The Ends of the Earth (32 page)

Laskaris shook his head. ‘I will not send Seddik to his death.’

‘Freeing my mother would enrage and humiliate Tomura. I thought that’s what you wanted to do.’

‘But you can’t free her, Max. He has too tight a hold on her. The information I can supply about the Dragonfly counts for nothing if you can’t enter the castle. And it’s impregnable.’

‘We’ll go in through the secret tunnel.’

‘You know who the monk is that Jack Farngold spoke to?’

Max let the significance of the moment hang between them. Then he said, ‘Yes.’

‘How?’

‘Through his sister. I’m confident he’ll agree to help us, just as he agreed to help Jack Farngold.’

‘And you want me to allow this “us” to include Seddik?’

‘I propose to take her out without anyone knowing. If the place is as well guarded as you say, that’s the only way it can be done. In and out through the tunnel. I’ll go alone if I have to. But I’d like to have le Singe – Seddik – with me. There’s no one better suited for such a mission. You know that.’

‘What of your other friends – Twentyman and Miss Hollander?’

‘They’ll be helping from outside the castle.’

‘Just you and Seddik inside?’

‘We’d be the perfect team.’

Laskaris took a thoughtful puff at his cigar. His gaze rested on Max for a long moment. Then he spoke decisively. ‘The Dragonfly’s real name is Hashiguchi Yoko. Her great-grandfather, Hashiguchi Azenbo, is said to be the man who designed and installed the traps around
Uchi-gawa
– the Inside – on the orders of Tomura’s great-grandfather. It is also said he had Azenbo killed to ensure the secret of the traps could not be revealed. That would explain why Jack Farngold thought Yoko could be persuaded to help him. As to how she might have come by her great-grandfather’s secret, I do not know. You would have to find that out.’

‘She betrayed Jack Farngold. She helped Lemmer set a trap for him in Keijo. Why would she do anything for us?’

‘Because Tomura doesn’t trust her. She supplied Lemmer with information he used to persuade Tomura to help him strike a deal with the Japanese government. Her businesses in Keijo were closed down last year on the orders of Governor General Hasegawa, following complaints about her activities from the Oriental Development Company. And Tomura is—’

‘A director of the ODC.’

‘Exactly. It was punishment for telling Lemmer what she knew about him, do you think?’

‘It’s the kind of thing he’d do.’

‘Indeed. The Dragonfly was obliged to return home to Kyoto. She lives in a house in the hills west of the city. She has retired, so it is said. But her retirement is probably unwilling. So …’

‘If she sold information to Lemmer, she might sell it to me.’

‘She might, yes.’

‘If I can find the tunnel and learn how to defeat the traps inside the castle, then with Seddik’s help …’

Laskaris pondered the issue, before nodding in evident satisfaction. ‘If you can do those things, Max, I will let Seddik help you. If he is willing. As I think he will be. He would feel it atoned for his part – his unwitting part – in your father’s murder. But tell me this. Maybe you can get in. Maybe you can get out. With Seddik’s assistance. But how do you get away? Once Tomura learns Matilda has escaped, he will pursue her – and you. He will turn all his resources to catching you before you can leave Japan.’

‘Then we’ll have to leave Japan as quickly as possible.’ Max smiled. ‘That’s where you come in, Viktor.’

Even as Max disclosed to Laskaris the plan he had concocted, the two people he had concocted it with, Malory and Sam, were waiting on the landing-stage in Fukagawa, a few alleys away from the Shimizus’ shop. Malory had paid a boy loitering by the adjacent boathouse tavern a few sen to carry a message to Chiyoko. Malory was confident she would come to meet them, as long as she was there to receive the message. Her mother could not be trusted to pass it on.

But soon enough Chiyoko appeared, contriving to smile and frown at the same time when she saw them.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said anxiously. ‘It is not safe … for you to be seen.’

‘The police are no longer looking for us, Chiyoko,’ said Malory.

‘But
we’re
looking for
you
,’ added Sam.

Chiyoko turned her wide eyes on him. ‘Why?’

Because some man certainly ought to be
, he was surprised to find himself thinking. Before he could frame a more appropriate answer, Malory said, ‘Will you come for a short trip with us?’ She indicated the
choki-bune
moored at the landing-stage. The boatman was drinking tea and smoking on the verandah of the tavern, swapping gossip with some old men playing Go. Malory had paid him in advance and he was not complaining.

‘I cannot leave my mother in the shop for long. Where are we going?’

‘Nowhere. But we can talk on the boat without being overheard. The boatman doesn’t speak any English.’

‘This is important?’

‘Very.’

‘It’s more than that,’ Sam put in. ‘It’s a life’s worth of important.’

‘We need you, Chiyoko,’ said Malory.

‘We do,’ said Sam.

‘Then I go with you,’ said Chiyoko, the trust she placed in them lighting her face.

‘It is possible, I grant you,’ said Laskaris, bestowing a strange, half-surprised look on Max, as if he had not expected a plan that would go so far towards convincing him. ‘It might even succeed.’

‘We should proceed without delay,’ said Max.

‘So long as it’s understood the failure of one link will signify to me the failure of all. Then Seddik and I will withdraw.’

‘It’s understood.’

‘And you should do the same.’

‘I’ll do what my conscience dictates, Viktor.’

Laskaris took off his hat then, in a sweeping motion. The strength of the sun made it seem an odd thing to do. Then he nodded in the direction of something – or someone – behind Max.

‘
C’est une affaire entendue, Seddik.
’

Max turned. Le Singe was standing close behind him. He was dressed in Japanese clothes, with soft leather boots rather than sandals, striped trousers and sashed tunic beneath a loose, long-tailed, sleeveless coat. He looked neither Asian nor Arab, with a brown cap worn low on his head, though there was something of the desert in his far-seeing gaze.

‘He will understand everything you say,’ said Laskaris. ‘And everything you do. Trust his instincts above your own at all times.’

‘I’m pleased to meet you again, Seddik.’ Max held out his hand. ‘I need your help.’

Very slowly, Seddik Yala stretched out his own hand. He seemed as conscious as Max of the significance of the gesture.

‘I have much to tell you.’

‘Less than you think,’ said Laskaris.

‘Thank you for saving my life.’

At this Seddik gave a small bow of acknowledgement.

‘And thanks for agreeing to do this.’

Another small bow.

‘We must go,’ said Laskaris. ‘There is much to be arranged.’

Seddik looked at Max expressly. Already it was clear he did not need words to convey his meaning. It was settled. They would go forward together.

The boat returned to the landing-stage after an hour circling the waterways of Fukagawa. Chiyoko disembarked, but Malory and Sam stayed aboard.

‘We’re sorry if your mother’s nose is going to be put out of joint,’ said Sam as she looked back at them.

‘Her … nose?’ Chiyoko’s English clearly did not extend to such a metaphor.

‘We’re sorry for the trouble you’ll have with her over this,’ Malory explained.

‘It cannot be avoided,’ Chiyoko stated, as if declaring a self-evident philosophical truth. ‘My aunt will help her. They will enjoy complaining about me.’

‘They wouldn’t complain if they knew what you were doing,’ said Sam.

‘No. They would be too frightened.’ Chiyoko smiled gamely. ‘Better for them not to know.’

‘I’ll see you this evening,’ said Malory.

‘Yes.’ Chiyoko nodded decisively. ‘I will be there.’

MORAHAN WAS PROPPED
up in bed and looking considerably better when Max, Sam and Malory called at the University Hospital late that afternoon. ‘As long as I don’t move a muscle, I feel just fine,’ he said ruefully. A tube was still in place in his side, draining his punctured lung. ‘The bullet smashed a rib on its way in and the surgeon didn’t do anything by halves. I’m not exactly fighting fit.’

‘You should be grateful just to be alive,’ said Malory.

‘Well, damn it, Malory, I am. Even in a country where I’m not welcome. Your friend Fujisaki looked in earlier, Max. He served me with an official deportation order. Grover, Gazda and I are being shipped back to San Francisco on Thursday.’

‘Only if your doctor says you’re well enough,’ said Malory.

‘I’ll be well enough. Unless you need me to swing a delay?’

‘No,’ said Max. ‘You should go with Ward and Djabsu on Thursday.’

‘With our tails between our legs.’

‘We haven’t failed yet, Schools.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means we have a plan,’ said Sam brightly.

‘A plan to do what?’

‘Exactly what we set out to do,’ said Max.

‘You in on this, Malory?’

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘And the “plan” requires me to beat a humiliating retreat?’

‘Why don’t you and Malory leave us, Sam?’ said Max. ‘It’s time I put Schools fully in the picture.’

‘Yes,’ said Malory, so quickly Sam suspected she and Max had already agreed he should speak to Schools alone. ‘Good idea.’

The late afternoon had brought a hazy mellowness to the hills east of Kyoto, two hundred miles to the west of Tokyo. The roofs of the ancient capital, the old and the new, the gabled temples and the spired pagodas, stretched out along the lazy curve of the Kamogawa river. From the balcony of his room at the Miyako Hotel, the guest registered as Frederik Boel, citizen of Denmark, gazed across the city, imagining the lives of every one of its inhabitants as part of a natural scheme of things in which his recent misfortunes would eventually reverse themselves. There was no loss, however grievous, he could not recover from. There was no defeat he could not turn by the alchemy of his intellectual superiority into ultimate victory. Only death could undo him. And he was far from dead.

There was a knock at the door of his room. ‘Come in,’ he called, knowing who his visitor was for the simple reason he had summoned her.

Nadia entered, crossed the room and joined him on the balcony. She looked at him with that concerned, faintly pitying air he had only noticed since the death of his son and the exposure of his spies. He did not want her pity, and he certainly did not want to deserve it.

‘I have had a telephone call from Reynolds,’ he announced.

‘Not Trumper?’

‘No. Trumper is in custody. Everett and Duffy are dead. The plan miscarried. Ward and Djabsu remain in prison. Morahan is in hospital. Everett shot him, but not fatally. He is expected to recover.’

‘What went wrong?’

‘I suspect Trumper betrayed us. To save his own skin. It is what someone in my position must expect. I suspect Reynolds will soon cut loose from me too. Loyalty is not always durable.’

‘Mine is.’

He looked at her appreciatively. ‘I am grateful for that.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Adapt, as I must. I may have been hasty in ordering the attack. I was not … thinking as clearly as I should have … at the time. It is possible Morahan’s survival is to our advantage.’

‘How?’

‘According to Reynolds’ police informant, Morahan, Ward and Djabsu are to be deported. They will be put aboard the SS
Woodward
, bound for San Francisco, on Thursday. Ward and Djabsu are still in Sugamo prison, but Morahan is in the University Hospital at Ueno. He is therefore accessible to us. I want you to deliver some material to him. Material damaging to Count Tomura, detailing as it does his involvement in the assassination of Empress Myongsong in 1895 … and other matters.’

‘You are moving against Tomura?’

‘He has discarded me, Nadia Mikhailovna. He believes I have been shorn of my power. He must be reminded he cannot prosper without my assistance. You will tell Morahan you have deserted me and intend by this move to demonstrate you are no longer serving me
or
Tomura. Urge him to hand the material to the newspapers when he reaches San Francisco. Tomura will not enjoy the condemnation that will certainly follow. But he will understand better than he presently does that he cannot renounce our alliance. And he will be able to remind the government that I still have the Terauchi–Zimmermann letter.’ Lemmer sighed apologetically. ‘I am sorry to send you back to Tokyo when we have only just arrived in Kyoto. The news from Reynolds has obliged me to reconsider our position.’

Nadia shrugged off the inconvenience. ‘When do you want me to leave?’

‘Tomorrow. I had intended we would visit the Dragonfly together. That will not be possible now. I will go alone.’

‘You think Max will contact her?’

‘I do. And if he does … I want her to be ready for him.’

‘It’s a long shot,’ said Morahan, when Max had finished outlining his plan. ‘I guess it always was. But it all hinges on secrecy and surprise now. You’ll have no fire-power.’

‘I’ll have le Singe,’ Max responded. He was standing by the window of Morahan’s room and could see Malory and Sam down in the courtyard, walking slowly, dust thrown up in puffs by their heels. There was a thin layer of dust on the window as well, visible where the sunlight struck it. He looked back at Morahan. ‘I sense this is my only chance.’

‘I wish I could help.’

‘You can. By telling anyone who asks we’ve decided to head for Shanghai without waiting to see you off on the boat to San Francisco.’

‘Damned unfeeling of you.’

‘No one must have any reason to suspect the truth.’

‘I’ll give them none. But I reckon Fujisaki suspects already. He asked me to tell you Chief Inspector Wada of the Kyoto Police is a man you can trust.’

‘So’s Fujisaki. He’ll play along. Let’s hope I don’t need Chief Inspector Wada’s assistance.’