The White Pearl (60 page)

‘I see.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes. You used us. Abused Nigel’s hospitality.’ She spoke angrily. Lashed out. ‘It was despicable.’

‘I went to the hut,’ he said coldly.

Shame flushed up into her cheeks.

‘There was nothing there,’ he said.

‘I burned everything.’

From the pocket of his clean trousers, Fitz drew a cigarette case and flipped it open. A gasp escaped Connie’s lips and he
swung around. He followed the direction of her gaze to the silver case in his hand.

‘You recognise it?’ he asked.

‘It’s identical to the one that belonged to Sho,’ she whispered.

‘Yes. Except for the initials. My father,’ he gestured towards General Takehashi, ‘generously gave us a gift of a cigarette
case each.’ After a moment’s thought, while he lit a cigarette, he added, ‘Do you have it?’

‘It’s in Palur.’

‘Where?’ the General leaned forward hungrily.

A father wanting the last piece of his son.
Ask the monitor lizard. Ask the voracious ants.

‘Will it make any difference if I tell you?’

The General swatted her question aside the way a houseboy swats flies. ‘Where?’ he asked again, as persistent as his son.

‘It was in a drawer in my dressing room when I left. At Hadley House.’

A smile, so like Sho’s it sent a shiver through Connie, flashed across General Takehashi’s face. ‘We will find it,’ he said
to Fitz, his lips taut and grey.

But Fitz’s eyes were on Connie. She could read the question in them.
Why did you keep it? Did it mean so much to you?

No, it meant nothing, I swear. I only kept it to stop myself wiping him from my memory, erasing him out of existence.

Abruptly the General barked an order to the guards, and she was yanked back onto her feet. She heard the breath escape like
a train from Fitz’s lungs, as everything came at her, bright and clear and fast, her brain aware that this was the end. It
clamoured to fill its final moments.

‘Fitz,’ she said urgently. ‘Were you the same as Sho, a spy for Japan? Is that what you were doing all the time? Was it all
a pretence, while you betrayed your country?’

‘I have no country.’

His words struck chill in Connie’s heart. He spoke in low tones to the
General, and although she couldn’t understand what he was saying, it was clear he had cut himself off from her. No sign of
despair, no sign of love for her. She longed to speak to him again one last time, but she was frightened the wrong words would
come out. Everything inside her started to hurt.

The older man was growing impatient, eager to be rid of her, and he waved a dismissive hand as a signal to the guards. She
saw Fitz’s mouth tighten slightly as he exhaled a string of smoke that coiled like a grey curse from inside him. His eyes
searched hers, then lingered on her cheekbones, on the throat he had caressed so tenderly, but he said nothing, raised no
objection to what was about to happen. He did not lift a hand to save her.

As the guards marched her back to the doorway, her feet managed to move. She didn’t know how. How could they walk her to her
death when her life lay in this dark khaki tent exhaling grey curses? She thanked God her son was with Johnnie.

‘Constance Hadley.’

It was Fitz’s voice. When she turned, she saw tension hiding in the flare of his nostrils and in the fingers that held the
cigarette. The guards halted. Her eyes feasted on him whether she wanted them to or not.

‘What is it?’ she asked quietly.

‘Did you love him?’

‘Shohei?’

‘Yes. Did you love my brother?’

Say
yes
. Say
yes.
Say you adored him so much you had decided to abandon your son for him. To desert your husband for him. Surrender your whole
life to him. That you yearned to spend the rest of your years at his side in Japan, to grow old with him. Say that he was
the sun and moon and stars to you.

Say it. Say it.

Then maybe his father will relent and grant you a life.

‘No, Fitz, I never loved Shohei Takehashi.’

In silence, she walked from the tent.

Why hadn’t they put a bullet in her?

She craved water. The walls of her tent prison were stifling.

Nothing made sense to her. Was General Takehashi set on playing with her mind? Was his intention to torment her the way he
was
tormented by the loss of his son? She blinked to bring her thoughts into focus once more.

An image hammered at her brain as she lay on her side tethered to the stake once more – the thread of smoke curling out of
Fitz’s mouth, as if his soul were escaping. It had brushed over the moist surface of his lips and swirled around his nostrils
in a vain attempt to creep back in. She saw it over and over again – Fitz breathing out what he no longer wanted; expelling
her as easily as he expelled the smoke. There was no question in her mind that it was he who had summoned Sho’s father. It
must have been his plan from the start.

She tried to work it out, but couldn’t. Whenever she thought of Teddy, sickness rose in her stomach but she fought it down
and willed Johnnie to take good care of the son General Takehashi was taking from her in revenge. Her dehydrated mind still
struggled to understand why Fitz had not summoned the General before now. Once he had manoeuvred her onto the island, why
wait so long? Why all the pretence? Betrayal was betrayal in any language.

‘Fitz,’ she whispered angrily. ‘Fitz, why did you entice me to love you?’

Abruptly something broke loose within her, something cracked open and erupted out of control, searing and burning her insides.
Everything she’d been holding tight tore loose from her grasp and she began to shiver uncontrollably. She saw nothing but
blackness in front of her.

Hands touched her face. Water washed over her lips and trickled onto her tongue. The side of her head lay on something warm
and solid, and she heard a drumming in her ear that persisted in twisting into the coils of her brain.

‘Connie!’

It wasn’t over. Not yet.

‘Connie, don’t you dare give up on me now.’

‘Go away,’ she mumbled.

She didn’t want illusions or fantasies, or whatever the hell this was. Because it was Fitz’s voice, Fitz’s touch, Fitz’s heartbeat
in her ear, and she knew none of that could be real. Lips brushed her forehead in a tender kiss that made her suddenly aware
of the foul smell of her own body. She opened her eyes.

She was cradled in Fitz’s arms. The rope around her wrists had been removed and it was dark outside, the tent just a triangle
of blackness
around her. Only a thin brush of moonlight had sneaked in through the doorflap and painted Fitz’s thick hair silver. She smiled
at him. She no longer cared whether the moment was a figment of her fevered imagination or not, because all that mattered
was that he had come to her one last time.

‘Stand up,’ he told her.

‘So that your Japanese friends can shoot me? No, thank you. Tell them to come and do it here. Or,’ she smiled sadly up at
him, ‘are you going to be the one to finish the job yourself?’

He shook her. ‘Stand up, Connie. Be quick.’

He put a bottle to her lips and she drank the water greedily. It took a massive effort of will to make herself move out of
his arms.

‘What trick are you playing now, Mr Fitzpayne?’

‘Oh, my precious Connie, I can’t blame you for not trusting me. But it was the only way I could think of saving your life
when the soldiers seized you out at the promontory.’ Gently he lifted her to her feet. ‘We have to leave.’

‘What about the guard?’

‘I have removed him.’

‘Where are we going?’ she demanded.

‘To find your son.’

The darkness whispered to Connie. It teased her mind. She had to fight to find the line between what was real and what was
shadow. Her heart was pounding enough to make her teeth shake but her steps were quick and silent on the dirt trail, and her
arm fastened firmly around Fitz’s waist. She didn’t know if he was holding her up or if she was holding him up, any more than
she knew whether her anger at him was deserved or not.

It was the only way I could think of to save your life.

What did he mean by that?

A fitful moon shimmered through the trees and the wind had risen in the night, stirring the jungle around them, so that every
sound, every creak of a branch or rustle of a frond made her head turn, alert for danger.

‘It’s all right, Connie,’ Fitz soothed in a whisper, ‘I know where the sentries are posted. We’re safe.’

She made herself believe it, though in her heart she knew better – if it were true, why was he speaking so low, and why were
they fleeing in stealthy silence? Because he knew exactly what General Takehashi would inflict on them if they were caught?
Nevertheless she moved quickly at his side. She took his weight when his bad leg made him stumble in the dark and he cursed
under his breath. Once, as they emerged cautiously from the jungle onto a narrow stretch of riverbank upstream from where
the camp had been, he brushed his fingers along the side of her head.

She stood still. She placed her hands on each side of his face, holding him, pinning him down, aware of the stubble on his
jaw, and asked in a voice that was scrupulously devoid of any blame, ‘Where is my son?’

‘On the
Burung Camar
.’

‘Still alive?’

‘Yes.’

Relief drained away her anger. ‘So how do we find the
Burung Camar
now? It was days ago that it left here.’

‘I have a boat for us. Hidden in the mangroves.’

For a long moment she continued to hold his face in her hands, sensing he had more to say.

‘I came for you, Connie.’

‘I know.’

He took her hands in his, and anchored them to his chest. ‘Don’t ever do that to me again. Don’t ever,’ he said, no more than
a murmur, ‘don’t ever put me through such agony.’ He wrapped a strong arm around her neck and pulled her cheek against his.
He held her there. Silent. Breathing hard. ‘To see you like that,’ he continued softly, ‘in front of General Takehashi was
… unbearable.’

‘I saw the anger,’ she whispered, ‘twisting inside you but I didn’t know it was on my behalf. I thought it was because . .
. ’

‘Of course it was for you, my precious Connie.’ Abruptly he stood back from her, holding her away from him to let his gaze
scour her face in the darkness. ‘Don’t you know I love you? Don’t you know I cannot let you die, even if it is the path you
would choose?’

‘I am not ready to die,’ she said fiercely.

‘I know. You have a son.’

‘General Takehashi had two sons. Now he has none – because of me. He has good reason to want me dead. How did you persuade
him not to have me shot?’

‘I made a deal with him.’

‘Oh, Fitz. What kind of deal did …’

He put a finger to her lips. ‘Trust me, Connie.’

Why? When you betrayed me?
The question lived for no more than two seconds in her head. She only had to listen to his words. Just as in that seedy bar
in Palur, when she had asked him to skipper her yacht. She could trust him. She knew it then, and she knew it now.

The boat was holed, its bottom smashed out. It was a flimsy rowing boat that Fitz had concealed in the embrace of the mangrove
roots but some sharp-eyed Jap soldier had crawled in among the tangled branches and
taken his rifle butt to it. Connie saw the shock of the discovery lock Fitz’s muscles, and a sound of despair came from his
mouth.

‘Not this. Not this,’ he moaned.

It was his voice, but it sounded like someone else’s and chilled her flesh.

They were crouched down beside what was left of the rowing boat, when realisation suddenly came to her and she rose to her
feet, acid burning her throat.

‘What is it, Connie?’ He reached out a hand.

She stepped back. ‘Tell me, Fitz, what deal did you make with your adoptive father?’

‘What?’

‘Tell me.’ Her voice was dry and empty. ‘Tell me what you offered him in exchange for my life.’

He struggled slowly to his feet, a dark shape merging with the surrounding blackness as the moon slid behind a cloud. ‘Don’t,
Connie,’ was all he said.

‘Tell me!’

He spat on the earth. Ridding himself of something. ‘I promised him your son.’

Connie staggered, as though punched, and forced herself away from him when he tried to catch her.

‘No,’ she hissed. ‘No.’

‘It was the only way.’

‘To exchange me for my son?’

‘Yes, you took his son. Now he wants yours.’

His earlier words –
I cannot let you die, even if it is the path you would choose –
now they made terrible sense.

‘You know I would die a thousand times before I would let anything happen to Teddy. You know that, you know that. How could
you think I could live after …’

Fitz stepped forward and gripped her wrists like shackles. ‘I know, Connie,’ he said flatly. ‘I knew I would lose you by making
such a deal, but I couldn’t let you die. I couldn’t.’

She tried to pull away from him, but he held her firm. ‘I told General Takehashi that your son was on the
Burung Camar
– which he knows is my boat – but that I didn’t know where it was now, as it was taken over by natives when the Japanese
planes attacked.’

She tried to listen. Tried to think straight. To decipher his words. But all that rampaged through her head was the fact that
her son was in danger while she was stranded on this Jap-infested island.

‘Listen, Connie.’ His face drew close as if he could physically force his words into her brain. ‘Teddy is safe. Takehashi
has no idea where the
Burung Camar
is.’

‘Neither do we,’ she whispered.

‘Of course we do. Nurul will be at the promontory tonight.’

‘All our hopes are pinned on Nurul? My son’s life depends on that man?’

‘Don’t sound so scathing. Nurul will be there. Night after night until I come.’

She shook her head violently. ‘He won’t. He’ll be long gone.’