Fearless ; The Smoke Child

by Lee Stone

  Kate was rooted to the spot, processing the horrors of what had happened to her and what was now happening to Ta Penh and his hung companion. The prisoners crawled over the old man, scratching and clawing at his face. Some of them were gouging at his eyes while others were biting hard at his legs, trying to break through his leathery old skin. More and more of them piled onto him until he was completely lost from sight. Lockhart grabbed Kate by the wrist and pulled her out of the cage. He took one glance back as he headed through the wooden barricade, turning as he heard an unearthly screech from somewhere in the middle of the pile of writhing bodies. Suddenly, several of them flew backwards, smashing against the metal bars. Lockhart stopped, transfixed. That screech again, and Ta Penh battled to his feet. Despite his age and his disadvantage, he was putting up a ruthless fight. Then they clambered back on top of him again and pulled him back to the floor.

  Lockhart guided Kate swiftly back past the dead guard and through the checkered corridors towards the locked door of the gymnasium. Kate ran a hand through her wet hair and squeezed out the water as they walked. They were halfway there when they heard the noise from the cages. The sound of rage had turned to a sound of panic. Something was not right. Lockhart couldn’t understand what he was hearing. Ta Penh had been old and frail. He had been cruel and determined, but he hadn’t had the strength to lift Kate from the floor. Even if the second gunman, the one he had left cold on the floor, had come round and joined the fight, it was surely impossible that Ta Penh could have fought off the prisoners. There had been so many of them. And they had been so full of anger. And yet screaming and hysteria echoed from the cages. Something had changed.

  ‘Stay close,’ Lockhart said, moving quickly now as they passed the ugly brick compound in the middle of the basketball court.

  ‘All night I was in there,’ she said, and she grinned nervously as they headed back towards the entrance. ‘What kept you?’

  Behind the bravado she was scared. Lockhart could see it in her eyes. Scared of the noises she had heard echoing along the corridors behind them. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I made a friend,’ Lockhart told her. ‘He’s waiting for us outside.’

  Kate looked impressed.

  ‘You don’t hang around.’

  Lockhart smiled, and then his smile faded as another scream ricocheted along the bare walls towards them. There was something sickening about the noise. Something hopeless. It filled Lockhart with a growing sense of unease.

  ‘Keep moving,’ he said. ‘Don’t look back.’

  When they emerged from the main entrance, the lightning clouds had passed, and cool air blew fresh on their skin. They jogged across the moonlit courtyard, through the fallen leaves to the iron gates. Lockhart returned the keys to the dead guard’s pocket, Kate watching on wide-eyed.

  ‘You didn’t…?’

  Lockhart looked up at her.

  ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘This was the old man’s doing.’

  They stepped out into the dirt road, clay sticking to their feet where the storm had soaked into the dust. The tarpaulin from the roadside stall billowed in the breeze like a reluctant spinnaker. As it straightened, the moonlight cut through the shadows beneath, and Lockhart saw that the chairs beneath the stall were empty. He turned and stared down the dirt road into the darkness to where the lawyer’s Land Cruiser had been parked, and found himself caught in the beam of powerful headlights. He put his hand to his eyes on reflex. Kate did the same, drawing next to him and bending away from the glare as if she was twisting against a strong wind. The engine revved, and they heard the vehicle behind the lights coming straight towards them. It slammed on its brakes at the last minute and skidded to a halt in front of them. The doors popped open and Fischer called out.

  Once they were away from the prison, Fischer dropped his speed and cut the headlights. Lockhart introduced Kate to Fischer and the boy who was sitting in the back of the Cruiser with the dog.

  ‘How did you do it?’ the lawyer asked, and when Lockhart shrugged and looked out of the window, it was Kate who filled him in. Fischer gave a low whistle when he heard about the prisoners swamping Ta Penh. After that nobody spoke, and the stars watched them weave back along the treacherous roads. They reached Fischer’s white house at midnight, all alone and with trouble far behind them.

  24

  Lockhart slept a deep and dreamless sleep at Fischer’s place. Kate took the lawyer’s bed, sleeping on top of the sheets, while Lockhart crashed down nearby on the floor, his shirt tucked under his head like a pillow. There were no drapes on the windows, and they woke when the dawn arrived.

  ‘Lockhart?’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘You awake?’

  Her voice was soft and relaxed.

  ‘Hmmm.’

  He heard the sheets rustle as she twisted on top of them.

  ‘Seriously, why did you come back for me?’

  Lockhart arched his back off the concrete floor and felt his vertebrae clicking into position like falling dominoes. He pulled himself up with his stomach muscles and rolled his shoulders a couple of times, to get the blood flowing. When he looked at her, he saw that her tee-shirt had ridden up during the night, cropping around her chest and exposing her midriff. She was absently drawing her fingernail around her navel in gentle circles. Lockhart saw her Linea Nigra again, like a dangling thread, waiting to be pulled.

  ‘Would you rather I’d stayed away?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. She was still clothed from the night before, having taken one look at the lawyer’s sheets and deciding against getting undressed. ‘It’s just that… I can’t think of many other people who would have done the same.’

  Lockhart ran his fingers over his hair and massaged a bit of life into his scalp before turning and taking her in. She was naturally pretty, even first thing. The sun warming her skin through the window helped.

  ‘Well, I didn’t know there would be guns,’ he said gruffly, sleep still caught in his throat. ‘If I’d known there would be guns, I might have left you to find your own way out.’

  She did her best to act offended, but it was difficult to suppress a broad smile that was blooming on her lips of its own accord. All she knew was that he had come back, and she was glad as hell about that. Lockhart smiled too and immediately regretted it. It set a dull pain throbbing in his jaw, the first of his injuries to reboot after the long night’s sleep. He checked himself over, pushing at his skin with his thumb. He didn’t bruise. Never had. Never really understood the reasons not. But it was a fact: he could fall down a flight of stairs and walk away without a mark on his skin. It didn’t make him superhuman, or even tougher than the next guy. Lockhart’s body ached like hell. He just had got no trophies for the pain.

  ‘You sleep okay?’ he asked her.

  ‘Not really,’ she said, her voice low and regretful. ‘Every time I close my eyes I see the bruises, Charlie. You know, around her neck? They were like footprints in the snow, you know? They told a story. I could see exactly what they’d done to her.’

  She fell back onto the bed with a low moan.

  ‘And every time I open my eyes, I hope that I imagined the whole thing. That she will come wandering in from next door telling me everything’s all right.’

  She sighed and fell quiet long enough that Lockhart wondered if she’d fallen back to sleep.

  ‘I can't believe she’s gone,’ she said, resolutely, as she thumbed away the tears. ‘I wish to God I hadn’t got her into all this.’

  ‘All of what?’ Lockhart asked.

  She said nothing else, and he watched the shutters come down.

  He thought about telling her what had happened in the alleyway behind the Rabbit, when the guy who had killed her sister had sparked blue in the night and twisted as the electric current had surged through him. But he didn’t. Because he knew it wouldn’t bring her solace. She didn’t blame the guy. She blamed herself.

  ‘I’m going to take a shower
,’ she said after a moment, her voice soft and composed once more. Lockhart watched her pad across the room and out into the hallway until he was on his own in the lawyer’s bedroom.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, when she was almost out of sight. Kate paused, and then slowly turned back towards him.

  ‘Trista,’ he said. ‘She’s the reason I came back for you.’

  Kate looked at Lockhart curiously.

  ‘I left her in the middle of the night,’ Lockhart said. ‘I couldn’t go back for her. I never said goodbye. I’ve been traveling ever since. I still can’t go back for her. That’s why I’m here. And that’s the real reason I came back for you.’

  Kate moved back into the lawyer’s room and sat down next to Lockhart without taking her eyes off him. She moved gracefully, her movements calm and languid, as if any sudden movement might spook him.

  ‘Why can’t you go back for her?’

  He traced the outline of his damaged jaw with his fingers and took a long breath.

  ‘I was a writer on the Times,’ he began. ‘In London. I worked on some big stories. Eighteen months ago, a Ukrainian guy gets in touch, saying he had the inside track on some serious corruption, right at the heart of his government. I stood the story up, and we were about to publish when I get a call saying Mykola’s dead. Turned out it was a professional hit, and before I knew it, the Security Service turned up offering me a route out of the UK.’

  ‘So you just left?’ Kate asked. ‘Were you scared?’

  She looked disappointed.

  ‘Of course I was scared,’ Lockhart said. ‘When poisoned Mykola they hit two of his friends. I figured they’d come after me next. Fine. That was my battle. But I couldn’t stomach Trista getting caught in the crossfire. I couldn’t lead them to her. So I left in the night. And I didn’t say goodbye. And I couldn’t go back for her. And that’s why I came back for you.’

  ‘Have you seen her since?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You think she’s waiting for you?’

  Lockhart said nothing. Kate leaned forward and rested her forehead on his. After a minute she slipped a hand into the nape of his neck, her fingers running through his hair, and pulled his head into the hollow of her shoulder. Solidarity.

  ‘I’m going to get that shower,’ she said eventually, her voice low and hoarse.

  ‘Sure,’ Lockhart said.

  Soon he could hear the water running in the next room, but something of Kate Braganza clung to him. There had been an unspoken moment of connection between them; she was grieving a sister and blaming herself, and he mourning a woman who was alive, but only because he had abandoned her.

  And that was the truth. That was why he’d gone back for Kate Braganza. She was a woman he hardly knew. A few hours on a plane and two nights drinking in the same bar hardly counted as an obligation. No question: it was all about Trista.

  Besides, who else would have looked out for Kate Braganza if he hadn’t? Most likely she’d have drowned in the bottom of a barrel by now if he hadn’t stepped in. Lockhart didn’t want any credit for saving her, but he would sleep easier for knowing she was okay. Nobody deserved to die hanging upside down from a meat hook. Had he saved an innocent woman? Who knew? Ta Penh thought she knew something. He had tried to torture it out of her. It probably would have worked out if Lockhart hadn’t shown up. But then, maybe she knew nothing. Maybe it was her sister Ta Penh had wanted. And maybe whatever he had been after, she had taken it to her grave. He sighed, remembering Matilda. Her lifeless eyes. The angry red marks around her neck. Her chest, as he had pounded down on it.

  Lockhart stood up, roughing up his hair, and shaking the thoughts from his mind. He grabbed his Bialetti and wondered through to the kitchen looking for Fischer. He wanted to know more about Matilda. He wanted to understand why she had died. He wanted to know more about why he had been followed through the French Quarter on that grim night. But there was no point asking Kate any more questions until they were out of the country. If she knew any secrets, she hadn’t spilled them while she was about to drown so there was no way she would start talking now she was back in the safety of the lawyer’s house. Whatever she knew, she was in danger. Ta Penh had found her once, and he would find her again. She had to get out of Cambodia. There was no question about that. And now that Lockhart had somehow become involved, it was time for him to move on too.

  He found Fischer in the kitchen, back at his table with another overflowing ashtray and a half-finished bottle of Bombay Sapphire. He had at least managed not to pass out at the table this time, choosing instead to put his feet up and slump backwards in his chair. The result was that his head was hanging over the back of it, and he was snoring loudly. Lockhart let him be, put the Bialetti on the stove, and started hunting around the cupboards for coffee. The old lawyer woke up when he smelled the brew beginning to percolate, bemoaning the state of his neck. He slipped a hand underneath his matted gray dreads and began to rub hard at the skin. He looked worse than he had done when Lockhart had woken him up the previous morning, and for a while he nursed his coffee and said nothing.

  When he was halfway down his cup, Lockhart said, ‘Awake?’

  Fischer let out a low moan.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘I wish I wasn’t.’

  Lockhart watched him pick up the bottle gingerly, holding it with two fingers by the neck. He stumbled across the room and put it in the trash, before landing himself back in his seat.

  ‘I can’t even look at that,’ he said, his chest straining like a dusty accordion. ‘Not with the damage it’s done me. Christ alive.’

  Lockhart eyed him with little sympathy.

  ‘Not your favorite drink?’

  Fischer breathed in to speak, but the air caught in his cloyed lungs, and he coughed hard and long.

  ‘That’s nobody’s favorite drink. It’s full of bleach and formaldehyde. Buying liquor around here is like playing Russian roulette.’

  He drank more coffee, his hand shaking as he bought the cup to his mouth. Lockhart watched him, wondering if there had been a time when he hadn’t drunk himself to sleep.

  ‘Thanks for the bed.’

  Fischer looked up from his cup.

  ‘Thanks for the coffee. I wish you could stay longer, but…’

  Lockhart held up a hand to stop him.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But you’ve done more than enough. We’ll head to Phnom Penh this morning and we’ll be out of Cambodia by tonight. I don’t know what happened to Ta Penh after we left, but even if he’s still around, I don’t think there’s anything to tie you to us. You should be safe.’

  ‘You think?’ Fischer said. ‘Things are never so clear cut here in Cambodia, Charlie. Many people have wished for Ta Penh to be dead for a long time, but you saw him last night. Are you sure he was alive? Are you sure it was him? This country is full of myth and rumor and folklore and magic. Nearly every house has a skull scratched into the wood of the doorframe to ward off evil spirits. Half of Kep thought your girlfriend had risen from the dead, don’t forget.’

  Fischer looked over the rim of the coffee cup to see if he’d get a rise out of the girlfriend comment.

  ‘Educated men don’t believe in magic,’ Lockhart said.

  ‘Educated Westerners don’t.’

  The phrase hung in the air between the two men for a moment, and Lockhart turned it over in his mind.

  ‘Ta Penh had a guy following me on a motorbike,’ Lockhart said eventually. ‘Nothing supernatural about that. And he paid the cops to find Kate. He followed a trail, just like a detective or a lawyer would. And there’s no trail that leads from me to you. You’ll be fine.’

  The lawyer put his cup down gently on the wooden table, shaking his head from side to side.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he said, and he turned as he heard Kate walking into the room. ‘Ta Penh doesn’t have to use magic. He only has to use people’s fear of it. Two million people were killed here in four years. The people who are left believe in
evil spirits. Who can blame them? Ta Penh uses their ignorance and fear to control them. So if they know anything, they’ll tell him.’

  Kate walked over to the stove, still toweling her hair.

  ‘There’s coffee in the pot,’ Lockhart said, and she began rummaging in Fischer’s cupboards for a mug.

  ‘How did you sleep?’ the lawyer asked.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, pouring the coffee and pulling up a chair. ‘How about you?’

  Fischer made a non-committal grunt and rolled his neck.

  ‘I used a bottle of Bombay Sapphire as a pillow,’ he said. ‘Which turned out to be not such a great idea.’

  They spent long enough talking about their plans for Fischer to regain some of his color and for Lockhart to start a second Bialetti.

  ‘Where will you go?’ Fischer asked.

  Kate folded the damp towel over the back of her chair and pulled her hair back into a band.

  ‘Home,’ she said. ‘What about you, Charlie?’

  She didn’t meet his gaze as she asked, and Lockhart knew what she wanted him to say. Since he had come for her in Kampot Prison, she had trusted him. She was hoping he would see her safely back to New York.

  ‘I can’t go with you,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been traveling for a long time now, just to stay ahead of my own problems. And I don’t want to drag you into those.’

  She looked down at the table.

  ‘Why not?’ she asked quietly. ‘Things couldn’t get much worse than here.’

  Lockhart remembered her hanging from the ceiling, half drowning in the oil barrel inside the Kampot cage. She had good reason to be scared. She’d been through a lot. But then, so had he. He had given up everything and accepted a life on the road. That choice had kept him safe, and it had kept Trista safe too. He had sacrificed almost everything, always moving on. Always staying a step ahead of the guys who wanted him dead.