The Far Side of the Sun

Kate Furnivall
was born in Wales and studied English at London University. She worked in publishing and then moved to TV advertising, where she met her husband.

In 2000, Kate decided to write her mother’s extraordinary story of growing up in Russia, China and India, and this became
The Russian Concubine
, which was a
New York Times
bestseller. All her books since then have had an exotic setting and Kate has travelled widely for her research. She now has two sons and lives with her husband by the sea in Devon.

Visit Kate’s website at
www.katefurnivall.com

The Russian Concubine

Under a Blood Red Sky

The Concubine’s Secret

The Jewel of St Petersburg

The White Pearl

Shadows on the Nile

Table of Contents

• About the Author
  
• Also by Kate Furnivall
  
• COPYRIGHT
  
• Dedication
  
• 1: Dodie
  
• 2: Ella
  
• 3: Dodie
  
• 4: Flynn
  
• 5: Dodie
  
• 6: Dodie
  
• 7: Flynn
  
• 8: Ella
  
• 9: Dodie
  
• 10: Ella
  
• 11: Dodie
  
• 12: Flynn
  
• 13: Dodie
  
• 14: Ella
  
• 15: Dodie
  
• 16: Flynn
  
• 17: Dodie
  
• 18: Ella
  
• 19: Ella
  
• 20: Dodie
  
• 21: Flynn
  
• 22: Dodie
  
• 23: Ella
  
• 24: Dodie
  
• 25: Ella
  
• 26: Dodie
  
• 27: Flynn
  
• 28: Dodie
  
• 29: Flynn
  
• 30: Dodie
  
• 31: Flynn
  
• 32: Dodie
  
• 33: Ella
  
• 34: Dodie
  
• 35: Dodie
  
• 36: Ella
  
• 37: Flynn
  
• 38: Ella
  
• 39: Dodie
  
• 40: Dodie
  
• 41: Ella
  
• 42: Dodie
  
• 43: Ella
  
• 44: Dodie
  
• 45: Ella
  
• 46: Dodie
  
• 47: Dodie
  
• 48: Ella
  
• 49: Dodie
  
• 50: Ella
  
• 51: Flynn
  
• 52: Ella
  
• 53: Dodie
  
• 54: Ella
  
• 55: Dodie
  
• 56: Flynn
  
• 57: Dodie
  
• 58: Ella
  
• 59: Dodie
  
• 60: Ella
  
• 61: Dodie
  
• Acknowledgements
  
• A Story Of Greed And Gold
  

To April

with all my love

‘Help me…⁠’

The words slipped out of the darkness, thin and weightless, barely denting the sultry warmth of the night air. In the unlit street at the wrong end of Nassau, Dodie Wyatt halted, nerves tight.

‘Who’s there?’ she called out.

A soft groan. A stifled curse. A rustle of movement. Then stillness settled down in the shadows once more.

‘Who’s there?’ she called again, sharper this time.

Silence. It was the stark kind of silence that only exists after midnight. The smell of the ocean was rolling in over the Bahamas, leaving its salty breath to linger on the beaches and in the humid corners of the city. Dodie knew that if she had a scrap of sense she would march straight to the far end of the street without stopping but his words – that fragile ‘Help me’ – had snared her. She moved towards the spot from which the groan had risen.

‘Say something,’ Dodie urged, eyes scouring the ink-black spaces. Her voice sounded ridiculously calm. ‘It’s too dark for me to see you. Where are you?’

There was no response. Her pulse kicked uneasily.

She was on her way home from her late shift at the Arcadia Hotel where she worked as a waitress. Her feet ached, the kind of ache she couldn’t ignore any more because she had been standing for twelve hours straight and the only thing she wanted was to climb into bed and sleep. But now a stranger was asking for her help.

‘I’ll help you,’ she said, not sounding quite as calm as before, as she moved closer to the wall. ‘Just show me where you are.’

A hand seized her ankle.

The wind drifted up the street in fits and starts, making a shutter rattle and a dog bark in a nearby yard, and even at this hour of the night the gust of air was warm and scented with tropical flowers. It was just enough to persuade the clouds to shift, so that moonlight spilled into the narrow space between the houses and for the first time Dodie could make out the figure at her feet.

A big man was slumped against the wall like a rag doll, his chin sunk on his chest, his legs stretched out in front of him in the dirt. Dodie could see a head of bushy brown hair and a pale grey suit that was crumpled and stained. One of his hands scrabbled jerkily on the ground, trying to reconnect with the ankle she had snatched away, but his other hand lay clamped to the front of his white shirt. It didn’t look so white any more because a black stain was spreading rapidly from under his palm. For a moment Dodie hesitated. She knew that if she knelt down beside this man, trouble would enter her life. She had grown up with trouble and could smell it at fifty paces, which was why she had avoided it ever since she first came to the Bahamas six years ago, when she was only sixteen and had no more sense than a hummingbird.

‘Please…⁠?’ he whispered.

She dropped to her knees. ‘You’re hurt.’

‘Help me… to stand up.’

Dodie’s hand wrapped itself around his free hand and his fingers clung to hers.

‘You’re hurt, you must stay still. Don’t move. You need an ambulance.’

He lifted his chin and looked up at her, his skin silvery and bloodless in the moonlight. His eyes were deep sunken holes in his head and made her nervous, but his mouth was moving, though no sound was coming out. His age could be anything; maybe in his forties, but there were too many shadows to be sure.

‘Don’t try to speak,’ she said gently. ‘There is a telephone box back up on the main road, so I’ll just —’

‘Don’t.’

‘But you need a doctor.’

‘No ambulance.’ The word came out in bits. ‘No doctors.’

‘But you need help.’

They both stared down at the hand clamped to his white shirt, just above his waistband, at the black stain that had grown to the size of a dinner plate, feathery streaks reaching out like tentacles across his chest. He raised his eyes to her face and his mouth dragged in a laboured breath. Silently he shook his head.

Dodie didn’t delay further, she rose quickly. ‘Don’t move. You need to be in hospital, so I’m going to call a —’

His hand seized her ankle again. ‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘No!’

The word stopped her. She crouched down beside him once more and lifted his hand into hers. It was as cold and clammy as one of the toads that burrowed under her shack at night. ‘I’m Dodie,’ she said softly. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Morrell.’

‘Well, Mr Morrell, we both know you need to be in hospital. You’re bleeding badly. Why shouldn’t I call an ambulance or at least a doctor?’

He sighed, the life seeming to ebb from him with each of his slow measured breaths. ‘They will kill me,’ he murmured.

‘What?’

His voice sounded dry and exhausted and she noticed it had an American drawl from the deep South, perhaps from Alabama or Tennessee. ‘The person who stuck a knife in me,’ she saw his eyes roll in his head so that their whites caught the moonlight, ‘will be at the hospital. Looking for me.’

‘Why will they be doing that?’

‘To finish what they started.’ He exhaled heavily and she smelled rum on his breath.

‘Were you in a fight?’

‘Of sorts.’

‘We have to get you bandaged quickly.’

He grunted agreement, but slowly his chin started to descend on his chest. It was at that point that Dodie thought about walking away. Back to her quiet routine where nothing disturbed the monotony of her work at the hotel and her walks on the smooth white beach. She knew she should leave this Mr Morrell to rest here on his own.
They will kill me
, he’d said. And her? Would they kill her too? A lone young female would be nothing to them. Her hand unconsciously sought out the tender section on her own body, the soft spot just below her ribs, and sat here, fingers splayed in protection. Then the wounded man started to slip sideways down the wall and Dodie quickly pushed her hands under his armpits to hold him upright, but the weight was more than she’d anticipated.

‘Come on now, Mr Morrell. Time to stand up.’

His head lifted.

‘I’ll help you,’ she promised.

The empty shadows of his eyes fixed on hers for an age and she could feel his distrust crawl on to her skin, but he nodded. ‘Yes.’

It was going to hurt, they both knew that. She leaned over him, easing his feet towards him, so that his knees were bent. She fixed her arms around his chest, clenching her fingers together behind his back, and inch by inch she dragged him to his feet. He didn’t cry out. Didn’t moan. But his breathing grew loud, almost a growl, and when he was standing upright, swaying on his feet despite her support, she thought it was the end of him.

Progress was agonisingly slow. Sometimes the pauses were so long that Dodie feared the man’s heart had paused too, but no, just when she thought he was giving up, he would start up again – left foot, right foot. His arm across her shoulders was muscular, an arm that did things, unaccustomed to lying helpless, and the grip of his fingers was tight, snarled up in her cardigan.

Neither spoke. Their steps were slow and laboured. Fears were racing through Dodie’s head and every sound in the darkness, every movement in the shadows sent a chill through her. She struggled to work out what to do, where to take him, how best to get him away from here. So when they reached the end of the road she steered him left, ducking down a dim and scruffy street. It was flanked by warehouses where the smell of the ocean was so strong it ousted the smell of blood in Dodie’s nostrils, but there would be no one around at this hour.

Why, Mr Morrell
?
Why does someone hate you enough to stick a knife in your gut
?

She shuddered, her heart racing, as she listened for footsteps behind them, but when she glanced nervously over her shoulder, the shadows were empty. As they walked, Morrell muttered sometimes, small incoherent noises that pinned him to her and drew soothing sounds from her in response, a brief wordless conversation. Her arm tightened its hold around his thick waist and she watched carefully where he put his feet. He was wearing neat white loafers that stood out in the darkness.