Smoking Poppy by Graham Joyce (the read aloud family .txt) 📕

him, and together we puffed away at our cigarettes without taking our eyes off each other. Then I squatted down between the tall poppies and gestured that he might do the same, which he did.

I must have been stupid to think I could outguess a man like Khiem. These people were masters of deportment and control. My Western face must have been bubbling with the signatures and tokens of murder.

But I unzipped my money pouch and rolled out the papers, studying his reaction carefully. His body went rigid and the veins stood out on his bald head like insulated cable. He let out a deep moan, and then began clicking his tongue rapidly. He let his hands fall to the earth. It was obvious to me that he’d never seen the things before; but on the other hand he seemed to know something of their significance.

He asked me some questions, which I couldn’t fathom. I made a steeple of my fingers to try to indicate that I’d found the papers in the hut. He jabbed a finger in that direction and I nodded. He understood. I noticed he was very careful not to touch the papers with his hands, as if they might contaminate him. He indicated that I should put them back in my pouch. Then he gathered up his tool-kit and motioned that we should return to the village.

Khiem evidently wanted to inspect the hut for himself, though he wouldn’t cross the threshold from the outside just as Charlie refused to cross it from within. Khiem peered inside. I pointed out the three spots in which we’d found the obscenities and he crouched at the door, as if listening hard for something. Without warning, he skipped away like a startled hare. I was about to ask the others what they made of it, but Mick was pointing over my shoulder.

We had other things to think about. Jack was back in the village and he’d arrived with five new men, all armed to the teeth and each fantastically decked with poppy flowers. One of the bandits was wearing a headband interwoven with red and white petals. Khao appeared to greet this group. There was a brief conversation, after which Jack turned and made his way over, looking none too pleased. My heart tightened like a fist in my chest as Khao and the new men dispersed amongst the village huts.

Jack called me aside. He was carrying what looked like a bullwhip; or maybe it was an elephant whip. His face was set like a ceramic mask. ‘Something happened yesterday.’

My intestines squeezed. I felt he knew. I don’t know why; I just felt he knew. I quickly chose to admit to everything that had happened during daylight hours. ‘You’re a father, Jack. You know that a father has to defend his daughter against brutal men. We threw the man from our hut.’

He looked wrongfooted. ‘That’s not how I heard things.’

‘Whatever you heard, Jack, that’s exactly how it was. I don’t lie to you.’

‘You don’t lie to me, eh?’

‘No.’ My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. My guts squeezed again.

He stared hard at me for a long time. ‘You know I decided to check on that. I took the trouble to have your story checked while I was away. The British Consul in Chiang Mai.’ Brazier-Armstrong. I had no idea what he might have found out. ‘Seems you were telling me the truth about this Cambridge man.’

I didn’t blink. ‘And I’m telling you the truth about what happened here.’

Jack walked up and put his face very close to mine. I could smell what he’d had for lunch. I was sweating in the afternoon heat, but I fought the temptation to wipe my brow. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘Who?’

He glared over my shoulder at the hut. I’d seen past the construction of his question, and he knew it. ‘The man you had a problem with.’

‘No.’ The simple lie clunked in my mouth. Jack looked into my eyes. One of the village dogs chose that moment to dive under our hut, scuffling about under there. I tried hard to think whether we might have left anything for the dog to bring out, a shoe, a belt, a headband, a knife.

‘He’s missing.’

‘Oh?’

‘He went missing after Little John there humiliated him.’

‘I see. He must be afraid that you will punish him for what he did to my daughter.’

Jack pulled his face back from mine. ‘He will have to return and then we’ll get to the bottom of what happened.’

‘I don’t know why you keep such men, Jack.’ I knew I was chancing it, but I was appealing to his Robin Hood aspect.

Jack snorted. ‘He’s my nephew. He’s a complete fool, but he’s only here on sufferance, and I’m obliged to protect him.’

‘I understand,’ I said, though I didn’t. The salt from my sweat prickled my eyes. The dog came out from under the hut with what appeared to be a smudge of dried or clotted blood on its nose.

Jack bent down to pat the dog. ‘He found a rat under there.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A rat.’

Jack turned sharply to look at me again. The air around me seemed to ping with imminent fracture. ‘I’ve got my own troubles right now. I don’t need trouble from you. Keep Little John on a leash or I won’t be responsible.’ I looked at the hut, from where Mick was watching us. Just as I was about to reply the radio stopped dead. Jack let out a Thai expletive.

‘I’ll go and fix it at once,’ I said.

Jack stormed away, and as he did so he cracked his whip on the dry earth. I knew his anger was not entirely about us. Something much more serious was going on in his private kingdom, and we were merely caught up in events.

I hurried over to the generator, relieved beyond measure to be clear of the interrogation of Jack’s eyes. He didn’t know. He suspected, but he didn’t know.

As for the generator,