Scorpion Sunset (12 page)

‘But Maud was …'

‘Raped,' Peter interrupted. ‘I know she told you that, but do you really believe her, sweetheart?'

‘I do.'

He dropped a kiss on to her forehead. ‘I love you all the more for wanting to think the best of everyone.'

‘You don't believe Maud?'

‘I don't know her well enough to know what to believe. But even if she was, what do you think John should do? Accept another man's child as his? That's hardly fair, is it?'

‘How would you react if it was me who had another man's child?'

‘I'd rather not think about it.'

‘I mean if I was raped.'

‘That is a question I hope I never have to face.' Peter sat up and left the bed.

Angela gripped his hand. ‘Please don't go.'

‘You know I have to.' He pulled his hand free.

‘Please, Peter. Just this once. I'd give anything to wake up next to you in the morning.'

He shook his head and reached for his robe. ‘I'll never forget what I did to you in Amara.'

‘That was my fault. I shouldn't have visited you so soon after you fought a battle.'

‘I damn near killed you. The sight of those bruises on your face will haunt me until the day I die. Knowing that I put them there …'

‘It wasn't your fault. You were asleep. You'd been fighting the Turks. You had a nightmare, you lashed out.'

‘I lashed out and if it wasn't for John and Crabbe I would have killed you. I'll never risk anything like that happening again. I'm going into the dressing room. I'll bolt the door on the inside, but please turn the key in the lock on this side in case I open the bolts in my sleep.'

‘I don't want to.'

‘Please, Angela. The only way I can sleep is if I know there's a solid door between us.'

‘Am I never going to sleep next to you again?' Tears fell from her eyes as she sat up on the pillows.

He wiped her tears away with his thumbs. ‘I'm sorry, darling, but after Amara, it has to be this way.' He walked into the dressing room and closed the door. She heard the bolts being pulled across the inside.

‘Angela?'

‘I'm doing it.' She left the bed and turned the key in the lock.

Colonel Perry's Bungalow, British Compound, Basra

June 1916

Maud carried the last of her gowns from the wardrobe and dumped them in her trunk, on top of the clothes she'd already piled into it. She squashed the contents down. There was an inch or two of space free.

She sat on the bed and looked around the room for something else to pack. All the drawers in the chest and dresser were open and empty. The wardrobe, tallboy, and cupboard doors yawned, revealing bare shelves and hanging spaces. She'd packed everything she owned except the clothes she was wearing. The only things remaining were a travelling desk, two jewellery boxes, and a flat black case on the dressing table.

She unpinned her watch and opened the smallest jewellery box with a key threaded on the chain. She'd given her wedding ring to Harry to return to John last November, and she had no way of knowing if Harry had even seen John before he'd been killed. Her engagement ring, a four-carat solitaire diamond set in a platinum band, winked up at her in the lamplight. She touched one of the matching earrings John had bought to complement it as a wedding gift. Next to them was a pearl necklace Mrs Hale, the widow of John's commanding officer, had given her before she'd sailed back to England.

In a drawer below the diamonds she kept the jewellery her parents had given her. A gold ring and locket which she'd worn as a child and set aside in the hope that one day she'd have a daughter to pass them on to. A larger, more ornate locket that held a photograph of her mother and a heavy gold link bracelet her parents had given her on her eighteenth birthday.

She removed the diamond earrings and engagement ring, stowed them in their original boxes, and placed them in an envelope. Then she locked the box. Other than the pearls there was nothing left inside that would bring much money even if she was inclined to sell any of the pieces her mother had given her. It had been her mother. She doubted her father had ever chosen a Christmas or birthday present for her in his life.

She opened her mother's jewellery case which she'd found packed away with the furniture from the house. She was familiar with every piece. She'd been allowed to play with them as a child. She knew exactly which rings, bracelets, and necklaces had been inherited by her mother from her grandmothers and great-grandmothers, and which pieces her father had bought her mother.

There were strings of pearls, pearl rings, and pearl bracelets, the staple of every officer's wife's jewellery collection. Below them on a separate tray were the ornate gold bracelets, necklaces, and earrings, some studded with sapphires and rubies, that her father had bought for her mother when he'd been stationed in India. She closed the box and left it on the dresser. It had been her mother's and she felt she had no claim to anything her mother had owned, not after the way she'd behaved.

The last box was different. If it was possible for a woman to earn a gift of jewellery, she'd certainly earned that one. When John had left her in India she'd missed him to the point of insanity. Not just him, but his male presence in her life and especially her bed. Within weeks she'd found solace in the arms of a young lieutenant, and after he'd been posted to Basra other lovers had followed. The jewellery had been given to her by a Portuguese, Miguel D'Arbez, and it had been their liaison that had given rise to the gossip that had destroyed her reputation in India.

She opened the box. It contained magnificent pieces more suited to Indian royalty than an Englishwoman. A massive ruby and heavy diamond-studded tiara, a multi-strand necklace with a thick chain, and four bracelets to be worn above and below the elbow. There were also long pendant earrings and a nose ring, like the tiara all encrusted with enormous rubies and diamonds. The set was far too ostentatious for European taste. When John told her he intended to divorce her, she'd given it to Harry to sell. He'd paid her for it but the set had been returned to her on Harry's death, which suggested either he hadn't found a buyer, or hadn't looked for one.

Like the ancient mariner who'd shot an albatross and had been forced to carry its corpse around his neck as punishment, the set had become a permanent and humiliating reminder of her bitterly regretted infidelity. If only she could turn the clock back to the day of John's departure from India. If only she'd concentrated on immersing herself in the charity garden parties and afternoon teas that the other officers' wives spent their days organising. If only she hadn't succumbed to temptation …

She glanced at her watch. Two o'clock. Not much time and she still had a great deal to do.

She opened her travelling desk and removed a sheet of notepaper and an envelope. After spending a few moments trying to compose what she wanted to say she picked up her pen and wrote quickly, instinctively, without putting too much thought into her words.

Dear Mrs Butler,

Thank you for everything that you have done for me. I regret having to impose on you further, but circumstances dictate that I have to leave Basra. Lack of funds and friends has made my current situation precarious and you and the trustees of the Lansing Memorial are the only people I can think of to entrust with the upbringing of my son.

You are aware of his antecedents. My father has disowned me and my child. Both of us are now reliant on the charity and goodwill of strangers.

It would be too much to ask or expect you to bring Robin up personally but I hope you will find a sympathetically run orphanage, here or in America, willing to take my son and if possible his nursemaid as he is accustomed to her.

I have paid her one year's salary and I have sent a box of jewellery with her that I hope the trustees will be able to sell to recover some of the cost of rearing Robin.

I am so sorry to have to appeal to your goodwill again, Mrs Butler. Thank you for your many kindnesses towards me, and please accept my apologies for this, my largest imposition, which I assure you will be my last.

Yours very sincerely,

Maud Perry

Maud folded the notepaper and placed it in a large box together with the jewellery case that contained the ruby and diamond set. She closed the box, tied it with string, and wrote Mrs Butler's name and address on the outside.

She addressed a second envelope to Charles Reid, and again wrote quickly without putting too much thought into her words.

Dear Charles,

My father, quite understandably, has ordered me to leave his bungalow. As the army has rescinded my widow and dependent's allowance on the perfectly reasonable grounds that John is alive, your son and I have been left destitute.

By the time you get this I will have already left my father's house. I will send my son and his nursemaid to the American mission and ask Mrs Butler to place him one of the orphanages run by the Lansing Memorial. I have also sent Mrs Butler the ruby and diamond jewellery I asked Harry to sell, that you retrieved from Harry's strongbox and insisted on returning to me. I hope the jewellery can be sold, and the money used to defray the cost of Robin's keep.

I regret I cannot love my son the way a mother should, but as I have no idea what the future holds, or even where I'm going, Robin will be better cared for by the Lansing Memorial than me.

I am more sorry than you can ever know for what happened between us, Charles. I regret even more the way I betrayed John. He loved me. I didn't realise how valuable that love was until I'd thrown it away. I'm not expecting you to do anything other than tell John, if you see him again, that I don't expect him to forgive me but I hope in time that he can forget me and find a woman more worthy of his love.

I enclose the engagement ring and earrings John gave me and hope that you can return them to him. I gave Harry my wedding ring but I have no way of knowing whether Harry had time to give it to John before he was killed.

I hope I never see you again, but I wish you and yours, and especially John, a long and happy life. I hope and pray he will survive the war and find a wife worthy of the name of Mason.

If you are ever in position to help Robin and see fit to do so, I would be very grateful for his sake, not mine. He didn't ask to be brought into this world.

Maud

She folded the sheet of notepaper into the envelope that held her engagement ring and the earrings and sealed it.

She'd made a start, but she still had a great deal more to do before dawn broke and she and Robin had to be on their way.

Chapter Eight

Mesopotamian Desert

June 1916

‘We are being driven further into the desert every day to the point where there will be no one to see the gendarmes murder us. There are many places in this wasteland where they can hide our bones. We'll lie there forever, never to be found by a living being, and no prayers will be said for our souls,' Mrs Gulbenkian whispered close to Rebeka's ear.

Terrified of being overheard by one of the gendarmes who surrounded them, Rebeka remained silent. Her former neighbour constantly voiced suspicions about their fate, but Rebeka shuddered all the same. She realised Mariam had heard Mrs Gulbenkian when her sister tightened her grip on her hand. The rumours had begun days ago, echoing from one woman to another when realisation dawned that they were being taken east.

A scream resounded from somewhere in the centre of the huddle of women. Rebeka kneeled upright. The moon and stars were bright and she made out Mrs Saroyan, the baker's wife, foaming at the mouth. Her four daughters were trying to quieten her, without success. The women around them watched the girls tend to their mother, but none dared offer help. Not after seeing the way the gendarmes beat women for extending the slightest kindness to one another.

She wondered if she would have been braver if she hadn't had Mariam to look after. Then one of the gendarmes unslung his rifle from his shoulder and she knew she wouldn't have dared. As unbearable as her existence had become, she could still breathe, feel, and think. She wasn't ready to relinquish life. Not yet. Not while Mariam crouched next to her and she could still see Anusha, although Mehmet wouldn't allow her or Mariam to approach their eldest sister.

A gendarme scooped up the youngest Saroyan girl by the neck. He held her high in front of Mrs Saroyan.

‘Don't look,' Rebeka muttered to Mariam. She covered her sister's eyes with her fingers as the gendarme dashed the four-year-old to the ground. The toddler cried out just once then fell silent. The gendarme kicked the child's body as it lay limp on the ground, before reaching for his rifle. He shot Mrs Saroyan in the back. Two more shots rang out as his colleagues targeted two of the other girls. The fourth, Hasmik, ran to Mrs Gulbenkian, who was holding out her arms ready to embrace her in a show of defiance only a childless woman would risk.

The gendarmes looked at Hasmik and Mrs Gulbenkian and laughed.

‘Enjoy your new foster daughter, old woman, while you can. You'll soon all be …' One of the gendarme drew his finger across his throat.

Rebeka tightened her grip on Mariam's hand and huddled back close to the ground, focusing determinedly on the desert floor lest she catch a gendarme's eye and draw attention to her or Mariam.

The sound of the river flowing on their right escalated her burning thirst. Needing distraction, she concentrated on conjuring the ‘memory' she'd taken from the table earlier that night.

Rebeka's Family Home

December 1915

Anusha's wedding. Not the celebratory mass held in the town church, nor even the wedding feast prepared by her mother and aunts for the entire extended families, her sister's bridegroom Ruben's as well as their own. But late evening, long after her eldest sister Anusha and her new husband had driven off in Ruben's father's carriage to the house his family had built for them, and she, Mariam, and Veronika had retired to the bedroom they shared.