Xenopath (13 page)

"She was
witness to a murder," Vaughan said.

Rao nodded,
assessing whether this information might conceivably be to his
advantage. "Indeed," he said. "I see. Hmm... Now let
me consider the various ins and outs of the situation as I see it, Mr
patriarchal Brahmin probity. Vaughan marvelled at the contrast
between the doctor's outward persona and the schemes he knew festered
in the Indian's fertile mind.

Rao leaned
forward. "And might I enquire as to the health of your young
wife?"

"Sukara's
doing fine, Rao."

"And if my
information is not erroneous, the patter of tiny feet is imminent?"

Vaughan shook
his head in amazement. "How on earth did you know that, Rao?"

The old man
laughed. "Nothing is a secret from Dr Rao, Mr Vaughan! You
should know that." His rheumy eyes became even more liquid. "Ah,
children. They are truly one's hope for the future."

And your meal
ticket in the here and now, Vaughan thought.

"I heard
also, on the grapevine, shall we say, that you had your telepathic
implant removed... in somewhat adverse circumstances."

Vaughan nodded.
"Old news, Rao. That happened two years ago."

"And you
have not had it replaced?"

He shook his
head. "I elected for the quiet life," he said. Why alert
Rao to the fact that the good doctor's lies could be seen through?

"I must
admit that I never thought you the type of man to settle down,"
Rao went on.

"Life is
full of surprises, Rao."

The doctor
laughed. "You are so right, my friend. For instance, it was a
surprise to hear from you, but a pleasant surprise, might I add? You
mentioned something about trying to locate a certain child of the
street?"

Vaughan."
He took time to sip his lassi, then wipe the foamy moustache from his
upper lip. "Mr Vaughan, information, as a commodity—as you
well know—is valuable. What I mean to say is that I could put
you into contact with someone who might know something about the
child, but of course, as is the nature of things, I would have no
option but to expect recompense for effecting such a service."
The doctor beamed across the table with the innocence of a saint.

Vaughan sighed,
trying not to smile. There was something almost entertaining in
listening to Rao's self-justifying circumlocutions. "How much,
Rao?"

"Now let me
see. If the child was indeed witness to a murder, then this is very
serious indeed, and my guess is that your need to locate her is
correspondingly acute—which leads me to the inevitable
conclusion that you would be willing to part with perhaps, let's say,
in the region of five hundred baht for any information leading to
your locating the girl..." Rao beamed like a guiltless babe,
"...and a further five hundred if such information successfully
leads to her apprehension?"

"I'll give
you three hundred baht up front, if the information is solid. If I
find her, you get the same again. Take it or leave it."

"Mr
Vaughan, you drive a hard bargain. You fail to understand quite how
financially draining it is to look after my flock."

"Three and
three, Rao. My final offer."

Rao looked down
at the pix of the Thai girl on the tabletop, considering. "I
find myself beholden to accept your paltry offer, Mr Vaughan. One
moment."

He turned and
called a waiter, who hurried to the table. Rao fired off a volley of
Hindi and the waiter nodded and made for the exit. Seconds later he
returned, with a shaven-headed Thai boy, about eight years old, in
tow.

Vaughan
recognised the kid as one of a bunch of beggars who hung around
outside Nazruddin's night and day. The boy's left arm had been
removed, expertly, at the shoulder.

The boy stood
meekly beside the table, like a pupil called to the headmaster's
office for wrongdoing.

"Now Kam,"
Rao said, lifting the pix from the table and showing it to the boy,
"I wish you to help me in a certain important matter." He
switched to rapid-fire Thai, and Vaughan caught only the odd
comprehensible phrase. "Thai girl... very serious crime... was
Abdul with her that night?"

The boy
responded in a whisper, eyes downcast. At last Rao said, in Thai,
"Go, bring Abdul here to me!"

The boy hurried
off and Rao beamed. "The first stage of the process of locating
the girl is under way. You will have no regrets in coming to Dr Rao,
my friend!"

Vaughan smiled.
"You're one in a million, Rao."

Rao's pleased
grin displayed an abundance of gold filling. "You should not
have left it almost two years to reacquaint yourself with my
efficacy, my good friend. Remember—Dr Rao is on hand to
facilitate all manner of requirements!"

Vaughan nodded.
"I'll bear that in mind."

He ordered a
third beer and another lassi for Rao, and two minutes later Kam
appeared at the door with a gangly Muslim ten-year-old.

Rao dismissed
Kam and gestured Abdul to approach the table. The boy glanced from
Rao to Vaughan with stark fear in his dark eyes.

Rao spoke to the
boy, this time in Urdu, which Vaughan had no hope of following.

"Ah-cha,"
Rao said, nodding. "Ah-cha, very interesting."

He quizzed the
boy again, and nodded at his reply. At last the boy fell silent and
Rao smiled beatifically at Vaughan.

"It would
seem, my friend, that Abdul made the acquaintance of the girl in
question on the night before last. They met at perhaps nine o'clock,
quite by chance, and fell into conversation."

Vaughan said,
"Does he know her name?"

"Her first
name only—Pham. I have elicited all the relevant details from
the boy and they are as follows. Pham is seven, and hails from Level
Twenty. She was indentured to a factory owner manufacturing plastics.
She ran away from the factory arid followed her ambition to travel to
the upper level. You see, Mr Vaughan, Pham had never in her short
life seen the light of the sun."

Vaughan said,
"Two nights ago they entered Kandalay amusement park. I saw them
on a surveillance cam. I know that Pham witnessed the murder. Will
you ask Abdul if he saw anything?"

Rao turned to
the boy and questioned him. The kid looked scared, shook his head,
and replied in a murmur.

Rao said, "He
saw a man in the amusement park. He thought it was a security guard,
so he ran off. Pham was not so fast. Seconds later Abdul heard the
sound of laser fire. He escaped down a service shaft to Level Three
and did not go back."

Vaughan said,
"And Pham? Does Abdul know what happened to her?"

Rao spoke to the
boy, who answered in a monosyllable.

Rao reported to
Vaughan, "No, he does not know what happened to the girl."
He hesitated, then said, "He has not seen her since that night.
He was too frightened to go back, after hearing the laser fire."

Vaughan sighed
and leaned back in his chair, taking a long drink of beer and
considering his next question. "Will you ask Abdul if Pham told
him if she was going back to Level Twenty, or if she planned to stay
topside?"

Seconds later
Rao said, "Pham told him that she never wished to return to the
factory. She said she would rather die than go back."

"Does he
know the name of the factory owner?"

Rao asked. The
boy replied, but Rao reported, "No, that he does not know."

Vaughan nodded,
suspecting that the doctor was withholding the factory owner's name.
"Ask Abdul if Pham told him where she intended to stay up here."

Rao asked the
question and duly translated, "Abdul does not know. The girl
said she would beg on the streets."

"She didn't
ask to stay with you, Rao?"

"Mr
Vaughan," Rao said disingenuously, "I would have told you
if 1 had made the child's acquaintance!"

"Okay, Rao.
Anything else? Is that all Abdul knows about her?"

The doctor
jogged his head in an Indian affirmative. "That is all he
knows." He paused, then went on, "However, I am certain
that I could elicit certain answers—like the name of her
employer, and where she planned to stay on Level One— from
other sources. Of course, this would take time, and time—as I
do not have to remind you— is money."

Vaughan had to
admire the doctor's barefaced duplicity. "I'm happy with my
three hundred's worth, Rao," he said.

Rao snapped
something to Abdul, who was grateful for the opportunity to flee.
Vaughan watched the boy leave the restaurant. He remained outside,
talking to a group of street-kids.

Vaughan peeled
half a dozen fifty baht notes from his wallet and dropped them in
front of the Indian.

Rao smiled. "Mr
Vaughan, you can rest assured that your kind donation will furnish
the comfort of many a foundling street-child."

He looked at his
watch. "My word, sir. My generosity knows no bounds. 1 granted
you thirty minutes and lo, one hour has elapsed. By rights I should
make a certain surcharge to recompense for time lost."

Vaughan laughed.
"I'll pick up your tab, Rao. Be thankful for that."

Rao made a quick
bow and said without irony, "Your munificence knows no bounds,
Mr Vaughan. I will contact you if I should learn anything more about
the girl." He stood and made to leave. "Namaste, my friend.
May your God go with you."

"And the
same to you, Rao."

He watched the
elderly Brahmin shuffle through the exit, then finished his beer in a
thoughtful mood. He waited until Rao had vanished into the crowd
surging down Chandi Road, then paid his bill. He glanced through the
window. Abdul was still there.

Vaughan left the
restaurant, but not before activating his implant.

He winced as his
head was assailed by a piercing shriek of mind-noise. The scrambled
thoughts of a thousand passing minds jumped him like a sudden
migraine. Almost staggering under the onslaught, he filtered out the
extraneous mush—the tangled emotions of the diners and
passers-by—and concentrated on the bright point of Abdul's mind
as he pushed through the swing door.

He approached
the timorous street-kid, who cowered back as Vaughan looked down at
him.

He pulled a ten
baht note from his wallet and passed it to Abdul, who took it with a
muttered thanks.

Vaughan scanned,
sank into the boy's memories of the night in the amusement park, the
little Thai girl he'd befriended, and the fear of what had happened
soon after.

He read two
things that Rao, in a bid to extort more baht from him, had failed to
reveal: the name of the girl's employer was Ranjit Prakesh, and Abdui
had met Pham a day after the shooting, in ketsuwan Park on Level Two.

Vaughan felt a
stab of relief that the kid had survived.

He quickly
deactivated his implant, breathing with relief at the instant
cessation of mind-noise.

Smiling at the
thought of Dr Rao's flagrant lies, and heartened by the turn of
events, he pushed through the crowd and made his way to the nearest
dropchute station.

KHAR

Pham spent the
afternoon in Ketsuwan Park. She bought a big bottle of water and a
plate of dhal and rice from a kiosk beside the eastern gate, then
found her bench beneath the cedar tree and ate.

All in all, she
had had an exciting time on the upper levels. She'd witnessed a
murder, been chased by the killer, seen a crashed spaceship full of
injured children... and then the voice. A voice had got into her head
and spoken to her.

She had thought
about the voice for a long time, even tried to speak to it again. She
thought she knew what it was.

When people
died, if they had been good in this life, then they were reincarnated
as something better in the next. If they had been bad, then they came
back as... rats or spiders or something horrid like that. But
sometimes she knew if someone had been extra specially bad, then
their souls were destined to haunt the earth in torment, until they
were exorcised and could move on.

So, for some
reason, the soul of the man lasered to death in the amusement park
the other night had jumped into her head. Perhaps something to do
with the laser had helped his soul to make the journey to Pham, the
person closest to him when he died. That had to be the answer.

So... she had
the soul of a bad person living in her head, and even though the
voice had told her not to be frightened, that it could help her, she
did not trust it. She would have to be careful.

"Voice,"
she said now, under her breath so that people didn't hear her and
think she was mad. "I know you're in there, and I know what you
are. You accidentally got into my head because you were killed by a
laser. You were bad in your last life, but now you're with me you'll
have to be good, ah-cha?"

Silence.

Only, she
wondered, how long would the bad man's soul stay in her head? Would
it stay with her until she died, or would it leave before then?

"Perhaps if
you're good, and we pray to Buddha every day, then he'll let you out
before I die, and you can be reborn as a better person than you
were."

She smiled to
herself. She liked the idea of that.

"Voice?"

It was stubborn.
It spoke to her only when it wanted to, and never replied to her
questions. She wanted to know more about it, see if it would agree to
be good while it lived in her head.

She had a
worrying thought. What if it wanted to be bad, put bad thoughts into
her head, and made her do bad things?

But, she told
herself, it had told her not to be frightened, that it would help
her. And in the crashed spaceship, it had told her to get out...

She finished her
dhal and took a long drink of water. She checked her money pouch and
found that she had just fifty baht left, which was not a lot. It
would buy her food for another three days, four if she had only one
meal a day. The thing was, how did you find work on the upper levels?
She hadn't seen any kids working anywhere up here, only boys and
girls begging. What would she do when her money ran out? She didn't
want to beg, and she didn't want to go back to Mr Prakesh's factory.