The Book of the Heathen (28 page)

Hammad considered him as he came.

Amon stopped at his usual distance from Hammad and the man stood close beside him.

I recognized him then. He was the feather-gatherer. He had grown flabby during his time with Hammad, his cheeks and chins bloated by recent good living. He seemed embarrassed to be considered by me, and in the presence of Hammad he trembled where he stood.

‘I told him to appear as he appeared to Frere on the day he saved your friend's life and was so cruelly rewarded for the act,' Hammad said. ‘Otherwise he would have presented himself to Nash scrubbed clean and wearing a linen suit.'

‘Did he take much persuading?' I said.

Hammad laughed at this. ‘He is a remarkably compliant man.'

‘I can imagine.'

‘Then can you also imagine what he has to say to Mr Nash, how valuable his testimony will prove to be?'

Men from the steamer threw bundles of tobacco leaf from the boat to the jetty, and seeing them roll together there I could think of nothing other than those fifty severed heads. Hammad saw that my attention had wandered from him, and he, too, turned to look. He called for the men throwing the bundles to be more careful with them. He beckoned the feather-gatherer towards him, and the man came with his arms half raised, as though expecting to be struck.

‘Imagine the distress of Mr Frere at being discovered by such a heathen,' Hammad said. He put his arm round the man's shoulders and kissed him on the side of his head, immediately afterwards wiping a sleeve across his mouth.

23

That night, Nash changed his instructions and told us that none of us was to attempt to visit Frere until he had finished his questioning. I protested at this, but mine was a lone voice; apart from Cornelius, a fortnight earlier, none of the others had visited Frere; as far as they were concerned, the sooner he was removed from among us to face a proper trial, the better. I told Nash that he had no right to prevent us from seeing Frere, and he stopped my pleading by saying he had every right. I was defeated largely by the silence of the others. I looked to Cornelius for some support, but he avoided me. He held a glass to his mouth, from which he barely drank, but beyond which he saw little.

He had become even more withdrawn of late, and I expected daily to be told by him of his own plans for departure. I imagined he would travel as far as the coast and then settle, probably working as a shipping agent for one of the growing concerns there. Perhaps his Company pension might even allow him to etablish himself as an independent trader or agent. Each time I raised the subject he avoided answering me directly, allowing me instead to indulge this fantasy of another man's secure and comfortable prospects. It had even occurred to me to ask him if he might accompany Frere to the coast – if that was where he was to be sent – and see that he was treated fairly there.

When Nash had left us I berated the others for not having opposed him. They refused even to argue the point.

‘He's tying up all the loose ends now, that's all,' Abbot said. ‘He finally got everything he needed from Hammad and his painted savage.'

‘He has yet to interview any of
us
properly,' I said.

‘You mean you haven't been summoned by him?' Fletcher asked.

‘No. Have you?'

‘Of course. Several times.'

‘We all have,' Abbot said, warming to the subject. ‘All very private and confidential, of course. He assured us of that.'

‘Perhaps he's saving you until last,' Cornelius said. It was the first time he had spoken in an hour. He drained his glass, clenched his cheeks at the rawness of the spirit and turned to face me. ‘Perhaps you're the neat red ribbon he needs to tie round everything.'

‘Ridiculous,' I said. ‘I know nothing more or less than any of the rest of you.'

‘You fool yourself more than you fool us,' Cornelius said.

‘You were the one who accompanied Frere on all his so-called expeditions,' Abbot said. ‘You were the one he shared all his confidences with.'

‘What confidences?'

‘You were the one who knew him best, knew what he was trying to do here, knew what he wanted. If anybody saw what was happening, it was you.'

‘Saw what?'

‘Leave it,' Fletcher said. ‘Nothing that's said here will make the slightest difference now to what happens to Frere. Nothing's made the slightest difference since the day Nash stepped out of the trees and puffed out his chest at us. Leave it. They've got Frere and that's all they need. Leave it.'

‘They?'

‘Oh, for Christ's sake,' Fletcher said.

‘Abbot's right,' Cornelius said to me. ‘He'll leave you till last because by then he'll know everything there is to know about whatever crime Frere committed. He knows it all already. You saw him earlier. He was a man starting to close the book. Hammad will have seen to that.'

‘Cleared his way, so to speak,' Abbot said, and laughed coldly.

‘Has he interviewed you, too?' I said to Fletcher.

He nodded.

‘And me,' Cornelius added.

‘What did he ask you? What did he want to know?'

‘What do you think?'

‘And you told him everything there was to know about Frere?'

‘According to Nash,' Abbot said, ‘all Frere's little expeditions away from here were uncalled for and against Company policy. Looks like he was doing it all for himself; hardly anything to do with the Company's commercial interests at all.'

‘And so he knows I accompanied him.'

‘And that you were breaking the rules, too,' Cornelius said. ‘But don't worry, I imagine he'll be rubbing down the edges of the facts before submitting them.'

‘Meaning?'

‘Meaning he'll want from you what he couldn't get from any of us. You and Frere spent a great deal of time together. A great deal of time away from us, from here.'

‘Almost as though you were in league together,' Abbot said.

‘Shut up, Abbot,' Fletcher said.

‘That's what Nash believes.'

Fletcher turned to me. ‘He believes Frere might have told you something about what he intended doing before he did it. And if that's the case, then it proves intent. He wasn't sick or lost or out of his mind when he left us. You above all others knew how single-minded he was when he wanted something. That's why he came out here – not to serve the Company; to serve himself.'

No-one spoke for several minutes, each of us alone.

‘Nash hasn't said anything about wanting to interview me,' I said eventually.

‘He will,' Cornelius said, his tone less harsh. ‘Or perhaps he'll only want to see you to tell you what he knows, and what, presumably, he believes you to already know. He's hardly building a case for the defence, don't forget.'

‘And anything
I
told him might have done that?'

‘Anything you told him would only have dug the hole deeper for Frere,' Fletcher said. ‘Listen to yourself. You behave as though the man could do no wrong. Well, he has done, and he knows he has, and he did it deliberately and he's confessed to the fact. I doubt Nash could believe his luck when he realized how little he'd have to do to prove his case. It's why he behaves as he does. He's leaving you till last because he neither needs nor wants to hear you pleading on Frere's behalf. Everybody else here has told him the same story. And they've told him the truth about what happened, about what Frere was like, what he did, about his ambitions.' ‘And that, above all else – that ambition – is what has condemned him,' I said.

‘Shut up,' Cornelius told me. ‘He was involved in the killing of a child. And he might or might not have indulged some other passion. That's what condemned him. We all have, or all had, ambition, yet none of us did what he did. If anything, you should consider yourself lucky that Nash hasn't interviewed you. Every time you open your mouth you halve the effort he himself needs to make.'

I felt stunned by all this. Cornelius handed me his bottle and an empty glass. I filled and drained the glass.

A further silence followed. It was no longer raining, and we heard the noise made by the small apes scrambling across the roof.

‘He runs circles round us,' Abbot said eventually.

‘We do that ourselves,' Cornelius said.

‘He'll come for your charts before too long,' Abbot said.

‘My charts? What do you mean?'

‘He has the authority. He spent two hours last night telling me which of my accounts he wanted to see, which ones he might take away with him.'

‘And so you've no doubt been busy filling in all the blank spaces and amending all the wrong sums,' Fletcher said.

‘I sat up all night. Where's the harm?'

‘What will he want my maps for?' I said.

No-one answered me.

‘They only show him what's already there,' I insisted.

‘He'll want whatever you mapped in connection with your wanderings with Frere,' Fletcher said.

There were at least thirty of these.

‘Are there many?' Cornelius said, interrupting my thoughts.

‘A dozen or so.'

‘He'll know,' he said.

‘Know what?'

‘Know if you're keeping anything from him. Frere will have told him everything.'

The half-drawn map of Frere's final journey remained weighted and covered on my desk.

‘Be careful what you do,' Cornelius said.

‘I'll be as careful as Abbot,' I said.

Abbot took offence at this and left us.

I myself left soon afterwards.

Crossing the compound, I saw Nash and Klein standing together in the light cast from the chapel doorway. The small building was brilliantly lit in the darkness, and they stood in this light as though it were a liquid and they were bathing in it. Other members of Klein's congregation stood around them. The two men spoke loudly. There was a great deal of laughter at what was being said. I searched for Perpetua or Felicity, but could see neither woman. By then, Klein had been with us almost a month, and the latest rumour was that he was finally close to concluding a deal which would allow him to begin work on his new mission on the far shore, and that Nash was instrumental in helping this to happen. I could imagine all that Klein might have told the man – not about Frere, necessarily, but about the rest of us, what we had become, what we had allowed ourselves to become, and how we now compared with those on the far side.

They saw me watching them and fell silent for a moment. Then Klein beckoned to me and called for me to join them. My first instinct was to walk away, pretend I hadn't heard, but instead I went. It surprised and unsettled me to see Klein and Nash on such friendly terms. I did not remember having seen Nash laugh before, other than at one of his own remarks.

Everyone turned to look at me as I came into the lighted ground out of the darkness, and most nodded in silent agreement at something Klein said, but which I did not catch. He then told these others to go, which they did. Several of the younger women approached him and he drew crosses on their foreheads and kissed them before they went.

‘You have no doubt been discussing my instructions,' Nash said to me.

‘Among other things.'

‘I doubt that.'

‘Poor Mr Frere,' Klein said, unable to tolerate his exclusion from our exchange.

‘You sound as though he's already been tried and found guilty and had sentence passed on him.' I looked hard at Nash as I said it, but he gave nothing away in his response.

‘Father Klein has been telling me about van Klees's unfortunate “wife” and child,' he said.

‘I daresay they contravene Company policy, too,' I said.

‘Of course,' he said. ‘But it is of little or no consequence now. Company policy or not, it was still disgraceful behaviour. Abandoning the woman like that, whatever she was, and whatever she ultimately returned to be, and then remaining deliberately oblivious to his responsibilities to his proven child. Neglecting the child even unto the grave.'

Klein smiled as he listened to all this.

‘And you got all this from him,' I said.

‘I put everything I know to van Klees himself and he denies nothing.'

‘Cornelius,' I said. ‘Not Frere.'

‘Ah, yes, but so … so symptomatic of how degraded and uncaring you have all become.' He held up his hands. ‘Please, please, it is only a personal judgement.'

‘But one that will find its way into your report. You listen to men like him –' I pointed at Klein, still without facing him ‘– and you choose what you choose to believe.'

‘I listen to you all,' Nash said.

‘You still pick and choose and dress things up to suit your purpose,' I said. It was a clumsy way of expressing what I wanted to say and I regretted the words; I wondered if I had drunk more of Cornelius's brandy than I had realized.

‘I understand your anger,' Nash said.

‘Mr Frasier is a very angry man,' Klein said.

‘But it is anger occasioned by frustration and disillusionment,' Nash said.

If he had hoped to provoke me to a further outburst with the words, then he was disappointed. I felt suddenly unsteady on my feet. I coughed and a bitter taste filled my mouth.

‘Are you unwell?' Nash said.

‘How convenient,' Klein added.

I turned to the man, but the sudden motion made my head swim. He said something else to me, which I did not hear. The bright light of the chapel blinded me. I heard a noise from within, and without speaking to either man, I went inside.

The light there was even brighter; dozens of lanterns had been lit around the walls and on the bars of the pulpit. I shielded my eyes to look. At first I saw nothing, and then a slight motion attracted my attention. I saw Perpetua and Felicity standing against the far wall. I went towards them, but as I approached I realized that what I had seen were not the women, but only their outfits, empty and hanging there. Then one of the women called out for me to leave. I stumbled to the end of the aisle, searching for the voice. By then, Klein and Nash had come into the doorway behind me. Klein called to me, urging me on, laughter drowning his words. My head continued to spin. I resumed coughing and then started to retch. Again I heard one of the women call out to me, and I stumbled forward, clutching at the seats and scattering them as I went, until I finally arrived at the front of the small space. There, on the floor ahead of me, half hidden by the banner which Klein had draped from his altar, lay Perpetua and Felicity, naked and prostrated, neither woman attempting to rise as I approached them, both of them with their faces turned to watch me with fear in their wide eyes, their cheeks and palms pressed to the boards. They were telling me to go back, not to look, to close my eyes. I stopped where I stood, trying to steady myself, and I looked down at them, at their naked backs and buttocks and tried hard to understand what I was seeing. Klein called again to me. He told me to look hard at what I saw. He was by then alone in the doorway, his outline molten in the bright light. I looked again at the women, and as though the motion of turning along with understanding was too great for me to bear, I felt my legs buckle and fold beneath me and I fell onto them, unable to prevent myself, unable even to throw out my arms to protect myself. The last thing I heard was their screaming as they scrabbled to free themselves from beneath me, my fall broken by their naked bodies.