Evil in the Land Without

by Colin Cotterill

  In the evening, Tiger came by the hotel an hour late. John docked him ten dollars from his salary. "You work for me and you come when I tell you, not when you feel like it."

  The boy looked shell-shocked.

  "Did you eat?"

  "Yes, sir."

  John knew there wasn't much point in asking him what he did with the rest of the down payment, and he probably didn't want to know anyway.

  "All right. In a few minutes an artist is coming to make a sketch . . . a picture of your Chinaman." He didn't mention that the artist was attached to the local police. There was no love lost between the beachboys and the authorities. The kids were often beaten by the police. Some had complained that they’d been abused by them. But who could they go to when that happened?

  "When that's done, you'll have all night and half of tomorrow to find me any kids who knew the Englishman and the Chinaman; anyone else who had an interview, or anyone who did jobs for him."

  "Fucking?"

  "Anything."

  "All right, sir."

  "And Tiger."

  "Sir?"

  "I think you're a smart kid. You've got a great future in front of you."

  "Me?" He somehow looked in front of himself for it.

  "Uh huh."

  *

  The next morning at 7:00, John wasn’t the most popular person in Mombassa. Five police uniform shirts were hanging from the washing hoist. Their owners, already perspiring heavily after only ten minutes of hard labour, were reluctantly shoveling earth.

  As he had no jurisdiction there, John sat on the rear doorstep with a cool beer and smiled at them. He didn't speak Kiswahili, but if this were South London, and he were a nosey Kenyan copper, he knew what the local lads would have been saying. So he smiled again and raised his bottle.

  It took only another six minutes to find the second body, no more than five metres from where they'd found the first. It had long since given up its pretence of being a human being. It was gnarled and lumpy like a charred ginseng root. The earth had already blotted away its smell. It had once been an eight-year-old boy.

  The discovery re-activated a case that hadn't been particularly active in the first place. Sergeant Moses was called back and the search took on a more optimistic-cum-pessimistic air. When the press arrived, the digging officers proudly displayed their sweat for the photographs, and expressed their deepest concern over the situation. If it had been John's investigation, the hacks wouldn't have been there stuffing up the crime scene at all.

  But it wasn't, so he returned to the cool of the sunless kitchen, took another beer from the fridge, and awaited the inevitable body count. There was no question in his mind now that the boys he'd seen on the slide screen in their last minutes of life were now carcasses in the back yard. Apart from one very serious error, his hunches played out. They would find all five of the other boys before lunchtime. But the next body uncovered was that of an adult. John had told the major they’d probably find one.

  Given The Paw's track record, it was inevitable that the Chinaman, having outlived his photographic usefulness, would have been planted out there alongside his models. When the officer came in to report the find, John was feeling smug. Always a mistake for a policeman.

  "You want a job in Mombassa?"

  "You found the man?"

  "Yes, but I think you'd better come and take a look at this."

  John followed him outside and over to the heap that had just been excavated. It was peculiar how the dry earth had shrunk and mummified the bodies over a relatively short period. In England they would have been moist, putrid, and crawling with maggots for many more months yet.

  John sank to his haunches to stare the Chinaman in the face and look for any leftover secrets on his mind. But when that face stared black-browed and hollow-eyed back at him, he tumbled back into the legs of a cameraman. The air suddenly became oppressive to the point where he struggled to catch his breath. The press corps attempted to help him to his feet, but he shrugged them off. He wasn't confident to stand on his own legs as long as the meatless face and empty eye-sockets of Marcus Aldy stared back at him.

  10

  John sat in a dark corner of the hotel coffee shop waiting for Tiger. He craved alcohol, but knew this was the worst time to get into it. Even sober he was no match for whichever demon was orchestrating his chaos. But he wasn't leading in his waltz with drink either, so he let it have its way.

  Even a fourth whiskey drowned in Pepsi hadn't been able to sweeten the memory of Aldy's bitter smile, or remove the taste of his own victimization. This evening, on a day when six bodies had been removed from the earth, John considered himself more of a victim than any of them

  The recent postcards had been sent after Aldy's death. So, was the Chinaman The Paw, or was he one more token? And Tiger? Was that all set up, too? Had The Paw arranged for him to be there at the house? He really didn't know what or who to believe.

  Ten minutes early, while John was still hating him, the boy appeared at the table. He wore a smile that was uncharacteristically real.

  "I do very well, sir."

  "Sit down, Tiger."

  "And I early. Do you back me ten dollar from time before?"

  "Depends." John looked deep into his intoxicated eyes and could see no obvious treason. He took out the artist's pad and flipped to the sketch Tiger had described the previous day. It was now a thousand times more important than it had been then. It showed a man with bad, dark skin and cropped white hair. The prominent feature was a large pair of sunglasses

  "Couldn't you do any better than this?"

  "How?"

  "Well, couldn't you perhaps describe him when he wasn't wearing the glasses?"

  "He always wearing."

  "Night time, too?"

  The boy was losing his smile and his temper. "I never see him at night. Only day."

  "If you didn't see his eyes, how do you know he was Chinese?"

  Tiger was offended by both the ridiculous question and the tone of the interrogation. He stood and leaned over the table like someone twice his age. "You put Raybans on me, you stop knowin’ I African?" He turned to walk away. "And my name Jackie."

  John stood and called to him. "Tiger, wait. I'm sorry. Please come back."

  The boy walked a few more paces before turning back to look at John. It was the first time an adult had ever apologized to him, and he liked it.

  "What you say?"

  "I said I'm sorry."

  Tiger raised an eyebrow in contempt, smiled at the other customers, but returned to the table and sat down.

  "Did you find me any boys?"

  "I find four," he replied in a sulky voice.

  "Four? That's great. Good man."

  Tiger held in his smile.

  "Where are they?"

  "Outside. I bargain them down to twenty dollar each."

  "Twenty dollars?" John smiled so as not to show that the remains of his last day's budget had just been appropriated. "Good deal. How well did they know him . . . the Chinaman?"

  "Same me."

  "Just the interview?"

  "Yes, sir. I think the Chinaman don't touch no boys."

  "Not one?"

  "No. Only the moosoongoo with lipstick do fucking. He come back from last year. I were his boy one time last year."

  "You? You said you didn't know him."

  "I say I don’ know him this year. Not really lying, right? This year he come with the Chinaman. I don’ see him this time, but these boy say he drunk a lot." He looked down at John's half bottle.

  "Tiger. Have you heard what happened in that house?"

  "Yes, sir. I hear. Everybody hear." He unleashed his smile. "I guess I'm lucky I fuck up the interview, right?" The tough guy was doing all the talking, but the nine-year-old inside couldn't prevent a tear from welling up.

  "I'm sorry, mate. I guess some of them were your friends."

  "No place for friends in this world, sir. More you love, more you hurt." That single
tear freed itself from his eye and crawled down his cheek. He slapped at it as if it were an annoying insect.

  "Okay, Tiger. Let's go and meet the lucky ones." He stood and held out his hand. The boy could have shaken it like they did on the street. But instead he took it and held on to it tightly. They walked out of the restaurant hand-in-hand, and all the other customers thought they knew what they were going to do, but preferred to say nothing. As always.

  11

  As John was boarding the Kenyan Airlines flight to Gatwick, a meeting was taking place on the other side of the world. In a small wooden office in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, an attractive young Asian woman sat before three men. Despite their age, not one of them could wrestle down the fluttering in their old hearts. Her hair was cut short and she wore no make-up, but she was lovely.

  The three represented the ethnic minorities in conflict with the Burmese junta. One was Mon, one Karen, and one Karenni. They asked their questions in English. She answered in a perfect Boston accent, even though she hadn't begun to speak English until she was nine. She was remarkable in many other ways, also.

  But to the three members of the National Health Committee, it was her medical certificate and her willingness to work for next to nothing that were her most powerful attributes. The dedicated and often brilliant floating board members of the NHC represented health workers all along the Burmese border and deep into Mon territory. They had limited funds and no guarantees of safety. Some of these men and women in exile who worked tirelessly for their homelands would have received awards and prizes had they been born anywhere else. Here, playing hide and seek with the Burmese military, they were just happy to receive regular meals and a modicum of respect.

  The Thais tolerated their presence on Siamese soil, ostensibly because the world was monitoring their levels of humanitarian concern over their minority neighbours. Some argued that the Thai military also needed to keep the border keepers happy so as not to disrupt unofficial border trade. But whatever the reason, those living and working at the NHC headquarters were registered and legal temporary residents in Chiang Mai. The Thai undercover officer in the garage opposite had photographs of everyone who entered the bland, unmarked suburban house. His latest catch was a real babe. They'd love her back at Fifth Army HQ Intelligence.

  The three men on the committee had little doubt from the moment she'd sat down that she would be the new medical officer. The fact that she spoke Karen was a considerable plus. She would be spending a good deal of time traveling through Karen areas between the refugee camps at Mae Hong Son, Mae Sariang, and Mae Sot. These camps alone were home to some 80,000 refugees displaced by the junta.

  They had been forced from their homelands for political reasons they weren't able to understand. Many arrived on the Thai side with physical and mental ailments the volunteer medical personnel on the border couldn't begin to cope with. Any qualified help they could afford was more than welcome. They congratulated the woman on her appointment.

  She told them her name was Shirley, but not that it used to be Sherri. There were other things they didn't know about her. There was information she had withheld that may have influenced them against her. She hadn't mentioned for example that she spoke the language of their enemies as well as she spoke English. She had also neglected to mention that her main reason for returning to the area was not to cure, but to kill.

  12

  When Emma Yardly was there to meet him at Gatwick, John knew there had to be bad news. He immediately feared for his sister.

  "Susan and—"

  "No, John. I haven't heard from them. There's something else. We'll talk in the car." But John didn't want to talk in the damned car. He wanted to know immediately. The walk to Short-Stay took an age, and finding her Mazda took another. When they were at last seated, he reached across to stop her turning over the engine.

  "What is it?"

  Emma looked through the windscreen at the concrete wall she'd embarrassed with her headlights. "It's Mick."

  "Oh shit. What's he done now?"

  She looked across at him. "He's dead, John."

  "Oh, Jesus." He shook his head but showed little surprise. "Stupid kid. How?"

  "It was nothing he did. He was at your place. The autopsy said he was clean. No dope. No booze. He was clean as a whistle. His. . . ." She coughed unnecessarily and looked John in the eye for the first time. "His throat was slit."

  "What?"

  "Your place is a mess."

  "A break in?"

  "John, it was The Paw."

  John slammed his fist into the glove box. The flap dropped open on one hinge. Emma chose to say nothing. That name. That damn name again. Why? What could he have done to the man that was so terrible? Of course he would go for Mick. Why hadn't he realized when he got the card from Kingston? The 'idle youth' crack should have told him.

  "What have I done to him, Em? What do I have to do to release myself?" And to the absolute shock of his super—for Mick, and for himself—John Jessel burst into tears. It was so unexpected and so un-Jessel, she was forced to turn away. She had never seen the man inside the man, and there were no appropriate condolences. She waited him out, instinctively feeling that was the best way. It was a long wait.

  Once he had purged himself of the despair, his mind returned to the car and he smiled at his boss. Her puffy eyes smiled back.

  "They don't make glove boxes like they used to." He flicked the dangling flap, and they both laughed as it swung back and forth on its last screw like a hanged man in a strong wind.

  They went directly from the airport to the apartment. Emma had brought copies of the crime-scene report, the autopsy, and the witness interviews. John went through them in the car. The killing had taken place just two days earlier. They hadn't been able to contact him in Mombassa because the phones were out.

  The murder squad had pieced together what had happened. The perpetrator must have come to the door and slashed a blade across the boy's throat as he answered the bell. There was a great deal of blood on the wall beside the door. As the knife had shredded the boy's larynx, there would have been no audible cry. The boy must have staggered back and collapsed on the couch. That was now crusted brown from several liters of blood that had drained from Mick together with his life.

  From there, he was stripped, dragged to the carpet, and tattooed. It was carefully done and would have taken some time. There was no evidence of sexual assault. The place hadn’t been ransacked, and nothing of value appeared to be missing. And through all this, the Paw had neither left prints nor alerted the neighbours. Not even 17A.

  The time of death was put at 2:00 p.m., yet nobody recalled seeing a stranger in the building at that time nor hearing a commotion. He had floated in and out like a nightmare.

  John called Aunt Maud on the car phone and got an assurance that Susan and Eddo were safe and well, and he felt temporarily relieved. This news was not only balm for his conscience, it was also the only tangible evidence he had that The Paw was not all-powerful. Or, at least it left him with some hope that he wasn't. It was vital at this point to believe that the devil was not invincible.

  *

  The ailing Victorian building had no lift, so they walked up the creaking steps to John's fifth-floor flat. When he unlocked the door, the stench of congealed blood rushed into their faces and forced them two paces back. Emma put her handkerchief to her nose and went in first to open the window. John followed her and stared dispassionately at the bloodstains on the sofa as if they may offer up their secrets to him.

  "What are you going to do with this place, John?"

  He answered as if he’d already decided. "Re-decorate."

  "You aren't going to stay here?"

  "Why not?"

  "John, he knows you're here. He could come back anytime. He's already killed one person here."

  "So the answer is I keep running? I quit my job? Because he knows about that too, you know. I keep my family hidden away forever? No. That wouldn'
t work, Em. He could have killed me anytime, but he wants me around for some reason. He doesn't want me dead yet. I'm last . . . 'after the girls.' He quoted the postcard. He wants me tormented. So I'm staying put. I'll go and see my sister and my nephew for a day or so though, if that's okay with you. Before I start work."

  "Work. . . ? John, you're the target of a murderer. How could you concentrate on other cases?"

  "’Cause I'm a professional. And because I have an interior decorator to feed. It'll be nice to fix this dump up."

  Emma was once again amazed by the man. The outburst in the car was out of his system. Now, John was treating this like any other case. She watched him walk around the flat as if he was on the job. It could have been anybody else's place, anybody else's friend laid out on a slab. There was no more sadness for the boy he had come to like very much. He methodically went through his things to see whether anything was missing, but there was nothing out of place.

  "Okay, boss. All done here. What say we go look for the detective who's handling this case and ask him a couple of questions?"

  "You're a most peculiar person, John Jessel," she said, half to herself, and followed him out of the flat.

  13

  “I’m starting to feel like Salman Rushdie."

  Susan was sitting in the living room of the beautiful Elizabethan cottage in the grounds of Mendleton House. John and their mother sat on the plastic-coated settee opposite her.

  "You're starting to look like him, too," their mother put in without any pretence at humour. "A little grooming wouldn't come amiss, dear. Being a refugee is no excuse for letting yourself go."

  John snorted and Susan feigned to chuck a scatter cushion at the old girl. They were on their second bottle of red, and Susan was just starting to get over the shock of John turning up with their mother of all people. It wasn't a decision John had been able to make for himself. He certainly didn't want her there. But she was just as likely a target as any of them, and he wanted her out of harm's way. He and Aunt Maud had arranged a place for her in the country. To nobody's surprise, she had refused point-blank.