Project 45 Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Two months after my police interview I found myself in the blistering midday heat of Holguin in western Cuba. My head was thumping and my eyes were rammed with sleep after the ten hour overnight flight. Alongside me, tense and strained still, face grimly set, was Angelica’s older sister Lisa.
I turned to look at her through the interweaving shadows made by the banana trees. She was smaller than Angelica had been, with pointed pixie like features. Her face less curved, she didn’t have Angelica’s smile. But she hadn’t cut off her long dark hair like Angelica had, she now wore it built into a messy bun on her head. She had Angelica’s brown eyes and coffee coloured skin. Looking at Lisa was almost like looking at a different version of the girl I had been obsessed with, and sometimes that threw me.
In case you were wondering, I don’t usually make a habit of travelling to the Caribbean with family members of murdered teenage crushes. This was a business trip, the business being that afore mentioned murder. This should’ve been the last stop on a gruelling journey which had taken us from airport to taxi to hotel for the last two months.
We faced this last trip with determination, not hope. We wanted to find the answers here, but we were anxious, scared to find the last piece of a puzzle where we wouldn’t like the final picture. In typical fashion, we had gone too far to give up, we had travelled across a whole ocean for this, and Lisa’s set face told me that it would happen whether I was ready or not.
We dodged the low lying branches and stumbled over the uneven earth. My stomach ached and groaned, the airplane food rattling around inside it and pushing uncomfortably against my bowels. I lit my second cigarette, determined not to feel light headed and sick this time. We were walking dangerously close to a road with no pavement, and no space to run from traffic. The old cars, some rattling where they were held together with string, flew past us at illegal speeds, leaving trails of dust in our eyes.
The sun seemed to be in my face and on my back at the same time, and I felt the sweat running from me in pools. Lisa and our stony faced guide were far ahead of me as I stumbled through the palms like a bewildered animal.
The fields were filled with emaciated cows feasting on the dry brown grass. Houses and settlements stuck out every so often, the houses were bordered by official buildings, heavy iron gates and armed guards watching the confused white man squinting at the scenery. The largest trees housed vultures, some spreading their huge wings to circle the area. As you can imagine, this gave me little comfort.
Lisa spoke to the guide in fluent Spanish, I couldn’t understand a word of what was said and this began to anger me in my agitated state, I had no idea where we were going, only that we were to meet a contact who would give us the information that might end our search and help us sleep a little better.
The smoke from my cigarette hung thick in the air and I coughed and put it out, looking down at my impractical beach shoes and cursing. By this time we had been walking for an hour, the sweat streaming down my back. I glanced at Lisa, she wasn’t even glowing, her dark skin just glimmered beautifully in the heat. I quietly hated her.
Nothing seemed to lay for miles except a few horses tethered loosely to a tree, all around were the same dry rocky fields, though in the middle of the field was some kind of renovated shed. It was really three houses in one, the upper level looked as if someone had dropped it on the dark grey stone beneath. The top was covered in heavy magenta paint and a rickety balcony with a metal handrail that looked more like prison bars.
Our guide motioned towards the building and shouted at us in rapid Spanish. I noticed, not for the first time, the hand gun tucked into the waist band of his trousers, my eyes met with Lisa’s briefly, but she was perfectly still and calm. She blinked nonchalantly and followed the guide. I wanted to grab her, hold her back and tell her there was no way we were doing this. But I didn’t, as usual I closed my mouth and followed the order.
We walked through the faded curtain that I suppose worked as a front door. Threadbare patches let the sun stream right through and bleached the orange flower pattern an ugly yellow. The house itself was a room, a mess of overstuffed furniture, rickety stairs winding through the middle. The sofa pattern reminded me of my grandmother’s flat, that also stunk of smoke and coffee.
The chairs and tables were pushed so closely together it was hard to move, and I wacked my shin on a dark chest of drawers that seemed to spring out of nowhere, I resisted swearing. Instead I wiped the sweat away from my forehead with my cap. Lisa stroke through the room as if this was no different than any other day. Our guide was standing by the faded curtain, his gun raised now.
Our contact, Jorge, was sitting at a plain white table on the far side of the room. On his desk there was a phone and a mug of coffee, his hands were placed out in front of him and two plastic chairs were set at the table. He looked lazily at us under his stone grey eyes and heavy brows.
He reached onto a shelf and placed a plain brown file on his desk. Lisa’s eyes darted to the file and I could feel her confidence slipping away as if it were a physical force. Jorge motioned us to sit and Lisa almost ran to her chair, I was feeling a scared now, if she was falling apart I didn’t know how to hold it together. He didn’t offer us any coffee or even water, despite the fact my throat was so dry it was burning.
Jorge smiled widely, his white teeth glimmering against his dark skin. Lisa took the money out of her purse; five thousand pesos. She pushed it towards him on the table and Jorge counted it, torturously slowly.
Lisa took the file from him, I saw her eyes scanning the page and after a moment she looked up. ‘This is it.’ She said.