The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (23 page)

Most of the vets stood with their heads bowed, not wanting to meet her gaze and equally unwilling to look at the patients. Most of those lying in the beds were conscious and Lehman wondered how many understood English and whether or not they knew what Judy was saying about them. This was clearly part of the tour and he guessed that Judy had brought many groups to this ward before. There was something heartless about using the patients as an exhibit, something macabre and repulsive. Even Sister Agnes appeared to be embarrassed by the guide’s moralising. One of the near-skeletons coughed and a nun went over and sat on the edge of the bed and put a hand on a forehead and said soothing words in Vietnamese. Lehman couldn’t tell if the figure was a man or a woman.

There were two men in the ward, both in their late forties, one sleeping fitfully, the other half sitting, his back propped up against a pillow. His face was pinched and drawn, his eyes sunk so deep into his face that they were in deep shadow. His bedsheet had slipped down to his waist and the vets could see his ribs clearly etched through the blotchy, paper-thin skin.

He smiled at the Americans, and Sister Agnes took Lewis and Henderson over and introduced them.

“This is Mr Chau,” she said. “Mr Chau fought with the Americans. He speaks good English.”

Mr Chau’s smile grew wider, showing chipped and yellowed teeth, and he nodded a greeting to the two Americans. He coughed quietly, his chest making small, heaving movements. The coughing grew louder and he bent forward, cupping a hand under his bony chin and then red, frothy liquid trickled from between his lips. Sister Agnes darted forward with a cloth and dabbed at his face while the coughing spasm continued.

“Cancer of the lung,” she said to Lewis. “Very bad. Mr Chau’s wife already die. Cancer of the liver.”

“Christ,” said Lewis, under his breath.

The coughing fit tailed off and the nun used the now bloody cloth to clean Mr Chau’s hands. He smiled again and this time his teeth were red.

“Welcome to Vietnam,” he said slowly, enunciating each syllable as if he had not spoken English in a long time.

Lewis and Henderson looked at each other, not knowing what to say to the dying man.

“Thank you,” Lewis said eventually.

“Yeah. Thanks,” added Henderson.

Lewis took out his wallet and placed a twenty dollar note on the man’s bedside cabinet. Mr Chau thanked him, but made no attempt to pick up the money. Lewis knew that there was probably nothing the man could buy. He wanted to ask the nun how long he had to live, but didn’t want to ask in front of the man. And part of him didn’t want to know the answer to the question because it would remind him all too clearly of his own mortality. He remembered the conversation with the doctor back in Baltimore. Christ, it seemed years ago, almost as if it had happened to someone else, but the gnawing ache in his guts hadn’t gone away and he was finding it progressively harder to eat. It wasn’t that it hurt to eat, it was simply that he seemed to have lost his appetite. He looked at the living skeleton in the bed in front of him and wondered how long it would be until his own powerful body looked the same, the muscles wasted away to nothing, the skin hanging off the bones like melted wax. He promised himself for the millionth time that he would not allow himself to get to that stage, that he would take his own life long before he became helpless and bedridden.

Lewis wanted to give the man some medicine, anything to ease his pain or prolong his life, but he had nothing like that. He patted down his pockets and came up with a foil packet of disposable wipes which he’d taken from the hotel and a tube of sun-blocker. He put them next to the banknote, knowing that the two items were almost as useless as the money but wanting to give the man something none the less.

The children were the worst to look at. Two were little more than babies and Lehman wouldn’t have given much for their chances even in an intensive care unit in an American hospital. Lying naked on soiled sheets with nothing more than the prayers of the nuns and whatever drugs were at hand, he doubted that they would survive the week. One of the small ones was being cared for by a young girl who Lehman assumed was its mother, wiping its forehead with a damp towel. Another lay silently on its back, its head turned to the side, making almost no movement, only the occasional twitch of its feet showing that it was alive. Lehman stood by the baby’s bed and looked down. Two lines of blue stitches ran along its stomach forming an almost symmetrical cross. Someone had put large cotton mittens on the baby, obviously to stop it plucking at the stitches and injuring itself.

Sister Agnes appeared at Lehman’s shoulder. “This girl we call Jessica,” said the nun.

“Where is her mother?” Lehman asked.

“Mother must work. She know there is nothing more we can do for baby. She come every day, but now is the time she must work.”

“What happened?” Lehman asked.

“Her liver was outside her body when she was born. It grew much bigger than normal because it wasn’t inside. Mother used to live in North Vietnam. Much Agent Orange there.”

“What are her chances?”

The nun screwed up her face, not understanding what Lehman had said.

“Will she live?”

“The baby?” The nun crossed herself. “Please God, I hope she does. Our doctors did the best they could, and her defect was not as serious as many we see here.”

“You see worse?”

“Many are born dead, many die soon after they are born. Many women come from the North to have their babies in Saigon because they know they will get better care here.”

Lehman looked around the poorly equipped ward and shuddered at the thought of what it must be like in Hanoi.

“How could they?” said Janet Cummings, under her breath. “How could they do that to a little baby?” The rest of the group came over to the bed. “War shouldn’t be about killing babies.”

“It isn’t,” said Horvitz quietly, his eyes on the infant. “Sometimes they just get in the way. Innocent bystanders.”

“I can’t believe that it’s still happening now, all these years later,” said Speed.

“Believe it,” said Lewis, his voice loaded with bitterness.

“I think we’ve seen enough,” said Tyler at the back of the group. Speed and Henderson nodded in agreement and they moved out into the corridor. Lehman and Lewis were the last to walk down the stone staircase to the courtyard.

“I can’t work out what Judy’s up to,” said Lehman.

“In what way?” replied Lewis.

“It’s like she’s trying to rub our noses in all the bad stuff that happened, as if she wants to have us continually apologising for what America did. Yet the people we meet all seem so pleased to see us. It’s like she has a personal axe to grind. She’s obviously been vetted by the government, so they must know what she’s like. Maybe she’s even been told how to act. Maybe this is how the government wants us to be treated, like criminals returning to the scene of the crime.”

They took their places on the coach and sat in silence as they were driven back to the hotel. One image stuck firmly in Lehman’s mind, and that was of Eric Horvitz looking down at the baby with the stitches in its stomach. There was sorrow in Horvitz’s eyes, and pity. But there was something else, something that worried Lehman. He saw anger, a deep, burning anger, and he had felt that if Tyler hadn’t chosen that moment to suggest that they leave, then Horvitz would have lost control. The one thing that Lehman couldn’t work out was who or what his anger would be directed at.

Anne Fielding put her head under the shower and rinsed her hair in the hot, stinging stream of water. She lathered up the white bar of soap and bent down to wash her legs, rubbing the lather up and down her thighs and around her backside. She soaped her stomach and then washed her breasts, feeling her nipples harden as her fingers brushed against them. She didn’t wash her face with the soap, believing that it was bad for her complexion. Instead she let the water play across her closed eyes and her cheeks, enjoying the sensation. She put the soap back on its shelf and rinsed the suds off, turning slowly under the spray, raising her arms and lifting her legs one at a time.

The muscles in her legs and her right arm were already starting to ache. It was a healthy ache, a reflection of the effort she’d put into the tennis game. It was one of the last chances she’d get to partner Sally Remnick before she left Hong Kong for good and she wanted to make sure she played well. She’d run for every ball, hit her services a lot harder than normal, and damn near run herself into the ground, but they’d won, two sets to one. She turned the shower off and wrapped a fluffy pale green towel around her waist before leaving the cubicle.

Sally was still showering, as were the two women they’d beaten, Phyllis Kelley and Claire Pettier. She left the shower area and padded into the changing room, leaving behind a trail of wet footprints on the tiled floor. To the left were metal lockers and at the far end of the room was a waist-high shelf on which were hair-dryers, pretty boxes of tissues, and a selection of brushes and combs. Running along the wall above the shelf was a mirror and she walked over to it. She stood in front of it, her hands on her hips, and studied herself. She raised her chin slightly and turned her head from side to side. She had a good neck, almost no wrinkles, and the skin on her face was smooth and tight. As she turned her breasts swayed and she was pleased with the way they moved and that there were no signs of sagging or ugly veins. Her skin was in good shape too, there were no folds above the towel, no middle-aged spread like she saw on so many women of her age, no indication that she’d ever given birth. She’d worked so hard to keep her figure after Debbie’s birth, swimming every day, exercising in the gym, doing all she could to get back to her normal weight and avoid stretch marks. It had paid off.

“God, Anne, you’re so narcissistic,” said Sally Remnick as she came out of the shower room, a towel around her shoulders, another wrapped like a turban around her long, black hair.

“It’s not narcissism, it’s practical,” said Anne. “It’s like examining a car to see if it’s got any problems, mechanically or bodywise.”

“You’ve got a fabulous body,” said Sally.

“If you add ‘for your age’ I’ll kill you,” warned Anne with a smile. Their opponents came out of the shower room and Anne smiled at them. “Drinks upstairs?” she asked.

“Sounds good,” said Phyllis. Phyllis Kelley was about the same age as Anne, a tall, buxom redhead who was married to a British stockbroker. Their three children were at boarding school back in England and she had too much spare time on her hands. She played tennis at the Ladies’ Recreation Club every day and had a mean first serve. She was also a dedicated shopper and had accounts at most of the city’s top boutiques. Even her daily tennis and shopping sprees failed to dent the huge amount of free time she had, and it was no secret that she had had a succession of lovers. Phyllis and her second husband, Jonathan, had been married for almost fifteen years and little love remained. She told Anne time and time again that they only stayed together for the children’s sake, but that seemed curious in light of the fact that they were in England for nine months of the year. Anne thought that the Kelleys actually enjoyed their lifestyle: a safe, if dull, marriage, three beautiful children, a very healthy bank balance, and sexual adventures on the side. There were times when she half wished that she and William had come to a similar understanding.

“I can’t stay long,” said Claire. Claire Pettier was the youngest of the four, a brunette with a homely, round face and a figure which could be best described as chunky. Claire was an American and the only one of the group to have a job. She worked for a public relations company which had some of the biggest firms in Hong Kong on its client list. She was a workaholic, and tennis was about the only social life she had. She was in a perpetual rush, and Anne often envied Claire her sense of purpose and the fact that she hadn’t succumbed to what she had labelled the Expat Wives Syndrome. In Hong Kong you either worked, or you were married to someone who worked. And if you fell into the latter category, time was something to be filled, rather than used. Expat wives lived lives of pampered luxury with servants and chauffeurs at their beck and call, but they were often empty lives – trophies on the arms of their rich and successful husbands, or mothers to children they hardly saw. It was hardly surprising that so many followed the example of Phyllis Kelley and looked for fulfilment in other men’s beds. Anne was one of the few women she knew for sure who hadn’t had an affair. Not because she hadn’t wanted to, or because she hadn’t had the opportunity. Anne hadn’t strayed because she knew that Hong Kong was too small and incestuous a place to have an affair in secret, and that if she were ever discovered it would hurt her husband. Like Caesar’s wife, the wife of the chairman of the Kowloon and Canton Bank had to be above reproach.

Anne finished drying her hair and threw the second towel in the basket. She walked naked to her locker, conscious that Phyllis was watching her enviously.

She dressed slowly and carefully and then admired the Armani pale aqua silk suit, the jacket long and the skirt short, in the mirror.

“That’s gorgeous,” said Sally. “Is it new?”

“So new that William hasn’t even got the bill yet,” laughed Anne.

“I’m sure he won’t mind when he sees how good it looks on you.”

“Ha!” exploded Anne. “He hardly notices when I’m around, never mind what I’m wearing.” She added despondently, “He’s more interested in how his racehorses look.”