Cambodian Book of the Dead
Page 25
“The notes for Laos,” Sundermann said. “Your next case. I trust it will be a walk in the park compared to your Cambodian mission. When you are done here, fly to Hamburg and meet your next client. I rely on you, Maier. Travel safely.”
Maier made a grab for the case files and an almost full bottle of wine and pulled Carissa away from the table and through the club. The world turned around them and Maier knew that everything was OK, would be OK. He would beat his traumas. He would start right away. Carissa would help him.
“Let’s go to bed and celebrate.”
Carissa laughed, her eyes full of challenge. “Yes, Maier, let’s party like never before, like there’s no tomorrow.”
Maier was too happy and too drunk to think about her words or to notice the dark look simmering beneath her smile as they descended the broad stairs into the rubbish strewn street.
They jumped a tuk-tuk to the Hotel Renakse, a charming former royal guest house opposite the palace, a few hundred meters from their dinner party, and for Maier perhaps the most romantic place in the city. They propped each other up as they slowly walked through the hotel garden up the pebbled drive and through the colonial-era building’s sparsely furnished corridors. The night was dark and cool. The floor tiles danced under their feet. A bird called from the river, answered by the cry of a lone drunk. Everything was good and Maier wallowed in his illusions, throwing furtive glances at the journalist, who responded with the happy-sad looks of someone hopelessly in love. This was the closest he might ever get to it. To something essential. Once in the room, they fell into a fever. Even youth was somehow with them and the last thing Carissa said to Maier as he drifted into sleep, burnt itself into his mind like a rust-coloured tropical sunset after the rains, “All through our dinner, I was on the verge of having an orgasm, Maier. You were the most handsome man in Phnom Penh tonight, no doubt about it. It’s uncanny you came back here. And it’s been good knowing you all these years. And so much more.”
When Maier woke in the morning, he was alone. Her smell still clung to the sheets, but he knew that Carissa had said goodbye. His life was empty and without worry, just as he wished it to be. It hurt. He got up and went to the bathroom to examine his psyche.
With bright red lipstick, she had written one of his favourite quotes on the mirror. “We live as we dream.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my family, especially my wife Aroon Thaewchatturat and my brother Marc Eberle – both played instrumental roles in getting me to finish The Cambodian Book of the Dead. Thanks to my friend Hans Kemp for embarking on an adventure called Crime Wave Press and helping to get Detective Maier on the road. Lucy Ridout did a great early edit.
In 1995, I crossed from Thailand into Cambodia at Hat Lek, racing in a speed boat up the jungle-fringed Koh Kong River, with troops dug in on both sides. The other passengers besides my travel companion and me were a man who had a suitcase chained to his wrist and a sex worker on her way home from Pattaya. The sky was gun metal grey. I was hooked. Cambodia is a land of stories, both beautiful and beautifully poignant – an obvious location for the first job for German detective Maier, a former war correspondent who investigates crimes around Asia. Throughout my many subsequent trips, I was touched by the friendliness of the Cambodians and shocked by what they have to put up with.
Those who provided insights: Youk Chang (at DCCAM), David Chandler, Soparoath Yi, Poch Kim, Luke Duggleby, Gerhard Joren, Roland Neveu, Kraig Lieb, Barbara Lettner, Jane Elizabeth, Jochen Spieker, Joe Heffernan, Chanthy Kak, Julien Poulson, Kosal Khiev, Chris Kelly, Tassilo Brinzer and Marie Phouek.
The amazing Emlyn Rees and the team at Exhibit A who took the plunge and put the shine to it.
Maier will be back – in The Man with the Golden Mind.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Vater studied publishing, journalism and English literature in Oxford, before travelling around Europe, including the newly opened former communist states of Eastern Europe, as a punk rock guitar player.
He now works predominantly in South and South East Asia, where he writes in both in English and German. His work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including The Times, The Guardian, The Far Eastern Economic Review, Discovery, The Asia Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire and Penthouse. He is The Daily Telegraph’s Bangkok expert.
Tom spends most of his time on the road, researching stories and fulfilling assignments. His travels have led him (on foot) across the Himalayas, given him the opportunity to dive with hundreds of sharks in the Philippines, to criss-cross the US in search of former CIA agents and to witness the Maha Kumbh Mela, the largest gathering of people in the world. His countless journeys have left him stranded in dozens of train stations, airports and bus terminals around South Asia, Europe and the US.
On assignments, he’s joined sea gypsies and nomads, pilgrims, sex workers, serial killers, rebels and soldiers, politicians and secret agents, artists, pirates, hippies, gangsters, policemen and prophets. Some of them have become close friends.
His most recent non-fiction book, Sacred Skin, is the first English language title on Thailand’s Spirit Tattoos, co-authored with Aroon Thaewchatturat, and published world wide to huge critical acclaim in 2011. Sacred Skin has been the subject of two TV documentaries and has been reviewed in more than thirty publications, including El Mundo, CNN, Die Zeit, The Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine.
tomvater.com
twitter.com/tomvater
EXHIBIT A
An Angry Robot imprint
and a member of the Osprey Group
Lace Market House, 43-01 21st Street, Suite 220B
54-56 High Pavement, Long Island City
Nottingham NG1 1HW NY 11101
UK USA
www.exhibitabooks.com
A is for Asia!
Copyright © Tom Vater 2013
Cover design by Argh! Oxford
All rights reserved.
Angry Robot is a registered trademark, and Exhibit A, the Exhibit A icon and
the Angry Robot icon a trademark of Angry Robot Ltd.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and
incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or
localities is entirely coincidental.
Ebook: ISBN: 978 1 90922 320 2
UK Paperback: ISBN: 978 1 90922 318 9
US Trade Paperback: ISBN: 978 1 90922 319 6