Golden Lion (23 page)

‘And besides what?’ Hal insisted.

Mossie hung his head, and examined his bare and filthy feet, and his voice fell to a whisper. ‘She smells nicer, and looks much more prettier than you do.’

As they walked back to their lodgings, Judith induced Mossie to recount his story. The son of a fisherman, he was born in a village near Barawa in the south-eastern coast of Somalia. He had been taken in a raid on his village by Arab slavers and sold on to first one and then another Portuguese trader here in Zanzibar, though both men had soon regretted their purchases. It seemed that the performance Hal, Judith and Aboli had witnessed at the slaver’s block was not the first of its kind. On the positive side Mossie had been hauled around the town – albeit on the end of a rope or chain – long and often enough to come to know his way around Zanzibar as though he had been born there.

‘I can guide you so that you do not get lost!’ he offered proudly.

‘That’s a very kind offer,’ Hal replied.

‘Not you!’ Mossie assured him. ‘I mean the Mem.’ This was an abbreviation of Memsahib. It was a high honorific indeed that he had awarded to Judith.

Mossie’s happy prattling continued unabated until they got back to the apothecary’s shop. The sailor he had sent to visit Consul Grey was standing there with Mr Pett beside him. Evidently they had been waiting some time.

‘It seems we are in luck, Captain,’ Pett greeted Hal. ‘The consul would be delighted to see the two of us. So much so, in fact, that he has invited us to a luncheon.’

‘Today?’ Hal was amazed at the speed of the consul’s response. ‘Then we’d better get a move on. Aboli, if you could take care of General Nazet and her new non-slave, I will go with Mr Pett to see the consul. Who knows, we may not need our lodgings after all. With a bit of luck we’ll be able to head back to the
Delft
this very evening and then catch the early morning tide.’

rom the moment that he discovered that Courtney was on Zanzibar, Grey moved with surprising speed for one so comfortably built. His domestic staff had been drastically reduced by his months of misfortune and relative poverty. But he still had a cook and there were one or two fine pieces of art on his walls and Persian rugs on his walls that could be taken down to the pawn shop, though he persuaded his broker – a man who had become increasingly accustomed to the portly Englishman’s visits – that he would be back to collect them within a matter of days. ‘My fortunes are about to take a turn, sir, mark well my words.’

With cash in his purse, Grey was able to rehire, at least temporarily, a few of the staff he had been forced to dismiss, and persuade them in their turn to recruit enough family members and friends to give the impression appropriate to the household of a wealthy man. His cook was packed off to the market with instructions to buy the finest available ingredients as well as the choice of dishes prepared by the city’s stalls and street vendors. As a result, when Hal Courtney and his companion Mr Pett arrived for their luncheon they were treated to a veritable feast. There was a pilaf of calf meat cooked with potatoes, onions, spices, coconut milk and rice; shark steaks grilled over an open fire with pepper and other spices; a dish called
Pweza wa nazi
, which was octopus boiled in coconut milk, curry, cinnamon, cardamom, garlic and lime juice; and, to finish, hazelnut bread made with eggs and vanilla.

Grey wolfed the food down, though Hal noted with interest that Pett was far more restrained, even frugal in his consumption. This contrast in appetites was suggestive of their temperaments. Grey was relaxed and self-confident, to a fault. When he assured Hal that he bore him no ill-will for his trespasses in the north, Courtney accepted that unlikely assurance without a tremor.

By the time Hal left, Grey had ascertained that he was staying above an apothecary’s shop on the waterfront. The exact address was not mentioned, but there were unlikely to be very many establishments answering to that description. Grey also learned that Hal had not entered the harbour aboard the
Golden Bough
and that he intended to depart with the tide, shortly before dawn the following morning.

Courtney left with warmly expressed good wishes between himself and Grey and a rather less fond, but perfectly polite farewell to Pett, whom he left in Grey’s company along with the correspondence intended for London.

No sooner had the gates of his house closed behind the departing captain than Grey gave the letters to one of his servants with whispered instructions to set them aside for his later perusal. Beneath his urbane exterior, the consul was seething at Courtney’s arrogance and presumption. To come strolling into Zanzibar, without a by your leave, and blithely assume that he could presume upon the offices of a man to whom he had caused very considerable difficulties by an act of base deception beggared belief. That Grey should now be burdened by the tedious concerns of this Pett fellow, as dull and humourless a figure as he had ever had the misfortune to encounter, struck Grey as adding insult to injury.

Still, he had a role to play and, as yet, the curtain had not fallen upon his performance. So he gritted his teeth for one last time, forced his features into a smile of feigned geniality and, having clapped his hands and ordered more coffee to be brought for his distinguished guest, said, ‘Please let me assure you, Mr Pett, that it will give me great pleasure to break from my everyday concerns here in Zanzibar and take up the reins once again as His Majesty’s Consul. So, pray sir, tell me: how may I be of assistance to you? From what Captain Courtney suggested, your story is one worth hearing.’

Pett ignored the coffee, pausing before he answered Grey’s question to collect his thoughts. ‘It is true that I have arrived here by a route that I could scarce have imagined when I set sail from Bombay, a passenger on the
Earl of Cumberland
.’

‘Ah yes, the
Earl of C.
has docked in Zanzibar on more than one occasion, en route to or from the Indies,’ Grey remarked. He stretched a chubby hand towards a silver plate of Turkish sweetmeats that lay on the table next to the coffee and picked up a small silver fork, with which he speared two of the glutinous pink blobs at once and stuffed them into his mouth.

‘Please remind me, what’s the name of her captain?’ Grey asked, his mouth still filled with greyish pink goo. ‘Giddings … Gadding … Something of that ilk, as I recall.’

‘Goddings.’

‘Ah yes, of course! Jovial fellow, though rather inclined to be too pleased with himself. Very like young Courtney in that regard. How is he?’

‘Dead, and his ship with him. The
Earl of Cumberland
caught fire some weeks out of Bombay. She was carrying a cargo of saltpetre. The combination proved fatal and the ship sank with all hands. I alone escaped.’

‘My word, how appalling for all those men. And how fortunate for you.’

‘I threw myself from the burning vessel into the ocean and counted upon my god to rescue me.’

‘Allah is indeed both all-powerful and all-merciful,’ Grey murmured.

‘That was not the god to which I referred,’ Pett said, with a cold, steely calmness that, for the first time, made Grey question his assumptions about his guest’s true nature.

‘In any event, I was saved,’ Pett continued. ‘A Dutch vessel rescued me, although this act of charity was immediately followed by one of cruelty, for the vessel’s captain, Tromp, then confined me in a filthy and verminous cell.’

‘What possible cause did he have to do that?’

‘He claimed it was for my own safety. His crew were on the brink of starvation. He said that he feared that I, being a stranger and lacking all ties to his men, might tempt them into an act of cannibalism.’

‘It appears, however, that you did not appeal to their palates,’ Grey remarked with a little chuckle that Pett conspicuously failed to dignify with even the slightest flicker of a smile.

‘I was rescued from this confinement by Captain Courtney who was also gracious enough to allow me to restore my honour by means of a duel with Tromp.’

‘Evidently you emerged unscathed from that, too,’ Grey remarked. ‘You seem to have quite a gift for survival, Mr Pett.’

‘I prefer to think that I am well protected. In any case, I now require a passage back to England. For reasons which I hope are obvious, I am without funds at the moment. I have no more than the clothes I stand up in. But on arrival in London I will immediately collect the sum of five hundred guineas, owed to me in recompense of a service I provided for a distinguished gentleman.’

‘Five hundred guineas? Come, sir, am I really to believe that you could possibly be owed a sum of such magnitude? What service did you provide to earn so much?’

Pett looked directly at Grey with flat, emotionless eyes and said, ‘I killed Captain Goddings.’

Grey leaped to his feet with surprising agility for so bulky a man. ‘Get out!’ he snarled, pointing at the door. ‘I can see that Courtney has foisted you upon me, with your incredible, cock-and-bull tale of explosions, cannibals and murders. Well, sir, I am not amused. Pray leave my house at once before I have you forcibly ejected.’

Pett did not move, nor did a flicker of emotion cross his face. Instead he waited until Grey had finished his tirade and then, very calmly, said, ‘I assure you, Consul Grey, that every word I have spoken has been nothing but the truth. I could prove it, but that would require me to kill you with that little fork you so recently utilized, or the silver tray on which your servant placed the coffee and sweetmeats, or even my bare hands, all of which I could very easily do.’

Grey felt the blood drain from his face. There was something scarily calm and undemonstrative about the way Pett spoke. He simply stated his ability to kill as a matter of fact and was entirely convincing precisely because he made no great attempt to convince.

‘I could have you seized by Prince Jahan and tried for murder,’ Grey blustered, knowing as the words left his mouth how feeble they sounded.

‘No, Mr Grey, you could not,’ said Pett. ‘I have not committed any crime in Zanzibar, nor any land under the dominion of Prince Jahan or his brother the Great Mogul. No body has been produced, nor any weapon. If you were to claim that I had made a confession I would merely laugh and say that I spoke in jest – just as you yourself said, it was naught but a cock-and-bull tale – and who could ever prove otherwise?

‘So let us not waste time with empty threats. Instead let me say that there was a reason for my frankness. I believe that I can earn enough money to fund my passage home and that you or your associates will gladly provide sufficient funds, and a great deal more besides. So tell me, Consul, what do you really think of Captain Sir Henry Courtney, and how much would you like to be rid of him?’

Well that was easy enough
, Pett thought, as he watched Grey subside back onto his divan. He said nothing, knowing that the consul already had all the information he needed. Now it was just a question of letting Grey talk himself into the proposition that Pett had been working towards from the moment the conversation began.

Once more Grey reached a chubby hand towards the silver plate of Turkish sweetmeats. Still Pett remained silent as Grey ate the sweets, licked a stray dusting of sugar from his plump lips and then began, ‘Since you have told me your story, let me say a little about myself …’

Pett gave a little wave of the hand, as if to say, ‘By all means.’

‘I come from humble stock, and I’m proud of it. I was born and raised in Hebden Bridge in the West Riding of Yorkshire. I know I may not look it, or sound it now, but I’m a Yorkshireman and proud of it. My parents ran an inn, catering to travellers on the packhorse route from Halifax to Burnley. Sometimes we’d get travellers from the south, even London, and I got it into my daft young head that I wanted to seek my fortune. So I left home, with nothing but a couple of pennies in my pocket – oh, aye, I can still talk Yorkshire if I please! Less than two years later I was a clerk at the East India Company itself. Now to my parents, to think that their son was a clerk, with every hope of advancement, was more than they had ever dreamed possible. But to me it was just the beginning.

‘You see, Mr Pett, I pride myself on my ability to associate with every class of man, from the highest to the lowest. I enjoy the personal acquaintance, I might even dare to say friendship, of sultans and maharajahs. I have entertained lords and ladies, dined with Portuguese merchants whose wealth would astound you. I have even met the King of England himself on one memorable occasion.’

I doubt His Majesty found it quite so memorable
, thought Pett, as Grey went on, ‘Equally, one cannot survive, let alone prosper on an island like Zanzibar without being able to treat with the meaner sorts too: bawdies, cut-purses, brigands and traders in human flesh. A man of the world may find himself in some dark alley in Stone Town doing business with the kinds of men who would sooner sell their daughters than do an honest day’s work, as easily as in the counting house of a respectable man of business …’