‘Hah! Escape? You mad.’
His face was smooth, as though he hadn’t yet used it much. He knew nothing. The boat was a boiling cauldron, and he was stupid enough to think he could climb out without scalding his pretty pale skin. Just at that moment, the boy’s dog had come trotting around the corner from the hatchway, a fistful of flies crawling over one of its ears, its tongue falling out the side of its mouth as though seeking somewhere cool. Maya tried to shove the horrible creature away with her bare foot but it danced back, claws scratching at the deck timbers, then jumped forward again, eyes bright in its shaggy face. It wanted to play.
‘I here to avenge my mother,’ Maya hissed at the Jap. ‘The white woman kill her.’
‘So,’ he nodded, ‘we deal?’
Maya hesitated, and hated herself for it. It should be piss-easy to say yes, to say let us harm the white woman, let us make her suffer. Yet her tongue was slow with the word, reluctant to let it go. Her eyes scanned the deck but there was no sign of Mem Hadley, she must be busy down below. Tuan Teddy and his father were reading their books in uneasy silence on a bench.
‘Yes.’ She forced the word out. ‘We deal.’
That was when she sought her mother’s smile of approval in the waters, and listened in vain for her voice in the waves.
‘But how you help me?’ she asked.
His mouth stretched in to the empty smile again. ‘Like this.’
Fast as a snake, his hand whipped out and caught the small dog by the scruff of its neck. It whimpered. Suddenly he was standing and swinging his fettered arms back over his head. He paused a second, then sent them hurtling forward. At the last moment he opened his fingers. The dog sailed through the air in a long arc over the sea like a blackbird that had forgotten to spread its wings. Maya saw its pink tongue open, its white teeth flash in protest and heard a spine-chilling howl leap from its jaws, a sound too monstrous for its tiny lungs. She rushed to the rail to see it splash down into the sea, but instantly it bobbed to the surface like a cork.
‘No, Pippin, no!’ Teddy’s voice screamed. ‘No! Daddy, it’s Pippin!’
Maya could see the dog’s front paws scrabbling on the water, its eyes wide with panic as the boat started to recede. The black head was vanishing in the vast rolling sheet of the sea and as a wave broke over it, she heard a bark of desperation.
‘Pippin!’ Teddy screamed again. ‘Daddy, help him!’
The sight of the boy’s face twisted in terror did something painful to Maya’s insides, and acid rushed into her mouth. She leaped to her feet and in that fleeting moment, three things happened.
The boy clambered up onto the rail and was preparing to leap down into the waves for his dog.
Tuan Hadley kicked off his shoes.
Mem Hadley raced up from below through the hatchway, Iron-eyes roaring behind her.
27
Connie’s chest hurt with relief. Her son’s scream had chilled her soul, but when she burst up on deck she saw that he was alive. His limbs were intact. No blood. The boom had not slammed into his skull, cracking it wide open. But he was balanced on the edge of the boat, about to jump.
‘Teddy! Don’t!’
She rushed forward, but Nigel was already there. He pulled the boy back down onto the deck, and with a curse dived off the side of the boat.
Why? Why was her husband plunging into the waves?
Yet, oddly, she carried in her head the image of his dive. She’d had no idea he could dive like that in a perfect, graceful arc, slicing into the sea with scarcely a ripple. Why had she never seen him do it before?
Her hand gripped her son’s shoulder. ‘What’s happened?’
‘It’s Pippin!’
He pointed. The sun had sunk below the horizon, the sky fading towards night, so that the troughs within the waves were daubed with shadows. She couldn’t see the dog. She raced for the lifebelt that hung on the side of the hatch and skimmed it out towards her husband, but already the boat was carrying them away from him. He raised a hand in thanks and struck out towards the canvas ring, but the brutal reality of the ocean’s power was all around him and it lifted the hairs on the nape of her neck. Only then was she aware that Fitzpayne had seized control of the helm from Henry and was shouting, ‘Come about!’ Henry and Razak leaped to the ropes as he spun the wheel, drawing the mainsail across the boat so that the bow swung gracefully round, circling back towards the lifebelt.
‘We’re coming, Nigel,’ she called out, her heart pounding. I’m coming, Nigel, I’m coming. She glanced down at Teddy. His anxious gaze was fixed on his father.
‘Don’t let Daddy drown.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Scout’s honour?’
It was their phrase. When something really mattered.
‘Scout’s honour,’ she echoed.
She spotted the dog then. The damn dog. It was swimming frantically towards Nigel, and when it reached him it lavished kisses all over his salty cheeks, making Nigel laugh and take on board a mouthful of water. Connie drew a deep breath. It was going to be all right. She was impressed by Nigel’s calm. No panic. Easy in the water. A steady leg-kick – despite his injury – to keep him treading water as he held onto Pippin and waited for the yacht to reach him.
Had he swum towards the boat, had he not waited with an Englishman’s certainty for it to come to him, the outcome might have been different.
Madoc pulled on his trousers and hurried up on deck to see what the hell all the commotion was about. He hated abandoning Kitty, warm and willing in the cabin, but it sounded like trouble. One man’s trouble was another man’s open door, so Madoc’s feet stepped right in.
He came to an abrupt halt on deck, and his quick eyes took in the scene at once: Hadley in the water, the lifebelt a vivid white circle on its darkening waves, the sails shortened as the boat drew close. Night was falling fast. Everyone had sprung forward, and they were now lined up along one side – like sitting ducks, their backs to him. They were calling out to Hadley and tipping the balance of the boat, so that it rolled awkwardly to starboard. Fitz payne had lashed the wheel, and with a neat flick of his arm threw Hadley a line that landed smack in front of him. He grasped it firmly. Only then did Madoc notice the dog’s sodden black head next to him.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he demanded, aware of Kitty arriving quietly at his side, fully clothed now.
‘Nigel dived in to get the dog,’ Henry Court replied over his shoulder.
‘Daddy has saved Pippin’s life,’ the boy said proudly.
‘How on earth did the animal end up in the water?’ he asked.
Flight Lieutenant Blake frowned.’Yes, that’s a good question.’
Madoc was struck by how grey his face looked. Maybe it was just the shadows.
‘That man did it!’ the boy shouted.
All eyes flicked to him.
‘The Jap, he did it. I saw him.’ Teddy’s young face was screwed up in anger. ‘He threw Pippin overboard.’
Constance Hadley promptly marched over to the prisoner. ‘Is that true?’ Did you throw the dog overboard?’
‘Hai. Yes.’
Her hand came up and slapped the Jap pilot’s face. It resonated through the quiet evening air. She immediately resumed her position at the rail beside her son, and called out to her husband, ‘Nigel, we’ll soon have you back on board.’
‘Grab hold,’ Fitzpayne shouted. ‘We’ll haul you in.’
Even now, Hadley was behaving like the perfect English gentleman. Women, children and bloody animals first. The fool was tying the rope around the dog’s middle, and Madoc seized that moment – when every-one’s attention was focused on the water and their backs were turned – to step away from the edge and remove the Tokarev pistol from Kitty’s skirt pocket. Land was no more than a mile or two away, not too far – for those who could swim.
‘No,’ Kitty hissed at him.
She seized his wrist and wrapped the fingers of her other hand around the muzzle of the gun.
‘No, Madoc.’
He tried to shake her off, but she was strong. Their hands fought a silent battle.
‘No shooting,’ she insisted under her breath.
‘No shooting. Just persuasion to join Hadley in the water.’
He felt her fingers start to loosen. But a small brown hand suddenly slid between them and a penknife blade was stabbed into his arm. He made no sound as blood oozed from the shallow wound, and Kitty laughed.
‘Thank you, Maya,’ she said, and pocketed the gun once more.
Madoc stiffened and stared into the native girl’s furious black eyes. He knew that one day he would have to rid himself of this little sewer rat.
*
‘Teddy, get your arms set to take Pippin,’ Fitzpayne ordered as he pulled on the rope, hand over hand.
‘I’m ready.’
The light was going. Connie could sense the nervousness around her on the boat. No one said it, but the words passed from head to head unspoken: Leave the dog, Nigel. Get back on board. Yet she felt immensely proud of him. He had demonstrated his love for his son, for everyone to see. Teddy could never believe now that his father loved Razak more than he loved him. She experienced a great rush of gratitude to Nigel. Of course, it didn’t alter the fact that he didn’t love her, but right now that didn’t seem to matter.
‘Come on, Nigel,’ she shouted encouragement.
The sky and the sea were beginning to merge in the coming darkness, and the current was slowly drawing him backward. Her husband’s familiar face was bobbing like a pale ball on the surface of the waves next to the lifebelt, his hair plastered in strands to his forehead. She smiled at him and waved. He smiled back and kicked harder with his good leg. As Pippin plopped wet and ecstatic into Teddy’s outstretched arms, Razak shouted something in Malay. Connie didn’t understand. But she saw Fitzpayne react. He was untying the rope from the dog, but he stopped and lifted his head. She felt her own heart pause. His eyes scoured the waves, then he moved fast.
‘Hadley,’ he called out, ‘catch the rope. Be quick.’
His voice was sharp. Urgent. Connie felt alarm crawl up her spine. The rope snaked out once more and landed in the perfect spot for Nigel to seize hold of it. He started to tie it to the lifebelt he had his arm looped through, but Fitzpayne didn’t wait.
‘Hadley, just hold the rope for God’s sake, and we’ll pull you in.’
His shout was impatient, and he gave the rope a strong tug that yanked Nigel towards the boat. Connie’s eyes stopped watching her husband and examined the waters around him. That was when she saw it: the tip of a thin black fin. Like a blade slicing through the waves behind him. It was circling in a leisurely manner, as if it had all the time in the world.
‘Nigel! Hurry!’ she cried out.
He heard the fear in her voice. They all did. Nigel quickly spun himself round in the water and caught sight of the fin only yards away.
‘Shark!’ Johnnie bellowed, snatching at the rope. ‘Get out of the …’
Later, much later, Connie learned to turn down the volume on Nigel’s scream in her head. But that first time she heard it as the shark attacked, it felt as though the sound of it split her skull apart.
So fast. So brief. So rough.
Suddenly Nigel was jerked from the water. He shot sideways ten feet, arms flailing, his body shaken back and forth like a rag doll. Connie clutched Teddy to her, burying his face in her dress. For a split second Nigel rose up above the water and she screamed as an arc of blood soared into the air before he was abruptly hauled below the surface. Bloodstained water closed over his head. Silence now. One solitary hand flapped briefly in the curve of a wave, a final farewell. Nothing more.
But his scream was trapped inside Connie’s head, tearing chunks out of her skull.
Six hours. Circling and circling the area. Through the darkness they searched the secretive surface of the ocean, risking torches, chasing shadows. The moon rose. Its brittle light turned the water into hard metal, impenetrable and unyielding.
There was no Nigel. They all knew that he was gone, but it wasn’t until Fitzpayne, his face as tight as a fist, finally caught the tip of a boat hook into the floating sleeve of a shirt that had once been white, that Connie could bring herself to nod her head, the signal to hoist the sails. Treacherous muscles. To give the nod. Bones that betray.
As The White Pearl set off before the wind, she didn’t abandon the spot where she was standing when her husband screamed. She stood there all night, listening to him.
‘I’m so very sorry.’
It was Fitzpayne. He was standing at Connie’s side at the rail. How long had he been there in the darkness? He was generous enough not to look at her, giving her that much privacy, and she was grateful. Instead, he stared out at the black, rolling seas and made a sound like the wind through his nostrils, exhaling hard.
‘You did your best,’ she said. The words felt stiff in her mouth.
‘The boat was too slow.’ He shook his head. ‘She is sluggish to respond because she is damaged. I couldn’t …’
‘You did your best,’ she said again.
‘Not enough. The sea is unforgiving of mistakes.’
‘The only mistake was Nigel’s.’
For a long time after that, they remained silent. Between them stood her son, asleep on his feet, his hands clutched around Connie’s waist, her arm looped around his shoulders holding his weight against her body. His head lolled against her ribs, warm and heavy. Clouds marched across the night sky, throwing a shroud over the moon and stars, so that only the thinnest beam of light sneaked through. Connie watched it bounce like a silver pebble skimming across the waves.
‘Do you know what I want to do?’ she asked fiercely.
‘Tell me.’
‘I want to plunge my hand into the ocean and wrench him back to life.’ She lowered her head and inhaled silently through her mouth, so that he would not hear the ragged edges of her breath.
In the darkness he stroked her hair, his hand cupping her head. It was a gentle, comforting touch that brought forth a great shudder of grief from her. He left his hand there, until she was still once more.
‘Let me take the boy,’ he urged.
His arms lifted Teddy effortlessly without waking him, and Connie was thankful that her son could find such oblivion.
‘I’ll carry him to Madoc’s cabin, if you prefer,’ he said. ‘They can move into the master bedroom.’
Her heart tightened. How could he know of her reluctance to enter the room where she and Nigel had shared a bed, in case her husband’s salt-stained figure rose from the sheets, covered in trailing seaweed and pointing an accusing finger at her?
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
‘You still have your son. He’s safe.’
‘Yes.’
She walked behind him towards the hatchway, her eyes fixed on her son’s bare legs hanging over Fitzpayne’s arm, and her feet moved as though they belonged to someone else.
Suddenly she said hotly, ‘The sea is a monstrous thing.’
Fitzpayne stopped. Without turning he said softly, ‘I know.’ The gentleness of it made her want to cry. Then he descended the steps.
She hesitated, unwilling to leave the deck. Down below, she knew she would suffocate. The waves would seep in and smother her nose and mouth. She made herself listen to the familiar slapping of the water against the hull, and gazed out over the dark, heartless sea.
‘Goodbye, Nigel,’ she whispered, and hurried down to her son.
A knock on the door made Connie turn her head. It took an effort. The joints of her neck felt stiff and rusty, she had been sitting so rigid on the bed. She had no idea for how long. Hours? Days? No, not days. Teddy was curled up beside her like an exhausted kitten, his head on her lap.
The knock came again. Her fingers touched her son’s damp hair as if she could keep the noise from penetrating, but he didn’t stir. Between his eyebrows, a miniature version of his father’s
frown-crease rumpled his smooth skin, and she ironed it gently with her thumb.
She didn’t want to talk to anyone.
She heard the rustle of a sleeve against the door as an arm was raised to knock again, her senses too acute, everything painful, even the light falling in a puddle from the kerosene lamp and the grating whirr of a fly’s wings, the creak of the timbers. The sounds seemed to grind against each other in her brain. Before the knock could be repeated, she slid out from under Teddy’s cheek and moved to the door, the words Go away forming on her tongue. She opened the door.
It was Henry, the last person she expected. He looked red-faced and awkward.
‘Yes?’ she asked.
‘I want to …’ He stopped. Started again. ‘How are you?’
‘I’ll live.’
He chewed at the inside of his cheek, searching for the words he had come to say. ‘When Harriet died … you were a real help to me. I know you want to be alone, but it’s not always best.’
‘I have Teddy with me.’
‘I know.’
They stood staring at each other’s shoes.
‘I’m sorry that the Jap isn’t dead,’ Henry burst out suddenly. ‘Admired the way you slapped the blighter.’
‘You would have done the same for Harriet.’
He nodded. But grief had changed her. She didn’t notice Henry’s mottled cheeks, or the way he unconsciously stroked the bulk of his stomach for reassurance, which had always irritated her before. All she saw was the loneliness he was trying to hide. The dark anger deep within him, and the anxious downturn of the edge of his mouth.
‘Wouldn’t you?’ she asked in a quiet voice, ‘do the same for Harriet?’
‘I’ll never know, will I?’
She touched his arm and felt the hollowness of it, as though Harriet had been the marrow in his bones.
‘Constance, I’d kill him, but I don’t have the nerve.’
Henry’s hands were shaking. Abruptly he walked away.
Dawn spilled its light into the master cabin. Madoc could hear Fitzpayne working the bilge pump hard below him. Still taking on water, then. He sat fully clothed on the edge of the bed and listened for other sounds. No sobbing from other cabins, no gnashing of teeth. All good signs. Nobody out of control. That’s what he didn’t want, because that’s when you could get caught in the crossfire. Madoc had only had two hours’ sleep, but he could feel his blood pumping fast. Today would be his day – he could feel it in his bones.
The White Pearl Page 34