‘That’ll be too late,’ Jac said with a heavy sigh, his eyes closing fleetingly again. Plan three. He could still feel all the bubbling tension of the long drive, and his hand shook heavily as he unfolded the newspaper clipping from his pocket and spread it before her. ‘You see this man here — Larry Durrant! He’s going to die tonight at six o’clock, unless I can speak first to the man who has this mailbox.’ Jac prodded the article with one finger, his voice rising. ‘You see the day for him dying here… la fecha. It’s today! And that… that’s me mentioned there — Darrell Ayliss.’ Jac took Ayliss’s passport out and turned it towards her, as if her doubting him might be part of the problem. ‘You see now why it’s vital I contact this man, and why I… I don’t have much time left. Because after six o’clock tonight, it’ll be… be too — ’
The emotions suddenly rose in Jac’s throat, choked off the rest of his words. He hadn’t planned this part of it, even though, as the tears welled in his eyes and started running down his cheeks, his breaking down had softened Amparo more than anything else so far; she looked close to relenting.
As he’d mentioned time and looked towards the clock, he’d suddenly had an image of Larry looking at the clock by the death chamber at that moment, wondering what had happened to him, whether Jac was just another in a long line of people to desert him, let him down; until now, in his dying hours, there was finally nobody left. Forty hours since he’d last spoken to Larry, when he’d told him he was chasing down some final, vital leads… and now!
‘I’m sorry, senor. So sorry.’ Amparo reached one hand across the counter to touch his arm. ‘If I could help — I truly would.’
And looking back at Amparo at that moment, her eyes glistening with emotion, he believed her. She would. If she could.
‘That’s okay. I… I understand.’ And, embarrassed by his tears and worried that if he stayed a second longer, he’d break down completely, Jac turned and walked away, his step echoing emptily on the marble floor of the correos… footsteps through Libreville… Larry’s last steps towards the death chamber, with now nothing left to stop him dying…
He should have turned his back and walked away on day one, left Larry as he was then, at peace and ready to go to his God, instead of filling his head with false hope and empty promises.
The tears streamed down Jac’s face as he walked away, his shoulders slumping more with each step. All over. All over. Apart from Stratton’s snowball in hell — more false hope — nothing left to do.
Jac wiped at his tears with the back of one hand, and, the catharsis already half spent as he reached the steps of the Sancti-Spiritus correos and took a fresh breath of the air outside, all that was left was to take a leaf out of his father’s book, look to the bright side, consoling himself that he’d done everything he could, everything; far, far more than anyone else would have. And now at least he’d be able to sleep… no doubt for three days solid. Find a small local hotel and -
The touch against his arm made him jump. Amparo!
She handed him a piece of paper, still glancing around for those unseen eyes. ‘This is the holder of that apartado. On the coast near Tunas de Zaza.’
Jac looked at it: Brent Calbrey, Villa Delarcos. ‘How far?’
‘Forty, forty-five minutes drive. Six kilometres from Punto Ladrillo heading to San Pedro. You can’t miss it. Big white villa with four or five holiday casitas in its grounds.’
What had changed Amparo’s mind? — the tears and his deflated slump as he’d walked away, or being able to give him the message away from prying eyes — Jac didn’t know, and at that moment he didn’t care. He leant over, giving her a big hug.
‘Amparo, you’re beautiful. Guapa… guapa!’
Amparo smiled awkwardly, a couple of people approaching the correos also smiling, probably thinking they were two long lost lovers with the embrace and both their eyes glassy. But as they parted, Amparo’s eyes had shifted from soft to thoughtful, faintly troubled. She touched his arm.
‘And, senor. Good luck. Suerte.’
When Nel-M approached the Sancti Spiritus correos counter almost four hours later, Amparo wasn’t as helpful.
Nel-M suspected that Ayliss might well have played the death-row card, so he kept to a similar story, saying that he was connected with the DA’s office seeking urgent information before the execution that night. But Amparo just kept repeating something about regulations, didn’t budge, despite him at one point showing her $500 in his cupped palm.
One consolation, Nel-M thought: it looked doubtful that Ayliss would have got anything either — but when he’d asked Amparo if anyone had called earlier asking for the same information, she’d shook her head, No, despite the flicker of recognition in her face he thought he’d seen when he’d first mentioned Durrant and death-row.
As Nel-M headed down the steps of the Sancti Spiritus correos, he had much the same feeling, nothing left to do, that Jac had had in that same spot four hours earlier — but then that nagging doubt pinched again, and he looked back thoughtfully. He wondered whether, however much he’d tried to shield it, Amparo had sensed how frantic he was. Certainly, that’s how he felt: the nightmare in Vancouver, the run-around with Truelle and the long flight to Cuba, now the breakneck drive to Sancti Spiritus; the three-day fly-kill holiday from hell. But, aware of that, he thought he’d covered with his best warm and gracious smile, the cool and collected DA official trying to get information, rather than the patience-long-gone, bubbling-acid-nerves hit-man.
Nel-M’s eyes shifted to a bar across the road. One way he might get to know.
A dead-and-alive town, Sancti Spiritus’s ramshackle buildings looked like they’d been slowly crumbling since the 50s, with a hotchpotch of blue and pink shutters that tried, but failed, to offer some relief. Apart from the post office, the bar’s blue shutters appeared to be the only ones in the street to have received a recent lick of paint.
Over a beer, Nel-M talked to the barman, and — after a lot of finger-pointing and juggling between the barman’s basic English and the few Spanish words that Nel-M was able to translate — he got some idea of who’d visited the post office earlier that day.
Americanos, Nuevo coches, Nel-M quickly picked up were the key words. He’d noticed that there were very few new cars on the road apart from his own. The barman explained that nearly all new cars were rental cars for tourists or taxis; the rest of Cuba either didn’t have a car or relied on old relics, most of them left over from the Batista days.
Nel-M nodded and sipped at his beer. That explained the Buddy Holly time-warp when it came to cars. But that also meant, as with his own BMW series-5 now parked in front, Ayliss’s car would have been one of the few new ones to have pulled up outside the post office earlier.
Nel-M stood up from his bar stool as he described Ayliss. ‘Big man… quite fat. Gordo. Black hair oiled back.’ Nel-M swept one hand over his own hair. He didn’t know the Spanish for cream suit, so tugged at his own light-grey jacket and said, ‘Blanco… white suit. New car. Nuevo coche. Four hours ago… cuatro horas!’
And finally there was a gleam of recognition in the barman’s eyes. ‘Si… si. Car like yours. Muy similar.’ He pointed to Nel-M’s car outside, then frowned as he tried to remember the make. He took a beer mat and drew a few interlocking circles.