The Poisoned Island (38 page)

“I am delighted to see it, Peter,” says Graham.

“Are you gentlemen on some species of tour?” asks Heywood. “I can think of no other reason for your surprising arrival, other than happenstance.”

“No, Peter, not a tour,” says Graham. “We were rather hoping you could help us with an investigation Mr. Harriott here is undertaking.”

“Oh, indeed?”

“Yes. There has been a series of deaths among the crew of a ship which recently arrived in London from Otaheite. Mr. Harriott, as magistrate of the River Police Office, has been undertaking to seek out the truth of these events.”

At the word
Otaheite
Heywood’s expression changes. Gone is the boyish enthusiasm and rather theatrical bonhomie with which he’d greeted Graham. Now, they are in a room with a serious-minded, competent, and successful naval commander who is on his guard. Harriott can see that Graham also recognizes the sudden change.

“I trust, Graham, that there is more to this appeal to me than a mere wish to probe my memories of that island.”

No more
Mr. Graham
, then. Now Heywood is an equal to the magistrate.

“There is a good deal more to it than that, Peter . . . Heywood. The ship in question is the
Solander
. You have heard of it?”

“Of course. Any naval captain in London just now would have heard of it. There is a good deal of upset still among
certain parties within the Admiralty that a Navy captain was supplied for the voyage, as it was privately funded by Sir Joseph. There are some who say that Sir Joseph made enough use of Navy men forty years ago.”

Harriott is suddenly very grateful for Graham’s presence. This is now a dangerous conversation between two very capable men, in which temper must be kept and norms followed. Words are likely to be sharp while smiles remain fixed. It is not an ideal situation for bluff old John Harriott.

“Well then, Heywood. One of the ship’s passengers is known by the name of Peter Nott. He is a half-breed, the child of an island woman and, he says, an Englishman. He is the adopted son of the missionary Henry Nott. He claims
you
are his natural father, Heywood.”

“My God.”

Heywood stares at Graham for a moment, forgetting himself, and then stands and walks to the window. His hands go behind his back. He must look like this on the quarterdeck with a French ship off to starboard, thinks Harriott, waiting to pounce upon her in the name of King and Country. Ah, but no. Heywood is a maker of maps, not a battler. For a while the captain says nothing at all, and his still back and perfectly unmoving hands give no suggestion as to what he is feeling. But the gesture itself speaks of . . . what? Anger? Despair? Surprise? Delight?

None of these, Harriott sees as Heywood turns from the window. None of these at all.
Amusement
.

“Well, this day brings a second package of wonder. First they show me round my ship. Then you come, and tell me of my son. How perfectly . . .
bizarre
.”

“You knew about your son?” Harriott asks the question, cannot help himself. Something about Heywood’s light manner
and easy smile as he sits back down has infuriated him beyond measure.

“I knew I
had
a son, Mr. Harriott,” says Heywood. “I knew I’d
fathered
one. But I did not know he was alive or that he even knew of me. But you know how it is. We have all fathered sons in foreign lands. There are probably bits of us Navy fellows walking around three or four different continents.”

Harriott had known, of course, that such a response was possible. Heywood is right. Naval men of a certain stripe are relentless sowers of English seed. But he still feels a wave of anger, sparked no doubt by his sympathy for the pathetic figure now sitting under a sort of lock and key in Bow Street, whose eyes are so like those of the man opposite him.

“Sir, I find your response to this news alarmingly distasteful,” he says, despite himself. “Your suggestion that I might have . . .”

“Oh, well, Mr. Harriott, I apologize. After all, I was only making fun of the situation. Do sit down, sir, you are old and your leg is clearly lame. No? Well, then stand if you wish. Now, what do you expect me to do with this news you bring?”

Graham looks down and frowns, and speaks without looking up again.

“Peter . . . Captain Heywood. Your attitude is surprising to me.”

“Really?” The smile on Heywood’s face is that of a society beau kicking a beggar outside his club. “How so, Graham?”

“You feel no responsibility towards this young man?”

Heywood laughs, then, a rich salty captain’s laugh. “Graham, how am I supposed to feel any
responsibility
for a person I do not know, have no intention of meeting, and have no interest in. He could be
anybody
, Graham. Your story is preposterous—my son, from Otaheite, the adopted son of an English missionary, back in England to find me? And what?
Affect some reconciliation out of the pages of a Gothic romance? Am I to make him my lieutenant? Do we sail the oceans together, storming ships and chasing women like some half-baked buccaneers? No, Graham, I feel no
responsibility
. I feel nothing at all. I slept with half a dozen women on that damned island—we all did. One of them bore a brat. Now that brat wishes to call me
Father
.”

Graham says nothing, but looks up at Heywood with an expression the like of which Harriott has never seen on the face of clever, witty, urbane, fashionable Aaron Graham. His fellow magistrate looks like he has stepped in something profoundly distasteful, and his Savile Row shoes are thus ruined.

“You will not meet him?” asks Harriott at last.

“I will not,” replies Captain Heywood. “I am a busy man about to set sail again for seas far and wide. I have no need, nor time, for a son.”

“Then, Captain, we will not keep you from your duties any longer.”

Harriott waits for Graham to stand, but for a moment he does not do so. Then he asks a soft, strange question.

“Were you indeed on the deck, Peter? When it happened? Were you one of those who mocked their captain as they forced him down into the boat?”

Heywood’s amused look cracks somewhat at that, and Harriott spies some apprehension there. The dislike he has developed for the former mutineer is as sharp and clean as a new needle.

“Do you doubt what I told you?” says Heywood.

“I didn’t,” says Graham. “But now . . . I wonder.”

He stands, and walks out without saying another word. With a final look at Heywood, which he tries to invest with a lifetime of contempt, Harriott follows.

Captain Hopkins lives in a new house built on the fringes of Putney Common, and Horton arrives there a little before nine o’clock in the evening on his way back from Kew.

It is not a fancy or particularly elaborate house, but it stands on its own on the edge of a wood and is, in its way, as fine a place as a naval man could expect to take possession of, subject as he is to the whims of the Admiralty, the unreliability of his agent and the vicious stabs of Fortune.

The house sparks in Horton an almost unbearable envy. Were it not for other matters this smart little house could belong to Abigail and him. She would be inside, washing and cleaning and reading and sewing, and he would be returning from a long ocean voyage, his heart full of joy at the prospect of seeing her, his purse full of gold and silver, and they would shut the door on this little house and not come out again for a week.

But it is not Abigail who answers the door. Far from it.
It is a fat, wholesome woman who chirrups with delight at this unexpected visit but must inform the constable that—for shame!—her husband is not home, but she really must insist he take some tea with her, despite the hour. Horton hesitates—the carriage is waiting outside and, more to the point, Abigail is waiting far, far across town. But this chatty little captain’s wife may be able to offer more than just tea this evening, so he accepts.

They talk and talk for some time, or rather she talks and Horton listens. He takes heed of her tales of the deeds of her majestic husband, his diligence and his immense concern for the men under his command, many of whom have been to this house. At least those of the officer class have; she has never met any of the
ordinary
seamen, and she supposes these men are quite brutal in their way, but the officers are always immaculate in their manners and prodigious in their praise of the captain’s house and household. And yes of
course
he spends a lot of time on board ship just before and just after a voyage; really, she has hardly seen him at all. And had Horton met all the officers, and had he met in
particular
that odd little chaplain, the half-breed, she’s never seen a half-savage Christian before and she doesn’t know what to make of it, but he was a quiet thing when her captain brought him here, a quiet thing indeed, but she’d fed him and watered him and he’d blossomed like a little exotic flower. Was the constable interested in botany, because really it was
quite
the most interesting thing in the world, she and all her lady friends agree, and, oh, pardon me, come again, what did you say? Yes, of course I understand, the hour is late, and perhaps it is not entirely proper for you to stay much longer, but it is indeed charming to have a man visit, oh bless me, I am blushing, now do let me show you out, yes, yes, I can see, that is a nasty
tear in your coat, yes, you will have to get that seen to, and yes, I do happen to know someone who I use for the captain’s repairs, really that man is always tearing this and that, it’s like he goes a-voyaging with a lion in his cabin, there’s a lovely clever little man up on Clapham Common that I take all my repairs to, no, I’ve got no eye for it at all, I know, I’m a terrible wife, no really I am, yes, Clapham Common, on the far side, not where all the rich men live, the other side, yes, Constable, it’s been a delight, careful voyage home, I’ll tell the captain you were here, goodbye, goodbye!

The thirst hits him on the way back from Kew, somewhere around the little hamlet of Nine Elms. It is an overpowering thing, and he actually gasps when it sweeps over him, gasps so loudly that the carriage driver’s head twitches around and looks behind him before facing forward again, the horse’s breath rising like steam into the midnight darkness. Inside the carriage, Brown wrestles with the torment as if it were a wriggling serpent, his head aching as badly as it has ever done and, even worse, that old torpor creeping over him like a black cloud, such that he falls back into the carriage cringing with hunger, with pain, with anxiety and yet with lassitude, as if some internal demon was merrily combining his humors with no regard to propriety.

He thinks of the leaf sitting there in the jar in his Gerrard Street room and the thirst hits him again, like a needle in his stomach and a poker in his head, and for several minutes Robert Brown is transmuted into a tense, shivering ball of
need, aware of only his forward direction towards where the leaf can be found, the substance that will resolve this desperate desire, miles up ahead on the other side of Westminster Bridge.

He argued with Sir Joseph for long hours at Kew, argued and cajoled and pleaded with him, but Banks remained immovable. He had researched the leaf for years, the President said, it was entirely safe. He had corresponded with that vast network of captains and botanists and ambassadors and soldiers which he’d assembled over the decades. For forty years he’d assembled a great record of the strange rites and rituals of Otaheite, a dark mélange of human sacrifice and sorcery and demons, his fascination with the place whetted by the
Endeavour
voyage so long ago, but deepened and sharpened since by that relentless Banksian correspondence, by which every visitor to Otaheite, be they from Britain, France, Spain, or wherever, had received a letter from Sir Joseph Banks, inquiring of their experience of the local rituals. And of course he had given endless thought to the great medical matter of the Age: the sanity of the King.

“The King, who is my friend,” Banks said, as if that explained and forgave everything.