White Crocodile (17 page)

The potholed tarmac petered out into dirt and grew empty of bicycles and mopeds as they left the outskirts of Battambang. They were travelling through dense jungle now, passing the occasional isolated hut, the odd track cutting at right angles from the dirt road, snaking away through the trees.
You could hide forever out here and no one would find you.
The hot evening air rippled over Tess’s face and bare arms, fluttering her green daisy dress around her thighs, drying the last vestiges of damp from her hair.

Over a second beer at the Victory Club, they had agreed to drive out to Huan’s village – this evening, now, Tess had insisted, draining her Angkor and standing up – when he wouldn’t be expecting visitors. If they couldn’t find him, at least they might be able to glean some information as to his whereabouts.

Slipping off her shoes, Tess put her feet on the dash and hugged her arms around her knees, staring ahead into the thickening darkness, the Land Cruiser’s headlamps twin cones of light picking out the dirt road.

‘Do all of you get involved?’ she asked, glancing across at Alex.

‘Involved in what?’

‘Young girls. Sleeping with young Khmer girls?’

Alex shot her a cold look. ‘No, of course we don’t all get involved.’

‘You just told me, back at the Victory Club, that Johnny did. And Jakkleson does too. I found photographs in his filing cabinet while I was looking for Huan’s file. Did you know?’

Alex nodded.

‘Did he tell you?’

‘No. He thinks that no one knows. Johnny found out.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. Johnny finds out a lot of things.’

Tess pulled a face. ‘But Jakkleson’s married.’

Alex shrugged. ‘Marriage doesn’t mean dick to most of the guys out here.’

Tess laughed. ‘“Doesn’t mean dick”?’ What are you, Alex, Dirty Harry? Did you learn English watching American films?’

He frowned. ‘No. Well – yes.’

‘How about you, Alex? Does marriage mean anything to you?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never been married.’

Tess watched him quietly for a moment. ‘I have. But you know that already, don’t you?’ She swallowed. ‘How did Luke die?’

He seemed prepared for the question. Unsurprised. But he didn’t respond.

She nudged his arm. ‘You were there, weren’t you? At the hospital, the day of Johnny’s accident, I asked you if you had ever been injured by a mine and you said “once, almost” and that you had got too close to someone else’s fuck-up. It was Luke’s . . . the mine that killed Luke, wasn’t it?’

Alex sighed. The words that followed were so quiet she almost couldn’t hear them over the noise of the engine. ‘Yes it was.’

‘Except that we both know it wasn’t a fuck-up. It was deliberate, planted, just like Johnny’s mine was planted.’ She scrutinised his face. ‘What happened, Alex? I need to know.’

‘I’m sorry, Tess. I can’t help you.’

‘You said you were there.’

‘I was there.’ A shadow crossed his face. ‘But I can’t remember anything.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He opened his mouth, then closed it again without saying anything. Tess tightened her arms around her knees and waited. Finally, he spoke.

‘All I remember was that I was walking up the lane towards Luke and he was squatting, his back to me. I was a few metres from him when the mine went off, then nothing. The hospital. Nothing else. I can’t remember why we were in the lane, what the problem was.’

Hugging her legs tighter to her chest, Tess stared at him over the bumps of her knees, willing him to continue.

‘MacSween told me later that it was a booby trap. Luke, Johnny and I, we were all there, trying to sort it out.’

‘Where was Johnny?’

‘Where was he exactly? I don’t know. But he was there, somewhere.’

‘Why were all three of you there? Why was Johnny there?’

‘It was Luke’s troop. Johnny’s good with booby traps. It’s his speciality.’

‘And you?’

He shrugged. ‘I can’t remember.’ Reaching across her to the glove box, he extracted a packet of Marlboro, shook out a cigarette and lit it. Tess waited while he smoked, wanting him so badly to tell her something – anything almost, just so that she would have an answer. She reached across and took one of the cigarettes for herself.

‘I see things,’ he said suddenly. ‘I see things totally clearly, believe that is how it happened, then it changes and it’s something different, but just as real.’

‘I need to know, Alex. I need to know what happened.’

‘I can’t help you.’

‘You must.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Alex, please.’

He shook his head; laid his hand on hers in a moment so sudden and unexpected that she flinched. ‘I can’t.’

Alex braked suddenly and swung the Land Cruiser into a grassed-over track which cut at right angles away from the road through the jungle. After a hundred metres, he switched off the engine. Reaching across her, he opened the glove compartment again and pulled out his Browning. Tess caught his arm.

‘Why have you got that with you?’

He shook her off. ‘I always have it with me.’

‘Are we going to need it?’

‘No.’ He didn’t meet her gaze. ‘No. I’m taking it because . . . you don’t ever know . . . that’s all. Habit more than anything. Don’t worry about it.’

Shoving the pistol in the waistband of his trousers, he held his finger to his lips and eased the driver’s door open.

When she climbed out to join him, Tess understood why; she was immediately struck by the quiet. Jungle surrounded them, eerily silent except for the soft aeroplane whine of mosquitoes. Another hundred metres on – walking in single file, the grass muffling their footsteps – they found themselves at the edge of a clearing. On their right stood a bamboo shed, doorless, the stench of excreta pulsing from inside it. Beyond the shed, across trampled mud, they could see the bamboo slat walls of a hut, squat and square, dirty brown sacking framed in glassless windows by the lantern light glowing behind it. Beyond the nearest hut there were three or four more. And now that Tess listened, she realised that she could hear the murmur of voices, the scuff of feet on wooden boards, the clank of metal cooking pots.

She felt Alex’s hand close around hers, and then he was leading her, jogging silently across the clearing to the doorway. Their movement disturbed a rat, which scuttled from under the stairs and disappeared into the darkness.

They mounted the stairs. Inside, the hut was cool and shadowy. A dark curtain sagged from a rope strung midway up two facing walls, dividing the hut in two; from behind the curtain candlelight glowed. Alex tapped his knuckles against the edge of the doorway and leaned in to speak.

‘
Johm riab sua
.’

The scuffle of feet, murmured voices, their surprise evident from the tone. Tess and Alex waited. A moment later, the curtain was tugged back a fraction and two women slipped through. One was approaching middle age, her round, flat face crossed with shallow lines and tugged downwards by delicate bags of skin. The other was an old woman: tiny and reed-thin, skin diaphanous as crushed silk. She wore baggy black trousers and a ragged T-shirt the same faded grey as her hair.

The younger woman stopped in front of the curtain; the old woman approached, paused a metre from Tess and Alex, and gave a slight, stiff bow.

Alex inclined his head. ‘
Niak sohk sabaaye te
.’

The old woman looked at him long and hard; her pinched face showed no emotion.

‘
Kh’nyohm mao pii
Mine Clearance Trust,’ he said. ‘MCT.’ Again silence followed his words, but now a hard gleam shone in her eye. Alex shifted uncomfortably. ‘
Huan
.
Neuv ai Huan?
’ he asked.

As soon as the old woman had seen them, she must have known why they had come. But when Alex spoke Huan’s name her expression changed, mouth popping open, eyes suddenly frozen. Sensing the change, Alex reached out to touch her shoulder. She shrank away. He dropped his arm, jammed both hands in his pockets. As a man outside the family, he shouldn’t have tried to touch her; it wasn’t done.

‘I’m sorry,’ Tess heard him say. ‘
Sohm toh
.’

The younger woman stepped forward, curling her arm around the elder’s, leaning into her.

‘
Sohm toh
,’ Alex said again, spreading his hands. ‘
Sohm toh
.’ He began to speak then in Khmer words Tess didn’t understand, his voice softer than she had ever heard it, hands balled into fists in his pockets, slouching a bit to reduce his height, to seem to them less huge, less threatening.

He stopped speaking. Again there was silence. Tess could sense his agitation in the pulse of a muscle in his jaw.

‘
Neuv ai Huan
,’ Alex repeated. ‘
Neuv ai Huan?
’

Suddenly the old woman lurched forward. Lips curled back from yellowing teeth, eyes bright pinpricks in the folds of her lids. Her voice was a hard, angry whisper.

‘
Kh’nyohm muhn yuhl te. Sohm niyay yeut yeut
,’ Alex said, spreading his hands, trying to calm her.

Her speech slowed a fraction, but still the words flowed from her, the volume rising with her anger. Alex interrupted where he could, posing questions, pressing for sensible answers.

Tess glanced at the younger woman. She had moulded herself to the wooden slat walls of the hut and was staring at Alex as if he was the devil. Tess caught her eye. They held each other’s gaze for a fraction of a second. Tess smiled; the woman looked away.

The old woman had raised a gnarled hand now, index finger pointed as if she wanted to jab it in Alex’s gut, but was struggling between anger, fear and deference to this Western man. Trembling, she started speaking again, her words a torrent of uncontrolled emotion. She was yelling now. Her words filled the room, echoing from the pitched roof.

‘What did she say?’ Tess asked.

They were back on the road to Battambang, the packed dirt flowing beneath them.

‘Nothing that was useful.’

‘She seemed angry. Scared.’

‘Of course she was scared. We may be the first Westerners they’ve ever seen. Definitely the first they’ve had to their house.’

Tess twisted around in the passenger seat to face him. She had to lean towards him and shout to make herself heard over the noise of the engine, he was driving so fast; the Land Cruiser groaning in protest at the ruts on the dirt track.

‘But it wasn’t just that, was it? I thought she . . . she said something about you, didn’t she?’

Taking a hand from the wheel, Alex scratched at his forearm through his shirtsleeve, his expression unreadable.

‘What? What did she say?’

‘She said, “He’s frightened of you. Huan’s frightened of you.”’

‘You?’

‘Me. Us. MCT.’ He flicked the wipers on and sprayed some water over the windscreen; mud splatters streaked across the glass. ‘Us at MCT. She said that he’s frightened of us at MCT.’

‘Did she say where he is?’

‘No. Just that he’d left.’

A phone rang suddenly. Alex frowned, fumbled a mobile from his pocket. He glanced at the name flashing on its face, hesitated, seemed to be weighing up options. He tossed the phone on the dash. It stopped ringing. A few seconds later, it started again.

‘Fuck.’ Grabbing the phone from the dash, he flicked it open. ‘Alexander Bauer.’

A pause. When he spoke again, his voice had an uneasy edge. ‘I’m driving back to Battambang now. I’ll be with you by—’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Seven thirty, eight at the latest.’

Jamming the phone back in his pocket, he looked across at Tess.

‘That was Dr Ung. He said that Johnny has gone crazy, he’s smashing his room up, won’t let anyone in.’

‘Go straight there. I’ll walk home from the hospital.’

As Alex parked the Land Cruiser in the hospital courtyard, Tess glanced through the side window and saw Dr Ung hurrying towards them. Silhouetted in the light from the hospital building, he looked as insubstantial as a shadow.

‘Thank you for coming, Alexander.’ He clasped Alex’s hand in both of his. ‘Hello Tess.’

She had only ever seen Dr Ung calm. Now he crackled with nervous energy.

‘What’s going on?’ Alex asked, as they turned and jogged together towards the covered veranda.

‘Half an hour ago I was leaving the operating theatre and I heard screaming, the sound of things being thrown. I came out to see what was happening and found Johnny very agitated, out of bed, tossing things around the room, shouting and screaming. He is insisting on leaving the hospital tonight.’

‘Why?’

‘I have tried to find out, but he won’t talk to me.’

They reached the veranda, and turned to face each other. Tess hung back by the Land Cruiser, letting them talk, feeling that she was intruding on something too personal. She wished now that she’d asked Alex to drop her home on the way here.

‘Also,’ Dr Ung had lowered his voice, but she could just about hear him. ‘He has been seeing things, imagining things.’

‘What things?’

‘Someone in his room.’ He slipped off his glasses and pressed the tips of his fingers to the bridge of his nose. ‘He thinks that someone is trying to kill him. Paranoid delusions. Not unusual after the sort of trauma he’s experienced. But in his case they seem severe.’

Alex nodded wearily, but didn’t reply. He wasn’t about to open up. Dr Ung had enough on his plate running the hospital with paper-thin resources and Alex had too much respect for what he did to drag him into this mess unnecessarily.

‘Perhaps I should have been to see him earlier tonight. Perhaps that would have made a difference. I was . . .’ Dr Ung shook his head, the movement slight, distracted. ‘. . . Busy. We had a new mine victim arrive at the hospital this afternoon, a child. I was operating until almost seven p.m. When I left the operating theatre, I heard the commotion. You must persuade Johnny to stay, Alexander. His leg needs more time to heal properly, while he is resting, and he needs physio. If he falls, he risks damaging the stump, and that will put his recovery back for weeks, months even. Also, he needs help with the psychological issues associated with his injury. Otherwise,’ he added quietly, ‘I fear greatly for his recovery.’

Frowning, he slipped his glasses back on and led Alex inside. Tess remained by the Land Cruiser.

Johnny’s room reeked of cigarette smoke and sweat. The table lamp illuminated a jumble of clothes and cigarette packets strewn across the floor. The bed was on its side, the mattress and sheets in a heap in the corner. A shattered whisky bottle lay beneath the window in a golden puddle, and the reek of booze struck Alex the moment he saw it. The mosquito netting covering the window had been slashed from top to bottom, side to side; the jagged edge of a shard of glass from the bottle protruded from it, knotted with brown mesh.

Johnny, wearing a pair of white boxer shorts, was standing, leaning on a pair of wooden crutches, staring down at the chaos on the floor. His stump was swaddled in bandages, the skin of his thigh shrunken and livid with shrapnel scars. The cigarette in his hand trembled, flaking ash into the open suitcase at his feet.

‘’Bout fucking time you showed up.’

Without answering, Alex moved over to the bed, hooked his hands into the metal frame and hauled it upright. He reached for the bedding and tossed it back on to the mattress, pausing for a second to look down at something in his hand, which he slipped in his jacket pocket, before arranging the bedclothes in some semblance of order. Moving over to the window, he crouched down and started collecting the shards of glass.

‘What are you doing?’

‘What does it look like?’

‘Leave it.’

Alex ignored him.

‘Leave it, you cunt.’

Glass clinked as Alex opened his fingers and let the shards fall to the floor. He straightened and met Johnny’s gaze. Johnny’s pale blue eyes, red-rimmed and unfocused, held his for a second before skipping off around the room.

‘This morning. You said you’d come back this morning. Where the fuck were you?’

‘Clearing.’

‘In Koh Kroneg?’ Johnny coughed and shook his head. ‘You think you’re invincible, don’t you? You reckon you can keep clearing in that field and nothing is going to happen to you?’

‘It’s my job,’ Alex muttered, staring through the gash of mosquito netting into the dark courtyard beyond, his hands gripping the windowframe so hard that his fingers turned white. He felt as if he was wrapped up in something and every second he stood in this room it tightened around him.

‘You’ve got to help me, Alex. I’m a dead man.’

‘Probably.’

‘What? What did you say?’

Alex turned his head slowly. ‘Why do I get the feeling that you deserve everything you get, Johnny?’

‘How the fuck can you say that?’ Johnny bellowed. ‘Is it because of that fucking girl? Some stupid little Khmer whore who got herself knocked up? That I deserve this.’ He gestured to his leg. ‘
This!
’

Alex stalked towards him, his face twisted in fury. ‘Are there any more, Johnny? Are there other things you haven’t told me? Because this is bigger than you. There’s other women gone missing. Other “stupid little Khmer whores” – all from villages around that field.’

Johnny took a half-step backwards. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything about that.’

‘Because I just found this, just now, when I picked up your bedsheets.’ Alex flung something at Johnny, who caught it instinctively. He looked down at the stone in his hand. Painted on it was a tiny white crocodile. The crocodile was missing a back leg – the right leg – just like he was.

‘And don’t tell me it’s Ret S’Mai. It’s hard to paint if you haven’t got any fingers.’

Johnny stared at the object in his hand in silence.

‘It was on my pillow. Someone came into my room last night while I was sleeping and left it there,’ he said, in a voice that Alex barely recognised. ‘That’s what I’m talking about, Alex. Someone’s got me marked. I’m a dead man.’