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plaits, her hair looked neat. She stood tall and the lines of her body seemed familiar. Then, she looked right at me, and as if it was a signal of sorts, turned to run. Instinctively I followed. I chased her and the distance between us shook like a rickety, wooden bridge. She flew, dipped, turned and twisted. Her movements were rugged musical notes. She had moonshine on her back. I removed my rucksack from my shoulder, rummaged for Marpessa, soon solid in my hands. I pressed the power switch, watched it light red. I snapped away. Marpessa’s lens whirred the way cameras did when they spoke. Above us, pigeons flying drew another skyline with their beaks. They cooed at each other, grey wings spreading.
    I followed the young woman’s moving back. Follow, follow, follow, I muttered to myself, small beads of sweat springing up in my armpits like translucent crops. Marpessa’s frayed strap bit into my neck. The summer streets were fully occupied by clusters of people, their perspiration dripping along the pavements. I shoved Marpessa back into the rucksack. Ahead, my pied piper of sorts waited outside the inviting, yellow sign of Honey’s Caribbean takeaway.
    She’d paused, as though giving me an opportunity to close the gap between us. She sat on the steps outside, hand on her jaw, flowersbeside her, wrapper riding up smooth, brown legs. Something about her on that stairway made the hairs on my arms stand to attention. I spotted moss growing on the stairs, green dreams of concrete she’d somehow commanded. I fished Marpessa out once more, snapped away.
    â€œHey!” I said, “I’d like to photograph you some more.”
    She sprang up, shoved Marpessa away, grabbed her flowers and took off again. Past the laundrette with washing machines mid- cycle, the funeral home set in large green grounds, past rows of quaint shops sporting colourful window displays that shared one neon heartbeat they rotated during breaks.
    At the compact, red-stoned building on a raised kerb with a roof that looked like a low brow, she dropped her flowers and disappeared around the corner. Slanted, elegant typography on the window read Williams & Co. Solicitors. Near my feet something rustled. I stared. The azaleas she’d dropped were no longer flowers but crushed blue butterflies near death. Some had wings shorn, some were partially squashed. A few attempting to unstick themselves, fluttered pathetically. I tasted their desperation for one last broken flight.
    Inside the building, the secretary Pauline sat behind a black-flecked grey desk that might have been made of marble and fog. She wore a crisp white blouse and a brown woollen skirt. Red-framed glasses finished the look.
    â€œWell, well, well,” she said. “Wonders will never cease.” A finger and its long nail curled away from the keyboard. “You allergic to this area or something?” she asked. I always enjoyed her warm, Bajan accent, even when it was biting.
    I dropped the rucksack and helped myself to a cup of water. “Nice to see you too. He in?”
    â€œYeah, he’s in,” she said leaning back into her chair.
    The hallway curved snakelike and was flanked by rooms on either side; there were cracks of light underneath the doors that were closed. On the left, I passed a grey-haired man standing behind a desk piled high with files, talking insistently into a mobile phone. Spotting mehe smiled distantly and shut the door firmly. To my right a slender black woman in a charcoal grey trouser suit paced back and forth. I caught the wink of a slim gold watch from her wrist. At the end of the hall stood Mervyn’s office. I knocked.
    â€œCome in,” his voice boomed.
    I could smell and feel his presence even before seeing him. Paco Rabanne aftershave mingled with Cuban cigars. He sat in the skylight window at an enormous sprawling oak desk that managed not to swallow the whole room. There was a chocolate leather chair at the