Crime

And there was a crime: Johnnie’s assault on the kid. Could they convict him? Would Robyn testify? What would Lance and Starry say if they were called as witnesses? It would be a difficult one. His judgement is shot to pieces, but his gut tells him that it would be hard to get an arrest and conviction with Dearing evidently hell-bent on protecting Johnnie. But why?

Lennox studies the menu. Alcohol withdrawal has produced in him that insatiable demand for bad food. He tries to talk himself out of it. He waves the card around in disdain. — For such a swanky joint the grub seems quite run of the mill. Surf and turf, burgers…

Tianna shrugs off his quizzical stare. — This is an ol-boys-with-money place. They ain’t gonna go for nuthin too fancy.

He looks around and reassesses. The stressed-out, second-home arseholes like the yuppie in the parking lot were actually in the minority. It was mainly older people who had worked all their lives and had a bit put by and had staked their place in the sun. The kid isn’t a dummy. She’s a fuckin bright wee lassie. In the right circumstances she could develop the resources to get rid of her neediness, like most kids did when they became adults. Get an education. Develop confidence, and real social skills. Not just that faux hard-assed sass that would only end her up in the arms of some wife beater. This kid could, given the encouragement, break the cycle of abuse that had possibly gone on for generations in her family. Or possibly not, maybe Robyn had just fucked up because she was the weak link. — Your mother’s not had it easy, eh?

Tianna’s eyes and lips tighten as she rubs a lock of hair between forefinger and thumb. — Momma’s okay… she been real good to me. I guess cause she’s still young she kinda wants to party n all. But she always jus seems to meet the wrong guys. I mean, they start off good at first but they soon change. You’re the only one who’s been okay.

Lennox feels his pharynx shift. He’d left Trudi, gone out and taken lots of coke with two strange women. A shiver crawls up his vertebrae. What the fuck was I thinking of?

— What’s your momma like, Ray? she asks, then adds in raven humour, — Is she as crazy as Robyn?

— She’s a mother. He hears the brusqueness of his retort, thinking about how odd it would be to call her by her first name. Avril. Avril Lennox, nee Jeffreys. A mother. What the fuck is that?

— I’ll bet she’s nice, Tianna is saying, pulling Lennox from his thoughts, forcing him to look at her briefly in loose-jawed incomprehension. — Your mom. I can tell, cause you’re nice… not like the other guys Momma brings around… That Vince; he was nice at first.

— Was he a boyfriend of your mum’s?

She nods slowly and falls silent, lowering her head.

Lennox pulls back, he wants to keep her talking, not induce her to clam up. — What about your dad, do you ever see him?

— He died in a car crash when I was a baby, she says, looking up for his reaction.

— I’m sorry, he says. He knows the kid is lying.

— I don’t remember him much.

That is the truth. It was the extremis of her father’s absence that made his presence loom so large. Lennox contemplates the baseball cards as he fights a fatigued yawn. Looks to her squashed-sheep backpack. — That’s why you like the cards.

— The cards… yeah, she says, averting her gaze again.

She deserves more, but first she has to survive. The likes of Dearing and Johnnie have to be avoided. Scumbags, but not lone wolves, like Mr Confectioner. There’s something wrong here. It seems as if nonces are everywhere: it’s like some half-arsed pack of paedos are snapping around Robyn and the kid. It isn’t just my paranoia. This Vince guy; does he know Dearing? Johnnie?

They finish the drinks and venture outside. The sun has retreated across the horizon but is still strong in the cloudless sky. Lennox rubs more grit from his heavy eyes and puts the baseball cap on, adjusting its band, moulding it to the contours of his skull. Tianna can’t recognise Ocean Dawn, but he realises that those gleaming, white, opulent vessels might all look the same to her. Gazing across the inlet to the building under construction, he sees the workers taking a break on a gangway. One of them waves slowly at him: the guy from the incident in the parking lot. He returns the gesture.

The harbour master’s office is in a strip of broker and yacht insurance storefronts. The manager of the marina is a man in his sixties, clad in jeans, boots and a green guayabera shirt, who introduces himself as Donald Wynter. A man of unbridled enthusiasm, with white hair in a side parting, he bears a striking resemblance to the actor-comedian Steve Martin. It’s so strong that Lennox feels like cracking jokes. Instead he asks, — Do you know Chet Lewis?

— Everybody knows ol Chet, Wynter says, taking them outside and showing Lennox and Tianna where Ocean Dawn is usually moored.

Only it’s gone.

Don Wynter reads Ray Lennox’s crestfallen face. — Chet’s gone down the coast, put out a few creels to catch some fresh uns. The good stuff is overfished, gotta cast the net a little wider these days. I dare say that he’ll be back early tomorrow. In fact, I know he will, cause he gotta pick up some stuff he ordered here at the office. Usually goes to see ol Mo over at his place on one of the islands. They’ll be in a card game and drinkin beer. Wynter talks like a man frightened of keeling over before he’s spoken his allotted words.

— How do you get over there?

— You don’t, not less you got a boat and know them waters. Wynter shakes his head. — Yep, probably hooked up down the coast right now.

His help is appreciated by Lennox, but he’s so weary and the man’s verbosity grates as he launches into a spiel about tides and the weather. And a glance at Tianna’s pained face tells him her boredom threshold has been breached. As Wynter rambles on, Lennox finds himself thinking back to the elderly witnesses he’d interviewed in connection with the Britney case. They gabbed twenty to the dozen, talking up their roles as central in the drama of her short life. Of course they were just lonely and initially you couldn’t help but be sympathetic, but they soon contrived to exhaust that well of goodwill. Eventually he would want to crack a brittle old head open and scream: This is not about you, ya selfish cunt. This is a murder investigation.

Ronnie Hamil, Britney’s chimney-stinking grandfather, he was the worst of them all.

Then Angela, and now Robyn. You couldn’t even trust your fucking mother.

Stop this.

The appearance of a well-dressed, middle-aged woman gives Lennox and Tianna the alibi to sneak away from the distracted harbour master. They leave the marina and drive into town, then out on to the highway. Lennox feels at a loss as to what to do. He curses himself. If I hadnae fannied about with alligator boat trips and milkshakes!

— I don’t wanna go back, Tianna’s hushed tones, her eyes big orbs of fear, — I wanna stay with Chet.

It would soon be getting dark and they wouldn’t see Chet till tomorrow. Lennox ponders the options. Her apartment in Miami was out. They’d come here to get away from that place and the people in it. He could take her back to the hotel in Miami Beach for the night, or to Ginger’s place in Fort Lauderdale, then drive her out to Chet’s. Suddenly a truck horn blares and Lennox’s body seems to lose five layers of skin as he slams on the brakes, thanking a higher power nothing is behind him. He was almost into the back of it. This, and Tianna’s fearful response, makes the decision for him. He’s too tired; he needs sleep. In his current state of fatigue, he’s more of a danger to her than anybody. He pulls into the next gas station and calls Trudi again.

— Ray, where the hell are you? You said you’d be back—

— I’m with the wee girl I telt you aboot. She’s ten. Her mother and her are in big trouble. I can’t let them down, Trude, not like I did with Angela and Britney. I just can’t.

— Don’t they have police here?

— Aye. I’ve met one of them. It’s him that’s harassing them. So I can’t risk going to them right now, I don’t know the score with this cop. I’ve got to find somebody that’s definitely kosher. I’m gaunny have tae stay here tonight. The morn I can leave the lassie with her uncle; that’s when his boat’s due back. You know what I’m saying?

— You’re with this young girl now?