Unsafe Ground

Unsafe Ground

Chapter 1: Southlands

Five years ago

There was going to be trouble again. It was inevitable.

Southlands was not a Caribbean idyll. It was a village of rundown cottages scattered along a low bluff overlooking an expanse of white sand and an azure sea. Only simple comforts existed for the families of subsistence fishermen but they wanted to stay. Isolated from the rest of the island on one side by a steep headland, it had its own pace of life, untouched for as long as anyone could remember. Life there was not a paradise but it was their birthplace. One fisherman, Tobias, led the opposition to those with different ideas.

Inland to the east, an abandoned salina, half a mile from end to end, formed another barrier to the changes happening elsewhere on St Christian. The shallow waters of the dilapidated ponds once concentrated seawater into salt and big profits. Mosquitoes, large and intimidating, were the only harvest these stagnant waters produced now.

In the stillness of the early hours, the veil of darkness was broken by a pin prick of light with no business being there. Its stab of yellow bore no resemblance to the dim kerosene lamps along a rutted track through the centre of the hamlet. The young flame flickered and lingered near a corner of the third house like a tethered firefly before erupting into a brighter glow eager to follow the line of paraffin along the back of the property. Unsatisfied, the fire caressed the wooden weatherboards; each tongue of flame reaching a little higher up the outside wall.

Creosote in the wood bubbled as the relentless climb continued into the rafters. Thick, choking smoke seeped inside, smothering the life from every room. A villager, then two, then more, congregated around the burning house. Three men lunged at the front door. Frantic flames whipped around beating them back. Buckets filled from the sea were thrown but the flames continued undaunted.

Grace Roberts, the first uniform at the scene, adopted a persona older than her years; a stern expression, the one she engineered for police work. Taller and leaner than most around, her dark hair was swept back into an unflattering regulation bun, exposing the entirety of her round face and youthful complexion and a scar at the hairline. The mark was a permanent reminder of an arrest that went badly.

For a heartbreaking moment, the cottage shone brighter than the neon signs on the hotels further along the bay. Inside, a family slept their final sleep. Mother and father in one bedroom, a young girl in another with her favourite white dress draped over a chair. Two watchers, one small and wiry, the other clinically obese, lay submerged in the darkness observing their handiwork. Before help arrived, the structure collapsed into a fiery heap. Satisfied, the predators slipped away.

Thirty villagers, sweating and smoke-stained, reluctantly gave up the fight. Human statues, static, silent, stunned. The fire was too fierce and their buckets of seawater too little. An urgent whine from a fire truck signalled its imminent, belated arrival. Constable Roberts acted fast, urging the onlookers back. In spite of her insistence one person, no older than the police officer, rushed forward. Roberts intercepted, shouting an instruction with the authority instilled by her training.

‘Get back!… Wanda. Stop!’

The woman drew back only after the police officer positioned herself between the fire and her pal from school days.

‘Wanda, it’s hopeless. The place has gone.’ Roberts insisted, trying to soften the reality with a sympathetic tone.

The woman’s wild eyes darted around the devastating scene, searching for signs. A comforting arm from Grace Roberts was pushed away. Seeing her friend’s anguish was a reminder of the cruel path her own life had taken.

‘No! Where are they? Cousin Mary… Tobias?’ Wanda was in denial.

‘They’re not here. They must’ve been inside.’ Grace whispered.

Wanda, still refusing to accept what she saw, attempted again to move towards the heat.

‘No, no. It can’t.’ She shouted at the fiery remains, then another shock, a realisation that begged an answer. ‘Where’s Jacky?’

To suppress her own horror at witnessing the situation, Grace concentrated on dragging a reluctant Wanda back to the safety of her police SUV. Her contribution to the collective grief would be made but not now. Together, up close, eye to eye, nose to nose, she injected the pain of truth.

‘I’m so sorry. Your niece too.’

Her pal’s strength flowed away as the water from the first firehose spread out over the burning remains. She turned back to see the crying and desperation. After recent incidents in Southlands, now this, there would be recriminations, and she was still no closer to doing what the police are supposed to do. Grace Roberts would not forget this night and swore a private promise.

‘I will find you.’

A shadowy enterprise ensured she did not; satisfied only when the land it wanted was its own. After Southlands, it would be another five years before they returned for more. This time on the only other inhabited island in the St Christian archipelago.

Chapter 2: The Report

Four weeks ago

It was an odd request. Any decent police officer’s curiosity would be aroused.

When Grace Roberts, the newest detective in the Royal St Christian Police Force, began a morning shift the Chief called her into his office. A large sealed envelope lay on his desk.

‘Deliver this directly to the Governor and wait for instructions.’

She was given no more details but told to go immediately to Stockade House. On arrival, a woman of mature age, dressed smartly in a tailored sapphire blue, round-neck jacket, pressed cotton blouse and matching A-line skirt, styled to be a respectful length below the knee, personally met the Detective Sergeant. That in itself was unusual. His Majesty’s representative to the St Christian Islands was the kind of person viewed from afar, rarely up close.

‘Governor Towers, I had not expected…’

‘You have something for me?’ Enquired the Governor.

She snatched the envelope from the police officer with undue haste.

‘I’m to wait for your orders.’ Grace offered, suppressing the easy lilt of her island accent. She was, after all, in the company of the apex of St Christian society.

Governor Towers, regaining a composure befitting her status, responded by ushering the young sergeant inside. Grace chose a chair in a panelled corridor where portraits of past Governors long dead peered down in resolute disapproval. At the far end of the passage, Towers disappeared into her study. In her haste, leaving its thick door slightly ajar.

What’s a good detective to do but consider her options?

Moments later, an expensive smartphone purred on an occasional table. The call was direct to Governor Towers’ private number. Not the business line routed through an outer office where her secretary Wanda would intercept any caller. Towers put the mobile on speaker as she thumbed through the police chief’s report. Her expression suggested this was a call she did not want to receive.

‘Harriet Towers.’

She betrayed none of the foreboding that kept her awake the previous night. The discovery yesterday afternoon reinforced her concern there would be consequences. It must have been an unfortunate accident. Briefing from her Head of Office suggested it was the obvious reason. Nevertheless, she could not shake off a sense of unease.

‘Harriet? Hugo in London.’ The other voice, thousands of miles distant, was forthright though not unfriendly.

Towers replied as if answering a tiresome neighbour. ‘I assume you’re calling about Mr Childs. Not a matter that would have escaped your attention.’

Eager to get this exchange finished, Harriet Towers started with the unremarkable report resting on her lap. The Governor spoke to her distant peer with a detached formality. Grace Richards, curiosity aroused, peered through the crack in the door.

‘I imagine you have a copy of the report. Not much more to say. A youngish man went for a swim after a day at the annual tourism conference and did not come back. Must have swum out some distance, got into difficulties and was not seen by anyone on the beach. Washed up in the next cove a week later. Incredibly sad but nothing suspicious. We have an average of four or five tourist drownings each year. Mr Childs just happened to be one of them. Simply, wrong place, wrong time.’

In Harriet Towers’ assessment an open and shut case. An explanation from her own lips should be enough to stop Hugo Granger interfering. After all, she carried a lot of weight around here.

‘Are you satisfied that’s the whole story?’ Granger probed.

‘You see problems where there are none. I am sure it was a simple though regrettable accidental drowning. Extremely unfortunate he was the British government’s delegate to an important tourism conference. Cast a cloud over the rest of the event.’

Hugo Granger continued to seek answers. Was there no one on the beach who saw him in the water? Had there been any incidents during the conference or in the evening about which the organisers, hotel or police were aware? Was he with anyone before he went missing?

‘Nothing untoward. I can assure you there are no conspiracies or intrigues involving Mr Childs. The police gave his disappearance high priority as soon as he was reported missing.’

Harriet relaxed, content she had parried his speculations and doubts. In contrast, the voice from London deepened. He was getting to the point of the call.

‘A death of someone on government duty in unexpected circumstances is always serious, though I would prefer to use the word “suspicious.” No matter how benign it may look from your end. The Permanent Secretary has asked me to decide what is to be done.’

‘Wait one moment. Are you implying we are hiding something here?’

The manicured self-control of Harriet Towers was slipping. Granger had gone over her head to her superiors. Whenever doubts are raised in London in conversations amongst the uppermost echelon of a departmental hierarchy, no matter how unfounded, the result becomes a criticism for the person being talked about.

‘Are you?’

‘Hugo Granger, you insufferable man! You have an uncontrollable suspicious mind. There’s no need for any muck-raking investigations being concocted by you or your sort. My Chief of Police is an ex-Chief Constable of Oxfordshire. I think we can assume he knows what he’s doing.’

‘Is that your last word on the matter?’

‘Yes, it is! Heavens, you have not changed one iota in all these years. You have a knack of being…’ Towers the diplomat searched for a suitable impolite word, ‘tedious.’

‘At least we know where we stand. Call me if the police discover anything more.’

Harriet Towers was still holding the phone when the line went dead.

‘Infuriating man… even at university. I wish I’d never known him, let alone...’

Her last thought would remain her own. The Governor of the St Christian Islands had finished venting her intense annoyance to an audience of no one in the empty study.

The corridor was not empty.

Chapter 3: Bayview Road

Two weeks ago

A pervasive foreboding infected everything about Bayview Road.

Thick clouds moving in from the Atlantic darkened the sky, the leading edge of an approaching storm. Out in the bay, boats swung lazily on their moorings, unaware of the tempest on the horizon. Night would come early.

Through the oppressive quietness a police patrol cruised slowly past a row of seven detached, two-storey villas with the misfortune of being built on this street. Each frontage in turn came under the gaze of the patrol’s probing searchlight. Three were empty, windows boarded up. In the warm climate of the Caribbean, nature rapidly reclaimed the land around for its own. Only four homes in the middle of the row remained occupied. Their yards were floodlit in a collective effort to ward off any approaching evil spirits. Inside, their inhabitants, reduced to nervous silhouettes, hoped this night would pass quickly for the relative sanctuary of the daytime.

The local police, satisfied all was still, accelerated away. In the next street the patrol pulled up beside a pick-up truck. Its driver, preferring to remain unseen, spoke to the front passenger in the other.

‘All quiet down there. No one around.’

In the pick-up, an age-hardened, rough-shaven face acknowledged the favourable news. The sullen leader had four youths slouching in the back and another at the wheel revving the engine.

‘That’s good. Anything else?’

‘There’re four places still occupied. The Mitchells, Simpsons, and Whites are lit up like Christmas but look easy. The French’s place has put up steel shutters. He means business.’

‘We’ll do him last. Now get lost.’

The officer leant out from the anonymity of the patrol car to give the benefit of his advice. ‘Make it quick, Earl. When this kicks off we can only be outta contact for twenty minutes at most.’

In the fourth property, Elton French performed his nightly routine. First, check the doors are locked, then the bolts on the shutters, before repeating the procedure on the upper floor. His old bones still ached as he climbed the stairs.

Next time, he convinced himself, they would be the ones getting the big surprise.

One street away, Earl watched the taillights of the police patrol disappear into the darkness before turning to the driver.

‘Quiet and steady now. No need to let ‘em know they’ll have visitors before bedtime.’

A short distance into the shoreline street the four in the back took off towards a boarded-up house next to the Mitchells. Earl stopped at a roadside box and fiddled with the electrics. An anaemic glow from a parade of streetlights dimmed, then flashed out in a death throe. Everywhere was inky black.

The night visitors became unrecognisable dim outlines scuttling across the backyards. Two waited at the rear door of the Mitchells. Two more traced their way to the White’s property. Chickens in a coop hidden in the darkness flapped and fussed. The leader and his driver moved into the third garden, tidy and well kept the way the Simpson family lived their lives.

In place, on cue, a wooden club wielded by Earl shattered a window of a van parked on a driveway. Minute cubes of glass confetti covered the seats. He inspected the thoroughness of his handiwork, then tossed in a Molotov cocktail through the new opening. The sight of flames erupting was the cue for three bricks to smash through windows into kitchens, followed by more cocktails.

The instant someone from each house came out to defend their property they were met with a hard stop only a well swung baseball bat can achieve. One by one the male members were felled and bloodied. Cries called out above the crackle of the fires at the sight of husbands and fathers lying motionless outside.

A second volley landed inside the houses followed by screams of panic. Through the flames distorted shapes of women and youngsters beat at the floors. No more dared to escape to the outside. Earl watched with admiration at the damage and chaos. This time, his plan to increase the intensity of encouragement would surely persuade the inhabitants to make the right decision.

Elton French called the one police officer he trusted.

‘Grace, they’re here again.’

‘Stay inside. I’ll get help.’ She replied.

Grace Roberts tried repeatedly to call the police post on Little St Christian Island. No answer. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed since Elton’s call, each one increasing her frustration. She was at headquarters on the main island, separated by ten miles of open water with no way to get to Elton and the others on Bayview Road.

French could not stay inside. His conscience would not let him live with the shame if he hid behind his steel shutters when fires outside traced a scene of devastation. Neighbours lay injured on the ground, acrid smoke escaped through broken windows and haunting cries for help came from within darkened houses. He emerged too late. In his hand a vintage shotgun, an inheritance from his grandfather. He raised the weapon to let off a shot but the attackers had already moved back into the darkness. To his right the noisy distraction of a hen house being demolished. Chickens squawked wildly in panic. Behind him to his left a round, smooth object moving rapidly made contact with his head. Unable to avoid the inevitable, a crushing pain stunned his senses and shock stole his breath. French buckled and joined his neighbours. His arrival in the dirt was met by a powerful kick to the ribs. Earl, in silhouette backlit by flames, loomed over.

‘Elton, this is your last warning. Take the deal and get out.’

French managed a low groan, then in defiance spat on the shoes of his attacker. Another kick in the ribs was the response and more pain his reward.

Earl repeated his demand. ‘Tell your neighbours to take the offer… or next time we won’t be so friendly.’

Picking up the abandoned firearm, he taunted the defeated body lying at his feet. ‘I’ll take this too. Wouldn’t want it to hurt someone.’

Brandishing his new trophy, the leader signalled the rest to return to the vehicle. Hurt and angry at his total failure to defend the street, prostrate in the dirt, French cursed himself for being unable to put up a decent fight. And worse, for letting the bastard Earl Flint get the better of him. Now, he was forced to watch the insult of his grandfather’s heirloom being thrown into a truck like a discarded toy. Staring up at the sky he searched for some sign of deliverance but the heavens sent only the first spots of rain from the storm to bathe his battered head.

Before Earl goes, French found the energy to make one more militant gesture and shouted. ...