She would have screamed if her voice hadn’t been stifled by panic; run, if her feet hadn’t been glued to the ground; hidden, if there had been the remotest chance of staying undiscovered.

A man entered, and despite the smoke, she noticed several things at once. He was thin, he was not Fijian, and he was pointing a long musket right at her heart.

For a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity and back again, they faced each other. Hannah realised that the man was as surprised as she. Without shifting his gaze, he kicked the door shut with one foot.

‘How do you do!’ Her voice squeaked only once.

‘What in damnation are you doing here? Who are you?’

Stung by his abruptness, shaken by having a musket levelled at her, Hannah almost shouted. ‘Miss Hannah Rose Stanton.’

‘Stanton, eh?’ He jerked the musket as he spoke, and Hannah instinctively flinched. ‘I suppose you’re the niece of that black suit at the mission house. I heard you’d arrived.’

He had heard about her, but Uncle Henry and Aunt Constance had said nothing about another white man living on the island. And neither had Joshua. The thought of her cousin was heartening. At least someone knew roughly where she was.

Abruptly the man lowered his musket, leaning it against a wall. After the first terror passed, Hannah had began to suspect that he wasn’t serious about using the weapon. Still, she sighed with relief when she no longer had to face the firing end.

When he took several steps forward, she saw that his looks could only be described as homely. He had the ruddiest cheeks and nose Hannah had ever seen. She guessed that he was in his fifties. He wore a broad-brimmed hat, and a shirt which hung loosely over a pair of tattered trousers, rolled up at the cuffs. The lower few inches of material were wet. His feet were bare.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

A short, humourless laugh accompanied his answer. ‘Me? I’m nobody.’

‘You must have a name. I can’t call you Mr Nobody.’

‘Oslo. Kurt Oslo,’ he snapped.

He had a strangely foreign name for someone with such an excellent command of English. ‘Are you English, Mr Oslo?’

‘My mother was English.’

‘But not your father?’

‘Questions. Questions. Questions …’ Mr Oslo raised his eyes heavenward.

‘My mother told me he was Norwegian. I don’t remember him. Now, if you’re satisfied, perhaps you could answer my questions. Why are you trespassing?’

‘I …’ Hannah smiled to delay her answer and tried to think of a good excuse. Heat from the trench fires was beginning to make her feel light-headed, or perhaps it was the smoke. ‘I thought it would be polite to pay a visit to the … occupants.’

Kurt grunted. ‘And just how could there be someone in here if the door was bolted from the outside?’

Hannah waved a hand in front of her face to clear away the smoke. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know!’ he mimicked.

His sarcasm stung. ‘You’re very rude!’

‘And you’re very nosy.’ He took another step closer. She saw that the redness on his nose and cheeks was caused by a myriad of tiny veins. Perspiration trickled down his face. ‘Spying were you?’

She retreated a step, hoping he would not advance further. ‘Spying?’

‘For that self-righteous bigot.’

‘Uncle Henry?’

‘So you think he is too.’

Disconcerted, Hannah twisted her long auburn coil of hair around nervous fingers. ‘I … I didn’t say that.’ She blinked rapidly, her eyes dry from the smoke.

‘He wants to get rid of me, but he won’t succeed. Better men than him have tried to beat me and lost.’ He wiped a grubby sleeve across his forehead.

Hannah didn’t like the way his eyes flashed when he spoke about her uncle. Mr Oslo was becoming angry again. She slid a sideways glance towards the pegged skins on the racks, telling herself that she didn’t really want to know what they were, just as the fatal words fell from her lips. ‘What are these?’

Kurt Oslo grinned slyly. His reply was irritatingly enigmatic. ‘This is a savage place, Hannah Stanton.’

The word ‘savage’ conjured up all sorts of images in Hannah’s mind, none of which was pleasant.

‘What do you think they are?’

Hannah shrugged. ‘Fruit?’

‘Fruit!’ Mr Oslo slapped his leg with an open palm. ‘Have you ever seen fruit look like that, girl?’

She had not, but refused to answer aloud. The gleam in his eyes made her uncomfortable. It was the same look Joshua had when he told her about the centipedes and explained the Chief’s comments about white men tasting like bananas.

‘I must go … my cousins are waiting just down the beach … they’ll come after me if I don’t return soon … they’ll miss me … and all this smoke … they’ll think I’ve been in a chimney …’ She knew she was babbling, but could not prevent the words tumbling out.

‘What—leave without discovering the great mystery? You broke in here and now you don’t even want to know what you’ve found?’

Hannah glared at him, hands on hips. ‘I did not break in. I haven’t touched anything. All I did was look. Is there a law against looking?’

For a few seconds they tried to outstare each other, then he grinned again. This time it was more friendly. ‘You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?’

She would not reply to such a personal comment from a stranger—and a man at that!

He jabbed at one of the skewered substances. ‘Not ready yet. Another few hours. Once they’re dry, they’re shipped off to China. When a ship calls in, that is.’ He traced lines across one of them with a fingernail. ‘The Chinese slice it thinly, like this, and make soup.’ Mr Oslo turned his head to catch her expression. ‘Bêche-de-mer, Miss Stanton. Dried sea cucumber. It’s a delicacy. Care to try some?’

Wrinkling her nose, Hannah declined. She wanted to leave, but Kurt Oslo stood in the narrow alley between her and the door. With fire each side of them, Hannah didn’t fancy pushing past him. ‘Well, it was pleasant meeting you,’ she said, hoping he would move without being asked. It was a vain hope.

‘Please let me through,’ she added in the firmest voice she could muster.

He stepped back, bowing elegantly as though he were in court acknowledging royalty. ‘Be my guest, Miss Hannah Rose Stanton.’

Keeping her eyes on him, she edged past, cautiously lifting her skirts clear of the trenches.

‘Does your precious uncle know you’re here?’

Her expression said it all.

‘No, I didn’t think so. So … you don’t like rules any more than I do.’

She felt stung by the comparison of her motives and his. ‘It was my little cousin, Deborah. She lost her doll, Charlie. I was trying to get it back for her. It fell in the water and the tide carried it around here somewhere.’

‘Of course! A doll. Naturally it would be washed up here, fifty yards above sea level. Why didn’t I think of that? Porridge for brains.’

Instead of flaring at his impertinence, she giggled.

‘This Charlie wouldn’t have coconut fibre hair and half a face, would he?’

‘Yes, he would.’ Hannah’s hopes rekindled. ‘Have you seen him … her … it?’

He removed his hat, revealing a shiny bald pate with only a few tufts of grey hair growing horizontally above each ear. ‘Down on the beach. I saw the face and decided it was beyond salvation.’ At the word ‘salvation’ his eyes darkened. ‘Go on. Out!’

Eagerly Hannah headed for freedom, confused and annoyed by his inexplicable mood swings.

Kurt called out just as she reached the door. ‘And make sure none of the rest of you comes round here, bothering me. You can all go back home because things have been going on all right here for years without interference. At least I’m honest—I’m only here for the money. I’m not sucking up souls.’

She slipped outside into the fresh air, delighted to be clear of the smoke and Kurt Oslo’s bitterness.

‘At least there’s one good thing to be said for missionaries,’ he called after her. ‘They teach cannibals to say grace before the cannibals eat them.’