The Night Tiger(52)

“A young woman was taken from a coffee plantation.” The lady glimpses Ren and nods for him to set the tray on the table. She’s waiting for him to leave the room. Exiting, he lingers near the door. He can’t make out much because she’s dropped her voice.

“—stalked from behind. Neck broken—”

Listening, Ren finds the description frighteningly familiar. When they take their leave, Dr. MacFarlane’s face is grey and tight. All his earlier spirit has deserted him.

Later, when Ren sweeps the downstairs bathroom he finds a strand of dark hair in the corner. Longer than his arm, it’s hair from a woman’s head. Staring at it, Ren doesn’t know whether he missed it last time, or whether one of the ladies used the facility during the visit.

That night, he dreams that Dr. MacFarlane is bent over and vomiting in the downstairs bathroom again. It’s very dark in his dream; what little light there is blue and wavering as though a lightning storm is raging outside. Transfixed, Ren watches from the open door as Dr. MacFarlane lifts his head, slavering, his eyes like a wild animal. Thrusting his left hand into his mouth, the one with the missing finger, he pulls out a long, coiling black strand of woman’s hair.



* * *



The memory ends, like a strip of film that flickers to a halt. Ren has an uneasy feeling that at some point he’s made a misstep, although he has no idea what it was. If only he’d had his cat sense to help him at the time.

Now, he turns his attention back to the glass bottle. There’s no hiding place in his bare little room, but he’s saved an empty tin and slips the vial into it. Tucking it under his shirt, he walks out to the very end of the garden, right where the green lawn gives way to jungle near the rubbish dump. There, he digs a hole in the soft earth and buries the tin, placing a large stone to mark the spot.

When he takes leave to return to Kamunting, he’ll dig it up and rebury the finger in Dr. MacFarlane’s grave and be done with his responsibility.



* * *



William listens to the church service with only half an ear, his eye busy scanning the pews. Holy Trinity is built of dark wood, shady and cool, but though it’s still morning, it’s so humid that sweat trickles down his collar. The church is quite full as there are now more locals than Europeans who attend. The Tamil woman standing next to him shifts over, and William wonders suddenly whether he smells like blood.

The scent of the operating room often clings to him with its sharp top note of disinfectant and murky undertones of bone dust and blood. It never quite leaves his nostrils, even though he’s scrupulous about washing his hands and bathing frequently. But he hasn’t been in the operating room since Friday, so it must be the ghost of a scent.

On Friday, there was an explosion on a mining dredge. One man lost both hands above the wrists, and William had resorted to Krukenberg’s procedure, popular since the Great War. He seldom performs it, preferring to save every inch of wrist that he can, but in cases like this it’s the best he can offer. By dividing the two bones of the forearm, the stump can be used like chopsticks. It’s an ugly solution that amplifies the mutilation. There will be no discreet hook, no wooden hand to deceive at first glance; only two raw-looking prongs like lobster claws instead of forearms. But they work far better than prostheses. The man will be able to grip items with full sensation, open doors, even handle implements. Thinking it over, William is sure he did the right thing, though he can’t imagine that any woman would like to be touched by those sad claws. What is a hand without fingers? The loss of even one throws everything off balance.

Now the congregation is kneeling, reciting together:

“We have left undone those things which we ought to have done,

and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.

But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us…”



William doesn’t kneel as he’s standing in the back, though he has the urge to do so. Those things which we ought not to have done—the words perch on him like soft heavy birds.

He considers the question of Ren. William didn’t instruct him to shine his shoes, but they were done this morning, placed neatly at the entrance. For the first time, he truly understands his mother’s sighs about the worth of a good servant. But Ren is only a child. He’s so obviously bright that it’s selfish, almost monstrous, to keep him for himself. I should send him to school.

Down in one of the front pews, he spots Lydia’s profile and is struck again by how her coloring resembles Iris’s, his fiancée, with her fine freckled skin and bright hair. Iris smiling at him: that familiar feeling of infatuation, when he thought he’d do anything to please her. Iris, cold and distant, accusing him of canoodling with other women when it was ridiculous, he never did, not once when he was with her. The irony of it. And then Iris, furious the last time he saw her, her small pink mouth open in a silent scream. Murderer. He shudders at the memory.



* * *



When the service is over, last night’s unsuccessful tiger hunt is the talk of the congregation.

“What did I say?” It’s Leslie, his young colleague from the hospital. He grins. “They were bound to make a hash of it with Price on board.”

Leslie dislikes Price for some reason. In a small community like theirs, every minor offence counts, which is why William has to be careful that nobody ever connects him with poor Ambika’s dismembered torso. So he must stay friendly with Leslie, who talks too much, with too many people.