Black Tiger (29 page)

Sya stood on the bank, keeping his polished boots just out of the mud, and surveyed the charred wreck beached in the shallow water. Fleischer’s dead hands still gripped the wheel, which the Thais called ‘the wreath of jasmine.’ Across the windscreen, miraculously preserved, a leaping tiger and the legend ‘Tiger Balm’ gleamed briefly as the policeman moved his torch beam, giving a momentary illusion of life.

‘Both
farangs
dead, please, Colonel,’ the officer reported.

‘The ground rises higher,’ Sya sighed. Another officer marched up, prodding before him a slim figure with its arms twisted behind its back. He saluted and shoved the prisoner to the ground.

‘Please, sir, this person, sir, tried to run the roadblock. The vehicle crashed, and we apprehended the driver. We also recovered this from the vehicle, sir!’ He handed a plastic-wrapped packet to the colonel.

The prisoner sat on the wet ground, glaring at Sya through the rain. Sya looked at the flattened cockscomb of hair and the burning black eyes. ‘Take him inside,’ he said wearily, weighing the heavy packet in his hand, his fingers tracing the outline of the calipers within. He glanced over his shoulder at the river. ‘Rally driving is a very dangerous sport. Only for foreigners with too much money and no brains. Remember that, Sergeant.’

‘Sir!’

The sound of a car approaching fast reached them from the highway. Sya swung around in the direction of the sound.

Raven had driven hard.

Once they had had established which road their quarry had taken out of the city, they had exchanged few words. Seeing the little group in the roadway, Raven hit the brakes and the Lotus slithered to a stop. Raven leapt out and, ignoring Sya and his men, ran to the riverbank. Chee Laan followed. Raven seized a torch from one of the soldiers and pointed it at the wrecked rally car. At the sight of the tiger and the distinctive white helmet with the bold navy stripes, he let out a groan. Sya was at his side immediately, leaving his men to bully the young prisoner into the hut.

‘Most regrettable. Fatal accidents are of course common in the Great Asian Rally. Alas, brave young men. You knew them? Perhaps that is why you are here?’

‘Miss Lee and I followed you—Miss Lee thought you were on the trail of the people who robbed her father’s bank. This, however, is unexpected.’ Raven gestured toward the river, where the water lapped indolently against the half-sunken vehicle.

‘Indeed. It is a great shock,’ Sya replied formally.

Suddenly conscious of Chee Laan’s presence at his side, Raven put an arm around her and moved her away, dropping his torch beam from the desolate scene.

‘We shall send people to recover the bodies,’ Sya said, walking beside them. ‘I am sorry you had to see this, Miss Lee.’ In deference to Raven’s presence, he used the European form of address. ‘Now you must excuse me. I have an interrogation to conduct.’ He nodded in a friendly way and moved off toward the hut. Muffled cries were heard as Sya’s men encouraged the unfortunate prisoner to talk.

Wordlessly, Raven and Chee Laan returned to the car. Raven circled the car around and headed back up the highway. He felt her critical gaze. There was no escape.

‘You knew them!’

‘Knew them? Who?’ he hedged, playing for time.

‘Stop the car! Pull over!’ He did so, and turned to face her. ‘Those dead people in the wreck.’

Her black eyes, boring into his, demanded an answer. He knew she would detect a lie immediately if he attempted to fob her off, so he didn’t even try.

‘Yes. One of them, anyway.’

‘Who was he?’ she pursued mercilessly.

‘A guy called Fleischer.’

‘Fleischer?’ She was tense now, her tone sharper. ‘Fleischer. What was the rest of his name? How did you know him?’

He had no intention of relating any of it—the Legion years, the heady dreams shattered by confrontation with sordid realities, the old ridiculous yet binding loyalties, the manifold regrets. He felt reluctant to reveal that side of himself, as though it tarnished whatever little lustre was left to him.

‘I knew him in the old days. I was in the French Foreign Legion for a while. His name is Angel Fleischer. He was a lieutenant then; he’s been promoted to major.’

‘Describe him, this Lieutenant or Major Fleischer!’ she demanded with great deliberation, scowling.

‘Fleischer was one of the most genuinely wicked men I’ve ever met. Quite without conscience. But I saved his life once, and he repaid me.’

‘How?’ she snapped out the monosyllable tersely.

‘By sparing mine.’

Her eyes widened. ‘That happened recently, didn’t it? It happened here, in Thailand.’

There was no hiding place now. He told her the miserably few facts he had figured out. ‘I think Fleischer was sent to murder me.’

As he had expected, she scoffed. ‘That’s ridiculous! You are a professor. People don’t go round murdering professors! Why should anyone want to kill you? What is all this, Raven—these mysteries, rushing off into the night, car accidents and hitmen? What is it you’re not telling me?’ Then she added quietly, ‘I too knew Lieutenant Fleischer.’ She paused, her eyes challenging him. ‘He was our instructor in France. On that awful survival course. Pim and Salikaa and I. He was a sadistic beast.’ She sighed. ‘A horrible man. But very efficient.’

Raven realized then that none of them had recognised him as Fleischer’s partner. He decided to conceal that fact a little longer. ‘Fleischer was efficient, all right,’ he conceded. ‘As an operative, he was one of the best.’

‘Which means,’ Chee Laan thought aloud, ‘that he wouldn’t be there, in that riverbed, the very efficient Fleischer, unless someone wanted him dead very badly.’ She was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice was thoughtful. ‘I am sure many people will be glad Fleischer is dead. Do you think he robbed our bank?’

‘Quite possibly. The question is, why? Why the robbery? Why are two men dead?’

‘The deaths may not be connected with the bank robbery,’ Chee Laan said.

‘Perhaps the driver lost control and they simply skidded off the road,’ Raven suggested.

‘You don’t believe that.’

‘No,’ he agreed, ‘I don’t. For one thing, Fleischer drove like the devil. And Colonel Sya’s presence suggests sabotage. He may even have arranged it.’

There was silence except for the engine. Chee Laan thought of her grandmother’s relationship with the Black Tiger. The air between herself and Raven was heavy with shared longing, and thick with unshared secrets.

Raven was the first to speak. ‘There was another instructor on that course in France.’

‘Yes,’ Chee Laan agreed, waiting. She flicked her hair behind her ear and stared fixedly out through the windscreen.

‘You don’t recognise me,’ Raven said. ‘I was sure you recognised me, but none of you did.’

‘It was you,’ Chee Laan breathed. ‘Oh, it was you! I knew there was something familiar—but back in France, you had a mask, and you always shouted, barked like a dog, quick quick, run here, run there, get down! Why didn’t you say?’

Raven sighed. He pulled the car over and stopped.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded in the sudden quiet.

‘I’m damned well not having this conversation while I’m trying to negotiate my way over this dirt track.’ He turned to her. ‘I tried to keep apart from the stuff in France as far as I could, ridiculous as that may sound. I didn’t want to be part of Fleischer’s Barnum and Bailey. I let him talk me into it because, if you want the truth, I was bored and cheesed off with my own life, didn’t know where I was going, in the doldrums. Thought a break would do me good. And then…’ He paused, uncertain how to continue, turning the words over and over in his mind. ‘Then I met you.’

‘Yes,’ Chee Laan said in a small voice, ‘and I met you.’

‘And I have absolutely no right…’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘No rights at all.’ She leaned over and laid her cheek against the juncture of his neck and shoulder. She sighed. They stayed like that for a while, hardly daring to breathe so as not to disturb the fragile moment.

He moved first, gently taking her into his arms as well as he could in the cramped and crowded space. ‘What the hell are we going to do?’ he said. She sat up.

‘We have much to think about,’ she said.

He nodded. They sat in the silent darkness, reading each other’s faces with their fingertips like blind people. Now that there was an understanding between them, urgency was postponed. This new relationship must be confirmed as delicately and soberly as the creation of any work of art.

Finally Chee Laan said, ‘There is more to consider, besides us. Whoever was responsible for killing Fleischer and that other man, I feel one thing for sure. There will be more killing.’

Her composure took him aback. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Raven, there is too much going on I do not understand. I am worried for you. For Pim—and even for Salikaa.’

‘If the crash was sabotage, why do you say it and the robbery may not be connected?’

‘Because,’ she repeated gravely, ‘there is something strange going on. That boy they caught—I have seen him before…’

‘The one who tried to run the roadblock? The prisoner Sya was going to interrogate, God help him?’ Raven asked, shocked.

She nodded. ‘That was Tamsin, Salikaa’s bodyguard, one of Vichai’s men. He probably sabotaged that rally car while Fleischer and the other man were in the police post.’ She gave a fluttering sigh, almost a moan. ‘Two things I know for sure: if Tamsin did that, Salikaa is behind it. She ordered it, or maybe her stepfather Vichai did.’

‘And the other thing?’

‘Tamsin will never tell them anything. They’ll have to kill him, or he’ll kill himself. He will die, anyway. If he talks, Vichai will have him killed. If he does not, Sya Dam will.’

There seemed little to say to that, so Raven didn’t try. After a moment he felt Chee Laan’s small hand on his own. He took his hand off the wheel and gripped hers fiercely. ‘I only hope I haven’t dragged you into danger. Nothing had better happen to you, Chee Laan!’

‘Nothing will happen to me that I don’t want,’ she replied lightly. ‘Let’s go.’

He drove on, scowling at the wet road and the dancing rain, his mind a maelstrom, yet filled with a crazy joy.

‘I think,’ Chee Laan said after a while, ‘you will appreciate the qualities of my grandmother.’

Raven

It had been no mere courtesy invitation. The elegant formula concealed a peremptory summons.

At the heart of the house, I found the restrained grandeur of a widow’s retreat, cool and dark, shuttered against the glare of the midday sun, fragrant with jasmine and incense from the house shrine. When the formidable Lee matriarch stepped forward, smiling, to greet me, my first thought was that she was smaller than I remembered, more fragile. She extended her hand in a practised Western gesture of welcome. Behind her, in the gloom, I caught a movement; an aged woman scuttled forward, setting tea and mooncakes before us with excessive obsequiousness, all the while darting sidelong appraisal at me. Sunii Lee clicked her fingers impatiently. Sighing like a kettle, the old servant faded into the shadows, behind a screen. Her squinting scrutiny held a mute hostility; I thought I was learning to read the Asian countenance at last.

‘Doctor Raven.’ Sunii Lee gave each of the four syllables equal weight. Meticulously she poured pale tea in a thin stream. I was suddenly keenly aware of the strength, as well as the delicacy, of her hands and wrists. The notion that she intended me to feel her power was unsettling. ‘The Lee family has been fortunate, Dr Raven.’

‘Your family is spoken of everywhere with honour and respect, Madame Lee,’ I replied.

Her smile tightened in the barest acknowledgement of the conventional compliment. ‘Perhaps in some quarters. It was not always so.’

I raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘The Lee Empire has many facets,’ I offered courteously. ‘Hotels, bowling alleys, import and export, construction, a chain of stores, a fleet of buses—all testify to the industry and skill of the Lee Family.’ I allowed my voice to invite her confidence.

She nodded appreciatively. ‘I began, Dr Raven, what you flatteringly call an empire with one small shop selling organdie—what the young ladies today would call a boutique. But in my case, I worked not to while away idle hours, but out of necessity. Thirty years ago, I was not a bored little rich girl, but a woman alone, with a small son to support.’ She paused, staring into the middle distance, as though bygone days marched before her, marshalled for her inspection. ‘Then I had a stroke of good fortune. I won a major contract—to supply army uniforms. That was the turning point.’

Thirty years ago? My mind raced, calculating. ‘Uniforms? For whose army?’ I tried to keep my tone respectful, despite the speculation.

She studied me for a moment. Then, with a small intake of breath, like someone submitting to the sting of a syringe, she met the challenge: ‘Nippon. East-Ocean people. The Japanese.’

‘So you—a woman in a small way of business, dealing with organdie, of all things—won a major contract from the enemy occupying force?’

Again that pause, a weighted silence.

The answer came in a whisper. ‘I did. At—at considerable personal sacrifice.’ I nodded slowly, with new understanding. Repugnance fought with respect for the strength and expediency of this woman’s kind. She continued, her tone even and matter-of-fact. ‘The next step was a Ministry of Defence contract for handwoven uniforms. Later, we tendered for supply of cotton sarongs. This contract also we won. I have not been idle through the years, Dr Raven. Indeed, I have found hard work to be the cure for most ills—sickness, loneliness, despair.’

I set down the eggshell teacup and watched her. She nodded her head, acknowledging my interest.

‘Being a woman in such a business is not easy. Our sex is socially limited. Entertaining business contacts, most of whom are men, is difficult. Extremely so. Especially here.’ She gestured toward the city, an unseen, bustling presence, polluted and clamorous, beyond the high walls that shielded this quiet oasis, with its stone lions and flowering shrubs. Her narrow lips never quite covered her strong white teeth. Though softly modulated, her diction was staccato. It was as though she tested the value of each word with those impressive incisors. Her eyelids were almost closed, as though painted on by a fine calligraphy brush above the parchment cheeks, but she held me in her covert gaze.