White Crocodile

by Medina, KT

  35

  Alex didn’t seem to have heard Tess cross the courtyard towards him. He was standing on the veranda, bathed in the light from the hospital window, his face expressionless. In his left hand he held a cigarette, cupped in his palm. The smoke rose to the veranda roof, a hazy column, undisturbed in the still air.

  ‘How’s Johnny?’ Then she realised exactly what he was doing with that cigarette. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  He started. He hadn’t realised she was there until she’d spoken. Something in him seemed to register the concern in her voice – the command – because he slowly uncurled his fingers and dropped the smoking butt on to the veranda.

  ‘Tess.’ His smile was bleak.

  ‘Alex?’

  He took a step towards her and held out his hand. The light from the window found the cigarette burn on his palm, a blister already forming. She trailed her gaze over the discoloured pockmarks of older ones, hard to see against his tan, to the knife marks carving their way up his wrist, disappearing beneath the cuff of his shirtsleeve.

  Stepping back, she came hard up against one of the pillars holding up the veranda roof. Shifting to her left, she manoeuvred herself to one side of it, curling her arm around the solid wood. ‘Why do you do that?’

  He shook his head, as though he didn’t have an answer to the question. With studied nonchalance, he put his hands in his pockets. She saw him wince as the material dragged against his palm. Her gaze moved from his hand to his face; the eyes looking back at her were absolutely empty. Such control, such stillness – and beneath it all . . . this.

  She had seen too much of raw human nature in Afghanistan to judge him. Some of the bravest men she knew had turned out to be the most screwed-up inside.

  But she had to put some space between them, get herself some time to think.

  ‘Johnny,’ she reminded him. ‘Johnny needs you. He must be ready to go by now.’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘I’ll walk home.’ Releasing her hold of the pillar, she backed away slowly until her foot found the edge of the veranda. ‘Alex, please don’t do that to yourself any more. Just don’t.’

  He shook his head, but his eyes were still empty. She turned and, without looking back, jumped off the veranda and ran across the courtyard to the gate. She heard him call her name, once, but didn’t turn, didn’t stop until the darkness of the street folded around her.

  *

  ‘You want to go? So let’s go.’

  ‘You came back,’ Johnny whispered.

  Without answering, Alex tossed the few remaining garments and the packets of cigarettes into Johnny’s suitcase, shut the lid and clicked the locks. He lifted the case, clenching his fingers tight around the handle to stop his hand shaking. ‘Are you ready?’

  Johnny nodded. He held out his hand for Alex to help him up. Ignoring the outstretched arm, Alex walked to the door. The burn on his palm was oozing liquid. His gaze moved from it to the other scabbed craters ringing it, to the knife marks tracking up his forearm. He knew that Tess was right. When someone noticed, commented – and it didn’t happen often – he felt a momentary swerve towards objectivity. But looking at his scars now, he felt nothing – no disgust, no regret – just a quiet satisfaction. The pain had sterilised something dangerous inside him.

  ‘I’m ready.’ Johnny’s voice sounded tiny, timid; Alex could barely hear it. He was standing by the bed, a crutch tucked under each arm.

  ‘Can you walk all right?’

  Johnny nodded. Leaving the room with Johnny’s case, Alex propped the door to the veranda open. The hospital courtyard was dark and quiet. The air felt unusually cool. He had a quick look around for Tess, but knew, even before he looked, that she wouldn’t be there. Just as she had begun to trust him, he’d fucked it up again.

  Johnny came outside and shuffled haltingly across the veranda on his crutches. He stopped at the top of the stairs and tried to catch Alex’s eye. Alex looked at his own feet. He sensed Johnny start down the stairs, sensed him falter, pause for a second to regain his balance, then start again; he broke into a run and reached the bottom of the steps just in time to catch Johnny as he stumbled and fell.

  Alex installed Johnny in the passenger seat of the Land Cruiser and went around to the driver’s side. Johnny was sitting motionless, his hands curled in his lap. He glanced across as Alex climbed in and opened his mouth to speak.

  Alex cut him off. ‘No more, Johnny.’

  He felt tired, tense, at the limit of his endurance. Staring straight out of the windscreen, he started the engine, ground the Land Cruiser into first gear and cruised slowly across the courtyard. But as he pulled out of the hospital gate on to the road, something caught his eye. He stared hard in the rear-view mirror as they drove down the road. A skinny child-man was standing by the gate, watching the retreating Land Cruiser, his broken hands pressed tightly to his sides.

  Day 7

  36

  ‘Coffee?’

  MacSween twitched in his seat. He opened his eyes. ‘Tess?’

  ‘Please tell me you didn’t sleep here.’

  He straightened behind the desk, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes. He looked dreadful: cheeks paunchy, the one he had been lying on criss-crossed with patterns, the edge of his blotter from the dimensions of the dent, eyes black-bagged and cloudy with sleep.

  ‘In that chair? All night?’

  Dawn was breaking. The river was washed pink, the windows in the shops and restaurants on the opposite bank glinting under the low rays of the rising sun. The sunlight hadn’t reached MacSween’s office, though, which was gloomy and smelt stale. A fly floated in a glass of Scotch on his desk and a half-eaten pizza curled in its open box. Tess laid the mug of coffee in the middle of his blotter.

  ‘Aye, well, I was working on this crossword and I got stuck on a clue.’

  ‘What?’

  A creased copy of The Times’s international edition lay on his desk. Picking it up, he straightened it out and passed it to her. Tess took the paper from his hand. There was a photograph of Boris Johnson on the front page, looking suitably dishevelled, pushing through a throng of journalists and cameramen. Underneath the photograph was the caption: ‘Mophead Boris wows the Conservative Party Conference.’

  ‘Only a matter of time before he ousts that stiff twat Cameron.’

  Tess gave a quick half-smile. ‘I didn’t realise you were interested in British politics.’

  ‘British? English and sheep shaggers it will be soon if the man Connery gets his way. And good riddance.’ Pressing the back of his hand to his mouth to suppress a yawn, he reached over, flipped the lid of the pizza box shut and tossed it into the bin under his desk. ‘Back page. Three down. Twelve letters. Two words, one five-letter, one six.’

  Tess turned the paper over. She had always been terrible at crosswords; could never be bothered to give them the required level of time and attention. Her eye was caught by a photograph and couple of lighter articles on the back page. Jeremy Clarkson, his corpulent figure squeezed into the cream leather sports seat of a Lamborghini Countach.

  ‘An enthusiastic style of worship that might be practised at a Christian Mission,’ she heard MacSween say.

  A short piece about life satisfaction, the author wondering if modern Western children were too spoilt to appreciate how fortunate they were.

  It all felt a million miles away from here. From now. Would she ever be able to go back and just be normal? What was normal? Was there even such a thing? The questions made her brain ache. The crossword an easy diversion in comparison.

  ‘Happy-clappy.’ Tess dropped the paper on the desktop.

  MacSween span it around 180 degrees to face him. Picked up a pen and began filling in the boxes.

  ‘Dammit, lass. You’re right.’ He sounded impressed, but his body language, the restlessness of his hands on the desktop, betrayed an irritation.

  Tess pulled back a chair and sat down across the desk. ‘What’s up?’ />
  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Something’s up. You don’t seem . . . you don’t seem yourself.’

  ‘What? Being as you know me so well after—’ He glanced at his watch, lifting his wrist to his face and squinting to see the date. ‘After five days, is it? Or six, mebbe?’

  There was an edge to his voice; an antagonism that she had never heard before, even during the meeting following Johnny’s accident. She shrugged, took a sip of the coffee she’d brought in for herself, let the silence stretch.

  ‘Sorry, lass. It’s . . . it’s been a long night.’ He looked sheepish.

  She found his gaze over the desktop. ‘There is something bothering you, isn’t there?’

  ‘Apart from another woman and a little girl murdered, you mean? Apart from this whole bloody White Crocodile madness. Apart from the fact that most of my Khmer mine clearers are so fucking jumpy that sending them into a minefield now is tantamount to asking them to commit suicide. Apart from all that, you mean?’

  Tess was overtaken by two contradictory impulses: to stand up now and walk out of his office, leave him alone with his fury, or to sit tight and brave it out. Two impulses – only one realistic choice.

  ‘Alex told me. About the woman and the little girl.’ She didn’t elaborate on her fleeting connection with the latter.

  He dropped his head to his hands. A gesture so exhausted, so defeatist that she had to resist the urge to walk around and lay a hand on his shoulder. She knew that he wouldn’t appreciate it. That he’d see it as a sign of reflected weakness, would clam up on her. She sat in silence, waiting. A fly landed on her hand; she remained still, feeling the tickle of its feet on her skin.

  Finally, he sighed and straightened. ‘Jakkleson. Jakkleson has gone missing.’

  ‘What do you mean by “gone missing”?’

  ‘He’s not been seen since early yesterday morning. I called his landlady half an hour ago. He didn’t come home last night at all.’

  ‘But isn’t that—’ She broke off. What was she going to say? But I found his dirty snaps and hasn’t he probably just spent the night with one of those poor girls? Turn around and he’ll be standing in the doorway with crumpled clothes and a smug expression on his face? ‘Has he never stayed out before?’

  ‘Aye, but there’s more. A lot mor—’ A pain appeared to shoot across MacSween’s back, cutting off the end of the sentence. He tilted forward, wincing.

  ‘Are you OK, MacSween?’

  ‘Aye. Of course I’m OK. I’m not in me dotage yet,’ he muttered, squeezing his hand into a fist on the desktop. ‘Jakkleson’s Land Cruiser was found last night in a car park near a local tourist destination.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Sampeau Temple. It’s an ancient Buddhist temple built on a rocky outcrop twenty kilometres southwest of Battambang. You get a great view of the neighbouring mountain from up there.’ He paused. ‘Crocodile Mountain.’

  Tess started.

  ‘The car had been there since early morning,’ he continued. ‘A couple of tourists noticed it there on their way up the mountain, and a few hours later on their way back down. When they came down, there were kids crawling over it, pulling bits off. They thought it was odd that it had been there so long, particularly as they hadn’t seen anyone else on the hill, so they contacted the local police station.’

  ‘OK. But hasn’t he maybe just had enough? Wanted a bit of time off? I saw him the night before last. I bumped into him in Riverside Balcony Bar. I hardly know him, but even so, he did sound melancholy. Like he’d kind of—’ For some reason her mind flipped to that man she had seen at the swimming pool yesterday evening, holding an intent conversation with himself. ‘Like he’d had enough of being out here. Of being in Cambodia.’

  MacSween shook his head. ‘Every expat gets like that sometimes. Everybody gets like that, wherever they live. Nothing is roses all the time. Jakkleson loved it out here. It suited him.’ He clenched his teeth, a grimace tracking fleetingly across his face.

  ‘There’s more, isn’t there, MacSween?’

  He nodded. ‘The local police found his Jericho.’

  ‘Found it just discarded?’

  ‘It had been fired.’

  ‘By the temple?’

  ‘Aye. They found an empty shell casing too.’

  ‘Well, maybe—’

  ‘It had blood on the grip.’

  ‘Jakkleson’s?’ As soon as she said it, she knew it was a stupid comment. There was no way the police in rural Cambodia would have access to DNA profiling technology. ‘Sorry . . . obviously they don’t know whose it is.’

  ‘No. But they found his baseball cap. He labelled everything, anal sod that he was, so there was no doubt it was his. The cap also had blood on it. Lots of blood, they said.’

  ‘MacSween, you need to call Battambang Provincial—’

  He raised a weary hand, cutting her off.

  ‘Aye, and he left me this. On my desk. It was written on a scrap of paper so I didn’t find it until late last night. I was scrabbling around trying to find some information for a donor I’d been speaking with earlier on in the evening, and there it was, slipped under my blotter.’ He held it up, so she could read it.

  Had an email from Huan. Going to meet him at Crocodile Mountain. Wasn’t time to radio you, so went alone. Will report back.

  ‘You’ve got to call Battambang Provincial Police in, MacSween.’

  He spread his hands, let his gaze drift around the room. ‘It will mean the ruination of all this.’

  ‘No. Not ruination. Just . . . just postponement. Just for a few days.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Things blow over. Especially out here. You’re . . . we’re doing so much good. It’s not going to end—’

  She heard a noise behind her. Turned and saw Alex in the doorway. He was wearing shorts and a khaki long-sleeved shirt. She thought of last night, the sight she had had of his scarred arms.

  The chair screeched thinly on the wooden boards as she slid it backwards and stood. ‘You have to call in the police, MacSween. You have no other option. You have to. For Jakkleson’s sake. For those women, and that little girl.’ For Luke – she didn’t say it. ‘It’s gone too far.’

  Turning, she walked towards the door. Shrugging Alex’s hand off her arm, she slid past him on to the landing, heard MacSween asking him to go and tell the staff that mine clearing was suspended until further notice, that they’d still be paid. Jogged quickly down the stairs before Alex emerged from MacSween’s office.

  *

  Johnny woke, head throbbing, mouth mossy and foul. His cheek was sticky and his eyes were sore and stinging. Gingerly, he heaved himself on to his elbows. Did I pass out? He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember anything after he’d screwed Keav and told her to bring him a bottle of whisky before she went back to her bedroom downstairs.

  Alex had dropped him back home, helped him up the stairs to his bedroom, brought in his suitcase and then left, turning down the offer of a drink. Sod him, Johnny had thought. I can look after myself.

  Reaching over to the bedside table, he found a packet of cigarettes. He lit one and lay back, staring up at the ceiling. Sucking the smoke deep into his lungs, he formed an O with his lips, exhaled and watched the smoke ring fade upwards, spreading out as it reached the ceiling.

  Your first day out of hospital, Johnny. The first day of the rest of your life.

  He blew another smoke ring, this one crooked, squashed along one edge. He knew that if he lay too long he would start to think about his accident, his life before it, start blaming himself when he knew it wasn’t his fault because he’d just been having a laugh, playing games. How the hell could he have known it would get this out of control? The tobacco rush segued into tingling anxiety.

  Closing his eyes, he pressed his head deep into the soft pillow, laid his arms flat by his sides and carried on smoking. The sound of singing floated up the stairs, light and carefree. In his mind’s
eye, he could see Keav flitting around his sitting room, picking things up and dusting them, placing them back carefully, just as she had found them, her beautiful oval face calm in concentration.

  ‘Keav! Too early. Less fucking happiness please,’ he yelled.

  The singing stopped. A scurry of feet receding down wooden stairs, the muffled sound of a door being eased closed. Focusing hard to steady his hand, he reached out and stubbed the cigarette carefully in the ashtray.

  He wouldn’t think about it. He’d bolted all the doors, was safe here in his own home.

  He wouldn’t think about it.

  *

  As Tess made her way down the gravel drive, slipping through the gaggle of clearance teams loading kit into the backs of Land Cruisers – a sense of hesitation in their movements, the ambient hum of paranoia evident, even though they had yet to be informed that Jakkleson had almost certainly been murdered, that mine clearing was suspended until further notice – she experienced a sensation of pure fear. She stopped just inside the gate and stood for a long time, almost motionless, her stalled brain trying to find the logic in what she had just been told in MacSween’s office.

  Jakkleson. Could he possibly be dead? Could there be some reasonable explanation? No. There wasn’t likely to be. Huan had asked to meet with him, and now he was dead. But what if the White Crocodile wasn’t Huan? When she and Alex had visited his family yesterday, his mother had been furious with them; furious and afraid. Me. Us. She’s frightened of us at MCT. If Huan was the White Crocodile, why was she so frightened?

  Slipping out of the gate, she cut across the road, dodging through the stream of mopeds and bicycles ferrying people to work, and joined the throng of chatting, laughing Khmers walking along the top of the riverbank. It was diverting to be among company, but by the same token, she didn’t want to catch anybody’s eye, be drawn into pidgin chat about ‘where you come from, miss’. She stared blankly at the backs of the people in front of her as she walked, her eyes skipping from person to person. MacSween would call in the police, she was certain of that. He had realised, now, that even if it meant the end of MCT, he had no other choice. But what would the police do? They would focus on the Westerner, on Jakkleson, for certain. The women who had disappeared, the others who had been killed, that little girl – they would be ignored, just more statistics in a country where sixty thousand children die each year from poverty and land mines.