Читать книгу Death Trip - Lee Weeks - Страница 13

Magda sat with her head in her hands, scanning the table as if she was too scared to keep looking at it but too scared to look away. She had taken off her long wig and now had a silk scarf wrapped around her bald head. She leant forward, resting her elbows on the table as she thought.

‘But we want to help,’ she said as she looked from Alfie to Mann.

‘You will be more help to me here,’ said Mann. ‘You have to trust me on this, Magda. I will do everything that is humanly possible to get Jake home.’

Magda looked spent, overwhelmed by the hundreds of sticky notes, maps and other pieces of paper scattered around.

Alfie thought hard and then nodded. ‘I understand what you are saying, Johnny. We each have a part to play. We must work as a team.’ He got up, opened the fridge, and pulled out three beers. ‘First we need to tell Johnny what we know, before we get all these maps out.’ He came back over and gently moved the maps to one side.

Magda took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes and spoke quietly.

‘It was supposed to be a fantastic trip for Jake. He has had a hard time in the last year, with my illness and everything. I didn’t want it to stop him going. I was in remission when he left. This week I found out I have secondary and I can’t have any more chemotherapy. I just have weeks left.’

Alfie took the tops off the beers and set them on the table, careful not to touch the map; then he placed his hand on Magda’s shoulder and gave her a supportive squeeze before sitting back down.

‘We live for today and today you are still here and Jake is still in the jungle. And today we have new help. We have Johnny Mann. We have hope.’

‘Tell me from the beginning, Magda. How did it all come about?’ asked Mann.

Magda looked down at her hands, gripping the edge of the table without realising she was doing it. ‘They wanted to do something fantastic together before going to university.’

‘Why did they choose a volunteer project inland? Usually the kids head to a beach somewhere like Koh Samui, just lie around and smoke weed for a few months.’

Alfie answered for her. ‘Jake didn’t want to go to the usual places, to the south, the beaches. They all agreed that they wanted to help someone. We researched it—found out about the Karen people who have been displaced from Burma. There’s been a civil war going on there for sixty years. The hill tribes are forced out of their villages, they end up in refugee camps along the Thai/Burma border…They were going to help build a school there. We thought it would be a great opportunity for him.’

Magda held up her hand. Alfie paused.

‘I thought it best to go there.’ Magda closed her eyes and clenched her hands in mid-air as she shook her head emphatically. ‘It was my idea. I was so wrong.’

‘It’s not your fault, Magda.’ Alfie placed his hand over hers. ‘You are not the one to blame.’ Magda smiled gratefully at him and sighed deeply.

‘So, what have you been told?’ asked Mann.

‘We got a phone call from the people at NAP to tell us that the camp had been attacked.’

‘Is that the company that sent them out?’

‘Yes. Netherlands Adventure Project. We got a call from Katrien—I call her the Bitch—who runs it. She told us there was likely to be a ransom demand. She didn’t know how much then. But she said we should get our homes on the market, look at taking out loans, anything we could, as the Dutch government were definitely not going to pay.’ Alfie gave a grunt of disgust as he swigged his beer. ‘I tell you.’ He shook his head with disbelief. ‘She is the coldest bitch on the earth.’ He slammed his beer down. ‘She talks to us as if Jake being kidnapped is a trivial matter. They are supposed to look after the kids—they take big money from them to send them into this. She is a lying little bitch.’

‘Alfie, please…’ Magda held up her hand.

‘Sorry…sorry…just makes me so mad,’ Alfie said and went back to drinking his beer.

‘What did you tell her?’ Mann asked Magda.

‘I said we did not have any money. All the parents said the same. We are all doing everything we can; we have our homes up for sale, but people are not buying at the moment. We don’t have any savings—even if we did, it would never be enough.’

‘She came to see us,’ added Alfie.‘She walked in here, dressed all in black as if she was coming to a funeral. She looked around the place as if she was trying to see how much we were worth. Then she said they were asking two million US.’ Alfie shook his head. ‘It may as well be fifty million. We don’t have it.’

‘Did she say where the ransom demand came from?’

‘She said it was from a breakaway group of Karen freedom fighters.’

‘Did you talk to anyone in the government?’

‘Yes, some stuffed shirt. They say only that the Burmese are doing everything they can to help. There is a Commander Boon Nam from the Burmese army who is leading the rescue mission. This is him…’ Magda pointed to a photo on the board of a stocky-looking man with a moustache in full military uniform. He looked smug, vain, thought Mann. His eyes looked coldly back into the lens. ‘…but when it’s Burma, who knows?’

‘And then the political situation kicked off,’ said Alfie. ‘Suddenly we stop getting any news. There’s trouble in Thailand, a military coup about to happen, there’s trouble in Burma, it’s politically unstable and they’re killing the monks. Laos has fighting on the borders.’

The room fell silent as the fridge hummed away and the cat ate its food. Laughter drifted up from the street below. Magda held her face in her hands and closed her eyes as she said: ‘We can’t wait any longer. We don’t have the time. I don’t have the time. I must have him home now. Please God, before I die, let me know he is safe. They say we have to be patient. They tell us—it will be all right. They will survive. They will come home. No one will die.’ She shook her head as if suddenly it was all too much, all hope had left her. She stared at her hands for a few seconds before lifting her head and looking straight into Mann’s eyes. Her eyes were glassy like cloudy sapphires. ‘It doesn’t matter what they say. I am so close to my son. We dream the same dreams sometimes.’ She gave a sad smile. Tears fell freely now and landed on the map. ‘Now, every bone in my body, every beat of my heart, tells me my boy needs me, and every day takes him further from me and takes us both closer to death.’