The Indigo Ghosts

by Alys Clare

  ‘To Devon,’ Simoun interrupted. ‘We’re Devonians, from Plymouth, like I told you. Well, Henry and me, although he isn’t.’ He jerked his head towards Puma’s corner. ‘Obviously,’ he added with a swift smile.

  ‘Home to Devon, then, after terrible hardships not the least of which you suffered on the journey home. I will tell him that you were pursued by those whose prisoners you had been—’

  ‘We were their slaves,’ Simoun said sharply. ‘Make no mistake, Doctor, we were treated worse than the Africans, and that’s saying a great deal.’

  ‘Yes.’ I bowed my head. ‘I am sorry, Simoun, I did not intend to underestimate what you experienced.’

  ‘I know,’ he muttered. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I shall say – and it is the truth – that two Spaniards in the guise of merchants trailed you to your hiding place. Master Davey already knows these men are here – were here,’ I amended, glancing at the two corpses, ‘for others have reported receiving visits from them.’

  Simoun’s head shot up. ‘Who would that be?’

  I guessed he already knew. ‘Thomas Drake and Richard Hawkins.’

  ‘Bastard priest knew we’d go there with the— with what we have with us,’ he said. He spat on the filthy floor.

  ‘Yes, he did,’ I agreed. ‘Neither Sir Thomas nor Sir Richard, however, liked the look of the man and sent him away, denying all knowledge of anyone trying to sell them any – er, any valuable object.’

  ‘We hadn’t got that far,’ Simoun said. ‘Our initial attempts to get a hearing from either of them did not meet with success.’

  ‘Yes, Henry told me,’ I said gently. ‘I’m very sorry about Bartholomew Noble.’

  ‘Wasn’t Sir Thomas nor any of his household that fired the shot,’ Simoun added.

  ‘I know who it was,’ I said.

  After a moment, Simoun said, ‘Then what?’

  It took me a moment to realize what he meant.

  ‘Oh – then I’ll describe how the two Spaniards burst into the house – this house – fully armed, and I’ll make Master Davey fully aware that I was here, I saw it with my own eyes, and I shall explain that I was the only one among those in the room to have a weapon and that I’d been temporarily disabled by being struck on the head as the door was flung open.’

  Simoun nodded slowly. ‘Then what, Doctor? How will you explain two dead men when none of us bore arms?’

  I hesitated. ‘I’ll work that out when I come to it,’ I said firmly. ‘It is I who will examine the bodies, Simoun. I will not lie’ – the expression in his eyes staring into mine told me he knew that already – ‘but I do not intend to let you or your son be held responsible for murders that you did not commit.’

  What about Puma?

  The question seemed to hang unspoken in the air.

  Just then, I had no answer.

  TWENTY

  It was afternoon, yet again I’d forgotten to eat anything at midday – really, it had been the last thing on my mind – and now I stood in the cellar beneath Theo Davey’s house between two trestles, each bearing a dead, naked body.

  The third member of the trio who had come so far – the old priest in the boarding house – had died, I’d been informed, during the night.

  Theo stood beside me, and I knew he wasn’t going to budge until I’d finished my examinations and pronounced my verdict.

  He was aware that something strange had occurred. My difficult and not very honourable task now was to reveal enough to satisfy Theo’s suspicious, intelligent mind while at the same time not even hinting at anybody within that deserted little hovel being guilty of murder.

  I decided to begin with what I believed to be the more challenging death: that of the man in the dark blue cloak, who had been the priest’s underling. I had no idea how he had died. Well, I didn’t know how either of them had met their end, come to that.

  I positioned the lamps to best effect and leaned over the corpse.

  Theo could see for himself the obvious facts such as gender, height, weight, and also the slightly less obvious ones, such as there being no blows to the head or body, no knife wounds, no shot holes or any other overt evidence of violence.

  ‘The body shows no signs or symptoms of disease,’ I said presently, ‘and the man was in overall good condition. He got enough to eat and did not do any extreme form of labour.’ I went on with my examination, going over every part of the body until finally – reluctantly – arriving at the shoulders and neck.

  ‘There are two small puncture wounds in the throat, at the spot where the jugular vein drains blood from the head and down towards the chest,’ I said. I hoped my voice sounded calm; that I was succeeding in disguising the fact that suddenly my heart was pounding, for the little wounds were precisely where I had imagined I’d seen a huge black snake stick its fangs in the blue-cloaked man’s neck.

  ‘Puncture wounds?’ Theo repeated. He sounded, I told myself, only mildly interested.

  ‘Yes. See?’ I pointed them out with the probe I was holding.

  ‘Hmm.’ Theo leaned in closer. ‘They look like insect bites,’ he observed. He shot me a particularly keen glance.

  ‘They do, don’t they?’ I agreed.

  Theo was still looking at me. ‘Reckon some little creature stung him and poisoned him, Doctor?’ he said.

  I made a show of studying the dead face very intently. ‘No sign of vomit, although his lips look blueish.’

  ‘He’d surely only vomit if he’d ingested the poison,’ Theo said. I’d forgotten how much he knew; how swiftly and accurately he could put facts together.

  ‘True,’ I said mildly.

  ‘So?’ he prompted when I didn’t go on.

  I decided to tell the truth. Of a sort.

  ‘Honestly, Theo, if I didn’t know it made no sense I’d say this man was bitten by a snake whose venom is deadly poisonous and very swift-acting,’ I said.

  ‘And our only indigenous poisonous snake is the adder,’ Theo mused. ‘Could that be it?’

  ‘Unlikely,’ I replied. ‘Adder bites often kill lambs and other small animals, and occasionally prove fatal in the case of children, but it’s very unusual for a well-built adult to succumb, and with such rapidity.’ I shook my head in feigned puzzlement. ‘This man dropped where he stood, and I would judge he died pretty much as he hit the ground.’

  There was a long, heavy silence.

  Just as it became unendurable, Theo said very softly, ‘Gabe, I know there’s more to this than you’re telling me.’ He stilled my instinctive protest with a raised hand. ‘But I know you well, or I think I do, and I trust you. I like you, damnation take it.’

  ‘The sentiments are entirely reciprocated,’ I muttered.

  Silence again. Then Theo said, ‘Let us proceed to the second corpse.’

  I drew the sheet up over the body I’d just examined and turned to the other one.

  It was much the same story – a lean but adequately-fed, fit man, this one in late middle age but healthy and with no wounds or obvious signs of disease. When I had carried out a very thorough inspection I said, ‘Not even those strange puncture wounds in the case of this body.’

  ‘So how are we to say he died?’ Theo asked. Then, his tone sharp with sudden angry impatience, he said, ‘God alive, Gabe, you were right there! What the fuck happened?’

  So I told him.

  ‘The Falco survivors had their little corpse in the house with them,’ I said. ‘Yes, Theo, the one they took back from right here.’ Gently I thumped the trestle table before me. ‘She has some power that I don’t even begin to understand, and it is a power that not only the Falco men but also the priest – this man – recognized and understood.’ I could see he wanted to interrupt but I didn’t let him. ‘Somehow it seemed to enter the priest’s head that the figure – she’s called Mama Tze Amba – could harm him. He killed so many men, and one of the most common methods was by burning. Somehow – and don’t ask because I can’t begin to explain it –
he seemed to think she was capable of exacting revenge by meting out the same punishment on him. He – it appeared that he believed he was burning too. Before our very eyes, he fell to his knees, crying out in terror, clutching his cross, praying for his very soul, and in the end emitting nothing but one long howl of agony.’ The memory was far too recent; far, far too vivid, and for a moment I felt as faint as I’d done back in the fetid little room. ‘So, cause of death for this man: imaginary immolation.’

  I hadn’t meant to speak so harshly, but Theo, bless him, understood. He put a strong arm round my waist and held me up until my knees turned back from jelly to muscle, bone and sinew, then he said gruffly, ‘Sorry, Gabe. Didn’t mean to make you relive it. And you had a bang on the head, too.’

  I didn’t answer. It was tempting to say that I’d probably been half-concussed, and that explained my inability to describe what had happened in any credible way. But it would have been a lie and while I’m prepared to lie to quite a lot of people for a variety of reasons, Theo is among those who deserves the truth.

  After a time he said, ‘Do we have names for these two?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, although Simoun Wex knows the priest and may be able to provide one, although I imagine he’s made himself erase it from his memory.’

  Theo nodded. ‘Well, I intend to release the bodies for burial.’

  I felt a wave of relief flood through me. ‘Thank you.’

  There was a pause, then Theo said, ‘You will swear no murder was done, Gabe?’

  ‘Neither Simoun Wex nor his son committed any crime here,’ I said.

  ‘And the other fugitive – the long, skinny boy?’

  I was tired of evasions. ‘He’s a grown man, his mother was a vodou priestess, he appears to have unbelievable powers I’ve never seen before or even suspected exist, and I think, although I cannot be sure, that somehow he managed to turn himself into a snake and that it was he who inflicted the fatal bite on this one.’ I indicated the first man I’d examined. ‘That, of course, is both absurd and totally unlikely.’

  There was an even longer silence. Then Theo gave a great, gusty sigh and said, ‘I’d better record death by misadventure for the pair of them, then.’

  We covered up the priest, extinguished the lamps and left him and his companion lying there in the dark, cold cellar. As we mounted the steps back to the warmth and the light, Theo said very softly, ‘Thanks for telling me the truth, Gabe. Appreciate it.’

  Theo truly is a pearl among coroners. A pearl, in fact, among friends.

  I rode home, gave my tired horse into Samuel’s care and made my exhausted, stumbling way into my house.

  I’d been hoping for plentiful hot water, a change of clothes, a good meal, several mugs of ale and then a long, undisturbed sleep. I had no idea what the time was – some time in the early evening, judging by the light – and I didn’t care.

  Celia apprehended me before I’d even got as far as the kitchen to ask Sallie for the hot water. ‘Er, Gabe, actually, don’t call Sallie, because I’ve only just persuaded her to go to her room and stay there,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh, dear God, what now?’ I moaned.

  ‘Sorry, sorry!’ Celia said, and I could see her concern in her sweet face. ‘There are some people here to see you and, honestly, Gabe, I think you’ll want to speak to them.’ She gave me an earnest, enquiring look, and pointed in the direction of the library.

  ‘Very well,’ I said grudgingly, and I followed her across the hall, through the parlour and into the library, where Jonathan Carew, Simoun and Henry Wex all stood up to greet me.

  Jonathan apologized, just as Celia had done: ‘I’m so sorry, Gabriel, I am sure this is the last thing you want, but really, I do not think you ought to miss this.’ Also like Celia, his eyes too sparkled with excitement.

  And I watched as Simoun took some object out from behind his back and placed it with careful reverence on the library table.

  It was a box made of red wood, decorated with swirls and spirals, and it was so old that the beautiful design had almost faded away.

  ‘I think, Doctor,’ Simoun said gravely, ‘that you have earned the right to know about this.’

  For a moment I just stood and looked at it. I’d seen it before, fleetingly, hidden under Simoun’s pillows in the dilapidated house. It was probably my mental state, but as I stared down at the red wood, dulled by age, it seemed to grow larger and then smaller before my eyes.

  ‘Open it,’ Simoun said.

  So I unfastened the brass clasp and raised the lid.

  There was a piece of parchment inside, tightly rolled and tied with a length of red silk cord. The parchment was the width of the box – eight or nine inches across – and as I undid the bow that fastened the cord and let the scroll unroll, it was revealed to be perhaps a foot and a half long.

  I’d been at sea. I knew instantly what it was.

  What confounded me, what made me doubt what my eyes were telling me, was that the parchment appeared to show a route through an area where all man’s endeavours had informed us that there was no route.

  I looked up and met Simoun’s intent eyes.

  ‘Is it true?’ I laid a hand on the chart. ‘Is this right? Is it accurate?’

  ‘A man I trusted with my life swore that it is, yes,’ Simoun said quietly.

  ‘Who is this man?’

  ‘He is dead, Doctor. You cannot seek him out and grill him, so you’ll have to take my word for it.’ He had spoken abruptly and now he added more gently, ‘He was a countryman of mine and he had travelled extensively in the region with a wise and experienced native guide. He – my countryman – travelled the western end of the route with this guide, who had approached from the east to meet up with my friend.’

  ‘And he—’

  ‘Doctor, I shall not tell you any more so there is no point pressing me,’ Simoun said firmly. ‘You recognize what this is?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I breathed softly.

  Some men called them portolans; others referred to them as rutters. They were detailed maps of coastlines, sea and ocean routes, usually created by sailors for sailors, and they were considered state secrets by the Portuguese and the Spanish. Although as a ship’s surgeon navigation had not been my responsibility, nevertheless I had been strangely fascinated by the rutters of the Mediterranean and the Caribbean – even the ones of my own native shores – which my various ship’s captains had shown me, for more often than not these objects were works of art in their own right. The wavy, indented lines of the coast would be marked not only with place names but, more importantly, landmarks such as churches, hills and valleys, patches of woodland; even, sometimes, some quaint local focus point such as big yellow barn with hole in roof. The tides were indicated and, out in mid-ocean, the mighty currents. These vast areas of open sea were covered with characteristic rhumb lines: the long, gracefully curving lines showing the windrose networks emanating from the compass rose, for the captains of sailing ships needed above all to know about the wind network when far from land.

  We – the English – and the Dutch had been behind the Spanish and the Portuguese when it came to discovering the benefits of world trade, not that you’d ever catch an Englishman, especially a sailor, admitting it. Thus we’d had a good deal of catching up to do, and no sailor in our navy, from captains and probably even admirals downwards, ever missed a chance to steal a rutter from our rivals; Francis Drake, men said, had somehow got his hands on charts of the galleon route across the Pacific to the Moluccas in 1578. If you wanted to succeed in fighting, raiding and trading, you needed to know exactly where you were and what course to set for where you were intending to go.

  A memory awoke in my mind of a time when, under Captain Zeke’s command, we’d been involved in the capture of a Portuguese ship, the Madre de Deus: among the more readily saleable items such as gold and precious jewels that had been stashed away in her capacious holds, there was said to be a document that provided invaluable informat
ion on the Portuguese trade with Japan and Cathay. In all likeliness it had been a rutter such as the one I was now staring at, and it too, so they said, had been hidden away in its own precious box …

  But the chart now spread out on my library table showed a very different part of the globe.

  I dragged myself out of my fascinating thoughts.

  My eyes on Simoun, I said, indicating Celia and Jonathan, ‘Have you told them what this is? Have you explained why it is so vitally important?’

  Jonathan murmured something, his moderate tones entirely obliterated by Celia’s indignant voice. ‘He didn’t need to explain, Gabe!’ she protested. ‘You give me leave to read your books and your journals, and you know full well that I do so whenever I have the time!’

  I did. Hadn’t she only very recently demonstrated the fact by discovering for herself the story of Drake and Hawkins at San Juan d’Ulúa?

  ‘You are most welcome, Celia,’ I said to her. ‘Granny Oldreive would be very proud of you,’ I added softly, and she smiled. ‘Go on, then,’ I added.

  She needed no second invitation. Simoun was watching her with some suspicion, and I guessed that what women there had been in his life had been of a very different nature from my sister. Henry was staring at her with his mouth open and his eyes full of wonder that, I thought, was poised to turn into adoration.

  ‘England wants to trade with the world,’ Celia began, ‘and to do so, good, reliable access to distant shores is needed, without having to compete with the ships of those other nations who want this trade all for themselves. The Spanish and the Portuguese hold positions of power in the Caribbean, and the Dutch have control of the route around Cape Horn to the Spice Islands. For many years now, the English have been desperate to find their own way there. So, they’ve been hunting for a route across the Atlantic to North America, around the top of the mass of land and into the Pacific, then on to the Spice Islands via the westward way.’

  She stopped, slightly breathless, and I judged from her expression that it had taken quite a lot of courage to lecture on such matters to a roomful of men. But my sister does not lack courage.