The White Pearl (20 page)

‘What is it, Nigel?’

‘Constance, I insist that you don’t employ that girl who was here this afternoon. Find someone else. Please. I think she’s
dangerous.’

She nodded. ‘If it makes you happy.’

That’s the trouble with guilt. It makes you say yes when what you mean is no.

Madoc worked harder and faster on the casino than ever before. He had a sense of time running out. Whoever were the victors
in the war that was coming, they’d all be sick of the misery of fighting and want to come and gamble away their hard-earned
cash, and where better than at Morgan’s Bar? Kitty had strapped up his ribs and bathed his wounds, and he dosed himself each
morning with a glass of cheap brandy to numb the pain.

‘You’re drinking too much,’ Kitty commented.

‘I’m drinking enough,’ he countered. He downed another half-glass and felt it scorch his gut. It was the second of the morning,
and he hadn’t had breakfast yet though he’d been at work for the past two hours, ever since dawn.

‘Eat something.’

To oblige her, he sat down at the table and watched her move around the cramped kitchen as she served him a plate of fried
belly pork and eggs. It smelled good but he wasn’t hungry. He was never hungry these days, not since his run-in with Bull
Chan. Something was churning inside him, eating him up. He stuck a fork in the eggs, pushing them round his plate.

‘Sit down, Kitty. There’s something I want to tell you.’

Quietly she abandoned the pan and sat opposite him at the battered old table where she had once cut a bullet from his thigh.
She folded her hands in front of her on its surface, and narrowed her eyes at him.

‘If anything happens to me – I mean anything bad – I want you to …’

‘Nothing bad will happen to you,’ she retorted. ‘Not if you don’t do anything stupid or go begging to get your thick skull
knocked in.’ She didn’t raise her voice, but he could hear she wanted to.

He tried again. ‘If anything bad happens to me, I want you to know that there is a box buried behind the banyan tree. It’s
an old Huntley and Palmers biscuit tin with a picture of King George on the front. It’s buried a good way down, and there
is enough money in it to get you back home.’

He’d expected surprise from her. Probably annoyance. Maybe even a veiled relief. But what he got was a soft melting of something
at the core of her; he could see it like honey in her hazel eyes.

Her hand slid forward and took hold of one of his. ‘Don’t you know, I
am
home?’ She said it with the kind of smile that meant she could think of a better use for the table than scoffing belly pork
and eggs.

Madoc was up a ladder, hammering the roof beams in place. When the roof was finished, he would start to prepare the interior.
He already had the gaming tables ordered – though not yet paid for – and was thinking of travelling as far as KL to poach
a well-trained croupier from one of the clubs. One with a French accent would be classy. He liked that idea; it would impress
the jock-heads who would come flocking upriver.

He returned to his work, whistling cheerfully, despite the fact that everything was wet from a recent downpour, so that he
and the timbers were drenched and the ground squelched beneath his ladder. Later, when he thought back on it, he realised
his mistake was the whistling. It masked other sounds, even the usual racket that frogs made after rain. So he didn’t hear
the boat glide up to the jetty, or the footsteps that approached his shell of a casino while he was up the ladder. If he had,
maybe it would have turned out differently.

‘Madoc-san.’

Shit!
Madoc’s hammer paused mid-strike. He glanced down onto a neat male head, raindrops glistening in the cropped grey hair, and
an upturned face that looked pleased with itself. It was one of his Japanese contacts, the oldest one, the one in authority
who liked to pretend he spoke little English.

‘Good morning,’ Madoc said, and shinned down the ladder. He kept the hammer in his hand. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’

He watched the pale face of the man in front of him, the way it made no attempt to hide its arrogance and its dislike of him.
The narrow eyes had the look of a cat, and Madoc was in no doubt that he was intended to be the mouse.

‘I have a task for you,’ the Japanese said with the utmost politeness.

‘Does it pay well?’

‘Of course.’

‘You want more information?’

‘No.’ The man was sweating in the heat. Or was there something more? He wore a raincoat over dark, spotless trousers, but
his shoes were spattered with Morgan’s Bar’s mud. ‘Not this time. What I want is this: one hundred bicycles.’

Madoc burst out laughing, it was so absurd. ‘What? Is the great Imperial Japanese Army going to invade Malaya by bike?’

He was still chuckling at the idea when his companion said coldly, ‘That is exactly what we intend to do.’

Madoc’s laughter instantly dried up. In the silence he heard the palm trees chafing against each other in the same way that
this man’s manner chafed on Madoc’s nerves.

‘That’s insane,’ he said. Perhaps unwisely.

The small man pulled back his shoulders and pushed out his narrow chest. ‘The Imperial Japanese Army does nothing that is
insane
. It is a supreme fighting force.’

‘On bicycles!’

‘You are a fool! You and your British Army know nothing. You think that the Malayan jungle will stop us!’ Spittle gathered
in one corner of his mouth, and he clenched a fist to his chest as though to stop his heart from launching itself at Madoc.
‘We have tanks that will blast your defences, and we have bicycles that will carry our infantry so fast along the jungle tracks
that our forces will outflank yours before you can finish drinking your English cup of tea.’

‘Christ!’ Suddenly Madoc could see the sense of it. The natives of Malaya criss-crossed the jungle on bicycles every day.
Why not an army? ‘A hundred bicycles? You’ll need a thousand.’

The man stiffened. ‘Don’t think we won’t convey our own.’

‘So why do you need me to find any more?’

‘Many will be damaged. We need replacements ready along our route.’

‘Christ!’ Madoc said again. The chill finger of reality touched the base of his spine, and for the first time he believed
the bloody Japanese Army might actually manage it.

‘One hundred bicycles,’ the man repeated.

‘That’s a tall order. How soon do you want them?’

‘Immediately.’

Madoc laughed in the man’s face and started back towards his ladder.

‘Madoc-san, don’t you dare walk away from me!’

Madoc swung round. ‘I do not care for your manners,’ he snapped.

The Japanese pulled out two manila envelopes from his raincoat pocket and held them out. ‘One to pay the cost of the bicycles,’
his mouth tipped into a sneer, ‘the other to pay the cost of you.’

Madoc contemplated hitting him. But the envelopes were fat. He knew he could buy a native’s bicycle for little more than a
beer and a couple of dollars. He snatched the envelopes without looking at the man, and ripped open the one for himself. It
took an effort to keep his face straight. Inside lay real temptation, more than enough money to fit out the new casino to
a standard that would draw punters from far and wide. He could employ the best girls, get in a stock of good Scotch whisky,
buy Kitty a wedding ring at last, he could …

Fuck! He spat on the ground and pocketed the money.

The Jap’s eyes glittered, hard and cold and unforgiving. ‘Two days. I want them in two days.’

‘Four.’

‘Three.’

‘It’s a deal.’

Abruptly the Jap turned his head, conscious of someone staring at him. It was Kitty. She was standing with the iron pan swinging
loosely from her hand. She wore a bright green blouse with sweat stains and a yellow sarong around her ample waist, her hair
bundled up in an unruly knot. She didn’t look dangerous.

She ambled over, swaying her hips. ‘Any problems, Madoc?’ she asked casually.

‘No. Our friend is just leaving.’

‘Good.’

The man bristled like a fighting dog and drew himself up to his full height, but still he was several inches shorter than
Kitty. ‘Your husband and I are doing business,’ he said. His tone was dismissive.

‘If you ask me, you do too much fucking business with my husband. Now get your yellow hide off our land.’

Madoc fought hard not to laugh at the expression on the Jap’s face, but his laughter changed to dismay when he saw his wife
sidle up to the ladder and give it a nudge with her shoulder. It came crashing down. Madoc jumped clear, but it twisted and
gave a glancing blow to the Japanese, sending him sprawling in the mud. With a scrabble of limbs he leaped immediately back
to his feet, but his trousers and raincoat were caked in mud. A flash of something like hatred passed through his dark eyes
as he bowed stiffly to Kitty, then strutted off back to the jetty without a word.

Madoc wanted to scold his wife. She had made the Jap lose face in a big way, and you didn’t do that to a Japanese if you wanted
to keep your fingernails. But instead he seized hold of her, pressing the large fleshy mound of her breasts against his chest,
and planted a kiss on her lips.

White gold.

That was the name for rubber. The milky-white fluid that spilled like liquid gold dust into the white man’s pocket. As Connie
rode her horse along the plantation trail, she gazed upwards. Far above her arched a vaulted ceiling of delicate leaves and
slender branches that shielded her from the fiery force of the tropical sun, allowing only the fingertips of a gentle dappled
light to filter through.

Here was order. Here was control. Here was certainty. They soothed Connie’s thoughts. Regular rows of rubber trees –
Hevea brasiliensis
– that stretched for mile after mile, tall mottled trunks as straight and fundamental as marble columns in a church, while
a smattering of foliage sprouted underfoot like a carpet of bright green feathers. Here there was room to breathe.

Nothing like the chaos of the jungle.

They’d chosen a Sunday. Early morning, when the air was at its coolest and a thin green mist rose up like the earth’s breath,
but Connie knew better than to trust it to stay that way. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a light muslin blouse with jodhpurs
and a pair of sturdy walking shoes. She and Nigel had saddled their horses and Teddy’s small Turkish pony, Puck. Razak opted
to walk. When Connie offered him a horse to ride, he looked at her as if she’d suggested putting a firecracker between his
legs. She’d been amazed at how readily Nigel had agreed to
this Jumat twin accompanying them on their trek and it touched her that he should want to please her and Teddy like this.
They rode in single file along the trails through the plantation, passing from groves of younger trees to the old-timers which
towered above them, creaking their heavy branches like old men with sore joints.

As they rode deeper through mile after mile of identical trees, the air damp and earthy, Connie found the sameness of the
groves around her disconcerting and became disorientated. Everywhere looked identical. How Nigel could find his way in this
green kaleidoscope of rubber trees she couldn’t imagine, but he did so with unfailing sureness. Whenever they passed a tapper
or one of the coolies clearing ditches or weeding, Nigel would call out, ‘
Selamat pagi
, Ghani,’ or ‘Good morning, Kijang.’ In return he would receive a ‘
Selamat pagi
,
Tuan
,’ with a good-natured smile on the brown face and a courteous bow to herself. It was like being with a beloved king in his
kingdom. No wonder he adored it.

‘Here we are,’ Nigel announced suddenly. ‘The perfect spot.’

Connie gazed around her. At first glance it looked no different from every other
spot
they had ridden through, but then she realised that just ahead of them sprawled a patch of jungle forest. She regarded it
warily.

‘Yes! We can make camp,’ Teddy crowed, and slid off his horse with an energy she envied after two hours in the saddle.

‘We’ll collect material for the hut from over there,’ Nigel waved a hand towards the forest, ‘and build our camp right here,
I think.’ He surveyed his chosen territory with satisfaction. ‘There’s a river just beyond those trees.’

Connie dismounted. She had to admit that this spot did indeed look perfect: a narrow strip of open grassland tucked between
the rubber trees and the dark ribbon of the jungle’s edge. She left the others to make a start as she took care of the horses.
She removed their saddles, rubbed down their hot, sweating backs and led them to drink and cool their feet in the river, then
tethered them in the shade and returned to the camp area. Already a pile of areca palm fronds lay in a heap, and Teddy was
dragging more across the grass, his face red with effort. Behind him, Razak was carrying five long straight poles and Nigel
held an armful of sticks. He grinned as he approached, waving his
parang
at her. They had agreed with Teddy what to bring: one
parang
, an evil-looking native machete, and a long-bladed knife for skinning anything they
caught, as well as a billycan for heating water. In her back pocket Connie had secreted a box of matches and a hipflask of
antiseptic. Just in case.

It took some time to build a hut, an A-shaped shelter with fronds for the roof.

‘Make it watertight,’ Connie laughed as Teddy worked another layer of greenery into the walls. ‘We don’t want to get wet when
the rain comes.’

‘We won’t!’ His fingers were nimble. He only needed to be shown once how to interweave the fronds.

There was a lot of shouting and laughing but the hut slowly emerged, a bit shaky but definitely a respectable hut, and Connie
noticed that even Razak seemed to be enjoying the experience. His black eyes shone, glancing at her shyly as he worked. Only
Nigel was allowed to wield the
parang
because they wanted no accidents, but Razak was as quick as lightning with the knife when they all descended on the river
to try for fish. He poised himself, still as a statue, up to his waist in the current, waiting for long moments, then struck
hard and fast. He lifted the fish from the water, skewered on the point of the knife.