The Ends of the Earth (42 page)

He hears the tram trundling away behind him. But he does not look back. His eyes – and his thoughts – are directed straight ahead. He has made his decision. He glances up at the blank grey sky and the mansarded rooftops on either side and follows with his eye the flight of a pigeon across the space between them.

The bird does not fear falling. The bird has wings. And so does hope.

Sir Henry Maxted, retired diplomat, reborn avenger, smiles at the thought and lengthens his stride.

It has begun.

And five months later to the day, six thousand miles away, it will end.

MAX COULD NOT
have said what time it was when he woke. His watch had been taken from him, as had everything bar the clothes he lay in. The sickly glow from the oil lamp in the walkway was the same at all hours. It was the rumble of the dumb waiter that had roused him. He wondered if some form of breakfast was going to be supplied, though he could hardly believe it was yet morning.

Five minutes or so passed, then the door opened and Ishibashi came in, carrying a lantern. He was moving faster than when he had last brought food and there was a change in his expression, or rather the appearance of an expression where before he had been stony-faced. Now he was frowning and, it seemed to Max, anxious. He made no move towards the dumb waiter. And, at that point, Max noticed he was holding a pair of long-handled metal-cutters.

To Max’s astonishment, Ishibashi took a key from the folds of his kimono and unlocked the door of the cell. He stepped inside and gestured for Max to stretch the chain on his handcuffs. He fixed a link close to Max’s wrist in the jaws of the cutters and grimaced as he applied pressure. The chain snapped and one end swung free. Max caught it just before it made a clanging impact with the bars.

‘What’s going on?’ he said, scrambling to his feet and staring at Ishibashi in amazement.

‘You hear sound?’ Ishibashi nodded in the direction of the dumb waiter.

‘Yes. But—’

‘Put Oku-sama in. I pull up, send down again. Then pull up you.’

‘In the dumb waiter?’

‘
Erebe ta. Hai.
’

‘I’ll never fit. I’m surely’ – Max raised his hands – ‘too big.’

‘I take out shelf. You fit. Get Oku-sama now. I go up.’

‘Where are you taking us?’

‘
Soto.
Out of Zangai-jo.’

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘See you born here. Not want see you die here. We go now.
Subayaku.
’

‘All right. OK. Yes.’

‘Pull bell when ready.
Hai?
’

‘
Hai.
’

Without further ado, Ishibashi hurried out of the cell, heading for wherever the dumb waiter was sent down from. The turn of events was bewildering, but Max knew better than to waste time trying to understand the workings of Ishibashi’s conscience. A chance of escape was a chance he had to take.

He ran into the rear room, where a small globe-lantern was burning. Matilda was sitting up on her futon, looking alarmed. ‘
Nan-da
,’ she began. Then: ‘What? What is it?’

‘We’re leaving.’

‘Leaving?’

It was not surprising she could not grasp the concept. She had been there more than long enough to assume she would remain for ever. Trying hard not to panic her, Max lifted her gently to her feet. She was spectrally thin and seemed to weigh no more than a babe in arms. ‘You must trust me,’ he said, willing her to do so as he gazed into her sunken eyes.

A long moment followed, during which Max had to force himself to await her response. Then she said, ‘I trust you … James.’

‘Do you have some warm clothes?’

‘In the closet.’ She pointed towards it.

Max wrenched the closet door open and was confronted by garments from a bygone era: long gowns and dresses of the Victorian period. He grabbed a scarf and a fur-lined hooded cloak, imagining his father helping Matilda on with it at the conclusion of some winter ball long in the mislaid past, when she was young and beautiful – and light of heart.

Turning back, he saw her pick up a small silver-framed photograph and slip it into a pouch which she secured inside the belt of her
yukata
.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘Home,’ said Max.

‘Yoko … Yokohama?’

‘No. England.’

Why he had said that he could not properly have explained. She stared at him in disbelief. How long was it, he wondered, since she had been in England? Could she even remember her homeland?

‘We must go.’

He looped the scarf round her neck. She slid her hand down the fabric and frowned, as if surprised by its familiarity. Carrying the cloak, Max led her as quickly as she was able to move out through the cell to the dumb waiter. He opened the door and judged at once she would be able to squeeze into it. As for him …

‘You must get in,’ he said. ‘This is how we escape.’

‘Truly?’

‘Truly. Ishibashi is helping us. He’ll be waiting for you upstairs. Let me …’

He lifted her in. She folded her legs and dropped her head on to her knees to fit into the compartment. He pushed the cloak in beside her.

‘I’ll see you soon. OK?’

To that she nodded and cast him a look in which fear and faith were fused. He felt his heart jump. Then he closed the door on her and yanked the bell-pull next to it.

He could not hear the bell ring at the top of the shaft, but almost immediately the dumb waiter began to move, rumbling up and away from him.

Several minutes passed in silence, quite long enough for him to wonder if what was happening was merely an elaborate hoax.

Then the dumb waiter began to descend again, the belts it moved on slapping against the inside of the shaft. The rumbling grew louder as it approached, then stopped. It had arrived.

He opened the door and was instantly convinced he would never fit inside. He sat up on the lip and manoeuvred his head and torso into the compartment, then tried to pull his legs in after him. It seemed it could simply not be done. He was much taller than Matilda and considerably wider in the shoulder. Somehow, though, scraping his knees on the roof against which the back of his head was already jammed, he compressed himself just enough to fit. Then he stretched out his left hand to pull the bell and slid the door shut.

A second later, he began to move.

The dumb waiter rose unsteadily through the shaft, creaking as well as rumbling, probably because it was not designed for a load of such weight. How many floors it rose through he could not tell. Two was his best guess.

Then it stopped. The door was wrenched open. Max was momentarily dazzled by a blaze of torchlight, then he was pulled violently from the compartment.

He crashed to the floor, his shoulder taking most of the impact. He rolled over on to his back and saw Noburo standing above him, grinning crazily, with a sword clasped in his hand. And there was blood on the blade.

Glancing to his left, Max saw Ishibashi’s slumped figure beside him on the floor. His face was locked in a rictus of pain. Blood was pooling beneath him, flowing from a deep wound in his stomach.

Somewhere in the gloom beyond Ishibashi, Matilda was crouching against a pillar, her arms clasped round her knees. She was rocking slightly and whimpering in shock and fear.

‘No escape, Maxted,’ Noburo hissed through gritted teeth. ‘You die here. Beside the traitor Ishibashi.’ He tossed the knife he had threatened Max with earlier on to the floor, a foot or so from Max’s right hand. ‘Reach for it. Go on. I give you this chance. Reach for the knife.’

There was instantaneous clarity in Max’s mind. Noburo had discovered Ishibashi’s loyalty could no longer be relied upon. He had let Ishibashi put his plan into operation before intervening and without telling anyone else so that he could claim all the credit for defeating it. This was to be his personal triumph, his route to long-withheld paternal approval. He would not harm Matilda. That would be to frustrate his father’s intentions. But killing Max in fair combat, using a traditional Samurai weapon, was something he would never have to justify or apologize for. On the contrary, it was something he would be able to glory in.

‘Reach for the knife.’ Noburo’s voice cracked. ‘Or I will kill you where you lie.’

And put the knife in my hand afterwards
, Max did not doubt. This was the confrontation Noburo had foreseen as he raised the dumb waiter, with Ishibashi already despatched and his next and principal victim on the way. This was to be Noburo’s transfiguration.

Or not. Max feinted to the right, then immediately rolled to the left. He felt the draught of the descending sword-blade as he propelled himself upright and heard the splintering impact with the stretch of flooring where his head had been resting a fraction of a second earlier.

Then he was on his feet. He flicked the remaining links of the handcuff chain round his fingers to form a knuckle-duster. As Noburo swung towards him, Max struck him heavily across the brow. There was a cracking sound of fracturing bone and a burst of blood. Noburo cried out and slashed at Max with the sword. Max ducked out of the way and charged him head first.

Noburo was propelled back against the wall. A second after he hit it, Max struck him again in his injured eye, then grabbed the hilt of the sword and pulled it from Noburo’s weakened grasp. He swivelled round, knowing he was going to sink the blade into Noburo’s stomach. He knew it with a cold, hard certainty he was surprised to find he possessed.

Then it was done. And the hot blood was flowing. Noburo was choking and gasping as Max ground the blade into him. His faltering breath was warm on Max’s face, his right eye blinded, his left filled with pain. He tried to push Max away, but all his strength was draining out of him. He tried to speak, but only bubbles of bloody phlegm formed on his lips. For Tomura Noburo, son of Iwazu, scion of an ancient line, this was the end.

‘You lose,’ said Max.

And those were the last words Noburo heard.

THE NEXT COUPLE
of hours were for Max a blur. Instinct became his master. He had killed Noburo. His clothes bore the copious stains of his blood. And Ishibashi was also dead. But Max and Matilda were out of the cell where Count Tomura had decreed they should spend the rest of their lives. Max’s only thought now was to get out of Kawajuki Castle as well. They would not be safe until they were beyond the walls of Zangai-jo.

Matilda was virtually paralysed with shock at what she had seen. She still trusted Max, but she was frightened by the violence he had shown himself capable of. He realized he would have to carry her for much of the journey that lay ahead. The power of speech seemed to have deserted her.

The room in which Ishibashi and Noburo had died was a pantry of some kind. The corridor outside led who knew where. In one direction the kitchen, presumably. Max’s sense of orientation suggested the entrance to the tunnel could not be far away, though certainly it was one floor below them. There was no reason to think it would be guarded, since Tomura believed them both to be securely locked away. And Max felt sure Noburo had acted alone, in search of accolades he would never now receive. The sword was too cumbersome to manage along with Matilda and Ishibashi’s lantern, which they needed to light their way, so Max armed himself only with Noburo’s knife. They set off.

Finding the tunnel and avoiding other occupants of the castle, while carrying Matilda, was an exhausting struggle, both physically and mentally. Max had to force his brain to keep his fear of pursuit in check. He did not know what time it was and therefore how soon the bodies in the pantry were likely to be discovered. Once they were, though, a hunt would begin. And the hunters would know where to look.

Max kept the shutter closed on the lantern as often as he could. He halted at intervals to check his bearings and listen for raised voices or the sound of running feet. He heard none. The descent to the floor below was the most hazardous stage of all, which, after much hesitation, he simply charged through. He took several wrong turns in search of the tunnel and had to double back each time. Finally, he found the right panel in the right ceiling. He set Matilda down, lowered the stairway and carried her up.

His strength began to fail him as they made their way along the tunnel. He staggered and stumbled. On one occasion, he fell. Matilda wept and mumbled. To her, he sensed, salvation had become a nightmare of blood and flight. He could hardly have disagreed. Everything he did now, however thinly his resources were stretched, was governed by one imperative: escape.

A new day had dawned. Max saw it initially as thin grey light ahead of them after they had passed from the tunnel into the cave. It grew and strengthened. And then they were out, beyond the mouth of the cave, beyond the last of Zangai-jo.

He set Matilda down and rested for a moment against a boulder, gazing at the hills and valleys spread before him, limned in shades of pink and purple. The sun was rising, fat and golden, behind bruised hummocks of cloud. It looked as if it would be a good day for flying.

Now he allowed himself to believe for the first time. They were going to make it. What he had pledged to do was within his grasp. Freedom beckoned.

He urged Matilda on. ‘One last push,’ he told her, though she hardly seemed to register the words. ‘We’re nearly there.’

He slipped and slid down the steep slope of scree and rock with Matilda on his back.

It was a relief to reach the first stand of cedars and to be able to use their trunks for support. He looked back several times, but only the clouds were moving. There was no pursuit. Not yet.

They reached the track, then the car. The key had been taken from Max with all his other possessions, so he had to start the vehicle with the crank-handle, something he began to fear would be beyond him. But, eventually, it fired. He lowered Matilda gently into the passenger seat, then started off.

He began to relax as they descended. All he had to do was reach the boatyard and take off in the seaplane. The worst was behind them.

Then, round a sharp bend in the track, overhung by trees and boulders, he came suddenly on another car, blocking the way. Its engine was not running and its driver was nowhere in sight. Max pulled up close behind it, yanked on the brake and climbed out.