A Killing Air

by Nigel Price

  When all the pieces were assembled, Harry and Lisa stooped over the brazier. “Ready?” he asked. She nodded.

  He thumbed the lighter. Nothing. “Fucking flint’s worn out!”

  He felt Lisa’s hand on his forearm, steadying him. His heart was thumping. Rage building. Tears stung his eyes. Right then he wanted to tear the whole fucking hut to pieces, and rant and storm. Instead he took a couple of deep breaths.

  In the dark his fingers found the tiny stump of flint and repositioned it against the striker. It was little bigger than a crumb.

  “Okay.” Silence. He spun the wheel. It struck the flint fragment. A pitiful cascade of sparks tumbled into the air, laying themselves across the clumped web. Harry leaned close and breathed on it. There was the faintest glow before a return to darkness.

  Without waiting he struck the flint again. Then again. Beside him Lisa watched, her whole being intent upon the work in hand.

  Spray after spray draped filaments of vanishing sparks across the web. A glow appeared. Harry breathed on it as gently as he could. To blow would have been disastrous. The web would have scattered.

  He breathed again. There was life deep in its heart. The faintest glow. One more breath and flame popped from the tinder. Tiny and frail but flame. Instantly he was tickling its edges with the tissue paper. That caught. Burned. More tissue paper until it had all been consumed. With the last of it, strands of torn filing paper. With the slightest reluctance these too combusted.

  The fire was alive. Lisa contributed papers of her own. The flames built. All thought of the villagers, the rain, everything else was expunged as the whole intent of the two wet, exhausted fugitives focused on the growing fire before them. They might have been Stone Age cave dwellers fighting for life in an ice-coated world still barely touched by humanity.

  A long, deep sigh escaped from Lisa. Her hands appeared in front of the firelight. Her fingers flexed and clenched as they sucked its warmth into her body like the roots of a tree drawing water from the earth.

  Harry heard a strange sound and looked at her to see that she was crying.

  Thirty

  The smoke found its way to the open window. The fire’s yellow light flickered off the walls of the small office, playing over the faces and soaked clothing of the two occupants. Harry put more files onto the fire, tending to his creation with the greatest care. If it went out he had no idea if he would be able to restart it. Slowly he felt the temperature rise. He hunched forward over the flames, Lisa doing the same. Steam started to rise from their wet jackets and trousers until they were like two giant kippers quietly smoking.

  Eventually Harry was bold enough to peel off his jacket. It parted with his shirt reluctantly. He winced as the shirt’s wet cloth slapped back against his shuddering flesh. He pulled a chair close to the fire and hung his steaming jacket over it to dry. Then another chair for Lisa’s. She took some persuading but relented. The zip slid down and she emerged like a soggy butterfly from its chrysalis. A moment later her jacket steamed across the back of its chair alongside Harry’s. They both edged closer to the fire. Shivering, they slapped themselves and each other, adding files to the fire until it blazed.

  “I’m starving,” Harry said.

  “Well there’s nothing to eat here,” Lisa replied. “I would love a drink. I’m terribly thirsty.”

  “A nice coffee,” Harry suggested.

  “Chinese tea,” she replied with a sad smile. “Jasmine.”

  “Hot chocolate.”

  Lisa shook her head, unwilling to take part any further. A dull heaviness descended upon her, pushing her into a silent, dark place of reflection. Her eyes bored into the fire. Harry observed her. He knew where she had gone and thought it best to leave her there for a while. He’d never been the jolly hockey sticks sort. There, there. Snap out of it. All of that. Best let things take their natural course.

  He suspected she was thinking about Herbert. Replaying his end in the mud and rain. Then her own flight for life. He understood all of that. It took him a few minutes to catch up and wonder where his own shock had gone. Did things like this bother him anymore? Of course they did. It was the ghosts they would raise from the grave that concerned him the most.

  Snap out of it, Harry.

  There. He’d fallen foul of the trend he despised. He smiled.

  “What’s funny?”

  He looked up to see Lisa watching him.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking about something. Miles away.”

  He was glad that she didn’t pursue the matter. He stood up. Stamped his feet to encourage the blood to return to them. His socks squelched.

  “I suppose we should take off these clothes and dry them,” he said.

  Lisa studied her own steaming limbs. “Yes,” she replied without enthusiasm. She started to speak again. Stopped. Then restarted, avoiding Harry’s eyes. “How much do we take off?”

  “Well, there’s a theory that says it’s best not to take off anything as the body’s temperature can drop just enough to kill you.”

  “Great theory,” she replied leadenly.

  “However, seeing as we’ve got a fire going and the room’s warming up, I’d say we can at least take off the next layer.”

  She grunted, unimpressed. “Or we could leave them to dry on us.”

  “Yes, we could do that too.”

  Harry undid the buttons of his shirt and peeled it off. It was like removing a skin. As the air met his wet flesh he shuddered, wondering if he should have given the theory more credence. Nipping through to another office, then another, he returned with a further two chairs.

  “In for a penny,” he said, trying to sound cheerful. He removed his shoes and socks, undid his trousers and took them off in a series of undignified hops. Lisa watched him, stony-faced. When they were arranged on one of the newly acquired chairs, they quickly started steaming. Harry crouched close to the fire, feeling its warmth against his skin. His whole body shuddered uncontrollably, but things were going in the right direction. He knew he would soon start to warm up.

  Lisa’s eyes were on the fourth chair, empty of clothes. She looked at Harry, back at the chair, then at her steaming trousers and blouse. She hunched closer to the fire and sat tight, arms folded grimly.

  “Oh …” she angrily muttered something in Chinese, stood up and followed Harry’s lead. A minute later the fourth chair was draped with an array of clothing similar to Harry’s, only smaller sizes and brighter colours. Lisa squatted on her haunches, hugging her knees, trying her best to shrink into an invisible ball.

  “I’m cold,” she stated crossly.

  “The clothes should dry soon.”

  Another muttered burst of Chinese.

  “Er …” Harry began. “There’s always the buddy-buddy system?”

  She looked at him quizzically. “What’s that?”

  “We can share body warmth.”

  She stared blankly, working out what he meant. When the penny dropped she made a grimace that looked as if Harry had suggested she roll in a trough of cold pig entrails.

  “Just a suggestion,” he said quietly, a little hurt.

  Her skin was covered in goose bumps, shivering less violently than before. In the firelight it was a soft golden colour. Her underwear clung to her. Like lichen on stone it wasn’t budging. Nor was Harry’s. It would dry soon enough.

  After some minutes of steaming in silence, Harry stood up, self-conscious in his soggy boxers. “I’ll go and see if I can find something to eat.”

  “Here? Don’t be stupid.” Lisa gave a great sniff and shuffled as if on a perch. “Stay here. You’ll get cold.” One hand waved at the fire. “Sit down.”

  Before he did so, he went through to the next door office where he had seen a rug. He brought it back. It was ancient and worn but thick enough to provide some insulation from the bare wooden boards and the concrete base underneath. She moved aside while he positioned it next to the fire, then resettled herself.

  Harry
sat down beside her, which Lisa noticed with a warning glance but otherwise accepted. “There,” he said. There was a moment of awkwardness, and then to his surprise he felt her head resting on his shoulder. Her body shuffled and there was the touch of her shoulder against his. Then the length of her arm alongside his. Harry did some shuffling of his own until their damp bodies stuck together like intimate slugs. Finally Harry removed his arm from between them and draped it round her shoulders.

  “Comfortable?”

  “No.”

  He couldn’t really think of a response so chose to ignore it. Side by side they stared into the flames. From time to time, one or other of them would heft another file onto the fire, maintaining the healthy blaze.

  A while later Harry felt Lisa’s breath steady and deepen. A sidelong glance at her confirmed that she was asleep. The air was cold against his back. He tried to move so as to protect her better but felt her begin to wake. She opened her eyes, mumbled something, and was asleep again. Harry stayed still.

  Before he had settled he had ensured there was a plentiful supply of folders to hand. As the minutes built into an hour, he slowly worked his way down the pile, lobbing one after another onto the fire. One fell open. Bored, he leafed through the pages as he gathered them, placing them individually on the fire. The writing was in Chinese. They looked like invoices. Frankly they could have been anything. Of slightly greater interest were the photos that had been protected with tissue paper. He had put these to one side. Nothing remarkable. Ships mostly. On closer inspection he saw that they were all of the same ship. A cargo vessel. On some of them the name was discernible, written across the stern in bold Chinese characters. It looked like an old rust bucket. Harry had seen the sort plying their trade up and down the coast, from Tianjin in the north down to Shanghai and then Hainan Island in the south.

  He tossed the pictures aside. The warmth of the fire seeped through him. He wished he could lie down. He longed to sleep but was reluctant to leave the fire untended. The weight of Lisa’s body pushing against him told him that she was far gone, deep in the land of dreams. Her goose bumps had gone and her skin felt warm to the touch. Her feet were to the fire. The knees were drawn up and leant against Harry’s. Next to hers, his legs looked brutish. Beauty and the Beast. He felt he should be snuffling for truffles in the forest, grunting.

  He had thought that sleep was far away but the next thing he knew was the leaden weight of his eyelids refusing to stay open. In preparation for defeat he placed more files on the fire, steepling them on top of and around the central flames. Then he let his head loll against Lisa’s. That worked for a while but gravity wanted more of him. His arched back was aching with the effort of sitting.

  No easy way to do this.

  With gentle but decisive movements, Harry laid their two bodies on the rug, Lisa on her side facing away from him. He curled behind her, arms and body giving her his warmth. She groaned in her sleep, moistened her lips and slept deeply again. The two of them fitted together as neatly as Russian nesting dolls.

  They were almost naked, lost, hunted and a long way from anything that might be called home. Yet in that moment Harry felt all thoughts of the destitute, murderous villagers withdraw. His predicament melted into the fire as he blinked into it. The conference, his career, indeed his whole wretched, miserable existence retreated. No regrets for the past. No fears for the future. For once he existed in the moment and nowhere else. The warmth on his skin, the gentle rise and fall of the girl’s soft breathing. In the depths of the wet forest, with rain once again pattering on the roof of the abandoned hut, Harry Brown fell into a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep.

  Thirty One

  The pale light of daybreak woke him. Without curtains, the moment the darkness weakened and the forest birdlife started to chatter, Harry opened his eyes, bleary and wondering. His befuddled head took in the extraordinary surroundings as if he had awoken to the full jumbled weirdness of a dream.

  First were the soft curves of a girl’s flank close beside him. From shoulder to waist to hip to knee to ankle, they formed a rolling skyline. Beyond, the metal drawer of a filing cabinet exuded tendrils of dark grey smoke together with an unpleasant bonfire smell. Burned rubbish rather than autumn leaves.

  The fire. He sat up. It had gone out.

  Harry pulled himself off the sleeping girl and knelt beside the makeshift brazier. Opening the thick charred heart of files, he found embers. His breath enlivened them. Quickly he added fresh sheets of paper, blowing gently until they caught light. A moment later the fire had been rekindled and he was rubbing his hands in front of the new flames.

  Lisa stirred. Her face craned round and she blinked at him, screwing her eyes against the glare of flame. She eased herself off the rug and sat up, hugging her knees.

  “Our clothes,” she said, a statement launched into the morning like the opening serve in tennis.

  Harry looked at the assembled chairs still crowding the brazier. He reached forward and tested the various items. “Pretty much dry.”

  One by one he removed them. Lisa’s blouse and his shirt were stiff as cardboard. She felt the material. It still held some of the fire’s warmth but smelt of burned paper. She pushed her arms into the sleeves and pulled it tight across her chest to fasten the buttons.

  Next she slipped into her trousers, grimacing. “Ugh.”

  “Damp?”

  She nodded. Standing up, she fastened the waist button and did up the zip. She stamped a couple of times for good measure, telling them who was boss. The socks were dry and warm having been closest to the fire. The shoes were warm too, though damp. She tied the laces, wiggling her toes inside.

  Harry dressed. His clothes were in the same state as Lisa’s. There was always something sinister about putting on partially wet stuff. He had never got used to it despite considerable practice. The jungle had been the worst. You carried two sets of clothing, one for day, one for night. At the end of a day’s march, you set up your basha and put on the dry stuff to sleep in. The wet was hung to dry or rolled in your sleeping bag which acted as a drier. In the morning, the dry stuff was put safely back in your pack, and the wet stuff put on. Horrible. But it meant that every night your skin could recover and avoid the onset of sores, prickly heat, trench foot and all the other little gems which the jungle used as ‘Keep Out’ signs for humans.

  In present-day China however, attending a conference as a civilian in a five-star hotel, Harry had not expected to have to resort to old practices. He wondered how many others he would be called upon to resurrect.

  “We’d better move,” he said as they examined their jackets with distaste. Lisa nodded. They looked about their room. Harry crouched down and started to extinguish the fire he had only just restarted. When he had beaten it to death, he stood up and saw Lisa holding one of the photos of the cargo ship, frowning.

  “Proper old tramp steamer, isn’t it?” he said. “I can’t read the name. I never learned Chinese characters.”

  “It wouldn’t have helped if you had,” she answered. “They’re Japanese.”

  Harry looked over her shoulder. Narrowed his bleary eyes at the black and white photo. Of course they were. He had travelled enough in both countries to know the difference even without being able to understand them. “What does it say?”

  “The something-maru.” She held it up to the light from the window and her lips soundlessly worked their way through the unfamiliar characters. “Hideyoshi.” She smiled with satisfaction. “Yes. The Hideyoshi-maru.”

  They were silent for a moment. “Why are there photos of a Japanese cargo ship in one of the files?” Harry mused.

  They looked at the pile of files heaped on the floor, and at the thick mass of charred remains in the makeshift brazier. Harry saw the office in daylight for the first time. “And what is this place?”

  They stepped over to the window. There was nothing to see but the tree-line close by. Going into the corridor they went back to the far end of the
hut where they had first entered the previous evening. From one of the offices they looked onto the clearing they had crossed. As they had noted, there was a series of concrete hard standings in a symmetrical pattern where buildings had once stood.

  “Over here,” Harry said. He went into the office on the opposite side of the corridor. Like all the others they had searched, the drawers of the filing cabinet were open. Harry himself had been through this one, wrenching open the locked drawers. “The cabinet in this office was empty. No files in it at all. But all the others were full.”

  Lisa regarded him as if expecting a great revelation. None came. “So?”

  “No idea. Perhaps the files in the other offices contained nothing of importance, but the files in this one were destroyed.”

  Lisa was not impressed. “Harry, we don’t even know what this place was. What on earth are you talking about?”

  He had to agree it was rather a leap in the dark. Back in their sleeping quarters, he opened first one file and then another. All in Chinese. He passed them to Lisa. She leafed through them.

  “Invoices, bills, delivery notes. All just stuff. Boring stuff. Nothing.”

  “What for?”

  She leafed through some more. “Stuff. Washing machines, ovens, hair dryers.” She shrugged, looking at another. “Tooth paste. Moisturising lotion. All general household stuff. Nothing special.” She gawped at him as if he was stupid. “No nuclear waste or top secret weapons.”

  “And a photo of a Japanese cargo ship.”

  She nodded. “Meaning nothing.”

  The open window was drawing out the last wisps of smoke. Through it came the sound of voices. It hit them with the shock of cold water. They ducked out of sight, files forgotten. They returned stealthily to the window covering the clearing. Standing well back they peeped out. On the furthest side of the clearing, from the direction they had come, three men stood. They were two hundred yards away. Then a further three arrived. Then more, until a pack of about a dozen stamped and shuffled in the wet grass.