In silence, she walked from the tent.
Why hadn’t they put a bullet in her?
She craved water. The walls of her tent prison were stifling.
Nothing made sense to her. Was General Takehashi set on playing with her mind? Was his intention to torment her the way he was tormented by the loss of his son? She blinked to bring her thoughts into focus once more.
An image hammered at her brain as she lay on her side tethered to the stake once more – the thread of smoke curling out of Fitz’s mouth, as if his soul were escaping. It had brushed over the moist surface of his lips and swirled around his nostrils in a vain attempt to creep back in. She saw it over and over again – Fitz breathing out what he no longer wanted; expelling her as easily as he expelled the smoke. There was no question in her mind that it was he who had summoned Sho’s father. It must have been his plan from the start.
She tried to work it out, but couldn’t. Whenever she thought of Teddy, sickness rose in her stomach but she fought it down and willed Johnnie to take good care of the son General Takehashi was taking from her in revenge. Her dehydrated mind still struggled to understand why Fitz had not summoned the General before now. Once he had manoeuvred her onto the island, why wait so long? Why all the pretence? Betrayal was betrayal in any language.
‘Fitz,’ she whispered angrily. ‘Fitz, why did you entice me to love you?’
Abruptly something broke loose within her, something cracked open and erupted out of control, searing and burning her insides. Everything she’d been holding tight tore loose from her grasp and she began to shiver uncontrollably. She saw nothing but blackness in front of her.
Hands touched her face. Water washed over her lips and trickled onto her tongue. The side of her head lay on something warm and solid, and she heard a drumming in her ear that persisted in twisting into the coils of her brain.
‘Connie!’
It wasn’t over. Not yet.
‘Connie, don’t you dare give up on me now.’
‘Go away,’ she mumbled.
She didn’t want illusions or fantasies, or whatever the hell this was. Because it was Fitz’s voice, Fitz’s touch, Fitz’s heartbeat in her ear, and she knew none of that could be real. Lips brushed her forehead in a tender kiss that made her suddenly aware of the foul smell of her own body. She opened her eyes.
She was cradled in Fitz’s arms. The rope around her wrists had been removed and it was dark outside, the tent just a triangle of blackness around her. Only a thin brush of moonlight had sneaked in through the doorflap and painted Fitz’s thick hair silver. She smiled at him. She no longer cared whether the moment was a figment of her fevered imagination or not, because all that mattered was that he had come to her one last time.
‘Stand up,’ he told her.
‘So that your Japanese friends can shoot me? No, thank you. Tell them to come and do it here. Or,’ she smiled sadly up at him, ‘are you going to be the one to finish the job yourself?’
He shook her. ‘Stand up, Connie. Be quick.’
He put a bottle to her lips and she drank the water greedily. It took a massive effort of will to make herself move out of his arms.
‘What trick are you playing now, Mr Fitzpayne?’
‘Oh, my precious Connie, I can’t blame you for not trusting me. But it was the only way I could think of saving your life when the soldiers seized you out at the promontory.’ Gently he lifted her to her feet. ‘We have to leave.’
‘What about the guard?’
‘I have removed him.’
‘Where are we going?’ she demanded.
‘To find your son.’
39
The darkness whispered to Connie. It teased her mind. She had to fight to find the line between what was real and what was shadow. Her heart was pounding enough to make her teeth shake but her steps were quick and silent on the dirt trail, and her arm fastened firmly around Fitz’s waist. She didn’t know if he was holding her up or if she was holding him up, any more than she knew whether her anger at him was deserved or not.
It was the only way I could think of to save your life.
What did he mean by that?
A fitful moon shimmered through the trees and the wind had risen in the night, stirring the jungle around them, so that every sound, every creak of a branch or rustle of a frond made her head turn, alert for danger.
‘It’s all right, Connie,’ Fitz soothed in a whisper, ‘I know where the sentries are posted. We’re safe.’
She made herself believe it, though in her heart she knew better – if it were true, why was he speaking so low, and why were they fleeing in stealthy silence? Because he knew exactly what General Takehashi would inflict on them if they were caught? Nevertheless she moved quickly at his side. She took his weight when his bad leg made him stumble in the dark and he cursed under his breath. Once, as they emerged cautiously from the jungle onto a narrow stretch of riverbank upstream from where the camp had been, he brushed his fingers along the side of her head.
She stood still. She placed her hands on each side of his face, holding him, pinning him down, aware of the stubble on his jaw, and asked in a voice that was scrupulously devoid of any blame, ‘Where is my son?’
‘On the Burung Camar.’
‘Still alive?’
‘Yes.’
Relief drained away her anger. ‘So how do we find the Burung Camar now? It was days ago that it left here.’
‘I have a boat for us. Hidden in the mangroves.’
For a long moment she continued to hold his face in her hands, sensing he had more to say.
‘I came for you, Connie.’
‘I know.’
He took her hands in his, and anchored them to his chest. ‘Don’t ever do that to me again. Don’t ever,’ he said, no more than a murmur, ‘don’t ever put me through such agony.’ He wrapped a strong arm around her neck and pulled her cheek against his. He held her there. Silent. Breathing hard. ‘To see you like that,’ he continued softly, ‘in front of General Takehashi was … unbearable.’
‘I saw the anger,’ she whispered, ‘twisting inside you but I didn’t know it was on my behalf. I thought it was because . . . ’
‘Of course it was for you, my precious Connie.’ Abruptly he stood back from her, holding her away from him to let his gaze scour her face in the darkness. ‘Don’t you know I love you? Don’t you know I cannot let you die, even if it is the path you would choose?’
‘I am not ready to die,’ she said fiercely.
‘I know. You have a son.’
‘General Takehashi had two sons. Now he has none – because of me. He has good reason to want me dead. How did you persuade him not to have me shot?’
‘I made a deal with him.’
‘Oh, Fitz. What kind of deal did …’
He put a finger to her lips. ‘Trust me, Connie.’
Why? When you betrayed me? The question lived for no more than two seconds in her head. She only had to listen to his words. Just as in that seedy bar in Palur, when she had asked him to skipper her yacht. She could trust him. She knew it then, and she knew it now.
The boat was holed, its bottom smashed out. It was a flimsy rowing boat that Fitz had concealed in the embrace of the mangrove roots but some sharp-eyed Jap soldier had crawled in among the tangled branches and taken his rifle butt to it. Connie saw the shock of the discovery lock Fitz’s muscles, and a sound of despair came from his mouth.
‘Not this. Not this,’ he moaned.
It was his voice, but it sounded like someone else’s and chilled her flesh.
They were crouched down beside what was left of the rowing boat, when realisation suddenly came to her and she rose to her feet, acid burning her throat.
‘What is it, Connie?’ He reached out a hand.
She stepped back. ‘Tell me, Fitz, what deal did you make with your adoptive father?’
‘What?’
‘Tell me.’ Her voice was dry and empty. ‘Tell me wha
t you offered him in exchange for my life.’
He struggled slowly to his feet, a dark shape merging with the surrounding blackness as the moon slid behind a cloud. ‘Don’t, Connie,’ was all he said.
‘Tell me!’
He spat on the earth. Ridding himself of something. ‘I promised him your son.’
Connie staggered, as though punched, and forced herself away from him when he tried to catch her.
‘No,’ she hissed. ‘No.’
‘It was the only way.’
‘To exchange me for my son?’
‘Yes, you took his son. Now he wants yours.’
His earlier words – I cannot let you die, even if it is the path you would choose – now they made terrible sense.
‘You know I would die a thousand times before I would let anything happen to Teddy. You know that, you know that. How could you think I could live after …’
Fitz stepped forward and gripped her wrists like shackles. ‘I know, Connie,’ he said flatly. ‘I knew I would lose you by making such a deal, but I couldn’t let you die. I couldn’t.’
She tried to pull away from him, but he held her firm. ‘I told General Takehashi that your son was on the Burung Camar – which he knows is my boat – but that I didn’t know where it was now, as it was taken over by natives when the Japanese planes attacked.’
She tried to listen. Tried to think straight. To decipher his words. But all that rampaged through her head was the fact that her son was in danger while she was stranded on this Jap-infested island.
‘Listen, Connie.’ His face drew close as if he could physically force his words into her brain. ‘Teddy is safe. Takehashi has no idea where the Burung Camar is.’
‘Neither do we,’ she whispered.
‘Of course we do. Nurul will be at the promontory tonight.’
‘All our hopes are pinned on Nurul? My son’s life depends on that man?’
‘Don’t sound so scathing. Nurul will be there. Night after night until I come.’
She shook her head violently. ‘He won’t. He’ll be long gone.’
‘Connie, I will not let Takehashi take your son, I swear to you.’
He pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her, pinning her there until her struggles ceased. ‘Without a boat, we’ll have to walk. Tonight we won’t make it across the island by dawn, which means we’ll have to hide again during daylight hours tomorrow and look out for Nurul the following night.’ He pressed his lips to her forehead. ‘We will make it.’
Connie’s mind started to function. His voice, with its calm certainty, quietened her, as his hand stroked her hair. There was a sudden sound in the forest and he drew her deep into the mangroves, as two sentries inspected the shoreline, cursory in the darkness. They were careless because they believed they had already flushed all the rats from the island.
‘Fitz,’ Connie whispered in his ear, ‘I know where there is a boat.’
‘Hardly a boat,’ Fitz remarked under his breath.
‘It will do.’
‘It will probably drown us.’
‘I’ll take that chance.’
It did look precarious. It was a dugout canoe, the ancient one that Teddy and a friend had been sheltering under when she came to confront her son about taking payment for reading to the other children. It was well weathered and somewhat chewed around the edges, but it was still in one piece and looked watertight. Together they manoeuvred it to the river’s edge and Fitz made Connie clamber in front, while he slid himself in behind her with a grimace of pain. For paddles they made do with two pieces of split bamboo that had been blasted onto the shore by the bombs that fell.
Without a sound and carried by the current, they steered downriver. They could see the bulky outline of the big khaki tent onshore, but Connie turned her head away immediately, refusing to look at it. She made herself concentrate instead on keeping her makeshift paddle dipping in time with Fitz’s smooth stroke. The hulks of burned-out boats loomed out of the darkness and their shallow canoe dodged between them, but when the clouds closed in over their heads, Connie didn’t begrudge the loss of moonlight. It made it harder to navigate, but she was willing to risk that danger in exchange for the cloak of invisibility that the night now draped over them.
They didn’t speak for fear the sound would travel over the water. But the silence was more than that, more than the need to elude any sentries that may be posted along the riverbank. The silence climbed out of the water and slid into the canoe between them, making the space feel small and cramped, not big enough to contain the turmoil of emotions. But her only thought right now was to find her son before General Takehashi did.
When they approached the mouth of the river and the water grew choppier, Connie felt the swarms of mosquitoes fall away, as intimidated as she was by the booming of the sea’s breakers. The canoe seemed far too frail, far too shallow to survive the pounding ahead of it, yet she made no sound, fighting down her dismay. But unexpectedly a warm hand lay on her back, rested against her spine and seemed to speak to her on a level far deeper than words. She leaned back against it, and for a brief moment the paddles paused.
The sea stretched out in front of them, a vast black sheet in constant motions.
‘We have to keep up our speed.’ Fitz shifted his weight forward. ‘It will help us ride the tops of the waves. Less danger of getting swamped,’ he told her. Again his hand in the centre of her back, anchoring her, holding the disparate parts of her together.
‘Now!’ he said, and they spurted out of the mouth of the river.
Maya kept hearing a drum. Boom-boom-boom. But each time she twitched her head to find the noise, she realised the drum was inside her own ears.
Jo-nee had gone to talk to the man. ‘This can’t go on,’ he’d said as he strode over to crazy Madoc. They argued, and crazy Madoc pointed the gun at him too. Maya had covered her eyes and tried to shut her ears to their words.
‘Stop this idiocy, Madoc. At once,’ Jo-nee had said, but Maya could hear that his voice was all wrong. Slow and firm, like he would speak to a child. ‘You are committing a serious criminal offence – piracy and the kidnapping of British citizens. You must stop now, for God’s sake, man, and hand over to Nurul. We won’t report you to …’
Crazy Madoc didn’t like the voice, and shouted bad words at Jo-nee, but his wife didn’t join in. She looked as if she’d swallowed a snake by mistake, her face tight, her mouth pinched shut. The weapons of the crew had all been gathered in a pile and bound together into a spiky bundle of rifles and knives at Madoc’s feet, while the single black eye of the gun in his hand stared unblinking at Nurul’s chest.
‘I have no charts for sailing to India,’ the pirate bleated.
‘So navigate by the stars, damn you. There’s the Southern Cross. Use that. It’s due west to India. Simple.’
But when Maya looked up at the black sky she could see no cross, just millions of eyes. The moon was sliding uphill to watch crazy Madoc as well, and it sprinkled its light on the pale, upturned face of the little Hadley boy. He was standing in front of Madoc and begging him to turn the boat around, tears on his cheeks. It made the booming in Maya’s head grow louder. She scuttled to the long pointed nose of the boat where Razak was doing something to one of the foresails. She wanted comfort from her brother.
‘Our mother is dead,’ she told him. ‘Mem Hadley will be dead too if we hide here and do nothing.’
For a moment he was silent, staring down at the rope looped in his hands. ‘Do you care so much?’ he asked softly.
‘Yes, Razak, I care. Mem saved my life. My spirit now walks step by step with hers. I cannot run from her, any more than I can run from you, my brother.’ She heard a shout come from crazy Madoc’s mouth somewhere in the darkness. ‘Help me, Razak,’ she whispered.
Without a word Razak lifted his tunic, revealing the black bulk of a gun tucked into his waistband. Maya reached out and touched it. It nudged her fingers, as though wanting to ta
lk to them. She snatched it from him.
‘No, Maya!’
Yes, Maya. Yes, Maya. That’s what the gun said. It was heavy.
She sneaked back through the darkness to where the crazy man – who was leaving Mem Hadley to die – was standing, his back to the sea. He still held the big ugly pistol pointed at Nurul, and she could see his eyes darting all the time over the crew. But he didn’t imagine that Razak had a gun from the island, and he didn’t take any notice of Maya because she was a no-notice mouse who scurried around in the dirt. Well, crazy Madoc, you will notice me now. She had seen men in Palur with guns before, and she knew about safety catches, so she crept behind him in the dark and pointed it at his crazy back. She shut her eyes and pulled the trigger.
The gun roared in her hand. The explosion knocked her to the deck and the gun leaped away from her as though it were finished with this no-notice mouse and wanted someone else. Teddy pounced on it and picked it up, waving it immediately at Kitty Madoc who rushed forward with a roar of rage, but Maya didn’t care because her own wicked hand was shaking so violently. She stared at her fingers as if they belonged to someone else, and possessed a will quite separate from her own.
But her eyes still did what she told them and they looked across at the body of Madoc lying on the deck in what looked like a pool of oil. Crazy dead Madoc now. His wife had turned him over and was cradling his head on her fat thighs, leaning over him and dabbing with her hair at the black trickle of blood that oozed from between his lips. As she kissed his eyelids and his sharp nose, she was making a strange, mind-numbing noise that pierced Maya’s head and became trapped there.
But still the drumming grew louder. Boom-boom-boom inside her ears.
Maya followed Jo-nee around the deck of the pirate’s boat the way a cat follows a piece of string, trotting behind it, ears pricked. But every now and again she would pounce forward and lay her paws on him. She knew now that she was astonishingly brave. Jo-nee said so. So it must be true.
‘Brave and bold,’ he had said.
She wasn’t so sure about bold. She thought it sounded dangerous.
The White Pearl Page 47