INCARNATION

by Daniel Easterman

  Dubey, Indian Intelligence: My name is Captain Dubey. I am here to see all is correct. These gentlemen have come from England to speak with you. Mr Ross you have met already.

  Boy: Hello, Mr Ross. How are you keeping?

  Ross: Very well. How about you?

  Boy: I thought you’d forgotten me.

  Ross: Now, how would I do a thing like that?

  Dubey: Mr Dennison you have not met. He is an old friend of mine. You can trust him.

  Boy: I’m not so sure of that. Peter the Ponce was always a sly fox. Weren’t you Pete?

  Dennison: How the hell do you know that nickname?

  Boy: I gave it to you, old boy. Back in seventy-five. We’d been to the Gay Hussar for lunch, we were on our way back to Century House, the cabbie passed a remark about the flower in your buttonhole. You were Peter the Ponce from then on.

  Dennison: Turn off that bloody machine. I want to know what’s going on here. I want to know what bloody fool trick you’re trying to play.

  Ross: I’m sorry, Mr Dennison, I have instructions. Everything has to be recorded.

  Dennison: Even that nonsense?

  Ross: Especially that.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was just a room. Douglas Ross had been there twice before. The room never changed, the boy never changed. The room and the boy were timeless, unchanged, perhaps even unchangeable.

  He was sitting just like he’d sat before, on a wooden chair in the middle of the room. Nothing seemed to affect him, least of all the heat. His parents stood to one side, watching, understanding nothing. They never spoke, not a syllable. The boy did everything for them. He was their messenger, their angel, their interpreter. He said they’d come down from Ladakh, from Leh, along the long road that reaches Kashmir through the pass of Zoji La. That was in the spring. Ross had met them first in the first week of May.

  A window had been left open in the vain hope of bringing a little fresh air into the room. Flies went in and out, heavy black flies that came up from the river in droves. They settled on everything. On a little trestle table, the reels turned slowly on the recorder Ross had brought from Delhi.

  Dennison’s bluster had gone. The boy’s use of his nickname had taken the breath from him, left him gasping. Ross took over, questioning the boy gently. Dubey sat on a chair facing them, mentally recording all that passed. Ross knew that Dubey was going to become a problem, that they should never have got Delhi involved.

  ‘Tell me, Yongden, you say your real name is Matthew Hyde, that you are his reincarnation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr Dennison finds this hard to believe. He does not believe in reincarnations. His superiors in London will find it even harder to believe.’

  ‘They have not seen me.’

  Ross looked at the boy, as though seeing him again for the first time. He no longer wore the tattered Ladakhi goncha he’d worn in May. The Indian clothes made him look like a miniature guru. His face and stature suggested a child of ten. He said he was twelve. His eyes were the most penetrating eyes Ross had ever seen. Blue, as blue as the water in Dal Lake. Yongden might have come from almost anywhere east or north of Kashmir. His English was near perfect.

  ‘You have to persuade Mr Dennison of the truth of your claims. Otherwise his bosses will not want to see you.’

  ‘They will want to see me.’

  ‘Tell us about Matthew Hyde. How does Matthew Hyde come to be in the body of a twelve-year-old boy from Ladakh?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? After all, what do you really know about these things. I found a suitable vessel in a boy called Yongden, and I pushed him aside. After that, it was a doddle. I am no longer Yongden. I am Matthew Hyde.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Two years ago. When Yongden was ten.’

  ‘We have no evidence that Matthew Hyde is dead.’

  ‘I died in the prison-camp at Huancheng. I was shot there.’

  ‘We have had no news of that.’

  ‘Now you know where to ask, you will find what you’re looking for.’

  A fly circled the boy’s head, but it would not land. Yongden’s mother went to the next room to prepare tea.

  ‘Where were you born?’

  ‘Durham, of course. Nearby, anyway. My mother went over to Hardwick Hall in Sedgefield. It’s a hotel now.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Fifteenth of September nineteen fifty-seven.’

  Ross looked across at Dennison.

  ‘Does that check out, sir?’

  Dennison nodded.

  ‘Go on,’ he said. A voice drifted through the open window, a rough man’s voice complaining about something.

  ‘School?’

  ‘Ushaw College.’

  ‘And after that?’

  'The usual. Cambridge. My father’s college, King’s. I read Chinese.’

  ‘The Keynes’ building was there then, was it?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘It’s next to the chapel, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s on the other side of college, facing on to King’s Parade.’

  Dennison grunted. He was a John’s man, but he knew the Keynes’ building.

  ‘After college?’

  ‘My tutor, Harry Forbes, gave me an address in London. Baker Street. I had a chat with a man there, and the next day I was up for an interview in Carlton Gardens. You know the drill, you’ve been through it yourself.’

  Dennison cleared his throat.

  ‘Who interviewed you?’ he asked.

  ‘Peter Doddswell. Michael Patch. De Coverley - it must have been a couple of months before his retirement. Hugh Creasey looked in.’

  Dennison looked away. Ross reached down for a plastic file he’d left on the floor. Opening it, he extracted a handful of photographs. He took one and passed it to Yongden.

  ‘Can you tell me who this is?’ he asked.

  Yongden glanced at the photograph and handed it back.

  ‘My sister, Juliet.’

  ‘And this?’

  He passed across a second photograph.

  ‘My uncle Ralph.’

  ‘This?’

  Yongden studied the third photograph briefly and shrugged.

  ‘Never seen him before.’

  ‘Well, well,’ said Dennison, smirking for the first time. ‘And who is it, Ross?’

  Ross put the photograph back in the file.

  ‘My uncle James. He lives in Montreal. He’s been there for the past twenty years.’

  The smirk vanished from Dennison’s face.

  ‘Perhaps you can enlighten us all,’ he said, ‘as to what this is all about exactly. Why has Matthew Hyde incarnated himself - if that’s the correct phrase - in the body of a twelve-year-old coolie from - where the hell is it?’

  Ross answered.

  ‘Leh, sir. And he’s not a coolie, he’s -‘

  ‘I’ll call him what I damn well please.’ He looked back at Yongden. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m in Yongden’s body because we need to talk.’

  ‘Talk?’

  ‘About information I have and you need.’

  ‘What sort of information?’

  ‘About Matthew Hyde’s last operation. Operation Hong Cha.’

  Yongden stopped speaking and looked directly at Dennison. There was total silence in the room. A kind of electricity seemed to have taken hold of it. Dennison looked at the boy, as if suddenly taken unwell. He made to say something to Yongden, then thought better of it. Instead, he turned to Ross.

  ‘Turn off the bloody tape.’

  ‘Sir, I’ve already -‘

  ‘I said turn the tape off. That’s a direct order.’

  He took a gun from his pocket and pointed it at Ross.

  ‘Or would you like me to blow your bloody brains out?’

  Ross’s hand reached out and the tape stopped turning.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  London

  23. June

  The telephone enter
ed his dreams like a hand reaching into water to bring a drowning man to safety. He’d been dreaming about his mother, something well calculated to cause him the maximum distress. It hadn’t really been his mother, of course, it had been Elizabeth; not that it made a great deal of difference. They’d both betrayed him, they’d both erected statues of themselves on heavy stone plinths in the centre of his psyche. It had been Elizabeth in the dream, but it had been his mother’s eyes glaring at him that he remembered as he swam up to the surface.

  Getting there didn’t make anything much better. Dreams gave way to memories, memories to the bitterness of reality. The phone went on ringing as he tried to readjust himself to where and what he was. He glanced at the alarm clock. It was only half past seven. He groaned aloud. Only some bastard at Vauxhall would be ringing at this time, and if they were ringing early, it meant something was up.

  He lifted the receiver with numb fingers. ‘David Laing.’

  ‘Dad? It’s Maddie.’

  His daughter’s voice brought him fully awake.

  ‘Maddie! Thank God. Where the hell are you? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days. I’ve been worried sick. Barbara said you’d gone off without leaving an address. Are you all right?’ He rattled the words out, barely pausing for breath.

  ‘Calm down, Dad. I’m fine.’

  Ice trickled through his heart. She sounded drugged.

  ‘Where are you?’

  There was a pause. The pause worried him. It was in pauses like that, he’d found, that the darkest revelations lurked to make themselves known.

  ‘I’m with Dr Rose. At his clinic. He’d like to speak to you.’

  David felt his heart fall like a coffin sinking into a grave.

  ‘Put him on,’ he said.

  There followed a series of bumping sounds, then a man’s voice came on the line.

  ‘Mr Laing? I’m glad I caught you at home. I tried all yesterday, but there was no reply and no answering machine.’

  David closed his eyes. He’d been at GCHQ for two days, all day Monday and Tuesday, working with one of the Chinese-speaking cryptographers, trying to crack a new military code they were using during tank manoeuvres in Kansu. He had to go back again at the weekend.

  ‘I’m sorry. I was away on business. When I got back I found I’d forgotten to switch on the answering machine.’

  No, he thought, not forgotten. He just hadn’t wanted to come back to any more abuse from Elizabeth. She’d taken to using up the machine’s entire memory with long tirades about why she’d left him, how he’d driven her to it, why she wouldn’t pay him a penny. It was like having her living with him again.

  ‘Well, it’s all right. We’ve got you now. How are you keeping?’ The all too familiar voice came down the line like a memory leaping out of some inner darkness. How many years had it been? Six, seven? David had thought all that behind them. Rose had saved Maddie’s life and sanity before. He sounded just the same. As though nothing had changed.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said David. He sat on the edge of the bed now, fully alert. ‘How is Maddie? Why is she at the clinic?’

  The brief pause told him everything.

  ‘I’m afraid Maddie’s not too good.’

  ‘She sounded ...'

  ‘I have her under sedation at the moment. I thought it was important for her to speak to you. Later, I’d like you to come over.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Another breakdown. She was brought here about one o’clock on Monday morning.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I’d say her mother was the more likely culprit. I need to talk to you about that.’

  ‘Yes, I rather thought that’s what you were going to say. How’d she end up at the clinic?’

  ‘The police found her in a street off King’s Cross. She was in a distressed state. They were planning to have her admitted to St Pancras, but when she got there she mentioned my name. They’re under too much pressure there as it is, so they were only too glad to be able to off-load her.’

  ‘You don’t off-load people.’

  Rose’s shrug could almost be heard down the line.

  ‘A lot of people get off-loaded nowadays. Usually they don’t end up somewhere as comfortable as this. I take it her mother will be paying.’

  ‘Elizabeth? You can bank on it. In every possible way.’

  ‘Well, that’s for you to sort out. I’ll be happy with a few cheques.’

  ‘Has she been sectioned?’

  ‘No, we’re treating this as voluntary. But if she tries to leave, it’ll have to be done. This is worse than the last time.’

  ‘And you think it’s because Elizabeth has left me?’

  ‘Maddie has referred to that, yes. It seems to be what’s preying on her mind most at the moment.’

  ‘Has she told you the circumstances?’

  ‘Some of them, yes. I’d much rather get those from you and Mrs Laing.’

  ‘I understand. When can I see her?’

  ‘Not at the moment. I want her to adjust to being back in the clinic. Possibly tomorrow. Will that be all right?’

  David looked round the bedroom. The emptiness was palpable. How long was it now since Elizabeth walked out on him? A month? No, more like six weeks. She was living with Farrar now. Openly, without remorse. David had scarcely gone in to the office since then, and only when he thought Farrar was somewhere else. He was frightened the two of them might come to blows.

  ‘That’s fine. I have a lot of spare time at the moment.’

  ‘You civil servants get a lot of that. You should try working in the real world for a change. I’ll call you tomorrow morning, let you know how she is.’

  David put down the phone and took another look at the real world.

  Any opportunity he might have hoped to find for calm reflection was rudely swept aside by a nine-year-old voice bellowing outside the door.

  ‘Dad! You’ve got to come at once! Gromit has poohed all over the kitchen floor, and there’s shit on everything.’

  Next moment, the door flew open to reveal the human being behind the voice. Sam was still in his pyjamas, his hair tousled, his old, much-loved slippers with their Wallace and Gromit heads squeezed on to feet at least one size too small. He ran through the door and into the room with only a little less than the force of a mature tornado.

  ‘Come on,’ he shouted. ‘You’ve got to clean up before she does any more.’

  Gromit was three months old and Sam’s most jealously guarded possession. He’d picked her out from a litter of six at the pet shop on Cambridge Road. Ordinarily, David would have been wary of buying a pet for a nine-year-old boy of rapidly fluctuating enthusiasms. But with Elizabeth’s departure, he could deny Sam nothing.

  She hadn’t wanted him. That wasn’t what she’d said, of course: Elizabeth would never be that direct. She’d just felt that it was more appropriate for the boy to be with his father. ‘He’s not far from adolescence, he’ll soon need a role model, someone masculine to look up to.’ David had asked what was wrong with her paramour, the sexual stud Anthony Farrar. ‘Oh, Anthony’s far too remote for someone like Sam. Sam needs someone more “hands-on”. And you are his natural father. He looks like you.’

  David waved Sam over to the bed and scrutinized him. The boy did look like him, so much so that it was hard to believe Elizabeth had had anything to do with his gestation. Perhaps her genes were as aloof as she was.

  It was as if Sam shared David’s own mixed parentage, half English, half Uighur. David’s father was Max Laing, emeritus professor of Turkic languages at London University. His mother, Soheila, had been a teacher of English at Sinkiang University, where Max had met her while doing research in the region a few years before the Chinese revolution.

  ‘Gromit is your responsibility’ explained David for what must have been the hundredth time. ‘You have to feed her, give her water, and clean up after her.’

  Sam wrinkled his nose.

  ‘But it smells
horrible! Really yuk. It’s all over the kitchen. I can’t do it on my own.’

  ‘I’m sure you can. Let’s go down and take a look.’

  True enough, Gromit had decorated the kitchen floor and most of the working surfaces with copious quantities of a substance that should have been encased beneath several inches of cat litter. The unfortunate creature had retreated to her bed, from which vantage point she let out piercing cries of malaise and anger. They started with Gromit, who was anything but a one-man job, and worked their way round the kitchen (followed by the now curious cat) with paper towel and massive quantities of disinfectant.

  In the middle of wiping down the breakfast bar, Sam, who’d been his usual chirpy self until then, inexplicably burst into tears. David dropped the wad of towel he was holding and dashed across.

  ‘Sam? Sam, whatever’s wrong?’

  It took a while for the child to recover himself enough to respond, and when he did it was only what David had expected.

  ‘I miss Mum. I don’t like her not being here. I want her back. Why did she have to go?’

  The question David had been dreading all these weeks. At first, it had been quite an adventure, just the two of them in the house alone. Elizabeth had left during school term, and David had made a point of seeing that Sam got to school every day. Now that the summer holidays were here, it was impossible to keep the boy sufficiently occupied. He went out with friends, but most of the time he came home to an empty house. David couldn’t just give up work, and he couldn’t always arrange to be home at the right times.

  They talked for a long time, and David did what he could to explain the inexplicable. No, that wasn’t true. Elizabeth’s departure hadn’t been inexplicable to him. She’d got bored with being a wife and a mother, she’d decided that, being wealthy in her own right, she’d be far better off with a rich man than a mere cog in the wheel of national intelligence. The problem wasn’t understanding her motives. The problem was making them comprehensible to a nine-year-old.

  Sam’s tears subsided. But David knew they were still there, waiting to burst out again every time the sense of abandonment grew at all strong. He had his own tears to fight back, but for now it was more important to get Sam through his struggle. Otherwise Sam would join Maddie in a few years’ time, emotionally crippled and dependent on drugs to get her through the ruins of her life.