‘Come, Mister Barry. Come. Ha-loy!’

He smiled. ‘Yes, Chi-mei, I’m coming. It’s time now.’

The water was so warm that it was as if they were still on the boat, lying in each other’s arms.

*

The dangling rope ladder caught Paulette’s attention early in the morning, soon after she had made her daily climb up the slopes of the island, to the plot of land Fitcher had rented for his plants.

The spot was high enough to provide her with a fine view of the strait and every morning, at the end of her climb, she would spend a few minutes in the shade of a tree, counting the ships in the bay and catching her breath.

Over the preceding weeks the channel between Hong Kong and Kowloon had become busier than ever before. Many British-owned ships had left Macau and moved there; most of Macau’s British residents had left too and were now living on the anchored ships. As a result, a floating settlement had come into being in the shadows of Hong Kong’s peaks and ridges; although its core was formed by the fleet of foreign ships, many boat-people had also gathered there, offering every kind of service, from laundry to provisioning; dozens of small boats were constantly on the prowl, hawking fruits, vegetables, meat, live chickens and much else.

In that motley assemblage of vessels the Anahita had stood out from the first by reason of her elegant lines and rakish masts. Paulette and Fitcher had passed the ship many times on their way to the eastern end of the island, where they often went to forage for plants. Often the Anahita’s lascar lookouts would wave to them as they went by.

Today it so happened that the Anahita’s stern was turned in Paulette’s direction. This was why the ladder caught her eye: it made for an odd sight – a ladder hanging from a window in an anchored ship, with nothing below it but water. She wondered about it for a bit, then shrugged it off and busied herself with the plants.

The weather was hot and clammy and after an hour she had to take another break. Turning towards the Anahita, she saw that an uproar had broken out on the elegant three-master: the dangling ladder had been discovered and pulled in. The crew were swarming over the main deck, hoisting signals and shouting across the water, holding bungals to their mouths.

Around mid-morning, when it came time for Paulette to go down to meet the Redruth’s gig, she noticed that a yawl had been lowered from the Anahita and was now making its way towards Hong Kong. There were a dozen turbaned men inside, most of them lascars. They were pulling hard on the oars.

The trail that led down to the beach cut sharply back and forth across the hillside. Following it down, Paulette lost sight of the yawl for several minutes. When she glimpsed it again, it had already touched land: its passengers had leapt off and were running across the beach. They had evidently spotted something and were racing to get to it: what it was she could not tell for it was hidden by an overhang.