Evil in the Land Without

by Colin Cotterill

  Bohmu Din grew impatient with the chair. Even by leaning forward, he couldn’t see the show Angel Two was putting on. In a huff, he stood and walked into the bedroom. Susan, her strength flagging, pulled weakly at the metal pipe she was connected to.

  "That's quality workmanship," he said. His words were blotted out by her scream. It was shrill and annoying.

  He had to shout to be heard. "Screaming won't help you. All the houses around here are slated for demolition. This is the only one with life. For the time being."

  But she didn't stop; neither screaming nor clawing at the radiator. Her histrionics were causing him to desend rapidly into one of his slumps. He was not totally responsible for his actions when he was down there. They'd given him pills for it, but he’d started to enjoy the purple moods far more than the bright yellow ones.

  "Why?" she shouted, her voice breaking. "Why my son? He hasn't done anything to you, you sick bastard."

  "Oh dear," he said, fighting to haul himself out of the slump. Trying hard to stay lucid enough to explain. He sat down on the bed and caressed the naked foot with the back of his hand.

  "Don't you touch him, you freak."

  "Why do you both make it so personal?"

  "Personal?" She gave an ironic laugh. "Killing my family's not personal? How much more. . . ." The tears overcame her.

  "You see what ranting does? I think you should calm down and listen to what I have to say, so we can get this over with. I want to be sure you've heard."

  "And I'm next?"

  "If things have gone according to plan, you will be last. Your angel brother will be waiting for you in heaven."

  Susan crumpled to the floor beneath the combined weight of grief upon grief. It suffocated her. She put her face in her hands and breathed deeply into them.

  "That's much better." He got down on the floor and sat cross-legged in front of her. The knife stood proudly out of the breast pocket of his shirt, its blade always close to his cheek. He seemed unaware of the danger of it.

  He looked up to the wall as he tried to remember the script he had written for her. He was dipping in and out of his slump like a trawler in a high sea. It was important to him to stay in control long enough to do it right.

  "I was surprised you are still producing. I took a peek while you were sleeping. Hope you don't. . . ." His head pounded. The pain deafened him to his own words. "Hope you don't mind. This way is even better. I get one bonus angel, you see? It's like a reward. I didn't touch you down there, of course."

  He put his hand into the knife pocket. He didn't notice the slash the sharp blade made across his palm, just calmly pulled out the well-mauled photograph. He held it towards her.

  "This is the way I prefer you. I often imagine having you like this. Oh do look. I'd hate to think I was wasting my last speech." He waited for the ringing to pass from just behind his eyes. "Look!"

  Susan looked up from her palms. He was happy to see the anger in her eyes. She looked at the square of paper he was holding up to her face. She could barely make out a picture. A woman in a chair could have been her mother. If that were so, the two children at her feet were herself and John. But their faces were gone. The paper there was so worn through, she could see the light from the window behind where they should have been.

  His hand bled onto the photograph and blood spread across the picture like a theatre curtain closing a last act. Susan made the decision then that she would not merely fade away like her image.

  "You knew my father."

  Something tightened in his head. "You don't have to speak. Just—"

  "What was he like?"

  "Like. . . ? He was like nothing. He was a fool, a coward, a liar, and a thief. Is that enough? He was a mindless bag man for some drug dealer." He put his blooded hand to his forehead to squeeze out the pain. "He was a child abuser."

  "He was all those things, yet he was still able to make a fool of you. How pathetic you must be." She looked him in the face and laughed at him.

  And she saw it as she looked at that face. When he took his hand from his jaundiced eyes, she saw a tempest build in them. She had sent him swirling backward to a time that gave birth to his hatred. And she saw him cross over into insanity like a man crossing from the bright side of the street to the shady side.

  Very slowly he said, "Why did I think I could speak to you?"

  She knew that she had just talked herself to death.

  He took the knife from his pocket and held it in his unsplit hand.

  Then the sound came. It was barely audible. Someone like Bohmu Din would never have recognized it. But to a mother, the sound of a child's breath is a fanfare. It filled her with hope, and will, and strength. Before he could draw back his arm, she was on him, punching, and scratching. The second blow cracked his nose. The knife fell from his hand and he was stunned.

  But his instincts hit back. He tore into her with his fists. She knew then she was going to lose. He beat her until she was unconscious, but even then he didn't stop. It wasn't until his rage was overtaken by his pain that he jerked back and looked down on the body like an innocent witness.

  He saw her face, a map of blood and misplaced features. She hadn't used her hands to protect herself. They were cased around her belly, stiff like gauntlets protecting her daughter.

  It sickened him to think of a love so deep, one would sacrifice one's own life to save another's. And it had all been a waste of time. He fumbled around him, half blinded by the ache inside his mind and the blood in his eyes. He held the knife tightly in his bloody hand and peeled back Susan's robe. Before cutting, he ran his palm across the mound of flesh.

  "It's a miracle isn't it?"

  He hadn't heard Shirley come in to the room. He would not . . . he would not tolerate an interruption at this stage. It was the boy angel's girlfriend. He had seen her from a distance. Remove her. The searing, shooting flashes of lightning scythed through his brain. Stand. . . . Kill.

  With amazing agility he was up and upon her in a fraction of a second. She didn't flinch. She didn't run from him or beg or fall. She stood and smiled. And her smile was a weapon more powerful than any he had met in battle.

  "Who are you?" He stood in front of her. His blade was drawn back to strike.

  In the Karen dialect they had used together, she replied, "Don't you remember your little girl, Major Din?"

  He looked at her closely, and in the same dialect he asked again, "Who are you?"

  "I am Sherri Ya Hei . . . your girl."

  He leaned forward even closer and stared so hard into her face that he peeled away the wrinkles and the bruises and the bandages. He stared so hard, he tore away the days and months and years. Until in front of him was Sherri as she had remained in his mind for 18 years.

  He dropped to his knees like a worshipper before an altar. There was no doubt then in Shirley's mind what it was Jim had stolen from him all those years ago, what it was that had wrung the sanity from him.

  "Sherri. . . . You came back. I knew you would."

  "Yes."

  "Have you come forever?"

  "Tell me why I should."

  "But you know."

  "If you don't tell me, I'll go again."

  He could not bring himself to look up at her for fear he’d be turned to rock by her magic.

  "I am not. . . . I do not have the words." He saw her feet turn to leave. "No! Wait! I . . . you were . . . you are the only love I have ever known in my life. You are the only living being to enter my heart. My love for you was so great. . . ." The turmoil inside his head was interfering with his speech.

  ". . . so great that I was miserable when I was away from you. Always. My heart was emp . . . empty without you. I ate for you. I slept for you. I breathed every breath for you. I lived for you and killed for you. So . . . so many of my kills were sacrifices to you."

  "And when you came home?"

  "When I came home to you, it was as if you didn't care how much suffering I had been through for you.
I had to be strong for you. I had to show . . . to show you that I could protect you." He rocked back and forth as he spoke.

  "So you beat me."

  "I had to. You know I had to. It was the only way to show you my love. The more I hurt you. The more I loved you. You always stayed so calm throughout. Your calmness and sweetness. Aaaaghhh. . . .” The pressure was squeezing the last sense from his mind. . . .

  "I tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to let you know. I loved you. I needed you. And he he he came. He insulted me with talk of money for you. Ogled at you like you were some common whore. You were mine. Was he blind?"

  As he ranted, Shirley reached inside her shirt and pulled out a coil of fishing wire with small metal grips at each end. It was a weapon the boys in the camps had introduced her to. It was a weapon she took with her to the States, and learned from old soldiers how to use well. And here it was, the weapon that would avenge her abuse and rid her of anger.

  He was before her. His head bowed. It wouldn't be difficult. But she wanted to hear him out. She wanted to understand how evil feathered its nest. He spoke loudly, saliva dripped from his mouth to the floor like from some untrained animal.

  "He started a fire at the munitions tent. I knew it must have been him. I went . . . I went to see, just briefly. When I came back, you . . . you . . . you my sweet, sweet love had been taken, stolen from me. You were mine!

  “I knew. I knew you didn't want to leave me . . . ever. I knew he had kidnapped you for his own disgusting purposes. He would have your body. The body that belonged to me!" Bohmu Din's hands were beating rhythmically on the floor in time to the heartbeat of some growing monster. His nose began to bleed, but still he spoke and rocked.

  "I searched . . . all my men searched. If it hadn't been for my superiors, I would have used the whole battalion to search until they died of starvation. For five days I was out looking for you. I didn't sleep." His voice gradually became quieter, as if he'd forgotten Shirley was there and he was telling himself. . . .

  "If you weren't there beside me, how could I rest? And you know he came back. He came back to the edge of the camp . . . right under our noses. And he waited for me to grow tired enough to sleep. Just patiently he sat in a tree waiting. And eventually, exhaustion climbed on top of me and wrestled me down." He seemed to laugh, but it was so soft Shirley had to strain her ears to hear. . . .

  "My men caught him. There was no skill involved. One of the battalion drunks was going for a piss and saw him slip into my barracks. I was two seconds from death. It took five men to overpower him.

  "I hated him, and he was coming to kill me because I loved you. That's ironic isn't it. 'For what you’ve done to the child’ he said. Why ever would he go to so much trouble to kill me for loving you? He was quite mad.

  "But before I could touch him, before I could cut your whereabouts from his throat, he bit on the poison and left me with nothing; no information, no revenge, and no love."

  She heard him begin to cry.

  "And all he left me were his two angel children to fly over me all these years. But he . . . had . . . stolen my love!"

  Shirley looped the wire, leaned forward, and dropped the noose over Bohmu Din's neck. She saw her own tears drip into his white hair.

  "I was six years old," she whispered. "I didn't deserve your kind of love."

  55 - Chiang Mai

  “Okay, all I'm missing now is the ending." Norbert sat on the recliner with the last of a very cold beer in his hand, and his feet on the balcony rail. "Man, I love these true-life dramas."

  John had an eye on Eddo, up to his knees in the stream, spearing imaginary sharks. "Eddo. If you drown I'm going to be very, very angry."

  "Yes, Uncle Johhhn," he shouted back.

  John sipped at his soda. "Okay, so I arrive at Em's place—"

  "With the Burmese guys in the back seat of your car?”

  "With the Burmese guys in the back seat of my car, at about the same time as Woods' chap. He'd already been inside. He said the front door was wide open when he got there. There was nobody inside, but there was blood and all kinds of shit on the floor of the back bedroom. Of course, I assumed the worst. I was furious with myself for not calling for back-up when I first got the message."

  "Oh, this is so exciting. Wait. . . ." He chugged back the last dregs of his beer and ran off to get another one.

  John walked over to the balustrade and waved at his nephew. He wondered how long it would be before he appreciated how lucky he was to be alive.

  Eddo waved back. "I killed a whale," he said, rolling a huge boulder over to the bank.

  "I'll tell Greenpeace."

  Beyond Eddo, the small, whitewashed stone that marked Jim Jessel's grave was picked out by the sun. John raised his soda to his dad, glad to see he was enjoying the nice weather, too.

  "Okay. I'm back. Don't spare me any details." Norbert fell into his chair and popped his can.

  "Well, I tried all the mobiles again and got nothing, so the Secret Service chap and I decided it was time to call in reinforcements. I phone Lawless' mobile number expecting another war. He wasn't ever in a great mood, so I wasn't surprised when he shouted, ‘Jessel, you irresponsible piece of shit, where the fuck are you?’ I told him, but I was surprised when he said, ‘Our lot should be there any second, but I don't want you waiting for them. You get your arse over here to Kingston Hospital, now.’

  “I was in a right mess. I had no idea what to expect. So I motored over to the hospital like a madman."

  "With the Burmese guys still in the back seat."

  "Right."

  Norbert chuckled. "Hot dog, I love these stories."

  "They probably thought they were being punished. I almost crashed a dozen times, the way I was driving."

  "He's not telling this bloody story again?"

  "Yes ma'am, he is, and I'm loving it." Norbert stood politely to welcome Susan, her face completely bandaged except for her eyes and mouth. He offered his chair to her.

  "So nice to see there are still gentlemen in the world." She sat down and noticed Eddo in the stream below. "He's still down there? He'll be growing fins soon. He really loves it here."

  "And he's more than welcome, ma'am."

  "Tell me Norbert, where did you get that unfortunate accent?"

  Norbert laughed from his belly. "Oh man. You Jessels just slay me."

  "Can I finish this story or not?" John butted in.

  "What version are you telling today, brother John? He makes most of this up, Norbert. He kills more baddies every time he tells it."

  John laughed, walked over to her, and kissed her somewhere on the gauze.

  "Darn it, John, you just moved my nose two centimetres to the left. It isn't set yet."

  They all laughed.

  "I can't wait to see who you'll turn out to be when the bandages come off."

  "She'll be beautiful," Norbert said. "I know it. But you should have waited and got it done here in Thailand. We got the best plastic surgeons in the world you know?"

  "Yes," John agreed. "But they specialize in sex-change operations so I’ve heard. I rather like having a sister."

  "If only they could have given me a face that doesn't itch so. I really want to get in there and have a good old scratch. Oh, sorry big brother. I'm ready. Go on with the story."

  John looked at Norbert. "Where was I?"

  "You was just taking the Burmese guys to the hospital."

  "Right. I just left them in the car park with the keys in the ignition and sprinted inside. Ran straight into Lawless in reception. I asked him what had happened. 'Calm down,' he said. 'They're both okay. Your sister and the boy. They're alive.'"

  "Thank God," Susan shrieked.

  "Stop interrupting. Eddo there had taken enough chloroform to knock out a horse. He was still out when I saw him, but through the worst of it, and his breathing was back to normal. But this one here. My goodness. She looked like they'd taken her head off and replaced it with spaghetti Bo
lognese.”

  "It was ravioli last time you told it."

  "Spaghetti's more graphic. It really gives you the feel of all the blood and skin, and all the brain parts falling out. I almost fainted."

  "My big police hero."

  "That's a yellow card. One more interruption and you're off the balcony."

  Norbert giggled. He was truly delighted to have them at his house. It made him feel closer to Jim. If only the old corpse could heave himself out of his hole and come see how nice they turned out.

  "Now don't forget," John continued. "Lawless still had very little idea of what this was all about. So when I told him there were two Burmese in the back seat of my car who’d like to help him with his inquiries, he went bananas. He was yelling and storming up and down. He had an idea the case was solved, but didn't know how all the pieces fitted together. And suddenly there he was with two mystery Burmese."

  "Solve the mystery, man."

  "Well, I was speeding along the motorway on my way to Emma's when this rental car pulls alongside. My first instinct was to duck. I swerved across the road and was almost wiped out by a truck. I was sure they were going to shoot me.

  "But I look across, and one of them's holding a note saying 'Hello. Please pull over.' I didn't think they'd write me a note before blowing my brains out, so I pulled over. These two get out of their car, with their hands up—"

  "You had a gun?"

  "No. Certainly not."

  Norbert and Susan laughed.

  "But they came over and told me they surrendered, and they were prepared to give evidence if we could come to some 'arrangement.' I had absolutely no idea what they were surrendering for, and I was in a hurry to get back. So I told them to get in the car and tell me on the way.

  "It appears these two were ex-SLORC who’d been hired by their old commanding officer, Bohmu Din, to do detective work . . . follow people, take pictures, record conversations, that type of thing. They'd even broken into Susan's place at one stage. That's how Bohmu Din knew about Eddo.

  “He'd arranged their UK visas. They'd been there for almost a year and were getting quite attached to the place. Unbeknownst to the major, one had brought his wife over, the other was dating a local girl. They were quite settled and earning a lot more than they would in Burma.