We are agreed that he will return in three days when we are both free from encumbrance or obligation. I will confess that I am eager to hear his story. So much has been written and said about the destiny of this ship but only one of the principals has been heard from. It is certain that my friend’s account will provide us with much fresh insight into the mutiny itself & solve the mystery of what happened subsequent to the Bounty, & to those who took her. Aside from my friend, I think there is no man living on these islands who has an inkling of the fate of the Bounty after she sailed away from Otaheite with her crew of mutineers & Natives. I am eager to comprehend these events & to translate them into a Poem. I am limbered up for such a long work with my great Poem. It will be a remarkable undertaking.
Jane closed the front door behind her and paused, taking a deep breath. She was probably mad to do this. Whatever the unwritten rules were, she was almost certainly breaking an unconscionable number of them by turning up unannounced on the Hammer’s doorstep to tell him it was time to take care of his unacknowledged daughter. But Tenille didn’t have anyone else to look out for her. There was so much promise there, Jane knew she couldn’t just walk away and leave the child to sink or swim.
She turned up her collar against the wind and made her way across the estate to D Block, the tallest of the eight L-shaped buildings that comprised Marshpool Farm. It stood at the north side of the estate, a couple of storeys higher than the other blocks. To her surprise, the far entrance lobby was free from rubbish and graffiti. There was even the faint smell of pine disinfectant. She thought she’d chance the lift since she was going to the eighth floor. Not only did it arrive when summoned, but its interior could not have been cleaner if it had been in one of the towering office blocks at Canary Wharf. If she needed evidence of the power of John Hampton, it was here before her eyes.
Flat 87 was opposite the lift. The door was painted a deep burgundy, in sharp contrast to the scruffy grey-blue of the other doors on the landing. Vertical blinds on the windows obscured the interior. Jane squared her shoulders and pressed the doorbell. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the door swung open, revealing a massive mixed-race man in his early twenties dressed only in a pair of jogging pants. His broad torso could have served as a living diagram in an anatomy class, the muscles large and well defined. He glared down at her. ‘Wassup?’ he demanded in a mid-Atlantic drawl.
‘I need to see John Hampton,’ she said, her voice half an octave higher than normal, her accent scarily middle-class even to her ears.
The man looked amused. ‘He’s not expecting you.’ He began to close the door.
Jane put out a hand to stop him, knowing she didn’t have a cat in hell’s chance against the power of his shoulders but making the gesture anyway. ‘I do need to see him,’ she said. ‘It’s a family matter.’
He gave her a disbelieving look. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Please, just tell him Jane Gresham needs to see him about a family matter. I’ll wait.’
‘You might be here for a long time, Jane Gresham.’ He pushed gently against the door and she dropped her hand. She was banking on the woman at the bus stop having told the truth when she said the Hammer kept an eye on Tenille. If that were true, he could not fail to know about Jane’s place in her life. It might be enough to gain her admission.
She paced to and fro between the door and the lift for what felt like a very long time but was probably only a couple of minutes. When she heard the door open, she whirled around to find the same young man beckoning her. ‘Your lucky day,’ he said. ‘Mr Hampton’s a very busy man, but he can give you five minutes.’
‘That’s all I’ll need.’ She followed him into the flat, whose interior was unlike any other she’d seen on Marshpool Farm. The thick carpet in the hall matched the burgundy of the front door, and the pale walls were decorated with framed photographs of performance cars. The man gestured to her to enter the living room, then closed the door behind her. The room smelt faintly of sandalwood. Sitting opposite her on a cream leather sofa beneath a huge gilt-framed reproduction of one of Jack Vettriano’s film noir paintings was a short, square black man wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt. His head was as bald as a bowling ball, his brown eyes deep-set like finger holes. Jane had never been this close to John Hampton, but she’d seen him in the distance. It didn’t prepare her for his charisma. Afterwards, she couldn’t have described the room; his presence dominated her consciousness. She understood at once how John Hampton had come to wield the power he did.
‘Dr Jane Gresham,’ he said, his voice a bass rumble. ‘What brings an English teacher to my door speaking of family?’
‘I want to talk to you about Tenille,’ she said, trying not to show how unnerved she felt. ‘May I sit down?’
He waved towards a matching armchair in the corner. ‘Be my guest. Tenille?’ he said, making a show of racking his brains. ‘One of the kids on the estate, right?’
‘People say she’s your daughter.’
‘People say a lot of things, Dr Gresham. A lot of them are bullshit.’ His face was impassive, his body still.
‘It’s true she doesn’t take after you in looks,’ Jane said. ‘But I suspect she’s inherited your ambition. And your toughness. And your intelligence.’
‘Flattery won’t get you child support, if that’s what you’re after.’
‘There’s more than one kind of child support, Mr Hampton. And right now, Tenille needs something from you.’ She couldn’t quite believe her nerve.
He sighed and rotated his head, as if loosening a stiffness in his neck. ‘You’re bold, I’ll give you that. But you’re confusing me with someone who gives a shit.’
Jane pressed on regardless. While she was still in the room, she had a fighting chance to break through his apparent indifference. ‘Her aunt has a boyfriend called Geno Marley. He’s been sniffing around Tenille. And last night he tried to rape her.’ Now she sensed she had his full attention, though she could not have said quite what had changed.
‘I don’t understand why you’re telling me this, Dr Gresham. This Marley character isn’t one of my people.’
‘Tenille is, though. And a word from you would take him out of her life.’
‘And why should I do that?’
Jane shrugged. ‘If she’s your daughter, the answer’s obvious. And if she’s not, well, it would be the right thing to do anyway, wouldn’t it?’
‘You think I’m some kind of social worker? Here to solve people’s problems?’
She sensed he was playing with her, but she didn’t know how to enter his game. She got to her feet. There was nothing to be gained by staying. ‘You must do what you think best,’ she said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll have a word, Dr Gresham. I don’t like scumbags who molest young girls any more than you do. You can tell Tenille she’ll be safe.’
‘Thank you.’ She turned to go, then paused, her hand on the door. ‘Whoever Tenille’s father is, he should be proud of her. She’s remarkable.’
