John Matthews - Ascension Day

‘Oh, okay.’ Alaysha appraised him with a wry smile. ‘And here was me thinking that you were hiding from me.’

‘As if,’ Jac said, hoping that, despite his obvious embarrassment, she might take it as a compliment.

She studied him a second longer, as if unsure how to read his reaction. ‘Well, must go now. Again, nice to meet you.’

‘Yes, you too…’ Then, as with a smile she turned away, Jac panicked that this might be the last time he’d see her for a while. He might not get this opportunity again. ‘I was wondering if you might like to go…’ But as she looked back, he felt himself melt again, along with any resolve, and thought better of it. ‘No, it’s okay… I… it doesn’t matter.’

Alaysha studied him more intently this time, her eyes scanning from his shoes then back up to his face. Quite tall, light-brown hair, fairly handsome, though not pretty-boy so. But he had the most incredible blue-grey eyes, which somehow seemed sad, lost — she couldn’t work out why she found them so appealing. And his accent: a faint hint of French along with something else? A coy smile tilted one side of her mouth. ‘Were you just about to ask me out on a date?’

‘No, I…I…’ But under the intensity of her gaze, her coy smile becoming questioning, challenging, the pretence felt foolish. ‘Well, yes… but I realize it could be awkward for you. You probably still have a boyfriend.’

Her mouth curled into a grimace, as if she’d encountered a bad taste. ‘I haven’t, as it turns out. He’s history — even though very recent history.’ Her face quickly brightened again as she gave him another once-over with her eyes. ‘So, if you’re asking — the answer is yes .’

‘That’s great.’ Jac mellowed his rapidly rising smile so that he didn’t come across as over-eager. ‘Maybe we could go to Arnaud’s… or Begue’s.’

She seemed to only half take in the possible venues. ‘But not tomorrow night, I’m working; and the same too most Fridays and Saturdays. Sundays or Mondays are the best… oh, except this Sunday I’m due to go to my mom’s.’

Jac didn’t want to leave it until the following weekend. ‘This coming Monday, then. What, say, eight o’clock — give me time to get all the way over to your place.’

‘Okay. You’ve got a date.’ She smiled and nodded, putting one hand lightly on his shoulder in acknowledgement. Shaking hands suddenly seemed too formal, now that they were going on a date. Then her expression became slightly quizzical as what he’d said earlier suddenly dawned on her. ‘You said still have a boyfriend. Have you maybe seen me coming in with Gerry sometime before, then?’

Again, with the steadiness of her gaze, any pretence felt out of place. Jac swallowed.

‘No, it’s not that. I heard him shouting at you a few nights back, and there was some banging and thudding that worried me. I’m sorry.’ Jac wasn’t sure whether he was apologizing for her having a boyfriend that shouted at her, or for listening in. ‘That’s why I tried to see you on the corridor the other day. To see whether he might have hurt you.’

Her eyes flickered as she took in what he said, rolling through varying emotions: pain of the memory, embarrassment that anyone had heard — but as her face softened and her eyes became slightly moist, it was clear the emotion that had finally won through.

She brought one hand up and lightly touched one of Jac’s cheeks with the back of her fingertips. ‘You’re a sweet guy. Thanks. It’s nice to know that you took the trouble to care.’ She could have added: it was nice to know that anyone still cared.

But there was no point in burdening this Jac McElroy with the darker shades of her life. Frightening him off before they’d even started to get to know each other.

Jac’s step was light as they said their goodbyes, ‘Until Monday night,’ and he walked into his apartment. No love-life to speak of since Madeleine, and suddenly he had two dates in as many days.

It looked like being a pivotal weekend for his career too; if he got nothing worthwhile from Rodriguez, he’d have little choice but to walk away from the Durrant case.

‘So, they took you down to the boiler room,’ Jac confirmed. ‘Did you make any noise that might alert anyone? Did anyone else see you on the way down?’

‘I made some noise at first when I realized what was goin’ down — but one of ‘em got a hand quickly over my mouth. And wit’ the route they took, cutting down past the restrooms and laundry and only passin’ a handful of cells with open fronts — I’m not sure just who mighta heard or saw me.’ Rodriguez looked down thoughtfully for a second. ‘Though, of course, with who showed up later — obviously one person did hear me.’

The tension mounted steadily in the small interview room as Rodriguez described the events on the night he was taken from his cell. Haveling, his assistant Pete Folley and a guard were ensconced behind the one-way glass screen, the red light on the base of the table microphone indicating that sound was going through to them.

When Rodriguez had entered the interview room, Jac saw that he carried three books: The Catcher in the Rye , Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment . And beneath them, a hand-written letter and two editions of Libreville’s quarterly magazine, Libre-Voice .

‘I brought these,’ Rodriguez offered, ‘‘cause you said on the phone that you wanted support for why Larry, “Thes”, should continue living.’

‘That’s true… I did.’ Jac nodded towards the microphone. The red-light wasn’t on at that stage, Haveling and Folley were just getting settled behind the screen. ‘But that’s going to be for the second part of the interview. This first part, which will be monitored and recorded, is to establish what happened on the night of October twenty-fourth. The night you received your injuries.’ The last thing Jac wanted to do was go into detail about Durrant’s death-wish with Haveling listening in.

Rodriguez wasn’t tall, no more than five-five, and was slightly built. Jac could see that he might have problems in Libreville without someone like Durrant to watch his back. And the evidence of that was strongly etched on his face with the welts and bruises still there, one of them a golf-ball-sized lump that half closed one eye. The sight of Rodriguez’ injuries weren’t helped by the freckles across his nose and cheeks, some of them so large they looked almost like blotches, as if his Latino blood had had problems dispersing evenly through his skin.

But his liveliness of spirit was evident in his eyes: coal-black, constantly darting, assessing, sparkling with verve and cloaked humour — or, if you caught him on a bad day, malice. His only warning-off device. Jac leant closer to the mike. ‘And when they grabbed you in your cell, did you recognize them?’

‘Not at first — it was too dark. But as they took me out into the corridor, I gotta better look.’ Rodriguez glanced towards the mirrored-glass screen, as if appreciating that the information would have most impact to those behind it. ‘The guard was Dennis Marmont. And the other two were inmates — Silass and Jay-T.’

‘I see. And was there another guard with them at any time? A certain Glenn Bateson?’

‘No… no, there wasn’t. He only appeared at the last minute with ‘nother two guards to break everything up. In fact, only one other person was present — Tally Shavell. He was already waitin’ for me down in the boiler room. King Shit.’ Rodriguez shook his head. ‘Sorry, that’s our other nickname for him.’

Before the meeting, Jac had spent twenty minutes in the annexe to Haveling’s office going through Rodriguez’ file. In Libreville for murdering a rival pimp for the heavy beating of one of his stable of girls, Rodriguez had taken a basic paralegal course, which had led to him being one of two inmates entrusted to help run the prison’s ‘communication and advice’ centre, since a significant part of that would entail contact between inmates and their legal representatives. Jac could see Rodriguez’ formal legalese phrasing take over as he explained events, but his more familiar prison jibe-talk wasn’t far beneath the surface.