An old man pottered up to Molineaux and Strachan and with a toothy grin he offered them a pipe: a reed about an inch in diameter with a bowl at one end. ‘Smokee?’
‘No smokee,’ Molineaux told him.
‘We’re looking for an Englishman…’ began Strachan.
‘Blissful dreamy. Plenty blissful dreamy.’
It was obvious the attendant did not understand English and had learned only a few words by rote, just those pertaining to his job.
‘No, thanks,’ said Molineaux. ‘Come on, sir. Let’s work our way around until we find him.’
A small lamp stood at the head of each couch, and by the light of those they could make out the faces of the dreamers. They appeared old and wizened, their faces drawn, pallid, haggard and skull-like. They were oblivious to the two Britons who moved amongst them.
‘Molineaux!’ Strachan called from the other side of the room. The seaman crossed to stand beside the assistant surgeon, and gazed down at where Killigrew lay on his back, an imbecilic grin on his ashen, unshaven face. He was dead to the world.
Molineaux swore. ‘How the hell are we going to explain this to Commander Robertson?’
* * *
Killigrew lay on a tropical beach in Peri Dadabhoy’s arms and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on his body. There was not a cloud to be seen in the azure sky, and the junks bobbing on the waves out to sea had a calm, peaceful look. On the beach all was silent but for the gentle lapping of the waves. He turned to Peri. She smiled up at him, and he kissed her.
Some instinct made him glance over his shoulder, and he gaped. A great Chinese dragon flew through the sky, twisting and turning, looping its long, slender body back and forth on itself like a crepe streamer. Its scaly body was golden, and it cracked with lightning.
He wondered if he were imagining it and turned to Peri. She saw it too, and she smiled. The next thing he knew she had risen to her feet and was walking naked across the sand towards the water, waving her arms over her head at the dragon in the sky.
But he sensed the dragon was dangerous. He called out after her, but she did not seem to hear him. She waded out into the water until she was waist deep in the surf, and then dived forward and swam out towards the fishing junks to get closer to the dragon.
The dragon stopped, beating its leathery wings as it hovered high above them in the sky. Then it swooped and dived like a hawk, plunging towards its prey.
Killigrew was on his feet in an instant. He started to run down the beach, but before he had gone a dozen paces the fine white grains beneath his feet turned to quicksand and he sank up to his waist.
As the dragon swooped low over the junks it spread its jaws wide and a jet of flame poured forth. The junks were instantly charred to a crisp and the air filled with black, sickly sweet smoke. But Peri had not seen the attack on the junks and she still swam out towards the dragon. Killigrew tried to climb out of the quicksand, but the harder he struggled the more it held him back and sucked him under.
The dragon swooped on Peri, skimming the water and rising with her caught in its talons. Killigrew tried to scream but the quicksand filled his mouth and he choked.
As the dragon flew overhead Peri’s body dropped to the sand only a few feet from where Killigrew struggled in the quicksand. It landed with a thud. She too had been charred to a crisp.
The quicksand evaporated and he ran to where she lay on the deck of a tea clipper, but by the time he had climbed over the bulwark her body had vanished. He glanced across to the poop deck and saw Jago Verran at the helm. The captain laughed. ‘She’s not for you, jobbernowl!’
Furious, he ran across the deck and climbed the companionway to the poop deck after Verran, but as he reached the top of the ladder Zhai Jing-mu appeared above him and kicked him in the face. He felt no pain, but was conscious that he was falling backwards, down and down, taking for ever to hit the deck below. When he finally landed it was in something soft and sticky which broke his fall, like molasses.
He tried to swim back to the island but it was far away, and when he finally reached the sandy shore the palm trees which had fringed the beach had vanished, as had the sea behind him, and he was in an endless desert beneath a suffocating sun which blistered his skin. Then he looked up and realised it was not the sun which burned him, but the dragon. It hovered above his head and breathed black smoke over him. He watched in horror as his own skin blistered and burned.
He looked up at the dragon, pleading, but saw no mercy in its reptilian eyes…
His own eyes.
‘Bring her back!’ he roared at the dragon.
But now the dragon had his own face. It laughed at him.
He looked down at his skin. The blisters had formed into scabs, and the scabs grew four pairs of legs each and turned into spiders which ran all over his body, tearing at his flesh with their massive, venom-filled mandibles. He screamed and tried to brash them off, but at that moment the dragon swooped on him and enfolded him in its leathery wings. He fought his way out of the wings and found himself lying on a bed in a room that was ten feet wide and a thousand miles long.
At the far end of the room he could just make out three figures, a European man and woman, and a black man wearing pusser’s slops and holding a sennit hat before him. They looked vaguely familiar, as if he had known them in a dream, except that each of them had a nose that was a mile long. They swung those hideous noses in his direction as they turned to look at him.
Is he all right? Asked the woman.
He’s having a nightmare, said the white man. I’ve heard it’s not uncommon when a man’s been deprived of the drug he’s come to depend on.
He’s awake, said the black man.
Killigrew nodded. They spoke as if they cared about him, but he knew they were lying. They were plotting against him. Plotting to keep him away from Peri. They were going to murder him!
The white man came towards him. His elongated nose seemed to fly at Killigrew like a lance. Killigrew tried to crawl away with a yelp of terror. He was going to be skewered on that elongated proboscis. ‘No! Stay away from me! You’re going to kill me!’
It’s all right, said the white man. I’ve brought you some medicine. He showed Killigrew a small brown bottle.
‘No! It’s poison! Stay away from me! You’re trying to poison me! Where’s my pipe? Give me another pipe, damn your eyes!’
It’s laudanum, said the white man. It will help wean you off the opium…
Killigrew glanced at the bottle in the man’s hand, but it had changed into Peri, and she was the size of a doll. ‘Kit!’ she called. ‘Kit!’
He sobbed. ‘Peri! You bastards, what have you done with her? Give her back to me!’
Be sure you drink it all, said the man, and handed Peri to him. She seemed to grow back to full size in his arms. He kissed her greedily and at once a warmth seemed to spread through him. The strange room faded and he was back on the beach with Peri in his arms. He settled back in the hammock with a smile of blissful ecstasy.
Chapter 10
Happy Valley
Killigrew woke up in bed and turned to where Peri lay, but she was not there. Panic seized him at once and he cried out for her.
The door opened and Molineaux burst into the room. He took one look at Killigrew and swore irritably. ‘Another nightmare, I suppose?’
‘I hope so,’ Killigrew said hoarsely, hoping he would wake up next to Peri and it would be all over. ‘Where’s my pipe? Bring me another pipe, damn your eyes!’
Molineaux rolled his eyes. ‘Here we go again. No more pipes, sir. How many times do I have to tell you? You want me to ask the sawbones for some more laudanum?’
‘Where’s the necessary?’ Killigrew’s voice sounded harsh and unfamiliar to his own ears.
‘Right here.’ Molineaux reached under the bed and pulled out a chamber pot decorated with Napoleon Bonaparte’s face on the inside. ‘You mean to say you’re actually going to use that thing for once, instead of having a jerry
-go-nimble in the bed?’
‘A gentleman does not excrete in his bed, Molineaux.’ Killigrew was trying to get up, but his emaciated limbs responded clumsily.
‘Oh, right. I suppose you’re going to tell me the Triads have been sneaking in here and doing dockyard jobs on your mattress – and worse – while you slept?’ Molineaux helped him up.
Killigrew felt weak and shaky all over as he relieved himself into the chamber pot. As soon as he had finished he sat down once more, exhausted. ‘Where am I?’ he croaked.
‘The Bannatyne house.’
‘The Bannatynes’…!’ Killigrew sat up sharply, and immediately regretted it. ‘How long have I been here?’
‘Four weeks, give or take.’
‘Four weeks!’ Killigrew pushed himself up and lunged for the door. ‘I have to get out of here. I have to get back on duty…’ He only made it halfway before his legs crumpled beneath him and he sprawled on the rug before Molineaux could catch him.
‘Calm down, sir.’ Molineaux tried to pick him up.
Killigrew cried out. ‘Don’t touch me!’ he snapped irritably.
‘Oh-kay, oh-kay! I was only trying to help! You don’t have to worry about getting back on duty just yet,’ Molineaux continued as Killigrew sat back on the bed. ‘It’s all taken care of, thanks to your pals Wes Molineaux and Mr Strachan. Not to mention Mr and Mrs Bannatyne, who’ve kindly put you up until you recover from your illness.’
That worried Killigrew, but his brain was still too addled to work out why. ‘What about the Tisiphone?’ he said weakly, sniffing.
‘Don’t worry about that. That Strachan ain’t as green as I first thought. He came up with a downy fakement and no mistake. He told Commander Robertson that you’d contracted some rare, highly infectious tropical disease with a long Latin name I can’t remember. Probably made it up there and then, but even that daft old bugger Westlake didn’t dare gainsay him. So instead of being kept in the naval hospital Strachan told them you’d have to be kept up here in quarantine, where the higher altitude would do you good.’
Killigrew sniffed. ‘Have I contracted a rare disease?’
‘Lumme, sir, try to keep up, will you? Mr Strachan says you’ve got a dependency on opium.’
‘Opium…?’ Killigrew had known there was something he wanted. ‘Where’s my pipe?’
‘Oh, Lor’! Don’t let’s go through that again. Mr Strachan’s gone down to Victoria with Mrs Bannatyne to fetch you some laudanum.’
‘Who else knows I’m here?’
‘Everyone. But only me, Strachan, and the Bannatynes know the real reason why. Even their servants have been kept at arm’s length; though it wasn’t difficult, once they heard you had an infectious disease.’ He took out a clean handkerchief and held it out when Killigrew sniffed again.
The lieutenant took it from him and blew his runny nose. ‘Thank you,’ he said grudgingly. Suddenly feeling cold, he dragged the blankets off the bed and wrapped them around his shoulders, shivering.
He heard a door open in the next room, and Strachan’s voice: ‘By jings, that hill takes it out of me every time.’
‘Mr Strachan?’ called Molineaux. ‘In here. He’s awake. And making sense. Sort of.’
The door opened, but it was Mrs Bannatyne who entered, looking especially fetching in a white muslin morning gown. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Damnable.’
‘You look much improved.’
‘Have you got a looking-glass?’
‘I’ll go fetch one,’ said Molineaux, and went out.
A moment later Strachan entered with a small phial and a crystal sherry glass. ‘And how’s the patient this morning?’
‘Spare me your bedside manner, Mr Strachan.’
‘I’d say he’s on the road to a full recovery,’ Mrs Bannatyne said drily. Strachan emptied the contents of the phial into the glass and handed it to Killigrew. ‘Get that down you.’
‘What is it?’
‘Laudanum. We’ve been giving it to you twice a day, a smaller and smaller dosage each time. Do you not remember?’
Killigrew ached to toss the contents of the glass down his throat so desperately he suddenly found himself wanting not to, just to be bloody-minded and prove to himself he could do it. ‘Am I sick, Strachan? I feel like I’ve got a chill.’
‘You’re suffering from the same symptoms as a lot of patients I’ve known coming off an opium-based medication.’
‘So what am I supposed to do? Keep on taking laudanum for the rest of my life?’
‘Not a wise notion,’ said Strachan. ‘An old friend of mine from Edinburgh works as an apothecary in Manchester now. He’s often told me how a lot of his customers from the labouring classes buy opium lozenges. They keep on coming back for larger and larger doses. He thinks that the more opium one takes, the more the body becomes used to it, and the more it craves it. It’s an awful nasty vicious circle, and we’ve got to break you out of it. So we’re weaning you off it.’
Molineaux returned with a looking-glass and held it up so Killigrew could see his own reflection. It took Killigrew a few seconds before he realised that the pallid, haggard face which stared back at him was his own. He reached up tentatively to touch his cheek, and then stroked his smooth jaw. ‘I thought you said I’d been here for four weeks? Someone’s shaved me.’
‘Someone’s shaved you, bathed you, changed your soiled sheets and fed you,’ said Mrs Bannatyne.
‘You?’
‘Joint effort,’ she said. ‘Mr Molineaux’s been helping cook with the food.’
‘Was it any good?’
‘Not according to you,’ Molineaux said surlily. ‘One time you hurled your plate at my head and swore blue murder at me.’ He indicated a stain on the wall beside the door.
Killigrew felt ashamed. ‘Sorry. That would have been the opium talking.’
‘That’s what Mr Strachan said, sir.’
The lieutenant glanced at the glass of laudanum in his hand, and with slow deliberation tipped it into the chamber pot. He glanced up at them and grinned sheepishly. ‘I’ve made rather an ass of myself, haven’t I?’
All three of them folded their arms and nodded firmly.
‘Well, I’m glad to see your condition seems to be much improved,’ said Strachan. ‘There’s nothing like enjoying the occasional success to renew a man’s faith in his own abilities. I’d better go now. I have to get back to the Tisiphone.’
‘What about you, Molineaux?’ asked Killigrew. ‘Haven’t you got duties to attend to?’
The seaman grinned. ‘Mr Strachan was kind enough to get me appointed to full-time nursing duties until you’re fit enough to join polite society once more, sir. So take your time getting better.’
‘But you could walk back down to Victoria with cook to help her with the shopping, Mr Molineaux,’ said Mrs Bannatyne.
‘Couldn’t you have got it just now, when you were in town, Mrs B?’
She glared at him. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting I should go shopping, as if I were some common housekeeper?’
‘What do I look like?’ demanded Molineaux. ‘The chambermaid?’
‘That reminds me,’ said Killigrew, and handed him the chamber pot. ‘You can empty that on your way out.’
Molineaux sighed. ‘It’s a man’s life in the navy.’
As soon as Strachan and Molineaux had gone, Killigrew eased himself out of bed. Mrs Bannatyne tried to stop him, but Killigrew managed to turn an attempt to push him back into an act of supporting him.
‘You should be resting,’ she chided.
‘I’ve been resting for four weeks,’ he told her. ‘Now I have to build up my strength. Help me across to the window.’
They pushed the shutters open and saw the rooftops of Victoria laid out far below them.
‘Nice view,’ said Killigrew. ‘So tell me, since when did you and your husband become so concerned about my welfare?’
‘Ever since Mr Strachan came to tell us you were
sick and needed a place to rest until you could be cured.’
‘Well, at least now you’ve had a chance to see the pernicious effects of the drug your husband imports into China.’
‘I’d heard you were in favour of the drug.’
‘It’s freedom of choice I’m in favour of. Instead of worrying about the fact that people smoke opium we should concern ourselves with what drives them to seek oblivion in such vices.’
‘That was going to be my next question.’
He sighed and made for a chair. She tried to help him, but he shook his head. ‘I need to do it for myself.’
‘As you wish.’
It was touch and go, but he made it to the chair. She sat down on the bed facing him. ‘You cared for her very much, didn’t you, Mr Killigrew?’
‘Who?’
‘You know perfectly well whom I mean. Miss Dadabhoy.’
‘I can’t have cared that much for her,’ he replied bitterly. ‘I was the one who got her killed.’
‘You did everything you could to save her.’
‘Oh, I did everything I could, all right. I led her straight into a trap on board the Akhandata, and then goaded Zhai Jing-mu into shooting her. How’s Sir Dadabhoy?’
‘Putting a brave face on it. But her death has hit him hard. He’s a broken man. All his wealth… I think he’d give up everything to have her back.’
‘Two lives broken. I’m a veritable Jonah, aren’t I?’
‘You mustn’t blame yourself, Mr Killigrew. You were not the one who pulled the trigger. And at least Zhai Jing-mu got his comeuppance.’
‘That won’t bring her back, though, will it?’ Talking about Peri had brought back the craving which seemed to permeate every fibre of his being. ‘Molineaux didn’t… ah… empty the necessary, did he?’
‘The one with the laudanum and your… you know what… in it? Oh, Mr Killigrew! Surely you cannot be that desperate? How low can a man sink?’
‘Pretty low, I can assure you. Where does Strachan keep the laudanum?’
‘I thought you’d decided that you didn’t need it any more?’
Killigrew and the Golden Dragon Page 21