Lights in a Western Sky

by Roger Curtis

  With a sudden thrust of his arm, Sargon swept the case forward. It crashed against Cranford’s knees and fell gaping to the floor. Bentley leaned forward and tapped the boy’s shoulder. His voice was neutral. ‘Pick it up, son, and put it back – open – on the desk.’ As Cranford obeyed Sargon rose from his seat, rounded the desk and stood beside him, placing his hand on the trembling boy’s shoulder. ‘Fill it,’ he said. Cranford squinted up at him, at first mystified, then slowly began to feel in his pockets. Into the bag he put his comb, his keys and his wallet. ‘That doesn’t fill it,’ Sargon said, at the same time delivering a vicious thrust to the side of Cranford’s head with his fist. Bentley leaned forward again. ‘He means everything – everything you possess – son,’ he said. As the case began to fill, Sargon returned to his seat behind the desk.

  When Cranford had placed the last item – his underpants – in the case, Sargon withdrew from the desk a small package bound with pink ribbon, and handed it to him. He spoke over the boy’s head. ‘A fair exchange, wouldn’t you say, Philip?’ ‘Open it,’ Bentley said to Cranford, poking his shoulder.

  Two minutes later Cranford stood before them, shivering, in a pair of blood red boxing shorts.

  Sargon rose and looked out of the window at the ring below. ‘Heh,’ he said, ‘Connors must have read our thoughts. He’s already down there waiting for you.’ ‘You’ll find socks and boots in the ring,’ Bentley said. Sargon turned to Bentley. ‘Can we afford one more this year?’ he asked. Bentley shrugged. ‘It’s what we agreed with the fuzz,’ he replied.

  Sargon looked searchingly into Cranford’s face. For several seconds the room and the people in it seemed frozen in time. Then, just for a moment, the chiselled features seemed to relax, transforming themselves into something that might have passed – at another time and in another place – for fatherly concern.

  ‘There’s a lock-up in Islington, green door, behind Brent’s place. I’m sorry, Mr Sargon, really sorry.’

  ‘Take him down, Philip,’ Sargon said, ‘but this time, use your judgement.’

  When the noise had ceased Sargon looked at the clock. Twenty minutes had passed. The room, like the building, was now cold and silent. He sorted the papers on his desk and placed his pen on top of the pile. Then he went to the window. What he saw did not at first seem to please him, then he smiled to himself. ‘Philip, Philip,’ he muttered reprovingly under his breath.

  With the dawn light the four white posts of the boxing-ring turned into the painted fence in front of Bentley’s car, the agitated figures outside it into the twisted trunks of young Norfolk pines planted between the car park and the sea. But something more significant, at that moment, had caught his eye and made him reach for the gun that he had hidden under the folded coat beside him. Parked alongside was a black Mondeo, just like Sargon’s. He opened his door and crept round the bonnet, close to the ground, covering the other car with his gun. But the car was empty. Moreover, it was not Sargon’s.

  With lighter heart Bentley moved forward into the belt of trees, stepping carefully – as he had trained himself to do – to avoid leaving footprints on the ground. The sky was pink now, the beach beyond a cloth of gold edged with white lace. He stared and sniffed the salt air, and stood puzzled because the unfamiliar experience had made his thoughts wander too far.

  He was not alone on the beach. Further along there was a figure near the water’s edge laying out a structure – surely an enormous kite – whose coloured and segmented surface rippled in the wind. He crept closer, safe behind the grassy dunes that fringed the sands. Slowly, confidently, the kite-surfer negotiated himself into the water. Bentley shivered at the thought of it and with his hand brushed back the wisps of his hair caught by a fresh gust of wind. Then, quite suddenly, the kite rose up, dragging the figure across the surface of the water, the feet describing a perfect and sparkling arc that reminded Bentley of the necklace that, with seconds ticking away, he had decided to retrieve from the last of the cabinets. He shivered again, but this time for a different reason. Then, as the wind dropped, the kite came down, as quickly and silently as it had risen.

  When the kite went up for the second time, Bentley’s coat began flapping against his legs in a violent gust that drove the kite both upwards and towards him. The suspended figure was snatched high into the air, then fell back awkwardly onto the sand amid the spent folds of material. From behind the dune Bentley contemplated the crumpled form, clinically, dispassionately. Then he walked towards it.

  It was not the first time Bentley had witnessed the contusing violence of death. But on such occasions, in his own world, there were seldom decisions to be made. Others, not he, would do what had to be done – to clear, to tidy, to hide, then to deny. He looked into the clear morning air, at the sky and the sea, and along the beach. There was no movement, except for the swell of the surf.

  It was not enough. The residues of a lifetime of crime and bitterness could not be expunged this easily. There were no mechanisms for imparting sympathy or explanation to others, and it was too late to learn. He saw no other course, no means of grasping the line that was offered, or even of telling whether it was a lifeline or a snare.

  Turning away, he began to retrace his path. Then he picked up a piece of driftwood from near the water’s edge. As he made his way back to the car he dragged it behind him, obliterating his footsteps in the sand. Looking back, he was pleased that the tide seemed to be coming in. He reached the car with quickening steps. Establishing that he was alone, he hurled the stick into the trees and scrambled into the car.

  A plan was hatching in his mind. A slow smile began to contort his thin, pursed lips.

  He was going back.

  Trexler’s Orchid

  Dusk was approaching and still Bloomfield had not arrived. From the table in his study Martin Trexler peered through the open doors and the grey-green gloom of the conservatory to the orchid house in the garden, where the last rays of the sun were painting the glass with golden brush strokes. He stroked his beard, half expecting to see his rival skulking there in his usual aggressively inquisitive manner. But he knew the man was too subtle for that.

  Perhaps the visit had something to do with the vacant position of Keeper of the Herbarium at Kew and Bloomfield, who already worked there, wanted his support. But even if Trexler did not know the reason for this unexplained wish to see him – and Bloomfield had given nothing away when the telephone suddenly went dead – he was sure that his adversary had no inkling of the revelation that he, Trexler, was about to deliver. On this day of all days, there were more important things to think about than Dr Ray Bloomfield and his ambitions.

  Trexler’s study was the product of a bygone age. Visitors usually needed a moment or so to convince themselves they were still in suburban London and not a faraway museum dedicated to the relics of colonial rule. Around the walls, Victorian stalwarts in antique frames posed trenchantly against impenetrable jungle backdrops reflecting expeditions of unspeakable hardship. They looked down upon a miscellany of hideous masks, barbarous weapons and wood carvings littering the room that were the spoils of Trexler’s own wanderings. High above the central table, drapes of threadbare linen cloth drooped tent-like from the ceiling rose to the upper walls. On the table’s carpeted surface an assortment of academic botanical volumes were stacked as if for no other purpose than to gather dust. For Trexler, this room had the cosiness of a womb.

  He swivelled in his seat and looked up at the most impressive of the figures, his grandfather, his idol. He was reassured by the approbation that he chose to see in the piercing eyes. Gerhardt Trexler, the doyen of collectors, the chief of Sander’s team, the leader of men praised in that heyday towards the end of the last century as vigorously as they were now reviled by those who understood the despoliation of the jungles of the world.

  Of course Trexler understood all that, but it was not how he saw his grandfather. F
rom early childhood Gerhardt’s exploits had fired a rampant imagination and fuelled an unquenchable urge. Of these deeds one had held a special place in orchid lore, ever since a tantalisingly cryptic note in Curtis’ Orchid Magazine had referred to a species of Cyprepedium quite unrivalled in its distinctiveness and beauty that no-one besides Gerhardt himself was destined ever to see. Until today.

  With Bloomfield quite forgotten, Trexler rose from his chair and entered the conservatory. He re-emerged carrying a small grass-like plant with curiously spotted leaves and bearing a single slipper-like bloom that, with unbearable slowness, had developed from the ripe bud of the previous day. He set the pot beside Gerhardt’s notes that lay open on the table. As he had done repeatedly throughout the day, he again compared the features. There was no longer a need to convince himself. The two flowers were undeniably the same.

  The paper he had written on this assumption lay pristine and complete on the table beside an envelope addressed to the editor of the Orchid Review. For the moment it was all that was needed to establish his claim to the species, which he had named Paphiopedilum trexleri.

  While he was absorbed with the plant a young Asian woman, twenty years Trexler’s junior and with straight black hair to her slim waist, had entered noiselessly through the open door. She stood behind him, waiting patiently until he should notice her. She spoke only when he acknowledged her with a slight turn of his head.

  ‘Is it ready?’ she said.

  ‘If you must know, it is ready.’

  ‘I can post it for you?’

  ‘Thank you, but I’d prefer to do it myself.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, leaving the room.

  He had been distracted by his wife’s entrance. But his spirits quickly returned. Perhaps he had been harsh. After all, without her, more or less, there would have been no cause for celebration. And there was always a way… But no, he would not sully his success with black intentions that could safely lie dormant. Besides, did not the manner of his discovery have the makings of a legend just as potent as the scientific one he had just made? No, caution must prevail and he must bide his time. He began to speak, addressing an imaginary audience: ‘Ladies and gentleman, when my grandfather left Siam for the last time, his fever having subsided, no one could have guessed…’

  He was interrupted by a loud knock at the front door. He heard his wife’s footsteps, and then Bloomfield’s loud voice in the hall. Stealthily he returned the plant to the conservatory and stood with his back to the fireplace, hands clasped behind him, waiting for his visitor to appear.

  After a few minutes Bloomfield knocked lightly on the door and entered. His first words concerned Trexler’s uncanny resemblance to the figure on the wall above him.

  At the beginning, it seemed that providence must have had a hand in it: that it had fallen to Trexler, after desperately craving a new species – any new species – to be handed the very one he had sought both in his dreams and in reality. The years of tramping the forests of the orient with this his primary – if unadmitted – objective had come to an abrupt and delicious end. And all in the privacy and convenience of his own greenhouse.

  The consignment had come from one of his newer shippers – Anova Orchids in Bangkok. At first he had not been sure. There had been just a single plant. It had no flower as such – that had withered in transit – but the tessellated leaves were as familiar to him as the backs of this own hands. This sole example in a batch of otherwise mundane specimens was surely the most bizarre of accidents. He spent the afternoon in the Herbarium at Kew, just to make sure, and on the following morning booked his flight to Bangkok.

  Trexler was widely known and regarded in orchid circles, so his first decision – whether to arrive incognito – was agonising. But, as far as he was aware, to Anova Orchids he was still just a name. As the time to leave approached he shaved his beard, trimmed the residual moustache, practised speaking with a Welsh accent and referred to himself as Jones, the name that appeared in his second – and nefariously obtained – passport that had lain in his drawer in readiness for such an eventuality for a number of years.

  At Don Muang International Airport he hired a car and made for the small hotel on Rachadapisek Road that on previous journeys had passed the test of obscurity. Later, having installed himself on the veranda with a glass of beer, he was content to let himself melt into the lengthening shadows and subject himself to the noises of the night. It fell to a selenid moth, alighting on his grandfather’s journal on the table beside his nodding head, to bless his endeavours.

  The next morning he searched the orchid stalls at the flower markets of Pak Klong Talat, Bangrak and Phahonyothin, as he had done many times before. But where previously the exercise would have been a cause for delight, now it was a mechanical race against time. In his haste he handled the plants roughly, and was chided for it. Then, empty-handed, he drove to Sukhumvit Road to put in his first appearance at Anova Orchids.

  He was flattered by the attention given to him by the pretty Thai girl in the office. He noted particularly the smile with which she received his visiting card, carefully improvised at the airport.

  ‘My name is Maia. You will follow me please?’

  She led him down a corridor lined with specimen plants in full flower. He held back a little, pretending to scrutinise them, the better to observe Maia’s slender and perfect figure. She stopped at a closed door and called out, then opened it, standing aside to let him enter.

  ‘Mr Rama is manager here, Mr Jones,’ she whispered as he passed. ‘He is also my father.’

  The office was more grand than Trexler considered appropriate for a plant nursery. Mr Rama rose and extended a hand bearing several rings, at least one of which, in gold, bore an orchid motif. Maia did not leave them, but withdrew to a nearby desk and sat upon it cross-legged while her father presented Trexler with his card.

  ‘You are new to this business, Mr Jones? Your name is not familiar to me.’

  ‘Not at all. I’ve grown orchids for many years. But only as a hobby, you understand. The commercial side is a recent interest.’

  ‘May I ask what led to that interest?’

  ‘I own a small supermarket chain. Orchids are back in fashion. But the Germans and the Dutch have got too expensive and the English – well, frankly, they aren’t very good at it.’

  ‘Then I hope we can do business together. First my daughter will show you around, then we will have some tea and talk.’

  Within the polythene dome the diffuse sunlight passing through the high cooling fans fell like yellow petals onto the carpet of colour below. Here were species familiar to him from his early days as a collector and hybrids in profusion. The same shifting light turned Maia’s long black hair momentarily red and caused the gentle contours of her white blouse to glow. She extended her arms above her head to capture a raceme for him to examine, then released it with a smile.

  ‘You mentioned slipper orchids in your letter, Mr Jones. But as you see, they are not well represented here.’

  ‘My friends tell me that you supply them regularly.’

  ‘They are from our nursery at Attuthya, about two hours from here.’

  ‘Could I see them?’

  ‘It would be my pleasure to take you.’

  They continued to walk amongst the profusion of flowers. There opened up a vista leading to an area of intense human activity. As they walked towards it the air became heavy with the dank smell of the composts that about a dozen young women were scooping frantically into black pots. Seeing the visitor, one of them put down her implements and came up to them. Trexler noticed that she did not approach him directly but held her face away. Only when he deliberately shifted his position did he see that her left eye was sightless.

  ‘This is my sister Sirita,’ Maia said. ‘She is responsible for all the production here, while I am merely… a se
cretary.’

  Trexler looked for a response to Maia’s self-abasement – a smile, a grimace, perhaps. But none came. Something akin to pity – for she was otherwise as beautiful as her sister – made him fall behind the departing Maia. Then for twenty minutes he and Sirita talked seriously about orchids.

  Compared with those of the previous night, the moths around the naked light bulb above Trexler’s bed seemed to dance in tune with his quickening expectation. Sleep was beyond his grasp. He read – as he had on many occasions in this very room – the paper by his grandfather, Gerhardt. There was no need. The features of the orchid were imprinted indelibly in his memory. It was now a matter of riding out the night while waiting for dawn to break. Only once did he think of Maia, asking himself in genuine puzzlement why he had not paid her more attention.

  Trexler’s offer to drive her to Attuthaya had been rejected politely but firmly. By eight she was waiting for him in reception, black hair shining against her fresh white blouse. By ten they were walking up a winding track between clumps of oleander towards a clearing in the scrub.

  ‘This is not a… well… a conventional nursery, Mr Jones, as you will see’, she said. ‘I know we can count on your discretion.’

  ‘Of course.’

  They followed a barbed wire fence clothed in creeper, broken at one point by a rusting metal gate opening just sufficiently to let them squeeze through. Going ahead of her he tried to open it further, but managed only a few centimetres against the reluctant grass at its foot. He felt the warmth of her body against his straining arm as she passed. His embarrassment was stilled by the innocence of her smile.