The White Pearl

by Kate Furnivall

  With a grin he reached over and smacked Kitty’s broad rump. ‘Wake up, wife. Just because we’re in the master bed doesn’t mean you can snore the day away.’

  She grunted, opened one eye and dug a finger into his ribs. ‘Piss off.’ She rolled over, turning her back on him.

  He had to admit that Kitty was not at her best first thing in the morning. He lifted her skirt from where it lay on the floor, but it was not weighed down in one spot the way he expected it to be. He shook it, frustrated.

  ‘Where’s the gun?’ he hissed.

  ‘It’s not there.’

  ‘Where the hell is it?’

  ‘When you need it, it will be ready for you, Madoc. You won’t need it today.’

  ‘So you’re a bloody crystal-ball gazer all of a sudden, are you? Able to see what’s waiting around the corner?’

  ‘Don’t shout.’

  He seized her shoulder and shook it, though not hard enough to hurt her. She sat up, her breasts naked, and he could smell the sleepy musk of her body. He whispered harshly, ‘I need it, Kitty. Today we’ll be landing at Fitzpayne’s bloody island. We’d have been safely there by now if he hadn’t wasted hours in an insane search for a dead man. God only knows what will happen, and I need to be ready to …’

  ‘Let’s see how the land lies first, shall we?’

  ‘No. This is our chance, Kitty.’ Automatically his hand stroked the pale skin of her breast, as soft and unmarked as a young girl’s and as big as a ripe watermelon. ‘Don’t wreck it for me.’

  ‘For us.’

  ‘That’s what I meant.’

  ‘Madoc, I’m watching your back. I don’t want you fed to the sharks like Hadley.’ She paused, prodded back an unruly swathe of her hair and, staring down at his hand on her flesh, muttered thoughtfully, ‘Madoc, will you search insanely for my body when I die?’

  His heart slammed against his ribs. The thought of a shark’s jaw scything its way through Kitty’s guts did something bad inside him. He pushed her back on the goose-down pillows and sank his teeth gently into her throat.

  ‘Kitty, tell me where the fucking pistol is,’ he growled against her skin. ‘Or I will throw you to the sharks myself.’

  ‘Razak.’

  He didn’t lift his head from his knees. Maya tugged at his hair. ‘Razak, don’t be like this.’

  He moaned.

  ‘He’s dead, Razak. But Mem Hadley will still look after us. She won’t …’

  He moaned once more. They were crouched on deck, hidden away from the Jap, and Maya took a firm grip on her brother’s black hair, raising his head. He was crying. Huge tears streaked his face and dripped onto his knees. They frightened her.

  ‘Razak,’ she said in a small voice, ‘our mother will be satisfied now. This revenge will lie sweet as honey on her tongue.’ She stroked his cheek. ‘Be happy.’

  He leaned his head against hers. She could feel its pain pass through into her own skull and settle there like river mud. She wrapped an arm around her twin and held him close, crooning softly.

  ‘Now,’ he whispered to her, ‘you must stop hating.’

  *

  It was scarcely light, yet everyone was on deck, everyone except Constance Hadley and the boy. There was a restlessness on board, people constantly moving around as though they could outpace the thoughts that stalked them. Madoc felt tense. The yacht was limping badly, cumbersome to handle, and on the horizon the native boat could be seen drawing ever closer.

  Hadley was gone. Madoc had to work at keeping the smile off his face. Expressions on deck were sombre. Fitzpayne was grim and silent, so Madoc could hardly walk around whistling. He felt sorry for the wife and the boy, no question of that, poor kid, but he was glad they were keeping below deck. He didn’t like the reminder that the sight of them gave him – like Henry Court, whom he avoided like the plague – that husbands or wives could die on you. Could leave you alone and unloved. Oh Kitty, don’t you ever fucking die on me.

  The argument with her this morning had been short-lived because she was right, damn her. He was going to have to wait until the boat was fixed before trying anything, but the idea of this island of Fitzpayne’s made him nervous. Nervous as hell.

  Connie waited. In the cabin she made no sound, though she could hear the footsteps above her on deck and the low rumble of Fitzpayne’s voice giving orders. She was waiting until she was certain that Teddy was asleep once more.

  His young face on the pillow looked flushed and vulnerable, but at least in sleep his body stopped shaking. Earlier he had woken in the darkness and she had rocked him in her arms in the hot little cabin, talking to him, telling him the only one to blame for his father’s death was the Jap. Not Teddy, not Pippin, not Daddy, not Mummy. Not those handling the boat. Just the Japanese pilot who tossed the dog overboard. He was the one to blame.

  Not you, my beloved son, not you.

  Fitzpayne had questioned the pilot in Japanese and asked him why he did it. ‘He said it was because the dog was annoying him,’ Fitzpayne had reported. But she had looked into Fitzpayne’s troubled eyes and seen in them the knowledge that the dog was thrown into the water as a deliberate act of revenge, a gesture designed to hurt her.

  ‘No one could have predicted Daddy would leap in to rescue Pippin,’ she assured her son. ‘He was very brave.’

  ‘He’s a hero,’ Teddy had sobbed.

  ‘Of course he is. He loved you so much.’

  ‘I hate all Japanese.’

  How could she blame him? They had taken his home, and now they had taken his father. So she waited, stroking her son’s sweat-soaked hair, and only when she was sure he was fast asleep did she open the leather bag at her feet. Inside lay the gun Fitzpayne had given her the night of the storm.

  War had altered her more than she believed possible. Connie stepped out on deck into the early-morning light, drew the damp air into her lungs and contemplated killing a man. This time it would not be an accident, not a push that turned into a stumble and an unintentional killing. This time her heart was choked with murder.

  She strode across to the base of the main-mast and placed herself in front of the prisoner she had saved from the sea, but this time she didn’t see a young man dragged away from his parents’ farm, or even a patriotic servant of Japan intent on fighting for his country. No, not this time. She saw the sullen head and black, hateful eyes of the man who had killed her husband, and so she lifted the gun in her hand and pointed it straight at his heart.

  He leaped to his feet. Said something in Japanese.

  She wasn’t aware of the shout from Johnnie Blake, or of Fitzpayne lifting his head where he was seated on the deck filleting fish with Kitty. She heard only a roaring in her ears – was it the wind in the rigging? – and saw a long, narrow tunnel of vision with the Japanese pilot’s face at the end of it.

  ‘You killed my husband.’ She spoke calmly. ‘A life for a life.’

  A split second of panic passed over his face before he regained control of himself. He became very still, nodded once and slowly closed his eyes, long black lashes settling on his cheeks. His lips moved silently, and she realised he was saying a prayer. What was in the prayer? A plea for blessings on his soul? A sorrowful farewell to his family? A final vow of allegiance to his emperor? Or was it yet another impassioned curse called down on her head? The roaring grew louder in her ears, more insistent; not the wind, no, not the wind. It dawned on her that it was the sound of her own blood in her ears, and she felt another pulse of the rage that had driven her to point the gun.

  Her finger curled around the trigger. She took aim at his chest, aware of the weight of the gun in her hand, of the hardness of the metal against the skin of her fingers, of the hunger for vengeance rampaging in her soul.

  ‘A life for a life,’ she said for the last time.

  ‘Go ahead. Shoot him.’

  There was a hesitation in her finger as Fitzpayne’s words pierced the noise in her head.

  ‘Shoot him
if you think it will make you feel better, Connie.’

  Connie. He had never called her Connie. Always Mrs Hadley. Maybe if he had called her Mrs Hadley, this time she wouldn’t have listened because it wasn’t who she was any more. On the periphery of her vision she could see him leaning against the mast, an easy smile curving his full lips, fish scales on his fingers and a long-bladed filleting knife in one hand. Around him other figures moved, but they were out of focus and she had no idea how many were gathering. But the face of the Japanese pilot was pin sharp. Every detail – the narrow bones, the pale skin bruised on his forehead, the smooth, slippery eyelids – all were branded into her brain as she prepared to fire.

  ‘Do you know what killing a man does to a person, Connie?’ Fitzpayne asked, as casually as if enquiring if she knew the time by her watch.

  Yes, I know. I know what killing a man does to a person.

  ‘It isn’t good,’ he said gently. ‘Not good at all. Take my word for it, this man isn’t worth it.’

  The Japanese pilot opened his eyes and fixed them on Connie.

  ‘It’s worth it to me,’ she said fiercely.

  ‘It won’t make you feel better, and it won’t bring Nigel back. But if you’re really determined to see this Jap dead … ’

  Her finger tightened.

  ‘… I’ll do the job for you,’ Fitzpayne finished. He held out a hand for the gun. ‘It won’t be the first time I’ve killed a man.’

  The sounds in her head were growing louder, more jumbled, and were joined by shouts and movement around her. Suddenly the Jap wasn’t looking at her anymore, but staring open-mouthed over her shoulder.

  ‘Connie?’ Fitzpayne was right next to her. Everything steadied. ‘You won’t be needing this now.’ He curled a hand over hers on the gun, and flicked a glance behind her.

  She spun around and saw a flurry of grubby sails and the long, pointed bowsprit as the native boat, the pinisiq, that had dogged their wake for so long drew alongside, as silent as a shark. Grappling hooks were hurled over The White Pearl’s rail, attached to scrambling nets that stretched up from the deck of the pinisiq which sat lower in the water. Someone screamed. They all knew there was only one brand of voyager that boarded a boat with such arrogance: the pirates of the South China Sea.

  28

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  Madoc seized the Tokarev pistol from Kitty’s pocket, and brandished it in front of the pirates. The waters round here were riddled with them, sea scum that vanished among the thousands of islands like rats down holes. Their reputation as thieves and killers was legendary. He pushed Kitty behind him, and took aim at the first head that rose above The White Pearl’s rail. It was brown-skinned, tufty-haired and as wrinkled as a stale apple.

  ‘Get off this boat!’ Madoc shouted at him.

  Blake and Henry Court stood shoulder to shoulder, ready to make a fight of it, but Madoc fired a warning shot. The bullet skimmed the cheek of the tufty man, whose face screwed up into a snarl. He wiped away the trickle of blood and licked it from his knuckles, his eyes startled. Across his back hung a rifle.

  ‘My next shot will split your dogshit brain,’ Madoc warned in Malay, ‘if you don’t …’

  A blade, stinking of fish, slid under Madoc’s throat. Christ! His body went rigid, then he heard Fitzpayne’s voice soft in his ear. ‘If you pull that trigger again, Madoc, I’ll cut your tongue out before our friend over there even hits the deck.’

  Something in his voice made Madoc want to piss his pants.

  ‘I’m telling you for the last time, put the gun down, Madoc. There’s no need for it. Give it back to your woman. She has the sense to know when to keep it out of sight.’

  ‘Fuck you, Fitzpayne. What the hell are you doing?’

  Fitzpayne released an unpleasant laugh. ‘Just do as you’re told, and don’t make trouble for everyone. Drop the gun.’

  Madoc did so, and it clattered on the deck.

  ‘Kick it away.’

  Madoc kicked it, but not too far. He wanted to spit, but his mouth was as dry as a whore’s heart.

  ‘Now we talk to them,’ Fitzpayne announced calmly.

  It was Constance Hadley who surprised everyone by stepping forward, right up to the man still perched on the rail. She stripped the gold watch from her wrist and held it out to him. Madoc could see no sign of the gun she had been clutching earlier.

  ‘Here,’ she said, ‘take this. If you leave us alone, we’ll give you our valuables.’

  As if Tufty-brain knew what valuables were! But he sure as hell recognised the worth of a Cartier watch when he saw one, and his hand snatched it from her, sliding it into a pouch at his waist. He grinned, showing off a battalion of gold teeth. He’d have the pearls off her neck next. During this exchange, Fitzpayne removed the knife. Maya was crouched behind the helm, peeking out with a look on her face that was half fury and half terror, but her brother seemed less concerned. He was regarding the other boat with keen interest.

  ‘Fitzpayne!’ Kitty called.

  She had darted forward, quick on her feet despite her bulk, and snatched up the pistol from the deck. She held it with both hands, its business end pointed unwaveringly at Fitzpayne’s back.

  ‘Fitzpayne, if you ever put a knife to my husband’s throat again, I swear to you I will put a bullet in your fucking balls.’

  Fitzpayne didn’t even turn, but the sound of his chuckle drifted behind him. ‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said as he moved past Blake and Court towards the scrambling nets, where the watch-stealer was poised. ‘Now, fellow passengers, let me introduce you to my friend, Nurul.’

  ‘Wake up, Teddy.’

  Her son’s eyes opened reluctantly. His lashes rose, slow and heavy, the movements of his limbs like a broken doll, but when he looked into his mother’s face he sat bolt upright in bed.

  ‘Mummy, what is it?’

  Connie sank onto the edge of the double bed. ‘You remember the boat that you said was following us?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, it seems you were right. It has caught up with us, and come alongside.’

  His eyes grew huge. ‘Who are they?’ he whispered. When she hesitated, he added quickly, ‘Pirates?’

  ‘They call themselves traders, but they look like pirates to me.’

  ‘With cutlasses?’

  She could feel his excitement, and because for a moment it overlaid the savagery of his despair at the loss of his father, she couldn’t begrudge him it. ‘Rifles, actually.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Six men that I’ve seen. One has a mouthful of gold teeth, and another is wearing a bandolier of bullets that looks as if it weighs more than he does. But it seems that they are friends of Mr Fitzpayne.’

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  Her son’s mouth gaped open. ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘He has gone on board their boat at the moment and is talking with them, while two of them have come on board The White Pearl.’

  ‘With their rifles?’

  ‘Yes, but only hanging on their backs, so don’t worry. They look … friendly enough.’

  She was lying. One was a tall and rangy native with a doleful mouth and nervous eyes that darted around like a scared cat’s. The other was squat and mean-looking. He constantly chewed on a wad of tobacco, and his hands never strayed far from the kris at his belt, a knife with a vicious blade that curved like a wave. Both looked ragged, their rough shirts bleached by sun and salt, but she had to admit they made no aggressive moves, just stood quietly eyeing The White Pearl as though she were a woman.

  Teddy jumped off the bed. He pulled on his shorts and shirt, eager to be involved, but she made him sit beside her and spoke to him quietly.

  ‘Teddy, this isn’t a game. Not a pirate story in a book.’

  ‘I know.’ His young face looked hurt. ‘I’m seven now.’

  ‘You must remain down here. It’s safer.’

  ‘No, Mummy, ple
ase.’

  ‘We don’t know yet what they might do.’

  ‘I’ll be good, I promise, I’ll be quiet.’

  She took his precious face in her hands and kissed his head, still smelling of sleep. ‘I know you will. That’s why I want you to hide. They won’t even know you’re here.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes, Teddy.’

  ‘No!’ He gripped her hand and pulled it from his face. She was astonished at his strength. ‘Mummy, I don’t want to lose you too. Let me stay with you,’ he burrowed his shoulder tight against her. ‘Please, Mummy, please.’

  She wrapped her arms around his slight frame, rocking him, rocking herself. ‘All right, Teddy,’ she murmured into his hair, ‘we’ll do this together.’

  They sat locked together, listening for noises from above but there were no voices, no footsteps, no sounds of life except the shriek of gulls as they wheeled overhead.

  ‘Teddy,’ she said softly.

  He tilted his face up to hers, and with her thumb she smoothed out the neat little furrow between his eyes once more. It felt gritty with sorrow. She managed a smile for him.

  ‘Teddy, these men could be …’ she didn’t want to say the word dangerous, so she changed it, ‘… could be unpredictable. Do nothing to antagonise them, nothing to annoy them. They are not in any way like Long John Silver or Captain Hook. Do you understand?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mummy, Mr Fitzpayne will make his friends be nice to us.’

  ‘Of course he will.’

  He gave her a tentative smile. ‘But Daddy wouldn’t like them on our boat, would he?’

  ‘No, I don’t think he would.’

  An image crowded her mind. It was of Razak on his knees, his forehead pressed to the deck, praying aloud and calling out in an eerie wail to the spirit of his dead mother to save Tuan Hadley in the water. It jolted her; added to the weight of her sorrow. She wiped a hand across her face as if she could physically wipe it away like a smear of blood.