Michelle Loubon

High on a hill, at the end of a cul-de-sac at 6 de Li­ma Road in Cas­cade, Port-of-Spain, lives for­mer Ude­cott chair­man Calder Hart. Re­ports have been cir­cu­lat­ing that Hart had re­turned to T&T on Fri­day night and was qui­et­ly whisked away from Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. But yes­ter­day, his neigh­bours didn't seem to know about his where­abouts. One woman ex­pressed sur­prise he was a "white man and not a black man." Sev­er­al of them had no com­ment on his re­port­ed res­ig­na­tion from his po­si­tion af­ter doc­u­ments ob­tained from Malaysia, by the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, claimed that his wife Sher­rine, whose birth name was Lee Soh Wah, was the sis­ter-in-law of Ng Chin Poh, one of the di­rec­tors of CH De­vel­op­ment and Con­struc­tion Ltd.

The com­pa­ny was award­ed the $368-mil­lion con­tract by Ude­cott to con­struct the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs Tow­er in Port-of-Spain. Walk­ing up the hill, there is a mas­sive spread to the left. A stat­ue of the Vir­gin Mary is par­tial­ly hid­den by palm fronds. Up­on press­ing the buzzer, a woman emerged. Quizzed on whether she knew the Harts, she said: "Yes. I see Mr and Mrs Hart dri­ving past. I see them go­ing in and out. Yes, the Harts are our neigh­bours. But I don't know much about them." When asked if she ever went across and had tea, she said: "No." Pressed about what she thought about the re­cent de­vel­op­ments, she replied: "I felt sor­ry. I re­al­ly don't want to com­ment. All I know is what I have been read­ing in the pa­pers."

Lat­er on, from an­oth­er van­tage point at the same home, a gen­tle­man en­quired about a T&T Guardian news crew in the area. The man said: "No com­ment. I am busy mak­ing some home-made ice cream for my chil­dren." The man said he couldn't even give a drink of wa­ter, be­cause they didn't want to en­cour­age the me­dia in the area. Low­er down the street, one woman ex­pressed sur­prise Hart lived a stone's throw from her. "You're kid­ding me," she said. "I have been liv­ing here for the past 30 years. I don't know Mr Hart lives up the hill." To com­pound it, she ex­pressed sur­prise Hart was "a white man and not a black man." "I al­ways thought he was a black man. When I looked on TV and on the pa­pers I saw a white man."

Clutch­ing her chest, she added: "I al­ways thought Hart was a black man." But she vol­un­teered she was dis­gust­ed at the "dra­ma go­ing on in the coun­try." She al­so said she was tired of the "sick­en­ing news and some­times kept away from the news­pa­pers. But she ex­pressed the view "the Port-of-Spain and the San Fer­nan­do Hos­pi­tals were in a mess, and all we could boast about were the fan­tas­tic build­ings go­ing up all over the coun­try." Around mid­day, a young woman with long hair was spot­ted chat­ting on a cell­phone, un­der­neath the cashew tree at Hart's home. When The T&T Guardian news crew dis­em­barked from the car, she dis­ap­peared in­side. In the back­ground, two dogs barked and birds chirped on out­stretched boughs on the cashew tree.

Plants in co­conut bas­kets swung at the base of the cashew tree. No hu­man sounds were heard com­ing from the house. The on­ly mu­sic came from the two chimes out­side the front porch. One was in the shape of seashells and the oth­er like long sil­ver rods. No one was swing­ing in the pur­ple ham­mock. Two blue and white dol­phins and a tor­toise were hung on the left hand side of the wall. On the right side of the house, there is a lit­tle is­land. A mer­maid was sand­wiched be­tween two seashells. A row of green plants stood along­side the cashew tree. To the front of the house, there is a wa­ter tank. Out­side, in a white cross-shaped box, there was an in­ter­com. No one re­spond­ed to our re­quests to speak to Hart or re­spond­ed as to his where­abouts.