Hungry Ghosts (10 page)

Kat didn’t want the Englishman to perceive her as needy.

That was the last thing that either of them needed.

She took out her mirror again.

Still there
, she thought.
Hold onto that
.

Kat
raised the teacup to her lips, leaving on the rim a lipstick stain the colour of blood.

*       *       *       *       *

“A penny for your thoughts, Anna?”

Anna Holland stirred out of her reverie.

“Oh, Henry, I’m sorry. I was miles away.”

“I’m surprised you can daydream with all that drilling still going on outside.”

“Ha. I can daydream anywhere, anytime.”

Henry hovered uncertainly at her desk. He looked like he wanted to say something important, but then his shoulders dropped and he asked simply, “Would you like a cup of tea? I’m just going to get myself a coffee.”

“That would be nice, thank you. Camomile.”

“OK. Back in a jiffy.”

Anna watched Henry Browne’s gangling, tweed-clad frame disappear out of sight and sighed. She needed to pull herself together. She was brooding a lot on her relationship with David, and that wasn’t good. It was starting to affect her work.

But it wasn’t just David Braddock that was the cause of her concentration deficit. It was herself.

For the last couple of days she had been struggling with thoughts and feelings that she had long suppressed. Feelings about her dead sister, and about the man who had been responsible for that death; the man she loved almost against her will and certainly against her better judgment – Claire’s husband.

What sort of a person am I really?

The question bothered her, undermined her. And inside her head a small voice whispered to her.
You need to move on, Anna. He isn’t for you. This can never work. Never, never, never
.

With a conscious effort she turned her attention back to the
email and attachments from Philip Janus; his first draft of the opening chapters of
Dealing with the Devil
that he’d sent for an early critique. Philip’s excitement about his latest project was obvious and normally she would have caught his enthusiasm. But today …

“One camomile tea, as the lady ordered,” said Henry setting it down on her desk.

Anna nodded a ‘thank you’, but Henry showed no sign of leaving.

“Was there something else, Henry?” she asked.

“Well,” he replied, looking slightly embarrassed, “there was, actually. I was wondering, um – to celebrate your safe return – if you’d like to have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

Anna looked at him questioningly, “Dinner?”

“Erm, yes. Just dinner. I, um, thought it might be –”

“I’d love to,” she said
without hesitation.

“Really?” He looked
surprised and relieved. “You’d like to?”

“I’d love to.”

“Right,” he said. “OK. Excellent. Well, I’ll, um, sort out the details with you later.”

“Lovely. I’ll make arrangements for a
babysitter.”

Henry nodded and m
oved away quickly still nodding to himself, as if he were worried Anna might change her mind.

With resolve, Anna picked up her
cell phone from the desk and dropped it in her bag. She would not call David today, and maybe not tomorrow either. She needed to straighten a few things out before she spoke to him again.

She heard t
he voice in her head say,
Now you’re getting it
.

*       *       *       *       *

You’re going to get it
, said the voice in Tathip’s head.

The constable wandered down the main street of Chaweng in a daze. He moved along the pavement like a man in a trance, the noisy traffic and tourist hubbub around him
barely registering to his shocked senses.

You’re going to get it
.

A large, flamboyantly dressed Frenchman asked him for directions and he answered like an automaton, his conscious mind
scarcely aware of the conversation.

You’re going to get it
.

His throat was dry and his limbs shook. He felt unsteady on his legs, but could maintain his balance as long as he walked slowly. His eyes were glassy and his lips moved to the rhythm of some internal dialogue.
Tathip turned off into a side road and sat down on a concrete bollard. He was fearful he would pass out. He became aware of the sweat drenching his shirt and the clamminess of his palms.

He was afraid.

And he was alone.

His family had left for Surat Thani. He had seen them off, and he had wept after they had gone.
He had wept out of fear and loneliness.

He was alone.

You’re going to get it
.

He took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. A drumbeat began its pulse in his temples.

Bumibol Chaldrakun was coming.

He was coming to see
him
.

It was all Tathip could do to stop himself from urinating in his clothes, so great was his terror.

He didn’t know what to do. He knew he needed to be calm, but that was impossible without a drink and that was still some hours away.

I need to keep to my story
, he told himself.

That’s all I need to do. I need to keep to my story
.

And then the voice:
You’re going to get it
.

He leaned over and retched onto the ground. The vomit spattered his shoes.

Tathip took out his damp handkerchief again and wiped his mouth, but he couldn’t rid himself of the taste of sourness.

A wave of dizziness surged through his head and it was all he could do to stop himself from
losing consciousness.

He was unaware of the curious eyes of passers-by. He was unaware of anything but his own mounting terror. Tathip’s fevered imagination conjured up the demon of Preechap Chaldrakun, a frightful spectre feasting on his innards.
Preechap’s brother was coming for him, even as his former partner’s hungry ghost was reaching for him from beyond the portal of death.

Who could he call?

Should he call Braddock?

And say what?

You’re going to get it
.

And say what?

Why would Braddock aid him anyway?

Why would anyone aid him?

He sensed the black shadow of karma looming over him.

I’m coming for you Tathip
, said a voice.

“Buddha help me,” he cried out.

*       *       *       *       *

Geordie Sinclair was not impressed at the policeman puking on the street outside
of his Smiley Cars office, but he wasn’t about to let it ruin his day.

He was feeling upbeat after his evening at
Bophut Jazz.

He still had to put himself in the right frame of mind and to rehearse his speech before he called Wayan to ask her out, but he sensed that good fortune was moving in his direction, even if
reluctantly.

Business was good. His son was doing well at school and seemed happy. His ancient maid had commented that very morning that he was looking handsome and ten years younger.

He
felt
ten years younger.

He’d put on a
Dire Straits CD in the car on his way to work, and listened to ‘Sultans of Swing’ five times, warbling along and not caring that he was out of tune or that he didn’t know all the words. Next thing, he’d be singing in the shower.

Maybe soon he’d be singing in the shower with Wayan.

Now
there
was a happy thought.

*       *       *       *       *

Wayan Lastri busied herself in the kitchen, glancing out of the window from time to time at the garden’s luminescent tropical greenery and the incense sticks she had set burning in the gold and red
san phra phum
, or spirit-house. It gave her a feeling of connection to her native Bali.

In the last two months she had begun to feel unsettled with her existence on Koh Samui. The reason for this was not altogether clear to her but she felt it had something to do with the two men who figured most prominently in her life. The dull ache in her breast was not homesickness, but more a sense of insecurity
; an awareness that a particular phase of her life was coming to an end and a yawning chasm of uncertainty was opening up before her.

She pushed back a stray strand of black hair which had fallen over her eyes and sighed quietly.

She could hear David Braddock, her employer, moving around upstairs.
Her employer
. That’s what he was.
Mr. David
.

A few years before, when he had moved to Thailand after his wife Claire’s death, and had asked her to keep house for him, she had agreed without a second thought. With her mother’s passing, there was nothing to keep her in Bali, and she had known David and Claire for a long time and trusted them.

David
.

Wayan couldn’t bring herself to call him by his Christian name, although he had tried to get her to do so. It didn’t feel right. They lived together in the same house, but she had always been careful to avoid over-familiarity. In truth there was a part of her that yearned for something more, but the affection she held for him was tempered with
respect and the knowledge that he had not recovered from his wife’s death, even now.

She had seen David Braddock in
his low moments; times when memories of his dead wife overwhelmed him. On those occasions she would hold him – that was permitted then. A brain fever would grip him, and she would help him to his bed and lie with him until sleep came.

But that closeness would be followed the next day by awkwardness, and her true role in the household would reassert itself.

She was sure he was fond of her. That much was obvious in his everyday kindness and concern for her well being. But she didn’t know how far that affection extended and she has no desire to test its limits: it was dangerous ground.

Furthermore she wasn’t
entirely sure of her own feelings, and had thought it best not to dwell on them too deeply.

Wayan knew, or at least strongly suspected, that David was seeing other women, although he had never brought a woman to the house. She knew he was close to his sister-in-law Anna, and she knew through her friendship with Da (and recently with Jingjai) that he flirted with lady clients in the office and sometimes saw them after hours. But he didn’t seem to be looking for someone ‘special’ to have in his life.

On the other hand, he showed no signs either that he might want
her
as the special lady in his life.
But why would he?
She was a largely-uneducated village girl from Bali whose youthful looks – she reflected ruefully – were beginning to fade.

And lately David had been encouraging her friendship with Kenneth Sinclair, the Englishman who owned
Smiley Cars and whose son Wayan had befriended. At least … she thought he was encouraging this friendship, but there were times when Wayan was not so sure. Times when David would make a chance remark or use a certain tone of voice that suggested perhaps he didn’t want things to develop too far yet stopped short of active discouragement.

Wayan gazed out of the window at the incense smoke dancing gently in the breeze.

Kenneth Sinclair was a kind man, and one who had suffered. If he wanted to, he could offer her a comfortable life, one filled with affection.

Wayan was sure that he wanted to, and at some point he would overcome his shyness and step forward. She was not experienced in the way of love but she was not incapable of reading the signs of it either.

She had seen those signs in a man she had loved many years before; a Westerner visiting Bali. But that was a heart-breaking lifetime ago …

She shook her head.

“Are you OK, Wayan?”

The voice made her start.

“Oh, yes, Mr. David, I’m fine,” she replied flustered. “I did not hear you come downstairs.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Braddock looked at her closely.

“Are you sure you’re OK, Wayan? You look a bit … sad. You were miles away.”

“I’m fine, really, Mr. David. I was just thinking. Can I get you anything?”

‘Maybe just a cold drink in the
sala
?”