Bible of the Dead (30 page)

‘And what happened to you
then?
Why are you here? Why were you in Abkhazia? Why have you been travelling around the world, trying to work out the past?’

Barnier exhaled smoke:

‘Because I have my own
searing
guilt, at being involved in any of this. I remember ’79, when the Khmer Rouge fell, I remember watching my TV in Lyon and seeing it: all my worst suspicions were confirmed, the whole damn country had been self-harming, two million dead. A quarter of the nation. The nation that cut off its own legs, gouged out its own eyes, and that’s when I renounced it, that’s when I was born again – a capitalist. A simple capitalist and proud of it.’ He was glaring at Jake defiantly. ‘I moved to Hong Kong, then LA, and then Singapore and I used my guilty brain and became a day trader, a moneybroker, I wanted to be as uncommunist as possible, and it did the trick. I made my money and I fucked myself a lot of poontang and, you know what, if I have to die now then hell with it kill me, kill me, for yes I have sinned. But at least I’m not a cunting com munist, not any more.’

Barnier drank the residue of his whisky in one gulp. ‘And in the last couple of years I have used my money, to try and find out what really happened in China, and Cambodia. I went to Angkor, ’cause I knew the KR were interested in Angkor, I went to Sukhumi. But none of it really made sense, until now. Until Julia told me this theory, and you told me your story. I suppose I should be very thankful to you. Explaining just how evil my life has been.’ He laughed. Bitterly.

A tuk-tuk driver swerved past, swigging from a Leo beercan. Jake looked at his phone. Hoping against hope, hoping with no hope. But Chemda was not going to call. She was gone. Maybe for good.

The phone was silent.

Jake leaned and poured himself a glass of the Mekong whisky. It was harsh and sour and necessary, he drank it fast, poured himself another. The mosquitoes were biting, the women in burqas waddled past the whores in their hotpants.

Julia was talking.

‘I have one final query, Marcel.’

‘Yeah?’

‘You said to that guy in the lab, in Abkhazia: the Chinese took it further.’

The Frenchman was gazing nervously down the crowded street: in a reverie of half-hidden fear. He alerted himself, and turned.

‘Aii. Yes. Yes. That’s right. I did.’

The Canadian woman leaned forward, earnest, serious. ‘How do you know this? How do you know they carried on?’

Barnier had maybe his sixtieth cigarette of the evening poised, unlit, between his fingers. He cracked open a Zippo lighter and flamed his cigarette. Then he plumed a blue maribou feather of smoke and said:

‘About a year ago I got an email, out of nowhere, from my old colleague Colin Fishwick. My old comrade in arms from Democratic Kampuchea. Fishwick!’

‘The neurologist!’ Julia said. ‘The other survivor, from the photo.’

‘The only one alive apart from me. We emailed about the killings. The way we were all being . . . knocked off? One by one. He wanted to know what I reckoned, how dangerous it was, I said I was damn terrified and I was looking into the mystery and I was going to flee if it all got too close. Fishwick said the killer was probably coming for
him,
too, but he was so hidden away he felt safe. For the moment.’

‘OK.’

‘The email exchange ended soon after that,’ Barnier added. ‘But Fishwick let one thing slip. I asked what he was doing. And then he confessed. He said he had been recruited
again
by the Chinese. He’d been enticed back – big money – to develop things. He hinted it was the same stuff he had done thirty years ago. Whatever that was – I hadn’t guessed at the time. Now we know. Anyway he said he was
still
working at a lab in Yunnan, in a very obscure, very remote place. Balagezong, quite near Zhongdian. It’s in the lower Himalayas. Hard by Tibet.’

Jake stared across the dirty table.

‘You say he is .
. . still
working?’

‘Yep.’
Barnier nostrilled smoke. ‘Right now, in this remote corner of China, Balagezong – it seems they’re still wielding the scalpel, they are still chopping out guilt and conscience.
They are still doing the operation.
The only difference is,’ He paused, and gazed warily around, then added: ‘This time, apparently, according to Fishwick: this time they’ve got it
right.
And that –’

He stopped, abruptly. His face was a cold sweated mask.

Chapter 34

The Frenchman was standing.

‘
I just saw Chemda!
Over there. By the
katoey
bar.’ He hesitated, ‘
Unless –!’

Jake was already running down bustling Sukhumvit, barging past the white men and their little Thai girlfriends; but he felt a surprisingly strong hand pull him back.

Barnier’s whisky breath was hot in his face.

‘Think – this cannot be your girlfriend – think – it must be the killer – why would Chemda be skulking around.
Jake
?’

The good sense was chilling. But Jake didn’t care: he had to take the risk. It might be her. He wrestled himself free of Barnier.

‘I’m going to look. Where was she,
exactly
?’

Barnier puffed his exasperation.

‘
Idiote
. There. There. Fucking madness. She was there. I am going back to my apartment, lock myself in – get my bags – and then I am going.’

The Frenchman turned and paced away, joining the crowds, another older white guy amongst the younger Asian girls and the he-shes. Jake found Julia at his side.

‘Let me help.’

She helped. But it was swiftly obvious the search was fruitless. They searched up and down soi 2, and soi 4, they ran past Beer Garden and Foodland Supermarket, they pushed past the freelance hookers and the Saudi wives and the blind karaoke singers warbling their terrible songs.

Nothing.

‘Maybe,’ Julia suggested, ‘maybe Barnier imagined it. Probably. He is drunk.’

‘He is delusional.’ Jake spat his disappointment. ‘Fucking drunken lunatic. Ah fuck . . .
Fuck it.
’ He rubbed the tiredness and despair into his face with weary hands. ‘Come on. I don’t believe he saw anything. Let’s go to my hotel. See if Chemda left a message.’

Ths was, of course, pathetically hopeful, as he knew: but he had no hopes left.

The Canadian woman was silent as they paced down hot, busy, nocturnal Soi Nana, past the barrowboys selling scoopfuls of salted fried insects to the hookers from Ubon. He could sense Julia’s guilt, she still had the expression of guilt on her face. She gave voice to her feelings:

‘Jake, I’m sorry. For what happened in that bar. Chemda.’

‘It’s OK. I believe you. You weren’t to know. I also know the killer just
can’t be Chemda.
’

They were at the corner of soi 6. A whore in a microskirt was bowing to a small shrine, a spirit house, erected in front of the Shakerz Coyote Tavern.

‘So who is it?’

‘A clone?’ Jake sighed. ‘Who knows. If they can cut your conscience out of your head, what
can’t
they do? Clone you? Multiply you? Your guess is better than mine.’

Julia put a hand on his tensed, muscled, angry shoulder.

‘We’ll find her.’

‘Yeah. Of course we will. Somewhere in Asia. Where shall we start looking? India?’

They walked quickly down soi 6, past the Sukhumvit Grand with its saluting guards, where a snicket of a sideroad led under papaya trees. It was a cloistered spot in the kineticism of the city: two Thai kids were sitting on stools playing guitar, softly, like troubadours in the moonlight. Another spirit house lurked in the very darkest corner.

Julia said:

‘What about her family?’

‘Speak to them? Sure. That’s the obvious solution, isn’t it? I even tried. But I don’t think they
trust
me, they think I already kidnapped her, whisked her away into danger. Can I blame them –’

‘But she was already in trouble when you met her, in Laos, right?’

‘Yes, but . . .’ Jake sighed. ‘Since I met her she’s got in a lot
more
trouble. And I wonder. Maybe it is my fault? Blundering into situations I don’t understand? That’s the thing with Cambodia, Thailand, all these countries, you think you have grasped a situation – then it turns out it was entirely the opposite, it all meant something different, there are these layers of subtle meaning and social deception and you can never completely understand it, you are always the alien, the clumsy farang, white, big, different, the people who smell of milk.’ He gazed at the lobby of his hotel, the Sukhumvit Crown. Desolate. ‘Jesus what are we gonna do?’

As if it was an answer, he felt a buzzing in his pocket.

His phone, blinking an American cell number. Tyrone.
Tyrone.

He eagerly clicked Accept.

‘Ty?’

‘Hey. You OK? Any news of Chemda?’

‘So you heard. You got my message?’

‘Yes – but –’

‘We don’t know where she is Ty. Just gone. I’ve been trying to ring you. Where have you been?’

‘Doing stuff. Sorry. Look . . .’ Tyrone’s drawl hinted at something. A revelation.

‘What, Ty? What?’

The silence was sharp. Then Tyrone answered:

‘I have good and bad news. I think I know where Chemda is.’

‘Where? Jesus! Is she OK?’

‘She’s OK, probably, at the moment. Probably.’

The signal from Phnom Penh faded out. Jake sprinted up the steps to get better reception, waving at Julia as he did:
wait here this is important sorry.

Tyrone was back on the line:

‘I did some investigating for you.’

‘Like how?’

‘I had a brainstorm, when I got your message. Figured her dynasty must know something. I just went to the Sovirom house, the compound, and I did it – I confronted her mother. And she fessed up. She fessed up and broke down. They’ve had a kidnap note.’

‘Who is it? The Lao?’

Jake stared at the dingy hotel car park. Julia was sitting on the steps, staring at the darkness. The boys had stopped guitaring songs. A rat was nosing between garbage bags, a fat and brazen tropical rat.

‘Chemda is in China.’ Tyrone sighed. ‘Yunnan. Right up by the Tibetan border – a place called –’

‘Balagezong!’

An intake of breath.

‘Yep. Jesus Jake.
Balagezong.
How do you know that?’

Jake hastily explained – the conversation with Barnier. The terrible brain surgeries. Somewhere in Phnom Penh Tyrone swore his surprise.

‘Wow. OK. That makes sense. Total madness, but a lot of sense. So that’s what they are doing. And that explains why Madame Tek was so freaked –’

‘What do you mean?’

Tyrone paused. ‘Prepare yourself. Really.
Prepare yerself.
I’m sorry. But through her crying jags I pretty much got the impression, from Madame Tek, that some physical threat had been made against Chemda, that they were threatening to do something awful to her, unless Sovirom Sen gave them what they wanted.’

‘Which is? What do they want?’

Tyrone did a verbal shrug:

‘No idea. Maybe just money. But apparently he has flown to Yunnan, to meet them, to try and get his daughter back before they –’

‘Cut open her brain. Section her brain.’

The rat squealed as it fought another rat for a piece of rotting carp head.

‘Yeah. Sorry Jake. I’m sorry. God. But yes, that must be the threat. Chemda’s mother was just a
mess
, sobbing like the Hudson.’

‘I’m going there. Balagezong. I have to go there.’

Tyrone protested:

‘Jake Jake
Jake.
C’mon, calm down. I figured you’d say that – but c’mon – think about it, this is very very dangerous now –’

‘Ty, they already tried to kill me. In Anlong. Can it get any worse? Now they are going to cut open Chemda? Turn her into some fucking zombie? I’m going, tonight.’

A very short silence. Then a long sigh. Then: ‘OK, mad Englishman. I’ll do my best from here. Try and get more information. I know you are mister guilt trip but this isn’t your fault Jake, you didn’t do this –’

‘But I love her and she saved my life in Laos and I love her. I’ll call you from China.’

He broke off the call, and stepped over to Julia. With as few words as possible he explained the situation. Her face trembled at the corners of her lips. Guilt spoke without words.

‘So I’m going to leave tonight, now, sooner.’ said Jake. ‘First I better go and tell Barnier, then arrange flights, to Kunming –’

Wordless and quick, they made the corner of sois 6 and 4 to Pachara Suites. It was just a three-minute walk, past the Seven Seas restaurant with the girls in old Singapore airlines dresses, past the squid sellers with their racks of rubbery ganglions ready to chargrill.

At the last junction, they heard the ambulance sirens.

Sprinting around the corner they saw it all: the flashing red lights, the police cars askew on the pavements, and a man drenched in red paint being escorted from the lobby.

Jake watched, quite stunned.

It wasn’t a man in red paint.

It was a Thai man covered in blood.

He was covered in gore, splashed energetically with human blood, and he was handcuffed and he was being manhandled by two policemen.

Crowds were gathered, people were hanging off balconies, staring down at the emergency, at the sirens and the un holstered guns and the swivelling red lights. At the man covered in blood being tugged towards a police car. Jake recognized him. The doorman from Pachara Suites.

He pushed through the onlookers, and two cops with white gloves, but another policeman stopped him from going any further. Jake shouted across the yards that separated them.

‘Hey! Supashok? You remember me! Supashok? Jake Thurby.’

The face turned.

‘Supashok? Remember? I was with Chemda? The Khmer girl. This morning – you let us see Mister Barnier? It’s me Jake –’

The terrified man regarded Jake: and then he yelled. He yelled and he pointed:

‘You! It was her – your girlfren! She kill him! I let her in then I hear scream!’

Jake backed away. A Thai policeman was pressing down on the doorman’s head, forcing him into the car. The doorman was still shouting at Jake, in English.

‘She kill him. Your girlfren. Kill him!’

The cops weren’t listening to his screaming words, probably they couldn’t understand English: they didn’t know the doorman was accusing Chemda of killing Barnier. But soon the doorman
would
speak Thai. And explain. And soon the cops would get it.

Shrinking even further into the crowds, Jake grabbed Julia’s hand and they paced away, discreetly, and then less discreetly they jogged – and then they fled. Running from the blood, running from the scene, running down soi 6, running past the Heidelberg German pub, where the hookers and the midgets sat outside on their barstools cackling and laughing and eating rice noodles and saying,
Meester, Meester. Welcome, welcome.