of his personal, not professional, life.
One of these people had been Walter Piersall.
'I mentioned him to you last year, Alexander,' said Tucker in the darkness of the back seat. 'In Ocho Rios.'
'I don't remember.'
'I told you I'd met an academic fellow in Carrick Foyle. I was going to spend a couple of weekends with him.'
That was it, thought McAuliff. The name 'Carrick Foyle'; he had heard it before. 'I remember now. Something about a lecture series at the Kingston Institute.'
'That's right. Walter was a very classy type - an anthro man who didn't bore you to death. I cabled him I was coming back.'
'You also got in touch with Hanley. He's the one who set off the alarms'
'I called Bob after I got into Montego. For a little sporting life. There was no way I could reach him later. We travelled fast, and when we got where we were going, there was no telephone. I figured he'd be mad as hell.'
'He was worried, not mad. It was quite a disappearing act.'
'He should know better. I have friends on this island, not enemies. At least, none either of us knows about.'
'What happened? Where did you go?'
Tucker told him.
When Sam arrived in Montego Bay, there was a message from Piersall at the arrivals desk. He was to call the anthropologist in Carrick Foyle after he was settled. He did, but was told by a servant in Carrick Foyle that Piersall might not return until late that night.
Tucker then phoned his old friend Hanley, and the two men got drunk, as was their established custom at reunions.
In the morning, while Hanley was still sleeping, Sam left the hotel to pick up cigars.
'It's not the sort of place that's large on room service, boy.'
'I gathered that,' said Alex.
'Out on the street, our friends here - ' Tucker gestured towards the front seat - 'were waiting in a station wagon - '
'Mr Tucker was being followed,' interrupted the black by the window. 'Word of this reached Dr Piersall. He sent us to Mo'Bay to look after his friend. Mr Tucker gets up early.'
Sam grinned. 'You know me. Even with the juice, I can't sleep long.'
'I know,' said Alex, remembering too many hotel rooms and survey campsites in which Tucker had wandered about at the first light of dawn.
'There was a little misunderstanding,' continued Sam. 'The boys here said Piersall was waiting for me. I figured, what the hell, the lads thought enough of me to stick out the night, I'd go with 'em straight off. Old Robert wouldn't be up for an hour or so... I'd call him from Piersall's house. But, goddamn it, we didn't go to Carrick Foyle. We headed for a bamboo camp down the Martha Brae. It took us damn near two hours to get there, a godforsaken place, Alexander.'
When they arrived at the bamboo camp, Walter Piersall greeted Sam warmly. But within minutes Tucker realized that something had happened to the man. He was not the same person that Sam had known a year ago. There was a zealousness, an intensity not in evidence twelve months ago.
Walter Piersall was caught up in things Jamaican. The quiet anthropologist had become a fierce partisan in the battles being waged between social and political factions within Jamaica. He was suddenly a jealous guardian of the islanders' rights, an enemy of the outside exploiters.
'I've seen it happen dozens of times, Alexander,' said Sam. 'From the Tasman to the Caribbean; it's a kind of island fever. Possession... oneness, I think. Men migrate for taxes or climate or whatever the hell and they turn into self-proclaimed protectors of their sanctuaries... the Catholic convert telling the pope he's not with it...'
In his cross-island proselytizing, Piersall began to hear whispers of an enormous land conspiracy. In his own backyard in the parish of Trelawny. At first he dismissed them; they involved men with whom one might disagree, but whose integrity was not debated. Men of extraordinary stature.
The conspiratorial syndrome was an ever-present nuisance in any infant, growing government; Piersall understood that. In Jamaica it was given credence by the influx of foreign capital looking for tax havens, by a parliament ordering more reform programmes than it could possibly control, and by a small, wealthy island aristocracy trying to protect itself - the bribe was an all-too-prevalent way of life.
Piersall had decided, once and for all, to put the whispered rumours to rest. Four months ago he'd gone to the Ministry of Territories and filed a Resolution of Intent