The Breath of Night (37 page)

‘As you wish. I’ll be off now, Dennis. I’ll call the ward in the morning and if you’re still here, I’ll bring you that fan,’ Philip said. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t keep Maribel more than a minute,’ he added, as much for her benefit as for his.

Maribel pressed Dennis’s hand and followed Philip out. Unable to find any space in the corridor, they made their way down to the lobby where, to Philip’s relief, both the injured woman and the Indian family had moved on, although the bloodstains and the aroma remained.

‘How are your stomach cramps?’ he asked bitterly, as he swept a layer of crumbs off a chair.

‘I am so sorry,’ Maribel said in a diffident tone that Philip was determined to resist. ‘I said “no”; I said “no” so many times.’

‘But then you said “yes”.’

‘I am loving my brother.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ Philip replied, remembering a time when she had professed to love him.

‘No, you are not understanding. He was in trouble.’

‘He’s always in trouble.’

‘But this was special trouble. He has been owing money when some business that is to make him rich makes him poor. So he steals money from the old man, who is the club owner’s father, but this is not enough. So he steals
shabu
and the people find out.’

‘What did he expect: that the drug dealers would be as lax about keeping accounts as he is himself?’

‘So he asks you for money, but you do not give him this.’

‘I’d already given him 3,000 pesos so that he could go home for your sister’s funeral. I’m not rich; paying for his treatment here will pretty much wipe out everything I’ve saved during the past three months.’

‘You are the most kind man.’

‘So everyone keeps saying.’

‘Because this is true.’

‘I’m not after praise.’

‘I know this is true also. But Dennis is afraid that they will be killing him, so he asks your friend Max.’

‘He’s not my friend.’

‘No, you are right. He is a very bad man. He says that he will give Dennis this money, but only if he will help him. He tells him that there are people who wish for you to stop asking
questions
about the English saint.’

‘What people?’

‘I do not know these people. He says it is needed for them to frighten you. He gives Dennis his promise that nothing will hurt you. You are English; you have many friends.’ Dennis’s sudden concern for his safety seemed highly improbable, but Philip let it pass. ‘Dennis tells me I must be playing my part; I must pretend… well, you know this. I do not wish to do it. I do not wish to do it so much. But I am afraid for how they will harm Dennis.’

‘They’ve done a good enough job of that as it is.’

‘I do not understand. What job is this?’

‘I mean that they harmed him anyway.’

‘This is not just for the money; it is a lesson. For Dennis and for all the other boys. But I am asking now if you will ever forgive me.’

‘Yes, for what it’s worth. In your shoes I might well have done the same. The person I can’t forgive is myself.’

‘What have you done?’

‘I trusted. Goodbye, Maribel.’ He stood up and kissed her on the forehead, the stiffness of the gesture belied by the tears in his eyes.

He returned to the hotel and rang Max with an account of Dennis’s progress.

‘Thank Jessica!’ Max said. ‘I’ll call you right back. First, I promised to ring Ray. He’s been worried sick.’

‘Then he might have done more than sit there flicking his fan while his son mutilated Dennis.’

‘Such as?’ Max asked sharply.

‘How about exerting some paternal pressure? Aren’t the Chinese supposed to respect their elders, or do they have to be dead?’

‘No one can put pressure on Amel. He’s a law unto himself.’

‘So I saw. And it’s the law of the jungle! Are we going to let him get away with it?’

‘Away with what? Didn’t Dennis tell the doctor that he was the one who’d spilt the acid?’

‘That’s what I mean! The poor guy’s terrified.’

‘Just like everyone else. Including yours truly.’

‘Well, I’m not!’

‘So what do you intend to do? Report him to the police? Haven’t you had your fill of them by now?’ Max asked,
unwittingly
confirming Philip’s suspicions. ‘Besides, Amel has them all paid off. Don’t suppose that drugs and macho dancers are the sum total of his business interests. Believe me, he has far bigger fish to fry.’

Max’s cynicism, along with Amel’s crimes and the
authorities
’ collusion, preoccupied Philip all evening. Just as no one in the club had challenged the manager’s explanation of Dennis’s collapse, so no one in the wider world was prepared to stand up to Amel and his associates. Outraged by their savagery, Philip felt a renewed desire to visit Gerron Casiscas. No matter that he had already sent in his report, which was as vapid as the
Church authorities could have wished, he owed it to himself to unravel the final threads in the web of corruption. The Vicar General might well have informants within the prison, but short of arranging to eliminate him as his fellow clerics had Julian – a conjecture that Philip was increasingly disposed to take as a fact – there was nothing he could do. Even so, he realised that he should not venture into the prison alone. Having no idea whether Gerron spoke any English, he rang the one Tagalog speaker he could trust and, to his delight, Benito agreed to accompany him the next day.

‘It’s Sunday, so I do not have to work. And after all his letters, I’ll be interested to hear what Casiscas has to say. But there’s one condition. I cannot be drawn into any further correspondence. We must tell him simply that I am your translator.’

‘That’s fine by me. But do you have authorisation?’

‘I have cash.’

At eleven the next morning Philip met Benito as planned outside New Bilibid Prison. Although built in the 1930s, the white crenellated towers showed a strong Iberian influence, as if justice had remained equated with colonial power for decades after the Spanish were expelled. Philip glanced at Benito to see whether it brought back memories of his own incarceration, but his face gave nothing away. For himself, he felt a new sense of purpose, as though, by entering its walls, he were not only back on the path from which the Vicar General had deflected him, but in some indefinable way both reaching closer to Julian, who had spent a year in just such a jail, and making amends for the blandness of his report.

A guard escorted them to the reception area, where another guard, mopping his brow after every sentence, inspected their passes. Philip handed him the email from the governor’s office and Benito an envelope, which he pocketed unopened. After stamping the visitors’ wrists, he sent them to a third guard, who conducted a cursory body search and an equally brief
examination
of the bag of cigarettes, chocolates and fizzy drinks that
Philip had brought for Gerron. He then ushered them down a long corridor lined with a Soviet-style mural of rural life and through a vast yard in which several prisoners were playing
basketball
. Greeting their shouts and whistles with a friendly wave, Philip felt a twinge of unease at the thought that he was trapped among some of the most dangerous men in the Philippines with only token protection.

Even that was withdrawn when the guard led them to one of the squat concrete blocks around the yard and, after
summoning
a trusty to unlock the gate, walked away.

‘Where’s he going?’ Philip asked Benito.

‘Who knows? The guards never enter the blocks. The
prisoners
run them themselves through their elected mayors.’

‘You mean gang leaders?’

‘Exactly. Perfect training for the outside world.’

‘But will we be safe?’

‘In my experience we’re far safer in the hands of the prisoners than the guards,’ Benito said grimly. ‘We represent their most precious commodity: hope.’

As he gazed at the toothless grins and tattooed biceps of the prisoners who came out to watch them, Philip trusted that Benito was right. ‘Hello, I’m Philip. Good to meet you,’ he said, affecting a carefree smile. ‘No one’s speaking,’ he whispered to Benito.

‘No, as I told you, visitors are precious. Only the host has the right to say if his visitor can be shared.’

In an offer of assistance that brooked no refusal, the trusty grabbed Philip’s bag of gifts and led him into the block. Praying that the stamps on his arm would withstand the sweat, he made his way down a corridor, which was even dimmer than the alcove at the Mr Universe, the brightest light coming from the flicker of a television at the far end. Through an open cell door, he glimpsed two men stirring a pot on a paraffin stove, its cloying smell mingling with the faecal stench from a slop bucket. The trusty steered the visitors into a cramped cell containing
four bunk beds, lit by a small, heavily barred window. With a commanding gesture he instructed them to sit on the two lower bunks, placed the untouched bag of gifts at Philip’s feet and went out.

‘What now?’

‘We wait. This is how it must be. Remember, it is you who have asked to see him.’

Five minutes later the trusty returned with two prisoners, one thickset and bald, sporting an elaborate tattoo of Christ flanked by a pair of green mambas, as if paradise had been lost and regained on a single torso, and the other pustular and scrawny, with crudely inked signatures on every visible inch of skin and several disappearing ominously under his shorts, turning him into a human plaster cast.

Philip stood up to greet them, banging his head on the upper bunk and prompting the scrawny prisoner to laugh wildly until his companion kicked him in the shin.

‘You Philip?’ he asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘Me Gerron.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Philip said, shaking his calloused palm. ‘And you are?’ He smiled at the scrawny prisoner.

‘He JJ,’ Gerron said. ‘He no use. He no speak English. He no speak Filipino.’

‘This is my friend –’

‘Ricardo,’ Benito interposed so fast that Philip wondered if the name were a random choice or held a deeper significance.

‘He’ll translate, if it’s easier for you to speak Tagalog.’

‘Easy, yes. Thanking you.’

Philip handed Gerron the bag of gifts, which he scrupulously appraised, finding new notes of appreciation for each cigarette packet and chocolate bar.

‘He says that he will be sharing them with his friends in the cell.’

‘What about JJ here?’

‘I doubt it. It’s obvious he’s his janitor.’

‘Janitor?’

‘Prison slang for slave.’

Gerron had registered the term. ‘Janitor yes. Me very good to him. Me making money for him. You wish name, yes? Me good price.’

‘Is he suggesting what I think he is?’ Philip asked Benito.

‘Yes,’ Benito said, after a brief clarification. ‘The normal price is five hundred pesos per tattoo. But for us, he’ll do it for two.’

‘See, names,’ Gerron said, spinning JJ around to reveal the signatures on his back, thighs and calves. ‘See, names.’ He pulled down JJ’s shorts to display his inky buttocks. ‘See, names.’

‘Enough, thank you,’ Philip said, putting up his hand. ‘What’s the appeal?’ he asked Benito. ‘Is it the only way left to them to make their mark? It’s forbidden to write on walls but permissible on flesh?’

‘Names, see. Good price for English.’

‘Does the price vary according to length or size or position? Is a buttock cheaper than an elbow or a thigh?’

‘Do you really want me to ask?’ Benito said.

‘No, I want you to ask about Julian.’

‘Julian, here?’ Gerron said, tracing a line across JJ’s cheek.

‘No, Father Julian. You wrote to Benito Bertubin that you had evidence of a murder plot against him.’ He turned to Benito. ‘Translate please.’

Gerron’s response was to ignore the question and offer them snacks. Asking Benito to refuse on his behalf, Philip wondered whether Gerron were dragging out the meeting to gain status from his visitors or playing for time because he had nothing to say. At last he sent JJ away and, in a halting exchange, which Benito both conducted and translated, recalled events from twenty years before. He had been sharing a cell in Nueva Ecija jail with one Alvin Japos, who had boasted how he had been recruited by a group of high-ranking priests to kill an English missionary, whom they accused of betraying the Church. When
the priests failed either to pay him his fee or to have the charges against him dropped, Alvin had joined an NPA unit active in the jail and later, during a mass breakout, fled to one of their mountain training camps in the Sierra Madre.

Despite his own recent experience of clerical intrigue, Philip recognised that the evidence Gerron presented was thin. ‘So the last time he saw him was in this provincial prison in the early nineties?’ he asked Benito, who put the question to Gerron.

‘No. He claims that he met him three years ago, shortly before he was arrested and sent here. He – Alvin that is, not Gerron – grows onions outside Bongabon, a small town in the east of Nueva Ecija. Presumably, his knowledge of the territory was why the priests chose him for the job. Not –’ he added in an undertone – ‘that I believe for one moment they did.’

‘But he said that this guy Alvin was a member of the NPA.’

‘NPA, yes!’ Gerron interjected.

‘So how can he be growing onions?’ Philip asked, directing his question to a space midway between Benito and Gerron.

‘That part’s credible enough,’ Benito replied. ‘You can be a farmer and a member of the NPA, or a doctor and a member of the NPA, or even a priest and a member of the NPA.’ He smiled. ‘They do not sit around in their uniforms all day, like firemen waiting to put out a fire.’

‘But isn’t it dangerous? If the government is determined to track them down. The first things I saw at the airport were the Wanted posters for NPA terrorists.’

‘These are the leaders and of course it is dangerous for them. But, for the rest, it is quite different. They grow crops in the
lowlands
alongside the regular farmers, who know when not to ask questions. In some places they even mix with the military, who are willing to turn a blind eye provided peace is maintained.’