Kite looked as though he wanted to say something, a dozen things, and all of them filled the air with a charge. For a delirious moment, Joe thought he might explain. But then the charge vanished, Kite shut down, and only stepped silent and fast around Joe to go into the stateroom.
Joe had to stand where he was in the rain, shuddering with rage. When he could think in a straight line, he ran down to the infirmary to find Agatha.
‘He’s just killed Fred Hathaway,’ he said flatly. ‘I watched him do it. He pushed him overboard.’
He expected her to tell him not to be so stupid. Instead she only set her hands on the edge of her desk and studied him. ‘Why?’
‘Fred was about to tell me who I am.’
‘Right.’ She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t look surprised in any way.
‘I don’t understand why that matters,’ Joe said into the silence. ‘I haven’t remembered a damn thing since I’ve been here, and I’m obviously not going to. Even if I turn out to be Napoleon fucking Bonaparte it wouldn’t matter. Agatha, what is going on? This doesn’t feel like – Kite doesn’t give a toss if I go back through the gate and tell the French government in my time! Why would they believe someone like me? And even if they did, all you lot have to do is brick up the bloody gate and it isn’t a problem any more. This is personal. He was scared. I have something on him, don’t I?’ he asked. He swallowed, because he was still soaked, and he felt unbalanced now, because his thoughts were arriving while he was speaking, and they were running away from him. ‘If I remember – I could wreck him, couldn’t I? Personally wreck him. What is it? Did I witness some other murder?’
‘Joe …’
‘Jesus, did I see him kill Jem?’ Joe whispered.
‘No.’ She was holding her hands out, conciliatory. ‘Listen; listen. I know this is all infuriating, but first things first. I need you to tell me what happened to Fred Hathaway. What did Missouri do exactly?’
Joe told her, as measuredly as he could. Afterwards, though, he found that he was trembling, and not with anger. It was something else, and he couldn’t tell because he couldn’t feel it; his body wasn’t connected properly to his mind. From nowhere, he saw that imaginary memory of Lily going under the engine again, the flat crunch, and all at once black stars started to crowded in on his vision.
Agatha caught his elbow. ‘You’re all right. This is just shock, it’s normal if you’ve never seen someone die before.’ She steered him into a chair. ‘I’m so sorry this is happening to you,’ she said quietly. ‘But I think you’re tough. You must be, if you were a slave. No?’
Joe shook his head. ‘No, I’m useless. Ask my wife. Agatha, you have to do something about Kite. He can’t just go around murdering children. I don’t care what the reason is.’
‘I know, I know. I’ll go and see him soon, but I’d like to see your heart rate come down first. Can you hear it?’ She was holding his wrist. She smiled like he’d never seen her smile before. It lit her up and gave away her age. He didn’t feel nervous to be this near to her now. ‘You could have been sprinting.’
Joe swallowed hard. His tonsils might as well have been gravel. ‘He’s a frightening man, your brother.’
She nodded, full of apology. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I made him that way. It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
24
Cadiz, 1777
The Missouri had gone down in a storm and taken their mother with it. When her second husband Pedro died five years later, there had been some problem with his navy pension, so they had nothing left to live on.
Agatha was sixteen, and because she was clever in more of a bookish than a common-sense way, she had written to Lord Lawrence. He was her uncle, and until she turned twenty-five, he was in charge of the money she had inherited from her father (her real father, her English one, not Pedro). She had met him once or twice, years ago when she’d been at school in England, and he had always seemed kind.
While she waited for the reply, with every hope that it would be favourable, she taught Missouri English. He didn’t approve, but he was a polite child and he learned anyway, although she did overhear him telling his friends that his sister was making him learn a made-up language that sounded like spitting. She couldn’t help wondering how it was that somebody who was only five could go round having opinions like a real person.
When the letter came from England, it was a hot day, and they were doing the laundry on their doorstep, beneath the waving lines of other people’s washing. Their tenement was in the shadow of the church. The letter arrived exactly on the hour, she remembered that clearly, because the bell had just rung three deafening peals, and like always, she had to dive protectively over the laundry tub as the tower parakeets shot along the alley.
The letter was short.
Lord Lawrence was not bringing them to England.
Lord Lawrence was very sorry, but he didn’t see what a carpenter’s son was to do with him. Agatha was free to come, of course, because she was real family, and he would see that she had a proper education for an English gentlewoman, but she was not to bring Missouri, who would embarrass the Lawrence name. As she would know, she could get her inheritance from her father’s estate when she turned twenty-five, whereupon she was free to do as she pleased, with however many undesirable relatives in tow, but until then, it was his responsibility to safeguard the family’s reputation. He regretted it deeply, but he was sure she would understand.
‘Oh, fuck you,’ she said aloud.
‘Mrs Perez says ladies shouldn’t swear,’ Missouri told her solemnly. He was wringing out the things she had washed, observed by upstairs’s cat. Sometimes it put its paw in the soapy water, plainly trying to see why he liked it so much. It didn’t look impressed.
‘Mrs Perez hasn’t met any ladies except ladies in novels. There’s a difference between what a lady can say in a published book and what she says when someone screws her over. Come on,’ she said. She took his hand. ‘Sod the laundry. We’re going to sign on with the Trinidad again.’
‘I thought we were supposed to be going to the rainy place?’
‘Change of plans. We don’t like Lord Lawrence any more.’
‘Why?’
She taught him some words he probably shouldn’t have known.
The Santíssima Trinidad was the ship Missouri had been born on, the ship his father had died on, and the ship where Agatha had been a nurse for five years. It was in the dock at the moment, being refitted. Agatha had a happy drop when she saw it. It was home. The size of a castle and by far the largest warship in Europe, it was five decks high, and it carried a hundred and forty guns. Now, the deck was alive with carpenters, the air rich with the smell of sawdust and fresh tar.
The gangway was open, so Agatha shuffled Missouri up ahead of her, and looked around for an officer. The captain was passing. He stopped mid-stride.
‘Miss Lawrence! What are you doing here, did we forget some of Pedro’s things? I thought we got his sea chest to you safely?’
‘No, sir, it’s all right,’ she said, nervous now that she was here. It would have been better to talk to a more junior officer, someone whose job it was to remember her name. ‘But I want to sign on again in the infirmary.’