She saw Adam first and dropped the cane. The kneeling woman heard the clatter, broke away from Talbot and turned in Adam’s direction.

  ‘Don’t stop, damn you,’ grunted Talbot. ‘You have not finished.’

  Adam gestured the two women to the door. They noted the pistol in his hand and ran out, their bare feet making no sound on the floorboards.

  Talbot’s tumescent penis throbbed with frustrated desire.

  ‘What is happening?’ he called. ‘I will have you thrashed when your mistress hears of this.’

  Adam walked behind Talbot, letting his heavy footsteps echo around the room. Talbot sensed a change, but with the blindfold he could not see. He squirmed in his bonds, trying to free his wrists from the knots. But the women were professionals: they had tied them tight. He could not get out.

  ‘Who are you?’ he called. ‘How dare you interrupt me? I’ll have your blackie head mounted on a spike over Government House.’

  Adam picked up the cane that the girl had dropped. He gave a couple of practice strokes, letting Talbot hear it hum through the air. Then he lashed it against the back of Talbot’s thighs.

  Talbot screeched with pain. ‘What the devil are you doing? This isn’t what I paid for.’

  ‘No,’ Adam agreed. ‘But you will pay.’

  He swung the cane again. Whatever pleasure Talbot had taken from being beaten by the girl, he felt none now. He screamed.

  ‘Who are you?’ he gasped.

  The sound of an English voice, in the last place he expected, had made him realise this was no simple robbery.

  ‘I am the man whose family you murdered.’ Another hit, another scream. ‘I am the man you lied to, so that more men died on a fruitless quest.’ Another hit. Adam walked around and tore off the blindfold. ‘You know who I am?’

  Talbot’s eyes bulged. ‘Adam Courtney. But how—?’

  ‘You know why I have come?’

  Talbot’s silence was confession enough.

  ‘I know what you did at Nativity Bay.’

  Seeing Talbot’s face, puffy and unrepentant, drove Adam into a rage he did not know he possessed. He slashed at Talbot with the cane, drawing blood on his thighs and his genitals. Talbot contorted in agony. He screamed, but no help was coming. The building had emptied, and the neighbours knew not to interfere.

  ‘You lied to me. Lesaut did not chase you there. You met him in peacetime and sold him food. When he went to Nativity Bay, he found it was already in ruins.’

  ‘No . . .’ Talbot was almost sobbing, incoherent. ‘No . . .’

  Adam struck him across the face with the cane. ‘Lie to me again, and I will shove this so far up your arse that it comes out of your mouth.’

  ‘The ship’s owner made me do it,’ Talbot gabbled.

  ‘Who is the owner?’

  Silence. Adam supposed that the ship’s owner must be recorded in some sort of registry he could find. But that would take time. The cane was more efficient. He gave another couple of cuts with it, then asked again, ‘Who?’

  ‘Courtney.’

  Babbling and choked with pain, Talbot could hardly get the word out. Adam thought it was another plea for mercy. He raised the cane, but before he could land the blow Talbot screamed again, ‘Hugo!’

  Adam stopped mid-swing. He stared at Talbot, the captain’s body now a bruised and blood-spattered mess.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Hugo Courtney.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Gerard Courtney’s son.’

  Adam stepped back, ignoring Talbot’s pleas and whimpers. He remembered the statue he had seen outside Government House. Gerard Courtney: Honour, courage and virtue.

  Hugo Courtney, who owned the Seven Sisters and had given Talbot his orders, was Gerard Courtney’s son.

  Gerard had been Christopher Courtney’s son.

  And Christopher Courtney was the man whom Rob had killed so many years ago.

  Now Adam understood everything. Hugo Courtney had sailed halfway around the world and massacred an innocent family, to avenge his murderous grandfather.

  Now Adam would repay the debt.

  He stepped back, gazing at Talbot. The captain dangled like a piece of meat in a butcher’s yard, shrivelled and bloody. Adam might have felt sorry for him, but in his mind he was revisiting the bones crunching underfoot at Fort Auspice.

  ‘Tell me everything. From the beginning.’

  ‘Cut me down.’

  ‘No.’

  Adam’s voice offered no mercy. Talbot’s only hope was to keep speaking. He cleared his throat and spat out a gob of blood and spit.

  ‘Gerard Courtney had been looking for Fort Auspice for years – probably before you were born. He knew your family had settled on the south-east coast of Africa. Whenever a ship came in to Calcutta, he would ask the captain what he knew. Twice, he outfitted voyages to scout the African coast and search it out, but they could not find it.

  ‘Then, in Cape Town on an outbound voyage, I was offered a consignment of ivory from a captain bound for London. He’d bought it from a trader who lived in a hidden bay up the coast. He marked its position on my chart.

  ‘I called in. I met George Courtney and his children. They were suspicious of an Indiaman – they knew Christopher and his son had been powerful men in the Company – but I persuaded them I was a friend. I enjoyed their hospitality. I traded with them. And when I got to Calcutta, I went to Gerard Courtney and told him what I had found.’

  ‘No doubt you did not give him the information for nothing. What price did he give you?’

  ‘A half share in the vessel.’ Talbot writhed in his bonds. ‘It was more than I could earn in a dozen voyages. One more voyage, and I could retire in comfort. You must understand . . . Five years ago my ship struck a reef off the Moluccas and nearly foundered with all hands. Since then, my wife has begged me to retire from the sea. It has ruined her health, worrying for me every day while I am gone. With what Courtney offered me, I could have given her a life of ease and comfort.’

  Adam nodded. ‘One more voyage.’

  ‘Gerard Courtney sent thirty men aboard my ship. He would have led them himself, but he was on his deathbed and the voyage would have killed him. He sent his son, Hugo, instead.’

  ‘Did he tell you what they meant to do?’

  ‘No.’ A prod from the cane made Talbot cry out. ‘But I could guess. The men were cut-throats, freebooters scraped from the prisons of Bengal. Hugo loaded twenty stands of arms aboard.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘We put in to Nativity Bay, just as we had before. I paid my compliments at the Fort. The Courtneys suspected nothing. Hugo and I even dined with them. Hugo wanted to see his quarry.’

  He hung his head.

  ‘That night, I stayed aboard our ship at anchor in the bay while Hugo took his men ashore. I heard it all: shots, then screams. The house caught fire and lit up the night. When Hugo returned, before sunrise, he was horribly burned and covered in blood up to his elbows. Of the thirty men who had gone with him, only seven returned.’

  Adam thought of all the bones in the ruins and was glad some had been his enemies. It was a little consolation that the Courtneys had sold their lives so dearly, though even that thought had a bitter edge. They must have come so close to winning.

  He remembered the walls around Fort Auspice, unbroken and undamaged. How had the attackers been able to get in?

  ‘Did Hugo say anything about the battle?’

  ‘Not a word. He locked himself in his cabin and did not speak for the entire voyage back to Cape Town. He left us there and took another ship back to Calcutta. I sailed on to London.’

  Talbot risked a small glance up.

  ‘I am sorry for what he did to your family. It has haunted me ever since. You must believe me, if I could undo what I did . . . I have prayed to God for nothing else.’

  He hung there, his eyes pleading for release but not daring to ask.

  ‘One thing I do not understand.’ A detail, but it was easier for Adam to think about details than look into the black void at the heart of Talbot’s story. ‘You said Gerard promised you enough money to retire from the sea. Yet now you are here in Calcutta again.’

  Talbot shifted uncomfortably in his bonds. ‘Our hold was filled with luxury cottons and bright calicoes. With the peace, there had been a great demand for it. But by the time we reached London, the war had started again and the fashions had changed. People wanted clothes that were austere and drab. We barely turned sixpence profit on the venture.’ He sighed. ‘So you see it was all for nothing. We have both lost what we desired.’

  Adam took the dagger from his belt – the weapon he had dug from the ground at Fort Auspice. The tiger’s ruby eyes glowed.

  ‘I showed you this once before.’

  ‘It was Hugo’s dagger,’ Talbot confirmed. ‘A gift from some local prince where Hugo was stationed. He presented it to George Courtney. I think it amused him, giving a weapon to the man he intended to kill.’

  Adam held it up. The curved blade made a sickle moon in the lamplight.

  ‘Where is Hugo now?’

  ‘I do not know. Not in Calcutta. Most likely he has gone to one of the Company’s domains upcountry.’

  Adam put the blade against the rope that tied Talbot’s wrist. Talbot relaxed – but Adam hesitated. He turned the story over in his mind. Was there anything else Talbot could tell him, any question Adam had forgotten to ask?

  No. He had learned what he needed. Finding Hugo was what mattered now.

  He reached to cut Talbot down. But his arm rebelled: he could not do it. Talbot had not wielded the weapon that killed the Courtneys, but he had enabled the crime. He had found Nativity Bay, sold the location to Hugo and carried him across the Indian Ocean to deliver his vengeance. He had sat at dinner with the Courtneys, eating their food even as he knew what would happen to them, and given no warning.

  We have both lost what we desired.

  That Talbot could compare lost profits to a murdered family was monstrous. He had neither guilt nor shame.

  Adam lowered the knife. With a vicious jab, he plunged the blade into Talbot’s belly. The sharp blade slid into the flesh like a sword into its scabbard.

  Talbot’s eyes widened. He screamed and jerked, writhing in his bonds, but the dagger was in tight and he could not dislodge it. Blood dribbled from his stomach, but slowly. The dagger acted as a plug on the wound it had made.

  ‘Do not struggle so much,’ Adam told him. ‘The dagger is all that is keeping you alive. If it comes out, you will bleed to death.’

  Talbot’s wriggling reduced to a few spasmodic shudders.

  ‘As it is, it will take hours for you to die. Someone will find you before that happens. They will see your wound, but they will also see a gold-hilted dagger set with rubies that is worth more than they earn in a lifetime. If they are merciful, they will call a doctor before they remove it and you will probably survive. If they are greedy, they will take the dagger and leave you to your fate.’

  Talbot’s cries rose again. Adam put his hand on the hilt of the knife and leaned his weight on it, levering open the wound. The flow of blood increased. Talbot’s screeches turned to screams.

  ‘Greed or mercy – the same choice that you had. Be thankful I am leaving your fate to luck.’

  Deaf to his screams, Adam turned and walked out of the room.

  Harbajan was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. The fat doorman lay at his feet, badly bruised and tied up.

  ‘Did he give you any trouble?’ Adam asked.

  Harbajan grinned. His lip was split, and he was missing a tooth.

  ‘No trouble.’

  They left the brothel and walked out in the warm Calcutta air. Talbot’s agonised cries followed them down the alley, fading into the busy night until Adam no longer heard them.

  *

  Cornish was waiting for them when they returned, pacing anxiously in his drawing room. He listened to Adam’s story in silence. When he heard Hugo’s name, he went pale.

  ‘I must warn you, Hugo Courtney is the most dangerous adversary you have faced. His father, Gerard, survived the Black Hole. You know the story?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Imagine what sort of man it takes to survive that. He went on to conquer half of India.’

  ‘I saw the statue.’

  ‘When he died, he was the richest man in Calcutta. That branch of your family has controlled the East India Company for generations, each one more ruthless and avaricious than the last. To go against them is to fight the whole power of India.’

  ‘Do I look afraid?’

  ‘I wish you would. You do not understand the danger you are getting yourself into.’

  ‘It would not help if I did. I have no choice. Where can I find Hugo Courtney?’

  Cornish went to his hookah pipe and fiddled with the coal until it bloomed red. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the bubble of the smoke as it passed through the water.

  ‘You know I must do this,’ Adam said softly. ‘For my family. For my father.’

  Cornish blew out a long stream of smoke. He sighed.

  ‘After you appeared this morning, I made some enquiries about your relatives. I had a suspicion they would have some part to play in your story. Hugo Courtney has been sent as ambassador to Holkar.’

  The name meant nothing to Adam.

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘It is an independent kingdom, far in the interior.’

  ‘Why would Hugo go there?’

  ‘Because the Maharani of Holkar sits on the richest diamond mines in the world. Those diamonds you see in your Bond Street jewellers in London – every one of them has been dug out of her lands. The Company has eyed that kingdom for a long time. Hugo is there to secure the trade once and for all.’

  It fitted perfectly with what Adam knew of Hugo’s character.

  ‘To conquer it?’

  ‘They call it a trade mission. They say they have only gone to negotiate.’

  ‘But he will have Company troops with him, I suppose?’

  ‘Probably an army. The Company likes to negotiate from a position of strength.’

  ‘And the full power of the Company at his command?’

  ‘Indeed. They will not let this fail.’

  ‘How long will it take me to get there?’

  ‘Three months.’ Cornish saw the expression on Adam’s face and burst out laughing. ‘You do not understand this country. It is bigger than you can imagine.’

  ‘Then I must go at once.’

  Cornish’s face turned sombre. ‘I cannot go with you. I could spare Harbajan, perhaps, but he has seventeen children here in Calcutta and—’

  ‘I was not asking you to come, or any of your household. I will go alone.’

  ‘Against an army?’

  Adam thought of how he had plunged the knife into Talbot’s stomach. ‘I do not need to beat his army. All I have to do is get within striking distance of him.’

  *

  Adam left Cornish the next morning. Low mist hung over the Hooghly river and shrouded the city; the roar of Calcutta’s trade was muted like a distant waterfall. The great Indiamen lay still at anchor on the glassy river. If word had got out that one of their captains had been found dangling naked in a Black Town brothel, stabbed through the guts, there was no sign of it.

  Adam was dressed as he had been when he first came ashore, in a loincloth and turban, with a blanket thrown over his shoulders against the cool morning. He looked like a ryot, a Hindu labourer. Cornish had made it clear that an Englishman travelling alone would be as inconspicuous as an elephant riding down Pall Mall.

  ‘Every trading factory you passed, every town you called in, your visit would be known before you even arrived. Every Company official would know your business. Hugo would get news of you, and the Company would make sure you did not get within five hundred miles of him.’

  ‘Then why not go as a merchant?’ Adam had asked Cornish. ‘It served me well enough last night.’

  ‘And this morning all the Company informers in Calcutta will be looking for that man. Also, a merchant attracts more attention. There are many thieves on the roads. A simple labourer will draw less attention.’

  Adam could see the logic. Cornish gave him a quick lesson in the basics of Hindu manners.

  ‘Eat with your right hand only, never eat beef, and do not presume to touch any other human being.’

  ‘I was not planning on romantic entanglements,’ Adam protested.

  ‘That is not what I meant. The Hindus divide themselves into a labyrinth of castes, and woe betide the man who touches a fellow of greater or lesser rank. Either you defile him, or you defile yourself, and either way it will be remarked upon.

  ‘Lastly, if anyone speaks to you, pretend you are deaf. For the rest, pray no one looks too closely.’

  ‘And if they suspect?’

  ‘Of course they will suspect something!’ Cornish roared. ‘They are not fools. What matters is that the Company do not guess – and if they see brown skin and a turban, they will not look any closer. They rule this country, but they do not care two figs for its people. All they see is profit to be extorted.’ He slapped Adam on the rump. ‘Happily, they will see little of that to be had from you.’

  The full unlikelihood of what he was attempting dawned on Adam. To travel a thousand miles alone, in an unknown country, while trying to pass as a native, was bordering on impossible. Yet he had to try.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said to Cornish. ‘I could not have done this without you.’

  ‘You have done nothing yet,’ Cornish reminded him. ‘Most likely all you will do is get yourself killed.’ His face softened. ‘But I wish you a safe journey, and Hugo Courtney dead at the end of it.’

  *

  Adam stepped into an ungainly boat at the foot of a ghat, the stepped wharves that lined the riverbanks below the warehouses. The boat was a local craft called a budgerow, a flat-bottomed vessel with long cabins at her stern, and an open deck for’ard where the rowers sat. She was attended by three other similar boats: one for baggage, one for horses, and one that served as a kitchen.