“I can’t tell you.”
Water spit over the sides of the boat, slicking her arm and wetting her shirt. “Why not?”
The boy’s lips pinched. “You won’t tell?”
“I can’t promise that.”
Mick chewed on his lower lip. “He was already dead.”
“Was it you, Mick?” Garrett guessed, thinking of the boy’s culture, the tradition and the long-dead skull hanging in the longhouse. It wasn’t that far-fetched, not here.
He shook his head. “No, but I will tell you who so that you can help them. Otherwise the guilt will ruin my friends.”
It was an unbelievable story and she couldn’t imagine a stranger resolution. And all she could think was that Aidan should have been here for this. Instead it was up to her to relay the odd turn this tragedy had taken.
It was a relief to see Aidan standing on the dock when they returned.
“Aidan.” She jumped from boat to dock and reached over to get the rope to help Mick tie up the craft.
“Remember your promise,” Mick repeated.
“I will swear him to secrecy.”
“Thanks, Garrett.”
“What were you thinking?” Aidan’s words were hard-edged and full of carefully controlled anger. “He’s just a child.”
“I’m thirteen,” Mick shot back as he stomped up the dock and faced Aidan. “I know what I’m doing.”
Aidan looked over the boy’s head. “He could have drowned both of you in that rickety longboat.”
“Hey, I’m not invisible,” Mick persisted. “And I’m not your sister,” he shot as he headed up the stairs, shaking his head as he went.
“He has a point, Aidan. He’s good at what he does, child or not.”
Aidan rocked back on his heels. “I can’t forget. That’s how I lost my sister. To the river.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You have to let it go.”
“It haunts me but you’re right. It’s irrelevant now.”
“Always relevant,” Garrett replied. “Feelings always are.”
She sat down beside Aidan and put her arm around him. “Tell me about your sister.”
He shrugged her arm off as he stood up with his back to her. “The first time I realized I didn’t understand the forest like I thought was when it took Sunrise. She was the only child that Akan and my mother had together. She was only ten and too young to die.” He was silent for a minute as Garrett considered going to him but didn’t. “That was so many years ago. I was seventeen when it happened. College allowed me to escape and forget.”
“And prevented you from healing. You avoided.”
“It was easier,” he said simply. “It’s ridiculous, I know, but I felt betrayed.” He looked downriver. “She was much like Mick. There was nothing I could have done to save her. And she was happy. I know that now. Right to the end.” He sighed. “Sixteen years. That statement was a long time coming.” He stared off into the distance before turning his attention to Garrett. “So why were you on the river with Mick?”
“He had something he didn’t want the others to hear.” She smiled softly and rested her hand on his knee. “Something that you might be very interested in.”
“I’m waiting.”
“I tied up a loose end for you. Malcolm’s head.”
He crossed his arms, his expression grim. “So what does Mick know that I don’t?”
If she hadn’t known him she would almost have been intimidated. Instead she faced him off, crossed her arms across her chest and told him everything she had learned from Mick.
“Why would Blue hide the head?”
“To protect them. They’re just boys,” Garrett replied.
“He thought what they had done would ruin them.”
She put a hand gently on his shoulder. “Where do we go from here?”
“Again, to Akan,” he said as he kissed her, a lazy languid kiss that had her melting into his arms, where he wanted to keep her safe—his, for now.
Chapter Thirty-two
After listening to Aidan and viewing the evidence, Akan retired with him to the verandah. Akan lit a cigarette and stared off into the distance.
“Couple of young ones wanting to try the old tradition.”
Aidan shook his head. “I pray that’s all it was.”
“It was.”
“You knew!” Aidan accused.
“They’re good boys. My grandnephew is going to university in three years. His friend, he just lost his mother. Maybe that had something to do with it.”
“You don’t believe that,” Aidan said.
“No, I don’t. It was poor judgment on both their parts. But who am I to talk? I can’t very well judge them, all things considered. Not when my own son has been defying tradition.”
“So Blue found the head and tried to cover for them?”
“That’s about it. He didn’t tell me until just before he left to get verandah wire. It was as if he knew that he wouldn’t return.”
Garrett came up to them. “Where are the boys?”
“We have them contained for now,” Akan replied.
“How could this happen?” Garrett shook her head.
“I asked myself the same. Then I realized it was the way of it.” Akan blew another smoke ring and the smoke wafted into the evening air.
“Tradition,” Aidan and Akan both said.
“They would never consider killing anyone. The body was coming downriver, an unknown, already dead. They knew odds were the body would never be claimed,” Akan continued. “They’d heard the tale of another boy.”
“This has happened before?” Aidan looked stunned.
“Once, a long time ago. Sixty-two.”
Garrett jerked as if she’d been slapped. “Father,” she whispered, remembering her father’s story of losing a man from their expedition in that particular year.
“It was a long time ago and they were boys,” Akan said. “They’re both gone now. Died too young, both of them. They were my cousins and it was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.”
He lit another cigarette. “For the boys it’s over. There aren’t a lot of dead bodies floating down the river. That might be the last in their lifetime.” Akan threw his hands in the air. “They’re not killers.”
Aidan looked at Garrett’s white face, realized she thought of her team, of Burke, and circled an arm around her waist.
“I’m sorry,” Akan addressed Garrett, his voice raspy but still strong despite his age. “It is a rarity for bodies to survive for any length of time in the river. Your friend has met a jungle burial, as has Mark.” He shrugged. “For the Iban that is an honorable end.”
“Thank you for that.” Garrett smiled weakly.
“You’re welcome.” Akan roughly patted her shoulder and turned his attention to Aidan. “The boys will be taken care of.”
“How?” Aidan asked.
“You’re not the only one with an in with law enforcement. I was planning to fly out with Eric tomorrow.” Akan took another drag.
“Because I pushed you into it?” Aidan asked.
“No,” Akan replied. “Despite what you might think, I was on this—the boys anyway. I didn’t expect outside interference.”
“I’m not outside.”
The silence hung over them, more condemning than a verbal yes could ever be, and Garrett’s heart ached for Aidan.
“It’s been over six months since you’ve been here,” Akan said finally, and his tone had the accusatory note of any parent. “But you’re still my son.” A cloud of smoke wafted softly into the air and the hand that held the cigarette dropped to his side. “My only one.”
The words hung melancholic between them.
Then Akan glanced at his watch. “Look, I’ve got to get going fairly soon. We can talk more about this later. But there’s a couple of tourists want the typical longhouse tour. I’m on duty.”
“You?”
“Filling in. The lads that were supposed to show them
through didn’t get back from the city on time.”
“What are you saying?” Anger raced through Garrett. “You have tourists showing up? You have continuous communication?”
“Satellite access.” Akan held up his hand. “We really were having trouble with it that day when you arrived.”
“Fixable trouble, I’m assuming?”
“Do you mean was it up and running and we could have gotten you a plane out of here?” He glanced at Aidan. He shrugged his shoulders. “Not exactly. You could have gotten out but the only plane, well, that was Eric, like we said. We wouldn’t take a chance with anything that wasn’t already dead.” He held up his hand. “Sorry. That sounded bad. Malcolm had to be air-lifted out. The rest of you didn’t.”
“There was communications before we left for that last field trip, wasn’t there?” She folded her arms. “Why would you do that—drag us through the jungle for no reason? Why?”
The silence was her confirmation.
Aidan had no excuse, no glib answer as Akan looked at him and shrugged. As he turned his attention to Garrett all he saw was betrayal reflected in her eyes.
Akan carried on as if the tension between them didn’t exist. As if the questions had never been asked.
“Confinement seems to have quieted them. I’ll bring them out and you can see for yourselves that they’re relatively harmless. I think it would be in the best interests all round if the tribe handles this. I’m sure Chief Lieu will agree.” Akan turned and motioned to another man, who unlocked the last longhouse room.
The boys who emerged couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen, both slight, neither having filled into a man’s frame.
“Them? You’re kidding,” Garrett blurted.
“May I?” Aidan asked and Akan nodded.
Aidan faced the boys, towering over both of them. “I’d be interested in your reasons for mutilating a dead body,” he began with his hands behind his back.
Tears glittered in the one boy’s eyes. “We shouldn’t have done it. I told you so.” He looked at the other boy, who stared at a spot somewhere between his feet.
“He was dead,” the second boy muttered.
“So you thought that made it right to decapitate him?” Aidan moved closer to the boys.
“Respect for the dead.” The other boy glanced at his accomplice, who nodded.
“Headhunting is honorable.”
“Was,” Akan injected. “Some ancient traditions do not fit in modern-day society. That is one of them.”
The skull swung from a rafter only thirty feet away. The last human head hunted by this particular tribe—until now.
“He was Iban. We thought he’d understand.” The words were desperate and quick.
“Did you?” Akan asked and his words held his doubt.
They looked full on at Akan for the first time. “No,” they both said.
“When we started, we both wanted to stop,” one boy said and glanced at the other, who nodded. “But we couldn’t because that would have been worse.”
The boys shifted from foot to foot and Garrett realized that Aidan’s lack of response was working better than talking ever would.
“Will we be arrested?” Tears glimmered on the smaller boy’s lashes.
Garrett felt a pang of sympathy for them. They had taken an opportunity, as horrific as it sounded, to experience what their ancestors had done years ago on a regular basis, a grotesque version of cultural identification.
“This is serious.”
They both nodded at Aidan’s words.
“You could be arrested.”
“No, please.” They both sobbed.
“It’s not up to me,” Aidan said. “You should have thought of these things before you did something so outrageous. Maybe thought that the man had a family that would be even more devastated to hear that he will be buried without his head.”
“Did you think of that?” Garrett asked, feeling for the boys. Surely a parent should be here, encouraging at least one of them, supporting them, guiding them to the right decision. Where were their parents?
Both boys shook their heads.
“They are alone,” Akan said in his quiet yet authoritative voice as he stood beside Garrett.
She looked up surprised. “How?”
“Did I know what you were thinking? I didn’t. You have an expressive face.” He held up his hand, a familiar gesture that indicated silence. “They are wards of the tribe, I think you would call it in your Western lingo. I don’t think that’s an excuse. They’ve been well loved and cared for. No one in a longhouse is ever without love or family. We take care of our own.” He faced the boys. “Isn’t that right?”
They both looked down and muttered something that sounded like agreement.
Akan came up beside Aidan. “So have we decided when they’ll be arrested?”
The boys gasped. “You said that wouldn’t happen.” One boy glared at Akan.
“I didn’t say anything,” Akan replied. “In the meantime, I think the pair of you should be kept under house arrest until we decide what to do.”
“No, please,” the smaller boy sobbed.
The other stood beside him, stoically quiet. But he scuffed a bare foot across the verandah.
“I agree.” Aidan folded his arms across his chest and Garrett felt for the boys. With this giant of a man looming over them with a body language that was anything but friendly, they could only be intimidated.
“It will give you time to think about what you’ve done. And time for Akan and the others to think what your punishment might be,” Aidan said.
“You mean we won’t go to jail?”
“There’s no guarantee in life. This is serious,” Aidan warned. “But no, I doubt you will. Not that there won’t be punishment. Serious consequences. You won’t get off easy, you know that?”
“No, we expect that.”
“Most of the punishment has been waiting to be discovered,” the one boy said.
“I imagine it has. Maybe that will be taken into account. In the meantime, I think we’ll maintain your confinement and let Akan deal with this.”
“Locked in.” A tear ran down the smaller boy’s cheek.
“Yes. Locked in. And I’d say you’re getting off easy.” Aidan paused. “Go. And think about what you can do for his family.”
With the boys gone the verandah was oddly silent except for the eerie creak of the skull as it twisted in the quiet breeze.
Chapter Thirty-three
“You won’t have the boys arrested?” Garrett asked as night fell and she sat cross-legged on the dock with her heart breaking. They were going back to the city tomorrow and then she would say good-bye to Aidan. It was almost over. She stood up, turning to face him.
“I trust Akan. He is one of the Turah Burong,” he said, referring to the group of tribal administrators whose job it was to resolve conflicts. “I think we can avoid a legal mess. But the rest is his decision.”
“What now?”
“Now they go to Kuching. That is one thing even Akan cannot avoid.”
“No.” She hadn’t expected that. “You can’t do that. The city would kill them.”
“Hardly. Kuching will give them a taste of reality. What could happen and maybe some ambition to help their tribe rather than create problems for everyone. They’re old enough. It’s time they learned how to be men.”
“They’re boys.”
“Exactly,” he replied as his lips met hers and she matched him kiss for kiss. Her hands tangled in his blonde curls. Her mouth parted, wanting more, needing more.
But his deception sat heavy in her heart. “No,” she murmured against his lips.
“You’re right. Now isn’t the time,” he said as he let her go and she followed his gaze to the left.
She gasped. Standing in the shadows was Mick. Their eyes met briefly in the darkness before the boy scurried away.
For a minute her breath caught in her throat. As she drew in one sha
ky breath after another striving for calm and her heart pounded in her chest and her body cried in other ways, she met Aidan’s eyes as the boy melted into the forest and they were finally truly alone.
His thumb skimmed her lower lip.
“No.” She slipped away from him and away from the tantalizing feel of his skin on hers.
“Rett.”
She shook her head. She would never be Rett again.
“You won’t forgive me, will you?” His voice held only resigned sadness.
“You lied. You unnecessarily dragged us through the rain forest for days. We could have gotten out by plane or boat. You could have phoned.”
“It was an investigation.”
“I think you might have enjoyed it.” But even as she said it she knew that there was no truth in the words. They were only pebbles of hurt, of reacting to what she still couldn’t accept.
“Hardly. I didn’t know what you were about and there was a possible murder.”
“You mean you thought it was one of us? Make us uncomfortable enough and someone would cave.”
His silence was more damning than anything he could have said.
“You couldn’t have asked questions when we returned to Kuching?”
“Not as efficient.”
“You could have killed one of us.”
“Doubtful. You were safe at all times.”
“Were we?”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you that I would have done it differently. But despite a regretful investigation tactic, I care about you.” He looked away. “Very much.” The last words were so low that she was unsure if she had imagined them or not.
“Desire isn’t the basis of a relationship, Aidan.”
“I think we both agree that there’s more.”
She shook her head. “No. There can never be more. It was a holiday romance, nothing more.” The words were like ice chips in her mouth, hard, cold and foreign.
“I can’t convince you otherwise?”
“No,” she replied, and it felt like something had broken deep within her. There was nothing to do but cry or change the subject. “I can’t believe Malcolm was beheaded by boys. It’s unbelievable. Who would have thought?”
“Teenage boys and tribe tradition.” He shook his head. “I should have considered the possibility earlier. A dead body, an Iban boy, the combination had an inevitable result.”
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