There weren’t enough cabins for the entire crew, so Tom put me in a cramped storage room next to The Implantation/Extraction Room, TIER for short. In TIER, experts inserted perfectly round plastic balls into each new batch of oysters. The balls served as cores for cultured South Sea pearls. The oysters were then taken to the undersea farms, placed in netted baskets attached to lines, and dropped into the aquamarine waters. The oyster excretes a flow of pearly nacre to cover the plastic seed irritating its body. And the result? The largest and most exquisite pearls cocreated by man and nature. BSSP’s claim, anyway.
The plan was for the crew to work at the camp — scrubbing algae off harvested shells, repairing equipment — for a day or two while waiting for the storm to pass. I kept to my room, sleeping on and off the whole day, listening to the wind and rain, going stir-crazy.
Overrested, I was still wide awake after midnight when I heard muffled voices filtering through the wall my room shared with TIER. Was it normal to work around the clock when a new batch of oysters was brought in? I wasn’t sure.
As quietly as I could, I slid headfirst onto the floor and belly-crawled closer. I felt silly, pressing my ear against the wall, but I was determined to find out more about BSSP’s operations. The water-tank filters next door gurgled loudly and distorted the voices. I readjusted my head as much as I dared and listened.
“I’m out,” a male voice said.
Another male voice answered, but his words were muffled. The aquarium tanks splashed and babbled, and I guessed he was standing farther away from the wall between us.
“That bloody pearl was worth a million. Now we’ve lost it. The coppers have it,” the first man continued. “Then you couldn’t even make sure her body didn’t wash up on shore. ‘Take out what you take in,’ you insisted. Bloody hell, now there’s a murder investigation. And the sister? You promised she wouldn’t make it up from that dive alive. I told you, I’m out of it.”
Again I couldn’t make out the reply. I heard the door open, then slam shut. I returned to the makeshift cot. I always told myself I could handle anything. Now I wasn’t so sure. The rupture of my air hose had been no accident. The break-in at my bungalow, I realized, wasn’t just some random act. My heart took off running, and the room started to pitch.
I’d recognized the one voice I heard. It belonged to Crowe, a marine biologist responsible for overseeing TIER. Originally from Sydney, he’d transplanted himself to Broome thirty years ago. A pioneer in the cultured pearl industry. And now, at the very least, an accessory to murder.
I pulled the covers over my head and wanted to hide like I did the night I came home after getting a hundred stitches. Back then, I understood that Shinju had slashed my face to destroy my looks. I’d shivered under the sheets and wondered how my life would change. But this was different. This time I’d be dead if Crowe and his accomplice had their way.
The cheap mattress drilled a wayward spring into my kidney, but I was afraid to move, to make a sound. Too weak to stomp down the memories, my mind raced back to the day Shinju cut me.
On that Saturday morning, Tom and I planned to trek out to the flying boat wrecks in Roebuck Bay. We’d figured out we fancied one another, as much as fifteen-year-olds can know such things, and planned to spend the day sloshing the two kilometers to the wrecks and back. Two or three days a month low tide exposes the remains of three WWII Royal Dutch Air Force flying boats buried in the mud. Not very romantic, but I think we both realized it would give us a reason to hold on to each other as we hiked through the mudflats, and we were both keen on that idea.
But as Tom was backing out his dad’s truck from the driveway, Shinju popped open the passenger door and squeezed in next to me. I remember the expression on Tom’s face. Surprise at first, then obvious irritation. I gave Shinju a fierce look that spelled “Push off!” She ignored it, reached across me, and fiddled with the radio, chattering about the wrecks. Did we know that in 1942 Japanese Zeros raided Broome and destroyed fifteen flying boats in Roebuck Bay?
“Everyone knows that, Shinju.” Tom yanked the shifter into reverse and squealed out of the driveway.
How many times since the Lafroys moved in across the street had Shinju and I talked late into the night, wondering what it would be like to kiss Tom? But after two years of playful flirting, Shinju didn’t win him. I did. Tom and I had more in common, I suppose. We both loved to dive, trek the nature reserves, walk along Eighty Mile Beach. Shinju and I didn’t realize it then, but the day he chose me, Tom Lafroy made the first slice into the one heart my sister and I seemed to share.
Determined to salvage our outing to the wrecks, we ignored Shinju. As we stumbled through the mangrove swamps, Tom held my hand. To keep me from injuring my feet on buried mussels, he lifted me over suspicious pitted mudflats. He wrapped his arms around my waist whenever possible, even though doing so sometimes made it even more difficult to walk. He slipped his fingers through the bikini ties at my hips, and I clung to him whether I needed to or not.
At the wreckage site, an aircraft engine covered with soft coral had settled into the flats. A lonesome jetty post left for posterity angled up from the exposed sea floor. Locals milled about, along with tourists who’d arrived in hovercrafts.
During the war, Dutch refugees from Java, mainly women and children, were evacuated to Broome. Since no accommodations were available in town, flying-boat pilots were instructed to keep their passengers onboard. Aircraft were to be refueled, then continue on their way. But at 8 A.M. on March third, Japanese pilots strafed the moored planes, believing them to be war targets, unaware that innocent civilians were onboard.
The morning Tom, Shinju, and I were there, an elderly Dutch tourist started to retell the story of the strike. Tom and I weren’t interested. We’d heard it enough times in school. We moved on and investigated a different plane some distance away. Shinju, I found out later, gave the man her full attention.
“The Nips are a cruel race,” he told her. “My grandfather was a pilot for the Dutch Royal Air Force. He was burned alive here in Roebuck Bay when his fuel tank caught fire. His charred body was one of the few recovered.” He pointed a finger at Shinju. “You people deserved Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Although I was nowhere near my sister, I sensed something was wrong. I ran back and found her collapsed in the mud, surrounded by tourists. Tom was right behind me. He picked her up. Her eyes fluttered once and then she nuzzled her head into his neck. A woman told us what had happened, apologizing for the man, who’d returned to the hovercraft.
How Tom carried her the entire way back, I have no idea. By the time we reached the shore, she was able to walk. In the truck cab, she lay down with her head on Tom’s lap, her body between us and her sandy feet on my sunburned thighs. Once or twice on the way home I thought I saw her hand snake up Tom’s leg, but I couldn’t be sure.
Tom carried her to the bedroom Shinju and I shared, laid her on her bed, then backed out without a word. Mum and Pop weren’t home, so I stayed with her. She explained what had happened at the wreck site. A slight smile crept across her face when she apologized for ruining my date with Tom. Then she fell asleep. But I wasn’t so sure she was sorry.
I showered, towel-dried my hair, and pulled on a thin camisole top and shorts. A hint of lipstick and I was out the door and on Tom’s doorstep. I didn’t know what Shinju was up to, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose him.
Captain Lafroy was sitting on the sofa, reading the newspaper. He asked if Shinju was feeling any better. I assured him she was. Tom was in his room, he added, indicating the direction with a tilt of his head.