by Claire Gray
‘I was about to take a break anyway. What superb timing you have. I haven’t been into town yet. Is it devastation? As bad as people have been saying?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the police, have they been taking it seriously? I’m always inclined to think that justice is better served through people like your good self.’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, waving away a fly. ‘I can only assume they’re doing things right.’
‘I hope you’re correct,’ he says. ‘But I expect you’re wrong.’
‘You want us to print something about your new hotel wing?’ I take a sip of lemonade. It makes my tongue throb.
‘Well, I did. There doesn’t seem an awful lot of point now. Who’s going to want to play golf on this island? I wouldn’t want to holiday somewhere like this, where people can burn to death outside a bar. But I’m going to the States for a while, and I suppose you may as well get something printed in the meantime. I don’t know how long I’ll be. Have you visited Aspen before?’
‘No.’
‘Here’s the literature, anyway,’ Shuttleworth says. He pushes a hand deep into his pocket, and sticks his tongue out while rummaging down there. He passes me some warm, glossy prints which I cast an eye over; champagne, maid service, purple carpets.
‘Okay,’ I say.
‘So, tell me, Lucy. What do you know? What have you heard that’s not on the news?’ He leans towards me and slowly puts his tongue away.
‘Nothing at all.’
‘Oh, come on. You’re press. What are people saying?’
I shake my head slowly. ‘It’s still early days.’
‘I can tell you something,’ he says, reaching to touch my hand which I pull away. ‘This is interesting.’
‘What?’
‘Many of my staff members have left. Either because they have family nearby who they want to be with, or because they’re from abroad and want to get back where they feel safe. But one of my maids, Maliwan, she left yesterday morning, before anything had happened. And she left in a hurry. She left some of her things behind.’
‘She didn’t tell you why?’
‘She came to see me. She said she was leaving for personal reasons and wanted to make sure she’d still be paid for the days she’d worked this month. She sends it all to her mother, I think. Some sick relative, anyway. But I can read people. She was troubled by something.’
‘You think she’s connected to the bomb?’ I lean in but can’t quite bring myself to meet his eyes.
‘She’s just a young girl. But I do wonder about her boyfriend. If he was involved in some way, Maliwan would be too frightened to go to the police. He might have forced her to go on the run with him. He’s picked her up from here a few times and I’ve seen enough to know I don’t like him. I don’t like the way she talks about him. He has long hair, he wears a scarf in this sort of weather, and he smokes those menthol cigarettes. He’s definitely a political type. American, by the way.’
‘But why would he want to bomb the island? Who is he? What does he do?’
‘I couldn’t tell you what he does. I haven’t been interested enough to find out. And I can’t claim to know his motives. But I know people. I know about the things they do. Anyway, if it was him, and if he gets arrested, Maliwan will be back here with me in hours, I guarantee it.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Dolph. Short for Adolph. Or Rudolph? I don’t remember his surname. But he’s been staying at the Imperial Hotel these last couple of weeks. She was always swanning off to visit him there. She says his family have money. That’s interesting to you, yes? You’re a journalist.’
‘It’s not a whole lot to go on,’ I say, trying to gauge his sanity. I go to take another sip of lemonade but see that there’s a fly in it.
‘It’s enough to get you started.’ Shuttleworth nods at me with his hands clasped together.
‘Do you read our paper? You should tell all this to the police if you’re worried. We’re not exactly investigative journalists.’ I half laugh but then stop when I see the look on his face. He stares at me and crunches on a lump of ice.
‘It was really your boss I wanted to speak to. He seems like a professional sort of chap. Perhaps you can pass my information on to him. I’m sure he’ll be able to follow it up. We have an arrangement, he and I, with advertisements and what not.’
‘I’ll follow it up,’ I say. ‘What about Maliwan? How can I get hold of her? Is she local?’
‘Yes, a local, but she’s gone. Shame. Pretty, pretty girl.’
‘Gone? You don’t have a phone number? An address?’
He shakes his head. ‘She left her phone here. It belongs to me. And she lived here. This was her address.’
‘Right,’ I say, putting my hands beneath the table and digging at some dirt beneath my thumb nail; dirt from last night.
‘We have to catch whoever did this. Look what he’s done to us!’ Bernard Shuttleworth stretches out his arm and gestures to the empty courtyard. His lips are trembling. Following the arc of his arm, I see a female child watching us from behind a screen door. Our eyes meet and she dashes back into the darkness of the building.
I say: ‘I think you should talk to the police and tell them what you’ve told me.’
Shuttleworth snorts into his glass. As he shakes his head, a wiry little monkey jumps onto the wall behind him. It looks down at our table, and I remember something.
‘Is it true what people say, Mr Shuttleworth, about you introducing monkeys to the island? Apparently there never used to be any, but then you brought some over from the mainland.’
‘Not everything they say about me is true. Some of it, however, is,’ he says with a wink.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the child watching us from the door again, her little fingers around the handle so that she’s practically hanging from it.
‘Thank you for the drink.’ I stand up, my chair scraping across the flagstones. ‘I better go now.’
‘Don’t go, Lucy. Stay for another. I’ll bring out the hard stuff.’ He laughs, and lounges in the chair as if he expects me to get into his lap.
‘I should probably chase up your lead, don’t you think?’ I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
‘Good. Thank you, dear. I’ll be in touch.’ He smiles and splinters another piece of ice between his teeth.
Chapter Five
As I drive away from the golf resort, following a line of dried-out trees which dwarf my car, I can still hear the ice moving around in Shuttleworth’s mouth. I open the windows to gulp at the thick air. There’s no wind, but leaves shaped like blades are falling from the trees and landing on my windscreen. Tap, tap, tap. It’s time for me to go back to the office, back to our ruined town, and face whatever’s coming for us next. I turn the wipers on; they groan, leave a grey sheen in their wake, and dislodge just a few of the leaves.
If Bernard Shuttleworth really felt that Maliwan and Dolph were involved in the bombing, he surely would have done more than mention it to a local journalist. I’ll phone the police when I get back to the office anyway, just in case, and I’ll tell them what Shuttleworth had to say. He was probably messing with me. I think he was. Or he’s just mad. Angry, old and mad. I’ve thrown the pamphlet that he gave me onto the back seat and I expect it will stay there.
This headache is pressing against my skull; I feel more aware of my eyeballs than usual. The ringing in my ears is still here. A couple of cars pass in the opposite direction and mopeds flit by, but the roads are eerily quiet. I have to pull over a few times to take deep, noisy breaths while staring into my lap.
Usually I love driving. It’s generally me that takes the wheel while Steve sits beside me, talking and passing across sweets. Today I hate being in the car, and all I can focus on are dead insects on the windscreen, some of which still have frail little legs and wings, flapping as I drive. I think I see a shadow in the rear-view mirror, a shape moving across the road towards me; a creature o
r drone, swooping out of the sky, where smoke still lingers. I imagine the flesh ripped from my arms, and have to look down at them every so often, to make sure they’re still intact. And my friends; are they safe? Is anyone looking out for Steve? I let Lena slip away with her boyfriend last night; are they taking care of each other? And what about the faces from my hostel, people I see every day but don’t really know? What about the owners of the Green Turtle? They always stayed up until the early hours, cleaning and cooking strange, sweet meat. Are they okay?
I reach the edge of town, coming in through the hills which we can see from our office. This isn’t the way I would usually drive; I’ve missed a turning somewhere. There are houses, mansions really, set back from the road. I don’t know who lives up here, but people speak of movie stars and gangsters. I pull over so that a tank-like car can pass. It clips Steve’s wing mirror with a thud.
‘Hey!’ I twist around in my seat, but the vehicle continues down the hill like a mindless crab. I get back into gear, squint out at the road, and then I’m sick into my lap.
There are napkins in the glove compartment; the kind they give out with burgers at the place beside my hostel. I attempt to mop up the mess, my eyes and nose streaming. The thin paper tears and sticks to me, but I manage to mash the stain into just a faintly dubious looking wet patch. This has happened before; sudden vomiting after a traumatic experience, so I’m not too concerned. A drink would be nice though. Why didn’t I bring anything out with me? I flip open the glove compartment again, rifle under the seats, but there’s just one empty can of cola.
I notice a building poking above the trees, perhaps a half mile away. That’s the Imperial Hotel. I could clean up in a bathroom there. Buy myself a drink. Look for a young couple who resemble my mental image of Dolph and Maliwan. I tap my fingers against the wheel for a moment. It’ll take another twenty minutes to drive to the office; the roads in town are probably still packed with emergency vehicles and with people leaving for the port. I need a drink now. I need to get out of this car for a while. I need air conditioning.
The Imperial Hotel is a mess of gothic towers, archways and decorative trees. Completely eccentric looking is how Steve described it when he sent me here to cover a story about a rare lizard found in a pagoda. It’s the most expensive hotel on the island. Famous people have held their weddings here, reproduced on the pages of glossy magazines. I think about what Shuttleworth told me. I wonder if Dolph is inside right now, basking in the pool or drinking cocktails on the terrace. Is this really the sort of place a terrorist would stay? Who knows, but it’s not very discreet. Neither’s terrorism though. Perhaps Dolph has left already, with a fake passport and with his girlfriend dead in a hotel wardrobe. Perhaps not.
Entering reception, I can smell my own vomit, and I’m very aware of the wet patch on my shorts. Unlike the hotel at the golf resort, this place has tried to retain a traditional Thai feel; there is a lot of gold leaf on the furniture, numerous wooden archways and sharp-edged leaves. Statues and ornate lamps are placed casually about. It all feels artificial to me, and a perfume scent makes me sneeze as I push through the doors. A middle-aged white woman is at the desk, surrounded by plants with heavy, vibrant flowers. She watches my approach with pursed lips. No one else is about, although there were a few cars parked outside. I can hear a television playing nearby; a news report.
‘…victims from Sweden and Germany,’ the report says in muffled tones. ‘And many more still missing.’
‘Hello,’ I say to the receptionist, as personably as I can manage. ‘I was wondering if I could please use your bathroom?’
‘Over there,’ the woman points, her face softening. Something about my appearance has marked me out, I think, as harmless and perhaps not quite right. I can’t place her accent. Swedish perhaps. I can feel her watching me as I walk, unsteadily, to the bathroom, where I work on my clothes with towels and expensive soap. I try to avoid looking at myself in the mirror; I only catch a glimpse of my hands, tense and pale as bone.
I get a glass of mineral water from the bar, where a couple of old ladies are talking quietly together in French. I’ve decided to down the drink and get out of here, back to Steve, but the bubbles catch in my throat so that I can barely breathe. I pick up a black napkin and press it against my lips, avoiding the eyes of the French women who I’m pretty sure would like to engage me in conversation. Turning to face the reception area, which is attached to the bar via a wooden archway of carved flowers, I hear the receptionist talking from behind the desk.
‘See you again, Dolph,’ she’s saying, with a smile in her voice.
I don’t hear a reply as I put my glass down on the bar and clatter across the room. The receptionist is alone and has picked up a feather duster. She’s picking bits of cobweb out of it. She hides it behind her back when she sees me.
‘Dolph?’ I say, breathless. ‘I was looking for him.’
She sees something in me to make her wary this time, and doesn’t answer. Her narrowed eyes move, however, towards a small window overlooking the car park. I go to press my face against the glass, and see a skinny man with messed up, shoulder length hair. He’s throwing bags onto the backseat of a battered old car.
‘He’s leaving?’ I say. She still doesn’t answer. I hesitate for a moment but then run outside and down the steps, calling his name as I go.
Chapter Six
Dolph stands frozen beside his car. I stop moving at the bottom of the steps and we hang there for a moment, separated by wavering air, joined by our eyes. Then he slams the door and scrambles around into the driver’s seat. For a second, I can’t think what to do, but as Dolph speeds out of the car park and heads down the hill, I sprint to Steve’s car, ignoring some pain in my feet as they slap against the concrete. But the keys aren’t in the pocket of my shorts like they ought to be.
‘Shit,’ I say, and slap myself on the forehead like a character from a cartoon.
I go back inside to the bathroom, which still smells slightly of my vomit. The keys are sitting there on the marble, in a little pool of soapy water.
I try talking to the receptionist again, but she says no to everything that I ask. I suppose they’re paid to be discreet at an exclusive place like this, and I probably don’t look like someone who ought to be given information, with my hair all over the place and stains on my clothes. I leave her my card anyway, but it sounds as if she drops it into a bin as I walk away.
I leave the hotel and roll down the hill in Steve’s little car, realising that for a moment or two I’ve not been thinking about last night, or about what happened to me back in England. It feels better to be thinking like this. Constructive. I picture Dolph’s face as I drive; the look in his eyes as he heard me yell his name. I know I caught him in the middle of something bad.
Steve is in the office when I arrive back. I tell him about my time with Shuttleworth and about what happened at the Imperial Hotel. Steve doesn’t think much about any of it, but I still feel a little flicker of hope, like maybe there is a way to reach the other side of this pain if I just throw myself into work.
‘He doesn’t sound like a terrorist,’ Steve says. ‘Rich American enjoying luxury hotel. Thai girlfriend. Menthol cigarettes. I don’t know.’
‘But he was scared of something.’
‘Isn’t everyone scared right now?’
‘I think maybe he was scared of me.’
‘Who knows.’ Steve shrugs. Then he adds: ‘I’m sorry you had to waste your time with Shuttleworth. He’s a nasty old man.’
‘It might not have been though. A waste of time, I mean.’
I call the police to pass on my information, dialling the direct line for Officer Kadesadayurat, who is a friend of Steve’s. I still have to wait a long time for an answer, listening to scratchy noises and the occasional beep. And I don’t get to speak with Kadesadayurat. A woman answers in halting English. She takes down what I have to say, but I don’t think she really understands. I can hear other conversat
ions going on in the background, in various languages. So much despair, all over the world, radiating from one small spot of disaster on a boozy street.
The office is as hot as ever, despite the fans that revolve above our desks, making sheets of paper dance. The air conditioning rarely works. Steve tells me that the phones have been constantly ringing since he returned from the bombsite. Relatives of missing people are calling. Despite there being official help-lines available, people are contacting us for any sort of news. They seem to have great faith in an English language newspaper’s ability to help and advise. It’s all hopeless, I think, but as I take a turn at answering calls, I try not to let people hear that in my voice. I write down names and descriptions of people who are unaccounted for. I must have seen some of them last night, destroyed on the seared ground. Between calls, Steve puts his head in his hands. Sometimes he looks at me as if he’s going to say something, but then he doesn’t. We go on like this for hours.
‘Go get something to eat,’ Steve says to me eventually. He’s sweating in his chair, empty drink cans crumpled around him.
‘It’s okay. I’m eating the biscuits.’
I’m not hungry but Steve keeps offering snacks to me and eventually I had to take something. Crumbs are scattered over my keyboard, under my fingers as I slowly type. I’m not even sure what I’m writing; some sort of first-hand account of what happened last night. I can’t bring myself to read back through it; it might all be nonsense.
‘Biscuits aren’t enough. When did you last eat a meal? Or sleep? Take a break.’
‘Oh, I’m okay.’ My eyes drift towards our little television. The power’s been back on for a while and we’re tuned to the news with the volume low.
‘…not officially confirmed, but sources suggest the bomb was hidden in a suitcase in front of Bar XS, a popular venue amongst backpackers and tourists. Officials are appealing for witnesses…’
There’s no exact death toll, and no one can say who did this to us or why. But there’s my street, again and again, destroyed for the world to see. It makes my eyes itch.
