'I know why you introduced me to Bob Watson,' I say.

This works. Heccy looks up, startled. Charley exhales noisily through his nose.

'Come to my office.' He takes off his ap.r.o.n and folds it neatly.

He closes the door behind us. There's a rich, mahogany silence, at odds with the chaos outside. The phantoms of fine cigars and snifters of cognac have made soft, expensive connections with the rosewood table. He opens his polished case and pulls out a cigar. He takes the key from around his neck, bends over and unlocks the drawer that holds his float of bribery money, paid to customs officers on duty when one of Charley's special deliveries turns up on the dock. He extracts a gadget that looks like a walnut crusher. Nips the end of his cigar and reaches for his matches. He neglects to lock the drawer again, and I infer he's distracted.

'This could wait,' he says.

'I don't think it can wait, Charley.'

The sky's bucket upturns on the roof and I have to bide my time for a few seconds until the first deafening gush becomes an ordinary deluge.

'I've heard you, when I clean up the tables at night, talking with your cronies in here. Knight, that underling of the customs sub-collector; Douglas from the telegraph office. And Muller, butcher and under-the-counter trader par excellence. It's not the price of sausages you're discussing.'

'What exactly have you heard, cherie?'

'Nothing specific.'

His eyes relax back in their hammocks of fat.

'It's difficult to make out every word through the symphony of moans and bedsprings coming from upstairs. Tell me, do the girls get paid more for melodrama?'

He taps his nose. 'Every man likes to feel he is a stallion.'

'More a.s.s than stallion if you ask me.'

'But no one does ask you. You are, how you say, left on the shelf?'

'Spare me your sparrow pecks.'

'Stop wasting my time. Say what you must.'

'I've heard you speculate about the prices of gold and opium. Pa.s.sing steamers. Drops in the ocean in kerosene tins in the middle of the night. Knight's an important man to consult on matters of avoiding import and export duty, isn't he? And what does Douglas bring to the party? Did I hear something about telegraphic codes? A Playfair cipher? I imagine you think you have it all covered: sea, air and ground?'

'You have no shame,' he tells me. 'Listening at keyholes. You insult not only Charley Boule, but the protector of our lawful oceans and the guardian of our vital communication channels.'

'What's Muller?' I ask. 'The feeder of our hungry bellies? Overacting, Charley.' I tap my own nose. 'There's no one eavesdropping on this conversation.'

He lowers his outrage a couple of notches, but keeps a firm hold on his paranoia. 'How can you be sure? That stupid boy Heccy lurks around corners, ears like little mice with pieces of cheese: nibble, nibble. Perhaps you two are in collusion.' He twists his ring around so that its showy face is to the front. The action seems to calm him. 'I speculate about many things. Why would I not discuss customs matters with Knight when it is his gainful employment? He has many interesting stories: the crate of eggs not full of yolks and whites, but liquid opium, discovered when the sub-collector decided to have a cooked breakfast one morning. Gold nuggets hidden in ginger jars full of human bones.'

'I'm not interested in your stories of greedy Chinamen.'

'As for Douglas and Muller, I complain about the cost of postage to the first, and with the other I discuss the quality of meat supplied to my restaurant.' He lifts an ornate bra.s.s letter opener off his polished desk and runs his finger along the blunt blade, then tilts it this way and that. A single ray of late-afternoon sunshine throws off a spark of fire as it hits its surface. 'None of this is your concern.'

'When were you going to approach me?' I ask.

The rain has tapered off to the odd pin-drop: a pine tree shedding its needles on the metal roof. The humidity still simmers like rank stew.

'About what, exactement?' His face twitches, but minutely.

'Lizard Island. It's got a hill with a lookout and signal flags. Ships pa.s.sing north and south have nowhere to hide. How handy it would be for you to have an ally on the island. Perhaps even a business partner. With the reefs so treacherous, and with so many other boats about, it would be almost impossible for smugglers to rendezvous without someone in situ to guide them. Or warn them.'

Thirty seconds of silence is broken only by the room's heart beating: Charley's nautical clock, each tick dragged along by the c.o.c.ked spring before it.

'Why would I suggest such a thing to you?' he asks eventually. 'To you, so upright, so lawful. You would not consider it for a minute.' His eyes throw out their sticky strings, waiting for me to fly closer.

'Not even for a second,' I reply.

He snorts, then does a complete about-face.

'I change my mind about Watson. He is not a good match for you.'

'And why would that be, Charley?'

'He is not to be trusted. Some men ...' He shakes his head. 'They are no good with women.'

Nicole's strident voice comes back to me. Blokes like Watson leave serious bruises.

'You were happy enough to hand me over to him when you thought it might serve your own purposes.'

'He is too old for you, and he has a history.'

'What sort of history?'

He stares at me for a few beats. 'It is ... delicate. There is sometimes a little rough-house with the girls ... and Watson is more keen than most in this. He had an obsession with Laura. She accepted extra money for his ... eccentricity ... when the other girls would not.' He leans back in his chair until the leather squeaks.

That explains the look I saw pa.s.s between Bob and Laura in the salon. And as for Charley - I feel unreasonably hurt by his blatant manipulations.

'You wouldn't have said a thing about this, would you, if I'd agreed to be your accomplice? You would have had me become a beaten wife. But since I've said no, you've reached the conclusion that a fair-to-middling piano player is better than none at all.'

He stands abruptly, causing the chair to bounce back, and paces over to the window. The twilight outside is the colour of a three-day-old contusion. I can't see his face, and he knows it. That alerts me to be suspicious of whatever he comes up with next.

'Watson has stayed away this last year. I think he has calmed himself, perhaps. Maybe he is ready to settle down.' He turns back around, fiddles with his watch chain. 'But I think it is better to be safe than sorry, non?'

'I don't believe you,' I say, my mind working rapidly. 'Why don't you go to Bob Watson directly with your scheme? Or have you already, and he turned you down? I don't know why anyone would. You would be the perfect partner in business: loyal, protective, selfless.'

'Sarcasm does not become you, cherie.'

'And a complete lack of human decency doesn't become you, Charley. But it seems we must both bear our faults.'

His voice drops several degrees in temperature. 'My business dealings with Bob Watson are pocket change. He has carried the odd package or two on his lugger for me, that is all.' Another sigh. 'His capacity for risk is somewhat ... limited. He does not see the more expansive picture, as I do.' He pauses, examining his fingernails. 'And perhaps you aussi?'

He's testing the water again. Given Percy's warning in Brisbane, I know it would be more than my life is worth to go swimming.

'I'm nothing like you, Charley,' is all I say. 'Was Bob ever interested in me, or did you convince him that I was a desirable catch?'

Charley shrugs. His cigar has gone out: further proof of his underlying agitation. He inflames it with another match. 'Think of it as one of my c.o.c.ktails coming together. A pinch of influence from one place; a soupcon from another. Ask instead why Watson comes to Cooktown fishing for a wife.'

'Any old wife?'

'So much the better if young. He has a weakness for girls.'

The last of the elan slides away, and I see his true face. He draws deep on his cigar until its red core bristles, then blows smoke upwards into a small cloud above his head. He carefully extracts a piece of tobacco from the tip of his tongue and studies it.

'All right. I buy in,' he says. 'It is, after all, nearly the time of year for Christmas pudding and parlour games.' He rubs his cheek in exaggerated contemplation. 'Why you, as a wife, for Bob Watson?' He walks over to the window again. Looks out at the sodden street. The wheel ruts in the road are full of thin mud. They'll stink sullenly when the sun comes out. 'Men outnumber women four to one in this town. Who else would he marry? A wh.o.r.e?'

I'm almost to the door when his voice hooks me back. 'A little bit of knowledge is like gunpowder - best kept dry in a locked box, non? I know that you have been receiving notes and pa.s.sing them on to someone. I am not stupid.'

I stand still but don't turn.

'Who is to know, or care, what you are up to if you return the favour of a blind eye with a couple of small errands?' he goes on.

'Errands?' I spin slowly to face him.

'A respectable girl does not draw suspicious attention. Your boss asks you to deliver a missive here and there. You do so, like any dutiful employee.'

'You have nothing to blackmail me with, Charley.'

'You are right, of course.' He shrugs. 'All I could do is speculate out loud. Expose you before anything comes to fruition.'

I meet his eyes calmly. 'The difference between you and me is that what I know of your activities is not vague supposition but, shall we say, fait accompli. I imagine the harbourmaster would not be above making a retrospective arrest.'

He's calm. 'A couple of small errands, that is all. How do you say ... chickenfeed.'

The hard tinkle of breaking gla.s.s, followed by a female caterwaul comes through from the kitchen.

'What now!' His belly is through the door well before the rest of him.

I follow close behind, but not before I've pa.s.sed his open drawer, retrieved a five-pound note and slipped it down the side of my boot. Call it annoyance money for putting up with him.

The door snicks shut as I leave.

7.

All of life is a code. One only needs

the right grille to decipher it.

From the secret diary of Mary Watson The edge of the bed at midnight seems a fitting perch. The mattress squeaks as I turn sideways to smooth the note flat on the covers. The lamplight's steady. It's my nerve that's faltering.

Dearest Mary,

No time to write a long letter. They say no man (or woman) is an island, and that was brought home to us all on Aunt Jane's birthday. The event was a triumphant signal of the family's success, not to mention her own sweet nature. Every man in town paid his respects. Even the Chinaman at the laundry donated a huge fish for lunch, which was gone in ten minutes. Uncle Jonathan was tipsy and fell into the bush near the house. I'm searching for words to describe the fun. Hope you're still keeping well.

Cousin Eleanor I rest the grille on top of the page. The message resolves, far too easily it seems to me.

No island signal man Chinaman gone bush searching still No island signal man? It must be Lizard Island they're referring to. There is no other strategic position along the coast with such an advantageous bird's-eye view of the pa.s.sage north and south. That great lumbering reptile of rock seventy miles north of here, the water surrounding it fairly fizzing with every ambitious smuggler's intentions. That's why Percy has placed himself there, working as a sea-slug fisherman. I'm positive of it now.

I fill my cheeks with air, then exhale noisily. It's the signal hill that's the magnet, of course. For Charley Boule, for Percy, and, it seems, for Captain Roberts. But who is the Chinaman? Roberts and Percy must want him as a signaller for their upcoming operation. But why him particularly? And why would he have gone bush? So as not to be found?

Drunken cursing just outside my window startles me back to the job at hand. I pull the empty chamber pot from under the bed. When the paper's burned, I'll moisten the ashes with water from the bedside jug. In the morning, I'll tip it into the lavatory trench behind the boarding house. No danger of forgetting the message. I'm too riddled with curiosity for that.

Dry-mouthed, I light the note at the lamp and hold it over the chamber pot as it burns. The smoke seems far too pungent for such a small piece of paper.

It's more the size of someone burning a bridge behind them.

Ten o'clock on a coruscating Sat.u.r.day morning two weeks later. I look up and down the shimmering dock, basket in hand, searching for Dirty White Neckerchief. But he's not leaning his angular frame casually against a pylon, smoking. Nor standing on the crooked wooden slats at the end of the pier staring out to sea, the hot breeze fiddling his brown hair. The harbour smells of oil, the salty-leather of seaweed cooking in the sun. The fish stalls for European customers are crowded, the catch of the day lined up like silvery exclamation marks. The tables for Chinese buyers are a witch's larder of fins, roe, sea grapes, and slimy fish eyes piled into the single socket of a blue-rimmed dish. Sun throws a slab of steel at the water, where the raw material is reorganised and thrown back as rippled blades, making my eyes water. Beyond the pier to my left, two men drag a dirty crab-pot along the muddy edge of the river. Behind me, on Charlotte Street, Harry Browning, proprietor of Victoria Stores, throws a saddle over his horse and reaches under its belly to secure the girth.

I shoo away a heat-drugged fly. It's a quarter past the hour. Where is he?

The work has been easy so far. I've arrived at ten precisely each Sat.u.r.day with the word-for-word recital of the note I've burned ready inside my head. Two more notes have been pa.s.sed to me since the first, each one, in substance, emphasising with increasing urgency the need to find the elusive runaway Chinaman. It seems he's destined for the position of signaller on Lizard Island. I must also a.s.sume that he doesn't want the job.

Up until today, the script has gone exactly as Percy said it would. After our banter about the relative merits of the fish on offer, Dirty White Neckerchief and I wander casually around the dock as if going about separate business. Briefly, we're close enough for me to play my un.o.btrusive part in our game of Chinese Whispers.

But what am I supposed to do now?

At eleven o'clock, I give up. Unease stirs my stomach for the rest of the day. If he's finished up like Cobweb and Percy's last note decoder, I don't want to know. Captain Roberts's mysterious business tends to turn poisonous for his minions. There is no other conclusion to draw.

Bad things happen when people know too much.

8.