What the hell was Duncan doing? In the video, a man had been talking about jumping into the water. The only way to feel cool again. Fear rose in Grace’s throat. There was something eerie about the way Duncan had walked out, looking straight ahead. The way Hammond had watched him. Why had Duncan looked so dazed? Why was he standing so close to the edge, so oddly still? Was he about to jump? She pressed back the scream that rose to her lips, looking desperately around. The only heavy object at hand was the cut-glass pitcher of cordial sitting on the coffee table. She seized it and ran toward the door as a clamor erupted outside. Someone was beating a drum, the rhythm loud and fast. Grace burst through the door and saw that Hammond had spun toward the sound, shock on his face. She swung the cold pitcher hard and high against his back. She heard a loud thunk as it made contact. The pitcher cracked against his shoulder, yellow cordial spurting down his back, and then flew out of her hands. It shattered on the red stone of the portico with a mighty crash. She became aware of herself shouting, “Duncan! Duncan!”
Hammond stumbled, clutching at the parapet, yelling, “Fucking son of a bitch!” He fell to his knees.
The man with the mustache was the one drumming. He was several yards away from the portico steps, his sarong tucked high, a ceremonial drum hanging around his waist. He was leaping back and forth, drumming with astonishing energy, muscles rippling in his wiry arms. Shalini was running toward Duncan, her sari hitched up, screaming, “Duncan! Duncan! Stop!” Duncan had spun around, his face full of confusion, his mouth open.
Hammond was hunched at the top of the steps, his face contorted with rage and pain. The gun was lying on the floor. As Grace lunged for it, Hammond kicked out, hitting the back of Grace’s knee. She clawed at the balustrade, trying to keep her balance. A shot resounded, then another. Grace reared back, screaming. Other people were screaming. She didn’t know what was happening. She charged at Hammond’s back. He flailed, another shot ripping the air, as he crashed heavily down the steps. Grace could hear herself still screaming. Someone was in pain. Someone else was shouting, “Run! Run to the car! Grace, run!”
Looking over the parapet, she saw Shalini running toward the front garden, pulling Duncan. The drummer, his shirtsleeve bloody, was stumbling after her, the blood-spattered drum threatening to topple him. “Grace! Grace! Run!” Shalini shouted.
Hammond was lying at the foot of the steps, his leg twisted at an odd angle, his yellow shirt stained with grime and cordial, his eyes furious, reaching for the gun that had fallen beside him. Flies were swooping on him. He grabbed the gun. Grace leapt away. She heard a shot reverberate as she rushed through the door, thudding against the wall in her desperation. She heard him roaring incoherently as she tore through the house to the front door.
49
DUNCAN
Tuesday
“Oh my God. Oh my God. We have to stop the blood,” Grace was saying as the car revved, veering wildly around the curve in the road. “Duncan, give me your shirt.”
Duncan was twisted around in the front passenger seat, struggling to understand what was happening. The noise was chaotic. In the back seat, Karuna was shrieking, “Aney, aney, my Jotipala! Aney, aney!” Janie was whimpering by the window, her arms around Karuna’s waist. There was, inexplicably, a tortoise on her lap, with a star pattern on its back. Duncan could feel soreness in his feet. He didn’t have sandals on. He pulled at his shirt, trying to remember why he’d unbuttoned it. It was stained with streaks of yellow. It smelled of passion fruit. He remembered cordial dripping on it as he was drinking. Why had the cordial been hot? He had been so hot himself. It had been unbearable. Had he been dreaming? Was he dreaming now? How had Grace appeared?
“Duncan, quick!”
Duncan fought the fogginess in his head. He remembered standing at the overlook. Had he heard the broken temple guardian shout a warning? Or had that been the sea he’d heard? It had only been for a second.
“Duncan! I need your shirt!”
He pulled his shirt off, suddenly realizing the urgency of the situation. Grace grabbed it from him and wadded it. “Keep it pushed hard,” she said to Jotipala, pressing it against his shoulder. Jotipala’s shirt was soaked with blood. There were crimson streaks on his sarong, and Grace’s hands were bloody.
“Why is there blood?” Janie bleated, her voice trembling. Her face was streaked with tears.
Duncan blinked, sitting up straight. He reached back to pat Janie’s arm. “Jotipala just got a cut,” he said. The sound of his own voice was a relief. He was awake. “He’s going to be fine.”
He said in Sinhala to Karuna, “Calm down, he’ll be okay. Don’t frighten the child.”
“We have to get him to a clinic,” he said to the woman driving, still in Sinhala. The woman was wearing a tie-dyed red sari, and her hair was coming undone from a coil at her neck. She was leaning forward, focusing on the road. They had got onto the main road, and she was driving much too fast.
“Yes, yes. We’ll go to my uncle’s house near Baddegama. It’s close by. He will know where the closest clinic is,” she said. “He would have shot you. He would have shot all of us. Poor Jotipala was in the way.” She looked in the rearview mirror. “How bad is it, Grace?”
“Not good,” Grace said. “Jotipala! Jotipala, keep your eyes open.”
“Aney, aney, don’t go to sleep,” Karuna said, shaking Jotipala’s arm. She had one arm around Janie.
“Never mind,” Jotipala said breathily. “I am alright.” He leaned his head forward with some effort. “Janie baba, look after that tortoise.”
Duncan translated for Janie, who rubbed at the tears on her face and hugged the tortoise to her chest. It was not moving. Duncan hoped it wasn’t dead.
“Grace, are you sure you’re okay?” he said, craning around the headrest to look at her.
“Fine,” Grace said. She had her back to the window and both hands pressed to the bloody cloth wadded against Jotipala’s shoulder. “Are you? What the hell were you doing on the cliff there?”
Duncan turned back to face the front. “I’m . . . I’m not sure. I was feeling really hot. I thought . . . I don’t know if I was dreaming. Maybe I was sleepwalking.” They were on the southern expressway, speeding past other vehicles. The landscape was verdant as far as the eye could see, with neat paddy fields giving way in the distance to thickets of tall rubber trees. On the right, a series of white-painted steps emerged from the greenery, leading up to the pristine white dagoba of a Buddhist temple set on a small hill. How halcyon it all looked, he thought. How could all that have happened back there, in a place like this?
“We have to call the police,” he said.
“They are not to be trusted,” the woman who was driving said.
“What do you mean? You are Janice Perera?” he said to the woman. “The journalist?”
The woman turned, her eyes sharp. “What?”
“I heard Hammond on the phone . . . You picked Grace up at the airport?”
Grace said, “Wasn’t that the name you said . . . the owner of the car?”
The woman’s eyes widened. “They must have traced the license plate.” She said to Duncan, “True, I’m a journalist. But my name is Shalini Samaraweera. I’m a friend of Angie’s.”
“Angie’s? What the hell . . . What is going on?” Duncan said, looking back at Grace.
“A lot. And it’s not good,” Grace said. Her blouse was stained with Jotipala’s blood, and her hair was hanging out of her ponytail in curling clumps.
“First we have to decide what to do,” Shalini said. “How to get to the proper authorities.”
“We have to contact my uncle,” Grace said. “Ragu Uncle, Duncan.”
“He can definitely be trusted,” Duncan said. “He’s family.”
Shalini pursed her lips. “Are you sure?” She shook her head. “But we can’t go to the police station.” She looked at Grace in the rearview mirror. “When we get to Prema Uncle’s house, can you call your parents and tell them
to get your uncle to their house? Don’t give details. Maybe you should say you’re worried about the police. Gleeson will put out a search for us. But they don’t know what car we’re traveling in. At the moment. The sooner we get to Colombo the better, before they have a chance to trace.” She tightened her hands on the wheel. “To be on the safe side, but. We should leave the child at Prema Uncle’s house, with Karuna.” She glanced at Duncan. “What happened back there?” she said.
“Were you kidnapped?” Grace said.
Duncan looked back at Janie. Her arm was linked in Karuna’s, and her head was leaning against the older woman. She was stroking the tortoise’s shell, saying, “I’ll feed you soon. How about some nice leaves?”
They had all been speaking in Sinhala to keep her out of the conversation. “I thought the kid’s dad sent me there,” he said, not wanting to mention Bent’s name.
50
GRACE
Tuesday
Through the open front window of Prema’s living room, Grace could see Duncan, bare chested and barefoot, kneeling beside Jotipala, pressing a green towel, already bloody, against his shoulder wound. Grace had helped to get him out of the car, and they had laid him on the porch floor.
Karuna was crouched near Duncan, her arm around Janie. The woman was trying to be stoic for Janie’s sake, but tears were running down her face. Grace heard Duncan trying to reassure her. “He will be fine. The doctor who lives down the road here is coming soon, and he will take him to a clinic.”
Grace sank onto the cool cement floor in the living room. She didn’t want to sit on Prema Uncle’s rattan furniture and stain its neat pastel upholstery. She was still wearing the embroidered blue cotton blouse she had put on in New Jersey, but now its side was splotched with blood. Her jeans were stained too. She had washed her hands and face in Prema’s small bathroom, watching the water turn pink in the sink. She could hear Prema’s horrified questions in the adjoining dining room, and the effort Shalini was putting into making the situation seem less troubling than it was.
She lifted the phone off the side table, her hands still shaking, and dialed her parents’ number.
“Grace! Where are you? We thought you’d be here by now.”
“I’ll be there soon, Ma,” Grace said, trying to speak calmly. “We should be there in about an hour and a half.”
“So long! Where are you calling from?”
“I’ll tell you everything when I get there. But, Ma, I have to ask you to do something. Don’t get worried, okay?”
“About what?” Nalini said, a note of worry already in her voice.
“I need you to call Ragu Uncle,” Grace said. “Tell him to come over.”
“Ragu? What for? You want him to come here?”
“I’m with Duncan and a friend. We’re on the way there. Call Ragu Uncle and get him to come there now.”
“What’s going on?” Nalini’s voice was filled with alarm. Grace heard her call out, “Lionel! Lionel! Can you come here?” She heard the resonance of her mother’s voice change as she put the phone on speaker mode.
“What?” Lionel’s voice said. When Nalini explained, Lionel sounded confused. “Ragu? What for? Grace? Where are you?”
“On the way there, Appa,” Grace said. “I’ll be there in about . . .” She checked her watch. “A little more than an hour. Tell Ragu Uncle we need him there urgently.”
“Urgently? What for?” Nalini said just as Lionel was saying, “What are you talking about, Grace? Are you in trouble?”
Grace broke in. “No, no, not in trouble. Don’t worry, but I really can’t talk now. I’ll explain everything soon.”
She hung up and went into the hallway as Shalini hurried out of the dining room, Prema, looking distraught, hobbling behind. He had a batik bush shirt slung over his shoulder.
“We have to go now,” Shalini said. “Prema Uncle’s doctor friend will be here any minute. He will have to call the police. Gunshot wound, no? We’ll have to get out before they start asking questions. Before they see the car we’re in.”
They ran out to the car. Duncan put on the batik shirt Prema handed him, explaining to Janie that they would be back soon to get her.
“Why? Duncan, why can’t you stay? Can I see Daddy?” Janie said, her voice rising in a distressed whine.
“Soon, don’t worry,” Duncan said. “Stay with Karuna and Prema Uncle, okay? They’ll take good care of you.”
“Come, come, show me your tortoise,” Prema was saying in English as they left. Karuna was tending to Jotipala, who was lying motionless in his bloodied shirt.
51
DUNCAN
Tuesday
Duncan, in the back seat, saw Shalini stiffen as a police siren sounded behind them. He turned, holding his breath. No one spoke. He watched the black police car approach and speed past them. He heard the others sigh as he let out his own breath.
“Never been this afraid of the police,” Grace said.
“The whole police force can’t be in on this,” Duncan said.
“Problem is we don’t know who is,” Shalini said. “But I think we’ll be fine now. We’re almost there. They don’t know what car we’re in, even if they’re looking for us.”
She took one hand off the wheel to rummage in her purse. After some scrabbling, she produced a cell phone. She pressed a button, squinting at it. “Shall we call your parents to make sure your uncle will be there? Charge is almost gone, but I think enough. I haven’t been using it for a while because I’ve been afraid of getting traced. But maybe we should call.”
“Why risk it?” Grace said. “I told them three times. I’m sure they’ll get him over.”
A cliff towered beside the expressway, bearing mute witness to the way the road builders had torn through the landscape. Nature had now reasserted her authority by covering the cliff with thick vegetation. Duncan rested his head against the back window, exhausted, his mind reeling. They had been trying to piece together what they’d found out. It all seemed impossible: that Symb86 was a placebo, that people could have been murdered, that Grace had been targeted, that he had almost been killed.
“The way Hammond said it . . . I thought Salgado had been pushed,” Duncan said.
“Did Jotipala say he actually saw Salgado jump?” Grace said. Duncan could hear the horror in her voice.
Shalini nodded. “He said he was coming toward the overlook when he saw Salgado standing there. And before Jotipala could stop him, Salgado jumped.” She shuddered. “It was high tide. Just like today. Jotipala is convinced that Salgado was possessed by a demon. He was going on about how after Salgado died, cobras started coming to the house, crows started hanging around. Because of the dark forces unleashed, he said. You know the village thinking.” She shrugged, shaking her head. “But the thing is, right before Salgado jumped, he had been inside, watching a video.”
“Alone?” Grace said.
Shalini shook her head. “With a foreigner. Someone called Matison. Someone who’d been there before. Salgado had come to the house the day before Matison came. Salgado had also already been to the house once before, so Jotipala was acquainted with him. Apparently he gave Jotipala some documents he had in his room. He told Jotipala that if anything happened to him, he should mail the documents to me. He had written out my address for Jotipala.”
Shalini glanced nervously in the rearview mirror at the road behind them before continuing. “Salgado might have been one of the people who had been leaking to Minowa. That might be how he knew who I was. After he died, Jotipala had been too frightened to do anything. Mr. Fernando had spoken to Jotipala on the phone the night after the incident. He had told Jotipala not to say anything about seeing Salgado jump if the police came, that Jotipala would be blamed for the death. But the police hadn’t come by at all. The body had got washed out past the rocks. It wasn’t found near the house. But the whole thing had been eating at poor Jotipala’s conscience, sounds like. So a couple of weeks later, he mailed the documents. He mu
st have been terrified that the envelope would get traced back to him. Not only because he would have lost his job. He must have been afraid that the death would be put on him. Poor fellow.”
“So you’re saying Salgado was watching the same video I watched?” Duncan said. He could remember the video, but his memory of the aftermath was hazy. All he had were flashes of images and sensations. Had he fallen asleep watching it?
“Don’t know,” Shalini said. “Jotipala didn’t see the video you were watching. He said the drumming—we could hear it coming out of the back window—sounded the same. He was terrified that you were going to get possessed. When I went back there to the servant quarters, he was already tying on his drum. He had some idea that he could drive out the demon with his drumming. I think he felt he had to do something, and that’s all he felt he had the power to do. This was all happening so fast. I told Karuna to take Janie out to the car. He told me about Salgado. Crying. He was so worried it was going to happen again. Then we saw you out there. He got frightened that you might also jump. That’s when we ran out there.” She shuddered again. “Big risk, now that I think about it. He might have shot us all. But who had time to think? You might have jumped.” She looked at Duncan in the rearview mirror. “Were you really about to?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Duncan said. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I didn’t . . . It didn’t seem dangerous.”
“What was it, some kind of hypnosis video?” Shalini said.
Duncan shook his head. “Hammond said it was a prototype of a commercial that they were going to use. He wanted me to—” He snorted. “That’s putting it mildly. He had the gun. I couldn’t exactly refuse. See if you notice anything unusual, he said. He wasn’t specific. Maybe he just wanted me to focus on it. Over and over.”
“I think this is connected to the hooniyam research,” Shalini said.
“You mean thovil research,” Grace said, sounding confused.
The Mask Collectors Page 28