INCARNATION

by Daniel Easterman

  Just as David slipped the last packet into the oven, the phone rang.

  ‘Bugger.’

  He turned the oven on and headed for the phone.

  ‘Laing.’

  ‘David, this is Elizabeth. Remember? Your ex-wife. Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Good evening, Elizabeth. It’s always charming to hear your cheerful voice.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody banal. I’ve been trying to get you all day.’

  ‘I’ve been at work. Remember that? It’s what some of us do for a living.’

  ‘For God’s sake, stop bickering. This is urgent. I had a phone call this afternoon from Maddie. Well, not actually from Maddie. She asked me to ring her back, so I did. I don’t suppose you’ve spoken to her in weeks.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I spoke to her this morning.’

  ‘What? She didn’t tell me. And, for that matter, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I did. I left a message on the great man’s answering machine. I presume you haven’t been home all day.’

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  The brief silence before she answered told him everything.

  ‘I’m … not quite sure. Well, it’s a hotel, actually.’

  ‘And you’re in the bar.’

  ‘Lounge, actually. Quite a nice lounge, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Elizabeth, what did Maddie say?’

  ‘Oh, you know it all already. You always know things before anybody else does. Regular little secret agent, aren’t we?’

  ‘Elizabeth, I asked you what your daughter said.’

  ‘Did she tell you she’s at that man Rose’s clinic again?’

  ‘Yes. I spoke with Rose myself.’

  ‘Well, the cheap little bastard’s on the scrounge again. Will I pay for Maddie’s treatment? Then there’s the room, and the food, and lab tests, and medication, and God knows what. It’s a stinking rip-off. He ...‘

  ‘Elizabeth, stop right there. If you don’t pay, I will make such a public stink about you and your boyfriend it’ll be all over next week’s tabloids. So please wise up. Maddie’s in trouble. And, frankly, she’s in trouble this time because of you and your dangerous liaison. Now, tell me what she said and what you said to her.’

  They talked for another five minutes, but Elizabeth told him nothing he did not know already. When she hung up, he felt as though someone had just wrapped a tight wet rope about his body, constricting him and hampering his breath.

  ‘Was that Mum?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s all that about Maddie?’

  ‘Maddie’s ill again, Sam. She’s in a clinic’

  Despite the vast gulf of years between them, Maddie and Sam had formed close bonds. She cared for him as deeply as though he had been her son and not her brother, and he had made of her a surrogate mother, even before Elizabeth’s disappearance. He barely remembered her previous illness.

  ‘Can I visit her?’

  ‘Not yet. But probably in a week or two.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘She’s just a bit upset about things. Some people find they can’t cope when things go wrong in their lives.’

  ‘Has she had a breakdown?’

  ‘Who told you about breakdowns?’

  ‘I don’t know. One of the boys at school. I think his dad had one.’

  ‘Well, what Maddie has is something like that. She needs to be looked after properly.’

  ‘Is it because of Mum? What she did?’

  ‘Partly, yes.’

  Sam remained silent for a couple of minutes. Then suddenly bellowed ‘They’re burning!’ and dashed to the oven to retrieve the meal.

  After dinner, while Sam watched Emmerdale, David went upstairs to his computer and dialled in to the server at headquarters. He used Telnet to access Central Records, and in less than a minute had a file on Barry Scudamore, the proprietor of Celadon Antiques, Bristol.

  There wasn’t much. Mr Scudamore had lived a prosperous but quiet life. He was fifty-four years old, and he’d been in the antiques business for thirty-three of those. His father had started the business, and Barry had kept it on and made it what it now was. He had never married, but had lived for over seventeen years now with a man called Norman Cunliffe, his business partner and, presumably, lover.

  None of this was of the remotest interest to David. What did grab his attention was the revelation - almost a footnote - that Celadon Antiques dealt, not in general objects of age and value, but specifically in wares of Chinese origin. Scudamore was the travelling partner: he made two or three business trips to China every year. Peking mostly, but other cities on a rotating basis. Recently, he’d paid a visit to Sinkiang, and then gone on to Lhasa, where he’d paid high prices for a trunkful of sixteenth-century thangkas. Taking pre-1795 antiques out of China was strictly illegal. Barry Scudamore must have had guanshi - bags of the stuff.

  David printed out the file and shut down. As the screen blanked, he decided that it might be worth paying a visit to Mr Scudamore. He looked at his watch. It was too late for tonight. On the other hand, the Cotswolds were well within reach. He was beginning to think that a late-night visit to Matthew Hyde’s incarnation would make a lot of sense.

  ‘Sam, I have to go out again. More work.’

  ‘Are you planning to kill someone this time? Is that why it has to be by night?’

  ‘I wish I’d never told you about what I do. No, I’m not going to kill anybody. I just want to talk to someone.’

  ‘The boy?’

  ‘Yes, the boy. I may be back late, so I’ve asked Nicky if she’ll stay with you. Is that OK?’

  'I’m all right on my own.’

  ‘You most certainly are not.’

  ‘All right. But only if you promise you’ll ask Nicky out on a date.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Sam: your mother’s only been gone six weeks, and you’re trying to match-make.’

  ‘Nicky’s pretty, though, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, very pretty. She’s also half my age.’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘Yes, Granddad. I’m well aware it happens. But how much time would you like to spend with a five-year-old girl?’

  There was no answer to that. The doorbell rang, and he let Nicky in. She was looking nicer than ever. He cursed Sam for having even started the thoughts that took hold of him as he watched her shapely figure walk ahead of him towards the kitchen. One thing was certain: Nicky wasn’t five years old.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Carstairs was set in darkness, like a ship in a troubled and unlit sea. Thick curtains of yews and poplars shut it away on four sides from the eyes of the curious, and at night lights were never lit in more than two or three windows. It was a house rule strictly adhered to, and there were locks on the shutters in the guest bedrooms to ensure that visitors made no unauthorized attempts to reveal their presence.

  David turned off the road - it was more a farm track than anything - that passed the front of the house, and steered into the even narrower path that would take him half a mile between high clipped hedges down to the gate.

  To the unpractised eye - a casual tourist turning up in a Range Rover with family and labrador, an experienced walker drawn there by what was marked on his Ordnance Survey map of the region as ‘Forest’ - the gate would seem no more than a typical farm gate. But any attempt to open it would prove futile. The car driver would quickly execute a three-point turn and head back to whatever vestige of civilization remained out there. The walker, on the other hand, had he chosen to climb over the gate, as walkers are inclined to do, would have been confronted less than half a minute later by a polite but firm man in a tweed cap and Barbour jacket, telling him he was on private property, and asking if he would mind awfully going back over the gate again.

  Anyone trying harder to penetrate Carstairs’ perimeter fence would have found himself face to face with one of the most impenetrable security sys
tems in England. A network of sensors, light-sensitive Vidicon cameras, geophones, infra-red beams, and some carefully placed Barr & Stroud thermal-imaging units made the house unreachable to anyone without a permit.

  David drew up at the gate and switched off his headlights. He hadn’t rung ahead, so they wouldn’t be expecting him. He wanted it that way. They’d have heard his engine, of course, and he knew he’d have been spotted on half a dozen cameras all the way down the lane. He honked five times. Moments later, he heard the gate open and close again. His own eyes were blinded by the sudden blackness, but he knew the man approaching would be wearing night-vision glasses.

  The window was already open. He’d driven the whole way with it down: outside, the night was still warm, unable to shake off the stifling heat of the day.

  'Can I do anything for you, sir?’

  ‘You can let me in, if it’s no trouble.’

  ‘Yes, sir. May I see your permit, sir?’

  David held out a credit-card-sized slip, which the man ran through a hand-held scanner.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Laing. Shall I phone through for you?’

  ‘I think you’d better, otherwise one of your boys may try to turn me into an Eccles cake.’

  “Now, that would be a gross waste of Ministry of Defence raisins, sir. Would you like me to tell Mr Hughes youre here?’

  “Yes, and tell Mrs Hughes I’d like a cup of tea and some at the cake she baked earlier, if there’s any left.’

  ‘Right-ho, sir. You’d better leave the motor in the yellow car-park. That’s the one …’

  ‘I know where it is. See you on the way out.’

  Glynis was waiting for him at the front door, dressed in a heavy red woollen dressing-gown. David had seen her wear it in all seasons. She called it her pillar-box and claimed that a Soviet dissident had once tried to post letters in her mouth.

  ‘Cake, please, Mrs Hughes, and a large pot of very hot tea.’

  ‘Yes, sir. May I ask what brings you down here again at this time of night?’

  ‘I want to speak to Tursun. I take it he’s still up?’

  ‘He’s in the games room watching television. Arwel was teaching him to play snooker earlier on.’

  ‘Could you tell him I’m here and that I’ll see him in the library. Bring the tea there, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Is something up, sir?’

  ‘You know better than to ask, Glynis.’

  ‘He’s a lovely boy,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘So well-mannered, and considerate about his parents.’

  ‘A paragon.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t know, sir. I’m not sure the boy’s nationality comes into it. Though, mind you, Arwel says the Welsh …’

  ‘Hot tea, Glynis. And two large slices of cake.’

  Tursun came in with a huge smile on his face. David had to admit that it was hard not to like the lad. He’d obviously won Glynis Hughes over, and, in spite of appearances, she wasn’t easily wooed.

  ‘Come in, Tursun. Been watching telly?’

  ‘Yes. The Simpsons. It’s extremely funny.’

  ‘Mv son likes it.’

  ‘Do you have a son?’

  ‘Yes, his name’s Sam. He’s nearly ten. About your height. He looks a bit like you. His grandmother was Uighur. My mother.’

  ‘Yes, I remember your telling me.’

  ‘I’m sure I did. Now, why don’t you sit down? Over there. Mrs Hughes will be bringing tea in a moment. Or perhaps you’d prefer something different? Cocoa, or Horlicks.’

  ‘A Horlicks, please.’

  ‘Hot or cold?’

  For a moment he saw the confusion on the boy’s face. It was one thing to know a name like Horlicks, even to know it was a drink. But if you’d never drunk it ...

  ‘Have it hot. I hear Arwel Hughes has been teaching you snooker.’

  ‘Yes, we had a terrific game. He showed me how to play a good safety shot. More important than potting, he says.’

  There was a knock on the door, followed by a vision in red carrying a large tea-tray. David helped her set it on the table.

  ‘Would you mind bringing Tursun a mug of Horlicks, please? Make it a strong one.’

  ‘All milk?’

  ‘Good Lord, yes. It never tastes right with water. Does it, Tursun?’

  The boy shook his head. David fancied he was adept at picking up cues.

  When Glynis had gone, David poured himself a cup of tea.

  ‘You don’t mind me starting before you, do you?’

  Tursun shook his head again.

  David sipped his tea. Earl Grey: he didn’t have to spell it out any longer.

  ‘We used to have some great games of snooker in there, didn’t we?’

  Tursun looked up at him, sensing danger.

  ‘Yes,’ he beamed. ‘I always won.’

  ‘Not always. But you were very good. Which makes me wonder why you have to take lessons from Arwel Hughes.’ Tursun’s face tightened. David could almost see the cogs turning.

  ‘I’m a lot smaller. And Tursun’s body has to relearn everything Matthew knew.’

  “Tursun, why don’t we stop playing games? I don’t know how you’re doing this, though I have to say I’m very impressed indeed. But the fact is, I’ll catch you out in the end. I have one hundred and one ways, believe me. I could ask you intimate questions about things men and women do together in bed - things Matthew would know, but a boy your age would not. I could pretend that Matthew and I did this, that or the other, and in the end you’d give the wrong answer. Shall I go on?’

  The door opened again. The pillar-box appeared, delivered a mug into Tursun’s hands, and vanished again without a word.

  Tursun shook his head. He clutched the mug in both hands, suddenly a small boy out of his depth in an adult world. As David looked at him, he thought he saw all the affectation of adulthood simply fall away. In a matter of seconds, Tursun became a child again, and the look on his face was one of pure relief.

  ‘I would have told you,’ he whispered. ‘But I had to keep up the story as long as possible. He told me to.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Matthew. Mr Hyde.’

  ‘Yes, I thought as much. Where did you meet him?’

  ‘In Sinkiang Province Number Five Labour Reform Camp.’

  ‘Near Khotan?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know it?’

  David shivered.

  ‘By reputation. What were you doing there?’

  ‘My father was arrested, and they made me go with him. My mother too. Our family are Muslims. To the Chinese, that means we’re rebels. As far as they’re concerned, the entire population of Sinkiang is made up of counter-revolutionaries.’

  ‘They may not be entirely wrong. What did your father do to be put in the camp?’

  Tursun looked down glumly at his mug of Horlicks. He had recovered the small boy who’d been hiding behind Hyde’s facade all these months, and with him all the buried emotions of a child.

  ‘Drink it,’ said David. ‘Don’t worry, it’s just a kind of malted milk. Try it and see.’

  The boy sipped tentatively at the liquid, frowned in puzzlement, then took another, longer sip. Satisfied, he looked up at David.

  ‘He had a workmate who was the leader of a Muslim faction. They had jobs in the same brigade at the Silk and Mulberry Research Centre. My father used to supervise the mulberry trees. He knew everything there was to know about the trees: which ones grew best in shade, which ones needed regular pruning. He once showed me how trees with dark leaves were best if you wanted silk for dyeing. His father taught him all those things. Grandfather died when I was three. My father worked very hard, and he kept himself out of trouble. Politics meant nothing to him.’ Tursun paused. Something was troubling him.

  ‘Mr Laing, my parents know nothing of all this - the deception, my coming here. Matthew Hyde told my father that he should follow my directions, that they would be given a house in England, and work. You must promise me that. They went throug
h terrible things in the camp, and afterwards, in order to get me to India.’

  David had already worked out that the last thing anybody wanted was to send the family back to China. The boy, in particular, whatever his real story, knew far too much ever to be allowed within a mile of anyone with so much as a drop of Chinese blood in their veins. No sooner had the thought formed than it was followed by another: who had asked Barry Scudamore to tail him that afternoon? Had David himself been the antique dealer’s target, or the twelve-year-old boy drinking Horlicks in front of him?

  ‘I need to speak to some important people, Tursun. It won’t be my decision. But you can rest assured that you won’t be sent back to China. I’m certain of that. Now, tell me how your father came to be arrested.’

  Tursun took another mouthful of his drink. It was so cosy, David thought, as all these meetings were. He’d sat in this library with a succession of men and women, and sipped tea or coffee, and talked about the weather for a while. And from the weather they’d pass on to horrors beyond belief. He wondered if Glynis Hughes had the slightest idea of the things that were said in these rooms. Torture, rape, sexual infidelity, betrayal, murder, suicide, darkness of any and every kind. This boy sipping Horlicks for the first time knew secrets that could affect the lives of millions.

  ‘One day, the police raided the house belonging to my father’s workmate. His name was Abdul Wahhab. There were weapons in a pit under the floor. They arrested everyone connected to him. My father had a Koran in our house. He never read it - he can’t read. But the police said it was a sign of subversion. The court sentenced him to fourteen years in a labour camp. They sent my mother as well. I wasn’t at home then, but I was sent to the camp a month later.’

  David stopped him.

  ‘Before you go on, Tursun, I’d like to know one thing: how do you come to speak such good English? You’re not going to tell me Matthew Hyde taught you.’

  ‘Is my English good?’

  ‘You know perfectly well it is. Even if you’ve never tasted Horlicks in your young life, you could pass as an English child.’