by Lee Stone
‘We have to leave,’ Lockhart told her. ‘Right now. It doesn’t matter where we go.’
‘It’s too late,’ she said, and her voice sounded tight and breathless. ‘They’re coming.’
‘Who’s coming?’ Lockhart urged. ‘What do they want?’
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and then rubbed at the back of her neck. She looked frightened.
‘I’m in trouble, Charlie.’
Her eyes darted from Lockhart to the door and back, her chest rising and falling quickly under her cotton shirt.
‘What do they want?’ he asked more urgently, heading for the door.
For a moment she looked like she would answer him, but then she ran a hand through her hair, and swallowed the words back down again. Outside, the voices were getting louder. There was no more time. Lockhart turned around and pulled open the door. He headed out onto the beach, walking straight into four guys dressed in jeans and dark tops. Locals. All in their twenties, Lockhart guessed. The barman had followed them across the beach and was jogging to catch up.
One of them started speaking, and the barman took it upon himself to translate.
‘They want the lady,’ he told Lockhart. ‘For questions.’
Lockhart stood his ground.
‘What questions?’
The biggest of the men tried to muscle past Lockhart and into the beach hut, but Lockhart stepped back and blocked the door. Kate called out to him from inside the hut, and her pitch rose as she spotted the guy trying to push through the doorway. The guy tried to shoulder past, but Lockhart was stronger than he looked. He shoved him hard in the chest, and he tumbled back onto the beach. He rolled in the sand before getting back to his feet and pulling out a badge from inside his t-shirt.
‘Policeman,’ the barman said. ‘He’s a policeman.’
Two of the others drew their guns. Lockhart raised his hands slowly, but still he stood his ground.
‘What do they want?’ he said. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
The barman skirted round from behind the men and said something to them in Khmer. The cops answered. Short, fast, clipped sentences.
‘They saying she’s a witch,’ the barman translated. ‘Last night they saying she was dead. They found her in a hotel in town. They took her to the morgue. This morning, she is alive again.’
Lockhart didn’t move from the doorway.
‘They found her pretty quickly,’ he said, looking over the barman’s shoulder at the group of men.
He had enough stamps in his passport not to trust a cop just because of his badge. Cops are people, and people are the same the world over. Some of them you can trust. Some of them you can’t. In Cambodia, the whole force had a reputation for corruption and brutality. And these guys looked like the worst kind. Lockhart knew that every drug cartel and trafficking ring in Cambodia had bent cops working for them. And a couple was all it took.
‘They came here this morning with a picture,’ the barman said. For a moment he looked down at the sand, but then he forced his eyes back to Lockhart. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not your fault,’ Lockhart told him, still holding his position squarely in the door. ‘Tell them she’s no evil spirit. Tell them…’
Lockhart never finished the sentence. He heard something smash in the room behind him and as he looked around to see what the noise was, the cops rushed at him. Kate had slipped out to the open shower room and was climbing the wooden fencing at the back of the hut. Guilty or not, she looked scared as hell, and that was enough for Lockhart. As the first cop plowed through the doorway, Lockhart lifted his foot just enough to trip him and buy Kate some time. The guy hit the floor hard, but the others scrambled over him and rushed through the house. They lunged at Kate, grabbing at her lithe ankle and pulling her from the fence. She fell backwards and cracked her head on the floor. Out cold. One of them grabbed her roughly and dragged her back through the hut and back out of the front door, dragging her bare feet across the rough wooden floor so they thumped onto each step as they pulled her out onto the beach.
Lockhart made to go after her, but three of the cops pushed him into a corner while the other one dragged her out across the beach. One of them said something to him in Khmer.
‘They want to see your passport,’ the barman told him, eyes wide and apologetic.
Lockhart’s passport was locked in a security box in Phnom Penh. He had long ago decided that it was better for the authorities to be unsure who he was than for the people chasing him to be certain. Sometimes he posted it on to his next destination. Other times he left it locked away. But as often as he could be, he stayed anonymous.
He went through the motions of taking his wallet from his pocket. The cops were pumping themselves up for a fight. Lockhart knew the signs. One of them was poking through his personal things, trying to provoke a response. The second was standing too close to him. Getting into his personal space. Staring at him intently and breathing too hard. Waiting for Lockhart to meet his eye so he could ask, what are you looking at? Lockhart did nothing fast.
Without a passport, a wallet was the best option he had.
‘I’ve lost my passport,’ he said, opening his wallet and thumbing out a few dollars. ‘How much is the fine?’
Fine meant bribe. Everyone knew that. And in most places, offering a bribe usually meant a few minutes of play-acting. In Lockhart’s experience, cops always took bribes as if it was the first time they’d ever made a dollar on the side. Like the thought had never occurred to them before, and this was the moment of their corruption. Usually, they spent a few minutes pretending to be horrified by the idea. But go slowly. Play dumb. Play along, and eventually the sands shift. Sometimes the cops would shout. Sometimes they’d haggle. But in the end, they would let the matter rest with a fine, and a fine would mean a bribe, and a bribe would mean that everyone could go back to their business.
But not this time. Not with these cops.
For a split second, Lockhart looked down at the notes he was thumbing from his wallet. It was the moment the cops had been waiting for. They drew their batons and laid into him. The first blow landed across the back of his neck and the second hit his shoulder blade. Lockhart felt heat down his arm. One of them swung viciously at his knees, but Lockhart was already falling and the swipe connected with his thigh. Another crunched into the angle of his hip where there was no muscle to cushion the blow. His body buckled as the shock wave pulsed around his waist. As he sank to his knees, the third cop smashed him twice over the back. Blows came from all directions. He hit the floor hard, his ribs slamming against the wood and the wind coughing out of him.
For a moment nothing worked, and even though the room came back into focus, he had no strength to move. Slowly though, strength and consciousness came ebbing back like the first lapping wave of a tempestuous sea. By the time he was aware that the cops had gone, they were halfway across the beach.
‘You all right?’ the barman asked. ‘You want some ice?’
Lockhart began moving around the hut.
‘Yeah,’ Lockhart said, feeling his hip. ‘But not yet.’
The barman watched him as he struggled to pull on a pair of boots. Bruises from the batons were already beginning to bloom on his back and his ribs.
‘Where are they taking her?’ he asked as he straightened up.
‘Kampot,’ the barman said. ‘There’s an old prison there.’
Lockhart grabbed the keys to the scrambler he had hired in Phnom Penh from the table near the door.
‘Tell your brother Angkor Wat will have to wait.’
The barman nodded, and Lockhart set off across the sand, his arms grabbing at the thick morning air as he ran full pelt after the cops and Kate.
10
Lockhart spotted Kate way ahead of him as he started up the red dirt track into the center of Kep. The cops were at the top of the hill, piling into a black and white flatbed Hyundai truck. It had POLICE written on the front of it and a tiny red ligh
t flashing on top. Kate was standing on the back, flanked by two of the cops. Even from a distance he could see they had cuffed her hands. He sprinted hard up the dirt road towards them, tearing through the crowds in the shantytown crab market. He ran until his lungs burned, scattering cages and lobster pots as he went. But he was too late. By the time he got to the top of the hill, the cops were already on the move, speeding away through the main street.
He had left his bike chained to the railings on the main street, but by the time he had vaulted onto it and kicked it into life, Kate and the cops were almost out of sight. The bike was a Honda XR400, with high suspension and fat tires with treads so thick they looked like cogs that had fallen from a giant clock. It was powerful, and it growled and spat as Lockhart spun it around in the dirt and headed after the Hyundai. Kep was a tiny warren of broken down colonial buildings and Lockhart powered through them at speed.
The houses and shops were a faded memory of a more opulent time. They were built in a European style, with ornate iron balconies and long wooden verandas. Over the years, they had been attacked by the Khmer Rouge and stripped by the Vietnamese army when they left. Then time and nature wore them down. Now they looked like they had been dipped in acid and left to rot. Kep’s main street was littered with street vendors and tuk-tuks. Tourists and livestock wove in and out of the traffic, and Lockhart had to swerve to avoid them as he chased after the flatbed.
They headed north towards Kampot, and Lockhart followed behind, watching their progress. He kept the truck in sight, never getting too close. Lush green vegetation sprung up either side of the road and soon Kep was out of sight behind him. The sun got hotter, and the dust kicked up into his throat as he rode. As the road straightened out, he wondered what the cops wanted. Nobody gets arrested for witchcraft, Lockhart figured. Not even in Cambodia. Witches get their throats slit, and stakes driven through their hearts. In Gloucestershire, where Lockhart had been raised, the medieval tradition had been to bury them deep in the ground at a crossroads, so that their spirits didn’t know which road to take when they arose from the dead. Through the ages, witches have been sliced and burned and drowned. But nobody puts witches in prisons. Because what if they magic their way out?
It was more likely that whoever had killed Kate’s sister in The Happy had returned for Kate herself. So what if they were dressed in a police uniform? It didn’t mean much out here. If they were heading for the prison, then they were probably genuine cops. Criminal and corrupt, but cops all the same. Which was a complicating factor. An old Percy Sledge song came into Lockhart’s head as he drove, and he smiled.
If she is bad he can’t see it, she can do no wrong,
Turn his back on his best friend if he put her down.
Lockhart made a habit of listening to the songs in his head. They were usually a route to his subconscious. He liked Kate Braganza. They’d spend a couple of days hanging out together. Was he blind to who she really was? She was an easy friend. A woman he hardly knew. But then really, what was there to know? What was there to hide? She had spent the couple of days on the beach with him. And the last couple of nights in the bar. And nothing had happened. She hadn’t had time to do no wrong. She hadn’t had time to find trouble, and trouble hadn’t had time to find her. So what did the cops want with her? Instinct told Lockhart that she was an innocent abroad, but he had been a reporter long enough to know that men can lose their judgment when they spend three days wrapped up in the company of a beautiful woman. And for all his caution, Lockhart was not immune to that.
Out of town, the road was becoming demanding. Rocks and potholes appeared from nowhere, and several times he was forced to swerve to avoid them. Twenty minutes passed and still the truck drove on towards Kampot. Still, Lockhart followed. The cops were a long way from home. Had they driven to Kep just to find her? That would be bad news. That would be serious news. Most likely it was Kate’s sister who had been wrapped up in something shady, and now Kate was feeling the backlash. Poor kid. Her sister was barley cold, and instead of being left to grieve, there she was on the back of a truck being dragged to God knows where.
She’d be okay. She was tough enough. Resilient. She hadn’t travelled to the places he had been, but she worked a bar in New York City, which meant she probably knew every hustle in the book. Maybe that was why she had run when the cops had arrived at the beech hut: because she was smart and scared, and not because she was guilty. Not because she had something to hide.
As the road flattened out, Lockhart started to feel like he was trying to convince himself of her innocence. Scrubland grew up either side of him, and the Honda roared past lonely looking farms and through tiny villages with mangy dogs and wide-eyed kids. He could see the flatbed up ahead, and Kate traveling backwards, slumped against the cab. He wondered if she had noticed he was following. He didn’t know how he would spring her, but he had a way of making sure things happened. He had always been like that. If something was wrong, he fixed it. If something was unfair, he would straighten it out. That was his nature. And although it usually got him in trouble, it never stopped him from getting involved.
Another village. Another hole in the road. The dirt bike slammed into it and bounced into the air, but Lockhart didn’t let up the pace. He didn’t take his eyes off the Hyundai half a mile ahead. He didn’t take his eyes of Kate cowering on the back. He needed to know where they took her. Without that information, the job would be a lot harder. He thought it was possible that if he took his eyes off her, he might never see her again. People disappeared too easily in Cambodia. Lockhart knew that. Under Pol Pot’s dictatorship, a quarter of the country had disappeared. And when three million souls vanish, the life of a single tourist becomes a lot less precious.
So Lockhart drove on, hard and fast, never losing sight of the cops’ flatbed. He drove like he was attached to the back of it by an invisible wire. Which is why he didn’t see the hole until much too late. It was more than a pothole. It was a rip in the road, yawning open in front of him. By the time he reacted, the front wheel was on the brink of it and the Honda was like a speedboat heading for the rocks. Lockhart slammed on the brakes, but the collision was inevitable. The only question was how bad it would be. And how much it would hurt. He felt his body clench as the front of the bike jarred into the side of the hole, the force of the impact surging like electricity through the frame of the bike. The back wheel lost traction and Lockhart began to drift sideways. He went over the handlebars and for a few seconds he hung mid-air, cocooned in a bubble of timelessness and weightlessness.
The bike disappeared from under him and he heard the clicking of the spokes as the Honda’s back wheel spun free. Then time crashed back in like a wave. Like the whole scene was in a movie and someone had un-paused the action. He slammed hard into the ground and bounced up again, skimming through the hard red dirt like a stone on the ocean. His muscles felt stretched and pulverized. The injuries from the fight at the beach hut roared back into life, his hips and his back crackling with pain. When he looked up, the flatbed was gone. And so was Kate Braganza.
11
As the adrenalin ebbed from his veins, Lockhart realized that his ribs were screaming with each heavy breath he gulped in. His chest felt like someone had dug a knife into it and twisted. Eventually, his breathing became shallower and more controlled, and the banging pulse in his neck subsided. His right knee and his hip felt like they had been wrenched from their sockets and then bludgeoned back into place. He eased himself to his feet and looked down the long straight road to Kampot. There was no sight of Kate Braganza or the policemen who had carried her away.
Why was he chasing after her? Why was he getting involved? Why was he risking himself for a woman he hardly knew? Alone on the dirt road to Kampot he sighed, because he knew that the answer was obvious. He had walked away from his soul mate. He couldn’t save Trista now if she came to any harm. He didn’t even know where she was. So maybe he could save this woman instead. And maybe there was some karma in
it. Maybe if he did the right thing, some useful stranger might be there to help Trista if she was ever in a hole. Maybe the world didn’t work like that, but he was superstitious, and who wanted to take the risk?
It took Lockhart fifteen minutes of sweat and oil to get the Honda back up and running. Something had dislodged in his ribcage and each time he pulled the bike a searing pain shot right through his chest. When the bike was fixed, Lockhart drove it along the dirt road towards Kampot with one hand across his ribs, trying to hold them together. Every time he hit a rut in the dirt, pain jarred through his bones. Eventually the prison loomed up on the horizon, right on the outskirts of the town. Even from a distance, the place looked bleak. The closer Lockhart got, the more ominous it became. A crumbling concrete wall surrounded it. Originally yellow, the wall now had an ugly green moss the top of it, and a patchwork of fresh concrete veins were gluing together its cracks. Its ramshackle decay had none of the faded beauty of Kep’s French Quarter. Only the rings of razor wire looked modern and maintained, as they glinted in the afternoon sun. And somewhere behind them was Kate Braganza.
Lockhart drove slowly past the ornate wrought-iron gates so he could see what was behind the walls. The prison building was surrounded by a wide dusty courtyard that was sprinkled with blood-red leaves. The leaves fell from slender trees either side of the security gate; a splash of beauty framing an ugly scene. There was an ancient guard hut next to the iron gates, and a lone guard eyed him warily as he passed. For a moment they locked eyes, weighing one another up. One lone guard and a razor wire fence. Through the trees, Lockhart could see the Hyundai flatbed sitting empty in the yard. There was no sign of the cops. There was no sign of Kate. It struck Lockhart that it wouldn’t be impossible to get inside. Maybe he could find her. Maybe he could spring her when nobody was looking.
But even as he thought it, Lockhart dismissed the idea. The guard in the hut was armed; Lockhart could see a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. There would be more guards inside, and they would be armed too. Prisons are the same the world over, no matter what they look like. Breaking in and breaking out would need careful planning.
