The Samurai Inheritance

XXIX

The mind took time to come to terms with the fact that they had once been living breathing human beings. A photograph of the Bougainville head did nothing to convey the obscene reality of the blind, half-shut eyes, leathery brown skin and protruding, oversized fleshy lips and noses. If Jamie hadn’t known what they were he might have convinced himself he was looking at the last remnant of some long-lost bastard union of men and monkey. Their hair was lush and thick, as if they’d died only yesterday, and ranged in colour from black to brown to a startling straw-blond.

He turned to Magda to see if she’d identified the Bougainville head among the twisted anonymous faces. Her eyes were fixed on a single part of the wall, but the expression on her face surprised him. Magda Ross was a scientist, an experienced anthropologist endowed with all the best traits of her kind: objectivity, professionalism and an ability to see the evidence for what it was, unclouded by her personal feelings. In their short acquaintance he’d come to admire not only her style, which was confident and self-assured without a hint of arrogance, but also the fearless objectivity with which she faced potential hazards. The sight of the heads was undoubtedly a shock, but what would make a woman who’d probably handled hundreds like them react this way? Suppressed fury touched every part of that beautiful face, and though she was trying to hide it there was murder in her eyes. Jamie only hoped Madam Nishimura didn’t notice it, or the high colour that rouged her cheekbones.

‘Are you all right?’

The dark head nodded briefly, as if she couldn’t allow herself to speak.

To his relief Nishimura acted as if Magda wasn’t even in the room. ‘So you see, Mr Saintclair, your shrunken head, even if it is among the exhibits you see here, is not just something to be bought and sold on a whim. It is part of a carefully assembled collection that took many years to bring together.’

‘How …?’

‘In his youth my grandfather spent some time in the South Seas. He became fascinated by the native practice of removing an enemy’s head and creating an ornament of it. He studied their methods of war and the different ways they achieved this end. The Maoris of New Zealand retained the skulls of their dead enemy chiefs and preserved them by removing the brain, eating the eyes then boiling the skull slowly so the skin tightened around it.’ Jamie felt his stomach lurch at the thought of that awful feast; soft white globes and God knows what else disappearing down someone’s throat. Nishimura noted his distaste with a cold smile. ‘He found these grinning headpieces to be unsubtle. In his view, the true genius of the art was to be found further north in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. Here they removed the skulls and used the skin to create the essence of its former wearer. It was a remarkably delicate procedure that required great skill. The heads needed to be repeatedly heated and cooled with stones and sand to achieve the proper lasting effect you see here. When he travelled to Berlin in nineteen thirty-six the last thing he thought to discover there was a shrunken head of the utmost perfection. His hosts recognized his admiration for the relic and immediately offered it as a gift. He believed it was his destiny and, as you see, it created a lifelong interest, which resulted in this collection.’

Jamie had to half-admire as proud a tale of ancestral acquisitiveness as he’d been privileged to hear. He could just imagine one of the red-faced old colonial scions of the Hertfordshire manor houses he occasionally visited recounting something similar. And this is the fuzzy-wuzzy my great, great grandpater bagged at Omdurman. Put up a splendid fight. Been in the family since eighteen ninety-eight, you know. ‘My client is prepared to offer half a million dollars.’

‘Really, Mr Saintclair, do I look as if half a million dollars will make a difference to my life?’

‘A million.’

Nishimura laughed. ‘Is he really such a philanthropist that he would pay so much to repatriate a piece of dried-out flesh to a group of savages? I think not. Perhaps if I knew the identity of your client we could come to some sort of arrangement?’

Jamie understood she was playing with him the way her cat would play with a mouse. For now the claws were sheathed; for now … Nishimura would never willingly part with the Bougainville head, but if she had Keith Devlin’s name she would find a way to extract money or favours from him. The time might come when Jamie could use that as a bargaining chip one way or the other, but it wasn’t now.

‘I’d have to consult with my client on that,’ he said firmly.

‘Please.’ She rose from her seat without warning and the cat leaped acrobatically from her lap to land on all four feet. ‘I will happily leave you in private for a few moments while you discuss it with him.’

Jamie hesitated. The opportunity had appeal, because it would allow them to inspect the heads and certain other things about the room that interested him, but did the risk outweigh any potential gain? He turned to Magda. Her face was still set in that angry mask, but she nodded. ‘It can’t do any harm.’

Jamie turned back to the Japanese. ‘As long as I have your assurance that my conversations will not be monitored in any way?’

‘Come, Mr Saintclair, what benefit would it provide for me to bug my own office?’

‘In that case, thank you.’

Nishimura touched a hidden button on the desk that opened a second door in the wall to her left. ‘I will give you ten minutes.’

When she was gone Magda rose to her feet and walked to the wall, staring at one particular niche.

‘Which one is the Bougainville head?’

‘Shouldn’t you be phoning Mr Devlin?’

‘There’ll be plenty of time for that later.’

The compartments were ranged in two lines one above the other, at around head height. Three feet separated the individual alcoves, each of which was lit by a single recessed bulb that showed the doleful features of its unfortunate occupant to best effect.

‘This is it.’ She pointed to the upper niche in the centre of the line. He went to stand beside her and looked into the leathery features. The first thing he noticed was that the skin was much darker than the other examples and the hair was a ball of tight curls of pure black. Long, almost feminine lashes curled up from the empty eyes and the face had a soulful, resigned expression.

‘I don’t think he likes me. You’re sure it’s authentic?’

‘You can never be sure without a DNA test,’ she said tersely. ‘But this is the only Melanesian head in the collection. If the Dragon Lady’s grandfather brought a shrunken head back from Berlin this is the only one it could be. Now, are you going to phone Devlin?’

‘No, you are, but first you’re going to find me a safety pin from that bag of yours.’

She looked mystified, but did as she was ordered, rummaging in the leather bag until she found something that suited. ‘Will this do?’ She held up a small paper clip.

‘Let’s hope so.’ Jamie took it from her and walked to the window. ‘Go to the door and pretend to call Devlin. We’ve traced the head, made the offer, but our principle won’t proceed without knowing who the buyer is. Devlin’s wary, he wants to talk about it in detail. Got that?’

‘Sure.’ She frowned. ‘But what will you be doing?’

‘Me?’ Jamie grinned, crouching by the narrow gap in the sliding window. ‘I’ll be keeping our options open.’

He’d just completed what he’d planned when the door reopened and Madam Nishimura entered the room four minutes ahead of schedule, with the thin guard at her back.

‘Well?’ she demanded.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jamie said evenly, ‘but my client needs more time to think about your request. He’s not certain it’s in his best interests to be identified at this time.’

Her expression hardened. ‘When you talk to him again you will tell him it is a demand, not a request; a prerequisite for any further negotiation. And I will wish to know the true reason for his interest in the head. I am trusting by nature,’ Jamie smiled at the blatant lie, ‘but I do not believe in fairy stories. It may be that once I am aware of all the facts we can come to some sort of agreement. Perhaps not a sale, but an agreement that would suit both parties nonetheless. You will tell your client this?’

‘Of course.’ Jamie bowed his head. ‘I will also assure him of your good faith and let him know of the warm welcome we received.’

Madam Nishimura snorted. ‘Be careful, Mr Saintclair. One day that sense of humour will get you into serious trouble.’ She walked back to the desk and pressed a hidden button that opened the door behind them. She waved a hand towards the entrance in a way that made the invitation to leave more of an order. ‘I sense your client’s interest in my collection goes beyond philanthropy. We will meet again, Mr Saintclair.’

‘What did you think?’ he asked Magda as the buggy carried them silently back through the woods.

She glanced over her shoulder to where the grey concrete block was disappearing among the trees. ‘I think the Dragon Lady is the most loathsome woman I’ve ever met.’

‘I noticed you wanted to claw her eyes out, but I doubt that would have helped the negotiations. I meant about our situation.’

‘It was always a long shot. Now I think it’s insane. Whatever the Dragon Lady says and whatever your Mr Devlin decides, you cannot negotiate with these people. They’re gangsters, Jamie, and when things don’t go their way they’ll clean up the mess the way they always do. Jamie Saintclair will end up in the foundations of Madam Nishimura’s next bijou residence or going for a swim in Tokyo Bay with a concrete block tied to his leg. If you’ve got any sense you’ll call Keith Devlin, tell him where the Bougainville head is and get on the next plane home.’

Jamie nodded slowly, accepting the logic of the argument if not the suggestion itself. ‘Did you think there was anything strange about the heads?’

‘You’ve been doing this too long, Jamie.’ She stared at him in disbelief. ‘What isn’t strange about a shrunken head?’

‘It’s just that I got the feeling that the Bougainville head was the odd one out,’ he tried to put his suspicions into words, ‘at least apart from the blond one. I suppose that could be explained by a liaison between some traveller and a native girl way back when. The others were all similar to each other, but not to it, if you see what I mean. They had different complexions, their hair was different, and, unless I miss my guess, they’d been preserved by a different, and not quite so skilled, technique.’

Magda stared stolidly ahead. ‘There’s no single standard for shrunken heads.’ He was a little hurt that her tone seemed to infer that only an idiot could think there would be. ‘They don’t come off a conveyor belt. Generally, across cultures, the head will have been preserved by the warrior who won it; or should I say the warrior who killed its owner and cut it off. How it comes out would depend on the individual’s skill and the materials he had to work with. The Bougainville head is Melanesian, but there are different decorative styles and fashions across the region. They differ from those of Micronesia and Polynesia, where the practice was implemented to a lesser extent. It also differs greatly from the tsantsas of the Shuar, Achuar, Huambisa and Aguaruna, Jivaroan peoples of Ecuador and Peru, which are much more easily obtained and probably make up the bulk of the collection.’

Jamie had smothered enough awkward clients in an avalanche of detail to know that his companion was using her argument to distract him from pursuing his hypotheses, which he found interesting. But not quite as interesting as the fact she’d never once questioned his nefarious use of a paper clip back at the Dragon Lady’s concrete mansion. Or that when she’d urged him to get the first flight home she hadn’t mentioned taking one herself.

That was something that would bear thinking about.