Chapter 29

Without warning Lee stopped and looked around, eyes penetrating the forest.

Kreeger’s motion had already been arrested by the outburst of a monkey overhead. ‘What is it?’ he called, over the howling.

‘Nothing, it was nothing,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you hot?’

Kreeger was hot but pressed on, enjoying the symphony that raged around him. Five minutes later, Jon Lee said he had a stone in his shoe, and so they stopped again, at a small shrine—chipped stone for an unknown god. As Kreeger played with the sticks of incense planted in an ash-filled urn, he noticed Lee looking back into the forest behind him, foraging for something. He plucked out one of the sticks but said nothing to Lee.

‘Come on,’ Lee said, getting up off the ground in one swift movement, ‘lets get back to the car.’ He bounded forwards with long strides, leaving Kreeger standing with the graven image.

*

Lee was already inside Mao’s car when Kreeger finally reached the parking area. He revved the engine before reaching across the passenger seat to open the door for the doctor. Ignoring the rear-view mirror, he turned his head back and began to reverse, even before Kreeger had got all of his long body into the confined space. Against the pillars of the exit grew banana trees, the fronds of which draped over the path, shrouding whatever was on the other side. The car shot backwards in wild lurches, jolting Lee’s head up and down. At once and without warning, Lee cried out and hit the brakes; the car skidded on the gravel.

‘What the . . .’ Kreeger yelled, turning himself around to get a look out of the dirty back window. Lee had already shot around and was facing forwards again, mute. There, behind the car, stood a young, bald-headed boy in misty-blue robes and black sandals, looming between the swaying green fronds of the banana trees. ‘A monk. Jon, it’s only a monk.’ But Lee’s fear had raised the doctor’s heartbeat and it was with caution that he opened his door. Lee was still frozen. The monk hadn’t moved and without the distortions of the car’s begrimed rear window he looked even less harmless, a little scared even.

Stepping forwards, Kreeger muttered a few words to the boy, but the monk seemed not to understand, flashed his eyes. Kreeger looked back for help but Lee was still in the car. Then the monk spoke, a volley of staccato syllables directed not at the doctor but at the stationary car; his young face contorted and his eyes burned deep in their sockets. Kreeger smelt the fear; he turned again, but this time Lee was out of the car, standing next to the open door, calm. Lee spoke with his smooth voice, as if to relax the boy. It didn’t work. The monk’s eyes burst into agitation as he fired off more chopped up words. When he stopped, he looked behind him with a swift jerk of his neck.

‘It’s Song, the friend of Blye,’ Lee said.

The young monk suddenly fumbled for something under his robe. Kreeger reacted instinctively and turned quickly towards Lee.

‘It’s ok, Docta, he has something for us,’ Lee said.

The next moment the boy was holding a green-coloured book in his right hand. Lee made a movement forwards, but the monk stepped back, lightning flashing across his face. Lee backed off, muttering something. The monk seemed to calm down; he then stepped forwards with an outstretched arm, placing the book on the back of the car. A quick retreat.

‘Ask him when Blye disappeared from the monastery,’ Kreeger said, thinking fast.

Lee looked annoyed, pushed up his sunglasses, spat.

‘Please; it’s important; just ask him will you?’

Lee said something to the monk, who thought for a moment before replying. Lee translated: ‘The first; he saw Blye on the first.’

Kreeger did not ask any more questions.

The boy began to back away, like a cornered animal, his jerking head searching for some invisible enemy. Lee spoke again; the monk turned and ran. But having scarcely taken two strides he stopped and fumbled in his robes. Turning, he threw something back towards the car; something bright red that arced through the air and landed with a thud at Kreeger’s feet.

Kreeger watched as the monk turned, picked up his robes, and disappeared with rapid steps into the banana fronds. When he was out of sight, he bent to pick up what had been thrown at him; but as his eyes met the earth, his body froze, leaving him positioned like a pilgrim bowing before a holy relic. His chest tightened as his mind rushed back a few hours, to the second sandy clearing by the stream.

‘What is it, Docta?’

‘Oh . . . just a cloth bag,’ he said, with his eyes in the ground. ‘A red cloth bag.’ He snatched it up and raised himself. He didn’t mention the earth that had held Song’s slipper, the child’s fingers that had been making circles in the dust.

*

As the fronds of the banana tree swept over the car, Kreeger remembered the book. ‘What did he give you?’ he said.

‘Nothing much,’ Lee replied.

‘Nothing to do with the case?

‘Maybe, but you won’t be able to understand it anyway.’

‘I thought you said he was Blye’s friend.’ Kreeger’s voice sharpened.

‘Did I? I just meant that he was another monk at the monastery, that’s all.’

‘Look Jon, I am not stupid. Back there you looked as if you had seen a ghost. And then Blye’s best friend, who was supposed to have left the place, appears out of nowhere and gives you a book! Come on, show it to me. It might be important.’

Kreeger tensed as Lee turned his head and grimaced, flashing his white teeth. His questions for Long and the one for Song had provoked that same lurid grin. Back off, it said. But Kreeger would not let it go. ‘It might have to go in my report.’ An ambiguous threat.

Lee had reversed out of the parking area and was turning out onto the road. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Okay, Docta, take a look if you must.’ He reached into the door pocket and pulled up the book; he swung it over into Kreeger’s lap.

Kreeger reached forward and dropped onto the dashboard the red cloth bag, its neck still tightly closed by the golden thread that now hung down towards the cigarette lighter.