Chapter 23

‘Good Morning,’ The taller girl said. Her smile came late as if she only remembered at the last minute that he was a guest—or even a fellow human being.

Kreeger returned the smile and greeting and asked if he could use the telephone. She maintained her smile. ‘Telephone?’ he said again. Her eyes moved but the smile held. ‘Te-le-phone,’ Kreeger tried, in long drawn-out syllables. Her smile slipped and she looked towards the other girl for help, but she got nothing besides a giggle.

Kreeger heaved himself against the counter and repeated the body language he had used the night before.

At once the taller girl jumped, grabbed her friend’s arm, and yelped, ‘Callphone!’ Her smile returned as she bent, and by the time she heaved up the big black Bakelite telephone it had blossomed into a happy calligraphy of swirls, curves, and dimples. ‘Callphone,’ she said again as she dropped it onto the formica countertop.

‘Thank you,’ Kreeger sighed. He dialled Filcher’s number and wondered if the two girls were going to stay and listen in on his conversation. The shorter one had crept back and together they stole his privacy. He pulled at the line but it snapped tight before he made a yard.

‘Maynard, James Kreeger speaking.’ He tried to at least turn away from his audience, the two girls in pink uniforms. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t call last night but the phone system is not so great out here. Can you hear me? The lines are full of static.’

‘Yes you are coming through loud and clear, Doctor Kreeger; And don’t worry about not calling; I know what it’s like out in the provinces. Listen, James, is everything going okay for you?’

‘Well, it’s not quite what I expected. I know I have just arrived, but everything seems so strange; it’s quite different from the capital.’

Kreeger paused and heard a giggle from one of the reception girls; he should have felt a little embarrassed that he was about to slander her hometown.

‘I think I have arrived in the middle of a crime wave: a lot of violence; drugs everywhere; the morgue is full of bodies. It seems pretty desperate and the Police don’t seem to be doing anything about it.’ Kreeger looked over his shoulder and checked the tall girl’s expression. Her smile had lost a few of its dimensions but she still grinned, flashing her white teeth. She must have thought that he was praising the local ice-cream or the gorgeous weather.

‘Well, remember where you are, James; don’t expect too much. How about young Blye?’

‘I took a quick look at the body last night. He’s on ice down at the city morgue—at least he is on ice when the power is on. The body is in a pretty bad condition; to tell you the truth I was a little shocked. Whoever dispatched this young man did so with considerable brutality; I’ve never seen such a thing; the poor lad was tortured to death.’

Filcher said nothing for a moment and then came back with, ‘Tortured; are you sure? I mean about being tortured. I thought they didn’t do those things anymore.’

‘Anymore? . . . well, young Blye received multiple stabbings to the abdomen. He was found in a bamboo grove, so I can only assume that the weapon of choice was a sharpened stick of bamboo. Whatever it was, he was stabbed far more times than would have been necessary to kill him. The killer must have been in a state of profound rage. The local detective, Lee, thinks he was killed by a bunch of drug addicts. He could be right—they seem to be everywhere. But I’m not sure what they would be doing on a mountainside in a bamboo forest, probably in the middle of the night.’

‘How about him—his name’s Lee?

‘Yes, Jon Lee. Strange fellow. Dresses like an American TV cop, only everything is fake; you know, pirated Ray Bans—that kind of thing. Wears a black suit—looks like an Armani copy. I keep expecting him to ask me to help him get to the States, get a green-card for him! Not so co-operative, though. But that could be a cultural thing—you know I am not so good at getting along with the people in this country. I had to almost threaten him just to get him to take me to the crime scene later this morning. Said he had everything up there covered!’

‘So it’s definitely a murder case.’

‘Certainly. I can’t be sure about the exact cause of death, but a number of his internal organs were punctured by the stabbings, and he was in water for a while, probably before he died, though.’

‘Oh, that sounds horrible,’ Filcher said. ‘Worse than they put in the report; I can hardly believe it.’

‘Right, you are lucky you didn’t see it.’ Kreeger took a deep breath. ‘Listen, Maynard, do you know anything about this fellow, Blye. I mean do you know who he was and where he came from and what he was doing here? You know there are no foreigners out here—just me and him. Who was he?’

Filcher was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. ‘He . . . he . . . I told you before, he was the son of somebody important in the diplomatic corps.’

‘So why isn’t that somebody important down here with me trying to find out what happened to his son?’

‘It is a little more complicated, James.’

‘Well, you had better tell the important person that his son was a novice monk in a monastery!’

Filcher was again silent for a moment. ‘A monk?’ he said at last.

‘So I suppose you didn’t know that. Are you sure there are no more surprises for me down here?’

‘Of course not; at least I hope not. I mean I don’t know; I think you already know more than I do. I really don’t know much about him.’ Filcher reduced his voice into a whisper. ‘Doctor, this is becoming a little delicate, Blye being a monk and being tortured to death. It sounds almost too bizarre to be true. I’m not sure how much of this ought to go beyond you and me.’

‘Maynard, you just tell me what I should do, and I’ll try my best, but it had better not take too long’

‘Are you sure nothing’s the matter, James?’

‘I’m just tired I suppose. I haven’t slept much for a couple of nights. The bus ride, the shock of being in a place like this, and then the body. To say nothing of the food and the hotel . . .’

‘And the perpetrator? Filcher asked, quickly changing the subject back to the murder. ‘Do they have any ideas about who killed Blye? What does Mr. Lee have to say? You said something about addicts?’

‘To be honest, I don’t think they have a clue who did it. As I said, he was found in a bamboo forest behind the city, up on a hill near a monastery where he lived; but they aren’t checking anybody there. The old monk, Long I believe his name is, and his followers are all beyond suspicion. Lee might be right in his presumption as the old man wasn’t in fact here when Blye was killed and his disciples supposedly don’t so much as breathe without his word. I will look at the body again tomorrow, but don’t hold your breath—I’ve complained to you often enough about forensic procedures in this country, and that was in the capital. Down here they have hardly got a lab for me to work in, so I don’t think I’ll find much.’

‘Try you best, James, the ambassador called me up yesterday—on a Sunday—to ask me if you had arrived safely! He’s following this closely. And I think he’s counting on you.’

The pressure’s on, Kreeger thought to himself. Then he said: ‘There was something a little strange about the body. They brought it in last Wednesday and they say he was alive on the Tuesday, but the body seems to have been dead a lot longer than that—a week, maybe longer. Anyway, it’s hard to tell because their refrigeration isn’t always working. You really wouldn’t believe what’s going on down here.’

‘Well, Doctor, if . . .’

‘There is one other thing,’ Kreeger said quickly, interrupting Filcher who he sensed was about to ring off. ‘You will keep the line open to my sister-in-law won’t you? And get in touch with me right away if she calls?’

‘Of course, James, as I promised to do so. You can count on me.’

Kreeger turned back to the counter and replaced the receiver; his vexation with the receptionists had dissipated and he now looked at the two young faces, determined to remember them. He started with the tall girl and scrutinised her small, squat nose, double eyelids, high cheekbones, and dimples as she opened a ledger. Turning it around, she pushed it towards him, proffering a ballpoint at the same time.

‘Sign?’ he asked, noticing a further distinguishing mole on the right side of her slightly jutting chin.

She giggled and nodded, so he signed his name—presumably for the phone call.

‘And what might your name be?’ Kreeger said as he handed back the pen.

She widened her eyes and went for the pen, but he pulled it back and tried again: ‘name,’ he said, ‘What—is—your—name?’

The girl giggled and held her hand on her chest and said slowly, ‘My name is Apple Chan.’

Kreeger held out the pen again.

She took it, giggled some more, and then turned to her partner, the shorter girl, and hit her with a mouthful of words.

The shorter girl turned to Kreeger with the same hand-on-chest gesture and said, ‘My name is Cherry Chen.’

They sounded to Kreeger more like exotic fruit drinks than names, cocktails perhaps that you might sip at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore or at the Peninsular in Hong Kong. His eyes wandered over Cherry’s big, round, fatty face and found no underlying bone structure; he took in her single eyelids, bridgeless nose, and then stood back. ‘Well,’ he said with a smile, ‘I’m very pleased to meet the both of you, I’m sure.’ He then looked around and wondered how he was going to ask for breakfast, but Apple surprised him by saying the word, slowly and clearly in his own language. He nodded and received a babble of incomprehensible words in return. He threw up his arms and shrugged, at which the Cherry, whom he had taken to be the shier one, came from behind the counter to lead him off to the breakfast room.