'They go for the tongue. That's all they want. They rip out the tongue and let the rest of the poor beast sink to the ocean floor to die a slow death.'

'How can you stand it in here?' I pull at my collar. 'This heat is smothering.'

He shifts his weight a little. Winces. Moves his sore leg with two hands.

'We saw the attack out on the reef. It happened just feet from Isabella. A five-ton lugger can capsize or end up with a hole in its hull if a whale throws itself sideways.'

I look through the small cut-out in the wall. There's a threadbare goat tied to a post in the yard. It chews a mouthful of dead gra.s.s, then wails piteously, the sound dragged over the b.u.mpy washboard in its throat.

'Fuller shoved the tiller to starboard. The deck bucked under me. I would have fallen overboard and into one of those killers' mouths if it wasn't for the deck rope that caught around my ankle.'

'It sounds as though Mr Fuller thought quickly,' I say.

'He didn't have to yank the tiller so hard.'

'Perhaps he panicked. I certainly would have.'

'Fuller never panics.'

He doesn't have time to elaborate before another voice is behind me in the room.

'I thought I felt my ears burning.'

I put my hand on the crate to swivel around. As though my palms didn't hurt enough already, the movement pushes a splinter sideways into the plump pad of skin under my thumb. I look at its sting for a second: a miniature log in a hectic-pink sea. Another corrugated bleat from the goat. Another turn on the hawser of tension already in the room.

'Mary Oxnam, meet Percy Fuller, my partner.'

'Miss Oxnam.' Percy takes off his hat. Plays the part of a complete stranger with consummate ease.

Now, if only I can do so well.

I offer my undamaged hand. 'Mr Fuller,' I say, trying to ignore my rollicking heart. 'Bob tells me your quick action saved Isabella.'

Today he's dressed casually in biscuit-brown trousers and a green shirt. It picks up the green in his eyes. When he bows his head forward I see a cowlick sending the otherwise neat part into a frenzy.

One eyebrow twitches. 'Please, call me Percy. And that wasn't what he said at the time. In fact, the conversation doesn't bear repeating. Not in front of a lady.' That ghost of a smile I'm so often haunted by lifts the right side of his mouth.

He pulls out his pipe and a plug. Begins the ritual of teasing out the tobacco. The smell of fruity splinters and old moss fills the confined s.p.a.ce.

'Would you mind not?' I ask. 'I feel I can't breathe in here.'

He shrugs. That phantom smile again. His green eyes are a hailstorm hovering over me. He transfers his attention to Bob. 'I've come to break you out, Watson. Take you to the Sea Wah. You can rest up, perhaps hobble down to the gambling table tonight. Risk all your marital savings on the roll of the dice, eh? Cook up some more smelly books with Will Hartley.'

'Shut yer mouth or I'll shut it for ye.'

My eyes are on Bob's face, curious both at Percy's words and Bob's violent reaction to them.

Percy turns his attention to me. 'Did your fiance tell you, Miss Oxnam? About his confusion over slug types? You see, there is a sliding scale of value in different slugs that we collect. Red p.r.i.c.klys are the most prized and fetch the most money. Watson and our friendly local merchant Will Hartley have been playing hide the lolly fish - a lesser variety - with Chinese epicures in Shanghai. Trouble is, if you boil up lolly fish in a copper boiler so that they look like red p.r.i.c.klys and sell them as such, you run the risk of killing off the epicures with verdigris, eh, Watson?'

'Is that true, Bob?' I ask.

'I said shut yer f.e.c.king mouth!'

'Hearty words for a man on his back.' Percy's tone is blithely indifferent.

I search for something to say that will break the dangerous mood in the room.

'I'll take Bob to the Sea Wah. I have to see Bill Smith at the Steam Packet next door, anyway.'

I bank on Smith's name distracting Bob from Percy's taunting. Bill Smith of the Steam Packet Hotel is one of the players in Charley and Bob's game of pa.s.s the small parcel in the South Pacific.

'What business could ye have there?' Bob turns a suspicious eye on me. The medicinal b.a.l.l.s clank like the toll of an angry bell.

I touch my waist lightly, feel the outline under my sash of the envelope Charley gave me last night; the first of the notes Captain Roberts said it was all right to deliver for my crooked boss.

'Something fell out of his pocket in one of the rooms,' I say, clear-eyed. 'I'm just returning it.'

It's an alibi the bawdy house is always useful for, considering every man in town ends up upstairs at French Charley's at least once a week, sans trousers and shirt.

Percy and I stand on Adam's verandah, waiting for Bob to get dressed. I look at my watch: ten to three. At three, Adam will put up his closed sign, pick up his parade sceptre and, feeding his fantasies of Bwanahood, stride down to the gathering crowd at the end of Charlotte Street.

Percy could be a wild cat from the same imaginary jungle. He leans on the verandah rail, facing me. I even think I see a tail in his eyes, swishing back and forth, deadly, playful. Then I realise it's only shadows cast by the sunlight shining through cracks in the tin above our heads. His hair, which was dark blond indoors, is now peppered with gold.

'Permission to smoke now, Miss Oxnam?' he drawls, and reaches into his pocket to bring out the pipe and tobacco.

'I wouldn't presume to tell you what to do. And if I call you Percy, you must call me Mary.'

I speak at a conversational volume for the benefit of pa.s.sers-by. Customers come and go through the pharmacy door, each counted by the coin-click of the bell above. When the coast is temporarily clear, I lean towards him and lower my voice for a more private interaction.

'I thought you couldn't find your runaway Chinaman. What do you mean by sending him to the Lizard?' I hadn't intended to sound viperous, but there's no mistaking the hiss in the words.

His eyes narrow. The crow's-feet splay on the skin around them. 'My, aren't we cultivating a sense of our own importance?'

The tightness in my throat won't go away with swallowing. Two young boys in short pants run shouting along Charlotte Street, trailing a blown-up pig's bladder floating on the end of a piece of string. The sun shines through it, illuminating the red veins until it looks like a travelling globe of the world, all the trade routes marked out in crimson rivers. He's right, of course, about my tenuous position. Even now I feel a scratchy noose around my neck. Although that doesn't mean he has the right to kick the box from under me.

But anger will get me nowhere. Instinct's telling me to match his cool tone with my own. Only minutes ago I saw him throw a spark casually into the tinder of Bob's temper, then step back with amused interest to watch him burn. He'll do the same to me, if I let him.

I attempt to sound more reasonable. 'You knew that I'd planned to position myself on the Lizard so I could do the signalling job. Why bribe John Adam to scare me off marrying Bob? How far would you go to keep me away?'

An old woman comes out of the pharmacy. Percy waits until she sways away on the stilts of rheumatism. 'How far would I go? Not so far as your vanity might imagine.'

He inspects his pipe thoughtfully. Then, when he decides the pile of tobacco is stacked just right, puts the stem to the corner of his mouth. A small flare. A pellet-gun's pop as he draws in. He drops his match into the dirt over the railing. His next words seem almost an aside to himself. 'I counted on Adam having a big mouth, but not quite so big.' He rests one leg over the other. Squints slightly through the smoke. Dark stubble covers the field of his chin. 'I don't think it's a good idea you marrying Watson. And I've told you why. But you're a grown woman ...'

This backflip catches me off guard. I look over his shoulder for a few seconds to muster my thoughts.

'Let me get this straight. You've suddenly given up on dissuading me from the signalling job? After you've gone to all the trouble of priming Adam. And right at the point when you've found your Chinaman?'

'A man's ent.i.tled to reconsider.'

'Or have his mind changed for him by circ.u.mstance. Could it be you didn't know the Chinaman had an injury when you figured out where he was? He can't do the signalling job anyway with his busted foot, can he? How high is that hill on the Lizard? Eleven, twelve hundred feet? A bit much to hop up. And it's a little late to line anyone else up for the job.'

His jaw tightens and I realise I've won. This hand, at least.

'You don't miss a thing, do you? Been down to the docks, I take it.'

I look around once more to make sure no one is listening. 'Why is he still going to the Lizard, then?'

Percy picks at a loose splinter on the railing. 'Something may go wrong. No one is invincible, not even you, Mary Oxnam.'

'And if something does go wrong? Exactly where does your murderous friend come into it?'

He stares at me blandly. 'Ah Leung is very good at cleaning up messes.'

'What does that mean?'

One of Charley's girls, Gloria, sashays up the steps and giggles when she sees Percy. Her strawberry-blonde curls jiggle. She purses her ruby lips.

He dips his hat in mock gallantry. 'Mademoiselle Gloria, if I'm not mistaken.'

She fiddles with the mauve ribbon around her neck and then opens her mouth, torturing the air with her faux French accent. 'May wee, Missyer Fuller.'

The flirting irritates me. 'Hurry along and fetch your syphilis medicine, Gloria.'

She fixes me with a glare of disdain. 'For your hinformation, Miss Hoxnam, I hain't got siffless.' She gives me a look there must be a name for in some infectious-diseases dictionary. 'If ya must know, hit's me bunions.'

She disappears inside.

'I wonder if she'll be next.' Percy draws a slow finger across his throat.

'Why would you say that?'

'Jocelyn Brooke's been shooting his mouth off. Apparently Nicole's body had a note left on it. So did Marjorie's. Seemed to imply there'll be more murders to come if Boule doesn't close down the salon.'

So that's Fitzgerald's so-called 'strong lead'. He must have told Charley. And, knowing Charley, he's probably decided he'd rather let his girls die than go voluntarily out of business. But I can't dwell on that now. Bob will be out in a minute.

'Did you deliberately wrench the tiller too hard on Isabella?' I ask Percy. 'Did you want Bob to have a convenient accident?'

'He's quite clumsy enough to organise his own demise. He doesn't need any help from me.'

'I wonder,' I say slowly. 'If Bob dies before he marries, your partnership contract probably stipulates you inherit his half of the business. Is that right?'

He draws on his pipe and squints through the smoke. 'I'm not interested in his stinking slugs.'

'No. But you'd be interested in having the island all to yourself, wouldn't you? Are you responsible for that scar on his face?'

Seconds stretch. 'Can't claim that one. One of his Kanakas, a Lifou man, came at him with a tomahawk.' He looks up briefly at the roof, the sinews of his throat visible. 'When you cut the rice ration in half, you have to expect the natives to get tetchy. Still, turnabout's fair play. The Kanaka fell overboard shortly afterwards. Now that was a nasty accident. With so many reef sharks about.'

The sky turns darker behind his shoulder, the air dragging over Cooktown like wet wool. My eye is drawn into the glowering distance. Small thorns of white p.r.i.c.k the steely ocean.

'Was any of it true? That propaganda you told Adam about the blacks wanting revenge on Bob?'

'I stand by it as a theory. Let's just say you'll have more to worry about on the Lizard than the smooth unfolding of the operation.'

The verandah slats vibrate just a little. Thunder, too low to be heard, but not to be felt. I look into Percy's green eyes. The tail's still swishing, but slower now, like a metronome.

Gloria's back, a paper packet in hand, swinging the pendulum of her hips. At the bottom step, she looks over her shoulder. 'Why don'cha come and visit me sometime, Missyer Fuller?'

'I might just do that.' But he's looking at me when he says it.

Gloria wanders away. Percy pushes off the railing with one hand. He winks at me and I feel small pulses of blood at my temples.

'Merry Christmas, Mary. I hope we both get what we want.'

And then he's gone, leaving only the smell of tobacco, and the rack of my own discipline tightening behind my forehead.

18.

It's not auspicious to stir a cranky Scot

at Christmas time.

From the secret diary of Mary Watson Bob uses the stick to half-sway, half-hobble to the Sea Wah. It's only a hundred yards from the pharmacy, but it takes us a good ten minutes. As we arrive, the first fat dollops of rain break open on the ground. Inside is stuffy and dark. Mrs Sea Wah, the Chinese owner's wife, is waiting in the foyer. She hands Bob the key in a dainty swish of brocade gown and oriental perfume.

'You need peace and quiet, Mista Watson?'

'Peace and quiet would be lovely, Mrs Sea Wah,' I answer for him. 'Have you given Mr Watson a room a bit out of the way?'

A b.u.t.terfly pin in her coiffed hair almost takes flight as she nods. 'Number fourteen.' Each stair's a frayed mountain to climb. Bob won't let me help him.

On the landing, I step ahead of him and open the door. The room's spartan. Single bed. Chest of drawers. A window, closed now against the unpredictable weather. The air inside is stale and wet. Mould spots the walls. Dead flies are scattered on the floor under the sill. The snuff of dust motes makes me sneeze.

'This is a vast improvement on the dispensary,' I say, but his mood hasn't lifted.

I'm just about to leave him to soak in it when he hobbles to the bed, collapses onto it and pulls something from his shirt pocket. It's a wad of cash held together with a clip.