Benji and the Broken Radio

Miss Icie’s radio had been playing since 1987.

That was what she said, and the neighbourhood believed her, because the radio — a large, solid thing with a genuine wood casing and a dial you turned and a speaker that crackled in the rain — was older than most of the people in Cliffside and showed no signs of stopping. It sat on the shelf behind her table at the Saturday market and played every week and had been playing long enough that people no longer heard it as music. It was simply part of the air of Saturday morning, the same as the smell of pastries and the sound of the domino tiles.

On Thursday morning it stopped.

Not during the market — on a Thursday, when Miss Icie set it on her windowsill at home while she prepared for the week, and it gave a specific sound that anyone who has ever had an old radio die will recognize — a sort of retreating hiss, a fade, a silence — and then nothing.

She tried everything. She turned it off and on. She checked the cord. She hit it, gently, on the top right corner, which had always worked before. Nothing.

She told the neighbourhood at the Thursday afternoon gathering near the domino tables, and the neighbourhood received this news with appropriate gravity.

Benji heard about it the way Benji always heard about things: by being present and paying attention. He had been near the domino table, which was his habit on Thursday afternoons, and he had listened to Miss Icie describe the radio dying, and he had watched Mr. Chin, who ran the corner shop, respond with the expression of a man who knows something and is deciding whether he knows it publicly or privately.

Mr. Chin had looked at his phone.

Then he had not looked at his phone.

Then he had put it in his pocket and said, “That’s too bad, Miss Icie. Radios these days aren’t built the same.”

And Benji had filed this.

“Why is Benji looking at Mr. Chin’s shop?” Clevie said.

It was Friday morning, and Benji had been positioned at the corner across from the shop since — as far as any of them knew — first light. Not aggressive. Not alarmed. Simply watching with the expression of a dog attending to a thing.

Omar looked at the shop. It looked like Mr. Chin’s shop always looked: lights on, open sign in the window, Mr. Chin behind the counter doing his morning inventory.

“What does Mr. Chin have to do with Miss Icie’s radio?” he said.

“That’s what we need to find out,” Nadine said.

“Maybe nothing,” Clevie offered. “Maybe Benji just likes that corner.”

Nadine gave him a look.

“Maybe not,” Clevie agreed.

The thing about Mr. Chin’s shop was that it sold everything, which meant it also bought everything — or rather, there was a back arrangement, the kind that every long-running corner shop had, where things could be left and collected and certain questions were not asked. Most of what moved through this arrangement was legitimate: someone leaving a bag for collection, someone storing something for a few hours, someone running a small resale operation in goods that were not quite at market but not quite stolen either.

Nadine knew about this arrangement because her grandmother had once asked Mr. Chin to hold a package for a cousin who was coming on the bus and Mr. Chin had taken it without comment and given it back without comment and that was the arrangement.

“So someone could bring something to the shop,” Omar said.

“And Mr. Chin would hold it,” Nadine said.

“Without knowing exactly what it is.”

“Probably. He doesn’t usually ask.”

“And he looked at his phone when Miss Icie said the radio died,” Omar said. “Which means someone sent him a message. About the radio.”

“Which means someone knew the radio was going to die,” Clevie said. “Or knew it had died.” He stopped. “Or made it die.”

This was where the three of them paused, because this was the part that changed what kind of story it was.

“Who would break an old lady’s radio?” Clevie said.

“Someone who wanted to sell her a new one,” Omar said.

“Mr. Chin doesn’t sell electronics.”

“He doesn’t. But someone who worked through Mr. Chin might.”

Nadine looked at the shop. “Someone who knew the radio was old. Knew it was going to fail sometime. Maybe — pushed that timeline.”

“How do you push a radio’s timeline?” Clevie said.

“Power surge,” Omar said immediately. He had read about this. “Run a small one through the cord. Old radios aren’t protected for that. It looks like a natural failure.”

They were quiet.

“That’s complicated for a radio,” Clevie said.

“Someone who was in the house,” Nadine said. “Someone who had access to the cord. To the socket.” She thought. “Miss Icie’s nephew. Emmanuel. He came on Wednesday to fix her kitchen tap.”

“And the radio died Thursday,” Omar said.

“I’m not saying it was Emmanuel,” Nadine said. “I’m saying it could have been someone with access.”

“We need to see what Mr. Chin is holding,” Omar said.

They went to Mr. Chin at ten o’clock, which was when the shop was between the morning rush and the lunchtime rush and he was usually at the counter with nothing urgent.

Clevie bought a box of crackers. Omar bought a soft drink. Nadine bought a pack of cheese. This was the understood method of asking Mr. Chin for a conversation: you bought something first.

“Miss Icie’s radio died,” Nadine said.

“So I heard,” Mr. Chin said.

“That’s a shame. It’s been going since 1987.”

“Long time,” he agreed.

“Mr. Chin,” Nadine said carefully, “do you have anything in the back that came in recently? In the last few days?”

Mr. Chin looked at her.

He looked at Omar and Clevie.

He looked out the window at Benji, who was across the street and had not moved.

“That dog’s been there since this morning,” he said.

“Yes,” Nadine said.

Mr. Chin was sixty-one years old and had been running this shop for thirty-two years. He had seen many things come and go and had developed strong opinions about which things he wanted to be connected to and which he did not.

He went to the back of the shop.

He came back with a cardboard box, the kind electronics came in. On the side it said: DIGITAL RADIO/CD PLAYER.

“Came in Wednesday afternoon,” he said. “Fellow I don’t know well. Said to hold it for collection Friday.” He paused. “He didn’t say anything about Miss Icie. He just said a woman in the neighbourhood had an old radio dying and was going to want a replacement.”

“How would he know her radio was dying?” Omar said.

“That,” said Mr. Chin, “is the question I should have asked on Wednesday.”

Sergeant Peart, when he heard the story, was not surprised in the particular way that Sergeant Peart was often not surprised: with the expression of a man who had seen versions of this before and was tired of them.

Emmanuel, Miss Icie’s nephew, turned out not to be Emmanuel but a man who had introduced himself as Emmanuel to get access to Miss Icie’s house to fix a tap that didn’t actually need fixing. His actual connection to the radio and the shop arrangement was traced by Sergeant Peart in the following week, and the three children were not privy to all of it, but they understood the shape: someone who ran a small scam, finding elderly people with old appliances, engineering a failure, offering a replacement at a price.

Not a large crime. But a targeted one. And Miss Icie was the target.

Miss Icie, when she found out, said something in very strong terms about people who preyed on old women, and then said it again in different terms, and then accepted a cup of tea from Nadine’s grandmother who had come over when the situation became known.

“My radio,” she said finally.

“The circuit can probably be repaired,” Omar said. “The power surge doesn’t damage the speakers or the dial. Just a fuse. My father knows a man who repairs electronics.”

Miss Icie looked at him.

“Your father’s man better not charge me what that box in Mr. Chin’s shop cost.”

“He won’t,” Omar said. He didn’t actually know this for certain, but he was going to make sure of it.

The radio was repaired by the following Saturday.

It cost fifteen dollars, which Omar’s father negotiated on behalf of the neighbourhood’s general dignity.

When Miss Icie turned it on and the crackle came back and then the music — the same station it had always played, the same morning programme it had been playing since 1987 — the people at the Saturday market stopped what they were doing for a moment.

Just for a moment.

Then went back to it.

Because the radio was playing, and Saturday was Saturday, and in Cliffside that was how it was supposed to be.

Benji received a coconut drop.

He ate it under the poui tree with considerable satisfaction.