‘Oh.’ Dawes gnawed his lower lip. ‘I cannot be sure, you understand—’
‘Speak up, you lump,’ growled Fettes, leaning menacingly over Dawes, who recoiled.
‘I—I—’ he stammered. ‘Truly, I don’t know the details. But it—it had to do with a young woman. A young black woman. He—the governor, that is—women were something of a weakness for him …’
‘And?’ Grey prodded.
The young woman, it appeared, was a slave in the household. And not disposed to accept the governor’s attentions. The governor was not accustomed to take ‘no’ for an answer—and didn’t. The young woman had vanished the next day, run away, and had not been recaptured as yet. But the day after, a black man in a turban and loincloth had come to King’s House and had requested audience.
‘He wasn’t admitted, of course. But he wouldn’t go away, either.’ Dawes shrugged. ‘Just squatted at the foot of the front steps and waited.’
When Warren had at length emerged, the man had risen, stepped forward, and in formal tones informed the governor that he was herewith cursed.
‘Cursed?’ said Grey, interested. ‘How?’
‘Well, now, there my knowledge reaches its limits, sir,’ Dawes replied. He had recovered some of his self-confidence by now and straightened up a little. ‘For, having pronounced the fact, he then proceeded to speak in an unfamiliar tongue—I think some of it may have been Spanish, though it wasn’t all like that. I must suppose that he was, er, administering the curse, so to speak?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know.’ By now Tom and Captain Cherry had completed their disagreeable task, and the governor reposed in an innocuous cocoon of carpeting. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen, but there are no servants to assist us. We’re going to take him down to the garden shed. Come, Mr Dawes; you can be assistant pallbearer. And tell us on the way where the snakes come into it.’
Panting and groaning, with the occasional near slip, they manhandled the unwieldy bundle down the stairs. Mr Dawes, making ineffectual grabs at the carpeting, was prodded by Captain Cherry into further discourse.
‘Well, I thought that I caught the word “snake” in the man’s tirade,’ he said. ‘And then … the snakes began to come.’
Small snakes, large snakes. A snake was found in the governor’s bath. Another appeared under the dining table, to the horror of a merchant’s lady who was dining with the governor and who had hysterics all over the dining room before fainting heavily across the table. Mr Dawes appeared to find something amusing in this, and Grey, perspiring heavily, gave him a glare that returned him more soberly to his account.
‘Every day, it seemed, and in different places. We had the house searched, repeatedly. But no one could—or would, perhaps—detect the source of the reptiles. And while no one was bitten, still the nervous strain of not knowing whether you would turn back your coverlet to discover something writhing amongst your bedding …’
‘Quite. Ugh!’ They paused and set down their burden. Grey wiped his forehead on his sleeve. ‘And how did you make the connection, Mr Dawes, between this plague of snakes and Mr Warren’s mistreatment of the slave girl?’
Dawes looked surprised and pushed his spectacles back up his sweating nose.
‘Oh, did I not say? The man—I was told later that he was an Obeah man, whatever that may be—spoke her name, in the midst of his denunciation. Azeel, it was.’
‘I see. All right, ready? One, two, three—up!’
Dawes had given up any pretence of helping but scampered down the garden path ahead of them to open the shed door. He had quite lost any lingering reticence and seemed anxious to provide any information he could.
‘He did not tell me directly, but I believe he had begun to dream of snakes and of the girl.’
‘How do—you know?’ Grey grunted. ‘That’s my foot, Major!’
‘I heard him … er … speaking to himself. He had begun to drink rather heavily, you see. Quite understandable under the circumstances, don’t you think?’
Grey wished he could drink heavily but had no breath left with which to say so.
There was a sudden cry of startlement from Tom, who had gone in to clear space in the shed, and all three officers dropped the carpet with a thump, reaching for nonexistent weapons.
‘Me lord, me lord! Look who I found, a-hiding in the shed!’ Tom was leaping up the path towards Grey, face abeam with happiness, the youth Rodrigo coming warily behind him. Grey’s heart leapt at the sight, and he felt a most unaccustomed smile touch his face.
‘Your servant, sah.’ Rodrigo, very timid, made a deep bow.
‘I’m very pleased to see you, Rodrigo. Tell me—did you see anything of what passed here last night?’
The young man shuddered and turned his face away.
‘No, sah,’ he said, so low-voiced Grey could barely hear him. ‘It was zombies. They … eat people. I heard them, but I know better than to look. I ran down into the garden and hid myself.’
‘You heard them?’ Grey said sharply. ‘What did you hear, exactly?’
Rodrigo swallowed, and if it had been possible for a green tinge to show on skin such as his, he would undoubtedly have turned the shade of a sea turtle.
‘Feet, sah,’ he said. ‘Bare feet. But they don’t walk, step-step, like a person. They only shuffle, sh-sh, sh-sh.’ He made small pushing motions with his hands in illustration, and Grey felt a slight lifting of the hairs on the back of his neck.
‘Could you tell how many … men … there were?’
Rodrigo shook his head. ‘More than two, from the sound.’
Tom pushed a little forward, round face intent. ‘Was there anybody else with ’em, d’you think? Somebody with a regular step, I mean?’
Rodrigo looked startled and then horrified.
‘You mean a houngan? I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe. I didn’t hear shoes. But …’
‘Oh. Because—’ Tom stopped abruptly, glanced at Grey, and coughed. ‘Oh.’
Despite more questions, this was all that Rodrigo could contribute, and so the carpet was picked up again—this time, with the servant helping—and bestowed in its temporary resting place. Fettes and Cherry chipped away a bit more at Dawes, but the secretary was unable to offer any further information regarding the governor’s activities, let alone speculate as to what malign force had brought about his demise.
‘Have you heard of zombies before, Mr Dawes?’ Grey inquired, mopping his face with the remains of his handkerchief.
‘Er … yes,’ the secretary replied cautiously. ‘But surely you don’t believe what the servant … Oh, surely not!’ He cast an appalled glance at the shed.
‘Are zombies in fact reputed to devour human flesh?’
Dawes resumed his sickly pallor.
‘Well, yes. But … oh, dear!’
‘Sums it up nicely,’ muttered Cherry, under his breath. ‘I take it you don’t mean to make a public announcement of the governor’s demise, then, sir?’
‘You are correct, Captain. I don’t want public panic over a plague of zombies at large in Spanish Town, whether that is actually the case or not. Mr Dawes, I believe we need trouble you no more for the moment; you are excused.’ He watched the secretary stumble off, before beckoning his officers closer. Tom moved a little away, discreet as always, and took Rodrigo with him.
‘Have you discovered anything else that might have bearing on the present circumstance?’
They glanced at each other, and Fettes, wheezing gently, nodded to Cherry. Cherry strongly resembled that eponymous fruit, but, being younger and more slender than Fettes, had more breath than his superior.
‘Yes, sir. I went looking for Ludgate, the old superintendent. Didn’t find him—he’s buggered off to Canada, they said—but I got a right earful concerning the present superintendent.’
Grey groped for a moment for the name.
‘Cresswell?’
‘That’s him.’
‘Peculation or corruption’ appeared to sum up the subject of Captain Cresswell’s tenure as superintendent very well, according to Cherry’s informants in Spanish Town and Kingston. Amongst other abuses, he had arranged trade between the maroons on the uplands and the merchants below, in the form of bird skins, snakeskins, and other exotica, timber from the upland forests, and so on—but had, by report, accepted payment on behalf of the maroons but failed to deliver it.
‘Had he any part in the arrest of the two young maroons accused of theft?’
Cherry’s teeth flashed in a grin.
‘Odd you should ask, sir. Yes, they said—well, some of them did—that the two young men had come down to complain about Cresswell’s behaviour, but the governor wouldn’t see them. They were heard to declare they would take back their goods by force—so when a substantial chunk of the contents of one warehouse went missing, it was assumed that was what they’d done.
‘They—the maroons—insisted they hadn’t touched the stuff, but Cresswell seized the opportunity and had them arrested for theft.’
Grey closed his eyes, enjoying the momentary coolness of a breeze from the sea.
‘The governor wouldn’t see the young men, you said. Is there any suggestion of an improper connection between the governor and Captain Cresswell?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Fettes, rolling his eyes. ‘No proof yet—but we haven’t been looking long, either.’
‘I see. And we still do not know the whereabouts of Captain Cresswell?’ Cherry and Fettes shook their heads in unison.
‘The general conclusion is that Accompong scragged him,’ Cherry said.
‘Who?’
‘Oh. Sorry, sir,’ Cherry apologised. ‘That’s the name of the maroon’s headman, so they say. Captain Accompong, he calls himself, if you please.’ Cherry’s lips twisted a little.
Grey sighed. ‘All right. No reports of any further depredations by the maroons, by whatever name?’
‘Not unless you count murdering the governor,’ said Fettes.
‘Actually,’ Grey said slowly, ‘I don’t think that the maroons are responsible for this particular death.’ He was somewhat surprised to hear himself say so, in truth—and yet he found that he did think it.
Fettes blinked, this being as close to an expression of astonishment as he ever got, and Cherry looked openly sceptical. Grey did not choose to go into the matter of Mrs Abernathy nor yet to explain his conclusions about the maroons’ disinclination for violence. Strange, he thought. He had heard Captain Accompong’s name only moments before, but with that name his thoughts began to coalesce around a shadowy figure. Suddenly there was a mind out there, someone with whom he might engage.
In battle, the personality and temperament of the commanding officer was nearly as important as the number of troops he commanded. So. He needed to know more about Captain Accompong, but that could wait for the moment.