'I see.' Politics is not really my area of expertise. But I can't afford to be indifferent when it's politics that will be paying my wages.

'Why would Britain choose such a convoluted route to move its armaments? I thought the idea of the Suez Ca.n.a.l was to make sea journeys more straightforward.'

He takes another drink and gazes into an empty fireplace. 'After a while, you'll lose your curiosity about such things. Thirty years I've been at it. I started off back in the fifties working for the Chinese government in its war against the China Sea pirates. I learned early on not to ask questions.'

There's silence for a few seconds, broken only by the far-off sounds of the street. I notice the smell of dirt from the back of my skirt, like stale brown yeast. The buckshot of stone in my palm still stings. I notice the painting on the wall for the first time. It's a copy of Brueghel's Two Monkeys. They're chained together. One gazes out a round window at the wider world of a harbour. The other looks inwards towards the prison of a room.

Roberts's next words are in a more contemplative tone. 'At a guess, I'd say it's an issue of detection by the French. Disraeli's bought Ismail's sharehold in the ca.n.a.l. But until the British can fully occupy Egypt, Grevy's henchmen will be out with their spygla.s.ses, baguettes and little pots of stinky cheese monitoring every dockside cargo. That's why Britain will send a decoy ship carrying a few guns through the Suez at the same time.'

'While the other vessel goes its merry way in the South Pacific with the bulk of the armaments. I take it the French want Africa too?'

A real smile now, and the long beard is made half an inch shorter. 'Does a frog leap when you poke it with a stick? And they're not the only ones. Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Italy. The only ones to miss out on a piece of Africa will be the Africans.' He downs the last swallow of whisky, then looks at the empty gla.s.s as though more might spontaneously appear. 'I'll contact you and Fuller with encrypted notes while you're on the island. It's not unusual for pa.s.sing boats to anchor in the harbour and visit the homestead. Neither is it irregular for pa.s.sing vessels to deliver mail. Fuller visits Cooktown regularly enough if further contact becomes necessary.'

So that's it then. I'm being dismissed.

I stand. 'Will I see you again in person?'

'Not unless there is a compelling reason.' He meets my eyes, briefly. 'Good luck.'

I look back at the picture. Which monkey is it worse to be, I wonder. The one that dreams of freedom? Or the one that accepts its fate?

If I survive my time on Lizard Island, I'll leave with enough money to build a new future.

If.

He has one more thing to say before I leave. 'Keep fast to your duties, Mary Oxnam. But mistrust everyone but yourself.'

I turn to face him. He's standing in the shadows. 'Even you, Captain?'

There's a long pause. 'Yes. Even me.'

Rockhampton Autumn, 1880

20.

Why is it every plain girl ends up with a pretty sister?

From the secret diary of Mary Watson 2ND MARCH 1880.

Twelve-year-old Carrie and I stroll the waterfront towards Monroe's bookshop. It's the first time I've felt able to breathe since my arrival. The atmosphere in the family home is, to put it charitably, poisonous.

I'd sent a telegram from Cooktown to let Mama and Papa know I was coming. I'd phrased it as though I'd thought to see them before marrying. I'd tried, unsuccessfully perhaps, to make it read as a kind of peace offering. Of course, I had no way to know if it worked. I didn't expect a telegram in response, and couldn't wait for one in any case. So, when the ship docked in Rockhampton, my stomach churned. A sick headache pounded behind my eyes. The rash on my hands flared and I found myself compulsively running my palms up and down the sides of my dress to relieve the burning itch.

But there was no getting out of it.

I scanned the crowd for their faces: saw Mama's, careworn, under her blue bonnet. And, standing next to her, Papa. His waistcoat askew. His face with a glazed, fixed stare I knew only too well. It took all my courage not to run.

Up close, the stink of rum. He couldn't have shaved for the occasion, no. He lunged for me. Planted a wet, s.a.d.i.s.tic kiss on my cheek while his hands held my arms in a vice. I swallowed, every inch of me cringing.

'Well, well. It's my darling daughter. She just couldn't keep away ...'

I wrenched back with a shudder and turned to Mama. I knew what she must see in my eyes: that stupid, weak child pleading for protection. But some things never change. Her mouth, as always, was a painted rim, edging the dish where she washed her hands of everything.

'h.e.l.lo, Mary. Lovely to see you, dear. Good trip?'

But I've managed for nearly three weeks. Only a few more days, then the steamer will head north again, with me on it. Only a few more days to keep holding my new-found independence up in front of me like a shield.

What can he do to me in just a few days?

Out on the water, a slow-moving cutter makes its way sedately up the river. The heat is calmer, drier, here in Rockhampton. When I ran my brush through the requisite hundred times this morning, hair clung to the bristles. Ground and air seem to have a different relationship. In Cooktown, the pressure always pushes down from above. Here, the sky is only lightly tethered to the ground.

If only my heart were so buoyant.

Carrie's chattering away. My ears have only been half-listening. I realise why when I give her my full attention. She's luminously pretty in her white dress with the pink sash, and transparently boring as she shares the mechanics of creating the kiss curls that hang over each of her ears. Apparently, sugar-paste works better than gum at keeping them in place, but there's the issue of attracting bees and hornets while outdoors. This last comment intrigues me. It gives a whole new meaning to a head abuzz with thought.

A boy in short pants rides past on his penny farthing. He almost overbalances in his attempt to get a better look at Carrie; the penny wheel totters like loose change, the much smaller farthing wheel at the back skitters to one side.

He veers around the corner, and I turn to her. 'Another admirer?'

'Oh, that's just Thomas Rielond. He's such a child. Only sixteen.'

'If he's a child, what does that make you?'

She gives me a condescending look. 'I'm a woman now, Mary. It happened when you first went to Brisbane.'

'Physical changes don't make a woman.' A bitter tablet's dissolving in my throat. This isn't news I wanted to hear. My next words are weighted. 'How are things at home?'

'Awful.' She wrings her hands. 'Poor Papa started drinking again, and it's all the bank manager's fault for refusing to extend his line of credit. If only someone would give him a chance!'

I realise then how busy he's been, working on her mind since I've been gone. I'm starting to feel nauseous again.

'He's had chances all his life, Carrie. And he's bungled them.'

My voice sounds faint to my ears, as if I already know she won't listen to me. And why should she? I'll be leaving again soon, and she can't let me dismantle her ways of coping. Once the blinkers are removed, her life will become intolerable. As mine did.

A barge pa.s.ses us, ironing the water flat. I lift my face a little to a sudden gust of breeze. But Papa opens his puppet's mouth again.

'Why are you so hard on him, Mary? Is it because he didn't marry Mama before you were born? Or the late christening?'

'First illegitimate, and then left to the Devil, that's me,' I say with a flippancy I don't feel. 'Do you know, the old biddies back in Cornwall think Hades is in the north? The day Papa finally got around to the baptism, they moved the font to the north door. That way I could toddle out and straight into Satan's arms. After eighteen months, I was already d.a.m.ned, you see. No sprinkle of holy water was going to make a difference.'

A single slate-grey cloud hangs above us. Otherwise, the day is clear and, unlike life, defined with a sure pencil around its edges.

Carrie's face pales. 'Oh dear.'

'Silly girl. Don't believe any of that nonsense. If G.o.d would blame a child for something that wasn't her fault, then I'd rather cosy up to the other side anyway.'

The cloud pulls its dirty pillow slip over the sun. Carrie looks up, her voice a whisper. 'Look. He heard you. You shouldn't be so blasphemous.'

I shrug. 'He's never listened before. Why would He start now?'

The breeze coming off the water smells ... not stagnant, exactly, but lifeless. With mossy undertones, as though the river's been breathed in and out through eroded banks too many times. My palms itch again. d.a.m.n John Adam and his useless, expensive cream.

'Try not to be alone with him,' I say.

'Why?'

Her voice is almost convincingly perplexed. It's as though she's trained herself to move carefully around an unthinkable idea without running into its sharp edges.

I stop her with a hand on her arm. 'Listen, Carrie. I mean it. Whatever he says to you, however he tries to justify his actions ...'

The flesh beneath the white leg-o-mutton sleeve goes taut. Her mouth trembles at the corners.

'I have no idea what you're talking about. You deserted the family. You have no right to an opinion.'

She looks away before I can see her expression. I have to guess what I might see when she turns back. Divided loyalty? Fear? Uncertainty?

'Papa's right about you,' she says finally, and shakes me off. Angrily, now. Her head flicks to the front, her features as blank and regimented as a soldier on parade. 'There's no worse punishment for a parent than an ungrateful child.'

I open my mouth to defend myself but my emotions are jumping over each other, paralysing speech. The unuttered words have only one direction to go - inside and down, past the lump in my throat, past the pain in my chest, to settle in a deep uneasy hollow where they release their toxin.

The distraction inside the shop is a relief. That safe story smell of silverfish and ink. Ideas trapped between thin pages, where they can do no harm.

A middle-aged man appears. I a.s.sume it's Mr Monroe. Whoever he is, he looks like my mental picture of Augustus Snodgra.s.s, the friendly poet from The Pickwick Papers.

Carrie whispers, as though she's in church, that she'll wait outside. A brief splash of sunlight falls on the floor as she leaves. The door tinkles in reverse, a duller sound than on entering, the bell's tongue clucking with disappointment at another lost customer.

'May I help you?' I expect him to hook two thumbs into the small pockets of his waistcoat, but he doesn't. 'Your young companion, she's not well?'

A ruffle-wristed hand points in Carrie's direction. She's sitting on the courtesy bench outside, cooling herself with a white paper fan.

'My sister doesn't enjoy books as I do. Unless they are about what the fashionable ladies on the Continent are wearing.'

He nods conspiratorially. 'I have observed that the more decorative a woman, the less her interest in serious reading.'

If he realises he's just insulted me, there's no sign of it. I let my eyes wander over the shelves, hoping he takes the hint.

'Is there anything in particular? Or are you just browsing?'

'The latter,' I say.

As I wander the aisles, I can just hear Carrie humming a tune. Slightly off-key, like a disoriented bee in the background. Past Shakespeare, past Trollope. I don't mind the cobwebs, or the layer of dust over everything. It has been so long since I've had a decent book to read. Bob's given me a generous amount of money. More than I need for my return trip. I'm sure, given the isolation of the Lizard, he wouldn't begrudge me some hours whiled away in words.

I pick up a compendium of novelettes by Charles d.i.c.kens, drawn by the t.i.tles of the stories: 'Hunted Down' and 'The Detective Police'. I also reach for Edmund Hodgson Yates's Running the Gauntlet.

I take them to the counter, then wait while Augustus Snodgra.s.s wraps each book in brown paper and string. Increasing the world's load of ba.n.a.lity, he ventures, 'You'll have reading matter for some time.'

'I'm to live on an island after my marriage,' I tell him. 'I expect I'll get through them quickly and be looking for more.'

'An island! My word. Robinson Crusoe would be just the thing.'

'Yes, it would. If I hadn't read it already.'

'I see a definite trend in the t.i.tles you have chosen. A young lady for intrigue and adventure?'

You don't know the half of it, Augustus!

'I love taxing my mind with a good mystery. Oh, and speaking of mysteries ... Mr Monroe, is it?'

He nods, curious.

'I have a delivery for you.'

'For me?' One hand finds his chest in exaggerated surprise. 'From whom?'

I reach into the interior band of my hat, remove the note and pa.s.s it across the counter. 'Charley Boule of Cooktown.'

'Ah, Monsieur Boule, my old companion.' In a sleight-of-hand motion he scoops the prize off the counter and under it, to where I presume there's a shelf.

'How much for the books, Mr Monroe?'

'For a friend of Charles Boule, two shillings.'

'And for everyone else, one shilling?'

'Yes. Quite. How amusing.' He smiles with forced politeness, but something else stirs in his eyes. 'You didn't say which island you were moving to, Miss ... uh, I'm sorry I didn't catch your name.'

'You're quite observant. I didn't say which island. And you didn't catch my name, as I didn't pitch it. Good day, Mr Monroe. Calm waters in your pursuits.'

Carrie grumbles non-stop on the walk back. 'Smelly old books. Why would you bother?' She stops to remove a small stone lodged in her boot.

'Dreadful weakness, isn't it?' I sigh deeply and look into the far distance. 'If only I were like you, Carrie dear, and could see stretching the mind for the waste of precious grooming time it is.'

She stands, sticks out her tongue at me and flounces off four steps ahead, the hem of her white dress dragging in the dirt. She looks so small and vulnerable, it makes my heart hurt.

21.