Necropath (35 page)

“One more thing!” Dr. Rao said before Vaughan cut the connection. “I was paid a visit earlier today by Tiger’s older sister.”

“Her sister... I didn’t know she had a sister.”

“As you might imagine, the girl was distraught at the news of Tiger’s passing. She is staying at the Ashoka Hotel, if you’re interested in being charitable and consoling her.”

Vaughan grunted something non-committal. He was tempted to tell Rao that he had more important things to do than console Tiger’s sister.

Rao went on, “I mentioned your name and told her that you were close to Tiger. I think she might appreciate a few words.”

“Yeah.” Vaughan nodded. “I’ll look in on her sometime. And I’ll see you tomorrow, Rao.” He cut the connection, forgot about Tiger’s sister and missions of consolation, and ordered another beer.

* * * *

TRUST ME

It was almost midday by the time Sukara emerged from sleep. She awoke suddenly, blinking at the dazzle of sunlight that fell into the bedroom. She heard Osborne moving around in the adjacent lounge, the vid-screen on and the volume turned low.

Then, the recollections of the day before rushed to fill the vacuum in her mind. Pakara was dead; she would never again see her little sister, never again share the silly games, the sisterly intimacy, with the person on the Earth she had known for the longest time.

Last night Osborne had held her until well past midnight, and then he had carried her to bed. His words had helped her, his sympathy easing the ache of her loss. Every confused and grief-stricken thought that entered her head, he had countered with gentle words of counsel—it seemed that he had gone to the very core of her being and soothed her pain with exactly the right response. She recalled the night they had met at the hotel in Bangkok, and how Osborne had held her, wanting only to look deep into her mind.

Sukara wondered about his strange infatuation with her mind. She might have understood him had his obsession been with her body, if he craved sex with her like another customer. But why his obsession with her mind? She was a simple, uneducated working girl from the country, who knew nothing of the world around her, and even had difficulty making sense of her own day-to-day experiences.

She climbed out of bed and padded into the bathroom. She saw herself in the full-length mirror beside the shower, and instead of averting her glance as she normally would, she confronted herself head on. She was ugly. Her facial injury, which she had not seen like this for a long, long time, was not just unsightly in itself—a raised ridge of purple scar-tissue running down the centre of her forehead, down the right side of her nose, and through both lips to the point of her chin—it also turned her nose to one side, and gave her lips a mismatched twist, as if they had been cut in half and then imperfectly re-joined.

As if this was not sufficient a burden to bear, she was short and squat, her skin a shade darker than what was considered the ideal. Fat Cheng had called her little Monkey—but little Ape would have been more appropriate.

Last night, lying in bed in his arms, it had occurred to her in a second of frightening awareness that Osborne knew her wholly and comprehensively, knew every last detail as to who and what she was, knew her every secret—and yet she knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about him.

She showered, washing the tears from her face beneath the jet of hot water. Then she stood beneath the drier, turning her body and avoiding the sight of it in the mirror. She returned to the bedroom and selected a dress, slipped it over her new silk underwear. When she examined herself in the mirror, tilting it so that the reflection showed only her body, she realised that the fancy dress made her look ridiculous, like a chimpanzee dressed up to mimic a girl. She pulled it off and dug a pair of shorts and a T-shirt from her backpack.

She moved to the window, sat on the cushioned seat, and stared out across the garden of the hotel. She considered what Dr. Rao had told her yesterday, about Pakara’s special friend, Vaughan. Perhaps later today she would take the train down to the Himachal sector and go to Nazruddin’s, where Rao had said Vaughan might be found. She wanted to know more about how her sister had died, reassure herself that Rao was telling the truth when he said that she had died in peace and without pain. Also, she was curious about the man called Vaughan. Pakara’s special friend, Rao had called him. She wondered if her curiosity did not contain just a tinge of jealousy that Pakara had had someone long before Sukara had found Osborne.

“You’re up, Su.” Osborne entered the bedroom, startling her. He came up behind her, held her shoulders, and kissed the crown of her head. Then he slipped his case from his pocket and inserted the pin into the back of his head. Sukara blushed with shame at her earlier thoughts.

He shook his head. “Su... trust me. I can’t tell you about myself. I... there are secrets, information, that my government—”

“I don’t want know government secrets!” she cried. “Just about you. Personal things. You tell me nothing!”

“The past... my past, I don’t like to talk about, Su. The memories are painful—can’t you understand that there are things that people can’t dwell on, much less tell other people, even those they love?”

“Why you love me! I ugly, no brain! Nothing!” She moved away from him and sat on the bed, staring through a blur of tears. “Why!”

He winced with the severity of her thoughts. “I love you because you’re you, Su. As simple as that. You can’t explain love; it’s something you can’t analyse. It just happens between people. You just feel it, and there’s no explanation.”

“I no understand.” She shook her head. “I understand nothing.”

He sat down beside her on the bed, stroked her cheek with his strong fingers. “Su, please listen to me. Last week, in Bangkok, I read your cerebral signature a hundred metres away. I read your mind, Su. Your purity, your goodness. You can’t begin to imagine what effect it had on me. You stood out from the evil and filth all around you. And I had to have that. I had to find you. I followed the signal of your mind all the way to the Siren Bar. And there you were...”

She looked up at him, saw the tears in his eyes. She recalled the night he had entered the bar, remembered the way he had looked at her, straight at her, as if he had been searching for her all along.

“Please, Su, don’t doubt the love I feel for you. Trust me, please. Just trust me.”

He kissed her gently, then withdrew his pin and returned it to its case. He moved to the next room, leaving Sukara feeling drained and empty. She stared at the pattern of the carpet, tried to work out if his words explained anything, if they made any sense.

What had been so terrible about his past that he could not speak about? She wished, then, that she could be made telepathic. She felt that that would make everything understandable. If only she could just look into his mind for ten seconds, as he looked into hers, and read the truth.

He returned to the bedroom, paused by the connecting door. “I’m going out for a few hours, Su. I’ll see you at five, okay? We’ll go out for a meal, I’ll show you the sights.”

He smiled and moved to the lounge, and seconds later she heard the door open and close as he left the suite.

She moved to the window and stared out. She would leave the hotel, catch the train south to Himachal, and seek out Pakara’s friend, Vaughan. It would be reassuring to talk to someone who had been close to her sister. She checked that she had dollars in the pockets of her shorts, and was about to leave the room when she saw Osborne. He was sitting at a table in the outdoor café on the lawn of the hotel, drinking something. She wondered why he hadn’t invited her to join him, and felt obscurely betrayed. It occurred to her that he didn’t want to be seen with her—then she told herself not to be so silly.

She would go down and buy a comic for the train ride south, then join him over breakfast. She left the room and took the elevator to the ground floor, bought a romance comic from a kiosk, and folded the plastic sheets into a square that fitted neatly into the back pocket of her shorts.

By the time she reached the café, Osborne was no longer there. She halted, forlorn, on the edge of the grass—then she saw him walking towards the hotel gates, and decided to follow him. Only when she reached the gates, and saw him merge with the crowd outside the train station, did she wonder if what she was doing was wise. How might he react to her turning up at his side, uninvited? She decided that she did not want to provoke his displeasure, or anger—and yet at the same time she was overcome with a sense of curiosity. He was trying to locate someone, a traitor to his country, but had been unwilling to tell her any more. She realised that she had no proof that this was his reason for being on the Station.

This area of the Station was not as heavily populated as the street outside Nazruddin’s, where she had felt claustrophobic in the press of humanity. The crowds here were no worse than in Bangkok. She moved along a wide boulevard, ignoring the cries and tugs of the street kids and keeping Osborne in her sights.

He was walking at medium pace in the shade of the trees that lined the street, the only Westerner in sight. Beggars approached him from time to time, then fell away as he snapped something at them. Sukara found it difficult to reconcile this severe
farang,
the very image of a high-powered businessman, with the kindly lover who had soothed her in her hour of need.

She watched him turn right, into a public garden, and seconds later reached the gates herself. The gravel paths that cut through the lawns and raised flowerbeds were relatively quiet, and she waited until Osborne was a couple of hundred metres distant before- she too entered the gardens. She didn’t want to get too close, in case he had inserted his pin and read her presence. She adopted a casual stroll, admiring the flowers and trees, from time to time looking ahead to ensure that he was still in sight.

She began to feel guilty at following him like this—there was no way she would be able to keep it secret, when he returned tonight and read her mind. She decided that she would join him, tell him that she wanted to be with him, which anyway was the truth. She was about to call his name and run after him, when she saw that he had stopped and was talking to a slim Thai woman.

She moved into the cover of a tree, watching him. His attitude seemed easy, even affable. Sukara felt sick. The woman was a working girl; she knew it from the way she confronted Osborne.

She prayed he would dismiss the prostitute, walk on.

Then Osborne reached out and touched the woman’s wrist, and the tableau seemed to freeze— or it might only have been Sukara’s shocked perceptions refusing to acknowledge that this was the same gesture of care and concern that he had used with her. Her heart banged in her chest and she wanted to scream at Osborne that she would never, ever trust him again.

The woman smiled at Osborne, gestured towards the park’s exit. They walked around the park, towards the gates. Sukara, a heavy sensation in her chest, followed at a distance. Osborne and the woman left the park and moved along the road, turning into a side street. Sukara hurried across the road, paused, and peered around the corner. The alley was packed with cheap hotels. Osborne and the whore were chatting away; they might have appeared, to a casual observer, to be lovers.

As Sukara watched, they paused outside the entrance of a run-down hotel, and then disappeared inside.