The White Amah (31 page)

For the first time Joe felt a flicker of respect for the younger son he’d always thought was gutless. He wouldn’t have put it past Pau to have murdered Rubiah. After all, it wasn’t unknown for ambitious concubines to be killed by ruthless sons protecting their inheritance. In the same situation, he wouldn’t have hesitated. But Clarence was a different kettle of fish.

‘You didn’t need to kill her. The necklace was nothing more than a parting gift,’ he said more mildly.

‘That’s not what she said. She said you were going to divorce mother and marry her.’

‘It doesn’t do to reveal your hand too early, particularly when your opponent’s a woman.’ Joe winked. ‘Wah, tiger father begets tiger son. Maybe there’s a place for you in the organisation after all – that’s if we can keep you out of jail, lah.’

Madam Ling wiped her eyes. ‘What are we going to do about Mei Li? She knows everything.’

‘We have to make sure that no one connects her disappearance with us.’

‘David phoned earlier to ask me where I dropped Mei Li off,’ said Clarence, ‘and I told him the last I saw of her was when she was getting into a taxi with her mother.’

‘Did he buy it?’ asked Joe.

‘Yeah, he’s frantically trying to track them down. But no one’s seen Tuff since she was released. He said it’s like she’s disappeared into thin air.’

‘The cops will think that’s very suspicious. It takes the heat
off us if they’re looking for her mother, but she’s going to dispute your story when they find her.’

Joe was worried. He ran his hands through his hair, hoping his feeble son would be able to keep to his story under pressure.

But Joe had nothing to fear. Benny Allan had been waiting for Tuff outside the prison in his red Ferrari and they headed straight for the Chunnel. He’d convinced Tuff to hide out for a few weeks until she got back in shape. ‘Imagine the hullabaloo when you completely vanish. The media will go wild when you surface lithe and lean, my lovely.’

‘Are you sure this place is really remote? I don’t want to be snapped by any predatory photographers until I’ve lost ten kilos.’ Tuff was dismayed by the weight she’d gained without a personal trainer in charge of her diet and exercise regime.

‘It couldn’t be further off the beaten track. I bought a derelict farmhouse in an abandoned village in Andalusia five years back. It’s in need of total renovation, Ducky, but I can guarantee we won’t be disturbed, no matter what we get up to.’

‘Hello, you’re
gay.’

‘Don’t be fooled by appearances.’ and Benny guided her hand to the bulge in his skin-tight jeans.

‘Oh my god,’ groaned Tuff, rolling her eyes in mock horror and snuggling closer.

Joe looked at his Rolex. It was still two hours short of midnight. Tan would be at the casino where he hung out most nights and Joe knew he would have to call on his services. He was furious at having to ask a favour from his new partner, and he glared at his wife and younger son, who were huddled in a corner whispering.
By the time he had phoned the Triad boss and arranged for Mei Li to be smuggled out of the country, Pau had arrived at the

flat.

‘Tan will send round his men tomorrow to pack the goods we’re shipping back home,’ Joe told his sons.

‘But how can you be sure she won’t talk when we get her back to Miri?’ Clarence still felt troubled. Mei Li was resourceful and it was his head on the chopping block. Joe knew it was too dangerous to take her back to Borneo, even if he cut out her tongue. ‘What makes you think she’s even coming back with us?’

‘I bet she’s off to Saudi as a sex slave,’ guessed Pau, and he laughed, pleased to settle an old score with David.

‘Got it in one,’ his father replied, the lie coming easily. He had something else in mind but he didn’t mention the gang’s lucrative trade in body parts. He’d ease his sons into the business bit by bit. He smiled to himself at the unintentional pun.

‘I wish there was some other way.’

‘Stay out of the kitchen if you can’t take the heat, Clarence,’ and Joe glowered at his weak younger son in disgust.

M
EI
L
I OPENED HER EYES TO DARKNESS
– deep, dark and impenetrable. The dampness of the hard flagstone floor soaked into her clothes, chilling her skin and creeping into her bones. Her body felt numb from lying in one spot for too long. She listened to silence overlaid with the sound of her own rapid breathing. A violent spasm shook her and she curled up on the floor, her arms wrapped tightly around her shaking body. Never had she felt so lost and frightened. Fear like a dense, deep fog wrapped round her, intensifying her despair .She knew nobody would be able to find her. She was going to die in this cellar, in the dark … alone. Oh Grandma, she whispered, where are you? I’m scared. I don’t want to die.

But Mei Li was descended from a line of courageous, resourceful women. Her decision to live seemed to calm her: her heart rate steadied and the pounding in her ears subsided. She struggled to stand, but the shooting pains in her legs were too painful. Her legs buckled under and she sank to her knees. Gritting her teeth, she crawled blindly over the uneven flags until she bumped her head against a brick wall. Ignoring the pain, she used the wall for leverage and raised herself up, leaning her head against the rough wall as blood flowed like burning needles into her numb feet and legs.

Four painful sidesteps to the right took her to the door. Sliding her hands up, down and across the rough wooden surface,
she found the doorknob. Her hand curled round the knob and she turned it. She swallowed a sob. Stupid to get upset, she told herself. She knew it would be locked. Think! she told herself. Maybe there was a light switch. She was rewarded when her probing fingers felt the smooth surface of the Bakelite wall plate. She let out a laugh that ended on a sob and pressed the switch down.

The bulb flickered on and off, on and off, and the brief, jerky flashes of light revealed a poky junk room. For years the disused coalhole had been used as a store for generations of trash: a wooden ladder was leaning against a heavy Victorian sideboard; a rusty obsolete mangle was wedged up against an old rocking horse; old-fashioned furniture and broken toys were piled up high against the brick walls on all sides of the room. There were all sorts of things that just seemed to have been thrown into the room. Tins and boxes full of forsaken odds and ends had been stacked on top of broken furniture and crates.

There was no other way out. Mei Li stared around the room at walls bare of window or another door. It would have been so easy to throw herself down on the tired old couch and sob her heart out.

Never!
she vowed to herself. She was a Dayak and Dayaks were warriors. If she had to, she would fight her way out. She looked round for something she could use as a weapon.

A collection of old tools was heaped up against the wall. She moved a rake and the whole lot clattered to the ground with a resounding clang. Under the jumble she saw the blade of a coal shovel glittering in the flickering light. The rusty, short-handled spade, used to fill the scuttles with coal to heat the household, had lain forgotten for over sixty years. She grasped
it, felt its solid weight with satisfaction. She gripped it tightly, brought it back across her body and tried a practice swing. All it would take was one good blow. Now there was nothing else to do but wait. She lay down on the couch, facing the door, prepared. With a weak splutter the naked bulb fizzled out and the cell was once more shrouded in darkness. After the short respite, incarceration in the pitch-black cellar seemed twice as bad and Mei Li finally broke down and bawled.

Always, in times of trouble, Lada had sent her spirit to guide Mei Li. Why now, when she needed her counsel as never before, had she abandoned her? There was only one thing to be done, Mei Li decided. Her own spirit would have to seek out her grandmother. It was a perilous undertaking and the consequences were dire. Unsanctioned travel was prohibited and punishable by divine law.

Mei Li knew that the gift of metaphysical travel was only bestowed on exceptional women. Women who defied the spirits and attempted to travel without first winning the approval of the spirits fell into
layu,
a state of lifelessness. Mei Li feared
layu
as much as the next woman. She knew you never recovered and death was the only release. But her need was great, greater than her fear of breaking the taboo.

Mei Li stared off into the distance, focusing on her grandmother. Pictures formed in her mind as she hummed a soft, wordless melody. She saw again the long, low wooden house on stilts in a leafy clearing at the edge of the jungle; welcoming; rich with the sweet spicy aroma of shared feasts; resounding with the swelling, untamed symphony, with every insect, bird, reptile and animal playing out its heart. In that house she knew there would be a tiny, formidable old woman with wise eyes and a
brown leathery face weaving an intricate pattern she’d learned in a dream.

Mei Li’s own song burst from her lips and she chanted it passionately, like an anthem:

‘The vast river captures me,

The current like white water over rocks spurs me on.

I mount the riding moon.

The starry sky lights my way.’

The air was redolent with the intoxicating scent of the jungle, the sweet, spicy, pungent aroma of home. Rising from the couch, Mei Li gazed down for a moment at her frozen sheath. Set free, she soared toward the hidden shore.

Dawn on the Pangup, and the early-morning mist was just clearing. In a sandy cove where dazzling white sand blinded the eye like sunlit snow, Dayak women, their hand-woven sarongs clinging to their wet bodies, scrubbed their clothes with smooth river rocks while their naked children splashed in the shallows. Mei Li looked about in wonder. How could she have forgotten the peaceful pleasures of home?

Rounding a bend in the river, by the edge of a mangrove swamp where the morning mist was still lingering, she saw Lada sitting cross-legged under a casuarina tree and staring into the distance. Immediately she began to paddle faster, desperate to reach the one person in her life who had never let her down, the wise woman who would tell her what she should do. Straining every muscle, she paddled swiftly through a sudden tropical storm as arrowheads of rain like stinging poisoned needles from thousands of warriors’ blowpipes pierced her bare arms and face.

Huge waves broke over the tiny canoe. The strong current was pushing her back, and although she paddled harder and harder her grandmother seemed to be moving further and further away. Mei Li knew she had to act quickly or it would be too late; the water was rising and the gathering mist was fast obscuring the tiny figure on the distant riverbank.

Standing precariously in the rocking boat, she shouted over the din of the raging torrent, ‘Oh Grandma, help me.’

‘This time you have to weather the storm under your own strength, Little Lotus.’

‘But I’m locked in a dungeon,’ screamed Mei Li, hoping her grandmother would hear her cry over the rumbling thunder.

Flash lightning lit up the sky. For a few mystical moments a haloed figure shimmered with a brilliant radiance before swirling mist, as thick as smoke, concealed the shining vision – but not the far-off response. The gusty vibrations whispered on the winnowing wind: ‘Look for another way out. Look, look!’

Mei Li looked towards the shrouded shore. What had been vibrant and intense moments ago now seemed vague and filmy. She felt disorientated and very confused. What would happen if she got stuck in the astral plane and wasn’t able to return to her physical body? Would she be forever trapped twixt the Land of the Living and the River of the Dead, a homeless entity, belonging nowhere?

There was a flash. She dipped to avoid the bolt, and landed with a jolt in her empty body.

‘K
EEP THE CHANGE,’ SAID
D
AVID WITH A FROWN.
He didn’t have time to wait while the cabbie searched through his wallet. All he was interested in was finding out if there’d been any fresh information about Mei Li’.

‘Thanks, guv,’ said the taxi driver with a pleased grin. ‘I’ll be back at eleven-thirty on the dot.’ He pulled out in front of a removal van and headed back to the city.

David stepped to the side to allow the removalists to pass by him. They were struggling with a pine packing case, which they humped into the van. He watched them for a moment and then strode up the cobbled path.

Madame Ling answered the door, quite unlike herself still in her dressing gown at ten in the morning.

‘Oh, David,’ she said, looking flustered. ‘You find us in chaos. As you know, we’re going home tomorrow and the packers are here. Mr Soames, the gentleman we rented the flat from, offered to let us buy any of the furniture we liked and, well, there are quite a few nice pieces. But that’s not why you’re here. Is there any news of Mei Li?’

He shook his head. ‘No. I would like to speak with Clarence if he’s home.’

‘Of course, David, but I don’t think he can tell you any more than what he said last night. Please have a seat and I’ll see if I
can find him, and then I’ll organise some tea for us. Adele’s gone shopping with the maid. She wanted to buy some last-minute presents for her little friends at home and that’s the reason you find me answering the door and running my own errands.’ Nervously, she tightened the sash of her dressing gown and reknotted it, thankful she’d had the foresight to make sure Adele was out of the house. Relying on her daughter to confirm her brother’s story was precarious as a pile of eggs.