Mr. Clarinet

the pause button on his tape recorder.

'We had an appointment.'

'Who with?'

'A man called Filius Dufour. Well, no ordinary man, a houngan?a voodoo priest.'

'You were taking Charlie to see a voodoo priest on his birthday?' Max said, sounding more surprised than he actually was. The local religion was well entrenched in the Carver household. He remembered how defensive of it Allain had been.

'I'd been taking him to see Filius once a week every week for six months.'

'Why?'

'Filius was helping us?Charlie and me.'

'How?'

'How long have you got?'

'As long as you need,' Max said.

Francesca checked Max's watch. Max inspected the amount of tape in his machine. It was a two-hour cassette, almost through on the first side. He fast-forwarded it and turned it over. He hit RECORD as soon as she started speaking.

'Charlie was born in Miami on September 4, 1991. One of the nurses screamed when she saw his face. It looked like he'd been born with a pitch-black caul, but it was only his hair. He was born with it all, you see. It sometimes happens.

'We came back to Haiti three weeks later. The country was then run by Aristide?a kind of mob rule masquerading as a government. A lot of people were leaving. Not just the boat people, but the rich, all the business brains. Gustav insisted on staying put, even though Aristide had twice singled us out in public speeches as white people who'd 'stolen' everything from the poor black Haitians. Gustav knew Aristide was going to get overthrown. He was friendly with some of the military and he was just as friendly with some of Aristide's key people.'

'He gets around,' Max said.

'Gustav subscribes to the 'Keep your friends close, your enemies closer' maxim,' Francesca said and then met his eyes and held them for a moment. Max sensed her probing him.

'Aristide was overthrown on September 30,' she continued. 'Gustav threw a party that night. Aristide was meant to have been assassinated, but there was a change of plan. It was a happy party, nonetheless.

'Charlie was christened a month later. I knew something wasn't right with him from the very beginning. When I was a teenager I babysat my nephews and niece when they were babies and they were very different from Charlie. They were responsive. They recognized me. Charlie wasn't like that. He never looked at me directly. He never seemed particularly interested. He never reached out to me; he never smiled. Nothing. And?here's the odd thing?he didn't cry.'

'Not at all?'

'Not ever. He made sounds?baby sounds?but I never heard him cry. Babies cry all the time. They cry if they wet themselves or poo themselves. They cry when they're hungry. They cry when they want your attention. Not Charlie. He was very very quiet. Sometimes it was like he wasn't there.

'We had a doctor checking up on him every week or so. I mentioned it to him, the boy's silence. He joked and told me to make the most of it, that it wouldn't last.

'But, of course, it did. Allain told me not to worry, that Gustav himself didn't start talking before he was almost four.'

Francesca stopped and lit another cigarette. Max was getting used to the smell.

'Actually, I say Charlie wasn't responsive, but he always smiled at Gustav. And I heard him laugh too whenever the old man pulled faces at him or tickled him. They had a real bond. Gustav was really really proud of Charlie. He always made time for him. Took him with him to the bank a few times. Sat with him at night, fed him, changed him. It was very touching, seeing them together. I'd never seen Gustav happier. He isn't too good with his other grandchildren. Not as attentive. Charlie's his only grandson. I think he wants to die safe in the knowledge that the family name will be preserved, live on. He's old-fashioned, but this whole country isn't much more advanced than him.'

Max poured himself another cup of coffee. The first had chased the tiredness out of his bones and out from behind his eyes.

'So, this?Charlie's condition?was playing on your mind when you went to see the voodoo priest? It wasn't about you at all, was it? It was about your son. You thought something was wrong with him, so you took him to the priest for an opinion?'

'Yes and no. It's not quite like that. Charlie had a thing about his hair?'

'I saw the picture,' Max said shortly. 'Him in that dress.'

'He wouldn't let anybody cut it?'

'So your husband explained,' Max said disgustedly.

'We really had no choice. People were making Charlie's life a misery.'

'Was this before or after you put him in a dress?' Max said sarcastically.

'That was for his own good,' Francesca insisted testily. 'You know that Charlie screamed anytime someone went near him with a pair of scissors?'

'Yes, Allain told me.'

'Did he tell you how he screamed? It wasn't a baby's scream, or even a little boy's scream. It was pure pain?this blood-curdling, earsplitting screech. Imagine a cave of screeching bats. People said they could hear it two miles away.'

Max paused the tape. Francesca had upset herself with the recollection. She was biting her lip and trying hard not to cry. He wanted to hold her and let her loose the grief on his shoulder, but it didn't feel appropriate. He was interviewing her, gathering evidence, not acting as her counselor or confessor.

'Explain the dress,' he said after she'd blinked away the tears. He already knew the answer but was easing her back into the Q & A.

'Charlie's hair was never cut. It got unwieldy. We tied it in bunches and bows, and finally we braided it. It was easier to put him in a dress and present him to the outside world as a girl than to explain why his hair was that way. It worked, you know. He wore a dress the whole time,' Francesca said.

'How did you find out about the voodoo priest?'

'One day, out of the blue, Rose brought me a handwritten message from him. It mentioned things about me and Charlie that no one?and I mean no one?could have known.'

'Care to elaborate?'

'No,' she said bluntly. 'But if you're as good as Allain says you are, you'll surely find out.'

Max continued with his questions.

'How did Rose know the priest?'

'Her mother, Eliane, works for him.'

'I see,' Max said, already lining up potential suspects. 'Could Rose have known about these 'things' you won't tell me about?'

'No.'

'Not even in a place as small as this?'

'No.'

'OK. So you and Charlie went along to see the priest? What happened there?'

'He talked to me, and then he talked to Charlie, separately, in private.'

'How old was Charlie then, two?'

'Two and a half.'

'Had he started talking by then?'

'No. Not a word.'

'Then how did they communicate?'

'I don't know because I wasn't there, but whatever it was, it worked, because Charlie changed toward me. He opened up. He looked at me. He even started smiling?and he had such a lovely smile, the sort that really made your day when you saw it.'

Francesca's voice had gone down to a whisper, all her words dwarfed by a mounting grief.

She blew her nose loudly, honking like a seal, and then she lit another cigarette, the last one she had. She crushed the packet in her fist.

'How often did you and Charlie see the priest?'

'Once a week.'

'Same day and time?'

'No, it always varied. Rose would tell me when.'

'I'll have to see this guy.'

Francesca took a folded piece of paper out of her breast pocket and slid it across to him.

'Filius's address and directions. He's expecting you at around two this afternoon.'

'He's expecting me?'

'He saw you coming. He told me two months ago.'

'What do you mean he 'saw me coming' two months ago? I didn't know I was coming two months ago.'

'He sees things.'

'Like a fortune-teller?'

'Something like that, but what he does isn't the same.'

'How come you acted that way at dinner?'

'I didn't realize it was you.'

'So you've talked to