“EVENING, BEN. THE usual?”
“Please, Sam.” I sank with a groan of relief on to my usual stool at the end of the bar.
“Hard day?”
“Aren’t they all?”
Sam passed over the double Scotch, and as I sipped thankfully he said, “Lady was in earlier, asking for you.”
“Oh no.” Even here I wasn’t safe from them. It wasn’t enough that I was with them all day long, grinding through the exercises, slaving over the tricky vowels and fricatives, lurching around the unpredictable pitfalls of the English language. It wasn’t that they weren’t keen – quite the opposite. They had strong family and money pressures from back home to make them want to gobble it all up, as fast as I could feed it to them. They dogged my steps, imploring my undivided attention to their painful efforts and demanding my contact details so they could phone or e-mail me at any time of the day or night to check some point. “But please Ben, what is difference between there, their, they’re?” “Dear Ben, do I say cough like plough or tough?”
I didn’t know they’d stalked me to the pub, but I wasn’t surprised. It was only a matter of time. I contemplated moving on to some other watering hole, but what was the point?
“Ben. Finally tracked you down.”
I spun around in my seat, slopping my Scotch, startled by the familiar voice. “Paula …”
We hadn’t met in maybe two years and I could see straight away that they had taken their toll. She looked older, tired, and I saw she was thinking much the same about me. Mind you, she was still the same beautiful woman beneath the weary frown, and my heart quickened to see her there.
“Let me get you a drink,” I said, and from the look that crossed her face I guessed she was assuming that was my answer to all of life’s problems, which was pretty much the case.
We went and sat at a quiet corner table. “Cheers,” I said. “And how’s Jack doing?”
“I buried him two months ago, Ben.”
“Oh no.” That did knock me back. “I’m so sorry, Paula. I had no idea.”
“I tried to let you know, but you were hard to find.”
“I’m so sorry,” I repeated. “Was it sudden?”
“One evening he said he was going out with the dog. An hour later I heard the dog scratching at the back door and no sign of Jack. I went outside and heard the car engine running in the garage. There was a hose from the exhaust to the window, him inside.”
I groaned.
“But no, it wasn’t sudden, really. He’d been getting more and more depressed. When I found him I knew that this was just the last stage of what began three years ago, when everything fell apart.” She sounded very bitter.
“Jeez, that’s terrible, Paula. Must have been shocking for you.”
“What happened has been hard on us all. Terry had his heart attack, leaving Alice with all those kids, you and Vicky split up …”
“We’re a sad lot, that’s for sure.”
Three couples, six good friends, happily making our way in the world, our lives trashed by one ruthless man. It was Jack who’d introduced us to Derek Mankey, Jack who should have known better, being himself an accountant.
“I’m tired of being sad, Ben,” she said. “I want my life back.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, avoiding her eyes. Of course she did. We all did, but it wasn’t so easy.
Maybe it should have been. People are ruined financially every day and they get over it – bushfires, floods, bankruptcies – they pick up the pieces and start again. But the way it happened to us was particularly insidious. Derek Mankey had offered us a vision of an irresistible future, for ourselves and our kids, and we had jumped at it. We weren’t stupid – between us we had a fair bit of business experience. But Derek was very clever, very plausible and very dangerous. He revealed his plans to us one step at a time, drawing us in, until we had committed everything we owned and could borrow. And while our eyes were fixed on the golden promise ahead, he slipped away with everything, leaving us to face the creditors, the auditors, the banks and the Tax Office. Worst of all, he’d arranged things so that it was we who faced the accusations of fraud, whose names and pictures appeared in the newspapers, whose reputations were destroyed. It turned us against each other and ourselves, and in the end I had to get out just to keep my sanity.
I reached for my glass, but it was empty. “I mean it, Ben,” Paula said. “And I think I know a way to get back some of what we lost. I’ve found him.”
“What?”
“Derek Mankey. I know where he is.”
I just stared at her, and she got to her feet. “Here,” she said, “let me get you another drink.”
I watched her go to the bar and felt a little cold shiver of dread. The mere mention of Derek Mankey’s name had brought back a flood of painful memories. In the mess that followed his disappearance, Terry had died of a heart attack leaving his wife Alice penniless with five small children, then my marriage had broken down, and now Jack had killed himself.
Paula returned with my whisky. I needed it, and thanked her and took a gulp. I noticed she was sticking to mineral water.
“I’m not sure I want to hear this, Paula,” I said. “Frankly, I never want to hear that bloke’s name again.”
“Ben, it’s time we faced up to things.” She leaned forward, speaking with a quiet intensity, and there was a light in her eyes I remembered fondly. She had always been the most vital, the most exciting of the six of us. “Jack’s death shook me.”
“Of course …”
“I realized I’d spent the last three years in a kind of daze,” she said, “a half-life, just coping from day to day. Derek didn’t just steal our money, he stole our lives, our futures, our confidence in ourselves. We thought we could turn to the authorities to fix things, but instead they accused us of being responsible for his frauds and dragged us further down into the dirt. When I found Jack dead that day, I realized that the only way we were ever going to be free was to put things right ourselves, with Derek Mankey.”
She paused. I had the glass of whisky half-raised to my mouth, and she stared at it. I followed her gaze and saw the shake in my hand, which grew worse as the silence lengthened. I put the glass back down on the table with a thump and she reached out her hand to mine and gave it a squeeze.
“I think you know what I’m saying is true, Ben. We can’t run away from this any more.”
I took a deep breath. “Go on then. Where is he?”
“Western Australia.”
That made sense – I’d heard people who want to disappear tend to head out west. “How did you find out?”
She hesitated, and then began the story she’d rehearsed. “Pure chance. After Jack died I was a mess, and by the time of his funeral I was just about washed up. Then one day, out of the blue, I got a phone call offering a bargain holiday in Broome, five nights accommodation at a resort, plus a camel ride on the beach and return flights, all for just two hundred bucks. I felt I needed to get away, and this was too good to turn down, so I thought, what the hell, and agreed. And it turned out to be exactly what I needed. Have you ever been there?”
I shook my head.
“It was a complete change, somewhere quite different. There was a restaurant overlooking Cable Beach where I’d go of an evening to watch the sun set over the ocean, and there was this nice young guy working behind the bar I’d chat to. One evening I had a long talk to him.”
I felt a twinge of jealousy, quite unreasonably of course, imagin ing Paula engrossed in conversation with some handsome bronzed youth. “So?”
“His name was Justin. He told me about his previous job, working on a pearl oyster farm up north, in the waters off the Kimberley coast. It was hard work, he said, but he enjoyed it, he’d learned a lot about the industry, and it had paid well. But he’d got on the wrong side of his boss, the owner of the lease, an arrogant bastard, Justin said, a bully given to bouts of bad temper. ‘Cranky, we used to call him,’ he said, ‘’cos his name was Mankey. That wasn’t the only thing we called him behind his back.’ I just stared at him while he told me that this Mankey had kicked him off the boat without giving him the pay he was due, or the bonus he’d been promised. Justin said he’d give a lot to get even with him.
“Mankey’s an unusual name, but there must be others around, so I said, ‘I used to know a Mankey. He was a bastard too – Derek Mankey.’ And Justin said, ‘Derek, that’s right. Came from out east. Stocky little guy, not much hair, bright blue eyes. Smooth as butter one minute, vicious as a cut snake the next.’ ”
“That’s him,” I agreed. “But where does that get us?”
“Since Mankey kicked him out, Justin had had plenty of time to dream up ways to get even, and he’d come up with an idea that he said was foolproof. All he needed was a couple of partners to help, and a bit of money to hire a boat, and he could make us a million dollars without Derek Mankey even knowing he’d lost it. That’s a million dollars each.”
I stared at her.
“That’s less than he took us for, Ben,” Paula said, “but it would sure help me to move on.”
“A million dollars each?” I repeated, staring at Paula in disbelief. “And Mankey won’t even know it’s happened? Paula, one thing I’ve learned from this whole sorry mess is that if a scheme sounds too good to be true then it is too good to be true! How gullible does this Justin think we are?”
“Yes, I know, Ben, that’s what I thought at first. But just hear me out.”
I looked at my empty glass. “I’m going to need another drink to swallow this load of baloney. You?” She shook her head and I lurched off to the bar. I was annoyed that Paula had fallen for whatever bullshit this young Casanova had come up with, but I was interested all the same. There’s nothing like a good tale of larceny to stimulate the imagination.
“All right, let’s hear it.”
“It seems Derek must have used the money he fleeced from us to buy an oyster farm lease in the ocean off the Kimberley. Justin says it’s huge, with thousands of oysters, way out in the middle of nowhere. At harvesting time, Mankey takes a special ship and crew up there from Broome, and they work the field, extracting pearls from the oysters, and implanting the beads of mussel shell that will form the core of new pearls. Of course Mankey doesn’t do any of the work himself – it’s hard and very skilful. But he goes to keep an eye on the crew and make sure they don’t get up to any tricks.”
I was trying to form a mental picture of the scene. “Don’t they have sharks up there?” I asked.
“Yes, and worse, salt water crocodiles. They’re really vicious. Anyway, the thing is that Mankey relies on the crew to keep the operation on track. Each oyster can produce three or four pearls in a lifetime, each bigger than the last, so you’ve got oysters at various stages of development, some surviving and others not.”
“So?”
“The point is, no one really knows at any point how many oysters there are in the farm. At harvest time they just work up and down the lines, operating on what they find. So if someone hired a boat and went up there immediately before the harvest, they could remove oyster racks in a random pattern, and no one would know. Of course you would need the inside knowledge of someone who’s worked the farm, and who knows what they’re doing. That’s Justin. We would put up the cash to hire a boat, and then act as labourers with him. Within a week we should be able to gather several thousand pearls, and be away before Mankey and his ship arrive, none the wiser. We’d take them to Hong Kong, and sell them on the open market there, no questions asked.”
I laughed. “Paula, that is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard! We’re middle-aged lounge lizards …”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Well, we’re certainly not in the blush of youth, ready to fight sharks and crocodiles for the treasures of the deep!” I guffawed some more, but she didn’t smile.
When I calmed down, she said. “Yes, it won’t be easy, and maybe you’re not up to it. In fact, seeing you here knocking back the Scotch I’m sure you’re not. You’d just be a liability, actually. But I’m thinking of Alice too. Since Terry had his heart attack she’s been struggling harder than any of us, trying to bring up those five little kids. Derek Mankey did that to her, and it makes me very, very angry. Angry enough to want to do something about it.”
Her eyes were blazing, and I felt ashamed. Ashamed, and also excited. She was right, it did feel as if I’d been sleepwalking for the past three years. She wanted to shake me awake. A small part of me wanted her to succeed. The rest was absolutely terrified.
There wasn’t a snowflake’s chance in hell that we’d ever do it, I reassured myself, but I thought I’d better look as if I was prepared to consider the mad scheme seriously. “Okay, let’s go over it again.” I made a show of taking a notebook and pen out of my briefcase and she launched into it, this time in more detail. When she came to an end I asked, “And the timing of this, Paula? When would it have to be done?”
“Now,” she said. “Right now.”
I was still telling myself that this was ludicrous as our plane dipped down towards the blazing red earth of Broome. To the west the ocean stretched blue to the horizon, and the notion of taking a boat out across that expanse and up to the Kimberley to help ourselves to several million dollars worth of Derek Mankey’s pearls, just sounded like something out of a boys’ own adventure comic. But Paula was adamant that we should at least go over to speak to Justin, the former member of Mankey’s crew who had come up with the crazy idea.
He was waiting for us at the terminal, and he looked pretty much what I’d expected, a loose-limbed, long-haired, bronzed young man with a lazy smile. I thought Paula responded a little too eagerly to his welcome, and I acted gruff and reserved as he swung our bags into the back of a small 4WD and took us to the motel he’d booked us into on the edge of Chinatown. The light was dazzling, the temperature pleasantly warm after the chill we’d left at home, and we changed into lighter clothes before heading out for an orientation tour. Justin took us first to the long jetty at the south end of town, to point out a large boat, or small ship (I’m a little vague on maritime matters), anchored a hundred metres out in the bay. It was Derek Mankey’s apparently, a cross between a factory ship and a laboratory the way Justin described it, purpose designed for the large-scale impregnation and harvesting of pearl oysters.
“A crew of ten for the harvest,” he said softly. He was wearing large mirrored sunglasses and a cap, and I had the impression that even at this distance he was nervous of being spotted by anyone on board. “They’re waiting for the ocean temperatures to stabilize, when the oysters can be safely operated on. But we won’t be operating on them, just harvesting, so we can go now.”
“How long before they leave?” I asked sceptically.
“Should be about ten days, I reckon. This is the ideal time for us to go.”
“On what?”
“I’ll show you.” We set off again, to the mangroves that grew further up the shore. He slowed at a small bay with a golden sandy beach, and pointed to a boat lying half-tilted on the low tide mud beyond. “Starry Night, an eight-metre Conquest. Available for charter for the next two weeks.”
I looked at it, trying to imagine the three of us sharing that grubby little thing, bobbing about in a crocodile-infested ocean. “It’s very small, Justin.”
“Only thing suitable that’s available, mate. I’ve made a provisional booking, but we gotta confirm and pay by the end of the day.”
He told us how much, and I blanched.
“Okay,” Paula said calmly.
“Hang on,” I protested. “We need to talk about this.”
We returned to the motel, stopping on the way for beer at a bottle shop at Paula’s suggestion. She was probably hoping to sweeten me up, and I wasn’t objecting. I thought it’d take a bit more than that to convince me to go along with this madness.
But as we sat around the small table in Paula’s room, poring over Justin’s charts and listening to his plans, I became increasingly impressed by his professionalism. I’d been misled by his youthful looks, but it turned out he had a Skipper grade three mariner’s certificate, and was obviously a very experienced sailor and pearl farmer. He also had a steady, commonsense attitude that I felt instinctively I could trust, and after a while I began to believe that it might indeed be almost possible. It was wildly beyond anything I’d done before of course, and it was unabashed theft, but I opened another can of beer and listened quietly to Paula’s impassioned pitch about how we had right on our side, and a duty to help the poor fatherless children of Alice, widowed, like Paula herself, by the heartless Derek Mankey, and at the end I surprised both them and myself by saying, “Okay then. Let’s do it.”
The fact that, of the original three couples who’d invested in Mankey’s schemes, I was the only male left alive, didn’t bother me as much as perhaps it should.
Once I’d made the decision, I felt an overwhelming sense of libera tion and optimism, as if I were throwing aside all the failures that had weighed upon me over the past years. We were suddenly a great team, laughing and shaking each other’s hands, the three musketeers setting off on a grand adventure. Paula hugged me, and whispered her thanks, and tears came into my eyes. Silly, of course, but what Mankey had done to us three years before had cast such a shadow over our lives that it was perhaps understandable.
There was much to be done. Justin had prepared detailed lists of the things we’d need – extra drums of fuel for the long trip, food, tools and many other supplies, for there were none where we were heading, on that long wilderness coastline of north-west Australia. But first we had to confirm our charter of the Starry Night. We set off from the motel for the owners’ offices in the commercial area of Broome’s Chinatown.
Justin led us down one of the narrow laneways that runs off Carnarvon Street, packed with little tourist souvenir shops, cafés and real estate offices, and we had just emerged on to Dampier Terrace when he came to a sudden stop, and pushed us back into the shadows of a shop veranda hung with bright fabrics. We followed his gaze across the street, where two men were walking along the pavement. I recognized Derek Mankey straight away behind the dark glasses, skipping along on his short legs to keep up with his companion.
“You little bastard,” I growled.
He looked full of himself, head back, puffed up like a little cockerel in a scarlet shirt and black pants. I didn’t know the man he was with, a good thirty centimetres taller than Mankey, and physically much more formidable. His shaved skull was deeply suntanned, tattooed biceps and pecs bulging beneath his black T-shirt, and a mean expression on his moustached face.
“Who’s the other guy?” I said softly to Justin.
“Name’s Chay Gatt, works for Mankey.”
“Chay?” I said.
“Short for chainsaw, supposedly. A hard man. Always at Mankey’s side.”
“Really?” I wondered what Mankey was into these days. When he’d ripped us off he’d only needed his smooth forked tongue.
We watched them go into the showroom of one of the big pearl retailers on that stretch of Dampier Terrace, then Justin led us off in the other direction to the marine charter office. An hour later we emerged, our credit cards severely depleted, and hurried away to start organizing supplies. By evening we had most things in hand, and Justin took us back to the motel. He was nervous about us being spotted out on the street, and we decided to have takeaway in my room. Justin said he’d fetch it, then at the last minute asked Paula to go with him to help choose. They were away a long time, and when they returned I could sense that something had happened. Paula was tense, and she and Justin wouldn’t meet each other’s eyes when they spoke. I drew her aside and asked her what was wrong, but she just said, “Nothing.” I asked, “Has Justin been bothering you?” but she shook her head and turned away. I put it down to last-minute nerves.
Early the next morning we went out to float the Starry Night off on the high tide, and Justin took her to a more convenient mooring he’d arranged further down the shore. There we ferried our supplies and loaded them on board. By mid-morning we were ready to leave. With heart in mouth I followed Justin’s instructions to cast off, and we moved out in a wide arc across Roebuck Bay, keeping well away from Mankey’s pearl ship anchored by the jetty on Entrance Point. Once out in open seas we swung north to run parallel to the long stretch of Cable Beach. Through binoculars I could see tourists riding a chain of camels across the sand. How innocent and safe they looked, and I was filled with a sudden desire to be with them. We were setting off in a tiny tub on a 1,400-kilometre round trip to the far northern point of the Kimberley, to steal pearls out of crocodile- and shark-infested waters, from a man whose closest companion was named after a chainsaw. How had I allowed myself to be talked into this?
Despite my initial cold feet, the journey up the coast began to settle me down. The ocean was calm, the sun was shining, and our mood became cheerful. Justin set a moderate speed, wanting to conserve fuel and not overtax the outboard, and when we stopped at lunchtime for a sandwich we threw lines over the side and managed to catch a couple of reasonable golden snappers. The coastline was rugged orange sandstone topped by low scrub, with the occasional grove of palms nestling in the hollows. After the first couple of hours we saw no other boats, nor signs of habitation on the shore, and gradually adjusted to the idea that we were alone in a vast wilderness. All around us we saw evidence of a dense and turbulent life beneath us in the ocean: a sea snake skimmed off across the surface as we passed; small fish flew into the air; the fins of sharks or dolphins surfaced and disappeared; and on a sandy beach we saw a long dark log, which lurched into movement at the sound of our engine and began to slither towards the water.
“A salty,” Justin said. They were much more dangerous than their fresh-water cousins, he told us, being the largest reptiles on the planet and capable of hunting far offshore.
Justin was a competent and knowledgeable skipper, with a calm air that I was coming to trust, despite my initial doubts. At dusk he took us into the lee of a small island in the Buccaneer Archipelago, where we anchored for the night. We had come half way to our destination, and he was satisfied. Paula cooked up the fish for us on the stove in the little galley, and we relaxed with a couple of bottles of wine beneath a vast canopy of stars. At one point, Justin caught me watching Paula as she worked at the galley, and murmured, “Good looking lady, Ben. I reckon you two hit it off, yeah?”
I felt myself colouring. “Just friends, Justin. Good friends.” Then I felt I had to add, “She’s just buried her old man.”
He gave me a raffish grin and I looked away, feeling a bit stupid that I’d had suspicions about him and Paula.
The next morning we eased out of our little bunks at first light and stood to stretch and watch the sun catch the rim of the fractured cliff beneath which we were anchored. The water looked inviting, placid and warm, but Justin wouldn’t hear of us taking a dip. He wouldn’t even let us put a hand into the sea to wash our dinner plates.
“Too risky, mate,” he said. “You don’t know what’s lurking beneath you.”
He pointed out an osprey’s nest nearby, a dishevelled stack of sticks on top of a rocky outcrop, and we watched the owner stretch its wings in the morning sun while we gulped down coffee and toast and prepared to move on.
I took turns with Justin at the helm as we threaded our way on a northeasterly course through the Coronation Islands and around Bigge Island. We rounded Cape Voltaire in the early afternoon, and I sensed an increased alertness in Justin as he took over and changed our course to easterly, heading in to the Osborn Islands. I was dozing after a light lunch when I heard the engines throttling back and sat up with a start. We were in the middle of a sheltered stretch of water between the mainland and a long island. The sea was covered with round white floats in regimented lines, thousands of them, disappearing into the distance. I got to my feet and tried to take it in. The floats were set a couple of metres apart along each of the lines, which were spaced far enough apart to allow a boat to pass between them. There were hundreds of lines, thousands of floats, spread as far as the eye could see.
“Beneath the floats and longlines,” Justin explained, “are suspended netting panels carrying the oysters, Pinctada Maxima, the biggest pearl-bearing oyster in the world. The guys come up here regularly throughout the year to clean them of grunge – weed, coral, barnacles – then in August for the big operation of harvesting and seeding. I have a pretty good idea where the most mature oysters are, six years old, with the biggest pearls. That’s what we’ll be looking for. We’ll start tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah, we’ll do it in the dark. Customs and Immigration fly constant patrols along this coast, and we don’t want word getting back to Broome that a small boat has been spotted working the field. We’ll head around to the far side of that island now and get a bit of grub and rest, and come back after dusk.” He looked hard at me. “No booze tonight, mate.”
“Right,” I agreed, although it seemed to me that was exactly what I’d need to brace me for the prospect of groping about in a dark ocean seething with tiger sharks and crocodiles.
Once night fell we returned to the oyster beds, the water shimmering beneath a half moon by whose pale light we could make out the rows of thousands of floats on the long lines from which the panels of oysters were suspended in the nurturing ocean currents. Justin steered the boat up a long avenue between the lines, heading for one of the areas in which he knew that the oldest oysters were located, and from which the largest and most valuable pearls might be expected. I felt very tense, an intruder in this alien landscape, conscious of the creatures lurking beneath us, the tiger sharks and savage saltwater crocs, into whose domain we were trespassing. Paula sensed my anxiety, and stretched out her hand to mine. I took it gratefully and squeezed it.
“All right.” Justin throttled back, bringing the boat to a halt between two lines. Paula took his place at the wheel, and he came to my side at the stern, carrying a long gaff. We were both wearing life-jackets and protective gloves. He had already explained how we should work, him snagging the rope below a float and the two of us hauling the metal-framed oyster panel to the surface and on to the boat, but as we began I discovered that it wasn’t as easy as it had sounded. I stumbled and slipped, and caused the boat to tilt violently before we finally manhandled the first panel aboard. I sat there gasping as Justin opened it and removed two of the six molluscs, each as big as a man’s widespread hand, dropping them into a plastic tub. Then we heaved the panel with the remaining oysters back over the side, and Paula took the boat slowly forward until Justin told her to stop again. In this way we moved about the oyster beds, without apparent pattern, removing small numbers as we went, so that the harvesters due the following week wouldn’t detect our theft. I began to develop some rhythm and expertise, but after a while this began to deteriorate as fatigue set in. At midnight Justin called a halt.
“We’ve had a long day,” he said. “This’ll do for tonight.”
I was grateful, my hands and arms aching from the work. We had collected two big tubs full of oysters, maybe a hundred, and I still hadn’t seen a pearl.
That changed the next morning. After a restless sleep in our confined quarters, I woke again at dawn, and watched the island we were anchored by take shape. It had a fine looking sandy beach, beyond which low scrub covered a hillside surmounted by a rocky outcrop. The other two woke after a while, and Justin suggested we grill some oyster meat for breakfast. He took a shell from one of the tubs, and attacked it with a special tool he had, levering it open. Paula and I huddled closer to see what was inside, the shining opalescent mother-of-pearl inner lining of the shell, a blob of pale flesh, and at its heart a large white pearl. Paula gasped, and Justin picked it out, put it in his mouth to clean it, then held it up for us to see.
“Not bad,” he said. “Fifteen millimetre, good shape, fine lustre.”
He explained the qualities we were looking for, the best colours, the different shapes, and began opening other shells. It was like a lottery, you simply couldn’t tell from the outside what you were going to find within. In some cases there was nothing at all, in others the seeded pearl was accompanied by other naturally formed pearls, or keshi. There were the gnarled baroque shapes, ovals and pure spheres, and a range of colours, gold and pink and white. When we were finished, the oyster shells and surplus meat thrown over the side, Justin spread the pearls out on the table and sorted them into categories, excellent, fair and rubbish. There were only four excellent ones, perfect large spheres with a golden lustre, which Justin put into a small bag. I was devastated – all that hard work for only four gems.
“The fair ones are worth keeping too,” he said, and scooped up the so-called “rubbish” and threw them over the side.
That night we went back again, working for most of the hours of darkness, before returning exhausted to the island, boat laden with shells. The next night we repeated the process, and the next, and when we returned the following dawn, on the sixth day of our trip, our collection of pearls had grown into a substantial hoard.
Towards midday on that sixth day out of Broome, I woke to the sound of Paula and Justin talking. There was something odd about their voices, low and tense, as if they didn’t want to be overheard, which wasn’t easy on that little boat. I assumed they didn’t want to disturb my sleep, and I yawned and eased myself out of the bunk, and immediately they fell silent. They were working together on our haul from the previous night, opening the big Pinctada Maxima shells and retrieving whatever pearls they found inside.
“Morning, guys,” I mumbled, and sat down beside Paula, blinking in the bright sunlight. Absently I took up an oyster from the tub and used Justin’s tool to prise it open. For a moment I thought the sun dazzle had distorted my vision, for the large pearl nestling in the white flesh was red. I blinked, but there it still was, a startling deep crimson. “Hey,” I said, “look at this.”
Justin glanced over, and his mouth opened as he took it from my hand. “Oh mate …”
“What is it?” Paula asked.
Justin continued staring at it for a long while, then whispered, “A blood pearl. I’ve heard of them, but never seen one. I thought it was just a myth.”
“Is it valuable?” Paula laughed.
Justin stared at her. “More than all the rest put together,” he said.
I took it back from him, staring at the lustrous colour, then said, “Well, I found it, and I’m going to give it to you, Paula, because we wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been so bloody stubborn.” I handed it to her with a grin.
We got back to work with renewed enthusiasm, hoping to find another, but without any luck.
When we finished Paula made us a meal, and then suggested that we explore the island. I was keen, but Justin said that he’d better stay on board to look after things.
Paula said, “Maybe we should watch out he doesn’t take off with the pearls, Ben, and leave us marooned here.”
She was joking, but Justin seemed to take it seriously, and proposed he divide up the best quality pearls into three equal shares that we’d each carry from now on. It seemed unnecessary to me, but he insisted that it was the right thing to do. We watched as he made up three small bags. Paula slipped the blood pearl into hers, and then Justin took the boat as close into the shore as he could, worried as always about us being in the dangerous waters. We appreciated his concern when we got on to the beach, and saw a long sinuous track leading across the sand.
“Turtle?” I said hopefully, but I knew it was too big, made by the sweeping tail of a large croc.
We hadn’t stood on dry land for six days and I found it strangely disorienting. I stumbled, and absurdly began to feel seasick. Maybe all that oyster meat had upset me too, or the heat of the sun, but as we trudged up into the scrub my gut began to feel queasy.
Paula said, “There’s something I need to talk to you about, Ben.” Then she stared at me. “You all right? You look a bit pale.”
I said, “Feel a bit crook, actually. I’m going to have to go into the bushes for a bit of private business, Paula.”
“Okay. Do you want me to take the bag?”
I said yes, and handed her the backpack that contained the bin oculars and both our bags of pearls.
I had a bottle of water with me, and after resting in a small grove of palms for a while I began to feel better, and got to my feet and set off after Paula towards the rocky outcrop that crowned the small island. There were wide overhanging rock shelves at its base, and I came across aboriginal paintings on the sheltered surfaces. There were kangaroo, snakes and the biggest of all was one I recognized as a Wandjina figure, which I knew was a guardian spirit of the Kimberley, with huge black discs for eyes, a halo and no mouth.
I continued, climbing up over the rocks, and came out on to the crown of the hill. There was no sign of Paula. From up there I could get a panoramic view over the surrounding ocean, to the mainland on one side, the Osborn Islands on the other, and the waters of the pearl farm in between. And there my eyes locked on the figure of a white ship.
I recognized it straight away, the pearl farming vessel which Derek Mankey and his crew used to harvest and reseed their pearls, and despite the warm afternoon a shiver went through me. He wasn’t supposed to arrive for several more days. If he discovered us here, and knowing all three of us, he would immediately guess what we were up to. Even now, I realized in a kind of panic, he might be watching me through his binoculars, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks.
Filled with panic, I began to clamber back down the rocky hilltop, then scrambled through the scrubby grassland that led down to the beach. I found myself in a dense thicket of trees and paused for a moment, wondering which direction to take, when suddenly I heard Justin’s voice, quite close by, call out, “Paula? I’m right here.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” I heard her reply. They were on the other side of a thick patch of tall grass, and quite close by.
“Where’s Ben?”
“I don’t know. He was feeling unwell and we separated.”
I was about to call out to them when Justin said, “The ship’s arrived.”
I was surprised. Surely he could only be referring to Derek Mankey’s ship, yet he didn’t sound in the least worried.
Then Paula said, “Oh damn, I just hope Ben doesn’t see it. We’d better find him.”
They both began to call my name, while I tried to make sense of the fact that they obviously weren’t surprised by Mankey’s arrival and seemed to have been expecting it.
“Damn,” Paula’s voice said. “Where the hell is he?”
“Have you got the pearls?”
“Yes, I’ve got both lots, here.”
“Good.”
A horrible chill had formed in my gut. I didn’t really know Justin, but Paula? I’d known her for years. Surely she would never double-cross me? But then I thought of how hard her husband’s suicide must have hit her. Maybe I didn’t know her any more.
I heard the crackle of a radio, then Justin’s voice, “Hello? Justin here.”
“Justin, old fellar. How are you?” I recognized Derek Mankey’s oily tones, filtered through the radio static. “Where are you?”
“We’re on the small island, mate. You’ll see our boat at the beach.”
“We’re on our way. Everything go according to plan?”
“Perfect, boss.”
The radio noise was cut off, and then Paula said, “What about Ben?”
“We’ll just have to play it by ear. He’s probably waiting for us down at the beach. You go on down. I’ll have one last look around here.”
I crept to the edge of my cover and watched them separate. Justin was now carrying the backpack, and once Paula was out of sight, he took out the two bags of pearls, mine and Paula’s, and buried them beneath a rock at the foot of the tallest palm tree around. Then he too set off for the beach. I felt sick. Everything I’d assumed, taken on trust, was false.
I let them get ahead, then followed until I came to the edge of the high dune that stood at the head of the beach. Lying down in the tall grasses, I crawled forward until I could see what was happening. There was another small boat coming in to the shore now, a tender from the pearl ship with two people on board. I recognized Mankey, and the taller figure of his scary bodyguard, Chay Gatt.
Mankey paddled ashore and went straight up to the pair waiting on the beach and shook Justin’s hand, nodded at Paula. Behind him Gatt tethered the boat’s anchor rope and joined them. A rifle was slung from his shoulder. I was too far away to hear what they were saying, but after a moment they began looking and pointing up the beach, talking, I assumed, about me. Gatt began scanning the slopes with binoculars, and I crouched lower into the grass. Mankey began waving his arms, and at one point I thought he might have slapped Paula, but I wasn’t sure. However, when Paula and Justin turned away and began heading towards me, I scrambled back and ran, crouching, into the scrub.
What should I do? I had no idea what was going on, but it was clear to me that I couldn’t trust any of them. I could only think of one way in which I might gain some leverage, and I ran towards the tall palm beneath which Justin had hidden our pearls. I grabbed both bags and continued running to the nearby boulders where I’d found the Wandjina rock painting. Scrambling up on to the ledge below its broad overhang, I realized that there was a very low cave stretching back into the rock, in which I thought I might hide the bags. But then I heard Justin’s voice, very close. I knew they would find me at any moment, and I squeezed myself into the cave, scraping my arms and knees as I wriggled back into the shadow.
“Where the hell has he gone?” Justin’s voice sounded almost by my ear.
“I’m worried,” Paula said. “If Chay sees him he’ll likely take a shot at him.”
“Well, at least we’ve got his pearls.”
“You’ll give them to Derek?”
“Of course, we’ll trade. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.”
They moved away, and I lay frozen in miserable immobility in my narrow space like a tomb.
I was devastated to think that Paula had betrayed me. It made me realize, too late, how fond I’d grown of her, how trusting. They continued searching for me all afternoon, but they didn’t find me, although at one point Chay Gatt appeared outside and stared directly into my hiding place, yet didn’t see me. It was almost as if the aboriginal Wandjina figure painted on the rock above me was protecting me, making me invisible.
At last, when the light began to fade from the sky, the voices died away. I heard the putter of two outboards and I realized that I was alone on the island.
I woke the next morning after an uneasy night beneath the stars, and finished the last dribble of water from the bottle I had. It wasn’t long before I heard the sound of a boat, and their search for me resumed. I returned to my hiding place in the Wandjina cave and waited. After an hour I heard Paula and Justin’s voices. They were arguing about something. Then Derek Mankey called to them and they abruptly stopped.
They must have moved to within metres of my hiding place and I could hear them clearly as Mankey spoke, panting with exertion. “All right, Chay’s gone back to the boat. Gimme the pearls.”
Justin said cautiously, “There’s a problem, boss. We left them under that palm tree there, and they’ve gone.”
Mankey exploded, accusing them of cheating him and threatening to have Gatt deal with them.
“It’s true, Derek,” Paula’s voice cut in. “Ben must have taken them.”
There were more curses and threats before they moved off.
Later Mankey and Gatt came by, and I heard the bodyguard say, “If he’s tried to swim to the mainland he’s a dead man anyway. Even if the crocs didn’t take him, there’s no one over there to help him. There’s no water here on the island. If he’s hiding somewhere he’ll be dead in a day or two. We’ve wasted enough time. We need to fly the crew up here and get on with the harvest.”
There were a couple of things about this conversation that puzzled me. First, Chay wasn’t talking like Mankey’s employee, more like his boss. Second, it sounded as if he and Mankey had brought the pearl ship up here by themselves, without the crew, and I wondered why. But he was dead right about the water. I was already parched, and the heat was building.
By dusk I was very aware of how precarious my situation was. I made my way to the rim of the shrubs overlooking the beach and made sure that there were no boats there, then I staggered round to a rocky point that faced the broad expanse of sea in which the pearl farm lay. I felt weak and dizzy, my throat parched as I slumped against a boulder. Mankey’s ship lay anchored about 200 metres offshore, and our boat, the Starry Night, lay nearby. There was no one on the Starry Night, but the line of portholes along the side of the pearl ship were illuminated.
As I sat there, wondering in despair if my voice would reach that far if I called for help, a terrible scream ripped through the still evening air. It must have lasted for three or four seconds before it abruptly cut off, and the pitch, neither male not female, but of pure animal terror, made the hairs rise on the back of my neck.
I waited, straining every nerve, and a couple of minutes later another sound echoed over the sea, again like an animal, but this time an enraged roar.
Then silence.
I think I must have fallen into a kind of daze, almost a trance, as darkness closed in around me. I don’t know how long I sat there before a cool breeze roused me. What choices did I have? To die slowly of thirst tomorrow or the day after? Or to face my fate head on, out there across the water?
I got stiffly to my feet and stepped down across the rocks to the water’s edge. I tried not to think of the sharks and salt water crocs that teemed in these waters as I slipped off my T-shirt and sandals, made sure the bags of pearls were safe in my pockets, and slid down into the cool briny deep.
Once in the water I struck out hard for the ship on the most terrifying swim of my life, expecting at any moment to be dragged down by a crocodile or shark. At one point I became disoriented, not sure where I was heading and beginning to panic, but then the ship’s lights bobbed up above the swell and I turned towards them.
When I reached the stern, I paused, hearing voices, Mankey and Gatt arguing. They were on the open top deck, and Mankey sounded drunk and scared, almost pleading with the other man. I clambered out of the water and slipped into the shadows. I was beside a steel door leading into the main deck of the ship, whose lights I had seen from the shore. The door was open a crack, and I pushed it gently, hearing no sound from within. I peered through into a large, brightly lit space, all stainless steel and white, like a laboratory or operating theatre, where the work would be done on seeding the pearl oysters. There were fixed steel stools ranged down both sides of a broad central table, and sinks and cupboards along the walls. Something was lying on the table. No, someone. I saw a foot, a strap. Drawn by the sight, I eased the door a little wider and crept inside.
Justin was spread out on the table, ankles and wrists strapped down, his shirt pulled over his head, trousers down at his knees, and his stomach a bloody mess of entrails. I gagged, and I think I would have thrown up if I hadn’t been so dehydrated. Then I saw something so bizarre I couldn’t quite believe it – nestling in a scarlet fold of his gut was the silvery glint of a large pearl.
Oh jeez, I thought, he swallowed the bloody things!
There was a thump from the deck above, and the sound of feet coming down steel steps. I hurried to a door at the far end of the room, stopping on the way to quickly stuff the pearl bags behind a stack of boxes. Beyond the door I stepped on to a small landing. The only way forward was down a steep flight of stairs. At the foot I found myself in a corridor lined with doors, presumably cabins. Heart pounding, I tried one, a small bare room with bunk and cupboard, deserted. The next was the same, and the next. Then I heard a sound, like a whimper. It seemed to come from a door opposite. I opened it and found myself facing Paula.
She was sitting on the edge of the bunk, her wrist handcuffed to the post that supported it. Her face was shockingly battered, swollen and purple, and her lip was bleeding.
“Ben,” she gasped, a mix of hope and terror in her eyes.
I closed the door and went and crouched beside her. “Paula, what have they done to you?”
She shook her head, tears streaming down her cheek. “It’s all gone horribly wrong,” she sobbed.
“Tell me, quickly, before they come.” I wiped the tears gently from her face.
She spoke in a rush. “Mankey found out what we were doing. One night, while you were asleep, I heard Justin on the radio, talking to him. He was telling Mankey where we were. When I challenged him he said he’d had to do it, but it would be all right, we’d do a deal with Mankey and he’d look after us. He begged me not to tell you, because he was afraid you’d do something rash, and then Mankey would go crazy and hurt us all. I agreed, but I wanted to tell you, only Justin never left us alone on the boat. I was going to tell you when we got on the island yesterday, only we got separated.”
I wanted to believe her, but I still wasn’t sure. “What happened to Justin, Paula?”
“Oh, Ben, it was terrible …” She began sobbing again. Finally she told me. “Justin knew they’d search us for pearls when they found us, and he tried to cheat them by swallowing his best pearls in plastic sachets. But Chay was suspicious and hurt him until he admitted what he’d done. So they cut him open … It was so awful, Ben. He was alive. They made me watch.”
I felt sick and turned away, the blood roaring in my ears. Then I heard a sound behind me.
“Nice of you to drop in, Ben.”
I turned and saw Mankey standing there in the doorway. Behind him was Chay Gatt, a bloody carving knife in his hand.
I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the knife in Gatt’s hand, its long blade and the whole of his right arm stained in Justin’s blood. Beside me Paula sobbed.
“Good to see you again, Ben,” Mankey said cheerfully. “Didn’t swim out here, did you? Crazy thing to do in these waters. But I’m afraid that’s where you’re going to end up.”
I tried to frame some sort of reply, but he ignored me and spoke over his shoulder to Gatt. “Lock him up across the way, mate, then get rid of Justin. There’s a few things I need to ask Paula. Maybe she’ll talk to me now.”
I didn’t struggle as Gatt shoved me into the cabin across the corridor and locked the door. I sat on the bunk and tried desperately to think. What Paula had told me didn’t make sense. Why had Justin betrayed us, and how had he hoped to save us? In fact the whole bizarre story seemed to make less and less sense, from it’s beginning with Paula’s accidental meeting with Justin onwards. I began to wonder if we’d got the whole thing wrong. We’d thought we’d been cheating Mankey, but maybe it hadn’t been like that at all.
The handle turned and Mankey stepped in, shutting the door behind him.
“One last chance, Ben, for you and Paula. Tell me where the pearls are.”
“On our boat …”
He shook his head impatiently. “Not that rubbish. I want the good stuff that you set aside – your share and Paula’s. You’ve probably gathered that we’ve already found Justin’s share.”
“That’s all there was,” I said.
He leaned forward and said softly, “I know better. Where have you hidden them?”
I thought I understood now, and decided to take a gamble. “No, I won’t tell you, Derek. I’ll tell Gatt.”
His eyes narrowed, then he got to his feet, opened the cabin door and said a few words. Gatt came in, big silent brutal bloodstained Gatt, and hauled me to my feet. Mankey said, “Time for your operation, Ben.”
I tried to speak, but my throat was dry. “Haven’t …”
“What’s that, Ben?”
“Haven’t swallowed any pearls.”
Mankey smiled. “That’s what Justin said too. I’ll leave you to Chay’s tender mercies. He knows not to listen to a dying man’s ramblings. For myself, I don’t think I can take any more graphic violence tonight.”
Gatt pushed me down the corridor, then dragged me up the stair to the next deck, where the operating room of the pearl ship was set out. Justin’s body was gone from the large, bloodstained table, and Gatt pushed me towards it. I tried to summon up some last vestige of effort.
“I haven’t swallowed any pearls, Chay,” I said desperately, “but I know where they are, my share and Paula’s, of the best pearls we set aside, more than I could ever swallow. I’m the only one who knows. Paula doesn’t. I moved them when I was alone on the island. You kill me and they’re gone forever.”
He hesitated just a fraction and I ploughed on. “And I know more than that. Things your syndicate will want to hear. Do yourself a favour, just listen. Mankey wants the three of us dead – Justin, me and then Paula. You should know why.”
He hauled me around, and stared at me, his cruel face twisted in a frown. Finally he spoke. “What’s to know?”
When I’d finished telling him, trying not to sound hysterical in my panic to make him believe me, he stared at me in silence a bit longer, then raised the bloody knife. I gulped as he pressed the point into the soft flesh beneath my chin.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, and turned abruptly and strode off.
I looked wildly around, but any tools or possible weapons were locked away. I ran to the door, down the stairs, then turned sharply into a doorway as I heard Mankey’s voice, yelling loudly at Chay.
I found myself in the galley, and this did present more possibilities. I selected a heavy cleaver and then peeked out into the corridor again. They were between me and the cabin where they were holding Paula. I didn’t want to grapple with Chay, even armed with a cleaver, and decided I’d have to go up and over the top. But before I took to the stairs I turned back and looked wildly around the galley for some inspiration. I noticed the gas rings on the stove, and turned them all on full, unlit, then hurried out. When I reached the top deck I raced forward to the prow. There were more stairs there, and I dropped down to the cabin level again, getting to Paula without having to pass Mankey and Chay, although their angry voices were very close. She looked up at me, then at the cleaver in my hand.
“Ben! I thought … What are you going to do?”
I stared at her left wrist, trapped by the handcuffs, and she gave a little gasp. “Oh no.”
The handcuffs were tempered steel, and I knew the cleaver couldn’t cut through them. Paula saw the look in my eye and said again, voice tight, “What are you going to do, Ben?”
“I have to get you out of here, Paula,” I whispered. “Turn your head away.”
I raised the cleaver, then brought it down as hard as I could. She gave a little shriek as the blade bit into the aluminium tube stanchion to which she was handcuffed. It was hollow, the metal softer than steel, and it buckled under the blow. Another slash and it gave way. I threaded the handcuffs free and she fell into my arms.
“Come on,” I hissed. “We have to get away.”
I eased open the door and cautiously peered out. From the next cabin I could hear the growl of Gatt’s voice, putting the questions that I had planted in his head, and then Mankey’s reply, his usual smooth persuasiveness ruffled by panic. “I swear, Chay, there was nothing like that. You can’t seriously believe anything he told you.”
We slipped out into the corridor and retraced my route to the stern of the ship. Out in the dark water I heard a sound of thrashing disturbance, and guessed Justin’s body, thrown overboard by Gatt, was attracting curious predators. There was no chance of us swimming, but the ship’s tender was tied to the stern rail, and we hurriedly climbed down into it and cast off. Not wanting to risk the noise of starting the outboard motor, I used the oars stowed on board to pull us away, towards the dim form of the Starry Night anchored nearby. It seemed to take me an age to get us over there, expecting to be discovered at any moment, and a couple of times something in the water thumped against the boat. We reached the back of the Conquest and clambered aboard. I rushed to get the motor started, my fingers all thumbs, then abruptly froze as a blinding beam of light caught us, along with Gatt’s angry roar.
“Don’t move an inch, you fuggin mongrels,” he bellowed, and the beam of light slid forward across the boat. As it moved off our faces I was able to make out his silhouette on the top deck of the pearl ship. With a chill I saw that he was holding his rifle in one hand, his other arm wrapped around a bundle of some kind. Then I realized that the bundle was moving, struggling. It was Derek Mankey.
Gatt gave another shout. “Your mate wants to join you. Here …” He heaved Mankey forward over the rail, and with a yell, arms windmilling, he pitched down into the sea.
We stood transfixed as Mankey surfaced, spluttering, and then began splashing ineffectually towards us.
“You’ll have to go quicker than that, you little slug,” Gatt jeered, and raised the rifle to his shoulder. I saw the muzzle flash, heard a crack, and then a howl from Mankey.
He kept thrashing his arms, and Paula said, “He missed,” but I knew better. Gatt didn’t want to kill him; he wanted him to bleed.
Coughing, spluttering, flailing, Mankey continued moving slowly towards us. Then, very suddenly, he disappeared. After a moment he surfaced again, gave a horrible scream, then was jerked down once more. He didn’t reappear.
A terrible silence settled over the scene.
Then at last Gatt called out to me. “You want that to happen to you and your girlfriend, Ben?” He raised his rifle menacingly.
Despite the terrifying circumstances, I felt an absurd pleasure that he should call Paula that. I put my arm around her. She was trembling, and I pulled her protectively close.
“No, Chay,” I shouted back.
“Where are the pearls?”
“If I tell you, can we go free?”
“Sure mate. I guarantee it.”
I hesitated, but what choice did I have? “They’re on board the ship with you.” I told him where I’d hidden them, and he said, “This better be right. Don’t you move while I look.”
We watched him climb down to the next deck, and I said to Paula, “It’s going to be all right. That’s all he wants.”
After a moment he reappeared at the ship’s rail. “Good on ya, mate.”
“You’ve got what you want, Chay. There’s one thing …”
But he cut me off harshly. “Sad thing is, I can’t let ya go.”
“You promised …”
“Doesn’t work like that, mate.”
He raised his rifle to his shoulder. Feeling numb, as helpless as a tethered calf, I watched Chay line us up in his sights, adjusting his aim to the roll of the swell. I saw the muzzle flash, felt the wind of the bullet pass my ear, then watched a blinding ball of light burst out, consuming first the dark figure of Chay, and then enveloping the whole of his ship. The shock wave blew us off our feet and our boat began rocking madly as pieces of metal and burning plastic showered around us.
While I’d been on board the pearl ship I’d turned on all the cooker taps in the galley, and now Chay’s shot had ignited the gas-filled hold. I had been about to tell him about the gas when he’d cut me off to say he was going to have to kill us. How’s that for dramatic irony.
We watched the fireball subside, leaving a flickering ruin where the ship had been, the surrounding waters scattered with small flames and a stinking pall of smoke hanging over it all. I made sure Paula was all right, then sent out a Mayday distress call on the radio. I hadn’t had a drink of water in thirty-six hours, and thank-fully gulped from a bottle in our little galley. Then I got the boat’s toolbox and sat down with Paula and tried to unfasten her handcuffs while I explained what had happened.
Right from the beginning, things hadn’t been as they’d seemed. Paula’s apparently innocent cheap holiday offer to Broome had been engineered by Derek Mankey. He didn’t own the pearl fields, but rather operated them for a syndicate of, I imagined, rather dangerous people. They employed Chay Gatt, not to protect Mankey, but to watch him, to make sure he didn’t siphon off pearls for himself. Frustrated by this arrangement, Mankey had hit upon a scheme to defraud them, just as he had once defrauded Paula and me and our friends. He couldn’t just send his sidekick Justin in a boat up to the pearl farm to steal pearls, because the constant aerial and satellite surveillance of those waters would have sent word back to Broome of an illegal operation. So when he’d heard of Paula’s husband’s suicide, he’d hit upon a nasty scheme to lure her, and me, into playing the role of the thieves. We, with Justin acting on Mankey’s instructions, would raid the pearl farm, gather the pearls, then be betrayed by Justin and duly punished. But the pearls would not be discovered, and would be retrieved later by Mankey and Justin.
Things, of course, didn’t work out that way. First I removed the pearls, causing distrust between Mankey and Justin, and then Chay began to suspect that something dodgy was going on. Justin had in fact decided to cheat them all, by swallowing the best of the most valuable pearls, and when Chay forced the truth out of him, he suffered that terrible fate on the ship’s operating theatre.
We sat in silence in the dark, thinking over the whole extraordinary story, then Paula said, ‘I owe you an apology, Ben. I thought you had become a useless drunk, and instead you turned out to be the hero.”
“No,” I said, “you were right, I had.”
“And I had become a bitter and angry old bitch. Maybe this has changed us both.’
I took her hand and felt the pressure of her fingers.
“Shame about the pearls, though,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“How much were they worth, do you know?”
“Justin reckoned a couple of million.”
I gave a little snort at the thought, and she giggled, and then we were both laughing, tears running down our faces, our laughter echoing out across the waters to the wilderness beyond.
When we finally settled down, I lit a lamp and then reached under my left armpit and with a wince ripped off the dressing strip I’d stuck there. I held my hand under the light and showed her what I had. She gasped as she recognized it – the blood pearl, its impossible deep lustrous colour glowing in the light.
I finally managed to get the handcuffs free just before the first helicopter arrived, and the questions began. We told the story we’d agreed upon, the innocent trip to the pearl farm at the invitation of Derek Mankey, the smell of gas in the ship’s galley, the shocking explosion, the devastating loss of Mankey, Justin and Chay Gatt. We were given a medical check, then allowed to take our hired boat back down to Broome, where we were interviewed again, over several days. We enjoyed our enforced stay there, Paula and I, and as the days passed, we became closer.
A couple of months after we returned to the east coast, we had another holiday together, to Hong Kong. While we were there we visited the pearl market. Justin had told us that the blood pearl was worth more than all the rest put together, and our discreet inquiries with the merchants in Hong Kong confirmed it. They were astonished by it and eager to buy, but we decided to hang on to it. Paula wears it now, on special occasions, as she did recently on our wedding day.