‘It started as a basic trading company; we sent goods over from Hong Kong. We had them manufactured in Burma and Thailand where it was cheaper. Well, the goods became drugs. Then the drug trade was just beginning for us. We were offered a stake by the Opium King. He gave us the rights to process the opium and manufacture heroin. Those were good years for us. We made big money. We expanded and we took over the European routes. The heroin was smuggled to Amsterdam and from there it was distributed throughout Europe. Deming handled that side of it; he was back and forth to Amsterdam. He was very good at his job—ruthless, even…’

86

Sue called to the boatman under the bridge and there was a scramble to get near enough to the boat to pull it in. They needed to get Riley into a car and into hospital as fast as they could. He was very weak but still alive. Riley pulled at Sue’s arm; he wanted to speak to her. She leant over to listen. Louis stood near by.

‘The meds, Sue. You’ve forgotten the meds,’ said Riley.

Sue shook her head and turned to look at Louis.

‘What’s he talking about?’ asked Louis, as he waited for the boat to stabilise alongside the jetty and for the porters to be able to lift Riley off.

‘The meds? He’s delirious.’

‘Oh shit!’ Louis groaned as he caught on to what Riley was saying. ‘He means that we forgot to leave any meds behind for Mann and the others.’

Riley looked at Louis. ‘Go back out there now. They need you. Sue will get me to the hospital.’

‘Okay. I will stop here one night, pick up more supplies and then I’m gone.’

87

Katrien pushed the young man away. She was irritable and he was making it worse. She couldn’t get what she wanted from him and she was hot and bothered. Her skin sweated out the coke. Now she only had methamphetamine and heroin instead, and she didn’t much care for either. She pushed him away and stood up.

‘Go,’ she said imperiously, peeling off notes from a wad and throwing them on the bed. He stayed where he was, a little unsure of himself. ‘Now!’

He reached for his clothes, picked up the money and left, closing the door behind him. Katrien went into the bathroom to vomit. The heroin always made her puke. She splashed her face with water and watched a cockroach scuttle across the shower tray. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her makeup was streaked down her face. Her eyes were red, her face was sweating. She looked like shit. She went back into the bedroom and checked her phone; she threw it on the bed in disgust.

‘What’s wrong with this fucking place?’ she said out loud. ‘No fucking signal. No one is answering their fucking phone.’

Katrien texted another message to Mann on his mobile. Sooner or later, he would pick up the message. He only had to cross the river into Thailand and he would get a signal. Then she would know that he was on his way. She lay back on the bed and watched the ceiling fan whir lazily around. She could feel the heat still in the bed; she could smell the sex she had with the boy. And, as much as it disgusted her, she wanted it again. Her hands moved to touch herself in the heat and sweat; she could not stop her craving for sex. She finished and got up to chop another line of ice. She would save the heroin for later. It calmed her. But right now she needed to wake up. She snorted it and gave a yell of pain as the chemical hit her sensitive nasal passages. Her phone rang. She scrabbled to find it in the sheets.

‘Hello, Big Man…yes, just leave him to me. I will deal with it. You go back to the hills and wait. When I have the money I will come…It won’t go wrong…Leave him for me. Get out now.’

Katrien hung up. She had another call waiting. She sprang up onto her knees, excited as she answered.

‘My love…Hello, baby, I thought you were still in the jungle. Are you on the way back? I can’t bear it here on my own, hurry…I need you.’

88

Mann lay on the ground, on a makeshift bed of soft fern on the forest floor. A monkey looked down inquisitively from the high branches above. The insects walked over him; the mammals came to investigate. He was becoming part of the earth. Leaves fluttered down from the trees above and settled on him.

Mann was dreaming of hot sand beneath his bare feet. He was dreaming of paddling out to sea. Mann felt good; he had a surfboard in his hand. He felt the cool water around his knees as he walked out into the calm turquoise ocean. The sun was warm on his back; he was desperate to dive into the water. It looked like a day in paradise. He couldn’t be in a better place…But then he realised he wasn’t going to be able to surf, there were no waves. Not a wave, it was too flat. Why was it so calm? He didn’t know why he would have a surfboard in his hands if he wasn’t going to be able to surf. Why were his feet so heavy in the sticky sand? Suddenly nothing felt right. It was taking him forever to get anywhere and now he was not just hot, he was boiling, and the sun was blinding him. Then he looked up at the horizon and saw that it looked strange, it was rising. He watched it growing taller, climbing up out of the sea and then his heart surged and pounded and his breathing become loud and frantic. He tried to cry out, he tried to turn and run, he tried to move, but his feet were held like cement by the sand and he knew there was a tsunami coming and this time it would get him.

Someone touched his arm, as light a touch and as cold as to seem just like a breeze, and a young man appeared behind him, smiling at him and beckoning him to turn away from the approaching wall of water. The youth was dark haired, good looking. He was wearing bright coloured board shorts but they were ripped and slashed, and beneath the torn fabric his legs were cut badly with deep wounds to the bone. A large shard of glass protruded from his chest. The youth followed Mann’s gaze to his chest and he smiled at Mann as if to say—don’t worry…I feel no pain. Mann looked back towards the horizon. Now he could see nothing but the wall of water. No sky was left. Any second it would be upon him, completely crushing him. Already, in its approach, the water had risen to his waist. Mann turned back to the youth and, as he did so, he felt his feet slide out of the sand and move. He looked towards the shore. A monk stood there, completely still, his orange robes turning to dark red as the water rose around his chest. He seemed not to care about the approaching tsunami. He seemed to be waiting for Mann and the boy. He smiled at Mann. It was the same monk he had met that time in the temple at Chiang Mai. The monk was saying something.

‘We are what we think. What we think, we become.’ The youth was nodding and smiling at Mann, as if agreeing with the monk. Then the youth took the surfboard from Mann’s hands and held it flat on the water for Mann to mount. At the same time he glanced over Mann’s shoulder and then looked back at him with a reassuring smile. Mann did not dare look behind. He knew that a thirty-metre wall of water was about to take him and swallow him whole. The youth held on to the board and Mann climbed on. Then the wave lifted him high up in the air and he saw the youth far below him, in a tunnel, and he was smiling up at him, his feet anchored in the sand.