The White Pearl (37 page)

‘Everything?’

‘Everything.’

She started to chuckle again as she opened the storage lockers to assess their contents. ‘Is that so?’

Henry Court gave up his cabin. Real civil of him, Madoc thought, and accepted it for Kitty and himself with alacrity. Kitty
said it was because the poor man couldn’t bear to sleep in his dead wife’s bed, but an occasional ghost didn’t matter a damn
to Madoc – he already had a trunk-load of them. Henry now chose one of the narrow bunks behind a curtain instead, and Razak
took the lower one. Fitzpayne didn’t seem to need to sleep but said he would opt for a bench in the saloon if he did. The
native girl still crept around on deck like a dark shadow, setting the hairs on the back of his neck on end.

They had hoisted sail at first light under Fitzpayne’s command, a fitful wind from the south making progress difficult, but
Madoc gave a satisfied grunt each time the headwind caused them to tack and steer off course. He was in no hurry to reach
Singapore, no hurry at all. He’d watched Constance Hadley and Henry Court hang over the stern as they sailed out of the creek,
their gaze fixed on the patch of jungle where Mrs Court lay buried, unwilling to lose sight of it until the very last moment.
It was absurd really, because it didn’t matter how deep they stuck her, the forest animals would get the body in the end.
It was the law of nature out here.

‘Take the helm, will you, Madoc?’ Fitzpayne interrupted his thoughts.

‘Happy to oblige.’

Madoc didn’t let a single word of discontent pass his lips in Fitzpayne’s presence, not even when he’d been knee-deep in the
muck and filthy water in the bowels of the boat to help Fitzpayne patch the holes. Despite their efforts at repair, and the
sailcloth pulled tight over the pitch, the boat was still taking on a certain amount of water which slowed the speed even
more, but Madoc wiped the smile off his face and took the helm. Even wounded she was a joy to handle.

‘Madoc,’ Fitzpayne said under his breath, ‘keep an eye on the boy while you’re on deck.’

He meant the Hadley kid. The boy was up in the bow scarcely speaking to anyone, just glued to the binoculars – very expensive,
Madoc noted – scanning the skies with them and turning at regular intervals to
sweep the horizon behind the boat. To the west, the long outline of Sumatra was just visible behind a veil of mist, its humpbacked
silhouette green and shadowy in the distance. Gulls wheeled overhead, and the cool, early-morning air tasted clean and salty
after the humidity of the jungle. Madoc heard light footsteps on the companionway and saw Constance Hadley emerge. She held
a hot drink and a cigarette in her hand, both of which she offered to him with a smile. Her blue eyes were cloudy, her face
thinner than when he had first met her.

‘Thanks,’ he said, and nodded towards her son. ‘Your kid likes to watch things, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes. He’s very observant.’

For a second Madoc felt unsettled. Exactly how observant was this boy? What had he noticed? Madoc had never had much to do
with children, and they made him uneasy. More footsteps announced the appearance of the good-looking flight lieutenant on
deck. Madoc had noticed before that the pilot liked to pop up unexpectedly around Constance Hadley, under the pretence of
exercising his damaged shoulder and of getting her to rebind it. But she kept him at arm’s length. She was fond of the pilot,
though, that much was obvious, but keen to draw a line in the sand between them.

It was the husband who was entertained by Johnnie Blake most evenings, laughing over cards together, or arguing over the toss
of dice while the native lad grinned and learned the tricks of gambling. That was the trouble with Englishmen of their class:
they were always more at ease in male company than female. In their book, women were for the bedroom and the ballroom. The
fools had no idea what they were missing. It wasn’t just the curves of Kitty’s body that Madoc relished, it was also the curves
of her mind.

‘Spotted anything interesting?’ Constance Hadley had moved forward and was talking to her son.

She balanced herself well with the movement of the deck. Her skirt and blouse were dark today, a black ribbon tying back her
fair hair, the nearest she could get to mourning weeds. It occurred to Madoc as he watched her lean over Teddy that there
was something of the ballet dancer about her, that same elegance of feet and hands. He and Kitty had once shared digs with
a troupe of dancers – the memory made him laugh. Thieving little bitches, they turned out to be.

‘Aircraft!’

The boy’s young voice rang out clearly and his hand pointed east. Madoc flinched. He couldn’t help it. Aeroplanes did that
to him ever since the attack on his bar – it made no difference whether they were British planes or Jap ones. The crippling
roar of an aircraft engine was branded into his brain.

He peered hard into the glare of blue sky. ‘Can’t see any.’

‘Six of them.’

The boy had the advantage of the binoculars.

‘Ours or theirs?’ Flight Lieutenant Blake asked.

There was a pause while the kid studied them. Why the hell didn’t Blake snatch the binoculars from him and look himself? Too
bloody polite for his own good.

‘Ours. Bristol Blenheim bombers,’ Teddy answered.

‘Sure?’

‘Twin engines. Single tail.’

Madoc held the bow steady to help the identification, and had to admit the kid seemed to know his stuff.

‘Good man,’ Blake said.

The boy gave a self-conscious little nod, pleased, and Constance Hadley shot Blake a grateful look. So that was the way to
get to her – through her son. Madoc stored the information away and was turning it over in his mind, debating how to use it,
when Fitzpayne suddenly materialised at his elbow, silent as a bloody snake. Madoc yielded the helm without a word, and at
that moment the planes roared overhead, making his teeth shudder, and every eye watched the formation’s progress south.

‘They’ll be heading for Tengah Air Base,’ Blake surmised. ‘Or maybe Seletar, if it hasn’t been too badly bombed for them to
land.’ He spoke casually, but no one on deck was fooled. The man was aching to be up there.

‘Probably on the run from the Japs,’ Madoc muttered.

The blow to his stomach knocked him sprawling flat on the deck, and drove the air from his lungs. Heads turned to stare in
bafflement. He glared up at his attacker but Fitzpayne was back at the helm, gaze fixed straight ahead as though he hadn’t
stepped away from it for a second. Faster than a cobra strike.

‘I wonder if they have the sense to observe an efficient blackout in Singapore,’ Fitzpayne commented. ‘What do you think,
Madoc?’

Madoc picked himself up and raked the man with a filthy look but Fitzpayne gave no acknowledgement, his mouth pursed in a
silent whistle.

‘Are you all right, Mr Madoc?’ Constance Hadley asked, bemused. ‘What happened?’

‘He tripped,’ Fitzpayne answered for him. ‘Over his big mouth.’

Blake stepped forward from the bows to confront Madoc. ‘They’re not on the run, Madoc. They are British pilots defending Malaya
and risking their young lives to save people like you.’

Madoc muttered something inaudible. These people with their high-and-mighty manners sickened him.

‘Just scum.’ The words were dropped into the silence like a hand grenade. Thrown by Fitzpayne.

Anywhere else, and Madoc would have gone for him, but with an effort he swallowed his anger, gave the bastard a hard stare
and turned to go below. Fuck the lot of them. He would roll Kitty on her back in the bed Henry Court had been stupid enough
to give up, and if they could all hear on deck what was going on below, to hell with them. Let their bloody ears burn to cinders.
Now was not the time to lash out at Fitzpayne, nor was it the place.

As he jumped down the stairs he heard the bastard call out to everyone, ‘We’ll be in Singapore tonight. Let’s get more canvas
aloft.’

Too soon. They were approaching their destination too soon. Madoc wasn’t ready for it yet. As he seized Kitty’s wrist in the
galley and kicked open the cabin door, he heard the Hadley kid yell out with a note of panic in his voice.

‘There’s the native
pinisiq
again. It’s chasing us.’

Fitzpayne’s voice rumbled, ‘It’s just a local trading boat, Teddy. Nothing for you to worry about.’

But Madoc had sharp ears. They had no trouble detecting a lie.

Nightfall descended like a blackout curtain. Yet Singapore was flickering in the distance, drawing moths to its flame. Pinpricks
of light sparkled across the waters of the Malacca Straits from the bow lights of boats bound for the city’s protective harbour.
It seemed that others had also chosen to flee by sea during the hours of darkness, before the fist of war closed around them.
But the moon was already rising and pointed them out with a silvery finger, turning them into milky ghosts.

Connie felt
The White Pearl
shiver under her feet, as though the boat sensed they were approaching their journey’s end. The night was hot and clammy,
bats flitting through the rigging like lost souls, the slap of the waves against the hull marking a steady rhythm that should
have calmed her thoughts but didn’t. She took the helm and smoked too many cigarettes.

‘Nervous?’ Fitzpayne asked.

She had been aware of his presence, leaning against the mast. Moonlight etched his strong features into the solid darkness
but she had chosen not to disturb his silence. At times there was an air about him of someone who closed himself away to chase
his own demons, and this was one of them. As though their journey together were already over, and he was done with them. The
thought disturbed Connie so much that her tone was sharper than she intended when she responded.

‘No, not nervous. Thinking about what lies ahead.’

He turned to her, his face pitted with shadows. ‘Singapore lies ahead.’

There was a moment when the fungal smell of the verdant jungle wafted on the breeze, bringing with it a sense of wildness
and freedom, and a part of Connie choked at the thought of being trapped in Singapore.

‘Yes,’ she said softly.

‘Where will you stay?’

‘I’ve booked rooms at Raffles Hotel. I don’t even know if it’s still standing, or whether it has been bombed in one of the
air raids.’ She paused. ‘What about you?’

‘I won’t be lingering in Singapore. Just long enough for a bath and a drink, and then I’ll move on.’

‘Oh?’ Connie tried to make it casual. ‘Where will you go?’

‘To one of the islands I know.’

‘Which one?’

‘There are thousands of islands here, many small and secretive, and even the Japanese won’t bother to capture them all.’

The way he said it – as though it were a certainty – made her skin crawl. ‘You think their troops will definitely get this
far?’ she asked.

‘Don’t you?’

Before she could answer, the wind jumped and gusted down from the ancient hills of Sumatra to the west of them, so that the
yacht heeled hard to port. When
The White Pearl
abruptly righted herself Fitzpayne
had stepped closer, offering a hand to steady her at the helm. She didn’t take it.

‘Tell me, Mr Fitzpayne, where do you come from?’

He laughed, a warm, easy sound in the darkness. ‘We are soon to say goodbye. Why ask now?’

‘Because I want to know.’

There was a hiatus while he lit two cigarettes, the flame highlighting the thoughtful lines of his mouth, and when he handed
one to her she was aware that he had used the moment to decide how much to say. Or not to say.

‘I was born on a beach by the ocean’s edge here in East Asia,’ he said as he exhaled smoke into the wind. ‘My parents were
…’ he smiled at her almost shyly, ‘adventurous. They came from Hull in England, but together they trawled all over Asia.’

‘People who like to push the limits.’

Again he uttered a soft laugh. ‘That’s true.’

‘And you?’

‘What?’

‘Do you like to push the limits, Mr Fitzpayne?’

He let himself sway backwards, leaning away from her so that he could examine her face by the lacy light of the moon. The
deck rolled gently under their feet.

‘I like,’ he said, ‘to push others to their limits.’

It was so unexpected an admission that Connie felt the honesty of it resonate in the night air. ‘But why?’

‘That’s when you learn the truth about people.’ He drew on his cigarette, the tip dancing in the darkness. ‘When they are
stripped of their pretences, their defences down, you learn exactly what a person is capable of.’

Connie felt the air leave her lungs. Did he suspect? What she was capable of? Was that why he had given her the gun? ‘And
what do you do then?’ she asked. ‘When you know the truth about someone.’

‘The truth is always cleaner than a lie.’ He touched the back of her hand on the helm, his fingers warm against her skin,
and added in a quiet voice, ‘Lies weaken a person. They are the bedfellows of fear.’

A cold sensation spread from somewhere under Connie’s breastbone and rose up into her throat until she felt an overwhelming
need to vomit it out, to rid her mouth of the rotting taste of fear and lies. She turned
her face to him and opened her lips to say the words that were embedded in her tongue like barbed wire:
I killed a man.

But that was when the drone of aeroplane engines shattered the tropical night. Before the words could emerge, the first bombs
started to fall on Singapore.

A tidal wave of sound hit
The White Pearl
. Connie felt the boat quiver as plane after plane roared overhead. Tracers streaked across the night sky like fiery veins,
criss-crossing the darkness as RAF fighter aircraft tried to shoot the Imperial Japanese bombers out of the sky.

Connie stood at the rail, clutching her son’s hand.
Is this what war is?
So much noise and terror jammed into such a narrow space of time that people forget who they are, and become someone else?
Ordinary young men become heroes in uniform and civilians learn to say, ‘Shockingly bad show last night, eh?’ when what they
mean is, ‘I was terrified out of my skin.’ Around her on deck the others stood rigid with shock. They watched helplessly as
the city was pounded again and again, as bombs hit their targets, fires flared into life and the boom of explosions ripped
through the night.