Mann could see by Riley’s face that guilt was eating him up. Mann could imagine Riley would have put up a good fight. They would have got more than they bargained for if they had chosen a different day to attack, but then, maybe that’s precisely why they chose that day.

‘But the reality is I couldn’t have stopped it happening.’ Riley picked up a stone that was nudging his toe. ‘I am just glad that they are all together. Let’s hope they will support one another and come through it.’

He glanced to the far horizon; the hills were beautiful, almost sheer as they rose majestically above the plains. Mann was staring towards Burma too, the mountainous Shan homeland where the Karen state begged to be allowed to exist. Mann wondered where in those dense woodlands his brother was and whether he was still alive.

53

‘She is gone now, Thomas. They can’t hurt her any more.’

The grey mists of morning gave a ghostly quality to the still air around the twisted bodies of the murdered women, now unearthly and ugly forms.

Thomas lay curled on his side, still watching his sister even though she had died in the hours before dawn. He could not take his eyes from her body, tied to the roof strut, now stiffening with rigor mortis. Silke’s head was slumped forward and her blonde hair hung over her face. Thomas was glad he did not have to see her face.

At the far end of the platform the old porter said nothing as he crouched and stared at the carnage; his daughter was one of the dead before him. From outside came the sound of drunken snoring.

Jake reached over and laid his hand on Thomas’s back.

‘Thomas?’ Jake did not know what he was going to say to Thomas, but he only knew he had to reach him. ‘Thomas…’

But he stopped as he saw a shadowy figure appear at the edge of the platform. Even in the dim light Jake knew it was Saw. He had come to know the way he stood, the way he walked. He had come to know him. Saw scanned the platform, taking in the details anew as if he too had thought it had only been a dream and his eyes were only now gradually unveiling it as more than a nightmare. For a minute he reeled as he stepped up onto the platform and then he focused on Jake and walked slowly towards him. He squatted beside him. His body stank of sweat and his breath was foul with rum.

‘You see…’ Saw flicked his head in the direction of the bodies that lay behind him. ‘All this, your fault, boy.’

Jake stared back at him but said nothing, his heart hammering in his chest.

‘What do you want?’ Anna said, her voice quiet, soft, devastated.

Saw twisted his neck to look at her with contempt.

‘From you? I will have what I want soon enough. From the boy…’ He turned back to Jake. ‘I will have my life back or you will die like her.’

He pointed to Silke whose body was already crawling with flies.

54

Magda unlocked the front door of the PIC and locked it behind her. She pulled down the blind and went through to the back. There was a kitchen area and a small office with shelves where she kept the accounts and receipt books. Above those shelves there was a large cupboard that Magda had completely forgotten about. It was full of old records, press cuttings about the PIC, paperwork leading to the erection of the statue of Belle. Anything that needed to be stored long term was kept in this cupboard. Magda dragged a stool over and stood on it to reach down three shoe boxes that she hadn’t seen for fifteen years.

She sat on the floor and opened the boxes one at a time. One held mainly baby mementoes of the boys—a lock of Daniel’s hair, a photo of her carrying Jake when he was first born. She couldn’t remember who had taken the photo. It wasn’t Deming. He had been on the other side of the world when she had given birth. The next box was older. There were photos of her as a baby and as a child, growing up. Magda didn’t like to think of those days. She looked at one of the photos—she was standing with her new bike, the bike her father had given her for promising not to tell what he’d been doing to her. Magda closed that box and pushed it away. She neither had the time nor the desire to go down that particular memory lane.

The third box contained things from her time with Deming. There were photos of them together. Magda smiled as she looked at them. He had been a handsome man. And yes, she had to concede, she did look so young, but Deming didn’t look too old. She put the photos to one side to show Alfie later. Then she picked out some newspaper clippings, neatly folded and now pressed flat over the years. Magda did not even recognise some of the things in the box. They must have been Deming’s and she had just kept everything of his. She stared at one of the clippings. It was a picture of Deming standing next to an Asian man. On the back was scribbled a date and a name that Magda didn’t recognise. At first she also didn’t recognise where they were standing, and then it hit her. They were outside the NAP offices.

55

All around Mae Klaw, rebuilding was going on. It was full of the sound of construction and men calling instructions to one another: at least a hundred houses were being rebuilt. The air still held the smell of burnt homes and ruined lives and the men worked without laughter or joy to try and regain some normality for themselves and their families in their fragile existence.

Mann and Riley turned onto a side road on the right and stopped outside a hut on the edge of the decimated area.

Riley lowered his voice.

‘Okay, this is it. This is the person I wanted you to meet. We will have to be brief and be discreet—there are always people willing to sell information for a decent meal.’

They took off their shoes and climbed the ladder into the hut, bending their heads as they entered into a dark inner room. There was no light except that which filtered through the split bamboo walls and from the entrance. In the corner Mann could make out a young woman sitting next to an infant sleeping on a mat on the floor. As they entered, the woman stood slowly and gracefully, and greeted them in the traditional Thai manner.

‘This is Run Run,’ said Riley. ‘She wants to help us.’

The baby did not stir as she stood. Run Run was beautiful: big eyes set in a small triangular face. She was light skinned with dark hair swept into a side parting, across her forehead, and then tied back with a series of bright scarves. She wore a simple dark red top and a homespun sarong was tied around her waist. She was a petite member of the Long-Neck Karen tribe, one of the most beautiful of the hill tribes. The women traditionally wore coils of brass around their necks, adding more coils to them each year as they grew up. It was believed to stretch the neck but actually crushed the vertebrae and collarbones, instead of achieving the desired aim of making the neck look longer. This tribeswoman had chosen not to wear the brass coils but that hadn’t stopped her neck from looking swan-like. She stood with her narrow shoulders square and held back. Her every action, her every movement was calculated, and yet somehow fluid.

Mann looked first at her and then at the sleeping baby. Run Run read his thoughts.

‘Do not worry, the infant is not mine. His mother died in childbirth; now all the women take it in turns to care for him. I understand the risks and I am willing to take them.’