by Claire Gray
Insects follow us as we struggle uphill from the road. In places the plants grow so thickly that we have to change course. I hear the river and the air feels wet. Birds move in the trees, making ugly noises like they’re afraid. The slope is steep and we have to grab at branches to keep from sliding backwards.
The ground levels out and I think I must have made a mistake; there’s no temple here. Everything is thick, green, damp and suffocating. But then I wipe the sweat from my face and really look around. There’s a carved archway beneath a curtain of vines, and further chambers and grey walls, trees growing amongst them, on the verge of flattening the building and reclaiming the land. I stop beneath the archway to catch my breath. The touch of the cool stone is a relief, although when I look closely I see horned creatures nesting in its pores.
‘Goodness,’ Steve says, puffing beside me. ‘It feels like no one’s been here for centuries.’
‘I know, right? It looks like there’s a clearing beyond that wall over there. Shall we head that way?’
‘We can do. My God, this is another world, isn’t it?’
I brush dust and plant matter from my arms, and then push further into what’s left of the temple. The place feels alive, as if the creeping plants and ancient stones can sense us, like they’re turning to watch as we walk by, the gravel crunching, mud bubbling around our feet. I know there are creatures in here with us; I can hear leaves moving, insects working, and I can taste their presence in the steamy air. But there’s nothing human here. I think that perhaps Steve is right and no one has visited this place for years.
‘Anyone here?’ I call, just to see how it sounds.
A scrabbling noise kicks up while my lips are still parted; someone running over loose rock. The sound bounces between trees and crumbling stone, but I think it’s coming from the other side of the wall, where the forest is thinner. My first instinct is to flee, and I turn so sharply that I slip and have to grab at a carved pillar. It’s covered with slime, which I can feel beneath my fingernails. Wiping this on my shorts, steady again, I realise that the person isn’t running to attack us; they’re running away. The noise is growing distant, but the air is disturbed here, even the clouds seem to have shifted from above the tops of the trees. Something has changed.
‘Someone’s actually here,’ Steve hisses.
Making as little noise as possible, bracing my hands against the trees, I head towards the clearing on the other side of the wall. I tell myself not to think, because if I do the fear will get in. I can feel it trickling through my veins, making my fingers tingle and my throat tighten. But it hasn’t reached any organs yet, so I keep moving. Steve is behind me. He grabs at the back of my shirt and pulls me towards him. I think he’s going to insist that we go back to the car but he doesn’t, he whispers at me to be careful, and we continue on together, holding our breath.
All I can hear now are the jungle noises, which are frightening in their own way. It’s as we reach the clearing, where sharp plants twist towards the red-hot sky, that I shield my eyes and see a man slipping away into the trees; a skinny guy in dark clothing. He’s absorbed by the plants almost immediately, but they continue to move in his wake. We could leave now, go back to the office and pretend nothing ever happened. But instead we quickly share a look, nod at each other, and run after him.
My feet clap against the ground and every stone pokes sharp through my canvas shoes as we dive into the jungle.
‘Ergh,’ I say as my face rips through a spider’s web. Steve stops beside me, trying to catch his breath as I spit at the ground, pulling the web from my eyes with hands that suddenly won’t stop shaking. When I can see again, I realise that the man is right there in front of us, crouched beside a mutated tree root. He’s like a demon, twisted there; his body has become part of the jungle. Steve has seen him too; I feel his hand reach for my arm and hold on tight, just below the elbow.
The flesh has thinned on his face since I saw him last, and his hair is wet and matted, but this is Dolph. I recognise him as soon as my eyes meet his.
I was right about someone being out here. Out of nowhere, and out of place in this dank twist of trees, I get an explosion of joy. It’s as if a drug has just started working inside of me, but I try to stifle it because it’s not appropriate to feel like this, and it’s making my legs shake, making me smile. With a new strength, I force my way through the damp plants to reach him. My legs start to bleed in a couple of places where thorns catch my skin, and another spider’s web wraps itself around my arm.
‘Lucy, careful,’ Steve hisses. He’s right behind me, but has lost his grip on my wrist.
‘What do you want?’ Dolph asks, not moving except to dig his fingers deep into the side of the tree that he’s crouching beside. Water falls from the leaves and drips down his dirty face. I recall Steve mentioning Marine Biology. He does look like a scientist. Or an artist. Sometimes there’s some cross-over between the two.
‘To talk to you,’ I say, pleased at how calm my voice sounds. ‘You’re Dolph, right? My name’s Lucy, I’m from the Koh Star. This is Steve, my editor.’
‘Okay,’ Dolph says, with a nervous grin now. He looks around, as if there might be a news crew following behind us. ‘It’s just you?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, instantly regretting it; it would be better for him to think we have back up.
‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? That was you at the hotel?’
‘You ran away.’
‘No, I was just in a rush. I’m always in a rush. Don’t take it personally.’ He pauses, runs a hand through his hair, and then says: ‘Why would you want to talk to me?’
‘Is your girlfriend here too?’ I would feel better if I could see Maliwan.
‘Um...’ Dolph says, still with a little smile on his face. ‘Can I ask why you’re interested?’
‘I’d really like to talk to her as well.’ I glance around for something I could use as a weapon, just in case. There are a few small stones which I could fling in his face, and a soggy looking stick which might be useful if I could get it into his eye. He’s not a big man, and perhaps we’d be able to fight him off if it came to it. But he’s rubbing at his chest now as if his skin itches, and chewing on his lips which are bleeding already. He might be crazy, and crazy people tend to be strong no matter what their size. I think that he could be a murderer. But the awkward jutting of his elbows, his pierced ear and long hair, make him seem liberal and academic and like he should be inside a library or at a music festival. I don’t see terrorism here anymore. But murder? Yes, perhaps.
‘What do you guys want?’ he asks, not smiling any more. He puts his hands around the tree and hangs on as if he might otherwise float away.
‘Okay,’ I say slowly, glancing at Steve and changing my mind again; perhaps this man did make the bomb. Maybe a liberal academic can pick up dangerous ideas. Steve is silent behind me, but I can feel a cloud of tension spreading around him. I can smell it; the fear that comes before panic. The sort of smell that can make animals stampede. I lick my lips and start talking, my voice unsteady now, and a tremor running through my whole body. ‘I spoke to Bernard Shuttleworth the day after the bomb went off. He thought Maliwan’s boyfriend might be involved. That’s you, right? And now Shuttleworth’s dead, so...’
‘No, I’m not involved in any of that.’ Dolph’s lips start to tremble, and he hits the tree with one balled up fist. Damp pieces of bark fall to the ground.
‘Then what are you doing out here?’ I look at the ground and think of pencil shavings.
‘The police don’t think I’m the bomber, do they?’ Dolph almost laughs as he says this, like he thinks the idea ridiculous. His eyes, though, are screwed up tight.
‘I think they’ve maybe considered it.’ It comes out in a whisper, but is very loud all the same, hanging over the sounds of the birds and the drip, drip, drip of water, the rushing river and the insects, calling and fighting between the leaves.
‘So, they haven’t caught
the bomber yet? The real one? I’ve been wondering.’
‘Well, no,’ I say.
‘Then you should be back in town, helping them, not out here harassing me,’ Dolph says, straightening up and taking a step towards us, crushing plants as he moves. He doesn’t seem so small now that he’s standing. He has unfurled like an insect.
‘We’re not harassing you,’ Steve says, in a more assertive voice than I’d expected. ‘We just want to politely ask some questions. Were you aware that Bernard Shuttleworth is dead?’
I realise that I’ve raised my arms, and I take a couple steps back, catching my clothes on the trees. Steve does the same; this is how the two of us look when we find a spider in the print room at work.
‘No. I had no idea. How did you even find us?’ Dolph asks.
‘Orange mud on your car,’ I say, looking over my shoulder to check that no one is creeping up from behind. All I can see are plants, and no clear route back to where we left the car. ‘And then the bike washed up on the beach so I figured whatever happened must have happened near to the river. And then…’
‘What bike?’ Dolph interrupts, spitting slightly.
‘It belonged to my friend. It got stolen out here. I thought…’
‘We never saw your bike.’
‘Oh.’ We all stare at each other, equally baffled. ‘I was here yesterday. Well, not far from here. And we heard shouting. It was a man and he took our bike.’
‘I haven’t been shouting and I definitely haven’t seen any bikes. Could it have been the police? Do you think they’re out here too? We haven’t seen anyone at all. Are the police coming? Honestly, this is so ridiculous.’
I shrug and look at Steve, suddenly unsure of how to proceed. ‘I thought it could have been Bernard Shuttleworth,’ I say.
‘I don’t think so. You said he’s dead.’ Dolph looks at me like I’m very stupid. Then he shakes his head and laughs awkwardly. ‘I mean, I’ve no idea. About any of this. No idea.’
He did it, I think. He killed Bernard Shuttleworth. My ankles are trapped in a coil of stalks and spikes. Everything around us is dark and dirty, the ruins of an ancient civilisation decaying beyond the trees, and I hate myself for coming here and putting Steve and myself at risk, because many miles away my parents are waiting for me and watching news reports which I know will be making them cry, and Steve has a daughter who he wants so badly to visit. I crouch and manage to snap a plant from around my leg. Orange mud and something black and flaky coat my hands afterwards. Spying a rock, I pick it up. It fits snugly in my palm.
‘Do you have any connection to Australia?’ Steve asks. ‘Melbourne, specifically?’
‘You’ve got it wrong, okay?’ Dolph says, jabbing a finger towards us so that I stagger back, snapping twigs and thumping against Steve. ‘I had nothing to do with the bomb and neither did Maliwan. That’s ridiculous. We don’t know anything about her boss. We’re just out here camping, okay? There’s nothing wrong with that.’
I stare at Dolph, trying to read him but failing. All I can pick up on is his pain.
‘Come on, now. What have you done? What exactly?’ Steve says, in a flat sort of voice.
‘Nothing, I swear.’
‘We know he died out here,’ Steve says, and he sounds so sure of the fact that I forget to feel frightened for a moment.
‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Why would Bernard Shuttleworth think you were involved in the bombing?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know. I had an argument with him one time about Palestine. He couldn’t believe I sided with the Arabs. Maybe, in his mind, that makes me a terrorist. I don’t know. Why would you even listen to him? He says all sorts of things.’
‘We try to listen to everyone,’ Steve says. ‘It’s part of our job.’
‘Then listen to me. I know nothing about any of this. I’m not lying. Do I look like I’m lying?’
‘I guess not,’ I say, looking at a throbbing vein on his forehead.
‘Then, please, just go away. Will you?’
‘Okay.’ I’ve had enough, and want to feel safe again. This could be our last chance at safety, although it might not be a chance at all; there’s something about the way he’s looking at us. He wants something, I can tell. We begin walking unsteadily back the way we came, gripping branches and pushing leaves from our eyes. He’s going to grab me. I can practically feel his fingers on my skin; it’s hard not to scream.
And then he shouts: ‘Wait!’
I look back over my shoulder. Dolph is following, bent forwards as if in pain.
‘What do you want?’ Steve says.
‘I’m sorry to ask, okay, but do you have any food or drink? Someone was supposed to bring us some. I’ve been waiting here but she hasn’t showed.’
‘No, we didn’t bring anything with us,’ Steve says. We move on, away from him.
‘Wait, wait. Could I get a ride into town with you, please? You came by car?’
‘I don’t think I want anything to do with you.’ This is a harsher sentence than I meant it to be, and I see in his face that I’ve hurt him. He’s used to pleasing people, I think; being amiable. Did Steve say something about a wealthy family? Living out here, torn to pieces, dirty and wet, must be making Dolph crazy if he wasn’t already. Steve looks at me, and I realise that he would have responded differently to Dolph if I hadn’t jumped in.
‘I just need a ride. I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I’m really not a terrorist or whatever it is you think. Please?’
‘What about your girlfriend? Isn’t she out here too? Are you just going to leave her?’ I ask.
‘No. I need to talk to her. Can you wait a while? Please, you could be our only hope.’ He paws at his face and stares at me through his fingers.
‘I don’t know if we should help you. I’m still not sure what you’ve done.’
‘Please, just wait here, okay? She’s not far away. I’ll be back in ten, fifteen minutes.’
Steve and I look at each other. I see that he wants to help, so I nod. Steve’s a nicer person than I am.
‘We’ll come with you. We’ll come and see her,’ Steve says.
Dolph hesitates for what feels like a full minute, and then he nods. ‘Okay.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘I don’t trust him for a second,’ Steve hisses at me. We’re walking a couple of metres behind Dolph, who is ducking and weaving through the forest, struggling to keep his hair out of his eyes and to hear what we’re saying.
‘Me neither. I know this was all my idea but I really think we should go home.’
‘I do too. But, listen, what if Maliwan is out here and she doesn’t want to be? Imagine if we left right now, and then in a few days’ time she turns up dead on the beach too.’
‘But that could happen to us,’ I whisper, my voice scratching my throat. ‘We could be dead on the beach.’
‘Do you want to wait here? Or go back to the car? Maybe you should. I think that would be sensible. But I just won’t be able to take it if I leave and then something happens to her. I can’t do it. No more dead bodies, you know?’
‘Yeah, I know.’ I sigh, remembering Maliwan’s mother alone and slowly dying in her dark house. ‘I’m coming with you. But are we really going to let them into the car with us?’
‘I don’t know. I’m winging it here.’
‘We’re nearly there,’ Dolph says loudly, looking back at us with his dark eyes and with a fly crawling up his chin towards his mouth. He waves it away and then continues on through the leaves which stick to him like slugs.
‘We’ll see if she’s okay, take in the situation as much as we can, and then get the hell out of here,’ Steve says to me, his whisper turning into a cough that he buries in his fist.
‘I really think he might be the bomber, Steve. At the very least he murdered Mr Shuttleworth. Please, we have to be careful.’
‘This is it,’ Dolph says.
We emerge from a curtain of le
aves, blinking as the sunlight hits us. The temple in the centre of this clearing is small and dark. It is more intact but less beautiful than the others; like it’s purely functional, reminding me of a bomb shelter or a bunker. It feels deserted in a different way to the other temples; I can picture its dusty chambers filled with insect carcasses, bat droppings and small bones. It casts a bleak shadow over the Thai girl who is sitting beneath a dead tree, using a stick to draw shapes into the ground and then scratch them out again. I have a long second to take in the scene before she sees us.
‘Who are they?’ she snaps, throwing the stick down and jumping to her feet in one smooth movement.
‘Maliwan?’ I say.
‘Who are you?’ She glares at us, the muscles in her face twitching.
I wonder how we look to her; I have mud up my legs and my hair is falling out of my ponytail. Steve is red-faced and dripping sweat onto his striped shirt. She’s squinting at me now like maybe she recognises me; like maybe she thinks she’s cleaned my bathroom before, or made my bed. I rattle off my spiel about being from the Koh Star and I try to smile, because whether she’s a victim or an accomplice we really want her to like us at this point.
But the girl darts to a bag which I hadn’t noticed before in the shadows of the tree, beside its lumpy roots which are rippling with insects. The bag is a big, khaki-coloured backpack, stuffed so full that one of its seams is beginning to split. She flips open the lid, undoes a zip and pulls out a knife. It’s a few inches long and silver. She waves it around, making light dance over our faces. I brush the glare away like it’s another insect; another crawling, biting, stabbing thing.
‘I don’t think we need that, Mal,’ Dolph says, running his fingers through his hair and pulling his scalp tight.
‘You’re scared of it,’ she says. ‘That’s why you say that. But we do need it.’
‘I’m not scared of it,’ he tries to argue, but we can all see him flinching as she moves it about.
‘You’re scared of it like you’re scared of the beetles running over your feet in the night. So, I have to do this and I have to crush the beetles, don’t I?’