Mason nodded slowly. ‘Yes.’
‘You mean you would report me. To customs.’
‘Exactly that. As a trafficker in opium, Foreign Mud as they call it. I can provide times, dates, black-sail boats, the whole damn lot. Witnesses who saw you. You’d be staring at four filthy walls and ten years in prison before you could even blink.’ There was savage enjoyment on his face.
‘If you shop me, Mason, I’ll take you down into that hell with me, you bastard, I swear to God I will.’
Mason laughed. ‘Don’t kid yourself, you bloody fool. You have no proof. There’s nothing to connect me with your nighttime activities on the river. You don’t think any of that money has gone into my bank, do you?’ He laughed again, a harsh grating sound that tried Theo’s nerves. ‘You’re in a box, Willoughby, and you can’t get out, any more than a dead man can crawl out of his coffin. So just enjoy the nice cosy benefits, why don’t you?’ He stared with amusement at Theo. ‘It looks to me, old chap, as if you’re up to your eyeballs in them already.’
Theo knew he was trapped. The rage inside him was burning holes in his belly and only the sweet black paste seemed to blunt the pain. But Li Mei did not understand. She said little. But he saw the look in her eyes each time he went to the drawer.
‘Sir?’
Theo blinked hard. Got his brain moving. The class was still there. It was Polly. Pretty Polly.
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve finished, sir.’
‘In which case, Miss Mason, why don’t you join me here in front of the class and read it out loud for the benefit of those who lack your speed of mind.’
Polly’s shoulders hunched down as if she wanted to crawl under her desk. She mumbled something.
‘Pardon, Miss Mason, I didn’t catch that.’
‘I said I’d rather not, sir.’
Mason’s laugh in his ears goaded him on. He didn’t normally make Polly read aloud to the class as her academic talents were very mediocre, but to hell with it. Today would be different. She stood in front of the rows of expectant faces and started to read in a halting voice, her cheeks a miserable red. Theo realised with surprise that she was talking about Henry VIII and the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Is that what he’d set them? He’d forgotten already. Her words faltered, stumbled, grew slower and smaller.
‘That’s enough, Miss Mason. You may sit down.’
She threw him a glance of gratitude and escaped back to her seat. Gratitude. She should be hating him for that display of petty cruelty, hating him as much as he hated himself.
‘I congratulate you, Polly, on your diligence in class. The rest of you,’ he scowled at his pupils and vaguely registered a tawny gaze glaring at him with fury, ‘will stay in at break time and write an account of the Diet of Worms. You, Polly,’ he smiled at her benignly, ‘you are excused from it because you have worked well.’
Her blue eyes widened with pleasure.
It was too easy. To take revenge that way. Mason was the one who deserved the spike through his heart. If he had a heart, that is.
‘Mr Theo?’
‘What is it, Lydia?’
‘Please, would you do some translation for me? Only a few sentences. Into Chinese, I mean.’
It was the end of the school day and his head was thrumming. He could barely stop his limbs trembling and twitching, desperate to seek out the pipe and the paste and the little heated spoon, but first he had to steel himself for the ordeal of the parents-at-the-gate ritual. Fortunately the wind was keen and gusting through the yard, so the mothers and amahs did not linger over picking up their offspring or stand around making aimless conversation. But now the Russian girl wanted something. What did she say? Translation? She was holding a piece of paper out to him, expecting him to take it. His fingers reached out and he saw her watching the way the tips jumped erratically around the paper before he grasped it. With an effort he read what was on it. There were four short sentences.
1. Do you know someone called… ?
2. Can you direct me to… ?
3. Where is… ?
4. Does he live/work here?
‘Ah.’ He smiled at her. ‘The young Chinese. You’re after him, aren’t you?’
He was astonished by the girl’s reaction. Her mouth fell open, her lips bleached bone white, and she seemed suddenly painfully young and as vulnerable as eggshell.
‘How do you know?’ she asked urgently. ‘Where is he? Have you seen him? Is he well? Do you…?’
‘Slow down, Lydia.’ Her hand was shaking worse than his. ‘If we’re talking about the same person, no, I don’t know his name and I don’t know where he is. But you needn’t worry about him because when I saw him last he was under the protection of Feng Tu Hong, the big boss of the Chinese Council and of the Black Snakes, so he should…’
She swayed. He wasn’t sure if it was shock or relief.
‘When?’ she breathed.
‘When what?’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Oh, some time back… I’m not quite sure when it was exactly. He was talking to Feng Tu Hong. About you.’
‘Why me? What did he say?’
Theo was struck by her need. It reminded him of his own. As if she were bleeding inside.
‘Lydia, dear girl, calm down. He asked Feng to tell his Snake brotherhood to leave you alone, though I have no idea what you did to get them so riled up in the first place.’
‘What did this Feng say?’
‘Well, Feng…,’ he hesitated, somehow unwilling to reveal too much of the sordid truth to this young girl, ‘Feng agreed to do so, to leave you alone, I mean. Simple really.’
‘Mr Theo, please don’t treat me as a fool. I know how China works. What was the price?’
‘You’re right. He gave some information in return. About the troops arriving from Peking. That’s all.’
Her skin had gone that awful sickly white of someone suffering from TB. Theo started to worry about her. ‘I think you ought to sit down a minute and…’ He put out a hand.
‘No.’ She pulled her arm away. ‘I’m fine. Tell me what happened. ’
‘Nothing. They let him go. That’s all there is to it.’
‘So it’s the grey bellies,’ she whispered.
‘Pardon?’
‘The translation,’ she said quickly. ‘Of my sentences on the paper. You’ll do it? Please.’
‘Of course. By tomorrow.’
‘Thank you.’
She hurried out of the gate, fighting against the ceaseless flow of rickshaws, and started to run, her hat flapping behind her in the wind.
Theo was sitting at his kitchen table. It was old and etched with character, the dark mahogany wood imprinted with the life of some unknown Chinese family. But right now the table held no interest for him. It was what was on the table. He had set the items in a row.
A pipe, long and slender and made of finest carved ivory with blue metal decorations, was first. Normally he would admire its effortless elegance of line but not today. It wasn’t quite like an ordinary pipe because there was no bowl at the far end, but an inch or so from the tip was a hole on top of the pipe and into the hole was screwed a small metal cup, shaped like a pigeon’s egg, with a tight wooden cap held in place by a brass band. The cap was decorated in ivory with the Chinese character xi for happiness.
Next to the pipe stood a small white jug. It contained water. Theo was having problems with it. The water kept appearing and disappearing like waves and when it disappeared, the inside of the ceramic jug became transparent instead of solid and he could see right though it to the little brass burner beside it on the table.
That wasn’t possible.
The part of Theo’s mind that was still holding on told him he was hallucinating. But his eyes told him otherwise.
Next to the burner was the dream bringer. It lay inside an ancient malachite box that dated back to the Chin dynasty. He lifted the lid and felt the familiar kick of anticipation at the sight of the black paste. Using a brass spoon he scooped some out, about the size of a pea. His hands shook but he managed to pour a few drops of water from the jug into the spoon with the paste, unaware that he was spilling it all over the table as well, but lighting the wick of the spirit burner was harder. It kept moving. Shifting position. He wrapped one hand tightly around its brass base to stop its antics and finally brought the lighter and wick together.