The Never Man
















Out here in Jutland
In the old man-killing parishes
I will feel lost,
Unhappy and at home.

From Tollund Man by Seamus Heaney


Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.

From Dockery and Son by Philip Larkin







Chapter One
In the flickering light of the oil lamp, the lizard crawled onto the page, shifting its shape in the shadows. Its round little belly swirled with thickening currents of cross hatching, its eyes shone black and beady, like the ink well from which they were drawn. The reflection of the fiery wick danced on their surface until the ink had dried and they became dull and sleepy. Short scratching thrusts of the nib drew five fat, claw capped toes at the end of two stubby forelegs, which lay, splayed out beneath the lizard’s body, play arms, little use for anything. On its back, smudged rings tapered evenly to the final flick of its tail. The hind legs were heavier, stronger and built for scuttling. Mottled skin hung from its throat, like the work of an impressionist, but the pen pressed harder to emphasise the strength of the jaws, lined with razor sharp shards, flashing hints of white amongst the darkly scored depths of its mouth. A prehistoric head, all mouth, both mythical and frightening, tapered and snouted, delicate and fearsome: rearing from the page. A dragon’s head.
Alain chewed on a grubby nail and smiled at the effect. Strictly speaking it was an inaccurate representation of the lizard, a touch of artistic frivolity, but he no longer worried too much about the biological credibility of his sketches. Drawing may have begun as a tool of his profession but years ago it became first a way to pass the time and then a sort of therapeutic distraction. He loved to trace his pen over everything foreign and otherworldly, mapping a path through the secrets of nature: the gnarled, leathery texture of the lizard’s skin, its alien skeleton, the sharpness of its claws, the electric strength of its bite. He worshipped the natural world and his reverence flowed through his fountain pen and on to the page each time he sat down to sketch.
His quarters were testament to his devotion. The walls were papered with biological sketches, some only half finished, of monitor lizards and snakes, quick-eyed foxes, ibex with their magnificent antlers, monkeys and all manner of wild looking goats and sheep. And a woman, always the same one, with dark hair and dark eyes, drawn countless times with a smooth hand and great tenderness, but always in the same pose, with her head turned half away, as though she was leaving or, perhaps, pretending to be shy.
From the low hanging ceiling bows were suspended pelts and coats of fur, all meticulously removed and cured, and on makeshift shelves, warped old pine planks nailed haphazardly to the wall, were piled all sorts of bones and skulls, some labelled and reconstructed, others heaped and forgotten. His desk was an old oak door, beautifully carved but now broken and rotted. Papers were heaped upon it, more sketches, piled pages of notes in his hasty slanting scrawl, diagrams and maps covering the upper Punjab, the vast expanse of the Hindu Kush and the Himalayan foothills, maps of Kashmir and Afghanistan, maps of Frontier Province and the Tribal Lands and many more maps of his own valleys, the steep brown peaks and the tumbling streams, the home of the Kalash and his home for the last four years.
His home: this hut and the canvas tent in which he slept. Not much return for a man of his age. When he arrived in the village he had bought the help of some local boys and they had climbed high into the forests above the valley to collect the broken bows and branches for the roof. Local men had supplied him with timber and nails for the walls and he had travelled back to Chitral to buy plastic sheeting to help keep out the wind and the rain. He had had grand plans for a workshop and for lodgings also, but time and work had got in the way and the hut was all that he finished. He furnished it with the oak door for a desk and fashioned a couple of workbenches from excess timber. The shelves he added when space became tight but these quickly filled. He sat on a low wooden stool and burned a single oil lamp for light. Fuel was scarce, especially now that winter was coming, and anyway, his hut was highly flammable. He fretted that too many lamps would quickly make a pyre of his roof.
The wick on his lamp was burning low as he studied his sketch. The yellow monitor lizard: he was pleased with it. This was his first attempt at committing it to the page. Fortunately, he had an exceptional memory for form and shape. Perhaps he had exaggerated the clarity of the banding slightly, sometimes memories can confuse each other. But he didn’t worry about it: his work was not concerned with sketching lizards.
Instead he screwed the lid back on to his pot of drawing ink and sheathed the nib of his pen. The sketch he blew on gently, to ensure that it was dry, and rested it on top of one of the many desktop piles. He turned down the oil lamp until the flame extinguished and the hut fell dark. The pungent fumes from the lamp continued to rise and curl around the eaves of the roof, mixing with the sweet odour of the pine and the earthy musk of the dirt and the brush. Alain closed his eyes and breathed deeply, he enjoyed the scent of the hut as much as he enjoyed any of the smells or tastes of the mountain. Sitting late at his desk, the sleep-sounds of the valley echoing in the vast chambers of the surrounding foothills, the lamp flickering and the pale moon rising through the scattered stars, he could almost pretend he was happy.
There was no need to light a torch. Tonight’s moon was nearly full and washed the steep walls of the valley with pale light. Alain left the hut and tied shut the door with cord, just to keep out any animals that might be attracted by the unfamiliar smells and the promise of food, and then arched his neck to look up. The sky was utterly cloudless, a swathe of twinkling stars gathered above the snowy peaks on the horizon and fell away into the darkness of the valleys below. Every time he gazed at the night sky here he was touched by the same sensation of proximity; as though standing at the roof of the world, he was so close to the heavens as to be amongst them, where the stars were so plentiful and so bright that they seemed to merge into a single dazzling constellation of light and that he, reaching out, might stir their serenity with his fingertips.
Alain’s hut and tent stood in a clearing with just a couple of other buildings. Most of the villagers had built their homes higher on the valley slope. They lived in long terraces made of timber and roughly hewn stone, often many families to a dwelling. The lower valley had been irrigated and was used to grow crops, wheat mostly, and graze a few cows, from which the villagers occasionally took milk. They herded goat and sheep in distant valleys higher into the range. The young men were still abroad with their flocks; they would start to bring them down shortly when the snows began to clog the more remote passes and the fields became inhabitable. A few of the boys had already returned and their animals were sheltering in the next valley. Shepherds were descending from the upper slopes. Indeed, any day now snow could fall on the village. It was rare for October to start without some snow on the ground. And later, when the heavier falls arrived, the valley would be cut off. Not until March or April would the thaw begin and then the whole of the Hindu Kush would tremble with the rush of icy cold water.
Alain would have to pack soon if he was serious about escaping the valley for winter. He had a few weeks maybe, although he hadn’t checked the calendar. He had promised before that he would leave, but he didn’t manage it last year, or the year before. This winter in particular, he wanted to stay with the villagers, joining them around their smoky fires, listening to their stories and tending to the animals and the grain stores. Secretly, he was looking forward to the security of this year’s snow more than ever: the valley became a remote fairyland, as distant from the world as Alain could wish it to be. The truth was, the longer he spent in the mountains, the less inclined he was to ever leave.
The night air was bitterly chill: the snows were most definitely on their way. Alain wrapped a second blanket around his head and shoulders. It was made, in the local style, of a coarse woollen wove and hung to his knees giving wonderful warmth. These days he almost always dressed in shalwar kameez, wearing skins or blankets for warmth. The local cloth worked well and, wearing it, helped him to feel settled in the routine of village life. He was nearly assimilated. He had let his hair grow long and his beard grow thick. He didn’t worry that it was flecked with grey. Just like he didn’t worry about the hair in his ears, or the deep lines on his face, or brushing his teeth, which he only did when he remembered to now. He was happier this way. He was happier now he was hard and lean and unwilling to compromise. Now he was wild.
The clearing around his hut was deathly quiet. He could hear the stream tumbling over the rocks higher in the vale and the swoop of bats circling around the trees. The two other huts in the clearing stood empty and still. One was a store, for wood and provisions, and was seldom used and then only during the day. The other belonged to Izzy, who was still away.
Izzy’s real name was Ismail Ali Khan but Alain had opted for Izzy soon after they first met, almost three years ago. Izzy was a young boy then, no more than fourteen or fifteen, and had pestered Alain daily, asking to wait on him and offering assistance. At the time, the locals made clear that he was something of a waif and little welcome. Izzy had crossed over the mountains from Afghanistan, no more than twenty kilometres away. He had pale skin and blue eyes, with hair that was almost blonde, most unlike the rest of the villagers. Izzy liked to say that he was a descendent of Alexander the Great, who passed through these hills, but whether or not he was, or how the boy knew about Alexander the Great, Alain could hardly guess. But he was eager to help and knew the surrounding hills well, so Alain had adopted him as an assistant and organised for him to stay in the clearing with the consent of the villagers.
He had left the village nine days ago, on an errand to Chitral. It was possible to ride a horse into the town in three days, providing the roads were clear and the weather fair, and the journey could be shortened greatly by hitching a lift with one of the trucks or jeeps that passed along the roads in the lower valleys. So Alain had expected him back yesterday at the very latest, for the errand was urgent and Alain had requested that he return promptly. But these were the mountains and Alain knew that journeys could easily be disrupted and expectations confounded.
Izzy’s hut, which was made in much the same fashion as Alain’s, stood at the mouth of the clearing, where it met the much rutted dirt track that ran the length of the village, from the high pastures and grazing land above the next ridge, down and away through the narrow cutting at the bottom of the valley. From there the track wound its way through many rocky passes and across countless tight ledges until, at last, it joined the road from Chitral to Bumboret, the largest valley at the base of the Kalasha range.
Lower down, the road saw much use and was under constant repair as parts crumbled and were hastily shored up with fallen boulders and scree, shaken free from the slopes by the energetic charge of the river. At times the road and the river ran side by side but then the river would drop down some craggy and narrow ravine, where the road could not follow, and it would bounce and gush over falls and rocks with gleeful energy. During the spring, when the river foamed and throbbed with the ice melt, these sections of road could become unimaginably treacherous, often seeming to join the river in its chaotic bound down the mountainside.
Through the village, the road was more mud than rock and steep too, making progress slow and precarious for any traffic. The villagers used it to drive ox and carts carrying food and building supplies; few jeeps made it this high. Every once in a while an officer from the Chitral Scouts , the local constabulary, would make the journey, but even their visits were usually confined to the summer months. So the road was quiet, more used to the running feet of children than to the grind of vehicles, and Alain was undisturbed as he left the clearing and began to trudge up through the village.
Above him, on the slopes to the right, beneath the deodar trees, climbed the mud and stone houses: home to three hundred people when the men returned, but less full now. A solitary candle burned in a high window and the sleepy grunts of livestock echoed in the barns and shelters, answering the lazy sway of the cowherds in the fields. Away to the left the river burbled in darkness.
It was towards the river that he turned off the main track, following a narrow footpath down a bank and through the adjacent fields. In summer he would have walked warily, watching for krait or vipers slithering in the scrub. In the cold winter though, he had no fear: the snakes were asleep, he was alone in choosing to brave the cold so late at night.
At the far edge of the second field the path turned away right towards the small trout farm that the villagers fed with water from the river. When he first arrived in the village Alain had been taken on a tour by some of the elder men. They showed him the small school, where a local man held morning classes for the smaller children, and the hospital hut which, at one time, had been manned by a Belgian missionary but where, now, all manner of foods were stored in addition to the bandages and medicines. Before anything else though, they showed him the trout farm, so proud were they of its design and construction. He had been amazed of course, that out here in the upper reaches of the Hindu Kush, such a thing could exist. But sure enough, he had been shown the seven ponds, increasing in size, in which the eggs hatched and the trout grew. Unbelievably, the largest of the ponds housed dozens of healthy fat trout, floating dreamily enough, as though they were the denizens of a bountiful European hatchery. Occasionally the villagers ate the fish but they seemed to prefer to leave them floating, each one a testament to their skill and to the success of their mountaintop trout farm.
Alain passed the farm, stepping carefully over the rusted barbed fence: the only fence in the entire village, it kept away foxes. As he neared the river, squat and heavy boulders began to obstruct his path. Soon he was clambering from one fallen rock to another, leaping across the narrow channels between them in the moonlight. It reminded him of the sea breaks at the Marseille beach he visited as a boy. With each boulder, the gurgle of the river grew, frothing in his ears, until it seemed as though the entire valley resonated with its foaming.
After a short distance the boulders began to thin and Alain dropped down onto green turf, lush with thick grass and goat droppings. A low, flat stone was ahead of him and he walked to it and sat down, drawing from his pocket a pack of cigarettes. The stone sat flush on the riverbank, which dropped away sharply and disappeared in a torrent of gushing, white water. There were falls a little way upstream, just beneath the caves, and the water flowed swift enough to pick up stones from its bed and to move even the large boulders. The occasional pine overhung the water, the evergreen bows flirting precariously with the torrent. On the far bank the mountains rose again, brown and rocky, far barer than the facing slope on which the village was built: a few trees clung resolutely to its slopes but little else grew. The river marked the boundary of the village.
Alain lit a cigarette, a local brand: the smoke was harsh and caustic in his throat. He breathed deeply and listened to the wrestling currents of the river, scanning the mountainside for signs of movement. In the sky, an owl hunted for supper. He closed his eyes and tried to forget his doubts, repeating to himself the same, reassuring mantra he spoke every night. But, as usual, he was not soothed. For weeks, the majestic beauty of the valley had seemed but an illusion, behind which the malice of the world lurked and prowled.
Something had changed, something deep and hidden, and he was uncomfortable with it. He felt like his transgressions had escaped and were stalking him now. Growing wild had unleashed powerful things, impulses he tried to ignore and memories he preferred to forget. It had made him more alive to all the things that threatened him. No wonder he longed for the snows to arrive and seal the valley, remote and safe; just hold off long enough for Izzy to return.
He took another draw on his cigarette and left it balancing on the stone as he climbed deftly down the bank to the edge of the river. Kneeling he washed his face in the water. The icy shock of the splash stung the grazes on his knuckles and stole his breath for a moment, causing him to gulp for air, before he bowed his head once more and allowed the water to foam around his neck and ears. When he stood up his head rushed like a newborn, as life pounded in his temples and the night air stung at his skin. He clambered up the bank, picked up his cigarette and began the descent, through the village, to his tent and his bed.
The tent was pitched alongside the hut at the far edge of the clearing. Its canvas was heavy, weather stained and allowed plenty of room inside for a low table and some wooden boxes alongside the piled skins and blankets upon which Alain slept. In the summer the flaps were constantly drawn across the entrance to protect against mosquitoes that, even at this altitude, stilled whirled and bit merrily. During the winter months, he only had to worry about keeping out the dirty mountain rats, with their eyes the colour of jaundice, and they preferred to skulk around the grain stores. So usually he kept the entrance flaps tied open and allowed the cool night air to lap at his face while he slept.
When he returned to the clearing he had finished his cigarette, so he threw the butt on to the dying embers in the fire pit and watched while it slowly shrivelled into ash. He stretched and thought he heard, in a far away valley, the lonesome howl of a wolf. The call quivered eerily in the wind, making him feeling uneasy, a sensation that the animal world rarely provoked. He thought of the shepherds, wandering in the high passes with their flocks and he thanked his good fortune that he would be spending tonight warm, under canvas, in the security of the village.
He hung up the extra blankets he had been wearing and crawled into the tent but he could not forget the cry of the wolf. It seemed to linger in the air, far off one moment but impossibly close the next and, as he lay down, he found himself listening for commotion amongst the livestock and, ridiculously, for the soft padding of approaching paws. For some time he was unable to sleep. Instead he kept his eyes open, tracing vague patterns on the canvas, brooding on a world he had tried to leave behind. The night drew on and still he lay awake with his guilt and his longing. It was not until the moon began to fall behind the shadows of the mountain that his eyes closed, his breathing deepened and he drifted into sleep.
Outside his tent the valley slept too, undisturbed by the wolf prowling far off. The final light in the village had been put out, even the livestock had settled down.
So it was that the two shadows that crept up the track to the entrance of the clearing went quite unnoticed. They didn’t make a sound as they crouched down behind the brush, nor as they darted across the moonlit grass towards the shadow of Alain’s hut. Perhaps, in this fleeting moment, they betrayed themselves to the owl, still circling against the night sky. But the owl had little interest in shadows, its concern was for meat, which was growing ever scarcer in the gathering of winter. It continued to hunt upon the slopes and raised no alarm. The cows failed to wake in the fields, as did the villagers in the musty dark of their houses. Alain noticed nothing either. He lay on his back under a heap of warm skins, his head turned slightly towards the open flaps, through which the night air blew.
He didn’t wake when the shadows moved from behind the hut and became two silhouettes on the canvas, he didn’t hear their breathing, fast and unsteady, and he never felt the air change when the entrance to the tent was blocked. Unaware of the knife at his throat, he slept on peacefully, dreaming of wolf-prints in falling snow, wrapped in a blanket of stars.
















Chapter Two
The black limousine struggled to negotiate the turn into Merton Street, such was the splendour of its girth and the narrowness of the quiet, cobbled, Oxford laneway. The head steward watched it edge around the tight corner, riding the curb with its right fore wheel, and then crawl between the wooden posts, from which a gate usually hung, sealing off the entrance to the courtyard. Behind its brake lights, on High Street, throngs of shoppers heaved past, wrapped in scarves and woollen hats, carrying their shopping bags and umbrellas with straining arms. The queues at the bus stops were long and winding. Leaves swirled in the parks and clogged the gutters. It was unseasonably cold. Dusk was falling on the city and the shop lights blazed on Cornmarket. It was a Sunday, the first day of October.
In the glass of the lodge, the steward’s reflection loomed in dark silhouette, like winter’s shadow over the autumnal evening. He had an incredible face, angular and misshapen, as though chipped by a blind man with a blunt chisel. Still, he kept it incredibly neat, closely shaved apart from a pencil thin moustache and the scar below his right eye. His hair was dark but thin and, with the help of sweet smelling hair wax, scraped into a meticulous side parting. He stood both straight and tall, moving his limbs rarely and robotically. On another man the effect might have been comical but, on the steward, it threatened a ruthless, mechanical efficiency. He wore a black suit and a white shirt, the same as the college porters, with the traditional black tie, with the Corpus Christi crest embroidered on it. Over his suit he shouldered a long, midnight blue mackintosh, with a high collar that he turned up, like a Transylvanian count.
The lights of the turning limousine flashed through the glass, blinding his reflection, and he turned away towards the college doorway. From the rear passenger door of the limousine, Tobias Brierly, the Master of Corpus College, was emerging slowly. He had always been a wisp of a man, frail and well worn, a little tatty even. White hair sprouted from his ears and, this evening, his chin was dishevelled by a growth of grey bristles. Beneath his black scholars gown he wore a ratty cardigan over a faded corduroy shirt.
The two men greeted each other, shook hands, then they passed through the service door and across the flagstone of the college lodge. The clamour of High Street was immediately banished, the night air stilled, the lodge opened into a quadrangle of lush green lawn. On all four sides, the walls of the college rose sixty feet or more, their polished sandstone blocks shimmering eerily in the half-light. Behind curtained windows, candlelight danced and from some hidden chamber wound the faint strains of choral music.
‘Mundy.’ Brierly spoke softly in a clipped academic accent.
‘Sir.’
‘That time of year again.’
‘Yes.’
They left the lodge and headed through a low archway into a lesser quadrangle, with a fountain at its centre and, in its corners, rearing gothic statues, then on through flickering cloisters and up a curling staircase and across a narrow footbridge, windowed with stained glass. The collage was an intricate maze of high walled courtyards and narrow walkways, burrowing deep into a warren of academic recesses, lodgings and private chambers and, on all sides, towering ramparts rearing towards the night sky, upon which gargoyle heads spouted and grinned evilly. Black cloaked fellows huddled in dark libraries, or swept through the narrow corridors, like shadows from the firelights that burned low in grates hanging from the stonework.
After descending many stairs, they halted at the end of a wide, low corridor, upon the walls of which hung the portraits of various college dignitaries, all sombre and austere. The corridor was deep and shadowy, the carpet was plush, but old and well worn, its colour dulled as though with soot. The ceiling was elaborately plastered with crescents and heraldry, but in places the rendering was cracked and peeling. Above an imposing and locked door at the corridor’s end was an inscription in Latin: Deo Gratia Vis et Consilium Prudens.
From the breast pocket of his mackintosh the steward drew a dull key which fitted the lock and turned reluctantly. He then pushed open the door, which was clearly heavy, and stood by it, allowing Brierly to brush past into the room beyond. The old man stood for a moment at the head of a short flight of stone steps that descended into a wide rectangular lounge, floored in dull marble, carpeted with Persian rugs in red and ochre and lit by a log fire, that smouldered to one side in a black, iron grate. More portraits hung upon the bare stone walls, in elaborate frames, and there were cracked leather armchairs and low tables of teak. Upon the dark wood lay papers and maps, diagrams, sketches and curious scientific implements.
To the left, a dining table was ready for the evening meal. A decanter of port and smoking tools lay upon it, next to a silver candelabrum, in which three red candles burned low. The air was warm, oppressively so, and without breeze. The room smelt of cigar smoke and cinnamon.
‘God it’s glum in here. Don’t you think?’ said Brierly.
‘It is always this way Sir,’ replied Mundy.
‘I know… I know,’ the old man shook his head. ‘I am a creature of habit I suppose, but sometimes it can all feel terribly old. I suppose I can feel terribly old.’
‘Indeed.’
‘It is just as well I don’t employ you for conversation Mundy. I should think your words would be the most heavily rewarded in the country.’
‘As you say Sir. I have arranged dinner.’
‘Have you? Marvellous. Who needs conversation anyway? Not men like us… imagine what might be said if we started talking. The old bones shudder.’
The steward inclined his head awkwardly, like a wading bird dipping for grubs in the mud, then he led the way down the steps and across to the dining table.
‘If you take a seat Sir,’ he said offering a chair, ‘I will ensure dinner is served.’
‘You eat with me tonight… yes?’
‘If you wish Sir.’
‘I do.’
The steward saw the old man seated, nodded again and slipped from the room. Brierly settled himself in the chair and did his best to smooth the creases in his shirt. He stretched a little, listened to the old joints creaking, then he chopped a cigar and lit it, watching the blue-grey smoke curl through his fingers and cloud the heavy air.
Mundy was not gone long, he reappeared in the doorway and waited silently at the top of the staircase until Brierly noticed him.
‘I know Mundy, I know… smoking before dinner again. But, as I have observed, I am old and so you must indulge me. Anyway, here perhaps, I can make a few of my own rules. Rule number one, smoking is allowed before dinner. Rule number two, old friends can talk candidly. What do you think?’
‘If you wish Sir.’
‘If I wish… indeed. Ah, dinner. What have we this evening?’
A waiter entered the room carrying a silver tray.
‘Pâté followed by beef Sir, an excellent topside,’ said Mundy, ‘and for dessert, there is crumble and custard.’
‘Good. Excellent. Sit down Mundy, unless you wish to wait the table as well. Come sit, I have put down the cigar, we will eat together.’
They didn’t talk while they ate and it was an odd scene: the two of them sitting opposite each other in the richest of Oxford’s private quarters, like an aristocratic couple in an empty mansion, engrossed in their comforts, ignoring the excesses which crept towards them like shadows in the corridors.
Eventually, as he was scraping up the last of the spicy custard with his spoon, Brierly broke the silence.
‘They say that, in marriage, the conversation ends long before the intimacy,’
‘Do they?’
‘Yes, at least people who are married do. Or people who have been married. I’m not sure that there’s an awful lot of difference.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Well no… me neither. I sometimes wonder if… well, no, I can see you looking uncomfortable already.’ Brierly shuffled on his bony backside. ‘Do you remember that room in Harare, the one where we met?’
‘Where we met Sir?’
‘Yes, where we met. I can say that can I not?’
‘I remember the room Sir.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ha, well of course you remember that the door was locked. But it is always sensible to be cautious – even now, I’m sure you would agree.’
‘I would Sir.’
‘But you remember the room at least. That’s something. It was a beautiful room, a little sombre perhaps, all that oak panelling.’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s good to reminisce sometimes. It lets one imagine that eighty plus years haven’t simply vanished without trace.’
Mundy didn’t speak.
‘Of course, you won’t humour me. Well then, let us move to the fire. Bring a cigar if you wish, I am taking mine.’
The men left the table together and transferred to armchairs in front of the grate. Brierly shuffled into place, easing his thin frame into the cracked upholstery. As he did so, Mundy noticed him turn and sniff the leather. He did it subtly, imperceptible perhaps to someone less well trained, but his eyes clouded, as though fresh cigar smoke was swirling in his corneas. Mundy, perched on the rim of another chair, watched him carefully.
‘Is this gameskin Mundy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Buckskin is it? You know, I remember when it was delivered to the ranch in Transvaal, I had it in my study. It was a different colour back then, sort of like coffee with a dash of cream I think. And the smell – one always remembers the smell of things best. Buckshot and tannin, dry in the nostrils like the air on the low-veldt, but sweet also, like grass-scent and….’
‘Antelope blood… Sir.’
‘Yes….it’s unlike you to be so emotive. I suppose it’s Africa isn’t it. You remember that well enough….when it suits. Sadly, the fragrance has gone now and the colour is dull.’
‘Africa has left the armchair.’
‘Yes it has. I think it smells of cigar ash, but I struggle to tell. I like that though. Africa has left the armchair… and yet I have not. Not that I am Africa anymore, I never was. Once upon a time I believed differently of course… but now I will remain an Englishman until the papery flesh peels from my brittle bones, and then I will rot in God’s good green turf, with earthworms and earwigs, buttercups and dandelions fresh in my skeleton nostrils. Ha, do you like that? A little morbid?’
Mundy shifted uncomfortably in his own chair.
‘You know,’ Brierly continued, ‘I must have held out my arm for a hundred women over the years, a thousand probably, but memory has rather moulded them together. It would be nice if one stood out. Do you not think that?’
‘I doubt it.’
The old man laughed. ‘You keep me honest Mundy, I will say that for you. Business first, as it should be.’
‘Yes.’
‘As long as there are diamonds, there will always be women. And murder of course. Don’t look at me like that, I know which one you prefer.’
Mundy’s shoulder twitched with his arthritis. Again his silence seemed to hang solemnly in the air, a cloak to hide his master’s words.
‘Horrible word isn’t it? It was never business for me. It was a passion. It is a passion. The kimberlite, the stones… the fracture of the light. There is more beauty there than in the face of any woman. Do you remember the first one you held? Now that’s a question I know you won’t answer. We clutch those secrets to our breasts and we take them to our graves. Oh dear, have I offended you? Do you take offence? No don’t answer that, I think I would prefer not to know.’
The fire crackled and coughed embers across the grate. Brierly blew smoke from his cigar and seemed to sink further into the armchair.
‘Did I always ramble this way?’
‘No.’
‘Age again I suppose. The less time I have, the longer it takes me to say anything. Tell me, do you remember when we last ate dinner together?’
‘It was in May. Three years ago.’
‘That long? Well, you have been enjoying an easy time of it but, then, I suppose I did promise you a quiet life.’ He pulled the cigar from his mouth and rolled it between two spindly fingers. ‘But you have guessed, no doubt, that there is a purpose behind this dinner…’
‘No doubt.’
‘My dear Mundy, I am not sure I care for that Afrikaner tone you use sometimes. Perhaps you think I am too old for this? Maybe you are too old? Maybe you think our business died with the empire? But, I tell you, you are wrong. This remains my business and you (need I remind you?) remain my employee. So you will tolerate my judgement or I will send you back… it is simple. There are plenty of people who will remember your face… twenty years is not so long.’
‘It is Black and Boer work now.’ Mundy was barely audible, a cold whisper on thin lips.
‘You are charming as ever, especially considering you are more Boer than most. Anyway, enough… again, you are wrong: it is still our work too. And there is work for you to do. A man is missing.’
‘Really?’
‘Most definitely.’
‘Which man?’
‘One of my field researchers.’
‘How long?’
‘Well what are we now, October? He last reported early September… so that’s nearly a month… but we didn’t know he was gone until a week ago. We had a radio transmission booked… he has results, apparently.’
‘Your results?’
‘Of course my results,’ Brierly snapped, ‘it is what I employ him for.’
‘Did he disappear with it, or did someone disappear with him?’
‘Well, that is rather what I expect you to find out.’
Mundy’s shoulder twitched again, but he offered no other hint that he was annoyed with the old man. Nevertheless, there was an uncomfortable weight to the air between them, as though the decades of mistrust and resentment were swirling with the cigar smoke. Outside, rain was beginning to fall. Mundy could hear it spattering against the lead-lined glass in the narrow windows; the bus-stop queues would be breaking up, people would be grappling with umbrellas, huddling close to the college gutters. He watched the logs blistering in the grate, he smiled to himself.
It had been raining the night he was born, the night he slid into the world upon a slick of blood and placenta. Somehow, he remembered his birth. It was curious and yet not so curious, if he knew anything about himself. How could he forget it? How could he forget the dreadful scream renting the quiet of the crypt? A woman’s scream, full of fear and agony. A scream to stop the world spinning.
But the rain and the bombs had continued to fall, exploding the dirty tapestry of the city above. Grass was chewed and spat out; trees splintered and flared like firecrackers. The water of the Thames was livid, churning with flames and falling rubble. Buildings crumbled; lives ended. The Isle of Dogs quaked.
It was an inauspicious start: born beneath the blitz in the bowels of a church. Born on to a palliasse stuffed with dry leaves and dirty rags. Born with the sickly stench of cordite in his nostrils, with the echo of his mother’s screams dying in his ears, as the world crashed down around them and the doctor chewed his lip, straining dirty beads of sweat through his forehead, trying to prevent his own queasy panic from further contorting his furrowed brow. Born on to his mother’s death bed, while his father fumbled drunkenly in the dark, lost in the dust showers, wondering what God awful woman could be making such a noise.
But then his life had been marked by malign symmetry. Which was ironic for a man with such scalene features. He had been born with his father’s nose and eyes, narrow and dark like two fissures in rock. But his mother’s mouth, ridiculous with those eyes, a weak and apologetic mouth, unsuited to the cruel tongue and cold words that lurked behind it.
He had grown up hard, there was no other possibility; not in that house, with that man as a father. He fractured a cheek aged nine, the first of many dints. Aged twelve he returned the favour, beating the old man with the handle of a snow shovel.
Aged sixteen he left home and joined the army, because there was nowhere else to go. He turned seventeen in Cairo, polishing someone else’s boots in the dirt and the heat; a chunk of his father’s nose got lost in a street brawl with two Libyans; a slice from his lower lip followed during a mess hall scrap (at least it made his mouth his own). He waited five years for war, getting tougher and sunburned, and then they told him that was it: end of tour, time to go home. Time to take it easy, escape the heat, life awaits.
But it didn’t – not for Mundy. All that awaited was a cantankerous and dying father, holed up in a council flat in Stepney and addled with cheap scotch. More fights maybe and, perhaps, a grubby boozer of his own. Malign symmetry: what goes around comes around.
He had discovered something else: Africa. Where being a cruel and mean bastard still counted for something. Where violence remained a trade, an honest way to make a living and decent pay if you could find the right employer. He deserted the British army early in 1967, taking nothing but his gun, which he kept like a soldier – with love. Oiled, greased, cleaned, ready for consummation in battle.
‘Well?’
Brierly spoke and Mundy looked up from the fire. The old man was deep in the shadows of his chair, his eyes were closed, his mouth was thin and smug.
‘What do you say John? Once more unto the breach old boy?’










Chapter Three
Evan Pike straightened his glasses in the mirror and adjusted his tie for the umpteenth time. He fiddled with the collar of his shirt, he used a little bit of spit to stick down his hair and he checked underneath the tissue paper on his chin to see if the shaving cut had healed. It had, thank goodness. It was difficult enough to strike the right balance on these occasions.
There were strict dress codes for most diplomatic functions, depending of the event and the sense of formality: casual, lounge suit, that sort of thing. For Evan, who had been a diplomat for much of his adult life, it was reassuring, almost necessary, that an invitation told him what to wear. On the rare occasions when one did not, and the High Commissioner’s mid-year cocktail party was one such occasion, Evan found life very difficult indeed. He had been too conservative last year, opting for a suit and tie only to find that most of the men had dressed down for the evening.
Evan knew that, like it or not, such things got noticed. One never wanted to attract the wrong kind of attention. It might be written off as a frivolous oddity, but even that could be a stigma in a close diplomatic community. So Evan had to be careful. He didn’t want to attract unwelcome attention, but he didn’t want to blend in too well either. Too often, he failed to make any impression whatsoever, so he was forgotten too easily, he was passed over for promotions and important projects. Lately, even the dog ignored him.
Part of the problem was his physical appearance. He was forty three years old, in theory, approaching an age of self-confidence and authority. But he had neither the face nor the frame to assert himself, with fair hair, the colour of wet sand, and thin-rimmed spectacles which sat upon a hooked nose. Freckles crowded his cheeks like they were trying to distract attention from his apologetic mouth. His narrow shoulders were useless for imposing himself on an argument and his voice wasn’t deep or forceful enough to carry across a room. He was a slight man, and when he wore a suit, people noticed the pinstripe more than the person. Which probably explained his collection of garish ties. He looked in the mirror again. Tonight’s effort was blue and silver with dancing cocktail glasses. It made a statement, it cried out for notice, it made him feel festive. He thought the tie was fun. It showed he had a humorous side. He might have called it zany if the word hadn’t sounded so awkward on his tongue. Marvellous he imitated, splendid. Just the ticket.
He glanced at his wrist watch: time was running short, but he paused for a moment. The watch had been a present from his wife – no, he corrected himself – his ex-wife. His late ex-wife now. That was still so hard to believe, the facts, the details, were still too hard to process. After all, he and his wife had been long separated, so there was a numbness to his loss, he still wasn’t sure from which part of his body he should begin grieving. He supposed that the mourning felt artificial because, for years, the relationship had been an idea only, a memory, which Evan had held on to even though it had passed beyond use. Long ago.
He felt funny looking at the wrist watch, it represented so many unanswered question. Part of him feared that, just by wearing it, he was hoarding things that should have been forfeited and this made him feel guilty. But it was just a watch, that’s what his wife would have said. She had never worried about such things. An elegant watch – his wife’s taste, too elegant for his wrist – but still, just a watch.
He stole another glance into the mirror, tweaked the tie, then he snapped off the light and hurried out on to the landing. The floor boards creaked under his feet, the banister wobbled beneath his hand as he made his way downstairs.
Evan lived in an old house in an unpopular Islamabad suburb. There were few other diplomats nearby, his neighbourhood was mainly building sites that had sprung up over night and then stalled when the money ran out. He didn’t mind that his own house was scruffy. He quite liked the way the paint peeled from the plasterboard rails, the way the dust puffed from the carpet. He found it atmospheric. He loved the smell of the hibiscus trees that drooped their branches over the roof of the villa and clogged the guttering with the shedding of their leaves. He didn’t object to the lawn, which was rarely watered and, in patches, scratched to dust by the dog, who loved nothing more than to roll in the dirt and rub his back on exposed tree stumps. He allowed the bushes to grow, orange and lemon trees, bananas which never ripened, and plenty of birds, either nesting in the higher boughs or feeding on the fruit. Parakeets whistled and fizzed around the eaves of the balcony and, overhead, brown kites hung like dust rags in the wind.
The downstairs hallway was a large, useless space. It was too grand for the rest of the house, meant perhaps for receiving guests and serving cocktails, but never used for those purposes by Evan. The floor was imitation marble, pleasant in its way, but a little worse for wear. It was bare – cool in summer – except for a tatty old rug that Evan had bought for an extortionate price on a trip to Lahore. Often, running through the house, the dog would skid on the rug and crash into sports equipment stored against the wall, weathered cricket bats, old pads and unstrung tennis rackets.
Evan paused on the lowest stair. The evening was strangely quiet. The staff were supposed to stay on until six but they rarely did. The kitchen was silent. A muffled barking told Evan that the dog was outside chasing animals through the tangled flower beds. There were lizards and rats in the garden and a mongoose, which often would skirt the base of the side wall and disappear into a dark crevice just as the dog hurtled after it. It was a quarter to six, fifteen minutes before the car was due to arrive and collect them. His daughter was coming to the party too, although she was less than happy about it.
Evan sighed and the noise echoed on the imitation marble. It was not that he disliked having his daughter stay, far from it, but it was jolly hard work. He was out of practice, truth be told, and she was so hard to understand. This was her first visit to Pakistan, her first proper visit in several years. His previous tour had been to Russia and she had not visited there either. That was surely his fault, he realised that, but the acknowledgment did little to help him now.
The hardest thing, when he looked at her, was forgetting Camille. Perhaps it was natural for Evan to project his memories of his ex-wife on to their daughter, no doubt Freud would have something to say on the subject. Something obscure and unhelpful, most likely. In Evan’s mind, the human condition was a mythical enterprise, a black box, the workings of which were best left unexplored. One did what one did… better that way.
Which meant that, went it came to his daughter, he was in the dark. This didn’t alarm him particularly. Why should it? Even under normal circumstances, he hardly expected to understand the mind of an eighteen year old girl. Who would? And circumstances were abnormal. He and his daughter were, politely, estranged. She was firmly her mother’s girl, and her mother was dead. After the funeral Evan had attempted to explore the emotional implications of that fact but he had not got far. Rather, he had hoped that his daughter could resolve the issues for herself. Maybe she would. Who knew? Maybe her troubles were just the symptoms of teenage struggles.
Either way, she was here now and he was glad to have her. He really was. He just found it hard that she had grown up without him, that the little girl he remembered was gone. He really resented that.
Conscious of the time slipping away, he left the staircase and began to cross the entrance hall in his socks, sliding on the fake marble tiles. There would be a chance, later perhaps, to confront the thought that had briefly ambushed him on the stairs. He blamed the watch, its glinting gold band, like the lure on the fisherman’s line, flashing and dipping suddenly, a living thing in the stagnant pools of his brain. But to bite at it, to get oneself hooked, seemed inappropriate to Evan. It offended his propriety, his engrained sense of etiquette, and he resisted it. He lived his life beneath the surface of those dark pools and, no matter how drab their waters, he would not be tempted to surface.
The watch… the time, the car should arrive any moment. Where was his daughter? It really was oppressively quiet in the house. Across the hallway, on the table in the sitting room, were her birthday presents. The lights in the lounge room and the study were out, the staff had indeed left… she must be in her room, the guest room, past the kitchen, at the end of a corridor filled with shadow.
It was strange, this segregation of his house, this marking of territories, this room from which he was suddenly excluded. Not that he ever visited the guest bedroom (what was the point?).
He knocked gently on the door, feeling strangely nervous, like a child knocking on the door of a neighbour. He tried to imagine the scene in the bedroom: his daughter’s clothes on the bed, her make-up on the dresser, the untidy jumble of teenage existence. He knocked again but still there was no answer. Perhaps she was in the bathroom, applying the finishing touches. He imagined opening the door and calling to her but he knew he would not. His sense of propriety again, the lines he could not cross.
‘Hang on.’ He heard his daughter call from inside.
He hung on.
She pulled the door open and he found himself blinking in the flood of warm orange light. There was the scent of soap and perfume in the air and she been burning incense, or candles, because the smoke still lingered around the lampshades.
‘Are you ready? The car will be here any second.’
Yesterday, he had told her she looked just like her mother. It was a funny thing to have said, but he had thought she might appreciate it. And it was almost true. In her own way, she too was sculpted like a Lladro figurine. So there were some similarities, he just exaggerated them to hide the differences that made him uncomfortable.
Like her hair, which was too dark, and her eyes, which were blue-grey and shy… so painfully shy. Her face which was soft where her mother’s had been sharp: on the bridge of the nose and at the corners of her mouth. She was taller, heavier, less delicate – more like earthenware than porcelain. She had none of her mother’s grace and ease of movement. Instead she was quiet and awkward, like she was turned in on herself. He had noticed, in the few days she had been with him, how she was always backing away from people, and how she stared at the ground more than she stared at anything else.
But Evan didn’t mind. In fact, he warmed to her for exactly these reasons. There was enough in her face, enough prettiness, enough mischief, to evoke her mother. And he recognised the shyness, he understood it. But it pained him too because he knew he was to blame.
After the divorce, she had been too close to her mother. Even now, she dressed the same as Camille had dressed, long ago, which was such strange enough, because no matter how chic or how tastefully assembled, the clothes looked silly on a girl her age. She had no friends. He knew that from her teachers; he knew that she was quiet and reticent all of the time. Not just with him. He knew he couldn’t approach her, couldn’t open her up, or teach her to grieve and forget and to live properly. She lived in her head now Camille was gone. Just like he lived in his head. And the distance between them was simply to great.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m just coming.’
She disappeared back into the bathroom, leaving him standing in the doorway, still uncertain if he should cross the threshold. The room looked tidy enough. Her suitcase sat open on the floor at the end of the bed, she hadn’t unpacked her clothes. He wondered if this was significant. There was a book on the bedside table, a diary perhaps, pens and a personal stereo, a bag of makeup on the dresser, a lighter, the candles. Nothing too remarkable. She lacked her mother’s elegance. There had always been something about the way Camille filled a room with her possessions that affected him. Her things were her agents, feminine, enticing… treacherous. He stopped himself. It was a bad habit, remembering his wife, one he had conquered after the divorce, eventually, one he had almost forgotten, but now, with his daughter in his house, he was slipping. He could feel himself slipping.
Lights flared in the dark hallway and he jumped nervously, scared he had been caught doing something illicit. The car had arrived, the guards were drawing the gates and ushering it into the driveway.
‘They’re here,’ he called into the room, ‘the car is here. Avy?’
‘One minute.’
‘Come on, we don’t want to be late. I’m just getting my shoes.’
His shoes were waiting for him by the front door. He put them on, stepped out on to the porch and waived at the driver to let him know they were coming. The dog appeared around the corner of the house and started barking at the headlights. Flustered, he stepped back in to the house and called to his daughter.
‘Avy? Make sure you bring a coat Avy. It’s a chilly evening. Come on, the car is waiting.’
Was she being difficult? He waited for a couple of moments in the entrance hall before he strode back towards her room. There was no reason to be late, it felt like wilful disobedience. How was one supposed to deal with wilful disobedience? He would bang on the bathroom door, he thought. If he had to. But she was out of the bathroom and pulling her coat on.
They sat in silence as the car reversed out of the driveway and the guards swung the gates shut.
They turned right out of Evan’s street on to the Margalla road, accelerating past the local traffic, past the mosque that kinked the road, skirting along the northern boundary of the city until the car braked hard and swung round on to Constitutional Avenue, the four lane highway that sped south past the National Assembly and the Supreme Court and on towards the diplomatic enclave where they were headed.
‘Do you like the tie?’ Evan sounded concerned.
‘I don’t know…’ she shrugged apologetically and turned away to look out the window.
Evan considered his dilemma. Then, feeling dejected, he pulled the tie from his neck and set it in his lap.
The monkeys were sitting on the wall beside the road again, they came down from the hills in roaming posses to scavenge food and fight with the stray dogs. Behind them, the Prime Minister’s villa dominated the hillside, like he was a feudal lord with his castle on a hill, gun turrets and security walls to protect him form the serfs. The car raced passed, on towards their own security posts and barricades.
They had red plates but they were still delayed at the gates while the police conducted their checks, sweeping beneath the vehicle with mirrors and flashlights. Then Evan waved his diplomatic ID and they moved into the enclave, past the embassies of Egypt and India, along the dark leafy lane toward the British High Commission, where they waited at another gate for the same security checks and the same solemn nod of acceptance.
The High Commission was an ugly grey concrete slab of a building, evoking the very worst architecture that Britain had to offer. Opposite it was the equally ugly residence and, between the two, a large flagstone turning circle, in the middle of which stood a very grumpy looking statue of Queen Victoria. Cars were queuing around this circle as drivers waited to unload passengers at the residence doors and then waited again to exit through the security gates. An effort had been made at least to decorate the place. The two large trees which stood by the office steps had been laden with fairy lights, their branches aflame like two magnesium strips burning with phosphorescent fire. It hurt almost to look at them. There were more lights hanging from the buildings, even some wound with the razor wire atop the perimeter walls. Only the statue was immune, Victoria was unadorned, and the unnatural light cast her features in even sterner relief.
Soon it was their turn to step out of the car on to the flagstones. An elaborate woven carpet led to the residence front door, which was open into the brightly lit entrance hallway. Evan emerged from the car and looked anxiously about him, but his wardrobe did not seem out of place. Always dress conservative – that should be a rule, he thought. He took an eager step towards the entrance hall, then he stopped.
‘Come on Avy, people are waiting.’
His daughter had remained in the car, she was staring vacantly at the tree lights.
‘Come on,’ he said again, ‘what’s the matter with you?’
She took an age to turn away from the lights.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
‘Well come on then, you’re holding people up.’
She slid across the seat and swung her legs out after him then, as their car pulled away, he whispered to her.
‘Try and be polite.’
Fairy lights had invaded the house as well as the garden. White globes were tacked around doors and smaller pin-pricks of flame were hung from picture frames and strung between the lamp shades. It was unnaturally hot, so many filaments were burning. Evan was soon sweating beneath his collar and puffing his freckled cheeks. The walls seemed to glare almost, like he had been staring into the sun. Too much light, it was dizzying. They made it though the hallway and into the reception room where the High Commissioner’s wife was waiting to greet them.
‘Welcome,’ she said.
‘Oh, you’re very kind,’ said Evan, but she was already welcoming the next guests.
The reception room was large, with glass doors that were open on to the garden. People were milling here and there, chatting politely, drinking mulled wine. There were waiters carrying nibbles, mince pies and sausage rolls, that sort of thing. He scanned the crowd looking for familiar faces. They were mainly Brits of course, but there were plenty of other nationalities represented, and a fair few foreign Ambassadors. A High Commissioner always had pulling power. He saw the Swedish and the Dutch Ambassadors standing together in the corner. They seemed to be sharing a joke because the Swedish Ambassador laughed and spilled a little of his mulled wine on the carpet. Evan remembered him from a previous function, they had shared a short discussion on the local wildlife. He had seemed pleasant enough.
Philip Landry was standing by the drinks table, as he usually did. Inwardly, Evan shook his head sympathetically, but he made sure Philip could not catch his eye. The old lush was doubtless looking this way, in that befuddled way of his, groping for eye contact. He always seemed to seek Evan out at these events, which of course made it almost impossible for Evan to engage more distinguished guests. Perhaps Avy could visit the drinks table for him. She would be able to slip under Philip’s radar. No trouble.
He turned to suggest this to his daughter but, to his surprise, she was no longer beside him. He looked around, she was nowhere to be seen.
The party was getting noisy. Some of the less well behaved children were running between the legs of the adults, shouting and laughing. Evan felt suddenly very tired, he lacked the artillery for a social assault of this magnitude. He removed his glasses and massaged his temple with his forefinger. There were so many people he should talk to, so few he genuinely wanted to. That was the trouble with the Foreign Office. The boundary between one’s work life and one’s social life was indistinct. Rarely could he relax and talk about the things he liked.
Where was Avalon? He knew he should look for her, just as he should look for his colleagues and a dozen other people he wanted to acknowledge. Which meant beginning somewhere… with a drink and a short chat with Philip who was, if nothing else, a reminder that life could be worse. He sighed, restored his glasses and loosened his tie just slightly. Philip had seen him, he returned the wave, attempted a weak smile and started towards the drinks table.
He didn’t see the High Commissioner barrelling through the crowd in the opposite direction, he simply felt the large man’s hand slap him on the shoulder.
‘Evan!’ Peter Boxer sounded like he was in a boisterous mood. ‘Just the man I was looking for. Are you enjoying the shindig?’
Evan was flustered. Normally, he wasn’t even on the radar as far as men like Boxer were concerned. This was, perhaps, the second time they had spoken in two years. He mumbled, he tried to nod, he wondered why Boxer had suddenly bothered to learn his name. It must mean something was wrong.
‘Yes? Marvellous. Excellent. Glad to hear it. You should get yourself some nibbles, or some mulled wine. There’s an excellent spread. Actually, scrap that, could you come with me? There’s some business I’d like to get through first, if you don’t mind? Alright? Excellent. This way then…’
Evan heard Philip call his name. He turned and waved to him, he shrugged, he tried to convey the significance of events, he pointed towards the entrance hall… there was no time. He gathered himself and hurried after the High Commissioner.
Peter Boxer was a bully. He could be intelligent, charming, occasionally eloquent but, at the heart of it all, was an insatiable domineering hunger. It was his right to know, his right to expect; it was implicit in his birth, his public school education, his place in the Foreign Office. His shoulders bullied, they hunched and crowded, they swaggered and squared his suits. His face bullied, the florid cheeks, the fuming eyes, his mouth’s thin curling displeasure. He was one of those men who had ceased to be flesh and bone, his sphere had extended. He had become the influence he exerted. He was less a man, more a social structure. Even in relatively benign mood, he overwhelmed the small study and terrified Evan, who was unprepared for such a full-frontal personality assault.
Boxer began by pouring them both a drink. Scotch, too strong for Evan, it made his throat burn and his freckles flame. He coughed and Boxer laughed and he felt like a junior boy at the mercy of the school prefect. Boxer pointed to photographs on the wall: shaking hands with the President, entertaining her Majesty on a visit during the eighties. He made small talk, he paced a little, he sat on the edge of the desk and leaned over Evan, his shoulders flexing.
‘Evan,’ he said, ‘can we talk?’
Evan was sitting in a low leather armchair, trying to decide how best to cross his legs.
‘Of course, yes… yes.’ He considered another sip of scotch.
‘Yes? Good. Excellent. Glad to hear it. You know, I hear you have been doing good work. It has been noted.’
Evan’s foot began to tap against the calf of his other leg.
‘Excellent work, really excellent work.’ Boxer swirled the ice in his glass. ‘I’m sure it hasn’t been easy. Your wife died yes? Recently?’
‘Er, my ex-wife. Yes.’
‘My condolences. But well done, excellent work nevertheless. That sort of commitment to the cause… it is noted, don’t you worry. You’ve been here a year now?’
‘No, er no, just over two I think.’
‘Two years. The time flies doesn’t it? I shall be out of here myself soon. Back to Blighty for a while. Can’t wait actually… can’t wait. Got a nice little job lined up in Whitehall. No more nonsense.’ He lowered his voice and leaned further forward. ‘Between you and me… this year’s honours list… a nod in this direction. Very gratifying of course. One does what one does. But it’s nice to be recognised, I’m sure you can appreciate that.’
‘I can…’
‘Yes. Indeed. Marvellous. Fewer hassles in London of course. Fewer hassles… talking of which,’ he sat back on the desk, ‘talking of which… I have a problem. Not a catastrophe, but not something I can trust to just anybody. An irritation. So what do you say? Can we talk?’
‘Oh yes.’ Evan nodded nervously.
‘Don’t look so worried, it’s nothing major. Just awkward timing really. Rather short notice…’
‘Short notice… no trouble.’ Evan’s foot was drumming faster against his calf.
‘Excellent. Well this is the problem. Some chaps in London have got a man over here investigating a private matter. He’s sort of a private police force, I believe. I won’t tell you exactly what he’s doing, you don’t need to worry about that. It doesn’t concern us.’
So he wasn’t in trouble. The way Boxer said us, warm and fuzzy, wet with scotch, told Evan he was in favour . Us. You and me. This high table of ours.
‘No, it’s nothing particularly interesting. Private business you understand. But we have a duty to support private enterprise, when it’s British – we are the Foreign Office. And one of these chaps sit on the honours committee, so I’m sure you can appreciate, I have a personal interest here.’
Just you and me. A personal interest.
‘But the Paks are being rather awkward about things. They don’t want to let this man travel cross-country. Well, you know how funny things are up there at the moment. Nonsense, of course, but I had a word, we don’t want to make an issue of it. I’ve pulled some strings and they’ve issued travel papers at last. Only they’re insisting someone travels with him, a diplomatic presence… you know the deal. A pain in the backside. And at such shot notice too… ridiculous timing.’ He shook his head sadly, his hands were tied. ‘I need someone I can trust to keep this chap in line. You know… personal interest and all. Nothing difficult, just a spot of baby-sitting, doing the paperwork, soothing the relations…’
‘I can do it.’ Evan blurted it out rather.
‘Of course you can.’
‘When exactly?’
‘Tomorrow. That’s been the problem. Getting someone so quickly, everyone’s busy of course.’
‘No. No, that’s fine. I mean… well, I have my daughter staying with me.’ Evan wondered who been asked already.
‘Your daughter? Well no problem. No problem at all. We’ve booked you into the Hindu Kush Heights, smashing place… take her along. It snows up there, she’ll love it.’
‘The Heights?’
‘Yes, the man is there already. Have you been to Chitral? You could take a few days and enjoy it.’
‘A few days… yes, of course.’
There was another decision being made here. Evan was vaguely conscious of it without being fully aware what it was.
‘Excellent,’ said Boxer, ‘that’s what I like to hear. A car will be round tomorrow morning, early – it’s a long drive.’
He drained his scotch and stood up.
‘I’m glad that’s decided, I best be getting back,’ he said. ‘My secretary will call you later tonight with the details. Well done Evan, good man.’
Evan sat in his chair and contemplated his scotch. He had been waiting two years for his superiors to pay him the slightest attention and, suddenly, here it all was at once. Nothing too exciting perhaps, but still something. A personal favour.
But it was all over rather quickly, there had been no time to savour the moment. He felt a little flat. The door was swinging open, the noise and the chatter of the party drifted in. He heard Boxer greeting someone in the hallway. He gazed at the photographs on the wall and tried to imagine himself inside those frames, shaking hands, conducting business. He would be a very different High Commissioner, less bluster and more subtle. What did these reveries say about him? Was he ambitious? He had never been comfortable with the idea. It seemed to take something away from him. Lord knows what exactly, but he regretted it.
How would Avalon react? Did it matter? Was that the other decision he had been making, to impose himself more, to extend his will? Perhaps she would be thankful for the change, grateful for the opportunity. Either way, it wasn’t for long. Then she would be heading back to England, back to school, back to normal. He stood up and placed his scotch glass on the desk beside the High Commissioner’s. Things were definitely changing. He took a final lingering look around the study, sighed vaguely, closed the door behind him and went to look for his daughter.





Chapter Four
In the seat beside Mundy, the driver stank like an ashtray full of stale sweat. His body odour clogged the cab of the jeep, it welled in Mundy's nostrils, it closed his throat, it narrowed his eyes at the malignant little man, chewing his dirty yellow cigarettes, his bleary-red eyes bouncing from pothole to pothole, his soiled fingers gripping the wheel, ten and two, black nails and white knuckles, hunched forward over the dash like it was something he loved. He murmured sweet nothings to the choking engine, he petted it after every rut, every ice-slew, every gravel-churning wheel-spin. He bounced in his seat, he smoked and he stank.
An emulsion of rain and ice fogged the windscreen. A freezing dawn mist hung above the valley. The sky was a filthy wash-water grey, the hillsides, patched brown and white, smelled of damp wood. Mundy leaned his head toward a tear in the canvas roof and breathed in pine-scent, wet mud, the smell of snow-clouds.
They were climbing the road up from Chitral village towards the Hindu Kush Heights guesthouse, an incongruous mess of brick, wooden verandas and corrugated iron, bolted together on the nose of a broad spur, a hundred feet above the valley floor. Beyond the guesthouse, the foothills of the Hindu Raj and the Hindu Kush rose into the clouds, their scree slopes grey and brown and white with snow. It was early still, the dawn was slow and painful, the light was percolating in the clouds.
Mundy had been up since the azan and down into the village to call his report through to Oxford. He had done the calculations, Pakistan was four hours ahead, but the old man would be awake, sitting in his chair, waiting for the call, trying to wring every last bitter second from the day. When Mundy was away, he was expected to make reports weekly. It was their routine, their protocol, just like an old married couple. Call me with news, call me weekly….what’s your report? It was the same in Africa, from a satellite phone swamped in the bush, or dug in a dog fight… I'll wait for your call. At least, back then, there had been something to say. Not now. Not in the grey age.
Recently, he had been having visions of the old man's hand on his shoulder – the withered fingers, the white nails, the liver-spots – it was a frightening Freudian ghost. He tried to beat it away but it clung on… call me, old boy, don’t leave me. He thought of the cell phone stowed in his pack, his most hated possession. It was something, at least, that the thing would not work here, that the network failed in the mountains. It meant there was some space, room to breathe, an inch of air between the peaks and the clouds.
He took a deep breath through the tear in the roof. He still compared everything to Africa. The smell was different here, different from the bush obviously but different from the mountains too, different from the blue-stain Mount Kenya, different from the ash-pit Kilimanjaro. The mud was different, cold and grey and dripping wet. Where was the red earth? Where was the heat haze and the oozing horizon? The mountains crowded everything. Brown walls, pine trees, the constant threat of snow.
But people were the same, they were less subtle. Greed worked the same, stones worked the same, so Mundy worked the same. The rules didn't change with the continent. He was patient and practiced at his method. Which was how he got results.
The first week was all groundwork. He counted back in his head. It started with Sunday evening dinner with Brierly. The next morning he travelled to London for his visa. He queued around Lowndes Square, watching the Knightsbridge bustle. He took a walk in the park to Marble Arch. He stood by the lake and watched the ducks in the frosty water. He caught an evening flight from Heathrow, sitting in the cheap seats, he didn't sleep. Tuesday morning at Rawalpindi airport. The crowd and the smell. The hoards pushing and shouting. It was un-African, there was too little colour. Brown shalwars, blue shalwars, police uniforms. The reds and the yellows were drained from this country. Grey tarmac, green fields. The spectrum was purely functional. Not that it mattered to Mundy, he didn’t care. The pink toilet tissue was the same, heaped in the road side dust. He found a taxi, the hassle didn't bother him. He didn't barter, he didn't argue. He paid what he wanted to pay.
He went straight to the High Commission. He was early for the meeting. Peter Boxer was forty minutes late. He spoke a lot while Mundy listened. The High Commissioners in Africa were the same – made from the same prototype, bent over the same barrels.
He booked into a guesthouse, dirty and roachy, he shaved in cold, brown water, and waited for his travel clearance. He had never waited for permission to go anywhere before but, in a new country, caution was essential. It was part of the method. Patience, always exercise patience. The permission came through Wednesday morning and he was on the road in the afternoon. He paid three hundred rupees for a taxi to take him two hours north, to Peshawar. He noticed the air change, it became coarse, acrid with the tongues of the Imams. He noticed the wind from the dessert. His eyes watered and turned red. He watched the burqas from the taxi, day ghosts, twirling carousels in cobalt, midnight blue and black. He had seen faceless women before, on the streets of Khartoum, long ago. He noticed the traders, the brigands and the smugglers, their nuances, the ebb and flow on the street. He found a guesthouse in the old town, a block from the old Khan Klub. He beat dust from the mattress and dozed.
Shortly after nightfall he ventured out on foot, passing beneath the Rampur gates with the bicycles, bullock carts and mules. The smell of curry frying. Punjabi faces and Pashtun faces. Past the back of the Khan Klub and its flaking colonial walls. He ate curry and naan from a stand in the street, he considered the vender, he made some enquiries.
He rode to the smuggler's market in the back of a private car. A friend of the vender, or a friend of his friend. They didn't speak. Once there, it took him less than an hour to conduct his business. He bought his transport. The evil smelling driver arrived with his jeep and stood smoking in the street while Mundy checked over the vehicle. Then he bought a gun. An old Russian Makarov. He was back on the road at dawn the next day, heading north out of Peshawar on the Charsadda road. If anything, it was easier than Africa.
It felt good to be moving. He sat quietly in his seat and watched the landscape change. They crossed the tribal lands into the Swat valley and began to climb. He fell asleep. They drove all day through the mountains, he awoke when snow started to blow into the jeep. The roads were broken slate and ice and slippery. The driver chewed his nails and began talking to the engine. They crossed the Lowari Pass shortly before dusk, the descent into Chitral took six hours, so they arrived in the depths of night and the snow started falling.
The brow of the small hill was wet with it. The wheels of the jeep dug deep into the guesthouse driveway and sprayed gravel across the muddy gardens. The engine coughed and they kicked on towards the building, skidding on the snow before grinding to a halt in front of the deserted porch. Mundy stepped out and stretched, enjoying the fresher air. He was dressed for travel at last, his heavy boots were laced, his jacket buttoned high on his neck against the cold. His duffel bag was stowed in the jeep, the gun was inside it, wrapped in cloth to stop the grease staining his undershirts. He turned towards the guesthouse but he had no plans to go in. He had spent too long there already, delayed three days since reaching Chitral, making it a full week since arriving in Pakistan. Patience was important but things were moving too slowly.
He thought of dinner the night before and the idiotic diplomat who had arrived to ‘accompany’ him. Mundy would be sixty three years old tomorrow. Somehow, he had acquired a chaperone. He was too old to suffer the idiot, who would be a tedious liability most likely. He had argued about it with Brierly but the old man had been insufferable, condescending – different country old boy, got to jump through the hoops you know, don’t lose him unless you absolutely have to…
He suspected he might have to. The man had bought his daughter with him – she had been at dinner. Mundy had watched her, seventeen or eighteen, but dressed so much older. And he had watched the father, so socially eager, so keen in his discussion, so oblivious to the girl.
And the letch Pietr Rawicz, fawning over her, pawing with his big bear-club hands. She was flattered, Mundy saw that. Not so much by the man as the attention. She was starved of it, Mundy saw that too. The way she dressed, the way she stared at the table, she was so withdrawn, so timid, so grateful to be noticed. But she had no idea. She didn’t see the perversion in Rawicz’s eyes, the lust and the resentment, the loneliness and the longing.
Mundy did though. He saw the anger with which Rawicz ate, shovelling plate after plate of food into his perpetual maws, a gorilla, ruminating, feeding time at the zoo. He chewed and he watched the girl and Mundy watched him. He watched it all. He watched Zahra Khan, the guesthouse owner, with her posh accent and her richly tailored Pakistani heritage. He saw her laugh and touch the diplomat’s arm. He saw her husband twitch and reach for more red wine. Mundy was the witness. He was outside the niceties, outside the cosy, inclusive sociality, outside the dirty half-noticed conspiracy, the nods and the winks, the fluttered eyes lashes, the flushed skin, the hunger.
Mundy had no time for perversions, not beyond his own tastes. He held nothing but contempt for Rawicz, but they were contacts only, they had met for the first time two days ago, thrown together by Brierly’s wizened, manic scheming. How Rawicz knew Brierly, or how the old man knew of Rawicz, Mundy did not care, but the union was not so wholly unexpected. In his world, scroungers and thieves tended to find each other. And Rawicz was most definitely a thief, Mundy had no doubt about that. He could tell by the way the Russian’s eyes darted about the room, by the way he sat, by the things he said. There was violence in him and plenty of greed. He was scheming, he was rotten… it made Mundy smile, he was so very familiar. He was Brierly’s type of man. The type that made promises he would not keep. A liar, a cheat, a web-spinner.
It had been surprising to see the Russian at the dinner. It was bold on his part, it was disdainful too. It underestimated Mundy, it assumed he was safe to provoke, it assumed he was too old to cause harm. But that was fine with Mundy, it was better to be underestimated.
Mundy’s job was to dissect Rawicz, to cut through to the core, to rip out the truth, to find out what was going on here – to find out what had happened to Alain Legembre, and why, and where the hell he was now.
Brierly had not shared much, but that was the old man – an arrogant, paranoid paradox. Mundy knew Rawicz was a gem hunter, he knew he was a smuggler. He knew he had found Brierly and made an offer good enough for the old man to bite. Money had been moved, a scheme had been hatched and the Frenchman was part of it, sent to work in these remote hills, pretending to be something he wasn’t. Now he had disappeared and Rawicz was feigning ignorance. Time would tell, these were early days still, Mundy was only just getting started. He would break open that great bald-dome head if he had to. But not yet. There were things to do first. Rawicz knew the truth and, eventually, he would talk. Mundy just had to calculate his price.
Sixty three years old tomorrow. It meant nothing to work over his own birthday, Mundy had never celebrated it. Tomorrow was the girl’s birthday as well, apparently. Which was an interesting coincidence. But if the diplomat was upset to be missing it, then he was too craven and pathetic to voice his objections. Perhaps he didn't care, perhaps he wasn't sentimental about spending the day with his daughter, who would stay at the hotel until they returned.
Mundy would not countenance her coming. It was frustrating enough that he had to endure the diplomat. He bit back his temper as he watched the man tumble through the hotel doorway. Evan Pike was late and unready. A mop of wet hair fell across his forehead like a streak of sodden sand, he had a slice of buttered toast clenched in his teeth, he struggled with a back-pack in one hand and the zip of his raincoat in the other. The lurid plastic flapped open about his midriff. His glasses were fogged like the windscreen of the jeep. What sort of man was this?
'Oh Mr Mundy… I'm terribly sorry, are we ready for the off?'
Mundy heard the door bang shut behind the diplomat. He shut his eyes and tried for his own peculiar form of meditation. He listened to his teeth grind, he listened to his breathing, he counted in diminishing fractions, one, one and a half, one and three quarters… two and one eighth… I will not hit him… he lost himself in the mist, a malign fog darkening and devious.
'I'll just pop my bags in the jeep then shall I – back here, where yours are?'
'Yes,' Mundy turned wearily, ‘you do that Mr Pike.'
'Right. Will do. I must be honest, I didn't know how much to bring. How long do you think we'll be away?'
'Not too long.'
'Oh good… that's good. It's a bit difficult you see, with Avalon… my daughter. She's a teenage girl after all, it's a bit of a minefield… maybe you can imagine.'
'No I can't imagine. Get into the jeep please.'
'Oh, yes. Of course, I'll squeeze in the back here. I told her two days, do you think that's reasonable?' The diplomat glanced nervously back to the hotel where his daughter was sleeping. 'I don't want to upset her,' he said more to himself than to Mundy, 'truth be told, she’s just like her mother… gosh, what is that?'
The driver had climbed into the cab.
'Two days is very optimistic Mr Pike.’
'Oh right,' Evan sounded like he was struggling for breath. 'Well maybe I should tell her… leave a note or something.'
But it was too late. The smell was set. The driver stretched his filthy knuckles on the steering wheel, gunned the engine and swung them around away from the hotel. They bounced through the gates and away on the narrow gravel road, down the hillside back towards the town and the rising sun. The driver pulled a cigarette from the packet in his breast-pocket and ducked beneath the dash to shelter the lighter flame from the rushing wind. The engine coughed, the wheels slid, their journey had begun.
They avoided the town to the west, climbing through fields first and then scree slopes until they were following a river through rocky gullies, sometimes driving with a towering wall of grey sandstone beside them, sometimes with a sheer drop to the icy water below them. The grass soon disappeared and even the pines began to thin, finding fewer and fewer places to plant their roots on the barren slopes. Up high, the crowns of the Hindu Kush were bare and brown except for the snow, which streamed in icy slicks through the runnels and the creases and heaped in drifts beneath the ridges. The air blasted freezing cold through the open windows, ice splinters sprayed Evan in the back seat, as the edge of the sun advanced behind them and, ahead, the clouds gathered over the mountains.
Mundy peered through the cracked windscreen trying to read the storm. The last thing they needed was a snow dump, he knew that their passage would already be difficult enough. At this time of year, the road into the Kalash was usually blocked but so far the snow had been light. But the forecast was poor and he could tell from a quick glance at the road that even a light fall would wreck it. He was taking the very worse kind of risk – one forced upon him by Brierly’s dithering – uncalculated and uncertain. He thought of the weeks that had lapsed since the Frenchman’s disappearance. The trail would be frozen to death, a poor reason to risk being trapped in the mountains. But he had to trust his method, he had to be thorough, because it was the only way. He was like a scientist, striving for certainty through the rigour of his method, it gave him direction, and without it he was lost.
They climbed all through the morning and deep into the afternoon. The gullies became narrower and the river dropped further below them, quickening its currents, thrashing and frothing in tightly coiled eddies. Mundy studied the map in his lap. They had a hundred kilometres to travel, maybe a little more, but that would take most of the day at their current pace. The diplomat was an idiot if he thought he would be back within two days. Well, the diplomat was an idiot, there was little to dispute in that statement. But their lack of speed was concerning Mundy too. Even without mishap or inclement weather, they were looking at three days minimum, more likely four.
According to the map, the same road would take them all the way to the base of Bumboret valley, from there Mundy was expecting to have to hike up to the village. It didn’t look too far, fifteen kilometres maybe. He wondered how long that would take the pasty diplomat. Maybe it would better to leave him at the checkpoint – they should reach it shortly if the map was anything like accurate. After all, it was the sole reason he was there, to present their papers, to satisfy the pointless idiotic bureaucracy. A checkpoint on a road that no one travels, it was ridiculous.
‘Where are the clearance papers?’ He made little effort to keep the irritation out of voice.
‘Oh,’ Evan had been dozing, ‘the papers are in my pack, all ready to go. Don’t worry about that Mr Mundy, I’ll take care of the paperwork. Are we at the checkpoint?’
‘Not yet. Shortly.’
‘Right, I’ll dig the papers out then, so they’re ready.’
‘An excellent idea.’
‘I must confess, I don’t know too much about how these checkpoints work. I’ve never travelled this way before. It’s hard to imagine someone sitting out here through winter. It’s hard to see the point really.’
‘The road goes to Afghanistan. They must be seen to be watching their borders.’
‘The road runs all the way to Afghanistan? I wasn’t aware it made it much past this village we’re going to. I’m sure it will just be a formality though, we won’t have any trouble.’
‘Let us hope not.’
‘May I see the map? Thank you. It must be hard to draw lines up here. I mean… it’s all mountains isn’t it, and this road is hardly a road anyway.’
Mundy had noticed too that the road was narrowing, shrinking towards the cliff, so that there was hardly room for a single vehicle to pass. The river was a hundred feet below them, snaking around the feet of the mountains. The burnt-out husk of a tank lay rusting in its bed, the water swirling around the wheel treads and gushing through holes in its rusted flanks. The barrel of its canon was warped and twisted, projecting from the water like the sinking mast of a stricken ship.
‘Gosh,’ said Evan, ‘look down there, that’s a bit ominous.’
Mundy didn’t say anything but he wondered how an ancient Soviet T62 had made it this far through from Afghanistan. He had never seen one before, only sketches and in military textbooks. In Oxford, when the days had grown long and dark, when the torpid hours had threatened to smother him, he had turned to military history, just like all the other old men, reliving their pasts… revisiting their wars. He had read the books on Africa first… it was like greeting old friends… then he had turned to Russia: the missiles, the guns, the tanks… the lovers he would never meet.
The checkpoint was ahead of them. A low concrete shed lurking against the cliff wall and a heavy yew branch suspended between two posts across the road. They slowed as they neared the barricade, Evan rummaged through his pack, still looking for the papers. The driver hammered the horn as they approached, they braked and they waited.
After a while two uniformed men emerged from inside the shed, one young with a dark beard, the other old and fat. They were Chitral Scouts, the silver antlers and crossed rifles were pinned to the chests of their heavy grey overcoats.
‘Should we get out?’ Evan sounded nervous in the back.
‘Have you found the papers?’
‘Er, yes. I’ve got them here.’
‘Then we should get out and present, don’t you think?’
‘Assalãm alaikum,’ the younger soldier addressed them as they stepped on to the road.
‘Wa aleikum salãm,’ Evan returned the greeting. ‘I have our papers.’
He passed them to the elder soldier who made an elaborate display of the reading each page, then he disappeared into his shed, leaving the younger man to stand guard over the jeep. The driver had stayed behind the wheel, he was filling the cab with smoke. A chill wind blew through the gorge carrying snow flakes on its whisking currents. Mundy watched Evan stamp his feet. The diplomat looked nervous, jittery, as though he was desperate to speak but couldn’t think of the words. The soldier was edgy too, Mundy could see from the way he kept touching the butt of his rifle. A Kalashnikov, the Soviets again.
Why would the soldier be nervous? Mundy had passed though enough checkpoints in his time to know when something was amiss. There was no reason to be nervous, not yet, not unless… he thought of Rawicz… the ugly, leering face at the dinner table… the lies and the gross laughter. The brazen Russian. They were parallels everywhere. The tanks, the guns, the overcoats. Mundy was an unlikely mystic, but sometimes – just sometimes – he listened to superstition. This gorge felt like Russian territory. What was Rawicz’s agenda, how deep was his deceit? He blew hard into his numbing hands, it was important to keep the fingers warm.
The wind blew. Minutes passed. The papers did not return and the soldier kept his rifle aimed at their shins.
‘Excuse me. I am a diplomat with the British High Commission – you understand – British? Is there a problem here?’
The idiot diplomat had found some words. His hands were raised, like he was trying to surrender or something. Mundy felt his fists clench, this was not good. The prat would not stop jabbering, even though the guard clearly could not understand. He had his gun raised at the diplomat’s chest, which was alarming the fool even more.
‘No, no – you don’t understand. British – see, British.’
He was trying to reach into his pocket, trying to find his passport perhaps, something else to waive around, another red flag.
‘Stand where you are,’ Mundy growled.
‘I am a diplomat. We have papers. Where are our papers?’
The guards stepped back towards the shed. ‘Bas! Bas!’
‘Sab thik hai,’ Mundy spoke to the guard then to Evan. ‘Stand where you are damn it.’
But the diplomat was not listening. ‘No, no,’ he insisted. He must lower his gun.’ His arms shook frantically. ‘We are British…’
Then the gun went off.
The fire-crack exploded in Mundy’s ears. Evan went down on to the road, clawing at the grit as the shot echoed against the cliffs. Rock burst and showered the diplomat. The guard swung around, the gun waved wildly. He tried to level the sights, he tried to find Mundy. But Mundy was moving, lunging. The soldier tripped, he pirouetted, he teetered on the edge of the ravine for a moment of bizarre, unbalanced miscomprehension, before he tumbled down towards the river and his last shot fired harmlessly into the air.
Mundy did not watch him land, he was still moving. The older soldier came running from the shed, struggling to free his pistol from its holster. Mundy met him with a rock, plucked from the road, crunching against the man’s ear, knocking him down cold. He fell across the doorway so Mundy had to step over him to get into the shed. Inside, the light was dim suddenly, a single weak bulb. Their papers were on the table. Where was the evidence, where was the trace? Where was Rawicz? He searched quickly but methodically. He was done in minutes. The driver had thrown the barricade aside, Mundy scooped the diplomat off the road and slung his crumpled body head first into the jeep. Before he climbed into his seat, he stole one last glance at the tank in the river. Once more unto the breach old boy. It was good to be among friends again.



















Chapter Five
The sunlight pierced the dense snow clouds only sporadically but, when it did, it ignited such a fire in Evan's knotted skull that he thought his brain might fry. The jeep, coughing and growling, jolting and bouncing on the deeply rutted road didn't help either. He lay in the seat well with the luggage, trying to keep his eyes shut, gingerly nursing an oozing lump on the back of his head. It throbbed ceaselessly. His hair was matted. But he wasn't shot. He was sure of that at least. When the gun had fired he had fallen backwards and hit his head on the road. He had thought that was it. He had tried to imagine his life flashing before his eyes but it hadn't worked. It was embarrassing really. Mundy hadn’t stumbled at the shock of gunfire. Perhaps that was why he was keeping his eyes shut, feigning unconsciousness for as long as possible. Avoiding the shame. Because it had been his fault too – trying to be assertive he had just flapped his arms and squawked, made a fool of himself, startled the guard, knocked himself out…
What had happened then? He couldn’t remember. He opened his left eye slightly. Overhead, blue sky sliced through the cloud and luminous sheets of cold light fell across the cumulous like strata. The hillsides were splashed with sprays of green and yellow and fierce mottled white. It was too much. He shut the eye again but the headache was swelling like the rising tide. It really hurt.
It was an accident. It was a disaster. Mundy would doubtless complain to the High Commissioner. After all, the man charged with supervising his trip had nearly got him shot. And Evan… Evan had blown his chance to impress and they were not yet through their first day. It was typical. It was his life summed up – right there, in a single morning. It was a complete, unmitigated disaster. Could anything be salvaged? It wasn't wholly his fault after all, what on earth was the guard doing? It was outrageous really that someone so volatile should be guarding a public road. Waving around a gun he clearly could not control. Perhaps Mundy would see that, perhaps he could be talked round.
The headache though made it hard. He tried to drag himself upright to escape the grinding of the rear axle but movement sent pain flaring in his temples. He was a little dizzy too, he held the frame of the door to keep himself steady. The car spun around him and he was only dimly aware of the two men sitting in the front seats, two silhouettes, one tall and angular, the other weaselly and cloaked in smoke. They seemed a long way away, and did not turn around. His neck ached, there was stiffness in his shoulders, a fuzzy disagreement between his muscles. He groaned but the silhouettes continued to ignore him. He began to wonder if they could hear him. It felt like there was a great distance between them, like he was shrouded in cosmic fog. What did that mean? It made him nervous, suddenly he feared slow death and his own creeping spirit.
‘Excuse me…’ He stammered the words in a horse whisper but they still clanged in his skull like ringing symbols. The din shattered the illusion that he was drifting, the cosmic fog was cigarette smoke. He coughed, then wished he hadn’t. ‘Mr Mundy?’
The tall, angular silhouette twitched but did not turn around.
‘Mr Mundy… what happened?’ Mundy was so still, Evan wondered if he was breathing. ‘Please.’
‘What happened Mr Pike? When?’
‘Back there.’ Evan was confused. ‘Back there with the guards.’
‘Oh back there with the guards.’ The silhouette nodded. ‘You alarmed a nervous guard and he fired accidentally. You fell and hit your head, knocking yourself unconscious.’
‘How bad is it?’
‘How bad is what?’
‘My head. Am I hurt badly?’
‘No. You are fine.’ Mundy might even have sounded disappointed. Maybe he was just dismissive. ‘Both guards were extremely apologetic, they were most concerned that you might report them to their superiors.’
‘Oh, right.’ The headache seemed to be receding slightly. ‘I doubt it. I mean, it sounds like no harm was done. Er, will you? Report it, I mean.’
‘To whom should I report it?’
‘Well, you shouldn’t. Not unless you want to of course, if you are concerned.’
‘No, I am not concerned Mr Pike. These things can happen, that is my experience.’
‘Oh yes. Of course.’
Evan felt the relief wash over him like a warm, soothing balm. No harm done. These things happen. He was worrying for nothing. He almost smiled at the thought of the two guards sitting nervously in their shed, wondering if he would report them. Nothing to worry about but an aching head. And that could be solved. There were some painkillers in his pack, he could get at them in a bit. When they stopped next. Whenever that might be. Wherever that might be.
He braved a look out of the window. The sun was back behind a thick wall of cloud so the piercing brightness at least had diminished. But the air had a harsh quality to it, a coldness in the light and the sharp tongue of a cruel wind. They must have climbed much higher while he was unconscious, he wondered how long it had been. There was plenty of snow heaped beside the road now and Evan could see ice sheets frozen on the fractured rock. The gullies were steeper, narrower, and the river was further below them, running feverously, churning the snow. The mountains had closed in around them, he felt crowded by the pine trees, oppressed by the weight of the vast sandstone walls. He found himself gazing skywards, longing for the airy space among the clouds, for panorama and distant horizons.
He was having difficulty calculating the time. It had been late afternoon when they approached the checkpoint, but now, if the sun shone, it was low over the mountains behind them, which surely meant it was morning again. His daughter’s birthday. Had he slept the night? If so, how far had they come? It was horribly disorienting to be so unsure.
‘Mr Mundy, could you please tell me where we are, or what time it is maybe? I’m sorry but I can’t tell how long I was…’
‘Long enough Pike. It is morning. We camped last night, not far passed the checkpoint. We had lost too much time. You slept the whole time. Impressive really.’
‘The whole time?’
‘The whole time.’
‘And now? How much further is it?’
‘I don’t know, I’ve never been before. We will follow the road as far as we can and then, I’m afraid, we must walk the rest of the way. It will not take too long I hope.’
Evan sank back in the seat feeling like a child in a car full of adults. Are we nearly there yet? He scoffed at himself, he was heartily sick of feeling this way, uncertain amongst his colleagues, inferior amongst his peers, worthless amongst these strangers. Utterly worthless. Life hadn’t always been like this. Surely it hadn’t.
Mundy was becoming a significant threat to Evan’s fragile sensibilities. His presence was overbearing, domineering. Evan found himself desperately wanting to impress the older man but knowing somehow that he never would. And all the while he was scared of him, scared in several ways he was struggling to define. He was fearful of his opinion certainly, and his sarcasm, but there was something else… the thought that Mr Mundy could become very nasty very quickly. A sense of sleeping violence. That was what scared him, he was sure it was there and desperately wanted to avoid it. It was what made him so eager to please, it was what kept him on edge. Even though it was exhausting, living on one’s nerves.
The jeep was slowing. Leaning forward, Evan could just about make out the reason through the filthy windscreen. Up ahead, the road was gone. A steep bank of snow and a smear of broken ice and crumbled rock blocked their path. There was no way around. They would have to start walking.
Almost before they stopped, Mundy had opened his door and swung his long and spindly legs out into the snow. The driver though showed no sign of moving. He burrowed beneath the dashboard, came up with another lit cigarette in his mouth, hunched his shoulders in his coat and started blowing smoke clouds like a smelt chimney. Evan decided it was time to get some fresh air.
It was cold out of the jeep, much colder than he had anticipated, and he scampered to pull out his pack. He found a jumper first, buried right at the bottom, then the painkillers, which he sank with a swill from a water bottle. Stupidly, he hadn’t thought to pack much in the way of food but he had a cereal bar and an apple he had taken from the breakfast table. It wasn’t much, especially considering how little he had eaten the day before.
Mundy was climbing up on the snow drifts to look at the path ahead. Evan stuffed his pack back into the jeep and wandered over to join him.
‘You’ll need that,’ said Mundy as Evan clambered up the bank of snow. ‘There’s no point putting it away. We have been able to drive much further than I thought we would, but it’s time to start walking. Are you ready?’
‘I suppose so. How far is it?’
‘Five, six kilometres. Not far.’ He turned abruptly and strode down the bank. ‘Can you manage it?’
Evan tried not to look too dismal. It looked like a long way. They were standing in a narrow pass at the foot of a long wide valley that climbed west between two bleak and brown mountain walls. The road did not reappear beyond the snow drift, instead they would have to follow the river. There were boulder fields to cross and steep shelves in the valley floor, trenched with snow and clumped with knots of pine. Five or six kilometres was a long way. He wondered if could manage it.
‘Have you done much hiking?’ Mundy was walking back to the jeep.
‘Not that much to be honest. Some, you know, in the Cotswolds when we lived near there.
Mundy was unpacking his stuff. ‘Take this extra food, water, some fuel if we should need it. As I said, get your pack out.’
He was dreadfully businesslike around the jeep, almost militant. His movements seemed pre-meditated, as though each one was ordained by several hours of operational planning. There was no energy misspent, no time wasted to contemplation or indecision. He moved robotically, he distributed the food, adding some to his own pack and leaving the rest for Evan, who couldn’t help but be impressed. Everything about Mundy was so certain, so definite, he looked rather magnificent.
‘We just leave the jeep here?’ Evan buttoned his jacket against the cold and stamped his heavy boots to bash some blood down into his toes.
‘Yes, the driver will stay with it.’ Mundy heaved his pack on to his shoulders and began fastening buckles, tightening straps. ‘Whether he stays for us is a different matter.’
‘What?’ Evan laughed nervously. ‘He must, surely?’
‘Oh I doubt it,’ said Mundy casually. ‘I would not trust that dirty little grub for a second. I haven’t paid him, which will obviously work in our favour. And I doubt he will want to risk those roads by himself. But who can say?’
‘Doesn’t that worry you?’
‘That is the way of the world Mr Pike, wouldn’t you say? Every man has his price. I try not to let that worry me too much.’ He paused. He was looking at the driver sitting in the front of the jeep. ‘Though, you have started me thinking….’
‘Mr Mundy? What is it?’
Mundy turned and, curiously, smiled. It was a bizarre sight, contorting the scar on his face, warping the dints, an illusion passing.
‘Nothing Mr Pike. A frivolous thought. Nothing at all. Are you ready?’
‘Er, yes I suppose so.’ Evan spoke the words without any confidence. He wasn’t sure he wanted to step into the wild with Mundy.
‘Excellent. Let’s move out then and leave this stink behind.’ Mundy rapped twice on the hood of the jeep, turned quickly and began striding back towards the snow bank. Evan didn’t move, he was caught in a crisis. He screwed his eyes shut, he swallowed uncomfortably, then he tore himself away from the jeep and hurried after his new hiking partner.
The hiking was nothing like in the Cotswolds. They had been going for two hours and Evan was exhausted, his feet were dragging, his legs were numb and his lungs were ragged from trying to suck oxygen out of the freezing cold air. Mundy, of course, was relentless. The steeper the ground, the quicker he seemed to walk.
The hardest work had been down low, soon after they left the jeep, climbing through the boulder fields up from the pass. The valley was narrowest there and they had been beside the river, the water thundering in their ears. The snow was deceptive, in some places it was shallow and their boots slipped on the rock; elsewhere it was several feet deep and they were forced to wade through it, soaking their clothes. There had been a series of steep ridges, a narrow pass where they had to cross and then re-cross the river on precarious, icy rocks and then a thick wall of pine trees through which they had ducked and weaved. Only now was the gradient easing and the valley widening. They had been walking for nearly three hours.
Mundy seemed certain that they were on the right course. Occasionally he found a faint hint of the road and, increasingly, there appeared to be cultivated land away on the southern side of the valley. There were poplars and spruces growing in lines, neat pastures, even the shadow of a low-built hut leaning precariously against the wind. The village must surely be close. But not far above them, the brown valley walls came closer together and turned westwards. Until they reached that point, the head of the valley was hidden.
Evan was lagging some way behind. At first he had been worried that this would upset Mundy but the older man seemed little bothered. Only once had he turned around to check on his companion’s progress, and he showed no sign that he missed the company. He didn’t slow down either.
Quietly, Evan suspected that he could trip or fall, or even run off screaming, and Mundy wouldn’t break his stride, let alone turn around and come back for him. So he trudged after his expedition leader, harbouring a slight but growing resentment for the crooked frame and the long strides, for the angular shoulders and the quiet confidence that made Evan feel so inferior. He knew that he must manage the hike, there was no other option. He must prove that he could, it felt like an important first step… wherever he was headed.
They had reached the neck of the valley, where it turned west, and they saw for the first time the terraced houses, bedded in snow on the pine-clad ridges, high on the valley’s east side. It was late afternoon but the clouds had not lifted, the sun was sinking anonymously. Evan was exhausted, his torso was damp and itchy with sweat, he was panting heavily, his puffing cheeks red like the colour of his snow jacket. But at last Mundy had stopped walking. When Evan reached him he was standing quite still with his canvas pack open at his feet, using an old pair of field glasses to survey the village. He lower lip was quivering, moving mechanically, like he was muttering quiet instructions to himself.
‘We made it,’ Evan gasped, flopping his pack down beside Mundy’s.
‘Yes.’
‘That’s excellent isn’t it. We seemed to make reasonable time.’ Evan stretched his back and rubbed his shoulders, he leaned back to gulp a mouthful from his shiny water bottle. ‘Sorry if I slowed you down a bit.’
He could not guess what Mundy was looking for through the binoculars. The village was still several hundred metres away and his own glasses were fogged after the tramp up the hill. There was smoke curling from a couple of the terraces but no people that he could make out, certainly no one was walking down the valley to greet them.
‘Is this the right place?’ he asked dumbly.
Mundy pulled away from the glasses and shot him a withering look.
‘Sorry. Silly question. What are you looking for?’
‘Nothing in particular, but it seems wise to have some idea of what we are walking into.’
‘Yes, of course. Looks pretty quiet doesn’t it? But then, I don’t know what I expected really. It’s not like they know we’re coming.’
‘I wouldn’t be certain of that,’ said Mundy darkly. ‘I have no doubt that they expect us.’
He picked up his pack so Evan did the same.
‘I don’t think they can know Mr Mundy.’ Evan saw no way that the Kalash could have been contacted. ‘We spoke to the Scouts, of course, for our clearance, but I don’t think they consider these people too highly, honestly. I doubt they would bother coming up here.’
Mundy was marching again and Evan had to trot to keep pace.
‘I mean, traditionally the Kalash aren’t Muslim, which is extremely rare around here, so they tend to be ignored, officially speaking. I can’t see the Scouts going out of their way to pass on messages. So, unless you contacted them somehow, I think our visit will be unexpected... you don’t?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Just a hunch Mr Pike.’
‘I’m told they’re very welcoming.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘As a people, you know, they’re friendly to visitors.’
‘Did the guidebook tell you that?’
‘Er, no. I can’t think who it was actually. But they receive a fair few visitors. Not so much up here maybe, but in the lower valleys. There are all sorts of NGOs involved with them, building schools and clinics and things.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Oh, yes. There’s a great deal of development work done up here. The Greeks especially, and UNESCO, they all have projects.’
‘Up where Mr Pike? I don’t see much sign of development.’
‘No, in the lower valleys like I said. It’s a little inaccessible up here.’
‘Yes it is.’
‘It’s very out of the way.’ Evan reiterated.
‘A funny place for a Frenchman to wind up. You knew him didn’t you?’ Mundy said casually. ‘I think I’m right in saying that. You knew Alain Legembre.’
Evan stopped abruptly. He was puffing his cheeks, red faced from the hiking. ‘Who told you that?’
Mundy strolled on a few metres before he turned around. ‘So you didn’t know him? I am mistaken? Or have you forgotten about him? So far, you have been very careful not to mention his name.’
‘What?’ Evan shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you mean?’
‘Well, here we are, two days out from Chitral, several hours hike from the nearest vehicle… it’s the middle of nowhere. And you follow me, a man you hardly know, blindly, without question. You leave your daughter behind, you struggle after me up this valley… why? It would seem like an obvious question to me. I would have asked earlier, only I thought I knew the answer. You knew Legembre didn’t you? You are curious perhaps, you want to know where he has gone, or you are concerned, or maybe you were involved in his disappearance somehow?’
Evan kicked snow off his boots and shuffled his feet. He didn’t know how to respond. As it happened, this was the first confirmation Evan had heard that the missing Frenchman was, indeed, Alain Legembre. He had made the connection in the High Commissioner’s study, of course he had, but there had been doubt – he hadn’t even been sure that Legembre had stayed in Pakistan. They didn’t communicate any more. It had been a long time since he had called Alain Legembre his friend. A very long time. Twenty years almost. But it was true that he knew him, or had known him, and it was also true that he felt inexplicably drawn to the search for the missing Frenchman.
He had exaggerated that doubt to avoid asking himself: why?
Because Camille was dead now? Because Avalon was in Pakistan too? He couldn’t say for certain. A lot had happened in the past few months and he barely understood a fraction of it. That was why he had kept quiet, that was why he had not asked the Frenchman’s name.
The last time he had seen Alain Legembre was in Islamabad, shortly after he arrived on posting. It had been a brief and awkward meeting, not his own idea. They had met at the French club which, in itself, had felt like a subjugation. He had always supposed that Legembre had felt compelled to meet – old friends, Oxford alumni, dismissed to the same distant corner of the earth – there was a social etiquette, a nod to their shared history, an insistence that decreed they must forget the past and recognise each other. They had discussed the city, the culture, their respective jobs. Neither of them had mentioned Evan’s divorce. It had lasted no more than half an hour, then Legembre had made his excuses, folded his napkin neatly on the table and headed back north. As far as Evan knew, he had not visited Islamabad since.
‘I knew him a very long time ago.’ He said very quietly. ‘I know nothing that will help you Mr Mundy, I had no idea he was missing until a few days ago. We were not close. I would have thought that you know far more about what he was doing up here, and why he might have disappeared, seeing as how he worked for you.’
‘Not for me Mr Pike. We just happen to be connected by a college. You know how it is I think? We commit the same sins.’
‘I’m not sure I do know actually. It sounds like things were quite different when I was there.' 'I doubt much has changed Mr Pike,’ Mundy had turned away and was walking again. ‘You strike me as a man who is generally unaware of the world. Let’s move on shall we. We should hurry if you want to get back to that daughter of yours.’


















Chapter Six
The parcel was wrapped in cheap brown wax paper, her father’s name and address written in smudged and untidy letters. Avalon turned it over in her hands, the paper was stuck down with grubby tape, but there was no hint of a sender’s name or a return address. She looked out of the window for a moment, the clouds were still low and depressing, then she placed the parcel back down on the bed. The counterpane was buried in torn and crumpled paper, the peeled skins of pointless presents. Picture frames, bath salts, all manner of thoughtless crap. At various times of the year, diplomats exchanged presents as a matter of etiquette. Evan must have saved all his throughout the year, just to dump them on her. He had bought them in the jeep up to Chitral.
Her birthday was dragging on longer than she had ever imagined it could. She had wasted time, frittered away an hour over breakfast, another hour walking in the wet snow around the guesthouse gardens, then on to the ridge and back to look out over the empty corners of the valley and the grim brown slopes of the mountains. She had wasted time in the lounge room, gazing listlessly at the polo mallets and hunting rifles mounted on the walls. She had wasted time smoking, eleven cigarettes in total, so her mouth was dry and ashy. And, still, it was only mid afternoon.
Evan had left her a key to his room and the presents were on his bed. He had left a card too, wishing her a happy birthday and apologising for his absence. She had intended only to open one present, a dull brown scarf made locally, with glitter and red thread stitched into the hem work. But it had wasted insufficient time, so she had opened the others as well, realising as she did so, that there was no thought, no care, invested in any of them. This comforted her a little, in a strange way, but depressed her also. It made her miss the past. It made her miss her mother, with whom she had spent her last birthday and every birthday before that. Before the cancer.
In the end, she opened all the presents, until there was only the parcel left. She sat cross-legged on the bed staring at it, for some reason reluctant to rip the brown paper. There was little to spoil, because it was a tatty, dented bundle, but she held back. It was clear that this gift had not been exchanged at a diplomatic party. For a start, it had been through the Pakistani post and delivered directly to the house. And the brown paper was not decorative. It was greasy and unpleasant smelling, far from enticing. She stole a glance at the clock on the bedroom wall. It was not yet three, time was stagnating.
After her mother died, an aunt whom she barely knew had sent her for a session with a psychiatrist. This man, who was bald, had dandruff and smelled unpleasant, had told her to concentrate on living in the present. But what did that mean? Surely everyone lived in the present. If you had a good life, perhaps, you could forget yourself in your memories. If your life was miserable, you imagined the future and hoped for the best. It was impossible to concentrate entirely on the present, it would be torture. Now I am waking up. Now I am rolling over. Now I am peeling my dribbly face from the pillow. Now I am brushing my hair. It was a brain dead concept. The only choice was to distract yourself from the present, to ignore the clock. The present was too tedious to contemplate.
She snatched the parcel off the bed and unwrapped an old biscuit tin. On its lid was painted a Christmas scene: Lowry-legged figures hurried through the snow on a London street, fairy lights were strung between the buildings, candles flickered in the shop windows. But the painting was faded and scratched and the tin was dented in several places. She tried to prize off the lid but it was stuck fast with grime and would not budge. She dug into the dirt with her fingernails and strained until the cuticles turned white. But it did no good, the tin would not yield and, irritated, she threw it back on to the bed. It did not lie there for long, she was committed now. She tried a second time, she grimaced, clenched her fists and squealed with exasperation.
It popped suddenly, the lid and the tin spiralled in opposite directions, and she flinched when they clattered on the floor. There was nothing inside but paper, pages and pages of dirty brown paper. Reams of it burst into the air and hung momentarily, like leaves kicked up by an autumn wind, before they drifted back on to the bed. Each one was crammed with the same slanting hand, staggering like a drunk man in uneven wobbling lines, some crossed out, some underscored, some never finished. She stared curiously at the mess, why would anyone have sent this to her father? There were tables and charts, diagrams and annotated sketches, maps, even an aerial photograph of a mountain range. Someone had scored black lines on it, like contours.
She chose a page at random and tried to read it. It was impossible. For a start, the language was French not English, and though she recognised it easily enough, she couldn’t make sense of it. She struggled with French, something that had always upset her mother. It was never deliberate, she had wanted to learn her mother’s tongue more than anything else, but French was the one subject she struggled to grasp. And in her defence, this time, the writing was really terrible, an epileptic scrawl.
She turned the page over but the reverse was more densely covered. She scanned down the paragraphs. Right at the bottom of the page, two words caught her eye. Both trailed off, flat-lined, like they had been scribbled too quickly, denied the chance to form properly. What were they? Pietr, like Peter – was that it? Rawicz – Pietr Rawicz. The name took shape in her mind. Pietr Rawicz was the man from dinner two nights before, the fat man from the neighbouring farm. Her eyes had been drawn to his name because it was underscored twice.
She picked up a second page, then a third, searching each one. Rawicz was mentioned several times, but she couldn’t tell why. He was hidden in twisted paragraphs, crammed into tables alongside dates and numbers, added to the end of lists. He had one page almost to himself. Pietr Rawicz – 14/06/2004. The name and the date were circled in black pen, crossed out, rewritten, smudged by an inkblot.
Why would anyone send this to Evan? She asked the question again without moving any closer to the answer. The writing was too bad, the logic too fractured… could Evan even read French? Presumably he could, to be have been sent this, to have married her mother. She thought, not for the first time, how strange it was to know so little about her father, to remember so little and to have asked so little.
Apparently he knew Pietr Rawicz, or knew of him at least. But at the dinner they had barely spoken, indeed, she had assumed they were strangers. She swung her legs off the bed, stood up and stretched. Her father was a stranger. She didn’t know his life, his habits, his friends – did he even have them? The papers could be from anyone and mean anything.
The bed was a disaster, with the paper from the tin and the wrapping paper and the cheap presents. She would have to clean it up. The clock on the wall read quarter past three. It was hardly what she wanted to do now. She would tidy the bed later, it would give her something to fill the time.
Her own room was next door to Evan’s. She juggled with the two sets of keys before she let herself in. The bed was a mess too, unmade because she had woken so late, her clothes were strewn on the floor, her makeup spilled across the antique dresser. She snapped the light on in the bathroom and twisted the taps in the shower. She stepped out of her clothes, kicking them away across the tiles, and stared into the mirror.
The other day, Evan had said she looked just like her mother. But she didn’t believe it. She had eyes after all, she could see for herself. In fact, the eyes were the problem. They were like two puddles of rain water. Her mother’s had been chocolate, the same colour as her hair. Avalon’s hair was darker, but tangled and knotted in a way her mother’s had never been. She tried to scrape a comb through but it made no difference. She sucked in her stomach and frowned. Her hips felt fleshy, her feet were too big and awkward. Even her toes were ugly.
Her father had lied, it was a just a way to lessen his responsibility, to make her more her mother’s child. But she was a bad tracing at best, hurried and poorly sketched, smudged in places and never corrected. Still, that was probably better than looking like Evan, his skin was pale and pocked as plucked fowl.
The mirror was beginning to cloud with steam but she waited until her reflection had completely disappeared before she stepped across the slippery tiles into the shower. The water was piping hot on her neck, she watched her skin turn pink and wondered what it meant to be showering at half three in the afternoon.
It was some time before she was out and dry and sitting at the desk with her diary. The book was pretty much empty still. There were a couple of pages torn out where she had started then become frustrated. The blank page intimidated her, she was scared to write something trite, simply for the sake of writing. So she fiddled with the pen and stared out of the window. The clouds were heavy over the valley, it looked like it might snow. She had to write something, so she started with the date in the top left corner of the page. She was careful with the letters, making sure that they were precise and correct. She hoped that an artistic hand might inspire her words to significance.
She wrote the date: 8th October 2005.
Then she tried: My name is Avalon Pike.
Then: But it is only my loss that defines me.
She thought about this for a moment.
I am drowning in myself. I am dead weight in the water.
It was embarrassing drivel. She attacked the paper with the biro, scribbling over the words, erasing their existence.
She tore out the page and threw it towards the bin. But something had come to her in the frenzy and she began to write more fluently.
Somewhere, in another world maybe, I imagine dawn is breaking. I stand on a plateau, amongst heath and blossom, and watch the pale sun creep above the horizon, timid and watchful, like an animal emerging from the last daze of hibernation. I feel the pale orb tremble, its warming rays finger their advance over the earth, caressing the chilled skin on my face and hands. I cast aside the night-cloak shivers and throw back my head laughing, opening my arms to embrace the day. The scent of the dew on the heather tickles my nose as my ears ring with birdsong. The ink bleeds from the sky, chased by the eager spring winds, and I rejoice to see the shadows fly and the new day begin. The long night is gone and day has come, and I am alive, in flesh and bone, and I am awake to see it.
But something is wrong. What is it? A taste on the wind perhaps or a retch in the roots of the earth. I hear a wolf cry, a pitiful cringing moan, and the air catches in my throat, my skin chills. I shut my eyes tight, biting down on the daybreak, fighting back the recharged shadows. But I can feel the sun dying, withering, draining to a blood-ochre stain. Clouds are rolling in, heavy and pensile, black creaking with rain and thunder. There are no birds. Vampire bats glide in on the night-tide, shrieking death. I flail against them but they swoop down, beating me with their filthy cloak wings, driving me down with tooth and claw, on to my knees, towards the noisome earth and the endless night.
She wasn’t sure if she had actually had the dream or simply imagined it, but it felt raw in her subconscious, like an infection near the surface, and she withdrew it easily enough. It was horrible though, she couldn’t say why she had felt impelled to put it on paper. And she had no desire to interpret it. Hopefully it wasn’t a portent for the future. Things were bad enough already.
She closed the diary. It was just past four. She thought again of the Rawicz papers. It was possible that Evan might be back this evening; at least, that had been his vague promise the night before he left. It would be better if his room were tidy, the papers safely stowed back in the biscuit tin. She honestly didn’t know if he would get angry with her, or what that anger might be like. It hard to imagine it being particularly intimidating, but it was probably better avoided. She needed something to do anyway. Zahra and Zahir were out this evening, there would be no evening meal and no entertainment in the hotel.
It was gloomy in her father’s room. She tidied the wrapping paper from the bed, stuffing it into the bin besides the desk. There was a small case of his on the chair, but that was all. He had taken most of his things with him. She began to collect up the spilt papers, shuffling them into some kind of order.
Rawicz had been quite friendly to her she remembered, when he wasn’t shovelling food at least. But he had tried to talk to her, which was more than anyone else had done, including her father. He had told her about his farm, a ten minute stroll behind the ridge, and about Chitral, the small town he had called home for several years. He had made jokes about Mundy – which was much appreciated – and he had asked her about her own life, her father and her mother. It had been a little uncomfortable admittedly, there had been something a little gross about the way he leaned into the conversation, the way he spilt food on the table. She had been reminded of feeding time at the zoo. But, also, there had been something likeable in his face, something in the sparkling blue eyes and the weathered skin.
She knelt down to retrieve part of the tin from beneath the dresser. He had invited her to visit too, after she had told him that Evan was leaving her behind over her birthday. She wasn’t going to take up the offer, of course, but still it was nice to be asked. Anything would be better than kicking around the hotel. It was like being in prison… well, not that dramatic perhaps, but not that great either.

* * *
Two hours later she stood outside the hotel dressed in a thick coat and Zahra’s fur boots borrowed from the entrance hall. Her new scarf was wrapped over her head, because she was nervous about setting out alone. She hoped she wouldn’t meet anyone on the road. She had covered herself as best she could. She wore gloves and carried a flashlight. The tin was tucked under her arm. It wasn’t snowing but it was freezing cold.
It was an idiotic decision to come out, telling no one that she was going. She knew it was stupid but, she had had enough of waiting. Waiting for the clock, waiting for Evan. It had come as something of a surprise, realising that she wanted her father back from his trip. She had been sitting on the balcony smoking, watching the road down to the town, willing his jeep to appear around the corner. It showed how tired she was, how bored she was, how trapped she felt in the hotel. How lonely she was without her mother.
He hadn’t come back and, now it was dark, she figured he was unlikely to. Faced with another evening alone, and probably a third day too, she had grown resentful then recalcitrant. She desperately needed something to do. If that something upset her good sense, then so what? So what? If it meant that she was out when he got back – if he got back – then so what? She had waited long enough.
Behind the hotel the ridge arched and trailed down to a wide plain on the valley floor. There were a handful of buildings near the tail of the hill, some low sheds, a barn and a farmhouse. Lights burned in a couple of the windows, smoked spiralled from the chimney, it all looked homely and welcoming.
There was a walking track leading out from the hotel gardens, winding downhill past weathered rocks and gorse bushes. She walked slowly, careful not to slip on the ice or trip on a hidden tussock of grass. At the bottom of the hill there was a small track. She turned left and skirted along the base of the ridge towards the farmhouse.
A low stone wall marked the start of Rawicz’s land and there was a makeshift gate across the road. It looked like it might collapse at any moment. She stepped over the wall rather than trouble it, but care was needed because the ground had become a rutted mess, deep hoof prints were frozen in the mud. She swung the torch beam back and forth, searching for the path of least resistance.
The farmhouse was not far ahead. It was an unsteady looking building, it seemed to lean at several improbable angles, as though nudged this way and that by the gusting wind. Smoke was still pluming from the crooked chimney. Out front, there was decking and a porch, where a battered armchair guarded the front door. The door itself had been painted red a long time ago but the paint was now peeling off like dead skin and a large splinter was missing from its base. A shaft of light split the wood and lanced across the porch.
It had started to snow. She began to long for the comfort of her room, for the warm bed and the hot shower. She could be wrapped up in a blanket, sitting on the balcony watching the snow fall. She was struck suddenly by how quiet it was in the lee of the ridge. It heightened the sense of detachment and incalculable space. The walk back to the hotel began to seem like a very long way. The snow was swirling and she was losing faith in her sense of direction. The path would be hard to find now. She could hardly see the shadow of the ridge, the whole valley could be shifting with the snow… the mountains walking, the ridge slithering out of shape.
The armchair was potted with burn marks. She tried to imagine anyone sitting there, on a night like this, overlooking the edge of the world. It felt like a frontier, a precarious, unpleasant place. If she had to live out here, she knew for certain, she would keep inside and lock the door.
She didn’t want to stay for long, enough to show the papers, no more, then maybe someone could walk her back. That was the important thing, she didn’t want to find the way on her own. She knocked on the door but the gloves on her hands muffled the impact. No one answered, perhaps no one had heard. She tried again, hitting the door much harder this time, the door shook, but still there was no reply.
Maybe she wasn’t welcome. She probably wasn’t welcome. It was ludicrous to turn up uninvited.... but she never knew what people were thinking. She couldn’t project, she couldn’t tell if they were honest or liars, if they like her, pitied her or hated her. Rawicz had seemed genuine and friendly,
She could hear laughter, though it was not coming from inside the house. It was further away, carried to her on the wind. And it wasn’t a single person laughing either, there were several different depths and tones, cheering too. Somewhere, not far off, several people were enjoying a raucous time.
She walked to the end of the porch and peered around the corner of the farmhouse. Not too far away there was a barn. She could see it quite easily because light shone out from beneath the doors and spilled through chinks in the walls. She had not noticed the barn from up at the guesthouse, the shoulder of the ridge must have obscured it from view.
She hesitated for a moment. Normally, faced with a crowd of any sort, especially a boisterous one, she would turn her back and slink quietly away. But she was growing afraid of the night, of all the things she couldn’t see and couldn’t know. She was afraid of the swirling snow and the secrets it hid. She was afraid that the path would be gone, afraid that her flashlight would fail. She didn’t want to face the darkness by herself, it was cold and empty and inhuman.
Though she was eighteen years old, she could still be scared like a child. She had made a mistake coming out, but she could explain it. She had been alone for too long. She wanted to talk to someone, anyone really. She just wanted to be out of the night. Which meant announcing herself at the barn and hoping for the best.
The barn was made larger by several low annexes that had been added haphazardly on both sides. The original structure was the largest though and that was where the lights shone, that was where the laughter came from. She began to march towards it, her head forward, committed, keeping the flashlight trained on the double doors. Right up to the doors she marched, until the light washed over her fur boots.
There was a roar inside the barn and another great peel of laughter. Only, close up, it didn’t sound quite so welcoming. It sounded nasty. She was aware too that it was unquestionably male, there was nothing tender or forgiving or feminine in the laughter. Nothing to sooth her racing pulse. She had a hand on the door still but she was quite certain that she no longer wanted it to open. Perhaps it would be better to find the path back to the hotel. It couldn’t be that bad, not if she ran.
She stepped back from the door and swung her flashlight around. It lit a great swathe of ground, she could see almost to the farmhouse. The beam was so strong she could make out all the footprints in the snow, hundreds of them. She knew it couldn’t be so, she knew the barn doors had swung open, but she didn’t want to turn around. She wondered if she could get away without acknowledging them, if she kept her eyes fixed forward, pretended they weren’t there, pretended she wasn’t there, she could just keep walking.
The barking turned her around.
She saw several things at once. The door had been opened by a fat little man. He had a bulbous head and sunken eyes, a jowly neck and a wobbling chin. He was holding a torn chapatti and his hand was raised as though he was about to bite into it. Some sort of juice dribbled down his chin and dripped on to the neck of his shalwar. She noticed these things with incredible exactness. She noticed his thin, greasy moustache, the way the light reflected off his bald head. She noticed how he stood against the door frame, his mouth at half gape, the curious way he looked at her.
The barn itself was interesting. It was large but empty inside. At least, there were no chairs or tables, no tools or bits of machinery. Instead, in the middle of the floor, there was a large circle of barbed wire and, directly above this ring, a sodium lamp hung down from the ceiling. The lamp burned with a harsh, lurid light, almost like something chemical, which seemed ill suited to the barn’s weathered wood and the dust rising from the floor. It was the sort of light that shone in a sterile laboratory, or a meat locker. It cast ugly and unnatural shadows on the faces of the men, all of whom were standing around the circle of barbed wire, none of whom had noticed she was there.
She saw Rawicz. He had his back to her, his vast shoulders like a slab of granite; he was leaning over the wire, throwing something – chapatti was it? – into the ring. Only, it wasn’t a ring but a pit, clearly, because the chapatti sailed out of sight and there was a snarl and a roar that she could not understand, and all the men were laughing again.
The smell shocked her more than anything. It was sweet and foul together. It was a rancid concoction, sweat and alcohol maybe, something sweet and noxious like vomit, something sticky which was warm in her nostrils. The dust was itchy in her throat. The light was blinding. She looked away, then back towards the pit, down at the men’s feet. What were they watching?
A bear was standing on its hind legs. It had black fur, but the fur was patchy, there was a lot of bald skin on its shoulders and on of its head. It wasn’t particularly large. Later, somehow, she remembered thinking that a bear should be larger. Its eyes were yellow but rimmed with red and rolling wildly. She supposed it was panic that made them do that. It was remarkable how much detail she saw; remarkable how, from that single second, she was able to remember so many nuances. It was like a photograph in a book that she had studied for hours. The bear’s mouth was open. She saw that the gums were pink and red and flecked with yellow froth, but that there were no teeth. There was a black and hoary tongue, but no teeth. Every single one had been pulled. Just like the claws from its forelegs, the two blackened stumps which flailed uselessly. It was missing an ear. In her mind, that detail created a funny, nostalgic impression: the bear was a well loved toy, that was why his back was threadbare, that was why his ear was missing. He had been carried by it too often and it had pulled off.
But it wasn’t careless love. Where the ear was missing, the bear’s fur was matted with blood. There were bite marks on its bald crown. The other ear was torn too, the bridge of its snout was lost beneath a deep cut, a dog was hanging from its neck.
There must have been more dogs hidden in the pit because something was still barking. The noise was a raw thrashing in her skull. She watched the bear spin and reel, the dog did not let go. It was absurd, like a cartoon, the way its jaws were clamped around the bear’s throat, and it hung there, even though it was flung from side to side. The men seemed to like this. Some of them cheered, others followed Rawicz’s lead and flung their food at the bear. Maybe they were trying to hit the dog.
Avalon screamed.
Rawicz turned first. She hardly recognised the face. His eyes were hollow and black, the cheeks were gaunt. His beard was like bramble, wire and thorns. Perhaps it was the sodium lamp playing tricks with the shadows.
She turned and fled.












Chapter Seven
The afternoon was well advanced and, somewhere behind the clouds, the sun was surely sinking behind the mountains. They walked openly across the fields, there being no reason and no hope for concealing themselves, the diplomat was wearing a bright red snow-jacket. They followed a shallow trench which was presumably the way the road ran because it seemed to divide the village, the houses and the livestock penned on one side, empty fields on the other, a low stone wall beside them and, further away, the constant babble of the river.
Presumably one grew used to the noise but, for the moment, the incessant chatter was an irritating distraction. Mundy struggled to ignore it, struggled in a way that, years ago, would have been unnecessary. It dragged his attention away from the houses, high on the slopes to his right, and above them the pine trees and the deodars. The houses were brown-stone and rough timber, built in long rows where the mountains were carved in uneven terraces, so that the roofs of one terrace were level with the foundations of the next. Mundy scanned the terrain. Jumbled walls and narrow winding lanes, pens for livestock, the swish of cattle-tail, the clack of goat-hoof on cobble, the quiet rustle of horses in the hay.
On their left they passed a wide clearing where the snow looked several feet deep and was quite smooth, like the surface of a frozen lake. There were two huts in the clearing and a tent, partly buried, so that the sagging, mildewed canvas seemed to float on the lake like a sick and stricken ship.
The road turned right, away from the macabre clearing.
‘Do we find a door and knock?’ The diplomat was in his ear, disturbing his concentration.
‘I doubt that will be necessary… but you must be calm this time. Do you understand? You must not shout or wave your arms.’
‘Of course, yes. I won’t say a thing, if you would prefer.’
The banks either side of the road were becoming crowded with tangled trees and evergreen scrub and they had little choice but to follow the path, without being quite certain where it was leading. The valley seemed to narrow as they drew closer to the houses, the road became steeper, the great mountain crowns seemed to overhang protectively. The river sounded very close. They came to the first of the tracks that split from the road and criss-crossed the mountainside beneath the terrace where the lowest buildings stood. Still no one emerged to confront them, or to welcome them.
They reached the start of the village on the valley floor. The road turned sharply around a boulder and, suddenly, there was a brick building. The place appeared to have been an infirmary of some sort, although it was impossible to imagine it was still used that way. Into the beam above the door was carved a vague and weathered address, Mundy smiled wryly, he recognised failed missionary work when he saw it.
The windows were mostly cracked or missing, sacs were bound in their place, there were knots and gaps in cracked mortar, the building still smelled faintly of stale antiseptic. A little further on was another clearing, fashioned like a courtyard. On three of its sides were low brick-clay buildings but the fourth was open and the path wandered in and ended abruptly. It was possible to imagine the square being busy in summer, a gathering place where, perhaps, lessons could be taught and meetings conducted. It was empty now though and the buildings were closed.
Mundy stopped at the edge of the square and looked for an onward path. It was surely time to turn uphill towards the houses, he had no desire to waste the rest of the afternoon hacking around in ever deepening snow. Sure enough, in the far corner of the square, a line of rough-cut steps rose between the buildings, and he knew immediately it was the path to take, because there was a man sitting on the top step. The welcoming committee.
He was well hidden, impressively so. He was wrapped head to toe in blankets and furs and dusted with snow, which meant he had been sitting on the steps for a while, waiting for them.
Standing behind him, the diplomat had raised his hands in vague surrender. At least he was quiet. Mundy tried not to frown too hard.
‘Assalãm alaikum,’ he said.
‘Wa aleikum salãm,’ the partially hidden face broke into a broad and toothy grin, ‘you are most welcome to our village.’
‘You speak good English,’ Mundy cut across the diplomat. ‘Thank you for your welcome. You knew we were coming?’
‘We saw you this morning,’ said the man rising from the steps and shaking off the snow, ‘my name is Abdul Wali Malik.’ He adjusted the hood so that they could see his face. He was young, a boy rather than a man, perhaps sixteen or seventeen years old. His grin was framed by a sparse and uneven beard. ‘What are your names please?’
‘My name is John Mundy. This man is Evan Pike. We have come about the disappearance of Alain Legembre.’
‘Ah yes, we know this. You must follow me now.’ He pointed up the steps. ‘After, maybe, we can talk.’
‘As you wish…’ Mundy nodded. ‘That ok with you Mr Pike?’
‘What? Oh… yes, of course,’ said Evan.
They followed the boy up the steps to a narrow path that had been cleared of snow. The ground was frozen solid, hard as concrete, with twisted roots and knotted mats of grass threaded in the ice. After a short distance a jumbled wall emerged from the snow and they had to step over it as the path turned across the slope. Soon they were walking just below the height of the first terrace and the face of the mountainside was fortified with bricks and stanchions of dark heavy wood. At the end of the row the path turned, they scrambled up the slope and found themselves standing on a ledge that was far wider and far deeper than it had looked from below.
Despite the snow on the ground the place seemed dusty. There were stables and several pens for livestock. Donkeys and cows, even a yak, chewed sweet dry grass, huffed and stomped against the cold. A goat trotted away from them on the path, defecated, then hopped over a low wall and disappeared. Chickens scrabbled for grain in the dust beneath the troughs. The air was warm with manure and horse sweat, it was a strange and sickly relief after the bitter wind.
The village was so compact, it was hard to guess which way their path should lead. House crowded house, narrow lanes ducked this way and that, there were porches and winter gardens, verandas and balconies. In places, the snow drifts were so deep they swamped the eaves of the houses, doors were barred and some of the laneways were blocked. Snow was packed tight under the muddy arches, the trailing branches of buried trees shivered like spring shoots, and, all the while, the wind blew, kicking up powder clouds, spitting snow flakes in their faces. All the houses seemed empty.
So they climbed on towards the highest terrace. The buildings there were cut deeper into the mountainside and the pines were packed close enough to shield them fully from the wind. Up here the chimneys were smoking, food was cooking. They stood and looked down upon the valley without water in their eyes. They could see the river tumbling across the ridges, the faint patchwork of the fields, the line of the ditch which might have been the road and, in the other direction, the higher passes, the snow fields and, not so far in the distance, the peaks of Afghanistan.
The landscape was both cruel and beautiful but, in Mundy, it awoke no emotion other than a cold, dull resentment. He tried to locate the mouldy tent in its clearing but he could not pick out the canvas from the snow. Perhaps his eyes were failing. He gazed down at the thatched ridges, the snug little village perched precariously above the valley, but felt nothing but distaste. It dawned on him that, as much as he had ever been, he was homesick. Deeply, lamentably homesick. Not for the country of his birth, not for the damp Oxford lawns, not for the embers in the black iron grates, not for the sandstone walls nor the polished timber nor the rich tang of port, but for Africa. For fire on the horizon, for a sky so vast and blue it burns the eyes, for air, thick and moist in the evenings and mosquitoes so fat they drip blood as they fly. The dull sickness had crept up on him, it was a bitter taste in his mouth. He wondered when it had started, he wondered if he had ever felt different.
How long had it been? It was 1983 when he boarded the flight from Mogadishu to London, travelling as Jacques De Boers. He remembered that the customs officer had asked about the scar on his face, it had been livid pink still. A polite gentleman with a smart accent had met him in the arrivals hall, then he sat in silence while the same man drove him across the wet countryside in an ancient black Morris Minor. For a while, he had liked Oxford: the simple steward’s quarters, the quiet certainty of life, the cool English rain. He had tried to teach himself to be English again. He had learned what it meant to suppress this sickness, to forget the tastes and the smells, to swap red for green, like colour blindness.
But now he was here, where everything was white, and the fire could flare again at the edge of the spectrum. He felt nauseous in the pit of his stomach. He was like the lover who gives wholly of himself and is abandoned. Something was dead. Whatever it was, his heart, his flesh, he saw it quite clearly. It was buried outside Johannesburg in the crust with the Kimberlite, it was the carcass in the Krueger dirt, ripped and torn in the maws of the lions, it was the stain on the floor in the Harare clubhouse, ground in with the ash and the spit and the blood. It could never leave those places. He could never leave those places. He could never come to these mountains and feel anything but sick and cheated and lost.
So he hated it. He hated the vistas and he hated the people. It was a deep, bitter, personal racism, skewed as his face, and it was his great angry weakness, which only made him hate it more. He showed his disgust by kicking at the earth, striking a steel toe cap at the body of his hatred. He would use it all to his advantage, that was the key, that was his method, that was his trade.
He turned away from the hated valley to concentrate on the task in hand, urgency was needed now. There was work to do and the quicker it was done the quicker he could… he silenced the thought before it was even half formed. He could not let it disrupt him, not yet. He would return to Africa, he would reclaim his body from the lions, the promise was made. But not yet. Not before he found Legembre. Not while there was work still to do.
The largest of the buildings on the upper tier had an overhanging porch and an open doorway. There was a narrow corridor, cold and gloomy, then a roofless courtyard before another door, which seemed heavy to move and, behind it, skins hung from the frame, which Abdul had to push aside before they could enter. The lintel above the door was low enough that both visitors had to stoop. The room beyond was warm and noisy. Then it was quiet. It was as though the villagers inside had collectively drawn breath. There was an uneasy, wriggling silence, and the sense of a vacuum with words missing from conversations cut short.
They had stilled so much activity, like a camera flash freezing its subjects. It was tough to stop the eyes from streaming and the throat from flushing. There was warmth and colour and an oily spice in the air. There was a fire burning, pans spitting and sizzling, chickens pecking grain, children pulling hair, old men sleeping, women sowing, kettles whistling…
Mundy knew he was staring at a painting too vast and too intricate for his eyes, taken as a whole the scene was incomprehensible. He had to break it down, consider first one corner then another, the people in the foreground, then those behind them, and so on to the limits of perspective. He had to look for tone and shade and fine detail. He scanned quickly, saw that the room was nearly full, predominantly with men though not exclusively, saw that, even here, even now, there were guns at hand.
How long had the Kalash been waiting? Since the day Legembre disappeared perhaps, they must have know someone would come, and they had grown protective of their valley and its secrets. But it was more than that, Mundy was sure of it. Somehow, they had been forewarned. They hated his coming almost as much as he did. He was unwelcome, particularly him. If the painting had a theme, a unifying purpose, that was it. It was impossible to feel anything different. The men bristled, the women stared with cold, impenetrable indifference. When the pans spat, it seemed that they spat only in his direction. Every face in the room, even the children, the fawn-eyed children, and the fist-faced men, everyone stared at him. And he stared back, he took them all on, he braved their hostility, he faced them down, he counted his enemies.
The room was not large, it was full with a dozen people. Five men sat around the cooking fire, chapatti was frying in the pan. They were dressed like Abdul – furs, waistcoats, snow boots, the flat Chitral cap – though none were as young. They were in the centre of the picture and, on the far left at a low table, a woman stitched the hem of a black dress and another pummelled the raw chapatti dough. In the corner two old men moved wooden pieces across a board, and a dirty oil lamp fumed black soot. Standing on the right of the frame was a woman with a child on her hip and another searching for her hand. She wore a loose black dress, something like the traditional shalwar, but the hem and the cuff and the shoulders were threaded with embroidery and there was a belt and a trailing headpiece. It was like violent paint splashed on black canvas. It was almost African.
Abdul stepped forward and spoke to the men sitting around the fire. The language was rapid, guttural, but not Urdu, as far as Mundy could tell. Perhaps it was Pashto or something like that. One of the men, the oldest looking of the five, spoke back, then nodded, then beckoned them towards two empty seats on the far side of the hearth. The same man then reached into the hot pan and, with calloused fingers, rolled two chapattis and offered them to his guests. The bread was piping hot, sweet and greasy, Mundy raised it to his lips and sucked on the oil. The man watched him and smiled without warmth. He reached back into the pan and pulled a piece for himself.
‘They do not speak English,’ Abdul was standing behind Mundy’s chair, talking over his shoulder. ‘But you can speak to me and I will tell what they say.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mundy, ‘how do you speak so well?’
‘I studied in Peshawar until I was fourteen,’ said Abdul. ‘There is a school there, a Christian college, and they take some boys from the Kalash on scholarships. I was lucky to go.’
‘You are Christian?’
‘No I am Muslim.’
‘And these men are Muslim too?’
‘No,’ said Abdul, ‘one or two men maybe, but most are old Kalash you understand. It is different.’
‘Do these men know why we are here?’
‘Yes,’ said Abdul, ‘I have told them.’
‘Who is the man I am talking to?’
‘He is my father, you may ask him what you want to know.’
‘I would like to know what happened to Alain Legembre. Ask him that please.’
Abdul translated. His father rolled chapatti in his thick fingers but he did not speak. Instead he seemed to shrug and then nod to his son. Something, clearly, was communicated.
‘My father is happy for me to tell you the story,’ said Abdul. ‘But please know this is trouble for us. The Scouts come, then the foreigners come. We want only to be left alone, you understand?’
‘I understand. I don’t like the Scouts much either.’
Abdul was still standing behind him but Mundy did not turn around. While the son spoke he watched the father carefully. The man was chewing his chapatti and staring into the fire. His face was blank, almost disinterested, but Mundy could tell he was listening, straining to decipher the language he did not speak. Just like the other men, and the women in the corner, paused mid-knead, mid-stitch, they were all listening, barely breathing, because a lie was being told and they knew it.
‘Four summers ago the Frenchman came to us and asked to camp in our village. He was polite, he spoke Pashto and he promises no trouble, so we agree and he pays us for his land. It is a good arrangement. He is working in the mountains yes, making his maps and his drawings, which I think you must know. Then, after one year, he returns with an Afghan boy called Ismail Khan. The boy is no good, you understand, he is not Kalash, he is a beggar and a thief. We say the boy cannot stay, but the Frenchman makes a promise that the boy is no trouble. They live on his land and the boy helps with his work, but he does not come to the village because he is not welcome.’
‘They start to have fights. Sometimes the boy is missing, sometimes he is back. Last summer, we say the boy must go. By the end of summer he is gone. We do not see him for more than one month. But the Frenchman is drinking. Always he is drinking, and then the Afghan boy comes back. We know because there is a fight. My father goes down to the clearing, you passed it before the village. This was the Frenchman’s land. My father finds the Frenchman is dead. His throat is cut. The boy has robbed him and killed him. Two days later we buried the Frenchman according to our customs. His grave is in our cemetery beside the river, tomorrow I can show you. We are sorry that this has happened in our village. We wish it was different.'
‘My God,’ it was Evan who spoke first, forgetting his vow of silence. ‘He’s dead?’
Mundy was curious to see how the colour had drained from the diplomat’s cheeks, in the light from the filthy oil lamp his skin was grey and pitted, like moonscape, small acne scars around his mouth had filled with shadow. It was a curious reaction for a man who hardly knew Legembre. Mundy turned his attention back to Abdul’s father. The Kalash man’s head was bowed, he was fiddling with his chapatti. How much English did he really understand? To Mundy, he still looked like a man who knew a lie was loose.
‘We are sorry,’ said Mundy, ‘that you have been caused so much trouble and we thank you for treating Mr Legembre with kindness and respect.’
Abdul relayed the sentiment to his father before Mundy continued.
‘You understand, I hope, that we wish to see where Mr Legembre lived and died. It is important that we do this. Has anything been done with his possessions?’
‘Of course you may see his land,’ said Abdul, ‘but it is too late today. I think that tomorrow I can show you the things you wish to see. The Kalash touch nothing, you understand? It is, as you say, because of respect.’
‘We would prefer to see tonight,’ argued Mundy, ‘there is still some light.’
‘Yes, tonight,’ Evan urged as well, ‘I should get back to Avalon.’
‘No, I am sorry,’ said Abdul, ‘tonight is not possible. I must make ready for prayers. But tomorrow I can show you everything you wish.’
‘Perhaps we could look around by ourselves,’ suggested Evan, ‘I am sure it would be no trouble.’
‘No,’ said Abdul. ‘If you wish to search then I will show you tomorrow. But now is not a good time. You must wait for the morning. There are beds to suit you in the hospital building. You will be comfortable there.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mundy before Evan could voice another senseless objection. ‘We appreciate your hospitality. Perhaps, first, you could answer one more question for me. Are we the first to come for Mr Legembre?’
‘Yes,’ said Abdul, ‘you are the first.’
‘No one else?’
‘No one else.’
‘Thank you,’ Mundy repeated, ‘we will be happy to sleep in the hospital. I remember the way, if you must get ready for prayers.’
‘I am happy to show you. The Kalash are friendly people. Later, we will bring you some food and drink, furs if you need, anything so you are comfortable.’
‘You are very generous,’ said Mundy standing up, ‘please thank your father for his hospitality. Come on Mr Pike, we should leave these people in peace.’

* * *

The hospital, it turned out, was less comfortable than promised. The light had failed by the time they retraced their path through the village and they waited in freezing twilight while Abdul struggled to bust open the swollen door. It was a single room, large enough, but with only two beds, both of which smelt unpleasantly like rodents. The only light was the oil lamp Abdul carried with him, but there were plenty of boxes stacked unevenly against the walls, most of them long forgotten it seemed. The source of the antiseptic leak was easy to identify, several cracked and empty brown bottles lay scattered on the floor. The place was both damp and draughty, in several places the floor had rotted.
Abdul left them searching for their flashlights but returned quickly with furs for the beds, more chapatti and a small pan of steaming daal. They had dinner sitting on the rotten floor with the pan balanced atop a sagging box of ancient gauze bandages. Abdul watched them eat but he did not join them and, after a while, he wished them a hurried goodnight and headed back to the village. He took the oil lamp with him, so they finished their food in near darkness. Evan got up first, found his flashlight and began piling furs on to the beds. Mundy stepped outside for a look at the sky. He was pleased to see that the heavy cloud had not broken.
‘I can’t believe he’s dead,’ said the diplomat when Mundy stepped back inside. ‘Which part can you not believe?’ said Mundy coldly.
‘Well, the way they said it happened – most of it really. It’s just too horrible to imagine.’
‘So, what they said about the boy, that doesn’t sound reasonable to you?’
‘I doubt it. The Alain I knew…’
‘We all have our dark little secrets though.’
‘Oh, I don’t know Mr Mundy, something like that…’
‘But you hardly knew Legembre any more, you said it yourself.’
‘I know I did,’ said Evan quietly. ‘People can change… I suppose…’ He sat down on his freshly made bed. ‘It’s just such a shock I think, Alain killed like that.’
‘Yes, I am sure it is,’ said Mundy. ‘Perhaps you should get some rest, your head must be sore after the accident.’
‘Yes, it is rather. I feel a little bit sick.’
‘Well, lie down then I suggest. Nothing more will happen today. The boy was right, it has got dark quickly. We will start early in the morning, have a quick look around, and then you can think about getting back to your daughter.’
‘Yes,’ said Evan woozily, swinging his legs up on to the bed. ‘I should be getting back to her. Thank you Mr Mundy, I appreciate your concern.’
Evan lay down on the bed and pulled the furs up over his head. He was still wearing his snow jacket. Mundy crossed the room and sat down with his back straight against the plaster-board walls. He took a swig of whisky from a hip flask. He switched off his flashlight, the darkness was absolute. Through the cracked window opposite, he watched the night darken. Before long, steady snoring drifted from the furs across the room. He stood up and walked to the doorway. Up in the village, an oil lamp was still burning. He took another drink from the flask and waited for it to go out.
He walked quickly and bent low because it was nearly too dark to see the path. He couldn’t use a flashlight, not so close to the village. He found the clearing again without difficulty but the unblemished snow presented a problem – he was sure to leave footprints. He looked up at the black sky, wondering if the heavy clouds would snow before morning.
It was too late to worry about it, the choice was already made. He switched on the torch. The snow was shin deep and ghoulish yellow. He glanced back towards the village, made sure he had not been followed, then he waded out towards the tent.
Several of the guide ropes were broken, the fly was ragged and blowing in the wind. He dropped down on to his knees. He could see that the canvas was soaked from the snow and heavy with mould, but there were blood stains too, a spray of rust-brown spatters about two feet long on the wall of the tent. He crawled inside. There was a jagged tear in the tent inner and more crusty brown splashes on the groundsheet. A dark stain spread across the bedding from some filthy furs bundled against the canvas. The sheets smelt of rank sweat and paraffin.
He emerged from the tent and made for the nearest of the two huts, found it easily enough, and picked the lock despite the darkness. Once he was inside, safely out of sight, he swung the narrow beam of light back and forth over the makeshift benches and the unsteady shelves. The place was a mess. Papers were strewn over the desk and thrown on the floor, blown into corners, covered in dust and stained with soot. Skulls were upturned on the shelves, ink was spilt on the benches, an oil lamp had been smashed and there was glass on the floor. He took a deep breath and checked his watch. It had been dark for over an hour and the temperature was dropping all the time. The hut had been properly ransacked, he doubted anything was left behind. But he had to be certain. So he pulled the chair back from the desk, reached down for the boxes stored there, and emptied their contents on to the floor. He swept the contents off the shelves, cracked open the skulls to check inside, he pushed the papers off the desk, he tipped over the benches, then he got back on his knees, held the flashlight between his teeth, and began to rifle through the mess.
It had to be done of course, but he didn’t find what he was looking for. He tidied a little when he was finished and shut the door carefully behind him before he moved on to the second hut. Again the lock gave way easily but the second hut was almost empty. There was a single mattress on the floor and another broken oil lamp. This time, the broken glass was arranged on the mattress like a jaw of jagged teeth.
He checked his watch, switched off the flashlight and stepped back into the clearing. It was shortly past eight, but it had been dark three hours, and might just as well have been the dead of night. A snow flake fell on the bridge of his nose, melted and dripped down into his moustache. He ran his tongue over his upper lip, tasted the ice cold water, it was starting to snow. He smiled. By morning, his footprints would be gone.
He walked blindly for a short distance, guided only by the splash of the river. When he judged it was safe again, he used his flashlight to pick a path through the boulders. The noise of the tumbling water grew loud in his ears. He soon stood on the bank of the river and it was practically a roar.
The snow was falling steadily as he walked upstream, the flakes danced and swirled in the beam of his flashlight. He came to a low stone wall and followed it. It ran in a large semi-circle, maybe fifty feet or so in diameter and, at its centre, on the river bank, was an ancient hollyoak tree. Mundy stepped over the wall. He used the flashlight to scan the ground: the black turf was piled in body-length mounds, radiating out from the tree like swollen and clotted root system.
He searched the graves without emotion, some were ancient, marked with small and broken stones. He ignored them. Some way from the river, just before the wall, he found what he wanted. A fresh pile of earth, un-weathered, a couple of months old perhaps. He took off his jacket and laid it on the ground, then he reached over to the wall and found a suitable rock, something he could use as a shovel. The snow was falling heavily now but he could not feel the cold. He rolled up his shirts sleeves, laid the flashlight carefully on his coat, got back down on his knees and began to hack away at the frozen turf.









Chapter Eight
The night was full of echoes. Evan had been dreaming of thunder, the storm was still thumping in the hills, but the darkness was absolute. He couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed. He tried to roll over but his face was glued to the mattress. His head throbbed. The bed quivered like it was loaded with static. What time was it? His watch hands glowed dimly but he couldn’t hold his arm steady to read them. He rolled on to his back, he was horribly dizzy. It must be dehydration, or his wound maybe. He had a splitting headache. He pushed himself upright. The blankets slid off his legs on to the floor. He was so unsteady, he swayed against the wall. He wondered, for a moment, where he was exactly. The darkness was so disorienting.
The wall was rough wood, he could feel the splinters on his cheek. He was wearing all his clothes, sleeping in his snow jacket. He could feel his boots on his feet. The little missionary hospital. The thought flashed across his mind. The Kalash village. The earth convulsed again. He pitched the other way this time and nearly fell out of the bed on to the floor. He felt nauseous. He needed water. He could swear the roof beams were groaning. It was hard to hear. The thunder still throbbed in his ears. He pressed his head into his hands, it would not go away. He had to lie down again. Where was his torch? He groped on the floor beside the bed. It was not where he remembered. He should get up. He had to have water. And fresh air maybe. He should get outside. Clear his head. He swung his legs off the bed. He felt like he was being spun on a gyroscope. He staggered to his feet. A blinding fire burned in his brain. He collapsed to his knees. What was happening? He stumbled over boxes. Glass broke. What the hell was happening?
Where was his pack? Where was the door? He had lost control of his senses. He was falling through the darkness, falling through fissures and black canyons, through an endless rent in the rock, falling and still falling, through the crash and thrash of the thunder, through a lightning flash, a fission in his spine, through deep space into silence.

* * *

His glasses were askew but it was quiet again. The storm must have rolled on, the thunder had stopped. His head was much better, the cut hurt, but at least his sense of balance was restored. He was still lying on the floor though, he had not tried to sit up, or stand, or search for his flashlight, or do any of the things that he knew he would have to. He was hurt and hungry and desperately tired. Quite honestly, he could stay where he was, quite happily, and sleep for hours. Only that was no good. He didn’t want to stay on the floor. It was better to wake in a bed.
One thing confused him. Whether he had been sleepwalking or having a fit, or whatever, he was certain that he had knocked over some boxes and broken some glass. The smell of antiseptic was stronger than ever. He must have made an awful mess, and a dreadful noise, but Mundy, apparently, had not woken. He considered calling out for help, trying to rouse his companion, but he couldn’t do it. If Mundy was asleep, Evan did not want to be the one to wake him. If he could find his way back to bed and crawl under the blankets, that would be so much better.
He sat up slowly. It was still too dark to see anything but he was able to feel with his hands and find the corner of the bed. He slid over to it, dragged himself up on to the mattress and lay down. Without the blankets, it was extremely cold. He began to shiver. He closed his eyes but he couldn’t sleep. He needed the blankets. It might be dangerous without them. Was it cold enough for hypothermia? He thought they had slid on to the floor. He reached down for them but they weren’t there. Nothing was ever easy. He was so tired. Where were the blankets? Where was Mundy? What time was it?
He rolled on to his back and lay still. The darkness was incredibly claustrophobic, the weight of it seemed to crush him, his breathing was shallow and fast. He felt like he had fallen into a pit of unimaginable depth. Stars flickered in the sky and a gentle breeze blew, but he was buried deep in the core of the earth, there was the cold and the bed and the smell of antiseptic. But on the surface, someone was crying. A single frail voice trembled in the wind.
He was quite content to listen to it. It wasn’t particularly unpleasant, it was distracting, he could concentrate on it rather than worry about the darkness. He tried to recall when he had first heard it. Just now was it? It was a woman or a child, the pitch was too high and faltering to be a man. He wondered if it had been there all along. It was impossible to tell what was real from what was ringing in his ears. He wanted to say something out loud, he wanted his own voice to test the silence. But it was hard to open his mouth, hard to crack his parched throat, hard to know what to say.
‘Mundy,’ he croaked, ‘Mundy, are you there?’
There was no reply, but he had managed only a feeble whisper. The darkness had smothered it instantly. It was unbearable. He could still hear the voice crying, quieter now perhaps, but still crying. It began to upset him. He needed it to stop if he was ever going to sleep. He needed complete silence, complete darkness. While he was conscious, the darkness remained suffocating. He was struggling to breathe, his chest was heaving but air was not making it into his lungs. The voice was still crying. If anything, it was growing louder. His mind was playing tricks on him. He could hear a second voice, and then a third. But it was the same voice, it had to be. But it had fractured, the tempo was changing, there were many voices, it was a screaming orchestra reaching crescendo.
He needed fresh air.
He kicked over several more boxes trying to find the door, he hadn’t remember them being strewn so widely. They were everywhere. Glass crunched under his boots. It was just as well he had slept in them.
He found the door by following the wall round from the bed. It was a great relief to grip the handle and feel the cold air blowing through the boards. But it was hard to open, warped in the frame he supposed. A small drift had gathered outside. It collapsed over his boots when he dragged open the door. The icy wind whipped his face. His closed his eyes for a moment, it felt good to be back on the surface. He opened them again and looked up. The storm clouds were gone, the sky was full of stars. He adjusted the glasses on his nose and smiled. He was experiencing a rare and joyous connection with nature, it was profoundly satisfying. He wanted to savour this moment, commit the stellar sky to memory and treasure it.
Someone was still screaming. He could not think why anyone would still be screaming. He was awake now, there was no reason for anyone to be screaming. He gazed up at the village, hoping to see an explanation. The starlight was bright but he couldn’t see that far. He could see the silhouettes of trees on the shoulders of the mountains, but he couldn’t see the houses. They lacked profile perhaps, the way they were dug into the slope, snug and safe and out of sight.
He stepped back into the hospital to look for the flashlight. With the door open it was not quite so dark inside and he found his pack at the foot of the bed. His cell phone was in the hood. He dug it out, turned it on. There was no reception, the little battery meter was almost empty, but the fluorescent screen glowed weakly. He used it to search the floor for the proper flashlight. He was sure he had placed it down beside the bed before he went to sleep. He got down on to his knees. There it was. It had rolled beneath the bed somehow – he had kicked it probably. Something was soaking into his pants but he stretched beneath the bed and grabbed it. Switched it on. Blinked dumbly. It was blindingly bright.
It was the antiseptic making his pants wet. He shone the flashlight across the room. It was an incredible mess. The floor was strewn with boxes, it was no wonder he had struggled to reach the door. The neat stacks had been destroyed. Boxes had been kicked and flung, opened and upended. Medical supplies had spewed across the boards: broken bottles, syringes, bandages. It was carnage. His left boot sent something spinning into a corner. The small pan they had used to eat daal the night before. A gust of wind caught him in the face. He turned the light towards a window, the beam reflected and bounced back, so the glass was intact. What had happened? He had not done this. Surely he hadn’t. And where was Mundy? He swung the light on the other bed. It was empty.
The roof beams had been groaning. He remembered that now. He had thought it had been a dream. He directed the torch towards the roof, it sagged greatly on the left side, but that might have been the case last night too. Some of the pine boards had splintered. One of the walls was breached by two deep jagged fissures, an inch wide in places. Had they been there last night? He couldn’t remember but he was staring at them intently. One of them seemed to be twitching in the torch-light. He tried to hold his arm steady. He was causing it, he must be, his hand was shaking. He couldn’t trust his eyes, the black line flinched again, it was firing hairline fissures across the plaster, black lightning in a grey sky.
The hospital pitched suddenly and he was on his knees again. The flashlight bounced on the ground and spun away. It felt like a great wind was blowing, shaking the little missionary hospital like it was high in the boughs of a tree. He felt dizzy. He fumbled for the torch and felt the earth writhe beneath the floor boards, electric currents were sparking through the mantle. Something cracked, one of the fissures splitting the wall… the roof… he had to get outside. He lunged for the flashlight and crawled towards the door. A jolt forced him down to the floor, he dragged himself on… over pill bottles and glass… he cut his hand… he was over the threshold, into the snow… he lurched forward… buried his face in the snow and lay still.

* * *

The crying had stopped. The ground was placid. In fact, the whole valley was strangely quiet, like all the things in it were holding their breath. He stood up slowly, his legs were unsteady, still sick with the motion of the rocking earth. He picked up the flashlight, it was buried slightly, snow flakes were melting on the glass. He didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like he was stricken by panic or despair, nothing like that; but he was numb, his brain was sluggish, he simply could not think what to do. He shone the flashlight on the hospital. It was still standing. He was lucky. Twice, at least, he could have been buried. He shook his head dumbly. He was struggling to appreciate how fortunate he had been… when the thunder was raging, in a steep snow-clad valley, fast asleep, too brainless too realise the risk… if there had been an avalanche…
He turned the flashlight up towards the village. His was thinking of the thunder again and the screaming he had wished would stop, of the houses he had been unable to see. He felt a cold chill on the nape of his neck, like ice water soaking his collar.
He was swinging the flashlight wildly, searching for the courtyard, for the stairs where Abdul had sat. He couldn’t remember how close they had been… right there, surely, facing the hospital. He thought of the drift of snow that had fallen through the door. He turned the torch back to the hospital, half of it was buried beneath a great ugly dirt-grey drift, a slick of mud and ice and root and branch and… dear God… there was a glassy black orb, a vacant eye, a gaping mouth, a heifer’s twisted neck, a scrawny rag-bag chicken, a broken leg sticking up like a shipwrecked mast, the bloody ankle stump hanging by knot of tendon and skin. The slick was full of livestock.
He retched into the snow.
It was 4.10am.
No one was screaming now.
He sat down, two feet from his freezing vomit.
He couldn’t help himself.

* * *
His watch read 4.40am. It was still dark. The batteries in the flashlight were running out, the beam was dirty orange and fading rapidly. He should have switched it off when he sat down, but he hadn’t thought of it then, and now it was too late. It was too late to do anything. Soon the light would be gone. But it didn’t matter. There was nothing he could do. His eyes were shut, he wasn’t even looking. Instead, he was trying to listen; trying desperately to detect the slightest sound, the lowest murmur, the faintest tap, the most distant sob… anything… a dog’s bark, an owl’s hoot… a child crying… a clue, any clue, as to what he should do.
He was ashamed to be sitting in the snow. He was ashamed to be so passive. He was frozen. Literally, metaphorically, however he chose to look at it. Faced with crisis, he had nothing to offer. There would be no rescue attempt for the village. Their hope was buried with their homes. He couldn’t dig them out by himself, he doubted he could even make it up the slope. The path was gone, the mountain was a treacherous lattice of rock and loose ice and uprooted trees. Every now and then he heard a distant thunder-rumble, another aftershock, another tree falling, another rock slide. Any one of them might finish him off. Life twirled on a gossamer thread. He had no grip, no will to assert, no force of his own. He was a victim. A footnote. A vile, despicable, weak man, who wanted desperately to act, but didn’t.
He was in shock perhaps. Yes, shock could excuse it. He was suffering. He looked at the cuts on his hands. There was still glass in his left palm, brown glass, from a pill bottle, part of the prescription label was sopping up the blood. He didn’t try to pull it out.
He wondered how the stars could look so calm when all the world was turmoil. But they weren’t part of this world were they? That was an illusion, man’s tendency to claim ownership over everything… he was going to die in these mountains. Even if he escaped this valley, the jeep would be buried, the road would be destroyed. He was, quite possibly, the only living human in a hundred kilometres. Where had Mundy died? In the village? By the wall of the missionary hospital? He had a vision of Mundy lowering his shoulder against an onrushing avalanche, obstinate to the end.
He should probably drink something, unless he was just going to lay down. Was he? The flashlight was almost dead, the beam was failing quickly now, the bulb was flickering. When the light went out, he thought, that would be it for him too. There would be no breaking day or rising sun. He could not survive without light. The realisation came as a great relief, actually, it meant the future was no longer his responsibility. There was no point beating himself up. There was no hope, no chance to save anyone. Nothing to do but lie down and wait for the torch to die, and when it did, he would too, quietly and anonymously. It seemed fitting somehow.

* * *

The torch was dead.
But, patently, he was not.
He was still conscious. That wasn’t proof one way or another – perhaps there was thought, perhaps there wasn’t. He had no idea what to expect from death. But he was unbearably cold, he was freezing. He could feel the ice seeping through his clothes, the skin on his backside turning blue. His jaw was in spasm. He was alive and cold and wretched.
Something had woken him, he felt certain off it. He tried to listen again, but it was more difficult to concentrate this time and more difficult to hear anything over his chattering teeth. The wind was blowing, it was making the trees creak. He could hear the river too, he thought it had stopped for a while but, of course, that wasn’t possible. It was frothing and foaming, just as it always did. The funny thing about the river was that it managed to sound far off and impossibly close at once. It was everywhere and nowhere, near and…
He was rigid in the snow. His jaw was silent. He had heard someone curse, then spit. He was listening intently now, he had forgotten the river and the trees and everything else. It sounded as though someone was throwing boxes inside the missionary hospital. Glass had smashed, there were bottles rolling around on the boards, the sound of packets torn open and pills spilled. There was another curse, rich and filthy, and a groan that was both hurt and angry. It was Mundy, it had to be Mundy. But he couldn’t move, he daren’t move. Hope was too fragile. He contemplated waiting until dawn. If he could hang on until there was light in the sky, if he could hold faith until then…
He couldn’t push himself up because of the glass in his hand. He had to roll on to his stomach first, then use his chest and his elbows to lever himself up on to his knees. He stood up very gingerly, cradling his cut hand, suddenly very protective of his injury. He needed some excuse, some explanation for why he had been lying pathetically in the snow.
The crashing and cursing had stopped. The hospital was a grey silhouette in the starlight. He kept his eyes lowered and approached it slowly, not wanting to look at the ghastly snow drift. The door was closed. He pushed it gently with his good hand, it gave a little, the hospital was pitch black inside. He leant against the frame for a moment, but there was nothing to hear. He thought of knocking, but that was ridiculous. He shoved the door harder and it creaked across the boards. The old smell of antiseptic wafted in his face.
‘Mundy,’ he asked, ‘is that you?’
He could see nothing inside the hospital. It was as dark as it had been earlier, when he was rolling around on the floor and shivering in the bed. There was no sight, no sound. He was worried he had imagined it, the noise and the cursing, the time on his wrist watch. There was no end to the darkness.
‘Mundy,’ he pleaded, ‘are you there?’
A flashlight snapped on. The light shone straight into his eyes. Blinded, he turned away. The beam followed him, it was dazzling. He stood on a plastic bottle which split noisily, he held his arms in gesture of surrender and backed away against the wall.
Evan was squinting desperately through his glasses. Eventually the torch was lowered slightly, until it pointed at his chest rather than his face. Mundy was sitting against the far wall, an awkward, raw-boned shadow. The torch was in his right hand, propped on his right knee. Something looked odd about his left leg, it was lying at a funny angle maybe. Evan hardly noticed. He was thinking of an injured gunslinger he had seen in a movie, propped against the wall, breathing hard, pistol in hand. That was Mundy now, near enough: his left arm hung at his side, his head was arched unnaturally forward, the details were perfect. The left hand was holding his hip flask. He was drinking whisky. Evan wanted to see him throw back his head and take a slug. He was captivated by the notion, it was surreal and it was wonderful. Mundy the gunslinger, breathing hard, slugging his whisky, dying in the dust.
‘Get inside… and shut the door,’ Mundy even spoke like a gunslinger, in a low guttural growl. ‘Shut the damn door…. you want to freeze as well as everything else?’
Evan did as he was told, though the door wouldn’t close properly now. There was too much snow over the threshold. He stood with his back against the wall, the same cracked wall that had so disturbed him earlier. He didn’t want to leave it, didn’t trust it perhaps. He was scared of the hospital, scared it would fall down, scared of what it had done to him in the dark. He was certainly scared of Mundy. He had been scared enough in the daylight, when Mundy was an ill-tempered travelling companion. He was much worse now, angry and visceral, full of whisky, clearly in pain. He really could have been the star of a western. He was more than a man now. Or Evan was less.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘Huh?’ Evan was surprised to hear Mundy ask.
‘Are you hurt, damn it?’
‘Er… no. Well, not too bad.’
‘Then take the sodding torch and start looking through these boxes. I need antiseptic, a bottle that isn’t smashed, bandages too. Something I can use as a splint and some painkillers, if you can find them. Aspirin will do.’ He swigged from his flask and grimaced. ‘Christ… anything will do.’
Mundy threw the flashlight across the room. Evan watched it spiral through the air, a flaming electronic orb, a meteor in space, tumbling through a mesmeric parabola. He flapped one-handed at the catch but missed it. The flashlight bounced on the floor, the batteries sprang out, the hospital was dark again.
Mundy growled. There was another curse. Evan sprang forward, the clattering flashlight had jolted him, he was nervy and jumpy, but less apathetic. He found the batteries and fixed the torch. In itself, that was a minor triumph. Quickly, almost frantically, he began to sort through the various medical supplies. He was pleased to have something to do, a task within his capabilities. He struggled with one hand, it was hard to hold the torch and search the boxes, but he could do it, and Mundy could not – that was the point.
He tried to ask questions while he worked. It was a relief to talk.
‘How bad is your injury? Where were you when the earthquake happened? I saw the empty bed, I though you must have… I thought maybe you had… Do you want this, it says it’s an antiseptic? I’m sorry I’m slow, my hand you see, I cut it. I don’t think it’s bad, I was lucky I suppose. Where were you again? It’s your leg is it? The village… did you see the village? Do you think they… what should we do?’
He couldn’t see Mundy unless he shone the torch at him. He tried it once but decided that a second look would be foolish. Mundy’s stare was fixed and vacant, he gave no indication that he heard the questions. Occasionally he drank from his flask, mostly he sat in silence and didn’t move. Evan could hear him breathing heavily, like he was exerting great effort or fighting great pain. But that was ok. It didn’t matter to Evan if his questions weren’t answered. He didn’t want to know how badly Mundy was injured, he didn’t want to think about the village or what they should next. He just wanted to ask the questions, to get them out into the open, because that way, perhaps, he could forget about them.
He found the bandages, the antiseptic, several pill bottles that may or may not have been painkillers; he found gauze to pad out the bandages, he even found wooden crutches. He found all the things one handed, gathered them together and gave them to Mundy.
‘I need a splint.’
‘I’m sorry, I looked.’
‘Well, look at my damn ankle. I need a splint.’
It was his left ankle, the one that had looked odd earlier. There was a tear in his pants, from the knee down to the ankle, revealing a skinny, pale, hairless leg. He was still wearing the black boots, the eyelets knotted up his calf. The ankle was bound, hidden, it was impossible to tell what was wrong with it.
‘Untie the boot.’
‘Oh, no… I don’t think I could.’
‘Do it.’
‘My hand…’
Mundy grabbed for Evan’s arm and pulled him down to the floor.
‘Shine the torch on it,’ he said.
Evan turned the beam on his own hand. Mundy studied the black and congealing cut, the shard of brown glass, an inch long, like a shark’s fin slicing through the skin.
‘Drink?’
‘Er… should I?”
‘I would.’
Evan took the flask and tried a sip. It was cheap bourbon, dirty and horrible. While he drank, Mundy used his teeth to unscrew the cap from one of the antiseptic bottles. He was holding Evan’s wrist unbelievably tight.
‘Take another drink.’
Evan raised the flask to his lips and Mundy emptied half the bottle of antiseptic into the wound. It was pain beyond anything he had ever known. He tried to pull away, but the long fingers were vice-like. He thought his wrist might snap.
‘Hold still damn it.’
He tried but he couldn’t help flinching. He chose to look away instead, his eyes were watering. He felt Mundy grip the glass, the root of the fin twitching deep in his palm. He screwed himself against the pain, he bit hard to stop his teeth grinding. The glass slid in his flesh until it pulled free, and he felt the raw cut smart in the air, then explode as Mundy emptied the rest of the antiseptic bottle.
‘Done,’ said the steward, slapping gauze into the palm and tying a bandage. ‘Now stop whining and untie my sodding boot.’
The knot was impossible. He fiddled with it as best he could, but the slightest pressure on the boot left Mundy cursing and coughing on bourbon.
‘Get the knife… from my bag.’
The blade was oily black and curved like a crescent moon, the handle was ridged bone. He was daunted just holding it, but it unpeeled the laces. It placed it down carefully, next to the flask, and began to loosen the boot. When he was halfway down the shin, approaching the ankle, blood began to ooze through the tongue. He recoiled, but Mundy wasn’t looking, his eyes were closed. With dread, he tried again. He loosened the laces right down to the toes. Occasionally the ankle would twitch or jerk. Each time he stopped and glanced at Mundy’s face, but the expression didn’t change. His own fresh white bandages were now soaked red. The blood was thick with brown globs that stuck to the cloth and the boots and the cuffs of his jacket.
When the boot was untied he sat back waiting for instructions. Mundy didn’t move.
‘Take it off. Take the boot off.’
The leather was slippery with the blood. With his good hand he held the sole, at the heel, with the other he tried to loosen the neck of the boot and slide it over the ankle.
Mundy barked and swore. ‘Quickly…’ he was panting hard, ‘do it quickly.’
Evan pulled off the boot with his eyes closed. The ankle rolled free but Mundy didn’t yell again. He was horribly silent. Evan let the boot fall on to the floor, he was breathing fast too, trying to compose himself before he looked.
He had prepared himself for something like the cow’s leg so, in that respect, it was a relief. But it wasn’t good. There was a jagged tear in the sock and a hint of bone above the heel. The foot had twisted square, and the whole thing was heavy with brown gore. He had no idea what to do. He didn’t know if it could be set, let alone how. He didn’t know how to clean it, how to splint it… he just didn’t know. He fumbled with a bottle of antiseptic.
‘Put it down,’ said Mundy, he sounded weak. ‘I can do this bit myself. Find me something I can use as a splint… a stick, or roll some cardboard. Anything will do..’
Evan nodded and stood up. He looked through the window. The stars were gone, a pale grey light was seeping through the sky. He should find the splint quickly, Mundy was already working on his wound. He pulled open the door and stepped outside. The air was wet and fresh and, except for the river, the valley was quiet. He heard a bottle smash and another curse. He had to find a splint, quickly. He needed Mundy. He was useless on his own. The long night had proved that.

















Chapter Nine
She had fled the barn convinced that she would be chased and the fear was like asphyxia. She couldn’t feel, she couldn’t think. It had a stranglehold on her heart, so instead of beating like a mad thing, gushing adrenalin through her veins, it was paralysed, quivering, shivering miserably. Without looking, she knew that they were coming after her and, in her mind’s eye, they were all the same; all like Rawicz, evil and twisted in the fluorescent light, with oily, groping, clawing hands, reaching out for her…
Passed the farmhouse and sties and over the rutted fields, she didn’t looked back. But at the feeble gate in the low stone wall she stopped to catch her breath. She had no choice. She was crying, the tears stinging her cheeks in the bitter wind, which was swirling and gusting around the ridge. Sobbing and panting, it was hard to breathe. Her lungs were heaving as she climbed over the wall on to the farm track. She tried to listen for shouting, for sounds of her pursuers, but she heard nothing. But that didn’t mean they weren’t coming, it didn’t mean she could rest. She was thinking only of getting away, of reaching the guesthouse, of the warmth in her bedroom and the door she could lock.
She ran again. She was numb, so scared, it was a while before she realised that she must have run passed the footpath. She tried not to panic, she tried to remember the shape of the spur on which the guesthouse was built: something like an arrow head, broad at the base, becoming wider before tapering into the plain near Rawicz’s farm. At some point, if she kept running, she would find the road that climbed up from the town. She just had to keep going, she just had to keep running, because they were chasing her, she knew they were, she knew they were coming.
But she never found the road. The snow was falling heavily now and the night was closing in. She tried to glance over her shoulder but she stumbled as she ran. She couldn’t see anyone, she couldn’t hear them either, but she felt them. She felt their hands at her clothes, she smelled their foul breath in her nostrils. She imagined their stubble like thorns and the secretions, the beads of greasy sweat, on their skin. They were so close, they surrounded her and they were more real than anything else. More real than her cold skin and her wet clothes and the fatigue in her legs. More real than her tears that wouldn’t stop.
She pressed on, forgetting the road, deciding to climb the steep bank regardless. If she could make it to the top of the ridge...
But the climb was difficult. There were boulders which rolled under her feet, roots which tried to trip her, gorse snagged her clothes, ice sent her skidding and skating. Twice she fell on her knees. The second time she crawled for a way. The snow started to freeze on her face. It clogged in her eyelashes. Then, when she finally reached the top of the ridge, the wind hit her so hard she nearly fell. A gale was blowing, driving the snow across the ridge in horizontal sheets.
But it didn’t matter, she was running hard. At last she could see the lights of the hotel. They were a hundred metres away still, but she could see them. The only lights, the only warmth, shining in a vast, impenetrable flurry of white and black night. Even through the snow, she saw them. Even though they were in completely the wrong place. Or she was in the wrong place. She had come all the way around the bottom of the ridge and climbed up on the wrong side. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that she had lost the road, or couldn’t see the stupid town… she kept telling herself, it didn’t matter. She was nearly back, nearly safe and dry and warm. And she was running hard.
On her right side the ridge fell away in a precipitous tumble down to the valley floor. She was running too close to the edge and the snow was heavy on the ground now, the path was dangerous. It was so easy to trip, so easy to slip and fall, but the guesthouse was so close, on the far side of the spur, just fifty metres away now, she was nearly there…
She fell. It didn’t hurt. There was plenty of snow to break the fall, but it was wet and it was unnerving. At first, she thought she had tripped on a root. Then she thought she had been caught. Rawicz had chased her down and grabbed at her ankle. It wasn’t until the guesthouse slid from the hillside that she realised both these explanations were wrong.
When it happened, it didn’t matter that she was on her stomach already, she was terrified of falling. She clutched at the frozen turf, as the ridge trembled, like it was in spasm, then convulsed like it was trying to buck her into the abyss. She felt the rock bristling, like bone and sinew, taught and quivering, felt the untapped depths of pent-up frenzy, and clung on for dear life.
For a few seconds, there was eerie silence. Then the hotel began to slip, the mortar crumbled and the wood splintered and it was deafening. The rooms, the verandas, the stairwell, the dining hall, the kitchens, the reception – one by one she watched them disappear. The foundations pulled out of the earth and slid down the hillside and toppled over a shallow cliff into the valley below. If was incredible and appalling. The balconies went like a flotilla of sailboats, the walls of the dining hall collapsed and the great wooden roof frame slewed off the hill in a cloud of brick-dust. Things were sucked in and dragged down. Jeeps were snatched from the driveway, trees were ripped from the garden and a great trench scarred the hillside.
It lasted less than a minute. It was awesome and terrifying and then it was over. The hill stopped shaking. The guesthouse was gone. She listened to the rubble coming to rest: the clatter of the corrugated roof sheets, the crack and splinter of snapping wood, the groan of twisting steel. Dust billowed into the night like a mushroom cloud and the snow turned black. In the town somewhere, there was a gas explosion. Fire smudged the horizon.
She was soaking wet. The snow was inside her coat, the ice water trickled down from her collar, pooled with the sweat in the small of her back. It was in her hair, in her mouth too. She stood up slowly and bashed the snow off her coat. The ground had stopped moving but she was still shaking. Her legs were unsteady, infected with a half-drunk giddiness, and she spread her arms to try and help her balance.
She understood the earthquake. It had taken a few seconds but then some innate instinct had kicked in and, somehow, it was neither shocking nor scary. She just had to hold on. The guesthouse however… she had watched it disappear and thought it incredible. Reality was so unexpected, it had left her behind. It had become an abstract spectacle and she was no longer part of it. But she watched it enthralled, just like she watched a movie at the cinema. When it had started to slide, when she had realised it was falling… it was exciting. The higher the dust cloud rose, the louder the tortured twisting of the wreckage, the more wonderful it seemed. Because it wasn’t real. It couldn’t possible be real.
Where she stood, on nearly the highest shoulder of the ridge, it was dark and quiet. The flashlight was broken, when she fell maybe… she wondered if the farm was still standing. She spun around suddenly, the guesthouse forgotten, thinking only of Rawicz and his men. But she was utterly alone. The snow was still falling, though the wind seemed to have calmed. She had escaped them. She was saved and, for a moment at least, that was all that seemed to matter. She was alive and untouched.
But she had forgotten Evan. He was still out, somewhere in the hills. Unless… what if he had got back before, when she was out? What if his jeep had been parked on the driveway? The thought hit her in the stomach, like a punch, and she was unable to breathe. What if he was dead? How could she even know?
She unwound the scarf, fumbled at the buttons of her coat, pulled down the neck of her jumper. She was wearing the necklace her mother had given her, the pendant was caught in a loop of her shirt. She clutched at it, held it to her lips, said a prayer without speaking any words. She had forgotten about her father.
Some primal agony was taking hold and it was despairing and fearful. She thought of Evan crushed beneath the guesthouse and knew with an absolute certainty that she was alone, not just for this moment, but utterly and irrevocably for the rest of her life. He had been her last hope. He was her last hope. It was such a fragile thing. Just being aware of it was like a physical pain. Knowing she could lose it all before morning.
She started to run again. The guesthouse gardens were close and she was sprinting. She dodged bushes and rocks and leapt over ditches. She hurdled the low wall, sped past the flowerbed where the rose bushes grew, skirted the hedges and the lemon trees, skidded on the gravel path… she didn’t know where she was running. She prayed her father would be pulling his jeep into the driveway, or sitting against the broken gate-posts, searching the rubble for her, holding out his key wondering what had happened to his bedroom door. And if not her father, then someone else. She needed someone. Surely Zahra or Zahir or the cook or the gardener. It was inconceivable that a building could fall like that and no one would come. The police would come and the fire brigade and the rescue teams. There had been people inside for God’s sake. There were still people inside.
She ran on to the lawn above where the dining hall used to be. There was no one there. No one mounting a rescue mission. She stopped abruptly and stared at the ruined guesthouse.
On this side, the ridge fell away just as steeply. Better for the views that way. A vista from every room, a glorious, long interrupted panorama, the Hindu Raj and the Chitral valley down to the Lowari pass. The guesthouse had climbed the slope via a single flagstone staircase, from which the rooms had branched off at different levels. The dining hall had been the highest point on the slope, the rooms were the lowest, suspended over the cliff face, high up above the valley floor. No wonder… no wonder, when the roof went, it ploughed through the rest. The stairs were all that was left. A bone stripped of all its flesh: the walls and the roof beams and the furniture and the rugs and everything else.
Slowly and carefully she walked towards the place where the dining hall had stood. She wanted to make a search. But the dining hall had been uprooted like a shallow weed. She found nothing to help her. Stray bits of smashed china, ground into the turf, a torn table cloth, the broken leg from a table. So she ventured further downhill to the first cracked flagstone, shattered by the rubble that had swept over it. She began to climb down the stairs, remembering how, only hours before, she had wandered the same way, staring idly at the portraits and the animal skins that hung from the walls.
She reached the place, at the very bottom, where the rooms had been. Fifteen metres to her right and she would be standing beside her own bed. Or near enough. There was a deep furrow there now. Another ten metres to Evan’s bed. She put her hand to her neck and clutched a fistful of her scarf. What if he had made it back? What if, exhausted after his trip, he had laid on his bed?
She couldn’t help herself. She stood at the foot of the broken staircase, conjuring images of her broken father and she hated him for so many things. For the clothes he wore and the way he spoke, for his weak, apologetic mouth and the freckles splattered on his cheeks. And for his absence. The thought that he might have been lying on his bed, rather than searching for her, ignited a bitter, jealous fury in the pit of her stomach. She ground her teeth, she was crying again, ashamed of herself. What did it say about her? She was soulless, she was bereft, and now… how could she be so alone? How could… how could it happen again? Everybody left… everybody died… say he wasn’t here, say he was still in the hills… if only that was better.
Don’t let this happen to me. She was pleading with fate, trying to weight the balance of chance in her favour. She expected the worse and that was her leverage, fate couldn’t deliver what she already expected. By making her plea, she was strengthening her hand.
She was rooted to that spot at the foot of the stairs. She had so much invested there. She was enduring waves of mechanical spasm, her fists clenching, unclenching, clenching. Every fibre was aligned to that place, every thought. It was like standing at the confluence of two rivers, spinning eddies to change the flow of the water. Self defeating circles, her mortal coil tightening. And all the while the snow was settling on her shoulders, on her hood, on her scarf. She was standing so still. She had no knowledge of the time passing, she was lost. She would stand there for as long as was needed.
Until Evan came back, or the world chose some other way to right itself. Until, eventually, the trance broke.

* * *

A man was standing on the lawn, in the same place she had stood, looking down on the rubble and the ruined hillside. It was hard to see him through the swirling snow, but she could see that he was tall, almost as tall as Rawicz but too thin to be the giant Russian. And it seemed like he wore a scarf over his head because it caught in the wind and trailed behind him like a ghostly aura. He was a willowy apparition, a spectre of the snow storm.
The trance was broken, her first thought was to run. Only it was impossible to flee across the ridge, in both directions the ground was broken and loose. There were walls still to collapse and trenches that could swallow her. There was no way down the ridge from here either, only a short run of chewed earth, a steep drop, and wreckage. It was a death trap. The only way out was back up the staircase. How had she failed to see that when she walked down? It was stupid… unbelievably stupid. She had forgotten Rawicz and she had trapped herself and now he had sent someone to fetch her.
The thin man began to climb down the stairs towards her. His strides were long and languid, his shoulders rolled easily in his shalwar. If he had seen her already, he seemed unconcerned. He walked as if strolling a ruined hillside in a snow storm was the most natural thing imaginable. She chewed her lip and turned away. There was nowhere she could run, nothing she could do except wait. Her fists were clenching again. She tried to concentrate on something, there was a concrete slab on the slope below, it bristled with construction pins, like giant twisted steel thorns. Beyond was the road, then the town in the valley and the fires that burnt there.
He reached her quickly. She had no time to think, no time to calm herself, no time to plan an escape. She didn’t turn around, she didn’t want to look at him; she felt, somehow, that if she looked away, she could distance herself from his threat. If she pretended hard enough that he wasn’t there, then maybe he wasn’t there. If she pretended she wasn’t there, then maybe…
He was breathing heavier than she had expected him to be. She heard him panting as he hurried towards her. It was harder to ignore the noises he made and the smells he carried with him. There was the stain of cigarette smoke in his clothes, a spice she didn’t recognise, a strange muddle of dirt and stubble and other sour smells, which she knew were peculiar to men but which she couldn’t name. She knew when he was beside her because she felt her leg tremble. She couldn’t ignore that either.
‘You were at the farm of Pietr Rawicz,’ he said and he was nervous too, she could sense it.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Why were you there?’ he asked.
She continued to stare ahead into the valley and, for a while, so did he. She was waiting for him to grab her and it was like waiting for a pain, one that she could see coming but could not yet feel. But he didn’t move, he was trying to follow her gaze, as if he believed she was watching something significant.
‘What is your name?’ His English was slow and stumbling. She thought he was concentrating hard over the words.
‘Avalon,’ she said. Then, unprompted and uncertain why, she added, ‘we were staying in the guesthouse. My father and me.’
A kind of lethargy had taken hold of her. Her words were laboured too, the refusal to turn and look at him had become less about risk and more about effort. She was tired. She had seen too much already, the world had become too unpredictable and too treacherous. The movie was too long now, and she was tired.
She saw that it had been a gradual process, starting on the day, almost six months ago, when her mother had poured a glass of wine and sat down with her. The rhythm of life had been interrupted then, time had become increasingly discordant and now it was just noise. Events she had considered separate were not separate at all. They were symptoms of greater catastrophe, they were faults in the underlying fabric. Life was ruined and she hardly knew. It was exhausting to contemplate. Like this earthquake. She saw only the rubble, the mess on the surface, she couldn’t guess at the agony that had caused it.
She hardly had the energy to consider this new threat, this thin, spectral man, the deep breather, the slow talker… it took immense concentration just to turn her head and look at him.
He was younger than she had thought he would be and that seemed like a good thing. Somehow. He was about her own age, maybe a couple of years older, though the height and the strength in his shoulders made it seem like more. It was his face that betrayed him. It was childish and eager, neither threatening nor intimidating. He had fresh blue eyes, but they were nervous. They couldn’t settle on her. After a second they would flit away, scour the valley again, flit back, flit away. His nose was strong and straight. She might have called it a proud nose if she had been writing in her diary. The mouth though was less impressive. It looked like a mouth that struggled for words. There was a small scar on the right side above his upper lip. It was a sorrowful little scar, faint and apologetic, like it no right to be there. She felt he must have been born with it.
She had expected him to be Pakistani but he had blond hair and fair skin. She was too tired to be overly curious. She found his presence wearisome. She wished he would climb back up the steps and leave her alone. She didn’t care who he was or what he wanted. She was too wrapped up in herself, too shocked by what she had seen, too weary of the world.
‘My name is Ismail,’ he said, ‘but Izzy is easier for you, I think. If you want.’
He could talk if he wanted to, but she was too tired for words. His name sounded familiar, but she had no energy for that riddle. She thought she heard a siren in the valley. It sounded very far away, it might not have been a siren at all. Perhaps someone was crying. There was plenty to cry about. But she was too tired for tears now. She was drained. It had become very hard to focus. She had almost forgotten the man beside her. He was a boy really. It didn’t matter.
There were fires all over the town. It looked like someone had been lighting tea-lights. It was pretty, kind of. The different fires seemed to be bleeding into each other, but she didn’t know if that was the fire spreading or her eyes failing. She was too tired to look at things properly. But the orange fire-stain seemed to be growing, the whole valley was ablaze. Well, the ridge was probably as good a place as any. She thought about sitting down. She wondered if she could find a comfortable place amidst the rubble. She wondered why the snow didn’t dampen the flames. It must melt over the heat, then evaporate perhaps. But then it would freeze again and fall on the flames, and evaporate, and freeze…
She was caught in the same disorienting cycle as the snow. The flames sent her away and dragged her back. She could not escape them. She was running around in circles. That was why she was so dizzy. She tried to look away, up towards the stars. But there were only snow flakes falling. She felt faint. She didn’t want to stand anymore so she sat down in the wet snow. She felt sick. Maybe it would be better if she lay down and closed her eyes. Maybe it would be better that way.








Chapter Ten
The crutches probably saved Mundy’s life, though he was loathe to admit it. Without them, there was no way he could have walked out of the valley. Most likely, given time, he would have found them himself, but the point was he didn’t. It was the diplomat who found the crutches and, so, in a way, he owed his life to the diplomat. And that was an intolerable situation to be in. The idea that he might be indebted to that snivelling idiot of a man was too much for his professional pride to bear. Hell, it was too much for his personal pride to bear.
The ankle was shot. He had splinted it as best he could – the diplomat had found a hiking pole in his pack – but there was little he could do about sepsis. The bone had come right through at the base of his shin, it gnawed in the wound like a serrated blade. The slightest jolt was agony, it felt like someone was attacking his ankle with a hacksaw. When the leg swung he could feel the tendon and the muscle and the flesh grind on the bone like minced gristle. The painkillers were useless. Mostly, he was dependent on headache tablets, the majority of which were well past their use-by date. So he was trying to keep himself topped up with booze, but it was a fine balancing act, and the drink was running out. He had to keep the ankle numb, but that made it difficult to focus. And he had never had much to do with booze. Not like his father. The whole time in Africa, he had hardly had a drink.
Things had changed since then. He was full of failings now (he had started with the hip flask soon after he moved into the college). He found it harder and harder to maintain his concentration, and it was not just because of the alcohol. He had been noticing it all trip, he was doing it again now. Eventually, if he could not arrest this decline, it would cost him. It had cost him already. He could not have predicted the earthquake, but he could have been more alert. He was spending too much time thinking and he was falling behind the game. There had been a time when he could think and act quite independently. Not now. Now, when he thought, he drifted and he was unaware.
The ankle might kill him. He was all too aware of that.
When the earth had started to shake, he had been thinking rather than acting. The grave exhumed, he had sat down on his pile of freshly dug earth to contemplate the frozen body. He was wondering exactly how long it had been there. The skin had been pale blue, not brown, not rotted, not swollen. But, perhaps, that was the effect of the ice. He had never dug up a frozen grave before.
The hollyoak tree had broken his ankle.
He had slid from the mound into the grave. He remembered, quite clearly, the instant when his boot made contact with the dead man’s chest. It had been a little like standing on the surface of a frozen pond, the skin had been brittle but the core was juice. The sensation wasn’t particularly significant, he only remembered it because it was the last thing he felt before the tree came down on his leg, the boot was trapped in the grave and the ankle snapped. There had been no sensation since, the nerves were on fire.
It had been very dark after that. The flashlight had been buried somewhere. He had been forced to reclaim his foot from the grave, it had been sucked down with the corpse and the rocks and the roots. It had taken a long time to drag himself back to the missionary hospital. To start with, he had crawled a hundred metres in the wrong direction. Then he had blacked out hauling himself up and over one of the boulders in the boulder field. By the time he had reached the hospital, he had been like a snail, inching forward, leaving a smeary trail of blood in the snow.
He had called out for help. There was no shame in that. He was a hard man but, when he eventually collapsed thorough the doorway into a pool of spilt antiseptic, his resolve had been spent. Of course, Evan had not been there, both the beds had been empty. He didn’t recall worrying about the diplomat, quite possibly he was dead. The only concern had been how that might affect his own future.
He was still not sure.
He was short of time. In those dark hours after the earthquake, when he was struggling through the boulders, he had realised that. He didn’t know how long he had. Instead, he knew that he needed to reach shelter, he knew that a medic needed to treat his ankle, he knew that he needed to eat and drink and get warm and he knew that, if those things did not happen, the sepsis would spread, a fever would start and exposure would kill him. He could hear the clock ticking.
So, when the long night eventually ended, his first decision had been to leave the valley quickly. If the village had survived, then maybe he would have decided differently. Both nothing had survived. The valley was an icy tomb, full of blue-skinned bodies. The diplomat had wanted to stay. He had been sure that there were people alive, he had heard them crying. But it was irrelevant and it was nonsense. The man felt guilty for the things he hadn’t done during the night. Mundy could not afford to waste precious time making Evan Pike feel better about himself. So he had told him that there was nothing they could do. He had threatened to leave him behind. That had been all the diplomat wanted to hear really. There’s nothing you can do. Truthfully, there wasn’t much.
It had been difficult enough dragging his own carcass out of there. He had dumped most of his belongings. He had his gun, his flask and water. There were bottles of antiseptic and clean bandages in the diplomat’s pack, but the chances of him redressing the wound were slim. It would see him out or it wouldn’t. Simple really.
He had made the diplomat jettison most of his own belongings too. That way he could carry the greater share of the water and the food that they had left. But Mundy had never met a man who moved with the diplomat’s lack of purpose. Doubtless, he was suffering from shock, but it was more than that. It was like he had some sort of mental disorder, a dithering neurosis, he couldn’t decide what he should do or how he should do it. So, as they stood together looking at the mountainside where the village had been, Mundy had taken the following decision. He would cajole and coerce Evan Pike as best he could. He would use him to get as far down the mountainside as possible. The second that the balance tipped out of the diplomat’s favour, the second that Mundy judged he was better without him, that would be it. The diplomat could die up here. Mundy didn’t have seconds to spare.
Fifty hours had passed since he made that decision. It was now midday and the sun was overhead. They had had blue skies ever since they left, it felt like an apology for the earth’s madness. Every so often there were aftershocks. Most were short and light, some were more serious. It had reached the point when neither man was quite sure if the ground was shaking or not. It was like stepping from a ship on to dry land and still feeling the waves. And each tremor bore the threat of avalanche. On several occasions they heard rocks falling, or the echo of a slide in another valley. And their journey was made harder by the snow, which was far deeper than it had been for the ascent. It was crisp and crunchy underfoot, but it was also stacked in massive banks that had to be climbed, and clogged with loose boulders and fallen trees.
His ankle, of course, was making them slow. On the first afternoon out from the village, he had set the pace. He quickly grew accustomed to the crutches, even enjoyed the way he could bite back the pain and still move faster than the diplomat. By nightfall though, he was beginning to feel drained. He was not drinking enough water, and there was hardly enough food for a single meal. He instructed Evan on how to make a shelter but he did not slept. During the night the pain in his ankle grew. He gulped down more painkillers but they had little effect. Blood began to soak through the bandages.
Things only got worse on the second day. He began to feel hot all the time. He drank more and more of the bourbon, until he was uncertain of the direction they should be heading. When the second night fell, he was too drunk to pass instruction on the shelter.
So, by default, the diplomat was leading the way now. And, for the moment, Mundy felt worse than he had done for several hours. He hadn’t drunk since the early morning, so the pain was relentless.
They had to find the jeep. Then the road had to be open.
The further they walked, the less likely it seemed that they would ever find the jeep. It was hard to know exactly where they were. The landscape was changed. So much snow had been dumped from the slopes into the valley, passageways were clogged, steep drifts towered to improbable heights where before, he thought, there had been open ground and solid rock. In some places the river was dammed and pools of ice water spilled across their path. Rocks had cracked and fallen, trees were uprooted… the road was never going to be open. It was impossible.
‘Look – there it is!’ The diplomat was ahead of him, he had climbed a rock wall and was looking down the valley. ‘The jeep, Mr Mundy, I can see it.’
The diplomat had found the jeep before him. He had been drifting again, worrying about the state of the road… there was nothing he could do about the road, so there was no point worrying. Focus. He needed to focus. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He thought back to the deal he had made. It seemed presumptuous now. He hadn’t underestimated the diplomat, he had overestimated himself. He needed the diplomat because he was increasingly useless. The diplomat had found the jeep. And the diplomat would have to drive the jeep, because he couldn’t, not like this, not with one leg. He was dependent now. On Evan Pike. On snivelling squawking Evan sodding Pike. He wondered if he had ever felt worse.
‘I’ve found it Mr Mundy – the jeep. I can see it.’
The diplomat was taunting him. I’ve found the jeep, Mr Mundy. Have you found the jeep, Mr Mundy? No, I’ve found the jeep, Mr Mundy. He took out his hip flask and finished the bourbon, he wasn’t event thinking of the pain in his ankle. The whiskey was vile, it tasted like anger. He spat in the snow. What had happened to his method? It was crumbling around him, all because the earth had shaken. All because of his ankle… his broken ankle… his Achilles heel. How apt… shame he wasn’t drunk enough to find it funny.
The final bank was murder on his ankle. He stumbled on the rocks, the crutches either skated on the ice or sank in deep powder and dragged him down with them. As a final humiliation, he had to wait while Evan climbed back down to free them. Then the diplomat tried to take his arm, to escort him like a cripple, but he had the strength at least to resist that. He spat again and swore, but he staggered to the top.
The jeep was on its side and half buried. It would need to be dug out and turned right and then who knew if it would start?
The driver was nowhere to be seen. He tried to contemplate the significance of this fact while he sat and watched Evan dig at the drift with the jeep’s snow shovel. If the noxious little man had made it back to Chitral, then he might create some problems. Hopefully he was dead. The world would not miss the smell. It was inconceivable, surely, that he would have headed out for Chitral on foot. Surely. He could have dug out the jeep himself, he would never have left it. With any luck, he was buried somewhere not far away. Perhaps he had been performing his ablutions. Perhaps an animal had got him. There must be wolves and bears around. It didn’t really matter. Even if, for some perverse reason, he had set out on foot, they would overtake him if they could get the jeep started. And if they couldn’t… well, it wouldn’t matter either way then.
He was useless. He couldn’t stand to dig and he couldn’t push to roll the jeep upright. The diplomat had to do it all, and it took a long time. He was hot again. The whisky was wearing off. It dawned on him that the fever was probably starting. He tried to inspect his ankle but the bandages were black and he couldn’t face unwrapping the wound. The slightest movement ignited intolerable pain. He thought it was beginning to smell. He closed his eyes and it was all he could think of – the foot was on fire, the flames licked up his leg.
‘Are you ready, Mr Mundy?’
He might have passed out because the diplomat had rolled the jeep somehow and he hadn’t even noticed. But he didn’t have the energy to sneer or feel resentment. In fact, he was vaguely impressed. He dragged himself up out of the snow.
‘I don’t know if I can drive this,’ said Evan, ‘not on this road. What should we do?’
Mundy didn’t answer, he just pulled open the passenger door, threw in his pack and flopped down in the seat. He was so hot. It must be fever. He tried to drink some water but it was like pissing on a forest fire. Focus. A jagged black crack split the windscreen. There were fault lines everywhere, it seemed.
‘Do you have the key?’ Evan was in the driver’s seat. He hadn’t even noticed. ‘Can you hear me Mr Mundy? I don’t know where the driver is. Do you have a spare key? I can’t start the engine. Mr Mundy… can you hear me? What should we do?’
The jeep was an ancient Suzuki thing. A mule or a jackaroo… or something. Named after a donkey. He knew how to get it started, assuming the engine wasn’t flooded, or at least he thought he did. It was difficult to be certain of anything at the moment. His method had failed him. No, that was wrong, he had failed himself. He hadn’t stuck to his method, maybe he was too old. He half fell, half leaned across the diplomat, reaching under the steering wheel. He groped around for the wires he thought he wanted. With unsteady hands he tried to make them spark but nothing happened. Maybe he had the wrong wires. He tried again. The engine spluttered, it was like the wet cough of a emphysema patient. The engine was flooded. The jeep would never start. The starter motor was clicking lethargically. Or was that his time running out, the clock ticking down? He tried again, snapping the wires together. The jeep lurched, then grunted, then there was a belch of wet black smoke and the engine fired. He collapsed back into his seat. He wasn’t dead yet.

* * *

Days later, when he was lying in his hospital bed, and when thinking about Alain Legembre and Pietr Rawicz grew too frustrating, when he was desperate for a distraction, he tried to recall the long drive down from the Kalash valley. But very little came to mind. He slept through much of it. He grew increasingly feverous. For long periods, he couldn’t tell if they were moving or not. Of course, Evan drove painfully slowly. But he stopped often too, in several places rock slides or snow falls had blocked the road and he was forced to take the shovel and dig a path through. But they made it through, they made it down, and that, near enough, was a miracle.
Mundy had no memory of the diplomat’s behaviour, other than the way he sat over the wheel, his face pressed against the glass of the windshield. He might have been frantic and neurotic, he might have been calm and purposeful. Mundy could not remember. But it occurred to him that something must have changed in the diplomat. There was no way that fear and blind chance could have negotiated that road, just as there was no way that the snivelling wimp he had dragged up the mountain could have endured the journey back down. Evan must have found something, some motivation, some unimagined strength. Who knew what? It was a surprise, and not necessarily a welcome one, but somehow Evan fulfilled the deal that Mundy had made for him. He got them both down the mountain.
‘We made it, Mr Mundy. Wake up. We’re nearly there.’
He opened his eyes slowly. It was dark. The jeep was bouncing along behind its single flickering headlight. The sleep must have done him some good because the fever had subsided a little. His mouth was foul, but he sipped some water, which helped a little.
‘I thought we were going to run out of petrol,’ Evan was saying, ‘the needle’s been on empty for over an hour.’
He couldn’t see anything to suggest that they were back. What time was it? He had no sense of how long the drive had taken. Was it hours or days?
‘Don’t worry, the town is just behind the hill,’ Evan was still blathering, ‘you can’t see it from here but I saw the lights just now, it’s really not that far. Do you think they would have felt the earthquake here? I hope it didn’t cause much damage.’
They slowed to drive around a bend in the road. He saw the lights of the town for himself, there were far fewer than he remembered.
‘I’m going to drive by the guesthouse, Mr Mundy. I hope that’s alright. I know we need to get you to hospital, but I must I must check on my daughter, I’m quite worried about her. Lord knows what sort of state she’s going to be in.’
He tried to talk but he couldn’t.
They skirted through the outskirts of the town on empty streets. It felt like the dead of night. The houses were all dark and shuttered, the bazaars were empty, the mosques were quiet. It was difficult to tell how badly the earthquake had struck here but he thought it unlikely that the town could have escaped without damage. It had seemed like a large tremor. Who knew though? He no longer trusted his guesswork. Perhaps Chitral had escaped, perhaps the plates were moving elsewhere, under Afghanistan, across the border, or north in China.
It didn’t matter. They had survived. And it was nearly time to think of other things. There was still plenty of work to do… if he was up to it. Of course he was up to it. Once the fever was treated, and he was thinking clearly again. He wouldn’t lose focus a second time, there was too much resting on the next few days. So much time had been wasted. But he knew what he was doing now, it had been worth visiting the village. It paid to be thorough. He could chase down Pietr Rawicz on one leg if he had to. The fat Russian wasn’t going to double cross him. It was time to stop thinking and act. If he stuck to his method, if he had any luck at all, it would all be worth it.













Chapter Eleven
Evan’s wristwatch read 10.12pm, which meant he had been driving for twenty six hours. Well, he hadn’t been driving all that time, he had parked the jeep the night before, when it got too dark to drive safely, but he had hardly slept. There had been plenty of other stops too. He had raw blisters on his fingers from digging with the shovel. He had run out of fuel at one point, and panicked, before he found the spare jerry can stowed beneath the rear seat. And then there were the times when he was practically stopped, when he slowed to the slowest crawl because he was terrified of losing the jeep into a ravine or getting stuck in a drift. Honestly, he didn’t know how he done it. And he never wanted to do it again.
Now they had reached Chitral, Mundy seemed to have fallen asleep again. He was snoring and his head was slumped forward on his chest. Evan blinked wearily and adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. The bandage on his hand was beginning to slip. He stretched his neck, rolled the stiffness out of his shoulders, then leaned forward, peered though the glass, and tried to decide on the way ahead.
He didn’t want to wake Mundy – he didn’t know if he could wake Mundy – but it was hard to see anything through the filthy glass, and the single wonky headlight wasn’t much help. He was hoping to find the perimeter road which, he thought, would take them passed the airstrip on the far side of town, before the track up to the guesthouse turned off shortly after. But his memory of the town was hazy, set firmly in daylight, and different from what he saw around him. He vaguely recognised the road he was on and he was sure that there had been a large mosque close to where he wanted to turn off… but he couldn’t find it.
It was surprisingly dark for the time of night but it was quite possible that the earthquake had damaged some power cables. Back in Islamabad they got power cuts every time a stiff breeze blew. But it would be helpful if he could see the buildings better, to get a better idea of where he was, and to see any damage that had been done. But there wasn’t time to stop and poke around. He would see the town anyway, when he drove Mundy into the hospital, after he had checked on Avalon.
He had thought about his daughter a lot during the drive. He had thought about the Kalash villagers as well, but he had found that, when he did, the road became treacherous and he struggled to control the jeep. So, once again, he had ignored their screams and concentrated on his daughter. He had tried to devise an action plan. He was going to have to be more assertive, but also more understanding. She had been through so much in the last six months. When he thought about how much he missed Camille, still, after all these years… and he realised…. he had been jealous. He had been jealous of his daughter because her mother still loved her. Camille loved Avalon long after she had stopped loving him. If she had ever loved him. It was one reason why he had kept his distance, one reason why he was estranged from his daughter. He was jealous of the relationship he couldn’t have… so he didn’t want any relationship. It had been his fault, his twisted neurosis, and it was up to him to change it.
Camille was gone, so it was just him and Avalon now. He could do it. He could get to know her properly, she could grow to like him. After a while, a good while, maybe he could tell her things: tell her how he had loved her mother. It could unite them. Father and daughter. It was something to look forward to. He was sick and tired of feeling lonely.
He checked the fuel gauge. It still read empty. But there couldn’t be far to go. He just needed to get to the guesthouse, from there it would be easy to transfer Mundy down to the hospital. And at last, he thought, he was on the right road. They had just passed the turning for the airstrip and the dark shadow of the ridge loomed up ahead. It was such a relief to be back. He wanted nothing more than a bite to eat and a warm shower. Hopefully the hot water wasn’t affected by the power cut. He would see if Avalon was still up, of course. Surely she couldn’t be to annoyed with him… he had, after all, been caught in an earthquake. He would make sure that Mundy was looked after then, perhaps, they could sit down together. Tomorrow morning he would see if he could arrange some assistance for the Kalash valley. There would be a relief effort underway, he could put a call through to the High Commission. Maybe he could get back up there himself, with supplies and proper equipment. Maybe that would make him feel better.
He swung the jeep left and turned up the hill on the guesthouse driveway. The headlight briefly illuminated the old chipboard sign: The Hindu Kush Heights, Rooms & Views.
He had concentrated so hard for such long stretches of road, it was a relief to be able to relax a bit, to loosen his grip on the steering wheel and sink back into the seat. He was thinking of what he wanted for dinner, he was imagining the smell of shampoo, steam in the bathroom and the chance to shave off his beard. He was looking forward to reclaiming Evan Pike from the grime and the misery of the past few days. He would get his hand dressed properly, brush his hair, clean his glasses…
He allowed himself to get lost in the reverie and he failed to notice the changes on the ridge. He didn’t see that the low wall which ran alongside the road had collapsed, he didn’t spot that the shadow of the guesthouse was missing from the brow of the hill, he didn’t fear the silence or suspect the darkness. He wasn’t worried, he was happier than he had been for months.

* * *

Shortly before 11.00pm, a mosque in the town issued the final prayer call for the day. It was a solemn, solitary summons. His gut churning, his lip trembling, Evan stood on the lawn above the dining hall, stared down at the ruins of the Hindu Kush Heights, and wondered who on God’s earth could be left to hear it.

* * *

The jeep ran out of petrol just after the turning for the airstrip. Mundy was awake again, just about, but he seemed unaware of what was happening and would not answer when Evan spoke to him. Evan was barely aware himself. He had been struck dumb by doubt, guilt and blind panic. He had nearly fallen over the cliff, running down the stairs, shouting his daughter’s name. But there was no answer. Of course there was no answer, there was no one there. He had to get into town. Someone must know something. If the whole town had suffered, then there would be a relief effort, a control centre… something.
The centre of town had seemed like the obvious place to go. But they weren’t going to make it. His hope, as much as he dared hope, was to find Avalon there. If she had been in the guesthouse then, maybe, she had been injured. That meant finding the hospital, but he had no idea where it was. It might not even be in the centre of town but, if it wasn’t, he could find a police station and beg for help. Or, if that search failed too, he would bang on doors until he found someone who could tell him where he needed to go.
But now the jeep had coughed, spluttered and choked for the last time. There were no more jerry cans, no more spare fuel. If he wanted to get into town, he would have to walk. It was two or three kilometres at least, that was the problem, and Mundy couldn’t walk. He could leave him perhaps and come back in a couple of hours with an ambulance, but, looking at the steward, he might not last that long. He was shuddering with fever. Evan couldn’t leave him. He was carrying too much guilt already, he couldn’t turn his back on another injured man. He would never be able to explain it, not to the High Commissioner, not to himself.
What could he do? It was useless. It had all been useless. He shoved open the driver’s door and struggled out of his seat on to the road. He was angry. He kicked at the snow, kicked at the jeep, cursed the earth and pleaded with the heavens.
It was staring skywards that he noticed the faint fluorescent glow of light over the airstrip.
He didn’t think, he didn’t calculate the probability of success or question the point and the purpose, he just started to run. He left Mundy and the jeep, the driver’s door was still open, and he ran back to the turning. A marker said it was a kilometre to the airstrip, he ran the entire way. His heart was thumping so hard he thought it might shatter his rib cage. If he was lucky, there might be someone there, someone with a vehicle, who could drive Mundy to the hospital and take him to his daughter. That was all he wanted. That was why he was running. Because there were lights, and if there were lights there might be a human being to switch them on and off. He was terrified that they would switch off before he got there.
There was no fence around the airstrip, no check point or registration desk. He ran from the service road, across the field, to the end of the run way, then he stopped and gawped, and tried to decide whom he should ask for help.
In the summer time, when the weather was set fair, he knew that the Chitral airstrip received a single flight every three days. A small plane from Islamabad bought air freight, post and a few passengers who could afford the ticket. From November to early March, the airstrip was closed. It was too dangerous to try and land commercial aircraft in the snow and the high winds, so the post went by trucks – and took weeks – and travellers either braved the roads or waited for spring. So the airstrip was small. There was a pot-holed runway and a single pre-fabricated shed, where freight was checked and passengers waited to board the planes. On one side was the river and the main road into town. On the other was the service road that Evan ran down.
But in the weeks following the Chitral earthquake, over a hundred military flights landed on the Chitral airstrip. Most of these were Chinook helicopters carrying aid and food supplies, but troop carriers landed too, bringing soldiers and rescue workers with shovels. Officers made lists of the injured and the missing, tents were erected to supply medical care and to distribute food. The injured formed long queues waiting for treatment, the homeless waited for shelter, the army unloaded crates of grain and wheat from the Chinooks, bundles of second-hand clothes spilled on to the tarmac. It was chaos.
At midnight, on the 12th October 2005, four days after the earthquake, Evan joined the end of a queue. Of course he needed to act more urgently but, at the sight of so many people, he was overwhelmed. He was conditioned towards restraint, it was inbred in him, his stultifying sense of etiquette took control and nothing, not his missing daughter nor the man dying in his jeep, could shake him free. He meekly imagined himself commandeering a jeep or shouting for aid, but nothing came from it. He scanned the airfield paddock, he was trying to discern order in the chaos, trying to spot a figure he could approach, someone with authority, someone who might empathise. But there was no one, not a single face to which he could relate.
The soldiers were grim and businesslike, the children were crying, the elderly looked gaunt and vacant. The women all hung their heads, staring at the earth that had betrayed them. All the men seemed to wear the same grey shalwar, the same sheepskin waistcoat, the same blank expression, beaten down by shock and grief. No one was approachable, they were all too occupied with their own crises, their own dramas… their own lives. He grew bitter at them – he accused them of delusion. But he was most bitter at himself, at his meekness and his repeated failures. Guilt fuelled his anger, the thought that his daughter was dead, that he had killed her, his responsibility for the man in the jeep, a responsibility he didn’t want, another one he was failing… it made him furious. And at the root of it all was profound self pity, a belief that it was all undeserved, all the misery, all the failure, all the chaos.
Vaguely, as though the arm was not his own, he noticed that someone was grabbing at his sleeve. He was so numb, so preoccupied with injustice, that he hardly felt it. A hand was pulling the cloth at the elbow of his rain jacket, a thin and frail hand, the skin was leathery and wrinkled, blotched with an old woman’s liver-spots. It made him uncomfortable, it was awkward, he didn’t want to look at her face. He hoped, perhaps, if he ignored her, she would go away. Perhaps it would all go away. But it wasn’t going away, the old woman was talking to him, jabbering in a language he didn’t understand, unless he listened properly, unless he concentrated, because she was using his name.
‘Mr Pike – oh Evan – it’s terrible. Terrible – Zahir is gone. He’s gone.’
She had a rich voice but her vowels were raspy, like her throat was parched, and the ends of her words quavered and broke too early. Finally he summoned the courage to look at her. Her hair was tangled and loose, her long plat was ragged and grey, inky bruises swelled beneath her eyes. She looked older, haggard and desperate, but it was Zahra Khan from the guesthouse.
‘Mrs Khan,’ he said, ‘where is my daughter?’
He was staring her now, so he saw the dread in her eyes, noticed how they flickered, flinched and, suddenly, would not return his gaze. Guilt. He was more qualified than most to recognise it.
‘We were driving back from the Major’s house,’ she said, ‘when the ground started to shake. We were driven off the road into a ditch. My home – it’s all gone. And Zahir… my Zahir… I don’t know what I will do. The whole town is destroyed. And you – I thought you were dead.’
‘My daughter,’ he said again, ‘where is she?’
‘I am sorry,’ she said and shook her head, ‘I do not know. We have not found her.’
‘Was she in the guesthouse?’ He could feel his knees shaking.
The old lady shrugged helplessly, ‘I don’t know’ she said. ‘Nasir, our bearer, thought maybe she was out, he saw her walking down the hill towards Pietr’s farm… but I don’t know. We haven’t found her… the other guests... but not her.’
The queue was moving, people at its front were being served, or treated, and as they were taken into the tent or sent away, everyone behind them took a step forward. Ridiculously, Evan did the same. He didn’t even know what he was queuing for, but people had extended the line behind him and he wasn’t ready to lose his place. He dragged Zahra Khan with him, she was still holding on to his sleeve.
‘What do you mean… the other guests… have none of them seen her?’
The old lady’s shoulders visibly dropped beneath her shalwar, the fine cloth sagging on the narrow shoulder blades.
‘Evan… they were in their rooms. The nice German couple… we found their bodies. We didn’t find Avalon, I do not think she was there. If you believe me…’
‘You’re saying she wasn’t in the guesthouse? Definitely?’
‘Not definitely, no. I don’t know anything. It is possible that she was there but no one has found her. I was there the whole time they were digging. I checked at the hospital. But I don’t know.’
‘And what if she was at Rawicz’s farm?’ his voice was rising, he didn’t know if it was panic or hope. ‘What about the farm? Has anyone checked there for her? Where is your neighbour, have you asked him?’
She seemed to grow more frail the louder he shouted. The hand fell away from his sleeve, she stood forlornly beside him and, again, shook her head.
‘I have not seen him, I am sorry. I haven’t been to the farm… I’ve been so busy… Zahir… my Zahir.’
She kept saying her dead husband’s name, like she was talking to him, keeping him alive with this breathless dialogue. Mouth to mouth.
When the queue moved forward, she stayed where she was. They fell out of step and Evan turned away from her. In front of the tent a soldier sat behind a trestle table, recording the names and particulars of the people in the line. Around the airfield there were a dozen more tents, a dozen lines just the same, a dozen officers, but how many were queuing? All these people, all these families camped in the paddock, all these parents trying to make their children sleep under the glare of the floodlights. And how many soldiers? A thousand maybe. The Chinooks on the airstrip, and the trucks and jeeps sitting idle, scores of them. When he only needed one.
‘Mr Pike,’ she was crying after him. ‘My Zahir… my poor Zahir…’
He didn’t look at her again. He had decided to break rank. Just like that, a schism in his brain. All these people, all this activity and so little sound. He was acutely aware of how quiet it was. And it wasn’t right. There were too many queues, too many people already resigned to their misery, too many people hoping that, if they queued long enough, someone else would fix their lives. He felt anarchic, he felt like he was rising up against an oppressor. Just this once, he would not wait his turn. He would not be quelled by etiquette. He didn’t have the time.
He ran towards the prefabricated terminal shed because it was the only building made of concrete. It had survived the earthquake, so it suggested permanency and authority. There was a path of white-washed pebbles and a small flower bed. The flowers were all trampled. At the end of the path were double doors that had once been painted blue. They were open, so he ran inside.
‘I am a diplomat,’ he shouted, echoing an earlier ill-fated outburst, ‘I am a British diplomat – please help me.’
The shed was empty. The army recognised that, if there was another tremor, tents were far less likely to fall down and far less damaging if they did. So the old airport terminal had been emptied, the desks and the tables and the office equipment had all been moved outside and put to use in an administration tent. Evan yelled his plea to an empty room.
When he emerged from the shed, he felt embarrassed to have been so loud and so wayward. Some of the anarchic energy had deserted him, but not all of it, he was still angry, and after his moment of introspection had passed, he strode towards the administration tent, where there was a single soldier, a young Captain, who was working on a list of patients for a possible airlift to Islamabad in the morning.
‘Please help me find my daughter…’
The Captain put down his list and held up his hands. A gesture for Evan to be calm.
‘My daughter,’ Evan said again, ‘my daughter is missing. And there is a badly injured man, our jeep ran out of petrol at the end of the service road.’
‘Please,’ said the Captain, ‘you must speak slowly. My English – you understand?’
At most, the soldier was in his mid twenties. Five years older than Avalon. He looked tidy, intelligent and eager but too young, a full two decades too young, like a child.
‘Please,’ Evan said, ‘I understand you, but there is an injured man – we need a doctor. Do you understand that? His leg is broken.’
‘Yes,’ said the Captain, ‘I understand. Where is he?’
‘He is in a jeep, on the perimeter road. He has a fever, he is very sick, I ran here. Please – I need a jeep and a doctor.’
His mind was doing a strange thing. It was linking his daughter’s safety to Mundy’s survival. He was convinced that to fail one would mean failing them both. It made him talk louder and more brusquely than perhaps he should.
‘There are doctors in the hospital tents,’ said the Captain. ‘If you take your friend there, and register, they will treat him.’
‘No, I don’t think you do understand. He cannot walk. He is sick, so sick he could die. For God’s sake, can’t you help me? Lend me a jeep. I will go and fetch him. My name is Evan Pike, I am British Diplomat.’
‘If you register at the tent Sir, they will…’
‘No. Listen to me. There is no time – there is no time for queues or forms. I have driven for two days… he will die.’ His voice was hoarse and high pitched, he so rarely shouted.
‘Sir, if you…’
‘Lend me a jeep, damn it. Or drive me, come on, you can drive me. It is five minutes, just down the service road.’
‘Sir, I can’t drive you. Just register…’
‘No! Christ no! You are not listening to me. There is no time.’ Only once before in his life had he yelled like this. Many years ago. But he had lost control now, fear and guilt and anguish were fuelling his frustration with this ignorant solider, with this boy, this child, who didn’t know his despair, who didn’t perceive the danger, who was too young to understand what it meant to be old and useless and ashamed.
When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he assumed that it was Zahra again and he wheeled around, blind with anger. She was to blame, he felt, for failing to watch his daughter. It wasn’t his fault, it was her fault, her fault and the stupid Captain’s fault, and Mundy’s fault and Camille’s fault. Everyone’s fault but his. It wasn’t his fault.
But it wasn’t Zahra… it was another soldier, a middle-aged Major with a full bristling moustache and a ferocious red face, who glared at Evan until he choked on his angry words and felt chastened and contrite.
But when the Major finally spoke, he was quite calm.
‘It is alright Captain,’ he said, ‘I have a jeep this man can use.’
Mundy was unconscious when they reached him. And he had slumped against the passenger door so they could hardly open it without him falling out on to the road. Evan had to reach across and hold his collar while the Major pulled open the door, then it took both of them to move him between the vehicles. Evan struggled but he hardly felt tired. He hardly felt anything. The Major though was a large man, his green woollen jumper strained to cover his ample stomach and he huffed and puffed with the effort. But, once the move was made, he didn’t waste time. He gunned the engine of his jeep and they sped back down the service road, peeled rubber on the runway, jumped the queue outside the hospital tent and delivered Mundy into the care of the doctors himself. Evan trailed in the Major’s wake, happy to defer responsibility.
The more he sought someone else to blame for Avalon, the more he knew it was absolutely his fault. He had left her. He had failed her. The guilt was all his own. So, somehow he had to find her. He would search the hospitals and pester the rescue crews, he would dig at the guesthouse himself if he had to. But first, Zahra had said something… the bearer had seen Avalon walking towards the neighbour’s farm. The Russian. He couldn’t remember the name. Why would she have been going there? He couldn’t begin to imagine. But that was where he should start. If he could convince the Major to drive him up there, or to loan him some petrol, he wouldn’t wait for morning, he would go straight there.
But when Evan marched into the hospital tent, the Major had disappeared. Neither he nor Mundy were anywhere to be seen. So Evan went back to the jeep and loitered by the driver’s door, but no one came. Apparently, he had been forgotten.
The Major had left the keys in the ignition. It was strange how he noticed that, almost as though he was pretending to be incurious. He looked, as if by chance, but then he looked away again, too quickly, and betrayed himself.
Still there was no sign of the Major. He scanned the airfield for him and tried to look casual. It didn’t feel like an opportunity, it felt like a test. It felt like the future hinged upon the boldness he might or might not be able to muster. He saw all the events from his past clarified in this one moment, like a beam of light refracted through a prism, so that the vast spectrums of his future were spread out before him, innumerable shades of fear and regret and triumph and ecstasy. This was a moment, here and now, where he could exert influence over his life, when he could deflect the lens. He could feel the twinge in the tips of his fingers, it was all about his own will, he needed to act – for once – and he needed to act right now.
No one tried to stop him. Not one even noticed. It was something of a disappointment. He swung the jeep around on the tarmac, crunched the gearbox trying to find second gear, then accelerated down the runway towards the service road.
The farm track was easy to find, the turning was just a little passed the guesthouse driveway. He bounced the wheels off the bitumen into the snow but went slowly after that to avoid the deeper hollows and the scattered debris. He saw the low wall and old gate where, days earlier, his daughter had stopped to catch her breath. But the gate was swinging open now, there was nothing to stop him driving right through up to the farmhouse. He checked his watch again. It was 1.23am.
He parked the jeep and got out. The house was dark, curtains were drawn across the windows. A battered old armchair was sitting on the porch beside the front door. But there was no obvious sign of damage. He began to hope that Avalon had been here, that way she might be alright. Should he knock? It was late but that couldn’t concern him. Not now. This was too important. He hammered on the door but there was no answer. He tried to peer through a chink in the curtains but there was nothing to see. He knocked again. Still there was no answer. He could sound the horn of the jeep, maybe that would wake someone. It didn’t. He tried to think what he should do. Maybe there was somewhere else, another house, another building where someone might be. He tried to peer around the corner of the house, but it was too dark. Then, finally, he had a thought. He got back in the jeep, started the engine, and turned the headlights where he wanted to see.
He rolled the jeep forward over the uneven ground. Straight ahead, the silhouette of the wrecked barn rose in sharp relief against the moon-washed plain. He drove as close to it as he could and left the engine running and the headlights shining. It was like finding the guesthouse all over again.
He climbed on the rubble, stepped over splintered roof beams and piles of broken mortar. Smothering dust seem to linger over the wreckage, he was kicking it up as he walked, and there was no wind to blow it away. He lifted up a sheet of corrugated iron and dragged it clear. It looked like there were dead animals underneath, a dog with its skull caved in and, beside it, a massive heap of matted brown fur. It was rotten and it stank. He was grateful that that the headlights wouldn’t let him see more.
‘Avalon!’
He shouted her name as loud as he could but the cry seemed to die on his lips. Where was she? Why had she come here? What had he done? There was so much guilt to deal with, it hung over this place with the dust. Stealing the jeep had changed nothing. He was the same man, cowed and pathetic, his judgement was still poor, his will was still weak. He had lost his daughter. What more damning indictment could there be? The farm was not the place. There was no one here, he had achieved nothing. He would have to head back to the airfield and hope he wasn’t arrested. He turned back towards the jeep, the headlights seemed to accuse him, like two unblinking eyes. The white light showed him for what he really was. A transparent failure and a broken man. No wonder Camille had left him.
Chapter Twelve
She was tired of fear and she was tired of scrutinising new faces, but the two things seemed to come together. She had been forced into unknown realms and she was afraid, so she tried to seek comfort in the angle of a cheekbone or in the arch of an eyebrow or in the perceived softness of the lower lip. She looked for laughter lines but she was especially alert for anything that might suggest cruelty, so she paid particular attention to the eyes, to the colour of the iris and the depth of the pupil, because instinct told her that was where the telltale coldness would lurk. A jaw could soften, skin could blush, but the eyes were pellucid. Malice could not hide there any more than sadness or compassion could. The eyes were the key to reading a person.
That was why she was so dissatisfied every time she looked in the mirror and appraised her own face. Her eyes lacked depth, they were neither wells nor pools, they were blue-grey puddles. She worried that, in some way, her eyes were an indictment on her character, maybe their lack of depth meant a lack of courage or intelligence. She worried that her eyes betrayed her insignificance.
Alain Legembre’s eyes were the same colour as hers, but she read something quite different in them. If they seemed vacant it was not because of shallowness; instead there was something elusive there, something she could neither catch nor describe. But she sensed it was agitated, wound tight, even nervous around her. She found it threatening. He had a hollow and deeply weathered face, dark skin, thick black hair and a unkempt beard. Put together it made a startling visage and she had been terrified when she first saw it. Then again, she was discovering new depths to that word. Maybe it hadn’t been terror, maybe none of it had been terror. She certainly wasn’t terrified now, she was apprehensive and suspicious, full of doubt and uncertainty, but not terror.
It was late afternoon and she was walking on the slopes behind the village. It felt like a strange thing to be doing, so little time had passed – less than a day – since the earthquake. It was hard even to think of it in normal terms: a day after the earthquake, the sentence felt contrived and unnatural. It felt like something she shouldn’t think about, let alone talk about. It felt like something that had never happened. It was hard to believe that it had.
The sky was blue, a light breeze had chased away the clouds, and the sun was sinking towards the mountains in the west. Orange light washed over the snow, the air was icy cold, she could smell the wet trees in the woods and the distant aroma of wood-smoke. Beside her walked the unnerving man who looked Pakistani but spoke with a faint French accent and said he knew her father.
From where she stood she could see the whole panorama of the valley. The village was on the east side of the valley, nestled high in a cleft between two of these spurs, further south the main Chitral town crowded on to the banks of the brown Kunar River. A little to the right was the ridge where the guesthouse had stood, below it the wide plain that stretched north to meet the Hindu Raj mountain range. The mountains ran to the neck of the valley and arched back on the far side, where they were the Hindu Kush range, and several of the peaks rose well above five thousands metres. Then, from their summits they tumbled with sickening steepness down to the valley floor. In the clear light she could trace the glacial rivers and spot the ice walls, the clouds of sliding snow and the naked shoulders of jagged grey sandstone. It seemed to her like the mountains were always moving, subtly changing shape, rising here and falling there. Down on the valley floor, spurs of loose rock and scree fell across the plain.
She knew the names of these things because Alain had told her. He described the whole valley to her. He pointed out places where the rock spurs had collapsed, where villages had been buried and the rubble had spilled down across the town. He showed her the site where, until yesterday, the minarets of the town’s largest mosque had overlooked a square full of bazaars and food stalls. He tried to explain how some things had fallen and others had been spared, how one area had been destroyed while its neighbour had survived untouched. But it made no sense to her. It was like the uneven scattering of snow that turned the valley white and brown and green and grey, seemingly at random.
She had woken that morning in a strange room. There was a bed and a chair and a small table beside the bed. The curtains were floral and faded and translucent, a cold fresh light had shone through the threads. Against the far wall were piles of books, hundreds of dog-eared paperbacks, with brown pages and torn covers, textbooks, picture books with ancient yellow photographs and atlases with cracked leather bindings. She had tried to read the spines. Some were in English, some were in Urdu. Atop one teetering stack was a vase of wild bluebells in old water, the stems drooping, the buds pregnant and pungent, the petals falling on to a rug on the floor.
She had wanted to head into the town to search for Evan, but Alain had refused to take her. Instead he had convinced her that there was too little time before sunset. It was more than an hour’s walk down to the valley floor and then another hour to the police station in the centre of town. What’s more, it was not a good time to be in the town. There was no relief effort yet, no troops from Islamabad, no one digging for survivors or administering first aid. They were still several days away. For the moment, there was nothing but chaos and dust. Now she stood above the village, she could see for herself that the fires were burning unchecked across the town. And, just as there was no one to fight the fires, there would be no one to help her either.
So instead they escaped the tiny house by climbing the steep and stony ground above it. The entire village was only a dozen or so buildings, most of which were mud and stone, tarp and woven branches, and huddled so close to the slopes that they were hardly distinguishable from the scree fields that fell all around them. It was truly astonishing that they were still standing, she thought, as she followed Alain some fifty metres up a winding track to a broad shelf just below a pine wood. From there, they turned and looked out over the valley and she gazed down on the village and tried to fathom exactly how it had managed to survive.
They had not talked much yet. She was still too nervous to ask her questions and,
seemingly, he wanted only to speak about the nature of the trees, the strains of birdsong, the geography of the town and, of course, the damage the earthquake had caused. He didn’t seem to care about anything else.
They were standing together on the shelf, but there were a few meters between them. He had been gazing south over the town, she was staring north towards the mountains, but now he had turned and was looking at her in the most peculiar way.
He pulled a paper packet from somewhere within his shalwar and tapped out a cigarette to smoke. She could do with a cigarette too, she realised. Something to calm her nerves. She patted the pockets of her own coat before she remembered that she had finished her cigarettes, sitting on the balcony outside her hotel room. Just two days ago. It felt like a previous life.
He saw what she was doing. ‘Do you smoke too?’ He laughed dryly. ‘I can’t imagine Evan is too keen on that… or maybe he doesn’t know?’ He took a step towards her. ‘No, if I were you I wouldn’t tell him either. Here, you can have one of these if you want.’
He offered the packet but she was suspicious of everything – the cheap cigarettes, the way he claimed to know her father, the way he spoke about him – so many things. Above all, she was suspicious of this coincidence and how it didn’t seem to trouble him enough. What was that movie her mother had liked? In all the bars, in all the world…
‘They may take a bit of getting used to,’ he said, ‘but then that’s Pakistan all over – an acquired taste.’
‘I’m alright I think.’
He shrugged and lit his cigarette, ‘well, if you’re sure. I won’t tell...’
She interrupted him. ‘How do you know my dad?’
He answered quickly. ‘I wouldn’t pretend to know him well,’ he said. ‘I met him through your mother when they both lived in Oxford. It was a long time ago.’
‘You knew my mum?’
‘Yes I did.’
‘How?’
‘We grew up together,’ he took a long draw on his cigarette, then blew smoke out across the ledge. ‘Her family lived in this beautiful house on Rue Sainte-Cecile. My mother had a flat in a tower block on the same block.’
‘In Marseilles?’
‘That’s right. We were friends until she left to study in Paris. That was where she met your father and then they moved to England. But I used to visit your grandparents, even after she’d left.’
‘But you knew her in Oxford too?’
‘Yes, I went there to work. Your father was finishing his Masters, so we were all able to be friends for a while.’
There was something strange about the way he said that. She could tell he was being careful. It was his eyes, of course, they seemed distracted, as though he had disappeared deep inside himself. Like there were several things he chose not to remember.
‘It’s odd,’ she said, ‘I don’t think she ever mentioned you.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose she did.’ Again he shrugged. ‘Why would she mention me? It must be fifteen years since they left Oxford, and I was away for a long time. We lost touch. These things happen.’ He smiled. ‘But I remember the last time I saw you –you were two or three years old I think. You don’t remember? We were all in the Parks, we took a punt out on the river. No, you don’t remember.’
She felt bad. Here, it seemed, was a significant part of her parent’s history that she knew nothing about. She knew that they had met in Paris of course, countless times her mother had bored her with the awful cheesy story, in which Evan carried either roses or chocolates, depending on the telling, and fumbled over his French. She knew that they had lived in Oxford, she knew that she was born there, but she had never wondered what had taken them there or why they had left. Like most children, she had assumed that her parent’s experience began and ended with her, it was hard to imaging them existing in a world she did not know… like strangers.
Like this man. He was a stranger, no matter how well he claimed to know her parents.
‘You know they got divorced?’ She said the words without thinking about them, and then immediately wished she hadn’t.
‘Yes,’ he said quietly, ‘I knew that. A few years ago now I think.’
She was jealous of his claim to know things about her parents that she didn’t know herself. And there was a very good reason for that. It wasn’t like she could ask her mother for the truth anymore, or demand an account or an explanation. All the facts and the figures and the anecdotes and the secrets about her mother and her mother’s life existed already. There were no more to come. The knowledge was out there. But she didn’t want to think that it was loose in the world, in case it was misused or lost. She wanted to be sole proprietor, biographer and historian. That was her responsibility That was her right.
‘I was eleven so it was seven years ago.’
‘I suppose someone told me. I was sorry to hear it. It can’t have been easy.’
She wanted to change the subject, so she asked, ‘where did you go – after Oxford?’
‘I worked in Africa for five years. Then I was in Europe for a bit, then Canada – different universities.’
‘And how long have you been in Pakistan?’
‘Er,’ he scratched his head and blew another cloud of smoke, ‘it’s been a while since I last counted.’
‘What do you do out here?’
‘I make maps,’ he said.
‘What sort of maps?’
‘Complicated ones,’ he said. ‘Complicated and boring. It is too cold to talk about them right now. We should head down to the house.’
She wasn’t ready to head in yet, an idea had just slunk into her head, she was just coming to the questions she wanted to ask the most. ‘You sent your work to my father. In the biscuit tin?’
‘I did indeed.’
‘Why? I mean, why would you do that?’
‘Necessity,’ he said, ‘and because I thought your father was in Islamabad and that my papers would be safe there.’
‘Safe… from whom?’
She tried to think. Where was the tin? She couldn’t even remember the last time she was aware of it. She had carried it down to the farm. She had been holding it when she knocked on the barn door. Definitely. Then she had been running, then she fell. She hadn’t had it then. So she must have dropped it somewhere,
‘That it is another complicated story,’ he said grinding out his cigarette in the tips of his fingers, ‘and, if you want to hear it, we are definitely going to head inside. It’s freezing out here.’
The sun was setting as he led her back down the track towards the little brick house. It was like a blood orange sinking in the sky. It settled above the Hindu Kush, where it rested for a moment, before the high peaks pricked its skin and it drained gold and crimson upon the shoulders of the mountains. Liquid-light flooded the valley floor but, within a minute, it was spent and, by the time they reached Wasim’s house, night had fallen. There was wood smoke rising from all the houses now, the village looked like a line of smoking beacons, waiting to ignite. There was an eerie, uncertain peace. In this community at least, it seemed like the earthquake was already forgotten. As she kicked snow off her boots and prepared to go inside, she asked Alain about this.
‘What else would you have them do?’ he said coldly.
It was gloomy inside the house but there was a fire burning in the hearth and a man was kneeling over a steaming kettle. He was an old man, short and gnomish with cropped grey hair and eyes like burnt coals, who walked bare foot and unbuttoned his shalwar down to his belly, exposing white fluff, like a furry pet, nestled in the pit of his chest.
‘You should meet our host,’ Alain said. He crossed the room and knelt down, speaking softly and quickly into the old man’s ear. Then, standing, he said, ‘Wasim doesn’t speak English I’m afraid, but he’s very glad to welcome you into his home.’
Wasim had stood up too. He was quite nimble, springing up from his haunches, but he was far older than she had first thought and she noticed now that his back was bent when he walked. He offered her his hand and she took it. Then he bowed his head and, because he was stooped to start with, it seemed like he might topple forward at her feet. But he didn’t, instead he smiled and turned back to his boiling kettle.
Her eyes followed him back to the hearth, which looked like it was made from clay. There was a sunken pit for the fire in the middle, upon which the kettle rested, then a wide flat surface where there were several other blackened pots and some chopped onions and some diced meat and other vegetables that she didn’t recognise. Wasim was kneeling again, he lifted the kettle from the fire and started to chop herbs into the boiling water. All the while, his right knee was bouncing.
‘Wasim is a Pashtun man from Afghanistan,’ Alain said when they old man had settled back down. ‘You met Izzy last night I think. Izzy is from Kabul whereas Wasim was born in the mountains, his is another one of those long and complicated stories, and even if there was time, I would ask his permission before I told it. Pashtun society is very complicated, and I could not pretend to explain it well.’
‘Izzy is Ismail?’
‘Yes, it’s a name I gave him when he first started to work for me.’
‘He works for you?
‘Well, we work together. Wash your hands and sit down. Dinner will be ready soon. And, if I am going to keep talking, I will need a drink.’
It was important to be polite here, so she did as she was told, rinsing her hands in the washroom. There was no running water, instead she had to fill the sink from a copper ewer that sat on the floor. She washed her hands, then she emptied the sink and stood and watched the water run away.
When she returned, both men were settled by the fire, deep in conversation. She loitered by the door, waiting to be noticed.
Eventually Alain looked up, he seemed to have relaxed a bit. There was less hardness about it, less sense that he was holding something back.
‘Avalon,’ he said, ‘come and have a seat. Have a drink. Or have you given up wine as well as cigarettes?’ He handed her a glass. ‘This is a Kalash wine so, if you like, you can think of it as a cultural experience. That’s what I do. We must not drink too much of course. Wasim allows me the odd drop but he would not approve if I overdid it.’
‘So he won’t drink this… what did you call it?’
‘It is Kalash wine. No he won’t. He probably won’t like that I’m giving it to you either. In fact, I know he disapproves. But he is a wonderfully tolerant man… he will not hold it against us. And God, I am sure, will reward him for it.’
‘Oh.’
Alain laughed suddenly with only a hint of coldness left. ‘You should see your face,’ he said. ‘Believe me, Wasim won’t think worse of you. He doesn’t think worse of me, and that is saying something. Come on, cheers, let’s celebrate that you are alive, that you are here and tomorrow we will find your father.’
The wine tasted a lot like the bottles of cheap chardonnay that she snuck out from supermarkets back home. Maybe it was a little bit sweeter, maybe a little bit stronger. It certainly made her drowsy quickly. She stretched out her legs and propped her back against the wall. Wasim had the meat frying in the pan, she listened to the gentle spit and sizzle of the spices and the scrape of the spatula on the metal.
‘I have a question for you,’ said Alain. ‘Is that ok?’
She nodded lazily.
‘I never knew your father to travel far from the cities, so what brings you to Chitral?
She waited for a moment before trying to explain. It was awkward suddenly. She felt like she had been keeping secrets. Because he was the reason that they had come, wasn’t he? She felt like she had been hiding it from him when, in fact, she had only just remembered it. And there was a lot she didn’t want to tell him, like how little she actually knew, or how she had been too busy sulking to find out exactly why Evan was dragging her out of the city.
She had picked up most of the explanation at the dinner table in Hindu Kush Heights, although she had hardly been paying attention. Evan had been telling Zahir about their trip, and Pietr Rawicz had stopped talking to listen in. And what about that man he was with, Mr Mundy? She knew almost nothing about him.
So she tried to choose her words careful and she spoke slowly. ‘Well, there is a man here looking for you – from your university I think. Dad was told to accompany him and I got dragged along.’ She watched him finish his wine and refill his glass. ‘But I don’t really see what is going on, because you’re obviously not missing, are you?’
‘It depends who’s looking.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that I am hiding and there are several good reasons for that. But you said there was a man from Oxford, is that right? What was his name?’
‘I think… Mundy. I don’t know his first name. Do you know him?’
‘No… no I don’t.’
‘He’s strange,’ she said more candidly. ‘I mean, is it normal for a university to send someone to look for you?’
‘No, it is not normal. In fact, it is very abnormal.’ He drained half the wine from his glass. Like I said, it is a complicated story.’
She took a drink of her own wine. This was as curious as she had felt about anything in a long time. It was all connected somehow, Alain and her parents, the trip and the mysterious papers she had unwittingly unwrapped. Even Rawicz was involved – Izzy had asked what she was doing at the farm. In her head it felt like an algebra equation she couldn’t solve, or a riddle that was too clever for her. She was too tired to decode it herself, so she wanted him to tell her the answer. Somehow it all fitted together and she hoped, if she were to know how, then the world might seem less chaotic and she might feel more secure. But she wasn’t brave enough to say that.
‘The food is ready, shukrhia Wasim.’ He smiled and passed her a plate. ‘Here, eat some of this. Wasim is the finest cook I have ever met. Far better than your mother.’
Again, she felt the taunt of his private knowledge.
‘Let’s refill your glass. Look away Wasim and I shall have what’s left in the bottle.’
She handed back her glass, she had only had a mouthful. He topped it up and emptied the rest of the bottle into his own. She looked at his eyes, they were still distracted she thought, but glazed now too, even harder to read. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps it was the gloom and the firelight.
‘Do you know what remote sensing is?’ he said.
She shook her head.
He stretched out his legs and talked while he ate. ‘At the moment there are thousands of satellites orbiting the earth, taking measurements. Some can record the temperature in a single spot – and I mean like a square foot, the size of my dinner plate – and they can do it every hour of every day for the whole earth. You can measure the rate at which the earth warms up. You can measure the rate at which the air just above the earth warms up. Do you see? And you can put it all together and, suddenly, you can make a map which tells you everything you need to know about temperature or rainfall or vegetation…’
‘That’s what remote sensing is. And that’s what my job is. I make the maps. Different rocks affect the rate at which the earth cools and reheats, or how quickly it absorbs moisture. So I look at these maps and work out what’s going on underneath the earth as well as on the surface. It can be very useful to know these things. There are people like me who get paid fortunes by oil companies to look at satellite imagery and predict where there might be oil.’
‘So that’s what you do,’ she asked between mouthfuls, ‘you make maps for oil?’
He laughed. ‘No, not up here. For something else.’
She drank more of her wine. Alain had finished his dinner while he was talking and was leaning back against the wall. The old man was still eating, sitting cross-legged, his plate resting in his lap. He picked up the food in his hands and, painstakingly, tore it apart before he popped it in his mouth. His knee bobbed the whole time but, if he was listening to their conversation, he didn’t look up from his plate. He had eyes only for the food.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to sit in an office somewhere with a computer?’
‘Absolutely. You can do most of this stuff in an office. In fact, it’s much easier. Only I hate offices. In Oxford, I had an office in the Zoology department. It was a cupboard. Everyday, I went and sat by myself in a cupboard. It wasn’t good for me.’
‘Anyway, you can make as many maps as you like but how can you know if they are correct? You have to come out here and test them – and it’s not easy. It takes a long time to get around these mountains… it takes months to do all the tests. I’ve been back to England once in four years. That’s no good if you have a family… or if you get lonely.’
‘So what are you looking for then?’ She drank some wine from her glass. ‘It must be something important – that’s why you had to send your work to my dad.’
‘Yes, something important. But it’s not your business.’ He finished his wine and smiled at her. ‘You could be a spy.’
‘A spy? Who would spy on you? Pietr Rawicz?’
‘Izzy said you had been to the farm. Maybe Pietr Rawicz. Maybe someone else.’
She knew she should tell him. She had taken his maps to Pietr Rawicz. But it was too hard to confess, too awkward, too uncomfortable, and she couldn’t make herself. So she let him talk.
‘I paid Pietr to be my guide for a while. It didn’t work out. But you are right, I don’t want him to have my work.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t like what he would do with it.’
‘Which is why you sent it to dad. To hide it from Pietr Rawicz?’
‘Pietr Rawicz attacked me. Something I found… you know… he wanted it.’
She waited but he didn’t say any more. He was leaning ever further back against the wall, staring at the ceiling more and more. She wondered if he was drunk.
‘Look,’ she said very quietly, ‘I’m sorry. Dad bought the parcel with him when we came up here. I don’t think he knew what it was. I opened the tin. And then I…’
‘Yes,’ he cut her off. ‘Izzy told me what he saw.’
‘But I didn’t give it to him.’
He shrugged. ‘Izzy is out looking for the tin. But the papers are very hard to understand. Even if you had given them to Pietr, I think it would be ok.’
‘Ok… well that’s good. I’m sorry though.’
She was mumbling. She had been staring ruefully into her wine, but she looked up now. It felt very late. The night seemed to weigh heavily on the small house, and on them too. She was tired, Alain was quiet, Wasim seemed to have fallen asleep over his plate. She could hear the wind gusting outside, the low crackle of the fire in the hearth, the spit of the oil lamp. She looked at Alain, he had his eyes closed now. His wine was gone. She had caused trouble, and she had done so without knowing, without being aware. It was the worse kind of feeling. To be ensnared like that… like she had been set up. She felt guilty and angry in equal measure but it was hard to know who to blame. Her father or Alain? Fate or bad fortune?’
‘So, how long will you hide?’ her voice sounded thick and slow.
He opened just one eye to look at her. ‘Do you ever think about people Avalon, or about why different people do different things? ‘
She shrugged. She was trying to stifle a yawn.
‘I do,’ he said, ‘I do all the time. Everyone is different.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I love these mountains so much. The people and the water and the sky at night… there are so many things I love. I think I would be happy if only the world would leave me alone long enough to live here. But there are too many people who still want things. Maybe that is hard for you to understand. One day you wake up and realise that there are all these people who love you, and all these people who hate you, and all these people who need you, and all these people who use you… and you never noticed it before, and you don’t know what you did to deserve any of it.’
‘I had been asleep a long time. One day I woke up and realised I had done things without thinking about them. Things I couldn’t undo. All I want here is to be forgotten. And I want my work to be forgotten. So I am hiding. Can you understand that?’
She didn’t know what to say. She had decided he was definitely drunk. That was easier than trying to empathise with his words or to think of a response. She needed to change the subject, if only she could think clearly. Maybe the wine had affected her too. She thought of bed and of waking tomorrow morning and walking into the town and finding Evan and being normal. That was what she wanted.
He was playing with his empty wine glass on the floor, spinning it like a top and watching the firelight dance in the glass. ‘You are tired?’ he asked her.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Then you should go to bed. The bedroom is yours.’
‘Are you sure? What about Wasim?’
‘He is already asleep.’ He laughed softly. ‘Go on. Get to bed. Tomorrow we will go into Chitral.’
‘Thank you,’ she said standing and stretching, ‘for dinner and for looking after me and everything.’
‘It is our pleasure,’ he said softly. ‘You are Camille’s daughter…’
‘Yes.’ She took a step towards the bedroom door. ‘I’m sorry you couldn’t come to the funeral.’
He stopped spinning the glass.
‘Funeral?’
She returned his stare. His eyes were tired too, half closed and red from the wine. But his pupils were dilated, almost wide enough to look through. She stared hard. At last, maybe, there was something to read.













Chapter Thirteen
She did not sleep well. All through the night she struggled with the same dream, in which she was digging – constantly digging – faster and faster, shredding her nails, desperate for air. There was a great pressure in her lungs, like a black hole was boring in her chest, and she was fighting to keep calm. She was deep underground, digging a tunnel to the surface. But each time she made it, and flopped out on the wet earth, gulping down the fresh air, Alain was already standing there. ‘Camille is dead,’ he would say, at which point she would wake up. But if she fell back asleep, she was buried again and digging… always digging.
So she was awake well before dawn, waiting for the early light to penetrate the threadbare curtains while she lay listening for sounds of movement in the house. It was very quiet. For a time she thought she could hear one of the men snoring, but the noise faded, it might well have been wind. What she most wanted to hear was Izzy back from the farm. She was feeling guilty. After all, she had taken Alain’s papers to Rawicz’s farm and then she had left them there. But she was curious too. What had he discovered that was so important, why did he want to keep it from Rawicz? What had happened to drive him into hiding? She felt like she had been given clues to solve a mystery but, the longer she thought about it, the less clear it seemed and the more it felt juvenile and stupid.
She had several theories, but they were all equally nonsense. Maybe Alain was looking for oil, or something like oil. Maybe he was doing something for the government, they were so close to Afghanistan. Maybe he was spy. Maybe his was running drugs, maybe he was a terrible man and she was being an idiot. Maybe, maybe, maybe… Maybe he was a weirdo drunk, maybe he was crazy, maybe he had known her parents, maybe he was making it all up. In all honesty, that seemed the most probable theory. But she still felt guilty.
He had made her feel guilty. He hadn’t said anything, he hadn’t blamed her or been angry, he hadn’t done anything like that. He had just got drunk. But she was guilty for losing his papers. That was one thing. And she was guilty for telling him that her mother was dead. He hadn’t known – why would he have known? He had said he was sorry for her, that was the only thing. But there had been a change in his eyes, she was sure of it. Not a normal change, he hadn’t looked sad or shocked or full of regret, it was more complicated than that. When the words had left her lips, it was like a ghost flew with them. He had looked haunted.
She had made her excuses and escaped to bed, but it had troubled her since then. He felt like a secret her mother should have revealed. Something had happened between the two of them, she was sure of it, and she wanted to know everything because, whatever it was, she was jealous of it.
She had a lot to discover still. And not much time.
She was up and dressed well before the sun had fully risen. It was bitterly cold in the room, the light seeping through the curtain was weak grey. She looked out. The sky was an inky wash, paler in the east but more like night over the Hindu Kush. There were low clouds soaking the mountains, like sponges draining the light. The valley was full of shadow. She pulled her coat over her shoulders, tied her scarf around her neck and shivered.
The door creaked when she eased it open. It was much darker in the other room. She slipped out of the bedroom and groped her way along the wall until she reached the curtain that hung in the washroom doorway. She felt filthy. It had been days since she last showered. Just thinking about it made her skin crawl. She half filled the sink, then she splashed water on her face. It stung it was so cold. She unwound the scarf and slipped out of her coat. She filled the sink to the top, then she undid the buttons of her shirt, and ducked her head into the water. She tried to scrub behind her ears and rinse the dust out of her hair. The water turned black. Within seconds her hands went numb, she had a headache and the skin on her neck turned pink. But how satisfying it was to feel clean. She looked for a mirror but there wasn’t one. Maybe that was a blessing. She must look terrible.
She stared at the brickwork, pretending she could see her face. She pulled her hair back. The small ears, the fine down on her neck. Her cheeks, puffy after so little sleep. She opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue. She lifted her chin and pulled the skin beneath it taught. She pressed her thumbs into her dimples, she ran her finger across the bridge of her nose. She blinked her blue-grey eyes. She imagined them changed. They were no longer shallow, that had been an illusion, a reflection on a rippling surface. Instead they plunged unimaginable depths. There were rips and currents… there were whirlpools down there.

* * *

Izzy was back but he was fast asleep, curled up in a blanket in front of the hearth. He had got back shortly after dawn, having searched all night without success. The biscuit tin wasn’t outside the barn, where she thought she had dropped it. He had retraced her path around the ridge and up to the guesthouse, but he hadn’t found it there either. He hadn’t found it anywhere. Instead he had reported that the barn was destroyed. It had collapsed in the earthquake. But there was no one digging, the farm was deserted. Everything was gone: jeeps, machinery, supplies. He seemed to know the farm and the farmhouse in intimate detail, and he was quite certain. Rawicz had packed up and moved out.
It was mid-morning before she spoke to Alain. By then Izzy was asleep and Wasim had disappeared on errands.
She tried to ask him, ‘where has Rawicz gone?’
But he wouldn’t say, he just shook his head. She tried to apologise but he ignored her.
‘So what will you do?’
‘I don’t know.’
He grew distant and increasingly quiet. After a while he stood up and walked out of the house. It was over an hour before he returned. She thought she could smell wine on his breath. They sat in silence for a while. Izzy started to snore.
Eventually he said, ‘come on, we should get you down to the town.
‘Right now?’
‘Yes, right now.’
But she wasn’t ready to go yet. Not with so much unsolved and unexplained.
‘But surely that’s not it,’ she said. ‘You’re going to try to get the papers back, aren’t you? I mean, if he has them, we have to do something.’
‘There’s no we,’ he said. ‘You should be with your father. That’s what you wanted yesterday.’
‘But what will you do? Will you go after him?’
‘We’d never catch him,’ he said. ‘He has jeeps and a day to travel already. We have nothing. Not even horses.’
‘So that’s it? You let him go?’
He shrugged again.
‘Maybe my dad could help.’
‘We should find him then, don’t you think? Get your things.’
She felt sorry to be leaving the little brick house. There was no justification for that particularly, she had been there such a short time. Nevertheless, she lingered in the bedroom for a time, picking up books at random from the piles and flicking through the pages. Alain came and found her there, and he arranged her headscarf for her. First he draped it over her head so that it hung down on both sides of her neck, then he pulled one tail back and over her shoulder so that the scarf wrapped around her mouth and her chin and concealed most of her face.
‘In Chitral, women do not come on to the streets,’ he told her. ‘Keep it like this until we find your father.’
Izzy was sleeping in front of the hearth. Wasim was out running errands. So there were no goodbyes, no ceremonies or formalities to mark her departure. They paused momentarily in the living room so Alain could wrap up in his own blanket, but that was it. There was nothing else to do and they left the house in silence.
A strong wind was blowing the clouds in from the north and, as she soon discovered, the path down the spur was very exposed. There was no point trying to talk here, she had to shout just to be heard. Instead she concentrated on leaning into the wind and clung on to her scarf for fear of losing it.
She struggled to keep pace with Alain and he paid her little attention. He was reluctant to look at her, muttering darkly to himself. She thought he might be brooding on his lost papers and the possibility that Rawicz might have them. More than that though, he seemed depressed. He was distant, he rarely noticed when she fell behind, and he was irritable when he had to wait for her to catch up. There was nothing she could do or say of course and, after a while, she began to feel upset.
The evidence suggested that he had spent too long by himself. She tried to imagine what it would be like, living in these mountains, month after month, year after year. His behaviour hardly commended the idea.
And yet she was reluctant to leave him. She wanted him to talk to her. She wanted him to want to talk to her. She wanted him to open up and exorcise his ghosts, to tell her about the past and the things that haunted him. She wanted to know why, when he spoke about Evan, sarcasm spiked his words. She wanted to know what was depressing him more: the lost papers or the news of the funeral. That was what kept her intrigued: news of her mother. Everything else was just noise and nonsense.
They reached the valley floor and joined the mountain road into town. Mostly they were surrounded by fields but at least they were sheltered from the wind by the shoulder of the spur. There were a few houses dotted across the fields, and there were some signs of damage, a wall had collapsed, a crude shed had been reduced to rubble. They passed a cow in a field full of snow. It was chewing on the spiny tussocks that broke through the ice. Soon after that, the road turned south to run along the banks of the river to a bridge further downstream. But the water was low when they reached there, so they scrambled down the bank on to the wide shale bed, and trudged through the mud and the silt until they reached a central channel where the slate grey water still flowed. There were stepping stones to help them across this part and soon they were climbing up the far bank into the outskirts of the town.

* * *

It was a gloomy fruitless day. They went to two police stations. The first was closed, the second, the office of the Superintendent of Police, had fallen down. They could not get near to the hospital. They pushed through the crowd blocking the entrance, until they saw that the door was locked and the lights were out. After that they tried a couple of hotels, then the post office, the telegraph office, the bank, even the PIA office. But nothing was open, nothing was working. Finally, they made the long walk out of town to the airfield. But it was deserted. There was a foot of snow on the runway. Either it was too soon for the relief places to reach Chitral, or the relief planes weren’t coming.
They could not find Evan. Nearly two days had passed now. At some point, she would have to start calculating probabilities… but not yet. For now, there were enough excuses to delay… she was not looking, not seeing, not hearing… and that policy extended to her own predicament. It was easier to ignore her own disaster. What disaster? Evan was not missing, he was just taking his time coming back. She was not lost, she was just awaiting his return. Alain was not a stranger who drank too much, he was a link to her mother. The earthquake wasn’t real, nothing was real… the world was a work of fiction. She was cocooned, she could use shock to insulate her and life, in this fashion, was nothing worse than a trial of her patience. Even now, she had only a vague impression of the town and the people and the things she had seen and heard and tried to ignore. She opted for detachment and denial, she told herself it was necessary, no different from shielding her eyes in an unpleasant movie.
It was late afternoon. Izzy was awake and he and Alain were sitting by the hearth talking. Wasim was adding kindling to the small fire. She was excluded. They were conspirators suddenly and spoke only in Urdu, or Pashto, or whatever language it was they had chosen. She sat on the bed pretending to look at the maps in an atlas, but really she watched them resentfully through the open door.
Alain’s mood had worsened during the day. When they had climbed back up from the town, there was not even a suggestion that they would talk. He blamed her. It certainly felt like she was the cause of his distress. But it was complicated, she felt like she had injured him personally. It was unfair to be treated so harshly after such a small offence. Wasn’t she suffering enough? If his work was so important, he should have been more careful with it. One shouldn’t just wrap up ones secrets and send them away. He could have destroyed them if he was so worried… he should have destroyed them. She tried to recall the pages. The scrawled notes… the hand drawn maps… the satellite photograph? She was going around in circles, and it was driving her mad.
It was remarkable how her mood pitched and swung. Earlier, she had wanted his attention, she had wanted his confidence – she had wanted his secrets. Now she doubted his habits, the way he lived and the amount he drank; she was suspicious of everything he said. He seemed like a child, making up stories, either to impress or to tease. His papers were senseless, exactly as they had first seemed. His life was fiction, just like everything else. The secrets she had revered, she mistrusted them now. They would be lies too, most likely.
Which left her where?
She spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly on the slopes behind the house and studying the atlas. There was a map of the Chitral valley in it and she tried to memorise the geography. The Afghan border was a hundred kilometres away, something like that; to the east was the Shandur Pass which led to Gilgit, to the south was the Lowari Pass, which was the way they had driven up from the Punjab. The road to Gilgit was closed, Alain had said. She wondered how long it would be before the Lowari Pass was closed too. Then there would be no way back to Islamabad. She would be stuck in this valley,
Alain went out and came back. There was still no sign of Evan. He disappeared again, this time with Izzy and Wasim, and she was left alone in the house. She thought about snooping around but decided against it, instead she sat on the bed and read books. Wasim had a bizarre collections of titles. There were several copies of the Koran and books in Urdu and Arabic that could have been about anything. But there were cheap throwaway paperbacks too, children’s stories, inventories of wild birds, cookery books even. She searched through half of them before she chose a romance set in wartime Europe and settled down to read that.
Evening was drawing in and she was the only one in the house. She contemplated trying to light a fire in the hearth. She had eaten only dried fruit and nuts all day. She left the bedroom and had a nose around.
There were no food stores, no spare clothes, nothing like that. Three furs rolled up in a corner were the only apparent evidence that three men were currently sleeping around the hearth. There were a couple of prayer mats too, one for Wasim and one for Izzy, she presumed. She picked one up. It was maybe three feet long and two feet wide, made from a woven material, embroidered with red and green thread, a simple pattern and some Arabic lettering, but well worn. There were two patches in the middle which were almost threadbare. She laid it on the ground and stood behind it. It was supposed to face east wasn’t it? East was the way of the Hindu Raj, she moved it around until it was facing roughly the right direction. She tried keeling down. What was she supposed to do? She had watched men praying in Jinnah market in Islamabad. She rocked forward, moving her hands over the coarse wooden floorboards. She touched her brow down on to the ground. There were words to say but of course she didn’t know them. She would have to invent a prayer of her own.
First she thought of the things she wanted but that didn’t feel right. She was too confused about what she wanted. So, instead, she tried to remember what was important, but that was also too vague, too open to interpretation. What was important rather depended upon who you were. Her own opinion of what was important seemed to change hourly. She thought of Evan and, for a few seconds, prayed quite furiously that he would find her. Then she thought of Chitral… please help the people of Chitral she whispered. But that sounded trite and insincere, like saying ‘please let everyone be ok’.
She wasn’t convinced the words meant anything, not even to herself. Maybe it took time to learn prayer properly, like it was a skill that needed to be mastered. Or maybe it didn’t.
She could hear voices approaching the house. Hurriedly she stood up and put the prayer mat away. She didn’t want to be caught standing in the doorway, so she skipped back into the bedroom, swung the door shut behind her, snatched a book off a pile and pretended to read. She heard all three men arrive back together, though they had stopped talking before they entered the house. A minute passed, then there was a knock on the door.
‘Wasim is cooking dinner,’ Izzy called through to her.
Wasim had cooked a meat curry and chapatti was frying in a pan when she joined them. She did not bother asking where any of them had been and she hardly looked at Alain. She felt like he had chosen to shun her. No wine was opened. She washed down the spice of the curry with water. There was no discussion either, the men ate in silence. When she had finished eating, she put down her plate and stared at the floor. She was thinking about making an excuse and escaping into the bedroom.
‘I am sorry you have had to sit here all day,’ said Alain, breaking the silence. ‘I expect you have been very bored.’
She looked up from the floor. ‘I read a book.’
‘Izzy has been watching Rawicz’s farm,’ he said flatly. ‘No one has been there, so we assume that he has departed.’
‘With your papers,’ she said dryly.
‘Yes with my papers,’ he smiled. Perhaps he caught her tone. ‘But let’s not worry about them for the moment. We have other things to deal with – like how to get you home.’
‘Home?’
‘Yes home… well, Islamabad anyway. I am sorry Avalon, I have asked at every place I can think of, but there is no news of Evan. If he took this Mundy into the Hindu Kush, then I don’t think he will come back. It is too remote up there. I’m afraid he is probably dead.’
She gasped. It was shocking to here the words said out loud. Probably dead. She wasn’t ready… not yet.
‘There is no point us waiting here,’ Alain continue. ‘If he is alive and he gets back to Chitral, then I am sure that he will have no trouble getting out of the mountains. Who knows, there may even be some planes coming in eventually. He has a cell phone?’
She nodded.
‘Well then…’ he paused, ‘Islamabad is where you should try to be. It is no good you staying here, and it is about time we gave Wasim his house back. Which means we need to look into ways of getting you out of the mountains. Do you agree?’
She nodded vaguely. It seemed to make sense, if that was where Evan might find her, but she felt like Alain was rejecting her somehow.
‘We can wait for the flights in Chitral, we can wait for Evan… but you must understand, they might never come. It might be better if we take you back to Islamabad. And if we are going to take you, then there is only one way. We have to walk. Now, I know that sounds ridiculous, but I don’t mean walk all the way. All we need to do is get over the Lowari Pass and then it should be possible to get on a truck travelling down to Dir and then on to Islamabad. It is maybe three days walking… then the same again… I think it will take about a week. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘how can you come? What about Rawicz?’
Alain shrugged. ‘There is nothing we can do about Pietr, not from here…’
He stopped abruptly, and didn’t speak again for several minutes. It seemed like he was struggling with something. At last he said, ‘Can I tell you something?’
She nodded and he drew a single long breath.
‘Even after all these years, I never stopped…’ he started but trailed off and stared into the fire. ‘You look so much like her,’ he mumbled, ‘and I’m so… I don’t know… I’m scared I suppose…’
‘What are you scared of?’ There was an eagerness in her voice that she did not recognise.
He looked at her and the reflection of the firelight died quickly. ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I mentioned it.’
She hung her head, like they were mourning something together.
‘We will pack up tonight,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow morning I will go to the town one more time to look for your father. If he is not there, then Izzy and I will take you to Islamabad. It is the least I can do… for her.’
She didn’t understand but she could think of nothing to say, so she just nodded, and it was settled that easily.


Chapter Fourteen
It was late morning on the third day after the earthquake. She was counting in days rather than hours now, which felt curiously significant. All time was measured in relation to that one event. Until three days ago, time had been counting down, life had been an hourglass emptying. Then there had been this great cataclysm, this rupture in the continuum, and the clock was reset. There were the months and the days and the hours before the earthquake, eighteen years worth, but they seemed to belong to someone else, to a girl she vaguely recognised, a girl who lived in a world she hardly remembered. She wondered how childhood could have been so brutally punctuated. And now? Well, now it was a new world, and she was a child again, born in the epicentre of the earthquake, trembling through her infancy… the first few hours, now the first few days.
She was sitting in the bedroom, waiting for Alain to return from the town. Perhaps he would find Evan today, but she knew the chances were remote. Either way, they were ready to depart. Their things were all packed. Propped against the wall beside the door were two duffle bags, one containing blankets and furs for bedding, the other food and water. She was ready too, washed and dressed and fidgety. But she was feeling guilty. She had caught herself hoping that Alain would return alone, as terrible as that was. She wanted Evan to be safe, there was no question, but she had realised that she was quite happy for him to be delayed.
She stood up and paced once around the room. Whatever. The fact was, she was ready to move… now she was so aware of the time, she wanted to get on with things. She glanced through into the living room. Wasim was working over the hearth, same as usual, the kettle was boiling. She offered an awkward smile to the old man as she hurried across the room to the door and stepped out. Izzy was chopping wood on a block a short distance behind the house. She waived to him and he held up the axe in reply. The weather was good, the sun was shining, the snow on the ground was glistening and wet. She walked away from the house to a place where she could see down into the valley. Alain was climbing up the path towards her. She waived at him too but he was looking down and did not see her. She wandered up to the place where Izzy was working, sat down on the cut wood, and waited for Alain to reach them.
‘No sign of him,’ the Frenchman said when he had climbed up passed the house. ‘Sorry.’
She nodded, it was what she had expected to hear. Still, she felt like she was being forced into an acknowledgment that she did not want to make. Just because there was no news… that didn’t mean anything… not definitely. But three days? Surely that was long enough for him to make it back. If he wasn’t hurt, why was it taking so long? And now she was leaving… and that did mean something. It meant that she was taking responsibility for herself. It meant she was no longer waiting for him to come back and save her. It meant she was giving up on him. And that hurt. Why had he not rushed back to find her?
It was like discovering an injury… internal bleeding… something more serious than she had realised. She had ignored the symptoms, chosen to suppress any emotion that related even remotely to Evan. That wasn’t weak or cruel or cold – it was necessary. And she would continue to do it – it still wasn’t time. Not yet. All possibilities were still open, and she could only manage so much grief. It was only two months since the funeral for God’s sake. Things festered far faster than they healed.
‘Wasim reckons there’s a storm on its way.’ Alain was looking up at the sky as he spoke. There were a few clouds but they were small and moving quickly across the blue sky.
‘A storm?’
‘In a few days.’
‘But what about crossing the Lowari Pass?’
‘If we leave immediately, we could make it up there today and cross early tomorrow. But we need to go immediately. The pass is the worse possible place to be if a storm rolls in.’
‘Alright,’ she said, ‘can I have a couple of minutes… you know, to think?’
‘If you want,’ he stooped to scoop up some of the wood. ‘Come on Izzy, we will be inside.’
What was there to think about? If she stayed in Chitral for a few more days, and Evan came back… it made no difference, it was not like her staying would make his return more likely. That was the logical truth, there was no point trying to place bets with fate. But it felt wrong, it felt like she was inventing the logic, or manipulating it some how… because she wanted to go with Alain more than she wanted to wait for Evan. That was why she felt confused and guilty. That was the truth. And it was good to acknowledge it. In fact, it was liberating. The decision seemed easier suddenly. She had to trust logic, otherwise, what sense was there? Her mind made up, she knelt down and picked up some more firewood, then she skipped after the men into the house.

* * *
Alain and Izzy carried a duffel bag each and walked at a pace she could hardly manage. She had nothing to carry but the atlas. It was a gift from Wasim. They had left the old man working at his hearth. She had thanked him for his hospitality; he had pressed the old leather atlas into her hands and, via Alain, insisted that she take it… maybe for directions, in case she got separated. Then she and Izzy had waited outside the house while Alain said his own private farewell. They had waited a long time. She wondered what he was planning as she trailed him on the mountain road, heading south towards the Lowari Pass.
They passed the town on the east side. The sun was high in the cloudless sky, there was no evidence whatsoever of a storm coming. Despite the good weather, she was well covered again: the head scarf over her face, an extra blanket wrapped around her shoulders. So it was hot and hard work keeping pace with the two men. She had tried to loosen the headscarf but Alain had told her not to, even though there was hardly anyone around to take offence.
After they had been walking for a couple of hours, the mountain road began to climb slowly. It ran straight at first, and not so steep, but she noticed how the river, away on their right, was falling further and further below them. They passed a few houses on the road but many seemed to be deserted. In one small village there was not a single person. The place reeked of untreated pine. Soon after the village, the tarmac stopped. The road continued but it was gravel and slush now, and her boots – the expensive fur boots she had borrowed from the guesthouse hallway – were soon caked with mud and snow. Which made them heavy of course, so her feet dragged, and she fell further behind the two men.
They stopped now and then and waited for her catch up. Izzy was carrying the food and water, and he would wait with a flask and a handful of dried fruit ready for her. It was embarrassing to be so slow and it was lonely too. The men walked ahead and talked, so when she lagged behind she had only her thoughts for company. That was the last thing she wanted at the moment.
It was difficult to tell how far they had come because the hillside was thickly covered with trees: poplars and deodars and several types of fir she could not name. Most of the time though, she was too busy walking to look around.
‘What we are going to do,’ Alain told her after they had been going for nearly four hours, ‘is camp below the pass tonight. There’s a hut about a thousand meters below the pass itself – we can shelter there. But we must get there before it gets too late. The climb gets steep shortly, and a bit exposed, so we don’t want to walking in the dark.’
She didn’t say anything because she was out of breath.
‘How do you feel?’
‘Ok… I think.’
‘Good… we must keep going. The road begins to wind around a bit soon so it can take a long time.’ He tired an encouraging smile, then turned and trudged away up the hillside. Izzy though lingered behind.
‘Maybe we could walk together for a bit?’
‘Sure… if you like.’
She had caught her breath well enough to start off after Alain, Izzy fell into step beside her.
‘You want a cigarette?’ he asked, holding out the same local brand that Alain had offered.
‘I’m not sure that’s going to help just at the moment.’
Just as Alain had said, the road started to wind shortly, and the trees started to thin, so they could see the faint track snaking across the mountain above them. In a way, walking became easier because the road was now less steep. But it was frustrating too, because they had to travel that much further just to climb the same distance. And the higher they climbed, the fewer trees there were, and the more they were buffeted by the wind, which had seemed light down in the valley but gusted far more vigorously up here. Eventually, there were only a few wind-battered firs left, and most of them were leaning at improbable angles against the slopes, the trunks blanched and beaten, the branches stripped bare, like petrified skeletons. The mountain itself was just moss and slate at this height. And snow of course. She found it an intimidating place, cruel and naked and extremely cold.
It was a relief then to have Izzy beside her and she made sure he stayed by asking him questions. He was quite willing to talk about himself, he practically related his life story, though it was rambling and disjointed.
‘I am Pashtun,’ he told her, ‘an Afghani, born in Kabul I think eighteen, maybe nineteen, years ago. I am only son – my father was away fighting with Mujahideen, my mother was sick and she died… I do not remember. ‘
‘I lived in a madrasah for a while but eventually I ran away.’
‘Many people are trying to leave Afghanistan, for Quetta and for Peshawar, so I went with them to the border… but I had no papers, so I could not cross. So I kept travelling, through Jalalabad and Asadabad, because I did not know where to go. ‘
‘There was Taliban everywhere, you understand, and I am always hiding, always moving north to avoid them. I lived through a winter and then, in the spring, I climbed into the Hindu Kush, the high mountains, where it was safe. But you cannot winter in the high mountains… so I followed the shepherds down into their villages – they were Kalasha, Pakistani people but not Muslim…’
‘So that’s where you met Alain?’
‘Yes. He lives there.’
‘And you worked for him?’
‘He was very kind. He taught me English and the science and many things, and I helped him with his very important work…’
His important work. There it was again, so many things she didn’t know. ‘But you two are friends as well?’ she asked, trying to hide her curiosity.
‘Yes, friends of course,’ he said sounding proud.
She was beginning to realise how crammed she was with assumptions and suspicions which made it incredibly hard to relate to someone like Izzy, whose world she approached like a curious oddity. Nothing that he said sounded real, instead it was fiction again, a recurrent uncertainty about what she knew and where she belonged. Now she was unable to believe anything, not unless she had felt it, or tasted it, or heard it said. Why that should be, she could not possibly say, she was not even sure when it had started. But she felt uncertain about everything. Even herself. And her past. And certainly about the way she lived her life. Whatever Izzy was: servant, dogsbody, friend… it left her unwilling judge.
It was late into the afternoon and the light was failing when they finally saw the hut not far above them. It was in a sheltered gully, which was clogged with snow and crowded with trees, like they were all sheltering from the wind. The road climbed up on to the ridge a short distance away, then curved in a shallow arc passed the gully before it cut up into the mountain and carried on towards the pass.
‘Does someone live up here?’ she asked Alain, who had stopped to wait for them.
He shook his head. ‘No, the hut is for anyone who needs it. Trucks have to use the pass to get through to Chitral. The drivers use the hut for shelter if the weather gets bad.’
‘But not now?’
‘Well, it’s late in the year… the pass might be blocked. Maybe you can imagine, it doesn’t have to snow much to stop the trucks using this road.’
‘But we drove through, like, a week ago.’
‘So you recognise it?’
‘No, I was asleep,’ she admitted.
‘Well, things change quickly up here,’ he said, ‘we’ve had a couple of heavy snowfalls and an earthquake since you came through. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was blocked.’
‘But… will that mean we can’t get through?’
‘I hope not. Just the trucks. It’s getting down that might be the problem.’
‘It’s further isn’t it?’ She vaguely remembered how the long boring drive up to the pass had taken several hours.
‘Oh yes,’ said Alain, ‘it’s a long road down, we’ll need someone to offer us a lift. But don’t worry,’ he added, perhaps catching the look on her face, ‘we’ll worry about that in the morning. Now we should get into the hut before it’s too dark to see.’
The hut was about as basic as it could possibly be. It was cheerless and draughty and smelled the same as the houses they had passed in the village, like raw untreated pine, which wasn’t a pleasant odour, not when it was this strong, and mingled with fouler smells, sweat and refuse, and something that was probably urine.
There was a steel bin the middle of the room, which was otherwise empty, apart from some damp sleeping mats rolled up in a corner. The bin was black and charred and looked as though it was used to light fires. They had nothing to burn however, and it was too dark now to go looking for firewood. Anyway, there was too much snow, any wood under the trees would be sodden.
There was a fair amount of graffiti scratched or scored into the floorboards and the walls, but there was too little light to read what it said. The place really smelled terrible, like it was built on a landfill.
‘Nice isn’t it?’ said Alain, dropping his duffel bag on the floor and kneeling down to unpack the furs and the mats. ‘It’s a lonely life on the road, I don’t know how they do it.’
Avalon didn’t say anything, she was wandering around the hut, trying to find a place out of the wind, thinking that it was an awful place to spend the night.
‘Still, it’s better than sleeping outside,’ said Alain, ‘at least we’ll stay dry.’
‘So truck drivers stay here?’ she asked vacantly.
‘Believe it or not,’ said Alain, ‘this is part of the old silk route. Some drivers will start up on the Afghan border and follow the trunk road all the way down to Karachi – you must have seen those old trucks they drive, with all the decoration, the wood carvings and the poetry – it takes weeks. And up here, this is the only place to stay.’
It was impossible to feel comfortable. There was a small window in the north facing wall of the hut, no glass, just an empty eyelet through which the wind blew in snow and ice. She walked over to it and peered out. There was nothing to see. Night was coming on quickly and, with it, a charcoal twilight and an enveloping mist. She hoped that the weather wasn’t changing early.
Izzy had unpacked his duffel bag too and they muddled together a supper. They sat together on the floor in the middle of the hut, with a single oil lamp for light, eating nuts and fruit and strips of dried meat. After the food was gone Alain dug a small stove out of his bag, melted some snow and bought it to the boil. Then, he took a jar containing a red paste from Izzy’s pack and added it to the water, stirring the mixture slowly. He let the brew simmer for a couple of minutes, then he turned off the stove and waited for the steaming kettle to cool.
‘This is like a tea,’ he said, ‘the paste is crushed berries, from the gorse bushes. It’s good – here – try some.’
He passed her the kettle first. She could smell the steam, sweet like mint tea but far less sickly. She took a sip. It was horrible, not sweet at all, really tart in fact, and she burned her tongue. She put the kettle down on the floor and screwed up her face. Alain shrugged apologetically.
‘It takes a bit of getting used to I’m afraid, but it will keep you warm – and put you straight to sleep if you drink enough. I have mine…’ he reached over and grabbed Izzy’s duffel bag, ‘… with a drop of this, to ease the taste a bit.’
He pulled a flask out of the bag and poured most of its contents into the kettle. It smelled like the Kalash wine they had drunk together. Alain drank the tea, which was steaming a little less now, then passed the kettle to Izzy. He took a swig for himself and passed it on to her. Tentatively, she tried another sip. If anything, it tasted worse. So she handed it back and, soon, the two men had finished it off and were sitting back, watching their breath condense in clouds like it was the most fascinating thing imaginable.
Without the warming properties of the tea, she was shivering. She crawled over to where Alain had unpacked his duffel, grabbed a thick brown fur and wrapped it about herself. Then she sat back down, staring at the two men, wondering if this was how they planned to spend the night.
They sat in silence for what seemed like hours, though it was probably only minutes. They seemed to have forgotten she was even there.
‘What can you tell me about Pietr Rawicz?’ she said at last.
‘Pietr Rawicz,’ Alain repeated the name like it was something he hardly remembered. ‘Pietr Rawicz… what do you want to know?’ He sounded full of suspicion.
‘Well,’ she said carefully, ‘like who is he exactly?’
Izzy slumped down across the half-filled duffel bag, but Alain sat more upright. He looked at her coldly. She had felt, during the walk, that he might be warming to her. Perhaps, she thought, he had forgotten his papers or forgiven her for her transgression. That was harder to believe now he chewed his nails and fixed his stare on her in the darkness. She shifted uncomfortably on the floor. She sensed his was weighing her up somehow, trying to decide how much she was worth, or how much he should reveal.
‘There’s a lot I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve got no idea how he came to Pakistan, for instance.’
‘Ok…’
‘He is Russian… or he was anyway, but he’s been here for ever.’
‘Do you know why he came here?’
‘He escaped from a gulag…’ Alain shook his head. ‘You think I’m making this up? During the 1970s sometime, the communist government sent him to gulag in Kazakhstan. I don’t know why, or what he did to deserve it. But he escaped from this gulag and – so he says – he walked here from there.’
‘A gulag? Who told you he was there?’
‘He did. He is very proud of his escape.’
‘Right…’ she tried not to sound too doubtful.
Alain, though, seemed to have forgotten his suspicions. He was warming to his tale. 'This is how he tells the story: Pietr and ten other men escaped on to the steppes in winter – into snow and ice and endless horizons without food or shelter. And they began to walk. They did not know their direction, whether they walked to Russia or away from it. They just walked. He says he went first to China and then down through the Karakorum, but who knows? There’s no one else to ask. If it’s true, and eleven men escaped from the gulag into the snow on the steppes, then ten of them died out there. I’ve asked around – there’s no trace of the other men, Pietr was the only one who survived.’
‘That’s…’ she couldn’t think of anything. ‘What else do you know?’
He shrugged. ‘He went to war with the Mujahideen, fighting against the Russians after they invaded Afghanistan. Of course, this made him very popular among the Pashtun people. In their lands, there is no law that can touch him, which I guess is partly why he stays here. He has homes and businesses in Peshawar. He has the farm in Chitral. He is known for his bear fights. He has travelled the mountains from Afghanistan to China and across to the border to India. He has a passport and he has travelled. He’s been to London. He told me he has been to South Africa.’
‘To London?’ she was surprised. ‘Why would he go there?’
But Alain didn’t answer her this time; he seemed to have decided suddenly that he had told her enough.
‘Why would he go to London?’ she pressed him. But he just shook his head and smiled a strange smile, sort of sad, sort of devious.
She pressed him further. ‘But you talk about him like he was your friend.’
‘Do I? Well, I suppose he was once… in his way. But things change… he’s not my friend and more.’
‘He attacked you…’
She watched him close his eyes and settle back on the floor alongside Izzy. She had a thought, a moment of clarity, in which she realised that, sometime over the past few days, she had bought into his story wholeheartedly, without even realising it, and now she was devoted to its narrative. She cared about Rawicz and the papers and whatever it was that Alain had done, or found, or lost. She was following his story more closely than she was her own… which was foolish surely… unless they were the same story now…
‘Rawicz in London,’ she said, ‘it must have something to do with your papers?’
But he wasn’t about to answer. Instead, he was lighting a cigarette. ‘I think it is time to get some rest,’ he said. ‘Look at Izzy, he’s fast asleep already.’
Izzy was curled up on the boards, pretty much where he had been sitting. She got a blanket from the pile and covered him as best she could. She had one more question she was desperate to ask, but she knew he wouldn’t answer. How dangerous was Rawicz? She thought of the Russian at the bear fight in that fluorescent light, the picture she had of his face, all rage and bloodlust and cruel shapes, like a comic book demon. What was he doing now? She let the fiction run wild. She thought she could almost feel his presence, like it was something evil stalking the mountains. Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, he had to be stopped. Tonight, that felt more important than anything else.
The thrill and the uncertainty drew her over to the small window. The wind was whipping through it now, it felt like someone was slapping her face. She narrowed her eyes and peered out. The stars were in the sky, and she was among them, peering down on the shadow world where Rawicz prowled. She gazed at the constellations, so unbelievably bright and close: the vast celestial sphere – except that it wasn’t a sphere, not tonight. Overhead, certainly, and east and west, the sky was full of stars. But when she looked north there was a blackness like thick smoke. The sky was halved by the advancing front, blown towards them on the strengthening winds. Even as she stood and watched, the clouds rolled closer, blotting out the stars faster than she could possibly imagine. Wasim was wrong. The storm wasn’t coming in a few days, it was coming now. It was bearing down on the valley, within minutes it would swallow the town and, very soon, it would reach the pass.

Chapter Fifteen
Evan used a knife and fork to eat his pizza. First, he cut up each slice into manageable, bite-sized squares, which he arranged neatly, before he speared one with the fork and dipped it in the olive oil which was swilling around his plate. It was pedantic, he knew, but it was his way. He had never liked to eat with his hands, it just wasn’t how he was raised. Even if he went on a picnic, he made sure he packed a knife and fork. In a restaurant, there was no question, he would always use the cutlery.
This restaurant was a small Italian place not far from Evan’s house, with seating in the garden and a large clay oven, which cooked the best pizza in the city. It was popular because the owners agreed to serve wine, as long as the bottle was surrendered at the start of the meal so that it could be served discreetly in a teapot.
The garden was filling up, which was unusual this early on a weeknight. Then again, Islamabad was heaving at the moment. As well as the usual diplomatic crowd, the city was bustling with rescue teams and aid workers, plus the staff from all the newly arrived relief organisations, as well as the journalists of course, and there were seemingly hundreds of them, bouncing around like they were on some sort of disaster safari. The local BBC man was sitting at the neighbouring table. Evan thought they might have met once before – at a cricket match maybe – but he couldn’t remember his name. He had nodded when he sat down. He was with three Americans, two slick old-boys from CNN and a young woman from the Washington Post. Evan knew where they worked because he was eavesdropping on the conversation.
‘Story’s almost dead,’ one of the CNN guys was saying.
‘Oh no, don’t say that!’ the woman from Washington moaned, ‘I’m supposed to be flying to Gilgit tomorrow, there’s got to be a little more we can squeeze out of it.’
‘Couple ‘a days at most,’ said the other CNN man, ‘how long were we with the Iran quake Bill?’
‘Week or so.’
‘If that. These stories don’t run. And what’s it been now? Two weeks? We’re out of here tomorrow – going to try and hit Kabul before we fly out, that might be worth something.’
‘Did you get up there?’ the woman asked.
‘The mountains?’ said Bill. ‘Sure, we were on the second flight into Gilgit.’
‘How was it?
Evan glanced over at their table. The woman sounded like she might be new on the job. She was certainly younger than the men, a keen fresh face.
‘Oh – you know,’ said Bill, who was wearing a flash adventure jacket. ‘Usual sort of thing. A few crying children, a few of our boys dishing out food.’
‘It’s quite bad actually,’ the BBC man cut in.
‘Yeah,’ said Bill, ‘some of the towns up there though, you can hardly tell if they’ve fallen over or not.’
His colleague laughed.
‘I spoke to a friend today at Geo,’ the BBC man pressed on, sounding defensive. ‘He says the official toll is going to jump this week. They reckon it’s close to eighty thousand now.’
‘But it’s only thirty thousand at the moment,’ said the Washington woman, ‘why the difference?’
‘I’ve heard a rumour,’ Bill said, ‘that it’s probably double that. One sixty maybe one eighty thousand… something like that. The government just don’t want to admit how many soldiers were up there.’
‘That’s huge,’ said the Washington woman.
‘Yeah,’ said Bill, ‘won’t make any difference though. We’re still out of here. The place is too remote, no one cares…’
Evan turned away from the conversation, it was making him more depressed. Anyway, the waiter had come to the table with the teapot and was waiting to refill his glass. But he shook his head, the last thing he needed was more wine. Sitting across the table though, his companion accepted a top up. That wasn’t a surprise. Evan waited for the waiter to leave before he looked up. Philip Landry gave him an encouraging smile, but Evan ignored it and turned back to his pizza. It was now soggy from soaking too long in the oil, but that didn’t matter, he was hardly hungry.
The CNN man was wrong, it had been more than two weeks. He had been back in Islamabad for that long, so that made it more like nineteen days since the earthquake. And they had been the longest nineteen days he had ever known, filled with anger and frustration and anguish, a period during which he become dependent on routine and ritual. Anything to distract himself from his impotency. The CNN man, he had decided, was an arse.
The dinner had been Philip’s idea. He seemed to have decided that, more than anything else, Evan needed motivation, and he had spent the entire time so far adding trite morale boosting phrases to his incessant pep talk.
‘Cheer up son,’ he said now, ‘we had to get you out of that house. It’s no good you sitting around there by yourself, it’s not healthy.’ The more he drank, the more he talked. It was always the same with Philip. ‘You will hear something soon, I’m sure of it. She wasn’t in the hotel, was she? And she can’t have disappeared off the face of the earth…’
Philip could talk all he wanted. It made no difference to Evan, he couldn’t feel any worse. The problem was: she had disappeared off the face of the earth, either that or she had disappeared into it. She wasn’t in the hotel, at least not according to Zahra Kahn, and they had dug that place out now. She wasn’t at the farm either and, from what he remembered of his visit there, he couldn’t believe that she ever had been. So where was she, what the hell had she been doing?
He had spent almost every walking minute brooding on that question, and still he was no closer to an answer. It just made him angry, first with her, then with himself, and then with her again. It was torture. But he couldn’t stop and he didn’t want to stop. It was his punishment for leaving her, for failing in his responsibilities. There was nothing he could do but think, think, think… occasionally he would have a brainwave and run to the telephone to contact the High Commission.
Tell the rescue teams to look here, maybe she had gone there, maybe she was in the town, is someone keeping check at the airfield?
His greatest fear at the moment was that they would pack up and call off the searches. Already, it seemed, the journalists had had enough. Once they left, attention would turn elsewhere, donors would be distracted, the aid money would dry up, and the whole thing could grind to a halt. He imagined himself as the last person left looking, wandering through a deserted moonscape, turning over bricks, shifting the odd sheet of corrugated metal, calling her name.
The last place he wanted to be was a restaurant. But Philip had been badgering him for days, he seemed to have decided that Evan’s mental well being was his personal responsibility. Either that or someone at the High Commission had assigned him to the task. Evan was on mandatory sick leave, although there was nothing physically wrong with him. The cut on his hand was still bandaged, but it was healing well. It was simply an excuse to keep him out of the way, so that he didn’t disturb the running of the place, or so people didn’t have to feel uncomfortable around him. Everyone is thinking of you, Philip kept telling him. Rubbish, he wanted to say. They’re just glad it’s not them. They think I’m idiot. They think you’re an idiot too, Philip, their embarrassed by you, by the way you talk and the amount you drink. That’s why they’ve put us together, that’s why you were assigned the job.
That’s wanted he wanted to say, but he didn’t. Instead he looked down at his plate, where the pizza was now cold and inedible.
‘Do you think we could go?’ he asked.
Evan wanted to walk home, it was only a couple blocks from the restaurant, past Kohsar market and a small park, but Philip didn’t like the idea. He didn’t approve of anything that left Evan alone with his thoughts. Instead, he insisted that his driver drop Evan home, but even that wasn’t enough, he wanted to escort him inside.
Evan acted quickly to make sure that didn’t happen. He was out of the vehicle as soon as it drew up outside his gate and even quicker on his excuses. He was sick of the sight of Philip, sick of his flushed cheeks, his wispy, balding grey hair, his pleading watery eyes and his boozers nose. Sick that they were stuck together, sick of the growing association between them. Looking at Philip was like looking at his future. He was sick of it all.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning then,’ said Philip, winding down his window to talk to him. ‘Same time as usual.’
‘Alright,’ he said weakly, turning away towards the gate.
‘Chin up mate,’ Philip called as the car pulled away, ‘tomorrow’s the day we find her.’
Maybe, he tried to tell himself, maybe…
The guard opened the gate for him as he crossed the road and he walked through on to his driveway. It was a new man, he noticed, as the gate closed behind him. They were always changing around the guards, he never knew their names and they never spoke English. There were so many of them… one hundred and eighty thousand people; he thought, how could they know? It was so many, an unbelievable number, and he only cared about one of them.
The house was dark and silent when he unlocked the front door. He had sent the staff away for a few days, it had been too aggravating having them around. He switched on the light in the entrance hall and checked his answer machine. It was the first thing he did whenever he re-entered the house, no matter how long he had been out. The light wasn’t flashing, there were no messages, so he crossed the living room into the study and checked his emails. Again, it had become a habit. Again, there was no news. There was never any news. He snapped the lights off and climbed the stairs in the dark. He walked into his bedroom, untied his shoes and fell into bed fully clothed. He didn’t want to wake up tomorrow, he couldn’t face another day of waiting, he wanted to sleep until she called.

* * *

The next morning, Philip arrived at the house at 9.30am to pick him up. The arrangement had stayed the same since the first day. During that initial week, Evan was always ready on time, up and dressed and waiting on the driveway, anxious to get to the High Commission. But the longer it had gone on, the less he had slept, and the harder it had become. To save time, because he was staying in bed so late, he had stopped bothering to shave. He had dark rings underneath his eyes and several days worth of russet stubble on his chin. But even so, when Philip rang the doorbell, he was drinking coffee in the kitchen, still dripping from the shower. He got dressed before he answered the door. He knew it was rude to leave Philip standing on the doorstep, but he didn’t want him to see the mess in the house.
They drove to the High Commission first. Despite being on sick leave, he felt like it was where he wanted to be. There was no real purpose behind these visits, all the Relief Liaison Officers had his number in case there was any news of Avalon. Philip was happy to indulge him though and, for the moment at least, no one at the High Commission objected to him hanging around for an hour each morning. It was busy there though, the whole diplomatic compound was busy. Several countries had flown in teams to support the Pakistani led relief effort. It should have been encouraging really, the speed and the willingness of the response, from so people in so many places, but he didn’t find it encouraging. They weren’t helping him were they? She was still missing.
People had rushed to him in the first few days, with sympathy and well wishes, but he had noticed a change after that. They hung back in the High Commission corridors now, they had only apologetic smiles for him and there was a sense of distaste, like he was sick with some lingering illness and they wished he would take it elsewhere.
He stayed at the High Commission just long enough to repeat his questions, and to request a search in another previously unthought-of area. After that, people started to get fed up with him, so he left and headed over to the British club to meet Philip for lunch. They sat outside and no one asked to share their table. He didn’t mind that so much, he was happier sitting in silence, watching the kites scavenge from the kitchens.
In the afternoon they drove to the end of Constitutional Avenue, swung on to the Rawalpindi road and headed out to visit the airport. Visiting the airport was a routinely demoralising experience, but he had been making the journey every day because the relief effort was being directed from there. They drove along the perimeter road, from where they could see crates of food and clothes and medicine stacked on the runway, like a plywood city skyline. Then Philip waited outside with the car while Evan ran in to beg information from anyone he could find. Mostly, the airport was being run by the Pakistani military, but there were a few Americans too, because the US was flying aid up to the mountains in its Chinook helicopters. No one could ever help Evan though, either they didn’t understand what he wanted, or they did but had no authority to grant his requests. Several of the Americans and one or two of the Pakistani offices recognised him now, but none of them had the news he wanted to hear.
It was just after three when Philip dropped him back at the house with a promise to return the following day. The afternoons were the worst because there was nothing to do. He tried to distract himself, sitting in the garden with the crossword, but usually he ended up ensconced in front of the cable news channels, endlessly watching repeated coverage of the earthquake. He felt like he was watching for news of Avalon, it was ridiculous. But then, a few days ago, she had been mentioned on one of the British stations: an English girl reported to be missing…
This afternoon was going to be different though. After several days pestering Peter Boxer’s secretary, he had a meeting with the High Commissioner arranged for 5pm. It would be the first time he had spoken to the man since the cocktail party.
Despite his injured hand, he drove himself back to the High Commission. Most of the staff started and finished work early, so it was quiet when he parked his car and walked into the building ten minutes early. He waited for a while though because Boxer was twenty minutes late.
‘Evan,’ the High Commissioner said, when he eventually opened his office door and asked Evan in, ‘got tied up at the French place – all a lot of nonsense really. Have a seat – how are you coping? You’re on sick leave yes?’
‘Yes,’ Evan nodded, ‘but I’m fine, I mean I’m not sick.’
‘No, no of course not.’ Boxer collapsed into the leather armchair across the small coffee table from Evan. ‘Any news though? I’ve been so busy today, I haven’t been able to keep track.’
‘No… no news.’
‘Well not to worry, not to worry. Everyone is looking for her – I’ve made sure all the teams have the details – she’ll turn up.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Of course she will.’
‘But it has been nearly three weeks…’
‘Yes I know the timeline,’ Boxer said sharply, ‘but it was chaos up there, you know that. These things take time. Best thing you can do is sit tight and wait for the call. Don’t worry about work, I’ve signed you of for as long as you want.’
‘Well, actually,’ said Evan, ‘I don’t think there’s any reason why I can’t come in now…’
‘Nonsense,’ Boxer stopped him. ‘You need to rest up. You look terrible. I’m sure it’s an utter nightmare just at the moment, work is the last thing you need to be worrying about.’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Of course not. Actually, while you’re here, I hear you’ve been dropping in every morning. Stop that I think. There’s no need man – you have my word, as soon as anyone hears anything, you’ll be the first to know.’
‘Thank you,’ said Evan, trying to smile, working up the courage to ask his next question. ‘But… actually… I was wondering if I could ask a favour.’
‘Of course you can,’ Boxer sounded as though he granted favours to Evan every other day. ‘What is it?’
‘Well…’ Evan said tentatively. ‘I was wondering if I might be able to head back up there. I mean… I know the Chinooks fly to Chitral quite often, and I’d like permission to join a flight… it just feels so far away down here… and I know I could find her… if only…’
Boxer was shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said bluntly and crossed him arms tightly, ‘it’s out of the question I’m afraid. Let the rescue teams do their jobs – they’re the best there is. They’ll find her.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Evan persisted, ‘but they have so much to do and I know where she was… and I can’t just sit around here… I can’t.’ He knew he was beginning to sound desperate and that it hardly helped his argument. But he had to find her, he was desperate. ‘I understand,’ said Boxer flatly, ‘I really do, but if you head up there, you’re going to be in the way, slowing everything down. And how would that look? There’s really nothing you can do. You’ve got nothing to worry about – as I said, you have my word, the operation is being managed expertly.’
‘I know – I know. But I needn’t have anything to do with the… with the operation. I just want to be up there. And I know Mr Mundy will want to head back, I’m sure of it.’
‘Well, from what I understand, Mr Mundy isn’t going anywhere at the moment. Is he even awake yet?’ Boxer raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t worry about Mr Mundy, Evan, I’ve spoken to his employers, they’re quite happy with what we did for him.’
‘But…’
‘Enough, Evan – don’t make me repeat myself. I understand how you feel. Go home, have a shave, get some rest. Come on now, this is just one of those times when you have to leave it to the experts. We’ll find her – don’t you worry about that. We’ll find her.’
Evan hung his head, he couldn’t of think of anything more to say. He wished people would stop telling him that they would find her. If anyone should find her, it should be him.
But the meeting was clearly over, Boxer was up and at his desk, sorting through papers in his briefcase. ‘If you would excuse me now,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to head over to the Yanks. Buck up man, we’re all working on it.’
Evan got slowly to his feet, mumbled his thanks and slunk out of the room. It didn’t seem to matter what he tried, it invariably failed. He had no idea what he could do in Chitral – the High Commissioner was probably just telling him the truth – but he felt like he had an unquestionable right to be there. His daughter was missing and no one could understand the depth of his guilt. It wasn’t just that she was lost, though that was bad enough obviously. But even before that, he had hardly been a father. The greatest sorrow came from his previous neglect. Camille was dead, he had failed her and now he had failed the one thing she had left him. And there was no way of making it right.
He got back into his car and started the engine. There was one more place he wanted to go today. Mundy was in the Shifa, the private hospital he had been taken to after he was airlifted out of Chitral.
Then ankle injury, it turned out, had been exceedingly serious. His leg had only narrowly escaped amputation, he had lost dangerous amounts of blood, and the sepsis had nearly killed him. No wonder then that they had been flown out of Chitral so swiftly. In total, they were at the airfield for less than six hours. They were rushed on to the next flight (the one the young Captain had been rearranging) and were in the air at dawn. An ambulance had picked them up from the airport and Evan had sat beside a feverish Mundy, holding a cold compress on his forehead, while it drove them to the hospital. But he had been back only once, two days later, and the gnarly old steward had still been unconscious.
He wasn’t really sure why he was heading back there now. Perhaps it had something to do with the High Commissioner. Their conversation had reminded him of Mundy at least, because it had been several days since he last thought of him. Which was strange because Mundy had been in Chitral, and Evan was increasingly drawn to anything associated with the place. It was what he suspected he wanted right now. He wanted to spend time with someone who might help him to feel closer to his daughter.
Besides, he thought, pulling into the Shifa car park, there was nothing else to do. Even Mundy’s morose temperament and snide remarks were preferable to a night alone in the dark, empty house, with only the cable news for company.
The hospital was extremely quiet, very few victims of the earthquake had come here for treatment. Most had been sent to the municipal hospitals on the outskirts of the city. The lights were low in the corridors, the whole place carried the sense of having recently been hushed. A porter at the reception desk waived him through into the ward where Mundy was being treated, a large square room with four beds, one in each corner, three of which were empty. The curtains were drawn around Mundy’s bed regardless and, as Evan crossed the ward, he was reminded of how he had felt standing outside his daughter’s bedroom door. Unwelcome and intimidated.
He stopped walking suddenly and stood in the centre of the ward. A cold sickness was sweeping through him. He had only just realised was he was doing, how he was fooling himself, pretending that he and Mundy had forged some sort of brotherhood up in the mountains, like they were bonded by the experience. It was nonsense and he was an idiot for thinking any different. The realisation left him undone, unable to advance
The low fluorescent lights flickered as, somewhere, a generator turned over. Evan was holding his breath, he had never felt so alone. This was his life, this empty ward, this square room, with only a man who couldn’t stand him for company. A man who thought he was ineffective, even useless, who regarded him with contempt, who made him feel childish and weak, a man who – if he was perfectly honest – scared him shitless. Where were his friends now, where was his support? How could this be the place he came for comfort?
Tears were welling in his eyes again, he was a child, he had been reduced to this. Only once before had he felt like this. This weak; this pathetic. Alain Legembre had been the cause then, and he was the cause again now. How had he been so stupid, to think that it could be any different? He was angry now, angry with himself but, more so, angry with the smug, selfish, careless Frenchman. The man who kept ruining his life. He let the anger grow because it felt better than the despair and the loneliness. He could be an angry man. He still had that left. No one could take that away from him.
He marched forward and pulled the curtain aside. ‘Mr Mundy,’ he said, ‘I hope you’re awake.’
Chapter Sixteen
The worse thing John Mundy had ever done was poison people with anthrax. There were other atrocities, others things to condemn him before God, but that was the one that stayed with him, perhaps the only one he truly regretted.
It was 1978 and he was a volunteer, a private contractor to the Rhodesian security forces. He wasn’t the only one. There were plenty of Americans fighting and Australians too, damaged veterans from Vietnam. And there were lots of men like him, career mercenaries. Men who didn’t fit anywhere else, men who liked the taste of chaos, men who had staked their lives on Africa’s miserable conflicts.
Mundy had been in the country five years by then, living well and fighting the Bush War. He didn’t care for Rhodesia particularly, not for Whites who ruled it, nor for the Blacks who dominated the population. By the late seventies, the place was too unstable, even the British refused to tolerate it. But, during the early seventies, there was good money to be made there. South Africa was still indulgent of Smith’s government, and the place was awash with post-colonial dollars and unscrupulous men.
He started off defending the farms and the mines from the ZANLA guerrillas, which was honest enough work while it lasted. Life was fairly quiet. The government was dealing with the insurgency, which was too cheap and too poorly organised to disrupt life much. Mundy was enjoying himself, relaxing after an unpleasant couple of years of resettlement work in South Africa. He had a home, a small farm of his own outside Harare, he had a mistress, and he was receiving decent pay for the easiest work of his life. The mine protection work introduced him first to the British South Africa Company and then to Tobias Brierly, and he began to conduct operations for them on the side. He started to grow rich. Then, in 1975, the Portuguese abandoned Mozambique and everything changed.
With the Portuguese gone, small Rhodesia was surrounded by hostile territories, all alone, a White island in a Black sea. The Rhodesian insurgents found that, all of a sudden, their neighbours were far more hospitable, far more sympathetic to their cause, and their campaign began to gain momentum. In contrast, the Boers in South Africa didn’t have the balls to stand alongside their Rhodesian brothers, so the guerrillas started to enjoy themselves. They found shelter in Zambia and Mozambique and all sorts of solicitous donors crawled out of the woodwork. They raided the farms, set fire to the oil, blew planes out of the sky. Outnumbered, twenty two to one, White Rhodesia was under siege.
Mundy left the farm when the other mercenaries started to arrive in the country. He contracted himself to the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation and they started to launch bombings across the border. They fought back hard. But the odds were impossible, the guerrillas were simply too popular with the people. The government tried to redistribute the land, it forced the Blacks into protected villages, it rationed the food, but it couldn’t quell the support for ZANLA.
Mundy couldn’t remember who had decided to take the war to the people, perhaps he hadn’t been present at the time. Either way, it didn’t matter. He had approved.
They started off poisoning the water, they added cholera to make the people sick and warfarin to make them bleed. Then they put rat poison in the food rations. They distributed clothing laced with weed killer. They wanted to fight morale with malnutrition, so they set fire to the crops and shot down the livestock, but still the people resisted. Finally, they reached for the white powder.
Anthrax spores had been developed as a biological weapon during the Second World War, the British had experimented with anthrax bombs on the Gruinard Islands, the US stocked anthrax weapons until the early seventies, so it wasn’t exactly hard to get hold of the materials. The company Mundy ran started by spraying the protected villages with a powder, a fine mix of anthrax spores, which they dropped overhead from planes. But it didn’t work so well. What they really wanted to do was target the cattle, because they knew that if the cattle died, the villagers would have nothing to trade, nothing to eat and nothing to protect themselves from poverty. So they baked pellets and cattle cakes and they sprinkled spores in the grain stores.
Then they sat back and waited for the epidemic.
On occasion, in later years, Mundy tried to excuse himself. We went after the cattle, he would say, after the dumb animals, not after the people. The human cases were incidental. But it never worked.
After the reconciliation commission report, he read somewhere that 10,000 human infections were recorded and that there were nearly two hundred deaths from anthrax poisoning during a two year period at the end of the seventies. He knew better. He could remember the mountains of rotting beef and the remote villages where people died long before they got anywhere near a doctor. He remembered the sweet-oat smell of the cattle cakes, and the men he had forced to eat them. He remembered it all, every detail, everything he wanted to forget.
The terrible thing was, it made no difference. The government was overrun. In 1980 Smith agreed to open elections and Mundy disappeared. A lot of the white population stayed but he couldn’t, not after what he had done. And he lost almost everything when he fled: his land, his fortune and his contacts, not to mention a great deal of faith in his own judgement. He went back to South Africa for a while but it seemed to him like things were heading the same way there. He read between the lines in the newspaper columns, he recognised the portents. He knew it might take a while, but he was convinced the tide had turned and, frankly, he didn’t want to fight the flood a second time.
He didn’t have the energy. The Bush War had taken its toll. Perhaps Africa had taken its toll. After all, it was a hard and brutal life he lived, and he was feeling tired. He was forty one years old and he had begun to feel it.
He and Brierly had discussed plans for his retirement once, years before, but he had no idea what the old man would say when, one evening in late June, 1983, he sat on the bed in his Johannesburg hotel room and made a long distance phone call.
The first few Oxford years were not so bad. The work was tedious and he didn’t sleep particularly well in his small, cold college room. But there was the occasional excursion, the occasional trip back to South Africa. It was all diamonds by then though. Brierly was still using his connections in the apartheid government to ferret out stones on to the black market. Mundy used to carry them through customs in a brown leather brief case, but he never saw any of the bounty. He made his last flight in 1990, just before apartheid began to wobble. There would be no more trips after that.
A decade passed. A miserable, bare, tasteless decade. A new millennium started. He was nearly sixty; Brierly was nearly eighty. The old man was still dabbling in the illegal gem trade, he still had his contacts in London, he knew the odd man in India, but the work had stopped coming in. The hours clogged Mundy’s days like dust in his veins. Brierly started calling on him to tell stories about better times. Mundy felt like a possession, a whim for the old man, something to smother, a toy to ease the passing of his age.
He had lost respect for himself. He remembered dark evenings in the basement of the Kings Arms, drinking alone with nowhere to go. He began to wish he had stayed in Africa, he could have stacked up the sandbags and died fighting. It would have been preferable. It would have spared his pride. Instead, he was depressed, and there was nothing on the horizon. It was impossible to leave, he had no money, no past he could admit to.
The only thing he looked forward to was Brierly’s death, and even that promised bitterness. He owed the old man the roof over his head and the food in his belly. That was how far he had fallen. He started to look at the church spires when he walked through Oxford, he loitered outside the Christ Church clock tower, he contemplated climbing up and jumping off. One more fall. Anything to end it.
It wasn’t guilt or regret that depressed him, it was age and inactivity. He didn’t need to repent or face justice. By his reckoning, he had served seventeen years and counting for his crimes in Africa.
It was 7th April 2000 when Pietr Rawicz came to the college for lunch with Brierly. Another Sunday. How these two men had found each other, Mundy could not guess. No doubt, the grubby connection could be explained. It would start in London, polished and respectable, maybe link through Eastern Europe or Russia, maybe India, via some bent, bald, bespectacled smuggler, who would know someone who knew someone, and it would finish, grimy and unrecognisable, in Pakistan, in a Peshawar jewel shop, in a dusty alley near the smuggler’s market.
Brierly made him sit in on the lunch, not to eat, but to serve the wine. So he was there when they hatched the scheme, he heard Rawicz’s plan in its entirety, he saw Brierly twitchy with excitement, like a man who had been too long without sex.
It was mostly Rawicz’s invention. He began by describing the potential: a range of marble host mountains, criss-crossed by dykes and sills of intrusive igneous rock, potentially a thousand slabs stuffed with stones, a thousand valleys in which to mine, not diamonds perhaps but rubies and emeralds and sapphires to rival any in the world. Locations remote enough to mine in secret, a law that supported finder’s rights, a malleable bureaucracy, negligible taxes on commercial operations, a market price of $5000 per carat for larger stones… and no one was there yet, no one was even looking.
The problems were finding and access. The more remote valleys were only open for three months each year. There were a handful of commercial mines in the Hunza region and the Swat valleys, but it was too slow, too costly, even to explore in some places. But that meant that potentially hundreds of un-tapped mine-sites remained, a vast forgotten fortune and an unimagined scope for thievery and exploitation.
The problems were invisible to Brierly. He was obsessed, addicted, he didn’t consider obstacles. As far as he was concerned, after hearing that stones were there, any thought of leaving them untouched was sacrilege.
Mundy knew what he was thinking. How could so much be wasted? He could still remember how the old man’s face had changed during the meal, how it had seemed to grow younger and hungrier with the knowledge that so much could be his, that so much should be his. But he had kept his cool, ever the professional.
Mundy still remembered the conversation. ‘So what?’ the old man said, ‘why have you come to us?’ And Rawicz told him, because Rawicz had been digging, and Rawicz had been thinking, and Rawicz was far cleverer than he looked.
Two months later, Alain Legembre started work on a series of remotely sensed geological maps covering the north-west provinces of Pakistan, the Wakhan Corridor, the Hindu Kush and the Hindu Raj ranges.
At a similar time, Mundy began to work on a scheme of his own. At first, he thought of it as his retirement strategy, a pension plan, but it was more like a plan for prison breakout. He relied on his old method. He was patient, he was discreet, he made his arrangements and he waited, first for Legembre to finish his maps and then, a year later, for him to fly to Pakistan. There was a project invented, something about studying a rare type of Asiatic bear, something to suggest that the Frenchman was off to continue his conservation work. There was even funding from the Environment Council. But of course, it was a cover story, invented by Brierly or by Legembre. Mundy never knew which. Legembre was off to test his maps.
Two years passed and still Mundy waited. He was extra cautious because there was a problem: Pakistan wasn’t Africa, he didn’t know the land or the people, who to buy or at what price. Legembre returned and was sent away again. Brierly was still refusing to die. And he was growing fractious and frustrated. Another year ground through, then another, but finally, on a sweaty August evening in 2005, Mundy made another long distance phone call, transferred some money from his meagre savings, and put his plan into action.
The two men he paid to attack Legembre were brothers of the malodorous driver he would eventually employ to take him and Evan Pike up to the Kalash village. He wanted Legembre dead, out of the way, unable to raise an alarm. And he wanted his work, he wanted the papers; in particular he wanted a map – just one – one he had heard Brierly talk about, on which were marked the locations of seven mine-sites across three adjacent valleys.
As it turned out, the men he employed were hopeless. They failed to find the papers and they failed to kill Legembre. Mundy had dug up the grave, he had seen the proof. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because he knew Brierly too well. He knew that the old man wouldn’t trust Pietr Rawicz, he knew that he would blame the Russian for Legembre’s disappearance, and he knew that he would send Mundy to sort out the mess. And that was just what Mundy wanted, to be on campaign again, to be seeking treasure, not for the immoral and oppressive old man, but for himself.
The hardest thing to stomach was not that the scheme had failed, but more the manner of the failure. He couldn’t forgive simple bad luck. If Rawicz had proved too vicious or too clever, then perhaps that would be ok. It the trail had been too cold, if Pakistan had been too unfamiliar – then these were insurmountable obstacles, things he couldn’t challenge. But that hadn’t been the case. Pakistan had been strange but oddly familiar. He had assumed that greed worked the same here, but so what? It probably did, and greed certainly wasn’t the cause of his downfall. Nor was haste. He had applied his method, he had been thorough and careful, he hadn’t trusted to guess work, he had made sure that Legembre was gone, and that Rawicz and the Kalash villagers were lying.
Perhaps he had been too careful. Perhaps he had wanted too much information. Perhaps he had been too scared to act. Fear, especially fear to trust one’s instincts, was surely a sign of age. And his fear, his timidity, was the thing that distressed him the most. Fear and misfortune. How could his scheme – his escape – possibly succumb to such a trivial twist of fate? Was it a lack of planning? Too little caution rather than too much? Or was it simply that his method was too outdated, too ill-suited to this new world, and he had preferred to hide behind it, rather than to adapt and impose himself? He feared he was a relic of a forgotten Africa, and everything that had once made him valuable, was now worthless.
There were braver men, more devious men, faster, stronger and more fortunate men. If only he had been quicker, if only he had not sat brooding over the grave, if only he had finished earlier, moved away, then his ankle would not have slipped, or twisted, or snapped…
These were the thoughts that tortured him during the long lonely hours in the hospital. He had long since lost his focus. He allowed his thoughts to drift and dawdle because there were no distractions, no visitors, no hope of solace – the ward was empty apart from him, so his thoughts turned inwards, his bitterness and his despair turned inwards, and they gnawed him dry.
When he first awoke it was not so bad. He was heavily drugged and drifted in and out of consciousness. But then, as the days dragged on and the sepsis receded, a cold and bleak depression had settled upon him. To have strayed so close to death and to have survived, at his age, felt like cheating. Maybe this was his punishment – his true punishment – for all those years and all those crimes. Perhaps this was God’s way of letting him know that there was nothing left, just age and only age… no hope, no escape, not even death.
It was strange, perhaps, that he still thought of God, that he was still a believer, but he couldn’t help it. No matter how many sins he committed, faith proved inescapable. He had never visited a church nor talked to a priest. Never confessed to a living man. His was a dark and closet religion, defined not by love but by defiance. He was set against his God. If he was punished, he fought back, he sinned again and he refused to be cowed. It was a running battle, and they were lifelong enemies.
But the hospital made him wonder: maybe he was out of fight. After he had been there a week, he received a call from Brierly, and it defeated him. They bought the phone to the bedside, so he was forced to answer. It proved that there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, nowhere to escape.
Mundy felt the liver-spotted hands creeping around his neck, clinging first, then strangling. Mundy old boy, it’s Brierly… the Master… the Master of Corpus … the Master of the Universe… the Master of John Mundy. Even the name taunted him, like its sole purpose was to keep him servile, to keep him on a short leash, to keep him in his place. The old man pretended to be concerned for Mundy’s health, concerned for his failure. The tone mocked him. And then, the worst news of all. Not to worry old chap, received a telegram, Mr Rawicz has recovered the data, all is well… my friend Mr Rawicz… the man I trust suddenly… the man to finish the job…
Mundy didn’t know what was worse, to be defeated or to be usurped. He felt dead and he felt jealous. The phone call ended with a promise to keep his steward’s room open, like the warden keeping the cell warm. If only he had moved quicker, like a younger man, and saved his ankle. He was sixty three years old. Rock bottom. Incapacitated. What hope was left?

* * *

‘So,’ he said for a second time, ‘how about it?’
‘How about it?’
The diplomat was just repeating his words, parroting him. Apparently, all the anger, all the effrontery – with which the diplomat had swept the curtain aside and sat down demanding answers – all that was forgotten.
‘Yes, how about it – what do you say?’
‘What do I say?’ the diplomat just looked shocked. ‘I… say no… of course.’
That was no surprise, perhaps. It had been foolish to look to this man for help and foolish to say so much. But he was desperate. He had hoped… what had he hoped? That a confession would elicit some pity, even some sympathy? It was ludicrous. He was beyond empathy, not even this craven little man could manage it. So he tried a different tack.
‘I would make it worth your while,’ he said.
‘Worth my while? No, I couldn’t… I wouldn’t…’
‘A cut of everything I make. You wouldn’t even notice it happening. Just open a bank account and I’ll deposit the money.’
‘A cut… don’t even suggest it.’
‘What are you so afraid of?’ His voice hardened. ‘Stand up for yourself man. Take some responsibility. This is life – right here – this miserable little charade. What do you think will change? Do you think you can suck your way to glory?’
‘What do you mean?’
There was the bite. No man liked to be bullied.
‘What do I mean? I mean take a look around – you’re miserable. I’m miserable. Change something. Take a chance.’
‘No, no I can’t.’ The diplomat was fidgeting. ‘It’s impossible. I can’t get back up there. I’ve asked – to look for my daughter – the High Commissioner won’t let me anywhere near the place.’
‘That’s because the High Commissioner is a bent little prick. Don’t you see? He’s bought already – the man I work for – he would make sure of it. Maybe not cash, but something else, something like a nice little title to take back to London with him.
This is how it works – of course he doesn’t want you back up there, he doesn’t want anyone up there. Rawicz has the maps, it’s all working out for them…’
He was sounding desperate, he knew, his voice was raised and it echoed in the empty ward.
‘No,’ said Evan again, ‘no… I couldn’t stop him, even if I wanted to do. How would I do it? There’s no way.’
There was a way, there must be a way.
‘So you’ll think about it?’
‘No Mr Mundy, no I won’t.’ The diplomat was rallying a defence. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the way I live. What you’ve told me… it’s reprehensible. Why would I even consider it? Please… don’t ask me again.’
Mundy sank back into his pillow. He couldn’t even argue convincingly. There was a time when he knew, as if by instinct, when to bully, or bribe or cajole, when he could make a man do anything he wanted, given the opportunity. The skill was guessing the price early – the weight of the threat or the weight of the incentive. Never too much, never too little, just right. But he no longer had the power to threaten. And what could he offer? He lacked the influence to empower himself.
‘I’m going to go now Mr Mundy,’ the diplomat was rising out of his seat. ‘I have your backpack at my house, I’ll have it delivered to you.’
‘My backpack?’
‘Yes, I bought it back from Chitral… when you were unconscious.’
‘My backpack…’ A thought had occurred to him, malign and mischievous, a last bit of trickery. ‘There’s no need,’ he said, ‘I’ll collect it in time. Just empty it out and give it an air for me. Can you do that?’
‘An air? Certainly, if you wish,’ said the diplomat. ‘Now, would you like me to leave the curtains open, or is closed better?’
‘Closed,’ he said.
‘Closed… of course. Well, goodbye Mr Mundy.’
‘Goodbye Mr Pike.’
He closed his eyes and listened to the curtains being drawn, the footsteps crossing the ward and growing faint in the corridor. That was it, there was nothing more for him to do. Some time passed. He heard nothing but silence. He was drifting again. He left Pakistan and crossed continents. He returned to Africa. He went down fighting. He visited Oxford and the Christ Church clock tower. He imagined himself standing at its turret, the gargoyles at his feet, the Abingdon Road far below him, the traffic waiting at the lights, the heavy lurch of the clock hands, the weight of the minutes ticking away.
It was early autumn, a cold dank morning in the country of his birth. The wind was in his face and there was a light drizzle.
Wash me clean he thought.
And he jumped.
The low fluorescent lights flickered in the ward, somewhere a generator turned over.










Chapter Seventeen
It was late in the evening when Evan finally drove home, he had stayed far longer at the hospital than he had originally intended. The avenues and boulevards were dark and quiet. He cut through the city, through sectors H and G, to the twin-lane Blue road with its dusty flower beds, crowded concrete markets and crumbling office blocks. The shops were all closed or closing, the neon signs switched off, but the odd merchant was still working, pulling down his displays or lugging his white goods inside. Otherwise, the place was empty. Evan sat and waited at the traffic lights, watching the electronic timer count down the seconds to green. Islamabad was a strange and sterile place at night. There were pockets of life, shoppers out at Jinnah or Supermarket, diners finishing their snacks at the Melody food stalls, but in between, on the main roads and the leafy side streets, he was almost alone.
The timer ticked over and the lights turned green. He pulled away, accelerating towards the National Assembly building, where the streetlights normally worked and the flower beds were kept lush by constant watering, so that the runoff spilt across the road and flooded the gutters. The wheels skidded a little on the water but he swung the car left at the roundabout and cut on to Ataturk Avenue, where there were no lights at all, and the shadows crept out from beneath the trees and swamped the road.
Normally he was a cautious driver, but now he fired the gas pedal, trying to vent some of his frustration through the engine of the black sedan. He was still angry, and it was still his right and nothing that Mundy had said or suggested would change that. His headlights shone suddenly on a family of wild pigs, ahead on the road, crossing from the park to the dirty little stream where, during the daytime, the taxi drivers washed their cars. There were five of them, two adult boars and three scampering piglets, and he crunched the brakes and swerved, peeling the rubber of his tyres and sending their grey backsides squealing into the bush.
He gripped the wheel tight, his knuckles white, like he was steering the jeep down the mountains again. Everything Mundy had said to shock and persuade him, all those ghastly things… any yet… there was only one thing stirring his turmoil. The biography was unpalatable but irrelevant. He could ignore it because he had always known that dark people inhabited the dark places of the world.
But his society – the life he lived – it was governed by rules. Rules of etiquette and social conscience, rules of position and rules of persuasion. He had honestly believed that his superiors were more successful because they had worked harder, because they had been more adept, more committed to their careers and better at following those rules. Evan deserved to be Evan. The High Commissioner deserved to be High Commissioner: he had believed that wholeheartedly. Position meant responsibility, and responsibility meant respectability.
But Mundy had said different. He’s bought already. The suggestion that Boxer was, somehow, breaking the rules… it was anathema to hear that. He couldn’t believe it, or maybe he could, but he desperately didn’t want to. It distressed him immensely. He couldn’t accept it, he couldn’t forget it.
He turned on to the Margalla road, into F sector, almost home. The hills on the right represented the last stubby outreach of the Himalayas, Chitral was four hundred kilometres away, and his daughter somewhere…
He realised, with some shock, that he had forgotten about her. For the first time in nearly three weeks, Mundy had forced her out of his mind. Just for an hour or two perhaps, but that was long enough. The guilt followed him off the carriageway into suburbia, through the narrow lanes with the garish mansions and the tennis courts, the mulberry trees and the frangipani flowers, and along the shabby streets, with the peeling paint, the dust and the pollen, the gnat fuzz in the headlights. His house looked squat and ugly in the moonlight.
The guard opened the gates and the car rolled on to the driveway. Evan got out slowly, feeling incredibly weary, and fumbled with the key in the door. He switched on the hall lights and blinked dumbly.
Mundy’s backpack was propped up against the bar, but it could wait, he would air it another day. He checked the answer phone and the email. The dog was barking in the garden now, chasing something in the bushes, a cat maybe or a rat. But that was all, no messages, no news. Heading into the kitchen, he passed his reflection in the hall mirror, but he hardly recognised the face that stared back. He was exhausted, gaunt and tatty. He found a beer in the fridge, switched off the lights and climbed the stairs to bed.
He hadn’t slept well in weeks, maybe even months. Not since the funeral probably, and he woke up again during the night. The alarm clock said it was shortly after two. He lay in bed and watched the clouds drifting across the new moon, he had forgotten to close his curtains. A small bat was silently flitting around the garden, chasing flies, but the house was deathly quiet. He was acutely aware of the silence on the landing, on the stairs, in the hallway and the bedrooms, the kitchen, the pantry and the corridors. In Avalon’s room.
He had thought he had heard something, that was why he awake. He had thought the same last night and the night before. Every night in fact. It was a cruel dream. He heard her moving in her bedroom, or her footfall on the fake marble, maybe the creak of a closing door, water running in the pipes, the soft click of a light switch. The first couple of nights he had gone downstairs, switched on the light, stared at the spare clothes on the dresser, the suitcase and the empty bed. But not now. Now he lay in the dark and stared at the silver-sliver moon creeping slowly across the sky.
Now she occupied all his thoughts, and he felt so close to her, far closer than when she was in her room, truly in her room, and he stood outside, too scared to knock. In the dark he could pretend that he was a proper father, that she was a proper daughter and that they had been a proper family when Camille died. It was a soothing charade: it bought them all close again. They were eating dinner in a bistro, crossing Shaftsbury Avenue to visit the theatre, taking holidays in the sun, walking along the shore; he was watching his two girls splash in the surf or laze on the beach. It was crueller than the dream – it dragged them both back – but he let it happen. He needed it to fall asleep.
When he woke again it was morning, the sun was streaming through the window on to his pillow. His face felt hot. The alarm clock read 7.06am. He sat up, at least he wasn’t going to be late for Philip again… but he had forgotten to call, he should have told Philip that they were no longer welcome at the High Commission. Oh well, he thought walking to the shower, they could go straight to the airport, maybe there was more he could do there… someone else to question… some other way to fill the time.
He had a good shower, long and steaming hot, but again he decided not to shave. It was too much effort now the beard was thick. He didn’t dress either but went down to the kitchen in his night clothes. The dog was scrabbling to get in at the back door, so he opened that first and watched the foolish mutt skid across the tiles and disappear into the hallway. It was then he noticed that the fridge door was open and that there was a puddle of water on the floor where the ice had melted. He must have left the door ajar after he dug out the beer before bed. He threw the dish rag down to soak up the water then crossed the kitchen to cut some bread for toast.
Just like Mundy, he was becoming more careless and more forgetful. The bread bin was practically empty, he should have bought some more yesterday. Only he was sure that there was more than half a loaf then… but perhaps that was the day before, he was losing track. He pressed the toaster down, found the coffee in the pantry, spooned out some dog food and put the bowl down near the doorway. Then he crossed the room again to fill the kettle and saw that he had forgotten to wash up as well, there were three dirty plates in the sink.
The dog had disappeared, which was strange because it usually guzzled its food the second it was put down. He called out to it but his toast had popped so he went back to the fridge for the butter, which was there at least. He spread the butter thickly and watched it melt. The kettle was beginning to steam and rattle, so he emptied some coffee into the pot and waited for the water to boil. Still the dog was not back, which probably meant that it was chewing the couch or doing unspeakable things to the dining table.
At last the kettle boiled and he filled the pot, placed it on a try along with the toast and an empty mug and left the kitchen through the serving door. The dog wasn’t under the dining table or on the couch but the tray was heavy so he didn’t waste time looking for it.
Outside the sitting room, the house had a small patio, which overlooked the front garden and where there were a couple of cane chairs and a table. After the claustrophobic night, Evan wanted to sit there for a while, to drink his coffee and breathe the fresh autumn air. He crossed the sitting room to the patio door which he kept locked with the key in the door. Only, this time, when he reached for the key, holding the tray in one hand and balancing it on his knee, it wasn’t locked. The door swung easily open. Surely he had not forgotten that too – it had been weeks since he had last had it open. It was another odd thing. The fridge, the dog, the bread, the door… they were like the aftershocks, the ripples in the mantle, hardly noticed but still uncomfortable.
Where was the dog? He felt suddenly quite protective of the dumb animal. He left his coffee brewing on the table and headed back inside, to the kitchen first, where the bowl was still untouched. He called again without response. He searched the dining room a second time, and the sitting room, he climbed the stairs and checked the rooms up there, he made sure the dog had not climbed into his bed. He even unlocked the door and wandered out on to the terrace. Of course the thing wasn’t there… which meant there was only one place left it could be. But he didn’t want to look there, it seemed unfair on the dog’s part to behave with such little consideration.
He walked back down the stairs and turned towards her room. The dog was lying against the door, absently scratching at the wood with a lazy paw.
‘What are you doing hey?’ He always spoke stupidly when addressing the dog. ‘Come on hey, breakfast time. Come away from there.’
But the dog didn’t move and this annoyed him. He felt like he was being teased. He strode up to it and tried to pull it away by the collar but it refused to stand, instead it just slewed around on the floor until he let go. He stared at it sadly, he understood the temptation. He had stood outside the door himself, especially when he first got back. It was an expression of longing, if he waited outside the door long enough, then something might manifest itself inside, like a magic trick. He had closed his eyes even, so when he eventually opened the door – surprise! But he had stopped the habit, it was so unhealthy. But maybe once more… remembering the little things that had changed… he scooped up the dog, shut his eyes and opened the door.
The room was broadly unchanged, the spare clothes were still on the dresser, the suitcase still turned aside, but the bed – he was holding his breath – she was in the bed, fast asleep, her clothes thrown off. Her coat, stained and torn, was on the floor beside a filthy pair of fur boots. He took a step towards the bed, so slowly, it was agonising. A heavy step might break the illusion. The dog licked his cheek. He couldn’t see her face, the duvet was too high, but her hair fell across the pillow, so tangled and dirty it was turning the white cotton grey. He could hear her breathing, calm, deep, life affirming breaths. The dog licked him again. There was a cut on her arm, he could see the dirty scab beneath her elbow.
The curtains were drawn, even the light seemed fragile. It was a wonderful, ephemeral illusion, he was sure of it. He held the dog tight, ruffled its hair, she groaned in her sleep and turned over on the pillow. He saw her face, just like Camille’s face, only softer, maybe a little rounder, and grubby now, caked with dirt and grime. She was dribbling, a little bit of spittle was wet on her chin. He closed his eyes again, then he backed slowly out of the room, closed the door, ever so softly, put the dog down and walked away to eat his toast and drink his coffee.
He was still sitting on the patio at 9.30am, when the guard dragged open the gates and Philip’s jeep steered on to the driveway. The dregs of the coffee was cold by then but the sun was climbing high above the hibiscus trees to warm the patio. Evan was sitting with his eyes closed, the sun on his face, listening to the quiet strains of birdsong.
‘Hello,’ called Philip, clambering out of the jeep, ‘running a bit behind this morning?’
Evan shook his head. He was enjoying a surreal kind of calm, an early morning meditation, a complete and absolute absence of thought. There was nothing in his head but the calls of the hoopoe and the breeze in the trees. No Avalon, no Mundy, no Peter bloody Boxer, nothing at all.
‘What’s going on son?’ said Philip, settling into the other cane chair. ‘Did you not sleep so well?’
The dog was barking, he could hear it in the back garden.
‘Well, no rush,’ Philip continued. ‘Beautiful morning isn’t it? Going to be warm today I reckon. What do you want to do, usual stuff?’
He shook his head again. ‘No not today,’ he said. ‘Something different today.’
‘Oh right.’
There was a fly on the porch, he could hear it buzzing.
‘Do you think you could do me a favour?’ he asked slowly.
‘Name it son.’
‘Would you mind going into my house, through the door here, down to the end of the hallway – and just take a peak in the guestroom there? And maybe, after you’ve done it, come back and tell me what you see?’
‘I can do that,’ said Philip, sounding confused but pushing back the chair and standing up. ‘That’s Avalon’s room though isn’t it? What should I see?’
Evan shook his head again. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I really don’t know.’
Philip disappeared into the house and time passed. How long exactly, Evan wasn’t sure. The newspaper boy rode down the street delivering the Urdu papers to the guards, the wheels squeaked as he pedalled his bicycle. The hoopoe took flight out of its tree, a lemon broke its stalk and fell with a thud on to the driveway. He realised that he didn’t want Philip to come back, it would be better to stay like this, it was better not knowing. It was better drifting, un-tethered and uncertain. If only this peace could last.
But, eventually, Philip did come back. Evan heard him approaching through the sitting room, so he screwed himself tight.
‘Was she there?’ he asked.
‘Was who there?’
‘In the bed, was she there?’
‘There’s no one in the bed son,’ said Philip, sitting back down in the chair. ‘But someone’s using your shower.’
Evan felt the world fall. Just a fraction, like it had slipped from its axis then caught itself, and his stomach turned over. It was another earthquake, but private this time, meant especially for him. Beyond that, there was no sense of relief, not yet, no sense of anything really.
Instead he brewed fresh coffee and they sat together for a while on the patio, not talking much, just letting the sun rise.
‘Have you any idea how?’ Philip asked at last.
‘None.’
‘Well, just thank God, it’s enough to make me a believer.’
But Evan wasn’t a believer. Not yet. He was concerned that he did not feel happier. He wondered if this was real joy, an emotion bordering incomprehension, too fragile and unexpected to fully trust. But he didn’t think so. For some of the time, he wasn’t even thinking about Avalon. He was still troubled by the High Commissioner…
He recalled concerns that had been preying on his mind for months, maybe even years. And, though he realised that seemed important now only because of what Mundy had said last night, he couldn’t forget them. Indeed, he felt impelled to air them. It felt like Avalon’s return had thrown him into unfamiliar territory and reticence was suddenly inappropriate. And he was sure Philip would understand, he sensed a growing empathy between them. Three days ago it would have baffled him – even horrified him – but now something had changed. He found it reassuring, even welcome.
‘Philip,’ he said after a long silence, ‘do you ever think about what you’re doing – I mean what we’re doing – both of us?’
‘What do you mean?’ The older diplomat looked up from his coffee, blinking in the sunlight.
‘Why am I trying so hard?’ Evan asked. ‘I’m miserable. I’m going nowhere. I mean, in life, in the job. No one respects me, I know they don’t. But I keep trying, I keep hammering my head against this bloody brick wall, until my brain bleeds, and I don’t know why.’
‘Evan… what are you talking about son?’
‘Look… I don’t know Phil, it’s complicated. But I’m sick of it. I’m sick of feeling…’
‘Of feeling what?’
‘Useless. I’m sick of feeling useless and I’m sick of feeling like I have to do what they want when… when they think I’m a bloody joke. Look at us Phil. They think of any excuse to keep you away from the place and me – they hardly notice if I’m there or not. I’m a bloody joke to them.’
The older man looked distinctly uncomfortable. Evan should have realised that it was inappropriate to confide such things to another man. When was it ever appropriate to be so personal? Never maybe, or in bed, in the dark, in whispers between lovers.
There was a long and awkward pause, during which Philip put down his coffee cup and pretended to watch the dog sniffing in the bushes.
Eventually he said, ‘I’m not sure I understand Evan, what’s worrying you exactly? She’s back isn’t she? It’s over. Be glad, for Christ’s sake.’
Evan hung his head, he felt like he had betrayed something.
Philip continued, ‘I know it must be hard to get your head around all this, it’s been hard enough just watching you go through it. But this now, this is a good thing – it’s a bloody miracle – in a shitty world. So just be glad son, because there’s nothing either of us can do about that other stuff.’
Evan looked up and tried a weak smile. There was a tenderness in Philip’s voice that made him feel humble. Like they were almost friends.
‘Sorry…’
‘Don’t be daft lad – my word, here she is!’
Avalon was walking through the living room towards them, dressed and freshly scrubbed but looking sleepy – she might just have got up after a late night and a morning oversleeping.
‘I might leave you two to it,’ said Philip quietly, standing up and backing out towards the driveway. ‘Give me a call if you need anything…’
Evan wanted to get up and hug his daughter, the urge to do so was like a rush of blood and a missed heartbeat. But he didn’t get up, something stronger kept him in his chair. He heard Philip start his engine and back out of the driveway but he was watching Avalon. She came out of the house, rubbed her eyes, pulled back her damp hair and collapsed into the cane chair. But she didn’t look at him, not properly, instead her eyes wandered around the garden, followed the dog, glanced at the guard who was closing the gates… anywhere but him.
‘When did you get in,’ he asked her quietly, ‘did I hear you during the night?’
She shrugged and smiled awkwardly. ‘Late,’ she said, ‘I tried to be quiet.’
‘Are you hungry – have you had some toast?’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Good, that’s good.’
He had so many questions to ask, but they were being crushed under their collective weight. He could not think what to ask first – what was most important, what was least important? And she was acting like it was the most normal thing in the world, to wander in after weeks in the wilderness…
‘How did you get in?’ he said.
‘Through this door,’ she said, ‘I worked out a way…’
‘You forgot to lock it.’
‘Oh.’
‘No, it’s fine. I’m just glad…’
‘Yeah, well, I’m sorry though.’
‘Jesus Avy! Where have you been?’ He lost control of the question, it forced its way out and, instead of voicing his concern, his confusion and his love, he simply sounded irritated. He tried to explain, ‘I’ve been so, so worried about you… every day… I thought…’
‘Yeah.’ She still wouldn’t look at him.
‘Please sweetheart, I just want to know that you’re alright. I’ve been so frantic…’
‘I’m fine dad, I’m fine. And I’m sorry, I wanted to call you – I tried – but the lines were down…’
He cut her off, smothering her explanation with a hug, lunging of his chair and throwing his arms around her neck. It was too much suddenly, the weight was too great, he pressed her head against his chest and stroked her hair, his glasses knocked askew. But she was not hugging him back, not in the same way, she was awkward in his arms. It reminded him of the way Camille was in their last few months together, when the heart had escaped and the body was waiting for an excuse to follow.
He pulled back admonished, retreated to his chair. He had felt closer to her during the night, when she was nothing more than a figment of his longing.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said meekly, ‘it’s just such a relief.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said but she sounded uncomfortable, ‘it’s really good to be back.’
‘It is?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Tell me what happened Avy, please. When I saw the guesthouse… but they said that you weren’t there. Where did you go? Why couldn’t we find you.’
‘I got separated,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I looked for you, we kept going back to the town, but you weren’t there. So they bought me out of the mountains. We walked out over the pass.’ She shrugged. ‘Only it took a long time.’
‘They?’ Evan asked. ‘Who’s they?’
‘Alain and Izzy,’ she said and she was much more animated suddenly. She sat forward in her chair and her cheeks flushed as she raced through her words. ‘You know – Alain Legembre – the man you were looking for. Can you believe it? How much of a coincidence is that? He’s the most amazing man actually. He’s so interesting. I can’t believe you used to know each other. The whole thing has been amazing actually. They found me. After the earthquake. I’ll tell you all about it but, I’ve just realised, I’m actually quite hungry.’









Chapter Eighteen
The snowstorm delayed them on the Lowari pass for three days. They couldn’t move forward, they couldn’t retreat, instead they were forced to wait in the hut and hope that their food lasted. When it eventually stopped snowing, Avalon wanted to climb back down to Chitral, but Alain told her no, they must cross the pass now or wait for spring. So they launched themselves into the snow and the rock and the ice, and they battled the winds, and then they started the long and slow climb down the other side.
There were no trucks. They had been driven back by rock fall and the inclement weather, so they walked alone in the mist, hardly eating, taking shelter at night beneath overhanging rocks and, on one occasion, in a cave of ice, formed where a frozen river fell across the road.
It took five days to reach Dir and she was half starved when they got there. They rested for a day and Alain and Izzy refilled their packs, then they set off towards the Swat valley and, after that, the Punjab. Still the only traffic on the road was heading north, not south, so they couldn’t get a lift. They walked on the bed of the Panjkora River, which ran in a large cleft between the mountains. For two days they saw and heard nothing but the slap-splash of trout in the river. Then the snow began to thin, the ice floats in the water broke up and eventually washed away. Cedar trees and poplars began to grow on the hills. The riverbed grew wider and now, when they camped, they kept to the trees, where there were always large boulders covered in green moss for shelter.
They began to pass through small villages, the valleys flattened out and there were green fields on either side of the river. They caught their first lift from a village just north of the Swat valley. They hung off the back of a pickup truck and it hurtled down the mountains towards Malakand, round hairpin bends and over narrow bridges, and the roads were crowded suddenly with slow trucks and speeding motorcycles, and the valley fell away in a steep parabola, through rock and scree and grass and pasture, all the way down to the Swat river.
She was uncomfortable in Malakand, in the heart of the tribal lands; she hid beneath her scarf and kept behind Alain. But they were not there long. They caught a truck out on the long straight colonial road, with the yew trees growing overhead, and the smell of diesel and the brush of tree-branch shadows.
They made it into Islamabad late last night. She found her way to the house and broke in and saw that he was alive, because she hadn’t known and she had worried the whole way. But she was exhausted, and not wanting to wake him, she slipped into bed and fell fast asleep. And there it all was: over two weeks of travelling and nothing to tell. But now, at last, she was back. She was showered. She was safe.

* * *

He feared he was losing her. Actually, he feared she was lost already. She wasn’t really found, not properly. Not the way he wanted. It was early evening and she was sleeping again. There was no food in the cupboards. He hadn’t been shopping in a fortnight, so he needed to go at some point. But he didn’t want to leave the house… just in case it was empty when he came back. He remembered the note that Camille had left for him, the few perfunctory words of apology, and the empty house…
It was happening all over again, he thought, just like before, only there was a slight change to the cast. It was a sick twist of fate. Two months ago, he had hardly known his daughter. Now he wanted to know nothing else. But his faith was crumbling. He was beginning to doubt the structures that underpinned his existence, he was sceptical of his colleagues, suspicious of his superiors… and as for his work… he hardly knew what he did, or why he did it. Mundy had ruined it all for him, with a single throwaway sentence.
He tried to tell himself that it would pass, that it was just the shock and trauma of the past few weeks, but he knew it wasn’t. Something in his psyche was changing. It was like the slow start to a chemical reaction, molecules were beginning to tremble, compounds were heating up, his brain was beginning to effervesce.
And Alain Legembre was alive. More than that, Alain Legembre had bought Avalon home.
And he kept thinking: she hadn’t wanted to hug him…
He was searching for things to keep himself busy, to keep himself distracted. Tidying the house, washing clothes that had been forgotten for weeks, and there was Mundy’s backpack of course, that still needed airing. In fact, that was what he decided to do.
The heat of the afternoon had faded and it was quite cool in the entrance hall when he sat cross-legged on the tiles and pulled the battered old pack towards him. It made him think of that crazy night in Chitral at the end of the long drive, Mundy swaying in the passenger seat and the Major whose jeep he had stolen. He remembered the desolation he had felt searching at Rawicz’s farm, the realisation that he was less than a man, the idea that everything he had once loved was passed.
He untied the buckles and opened the hood of the pack. The old food was on top, the rations Mundy had taken from the guesthouse before they left. It was wrapped up in cellophane, turning rank and squishy. He turned up his nose as he put it aside. There was the empty water bottle too, some spare shirts, a cell phone that was switched off. He found a wallet and a South African passport: it was Mundy’s photo but the name read Jacques De Boer. He was nearing the bottom of the pack. There was a black mackintosh, some underwear and, the very last thing, a bundle of dirty clothes rolled up into a ball. Except the bundle was very heavy to be just clothes, far too heavy in fact, and it made a heavy clunk when he dropped it on the floor. It smelled strange too, like oil or something.
His backside was turning numb but he stayed where he was to examine the bundle, which wasn’t clothes at all but a torn piece of white cotton sheet, which he unwrapped slowly, fold after fold, until the black Makarov was undressed in his hands.
He dropped the gun and it bounced on the fake marble. For a second he was scared it might fire, but it didn’t. A full box of ammunition, also wrapped in the sheet, suggested it wasn’t loaded. But he didn’t know how to tell for sure, because he had never handled a gun before. It could be loaded, triggered, set, cocked, ready to fire, whatever the word might be The metal, he noticed, was a dull grey-black but there were patches of grease around the trigger and the barrel. It wasn’t a large weapon, maybe only eight inches long, but it was heavy and, the way Evan stared at it, he might just have unwrapped a missile.
He was fascinated and appalled in equal measure. His first, anxious impulse was to hide it. Since childhood, he had lived with an almost Orwellian fear of entrapment. Sometimes, he feared, even his thoughts would betray him. It troubled him as an adult too. Just having the gun in the house, he imagined, could bring swarms of police. Just discovering the gun felt like a crime and the authorities – somewhere, someone – would know… he had to hide it, immediately, but where? No… he had to get it back to Mundy. Either way, he had to get rid of it.
But then another thought: what had Mundy been doing with it?
He recalled the stories – stories, he realised, that he had only half accepted – of violence in Africa and bloody murder. How had he ever got involved with this man? But he wasn’t involved, and he didn’t need to think that way, it wasn’t his fault, he had to remind himself of that, the High Commissioner had sent him. It was the High Commissioner. The High Commissioner…
He picked up the gun in his right hand and found he was suddenly less anxious. It was so heavy he could hardly hold his arm straight. He pretended to aim it, to hold it steady at an imaginary foe, a metaphor he could shoot down. It felt good to close one eye and stare down the spine of the barrel. He felt empowered. Not so weak now, not so feeble…
The reaction was running faster. The gun: a catalyst.
It had got dark quickly.
There was a knock at the front door, three loud raps then silence. He almost dropped the gun a second time. Instead he just clung on to it, grabbed the sheet from the floor, hurried across the entrance hall and stuffed the bundle into the back of the bureau. It was a terrible hiding place, but there was no time to think of anywhere better. His hands were shaking, he was so tense – hyperactive almost – his mind was buzzing on a thousand possible calamities. In the first instance, he feared the police at the door, it was a knee-jerk, instinctive panic. But a second later he knew he was wrong. There was only one person coming for him and, he knew with complete certainty, that it was Alain Legembre.
It was the worse possible timing. He couldn’t concentrate.
If he thought of Alain, he thought of Avalon, then Camille, then Alain again, then Mundy, then the gun, then the High Commissioner and so on, until his world was a plunge-pool full of doubt and guilt and swirling panic. He was so used to order, to emotional partition, that he could only deal with things separately and in sequence. He couldn’t deal with Alain while he was still fretting over Avalon, or while a firearm lurked in the drawer of his bureau. It was too exhausting.
The knock came a second time, exactly the same rhythm. He stilled his shaking hand on the door latch. He needed to calm down, he was creating this panic himself, just like he always did. But he was older now, wiser, he could control it. The only thing to fear from Alain Legembre was what he represented and that sort of fear could be conquered. Maybe now was the time to put past failures where they belonged. He was thinking of the gun as he opened the door.
After the clear blue day, the night seemed awfully cold. There were two men standing in the driveway, he struggled to recognise either of them.
‘Long time Evan…’
Alain Legembre had changed a great deal since their lunch at the French Club. He looked much older Evan thought, maybe ten years older than he had. Most of the change was in his face. He was gaunt now and his skin had dried like old wood, there were cracks and furrows, knots around his eyes, hollows in his cheeks, and a stain like deep varnish. There was the beard too, the tangled hair.
‘Hello Alain,’ Evan’s voice was tight. ‘Are you well?’
‘Not so bad,’ Alain shrugged, ‘how’s Avalon?’
‘She’s sleeping. Thank you… for bringing her back.’
‘What else could I do? Sorry to turn up like this…’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Evan hurriedly, he was hoping he could make them leave somehow.
‘This is Ismail Khan,’ Alain said, ‘he has been looking after Avalon.’
Izzy came forward to shake Evan’s hand
‘Do you think we could come in?’
‘Yes… sorry. Of course, come in.’
He hadn’t been able to think of an excuse fast enough, it was too hard to concentrate. So he stepped aside instead and the two men entered the house, both pausing to wipe their feet on the mat, and then they all stood in the entrance hall together, in semi-darkness and awkward silence. Evan’s brain was working like an old-fashioned camera wheel. Alain, Avalon, the gun. Alain, Avalon, the gun. He wanted Alain to leave, he wanted Avalon to sleep, he wanted the gun – what? Did he want it to disappear, or did he want it in his hand, held steady, so he could aim the barrel and focus? The light snapped on suddenly and he was startled. Alain had turned it on. It felt like a gross intrusion on the Frenchman’s part, to bring light into his house.
‘There we go,’ said the Frenchman, ‘now I can see you.’
Evan’s eyes wandered towards the bureau. He had left the drawer slightly open, there was an inch-wide gap for his secret to escape.
‘We were hoping we might see Avalon,’ said Alain.
But that was the last thing Evan wanted, he was utterly unprepared for that conflict. So he said, ‘I don’t think so, I’m sorry… afraid she’s sleeping.’
‘No I’m not. I can hear you talking,’ his daughter called out from her room. ‘Just give me a moment.’
Evan swallowed, then exhaled a long, strangled breath. There was no reason to feel this way, but he couldn’t help it. He pictured his world, like a china globe spinning through space, but it was cracked, rent along its fault lines and breaking into fragments, and he was juggling the continents, the tectonic plates, keeping them all in the air, all spinning, because if he dropped just one, then he knew, it would shatter beyond repair.
What had caused the damage? Was it the earthquake, had the tremors gone metaphysical? Or had the cracks been there all along, like hairline fissures in the porcelain? Was that what kept him weak, the knowledge that his psyche was so unstable?
‘Hey guys,’ Avalon wandered out from her room buttoning her shirt and rubbing her eyes. ‘Sorry, I was sleeping again. Why don’t you come in properly? How about we all go in the sitting room.’
Evan was aware that, somehow, he had surrendered control of his house. But, whether it was to his daughter or to Alain Legembre, he wasn’t sure. For the moment, he was glad to move people out of the entrance hall and away from the bureau. He nudged the drawer closed as he walked passed but a corner of the sheet had escaped somehow. His secret was un-tucked.
Still, the other three seemed not to notice, they were already settled in the couches and talking. He glanced back at the bureau, then followed them into the room, but he felt immediately excluded.
‘Is anyone hungry,’ he asked, ‘there’s not much in the kitchen but…’
‘Have a seat Evan,’ Alain said, ‘we stopped by the market on our way. Izzy has bread and cakes in his bag… he will get some plates from the kitchen.’
Evan sat down across the room from them, in the spare armchair, like a guest in his own house. His daughter was facing him, Alain was on the couch. Izzy took his duffel bag into the kitchen.
‘Has Avalon told you about the journey?’ Alain asked.
‘Yes,’ Evan said quietly. He was listening to Izzy moving around the kitchen.
‘How did it go?’ Avalon asked Alain.
‘Not so well,’ the Frenchman said.
‘I’m so sorry… is there no way you can stop him?’
Izzy interrupted Alain’s reply by returning from the kitchen with the food. Evan watched his daughter bite into a pastry, Alain and Izzy took food off the plate too. But Evan didn’t eat, he didn’t feel hungry. He was waiting for the conversation to continue, hoping that it would be easier to concentrate now that they were all in the room together, way form the bureau.
‘I don’t know,’ said Alain at last. ‘I can’t think of anything else we can do.’
‘I wish that there was something we could do to help you.’
‘The best thing you can do is stop worrying about it. Look after Evan – he must have had a terrible time worrying about you.’ Alain’s words sounded mechanical rather than insincere. It was strange Evan thought, rather like he was walking through a rehearsal for a play. Avalon though spoke eagerly. She had invested in the moment. She leaned forward in her armchair, closer to them, further from Evan.
‘But what will you do now? Will you stay in Islamabad for a while?’
‘A couple of days.’
‘Then what? Will you go back to Oxford? Or to France?’
‘Who knows? Maybe I could.’
‘And what about you Izzy? Have you thought any more about what we talked about?’
‘Excuse me,’ Evan stood up suddenly. ‘I’ll be… just a moment…’
It was too much. Their conversation felt false, too much like a pretence, like the three of them were conspirators. He sat listening to Alain’s easy confidence and the subtle shift of tone in his daughter’s voice, the declaration of allegiance, so like her mother, and he felt history repeating. He was facing his own alienation, and he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t think, his chest was tight, so he stood up, he backed off and, for the sake of his sanity, he left the room.
He closed the door behind him and stood in the entrance hall. He felt like he was sweating but, when he touched his neck, it was quite dry. He needed air, fresh cold air, and sky and space to settle his thoughts. First though he went to the bureau, slid open the drawer and picked up the bundle of grease-stained sheets. If he left it in the drawer, then the uncertainty of the secret would grow, like a second pulse in his carotid artery, and it would grow and grow until it throbbed and hurt and became deafening. He couldn’t leave it there, he needed to think, he needed it with him. So he slipped it under his jumper, quietly opened the front door and skirted round to the back of the house, where he sat down on the rotted tree stump, beneath the overhanging hibiscus bushes, deep in the shadows.
He unwrapped the Makarov slowly, almost reverentially. If anything, it was heavier than he remembered, the metal dull and cold. He didn’t aim it again, he didn’t have to, as long as he was holding it, he was calm. How could that be? He couldn’t even begin to understand the psychological mechanism that had turned something so threatening into a comfort. Perhaps it was just knowing where it was, feeling like he had some control over the secret. It became a physical problem then, rather than a mental one, and he didn’t have to think about it so much. Not while he was thinking about Alain Legembre and his grip was tightening on the gun. What did the Frenchman have? What made him so alluring to the women Evan loved? He was like a poison they felt compelled to drink.
The memory of Camille’s affair stirred in him not anger but a deep suppressed sorrow. After all, the memories were so contorted now, paradise and purgatory had merged together and become inseparable.
Twenty years ago, newly married, they had moved to Oxford so that he could study. The first few months, he had been so stupidly happy. So dumb and ignorant and blind, he had thought it nothing more than happy chance when Alain had arrived – and Camille had been happy too, she had got a job translating at the Maison Francaise… and her oldest friend… such a wonderful coincidence.
Alain had even been his friend for a while. They had shared jokes over pints in The Turf. They had played soccer in the college leagues through autumn and a cold wet winter. Alain would come round for lunch on Sundays. Or they would eat beans and chips in the Radcliff Arms and walk on Port Meadow.
It was at the end of that first spring when Camille had started to complain. She had wanted to get away, to London or Paris, somewhere bigger, she had said, less claustrophobic. But he hadn’t wanted to. It had all been too easy… too comfortable. He had assumed that she was bored in her job and had asked her to be patient. And three months later, she had told him she was pregnant.
Avalon had been born at the start of his second year. For months, Evan had hardly seen Alain. He had been preoccupied, struggling with his work, arguing with Camille. He didn’t remember much from that period, neither the winter nor the spring. He recalled that, in midsummer, they had taken Avalon to France for a few weeks. It had been an awkward and uneasy trip. They had argued because Camille had not wanted to return to Oxford but he had persuaded her in the end – he didn’t remember how. It was supposed to be his third and final year.
Avalon’s first birthday: 8th October 1988. They had had a small party and run out of something… he couldn’t remember what. He had gone to the shops… he had come back… and Alain had been there. It was the first time he had seen the Frenchman in months but, somehow, he had known immediately. It had been obvious. He had listened to the shifting tones in Camille’s voice and watched the vague shuffle of Alain’s feet, and he had known. They had argued, Camille had run out with Avalon, he had seen tears cloud Alain’s eyes. Or maybe the tears had clouded his own eyes because when, eventually, he forced Alain out, he had looked in those eyes – blue-grey and impossibly vacant – and he had thought only of Avalon.
A month later he had quit his course and joined the Foreign Office as a desk clerk. They had moved to London, where they stayed – in anything but paradise – until the divorce.
Seventeen years had passed since the birthday party and he couldn’t stay angry that long. But he could stay fearful. Alain Legembre terrified him. More specifically, those blue-grey eyes terrified him. What would his daughter see if she looked into them? How much would Alain need to tell her before she started to guess? How much had he told her already? Evan could live with the uncertainty himself, but could she? He doubted it somehow. She was so uncertain, so scared for herself in a world without her mother.
She would turn to Alain in an instant – and, for Evan, that would mean the end of everything. He had thought there was hope: at the funeral, staring at his wife’s coffin, he had hoped to reclaim his daughter. Burying the ashes with her, he had hoped to bury the secrets and the uncertainty as well. Driving her home, he had hoped to become her father again.
But there had been an earthquake, the world was fractured and spinning and, somehow, she had found Alain Legembre… the other man with a claim to her past, with a stake in her future. In a sane world, how could that have happened?
He couldn’t cope with the enormity of the coincidence. He had been ordered after Alain Legembre, he had hoped to advance his career, he had stupidly taking his daughter with him, hoping to keep her separate, locked in the hotel, but instead...
What Alain want? What did any of them want? Mundy wanted him to chase down a Russian criminal, the High Commissioner didn’t. Mundy had given him a gun… no, wait… he had found Mundy’s gun. They were all criminals together. All three of them: out for their own.
But what did he want? What did he really, truly crave? What made him greedy? He knew the answer because he was holding it in his right hand. The cold weight of purpose – that was what he wanted. And the confidence to claim something for his own. He wanted strength to show Mundy, to defeat Alain Legembre and to defy the High Commissioner. He wanted the perfect hand and the confidence to play it well. He wanted to be his own man, free to preserve his wife’s memory, not taint it with their failed relationship. He wanted his daughter back.
But how could he achieve those things? He couldn’t even pursue them all, there was too much chaos in his world, too many fragments spinning, with nothing to unite them, no way of making them whole.
Pietr Rawicz. The name came to him fully formed – cooled magma – like unearthing a fossil in the ash. Mundy knew Rawicz. Alain knew Rawicz. Boxer knew Rawicz. And they all cared, one way or another, about what he was doing. That was what Avy was asking Alain. Is there no way you can stop him? Evan was certain. That was what she cared about too. Not Alain the man, but Alain the story. That was the answer right there – he was sure of it.
And he knew what to do.
He was shaking again when he walked back into the house. But it was different now, a whole new feeling. He slid the gun back into the bureau because he wanted the pulse in his neck, he wanted to be reminded of his secret arsenal. He opened the door to the sitting room. Avy had moved beside Alain on the couch, but that didn’t bother him. It was his sitting room after all. His house. His responsibility.
Time to stand up for himself.
‘Avalon,’ he said, ‘I have something I need to talk about with Alain. Maybe you could take Ismail out on to the terrace.’
‘What?’ she started to protest but he cut across her.
‘Now,’ he demanded, ‘I’m not going to ask twice.’
He saw her look to Alain, saw how she looked for his backing in the fight, but the Frenchman shrugged his shoulders, he was ducking the challenge, and she was defeated.
‘Come on Izz,’ she said, ‘I’ll show you around.’
They slunk out of the room and he sat down in the armchair opposite the couch.
‘Not sure that was a good idea,’ said Alain. ‘Sending those two out alone on a romantic starlit night?’
Evan read the tone, he heard Alain claiming Avalon as his own. But he didn’t care, because he had the answer.
‘I need to talk to you…’ he said again.
‘Look,’ said Alain quickly, his voice lowered but urgent, ‘I know what you’re thinking – but I haven’t told her anything yet. Only that I knew you… once, a long time ago. I wanted us to talk about it first, I think that’s for the best. Don’t you agree?’
He didn’t say anything yet, he could wait for the Frenchman to run dry.
‘I know you want me to disappear. God knows Evan, I’ve tried. But she came to me – she came to me. So, whatever you’re going to say, you have to remember that.’
Evan waited for him to finish. ‘I don’t walk to talk about that,’ he said. ‘Listen to me. Later – maybe – we can get on to that. But there’s something else I need to ask you first. Alright? Now, earlier Avalon was asking you about something – something you’ve been trying to organise today. Correct?’
Alain didn’t answer the question immediately. He stared at Evan full of suspicion, full of mistrust but also, Evan was pleased to notice, with a faint hint of doubt as well.
‘You want to find Pietr Rawicz. Am I correct?’
‘How…’
‘Am I correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m guessing that today you’ve been doing the rounds, visiting some of the gem miners, trying to find someone with the time and cash to stop him. I would imagine that there’s a few people in this city who dislike Rawicz’s illegal enterprise.’
Alain shrugged. ‘What do you know?’
‘I know plenty, ‘ Evan said confidently. ‘I know you stopped working on anything remotely worthwhile several years ago. You’ve spent the best part of four years looking for gem sites in the Hindu Kush. That’s right isn’t it?’
Alain sank back in the couch. Evan thought he looked distinctly uncomfortable, stunned even, just for a moment before he nodded his head. ‘I worked out the patterns for marble host reflectance.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘When the sun hits the earth, the heat is absorbed differently depending on the density and structure of the bedrock. When there are igneous intrusions in the marble, the heat patterns are different. I worked out how to tell from the satellites…’
‘Not quite the noble use of your work you always described.’
‘Times change.’
‘Indeed they do. I’ve spent most of the last month with a man who was sent over here to hunt you. Not exactly academia like I imagine it.’
‘No.’
‘This man told me that you’d lost your work, and now this Rawicz has it. That’s true as well?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘I understand that you used to work together, so what’s the big problem?’
Alain shrugged. He was definitely feeling uncomfortable.
‘No… that confused me for a while too.’ Evan laughed dryly. ‘I mean, why should it be such a bad thing when these people finally get the work that they’ve paid for? I wondered if you had got greedy, if you fancied a bit of gem hunting yourself. Was that it? Or did you get nervous? Did you realise just what sort of people you were working for? If the man I’ve met…’
‘John Mundy?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Do you know him?’
‘Avalon told me his name.’
‘Not a pleasant man, to be honest. Someone attacked you – is that right? He organised that.’
Evan was pleased to see that Alain looked awful. He was winning already, exposing the man’s transgressions – it was like forced confession.
‘At the end of summer,’ said Alain shakily, ‘I was sleeping… they… I think I cut one…’
Suddenly Evan realised who was buried in the Kalash grave. One of the men Mundy had contracted, one of the driver’s brothers… the Kalash must have known… they were covering for Rawicz, or they were covering for Alain. Had Mundy worked it out? He probably had.
There was no need to tell Alain. So instead he said, ‘you escaped though didn’t you and then – what? You lost your research to Rawicz?’
‘No, I had already sent it to you. You took it to Chitral…’
‘To me? Why did you send it to me?’
‘Who else do I know Evan?’ Alain leant forward from the couch, like he was levelling an accusation. Then he shook his head and retreated back into the chair. ‘Honestly, who else do you know? Avalon opened it… she took it to Rawicz by mistake.’
‘Avalon? Why would she…?’
‘A mistake.’
‘But you had no right…’ Evan started angrily but stopped himself. He imagined the pulse in his neck, remembered his purpose. ‘I’m sorry for that,’ he said, ‘I had no idea we had taken anything up there.
Alain shrugged again. ‘A mistake.’
‘A mistake… your mistake. You tried to hide your research because you felt guilty.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Maybe we know each other better than either of us would like to admit Alain. I saw where you lived up there. It was your home for how many years? But you sold it out… the place, the people, maybe even both. Am I right?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Well listen to me then, because I have a proposition. You want to stop it yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ll help you. I have connections. I can get us on a flight out of Islamabad. I can get us jeeps and food and anything else you need. Three days and we can be up there? Is that enough time?’
‘I… I don’t know.’ More than anything else, Alain looked confused. ‘He’s had three weeks. That’s probably long enough to work out the maps… to get himself there…’
‘But you know exactly where he is going? Somewhere in those Kalash valleys?’
‘Yes.’ The Frenchman nodded dumbly. Evan felt good to be so far ahead of him.
‘Then let’s try it. Let’s get up there and let’s stop him. You and me, lets do it ourselves. I can get you everything you need…’
They looked at each other and Alain shook his head. He was struggling with the idea, or struggling with Evan’s sudden confidence. ‘It’s probably too late,’ he said bleakly, ‘anyway… I’m used to the guilt.’
‘Don’t expect my sympathy,’ Evan said. ‘If we can get this done then, maybe, we’ll have that discussion. Do you agree?’
Alain sat deep in the couch. He was staring out the window. Evan felt impatient, waiting for the Frenchman’s brain to work. But at last he said, ‘alright… agreed.’
‘Good,’ Evan stood up. ‘I’ll make some phone calls,’ he said.
‘Just one thing,’ Alain stopped him leaving the room. ‘I don’t understand… what’s your interest? Why do you care Evan?’
‘I have decided it’s time I stood up for myself,’ Evan said, ‘surely you agree?’
And with that he turned away and left the room. He crossed the entrance hall with barely a glance at the bureau and began to climb the stairs up to the terrace. He would phone Philip in a minute, but first he wanted to tell Avalon the good news. It was a wonderful feeling, being guided by purpose, and things were changing. He had no idea how, but he would make it work. Things had started well, he thought. If it was any sort of omen, the conversation with Alain had been almost perfect.











Chapter Nineteen
It was another warm morning, although there was an early haze, like a light fog, that shimmered over the expanse of the Punjab and did not burn off. Rawalpindi was a dark smog-stain on the horizon.
According to Alain, there was no law to stop Pietr Rawicz. There was no government authority that they could appeal to – and, anyway, the government was consumed with the earthquake – and Rawicz had more influence with the Kalash than anyone. If they were going to stop him digging in the valleys, they had to fly to Chitral themselves.
But how would they stop him once they got there? That was the obvious question, the one which weighed heaviest on Evan’s mind while he waited through the morning and into the afternoon for Philip to return his call. Alain wouldn’t give him a straight answer. When he pressed him, the Frenchman evaded the question or said simply that they would have to see when they got there. Well, could they talk to Rawicz reasonably? Would he listen? How many men would he have? What would they be like? What would Alain do if he refused to listen? How could they possibly resolve it?
Evan’s bag was already packed. He had done that last night before he went to bed. There was nothing else to do. Apparently, madness required no planning.
Shortly after three, the phone rang.
‘Phil?’ His voice was louder than usual when he answered.
‘Hello Evan, you alright?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Fine. Did you have any luck?’
There was a short pause on the line, then Philip said, ‘there’s a Chinook scheduled to leave tomorrow morning. If you still want to do this, there’s space for you and one other – only one other, you understand. I’ve arranged it with my friend. You’ll need to get to the airport early, about five I reckon, and ask for Kevin Simms. He’ll get you through security, but you’ll have to pretend to be journalists if you want to get on board – the Americans won’t carry you if they know you’re a British diplomat. Not without Boxer’s approval. But Kevin can sort out passes, I’ll make up the details.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Listen to me now – Kevin can’t do anything about getting you on a flight back. Once you’re up there, you’re on your own…’
‘That’s alright. I’ll figure something out. But really just two of us? I was hoping for three.’
‘Sorry, two is the maximum. It’ll have to be you and the interpreter – something like that. If you can’t manage with two – think again – don’t go.’
‘No, we’ll manage with two. Thank you Phil. Thank you so much for doing this.’
‘Don’t mention it, I just hope it works out for you.’
‘So do I. You said 5am right?’
‘That’s right. I’ll let Kevin know you’re coming. Give yourself plenty of time and keep your fingers crossed.’
‘I will do,’ Evan said. ‘There’s just one more thing… hopefully I won’t be gone long but, while I’m away, do you think… could you keep an eye on Avalon for me? This is the second time I’ve left her…’
‘Course I will son,’ Philip said. ‘Don’t worry about her. Worry about yourself right – look after yourself.’
‘Thanks Phil.’
‘Take care Evan.’
After he hung up the phone, he found them sitting on the terrace together, all three of them, just like a fully formed family.
‘How long will you be away?’ Avalon wanted to know.
‘No more than a few days,’ he said, ‘isn’t that right Alain?’
‘Absolutely,’ the Frenchman agreed, which meant that both of them were lying.

* * *

His alarm sounded at four and he switched it off quickly. He hadn’t been asleep. In fact, he hadn’t slept at all. That was probably bad news before such a long and uncertain day, but he had been too nervous, too uneasy, too excited…
He got out of bed and dressed quickly. His clothes were laid out on the dresser, normal dress for now, but he had a shalwar packed for when they reached Chitral. The bag was at the foot of his bed. He hadn’t wanted to leave it in the entrance hall.
He descended the stairs in the dark. Alain and Izzy were waiting for him. He asked them to step outside but he didn’t follow them. Instead he turned away, passed by the kitchen and walked down the short corridor towards Avalon’s room. The door was shut and, again, he felt the same old nerves when he considered what was inside. He didn’t try and enter her room, he knew she was asleep. Instead he pressed his ear against the door and listened through the wood to the faint sound of her snoring. It was a gentle, soothing sound, almost musical. Camille had sometimes snored the same way, usually after too much wine. He had to remember that, whatever else happened in the mountains – she was the reason.
He made a silent promise to himself and turned away. He was becoming more adept at the art of not thinking, keeping his mind quiet. The front door was open and a cool air was blowing through. He stepped out on to the porch and closed it quietly behind him.
‘Ready?’ he asked Alain.
‘Ready.’
He nodded and turned to Izzy. ‘You may stay in my house,’ he said, ‘but she is my daughter, and I will know. Do you understand?’
He wasn’t exactly sure why he said it and he wasn’t exactly sure what he meant. But it felt appropriate somehow, it felt like the sort of thing he should say. The young Afghan was, in Evan’s eyes, an extension of his master. And that was reason enough, right there, to remind him of territory.
He had organised for a local driver to collect them, rather than call one of the companies the High Commission occasionally used. It was more discreet that way. If he harboured any hope of returning to work, the people at the High Commission, especially Peter Boxer, could not know what he was doing.
The local cars were all the same, ancient and battered and noisy. This one had just the single headlight working at the front and no brake lights at all. And the door, Evan soon discovered, could swing open unless he held shut, and the engine coughed out a noxious black smoke that filled the car and made their eyes water. So riding in it was no better than looking at it. But it was better to travel like this… better to be incognito.
It was impossible for them to get close to the airport in the taxi, so they paid the driver on the Rawalpindi perimeter road and walked the rest of the way. Even at such an early hour, the place was frantic. The car parks and most of the concourse were buried beneath sacs and crates and piles of second hand clothes, most of which had been donated in Islamabad. As a result, the people waiting for the international flights to arrive were crammed into half the space they required and they spilled out between the crates and the boxes like water running through irrigation channels.
The relief flights were all leaving from the domestic terminal, which was at the far left hand end of the dreary grey facade. It was no less busy. The army was officially in charge, and there were soldiers everywhere, moving the crates around with forklifts, marching around with clipboards, or just standing around talking. There were several foreign relief teams, predominantly large men in overalls and neon jackets. And then there were the officials, the civil servants and the diplomats.
Evan knew where to find Kevin because he had spent two weeks pestering the American office for news of his daughter. Philip’s friend was expecting them. He gave them their fake passes – Evan was a journalist from a London newspaper, Alain his, supposedly, Pakistani translator – and ushered them through the terminal building and out on to the runway. It was just as crowded here as out front. Supplies were pouring in on the international flights, and the airport simply couldn’t ship them on fast enough. If anything, the crates were stacked higher and more haphazardly than when Evan last visited.
Their aircraft was on the runway already. The Chinook was like a vast twin-headed, black-bellied bird, a helicopter longer almost that Evan’s house. Soldiers were loading crates into the cargo hold, a Finnish rescue team was waiting to board and several of the aircrew were carrying out checks on the propellers and on the engine. He and Alain joined the queue behind the Finns and waived their passes at the solider who came to inspect them. Evan looked at his closely for the first time. His fake name was Peter Boxer.
After a brief wait, they were led up a short flight of metal steps into the helicopter. Their seats, such as they were, ran down one side of the fuselage, and were made from a single sheet of orange webbing hung between metal brackets. The Finns shuffled to the front of the aircraft and began to settle into the seats, strapping themselves in with belts that came down over their shoulders and up from between their legs, and then buckled at their waists. Evan and Alain did the same, so they were all sitting in one long row, facing a gun-metal wall covered in wires and switches and flight instructions. In the centre of this facing wall was a cargo hatch, wide open, through which crates containing medicines were still being loaded. The aircrew were predominantly American but there were also members of the Pakistan Air Force on board, and they were using tie-downs to secure the cargo.
It all seemed somewhat less precise than Evan had anticipated. He didn’t feel as though he was sitting in a modern military aircraft, but in a relic, a throwback to a less sophisticated age of aviation. There was no flashy electronic equipment, no smooth lacquer and soothing pastille shades. The guts of the helicopter spilled out of its walls, and things were held together by electrical tape or wire or nothing it all. It was disconcertingly rudimentary. That was the problem. And it was very uncomfortable. He was on the very end of the bench and his shoulder was jammed firmly against the swelling cargo. Furthermore, he was sinking further and further into the webbing seat, his knees climbed over the front bracket until he was practically bent double, and he held his backpack in his lap so his face was pressed ever closer to the coarse nylon. He found it almost impossible to turn his head in either direction, so he just sat there, closed his eyes and listened to Alain chatting with the Finnish man in the adjacent seat.
Fortunately, no one tried to talk to Evan. He was able to close his eyes and let the long minutes tick past. He daydreamed a bit. There were shouts out on the runway and he thought that they were coming for him. The High Commissioner had found out, he was stopping the flight. But then he heard some of the airmen climb aboard the helicopter and levers started to work and things were locked down. There was a brief period of silence, during which he began to feel tension in the steel, then a low throb started. It was quiet at first, a little like the thunder he had imagined rolling in the Kalash hills. But the noise tightened and twisted and grew ever louder.
The twin propellers beat together, rising and falling ever faster, until the swirling din was constant, and Evan thought less of thunder in the hills and more of rampant tornadoes. He felt himself sucked up into the vortex, he clung on to his backpack and he desperately hoped that the gun wasn’t about to shoot him in the midriff.
He had packed the gun first. Before the clothes and the food and everything else. Wrapped in the sheets, stuffed down in the bottom of his pack, just like Mundy had carried it. He couldn’t underestimate its importance. It was his strength. It was his purpose. It was the catalyst – the spark, the fire – by which he was going to change his life. He clung on to it tight, as the Chinook lurched forward, pitched towards its nose then slowly, ponderously, began to peel itself up off the runway. Gradually they were airborne, heavy and pendulous, hovering over the runway.
With his eyes closed he felt caught in suspended animation, a heart skip from catastrophe, but the tornadoes roared in his ears, the ice-cold wind whipped through the open hatch and slowly, almost tentatively, the helicopter began to gain height.
It was madness. Unplanned and uncertain. He was unready. But it was happening regardless.
They were going back.














Chapter Twenty
Evan was numb in his seat. The brackets had cut off the circulation in his legs, the bitterly cold wind had frozen his face and his fingers. The Chinook, he felt, would never make the distance. It rattled and shook constantly and, when they hit a thermal, it soared like a launched missile; either that or it tumbled in violent, spiralling freefall. And the thrum of the twin rotors was deafening. It battered Evan’s brain in his skull, it attacked him like a physical pain, and he shrunk further and further into the orange webbing, held his backpack ever tighter, ground his teeth and willed the misery to end.
He knew they were getting close when, looking through the cargo hatch, he began to see snow-clad peaks and sandstone slabs. The turbulence grew worse suddenly because the gusting winds were stronger, and they were weaving in between the mountains and flying through clouds full of snow. There seemed to be snow everywhere, thick walls of the stuff, rolling slides and powder sprays. He would never have imagined that the valleys and the mountains could have changed so much in three weeks. Once the storms and the snows arrived properly, the transformation was astonishing.
They crossed into the Chitral valley and the pilot began to take the helicopter down. They banked to the left and the sky disappeared from the cargo hatch, the world became a wall of rock and snow whipping passed, the trees were a blur. Then the Chinook bounced on the chopped air and they dropped towards a wide bend in the Kunar River. The helicopter skimmed along the course of the slate grey water and Evan considered, for the first time, that he might be slightly out of his depth. Even the valley floor was clogged with snow. How were they ever going to chase down Rawicz? It had been hard enough steering the jeep out of the Kalash valleys.
They touched down on the Chitral airstrip about an hour after dawn. Ragged clouds chased the rising sun through a broken blue sky and there was a stiff breeze blowing. It was hard to walk, half frozen and numb after so long in the bone-crushing seat, and Evan moved slowly. He stepped down on to the icy tarmac, swung his backpack on to his shoulders and waited for Alain to follow him out of the aircraft.
He had been worried about this moment. During the flight, he had imagined several unwelcome scenarios that might await them. Arrest, for instance, for sneaking on to a military flight. But as it happened, once they were unloaded, the aircrew were busy unloading the cargo, the Finnish rescue team trooped off towards the tents, and Evan and Alain were quickly forgotten.
Evan tightened the straps on his backpack and tried to appraise the airfield. North of the runway were the old terminal building and the tents, the injured, hungry, freezing queues, and the people too tired to queue; families huddled around pathetic bonfires, one branch and one flame, shivering in their skins and, behind the steep banks of snow, the glassy tar of the runway, the ice slicks, the grey slush, were the Chinooks home to roost, then the open fields, the river away east, brown like gutter-water, then the mountains beyond it, further east, and the mountains out west and north and south. Mountains everywhere, beneath the pale sky, which was like the edge of a watercolour, dripping snow and ice and bleeding blue..
His plan, as far as he had one, was to find the Major who had helped him last time. He hoped that the portly soldier would still be sympathetic. The man had daughters of his own after all, he had claimed to understand Evan’s frenzy, even after Evan had stolen the jeep in his rush to get to Rawicz’s farm. If Evan could spin a convincing tale – if he could pretend to still be searching for Avalon – then, he hoped, the Major would help him. He was far from sure.
He meant to head for the administration tents alongside the terminal building. That was where he had found the Major last time. Or, rather, the Major had found him. But the terminal was swarming with people now. Some of the Finnish rescue crew were there. And there were other foreign crews. There were soldiers and journalists and medics. A society had formed in the empty shell.
It no longer felt like the Major’s sort of place. He would be somewhere quieter, somewhere more personal, somewhere more secret. In Evan’s mind, the Major had become his confident, an accomplice in his private struggle. He would find him therefore in a place where a man could be honest about his fears. Or lie about them honestly, if that made any sense. That was what Evan was trying to do. Lie with honesty. Distort the facts to confess reality. Avalon was still at risk. He could still lose her. And he was searching for an answer up here, hidden somewhere in the snow, lost somewhere in the chaos. It was all true. It was all false. It was all madness.
He was like the butterfly flapping its wings or something.
Alain had wandered away and lit a cigarette. Something had changed, Evan thought, when they stepped off the aircraft. The Frenchman was relaxed and easy here, a stark contrast to Evan’s wretchedness. Alain was sure of himself, far more so than in Islamabad or in Evan’s house. This felt like the Frenchman’s territory. He was casually drawing on the cigarette, blowing dirty smoke clouds which froze in the crisp air before being whisked away by the wind. The rugged lines in his face, the thick beard, the sinews in his neck – those tight lines of shadow – he was aligned with this place, in tune with its nature.
Evan tried to sound assertive when he spoke. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘we should get moving. I know a man here – I think – he will help us, if we can find him.’
‘Help us how?’
‘You know, to get a jeep and food. Whatever we need.’
Alain grinned and blew smoke in Evan’s face. ‘No need my friend. I have everything we need. And we can take food from here.’
‘You have a jeep?’ Evan didn’t trust this transformed Alain. This easy incarnation. The change was too sudden. There was something false about the way he blew smoke to hide the nature of his smile.
‘Of course… what did you think?’
They helped themselves to food from an unattended pile of supplies. Then, with Alain leading the way, they headed down the runway towards the service road. It was a strange sensation for Evan. Like he was running into the future but retracing his steps.
It didn’t matter if he trusted Alain or not. It was too late. The decision was made. It was made two nights ago when he sat outside in the shadow of the hibiscus tree. Of course he was unprepared. Of course it would be difficult. But he could still do it. He just needed to detach himself from the more frantic tendencies of his brain – to bypass the loose circuitry as it were – and to concentrate on the cool certainty of his purpose. He thought of the gun again. He needed to approximate the weapon itself: cold, leaden, dull and definite. He even closed one eye, ran his sight down the spine, like a lover’s caress, focussed on the barrel, the revolving bullet, and his target, skulking in the shifting grey future, waiting to be shot.
It took an hour to reach the centre of town. There were sirens in the streets now, fire trucks stuck in the narrow roads and army vehicles with flashing lights blocking the traffic. Fluorescent teams were digging in the rubble. Still digging, even after three weeks. Alain led the way through a series of alleys and out on to a main thoroughfare. Ramshackle laneways, grey wood and grey concrete, small bazaars and plenty of dirt. It felt to Evan like a frontier town, its weathered streets full of weathered men, all dressed in shalwars and furs and woollen caps: the frontier uniform.
They passed by the old polo ground where there were more trucks and more tents, then they turned off the road into another dishevelled backstreet. Most of the houses were deserted here, there were no sirens and no one was digging, even though a couple of buildings had collapsed across the street. They were forced to climb over the rubble. They stopped outside a house which had been badly damaged, the upper floor had collapsed and crumbled, burying the front rooms but leaving the doorway clear.
The sun was not rising fast enough, the street was bitterly cold, still stuck in shadow.
‘Is this the place?’
‘Once upon a time…’ Alain walked up to the front door. It was crooked in its frame and swung open at the slightest push.
The dust hung like smog in the hallway, the light through the door shone ashen and grey. Evan held his sleeve over his face but his throat was soon dry and his mouth was itchy. Alain led the way further into the house. A lounge room, through a door on the right, was empty and dark, the windows blocked by the fallen rubble. Evan could make out the dim outline of a couple of armchairs. There were jagged black cracks in the walls, plaster hung from the ceiling, the floor was covered in a thick carpet of dust, so their steps were muffled and their feet kicked up small clouds of powder. Evan felt adrift in a ghostly sea of shifting grey shadow.
The hallway was long and narrow and increasingly dark. They passed through a miserable kitchen and a small parlour, but it became too dark to see. Evan had a torch in his backpack, so he dug it out and passed it to Alain and they fumbled forward, trying to follow the narrow flickering beam of light through more dust and another short corridor until, finally, they reached a door.
‘Did you ever live here?’ Evan whispered.
‘No.’ Alain was pushing on the door but, for some reason, it refused to open.
‘But you have a jeep here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Alain seemed not to hear the question. He was leaning against the door. ‘Help me push this door. It seems to be blocked.’
With both of them pushing they were able to force the door open a fraction. A fraction more and Alain squeezed through. He took the torch with him and Evan was left to wait in the dark corridor. The dust was aggravating but he felt calmer now they were away from the airfield.
‘Here we go,’ Alain had pulled the door open. ‘This is the garage.’
The place smelled faintly of gas. There was no light, just the useless flickering torch beam, and even that seemed to be fading rapidly. But Evan could make out the jeep, parked in the middle of the low-roofed shed under a large dust sheet.
‘Let’s hope it wasn’t damaged,’ said Alain, ‘grab the other end of the sheet.’
They pulled the sheet off the vehicle and dust billowed into the air, making them cough, stinging their eyes and smothering the torchlight. There was nothing they could do but cover there faces and wait for it to settle.
‘I think it’s alright,’ Alain said at last, ‘but I won’t know until I try and get it started. That means that we’re going to have to clear this place out a bit. See those corrugated sheets…’ he shone the light on one of the walls, ‘we need to move those and hope the lane outside isn’t blocked.’
Alain was holding the torch in his mouth, so Evan could hardly see what he was doing. The Frenchman seemed to be tugging at one edge of the corrugated wall, like he was trying to peel it back somehow. But he was having no luck. The iron sheet was stuck fast or wedged in the ground. Something anyway. Evan really couldn’t see, he could just hear Alain growling and growing irate.
‘Help… me…’ the Frenchman grunted, the torch still in his teeth.
‘Sorry…’
They dislodged the obstacle eventually. One second they were pulling the metal back, the next they were springing away as the whole wall collapsed and more dust enveloped the garage. Evan’s ears were ringing from the clang and din of the falling metal – one sheet bounced on the hood of the jeep, another fell outwards into a small dirt courtyard – and his eyes were blind, the bright morning sunlight burst into the garage and it was like the dust had caught fire, suddenly the air was full of flame.
Alain was first to stand up. Evan was still on the floor coughing and spitting the crud from his mouth. Even with the breeze blowing in through the open wall, the dust lingered in heavy clouds.
‘If we drive out of here, it’s better that you look local,’ Alain said. ‘We’ll attract less attention that way.’
Evan struggled to his feet and searched for his backpack. He found it beneath the dustsheet. While he dug out the shalwar and changed his clothes, Alain was making the vehicle ready. Then he started to move around the garage, finding things he wanted.
For the first time, Evan saw what a peculiar place they had found. It was a complete mess. Shelves had collapsed, spilling their contents, and the ground was cluttered with debris. But, still on the wall, several large and rusty hooks held what looked like various animal traps – snares and ugly things with claws and teeth – as well as chains and coils of rope. There were drums of gasoline in one corner, a huge pile of skins in another. Evan began to search through the debris. Lying on its side underneath the rear tyre of the jeep, there was a box labelled ‘detonators’. There were shovels and pick-axes, there were oilskin tents – three of them – and gas lamps and a crate which had fallen on its side and split open. He crawled over to it and wiped away some dust, there was Russian print in the wood. He could smell a familiar odour, something acrid and greasy, and through the split wood he thought he caught a dull gleam like gunmetal.
‘What have you found?’ Alain was looking over his shoulder.
Evan got to his feet. ‘These are guns I think. Rifles or something?’
‘Maybe…’ Alain held up his hands. ‘Look, forget about them. Let’s just get the jeep out of here.’
A trickle of cold realisation ran, like ice water, down Evan’s neck.
‘This is his place… Rawicz?’ He was staring at the walls, at the snares and the coils. ‘Hunting stuff, detonators, mining cables… it’s all his isn’t it? The jeep too.’
‘We need the jeep…’
‘We need to go out of here. What the hell were you thinking?’
‘We don’t… listen to me. He’s long gone. He’s already there, digging…’
‘How? All his stuff is here.’
‘No, no it’s not.’ Alain spoke urgently but he seemed to struggle with the words. ‘Look at this equipment – it’s all ancient. He has stores all over town. No one is using this junk. No one is going to miss it.’
Evan was backing away towards the open courtyard. ‘I say we head back to the airfield and ask to borrow a vehicle. Or maybe we could rent one. I have rupees.’
‘Look,’ Alain put down the jerry can and held out his arms, pleading with Evan, ‘if we’re going to catch him – I promise you – we have to leave now. He’s had three weeks already, we need to hurry.’
Evan stopped on the threshold of the courtyard, thinking for a moment. ‘Alright,’ he said carefully, ‘we’ll take this jeep. But I don’t trust you Alain. You need to tell me the truth. You need to tell me where Rawicz is, what he’s doing, and how the hell we’re going to stop him. Otherwise… you can go on your own.’
‘Fine,’ Alain said turning away. His spoke more softly, sounding relieved. ‘We get this jeep going, we get on the road, and then I’ll tell you everything. Ok? Get the chains off that hook there – for the tyres. Finish the gas and I’ll have a look around – see if there’s anything else here we might use.’
‘Ok,’ Evan relaxed a little and did as he was asked. He took the chains off the wall, filled the tank with gasoline, then topped up the jerry can and stowed it in the jeep as well. ‘Is that enough fuel?’ he asked.
‘Plenty. See if it starts.’
He climbed into the driver seat. The jeep was practically identical to the one he had driven down from the Kalash village. The key was in the ignition. He turned it and, straight away, the exhaust coughed and the jeep kicked forward. He hit the brakes too hard, lurched in his seat, then rolled the vehicle carefully over the corrugated iron sheets and out into the dirt courtyard.
‘Good,’ Alain came running out of the garage after him, carrying his duffel bag, which he loaded into the back of the jeep before Evan could see what was in it. ‘Do you mind if I drive?’
‘No,’ said Evan without thinking. It probably didn’t matter. ‘Do we have everything? What’s in the bag?’
‘Things we need.’
‘Like what?’ Evan slid across to the passenger’s seat. ‘You’re supposed to be telling me everything.’
‘Let’s get going first. I’ll get us out of the town and on to the perimeter road. After that, I think it will be pretty obvious where we’re going.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re going home Evan. Or I am. Back to my village. That’s where Rawicz is digging.’

* * *

‘We’ll never make it back up there,’ said Evan, ‘the road was dreadful three weeks ago.’ He didn’t want to go back to the Kalash village, that was why he was arguing.
‘We may have to walk,’ conceded Alain.
‘We will have to – we had to walk three weeks ago.’
‘Then we’ll walk this time. I’m not pretending it will be easy.’
Alain slowed the jeep and steered around a telegraph pole that had fallen across the road. It was taking a long time to get out of the town because they kept finding roads that were blocked.
‘What is Rawicz doing up there?’ Evan asked. ‘He can’t be mining in this snow… surely. I can’t believe it. If he does any blasting, he’ll bury himself.’
‘He won’t do any blasting, it fractures the stones. They’re close to the surface. If you think you have good quality deposits, you get at them by tunnelling.’
‘Well, surely that’s lunacy with this much snow.’
‘No, the seams are quite accessible. If he has found the caves, he’ll be able to explore them safely.’
‘What caves?’
‘At the head of the valley, the river disappears for a while, drops through the sandstone and runs underground for a way. It only emerges again a few hundred feet above the village. To access the caves though you have to climb out of the valley through the pass, then follow the river down.’
‘And there are stones in there?’
‘There are beryl intrusions into the marble. Which means emeralds, possibly.’
‘In your valley…’
‘Yes. Right under my nose. Quite a coincidence… I must attract them.’
‘You’re the only person who knows?’
Alain shook his head. ‘The villagers were using the caves to store the harvest. It was their secret until…’ he trailed off.
‘Could he get a license?’
‘Sure, that Kalash have no voice. It took a decade for the government to stop illegal logging up there. Some of those valleys are death traps now, they’ve been stripped bare, the rock falls are so bad.’
Alain gripped the wheel tighter and steered around a crater-like pothole in the road. Evan knew they were too late, the place was already destroyed. The earthquake had buried the valley and the village. And he had turned his back and walked away. He would have to tell Alain but he hadn’t yet. He hadn’t told anyone. He couldn’t make that confession – he couldn’t force his mouth to make those words. So, instead, he was driving back there and he would see it all over again, he would feel sick and guilty, and he would have to pretend, somehow, that he never knew.
He would have to pretend that they had left the village before the earthquake happened. That was plausible. Alain wouldn’t know. And it wouldn’t make any difference. There was nothing they could have done. Nothing at all.
‘But you’re sure he’s gone to the village first?’
‘Definitely.’
‘How will you stop him?’
‘There are other sites. They’re less accessible, less promising… but maybe if I offer to help. He can’t be precise, not with the information he has… but if I work with him… but honestly Evan, I don’t know…’
Evan understood. Life was mostly about making amends. Everyone, it seemed, was guilty somehow, most people were guilty as hell, but some people were better at ignoring it than others. This trip was penance for both of them.
The tarmac disappeared once they were out of the town and they bound the tyres with chains to drive in the snow. So much new snow had fallen, the road was completely buried. Alain was able to read its direction somehow but, sometimes, he got it ever so slightly wrong and the rear tyres spun wide into a place where the snow was too deep. Evan sat in the passenger seat with the shovel. If they got stuck, he dug them out. He was happy to take the job. He knew that there was no way he could have kept the jeep on the road. It took incredible skill and concentration. The river was sixty feet below them. The gap between the cliffs and the plummet now seemed impossibly narrow, the cliffs were improbably steep and the plunging depths of the river, the tall cedar trees heavy with snow, the water slipping between pools of ice – the whole place was sickeningly dangerous.
Alain drove far faster than Evan would ever have done, sliding recklessly into corners and grinding the clutch. They made good time. By the time the sun started to set, Evan reckoned that they were close to the checkpoint.
He was trying to distract himself now by thinking in abstract terms. They would reach the village – somehow they would reach the village. When they did, he would pay his respects properly. He would help Alain as best he could. That was what he needed to do. Together, he and Alain would stop Pietr Rawicz. Mundy would respect him for it. The High Commissioner would hate him for it. And Alain would owe him for it. He would buy his time with Avalon. The further they travelled from Chitral, the more remote the world felt, the more he believed it would work. He would absolve himself in the mountains.
The light was failing but Alain refused to pull over. ‘I can drive,’ he said and switched on the headlights.
‘No you can’t,’ Evan argued, ‘it’s too dangerous. Pull over and rest, we’ll start again first thing.’
‘There’s no time,’ said Alain, ‘and if we stop, we will freeze. Dig in the pack and get me some food.’
‘Alain, I really think you should rest.’
‘I’m not stopping.’
They reached the checkpoint at dusk, but the barrier had fallen clear of the road and Alain did not slow down. Evan spun in his seat to see if the guards were there, but it was too dark and they were soon round a corner and out of sight.
Alain had stopped talking. If he answered Evan’s questions at all, he was blunt and surly. So Evan gave him the food and kept quiet. There was nothing else he could do. If he tried to grab control of the wheel then, most likely, they would skid and that would be it. He imagined them spinning off the road, tumbling down into the river, and he swallowed hard. It was crazy to still be driving. The headlights cut barely twenty feet into the darkness and the snow bounced the light straight back.
He checked his watch, they had been going for an hour since sunset. It was bitterly cold in the jeep, ice was creeping across the windscreen, visibility was dreadful, but still Alain would not stop. Evan wondered what had possessed him. Perhaps he really did believe that they were too short on time. So every second was precious.
‘Alain,’ he was trying to keep his voice calm, ‘slow down, you’re driving too fast.’
The Frenchman did not reply, instead he gunned the engine harder and the chains churned up the snow.
‘Please slow down,’ Evan tried again but, this time, he couldn’t keep the panic quiet. ‘For Christ’s sake Alain, you’re going to kill us both.’
The jeep skidded on a patch of ice and Alain wrestled with the wheel to keep it on the road. He laughed suddenly and his voice was high and pinched, like a small child. He choked the gear box and bounced them up a small rise, the wheels spun in the snow for a second then they sped forward. Evan could bear it no longer. He wanted to shut his eyes. Was it the guilt – was that it? Was Alain so close it was driving him mad? He tried to understand, tried to make sense of it, tried to think of some way to calm the Frenchman down. But there was nothing he could say.
It felt like there was a fire burning in the cab. Words wouldn’t make any difference. He doubted Alain would even hear him. He was slaloming through snow drifts, sparking the chains on exposed rocks, hammering the pedal as hard as he could. Evan could see no way to stop it. Unless they ran out of gas. He tried to read the dials but it was too dark. Anyway, he knew they had plenty of fuel, he had filled the tank.
The wipers scraped across the windscreen, a layer of ice sloughed into the night. Alain accelerated harder, the rear wheels fishtailed. Evan couldn’t help himself, he grabbed the dashboard. The headlights were shaking but at least the road arrowed straight ahead. They seemed to be driving through a narrow pass. He thought he recognised it, but that was impossible, it was too dark to tell. He peered through the windscreen. He could see nothing but snow, the world was white, the road was the only thing, they were twenty feet from oblivion.
The road climbed and they climbed and Evan watched their path slither and squirm beneath the headlights. Then, suddenly, it rose up, like the crest of a swollen wave, the deep snow bank blocking the road. He felt Alain slam on the brakes, but they hit something and the wheels locked and spun. The jeep skidded out of control and Evan watched, in grim slow motion, as the wave crashed down upon them and they ploughed straight into its base. He thumped his head on the windscreen and fell back into his seat.





Chapter Twenty One
The driver’s frozen torso stuck out incongruously from the snow. That was what they had hit, that was why the brakes had locked, the wheels had spun and they had driven straight into the base of the drift. It looked like the tyre chains had mangled his legs, either that or something had been chewing on him before he froze. The man’s skin was blue and cracked, his eye sockets were clogged with ice, his body was twisted but rigid. He had died right beside his vehicle but he had been so completely buried that neither Evan nor Mundy had seen him there. If Alain hadn’t been driving so wildly, they would have missed him again. He could have lain in peace until the spring thaw.
They were lucky to still be alive, at the speed they were going, to crash like that but stay on the road. The fresh snow in the pass masked a gauntlet of jagged rock. The snow bank they had finally hit was solid enough. Evan packed a handful of ice against his forehead where a lump was swelling. He turned the flashlight back towards the jeep. Alain was sitting on the piled luggage, holding his head in his hands. Evan didn’t know what was wrong with him. Maybe he was suffering from shock or maybe it was another symptom of his driving dementia. That was how Evan thought of it.
The jeep engine was still hissing gently, which probably meant that they had cracked the radiator or something. After they crashed, he had cut the engine himself. Then he had unloaded their supplies into the snow because he was worried about the gasoline. For the moment, his greatest concern was whether or not it would start again.
They had a choice to make. He shone the torch on his wristwatch: it was after eight. He had no desire to spend the night freezing in the jeep, especially if it wasn’t going to start in the morning. But what else could they do? Go on or go back. If they went on then they would have to walk. If they tried to head back then they needed the jeep. He was sure that they didn’t have enough food or warm clothes to make it down on foot.
‘Alain – are you hurt?’
Alain didn’t answer, not properly. He was mumbling quietly. Evan walked over to him. He didn’t seem hurt. He wasn’t cut on his head or his arms and he had walked away from the jeep easily enough. Evan tried to listen to what he was saying but it was impossible. He was talking too fast and too low and, quite possibly, in something other than English. Evan touched him on the shoulder. He was shaking slightly. Perhaps he was cold. Evan was cold. It was freezing in the pass. The torch beam stretched fifteen feet at its maximum. Beyond that, the world was shifting and unfamiliar, it might as well not exist. They couldn’t stay here. Whatever they decided, they would have to move somewhere more sheltered.
Whatever they decided? Alain was incoherent and uncommunicative. The decision was his and his alone. The village was a day’s walk or so, assuming it was no harder to get through. Hadn’t he always known that they would have to walk to get there? As long as they could restart the jeep then, effectively, the crash made no difference.
But it did make a difference, he couldn’t pretend otherwise. It was a test. If he was going to prove himself then, of course, he was going to be tested. At least he had accepted that. It was calming how completely he understood the parameters now. This was his moment, his metamorphosis.
‘Are you cold?’
Evan dug out a fur from the jeep and draped it over Alain’s shoulders. His own clothes, his red snow jacket and his fleece, were in his pack but he left them there. He found another fur instead and wrapped up in that. It seemed fitting somehow, to wear the shalwar and the furs. He understood now why Alain dressed this way, why he had grown his hair and his beard, and forced all those subtle changes in his face. Changing himself would mean changing the details first. First he could change how he dressed, how he shaved and how he walked. He scratched his stubble with the hand that wasn’t holding the torch. His own beard was the longest he had ever had it. Change the details first, then change the man… hopefully.
So the decision was made. He was changing, he could feel it. He knew what he wanted at last. He wanted his daughter and he wanted some respect from the world. He needed to stop Rawicz for himself, so he needed to go on.
He walked over to the jeep and shone the torch inside. The keys were still in the ignition. He released the brake, braced his shoulder against the door frame and eased the jeep away from the snow drift. It moved easily enough because they had bounced back a little way after the impact. He was able to push it clear of the snow bank then slip into the drivers seat and work the brakes. He was nervous to start the engine, so he tried the headlights first. They had both blown. Either way then, they would be doing no more driving at night. He took a deep breath, gripped the key between his thumb and his forefinger, mumbled like Alain, closed his eyes and fired the ignition.
The engine started fine, though there was soon steam hissing from the bonnet. The radiator must be damaged. But they could work with that. If he kept it full with water, drove slowly, drove carefully, rolled it down the hills even… they could make it.
The jeep would need protecting though. They would be two days at least getting to the village and back. He shone his torch as widely as possible. There was a sheltered place at the edge of the snow bank, a small hollow, where the rocks overhung and the snow was shallow. Perhaps, if he could get the jeep in there and then… he hurried over to the luggage. They had bought one of Rawicz’s oilskin tents. He could cover the jeep with that, tie it down properly… it would give him something to do, keep him warm through the night, keep the blood flowing. Sleep wasn’t an option. They were going to make it. He was going to make it.
Alain’s cigarettes were on the floor of the jeep. They had been on the dashboard but were knocked off in the collision. Evan picked them up and flicked out a cigarette. He hadn’t smoked in twenty years. He found the lighter in the glove box and stepped out into the snow. He didn’t care if Alain was watching him or not. He lit the cigarette, coughed, blew smoke into the night sky, then walked away to bury the driver.
He had Rawicz’s pickaxe but it still took over an hour to dig the shallowest of graves. The ground was so hard. He found a place not far from the road, where there were no rocks, and he dragged the driver over to it. He had to lay the body sideways in the grave because the legs were frozen crooked and they stuck out of the ground otherwise, two stalks with shoes on. He covered the grave with the icy sods and with stones and with as many branches as he could find. It was too gruesome to be real – so it was surreal, it was abstract, it was make-believe horror. It was, he thought, a strange marker of change. The driver’s allegorical death. He tried not to dwell on it too much, he especially didn’t want to think what would happen when the ice melted.
When he was done, he went back to Alain and held out the cigarette packet. The Frenchman had stopped shivering at least but he wouldn’t take the cigarettes. Evan sat down beside him, lit another smoke for himself and put the packet down in the snow. They could do with a fire but he had no hope of finding dry wood. So they sat in silence and Evan switched off the torch to save the battery. There were more clouds than stars, hardly any light at all, and the glowing embers of Evan’s cigarette burned like a dying sun in the vast expanse of space. After a while, he sensed rather than saw Alain reach down and retrieve the packet from the snow. A match flared and the Frenchman was briefly revealed, his vacant eyes, his gaunt cheeks, but then the match died and the two cigarettes were the only things visible on the entire mountain.
‘I want to move the jeep off the road,’ said Evan, ‘over where there’s some shelter. If we cover it with the tarp, hopefully it will stay dry and we might be able to drive it out… what do you think?’
‘Ok,’ Alain said quietly.
Evan faced him in the dark. ‘Are you alright?’
‘What did I run over?’
‘An animal,’ he lied, ‘a dead fox. I’ve buried it.’
‘All I could think about was the time… how it was running out…’
Evan had finished his cigarette. He pinched the last of the glowing embers between his dirty nails and dropped the butt back in the packet.
‘I can understand that,’ he said, ‘but I think the radiator’s cracked or something. Still, it should get us back down… I hope.’
‘Do you want to go back?’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t know…’
‘I think we go on.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ Evan stood up. ‘Yes I do. I haven’t come all this way for nothing. I want to go on. And so do you… you’re just a bit shaken up at the moment.’
‘You want to go on?’
‘Yes. So come on – let’s get the jeep moved and covered. Then we can repack the stuff and then I think we should get under the tarp too, we might be able to keep warm that way. Come on… on your feet. Help me out.’
They were able to steer the jeep off the road and cover it with the oilskin tent. Then, after they had covered the luggage as well, they climbed back into their seats and wrapped themselves in all the furs and blankets that they could find. Evan used the flashlight to check his watch. It was shortly after midnight.
It was funny how moving forward seemed to involve so much going back. However much Evan wanted to change himself, he would never be able to change that. It was a long, tortuous and ice-cold night. They talked a little but not about very much. That was the legacy of their history. They would never be able to talk about much. The past was quicksand. The question of Camille would always lurk beneath the surface of their conversations, like a dangerous riptide, waiting to drag them down.
Alain slept a little but Evan didn’t. It was too damp, too cold. He sat in the passenger’s seat and his breath wrapped around him in clammy clouds. His fingers grew so cold they started to ache. He found his fleece and his snow jacket and he used them like blankets. He desperately wanted to sleep and to ignore the cold. He was reminded of the night of the earthquake: the darkness and the isolation, the way he had lost faith in his senses. Under the tarpaulin, he couldn’t even watch for changes in the sky. He could only listen to his breathing and Alain’s breathing and trust that meant that they were still alive.
Every now and then he would use the torch to check his watch. He waited until it read 5.37am. He wanted to start on the packing early so that they could move as soon as it was daylight. Clumsily, he forced opened the jeep door and worked his way out from underneath the oilskin. It was still dark. The clouds hadn’t broken, there was no sign of sunrise. He relieved himself against the snow bank and smoked another cigarette. It was good to walk around, good to be moving again, good to feel the blood flowing in his limbs. He lit the torch and uncovered the luggage. His pack was still in the jeep but he could get it after he had decided what they needed to take. Food and clothing obviously, but what about any of this other stuff? Their only hope was to try and strike a bargain with Rawicz, so they didn’t need anything really. They wouldn’t be camping long, they wouldn’t be digging… the pickaxe could stay, obviously, along with almost everything else they had bought from Rawicz’s garage. And there was Alain’s bag, but he didn’t know what was in that.
‘Leave that Evan,’ Alain was out of the jeep and stretching. ‘Don’t worry about it – I can carry everything in there.’
‘Are you sure?
‘Yes.’
‘Fair enough. I’ll get my pack out and take some more of the food. We should get going.’
They ate their breakfast first, or what passed for breakfast in those conditions. Then they packed away their things and made sure that the oilskin tent was as secure as it could be. It was still dark when they climbed to the top of the snow bank, though the sky was beginning to brew a cloudy-blue dawn. There would be no sun though, the clouds were too dense.
‘Will it snow?’ Evan asked as they climbed down the far side of the snow bank.
‘Yes.’
‘Definitely?’
‘Definitely.’
They started to walk. In one sense, it was easier than last time. Evan was certainly fitter. He had dropped a few kilos in the month since then, eating so little and worrying so much, and he was able to keep pace with Alain, even though the snow was deeper and he had to drive his legs forward just to get through it.
But the further they walked, the closer they came to the village, the more Evan began to dread what they might find there. Part of it was Rawicz. He only vaguely remembered the man from dinner at the guesthouse, but he knew he didn’t want to confront him. What if the Russian decided that negotiation was too complicated. Evan might be changing but that didn’t make him a hero. He felt sick even thinking about violence. And he felt sick when he thought of the village.
That was the main cause of his dread. It was his waking nightmare. How would the truth expose him? The worse thing was that Alain did not know. But Evan knew. Evan had tried to run away. And now he was going back. How many more frozen bodies would he have to bury?
They had not spoken to each other for over two hours. Alain was slightly ahead of him now and mumbling again, it sounded like he was reciting prayers. Evan was finding walking harder, and only partly because of fatigue. Fear was warning him off, blowing in his face like an ill-wind, slowing his steps, sapping energy from his legs. It hadn’t snowed yet but the clouds were gathering lower and darker. It was midday but no brighter than twilight and it added to his sense of foreboding. He needed full sunlight to change, like it was photosynthesis or something. He couldn’t manage it in this crepuscular shadow. He was becoming more insular and less hopeful. He was regressing, remembering his old self, afraid of everyone and everything. He tried to think of Avalon as much as possible. His daughter, his flesh and his blood.
They came to a place where the ice was far steeper than Evan remembered. They could not have wandered far off course because he could still hear the river close by, but he could see no other way around the ice. They would have to climb it somehow if they were going to reach the valley. They must be close now. Surely. Soon they would be able to stand in the same place that he and Mundy had stood, they would look up the valley and see what? The light was so bad, maybe they wouldn’t see anything. Then they would have to walk blindly forward into the past.
Alain was much better at climbing ice than he was. The Frenchman was able to stop himself slipping by keeping low to the ground and walking on the edge of his boots. Evan tried to do the same but, more than once, he ended up on his backside sliding back down the slope.
He was barely halfway up when Alain reached the top. The Frenchman found solid ground and seemed to sprint out of view. Evan suddenly felt very alone. He could hear the wind blowing and the sounds of his own exertion. Nothing else. This had to be one of the loneliest places on earth. He could die out here and, quite possible, no one would ever find him. No one. Ever. He needed to keep pace with Alain, he needed the company. He kicked his heels into the ice and scrambled up the slope.
But he wasn’t going to catch Alain. They had reached the valley, a spot higher up and further across from the place where he and Mundy had stood. The view was better from here. He could see until the light failed. He could see the place where the village had stood, he could see the matchstick trees – broken, snapped – and he could see the dreadful, filthy heap at the foot of the slope, and the small missionary hospital, standing lonely as he was, too scared to move. He could see Alain too, running away from him across the alpine meadow towards the hanging valley. The Frenchman was the only thing moving in the entire scene, except for the clouds.
The clouds had broken at last. The snow was falling and it was a snowstorm like no other he had ever experienced. It was whiteout. Within minutes Alain was out of sight and he stumbled forward blindly. He missed the road trying to follow the sound of the river. The snow was so heavy and so thick it muffled the rushing water, it drew him closer, and he was soon much further across the valley than he wanted to be. He flailed on through the fields, calling Alain’s name occasionally but never hearing an answer. He only realised his mistake when he stumbled on the graveyard and the fallen hollyoak tree. He tried to right himself, choosing a perpendicular path back through the boulder fields. He stumbled plenty, visibility was only a few feet and the rocks were icy and treacherous. He kept calling Alain’s name but the weight of the snow hushed everything, even his own voice.
He found the road eventually but he was higher up than he wanted to be. It was pointless looking for Alain, the snow wasn’t easing, it was thick on his arms and shoulders, he had to find shelter somewhere. He jumped down into the trench where the road ran and tracked back towards the missionary hospital. The snow was sticking to the lenses of his glasses and blurring his vision, he was almost passed the hospital before he saw it. He didn’t think twice. He swung open the door and slipped inside.
The familiar antiseptic smell struck him first, then the damp and mildew. He removed his glasses, wiped off the snow, crossed the room, and sat down on the bed. The same bed he had slept in three weeks ago. He roughed the snow out of his hair with his hand. There were burning red bumps in the tips of his fingers, like little knots of ice were thawing under the skin. He rubbed his hands together and tried to blow some warmth back into them. He looked around the miserable little room, the battered walls, the sacs hanging in the windows, the snow so thick and the afternoon so dark, it might as well be night. The frying pan from which they had eaten daal, lay dried and crusty on the floor. There was a dark stain on the boards where Mundy had bandaged his ankle. He felt the cut on his own palm, healed now, just a cold white scar.
He got up from the bed and walked over to the window. He gazed out across the fields towards the boulder fields and the river. The snow looked like it was easing slightly, though it was difficult to tell through the grimy glass.
He heard a noise and turned around. Alain was walking through the door, dragging his duffel bag behind him. He too was covered in snow. His head, his torso and his legs were soaking wet. He swayed where he stood, then he dropped the bag on the floor and staggered over to the bed.
This was worse than Evan had feared. The Frenchman was just shaking his head. Numb and dumb. Punch-drunk. He must have seen that the village was gone and, like Evan, he feared what the snow concealed from them… there were monsters prowling the whiteout. They would stumble across them and they would be unprepared.
‘We need to get you dry,’ Evan said, choosing to deal with practicalities first. ‘Here, the blankets are in my pack and I think… yes, and there are some more over here. I knew I’d seen them.’
Alain had collapsed on the bed shivering, staring blankly at the wall. He was frozen, body and mind, ice in the brain. His eyes were glazed and half closed, staring but not seeing, while the snow flakes melted on his brow and dripped down his face into his beard.
‘I’m sorry,’ Evan kept saying, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Like it was his fault. Like he had caused the avalanche in the first place. Like he had dumped snow on their arrival. But it was his fault, he knew he was culpable, because he had known that the village was buried, he had known all along, and he had said nothing…
He wrapped Alain in the spare blankets then walked over to the open door and looked out. The snow was definitely easing, though still falling heavily. He couldn’t guess how long it would take to stop.
‘What do you want to do?’ He couldn’t bear Alain’s silence. ‘I guess we can stay here until the snow stops but then… well… we can do whatever you want…’
There was no sign of Rawicz. Evan wondered what that meant. If he was in the caves already then, perhaps, he was camping there, perhaps he was out of sight. So it meant nothing. But they should have seen some evidence of him in the valley or on the road – surely. Where were the jeeps, where was the mining equipment?
He turned away from the doorway because Alain was trying to speak. At least, he was moving his mouth, but the words weren’t forming. He was clutching at the mattress, his hands clenching and unclenching, his raw knuckles kneading the mould-stained fabric.
Evan walked over to the bed and sat down beside him. Alain was crying. It was painful to watch, awkward, inappropriate somehow. Evan put his hand on the Frenchman’s shoulder. He squeezed the fur. He reached out through seventeen years of broken history and tried to offer comfort. He pretended that they were still friends, that Camille had never been, that Avalon didn’t exist. He cradled the Frenchman’s neck and pulled him close, like he was a child, and he held Alain in his arms, the narrow shaking shoulders, the head of thick black hair, which looked grey with the snow, the sinewy neck with the fluttering pulse, all the wilds things, he held them tame them in his arms.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again, ‘I’m so sorry.’
Evan had been alone too long. Seven years. Seventeen years. He could count forever. But this was intimacy, holding Alain in his arms, despite everything, or because of everything, this was that elusive trade, that essential human betrayal, that he had always feared. Because he and Alain had so much in common, far more than either of them had realised. They had both spent half their lives chasing the same woman, then fleeing her, and hiding in their respective fashions… maybe he was the closest thing Alain had to a friend. They had loved the same woman, they grieved for her, they missed her, what more could they share?
‘Alain,’ he said when the Frenchman had calmed a little and the tears had run dry, ‘what do you want to do? We should get out of here. There’s nothing we can do. We shouldn’t stay here, it’s not good for you…’
He stood up carefully, leaving Alain swaying on the edge of the bed, and walked over to the doorway. The snow had nearly stopped, though the clouds showed no sign of clearing. That was the main problem: they didn’t have time to make it back to the jeep before it was dark. So they would have to camp here. But the prospect of camping here was terrifying, with Rawicz close by, and the village and Alain… the past was the most terrifying thing of all.
The Frenchman had moved from the bed, he was kneeling on the floor, untying the strings on his duffel bag.
What could Evan possibly say about Avalon now? How could he tell Alain to stay away? Now they were so close again. His head was hurting. There was so much confusion, so little certainty. He couldn’t think what he had hoped to achieve. He had hoped to chase down Rawicz… whatever that meant. He had hoped to assert himself on Alain…. but how? With his transformation? With the gun maybe? Was he that desperate, did he loath himself that much? Maybe he did. He had hoped for rebirth, a new world but, instead, they had come back here. Scene of his nadir. And it was deserted and desolate and so was Alain and so was he. There was nothing to talk about. Nothing to ease the night. Nothing changed. Nothing was ever born from blind faith.
‘She would have liked it here, don’t you think?’ Alain was sniffing as he stood up, Evan could hear the phlegm in his throat. ‘I used to think that every night. I’d walk up to the river and smoke a cigarette under the stars. Sometimes I would pretend to talk to her. I think she would have liked it.’
‘I think you’re probably right,’ Evan said, ‘but she would never have stayed here.’
‘No,’ Alain said ruefully, ‘you’re probably right. Not for me anyway.’
‘Nor me.’ Evan laughed softly. ‘The world’s too small.’ He was still staring out into the snow. He wasn’t prepared to turn around. It was easier to look away, to watch the last snowflakes drifting to earth, waltzing around each other, the last dancers on the floor.
‘I’m so sorry about this Evan.’
Evan was trying to follow the path of a single snow flake, he felt like it might be the last one left in the sky. It was falling slowly, because the breeze toyed with its descent, whisking it in spirals, letting it drop a little way, before snatching it back, towards the heavens. He wondered what Alain could be apologising for.
‘Camille always knew I think, but I was never sure…’
Evan felt his stomach turn. There was a tightness in his throat, as though hands were creeping on his neck. ‘It’s not true,’ he said.
‘It is… she is…. I’m certain. I could tell the first moment I saw her. I think you could too.’
‘No… no you couldn’t.’ Evan hung his head. The last snowflake had settled on the valley floor. He knew what was coming.
‘I’ve tried Evan… even after she left you, I stayed away. I came out here… I did what she asked me, for Christ’s sake… I couldn’t have done more. But she found me didn’t she?’
‘Coincidence.’
‘No, it has to mean something. I’ve tried to think what else it could be… but there’s only one answer… you can’t expect me to ignore it.’
‘I don’t expect you to ignore it.’ It was all so predictable now, in hindsight, but Evan still felt like he had been tricked. He had comforted Alain thinking he was grieving, thinking he was mumbling his penitence prayers, not rehearsing this speech. ‘Think of Avalon, not just yourself. Walk away from her. She’s been through enough.’
‘She’s my daughter.’
‘I don’t believe she is…’
‘The eyes Evan…’
‘Don’t do this…’
‘I have to…’ Alain had raised his voice. Evan was alert to the sinister tone now, the threatening undertow. ‘She came back to me Evan. How? Of all the things imaginable… all the impossibilities… she found me. And she needs someone. She needs her father. She needs her flesh and her blood. She needs me. God knows Evan, I need her.’
‘I need her too… I need her. She was my wife, Avalon is my daughter…’
‘It was never the way you pretended…’
‘Alright,’ Evan couldn’t swallow, he felt like the hands were tightening their grip. It was making him nauseous. ‘Alright Alain… what do you want?’
‘I want her back. It’s been seventeen years…’
‘Yes… I know. Seventeen years for me too.’
‘You don’t know Evan. How could you possibly know? Living out here, in secret, like… like I never loved her. You barely know her Evan. She barely knows you. Let me have this. Let me have my life. You had Camille…’
The mention of his wife’s name made Evan reel. The sick tasted sweet and foul in his mouth. ‘That’s not going to happen,’ he managed to say. ‘But… maybe… we can work something out…’
Alain didn’t speak, so Evan continued, rambling, stumbling on his words.
‘Alain, we’ve both been hurting so long. Both of us. Let’s deal with Rawicz, then we can head back, and we can talk... you and me… and we can talk to Avalon, we can do something about this… come on… what do you say?’
Evan could hardly bare to look at the Frenchman, or face this question, the one he had ignored for so long – ever since her first birthday party – even though it had gnawed at his soul, even though it had destroyed his marriage and driven him into exile, even though it had estranged him from his daughter…
Was she his? Was she really his?
But it was time now. It was time to excavate his history, time to chart his genetic map-work… the eyes… not like his, not like Camille’s…
‘Pietr Rawicz is dead,’ Alain said. ‘Sorry Evan.’
The Frenchman was on his feet, standing in the centre of the room. The two men faced each other but Evan was distracted. He was looking passed Alain, towards the bed, where the duffel bag was untied now and unpacked, and the contents were spread on the mattress: the spare food, the wet clothes… a hunting rifle from Pietr Rawicz’s garage.

Chapter Twenty Two
‘Pietr Rawicz is dead?’
The four short words hung heavy in the damp air. Evan almost imagined he could see them, low-floating in the fog clouds. They were far heavier than their six syllables would suggest, gravity weighed them down, and they seemed to suck in the air, so that the room felt unnaturally empty and quiet. Like a vacuum. There were other phrases like that. Phrases like I hate you, which were easy to say but almost impossible to explain, because the words were duplicitous and their meaning… their meaning strayed into uncharted realms, dark places, in the future and in the past and all ways sideways… he couldn’t understand what Alain had meant. And the Frenchman had turned his back on Evan, so he couldn’t see his face. He couldn’t see if Alain was confused too, he couldn’t tell whether or not a mask had slipped.
‘I don’t understand Alain.’
He took a step towards the bed and his boot ground some glass from a broken pill bottle into the floorboards. The noise it made was surprisingly loud. Rawicz’s hunting rifle was resting on the mattress. It was making Evan uncomfortable, lying there, suddenly revealed, like a naked threat.
‘Alain…’
It wasn’t sunset yet but, through the open doorway, the snow clouds were black like smeared mascara; inside the missionary hospital, the sacs over the windows were like another layer of shadow. Alain was only a few feet away but the gloom distorted the distance. It made him seem remote, his profile vague and shifting. Evan took another step towards the bed, his eyes scrambled between the Frenchman and the rifle lying naked on the mattress, the long tapered neck, the wooden shoulder, the stock like a warm swathe of skin. It was still distracting him.
‘What do you mean he’s dead?’
It looked like the Frenchman’s shoulders were shaking. Perhaps the tears were falling again. But Evan didn’t think so. The atmosphere was changed and it filled him with mistrust. He no longer felt like reaching out. The temperature had dropped, there was a freezing mist creeping in through the doorway, and those four little words lurked unanswered in the silence.
‘Alain…’
At last the Frenchman turned around. Evan was close now. He had been edging towards the bed ever so slowly, like he wasn’t even moving. He was trying to position himself between Alain and the rifle.
‘Alain…’
They stood a few feet apart, still facing each other. To Evan it seemed like the hospital had shrunk around them, the plaster walls and the darkness, so that for the moment nothing else existed. Alain’s face was angled away from the windows. Shadow pooled in his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks, so he looked more drawn than ever, haggard even. When he spoke, he spoke quietly, and his voice was frailer than Evan had expected, and full of self pity. But Evan didn’t trust him now. Something had been betrayed, lies had been told. Pietr Rawicz is dead. So he was on edge, full of suspicion and doubt, and the sensation was wintry and dark.
‘Evan… I’m sorry,’ Alain shook his head. ‘This isn’t… I mean, I wish it was different…’
‘What do you wish was different?’ Evan’s throat was still tight, the nausea still rank in his mouth. He struggled to mask the tension in his voice. ‘You lied to me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Alain looked directly at him for the first time and Evan noticed how his pupils were impossibly small, retreating in their blue-grey wash, like they were withdrawing to a darker place. Evan searched desperately for something, anything, as they fled. But there was nothing. Nothing he could read. No grief, no sorrow, no guilt. None of the subtlety or feeling he heard – or imagined he heard – in Alain’s voice. The eyes were counterfeits… fakes, imitations, approximations… Alain was a man detached from himself. He was an actor, a charade and a liar.
‘I don’t believe you Alain.’ Evan said it slowly. ‘How can Rawicz be dead? How can you know that?’
Evan was thinking back to the night in the hospital, Rawicz has the maps, that’s what Mundy had said. So he had thought then that the Russian was alive. Rawicz had contacted Mundy’s boss – via a telegram – and Mundy had wanted Evan to go after him. And that night, Alain and Avalon had returned to Islamabad. So Alain couldn’t possibly know what Rawicz was doing. It made no sense, unless Alain had found something in the snow storm… some evidence in the valley, something to show that the Russian was dead. And if the Russian was dead, then their journey had been pointless; and if the Russian had died up here, what chance that they could survive?
‘I am sorry,’ Alain kept saying, ‘I am so sorry…’
Evan took another step towards the Frenchman. He was close enough to grab him almost, to grab him and shake him and demand his explanation.
‘Why are you apologising? Stop it.’ Evan’s own voice was rising, venting the frustration that grew with every passing second. ‘How do you know if Rawicz is dead? Is he here? Did you see him?’
Alain hung his head, turning his eyes away from Evan’s scrutiny. ‘I’m so sorry… I didn’t know,’ he mumbled, ‘I didn’t know you would all...’
‘What? That we would what?’
‘Believe me... all of you… all so ready to believe me…’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Evan reached out to grab the collar of the Frenchman’s shalwar. But Alain evaded him, he turned his shoulder and moved away into the centre of the room. He was pacing now and the broken glass on the floor cracked and spat under his boots.
‘Pietr is dead,’ he was practically whispering, Evan had to strain to hear him.
‘Rawicz is dead?’
‘Pietr is dead. He died… during the earthquake... in his barn… buried with his bear… poor Pietr… but we pretended he was still alive… and you all believed it… all of you…’
It was like Alain had forgotten Evan was in the room suddenly. He was talking fast, pacing and kicking out at things on the floor.
‘His barn collapsed… poor Pietr… he deserved it… shouldn’t have attacked me should he? So greedy. Don’t you see? I knew he would come… I knew… as soon as the work was finished, I knew he would come for it. He sent two men, I was sleeping and they tried to cut my throat. But I woke up… I killed one and the other ran…’
Evan felt like he was eavesdropping on a private ritual. This airing of sins. Now the confession had started, it came like blood from a wound, warm and sticky, in rhythmical spurts. Alain was muttering, talking two-paced, like he was addressing himself, like there was a voice in his head offering him encouragement, offering him sympathy, maybe even some forgiveness. The more he spoke, the faster he walked. He couldn’t stand still in the act.
‘I had to get away. I had to hide. It was the same thing, all over again… running away… but I had to… Izzy watched Pietr… I trust Izzy… he saw the whole thing come down… the whole barn, right on Pietr’s head, it broke his neck. Serves him right...’
‘Alain! Stop!’ Evan caught the Frenchman’s trailing shalwar and pulled him back. ‘Slow down,’ he pleaded with him, ‘I can’t follow you… please… let’s sit down. You’re telling me he’s been dead all this time?’
‘All this time…’
Alain wouldn’t sit down. He pulled his shalwar from Evan’s grasp, but he had stopped pacing at least. He stood close to the wall, where the jagged cracks intersected, and they seemed to distract him.
‘I had to watch Pietr,’ he said, ‘I had to… I knew he would come again because I wouldn’t tell him where his damn stones were. And not just him. You came too… for exactly the same reason. Hunting me down, with your man from Oxford. Did you know? Did you know it was me? I think that’s why you came… to get me… I never wanted this… you know why I came here…’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Evan exasperated. ‘I don’t know, tell me why?
‘To be alone.’ Alain said, pressing his thumb deep into one of the cracks in the wall. ‘That’s all I wanted. To be as far away as possible from you and from her, from everything… and it worked for a while, before you followed me…’
‘Alain,’ Evan struggled to keep his voice calm, ‘I can’t help where I’m posted.’
‘No?’ Alain twisted his thumb in the crack. ‘If you say so. I guess it didn’t make so much difference, not in the end…’
‘Alain, please… I’m sorry… you’re not making sense.’
‘I can’t really explain it Evan… I suppose I never expected to find anything… not really… it was just an excuse for me, a reason to be out here... I never thought it would work…’
‘But it did work? Your maps…’
‘Yes, it worked. I suppose I should be proud of myself, I should be a rich man…’
‘Are there stones here? In this valley? Or was that a lie too?’
Alain nodded slowly. ‘Like I said, in the caves, this whole valley… do you want to see them?’
‘No…’ Evan shook his head, caves were the last place he wanted to go. ‘No I don’t think so. You could have moved on, somewhere else…’
Alain was forcing his hand deeper and deeper into the crack, prising the plaster apart with his fingers. He was concentrating so hard on it, using it as a distraction. ‘I suppose there’s always somewhere else. But I couldn’t do it, not to this place, not to these people.’
Evan pressed his head into his hands and turned away. He ground his teeth, held himself back, so he couldn’t say what he was thinking: you did it to me.
‘What else could I do?’ Alain laughed suddenly. ‘Everything was so tight inside, I can’t explain… the pressure. All of you were closing in, coming after me… the world screwed tight like… like a fist… and I was hiding, just hiding…’
‘And then Izzy found her at Pietr’s farm. It was incredible, suddenly this great release. Pietr was gone and she came to me… and I thought… I thought you were dead too. When she told me where you were, and I knew this place, I though it would kill you. An earthquake in winter, in these hills… I thought you had no chance. And you know what Evan? I was so glad and so grateful… when I thought you were gone, when I thought God had given me back my daughter.’
‘I thought if Rawicz was dead, if you were dead… then it was over… I thought, after seventeen years…. imagine what I thought Evan – can you imagine it? I just needed to be sure. So I pretended to be Pietr. I sent my telegram to Oxford, just to buy us some time – me and Avalon and Izzy – just some time to get away…. I had to pretend, even to Avalon. It was not such a big lie, and not forever… do you understand? We’re alike in so many ways – you and me. Have you realised that? You’ve been lying all your life too. We’re both on the run. We’re both in hiding, we’re both liars and cowards…’
‘Is that right?’ Evan held his voice as steady as he could. He wanted Alain to stop talking, he didn’t want to hear anymore. Because it destroyed everything.
The Frenchman though wouldn’t stop.
‘Yes. I think that’s right. Often I’ve felt like we were fighting for the same place on earth… does that make sense to you?’
‘No, not really.’
‘It does… really it does… but it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done… I had to pretend I was Rawicz, so Tobias Brierly would think nothing was wrong… the expedition was proceeding. I had to – do you see?’
Evan removed his head from his hands and stared hard into Alain’s face. It was bewildering to follow the scrambled logic, like listening to the confession of child – a man too detached from the world – accusing, incoherent, self-justifying, impossibly frustrating.
‘Stop it Alain.’
Alain was hammering his fist into the plaster now, widening the crack, grating his knuckles raw.
‘Please… what are you doing? What happened to your research?’
‘We found it at the farm and destroyed it,’ he said simply. ‘All the maps… all though data… this is the only valley anyone knows about… just you and me…’
‘So you lied to Avalon too? And you kept lying. Why? Even after you knew Mundy was injured and the valley was safe… I don’t understand.’
‘Evan, I’m sorry.’ Suddenly Alain was sanguine, like his attack on the wall had somehow, miraculously, cured his dementia. He turned and smiled at Evan, a cold smile, bereft of humour. ‘It was never my intention… I had to think so fast… and I honestly never thought you would believe… all this stuff… but you are so trusting… so gullible…’
Evan could taste the sick again. ‘Believe what stuff?’ he said.
‘All of it Evan!’ Alain shouted and spun away, swiping at the air in frustration. The illusion was shattered. ‘All of it… all the stupid lies… how could you believe them? How could you believe that it was all happening now? How could you believe that Rawicz would mine a valley in the middle of winter? How could you believe that it would be so straightforward… so easy… how could you be so stupid?’
Alain spat out the words like gobs of venom. Evan was so taken back, he retreated a step in face of the onslaught. More glass broke beneath his boots, he stumbled, there was a fresh whiff of antiseptic and a bottle shot across the floor, spinning on the boards. His ankle had rolled and he lurched awkwardly, reaching out for the bed to steady himself.
Alain clearly thought he was going for the gun. The Frenchman clutched at his jacket and hauled him back, sending him spinning away into the room. Pain stabbed through his ankle and up his shin, he winced and bit hard. How had he believed what? He still didn’t know. But Alain was standing between him and the mattress and he saw now for certain: the mask had definitely slipped. The venom was meant for him… his own particular poison.
‘Alain… what are you saying?’ He tried pleading again. ‘I still don’t understand.’
Alain shook his head angrily.
‘No you don’t… I never thought it would get this far… it was done, it was over, if only you had left it alone. But for some reason you couldn’t… you are so desperate to prove yourself… and I had to think so fast… what else could I do?’
‘What did you do?’
‘I took the opportunity. You were lying, so I lied too… I read you like a book Evan, and I thought why not… why not play your game for a while, it fitted so well… it was just what I wanted, to get you up here, by yourself… it’s so very remote…’
‘So very remote?’
The truth. He felt it suddenly, it was cold and cruel and it struck him hard from behind, boring like a bullet between his shoulder blades. He had lapped up Alain’s lies like gospel, because he had been lying to himself. Pretending that all he needed to change was a little bit of bravery.
Rawicz was a lie. He was long dead. Maybe Evan had stepped over the body, that night when he wandered the farm. He tried to recall Rawicz from the dinner at the guesthouse, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t even remember what the Russian had looked like. Instead, he had believed everything he was told. He had accepted instantly that Rawicz was the enemy. Just like Mundy had told him. Mundy who was old and bitter and drowned in darkness. Mundy knew Rawicz. Alain knew Rawicz. Boxer knew Rawicz. Is there no way you can stop him? Even Avalon had tricked him. Or he had tricked himself, and Alain had just allowed his stupidity to run riot.
The Frenchman was right. He had an image fixed in his mind: of himself, only slightly older, but wiser and happy, assured and comfortable. Daughter on his arm. Master of his domain. That was what he wanted. To be his own master. He had wanted to prove himself. But things had got away from him, ever since the earthquake, ever since he found the awful gun… Mundy’s gun.
He had started to believe, he had built his confidence into a ghastly fragile edifice, a folly of faith, and he had been besotted with it. His rapture was so great, his sight so fixed on the falsehood, that he had utterly failed to see the truth in the landscape: the bleak outcrops, the ugly truths, the lies pooling around him, bogs and marshland.
He had marched into his own living room and presented Alain with the perfect opportunity. How could he have been so stupid? They really were competing for the same square of turf, they had been all along. Every blade of grass, every inch, every tooth and every nail, every scrap of skin, every swimming sperm…
Had Alain outpaced him to the egg? Avalon was the greatest untruth of all – not a lie, not yet, because really neither of them knew. Maybe Camille had known… but she was dead. She had cut loose from her tangled, twisted history and left her two men to thrash blindly in the briars. And beneath them, buried in that history, deep in the undergrowth, the truth was like a murdered corpse, rotting and secret. Of course Evan had never had the guts to inspect his lineage. It would be like exhuming the body and performing an autopsy. He couldn’t do it. So he had ignored it. And of course Alain felt the same…
Avalon had been born to them both. To fight over.
Evan wondered how he had been able to ignore it for so long. It was the gift of etiquette, of decorum, this ability to rage silently, to fight his battles within himself, like infections in the bloodstream. But he couldn’t ignore it any more, his stupidity had seen to that.
They were equally negligent. Avalon belonged to both of them, and neither of them. He could no more deny Alain than he could deny himself. They would have to resolve it somehow, they would have to dig up the past. No wonder Alain had wanted him alone, no wonder he had lured him into hostile territory.
He needed any advantage he could get now. He needed all the strength he could muster. The Frenchman must have felt the same.
‘So you kept lying, just to get me up here?’
Listening to himself, he thought he sounded tired. That was no good, he needed energy for this fight, he would have to punch above his weight.
‘You lied to me get me away from my Avalon… why? To talk like this…’
‘No,’ Alain smiled the same cold smile. ‘Sorry Evan, I don’t want to talk to you…’
Evan was unsteady on his feet. The tendons in his ankle were twisted, he could feel them swelling in his boot, so he had to balance most of his weight on his other leg and he listed like a stricken ship, over on his left side. He wanted to sit down, to remove the boot and inspect the damage, but he dared not move.
Alain was still between him and the bed. The mask had definitely slipped. The eyes were dry. They were red now and raw. The face betrayed everything. The curl of the upper lip suggested a snarl, the resentment was ploughed in deep furrows across the forehead… a hate-filled face with two dead eyes in the middle.
‘If you don’t want to talk… what do you want?’
His voice was as unsteady as his legs. He had assumed that their minds worked in similar ways, that they wanted roughly the same things… that they were playing by the same rules. He hadn’t learned his lesson. Instead, he had reached out to Alain, held him in his arms. He had assumed that their entangled past could bring them closer. But it couldn’t. It made them enemies. It made them competitors. It was natural selection distilled and concentrated. Alain had realised that, he was in tune with himself. Evan, still clinging to his etiquette, had learned nothing.
‘What do you want Alain?’
The Frenchman didn’t move and he didn’t speak. Perhaps he was less ready than Evan had thought. Now it came to the confrontation, now everything had begun to feel final, perhaps he was hesitant too. Here was an opportunity for Evan to seize the initiative. But it was beyond him. He couldn’t move either. The two men simply stood and stared at each other and Evan imagined that time was drifting, the small missionary hospital was floating away from the valley, gently rising on the swirling wind, up through the snow clouds and the gathering dusk, towards a hole in the black heavens.
‘I’m… sorry… Evan…’
Evan knew exactly what was coming, he had been forewarned by the countless apologies, the Frenchman trying to assuage his guilt: look what you make me do…
The action unfolded in excruciating slow-motion. Alain turned away. Evan caught a final look at his face, the expression was blank. It was like the person inside had vacated the body, absolving itself before the crime was committed.
The Frenchman’s hands were twitching. Evan watched them open and close, open and close, as Alain reached for the rifle. It was remarkable just how narrow and angular his shoulders had become. Even through the shalwar and the furs, Evan could see the convex arch of the Frenchman’s spine, like a ridge in the low hills. His black hair was tangled down the nape of his neck and Evan saw that it was flecked with grey. A mark of maturity. He envied him in that moment. He envied the fat that had fallen away, the hair that had grown, the muscles that had hardened and become sinewy. He wanted a thick curling beard and greying black hair. He wanted to be lean and strong and weathered. He wanted a body that could operate with purpose, that could act without doubt, that could do things that were hard and cruel and uninhibited. He wanted hands that could grip the barrel of a rifle and load bullets into the chamber. He wanted the confidence to keep his back turned, while he spoke to his God and made his apologies. Or asked for assistance.
He wanted to be Alain, laying claim to Avalon.
But he was Evan Pike. With a scraggy ginger stubble, freckles on his cheeks and a doughy soft mouth. He wore novelty ties. He missed his wife. He missed his daughter. And he was scared.
The hospital was silent. Evan could hear Alain whispering to himself. He imagined the lips moving, the words streaming into the ether. He imagined the eyes were closed. The hands were calm. Not shaking like his. He backed away but the glass crunched beneath his feet. He froze mid-step, the Frenchman heard him. Time was no longer drifting. The world was constricted. There was no air in the atmosphere. His chest was tight, his heart was leaping.
He gasped for breath, his head was full of the antiseptic. His eyes were watering. He lurched towards the hospital door, imagined Alain turning and taking aim. He lunged for his backpack.
His ankle was agony. A violent pain accompanied every step. But he pushed through, he hit the snow and skidded away from the open door. He scrambled out of the ditch to escape the road, hauling his pack on to his back as he did so, dragging himself on his stomach over the steep bank. He had hope. Dusk was falling quickly, the clouds were black, it would be a dark and starless night. If only he could get away from the hospital he could hide.
But Alain was coming after him, he heard the door kicked open, he had only a few metres head start. He kicked on with his good leg, almost stumbling forward. He used his hands to propel himself, running on all fours, fleeing like a hunted beast through the ever deeper snow.
He was running for the boulders beside the river. That was his only thought. He glanced over his shoulder but he couldn’t see Alain. Perhaps the Frenchman had turned the wrong way out of the hospital. The obvious escape would be down the valley towards the jeep. But he knew his ankle wouldn’t make it. He was hobbled, just like Mundy had been, by the most innocuous misfortune.
He was leaving deep tracks in the snow. And he was limping now. Dragging his twisted ankle behind him, moving slower and slower. Where was Alain? He couldn’t see him. But he couldn’t be far behind.
He had made it down into the fields. He glanced back again and this time he saw Alain. The Frenchman was coming up the valley from behind the hospital. He had turned the wrong way at first but he had seen Evan now. He was fifty metres away and gaining ground. Evan pushed on, the backpack swinging in the air like some ridiculous hump. He was straining harder and harder but moving nowhere, like his hands were somehow unable to gain traction, like his feet were bogged. His knees pumped but the snow was getting deeper. If he had lain on his stomach it would have covered him.
His face was numb, frozen by the snow. He was dribbling. Whether from the exertion or the pain or the fear, a stream of snot and spittle hung down from his chin. His clothes were soaking wet and heavy, they slowed him down even more. But the first of the boulders was only a few feet ahead, its mossy silhouette almost touchable. He reached out but fell short. So he slid forward on his stomach and rolled under the rock, changing direction, so that he was crawling north, parallel with the river.
He heard Alain call his name. The tone was mocking but he was too distraught to pay proper attention. He was crawling up hill now, slithering between the boulders, keeping as low to the ground as possible.
It was getting dark. Already he would be hard to see. That was what he told himself. Just a little further, just a little faster. He could hear the river not far away. That was why there were so many boulders here, they had been swept down the valley by the water then cast aside and forgotten. If ever there was a metaphor for life… though how it could encompass this grim and snivelling end…
He couldn’t crawl much further. His hands were ice blue, he was spitting snow from his mouth. He fell behind a boulder and hugged his knees against his chest, he was shivering. He had no idea where Alain was, so he couldn’t possibly know if he was safe.
He was still wearing his backpack. It was wedged between his back and the rock. He managed to roll over and slip out of its straps. His hands had frozen into deformed claws, he fumbled with the buckles. Eventually he got them open and tugged back the hood. He started to cast the contents out into the snow. The food they had stolen, his western clothes… it was right down at the bottom. Deliberately he had packed like Mundy.
He shook the pack empty. The grease stained sheet fell out into the snow. He unwrapped it is as fast as his useless hands would allow and the Makarov fell into the snow. He still didn’t know if it was loaded. That was an incredible oversight, he now realised, if he should have to use it.
He struggled with the box of ammunition. His fingers couldn’t manage it. He had squeeze the box until the cardboard buckled and the bullets spilled out at his feet. Even then, he couldn’t handle the lead slugs. His fingers were too cold, they couldn’t feel and they wouldn’t bend. So he couldn’t pick the bullets out of the snow and he couldn’t manipulate them into the gun.
He tried to remember the feeling of strength and certainty that the gun had given him. The dead-eyed calm. It was impossible to recreate. He scooped up the Makarov but it was too heavy for his frozen hands to hold. It felt unwieldy in his grasp, as alien and unwelcome now as the first time he had discovered it. Was it so heavy because there were bullets inside? Surely Mundy would have carried his gun loaded.
He would have to trust to faith. He had to forget everything he had ever thought. He had to have faith. Blind faith.
He left his pack behind the boulder and started to crawl again. The ground was getting steeper, the boulder field was beginning to thin. He was going to run out of cover soon. He heard Alain behind him, the unmistakable tread of boots in deep snow. Crawling was no good now. He was being hunted down like a lame dog. He had to get to his feet. This was it. This moment. He was out of time. He had to stand.
He was more unsteady than ever on his feet but somehow he managed to keep moving. He hauled himself up the short rise. He glanced over his shoulder. Alain was close behind him. Twenty metres away. He kept going. He dragged his screaming ankle through the snow, he reached the top of the slope and he lurched forward.
There was a barbed wire fence, hidden, half buried in the snow. Of all the bizarre, incongruous, unwelcome things. He didn’t know if he could get over it. His twisted ankle wouldn’t take his weight. Again he glanced back. Alain was approaching the foot of the slope. He threw his bad ankle over first. The fence wasn’t high, but his standing foot was sinking into the snow. Alain had stopped at the bottom of the slope, he was cradling the rifle against his shoulder. This was it. This was the moment. He braced himself for the pain and tried to swing his trailing leg. The ankle buckled in the snow and he went over, falling on the barbed wire, which tangled his leg, so that the teeth gouged at the back of his calf. He dragged himself on away from the fence. But his shalwar was snagged, it held him back. He tugged at the fabric but it wouldn’t rip. It wouldn’t tear loose. He was caught on the fence.
He tried to steady his breathing. There would be no more running. He closed his eyes briefly. He was lying on his side, his face in the snow. But he had to stand up. He had to face Alain.
He sat up first. The shalwar had knotted itself around the wire. There was no chance that his frozen fingers could work it loose. His heart was throwing itself against his ribcage. The adrenalin was acid in his veins. His hands were shaking. He tried to hold the Makarov steady, to work his forefinger on to the trigger.
He could see Alain clearly enough, the rifle raised and steady. He climbed slowly to his feet. He couldn’t move very well because he was tangled in the shalwar. But he could stand and face Alain. He could raise his own weapon. He could imagine the doubt in Alain’s face, the shock that Evan too could be armed. He felt proud of himself as he levelled the sights. He was revealing a hidden strength. It was hard to hold the gun steady though. He couldn’t stop shivering. He couldn’t tame his snarling heart.
He closed one eye and stared down the spine of the barrel. He fixed Alain in his sights and wondered briefly why the Frenchman had not fired. Perhaps it wasn’t so easy, squeezing the trigger. Screwing oneself tight enough to commit murder. But he could do it. He would have to do it. He had no choice. And he found, the longer he stood there, the calmer he felt. His heart retreated, bristling, into a corner of its cage. He was stronger than he had thought.
This was survival of the fittest, a perfect evolutionary moment. A victory for the quiet man and for hidden strength.
He exhaled for a long time. He emptied himself. He had stopped shivering. The Makarov was steady in his hands. He knew Alain couldn’t do it. The Frenchman had been lying to himself. Alain couldn’t end it. But he could. He would.
He squeezed the trigger.
There was no shot. Just a dull, empty echo of what might have been. The chamber was empty. He tried again and again but there was nothing there. He felt sick in the pit of his stomach, deep down in the juice and bile. He felt sick in his mouth again. The hollow clicks echoed in a vast and empty night. Then the rifle fired. He heard it or saw it. He wasn’t sure which came first. There was simply a flare at the edge of his consciousness, then a moment of intense silence and a sense of vast space, before he felt the onrushing bullet, and he doubled over, swayed briefly, and pitched, face first, into the snow.


Chapter Twenty Three
He rolled over. He had fallen next to water, though he was nowhere near the river. He couldn’t be. He couldn’t even hear the river now. This water was frozen, and there was a thick dusting of snow settled on the ice. So he couldn’t really know it was water at all. But he did somehow. He knew that the square pond was full of frigid blue water, just as he knew that glass-eyed trout were floating on their sides inches beneath the ice. The only thing he remembered about trout was something his father had told him when he was young. That to catch one, you had to reach slowly into the water and stroke its belly. If you could do that, it would roll over for you and you could fish it out as easy as you liked. Trout tickling it was called.
He hadn’t believed his father. He still didn’t believe the story. There were so many problems with the theory. The idea that a trout would let you reach beneath it to steal a grope. It seemed so improbable. But the possibility was tantalising. It was a wonderful notion. And yet he had never investigated it. He had never tried it himself, never asked a fisherman or a scientist for an opinion and now he would never know.
Perhaps it was better that way. Better to leave the world with some wonder left in it. It was the same with Camille. There was so much he hadn’t asked her, so much he hadn’t tried. Deep down, where the sex came from, and the desire, and the anger and the joy. Where it really mattered. He had never really explored down there. Not in her. Not in himself. They had always been inhibited.
Which was good, in a way. What if he had dug around, excavated deep beneath the surface, and discovered that he didn’t like the truth? What if they were never really meant to be together? What is she never really loved him? What if his daughter wasn’t really his? Sometimes, it was better not to break the surface. It was better to leave the trout alone. It was better to preserve the mystery and live in a world of what might have been.
He was cold, which was unpleasant. His face and his fingers were fine, he couldn’t feel them, but there was a creeping chill in his torso, like ice water filling his chest cavity. Drowning his animal heart. It could feel it shivering. It was upsetting him, making him feel lonely somehow… he supposed it was the warmth leaving him. That feeling of abandonment. He couldn’t feel his legs either, not even where the bullet had entered at the top of his thigh, not far from his groin. He was glad that he had not been shot in the testicles. It was funny to think like that, in a way, but it would have been humiliating to die from blasted nuts. And probably far more painful.
The wound had burned at first but that was all. For a while he had thought he could feel the bullet, cold and hard and nestled in the soft tissue just beneath his backside. But he had probably been imagining it. Now he couldn’t feel anything. That was the shock he supposed, and he was grateful for it. It was nice that it wasn’t too painful. It would be horrible if his head was filled with blood and gore and shredded muscle because he wouldn’t be able to think.
He was draining into the snow. A pink stain was spreading from his groin, soaking through the ice towards the pond and seeping down towards the frozen turf. There was a lot of blood. He supposed that was the problem. The bullet must have hit an artery. The femoral artery was it, in the leg? He could never remember anatomy that well.
Alain was a lousy shot, that much was clear. He should have been angry about that, he knew, but he couldn’t summon the energy. There wasn’t much point now. Anyway, it was nice to have a bit of time to remember Camille, to remember the good things: her face breaking into a smile, her body arching on his, the contour of her breasts, the warmth of her stomach, her damp hair the day Avalon was born…
He stopped himself. He didn’t want to think of Avalon. There wasn’t much comfort there. He had failed her again. He hadn’t kept any of the promises he had made on her behalf.
Though he had tried, if that meant anything.
It probably didn’t.
He was aware that Alain was standing over him but he chose not to open his eyes, he chose not to acknowledge the Frenchman. He had been standing there for several minutes, maybe even longer, or maybe no time at all. It was difficult to tell. There was no way of measuring time. They weren’t speaking, secretly, he was hoping Alain would never speak again. The sky was dark, the world was still.
He couldn’t say anything himself, his mouth wouldn’t work. Again, it was probably for the best. What would he say?
It felt like Alain didn’t matter so much anymore. Their contest was over.
Also, it was a relief that he hadn’t had to shoot anybody. He was glad about that. Maybe Alain would manage better, living with murder. As long as he kept it from Avalon, that was probably all that mattered. As long as Alain looked after her… as best he could… better than Evan had done…
Guilt was a funny thing. Evan had lived all his adult life with a guilt he hadn’t understood. It had been isolating. But now, suddenly, he didn’t feel guilty anymore, maybe his conscience was taking it easy on him.
The Frenchman was kneeling down. He was laying his furs across Evan’s shoulders. They didn’t help much but it was generous nevertheless. Maybe he was feeling guilty too. For the affair, or for the murder. Evan hoped not. It detracted from his own suffering somehow. And it questioned the necessity of the whole exercise, if Alain regretted it already.
‘I am so sorry.’ The Frenchman was leaning right over him, whispering in his ear.
Evan tried to smile, politely, to show that he understood. Life’ rich tapestry and all that. But he couldn’t tell if the sentiment ever made it to his lips.
‘I only have one bullet,’ whispered Alain, ‘otherwise I would finish this for you.’
That wasn’t quite what Evan was thinking but it didn’t matter. The past had become irrelevant. It was an interesting: the past was only important if he had a future. He didn’t, so there was no point worrying about the sins that were committed and the things that were said. It didn’t matter who was right or who was wrong. There was only one thing that mattered now.
‘I will look after her… make sure she has everything she wants, everything she needs… so it is better this way… better for her… I will look after her properly, better than you could ever do. You do not need to worry.’
Maybe it was better this way. It rather depended on one’s point of view.
‘I am sorry Evan, so sorry that it had to be this way…’
Evan wanted to apologise too. He was sorry for so many things. But Alain was the wrong person to have around, he wasn’t sorry for anything as far as the Frenchman was concerned. But if Camille had been kneeling over him, he would have apologised for assuming too much and changing too little. If Avalon had been kneeling there, he would have apologised for being scared of her and for the years he stayed away. If Philip was there, if his father was there, if his mother was there… the list went on and on. But he owed Alain no apology. The Frenchman, much like Evan, had only himself to blame.
Alain was stroking his hair.
He wondered if he was dead already. He was lying on to his back. His eyes were closed, he couldn’t remember ever having them open. But he wanted them open now. He wanted to see a bit of the world, because that was better than lying in darkness. But it took a great effort, he had so little energy left. If he wasn’t dead, it couldn’t be long now, he couldn’t bleed forever.
It looked like the clouds might be breaking up, though it was hard to focus on anything that far away. And he could see little passed the Frenchman’s face. The damn eyes. The tiny pupils, the grey-blue wash. They still made no sense to him. Proximity to death offered no insight.
He would have preferred to be alone. Then, maybe, he could have been more honest with himself. He could have thought about Avalon more. And Camille. It might have been more personal. Maybe he could have cried a little. But he didn’t feel like that was acceptable, not with Alain so close. He might be the loser, but he still wanted to act with some dignity.
So he closed his eyes again and he didn’t see Alain lean in closer, and he hardly felt the kiss on his forehead because his face was so numb. It was a strange thing to do. Perhaps it was a sign of tenderness. An effort at reciprocation. But it felt like a violation. The final theft of something he could no longer protect.

* * *

They met in Paris. He was twenty two years old. Having just finished his undergraduate degree, he was abroad for the year, chasing clichés, trying to improve his French. He chose Paris because of Hemingway and Miller and what they had written about the city. He chose Paris because of all the inhibitions he was trying to shake off and because it was close and he could afford the ferry ride across the channel.
He had a job at the embassy, nothing much, office work, running errands mainly, sometimes proof reading copy for dispatch. And he had a single room in a bed sit a couple of streets back from the Champs Elysee´.
She was a year younger, a final year history student at the Sorbonne. Their romance was one of those ridiculous, contrived, peculiarly English affairs. At lunchtime, she used to sit with her books at a small café off the Rue Saint-Jacques. He walked passed her one day and pretended not to notice. But he saw her. And she was everything he imagined a French girl should be. The perfect cliché. Coquettish and liberated, enigmatic, demur, provocative, loyal, fiery, sanguine, obedient, creative, destructive… he conjured an endless stream of contradictory personalities for her. He walked home from the café, sat down with his diary, and wrote intricate dramatic scenes to accommodate each and every personality. And she whirled about him on stage, playing the temptress, the loyal wife, the damaged girl, the villain, the recalcitrant, the revolutionary… each and every single role.
In the following weeks, he conjured countless excuses to pass by the café, he changed his route to and from work, he ran errands that didn’t need running, he started to stop, he sat down by himself and pretended to read the paper. He smiled, he looked shy, he affected black-hearted moods, he smoked, he drank, he grew his scraggly beard, he tried everything he could to help her see him. And, after a fortnight of effort, he elicited a smile. A shy, retreating, faintly embarrassed smile. It was a moment that made him love her forever.
It was still more than a month before he summoned the courage to talk to her. He had drunk wine in the morning, so he was a little unsteady when he sat down at his table and ordered his lunch. The cigarette was jittery in his mouth when he approached her table. His French was stuttering and uncertain, his skin blushed, his palms sweated, he was only just able to ask if she would care to join him. It was the first Monday in March.
They had lunch together on seventeen of the thirty one days that month and they spoke only in English. At first, he could hardly believe she was talking to him, such was his formidable fear of French girls. She was his silver-screen woman, his movie star. But, in many ways, she was more shy than he was. She was not long escaped from her overweening parents and their parochial legacy, so she was younger than her birth suggested… and she was only half the things he imagined she was.
They first kissed on the last day in March.
She had three months to finish at the Sorbonne and he used that time to convince her to come to England with him. They were married in a small red-brick church near his parents home in Ealing. Her mother came to the wedding but her father was too sick to travel. When the service was finished and they had held the reception in the parish hall, they had two months before he was due at Oxford. They honeymooned in Morocco, climbed in the Atlas mountains, smoked grass, drank mint tea and pretended that it was only the beginning.
Four months before she died, she wrote to him. The letter was folded in its envelop in a drawer in his bedroom, hidden beneath a pile of his clothes. It was written in French. She never apologised for what had happened with Alain, but then he never expected her to. It was more his fault than hers. And it meant something, he supposed, to be the first person she told about the cancer. Even though he knew it was mainly for Avalon’s sake, not his. The letter was his call to arms, as it were. He hid it, but he cherished it, just like he cherished every other memory of her, from her first words to her last. She remained his escape from reality, even after the divorce, even after her death, even to the very brink of his own…

* * *

When he opened his eyes for the last time the Frenchman had gone and the snow clouds were breaking up. The moon was a ghostly vessel, cutting a path through the ragged waters, trailing stars in its wake. It was a full moon nearly. It needed a few more days, which he would never see. He couldn’t move now, his legs were gone, his arms were full of ice. Time was beyond him. The air froze in tiny pockets in his lungs. He was the nearly man, the never man, the ice man unearthed. The long bleak winter waited for him. Elsewhere in the world grass was taking root in rock, acorns budded into oak, rivers cleaved continents, coral was aflame in the sea. The great vibrating pulse of nature was humming, the sonar of whales, the beating owl wings, the barking dogs. But not here. Here it was quiet.
There was not much left to do but wait. It was depressing when he thought of it like that. To have so little time left and nothing to fill it. Alain was gone. He would be walking back to the jeep, trying to navigate down the mountain with a fried radiator. Somehow, Evan was certain, the Frenchman would get himself on to a flight back to Islamabad. Then he would return to the house and lie to Avalon. There was a certain neatness in that, it was a pleasant enough epilogue.
He couldn’t imagine what her future with Alain might be like. She was practically a woman now, only a few careless years younger than Camille had been when they met. She would find romance of her own before too long, and Alain would face competition for his affection. The important thing was that Alain didn’t try to turn her into Camille. That was the risk. Evan should have said something before the Frenchman left but, hopefully, he would work it out for himself.
He hoped Avalon would not grieve too much. She had endured enough in recent times. She should be alright though. For all his good intentions, he hadn’t actually made them closer. He had been obsessed with changing himself first, as though a better life required a better man to live it. But at least he had loved her for a while, missed her, feared for her, without doubt or jealousy. That was something to be proud of, something to take to Camille.
Strangely, it would probably be Philip who missed him the most. In the end, he had found companionship where he least expected to look for out. Outside of society, away from the people he had wanted to emulate. That was a valuable enough lesson. Philip was a decent man, and that was all that mattered really.
He didn’t regret his decision to come here. It could have worked out differently, he was convinced of that. In the end, there had been only a single bullet’s difference between them. A few wayward grams of lead. No wonder Camille had found it so hard to chose. He didn’t blame her. He had never blamed her.
Alain was right. She would have loved it here. It really was the most beautiful place. A little remote. A little cold. But the stars were so very close, he seemed almost to be among them. Floating with the moon through the still black waters. The river had drained into the sky. He could hear the waves lapping against its rock. It was wonderfully peaceful without the noisy river. The wind was in the deodar trees, it sounded like voices he couldn’t quite hear. It made him feel lonely. It would have been nice to have someone to talk to. He had hoped that she would have come by now. But she was never that punctual. She wouldn’t be far away, she wouldn’t be long now. She wouldn’t leave him here.
There was an awful lot of time left.
An awful lot.
He just had to wait.