Frogmouth (25 page)

In his ears, the pinging reached a crescendo and then stopped.

O'Yee, taking the headphones from his ears, in the faint wind through the deserted, silent street, listened.

He saw Lim's face.

He listened.

He heard no sound at all.

He
listened
.

She had killed them. All of them. In the cocoon, with her hand and wrist moving and tensing as she held the machete, she heard her mother call. "
Jakob!
"

She heard her call.

"Jakob—!"

She heard her call.

"JAK-OB!"

She heard her.

She saw her.

She heard her go in silence as she fell: she saw it in her mind.

"
JAKOB—!
"

He lay on the bed writing something.

He wrote a note.

She wrote a note.

What he was writing was what she had written.

"He thought he saw an Elephant—"

She wrote it. She stood beside her mother as the pencil she used wrote it on the back of the photograph. She saw her mother look up at her. She was not crying. She was writing all the lines of the poem and she was weeping.

"JAKOB!" She heard her call.

"JAKOB! JAKOB!"

She had killed everything. There was more. She had killed everything and still there was more and more and more—

"JAKOB!" She was weeping. Her mother was weeping with tears rolling down her face and in the kitchen where she wrote, she was shaking her head writing the words and weeping.

The machete, in the cocoon—in the room where the machine, over and over printed the single square of paper she had cut out from the newspaper over and over—the machete gleamed like an icicle.

He had looked at her once as he lay on the bed writing down what her mother had written, he had looked with his blind, unseeing eyes at the keys she had gotten from somewhere, and then—

Then she had killed him.

"Daisy . . ."

In the rain, holding the umbrella in the darkness, she had called softly. The iron bar and the machete were on the ground beside her.

"Daisy . . ."

In the cocoon, his rasping soft whisper called, "Daisy . . . " He knew all their names.

"Daisy . . ."

"Daisy . . ."

"
JAKOB!
"

In the cocoon, in the redness, in the factory, she waited.

"
JAKOB—!
"

There was no sound and no one knew she was there.

"Godown Street and Tung Kun Street?"

On the phone, Osgood, knowing now he would have to take what it was that had been left there in that awful apartment, said quickly, "Yes."

"What the hell's her bloody name?"

"She's fourteen years old!" Osgood said, "Mata! Her name is Mata—Mata Idris—the same as her poor bloody mother!" Osgood, shrieking, everything he had ever believed in—himself— gone, gone forever, yelled, "What else? What the fucking bloody goddamned hell
else
?"

She touched at the blade and felt its edge. In the redness, in the darkness, it glittered like ice. She touched at the gun and felt its weight.

In a photograph once, in it now, she smiled. The dog beside her by the chair, even though it was asleep, was wagging its tail.

It dreamed its dreams.

In the blackness of the unlit, boarded building, she dreamed hers.

"
Twenty-eight!
"

He heard it.

O'Yee, touching at his gun, put his shoulder a little to the closed corrugated iron door at the main entrance to the place.

The door gave. It was open.

O'Yee said to Lim with his hand wet with perspiration around the butt of his gun in its holster, "Wait here. You wait here."

He listened.

He heard it.

O'Yee, steeling himself, giving an order, said a moment before he pushed in the door and went in, "Wait here. Whatever happens, you—" He saw Lim's face.

O'Yee said with a sudden, inexplicable, urgent anger, "You!
You just wait here!
"

"G
et the shotgun out of your car and ride with me!" Outside the New China Apartments as Auden ran to his car, Feiffer ordered Spencer, "You two ride with me! You drive, Bill!" He saw Auden working the lock on the boot of his car. He saw him limping. Feiffer yelled, "Are you all right?" He saw Auden nod hard. Feiffer ordered him, "Move! Move!"

Spencer still had the photograph in his hand. He looked down at it. At the other car the shortened pump action 12 gauge was coming out. He saw Auden pull it free and cock it in a single motion. Spencer said urgently, "Harry—she's only fourteen years old!"

Feiffer ordered him, "Drive!" He saw Spencer's face. "It's not for her!" He ordered Auden, closing the boot, "Run!
Run!
"

All the windows and doors were boarded up. Only the main entrance seemed opened and it had two sheets of corrugated iron nailed onto it. At the old gasworks, O'Yee, putting his arm against it and pushing, felt it give. He listened. There was nothing, no sound. Through the inch he got the door open he could see only darkness. He had been shouting orders at Lim. He felt his mouth go dry. In the darkness there was nothing. O'Yee said quietly to Lim two feet behind him, "Wait here." There was nothing, no one around but them. He looked back up and down the street and saw only empty canyons and papers and rubbish blowing in eddies in the ground currents. It was not a two-story building, it was a building two stories high without a second-floor level. Inside it was a giant hangar. O'Yee, his arm still on the corrugated iron, kneading his fist, said again, "You wait here."

"Yes, sir."

O'Yee said again, "Wait here."

He heard Lim take a step backward.

O'Yee said—

There was nothing to say.

The door opened another inch as he pushed on it and he moved his fingers along the corrugated iron and got them around the edge of the door. It had resistance. Ten feet high, it balanced on two rusty hinges that made a grinding noise as they moved. He felt resistance. It was spring-loaded. There were two holes in the corrugated iron where there had been a padlock and chain.

The padlock and chain were no longer there.

O'Yee, swallowing, said—

Lim said quietly, "You can rely on me."

He pushed. The door gave a little more, grinding on its hinges.

He touched his free hand, he thought, to his gun in its shoulder holster. His hand only got as far as his shirt and flattened against his chest, rubbing it. His hand was wet. O'Yee said in a whisper, "Can you hear anything?" He could see, as the door opened, only darkness. There was the faint musty smell of ammonia and oil and disuse. O'Yee, feeling for the corner of the door, pushing, hearing the sound as the hinges moved, said so softly Lim had to strain to hear him, "Wait . . . wait here."

"Maybe there's nothing there."

"Yeah." He listened. In the hangar he could see only darkness. As the door opened it let in only a little more light. He saw shapes, shadows, machines. He smelled the smell of oil and ammonia and disuse. He wished he had a cigarette. O'Yee said to a question he thought Lim had asked, "Yes, yes, that'll be all right."

He listened.

He listened for twenty-eight.

He listened for anything.

There was nothing. There was only the darkness. O'Yee, pushing the door, nodding, said in a voice he could get no volume to, "Yes." He heard Lim come closer.

O'Yee, pushing hard on the door and feeling the pressure of it against his hand, getting it open a foot and sliding around it into the warehouse, said for the last time, holding Lim's eyes before he went in, "Yes. Yes, that'll be all right."

He went in. He seemed, instantly, to disappear.

The door, let free on its spring-loaded hinges a foot from where Lim stood with the metal detector on the ground beside him, closed with terrible finality, suddenly, without warning, with a bang.

On the car radio, Hurley said urgently, "He's there! He must be there! He hasn't rung back and I can't get in touch with him!" Hurley said, "It's the old gasworks on Godown Street and Tung Kun Street in North Point—"

"What the hell's he doing there?" In the back, reading the street map, Auden ordered Spencer, "Left! Turn left into Singapore Road, down Singapore Lane, then right into Temple Street and then—" Feiffer, grabbing hard on to the microphone as Spencer swung the car through the cross junction from Shanghai Street and accelerated down Singapore Road, demanded, "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm with the archives and history section!"

"The end of the street—the end of Temple's blocked off—" Spencer, changing down and making the engine roar, turning right back down to run parallel with Shanghai Street, shouted back to Auden behind him, "It's all blocked off! There are pylons in the middle of the road!"

He saw Feiffer turn to look at him or back out through the rear window. He tried not to look as if his legs still hurt. Auden, looking stoic, shouted, "He knocked down a wall at the station, boss!" He looked away down to his map. There were the marks of pylons everywhere. Auden, finding a clear street, shouted above the engine, "When you get to Shanghai, try to bear right and then come up again into Godown Street!"

"
What the hell do you mean he knocked down a wall?
"

The radio was breaking up into static. Feiffer, pressing hard on the "Send" button to try to clear the fast-breaking transmission, shouted to Hurley, "Who the hell are you? Why the hell is O'Yee there?"

"I can't get into Godown Street from there!" Ahead of him, Spencer could see only more pylons blocking the road. They were everywhere. The whole area was closed off. It was some sort of new development. Spencer, trying to be helpful, trying to catch Feiffer's eye as he turned again into a nameless side street and found himself back where he started, going again for Singapore Road, said to be part of the conversation, "Someone knocked down a wall in the basement too!" He could get nowhere. He was going in circles. Spencer, a moment before the transmission broke up into static and then cleared again, said in protest, "Phil, for God's sake,
read the map
!"

She became stone.

In the factory, in the darkness, in the silence and the faint smell of ammonia and oil and decay, she heard a sound and became stone.

She ceased to breathe or make any sound at all.

She listened. In the cocoon, unmoving, stone, she listened for a whisper, a rasp, a motion.

". . . Jakob . . ." Outside the cocoon there was no sound. She listened for a sound.

In her hand the machete was glittering against the redness, beginning to come alive. She was stone. There was no perspiration. Her hand, feeling the life surging through the wooden handle of the weapon like a tide, a current, was stone and did not move.

". . . Jakob . . ." He had looked up from the words he was writing and seen that it was her. For an instant the pale eyes had looked up at her and an expression had begun on his face. For an instant . . .

She felt the surge in the machete turn into life. She felt it begin to grow.

". . . Jakob . . ." She smiled in the photograph.

She had smiled when she had killed him.

She heard him rasp.

She heard him whisper. She heard him. She heard him move across the stone floor of the factory in the darkness. She heard his shoes grate on something hard. She heard him stop. She heard him draw a breath.

". . . Jakob . . ."

He heard it. It was a whisper, a rasp. He heard it.

". . . twenty-eight . . ."

O'Yee said softly, "Oh my God—!"

He listened, unmoving in the darkness.

". . . twen-ty-
eight
!"

It was a whisper, a rasp. It was barely there.

She listened. She heard him move.

He heard it. Something moved, someone. O'Yee, his mouth dry and like sandpaper, said in a rasp, "Hullo? Are you there?"

He listened.

She heard him.

He was against some sort of wooden packing crate or machine. In the darkness he could only feel it with his outstretched hand. O'Yee, inching his way along whatever it was, in total, pitch black darkness, smelling the smell of oil and dust and ammonia, said in a whisper, a rasp, "I'm here . . . I'm over here . . ."

On the phone to St. Paul de Chartres hospital, Detective Chief Inspector Osgood said in a gasp, "Oh, my God!"

She was gone. She had been gone a week.

On the phone, shouting, Detective Chief Inspector Osgood, the phone electric in his hand, out of control, shrieked back down the line to the psychiatrist registrar, "I know how bloody old she is! She's fourteen years old! You should have told us as well as goddamned Juvenile!" They shouldn't. They should have done exactly what they had done.

They knew it. They knew it better than he did. Osgood, because he could think of nothing else to say, because, somehow, for some reason everything he had ever thought had all gone for nothing, said, "In the name of all that's goddamned holy, for Christ's sake, both her goddamned parents are bloody
dead
!"

"Left!" On the street map, between Shanghai Street and Godown Street he found an opening where there were no pylons. In the back of the car, Auden, tracing it with his finger, ordered Spencer, "Turn left into there—into Cheong Street—into that lane!" The radio was gone, shrieking static. Auden, being thrown against the loaded shotgun propped up on the floor and wincing as the barrel cracked against his left knee, ordered Spencer, "There! That lane there! It goes straight into Temple Street." The lane looked barely wide enough. He sensed Spencer hesitate.

Auden, rubbing at his knee, trying to avoid Feiffer's eyes in the rearview mirror, yelled as an order as the car did a ninety-degree turn in the middle of the street, "Down there! Don't stop! Straight down there and then right!"

"
Mr. O'Yee!
" He could not get the corrugated iron doors open. He could not get his fingers around the opening to pull. The doors were shut, locked. Lim, starting to pound on them with his fists, looking up and down the facade of the building for another way in, starting to panic, yelled, "O'Yee! Mr. O'Yee! I can't hear anything!" He was shouting in Cantonese.