special,’ she said. ‘We’re just one species among tens of millions.’
‘A species that happens to make up my whole audience.’
‘Science shouldn’t be about ratings,’ said Ahdaf. ‘If I were doing the programme, man would be treated just like any other animal.’
I’ll bet they would, thought Rebecca. But she said nothing; she couldn’t risk Mustafa’s goodwill. She reached into her bag for her mobile. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she asked, gesturing at the masts. ‘Only I’ve been out of signal range for two days now.’ She didn’t wait for an answer, just wandered a little distance off, listened to her messages. She had three from Titch alone, telling her that everyone at work was thinking of her and praying that things were going as well as could be hoped, asking her to call if there was anything he could do. She’d hardly thought of him or the office since leaving London, but his messages did wonders for her spirits, and she found herself dialling his mobile. He picked up almost at once, and his obvious gladness to hear her voice lifted her spirits immensely. She began to talk and then it all came pouring out in an incoherent jumble: her visit to her mother’s tomb, her ordeal on the reef and how Daniel had saved her, even the ransom demand. She was still babbling away when a man cleared his throat behind her and she whipped around to see Mustafa standing there with an embarrassed expression. ‘Got to go,’ she told Titch. ‘I’ll call soon.’
‘Forgive me,’ said Mustafa, holding a hand up in apology. ‘I didn’t mean to overhear.’
‘But you did?’
‘You cannot know how glad this news makes me. If it’s true.’
Rebecca shook her head. ‘They sent me a photograph. Photographs are easy enough to fake.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘But you intend to prepare as if it is for real?’
‘I have to.’
‘And you’re here for my help?’
Rebecca said defensively: ‘You said if you could do anything… And it’s not as if I can’t raise the money myself. Just not by nine a.m. on Monday.’
Mustafa frowned. ‘This Monday? But that’s crazy!’
‘Exactly. They’re not giving me a chance.’
‘Where?’
‘Independence Square, Tulear.’
‘How much?’
‘Five hundred million ariary.’
He grimaced, but in a way that suggested it could have been worse. ‘Who knows about this?’
‘Only my business partner. That was him just now. I had to tell someone.’
‘Of course. But not the police?’
‘No.’
Mustafa nodded seriously. ‘You must please keep it that way. Understand, what our police know, everyone knows. You can see for yourself that I already take absurd precautions to keep my family safe. If people think that I pay ransoms-’
‘I won’t tell anyone, I swear. But is it possible? To raise the money? I’ll pay you interest.’
‘Interest!’ sighed Mustafa. ‘How can you talk about interest? Your father is my friend; my interest is getting him and your sister safely home. Listen: I do not keep such sums sitting in my safe. I will have to borrow it myself. The people from whom I borrow will doubtless charge me interest and impose various conditions. What they ask of me, I will ask of you. But no more.’
Rebecca’s eyes watered. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘It will not be easy,’ cautioned Mustafa. ‘Even for me, this is a large sum to raise so quickly. But one way or another we will do this. You have my word.’ He smiled, gestured flamboyantly. ‘Ask anyone: when Mustafa Habib gives his word, he keeps it. But you must promise me one thing in return…’
‘Yes?’
‘You are hurt, you are exhausted. You must be fresh for this battle. So you will go home and rest and get your strength up. And on Monday morning you will be back here at eight o’clock, and I will have your money for you. You have my word on this. And, God willing, together we will bring back Adam and Emilia.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
I
Knox woke in the early hours to engine noise and headlights sweeping up towards the lodge. He pulled on trousers and a shirt, hurried outside as Rebecca climbed in obvious distress from the driver’s door. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, going to help her.
‘I’m fine,’ she told him. But her grimaces belied her words.
He put his arm around her waist, took as much of her weight as he could. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked. ‘Have you had news about Adam and Emilia?’
She looked sharply at him. ‘What makes you ask that?’
‘You left so suddenly.’
‘It was nothing to do with them. It was something else.’
It was pretty obvious she wasn’t levelling with him, but he let it go. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’
‘I could do with some aspirin.’
He helped her to her camp-bed, fetched some painkillers and a glass of water. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what happened earlier. If you don’t want to tell me, fine, I trust your judgement. But I can still be useful. Just tell me what needs doing, and I’ll do it, okay? No questions asked.’
Her eyes moistened, he thought she was about to crumble. But then she caught herself and her expression hardened, as though he’d been trying to trick her. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.
‘Fine,’ he sighed. ‘Sleep well.’ He returned to his bed, lay there listening to her bitten-off cries as she readied herself for bed. It distressed him to hear her pain, to not be allowed to help. He struggled for sleep, turning this way and that on the thin mattress without ever quite finding repose. It grew less dark outside. He tiptoed quietly through the gloom to the washroom, dressed and went out. The sun wasn’t yet up, leaving the morning grey and cool. Down on the beach, he kicked off his shoes. The thin, cold crust of sand crunched satisfyingly beneath his tread, like the dried bark of a rotted tree. He bowed his head as he walked, searching the beach for fragments of pottery.
He stopped, crouched, picked up a white shard; but it was only a piece of eggshell. From the size of it, it had to have belonged to an aepyornis, a one-time Madagascar endemic, and the largest bird ever to have lived, taking advantage of the island’s lack of large predators to become the bully on the block. But then the first settlers had arrived and they’d eventually hunted them to extinction-for their meat, of course, but also for their eggs. The damned things had been the size of rugby balls, so that an aepyornis omelette would feed a family for a week. The birds had become well known in the ancient world. Marco Polo had immortalised them as the rukh or roc, capable of carrying off elephants in their claws and then dropping them like bombs from a great height; though actually the aepyornis had been as flightless as ostriches.
There’d always been a bit of a question mark as to how Marco Polo knew about the birds. He’d never visited the island himself. In fact, he’d actually confused it with Mogadishu, a corruption of which had given Madagascar its name. Most likely he’d heard of them from Arab merchants, who’d certainly been familiar with the place. They’d called it the Island of the Moon, and they’d believed it to be a point of no return for the southern ocean; that he who sailed beyond it was lost. Yet people undoubtedly had sailed beyond it. A Chinese map completed in around 1390 in honour of the first Ming emperor showed the world in traditional fashion, with a swollen China at its heart, shrunken apologies for Africa and Mediterranean Europe to the west. But what was most remarkable about the map was that it got the shape of Africa broadly right, including its southern and western coasts, even though the Chinese had never explored it themselves.
Whatever their sources had been, Zheng He and his admirals would have known it to be perfectly possible to
