I pushed the mouthpiece of the baby’s drinking cup between Aja’s lips and tipped. ‘It’s just water,’ I promised. Although, why she should believe anything I said was a moot point.
She swallowed, gulping the contents down. I knew the drugs would have made a sandpit of her mouth. Her head would be thumping, too. As she drank, her eyes widened and narrowed, trying to put me into focus.
I wondered what she was seeing. The devil, I hoped.
I stepped away and she spoke, but it was long and incoherent. ‘English,’ I said.
She tried English, but it wasn’t much clearer. I sat back down on the wall and waited a few minutes.
‘Whatthefuckyoudoin’?’
I got that.
I took a breath. Mainly to stifle the voice in my head telling me I had crossed the line with this poor girl. Crossed? I’d leapt over it like I was Jessica Ennis-Hill.
‘You know, your pal Bojan, the guy you suckered me into going to see, he said an interesting thing. He said we were members of the same club. The Suffer Club. Membership reassuringly painful. Well, I guess you’ve just been nominated to join.’
‘WheeramI? Lemmego . . . let me go, you mad bitch.’
‘You, my dear Aja, are tied to a funeral pyre. Underneath you are about fifty gas nozzles. Controlled from here – oh, you can’t see. Anyway, trust me, I have a handle that opens the valve. I can’t believe how much you people spend on funerals. Are you Balinese?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Malay.’
‘Malay? You’re a long way from home. You probably don’t believe in this shit, do you? Ah well, we aren’t going to run it according to strict Hindu principles anyway. No priest. No offering. No widow to throw herself on the pyre.’ Although, I was pretty certain the last tradition had died out, on Bali at least.
‘What do you want?’ The words were clearer now her anger was driving out the fear. For now.
‘What do I want?’ I took a drag on the cigarette. It was hot and coarse on the back of my throat. Kadek had a strange concept of mild. No wonder they came in packets of just twelve; twenty and you’d have a voice like Clint Eastwood. ‘I want Jess.’
‘Jess? She not here.’ Panicky once more, she began to twist and turn.
‘I know that. And keep still. You’ll only hurt yourself.’
She gave a bark that might have been a laugh. ‘You worry about me hurting when you put me on here? And say you going to burn me alive? You fuckin’ mad, lady.’
Point well made. ‘Well, I might not. Burn you alive, I mean. Depends how our little chat goes.’
She mumbled to herself in her own language and then began to sob.
‘Where’s Jess?’ I asked, unmoved.
She sniffed. ‘I told you. Not here. Not Bali.’
‘So where did Matt take her?’
‘I don’t know! Why not ask Dieter?’
Apart from the fact he’s a crooked bastard who wouldn’t know the truth if you rolled it up and rammed it down his lying throat? ‘Because I don’t think he knows. If he did, he would have gone after his cash. I don’t think Bojan knows either. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be keeping up this charade. But I know Jess.’
Knew, a voice inside me admonished. You have no idea what she is like as a person now. I ignored it.
‘She would want a friend. A woman. I bet she liked you. Bet she thought you were her friend. My guess is you know more than you’re letting on.’
‘No.’
‘But you did get to know her.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘We went out on boat. Had a good time. But then Dieter . . .’ She began to cry again, mewing like a deranged cat this time. I stifled the stab of pity I felt for her.
‘Dieter, what?’
‘He was mad at Matt. He tried, you know . . .’ The next part came out in a rush. ‘He tried to fuck your girl.’
Breathe. Stay calm. It’s Dieter who should be up there then. But my reasoning remained sound: Jess was more likely to have confided in Aja than Dieter about where she and Matt might be heading.
‘And then?’
‘Matt beat him up. Beat him up bad.’
‘Matt did?’ I asked. ‘Matt beat up Dieter?’
‘Yes. Matt was mad. Dieter was drunk, stoned. Matt beat him up and then he knew Dieter would kill him so he left. With some of Dieter’s money. But not as much as Dieter says. Dieter liar.’ That wasn’t a hold-the-front-page statement.
‘Where to? Where did Matt go?’
‘I DON’T KNOW! Let me go . . . I don’t know.’
So, Matt had taken Jess to protect her from Dieter. And had actually worked the little street rodent over. Well, good for him, the fucker. One tick in the positive column. There were so many crosses in the negative, though. So many.
I lit another cigarette while I worked on getting my heart rate under control. Damn thing was fluttering in my chest. Probably not as much as Aja’s, mind.
‘And you have no idea where they went?’
‘I tell you over and over. No idea. Let me go. I tell you everything.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I did tell you. All.’ More mewing. ‘I know nothing more. Please. I won’t go to police about this . . .’
‘Oh, I’m sure you will. One more chance.’
‘I don’t know any more. And if I did, Dieter would kill me if I told you.’
That was an odd logic. But panic isn’t the best mechanism for clarity of thought. ‘I’ll kill you if you don’t.’
‘Please. This is crazy. You crazy.’
‘Yes, I think I probably am.’
I turned the valve, heard the gas hiss through the nozzles.
‘Singapore! Singapore!’ she yelled. ‘It’s Singapore they went.’
I flicked the cigarette and watched the blue flames dance over the platform as Aja screamed her lungs out.