John Matthews - Ascension Day

The messenger nodded his thanks and approached Jac’s door — Alaysha shrinking back a step as the doorbell rang, her heart beating hard and fast. Memories of that black kid with a message, Gerry at her door a second later. The gunshot. Jac running through the night from the police .

She swallowed hard. But that was a street boy; this is a recognized messenger, in a uniform! Get a grip.

He rang the bell again, then four seconds later knocked.

Alaysha moved forward again, risking another glance through the spy-hole: the messenger looking down at his feet for a second, Mrs Orwin still behind him, frowning slightly; an ‘I’m sure she was there’ expression on her face.

Then finally, deciding he’d waited long enough, he wrote something on a card and slipped it through the letter box. And as Alaysha saw it come through, saw the official FedEx logo on its top, she thought: it must be real! Maybe even an urgent message from Jac. And what could possibly happen with Mrs Orwin still looking on?

She quickly slid back the latch and opened the door, caught the messenger as he was only a pace away. He turned back and smiled.

‘Mrs Reyner?’

‘Yes.’ Alaysha watched Mrs Orwin pull back behind her door, close it again. And of all the times she’d found her neighbour’s spying annoying, now she felt like screaming: ‘ No, no! Stay here looking until at least this messenger has gone. Be as nosy as you fucking like !’

‘ Alaysha Reyner?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have something for you.’

And as the messenger reached his hand toward her and she saw what he held, her breath caught in her throat, and she knew then that she’d made a mistake opening the door. A big mistake.

As Larry Durrant’s death approached, its tentacles reached out like an octopus.

There’d been a steady build up over the past weeks, but now in the last twenty-four hours, those tentacles carrying news of his fate spread deeper and wider than ever before: the night-before vigil was on every news channel, there were evening debates pro and con death-penalty, more again on breakfast TV, Durrant’s last meal, how he’d spend his last minutes, medical details of how he’d be executed, background to the recently-failed clemency plea to the Governor, details of the murder twelve years ago, drama with his last lawyer, his new lawyer Darrell Ayliss apparently no longer available for comment…

Louisiana and half the States beyond, who knew little about Larry Durrant’s life, got to know every last detail of his impending death, as if they were a modern-day Roman amphitheatre crowd blood-lust hungry for it.

Those tentacles reached people they never had before, and some felt deeply touched and saddened by Larry Durrant’s plight, became more anti-death-penalty, while others simply munched their popcorn faster, Come on, get on with it. Give it to the fucker !

But those tentacles gripped tightest around those who knew Larry Durrant. Francine Durrant changed channels or turned off the TV every time it came on, couldn’t watch it any more. Mike Coultaine found himself tapping his fingers anxiously on tables and counter tops, increasingly looking towards the phone, praying that Jac had managed to run the gauntlet through customs and would be in Cuba by now, that any minute the phone would ring with good news. And Mack Elliott stared absently out of the window at Henny’s on to a bright winter’s day, street bustling with life, as he bit into a Debris po-boy and tried desperately to remember what he’d seen on TV twelve years ago.

And as those news broadcasts talked more and more about time — time of last meal, time for the final medical examination, time Durrant would walk to the death chamber, time of execution — those tentacles pulled everyone’s eyes repeatedly to the clock; half the state, two million people or more, watching the hours and minutes tick down to his death.

Roland Cole was no exception. Over the past two hours, his eyes had lifted twenty times or more to the clock in the Algiers fish warehouse where he and a colleague were busily shifting that day’s shipments onto the right pallets.

‘What’s wrong wit’ you?’ the colleague said. ‘Yo’ got a hot date tonight or somethin’ — can’t wait to leave today?’

‘No, it’s not that.’ Cole’s hand went to his stomach where his mounting anxiety had settled like a bucket of eels writhing in acid. ‘Somethin’ I ate last night — it’s half killing me.’ With a meek smile, he rushed to the washroom at the back again; his fourth visit that morning.

‘You timin’ to make sure you don’ shit yo’self?’ his friend shouted after him, chuckling.

Cole closed his eyes and shuddered as he sat on the toilet.

Stealing away the time alone was the main thing. Time alone with his own thoughts, but most of all away from TV, news broadcasts and clocks.

Durrant’s face had been on news broadcasts twice the night before, but even though Cole had made sure not to turn on breakfast news and had rushed past every newsstand on the way in, that image was still with him practically everywhere he looked: around the warehouse, at his friend… at the clock !

Not me, not me… not me! I’m not the man you saw that night !

A thousand times he’d replayed that night in his head: hot-wiring the Mercedes in the driveway as he saw a man run round the corner from Coliseum Street: six-foot, stocky, skin-colour and tone not much different to his own, breathless and jaded as he stared back momentarily. Cole sunk down even lower beneath the dashboard, praying that he hadn’t been seen. And four minutes later, when he was sure the guy was long-gone, he started up the Mercedes and drove off.

Then when Durrant was first arrested, he saw from the news that it wasn’t the man he’d seen that night. He read as much as he could about the background to the case, but there was no possible doubt: the other eye-witness had only seen one man leaving the scene, and the timing matched exactly with the guy he’d seen run past. It wasn’t Durrant!

But the problem was, he couldn’t see a way of coming forward without also holding his hands up to the grand-theft auto. Five to seven years, maybe more if they linked the MO back to other luxury auto-thefts over the past few years.

Cole managed finally to push it to the back of his mind; but then when Durrant’s execution date was set, it was back at the forefront, with a vengeance! And so he sent the e-mails; as far as he felt he could go without putting his own head in the noose.

Cole shook his head, a shiver running through him as he felt his stomach cramp and tighten again. Surely they couldn’t go through with killing Durrant? He’d told them in those e-mails that it wasn’t him! What the fuck more did they want: five to seven years of his own life?

Atlanta customs, Miami, Nassau… Havana .

A re-run each time of Jac’s ordeal going through the passport check at New Orleans, perspiring, his stomach doing somersaults, praying that they didn’t notice his hand shaking as he handed over his passport.

But it was worse after the call from Mike Coultaine. Far worse.

Jac had landed at Atlanta an hour and fifty minutes beforehand, had just twenty minutes before boarding for the next leg to Miami, when Coultaine’s call came through. Bad news, Jac. Bad news .

Coultaine explained that while he believed he’d successfully quelled the suspicions of the officer that had called, he thought it worth keeping an eye on. Just in case. And so he’d called an old police contact who owed him a few favours, said that he’d just had a strange call from a certain Joe Rayleigh of Eighth District regarding Darrell Ayliss, an old lawyer buddy of his. Probably nothing, but could he contact him on the QT if anything came up on police radar about it.