Return to Mandalay (39 page)

‘Of course.’ His eyes positively glittered.

‘And what did he say?’

‘He denied any knowledge of it at first.’ Ramon shrugged. ‘And then he crumpled. He begged me not to tell them that I had found out what he was doing, he pleaded with me not to open the crate and he said that he had no idea what was inside.’

Eva raised her eyebrows. ‘How many crates had he shipped out for them under your name?’ she asked. She knew that Ramon must have gone through the same thought process
as she had yesterday when she found out. And no doubt he had come to a similar conclusion: that his company was being used as a front for something that must surely be dodgy and possibly even illegal. She pushed the thought of the Emporium away for now. Whatever was inside those crates, his company’s stamp was on the outside. And yet looking at him now as he sipped his tea, he seemed remarkably calm.

‘It has been going on for several months apparently,’ he said. ‘Wai Yan promised this would be the last one, if I let it go.’

‘But you won’t let it go?’ She stared at him. How could he?

Slowly, Ramon shook his dark head. ‘I cannot. But neither can I trust him. So I let him think that I would.’

‘We need to find out what’s in the crate,’ Eva murmured.

‘Yes.’ He frowned. ‘And I do not have much time in which to do it.’

Because the crate wouldn’t be left in the warehouse for much longer. Eva put her cup back on the tray. ‘But why did he do it?’ she asked. ‘Why did he go behind your back like that?’ She’d got the impression that Ramon was highly respected by his workers. It seemed a very odd way to repay him.

Ramon’s mouth was set in a hard line. ‘It seems that he is being blackmailed,’ he said. ‘There has been …’ He hesitated. ‘An indiscretion. He mentioned his wife who he loves very much.’ His gaze strayed to a point beyond her and then returned to settle on her face. ‘This is the sort of nasty game these people play, Eva. Men like Khan Li prey on people’s
weaknesses.’ Abruptly, he got to his feet. ‘And so we must, as you might say, play them at their own game.’

Eva watched him as he walked over to the other side of the room and picked up a canvas bag that was lying there.

‘So what will you do?’ she asked.

‘I am still considering my next move.’

She repressed a sigh. She knew he wouldn’t be rushed. ‘And what was it you wanted to show me?’

With a flourish, Ramon produced a parcel from the bag. He unwrapped the green tissue paper. Held it up triumphantly.

‘Maya’s chinthe,’ murmured Eva.

He brought it over, knelt and held it out to her.

She took it. With her forefinger she stroked its carved mane. ‘Did she bring it back with her from Pyin Oo Lwin?’

‘That,’ Ramon said, ‘is good.’

‘What’s good?’ Eva looked deep into the ruby eyes which had now replaced the red glass. Maya must have had them put in straightaway. It was odd knowing that they were rare, ancient and extremely valuable Mogok rubies. And yet …

‘That you think this is my grandmother’s chinthe,’ he said. He was looking very pleased with himself.

Eva stared at him. ‘But it’s not …?’

‘The other one? No, it is not.’

‘So there’s a third?’ Eva was confused. It certainly looked just the same. Although perhaps … She examined the eyes more closely. They were different from the rubies she had seen at close hand, she realised. Not so deep, not so intense.

‘It is a replica.’ Ramon took it back from her. He scrutinised it critically, holding it this way and that. ‘I made it.’

‘You made it?’ Eva couldn’t conceal her surprise.

‘Yes.’ He was trying to look modest now, but failing miserably.

And he had good reason. The wood was beautifully polished and exquisitely carved in the old primitive style. It was the work of a skilled master craftsman. Eva frowned.

‘So the rubies are not real rubies?’ She peered at them again. They were very convincing.

‘Clever fakes.’ He held the chinthe up to the light. ‘They would stand up to the rough scrutiny of most people, apart of course from the scrutiny of an expert.’

‘And you have aged it well,’ she added dryly.

He shrugged. ‘Everyone who makes furniture knows how to make wood look old,’ he said. ‘It is as simple a process as staining or polishing.’

Eva conceded the point. ‘It’s very good,’ she told him. She was beginning to see what his plan might be. And presumably, he’d been secretly working on the carving of this little chap in the room in the factory which he hadn’t shown her on his grand tour.

‘I did a lot of it from memory after our chinthe was stolen,’ Ramon admitted. ‘And then you came along, Eva.’

She smiled. ‘And provided you with the real thing.’

‘Just for the finishing touches,’ he admitted. ‘Your timing was impeccable.’

‘And you plan to swap them?’

He nodded.

She considered this. ‘But how could you hope to do that? You’re the last person they’d trust to get within spitting distance of the chinthe, given the history.’

He sat down again beside her. ‘I have no hope of carrying out the substitution myself,’ he said. ‘But I hope that one day I will find someone …’ He tailed off.

They stared at one another. His green eyes were warm. His lips curved into a slow smile. And it came to Eva, slowly but surely. She had no argument with this man. She could trust him. Because they were on the same side.

‘I always knew that we could not simply steal the chinthe back,’ he said. He stretched out his long legs. ‘They would know who was responsible, there might be dangerous repercussions for my family and the matter would not be resolved.’

‘That’s true, I suppose,’ Eva agreed. ‘But it took you an awfully long time to come up with another plan.’

‘Not really. My grandmother did not tell me the story of Suu Kyi, Nanda Li and the chinthes. Not until after my mother died. She said she was trying to protect me.’

Eva was surprised. ‘So you didn’t even know who had stolen it?’

‘I did not. I think she imagined me too headstrong. She was afraid of me getting hurt. She thought I would charge straight round there and accuse them.’

Eva chuckled. And he probably would have. ‘So she didn’t tell you until she thought you’d grown a bit more sensible, is that it?’

He bowed his head, but when he looked up his green eyes held a smile.

‘And that’s when you started hatching your plan to carry out a swap?’ It made sense, up to a point.

‘Exactly.’ He held the little chinthe at arm’s length away from them. ‘First, I had to find someone very accomplished at producing copies of Mogok rubies.’

‘Which you seem to have managed.’

He laughed. ‘Through a contact of Khan Li’s,’ he told her.

‘But isn’t that taking a huge risk? Mightn’t he have told Khan Li?’

‘No chance of that. They had a big falling out a while ago.’ He gave her a knowing look. ‘Most people fall foul of the Lis sooner or later.’

Eva didn’t doubt it. ‘And besides that, won’t Khan Li be experienced enough to recognise them as fakes?’ she asked. ‘He must have seen a few rubies in his time.’

‘You may be right.’ Ramon frowned. ‘It depends where they keep it, of course, and on the light. How often he picks it up to admire his little treasure.’

Eva was silent as she imagined this. She could almost see the gloating expression on Khan Li’s face and she guessed that Ramon could almost see it too.

‘And by the time he does realise,’ Ramon said, ‘or has it pointed out to him. By then it will, I hope, be too late.’

Because, she assumed, the chinthes would be far away. Or the Lis would have no idea whom among their acquaintances had done the swap. Though naturally, they would guess. It
could work, she supposed. She tapped him on the arm. ‘But how will you carry out the substitution?’

‘That I do not know – yet.’ He seemed deep in thought, his brow furrowed. ‘But I know Khan Li. He would want to show it off. He does not keep it hidden away. I have already discovered that the original ruby eyes have been replaced in position. And if it is not hidden away …’ He let this hang in the air between them.

Then it is up for grabs, thought Eva.

Ramon glanced at his watch. He jumped to his feet. ‘But now,’ he said. ‘It is time for lunch.’ He held out his hand and Eva took it. He pulled her to her feet and for a moment he kept her hand clasped in his, looked at her, in that considering way he had. Was he thinking about what he should do next? For Eva it was simple. She must phone her grandfather. And then she must, somehow, find out what was in those crates.

Lawrence came to with a start, her cool hand on his brow.
Maya? Helen?
But of course he had lost them both. He struggled to wake. It was hard to prise himself away from the hospital; it clung like the sharp smell of iodine to his senses. He was there on R and R after a bout of malaria in the jungle, had been picked up by one of their light aircraft – a Dakota – carrying out a drop, brought back to India by a cheerful American pilot working double shifts and still with a grin on his face, bless his socks.

‘How are you feeling, Dad?’

Rosemary. ‘Just tired,’ Lawrence croaked. ‘Bad night.’

Too much to think of on those deep dark nights, sleeping under the mosquito net, listening to the sounds of the nurses changing shifts, discussing their reports and who needed what treatment the following day. A far off whistle from a train. The snoring of men in the ward, their sleep heavy from drugs, their occasional moans of pain, their nightmares. They all had those. And the sweats. A fever that seemed to carry him off to god knows where. The delirium.

He heard the sweeper climb the stairs and walk past, drunk as usual, humming to himself, smelling of alcohol and
bidis
,
those cheap Indian cigarettes. It seemed a lifetime since Lawrence had been in India, at the jungle training camp in Rawalpindi, nipping down to Cooper’s for coffee and a cake.

‘There now, it’ll pass,’ said the nurse with the kind smile.

And she was right. Lawrence had been one of the lucky ones.

He wrote to Helen while he was in hospital. He still had the birthday card she’d sent him, tucked in his pack. He reached for it now. It had a picture of a gate and a lantern on it.
Your gateway to happiness
, it said. It had seemed bloody ironic to Lawrence, even then. But she had tried her best.
Happy birthday, my darling
, she’d written in her neat sloping hand. She’d remembered. And the least he could do was write to her occasionally, she deserved that much.

‘I hope this finds you well, Helen,’ he wrote. And as he reread the words he sent a silent thought to Maya.
My love, my love
. ‘I’m recovering in hospital from malaria, and am better now. They say war is glorious …’ He stopped. That, it could never be. What was glorious about men falling by the wayside with disease and fever? They called that queasy dip in your stomach the thrill of battle. Some thrill. ‘But it isn’t,’ he wrote. Stark but true. ‘How was your Christmas? I hope you got something good to eat.’ The politeness of his own words to a woman he had grown up with, who was practically a sister, to whom he had once, so wrongly, made love, shocked him.

Christmas …
In the jungle, Christmas Eve had been a rare rest day. They’d spent it hunting and one of the chaps had nabbed a forty-inch-long Burmese black squirrel. It was
bloody good, and they’d disturbed a flock of pea fowl that almost tasted like turkey if you closed your eyes and crossed your fingers.

Lawrence hardly knew what else to say to her. He could tell of the men and the marching, the true conditions of war, but she would only worry. He could tell her of the politics. But he had never discussed politics with Helen and it seemed bloody pointless now. Leave the politics to them in charge, he thought grimly.
They’ll do us
.

He was unable, however, to forget about what she called his promise.
You’re mine now …
Would she hold him to it? Was it even a promise at all? This was war and all the normal rules of behaviour went out of the window. Or did they? Wasn’t a commitment still a commitment, even if it were unspoken? His pen hovered over the paper. ‘Give my love to Mother when you see her,’ he wrote instead. His father was dead. Christ, so many were dead. He had received the news in a letter from home that had taken months to reach him. In truth, he felt that he had hardly known his father and perhaps this was why he found it hard to grieve; his mother had dominated his childhood and his life since, until Burma. ‘I think of you both often.’

They wouldn’t mind that it was short, if they ever got it. He could hardly imagine that they would get it. It seemed a miracle that a letter could travel so far in wartime when all around was in chaos and turmoil.

The nurse took his temperature. ‘You’ll be out of here soon,’ she said cheerfully, shaking the thermometer.

‘Can’t wait,’ he laughed. ‘Back to the jungle, eh?’ What a prospect.

He stretched out in the narrow bed. How often did they have to change the sheets here because of the malaria and the dengue fever? But … Ah. The feel of the sheets around him. The softness of the bed after the hard ground of the jungle terrain … Even in the midst of his delirium, it had felt like heaven. And soap. The sensation of clean skin, he’d almost forgotten how it felt. It might have been exciting to rough it in the early days; they were marching to war, to victory, it seemed. That camaraderie around a section brew up. There had been moments and friendships he’d cherished.

But now the marching seemed interminable and victory still a long way off. Forty-five minutes every hour tramping through the jungle, driving the mule, hoping he was surefooted enough to help show you the way, fifteen minutes rest. Not that the mules got any rest, it wasn’t worth unpacking them for such a short time, poor buggers.

Some of the lads got fed up and tried to slip bits and pieces of their own load on to the mules. But Lawrence wasn’t having that. ‘Shape up,’ he’d said. ‘There’s a limit to what they’ll carry.’ And he wasn’t going beyond it. Those animals worked hard for the men and they’d be treated right.