Bible of the Dead

by Tom Knox

  It was true enough: Jake had already experienced Chemda’s obstinate passion. It was one of the reasons he admired her.

  ‘But dead babies? Jesus. Why do that?’

  A withered tree rustled in the near-silent wind.

  ‘My daughter and my granddaughter they are educated, but they are also very superstitious, like all Khmers, like so many Asians. Why is this? I often wonder. I have often struggled against it, the exorcisms, the divinations, the luminously risible tattoos.’ He shook his head. ‘Whatever the case, Madame Tek believes in the power of Khmer magic, as does Chemda. So Madame Tek arranged to frighten her daughter with the most forbidding talismans in Khmer occultism. The kun krak. The smoke foetuses.’ He frowned, once more. ‘Madame Tek knew that Chemda would be unnerved by them, and her plan worked. To a point.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You fled, and you escaped Laos, but of course you are still in very grave danger, Mister Thurby. As is my grand daughter.’

  ‘What should we do?’

  ‘Consider your options. Chemda is a beautiful young woman. She is krangam.’

  The wind blew a wisp of sand. The rocks shone black in the sun.

  ‘Yyyes. I guess.’

  ‘The fusion of Chinese and royal Khmer genes is fortuitous. And also my granddaughter is very intelligent, and she is unmarried. She is a prize.’

  Jake was silenced.

  ‘I also know, Jake, that she has developed a certain tendresse.’ Sen gestured, poetically. ‘But to enter the guha you must leave the country, take her to England, or take her to America, she has an American passport. You must leave the country because you are both in danger, and I can no longer protect you. The Lao government want revenge for their dead police officer. The descendants of the Khmer Rouge even now are working against me and my interests. Against Chemda and you.’

  Sen continued:

  ‘You have my permission. She will marry you. We can do it today or soon. You must take her, only you can persuade her to leave, but before that happens, of course, for the sake of propriety, a wedding. At once.’

  ‘A wedding??’

  Grandfather Sen patted him paternally on the knee and said:

  ‘This is the most bizarre of surprises, I know.’

  ‘What the hell – a wedding?’

  Jake could barely grasp the idea. He was being offered Chemda: like a casual meal, or a rather trifling gift.

  Sen smiled, regretfully.

  ‘I understand the shock. You probably need to think about it. I shall step inside, to see if these two typhoons have exhausted themselves. Wait here and I shall bring my daughter.’

  The old man quit the garden. Jake stared blankly at the black rocks, the perfectly positioned tree, the tenderly raked circles of grey sand, all parched and delicate in the ruthless sun of the remorseless dry season.

  He was stunned. This wasn’t good; this was horrible. These people were so desperate to get Chemda safely out of the country, and get her swiftly married, they were prepared to foist her on some man they hardly knew. Maybe fear was driving this. Maybe even the great Sovirom Sen was scared; maybe everyone was scared.

  Jake was scared.

  A further, darker thought occurred to him. Could Chemda be part of this? Was this some peculiar conspiracy to entangle him? But why had she asked him to come this morning? Had she lied about her grandfather being away on business?

  The confusion was bewildering, even painful. He needed to get out, to think clearly. Get some advice, go home, drink too much coffee, call Tyrone.

  He got up and walked to the door, he crossed the hallway. The house was quiet, the maid staring at him from behind a door. The mother–daughter argument had apparently been calmed by Sen, or blown itself out. But he had no desire to linger and enjoy the domestic harmony. Not in this pristine prison of a house.

  Jake paced very quickly to the front door, and then virtually ran down the long curving drive to the boulevard. Jumping in a tuk-tuk, he sat back, trying to clarify his thoughts in the sweet warm polluted Phnom Penh breeze. His mind was churning.

  It was Sunday, it took just a few minutes to reach his corner. He tapped the driver on the shoulder:

  ‘Here. No problem. I can walk from here.’

  Handing over two dollars, Jake turned the corner. And saw.

  A boy was climbing off a motorbike – and casually walking to the door of Jake’s apartment block, carrying a glass bottle. Something about this was odd. Jake felt an instinctive wariness: who was this? What was going on? He slowed his pace, observing. The boy was fiddling with the bottle in his hand. And a lighter. He was setting fire to a cloth stuck in the bottle; the boy stepped back and threw the flaming bomb through a first floor window. The glass crashed.

  The petrol bomb exploded inside Jake’s flat.

  Flames woofed, fire streaked from the windows. Jake stood there, gawping, quite stupefied.

  It was all so casual, so fucking casual.

  The street was still quiet, it was Sunday morning, a young woman was cycling past the end of the road. Couples were strolling along the riverfront. And someone had thrown a petrol bomb.

  As Jake watched, the boy climbed back on his Suzuki, and sped away from the scene. The flames were already roaring, hoarse and hungry, licking up the walls. Someone, somewhere, was screaming. People were running from cafes, and pointing: fear on their faces.

  Jake sank into the shadow of a frangipani tree. He realized, with a lucid terror, that he had just witnessed an attempt on his own life. No one knew he wasn’t in there, it was still quite early, it was Sunday, they probably presumed he was asleep, inside.

  Someone had just tried to kill him.

  Chapter 16

  ‘She was about to send this email? To me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But how . . .’

  ‘The murderer reached her first. However, she was using webmail. The draft message was, therefore, automatically saved. We retrieved it yesterday.’

  Rouvier set down his absurdly large cup of latte, untouched.

  Julia had to ask.

  ‘So what did it say?’

  ‘Let me show you.’

  The French detective reached into his case. Julia watched, passive and mute, trying not to reveal her deep disquiet. She was truly scared now; she had been weeping on and off for two days, since she’d first heard.

  Ghislaine’s death had been ghastly enough, but she was not close to her boss. She was also able to rationalize that crime, to a certain extent: she had convinced herself his death was a unique if horrible atrocity. An ex lover taking mad revenge, maybe. Or just a robbery gone wrong. No more than that.

  But Annika? Julia liked Annika, Julia was emotionally involved with Annika, they had been good friends. This murder grieved Julia, badly. Even worse, the brutal murder of Annika, following the brutal murder of Ghislaine, that meant a chain, a continuance, a series of crimes – perhaps interwoven with all those mysterious secrets. And a chain also implied further links.

  Further killings.

  Rouvier laid the document on the wooden table. They were in a suitably discreet corner of the cafe. Julia had suggested Starbucks, by the Gare du Nord, because Rouvier had said he was en route to London by Eurostar. She’d also chosen Starbucks quite deliberately, because it was so bland and non French and it reminded her of Toronto.

  This is what she wanted right now. Canada, maple leaves, ice hockey, Hortons. And this place was the closest she could get: the sofas, the menus, the vast and oversweet cinnamon buns: they were comforting, so very North American. Insipidly safe. Nursery food for the soul.

  Rouvier gazed at her, knowingly, as if he could see her fear.

  ‘Miss Kerrigan, I do not think the killer is after you.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Why not read the email?’

  She snatched up the sheet of paper.

  Dear Julia . . .

  Engaging with the puzzle – shunting emotion aside – Julia decon
structed the information.

  Three years year ago, she learned, an academic colleague of Ghislaine’s and Annika’s, an older man called Hector Trewin, had been killed in his Oxford college. The murder had attracted a brief but intense flurry of interest, because this semi-retired professor had been tortured before he was killed. Electric shocks had been applied to his hands and his scalp and elsewhere. The slaying was apparently motiveless. No suspects were named or located. No one was arrested. The unsavoury murder soon disappeared from the news.

  However, as Annika’s email put it, at the time Ghislaine and I were suspicious that the killing could have been linked to our trip to Cambodia – Democratic Kampuchea – in 1976. Because of the nature of the brutalities, we thought: perhaps it was someone taking revenge for . . .

  The email ended there. Where Annika had been . . . interrupted. Julia set the piece of paper on the table, next to her undrunk cappuccino. Trying not to imagine the ensuing scene in the little cottage on the Cham des Bondons. She fought back a surge of near-tears, calming herself with deep breathing.

  She said, slowly,

  ‘I know the name, Hector Trewin. He is, or he was, quite old, a Marxist anthropologist at Balliol. Respected. Famous in his time, in the 1960s and 70s.’

  Rouvier nodded:

  ‘Yes. I am meeting the English police today to go over such matters. But yes, you are quite right about Trewin. Furthermore, Annika Neuman speaks correctly of their shared connection. Our researches prove this. Decades ago, Hector Trewin, Ghislaine Quoinelles and Annika Neuman were all part of a . . .’ he paused momentarily ‘. . . a kind of mission, a team, an invited party. Most of them were French, there were also some Americans and Britons as well, perhaps a German. They were invited by the Chinese and Cambodian governments to visit Beijing and Phnom Penh in 1976. The party comprised biologists, anthropologists, archaeologists – thinkers and scientists. And all of them were committed Marxists.’ Rouvier hesitated, then continued: ‘More importantly, they were all supporters, or at least fellow-travellers, if I have the phrase correctly, of the Pol Pot regime and the Maoists in China.’

  Julia gestured at the document:

  ‘But what does this bit mean. This word revenge?’

  ‘Miss Neuman’s intention is, to me at least, quite clear.’ Rouvier placed his fingertips on the piece of paper, gently pinning it down. ‘Lewin was electrocuted, in various parts of the body, while he was alive. He was finally despatched with a terrible blow to the back of the head, with a metal bar. Victims of the Khmer Rouge were tormented and then killed in precisely this way.’

  The puzzle cohered; the logic emerged.

  ‘So the murderer is a Cambodian, a survivor maybe, of the Khmer Rouge?’

  ‘Very possibly.’

  ‘I get it! The killer is taking revenge, on these old academics, old communists, who went to Phnom Penh in 1976. It’s vengeance!’

  ‘It seems something of that nature. Yes.’

  Julia was gratified by this solution. It made so much sense. The murders were just basic human revenge, exacted on old western communists, by a victim of the most evil of com munist regimes. She could almost understand it, she could almost empathize. If the murderer hadn’t brutally killed her friends and colleagues.

  She also liked this solution for the most selfish of reasons: because she was cut out of the picture. She wasn’t a target. It had nothing to do with her job, her discoveries, the skulls and the bones.

  And yet, a still persistent voice inside her told her the skulls and the bones were connected. Why had Ghislaine and Annika been so odd, so evasive, on this subject? There must be a link? But a link meant a link to Julia herself. She was conflicted, she was frightened, she sipped her milky coffee.

  Rouvier sat forward. ‘But there is more. There are several aspects to these murders that still puzzle me.’

  The coffee was sickly – going cold already. Julia stammered.

  ‘Aspects? Aspects like – like what?’

  ‘For a start, there is the skill of the intrusion, the enormous strength, the necessary athleticism – we believe the killer gained entry through a small cottage window at Miss Neuman’s house.’

  Julia remembered the window. It was small. How did the killer get through that? A slender young woman could do it, or a boy, maybe; a small Asian man.

  ‘Are you guys sure it is a woman?’

  Rouvier smiled approvingly, as if Julia was an elder daughter who had asked a clever question.

  ‘A most important point. Our sole reliable description is of a pale woman with long dark hair. But the kind of expert ise we see here must surely come from training, the army, maybe special forces. And a man is much more likely to have this kind of strength and background, this capability. So a man, or a woman. Or what? Who is this?’

  Rouvier was frowning through the window at the grand stone façade of the Gare du Nord. It was a bright Autumn day in Paris, the streets busy with taxis and tourists.

  He turned.

  ‘Miss Kerrigan, this is where you come in, once more. When I considered all this yesterday, I recalled our conversation outside the hospital that night. Your questions.’

  ‘Our conversation?’

  ‘Cast your mind back. You asked me about the research of Ghislaine’s grandfather, the great professor. I told you it was about crossbreeding, between men and animals.’

  Julia took another quick sip of her enormous cappuccino. It was completely cold now. She put the coffee down, and protested.

  ‘But I was feeling kinda disturbed, that evening. Just asking questions for the sake of it.’

  Rouvier smiled, very soberly. ‘Exactly so, Miss Kerrigan, but it is a notion that has some folkloric resonance, in Lozère. The werewolves of the Margeride! The beast of Gevaudan! Therefore, two days ago, as I thought of the animal savagery of the attacks and so forth, I recalled your question. This is why I asked my assistant to investigate the backgrounds of these academics, these communists who went to Cambodia.’

  ‘Their backgrounds?’

  ‘Here. I have a photo.’ Rouvier was reaching for his briefcase once more. He extracted a large scanned colour photo and laid it on the table, facing Julia.

  It was like a school photo, a group photo: a party of people, with some sitting, some standing behind, all smiling at the camera.

  The photo was so obviously taken in the 1970s: it ached with nostalgia. Lots of flared trousers, wide neckties, short vivid dresses on the women. The faces were mostly young; all of them were keen, hopeful, idealistic, squinting a little, in the sun. So many years ago.

  Julia touched the photo. There: she could see Annika. Beautiful, blonde, Dutch-Belgian, in a summer dress and sandals. Ghislaine was next to her, his arm around her, slightly awkward, slightly proud. His hair did not look absurd. Leaning closer to the photo, Julia tried to assess where it was taken: the sun was harsh, tropical. Behind them was an eerily deserted city street, shadows cast by palm trees. It was Cambodia, surely: one of the empty desolate boulevards of Phnom Penh. How could they be smiling?

  ‘Yes,’ said Rouvier. ‘It is Phnom Penh, 1976, a few months after Year Zero, after the genocides had already begun. Rather disturbing, no?’

  The policeman laid a finger on the photo. ‘This is Hector Trewin.’

  Julia frowned. She vaguely recognized the face: it provoked distant memories of textbooks, maybe an ancient, pompously serious BBC TV programme. Trewin was older than most of the others in the photos; but he was also smiling. His smile was even more ardent.

  Rouvier indicated another face, a young man, sitting at the front. ‘This is Marcel Barnier. From Sciences Po.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He was, and maybe still is, an expert in animal science, in hybridization.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Expert in breeding between species.’

  Julia gripped her coffee spoon. Hard.

  ‘You’re saying . . . you’re surely not saying?’

  Julia couldn’t e
ven begin to enunciate it. The idea was insane. But the faces smiled at her, in the bright Phnom Penh sun, in the dark heart of all that evil, as millions died around them, smiling.

  Rouvier sat back.

  ‘I’m certainly not claiming that la bête de Gévaudan has returned to prey upon us.’ He shook his head. ‘No. That is clearly absurd. But then, what are we to think? There is this strange network of facts. It cannot be disputed.’

  The policeman took up the sheets of paper, folded them carefully, and returned them to his briefcase.

  ‘Now I must meet my junior. We catch the train for London. I hope I have not unnerved you?’

  She shook her head.

  He nodded, gravely.

  ‘Good. That is good. You are staying in Paris?’

  ‘Alex’s brother has a flat here. It’s empty. We’re here to do some, y’know, research. Archaeology.’

  Julia wondered if she should tell Rouvier about their pursuit, the hunt for Prunieres. Maybe she should tell him about the skulls, the trepanations, the wounds in the ver tebrae. The needling and insistent evidence was speaking to the trepanations, and to the injuries to Annika’s head. But maybe it was coincidence; possibly her idea was insane. Probably it was irrelevant?

  Whatever the answer, she didn’t have the emotional energy to explain her findings and theories and anxieties now. Not the energy, nor the time, nor the courage. She just wanted to get out.

  Rouvier was scraping back his chair, preparing to go.

  ‘Let us stay in touch, Miss Kerrigan?’

  The policeman opened the door of the cafe, to allow Julia exit. The morning air was mild, early November-ish, wistful. He shook her hand. Then he said:

  ‘There is one more curiosity.’

  Julia had somehow expected this. She already sensed there was more; with a creeping sense of dread, she asked:

  ‘OK?’

  ‘I was prepared to dismiss the crossbreeding as sheer speculation. A fanciful idea. But then, yesterday, my junior made another discovery.’ His smile was bleak. ‘It seems there was a serious attempt in the 1920s to crossbreed man and animals, man and the higher apes specifically. And Professor Quoinelles, the grandfather, he was part of that. The leader, indeed.’