The Ends of the Earth (5 page)

‘
Obrigado, João.
’ Expressing her thanks in Portuguese delighted him mightily and he grinned widely.

Since the note was written on Eastbourne Hotel headed paper, it was hard to understand why Monteith had not come into the dining room and simply spoken to her, though the contents hinted at special circumstances.

Malory – Please meet me out front immediately you get this. I need to see you very urgently. Howie

‘Where is the gentleman now?’ Malory asked, considering whether she should send João to fetch him.

‘The street. I theenk.’

‘Very well, thank you. That’s all.’

As João capered off, Malory took a sip of her wine, then rose and went to find out what Monteith could possibly want.

He was standing in the shadow of one of the bushes that flanked the entrance to the hotel, smoking one of his cheap cigars. She had never liked their scent. She was not sure she liked the smoker any more than the cigar, if it came to that. Monteith was the sort of smooth-talking, apparently good-humoured man she had often found to be at heart faithless and deceitful. But Schools had not chosen him for his gentlemanly qualities. She was aware of that.

‘Can we take a ride, Malory?’ he said at once.

‘A ride where?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Away from here would be healthy.’

‘Healthy?’

‘Let’s get a cab.’

He grasped her elbow and piloted her towards the first of several taxis parked in front of the hotel. ‘What’s this about, Howie?’

‘I’ll explain as we go.’

‘You’ll have to explain now.’ Malory pulled up. ‘I’m not going anywhere unless I know why.’

Monteith frowned at her in the lamplight. ‘I’m trying to help you, God damn it. There isn’t much time.’

‘Why isn’t there?’

‘Because—Will you just trust me, Malory? This once?’

The sincerity of his tone moved her. Something was clearly wrong. But it seemed she would have to board the taxi to find out what it was. ‘All right. But I won’t be going far if you don’t spell out what’s going on.’

Taking that for as much in the way of consent as he was likely to get, Monteith virtually manhandled her into the taxi and instructed the driver to head ‘towards’ – rather than to, Malory noted – Yokohama station.

‘Don’t get off there,’ Monteith advised her in an undertone as the taxi started away. ‘Have him take you on to the next station north – Kanagawa.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘I’ll be getting out soon, so we’d better keep this snappy. It’s over, Malory. Truth is, it was over before it started. We sold you and Schools out before you even reached New York. Lemmer’s been in control all the way along.’

‘
What?
’

‘The show closes tonight. The meeting with Farngold was a trap. Schools and Sam will already have been arrested. The police will be picking up Grover and Gazda right around now. Then they’ll come for you. I don’t know the charges and it doesn’t really matter anyway. They’ll stick. You can be sure of that.’

‘Are you insane?’ But Malory could see the truth written in the shadows on Monteith’s face. He had never been saner. ‘You gave us away?’

‘We gave nothing. We were bought in advance. Lemmer foresaw this whole operation. You were never going to achieve a damn thing. Even if Max had got here alive. Which we know he isn’t going to, don’t we? Now listen. You probably think I’m the lowest form of life there is, but it’s lucky for you I’m not. And that Schools didn’t ask me along on the trip to Tokyo. He can cope with what’s coming his way. Maybe he’ll strike a deal with them. I hope so. But surrendering a lady like you to the Japanese Secret Police doesn’t sit well with my conscience. So, I’m giving you a chance. How much of a chance I don’t know. But you said you know the country, so maybe you can get clean away. I can’t risk helping you any more than this.’ Monteith stretched forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Stop here, pal. I’m getting out.
Tomare! Koko.
’

Malory was too horrified to react. Schools and Sam under arrest; Ward and Djabsu likewise. And everything anticipated and orchestrated by Lemmer. He had won. And they had lost.

‘We could all have gone home on the
Iyo-maru
and no harm done, but you and Sam and Schools between you wouldn’t let it rest, would you?’ The taxi jerked to a halt and Monteith jumped out. He glanced back at her and touched his hat. ‘Good luck, Malory.’

He slammed the door and the taxi pulled away. Malory’s breaths came in shallow draughts. Her heart was pounding. What was going to happen to Schools and Sam and the other two? What could she do to help them and to save herself? Her mind threw back no answer, only doubts and desperation.
What could she do?

She looked out of the rear window at Monteith’s retreating figure. She should be grateful, she knew, for the atom of decency that had prompted him to give her a chance of escape. But all she felt was fear and loathing. The men they had trusted had betrayed them. And their enemy had prepared this fate for them.

She leant forward. ‘Take me to Kanagawa station,’ she said to the driver. ‘
Kanagawa-eki.
’

‘No Yokohama?’

‘No. Kanagawa.’

Then she leant back and tried to force herself to think. Max was dead. The fact that Monteith had taken pity on her meant she had to believe him about the comprehensiveness of their defeat. There might be some way for her to leave the country. Her passport was in her room at the Eastbourne, but travelling under her real name was hardly feasible anyway. Besides, her instinct was to stay and do what she could for Schools and Sam. It was the same instinct that had landed them all in so much trouble. But it was the instinct she was bound to live by.

To survive, if not to escape, she needed an ally. That very day, Morahan had told her where she might find one. Yamanaka Eisaku’s elder brother, Fumiko, was an official in the Japanese Home Ministry.

But how was she to contact the elder Yamanaka? It was not likely he would still be at his desk at such an hour. She had to find shelter – somewhere to hide – until morning. No hotel would take her in without requesting sight of a passport. She could hardly pretend to be Japanese and they would be bound to report an undocumented foreigner, especially a woman, to the local police station.

Where could she go, then? Where could she turn?

There was only one answer. In other circumstances, the irony of it might have induced a smile. But there was nothing for her to smile about now – nothing at all.

MORAHAN HAD NO
idea where in Tokyo he was. The van that had taken him to the building had been blacked out and he had been bundled down a narrow flight of steps to a basement entrance before he could take any note of his surroundings. His guess was that he was in the headquarters of the secret police Everett had mentioned: the Kempeitai.

The organization clearly did not believe in supplying comfortable accommodation for those they detained. He had been placed in a cage in the middle of a dank, bare, ill-lit chamber, which he shared now with Ward and Djabsu, who had been seized in Yokohama.

They were still enraged by the treachery of Everett, Duffy and Monteith. ‘I kills them,’ was Djabsu’s simple assertion. ‘I kills them slow.’ Morahan’s own anger had given way to self-reproach. He had been taken in completely and he had withheld from his companions the news of Max’s death. Ward assured him this was a small matter compared with the deceit practised by the others. ‘We’ve been shafted, Schools,’ he said. ‘And not by you.’

Morahan took some small comfort from Sam’s escape and the possibility that Malory too had slipped through the net. Ward and Djabsu had seen nothing of her, although it was hard to imagine how she might have eluded the police. Sam surely could not have made it to Yokohama in time to render her any assistance. She might be in custody elsewhere, of course, meriting softer treatment as a woman. There were other less pleasant possibilities Morahan tried not to dwell on. He could only trust to her oft-demonstrated resourcefulness.

His biggest regret, aside from walking straight into a trap, was that he had not managed to wrench the gun out of Everett’s hand and put a bullet through his head before the police pulled them apart. If he ever regained his freedom, he would track Everett down and finish the job. He made that a solemn promise to himself.

Where Malory might have gone, or Sam for that matter, he had no idea. He had no idea about far too much, in fact, including the exact nature of the trap Lemmer had prepared for them. Everett had spoken of charges, but what would they be?

The answer promised to become clear when the door of the chamber opened and two guards carrying rifles came in, followed by a young, upright, hard-faced man in military uniform – Kempeitai, Morahan assumed. He had no knowledge of the Kempeitai. But he suspected that if he did he would be even more worried than he was.

The young officer walked slowly across to the cage and stared in at them, his arms folded behind his back. His expression was calm but contemptuous. He did not look like a man from whom much mercy was to be expected.

‘I am Captain Mikanagi of the Tokubetsu Koto Kempeitai.’ He slipped their passports out of the pocket of his tunic and opened them. ‘You will answer your names. Thomas James Morahan?’

‘I’m Morahan.’

‘Grover Francis Ward?’

Ward raised his hand.

‘Gazda De … jabsu?’

Djabsu grunted.

‘Why are you holding us?’ Morahan demanded.

Mikanagi gave no immediate answer. He carefully replaced the passports in his pocket, then said, ‘Where are Samuel Twentyman and Malory Hollander?’

Morahan had to stop himself smiling at this confirmation that Sam and Malory were still at liberty. Before he could speak, Ward said, ‘In a better hotel than this one, I hope.’

Mikanagi’s mouth twitched. He did not appear to be a connoisseur of sarcasm. ‘It will be better for you if you cooperate.’

‘Why are you holding us?’ repeated Morahan.

‘The man you murdered, Jack Farngold, confessed to us he was part of a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Hara. You were his accomplices. We allowed him to meet you to find out whose orders you were acting on. But, when you realized he was not loyal to you, you killed him. You would have killed Lewis Everett also if the police had not stopped you.’

‘This is bullshit,’ pronounced Ward, accurately enough.

‘It was Everett who killed Farngold,’ said Morahan. ‘The bullets were fired from his gun.’

‘His gun? Your gun?’ Mikanagi shook his head. ‘It does not matter. Everett and Duffy and Monteith will swear to everything I have said.’

‘How exactly will they swear we planned to assassinate the Prime Minister?’

‘You sent Farngold here to watch Hara-san’s movements. He was to tell you where and when to strike.’

‘And why should we want to kill Hara?’

‘You will tell me, Morahan. You are American. Perhaps your government paid you to do this. Perhaps they fear us. Perhaps they think we will be their enemy one day and want to weaken us.’

‘We’re not working for the American government and you know it.’

‘You will admit you are before we are finished with you.’

‘Everett, Duffy and Monteith. What’s happening to them?’

‘They have helped us. Therefore we will help them.’

‘Why not ask them who paid us?’

‘They do not know. They say you, Morahan, organized everything. These two will say the same soon. And you will confess the truth soon also.’

‘I’d tell you the truth, but somehow I doubt it would satisfy you.’

‘We’re American citizens,’ said Ward. ‘We demand to see someone from the US Embassy. You can’t hold us without consular access.’

Mikanagi almost smiled as he looked at Ward. ‘There will be no … consular access. We operate under the Special Higher Law. Our powers of arrest, detention and interrogation are unlimited when an act hostile to the Emperor is committed – such as a conspiracy to assassinate the leader of His Imperial Majesty’s government.’

Djabsu, who had said nothing so far, chose that moment to declare his feelings, by sending a well-directed jet of spittle through the bars of the cage on to the glistening toecap of Mikanagi’s left boot.

One of the guards raised his rifle and stepped forward, but Mikanagi gestured for him to stay where he was. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Your insolence will make me a better interrogator. Our methods ensure cooperation, sooner or later.’ He glared at Morahan, whom he seemed to hold responsible for Djabsu’s behaviour. ‘Make it later, please. I would like that.’

‘We know nothing of a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister, Captain Mikanagi,’ said Morahan. ‘You know that, I’m sure. Your people have had Jack Farngold killed to protect Count Tomura. And we’re to be blamed for it while some accusation’s put together to be thrown at the American government. That’s how it is. And we’re not going to tell it any other way.’

‘Your questioning will begin tomorrow. I give you tonight to think about it. Think well.’

With that Mikanagi turned and strode from the chamber. The guards swiftly followed.

‘Sorry, boys,’ said Morahan, breaking the silence that followed the slamming and bolting of the door.

‘They’re going to torture us, Schools,’ said Ward. ‘And eventually we’ll say whatever they want us to say.’

‘Yes.’ Morahan sighed. ‘Eventually.’

AFTER HER CRISIS
of faith and terminal loss of patience with the privations of missionary life, the nineteen-year-old Malory Hollander gravitated to Tokyo, where she took a teaching post at Silvers’ Academy in the Tsukiji foreign settlement. The area was an architectural simulacrum of an English Home Counties town, with row upon row of Victorian villas, occupied in several cases by schools specializing in English language lessons for the children of Japanese parents willing and able to stump up a yen a month.

It was there that Malory met the precocious Shimizu Chiyoko, one of the few female pupils the school had. Her father was reported to be so impressed by her intelligence that he wanted her to learn English, perhaps in the hope she would snare a wealthy British or American husband.