Andrew Pepper - Kill-Devil and Water

With his belly full and his feet rested, Pyke drifted off to sleep, and when he woke next, it was dark outside and he was still alone in the house. Standing up, he put on his shirt and went outside. He could hear noises, talking and laughing in a nearby house, but otherwise the village seemed deserted. This would have been the kind of place Mary Edgar had grown up in and it would have felt like home to her, yet she’d died on the other side of a vast ocean, alone and friendless in the very best and worst city in the world.

What had she been thinking, Pyke wondered, as someone, a man, had put their hands around her throat and squeezed? Had she thought about her home, this place, an island that seemed as alien and unknowable to him as London had doubtless seemed to her?

Pyke felt a mosquito land on his neck and went to swat it. Back inside the house, he sat down on the straw mat and thought about Felix, trying to quell a rising swell of homesickness. There was nothing to do apart from wait.

At dawn, he was woken by a rooster that insisted on crowing directly outside the house. Hot, sweaty and alone, he dressed and wandered down to the bathing pool. The cold mountain water felt glorious against his naked skin and the early morning light was soothing on his eyes. Up above, the sky was overcast and the air felt cooler, as though a change in the weather was on its way. He heard the clopping of horses’ hoofs coming up the track, so climbed out of the pool and dressed quickly.

John Harper had ridden from Falmouth with a companion and was berating one of the villagers when he looked up and saw Pyke walking towards him. ‘Thank the Lord, you’re still here,’ he said, bounding to greet Pyke, his giant legs covering the ground in just a few strides.

He embraced Pyke with a hug, as though they were old friends, and then waited for his companion to join them. ‘Allow me to introduce Isaac Webb. I think you might already have met, under less pleasant circumstances.’

As they shook hands, Webb smiled and said, ‘T’anks for the rum, by the way.’ He was a good-looking man with smooth walnut-coloured skin, lithe, with the kind of eyelashes, cheekbones and lips a lot of women would have coveted.

‘I came as soon as I got your message,’ Harper said, slapping Pyke firmly on the back. ‘I brought Isaac with me because no one understands Ginger Hill better than him.’

The villagers seemed to know Webb better than Harper but their welcome to both men had been muted. They brought their new arrivals fresh coffee and rum, served in pots carved from wood, but treated them warily, so when they finally left them alone, Harper tried to explain their reaction. This, he said, was a free village built on land acquired by William Knibb and the Baptist church; in return for a plot of land and the loan of sufficient money to build a house, the villagers were expected to renounce their heathen ways and embrace a new life of hard work and sobriety. When Pyke pointed out that it didn’t sound as if Harper approved, the big man snorted and shook his head. ‘White Baptists like Knibb might pretend to be our friends but what they’re offering is just another form of slavery; be good Christian men, just like them, or clear off farther into the mountains. Knibb’s a good person, in his own way, but he’s never stopped to ask what we want.’

After they’d drunk their coffee, Harper and Webb listened, without interruption, while Pyke explained what had happened to him. When he’d finished, he looked at Harper and said, ‘But, of course, you knew something like this was going to happen. Or you hoped it would. I’m right, aren’t I?’

Harper took a swig of the rum and handed Webb the bottle. ‘Even if that were the case, and I’m not saying it was, your injuries don’t look too bad.’

‘I still can’t work out what was in it for you. You knew for a fact that Pemberton would try to make my life difficult, because he’d done the same thing to all of Malvern’s prospective buyers. So let me guess: you were hoping I’d retaliate and do your dirty work for you in the process.’

Harper glanced over at Webb. ‘Pemberton and the Custos whipped my friend here to within an inch of his life, and it wasn’t the first time he’d done it, either. You blame me for trying to seize an opportunity to get back at him?’

‘Using me to do it?’

The big man shrugged. ‘You’re alive, aren’t you?’

‘But even as we speak, I’m quite sure half the island is looking for me: the white half anyway. Troops, police, anyone they can round up.’

Webb handed Pyke the bottle. ‘Billy Dalling’s dead and a white man killed him. Dat’s what the Custos think. Point is, us black folk can’t be held responsible.’

Pyke took a swig of rum and contemplated what he’d just been told. He was starting to see it. ‘So when Pemberton and maybe a few others turn up dead, this same white man can be blamed for those murders, too.’

Harper turned to Webb and grinned. ‘I told you he was a sharp one, didn’t I? Sharp as a nail.’

‘Meanwhile a Mr Pyke from London — nothing to do with the trouble at Ginger Hill — will already be at sea and headin’ for home.’ Webb returned Harper’s grin then looked at Pyke. ‘We get you as far as Kingston; you make the arrangements from dere.’

‘And when the real Montgomery Squires turns up?’

The big man just shrugged. ‘It’ll just add to the mystery. But they’ll still be looking for a white man.’

‘I’m glad I could play my part.’

‘You went to Ginger Hill for your own reasons; no one forced you to go,’ Harper said.

‘That doesn’t alter the fact that you used me.’

That accusation seemed to sting the newspaperman. ‘I know folk who’ve had the soles of their feet beaten with lead, who’ve died still tied to the treadmill, who’ve been locked up for no reason and shot for no reason. That’s just the folks I know. So I’m not going to get up on my soapbox and give a speech about the evil white man, but I’m also not going to apologise for doing what I need to do.’

Pyke held his stare. ‘You do what you need to do, I’ll do what I need to do. How does that sound?’

‘Long as our interests don’t clash, that’s fine. But like my friend here said, you’d do well to leave as soon as you can.’

Coming from Harper, this sounded more like a warning rather than a friendly piece of advice. Pyke turned to Webb. ‘Did you know Mary Edgar while she was here?’

‘Everyone knew Mary.’

‘I heard you and she were lovers. Which is why Malvern decided to send her away.’

Webb stared at him, open mouthed, and Harper had to intervene. ‘Who told you that?’

‘So it’s true.’

They exchanged a quick look. Harper nodded, as though giving his assent. Then Webb said, ‘Yeah, man, I loved her, I did. I can’t believe she dead.’ He was staring down at his boots, shaking his head, but somehow his grief seemed unconvincing.

‘It can’t have been easy for you, after Malvern found out you’d been sleeping with Mary.’

Webb pulled up his shirt to reveal a lattice of barely healed scars on his back. ‘What you saw the other night weren’t nothing compared to what Busha did to me.’

‘Busha?’

‘Pemberton,’ Harper explained.

‘On top of that, Custos give me hundred lashes in the workhouse, made me dance the treadmill every morning and evening for a month, work in the penal gang during the day.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Webb shrugged. ‘Big man here told me you was looking for the man who killed her.’ His stare was hard and clear.

‘He also said you know everything there is to know about what goes on at Ginger Hill. Is that so?’

Webb just shrugged again.