1. Chaddleworth
Clarissa Benson-Haines was a first-class bitch. Everybody knew that she was a first-class bitch, even her husband, the late and not particularly lamented Sir Sean Haines (she had insisted on retaining the family name, much to his chagrin).
Sir Sean had tolerated her because he knew upon which side his bread was buttered. Clarissa was his spine, a cast-iron spine that was, as his own spine crumpled when it all became too much, strong enough to support both of them.
Not that Sir Sean was a weak man, far from it, but he was not a killer. He could not kick someone when they were down. Clarissa was able to deliver a coup de grâce without flinching and frequently did.
Of course, she restricted her activities merely to the social. Her enemies were those whose soirées outshone hers by a single candle, those who arrived late or too early, those who broke dinner dates or refused to give way to her on the various local committees upon which she sat. She was ruthless. She knew everything; she knew of the affairs (most of the servants at the club, that hub of ex-pat life, were in her pocket), the drinking problems, the marital problems, the drug problems, the lesbians and the homosexuals who tried to disguise their predilections behind a thin veil of marriage and ended up as susceptible to blackmail as a murderer.
There were also those whom she saw as a threat to her husband. If they were a threat to him, then they were a threat to her and she would set about them, regardless of status, class (though only one class mattered), rank or lineage. No one was too big for Clarissa Benson-Haines.
Rumour had it that she had driven Cherry Miskin-Townes to suicide with the slow, steamy revelation of her relationship with a local. Her husband, Harry Miskin-Townes, in line to take Clarissa’s husband’s place as Ambassador and making no secret about it, had left the island in shame, on the same plane which had carried his wife’s coffin back to Heathrow.
Nobody would be permitted to perforate Clarissa’s bubble, would be allowed to intrude upon her comfort zone, would be allowed to edge her husband aside in favour of good looks and youth.
To her, Sir Sean was little more than a pet. She loved that pet, as anyone would love their pet, but if he stepped out of line, she would knuckle his snout and send him under the table. He would later emerge compliant, a lapdog, with no more say in its life than a shaking Chihuahua.
He had died only a couple of years previously. It had been a quick death, cancer of the pancreas. It had devoured him from the inside out and left him resembling little more than a Japanese prisoner of war; all bone, jaundiced, dimly lit, with sunken eyes.
Long before that, they had bought the small estate upon which they had lived, Chaddleworth, a bungalow atop the hills overlooking the Baie de Dieu, a stretch of beach along which lay white sands across a mouth of turquoise water that licked lovingly at the bay, for fifteen years. They were to retire on Saint Quintian in comfort, the perfect relics of a diminishing empire. The ex-pats di tutti ex-pats. Chaddleworth had become a hub of social activity, a well of schemes and social climbing. Clarissa had become the Hedda Hopper of the ex-pat scene. Those whom she liked, rose, with all the benefits. Those she had decided were expendable, well, they just sunk.
Upon Sir Sean’s death, Clarissa had decided to stay on Saint Quintian. Now she tended the gardens of Chaddleworth, atop the hills overlooking the bay. From there, she could survey all she had once owned. People came and went, appointments changed, politics shifted like the swell of the ocean and she was left adrift upon unfamiliar seas. Sir Sean was a memory, in her mind alone. As with all these things, when a vacancy appeared, the world filled it. What came before no longer was. The world erased that which no longer served a purpose.
Clarissa Benson-Haines knew that she would soon disappear altogether. The feeling had become almost overwhelming lately. It scared her, the thought that she would no longer exist; it blackened her mood. She had also began to smell her late husband’s Old Spice after-shave and thought that sometimes she could see him out of the corner of her eye. She told him to go, that she was not yet ready, but his presence grew greater every day.
So, in an attempt to drive these thoughts away, she lost herself in her bell-flowers and her hibiscus and her anthurium and encouraged her vireos and her mango hummingbirds, doves, pigeons and fly-catchers. She would take tea with anyone kind enough to visit her, but they would seldom come back because, with her outdated, outmoded attitudes, she simply drove people away. She stood upon a pedestal of jingoism which no one was prepared to share with her.
Eventually, the world turned away and she was left alone.
Henrick, her sole servant, apart from his wife who came daily to clean, emerged from the shadows of the bungalow into the bright kaleidoscope of the garden. He had grown old with her and his short, black hair was now frosted with age. He had remained loyal to her, despite her, and took pleasure in ensuring her comfort and safety in the absence of others.
He wore the same dark suit which she had always insisted he wore, down to the black tie and impeccable white shirt. Inside the house, he did not have to wear the jacket (although she insisted on sleeve garters to avoid soiling his cuffs), but outside, where he might be seen, or when the odd rare visitor dropped by, he was required to wear it, for appearance’s sake.
On this day, he had, balanced on his fingers, a silver salver, upon which lay a single letter next to a silver letter-opener. He presented it to Clarissa with a courteous lowering of his head.
She removed a pair of gardening gloves and swapped them with the letter on the salver. Henrick waited as she ran the letter-opener the length of the envelope, then replaced it on the tray next to her gloves.
She then turned away from Henrick for privacy and sauntered a few feet towards the splendid view below her while removing the letter. She paused as she read, intent upon the page.
From behind, Henrick thought he saw her totter slightly. He made a move towards her, but she steadied herself and read on. When she had finished the letter, she put it back into the envelope and slipped it into a pocket of her slacks.
Thank you, Henrick,’ she said steadily, without turning around.
Henrick dropped his head minutely and headed back into the cool darkness of the bungalow. He looked back out upon the lush lawn and the blaze of colour that edged it and saw that Clarissa hadn’t moved. She looked old to him now. Since the death of her husband, he had watched her age, seen the dullness in her eyes, the stoop in her shoulders and the slower, strained gait.
She held no fear to anybody anymore. Part of him missed that firecracker, that fearless jackal of a woman who brought her prey down before they even knew she was there, but he loved what he saw now, a vulnerable elderly lady - always a lady - whose claws had been removed and was left to rely upon that small piece of humanity that had been submerged by the beast for so many years.
Still she gazed out to sea, her hands in her pockets, white wisps of hair fingered by the warm breeze.
Her mind seemingly made up, she turned and walked into the bungalow.
‘I shan’t need you or your wife any more today, Henrick,’ she said, not even looking in his direction. ‘Please, take the rest of the day off.’ She went to her handbag and took seventy-five dollars out of her purse. ‘Here,’ she said, holding the money out to Henrick. ‘Please, take your lovely wife out to the cinema and for a nice meal.’
Henrick was taken aback. ‘Madam? Are you alright, Madam?’
She put the money firmly into his hand. ‘Please,’ she repeated. ‘Take it. I have plans for the rest of the day. You and Evie get such little time together. It would make me happy.’
Henrick took the money and quickly put it in a trouser pocket, as if embarrassed to have touched it at all.
‘Thank you, Madam. If you’re sure...’
‘I’m sure. Go on, off you go. Spoil that lady of yours.’ Henrick hesitated. ‘Go on now. It’s fine.’
With a bow of his head, Henrick retreated.
Clarissa Benson-Haines, that first-class bitch, went to a bureau in the corner of the room and took out a revolver. She checked to see that it was loaded, put it into her handbag, then went to the front door and without a backward glance, closed the door behind her.
The bungalow fell into a dark silence.
2. Breaking News
The Saint Quintian Gazette had been around for eighty-five years. It had started as a colonial rag but was now established as Saint Quintian’s finest newspaper, even if the headline was more often than not about stolen bikes or the sighting of (perhaps) a Reef Shark - well beyond the reef - where it might have attacked an innocent on an airbed, but actually did not.
It contained a list of the deaths on the island that week and a list of marriages, with the occasional pronouncement of a birth, but it provided little more than local gossip and an entertaining twenty-minute read.
The Editor sat at his desk and proof-read every article. He had to watch out for slander and unsubstantiated tittle-tattle. The paper had once been taken to court for declaring that a Mr Adio Baptiste had indulged in inappropriate sexual behaviour with a ghost. It was a very superstitious island, all Voodoo and zombies and it took the subject very seriously. The paper was fined one hundred dollars and told to pay Mr Baptiste two hundred dollars in compensation. The paper had not fought the case, but had taken a less ‘speculative’ approach since.
But, inevitably, crime had come to the island. There had been an economic downturn at the cusp of the eighties because of the demand for beet, the fall in the popularity of sugar and a concomitant fall in the price of sugar cane. It was a small island, a product of colonialism in the early nineteenth century, dependent on its one resource, sugar cane, and it was kicked hard when the world began to compete.
Unemployment had gone hand in hand with an increase in crime, to the extent where murder had become, if not commonplace, then certainly less rare, even though the murderer, island-bound, had nowhere to run to. Outside investment increased as the tourist board and the Board of Trade had worked to introduce new business. Clothing had become a source of investment as what were essentially low-paid sweat-shops blossomed like nettles over the island to sell large amounts of shirts and dresses and shoes to fat chains in Europe at an exorbitant mark-up.
The people were grateful however. It was still better-paid and less back-breaking than cutting cane and, even if they had short nights and long days, they could now afford to at least eat.
Crime fell. The tourist industry boomed and with it came the security of jobs within the grand hotels, the restaurants and the coast-associated businesses such as scuba-diving, big-game fishing and glass-bottomed boats.
The Gazette was there to record it all. Even it, with all its trivia and gossip, thrived. Where there was a new hotel, there was a story. Where there was a palm-tree-fringed wedding, there was a story. Success bred success and now, as the eighties began to cast its dubious, shallow, money-driven shadow across the world, it was a fine island to be on.
At his desk in the Gazette, the Editor contemplated that week’s stories with the usual mix of amusement and dismay. He really had very little choice when it came to what to accept. They were little more than crows pecking at road-kill, picking the tasty from the wasted, but there was, generally, for him at least, an element of delight in the job.
However, that was not all he was there to do. The previous editor, a very amiable man called Stephen (with a –ph) had suddenly gone on ‘sick leave’, stating stress, overwork and personal issues as motives for his relief.
The owner of the paper had drafted in the new temporary Editor to carry on his excellent work, while Stephen (-ph) spent a few months back home in West Sussex with his elderly parents and a schnauzer called Gerald.
Where this Editor had come from, nobody knew, but he was amiable, intelligent and open to ideas, which always pleased the journalist. If they could push the boundaries a little, then all power to them; the only man to take the rap would be the man at the top, with EDITOR on the door. They could say what they wanted within limits and bugger the consequences. The boss could always pull the story.
The hive of industry was buzzing on this particular day. It was the high-season and tourists everywhere were creating stories with their cocky ineptitude; the bends from gaping at a moray eel for too long, stuck on a cliff when they should have taken the steps down, lost in the forest when they should have stuck to the path, despite the fact that they had progressed no more than two hundred yards in four hours, stung by a rogue jellyfish, mugged by a homeless wanderer, regardless of the fact that their travellers cheques had become thinner than one of the local dogs and there was no way they would ever leave their hotel room without further funds. It was all fraudulent, incompetent and above all, amusing reading. As long as they paid for it, the tourists could be as stupid as they wanted.
He was though looking for just one thing among all the print; an advertisement. It was to be a carefully worded advert, agreed by a small group of people, which would do a little more than simply alert the media. It would rattle the cages from Saint Quintian to London and cause a flurry of activity not seen since wartime.
As he flicked through the final layouts for the week, he stopped, went back a page, paused and looked again at one particular advert.
‘WANTED –
A LODGER TO SHARE THE BILLS EACH WEDNESDAY. PHONE - 610-121495'
Christ! That was it. He stared at it a little longer than he should have, almost willing himself to have misread it, but that was it. For sure, that was it. A frost ran up his spine as what these few casual words had set in place raced through his mind.
He pushed back his chair and ran to the door. ‘Barkley!’
A young man with immaculate hair and serious glasses leapt from his chair and walked briskly to the office door.
‘Who put this advert in?’
Barkley looked at the proffered paperwork, then returned to his desk and took a large ledger out of a drawer. He shuffled and ruffled the pages until he found the one he wanted, then ran a finger down the page. As soon as he had found what he wanted, he returned to his boss.
‘No name, boss. They paid their buck-fifty and that’s it.’
His boss bit his lip. ‘Okay, Barkley. Thanks. Listen, don’t let anyone disturb me for at least half an hour. Something’s come up. Quite important.’
‘Hush-hush, boss?’
His editor smiled eagerly at him, a light of mischief in his eyes. ‘Very hush-hush.’ He put his finger to his lips, retreated into his office and closed the door.
The hubbub of the newsroom returned; the tappety-tap of typewriters, the urgent ring of the phones, the raised conversations between desks.
Barkley returned to his typing, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the heavy, wooden newsroom door open. Through them came a stern and determined Clarissa Benson-Haines. She marched towards the Editor’s office, almost oblivious to the organised chaos around her.
Upon seeing her, Barkley leapt from his chair. He wavered in front of her.
‘Madam, stop, please. The boss does not want to be disturbed for at least half an hour.’
She continued walking as if she had not heard him. Barkley’s hands hovered about her, daring him to lay them upon this fearsome woman who had for so long been the object of all their fears, the source of all their gossip, but he could not touch her, it was more than his job was worth.
Clarissa reached the Editor’s office door and barged in, slamming the door behind her.
Barkley stood at the glass staring in.
‘How dare you!’ screamed Clarissa. ‘Lawrie! How dare you!’
Stunned by the violent intrusion, Lawrie gaped at her, the phone in his hand, about to talk. He put the receiver down onto the desk and leaned back in his chair.
Clarissa opened her bag, fumbled for a moment, then withdrew the revolver. Lawrie barely had time to react before two bullets crashed into his chest and he was knocked from his chair.
Outside the office a silence fell as all stared through the glass at the small, grey-haired woman with the large gun in her hand.
She turned towards them, her face horrified, as if she had no control over what she had done, only that she knew what she had done, then pulled back the hammer on the gun and raised the weapon to her temple.
Without hesitation, she fired.
