Beyond Sunrise Page 18

  India turned away to test the temperature of the water in the tub. “I don’t believe in love.”

  “I think perhaps you do.” Françine smiled. “If you did not, you would not have been shocked that I chose Pierre Poirot over Jacques.”

  India straightened slowly, her gaze caught by the view through the open window, where a slice of palm-fringed turquoise waters was just visible over the top of the palisade. As she watched, the westering sun struck the sails of a British naval corvette, the billowing sheets of white canvas turning to gold. In the corvette’s wake came a sleek little schooner-rigged yacht, its masts stark against the tropical blue sky. The Sea Hawk.

  “It’s the Barracuda,” said Françine, coming to stand beside India.

  Her gaze still fixed on the sun-spangled lagoon below, India curled her hands around the rolled metal edge of the tub and gripped it tightly. A moment ago, she had been thinking about how different they were, she and this petite, beautiful, pragmatic Frenchwoman. Now she realized they were not so different, after all. They stood as if one, united by a mutual, unspoken concern for the man who lay on a filthy mattress in Johnny Amok’s storeroom.

  “Will they take him tonight?” India asked after a moment.

  Françine Poirot shook her head. “Non. It must all at least be seen to be legal. In the morning, Pierre will hold an official hearing, decide that Jack is an ‘undesirable element,’ and order him expelled from Takaku—on the Barracuda.”

  “It doesn’t sound exactly legal.”

  Again, that Gallic shrug, although there was no missing now the distress that pinched the woman’s pretty face. “It doesn’t matter. No one will care as long as the correct forms are observed.”

  “I care,” said India softly.

  The other woman turned to regard India though wide, steady eyes.

  “What is it?” India prompted when Françine Poirot said nothing.

  But she only shook her head, and smiled an odd, sad smile. “I think it is something you must discover for yourself, n’est pas?”

  Confused, India pressed the other woman for an explanation. But she never did get one.

  “It bothers you, doesn’t it?” said Alex Preston, glancing sideways at his captain’s hard, closed face. “Having the French take Ryder?”

  Simon Granger kept his gaze on the back of the unkempt, potbellied gendarme who had been detailed to escort them from the island’s French compound to Jack Ryder’s makeshift prison. Alex had expected the commissioner himself to accompany them, but the handsome little Frenchman had declined. They had left him sitting alone in the darkened office of his bungalow, his frowning gaze fixed on a pair of dueling pistols that hung like crossed swords on the wall opposite his desk.

  “Smacks a bit more of revenge than of justice, don’t you think?” Granger said after a moment.

  Alex shrugged. He didn’t know exactly what had happened between the French commissioner’s wife and Jack Ryder, but he’d heard and seen enough to figure most of it out. “Pierre Poirot’s revenge, perhaps. But British justice.”

  “Yes, of course,” said the captain, although Alex heard the unmistakable note of doubt still in his voice.

  Located strategically between the island’s two small churches, one Catholic and the other Protestant, the store run by the local Chinese trader stood at the far end of the row of half-dozen or so ramshackle plank and iron-roofed houses that formed the settlement of La Rochelle. Here and there, in the fork of an orange tree, or nailed to the side of a building, someone with a perverse sense of humor—presumably the departed Georges Lefevre—had stuck up a series of crudely lettered boards that read AVENUE DE TRIOMPHE, or BOULEVARD DE STE. MARIE, although as far as Alex could tell, the muddy, rubbish-strewn bush track they followed was the only street in the place.

  Detouring around the pig snorting through a pile of fly-buzzed garbage rotting in the hot sunshine, Alex followed the gendarme to the stout plank door of a stuccoed lean-to jutting out from the back of the store. There they were met by a tall, scholarly-looking Oriental man with a thin, lined face and a queue that hung limply in the moist, hot air.

  “Donnez-moi la clef,” growled the gendarme, his stubble-covered jaw jutting out in an ugly scowl as he took a menacing step toward the Chinese trader. Producing a long iron key from his sleeve, the trader opened the door’s rusting old lock with an audible click, but whisked himself sideways when the gendarme made a grab for the key.

  “Donnez-moi la clef,” snapped the gendarme again, but the old man tucked the key once more up his sleeve and silently shook his head, his face set in enigmatic lines.

  “Wait out here,” Granger told the gendarme in that stern, slightly bored voice that so effectively intimidated every seaman and officer on the Barracuda.

  Responding instinctively to the tone of command, the gendarme pulled back his shoulders and clicked his heels as he stood aside to let them pass. “Oui, monsieur.”

  After the glaring brilliance of the tropical light outside, the interior of the storeroom was dark, stifling. Giving his eyes time to adjust, Alex paused just inside the doorway and heard a glib, broadly accented voice say, “Do come in, gentlemen. I hope you won’t take offense if I don’t get up, but my head hurts like a sonofabitch.”

  Alex stared with interest at the man who sat on a filthy mattress thrown into one corner of the room, his back braced against the wall, his legs sprawled out in front of him. He was ragged and unshaven, his dark hair too long, and clumped with sweat and blood and dirt. More blood and dirt stained the ripped remnant of the shirt he wore hanging open halfway down his chest. He looked degenerate and disreputable; everything Alex had expected of such a man, and then some.

  Simon Granger stopped a few feet shy of the mattress, his face unreadable as he stared down at his former friend. “I heard you’d resisted arrest.”

  An unexpected smile curled the edges of the Australian’s mouth. “Only to be felled by a flowerpot. I must be getting old.”

  To Alex’s surprise, the captain laughed. “What did it do to your head?”

  “Miss India McKnight thinks I’m concussed, but I expect I’ll live long enough to hang.”

  Simon Granger’s smile faded. “It was wrong, what you did to that woman. Dragging her through a cannibal-infested jungle for the better part of three days.”

  “I know.” The other man’s chest jerked with a cynical sound that might have been a laugh, but wasn’t. He tipped back his head, his eyes gleaming in the dim light. “And it wasn’t wrong of you to use her as live bait in a trap to catch me?”

  “I didn’t expect you to hold a machete to her throat.”

  “You should have.”

  Simon Granger brought up one hand to rub his forehead in an oddly uncharacteristic gesture. “I understand she’s saying you didn’t abduct her.”

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “Not yet. But it doesn’t make any difference what she says. You’re going to swing, anyway. For what you did to the Lady Juliana.”

  The man on the mattress sat quite still, only his chest rising and falling with the effort of his breathing. But as Alex watched, the man’s face seemed to alter, as if pain had somehow stretched the flesh more tautly over the skull, causing the ridges of his cheekbones to stand out sharp, stark against the tanned skin. “I didn’t send that ship up onto the reef, Simon.”

  With a sigh, the captain went to stare out the small, barred window. From where he still stood, Alex could see only a shimmering sliver of the distant sea, almost the same color as the darkening sky.

  “I heard you myself,” Granger said softly, his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze still fixed on the mist-shrouded horizon. “We all heard you tell Captain Gladstone that the charts were wrong. I know the state you were in that day, Jack. What Gladstone did to that native village was—” He paused, and a shudder passed over his face, an echo of a revulsion so profound, it sent an answering shiver down Alex’s spine. “—an abomination. But that doesn�
��t excuse what you did. You sent that ship onto the reef deliberately. Knowingly. You killed those men, Jack. You killed them. And now you’re going to have to pay for it.”

  One hand braced against the wall for support, Ryder staggered to his feet, his face paling alarmingly as he stood swaying, his breath coming heavy and ragged. “Damn it, Simon, listen to me. The charts were wrong. Don’t you understand? The old bastard changed his mind. He ordered the helmsman to keep to the originally plotted course, and that’s why the ship missed the passage through the reef.”

  “You dare, sir!” Alex started forward, his clenched fists coming up. “That ‘old bastard’ you are attempting to slur was my mother’s brother.”

  Granger’s splayed hand slammed against Alex’s chest, stopping him. “Lose control like that again, Lieutenant, and you’ll be waiting outside with the gendarme.”

  Heat burned Alex’s cheeks, but he set his jaw hard, and drew himself up tall. “Yes, sir.”

  The captain frowned at the pale, ragged man leaning against the wall. “Even if it were true, Jack . . . there’s no way you can prove it.”

  “But I can.”

  “How?”

  “What’s left of the Lady Juliana is still caught on that reef. All you need to do is compare the ship’s position with its charts and log, and you’ll see I’m telling the truth. Gladstone followed the charts, not me.”

  Alex glanced from one man to the other. He was finding it increasingly hard to breathe in the hot, close atmosphere of the storeroom.

  The captain’s lips thinned into a tight smile. “The Lady Juliana’s charts and log are at the bottom of the ocean. Along with whatever’s left of her captain.”

  Ryder leaned his shoulders against the wall behind him, his hands flattened at his sides, his chest lifting with his labored breathing. It occurred to Alex that someone really ought to advise the man to sit down again, but the words stuck in his throat.

  “That’s just it, they’re not,” said Ryder. “Toby Jenkins has them.”

  Granger’s brows twitched together. “Toby Jenkins? The seaman who spent those years on the island with you?”

  Ryder nodded.

  “And where is Jenkins now?”

  “He’s still there. On Rakaia.”

  Alex gave a small start of surprise, quickly suppressed. On the way out from Rio, the Barracuda had anchored at Rakaia, looking for Jack Ryder. They’d found the island deserted.

  “You haven’t heard, I take it?” said Granger.

  Ryder’s eyes narrowed, his body tensing, his voice low and wary. “Heard what?”

  “Rakaia was hit by an epidemic. Four, maybe six months back. It’s completely uninhabited now. Anyone who was there is dead, Jack. Jack?”

  Granger surged forward, but Alex got there first, catching Ryder beneath the arms just as the man pitched forward in a dead faint.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  CLAD IN AN exquisitely tailored man’s white linen shirt and her own tattered but well-brushed tartan split skirt, India sat on a driftwood log that had been thrown up by some past storm into the shade of the line of towering coconut palms fringing the lagoon. From there, she was able to watch Captain Granger when he left the storeroom and took the rutted, refuse-strewn path that led down to the beach. He had another officer with him, a younger man, with light brown hair and a sharp-boned, earnest face. The two men were obviously arguing, the younger officer’s hands flashing through the air in short, emotional chops.

  They were too far away for her to hear their words, but India knew by the sudden turning of the captain’s head and the break in his stride that he had seen her. Pausing at the edge of the beach, he said something to the other man and, after a moment’s hesitation, the younger officer continued to the waiting jolly boat drawn up on the golden-white sand, while Captain Granger turned aside, the last rays of the setting sun falling golden and warm on his craggy face as he walked toward her.

  “Miss McKnight.” He paused some half-dozen feet from her to stand with his hands clasped behind his back and his legs braced wide in the manner of a man who’d spent most of his life on the pitching deck of a ship. “I was hoping to have the opportunity to speak with you.”

  His discomfiture was obvious, and if she’d been feeling more in charity with the man, India would have said something to put him at ease. Instead, she merely tipped back her head and gave him a steady stare. “Captain Granger.”

  He cleared his throat awkwardly and fixed his gaze on some point over India’s left shoulder. “To beg your pardon after all you have been through seems woefully inadequate, I know, but you must allow me to do so, nonetheless. I can only assure you that I would never have involved you in this affair had I imagined that the consequences to you might be either dangerous or unpleasant.”

  India studied the man’s face, tanned dark and lined by years spent squinting into sun and salt spray. “Do you honestly believe that? Or are you simply hoping that I will believe it?”

  A muscle bunched along his tight jaw. Then a wry smile touched his lips and he shook his head. “You’re right. I saw a way to get my hands on Jack, and I seized it. And the devil take the consequences.”

  India kept her gaze on his face. “I don’t understand. Why are you so determined to capture him? Why now, after all these years?”

  “My orders come from London.”

  “And do you always go to such lengths to carry out your orders?”

  He swung to look directly at her. “I volunteered for this assignment. Did you know?”

  India shook her head. “No.”

  “Most people thought I seemed the obvious choice, given what I’d been through because of Jack. But there were some who weren’t so sure. They remembered that Jack and I had once been friends, and they worried I might not pursue him with as much energy as I ought.” He nodded toward the jolly boat pulling away from shore, and the young officer who stood stiff and erect at its prow. “Even my first lieutenant suspects me of cherishing dangerously tender feelings toward my quarry.”

  “And so you’re determined to prove them wrong, is that it?”

  Simon Granger drew in a sharp, deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “What I’m determined to do is to get my hands on Jack before London decides I’m not trying hard enough, and sends someone else. Someone who might not be as careful as they should be.”

  India felt a chill touch her heart. “You mean, someone who would just as soon kill Jack Ryder as capture him?”

  “What Jack did . . . Well, let’s just say there are a lot of people in the Admiralty who would like nothing better than to see him dead. With or without the benefit of a hearing.”

  “He says he didn’t do it.”

  The Englishman’s gaze met hers. “And you believe him?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “That’s because you don’t know what happened.”

  “Then tell me,” she challenged him. “Sit down, and tell me what happened. From the very beginning.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Don’t you think I deserve to hear it?”

  He hesitated, then came to sit beside her on the white, wave-smoothed old log. For a long moment, he simply stared out at the reef, where the surf broke in a savage, noisy barrage of upflung spray and swirling foam. Then he said, his voice hushed, hoarse, “We were two days out of Tahiti when a storm blew up, fast.” He paused, and India knew from the faraway look that crept into his eyes that he was hearing, again, the relentless shrieking of the wind, the thundering roar of foam-flecked, storm-blackened waves that could crush even a mighty ship of the line into kindling. “I’d been in the navy since I was thirteen, but I’d never seen anything like that typhoon. For a good thirty-six hours, it was all we could do to keep from disappearing into a cross sea. We had no idea where we were.”

  Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his knees, his clasped hands dangling loosely between them. “It was on the morning of the second day when the wind brought down the fore
mast and swept one of the men overboard, an old seaman by the name of Toby Jenkins. He was still alive, caught up in the rigging we were trailing, but with the seas the way they were, Captain Gladstone decided it was too dangerous to ask the men to try to haul him in.”

  India felt a wry, sad smile tug at her lips. “So Jack Ryder volunteered to do it.”

  He nodded, an echo of her own smile lightening his face, only to fade again. “He almost had the man pulled in when the ship swung around in the wind and a wall of water swept over the deck. What was left of the rigging tore free, and took Jack with it.” Granger stared out over the distant sea, peaceful now in the rapidly gathering twilight. “We tacked back and forth for hours, trying to find them, but . . .” He shook his head. “It was useless. No one looking at that sea would ever imagine they could have survived.”

  “So how did they?”

  He shrugged. “The rigging would have kept them afloat for a while. But even then, they wouldn’t have lasted long. It was just sheer luck that at the time they were lost overboard, the Lady Juliana was only a few hundred yards off an island. We simply didn’t know it.”

  “The island was Rakaia?”

  Granger nodded. “It wasn’t until almost two years later that we started hearing rumors about a couple of Europeans who’d been lost off their ship in a storm and were living with the natives on one of the islands. Even then, it took another couple of months to find the right island.”

  India kept her gaze on the Sea Hawk, rocking back and forth in the gentle, blue-green waters of the lagoon. A light had appeared on the foredeck, a lantern that shone across the gathering gloom. Patu would come ashore after dark, Amok had told her; India had only to wait here, and he would meet her.

  “When the Lady Juliana sailed into the lagoon,” Granger was saying, “Jack came paddling out to meet us in one of those native outrigger canoes. At first, I didn’t even recognize him. He’d always preferred going barefoot to wearing shoes, and he’d just as soon do without a shirt most of the time, as well. But after two years on Rakaia . . . Well, he looked like a Polynesian. A blue-eyed Polynesian with an Aussie accent.”