White Crocodile (4 page)

Hammering. It took Tess a moment, fighting the mugginess of sleep, to recognise the noise as knuckles on wood. Turning her head, she glanced out of the window. The sun had risen, but the air in the room was still relatively cool. Throwing back the sheet, she climbed out of bed, extracted a T-shirt and shorts from her suitcase and pulled them on. By the time she reached the door, her landlady was halfway back down the stairs.

Madam Chou turned: ‘Ah. Miss Tess. I thought you out,
gone
.’ She waved a skinny arm in the direction of the gate. Hitching up her lemon-yellow sarong, plastic flip-flops slapping against her soles, she retraced her steps. ‘I got mes’age from mines work. Man say got be there for seven. Mee’ing, seven.’

Tess glanced at her watch. It was just past six, so she had an hour. An hour to mainline coffee and get her head straight. The meeting would be about Johnny. Raking, in painstaking detail, over yesterday’s explosion. Trying to work out what had gone wrong in a lane that was meant to be clear. It would be vital to her too – it might give her a pretext to ask more about Luke.

She felt Madam Chou pat her arm. ‘Worry mee’ing later. I make breakfast.’

‘Thank you, but a coffee’s fine.’

‘Coffee no breakfast. You must eat.’ She reached out and plucked at Tess’s arm with two bony fingers. ‘You skinny enough already.’

Tess smiled, despite herself. ‘It’s expensive to be this skinny where I come from.’

‘In Cambodia, you skinny you poor.’ Madam Chou’s wrinkled brown face split into a grin. ‘Or old, like me. See you breakfast.’

Turning, she slap-slapped her way back down the stairs to the kitchen.

The headquarters of Mine Clearance Trust was in a crumbling French colonial mansion overlooking the river Sanger. Evidence of Cambodia’s French heritage was everywhere in Battambang’s architecture. The mansion was ringed by overgrown lawned gardens, shaded by a giant banyan tree and crowded with heliconia, orchid and lotus flowers. A row of aged Land Cruisers snaked along the edge of the cracked gravel carriage driveway, which cut in a semicircle from rusting iron gates. The mansion itself, once opulent, was decayed: plaster flaking off the walls exposing the brickwork beneath, white paint peeling from windowframes, glass filmy with grime. Two stone statues, armless women in skimpy robes, had once guarded the foot of the stone steps which led to the massive black front door. One remained. The other had toppled off its base and lay tangled in undergrowth, features crude with moss.

Tess made her way up the drive, past the row of silent Land Cruisers. She’d imagined a scrum of early morning activity here, like yesterday morning, but the place was deserted. The lament of the front door when she pushed it open made her wince; the hall she entered was cavernous. Six doors, all of them closed, led off the huge atrium, and an ornate staircase which looked like something from the set of
Gone with the Wind
rose up the wall to her right. She could almost imagine a Southern belle sashaying her way down the stairs, dressed in miles of lilac silk and lace. But the smell quickly put paid to the image – musty-hot and stale – motes of dust floating in a stream of sunlight cutting in from the huge picture window on the landing above her.

Faint sounds of voices were floating down the stairs. She climbed towards them.

Bob MacSween was sitting at his desk, hands clasped behind his head, the expression on his face pure exasperation. He released his hands when he saw Tess in the doorway and motioned her in. There was another man in the room, she saw now, standing in front of the window – tall, thin, with blond hair slicked back from a pale face.

‘Tess,’ MacSween said. ‘Good of you to come.’ Glaswegian accent, mellowed with absence. He had told her yesterday that he had left to join the army thirty years ago, and never been back. ‘No reason to. Just an alcoholic cunt of a father – ’scuse me, love – mother long since legged it, and my brother, the sensitive soul of the family and the only one I cared about—’ He had shrugged. ‘Well, Cameron’s long gone too.’

MacSween was a huge man, with a latent strength and fitness that could have belonged to someone far younger. Only the lines on his face and the grey peppering his dark crew cut hinted at his age; late fifties, she’d guessed. A tough ex-army sergeant with a veneer of lassitude: as if he’d seen too much of the world already and was no longer impressed with any of it. ‘Grab a seat, Tess.’

The only other chair in the room was stacked with papers. She lifted them and, when he gave her no indication where she should put them, laid them on the floor at her feet. When she sat down and glanced around the room, she realised that it wasn’t just the chair he was using as a makeshift filing cabinet. Files littered every surface. The cupboard hung open, doors forced apart by its ballooning contents: folders, stacks of paper, books and files, and even a bundle of clothes shoved in one corner. The notice board behind him was covered with scraps of paper and scribbled Post-Its laid one on top of another like crazy paving. A pot of old coffee had leaked its black contents over a stack of folders on the corner of his desk.

MacSween watched her eyeing the room. ‘There’s a wee bit of method in my madness, though on first inspection you may be hard pressed to see it.’ He pulled a face. ‘Now, let me introduce you to Tord Jakkleson, my second-in-command and the man responsible for all the admin in this place.’ The faded tattoos on his bicep blended and separated as he lifted an arm to gesture towards the man standing in front of the window. ‘The Professor, we call him, because he’s so goddamn anal.’ He winked at Tess. ‘Which suits me just fine. Jakkleson, Tess has just left the British Army. She was a combat engineer – a troop commander – with a couple of tours in Afghanistan under her belt. This is her first foray into humanitarian clearing, though I doubt there is much we can teach her about mine clearing after five years with the Sappers. Except how to do it with no damn cash, mebbe.’

Jakkleson stepped forward and held out a hand, briefly flashing a micro-thin gold wristwatch from the cuff of his white linen shirt.

‘Good to meet you,’ she said, taking his outstretched hand. It was like squeezing marble. His eyes were the palest shade of blue.

‘So, Tess, first let me apologise,’ MacSween said, when Jakkleson had returned to the window. ‘You had a proper shit-show of a day yesterday. Not the introduction to MCT, or this beautiful country we’re working in, I would have liked. How’re you feeling?’

She managed a smile. ‘I’m fine.’

MacSween watched her silently for a moment. ‘Come on, Tess.’

‘It wasn’t great, obviously. But you don’t need me to tell you that.’ She cast her gaze to the floor. ‘Have you seen him? Is he OK?’

‘Aye. I dropped by the Red Cross Hospital last night, soon as I heard. He’s in a mess, but Dr Khouy Ung, the surgeon who runs the place, says he’ll pull through. Johnny was lucky you were there. His Khmer clearers wouldn’t have gone in if you hadn’t, not after that. Not with the reputation that fucking field is getting. Though it also sounds as if we were lucky not to be carrying two people out on stretchers. Charging into a minefield without even a bloody detector in your hand isn’t the best idea, lass. Be careful, eh.’

Lifting a hand, he massaged his eyes, scratched his fingers through the grey-brown stubble on his chin. ‘I’m going to be straight with you, Tess, and then I need you to tell us everything –
everything
– you can remember about yesterday. We had another accident six months ago. A fatality. Same minefield. Koh Kroneg it’s called, though I’m sure Johnny told you what the locals call it. A very good guy died. I was down in Phnom Penh, so I never got to see him.’ His voice faltered. ‘The second time in six months we have a serious accident and I start to get worried. It happens in other agencies – this isn’t a cosy job. But I still don’t like it. I spent the night interviewing the Khmer guys, Johnny’s teams, but I didn’t get much from them. They’re being rather . . . obstructive isn’t the right word, but they’re jittery as hell. I couldn’t seem to get a straight piece of information out of anyone.’ His eyes hung closed for a moment. ‘Start from when you first arrived at the minefield and
don’t miss anything out
.’

Tess dug her bitten nails into her palms and forced herself to hold his gaze across the desk.

A fatality.
Luke.

She glanced at Jakkleson, framed in a halo of sunlight by the window.

She talked them through what had happened: that there was mist clinging in hollows but, apart from that, visibility was good, that Johnny’s teams were sweeping their clearance lanes, all focused, all calm, that it was still early, eight or so, and that no mines had yet been found.

‘What was Johnny doing?’ MacSween interrupted.

‘He was watching his teams.’

‘How was he feeling?’

She shrugged. ‘Obviously I’d just met him, but he seemed fine, relaxed. He was joking with me.’

‘What about?’

‘The minefield.’

MacSween raised his eyebrows.

‘The White Crocodile,’ she corrected. ‘The myth.’

‘What was he saying?’

‘He was talking about the sign, the one that looks like a cave drawing. He was joking about getting a can of paint and giving the crocodile one less leg and a crutch. He said he would have done it, but that you wouldn’t be happy. “He would kick my arse” were the exact words he used.’

She saw a flicker of a smile cross MacSween’s face. ‘It means something in Cambodia. We believe in God, in Father Christmas, in—’ He raised his hands, let them fall back to the desk. ‘In whatever. Many Khmers believe that the White Crocodile is a bad omen. It’s easy to slag it off. Johnny can be flippant but there’s a time and a place for that kind of thing. The distinction gets blurred with him sometimes.’

She nodded, listening hard. There was history here. She’d thought that before, when MacSween had told her about Johnny rigging his house with booby traps. She caught his eye, but he didn’t smile this time. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Johnny’s teams had been working for about ten minutes. Then he said he was going into the field to check out a skull that one of the mine clearers had seen in the adjacent lane.’

‘A skull?’

‘Yes.’

‘Human?’

‘That’s what his clearer said.’

‘You went in, didn’t you?’ Jakkleson interrupted.

She started and glanced over her shoulder at him. It was the first time he’d spoken and she’d got used to the idea that he wouldn’t be saying anything. ‘Yes.’

‘So you saw the skull.’

‘No. I didn’t see it.’

‘Why not?’

She swivelled around in her chair to face him, lifting her hand to shade her eyes from the sunlight.

‘I guess I had other things on my mind.’

He seemed about to say something else, but MacSween waved a hand in Jakkleson’s direction, silencing him. ‘Forget the skull, for the moment at least. We’ve been told it was Huan’s lane. Is that right?’

‘Yes, that’s what Johnny told me.’

‘And Huan was where?’

‘Johnny just said he hadn’t turned up.’

MacSween looked questioningly at Jakkleson.

‘I’ll find out,’ Jakkleson said.

MacSween nodded. ‘Huan. He’s been with us for a while.’ He wrote something down on a pad of yellow paper, already covered in his notes.

‘Where was the mine Johnny stood on?’ he asked, looking up. ‘Did he miss the marker somehow and walk too far down the lane into ground that hadn’t yet been cleared?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘It’s important. Take your time. Think about it.’

Tess dropped her gaze, trying to picture the field in the seconds leading up to the detonation. Mine tape. Johnny, confident, cocky even. The quiet bang that was the mine exploding. The tide of panic. Clearers running. Mud. Heat. Blood. The screaming. The taste of fear like tinfoil in her mouth.

What else?

Where was the metre length of wood – painted red and white – that Huan would have laid across his lane to indicate how far he had cleared?

‘The marker—’

‘Was where?’ MacSween prompted.

The grip of a hand on her arm. Men huddled shock-faced around the Land Cruisers. Her combat boots dragging at the muscles of her legs. The leaves of the tree casting flickering shadows over Johnny’s face. The splintered bones of his leg visible through rags of flesh—

‘What else?’

She shook her head.

‘
Oh, come on.
’
Openly scornful now.

‘Jakkleson.’ A warning tone from MacSween.

She met his gaze. Then she sensed someone else. She glanced behind her and saw Alex leaning against the filing cabinet by the door. He was wearing the same clothes she’d seen him in at the hospital yesterday and he looked wrecked.

She turned back to MacSween. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see it. But I didn’t pass it.’

‘The marker?’ he asked.

‘Yes, the marker. I didn’t pass it.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I was looking down as I was running. I definitely didn’t pass it.’

‘A hundred per cent sure?’

Tess nodded. ‘A hundred per cent.’

MacSween leaned back in his chair. ‘So if you’re sure you didn’t pass the marker, either someone had moved it, which is unlikely, or the mine Johnny stood on was in ground that had already been cleared. So maybe Huan missed a mine.’ He steepled his fingers. ‘And if he had only cleared just beyond it, he wouldn’t have walked over it, wouldn’t have had a chance to set it off himself. There are quite a few minimum-metal plastic anti-personnel mines out here that are fucking hard to detect.’ He sat back and sighed. ‘That’s one theory at least – a sensible one. Anything else?’

‘No,’ she said, then paused. ‘Yes, one thing.’

MacSween tilted forward, laying his hands flat on the desktop. ‘What?’

‘The helicopter. It didn’t come. We radioed it from the field but it didn’t turn up. We radioed again but there was no answer. So Johnny had to be taken to hospital by road. Our first-aiders bandaged his wounds as best they could in the field, but it’s still a miracle he didn’t bleed to death during the journey with the extent of his injuries.’