Choen looked quickly at the private, and as his hand came up and across I turned my head away just late enough to let him feel he’d made an impact; then I went through the business of crashing against the wall and hitting the floor and grunting in pain and so on, which was easy enough to do with my arms still pinned behind me.

  ‘Why you come to Kampuchea?’

  I got onto my feet again. ‘Well, quite a few reasons. For –’

  ‘Why you come?’

  The private’s hand moved and I waited but he didn’t do anything this time. ‘I was with the UN, originally, and then when I –’

  ‘UN stupid idiots!’ He spat, accurately, at my face, and I would have done a great deal to be able to wipe it off. ‘This not their country! This Kampuchea! What this country?’ It sounded like a question, and he came forward a step, chest out, one eye staring, brighter than the other. ‘What this country?’

  The private lifted his hand in readiness.

  ‘What? Oh. Right. Kampuchea. Kampuchea.’ It was the name they preferred, these people: when the Khmer Rouge had been in control of the country they’d insisted on it, then it was changed back to Cambodia after their defeat. They hadn’t liked that. This man didn’t like it. His spittle was drying on my face: think of something else.

  ‘UN stupid!’ he barked again. ‘You English?’

  ‘Yes.’ I’d told him that already.

  ‘English stupid idiots! Queen of England stupid cow!’

  ‘I rather think otherwise,’ I said.

  ‘You meet Queen of England?’

  ‘Actually, no.’

  I could really use a glass of water.

  ‘You fuck Princess Diana?’

  ‘I’ve yet to enjoy that privilege.’

  Knew his London tabloids, kept up with high society.

  Suddenly he turned at right angles and strutted to the wall and back to the one opposite, boots grating on the concrete, back to the door, turned, looked at me. ‘Who know you in jeep?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow.’

  ‘Who know you in jeep? Answer!’

  ‘Who knew I was driving the jeep?’ Oh, right, this was rather important. ‘Who knew I was going to the Tonle Sap?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My manager,’ I said, ‘and the head of the airline, some of the staff, two of my friends, a few other people. I was given the assignment, you understand.’

  ‘When they last see you?’

  Things didn’t sound terribly good. ‘When I left our office. That was - oh, about one o’clock.’

  British agent for Trans-Kampuchean Air Services reported missing. Just joking; the only person who’d miss me was Pringle, biding his time in the Hotel Lafayette, ready to pick up on the first ring: I hadn’t signalled at noon, so I was technically overdue.

  Choen was eyeing me steadily, his mouth pulled down. ‘Jeep rented, or belong to airline?’

  ‘It belongs to the airline. Look, I happen to be a man who can keep his mouth shut, Colonel. I strayed onto your territory by accident, but there’s no need for me to tell anybody I saw anything; it’s none of my business - or theirs. All I’m interested in is working out how we can fly fish to the capital from the lake.’

  He didn’t say anything, seemed to be waiting to hear more, stood watching my face, one eye filmy, the other bright, deep now, concentrating. So I took it from there, because maybe there was a chance he’d just leave me here in the cell without water or food for a couple of days, have me roughed up a little to warn me off and then kick me out, have me dropped back on the main road.

  ‘I agree the UN was wrong,’ I told him reasonably, ‘to come busting in to your country, and quite frankly I wasn’t sorry when they pulled out. But I’d got to know the place by then, and’ - with a shrug - ‘I’d met a Kampuchean woman here, you know? I’m seeing her again … she’s very pretty.’

  The private was staring at me too with his lidless eyes, probably didn’t understand what I was saying, was just watching for a wrong move. I didn’t have one in mind.

  ‘I was a bit embarrassed, I suppose,’ I told the colonel, ‘to give you my real reason at first for coming back to Kampuchea. Cherchez la femme, right?’

  A diesel rumbled past, one of its tyres sending a stone banging against the metal door. The noise was unexpected and hellishly loud in these close confines but the colonel didn’t flinch.

  I left it at that, didn’t want to overdo things. I was interested now in how Choen was going to answer me. A lot depended on it.

  But he didn’t say anything at all. He turned to the private and barked some Khmer at him and the private swung round and pulled the door open and yelled something and another man came trotting up with his assault rifle and gave the colonel the revolutionary salute with his fist, but Choen didn’t respond. He just looked at me and then at the two men and raised his elbow to the side and held one finger straight against his temple for an instant and took it away with a little jerk and walked out of the cell.

  Let there be a rose, then, for Moira.

  12 : EXECUTION

  Three half-tracks, two personnel carriers, a dozen Chinese-built jeeps and an armoured car. Five or six rows of bamboo huts, a concrete building next to the cell, a big wood-fired stove with a corrugated iron roof over it to protect the camouflage net.

  A dozen rebels standing around leaning on their vehicles, laughing and chattering in Khmer when they saw me led out of the cell by the two guards: a round-eye in the camp was an event.

  I couldn’t see my jeep anywhere; maybe it was still out there on the track through the mountains, and they were going to bring it in later.

  My guards hadn’t put the blindfold back on; I don’t think they’d forgotten to; it was just that they knew it didn’t matter now what I saw here, I wasn’t going to tell anybody.

  They pushed me into the jeep, my arms still tied behind me by the sleeves of my jacket. One of them got behind the wheel and the other sat beside me with the muzzle of his assault rifle dug into my side. I could smell his hair oil: he was the one who’d spoken in French when they’d seized me.

  The air came in hot waves against my face as we set off, and when we left the shade of the camouflage net the sun was below the foothills and the sky deepening towards the west. The infra-red had been pouring into the canyon all day long, leaving a flood of heat for us to drive through.

  ‘I told your colonel the truth, you know,’ I called in French to the man next to me above the rattling of the jeep. ‘I haven’t any interest in politics, or who runs this country.’

  He didn’t answer, dug the gun harder into my side. The driver twisted his head round and called out something in Khmer, asking what I’d said, I suppose. I was glad he was interested: it could make a difference.

  ‘All I want is to increase my employer’s business. The airline’s doing pretty well already, and this would make me quite a bit of money, as a bonus.’

  The shadow of the jeep ran ahead of us, twenty or thirty feet long, rippling over the stones and the tufts of scrub in the middle of the track. Farther ahead I saw my jeep, standing where I’d left it, and we began slowing. So it had just been a joke on the part of Colonel Choen when he’d put his finger against his head like that: what he’d barked to the soldier in Khmer was an order for him to take me back to my jeep and let me go, because I’d convinced him I’d lost my way.

  Then there’s the one about little Red Riding Hood and the wicked wolf who dressed up as her grandmother and everything.

  ‘So I’m just a business man,’ I said to the guard, ‘that’s all, looking for profit. Are you a business man?’

  The gun prodded. He knew perfectly well what I was saying: his French had been fluent, idiomatic, the few times he’d spoken.

  ‘My freedom means a lot to me,’ I told him. ‘So what about tern million riel to share between you and your comrade?’ His head turned to look at me as we slowed alongside my jeep and pulled up. They were going, then, to drive it back to the camp when they’d finished with me.

  ‘Ask your comrade,’ I told the guard, ‘what he thinks of ten million riel in cash.’

  He went on watching me. In Cambodia that amount of money would set them up in business as travel agents, buy them a brand new Trabant.

  He didn’t say anything. The engine of the jeep idled.

  ‘With ten million,’ I told him, ‘you could buy a brand new Trabant, or set yourselves up in business, or buy enough raw cocaine coming through from Thailand to turn ten million into a thousand. You want to think about that? A thousand million riel?’

  The man behind the wheel switched off the engine and looked round at us, jerking his chin up, wanting to know what was going on.

  ‘Tell your comrade,’ I said, ‘that you’re looking at a thousand million riel.’

  He went on watching me for a bit and then turned his head and spoke to the driver in Khmer, and the driver laughed and swung his fist to the side of my head and knocked me half out of the jeep and left me dizzy, couldn’t see much for a while except a blinding light that went on throbbing as I got my breath back, both of them laughing now but I swear to you that the one who spoke French had been interested, I’d seen it in his eyes, we could have made a deal and I could have got into my jeep and driven away, just a mental exercise, that’s all, it’s of no importance.

  Then they dragged me out and we began walking across to the ravine not far from the track, maybe fifty yards.

  It was quiet here except for the sound of our boots. The sky was turning from saffron to rust red in the west, and I saw the first star pricking the twilight. Three water fowl threaded the air above the ridge, homing to the Tonle Sap, and as I looked down I wondered if I would see the leopard again.

  The two men weren’t talking any more, and I thought it possible that as Buddhists they were aware that a life was soon to pass, here in this quiet place, and that even though they themselves were going to take it, there should be peace until the thing was done.

  ‘What, then,’ I asked the man who spoke French, ‘can I offer you?’

  One has to try, however late the hour.

  There was no answer. He was walking beside me, his assault rifle at the slope. The other man was behind, the muzzle of his gun pressing against my spine.

  ‘Talk it over,’ I said, ‘with your comrade. This is a unique chance for you - there’s nobody more generous than a dying man, and I have plenty to give.’

  He didn’t answer. Our boots crunched over the stones in the silence, and I changed the subject.

  ‘I saw a leopard,’ I said, ‘earlier,’ simply to engage his attention as I swung round hard and forced the gun downward with my elbow and smashed my head into his face and drove the nose bone into the brain as the first shot banged before his finger was jerked clear of the trigger. I’d practised twisting in and out of the jacket five times in the cell but it seemed to take a long time now before I got my hands free and went for the one who spoke French as he started backing off to give himself room, suddenly learning that a gun at close quarters is useless, a dead weight, just something that gets in your way - I wouldn’t have stood a chance if they’d kept their distance on the walk here from the jeep, couldn’t have tried anything at all.

  He got out a short burst but it was wide because he hadn’t had time to swing the thing round into the aim and I was there now, forcing the barrel down and bringing his shoulders down with it, his shoulders and his face, then I smashed upward again but missed because he was ready for that, had seen what I’d done to the other man, didn’t want it to happen to him, he was worried now, crouched over his gun and trying to find his balance again because when I’d tried the upward smash he’d half twisted round to avoid it, so I had a half-second to work with but it wasn’t enough because I was off balance too and he recovered first and began swinging the gun into me - he’d forgotten already, forgotten the bloody thing was no good at close quarters, they hadn’t taught them that at the school for revolutionaries, all they’d been taught was bang and you’re dead, forcing, I was forcing the gun down again and the muzzle hit the stones and then he was on me, learning fast, remembering he’d got hands with strength in them, had them closing on my throat and I relaxed, went limp and dropped as far as he’d let me before I went for his eyes and felt his hands come away from my throat but they’d been squeezing hard and my breath was sawing in and out as we both went down now and he put a lock on me and trapped one arm, Christ he was strong, strong and lean and athletic and with the spirit in him, the spirit of the die-hard revolutionary, red flags in his eyes, the Khmer Rouge forever and all that jazz and it wasn’t helping me, it was giving him the strength of two men, three, and I wasn’t getting in there with the centre-knuckle strikes, kept missing him because he wouldn’t keep still and I was on my back now with the last of the daylight in the sky and his head and shoulders etched in black against it, the silhouette of the death-bringer bearing down on me as he trapped my other arm with his leg across it and I couldn’t find the force I needed because of the breathing thing, couldn’t get the oxygen to the muscles and it felt like drowning, not being strong enough to use purchase, leverage, the twilight fluttering now as the man above me raised his hand and in his hand I saw the rock and it looked heavy, black against the sky, and as it came down I jerked my knee and connected with his tail-bone and he screamed and his arm went limp and as I twisted round the rock crashed down beside my head and I took it from there, kneeing him again and this time hard enough to paralyze and he screamed again in agony and I rolled clear and lay there listening to him, listening carefully in case he came out of the trauma with any strength left, but he wasn’t moving, couldn’t move.

  I was getting my breath back but it wasn’t easy, it was taking time. A lot had been happening and I think I must have hit my head on the ground somewhere along the line because the fading light of the day was still fluttering, vibrating in slow waves, while I tried to get a grip on things mentally - had they heard him scream, down there in the camp? If they had, they would have thought it was me, screaming for mercy, would have or might have, the difference was very great, potentially lethal, because if they’d heard the scream and hadn’t thought it was me, they’d have jumped into a jeep and would be on their way here now.

  He rolled over suddenly, my bold revolutionary, and started vomiting, which I’d been expecting him to do: the knee strike had been to the coccyx and I’d done it twice and the nerve centre there would be a conflagration now, giving him so much pain that he couldn’t be more than half conscious, forget the rush of user-friendly endorphins when that area’s been hit, you’re strictly on your own. I was surprised he hadn’t passed out by now and he could do it at any time but I couldn’t trust that, daren’t rely on it, a man like this would have formidable reserves.

  Think: were they on their way, because of the scream? That would be conclusive, the odds unacceptable, so don’t waste thought on it, there were other questions: what had they thought of the shots, the bursts of fire, the two bursts, more than an execution required? If they’d thought there was trouble of some kind they would be - once again - in their jeep by now and on their way here. The answer was the same: it would be conclusive, finis. So don’t waste thought on that one either.

  He’d finished vomiting but the air was putrid and I moved away a little, observing him. His face was bloodless under the dirt, his eyes closed; his breathing was steady but faint, his chest hardly moving. The assault rifle was lying near him, but not near enough for him to reach it before I could if I saw him move.

  He began moaning now and I hated that: a scream I can handle because it’s simply the sound of shock, but a moan is a plea for help and I couldn’t help him.

  He’s one of the people who blows the legs off little children.

  Well said, and timely.

  Think, keep thinking. How long would it be before they came out here to see why these two hadn’t returned, performed the execution and returned?

  Not long.

  I crawled towards the man and lay close to him, put my mouth to his ear.

  ‘What will happen on the nineteenth?’

  He didn’t answer.

  There would be a case, there would be a case here of inflicting further pain on him, if I thought it would impress him, persuade him to answer me, and it would have been acceptable for me to do that, to further traumatize this blower-of-the-legs-off-little-children; but it wouldn’t physically be possible: pain was already roaring in him, and there was nothing I could add that he would feel.

  Fear, then, of death? I felt for his throat. ‘What will happen on the nineteenth?’

  It would be nice to have something to debrief to Pringle, Flockhart, something perhaps conclusive: a Pol Pot attack on the capital, an assassination attempt on the king, something I could call information, which was what I was here for, putting more pressure on this man’s windpipe, letting him think of death, using both thumbs and working inward - and then he moved and I was fighting off a claw-hand strike to the eyes and going down and rolling over, blocking a fist and forcing a heel-palm to the nose and missing, feeling the slickness of blood as the skin came away, my breath coming short as he struck again and the fear of death was mine, not his, until I found purchase for my left shoulder and drove a half-fist into the larynx and felt the cartilage snap and he reeled sideways and dropped, dropped like a sack with blood creeping from the corner of his mouth.

  I got up and stumbled across the stones, found my way to the nearest jeep, my own, and dragged out two bottles of Evian water and went over to the other jeep and found the key still in the ignition, here was the trick, the point of no return: I hadn’t got the strength to make my way out through the mountains on foot - they’d be here soon now, wanting to know why their comrades hadn’t returned.

  The engine fired at once and I took the thing through the gears as quietly as I could. The Chinese-built vehicle was larger than mine, would be faster - but they’d hear it from the camp, I knew that, would think for a moment that the jeep was on its way back until they heard the sound fading - then they would react. It was simply a question of time, and I shifted into overdrive as soon as the engine could take it, pushing the speed up and switching on the headlights as the track began turning through the hills.