Singapore Sling Shot - Andrew Grant [106]
“We’ve searched virtually the whole island, Colonel. He’s vanished. They found the boat and some footprints, but that’s it. Have we got a photograph yet?”
“Negative. The doctor said he had asked Mr Somsak for one. Maybe you can follow that up, Louis?”
“I’ll do that, sir.” Major Louis Yap left the office of his superior and went into his own. The fugitive from the hospital, a man suffering serious head injuries, was making them all appear to be fools. If the man really was so mentally damaged as the reports suggested, just how was he managing to stay hidden?
“I have to give them a photograph.” Sami Somsak had just received a call from a major of the SSRD. It had been shunted through a Bangkok switchboard and back to him.
They wanted a photograph of David Crewe. The problem Sami faced was obvious. Any photograph of David Crewe was also a photograph of Ed Davidson and Daniel Swann and any one of the half a dozen aliases that his friend had used in Singapore in the past few years. It would be posted on all the media channels. What to do?
Then he had an idea and made a phone call. He would provide the searchers with a photograph of David Crewe, but it wouldn’t be Daniel. It would be of someone who looked vaguely like him. It would be of a man with a full head of hair. Not a man with a shaven head. Perhaps, just perhaps, they would get away with it. Just about all the people who would know the photo wasn’t David Crewe, or indeed Daniel Swann, were dead.
When he completed the call, Sami made another, but the phone he was calling was switched off.
It was evening. Anyone watching the little old man shuffling down Nassim Hill Road would have taken pity on him. There was an air of dejection about him. It clung to his body like a blanket.
High above the street Thomas Lu was standing at the railing of his wide terrace. He was wearing a dressing gown and held a tumbler of whisky in his good hand. Soon he would get into the spa bath and a young man he had never met before would join him. He was very much looking forward to meeting this fresh new boy from the agency.
From Lu’s vantage point twenty levels above the street, the small figure walking down the road below was tiny, but even from where he was standing, Lu could see and feel the dejection drifting up towards him like a scent on the wind.
“Go home and die, old man. Your time is done!” Lu smiled and turned towards the spa. It was time to meet his lover of the evening.
40
They have all gone for the night. I am almost alone in the jungle. The place I have come to sleep is a small cave. It has been used as a place to sleep by others. There is a bedframe and a fire pit, but I will not use fire tonight. They would probably smell it if there were people on watch. The fish is fresh. I have a sharp knife. I took it from the boat when I caught my fish.
I clean the fish and slice off the meat. It is sweet. I have picked more fruit. I eat all the fish, every scrap. I am hungry. Now it is time for me to sleep.
Earlier, I took clothes from a house. Some were hanging on nails. They were the dry ones. Other clothes were lying tangled on the floor, wet and rotting. I am now wearing a shirt and a pair of rubber boots that fit. I left my shoes in the first house when the people in uniform came. Now I am warm, and I am tired. My head doesn’t hurt as much as it did. Soon I will have to take out the metal things that are fixed to my scalp.
I lie on the bedframe. It is comfortable enough. I can hear the night creatures. There is the sound of insects and there are rustlings in the leaves. A pig squeals in the distance. I will catch more pigs when the searchers have gone.
My eyes are wet. I am crying, but I don’t know why. Was I sad before I hurt my head? How did I hurt my head? I lie in my little cave in the jungle, crying. Is Sami really my best friend? Should I ask him why I am crying?
But then I go to sleep. Sleep comes easily to me.
“He’s skilled in jungle craft. He must be.”
“Either that or he is just lucky.