‘I’ll come and say goodbye.’ Olivia spoke and made up her mind all in the same moment. Her heart lurched, even in spite of her grief. She was going to India. Away from here. They were going. They would be a ‘they’. She and Edward, Edward and she. They’d have a home, one day they might have children, they’d wake together, sleep together, walk together, breathe. Always. They. ‘I’ll be back later.’ She turned to leave, impatient now, so very impatient.
She glimpsed a movement beneath the corridor door. It stopped her short. She narrowed her eyes and pushed the door wide. A swish of grey taffeta disappeared down the stairs.
Had Mildred been listening?
Olivia didn’t know why it should matter, but even so, the possibility sent her pumping blood cold.
Her sense of foreboding deepened when she discovered Mildred already at the hospital when she arrived there, sitting next to Alistair. Olivia touched her hand to her stomach, calm, and proceeded across the ward of sunburnt soldiers towards them. Mildred watched her, not moving. It was only as Olivia drew near that she rose and glided silently past her, taffeta skimming silk.
‘What did she want?’ Olivia managed to ask Alistair.
He smiled tightly. He was shockingly pale, even by his standards. Someone had combed his hair into a side parting rather than the slicked-back way he normally wore it. His torso was bare, covered with pristine bandages. He looked smaller. Pathetic.
Then he spoke, and he wasn’t small or pathetic at all. He informed Olivia that he knew what she was planning, Mildred had told him. He’d received word from the tribunal, by the by, everyone had been found guilty, Hassan of Clara’s death, Jahi of Hassan’s, the rest of them of aiding and abetting. Jahi had been sentenced to hanging; Kafele and the Bedouin’s sons were to receive fifty lashes that very afternoon. Quite a lot. Men died from less. There was nothing to be done for Jahi, his execution had been scheduled for a week’s time. Besides, he was as guilty as all hell. Still, Alistair was happy to pay Wilkins to let the Bedouin boys and Kafele escape, if that was what Olivia wanted. He was as loath as the next man to see innocents suffer. He wasn’t the criminal here. He’d write Olivia a letter to give Wilkins directly, naming a sum. Wilkins would do as required.
Alistair paused. He smiled.
He had conditions.
Of course.
If Olivia so much as set foot on the ship tonight, Alistair would ask Wilkins to round up the boys, and this time there’d be no mercy. They’d hang. If Bertram didn’t get on that ship, there’d be no mercy. If Olivia breathed a whisper of Tabia’s death to anyone, let alone the papers, there’d be no mercy. If Olivia in fact did anything but live in their house and behave as any reasonable man might expect his wife before God to behave, there’d be no mercy. ‘Go if you like, ask for your divorce, tell the world all you believe Gray and I have done to that Tabia woman. Just bear in mind that as soon as you do, you sign three death sentences.’
‘You can’t do this.’ Olivia spoke with more conviction than she felt. What she felt was nauseous, dizzy. ‘I’ll get Jeremy to pay for their release instead. He’ll do it.’
‘And I’ll still pay Wilkins more to round them up.’
‘Then,’ she said, scrambling for another way, ‘I’ll go to the police, whoever I have to, I’ll tell them about what you and Wilkins did with that villager in Lixori…’
‘Did?’ He arched an eyebrow.
‘I know —’ she began.
‘You know nothing,’ he said, cutting her off, ‘because there is nothing to know.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘That means very little to me, Olivia. Nor will it to anyone else.’ He sneered. ‘Have you forgotten who we are, that Wilkins is the police? That I am who I am.’
‘I don’t care —’
‘You should. If you want my help for those boys, you should. It’s over, Olivia. You’ve lost. Or won.’ Alistair winced as he adjusted his weight. ‘You get to stay married to me. Won’t that be nice? Now, do you want me to write this letter?’
‘Alistair…’
‘Olivia,’ his eyes sparked, ‘say another word, about any of it, and I won’t write a thing. Now, are you going to fetch me paper?’
What choice did she have?
She fetched a pad from the nurses, watched Alistair write. He paused midway through, looked up at her, back at the paper. His lips twitched.
‘Is something amusing?’ she asked.
‘Not at all,’ he said. And yet still he smiled.
It unnerved her, that smile.
He finished writing, signed his name with a flourish, and held the sealed envelope out. She tried to take it; he gripped it, stopping her. ‘I hope you’ll think hard,’ he said, ‘before trying to make a fool of me again.’
He let the letter go.
She must have left his side, because she found herself exiting the ward. She looked down at Wilkins’ letter in her hand, fighting the impulse to open it, read it, tear it into fragments and shatter its existence, all it meant. She didn’t know how it could be real, how any of it could be happening.
She passed into the corridor. Mildred’s voice calling her attention penetrated the air. Olivia turned to face her. The hate which surged through her body as she met her grandmother’s gaze nearly made her stumble. Of all the things Mildred had done to her over the years, this felt like the worst.
‘Why did you do it?’ she asked her.
Mildred raised pointy eyebrows. ‘I couldn’t let you ruin yourself.’
‘What does that matter to you?’ Olivia’s lips turned as she spoke; the urge to weep at all that was happening pulled on her cheeks. But she fought it, refusing to give into it. Not in front of Mildred. ‘You’ve never cared for me.’
Mildred stared. ‘It’s true,’ she said at length.
The admission made Olivia feel no better. ‘Why couldn’t you just let me go?’
Mildred shrugged. ‘It would have affected me, Clara’s boys. Word spreads. I couldn’t allow it.’
‘You couldn’t allow me a chance to escape. That’s what you couldn’t allow. Do you know all Alistair’s done? What he is?’
‘I don’t care,’ Mildred snapped.
‘How can you not?’ It came out as a shout. ‘What did I ever do to you?’
‘You? Nothing.’ Mildred gave a wrinkled pout. ‘Your mother however… she was a horrible gel.’ She looked Olivia squarely in the eye. ‘She took my son, I took her children. She’d have hated you being separated. It would have killed her, if she’d been alive to see it.’
‘You’re the devil.’ Olivia spat it. ‘I can’t stand that you’re taking Ralph.’
‘And yet, as with so much, there’s nothing you can do to stop it.’
Olivia turned from her in disgust. She didn’t want to spend another moment in Mildred’s presence.
‘You look like her, you know,’ said Mildred to her back, ‘much more than Clara did. Where are you going? Come back, I haven’t finished.’
Olivia ignored her. She would take no more of her poison. There weren’t many hours left in the day. She had to get to Wilkins, find Edward. There was so little time left to them now, and he didn’t know.
He didn’t know.
Somehow she had to let him get on that boat without her. It would be the cruellest thing she ever did, to both of them if no one else. But she had to do it.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Wilkins ushered Olivia into his office as though she were the only person he would wish to see. He offered her tea, cool lime perhaps. Olivia wanted only one thing, Wilkins’ jowls twitched as she told him what it was. ‘I think I’d better take a look at Sheldon’s letter,’ he said.
Olivia gave it to him. He opened the envelope, his eyes moved across the paper. He looked up at her, back at the letter, then at her again. The sound of his nasal breaths filled the office.
He set the letter on the desk. Olivia tried to read it, but Alistair’s upside down hand was illegible.
‘It seems I’m to keep an eye on everyone.’ There was a definite smile on Wilkins’ florid face now, that smirk. ‘Watch them in case we need to bring them back in. Plus we want to make sure they keep…’ He mimed a key locking his lips, winked with one piggy eye.
Olivia fought the urge to reach for one of the pyramid paperweights on the desk and strike him with it. ‘You’ve done rather well out of this, haven’t you?’ she said. ‘How much has Alistair been paying you for your cooperation?’
He laughed throatily. ‘Enough. But I was glad to help.’ Another wink, a cold kind of intimacy.
Olivia narrowed her eyes. ‘How much, exactly, have you helped?’
He smiled. ‘I’ve done everything in my power, of course.’ He cocked his head to one side, appraising Olivia. ‘You look a little… off colour, Mrs Sheldon. Is everything all right?’
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Not at all. Nor is it for the innocent people who’ve had the misfortune to cross your path, the ones you have locked in your prison.’
‘Innocent?’ Wilkins laughed shortly. ‘Jahi killed Hassan.’
‘I killed Hassan.’
‘What’s that?’ Wilkins hooked a fat finger behind his ear. ‘I didn’t hear you. Damned earholes get so clogged up. Don’t repeat it, I’m sure it’s unnecessary. No one else will be able to hear you either. Your voice is so soft, so female, so British.’
Olivia stared.
Wilkins said, ‘Jahi El Masri knew what was going on and he didn’t put a stop to it.’
‘He didn’t take Clara.’
‘He didn’t help her, either.’
‘Nor, I think, did you.’ She took a breath, ready to raise the matter of Lixori again.
Wilkins spoke, though, before she could. ‘I’ll help those two boys,’ he said.
‘What?’ She frowned, confused. ‘No, it’s three.’
‘Two, Mrs Sheldon.’ He leant back in his chair, spread his legs out before him, and rested his hands on his straining waistcoat. ‘Your husband’s been quite specific, he said you are to choose which ones go free.’ Wilkins frowned. ‘You seem so shocked. It’s strange, Sheldon said this should come as no surprise to you.’
‘I… I can’t… choose. How can I choose?’
‘You must. Otherwise they’ll all be punished.’ Wilkins tutted sympathetically. ‘So who’s it to be? Chop chop, the lashings are scheduled for four.’
Nailah waited in a dingy room near the cells, a private wing, she’d been informed with a sneer, for especially dangerous criminals. The air was dirty with sweat, urine and fear. A low groaning was coming from somewhere, the drone broken only by the drip-drop of rusty liquid from a pipe in the corner.
Nailah tried to reassure herself that Ma’am Sheldon would set matters to rights, she’d be doing it even now. Kafele was going to be fine. They all were.
The groaning continued, the drip-drop.
Nailah stared at the peeling stone walls, watched the light move through the window. She tried to picture Kafele close by, see his face, hear his voice, feel his unruptured skin. She remembered his toes in the water next to hers that first night at Eastern Harbour.
Why had no one come to free him?
Hours seemed to pass.
It was taking Olivia too long to find Edward. Everywhere she went – the courts, the prison, the parade ground – she was told she’d just missed him, shouldn’t she be at home (furtive glance at the cut on her cheekbone), she’d been through so much, after all. In the absence of any other idea, that was where she went; perhaps he was packing. He wasn’t, but the Bedouin mother was. Fadil was with her, waiting in the shade of the fig tree. He told Olivia that he was taking the mother to a small village up the coast, her boys were being secreted there at nightfall, they weren’t going to receive their lashes. Edward and Tom had spoken with Wilkins, Tom had fronted the money for their release, Kafele’s too.
Olivia could have screamed. She need never have gone to see Alistair at all, all three of those boys would have been released instead of just two. She would have been leaving this tropical hell at nightfall. She looked down the silent driveway, bursting with rage at Nailah for involving her again, herself for letting her, and Alistair and Wilkins most of all. She had to find a way to beat them, she couldn’t let them get away with this. ‘Where’s Edward and Tom?’ she asked Fadil. ‘I have to find one of them.’
Fadil said he didn’t know about the colonel, but Edward had left about ten minutes ago. ‘I don’t know where he’s gone.’
Cursing, Olivia resolved to ask Ada if she did. First she bade the Bedouin mother a hasty goodbye. Fadil translated as she told her how sorry she was for all she’d been through, that she wished her only the best. The mother kissed her own fingertips and placed the kiss on Olivia’s forehead. ‘Take you care,’ she said. She pointed at the house. ‘No more,’ she said, ‘no more.’
Olivia smiled tightly and set off inside.
Ada told her that Edward had seen Olivia’s half-packed trunk and gone to the harbour to buy tickets. ‘’E’s getting me one too. You’ll need an ally for what you’ve planned.’
‘We’re not going anywhere at the moment,’ said Olivia, and watched Ada’s face fall as she told her why. ‘I have to go,’ Olivia said, ‘but if Edward comes back, tell him what’s happened, that he has to fix it.’
She rode for the harbour. With two ships in dock, one for India that night, the other for England on the morrow, the place pulsated in the sunshine: luggage trolleys being towed to the cargo holds, horses pulling carts of fruits, vegetables, sacks of flour and cotton, flies buzzing, vendors calling the prices of imitation sphinxes and pillars. Olivia pushed through it all, skin burning in the relentless heat, found a likely-looking boy to watch Bea, and made straight for the ticket office.
Edward wasn’t there. He’d left half an hour ago. ‘Are you one of the ladies accompanying him?’ asked the clerk from behind his parchment and inkpot. ‘You’ll need to be aboard by nine, the ship sails at ten. It’s close to three already.’
Olivia told him she was fully aware of the time.
Oh God. OhGodohGodohGod.
She went back outside, she stared at the crowds. Her hands were wet with sweat inside her gloves, her armpits and forehead were beaded with it. Unless she was granted a mammoth stroke of luck (not bloody likely), she wasn’t going to find Edward within the next hour. She had to think of something else. Fifty lashes. What did that even do to a person? Would there even be anything left to whip?
What in God and bloody hell’s name was she going to do?
At last a guard arrived in the waiting room. He told Nailah she could see Jahi. She said, ‘But I want to see Kafele.’
He told her to shut up and be grateful.
She tried to think what she could say to Jahi as she followed the guard down the dripping corridor, smells so fetid they burned her throat. But her mind remained blank, numb. Her eyes darted from left to right, skimming the iron-barred cells, the dirty, slumped forms of prisoners within.
The guard came to a halt, and took out his keys. Opening the door, he ushered Nailah into a small stone room, turning the key behind her. Jahi was shackled against the damp brickwork, his face bruised and swollen.
‘As-salaam,’ he said. It sounded like a snake’s hiss. Someone had knocked out his crooked front tooth.
‘Who did this to you?’ Nailah asked.
‘A guard.’
‘British?’
‘Egyptian. Apparently it’s scum like me that give our countrymen a bad name.’
Nailah clenched her hands. ‘Are you scared?’ she heard herself asking.
‘A little.’
She told him what she’d asked of Ma’am Sheldon. ‘You’ll get out of here, you’ll see.’
He gave her a sad smile, as though he felt sorry for her. ‘I don’t want you to come,’ he said, ‘when they hang me. I’m told they let it go on a long time. Don’t come here again either. I have no wish for anyone I love to see me like
this.’
‘You… love me?’
He winced. ‘You’re my niece, Nailah. So much better than all of this… You ever have been.’
‘I’m not sure you’re right.’
‘Of course I am.’
Nailah looked at the slimy stone floor. She felt as though she should say something else. She didn’t know if she could leave him like this. Just as she was summoning the courage to tell him that she realised he’d only ever been trying to protect her, that she knew he was sorry, she was so very sorry too, the prison guard clanged on the bars and told her to get on and get out, he needed to take a piss.
‘Livvy, I thought it was you.’
It was Jeremy, coming out of the ticket office behind Olivia. He squinted beneath his top hat. There were silver puddles of exhaustion beneath his eyes. Olivia wasn’t sure why he was there. Buying Sofia and Gus’s tickets perhaps? She wasn’t about to ask; frankly, he was the last person she wanted to see. But whilst his presence felt like the polar opposite of luck, un-luck in fact, he was all she had.
‘The scum,’ he said, once she had finished telling him everything. ‘Both of them. I already gave Wilkins the money to free those boys earlier.’ He suggested they bribe Wilkins to tell Alistair that the lashes had been given when they hadn’t been.
‘A bribe to counter the counter-bribe,’ said Olivia.
‘Precisely. It’s simplest if Sheldon doesn’t find out. We’ll fix it, Livvy.’
‘You’re sorry now, are you?’
‘I’ve always been sorry. But yes,’ he spoke heavily, ‘I am. Never more than now.’
She gave him a cold stare. It was all too little, far, far too late.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we don’t have much time. Let’s get to Wilkins’ office.’
As the guard led Nailah back towards the waiting room, they passed a cluster of men, the fat man, Wilkins, amongst them. He seemed very angry; he was breathing loudly, shouting, gesticulating. He looked like Isa did when she was performing in one of her shows. ‘Gone? Gone?’ he asked. ‘How can two boys have just disappeared? You,’ he pointed at the other white man there, ‘have the streets searched, leave no stone unturned.’
Beneath a Burning Sky Page 36