Free The Ends of the Earth by Robert Goddard

dead.’
    ‘Killed by Lewis Everett. I’d be happy to sign a statement saying that.’
    ‘Again I believe you, Mr Twentyman.’ Yamanaka looked pityingly at Sam. ‘But no one else will. I am deeply sorry. What you came to Japan to do you will not be able to do. Count Tomura is too strong for you. He is too strong for all of us. That is the truth. And you must accept it.’

MORAHAN, WARD AND Djabsu had eaten and drunk nothing for more than twelve hours when they were taken from the cage, chained hand and foot, and led to separate rooms along a corridor off the chamber they had been held in overnight.
    Morahan did not delude himself about what lay ahead. Mikanagi required confessions and would relish doing whatever was needed to extract them. But confessions to complicity in a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister guaranteed they would be executed. Morahan had emphasized the point to Ward and Djabsu during the long, hot, thirsty night.
    ‘Whatever they do to you, don’t give them what they want,’ had been his parting remark when the guards came to fetch them.
    As he was well aware, however, that was much easier said than carried through. The windowless cell he was marched into contained a low table long and wide enough to accommodate a spreadeagled man and furnished with sinister gutters and drainage holes that fed into a runnel in the floor. There were hooks in the ceiling at several points and the peeling walls were stained with blood and excrement. A foul smell lingered in the stale air, along with the silent echo of screams uttered by other men who had been led into this room.
    The guards fastened his wrist-chain to one of the hooks in the ceiling, then tore off the thin cotton yukata he had been given to wear, leaving him naked. His arms were stretched so far above his head that he was standing on his toes to spare his wrists. But this, he knew, was a minor discomfort compared with what was to come.
    Mikanagi entered with the air of a man looking forward to his day’s work. He had removed his tunic but was still wearing his cap. He was carrying a long bamboo cane. And his hands were gloved. That last detail struck Morahan as particularly ominous.
    ‘How did you sleep, Morahan?’ he asked, with no hint of irony.
    ‘Like a babe.’
    ‘Have you decided to confess?’
    ‘I was raised a Protestant. It’s a Catholic you’d want for confession.’
    ‘You think being funny is the same as being brave?’
    ‘Maybe it’s possible to be both.’
    ‘Not for long. And we have as long as we need.’ Mikanagi flexed the cane and prodded him in the stomach with it. ‘You are old, Morahan. You are not as strong as you were.’ He moved the cane lower and pushed it against Morahan’s genitals. ‘You are not even as strong as you think you are.’
    ‘We’ll see.’
    ‘Yes. We will. And the other two – Ward and Djabsu – will hear.’ Morahan did not doubt that. Sound would carry well in the bare stone corridor and they were only a few cells away. ‘They will hear you beg me to let you sign a confession.’
    ‘You think they’ll hear that?’
    ‘I know they will. Now, are you willing to confess?’
    ‘Guess.’
    The morning passed in an agony of inactivity for Malory. She could not leave the tatami-matted rear room of the Shimizus’ tenement and she had to make as little noise as possible for fear of attracting a neighbour’s attention. Mrs Shimizu played her part doggedly, but made it clear by her scowling expression that she considered her daughter’s behaviour madly imprudent. And Malory strongly suspected she still hated her for breaking her son’s heart – or for engaging his affections in the first place.
    The scowl lifted only once, when she noticed Malory’s embarrassment at being supplied with a chamber-pot to spare her risking a visit to the communal latrine behind the building. Their proximity and their complicity were otherwise unbearable for both.
    But borne they had to be.
    On Yamanaka’s