INCARNATION (52 page)

‘And get away.’ Barry did not let so much as a hint of a question enter his voice.

‘Yes. We give the word “Go” and get the fuck out.’

‘Or perhaps we get the fuck out and then tell them they can go in.’

‘If circumstances permit, that might be an option.’

‘Not unless ...'

Peter looked round.

‘Unless what, Dai?’

‘Unless they plan on using nukes themselves.’

‘Nukes?’

‘That’s what I said, boyo. Nuclear fucking missiles. They’d be bloody fools not to.’

O
ne moment, there was only desert, the next an expanse of golden trees running away as far as the eye could see. A light breeze had come up suddenly that morning, and even before he stumbled on the trees, David heard their leaves rustling, as though he had fallen on a hive of bees or a colony of larks.

‘Nabila!’ he called. ‘Darling, come here quickly.’

She hurried up the side of the dune and stared down with him at the little forest below. Bright yellow leaves fluttered along a sand-pressed valley, waiting for birds that never came.

‘Let’s go down,’ she shouted. ‘Oh, let’s go down.’

Next minute she had vanished in a storm of sand and whirling limbs, tearing off her head-covering, leaping like a small gazelle through the hot air. David smiled and followed more slowly, bringing the camels with him. He knew there would be water for them, not far beneath the surface, for it was obvious that the trees must be growing along an old river valley, and that water must still be coming down from the mountains in the north.

‘What sort of trees are they?’ he asked.

‘I’ve no idea. I’ve never seen anything quite like them before.’

‘They’re a bit like a gingko, don’t you think?’

‘Could be. Why do you think the leaves are yellow? It’s only August.’

‘Climate change. The nights are colder than they should be.’

She went up to one of the trees and stroked its trunk. The bark was a pale burnt colour, striated with light blue, and hard to the touch. Nabila found a crack and forced her nail inside, pulling back a tiny section of bark. She bent and sniffed hard at the spot she’d uncovered.

‘David, come and smell this.’

He bent down beside her and sniffed. A faint, resinous smell filled his nostrils briefly, then something else, a fleeting, jasmine-like odour that haunted him for days afterwards.

Leaving the camels tethered, they walked through the little forest hand in hand. Underfoot lay a carpet of soft mulch, set down over who could say how many centuries by the drop of leaves in autumn.

Once, Nabila looked up and saw a white butterfly flitting between the trees. Moments after it had vanished, she caught another movement to her left. When she turned, she found herself staring straight into the startled gaze of a young gazelle. Its huge green eyes were fixed on her in astonishment. She stood stock still and whispered to David to do the same.

‘This can’t be happening,’ David said, unable to see how such a creature could live in the heart of such a vast wilderness.

‘I’ve heard of them appearing further south, near the desert’s edge. No one knows how they survive, but they do. We must be the only other living things this poor creature’s seen.’

‘Or is ever likely to see. Except perhaps for a lady gazelle. Provided they use the same dating agency.’

Whether at the thought of coming face to face with a member of the opposite sex, or the realization that he was already seriously outnumbered, the gazelle took fright and skipped off through the trees. Nabila laughed.

‘What’s a dating agency?’ she asked.

‘You don’t want to know,’ he said, then told her.

‘We have dating agencies too,’ she said. ‘We call them mothers.’

‘Would they have matched us, do you think?’

‘Not in a million years. You’re far too ugly for one thing. For another, you aren’t a Muslim. That’s a big problem. And you like sex too much.’

‘I don’t think I can take the blame for that. The sex is all your fault. Those big eyes, those curves, those legs … No man’s safe.’

‘Those are very sexist remarks. Even in Sinkiang.’

‘This isn’t Sinkiang. This is the Taklamakan. At least I have you all to myself out here.’

‘Let’s make love here,’ she said. ‘Beneath the trees.’

‘Now?’

She nodded and started to undress.

‘What if somebody comes along?’ he asked.

‘We’ll just have to be polite and ask them to look the other way.’

She lay down on the soft earth and watched the sun filter its way through the high branches, its heat broken, its glare fragmented into a million shards of light. Then David was beside her. She pulled him to her, blotting out the sunlight with his body, blotting out the past and the future.

Afterwards, they lay together in silence broken only by the sound of the leaves high above their heads. The sun moved down across the sky, forming an intricate shadow play across the ground and over the surface of their skin.

‘There are people watching us,’ whispered Nabila.

‘Well, they’ll just have to be polite,’ laughed David.

‘No, not like that,’ she said. ‘I can hear voices all round us. Can’t you?’

David looked round. A faint chill passed across his skin. He could see no one and hear no one.

‘It’s just the leaves,’ he said.

She shook her head.

‘No, it’s not that. I think they were here before, centuries ago. Maybe they came out here from one of your cities.’

‘Ghosts?’

‘No. I don’t really believe in ghosts. Presences, perhaps. Memories.’

He pulled her to him tightly. Their bodies fitted so perfectly together, it seemed like another form of magic. He had too many presences of his own, too many memories.

‘Will you marry me?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know.’

'Why not? Don’t you love me?’

‘I love you more than you guess. But it’s not that simple. I have to ask my father’s permission.’

‘But surely …’

‘It would break his heart if I did anything else. I can’t be responsible for that.’

‘Is there any reason he shouldn’t give his blessing?’

‘You’re not a Muslim. A Muslim man can marry a Christian or a Jew. But not the other way.’

'Then I’ll become a Muslim.’

She looked at his face, so close it was almost blurred.

‘Be careful, David. That could prove a very dangerous thing. Islam is like the Taklamakan: you can get in, but you can’t get out again.’

They spent the night in the forest. David dug a well at random, and found water six feet down. It was cold and fresher than any water they’d uncovered in the desert before this. The camels drank it down greedily, luxuriating in the coolness. David thought it might have been the best water they’d ever had in their lives.

That night they camped on the edge of the forest, afraid to light a fire beneath the trees. David brought out his map and spread it on the floor of the tent.

‘I’ve just taken fresh coordinates,’ he said. ‘Going by my earlier calculations, this forest should be slap on top of this river valley.’

He stabbed his finger at a meandering line that indicated a river and bore the name Hsiao Shui: ‘Little River’.

‘It’s possible,’ Nabila said. ‘But what about one of these others?’ She pointed to another three lines coming down from the mountains into the desert.

‘Maybe. But comparing old Zhang’s map with the modern one, I’m reasonably certain this is it. It fits better than the others. Now, if we head due east we should hit this ...‘ He pointed to a square surmounted by a triangle. Beside it small red characters read ‘The Old Tombs’.

‘Anything strike you as odd about these tombs?’ he asked.

‘They’re … not attached to any of the cities. Yes, that is strange - they’re miles from anywhere. Who would want to bury their dead all that distance away? I mean, they’re not exactly within visiting distance, are they?’

‘I have a feeling that ...’

‘Yes?’

'Well, that whoever built the tombs was afraid of ghosts. Maybe they thought it would be enough to keep unwelcome visitors at bay if they just buried their bodies a couple of days’ journey away.’

‘You think that’s who my ghosts are?’

‘Here? No, I doubt that. Your ghosts belong to you. But there may be another explanation for the position of the tombs. Look.’

He pointed to a small circle without characters.

‘He’s indicated the location of a city, but he hasn’t given it a name. Instead, he’s written “He who enters will die.” I don’t know what that means. But I’m ninety per cent sure this is Karakhoto. The Black City.’

H
e took her for a walk twice a day, down by the loch. He taught her its name, Loch Monar, and the names of the forests that hemmed it in from three sides, Monar, and Strathconon, and Glencannich, and the names of the two highest mountains to the north and south, Sgurr a’Chaorachain and Sgurr na Lapaich. In truth, he didn’t know a word of Gaelic, but his accent made the names sound believable to her, and set a presence on the strange landscape.

The walks were Maddie’s idea. Calum didn’t really want to know, but he went with her to keep her placid and in sight. The thought of long walks in the fresh air made him feel distinctly uneasy. It wasn’t that he was a stranger to physical exercise: in his days in the Parachute Regiment he’d gone on more long hikes than a Stuart tartan. It was just that he thought he’d left all that behind him, and now here was a girl with green eyes drawing him back to it again.

He pretended to himself that the walks were really an excuse to get away from the house, where daytime television competed with Auntie Charlene’s record collection as the sole distraction from mind-numbing tedium. Charlene’s taste in music was appalling enough to drive anyone outdoors: twenty or more Smurf s’ albums, enough Tom Jones ballads to drive Glasgow insane, and every cover version ever made of "Jolene". It was an excuse, of course, and a good one, and he made what he could of it.

Maddie loved the walks. He was giving her less of the drug now, keeping her malleable but awake. She knew she needed him now, knew he held the only supply in heather-covered miles of what she craved. That didn’t worry her for the moment: Calum was always ready and willing to dole it out as necessary.

After a while, he started enjoying the walks for their own sake. It wasn’t that he was falling in love with her - he’d never have done a thing like that, it wasn’t on his agenda. He had never really been with a woman like her before. From the age of thirteen, when he’d had his first sexual experience, his encounters with the opposite sex had been casual, his relationships strictly limited to short episodes of intercourse with few preliminaries and no afterthoughts whatever.

Maddie wasn’t like that. He could always have used force, of course, only he reckoned that might put her off him in the end. But he was finding her more and more attractive, not just physically, but - as one of his old girlfriends had once put it - "as a person". He’d catch her gazing out over the lake, or watching a butterfly, or holding her breath while a rabbit passed through the undergrowth, and he’d find himself unable to take his eyes away. Once, she’d caught him looking at her like that, and she’d smiled briefly, then gone back to whatever it was.

At night he gave her a slightly higher dose, to make sure she slept soundly. He didn’t want her sneaking off while he was in the land of Nod. She knew all about the ransom scheme now, and he didn’t want her having second thoughts or feelings of sympathy for her creep of a mother. Sometimes he’d come into the bedroom to watch her sleep. He’d unbutton her nightdress and put his hand on a soft breast and pretend they were lovers playing a game of sleepers and wakers. Or that she was a sleeping vampire whom he’d come to pacify.

He’d sorted out the trick of getting the money safely into his hands long before the police turned up. He didn’t doubt for a moment that Farrar had brought in Special Branch or whoever handled this sort of business the moment he’d set eyes on the original ransom note.

On his way up, he’d opened a bank account at a biggish branch of the Bank of Scotland in Stirling. The name he used was Anthony Farrar. If all went according to plan, Elizabeth would pay the ransom into that account (for which she’d be given just the number). In the meantime, Calum had obtained details of Elizabeth’s bank account from Maddie, and had found out the account number by ringing and asking what it was.

There was a branch of his own bank in Inverness. He’d already spoken with the manager at length, alerting him to the possibility that Stirling would shortly be transmitting substantial funds from his account there to Inverness, and that he would require payment in cash straight away. He had everything set up, and very proud he was of it. Now it was just a matter of making sure that Maddie’s nearest and dearest paid up in time. Otherwise he reckoned he’d have to rework Maddie’s face a bit.

‘How long can we stay here?’ Maddie asked. She was sitting beside Calum on a stretch of grass that ran down to the loch. It was utterly deserted. Nobody came to sail on the lake or hike past it. A cry for help would have been long drowned in the silence before it ever reached human ear.

‘Half an hour, likesays.’

‘Don’t be so stupid. I mean, do we have to leave once you get your dirty little mitts on Mummy’s loot, or can we stay on?’

‘Ah hadnae thought.’

Her face lit up.

‘Then let’s stay. If we go to some town or try to leave the country, they’ll find us a lot more quickly.’

‘Who said anything aboot “us”? Ah could plug ye full o’ bullets an’ drop ye in the loch, nae bother. Ah could be ootay here an’ on a plane tae Mexico wi’ the stash.’

‘Would you do that? Shoot me, I mean. Drop me in the lake.’

He got to his feet, troubled by her insistence. She’d got inside him, that was the trouble. He knew he’d shoot her or drown her if he had to - knife her most probably: there was a fair choice of blades in Charlene’s kitchen. No way was he going to let a bird stand between him and a cool million.

The truth was, he didn’t have a clue what to do with her. If he took her with him, they’d think he’d double-crossed them and that he’d be demanding yet more money within six months. No way they’d ease off then - he and the doll would be the most wanted pair in the country, like Bonnie and Clyde, their mugshots plastered over every post office from John o’Groats to Land’s End.