Hungry Ghost

by Stephen Leather

  Until he was needed again, thought Donaldson. Until now.

  ‘If he’s been neutralized, surely he’s no good to us now, sir,’ said Donaldson, more in hope than belief.

  Grey smiled. ‘The conversion isn’t permanent. In the same way that a cap can be pulled off a tooth, the new personality can be removed to reveal the man he used to be. And it’s that man we need.’

  ‘I still don’t follow why it has to be Howells, sir. Surely we could use any freelance and just make sure our tracks are well covered.’

  God, that sounded like a whine. Would Charlie Muffin have said that? Would Quiller refuse to take an assignment because it meant dealing with a psychopath/sociopath? If he had any bloody sense he would.

  Grey shook his head. ‘No, you know how they work. They all keep safety deposit boxes with envelopes to be opened in the event of their deaths. And they don’t take kindly to being used, it can have a nasty habit of backfiring. No, Howells is perfect. He has no living relatives, he will follow instructions to the letter and he is …’

  ‘Expendable?’ asked Donaldson hopefully.

  ‘Exactly. I am glad we understand each other.’ He seized the doorknob and pushed open the wooden door, careful not to allow the panting Labrador in. He ushered Donaldson inside where they removed their boots, then led him into the sitting-room and picked up a manila file off a small mahogany side-table. ‘Sit down and read this. It goes without saying that I don’t want you to take notes.’ If it goes without saying, thought Donaldson, why mention it? ‘Come and see me when you’ve finished reading the file. I’ll be in the garden.’

  Grey closed the door gently. A minute or so later Donaldson heard him let himself out of the back door and call for the dogs. He settled down into the chair and began to read, all thoughts of his bladder gone.

  Donaldson spent the best part of an hour reading and rereading the report. It was sketchy in parts, but when he’d finished Donaldson felt he knew a lot more about what made Howells tick. And it didn’t make him feel any easier about meeting the man.

  The remoulding of his personality had been done by two top psychologists, one as part of a Government-sponsored research project he was doing at Bart’s in London: the other was a young high-flyer on attachment from the CIA.

  As Grey had said, it had taken some six months to make Howells safe, if not sane, but the trigger to reactivate him consisted of just three colour-coded cards which had to be produced in the correct order. According to the detailed instructions which came with the report, Donaldson was first to ask Howells if he was ready to take on the assignment, to appeal to the man’s loyalty to his country. Then he was to offer him money. If the psychologists had done their job properly, Howells would spurn both offers. Donaldson was then to show him the cards which were contained in a white envelope. There would be little visible change but Donaldson was then to hand him a second envelope containing a full briefing. Simple, thought Donaldson. He slipped the two sealed envelopes into his inside jacket pocket and concentrated on memorizing the instructions. When he’d finished he took the file out into the back garden. This time he didn’t bother with the Wellingtons.

  Grey was at the bottom of the garden, to the right of the orchard, gathering up dead grass and fallen twigs with a rake. As Donaldson approached Grey sprinkled lighter fluid over the damp pile and dropped on a lighted match. He stepped back with a satisfied smile on his face as the bonfire flared into life.

  ‘I’ve read the file, sir,’ said Donaldson, handing it over. Grey reached into his back pocket and pulled out a third envelope.

  ‘This contains your tickets and travelling expenses.’

  Donaldson took it and put it into his pocket with the other two. He was starting to feel like a postman.

  ‘Your flight leaves tomorrow, Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong and then Garuda to Bali. I suggest you phone in sick first thing tomorrow morning. On no account are you to tell anyone where you are going. You’re not married, are you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘My mother and father live in Cheshire. They won’t miss me.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Grey. ‘Can you see yourself out?’ he added, dismissing Donaldson with the rhetorical question.

  When he heard the man’s car start up and drive off Grey dropped the file on top of the bonfire and watched as its edges browned and curled in the heat. As the pages shrivelled and burnt he absent-mindedly patted the black Labrador on the head.

  ‘Two birds with one stone, Lady,’ he said softly. ‘Two birds with one stone.’

  Much the same thought was going through Donaldson’s mind some forty-eight hours later as his Garuda flight approached Denpasar airport. There were two things he liked best in the world. One was immersing himself in a good thriller and the other was having sex with small boys. Preferably small boys that were tied down and whimpering. The assignment from Grey looked set to satisfy both passions. He’d heard that the boys in Indonesia were simply gorgeous, big brown eyes and soft, smooth, brown bodies. Just the thought gave him a hard-on.

  The Garuda Airbus looked new, the blue and grey interior trim sparkling clean. The plane seemed to be a cheap version, though, with none of the optional extras, no movie screen and no music. It was cold, too, bitterly cold. But instead of turning up the heat the cheerful stewardesses doled out blankets soon after they’d taken off from Hong Kong. His legs were cramped and he cursed Grey for only providing him with economy-class tickets. Cheapskate, he thought. It wasn’t as if getting the expenses approved would be a problem.

  It was pitch dark outside and there seemed to be hardly any lights on the island below as the plane descended. He took a last look at the Garuda brochure, which told him that Indonesia consists of 165 million people spread among 13,677 islands. Half of the population are aged under twenty and, thought Donaldson eagerly, half of them are boys. The 300 ethnic groups speak 583 different languages, but he didn’t plan to do much talking. His palms were sweating, despite the cold in the cabin.

  Donaldson didn’t see the airfield until the plane slammed into the ground, bounced fifty feet or so back into the air and then landed properly. Third bloody World, he thought sourly.

  The Airbus came to a halt a hundred yards from the terminal building and Donaldson was annoyed to discover that he and his four dozen fellow passengers were expected to walk. God, it was hot, and humid, and before he’d even descended the mobile stairs to the tarmac he felt beads of sweat on his face and was gasping for breath. The air was filled with the sound of crickets and other night insects proclaiming territorial rights or offers of marriage or whatever it was that insects found so important to communicate after dark. A gaggle of Hong Kong Chinese tourists overtook Donaldson on his right and left before regrouping in front of him like fish passing a reef, talking incessantly.

  The sweat was now pouring off his back and he could feel rivulets of water dripping down the backs of his legs underneath the lightweight grey Burtons suit he was wearing. He shifted his shoulder bag, wincing as the narrow plastic strap bit into his flesh through the thin material.

  He reached the terminal building and gratefully sucked in lungfuls of cold air which immediately made his skin feel clammy. Immigration and customs were a breeze; Bali was obviously well geared up for tourists, and Donaldson saw two uniformed teenagers who he’d quite happily have died for. Or paid for. They both had skin the colour of polished mahogany, and beautiful brown eyes that looked as if they were brimming with tears, though they both returned his smiles with pleasant grins. Down boy, thought Donaldson. Later, in Jakarta, on the way back. A couple of days of R&R, a well-deserved reward for a job well done. Christ, he was getting hard again.

  As he walked from customs and into the arrivals lounge he was accosted on either side by Indonesian men, dressed in shabby Tshirts and frayed jeans and nowhere near as attractive as the uniformed youngsters from whom he’d had to tear himself away.

  ‘Taxi? Taxi? You want taxi?’ they ch
orused.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Donaldson, starting to sweat again. ‘Which of you speaks the best English?’

  He took off his glasses and wiped the condensation off with his handkerchief for the tenth time since leaving the flying fridge.

  ‘I speak good English, sir,’ said a man on his left, about the same height as Donaldson but much thinner and with a drooping moustache. Like Donaldson it appeared to be wilting in the heat.

  The man seemed bright enough so Donaldson walked with him through the open doors towards a line of battered cars. Now that Donaldson had been claimed the rest of the drivers moved away in search of fresh blood. The Indonesian took Donaldson’s bag for him and led him to an ageing car of indeterminate make that could have been green, or blue, or black. It was parked some distance away from the terminal and there was no lighting so it was hard to tell. Twice Donaldson slipped into holes in the road as he walked behind his guide and he swore loudly.

  ‘Sir?’ said the driver, opening the rear passenger door and throwing in the bag.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Donaldson, sliding into the car. It appeared to be lined with some sort of fur, and brass chimes dangled from the driving mirror.

  ‘Go where?’ asked the driver.

  ‘Shit,’ said Donaldson, suddenly remembering he had no local money. ‘Wait here, I’ll have to change some money.’ He lurched out of the car and back to the terminal.

  The driver, unwilling to let his fare out of his sight, scampered after him.

  ‘No problem, hotel can change money,’ he said to Donaldson’s back.

  ‘We’re not going to a hotel.’

  That worried the driver and he waited anxiously while Donaldson changed a handful of ten-pound notes. The Mickey Mouse money had a hell of a lot of zeros and it looked to Donaldson as if he had instantly become a millionaire in local terms.

  On the way back to the taxi he explained to the driver where he wanted to go; to head for the Hotel Oberoi but to drive one mile past the hotel’s entrance to a crossroads, then to turn left. Howells was living in a villa close to the beach where the road petered out.

  ‘You want Oberoi Hotel,’ nodded the driver and started the car.

  ‘No, you idiot,’ snapped Donaldson, and he repeated the instructions to the smiling driver.

  When he’d finished the driver grinned even wider and said, ‘No problem.’

  ‘I bet,’ said Donaldson.

  The driver grated the car into gear and moved off, humming quietly to himself. It was sweltering. Donaldson tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Switch the aircon on,’ he said.

  The driver turned and said smilingly, ‘No aircon. Sorry. Open window.’

  ‘Terrific,’ said Donaldson, and flopped back into the seat. He wound the window fully down and let the breeze blow across his face. It felt like a blast from a hair-dryer and if anything it made him sweat even more.

  They soon left the airport lights behind and drove along a double-track road with no pavements, the car constantly swerving to avoid pedestrians. God knows why so many people were out this late at night, thought Donaldson. Maybe the television was bad. There were women with brightly coloured dresses carrying sacks on their heads, children running around parents, kids walking hand in hand. The darkness beyond the headlights of the car was absolute, and the driver seemed to have some sixth sense that allowed him to hit the horn and start moving the car before they came into vision. Motorcycles buzzed past constantly, young men without crash helmets crouched low over the handlebars with girls riding sidesaddle behind, hair flying in the wind and tears streaming from their eyes.

  Donaldson closed his eyes and tried to relax, and when he opened them again the car was alone on the road. Through the open window he could see the star-packed night sky, but there was no moon and the countryside to either side of the road was totally dark.

  ‘How far?’ he asked the driver.

  ‘Not far. Soon,’ the driver said. He pointed over to the left hand side of the road. ‘Monkeys. Many monkeys.’

  Donaldson peered into the blackness. Nothing. He squinted. Still nothing. He tried opening his eyes wide. Nothing. The driver was looking expectantly over his shoulder, waiting for some reaction.

  ‘Super,’ said Donaldson. The driver nodded, obviously pleased.

  A few minutes later he gestured to the right. ‘Rice fields,’ he said.

  Donaldson looked. Pitch black. ‘Fantastic,’ he said.

  The driver took a left turn and the road narrowed, still supposedly a double track but with passing places every half mile or so. He pointed to the left. ‘Very old temple,’ he said to his passenger. ‘Very famous.’

  Donaldson didn’t even bother to look. ‘Marvellous,’ he said, and settled back in his seat with his eyes closed. Maybe the guy would shut up if he thought he was asleep.

  He didn’t. He continued his guided tour, and Donaldson alternated between ‘Super,’ ‘Fantastic,’ and ‘Marvellous.’

  At one point in the journey they drove along a line of shops that seemed to stretch for miles, all of them open. They were a mixture of cheap and cheerful restaurants, boutiques selling Tshirts and cotton dresses and shops with no fronts that contained racks upon racks of cassette tapes. Obviously pirates, thought Donaldson, cheap counterfeits selling for one tenth the official price. The only customers seemed to be tourists, blonde women with chunky thighs and bra-less breasts and men with long hair and burnt skin uniformly wearing scruffy Tshirts, shorts and sandals. There were no food shops, no sellers of the essentials like soap powder or salt or vegetables. An Asian Golden Mile, without the funfair.

  ‘You want to stop here?’ asked the driver.

  Donaldson shook his head. ‘Are we nearly there?’

  ‘Soon,’ said the driver, honking his horn at a yellow jeep trying to push in from a darkened side-road.

  The car slowed to a walking pace behind a queue of Land Rovers, jeeps and bicycles that seemed in no hurry to move any faster. Probably the heat, thought Donaldson, wiping his glasses again. A thin balding man with John Lennon glasses bought a bowl of noodles and pieces of meat on little wooden sticks from a street vendor and leant against the bonnet of a parked car to eat while his companion, a broad-hipped woman with cornflower hair tied in braids, watched. ‘Don’t you just love this food?’ he said in a mid-Western drawl and she smiled. One case of hepatitis B coming right up, thought Donaldson. Serves the Yank right.

  The air in the car was starting to stink of exhaust fumes but it was so hot that Donaldson didn’t want to wind up the window. Instead he took his handkerchief out and held it over his mouth. It didn’t seem to make any difference. He tried holding his breath but that made him feel even dizzier than the fumes.

  Eventually they left the strip of shops and plunged into darkness again. The headlights picked out three roadside signs pointing the way to hotels on the left and then they stopped. The driver pointed through the windshield. ‘Oberoi,’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ said Donaldson. ‘Drive straight on.’

  ‘Straight on?’

  ‘Just drive,’ he said, waving his hand towards the bonnet of the car. He peered at the speedometer. It was in kilometres and Grey had said to drive for one mile past the hotel turn-off. They hit the crossroad at 1.4 kilometres and Donaldson told the driver to turn left. The man was starting to get uneasy, but he remembered the pile of foreign money Donaldson had changed. Just another crazy tourist. Probably just had a bit too much to drink on the plane.

  The road quickly became a single track, and from what Donaldson could see in the lights of the car there were fields on either side with a scattering of tall trees. It felt a little cooler and once or twice he thought he could smell the sea, and then he saw thirty yards or so to the right of the track, a pointed roof atop what looked like a square building, silhouetted against the stars.

  Donaldson tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Stop here,’ he said.

  ‘Here?’ echoed the driver, but saw from the look on Donaldson�
�s face that the answer was yes so he slammed on the brakes.

  ‘How much?’ asked Donaldson, suddenly realizing that he hadn’t agreed a price before getting into the cab. The driver’s eyes lit up, too, as he remembered the same thing. The driver mumbled a figure with a lot of zeros on the end and Donaldson was too damn tired to try and convert it into real money. He quickly counted out a handful of notes and threw them on to the front seat.

  ‘Thanks a bunch,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said the driver, nodding his head in time with each word. ‘Good English, yes?’

  ‘Marvellous,’ agreed Donaldson, grabbing his bag and staggering out of the car. His right leg seemed to have gone to sleep.

  The car did a jerky four-point turn and then lurched back down the track, leaving Donaldson alone in the dark with his sleepy leg. He limped towards the house.

  As he got closer to the house he noticed that the bottom of the roof was illuminated with a warm glow, though the top was shrouded in darkness. Then he realized that what he was looking at was a wall, half as tall again as a man, which ran around the house itself. The light was inside. There was no doorway in the side of the wall he was approaching, so he followed it around to the left. Still no door. He was walking towards the sea, the waves breaking on the shore like thunder. He was walking on grass, but as his eyes became more accustomed to the starlight he could see a strip of white that must be the beach.

  Donaldson stopped and listened. In between the watery crashes he could hear music. Pink Floyd. Dark Side of the Moon. God, that took him back.

  He turned right and found the door, two slabs of weathered wood set into a stone arch. To the left was a brass bell-pull, like a stirrup attached to a long rod. Donaldson reached out his hand, then noticed that the door wasn’t closed; light was shining through a two-inch gap. He pushed gently and the gap grew silently wider. He could hear the music more clearly now. Facing the doorway was another wall made of the same rough-hewn stones as the outer barrier, but about five feet tall. Sitting on top of it was a stone eagle, or chicken, or angel. Or perhaps it was a combination of all three, it was difficult to tell with the light behind it.