The Darkest Heart (41 page)

To one side of the large, open area, a band of four men provided something close to music. An accordion, some drums and a couple of guitars hammered out a samba rhythm that was as disjointed as Mina dos Santos. Around them, miners were dancing, shuffling their feet and twisting with the women.

Beside the band, almost central to the boarded area, stood a pool table with pieces of cardboard wedged beneath its feet to keep it level. There were players around the table, a few balls still unpocketed. At the back, along the edge of the main building, two women stood behind a bar built from brick, the whitewash now stained a dirty brown. They were serving drinks – mostly beer and
pinga
– to the men who crowded round them.

‘We'll head inside,' I said to Daniella, raising my voice and leaning to speak closer to her ear. When she looked at me, I pointed to the main building, at the far end of the covered area. ‘There's another bar inside. It should be quieter.'

Daniella nodded and showed me a thumbs up.

Away from the music and the weather and with the door closed, it was calmer in here. There were tables, all of them occupied, and there was a crowd at the bar, but the people were quieter, and while there was still the rain on the roof, it was softer. The windows still allowed the breeze to enter and the lightning to illuminate the room in flashes, but there was a different atmosphere.

‘That's Fernanda,' I said to Daniella. The woman behind the bar.'

We picked our way through the busy tables and found a space among the drinkers.

‘Two beers.' I held up two fingers as Fernanda came over.

She nodded once, stopped and looked me up and down. A big woman – strong, not fat – Fernanda looked like she was used
to hard work. Her broad shoulders were those of someone who was used to carrying heavy weights, and her arms and neck were thick with muscle. She was wearing tight jeans around her ample thighs, an old pink T-shirt to cover her large breasts and a floppy sun hat that was printed with a jungle camouflage design. She reached up and pushed back the hat, narrowing her small eyes and putting her fingers to her chin.

‘I've seen you before,' she said.

‘Yeah, I—'

‘No wait,' she cut me off. ‘I never forget anyone. It'll come to me.' She took two bottles of Brahma from a fridge behind the counter and flipped off the tops with two quick flicks of her wrist. ‘It must have been a while ago,' she said, putting the bottles in front of us. ‘There's a lot of new faces here right now. It's getting harder to remember them all.'

‘A lot of new faces?'

‘Mm.'

I waited for her to go on, wondering if the new faces were anything to do with Leonardo and the crates of guns he was bringing to the mine. Hadn't he said something about landowners and the expansion of the mine?

Fernanda remained as she was, though, mouth held tight, eyes narrowed as if she were deciding what she thought of me.

I handed a bottle to Daniella and took a long drink.

‘You weren't together,' Fernanda finally said, pointing at Daniella. ‘I'd definitely remember a beautiful girl like you.' She glanced at me for second, saying, ‘You were with an older guy but I haven't see
you
before.' She leaned over the counter and looked at Daniella's clothes. ‘Those aren't yours, are they?'

Daniella smiled, pleased that someone thought she deserved better.

‘Good idea, though. Pretty girl like you, dressed nice, there'd be men round you in a flash. Like flies round a dog's arse.' She studied Daniella's face. ‘You're a pretty girl. People would pay good money for you. You want a job?'

I opened my mouth to say something, but Fernanda saw the
look in my eyes and held up a hand. ‘Sorry. Habit. I didn't mean to insult her. She's beautiful, maybe too good for you ... um ...' She snapped her fingers and stood up straight. ‘You bought supplies from me six, eight months ago. There was a brawl that night and you helped to calm things down. The old man who was with you ... I liked him. How is he?'

‘Bad,' I said. ‘Fever.'

‘We get plenty of that round here. Every day someone gets fever. Mostly gold fever, but there's other types too. The kind you get when you end up living like pigs.' She leaned forward and put her forearms on the bar, muscles bulging like a boxer's. ‘People get cholera when you live dirty, so I'm going to start piping clean water.'

Daniella watched for my reaction when Fernanda mentioned cholera. She would be thinking about how my mother died, so I shook my head, letting her know I was all right.

‘That's my next project.' Fernanda saw the exchange but chose to ignore it. ‘Clean water. I do what I can to make life better.'

I nodded, thinking maybe she did whatever she could to make her own life better, not other people's. She'd lighten their pockets, help them spend whatever gold flakes they panned that day, keep them right where they were. That's what happened in places like Mina dos Santos – people found gold, sold it and spent the money. People never left because they made a fortune. They left because they were sick or tired or dead.

‘So what brings you to Mina dos Santos tonight?' she asked.

‘We brought passengers. Two women. They staying in your hotel?' I tried to sound conversational.

At the far end of the building there were rooms, but ‘hotel' was too grand a word for it. It was more like a shed that was partitioned with flimsy boards. It was stuffy, dirty, full of bugs, and the noise from the bar stopped anyone from sleeping. Turn off the lights in one of those rooms and the place was alive with roaches. No one ever slept with the lights off in Fernanda's.

‘They might be,' she said.

‘You're looking for Dolores?' Daniella asked me. ‘Why are you looking for
her?'

‘I'm not. Just making conversation.' I looked up at the clock behind the bar. Half past nine. It would be a while before it was quiet enough to sleep, but she might be in bed, watching the bugs climb the wall.

‘You know who they are?' Fernanda asked, glancing behind me. ‘Your passengers? You know why they're here?'

‘No.' I shook my head. ‘Do you?'

‘Well, I'm pretty sure they're not fortune hunters.' She continued to gaze over my shoulder.

‘They're here, aren't they?' I said. ‘Behind us.'

Fernanda nodded once, so I turned and put my elbow on the bar, leaning to one side to look through the crowd. In the far corner of the room, in the quietest and darkest place, Sister Beckett and Kássia were sitting at a table.

They were both looking at me and Daniella.

‘OK.' I turned to Daniella and lowered my voice. ‘Stay here a moment, there's something I need to do.'

‘What? What do you need to do?' she asked. ‘What's going on, Zico?'

‘Please.' I put down my drink. ‘Just stay here.'

I turned to look at Sister Dolores Beckett, and steeled myself for what was coming next.

51

It was as if Sister Beckett had somehow poured something of herself into me, and the closer I came to her, the stronger it worked in me.

The pistol was heavy on my belt. The knife pressed against the small of my back. The shadow darkened and tightened around me.

Just one more life
, it whispered, but I had already chosen.

Coming towards the table, Kássia made a move to stand, but Sister Beckett lightly touched her elbow and stopped her. The younger woman looked at the nun, but Sister Beckett was watching me. When I reached the table, she allowed a smile to touch her lips, then she opened her hand towards an empty seat.

‘Join us,' she said.

Kássia's expression tightened and I could see the violent intent in her eyes. Despite our shared experience in the settlement, and our remaining time on the
Deus
, she now saw me as a threat. Something must have happened since I last saw them. Or perhaps she and Sister Beckett had talked about the photograph in my pocket.

When I pulled out the chair, scraping it on the wooden floor, Kássia half pushed to her feet. I didn't know if she was going to reach for her knife or if she intended to spring over the table and beat me, but either way, she was ready to do something.

I held out my hands to indicate I meant no harm and waited for her to relax. After a moment's consideration she nodded once and I sat down opposite the two women, putting my pack on the floor beside me.

Kássia dropped one hand beneath the table, perhaps clutching the knife she had used to kill the man at the settlement.

‘You've made a decision,' said Sister Beckett, as if she could see my thoughts.

‘Yes. I have.' I put my fingers into my top pocket and Kássia bristled.

Sister Beckett put a hand out to calm her, so I removed the folded newspaper clipping and opened it out. I put it flat on the table, turned it around and pushed it towards the nun. She looked at herself in the picture.

‘Are you going to kill me now?' she asked.

I glanced at Kássia who was coiled like a snake ready to strike. ‘No.'

‘I didn't think so. But it was your intention?'

‘Yes.'

Sister Beckett removed her spectacles and placed them on the picture in front of her. She pinched the bridge of her nose and looked across at me, her lazy eye not quite matching the other. ‘Are you sure it was your intention?'

I said nothing. I was considering the truth that before I had even set foot on the
Deus
, I had known I wouldn't kill Sister Dolores Beckett. Something in that thought made the shadow's grip slip a little. I had never intended to kill her. I had come on this journey for the old man, not for Costa.

‘You could have left me at the smallholding,' Sister Beckett said. ‘Those men would have killed me.'

‘I almost
did
leave you.'

‘What stopped you? Why did you help me?'

‘Because Daniella wanted me to. Because Leonardo thought I should leave you. Or maybe because someone like you once helped me and when I had the chance to help him, I ran away.'

‘So it was because you knew it was the right thing to do,' Sister Beckett said. ‘I don't think you ever believed you would leave us behind. You were never going to kill me, Zico, I could see it in your eyes when we first met. The way you looked at me, I knew something was troubling you. And when Leonardo told me about
the photograph ...' She leaned closer, as if about to share a secret. ‘I knew then what was bothering you. It wouldn't be the first time someone wanted to kill me, you know.' She stared. ‘Did they offer you money?'

‘A lot of money. Enough for ...'

‘For what, Zico? Enough money for what?'

‘It doesn't matter,' I said. ‘Not now.'

Sister Beckett nodded. ‘And will you be in trouble? For not doing as you were instructed?'

‘Yes.'

‘They threatened you?'

‘They threatened Daniella, and a very good friend of mine.'

Sister Beckett nodded as if she had known it all along.

‘And now I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll have to think of a way to deal with them.'

‘You could leave. Take the boat and leave.'

‘It's not my boat. It's my friend's boat and he's back in Piratinga with his wife.' Maybe even dying from the fever that burned through him.

Sister Beckett watched me. ‘He's the other one they threatened?'

‘Yes.'

‘But if you do what they've asked, you would probably be in trouble anyway, am I right, Zico?'

It was the truth I'd had to face earlier, on the boat. Daniella and the old man would never be safe from Costa. As long as he lived and I lived, he would always use them as a threat. He was a devil and he would do anything he could to keep the dark shadow around me. He had found a way to control me, and he would never let it go.

‘Now you see it, Zico. Now you understand. The people you work for, they intend not to pay you. You think they'll let you carry a secret like this? Entrust it to a man like you? Whatever you planned to do here tonight, or on the boat, on the river, the people you work for couldn't risk you telling another soul.'

I stared as her words arranged themselves into thoughts. I was quicker with my hands than I was with my mind, but now I began
to see the truth that had eluded me. This was the voice that had prickled at me when Daniella and I were coming ashore. This was the thing I had overlooked. The unformed thoughts.

Costa would not keep me and use me. He would discard me.

Sister Beckett must have seen the horrible realisation in my eyes. ‘I'm sorry, Zico, but what's to stop them from hiring another man like you? A man with
your
photograph in his pocket. And what's to stop them from shooting you dead the minute you step off that boat in Piratinga? Maybe hiring someone to kill
that
man, bury you and me under a line of bodies that no one would ever trace back to them. I've been around long enough to know how these things work.'

I leaned back, heart sinking and mind reeling under the weight of her words.

Why hadn't I seen it?

Costa did not intend to control me; he intended to kill me.

The nun had opened my eyes to the reality of my situation. She had revealed the true intent of the devil who had used me.

It was maddening that Costa had tricked me into believing he would pay for Sister Beckett's life, but that wasn't what troubled me most. The worst mistake I had made – a terrible,
terrible
mistake – was that I had allowed Daniella to come on board the
Deus.
By doing so, I had not been keeping her safe from Costa, I had been sealing her death.

If she had remained in Piratinga, she would have been safe; she would have known nothing about Sister Beckett and there would have been no reason to harm her. By bringing her with me, I had given Costa a reason to kill her and, unless I could think of a way around this, she was as dead as I was, the moment we stepped foot in Piratinga.