Jac’s jaded nerves, but as the minutes dragged with the last of the day’s light fast dying, they started to intensify again, Jac’s fingers tapping steadily once more on the steering-wheel. Where was Truelle? Maybe he should give Calbrey another knock; even if Calbrey lied, he might see something tell-tale in his face, some clue as to -

Car approaching two hundred yards away, side-lights on. And as it came thirty yards closer, Jac could see it clearly: white Corvette! His finger-tapping changed to an anxious clutch.

And for a moment, no more than a fleeting shadow, Jac thought he could see another car a hundred yards behind it. But as he squinted harder, he could no longer see it. Either it had pulled in somewhere, been swallowed up with the fast-fading light, or it was just a trick of his eyes.

Jac watched Truelle park the Corvette and get out carrying a briefcase and a shopping bag.

Calbrey came to greet him and they talked for a couple of minutes. Truelle looked around anxiously at one point, then with a tight smile and half-wave, Truelle headed across the lawn to the casita.

Jac watched the lights come on inside and outside the casita, illuminating a terrace area with table and umbrella on the promontory.

As much as Jac couldn’t wait to pounce on Truelle and get his hands — verbal and proverbial — around his neck, he could see Calbrey watering some potted plants at the casita-side of the main villa. Confronting Truelle would without doubt be better without any interference, but fuck it, if Calbrey didn’t head in soon…

Jac’s finger-tapping increased, almost double-time to his pulse and the cicadas and crickets, and he managed to hold out only another ninety seconds before his hand was reaching for the door handle and, wait, Calbrey seemed to be putting away his hose and calling out something towards the casita.

Jac watched their brief exchange, Calbrey going inside the main villa as Truelle headed — briefcase in one hand, drink in the other — towards the table on the end of the promontory.

Jac waited only twenty seconds for Truelle to get settled at the table, then, checking his watch, 6.12 p.m., got out of his car.

45

Grab him by the throat and scream at him; hit him; speak gently and appeal to his better nature; shout and threaten and appeal to his worst: all the different ways of handling Truelle had spun wildly through Jac’s head over the past hours, so much, too much, depending on it. Now, as he walked across the casita lawn towards the promontory, they were still spinning, nothing decided, words and fragments of sentences jumbling around until finally they all merged together and became little more than a buzz. A buzz that progressively became stronger with the blood-rush to his head, competing with the hum and click of cicadas as he got closer to the table and Truelle.

The promontory was no more than twenty feet above the sea, but it was enough to give a panorama: clear sea one side, a string of islands and cays, a mile offshore, the other. Truelle had taken a seat at the table, then angled his chair to face the sunset view. He didn’t become aware of Jac, still in his Ayliss disguise, until he was only a few yards away.

Truelle jolted with a sharp breath, his eyes darting anxiously to one side and past Jac, as if for a second escape might be an option before realizing the futility, rugby-tackled after a few yards, and his eyes settled back. Or perhaps he was hoping that Calbrey might come out and save him?

‘How… how did you find me?’

‘Cynthia. And a friendly woman at the Sancti Spiritus post office.’ Jac shrugged. ‘But don’t blame Cynthia. She only told me because I convinced her that if I didn’t get to you, then Malley would. And he’d kill you.’ With all the Ayliss padding, Jac was hot from the rapid walk from his car, his breath falling short. The buzzing was subsiding, only his rapid pulse-beat beneath… ticking down the seconds left for Larry. Jac smiled tightly. ‘In the end she had your best interests at heart.’

‘I… I phoned her, home and office. There was no answer. I was beginning to — ’

‘When I left her,’ Jac held one hand up, placating, ‘I told her not to hang around the office waiting for Malley to turn up there. She obviously took my advice.’

Truelle nodded thoughtfully, but then his eyes clouded again, looked unsettled as Jac took a seat and placed the small cassette tape recorder from his pocket on the table between them.

Jac took a fresh breath. ‘Now, we could sit here for the next half hour with me piling on the pressure about the DA and how if you let Durrant die I’m going to make sure he adds on an Accomplice to Murder rap — ten to fifteen of the hardest time you can imagine — but, you know, the problem is I don’t have the time any more. I got to call Governor Candaret right away and get him to phone Libreville prison and stop Durrant’s execution.’ Jac’s Ayliss drawl heavy, he leant over menacingly and laid one hand on Truelle’s thigh, feeling the jerk of discomfort and the underlying tremble. As Jac clenched hard against it, he could feel the pulse at his own temples, the buzzing in his head stronger again for a moment. ‘And having flown for half a day and driven across half of fucking Cuba… I