James Maxted 03 The Ends of the Earth

by Robert Goddard

  ‘Matilda was pregnant by Henry, however. Tomura may not have known Henry was responsible, but obviously he would have known he himself wasn’t. And he might well have guessed the identity of his wife’s summertime lover. The list of suspects can’t have been a long one. At all events, the cold rage of a Japanese nobleman betrayed by his English wife would have been a formidable thing. Was it partly revenge for Tomura’s murder of her father, I’ve sometimes wondered. Tomura might have wondered that too. She might even have told him.

  ‘Tomura’s family is an ancient clan. They were feudal lords from the beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Some have suggested Tomura hates the Koreans because an ancestor of his was killed during a failed attempt to conquer Korea in 1593. It could be true. Such men think in ways neither you nor I can properly understand. It was that ancestor’s son who entered into a well-judged political alliance with Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Shogunate. His reward was a grant of strategically important land north of Kyoto, where he reconstructed an old fort as a massive castle.

  ‘Kawajuki-jo – literally, Kawajuki Castle – is a forbidding place. The architecture is typical of seventeenth-century castle construction, but something about the stonework – dark, unreflective – chills the blood. Well, it chilled mine when I first saw it. It’s known generally by another name – Zangai-jo. Zangai’s a difficult word to translate. It means the wreck of something, the original shape of which can no longer be discerned. That something could be a human in some renderings. No one seems to know how the name arose. Maybe it refers to some incident in the Tomuras’ past that’s been forgotten. If so, the name itself would be a zangai. A strange concept. But fitting, somehow.

  ‘When Tomura discovered Matilda was pregnant, he sent her to Zangai-jo. Nothing more was heard of her in Tokyo. Henry kept the secret of their love bottled up. He didn’t know she was carrying his child, though he probably suspected he was to blame for her banishment. As you correctly said, you weren’t born in Tokyo. You were born in Kawajuki Castle.

  ‘Tomura was in Kyoto at the time, serving as a member of the reception committee preparing for the visit of the Tsarevich. Well, you’ve read my report. You know I believe – and so did Henry – that Tomura was also preparing an attempt on the Tsarevich’s life, with the encouragement and assistance of Lemmer, in order to poison Russo-Japanese relations, greatly to Germany’s advantage.

  ‘We never unearthed any proof of that. Neither did Kuroda. Still, Tomura and Lemmer both knew Henry suspected their involvement and Tomura knew Henry had personal reasons for doing everything he could to implicate him. Blocking Kuroda’s investigations wasn’t enough for him. I suppose he felt Henry was challenging him. And the challenge had to be answered.

  ‘He sent you to Tokyo in the care of a servant called Ishibashi, with instructions to deliver you to Henry’s house, accompanied by a letter. I never saw the letter, but I gather in it Tomura made clear his contempt both for Henry and his child, whom Tomura disowned. “Do with him as you please,” was the gist of it. “He is no son of mine.” And nor were you, of course, for which I suggest you should be grateful.

  ‘It was a time of crisis. Fraser was under mounting pressure because a member of his staff had made allegations against a Japanese nobleman and a German diplomat that couldn’t be substantiated. I alone at the legation was privy to the turmoil in that member of staff’s private life. Your arrival forced him to confess his infidelity to Winifred. And both were forced to consider what should be done with you. Matilda was beyond help, locked away at Zangai-jo. A scandal was looming of alarming proportions.

  ‘Then the news came. Matilda had died, purportedly of the after-effects of childbirth. A son – a son Tomura was pleased to call his own – had been born. The boy was, in truth, wholly Japanese, the child of one of Tomura’s numerous mistresses, who’d accompanied him to China. He fitted the bill, apparently. You’ve met Noburo. He would never have been acknowledged by Tomura under normal circumstances. But the circumstances were far from normal. And the arrangement defeated any accusation Henry cared to make before he’d even made it.

  ‘When I explained the situation to Fraser, he decided Henry’s immediate departure from Japan was essential. I set about arranging it. He and Winifred had come to an understanding by then, reached, I imagine, after many harsh words had been exchanged and both had searched their hearts. They would take you and raise you as their son. The circumstances of your birth weren’t your fault. It’s greatly to Winifred’s credit that she put an innocent child’s welfare above the settling of a marital grievance.

  ‘I arranged for them to go home by an indirect route, via Australia, so there’d be no one among the passengers to note the oddity that you arrived in Brisbane as their orphaned nephew and left Fremantle as their son. How they were reconciled in the course of that long journey I don’t know. Perhaps you’ll tell me they never properly were. However that may be, they both did a noble thing.

  ‘That might seem more obvious in your mother’s case than in your father’s. But I know he wrestled with his conscience over what to do. He doubted Matilda had died of natural causes. He suspected – and I couldn’t blame him – that she’d been killed on Tomura’s orders. The rejected child and the murdered mother would be the sum of such a man’s response to her betrayal of him. Perhaps he let her live until she’d given birth so that Henry would understand his responsibility for what had happened to her.

  ‘And he did understand it. There was one long, desperate night when I had to talk him out of trying to kill Tomura. I reminded him of his diplomatic duty. Such an act would have handed Lemmer a second triumph. The damage it would have done to Anglo-Japanese relations was incalculable. Henry knew he had to leave. And he knew he had to allow Tomura his victory. With every atom of his being he rebelled against that dismal truth. Yet still he boarded the ship with you and Winifred … and left.

  ‘No doubt by then Winifred had already sent a letter to her family – and to your unsuspecting elder brother at his prep school – announcing the birth of her second son. She told me she’d explain that complications with the pregnancy had caused her to keep the news to herself in case of a miscarriage. She’d thought it all through quite thoroughly. It was the version of events she meant to live by.

  ‘I supplied your birth certificate. It’s as authentic as any forgery can be, thanks to the advantages a foreign legation enjoys in such matters. The date – the fifth of May – was a guess. It could be wrong by several days. The only man who could tell you is Count Tomura – if he actually remembers. I doubt he’d be willing to tell you, anyway.

  ‘Jack Farngold was at sea when Matilda died. By the time he reached Tokyo, Henry and Winifred – and you – had left. It seemed wise to supply him only with the official version of events. I believe he approached Tomura in hopes of meeting his nephew, as he supposed Noburo to be, and learning something of his sister’s final days. I imagine he was given a chilly reception.

  ‘If so, that was a mistake on Tomura’s part. Somehow, at some point, Jack Farngold realized – or guessed – that Matilda had been murdered, perhaps along with her child. He asked me to help him bring Tomura to justice. I explained there was nothing I could do for him. Kuroda was obliged to turn him away as well. Kuroda had wheedled the truth out of me after Henry and Winifred’s sudden departure and reluctantly agreed what had been done was for the best.

  ‘Yes, we all agreed that. It was for the best. Except Jack Farngold, of course. He was a strange, stubborn, solitary man. He had no one left in the world he cared for, convinced as he was that Noburo wasn’t really his nephew at all. He returned to the sea. And I forgot him.

  ‘But he didn’t forget. At some point – I don’t know when – he began investigating Tomura’s affairs. Perhaps in one of the many ports he put into he met someone who’d met someone who’d said, yes, Tomura murdered his English wife to punish her for adultery. Or perhaps it was just Tomura’s growing fame after his military exploits in the wars against
China and Russia that embittered him in some way. Whatever it was, it set him on his course, searching, always searching, for some way to bring Tomura down.

  ‘Well, Jack Farngold learnt – as you’ve learnt – that Count Tomura has powerful friends and ample resources. They render him about as invulnerable as a man can be. The Japanese government will want nothing more to do with Lemmer now C can name and expose his spies. But that will damage only Lemmer, not Tomura. He’ll brush off the embarrassment and find some other way to pursue his objectives. It’s interesting your friend Morahan and his associates were accused of conspiring to assassinate the Prime Minister. If I was Hara and I ever heard about it I’d worry the accusation came from those to whom the idea had already occurred. Dark Ocean isn’t the only group plotting to push the government in a militarist direction. Tomura’s at the centre of a network of influential people who see expansion and aggression as the fulfilment of Japan’s imperial destiny. They’re the future. And it isn’t a pleasant future to contemplate.

  ‘You’ve defeated Lemmer and you’ve inconvenienced Tomura. But you’re alive. And the collapse of Tomura’s brokerage of Lemmer means it’ll seem prudent to him to let the charges against your friends be dropped. You can’t help Jack Farngold now. And you certainly can’t help his sister, the woman who bore you. She’s long dead. I imagine Henry felt he owed it to her to do all he could to rescue her brother. But it’s too late to rescue him. It’s all too late.

  ‘You know the truth now. There are no more secrets. Despite what they say, injustice does fade with time. The dead can’t be brought back to life, Max. Let them rest in peace. You’ve done a great thing by crushing Lemmer’s hopes and plans. Leave it there. And leave Japan. You were born here. Don’t die here. You’re young. There’s a lot of life ahead of you to enjoy. So, enjoy it. I hardly knew her, but I’m sure that’s what your mother – your original mother – would want you to do.’

  ‘LIONEL BRIGHAM IS not your father. Believe me in this if in nothing else. If I had a Bible with me I would be willing to swear upon it. You are Henry’s son. There is no margin for doubt or uncertainty. You are his son and no other man’s.’

  Max remembered his mother’s words – the words of the woman he had always thought of as his mother – as he stood in the Ginza bar he had gone to after leaving Uchida Apartments. He had drunk a lot of sake and shochu since then and could hardly recall how he and Hodgson had parted following Hodgson’s revelations. What he could recall, very clearly, was standing in the wind and rain on Dover Marine station three months before, listening carefully and incredulously as his mother assured him of what he now knew to be true: he was Henry’s son.

  But he was not her son. Not truly. Not actually. He was the son of Matilda Tomura, born in Kawajuki Castle – Zangai-jo – near Kyoto on some unrecorded day in early May, 1891. She had died soon afterwards, put to death on her husband’s orders. Her brother had followed her, also on her husband’s orders, twenty-eight years later. And her lover, the father of her child? He was dead too, thanks to Lemmer.

  Max had worsted Lemmer. He should have been drinking to celebrate his victory. Instead, he was drinking to drown the bitterness he felt. What satisfaction was there to be had – what peace of mind – if, despite all those things, he allowed Count Tomura Iwazu to dwell in the knowledge of his impunity? No one would call such a man to account. No one would bring him to justice.

  Unless Max did. Now. Tonight. Without pause for doubt or reflection or counsels of caution. Now.

  He emptied his glass and studied the steadiness of his hand. Yes. His heart was ice. His mind was clear. Yes. This was the right thing to do.

  Marcel Dulière returned to his office in Ouchy from a late lunch, with dyspepsia already setting in. He was not surprised. His digestion had never fared well under stress. The two cognacs he had drunk after the wine-accompanied meal had probably been a mistake, as Madame Dulière, who disapproved of spirits, particularly in the middle of the day, would certainly tell him if she ever knew of it.

  Dulière’s secretary looked as fretful as he felt and promptly doubled his anxieties by reporting that an Englishman called Meadows was waiting in his office, having refused to wait outside. She described him as ‘impoli’, which did not surprise Dulière, and ‘boiteux’ – lame – which did.

  Dulière considered the possibility of flight for a moment before rejecting it. Meadows would certainly come after him, lame or not. He could not run the risk of the man calling on him at home. He summoned what remained of his nerve and went in.

  ‘The boss sent me,’ Meadows announced, without rising from the chair Dulière normally occupied at his desk. ‘Got any news?’

  ‘Ah, non. Pas de nouvelles.’

  ‘Speak English. Where have you been? Your secretary said lunch.’

  ‘Oui. C’est—’ Meadows’ scowl prompted him to switch languages. ‘Yes. I was at lunch.’

  ‘The boss will be charmed to hear that. Lunch. Something you look as if you could do with missing once in a while, Marcel.’ Meadows heaved himself out of the chair and limped round to Dulière’s side of the desk. It appeared his right foot was troubling him. He did not look happy. ‘Where’s the boy?’

  ‘I … do not know.’

  ‘You’ve heard nothing from the school today?’

  ‘Ah, non. No. Nothing.’ It was a lie he had no choice but to tell.

  ‘So, you’ve not cabled the boss today?’

  ‘No. I have nothing to tell him.’

  ‘According to your secretary, a couple of Englishmen came to see you this morning. The descriptions she gave made me think I know one of them. What were their names? She didn’t have them.’

  ‘Brown … and Green.’

  ‘Not Black and White? Or Smith and Jones?’

  Dulière grinned awkwardly. ‘No.’

  ‘A boy was found drowned on the lake shore this morning at a place called Morges. Did you know that?’

  ‘Er … no.’

  ‘Too busy planning lunch to ask around, were you?’ Suddenly, from inside his jacket, Meadows pulled a gun and levelled it at Dulière. ‘I reckon the police are bound to have contacted the school, them having reported a boy missing. Especially since the word in Morges is that the dead boy was wearing football kit, with a Le Rosey badge on the shirt. So, I’ll ask again. Has the school been in touch with you?’

  Dulière swallowed hard. He might have foreseen this. He should have foreseen this. ‘They, er …’

  ‘If you give me the wrong answer, Marcel, I will shoot you. Your secretary too if she makes a fuss, as I expect she will. So, has the school been in touch?’

  ‘Yes,’ croaked Dulière.

  ‘What did they tell you?’

  ‘The dead boy is Eugen Hanckel.’

  ‘Why didn’t you cable the boss as soon as you heard?’

  ‘Brown … and Green … threatened me.’

  ‘Well, now I’m threatening you. Was one of them a balding, jowly, self-satisfied type in his late fifties or early sixties?’

  ‘Yes. That would be Brown.’

  ‘OK. Where’s your file on the boy?’

  ‘In there.’ Dulière pointed waveringly to the cabinet.

  ‘Get it out.’

  Dulière unlocked the cabinet and pulled open the drawer holding the file on Eugen Hanckel. He took it out and laid it on the desk in front of Meadows.

  ‘Is that everything?’

  Dulière nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Best there’s nothing left connecting the boy with the boss. The school are bound to refer the police to you in due course, I reckon, don’t you?’

  ‘I will say nothing.’

  ‘C’est vrai, mon ami.’ Meadows raised the gun then and shot Dulière between the eyes.

  The Tomura mansion was invisible behind high, broad-stoned walls and tall trees. Akasaka was a quiet part of the city by night. Vehicles were few. The rattle of the trams several streets away was clearly audible in the still, humid air. Max could
hear his own rapid footfalls just as clearly and knew he was making himself conspicuous to anyone who might be watching. But he had tired of creeping in shadows. He meant to present himself at the gate and demand to see Tomura. Somehow he felt certain Tomura would not refuse to face him. The man was too proud for that. So they would meet. And then …

  There was a single car parked at the side of the street thirty yards or so short of the mansion’s main gate. The gate itself was closed, but lights were shining in the small building just inside. The treelined drive to the house could be seen sloping upwards beyond it. Max quickened his pace, bracing himself for the events that would be set in motion once he reached the gate.

  Then the passenger door of the car opened and a figure jumped out into Max’s path: Commissioner Fujisaki.

  ‘What has brought you here, Maxted-san?’ he asked breathlessly.

  ‘What’s brought you here?’

  ‘A telephone call from Hodgson. He was worried about your intentions. He thought you might try to harm Count Tomura.’

  ‘Did he tell you why I might want to?’

  ‘No. But to go in there’ – he pointed over his shoulder towards the house – ‘as you are now would be crazy. Tomura could have you shot as an intruder. There would be nothing I could do.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances.’

  ‘Go back to your hotel. You have been drinking. You are not thinking sensibly.’