White Crocodile

by Medina, KT

  ‘I think you’re right.’ He pointed back to the first palm tree. ‘And if you look back to the POMZ-2, right of it, you can see the trip wire continuing into the wood. I think it passes through the safety-pin hole in the striker and keeps going – tensioned – wired to blow if it’s tripped or if it’s cut. I am pretty sure that the one from the Type 69 runs away only and it’s slightly loose, so it’s only armed to operate when tripped. We’ll have to trace both ends of it though, to make sure before we cut it.’

  ‘That’s a pretty dodgy arrangement for whoever laid it. They were either very good or very stupid.’

  ‘Maybe both.’

  Tess glanced over and met his gaze. His dark eyes were warm, alive. He was a different animal from the one she had encountered last night. She looked away, unable to hold his gaze.

  ‘I’m going forward for a closer look,’ she heard him say. He was kneeling now, reaching to the battery pack of his detector to switch it on. ‘Then I’ll wire the fuses to neutralise the mines and we can cut the trip wires. You OK with that?’

  She nodded. It was vital to neutralise a mine before cutting its trip wire; this way, if while cutting the trip wire you accidentally triggered it, the safety pin or wire you’d wrapped through the fuse would prevent the striker being released into the detonator assembly and initiating the mine.

  ‘Good.’ Alex straightened and made to move forward.

  Tess grabbed his ankle. ‘Watch for blast mines, Alex. There could be blast mines buried where the trip wires cross.’

  She caught the flicker of a smile that crossed his face as he looked down at her.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  She dropped her hand quickly, feeling foolish. A moment later, he had stepped forward and was running his detector slowly left to right across the muddy soil in front of the trip wires. Silence. Crouching, he extended his reach, stretching his detector directly under where the two trip wires crossed. A shrill electronic whine cut through the heavy air. He glanced over his shoulder at her, nodded. She’d been right. There was something there at the nexus between the wires.

  Sliding carefully on to his stomach, Alex pulled his prodder from his belt and began to snake forward. Tess inched after him, eyes on the trip wires stretched just in front of him. One touch was all it would need. Don’t think about it. Instinctively, she reached forward and laid her hand on his back, pressing into it, keeping in contact with him. For a long moment, the only sound was the soft slush slush of their bodies through the mud.

  ‘PMN-2.’ A half-circle of black and green plastic in the muddy ground, tilted slightly to its side. A PMN-2 anti-personnel blast mine: it could take a leg off. Tess watched, almost holding her breath, as slowly, gently, Alex began to uncover it from its bed of soil, brushing his hand over its top without placing any pressure on the plate, gouging a hole next to it big enough to bury high explosive.

  A crack of thunder sounded suddenly, jerking them from their absorption. The sky had turned from blue to dusty black. Tess hadn’t noticed, but now that she was aware of the sky, she felt the heaviness in the air, the moisture on her skin. It would soon rain. Rain destabilised the ground, made tools and hands slippery, clouded visors and impaired vision.

  Alex cast a grimace at the sky. Sliding his forearm under his visor, he mopped his face with a sleeve. As he dropped his hand, Tess saw another wink of green in the soft brown earth. Almost invisible.

  ‘Alex, stop.’

  His hand froze in mid-air.

  ‘I think there’s another mine.’

  ‘Where?’ He sounded oddly calm. But she could see his raised hand trembling – a muscle spasm in his jaw. She reached forward, tensing her muscles against the shaking in her own hand, and pointed.

  ‘There. Where you were going to put your left hand.’

  Alex looked hard, muttered – ‘Fuck’ – and began to slither backwards, dragging himself carefully over the ground he had already crawled through. He stopped and lay still, breathing hard. Tess squatted next to him, heart jumping against her ribcage.

  Another crack of thunder, louder, closer. The sky broke and fat drops of rain speckled the surface of the road.

  ‘We have to move fast.’ Alex took a deep breath. ‘I’m going to have another look.’ He slithered forward again, prodder in hand, and started easing it into the ground around the flash of green. Contact, immediately. ‘It’s another mine, for sure. Bastards.’ Laying the prodder down, he started digging at the soil with his fingers, carefully excavating.

  The rain was lashing now, hammering against their visors, soaking their clothes. The surface of the paddy field was a boiling explosion of circles and bubbles. Alex’s fingers were muddy, slippery. Tess moved her hand to his back again, sliding it to the bottom of his flak jacket, grabbing a tense handful of his shirt in her fist. He glanced behind him and they exchanged tight half-smiles.

  ‘A Type 72 anti-personnel mine.’ Alex’s voice, firm, objective, but she could hear the catch in the words, the choppy sound of his breathing. A Type 72: tiny, minimum metal, incredibly hard to detect. Buried next to the PMN-2, so that it would be missed. So that a mine clearer would nudge it accidentally while clearing the PMN-2 and blow his hand off. ‘I’m going to wire the fuses on the frag mines and cut the trip wires,’ he said. ‘Then we can lay explosive and detonate them all at the same time.’

  Tess nodded. ‘I’ll wire one, you wire the other.’

  ‘No.’ He turned. ‘You get the explosive.’

  ‘Alex, I’m not going to leave you now—’

  ‘Just go and get the explosive.’

  ‘Alex—’

  ‘It’s an order,’ he snapped. He looked embarrassed. ‘Look, there is no point both of us risking it here.’

  ‘That’s my job.’

  ‘Please . . . just . . . go.’

  Reluctantly, Tess climbed stiffly to her feet. Cast him one last look before turning and trudging back down the lane.

  When she returned with the plastic explosive and detonator cord, Alex was standing, hands in his pockets, staring through the curtain of rain out across the paddy fields. As she approached, he turned, reaching for the explosives with a brief smile. But instead of taking them, he closed his hand around hers. Their eyes met.

  ‘Last night,’ he said. ‘I behaved badly.’

  She shifted uncomfortably; couldn’t decide whether to yank her hand away or to leave it where it was and hear him out.

  ‘You were sleep-deprived. You felt like shit,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Yes. I still feel like shit.’

  She smiled, despite herself.

  ‘And I . . . wanted to apologise.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  He looked confused. ‘Go on what?’

  ‘Apologise. You said you wanted to apologise, so apologise. Saying “I wanted to apologise” isn’t an apology.’

  Alex gave a low whistle. ‘Jesus! You don’t make it easy, do you?’

  She felt a sudden stab of real anger and was surprised by it.

  ‘It’s getting late. The guys are waiting.’ She held up the explosive. ‘Let’s just finish the job.’

  Together, in silence, they laid the explosive. Running a length of detonator cord in a circle to make the ring main; taping four lengths of det cord, one for each mine, to it; knotting the other lengths’ other ends and moulding plastic explosive around each knot; laying the explosive in small craters excavated next to each mine. Finally they crimped a long length of safety fuse to a flash detonator and taped the flash detonator to the two ends of the ring main, completing the circle.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Alex said, rising to his feet and trailing the safety fuse after him.

  They trudged slowly back down the track towards the vehicles, slipping on the muddy bank, heads lowered against the driving rain, playing out the safety fuse until they reached its end. Alex lit it, and they jogged further back, well into safe ground. Turning, they squatted down to watch. A second later, the high explosive blew, d
etonating the mines. A massive, beating pulse hammered through the rain as the mines exploded fractionally apart in a lethal shower of metal fragments fifty metres wide.

  When the explosion had died down, Alex stood and brushed at the front of his shirt. It was caked in mud, his shirt and shorts plastered to his body. Tess knew she looked the same, worse maybe.

  ‘Good job,’ he said mildly. ‘I’m glad you were with me.’

  ‘No problem. Don’t take it personally, but I have to say it was absolutely no fun at all.’

  ‘No.’ Alex shook his head solemnly. ‘It wasn’t the best.’ He wiped a hand through his dripping hair, then, without warning, reached over and took hold of a strand of hers. ‘You’ve got mud in your hair.’ He dragged his fingers through it, almost absent-mindedly. Tess stood stock still, staring at her feet. But when she glanced up out of the corner of her eye, she realised that he wasn’t even looking at her. He was gazing out across the minefield, a stricken look on his face.

  ‘What’s the matter, Alex?’

  He shook his head, refocusing on her. ‘I meant what I said, about you going back to England.’ He paused. ‘I made a mistake.’

  ‘Mistake? About what?’

  He sighed, and she felt sure he was about to answer her, but then the expression on his face changed, a shutter falling. She laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘In MCT House last night, you asked me if I thought Luke was murdered, and you know my answer. But what about you? What do you think?’

  He shuffled his feet. ‘Does it matter what I think?’

  ‘It matters to me. And I’m pretty sure that it would matter to those women – and to Johnny. Because they’re all related, aren’t they? I don’t know why yet, but I do know that these attacks are related. It doesn’t take a genius to work that out.’ She dropped her hand from his arm. ‘I came to Cambodia to find out who murdered Luke. It’s bigger than him now. But I’m still not going to stop until I find out the truth. I’m not going to sit tight and be good and do nothing. And I’m not going home.’ She paused. ‘So what do you think, Alex?’

  He looked up and their eyes locked. ‘I think you’re right, Tess. I think that Luke was murdered. I also meant what I said in the office. Christ knows what’s going on, but nothing good can come from it, and if you don’t have to be here, go. Go home. Get on a fucking plane, and go back to England and then you’ll be safe. I should never have—’ He broke off, shaking his head.

  ‘Never have what?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He wouldn’t meet her gaze. ‘It’s nothing important.’

  Turning, he started walking back up the lane into the minefield.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Alex, stop talking in riddles,’ she shouted after him. ‘Tell me the truth. I can take it.’

  He kept walking.

  *

  There was someone standing next to the bed. He knew, but he didn’t want to turn his head.

  ‘Johnny.’ A soft voice, familiar. Johnny remained silent. He heard the scrape of a chair, the creak of wood and an exhalation as Dr Ung sat down, then pressure on the edge of the mattress, and a light touch on his arm. ‘Johnny.’

  He was staring at the patterns of light and shade on the mosquito mesh. They were leaping and twisting. It must be windy outside, and wind meant the coming of rain – never one without the other in Cambodia. He hadn’t noticed, hadn’t felt the slight dip in temperature, the swell of moisture in the air, because his fan kept turning night and day.

  He turned his head slowly and looked at Dr Ung. ‘What?’

  He reminded Johnny of a little bird, with his slight build and neat, precise movements.

  ‘Ah.’ Dr Ung pressed his hands together. ‘Sorry to wake you,’ he murmured, with mock apology.

  Johnny said nothing. He stared blankly into Dr Ung’s face.

  ‘You look better,’ Dr Ung said. ‘How do you feel?’

  How do you think I feel? After a long pause he said, ‘Fine,’ in a tiny, weary voice. He tilted his head back to the window. It had begun to rain. The rhythmic patter of drops was just audible over the beating of the fan.

  He heard Dr Ung sigh. ‘Johnny. Johnny, you have to . . .’

  ‘No,’ he hissed, twisting back. ‘I don’t want your advice. I don’t need counselling. I just want you to make me better, so that I can get out of this fucking hospital.’ Jamming his eyes shut, he stared hard into the colours blooming on the inside of his eyelids, trying to empty his mind of everything. The fear that he was being hunted, that this was just the beginning. That the Crocodile would eat him by increments. And there was not a damn thing he could do to help himself.

  22

  Manchester, England

  Walking into the autopsy room, Andy Wessex always felt intensely aware of his own body. It was to do with the antiseptic quality of the place: white tiled walls, lino floor, white plastic dissecting tables, a white painted ceiling inlaid with rows of fluorescent lights; air so chill that on late autumn days like this his breath condensed. Every condition of the atmosphere in here was meant to throw the human body into relief, leave no room for ambiguity. The place smelled of disinfectant layered over something brutally primal. Iodine and meat.

  Jane Percival was leaning over the table closest to him. A glance at the corpse in front of her, opened from neck to pubic bone, told Wessex that this was his victim. The hair and the skin colour were recognisable, and the rest he would have been happy to gloss over, if he’d had the choice. Percival turned around at his footsteps, laying down her scalpel and holding up a gloved, splattered hand.

  ‘DI Wessex – nice to see you again. I’d shake your hand if I could.’

  She was small and slim, late fifties, grey hair pulled back into a neat chignon, her mild blue eyes intelligent and warm. Wessex liked her best of all the pathologists he knew. She was frank and direct and he’d tried hard to imagine what had led her to choose this career. So he’d asked her once. She’d told him that forensic pathology was the most extraordinary puzzle. All the pleasure of the most complicated diagnoses. ‘But it feels purer than any other branch of medicine, because we don’t prescribe. We don’t have that responsibility. We just observe.’

  Now she gestured to the girl on the table. ‘Have you ID’d this poor soul yet?’

  Wessex shook his head. ‘The passport led me to an uncomfortable conversation with a couple of good folks in Altrincham, but nowhere else. It was stolen from a half-English, half-Sri Lankan girl who’s staying with her uncle in Colombo, saving turtles. So we’re back to square one, and I need all the help I can get from you.’

  Percival’s gaze refocused on the corpse. It was small and painfully thin, like the drug addicts Wessex picked up in Moss Side, who’d go without food for days if it meant they could save up for a hit. Where her eyes and nose should have been there was a ragged hole, the rich cream cartilage of the nose standing proud. Whatever was left in the eye sockets was the colour of burgundy.

  ‘Foxes most likely,’ Percival said, catching his gaze.

  Wessex steadied himself. ‘Not the fat old Staffie then?’

  ‘No. We’ve got a few teeth marks around the wrist which match the dog, but nothing else. I’d say it was just being inquisitive.’ Percival gave a grim smile. ‘You’d better let the owner know. He probably hasn’t looked at the poor creature in the same way since.’

  Wessex’s eyes closed for a moment. ‘How old was she?’

  ‘Teenager from the length of the long bones. Sixteen. Seventeen.’

  ‘Do we have time and cause of death?’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘And that means . . . ?’

  ‘Entomology will be more exact, but I can give you a pretty good time of death. Given the fact she was found outside and the state of the weather – which luckily for us has slowed decomposition right down – she’s been dead for around eighty hours, give or take.’

  ‘OK. So that means middle of the night, three days ago. Sunday night . . . actually Monday morning. One or two
a.m.?’

  Percival nodded. ‘That would be about right.’

  ‘And the cause of death?’

  ‘That’s the “no” part.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Frankly, I’m confused.’ She indicated the mass of bruised intestines pooled inside the chest cavity. ‘It’s a very similar pathology to that which we see in road traffic accident victims. Massive internal injuries. Her insides are basically mush. And here . . .’ Jane Percival slid her hands under the corpse and tilted her. ‘A huge bruise on her back, and her spine is broken just above the pelvis. Also her left femur is shattered. The right leg’s bruised, but no breaks.’

  ‘So she was hit by a car?’

  ‘I’m not sure. You found her in the middle of a wood, didn’t you?’

  Wessex nodded. ‘Rose Hill woods. It’s surrounded by roads, but you’d struggle to get a car up near to where she was found. Could she have been beaten, with a baseball bat or something like that?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Look. It’s one huge bruise, not lots of them. Even if they blended together, I’d be able to tell that each was inflicted separately. They wouldn’t be as uniform in colour as this.’ Percival slid her hand back out from under the body. ‘Her clothes were torn and the skin is badly scratched all over, and I pulled some splinters and bits of bark from some of the scratches, so it’s wood – living trees – that made the scratches. I also found some spruce needles in her skin.’

  ‘Rose Hill woods is predominantly conifers.’

  ‘That makes sense. So she was probably running through the trees, through Rose Hill woods.’

  ‘To get away from someone?’

  Percival shrugged. ‘That’s your department, Sherlock.’

  Wessex grimaced. ‘OK, OK. So she was hit by a car in the wood. Or she was hit and then staggered through the wood.’

  Percival shook her head. ‘Not with the extent of these internal injuries, or a shattered femur.’

  Wessex rubbed a weary hand over his eyes. They hadn’t found any tyre tracks, though the weather wasn’t helping to preserve the crime scene.