He ignored the lift and took the back stairs. The fire door opened onto a lane. He wasn't breaking the promise exactly. It was night. Nobody would see him.
It felt good to be outside. The streets were dark and the occasional lamps struggled to change matters. In fact, they just wound the darkness into different shades of grey. The paving stones were uneven. Reading always reminded Bruce of a city where council workers came to practice before doing it properly somewhere else.
He crossed a main street and walked around the perimeter of a park where by day, cricketers in grass-stained whites wasted valuable hours, and by night, homosexuals enticed one-another by flashing cigarette lighters. He passed the window of a pub where red-nosed men sat with the dogs they were pretending to walk.
It was on the return journey that the feeling came over him. Streets he had previously shared, were now ominously empty. It felt like some portent of a storm had dropped on Reading and he'd only just noticed it.
There was one short alleyway before the bright shop fronts of the main street. It had narrowed and darkened and eeried up a good deal since he'd first walked through it. He was angry at himself for inventing all this. He focussed his mind on the far end of the alley where cars and buses passed oblivious to the paranoia he'd manufactured for himself. He took a breath and headed for them.
Most of the shadows on either side of him allowed him to pass in peace. Only one was there to kill him. Bruce knew and felt nothing of it. Before his heightened senses could react to the movement, his throat was slit and his life was gone.
It wasn't so much the life Bohmu Din was there for, as the mobile phone in Bruce's pocket. He took it and walked casually back to the rented car as if nothing untoward had happened. He climbed into the back seat of the Nissan that had been his home for a week.
He supposed he could merely have stolen the phone once again, but failure didn't perch happily on the gnarled branches of Bohmu Din's mind. All the gawky hippie had to do was phone him back as he'd told him to. Nobody had asked him to use his head. So that head was now half on, half off: a state he had brought upon himself. The Burman derived no great pleasure in killing such people, but neither did he feel remorse. He no longer had a stomach for watching his victims suffer. He dispatched them swiftly and with purpose. They were just sentries guarding Heaven.
He took out the photograph. It was soft now, like cotton, from the years of handling. The images of the white angel and her brother were smudged beyond recognition from the countless times he had caressed their innocent faces with his callused fingers. But he could see them in his mind as clearly as that first day.
In the background, the mother leaned forward and produced a glorious but imitation smile. The children were on the sand in front of her. The boy grinned. His red hair stood up like squirrel tufts, his eyes big and blue, his left ear gnarled.
The girl was so lovely. Her hair was blond like jasmine hearts, and her smile natural and inviting. So inviting.
"I'm close now, my princess. Let's see just how close."
From the toolbox under the seat, he removed a screwdriver and unscrewed the back of the phone. The recording device sat where he'd installed it the previous day. The hippie wasn’t careful with his possessions. In his work, Bohmu Din had access to so many of these toys of high technology. He removed the disc and put it into the player. When he'd listened to its secret conversations, he was pleased with himself. He had more than enough information to close in on the target. He ran his thumb over the featureless faces that had once smiled on a beach at the feet of a woman in movie-star sunglasses.
"I'm coming."
35
Kruamart and the housemaid looked through the many temple photographs and wondered why the date on the bottom was the same on all of them. Norbert somehow convinced them that the device on the camera was stuck. John doubted Kruamart believed him, but she was certainly pleased to have him back.
It would have been incredible, John thought, to have someone miss him so much that her instinct told her he was on the road home. To have someone love him so much that her eyes filled with tears when she saw his face through the windscreen. To hold him so tightly he had to beg for breath. Norbert had all this and John didn't.
The couple had a very early night and left John alone on the balcony with a mosquito coil and his thoughts. He thought of Encampment G, of his near death and near love experiences. He listened to the water and the frogs and the dreams of the housedogs. When the full moon’s puffy face peered through the clouds, the stream held up a mirror to it like a doting lover, and carried its image beyond the house. The clouds would get jealous of this affair and re-claim their moon, plunging John into a blackness that no longer terrified him.
Did he really use to sleep with the bunny-rabbit night-light on, tough old police inspector Jessel? Had he really needed those nightcaps to coax him into sleep?
"Man, she's insatiable." Norbert, in black silk fisherman's trousers, walked bow-legged through the house swinging a hurricane lamp. It was as if the whole house were swinging with him. "You couldn't come take over for a couple of hours could you?"
"Don't tempt me, Norbert. I could use a little TLC right now."
"Oh ho. I feel a Celine Deon moment coming on." He pulled up a rocker, lowered the lamp wick, and sat staring at the same shadows. "You missing some little honey in Inglaterra?" (n)
"No, mate.” Honey was definitely not flowing in the old country. “I was starting to think they'd taken out my heart instead of my appendix."
"Until. . . ?"
"Why does there have to be an 'until'?"
"Boy, you been as bright as a brush fire since Camp G. Now, I know you survived getting shot in the brain and all that, but it don't explain the jingly-jangly in your eye."
"I've got a jingly-jangly in my eye?"
"You sure do, boy. And I know where that jingly-jangly came from, too."
"Oh, you do?"
"Yes, sir. And it starts with a 'doc' and ends with a 'ter.'"
"Rubbish."
"Oh yeah? So why was you asking everyone at the rendezvous site if they'd seen her? And why was you so happy when they told you she probably went off to some other site where all the hospital patients was taken?"
"My concern for the medical profession."
"Right. And why was you so pissed at me when I told you we wouldn't be passing that site on our way back? You got a jingly-jangly sure as I'm sitting here."
"Okay. For argument sake, just suppose I did have a jingly-jangly, and I'm not saying I do. But if I did, what good would that do me?"
"Well, it might just have something good to do with you if she was asking everyone about you after your day of 'volunteering' at the hospital."
"She was?"
"Oh ho. There he is. That big old jingly-jangly."
"Was she really, Norbert? Serious?"
"She sure was, boy. She asked half a dozen people she'd never spoke to before. And I tell you another thing. You two got something else in common."
"What's that?"
"She's only ever asked about one other man before, and his name is Bohmu Goddamn Din."
"No. . . ? But, why?"
Norbert turned up the wick of his lamp and stood.
"I'll leave you with that question . . . ’cause, right now, you know exactly everything I know, and I got no answers. Now, if you'll excuse me, I got a mad wife to please while I still got some wick left. You look after that jingly-jangly now, boy."
And, with that, Norbert, the light, and any chance of sleep disappeared.
36
What John had heard about Dr. Shirley was false. Not that she had been asking about him. That much was true. She asked everyone until she got the answer she was looking for.
It could have been that they were protecting his feelings, or they may really not have known, but she wasn't safe. She didn't get away from the camp with the invalids. The Burmese raid had not been a failure. The target had been identified, separated from t
he others, and transported to the battalion headquarters in Pa'an.
There, she was treated politely, but not allowed answers to her questions. She had been alert to the sounds around her through the thick wool hood. The raiding party had handed her over to guards, one of whom was a woman. They marched her along concrete corridors where the footsteps bounced up against tin roofing, which told her they were in a relatively permanent one-storey structure. She acted as timid and pathetic as she was able, and only one guard had a light hold on her arm as they walked.
They removed the hood in a small, sparsely furnished room. She cried and asked the guards what she had done wrong, and why they had brought her there, even though she knew. They ignored her and the men left. The woman apologized before giving her a thorough body search. As Shirley had anticipated, it wasn't quite thorough enough.
When the guard left, she looked around the room. She had to know it well. A good general always reconnoiters the field of battle. There was a portable commode, a field cot, a card table, and one chair. The walls were bare, and there was one small barred window high up one wall. She had traveled all day. It was evening.
She was ready. Calm. Now, all she needed was for him to come. She'd known she would be too focussed at this late stage to be nervous. She had read of warriors who could keep nothing down for days before an engagement, suddenly enjoying a huge meal just hours before the attack. This was the peace before war. When the scuffle of feet announced visitors at the door, she looked at her hands and they were as solid as the Madonna's. The time had come.
But neither of the men who entered her room was him. Her heart deflated slightly. Of course he would send in others first, she told herself. He would come later, more than likely alone. That would be even better. One step at a time.
The men before her were uniformed senior officers. One of them carried a bill of documents she recognized immediately, but ignored.
"Stand up," one of them barked at her in Burmese, and gestured for her to move over to the wall.
She whimpered and immediately did as she was told. Rather comically, she thought, the two soldiers took her place on the cot. It moaned under their weight. She clasped her hands behind her back and lowered her head in deference to the men.
One officer pushed his glasses firmly up to the bridge of his nose, and held out the papers so she could see them.
"You recognize these?"
She squinted as if she hadn’t noticed her letter to the daughter of No Ay Me. Then she pulled an expression of shock across her face. "But. How did you get that?" she asked.
"That isn't important," the second man answered. "What you have written here, is it . . . factual?"
Shirley feigned embarrassment but managed a slight nod of her head.
"These are serious accusations, girl," said glasses.
"Very serious," added the other for effect.
"I . . . I had no intention of making the story public, sir. It was just a letter to a lady I knew. Will Major Bohmu Din punish me for this?"
"The general is in . . . he isn't in Myanmar at present."
Outwardly, Shirley showed no change of emotion. Inside she collapsed like an old building. Not in Myanmar? Then make him come back. This is the most important thing in his life. It must be. She was certain he would be there. All her planning for the last decade had been structured around his being there to meet her. How could he not be there?
She was devastated, and the tears she cried now in front of the two men, were real. They were not tears of exposure, but of hopes dropping to the ground like shot birds. This was all useless now. There was no reason for her being there; no reason to play-act to these overweight, over-decorated fools.
They interpreted her tears as humiliation. They were uncomfortable at being the mirror of her embarrassment, and they shifted nervously on the bed. They had both read her account, and knew how she must be feeling, what she must be thinking of them as witnesses to her shame. When it was clear the crying would not stop, they mumbled together behind their hands. Together, they stood.
"We will give you a little time to . . . compose yourself," said one. "But when we return, I'm sure you understand, there are many questions we will need answers to."
They walked to the door and called to the guard, who opened it for them. Glasses turned back to her. Although his voice said nothing, his expression told her he was sorry for their intrusion into her life, and for many things he had no obligation to apologize for. He hadn’t been responsible for what happened to her, but he knew it should never have gone unpunished. His expression said all this, but his mouth kept shut. He left and the door slammed.
Shirley leaned back against the wall and berated herself for her weakness and her defeatist thoughts. This wasn't failure. It was a setback, but it wasn't the end. She had to keep that focus.
The idea of escape had never been in her mind. She knew, once her mission was complete, they would not have given her that option. But now it was imperative. She was not about to let these stuffed uniforms prod and poke at her life. She certainly would not let them interrogate or torture her.
She had deliberately dropped enough hints into her letter for the military to be nervous as to just how much classified material she had had access to. She knew the letter would be diverted. It may not have even made it out of Chiang Mai Post Office. SLORC spies were all over the city. She knew the junta would get hold of it, and all the questions it would raise.
In truth, the documents she'd seen as a child had been boring. There were more interesting things to read. She remembered nothing at all. But that wouldn't stop them chiseling at her memory.
She lifted the chair onto the table, climbed up, and looked through the little window. It afforded her a good view of the surroundings, and helped formulate a plan in her mind. It involved a death, perhaps two, but it would give her one chance to escape. She had been so passive when they brought her in, they wouldn't be expecting anything violent now. This was the perfect time. She sat on the dirty commode and passed the small plastic capsule that contained her weapon.
37
Susan and Eddo were well equipped for solitude. Susan had her sketchpads and acres of beauty to mess up with either charcoal or pastel. Eddo saw those same acres as battlefields and prehistoric lands and alien planets.
They left together after breakfast every day, rain or shine—but mainly rain—and headed off in a new direction across the grounds of the estate. They would agree on a site, set boundaries, and spend the day within them. They took a military groundsheet, which usually ended up as a tent, and there they would have tea parties, and banquets, and teddy-bear picnics.
Susan's drawing, while Eddo was off fighting wood monsters, gave her a little too much time to think. John going off to Thailand on some mission he didn't have time to tell her about, was a wrench to her peace of mind. She had become hopelessly dependent on her calls to him. Their love for one-another was her stability in the whole ugly drama. She could play, like Eddo, at it all being an adventure, but it wasn't. John, like everyone else involved in the case, was risking everything to protect her and her son. So many lives had been lost, and yet here they were safe and enjoying the type of life all mothers would love to give their children. She had time only for Eddo and the girl.
The phones weren't connected at the cottage, and they were too isolated to use a mobile themselves, so their lifeline was the phone kiosk beyond the village. They walked there across the fields and returned via Big C supermarket. There, they stocked up on anything healthy they could find—Eddo was staunchly against junk food—and returned to the cottage with their big plastic bags.
There were three security guards watching over the stately home, who took shifts at the gate. In the day, the workers came to renovate the main house, and the gardeners manicured the gardens. Susan and her son were officially royals, so they were afforded a polite distance. Nobody knew their names or why they were there. Their privacy was guaranteed.
Although th
e men knew nothing true about the houseguests, Susan and Eddo knew a lot about them and their life stories. Eddo was an insatiable interviewer. During tea breaks and at lunch, he entertained the workers with his impersonations and discovered who had girlfriends and wives and children. He was constantly trying to work out what 'normal' families were like. It intrigued him that there were mothers and fathers who actually lived together.
Ironically, John's leaving had brought Susan closer to Bruce. They had always been friends, always drunk from the other's brilliance. But they'd never lived together on a regular basis, even after the marriage. Eddo knew Bruce was his dad, and loved him, but the apartness seemed to suit all three of them. Susan and Bruce loved the state of wedlock and parenthood, but valued freedom above them. It was the happiest broken marriage in history.
Without John, Susan found herself relying on Bruce's voice as an anchor to the inside world they'd left. She wanted everything to be all right. She hadn't wanted to hear about Aunt Maud, but she appreciated Bruce's frankness. She knew, if anything happened to John, he would tell her. But with Maud dead and John away, there really was nobody on the inside that knew where they were. They were astronauts drifting away from the space station without a lifeline. Only the evening walk to the phone could re-attach the umbilical cord.
She knew he would hate the idea, and they would both get irritable. But for Eddo and sanity's sake, when she phoned Bruce the next day, she would tell him where they were, and ask him to come and stay. Just for a bit. Just for a show of family unity and love. Oh yes, and sex.
38
The piano music at the Strand Lounge in Rangoon was subdued Richard Clayderman, apparently played with one finger missing. The pianist wore a bright nylon shirt open to the navel, to draw attention from his playing.
Evil in the Land Without Page 15