But then Julia realized the Japanese men in their sofas and armchairs were not staring at these girls but staring up. She followed the communal gaze. Above them was a glass ceiling, and on top of it about twenty more young girls danced languidly to Chinese pop music, naked apart from tartan schoolgirl skirts, wearing no underclothes at all.
“Biggest no panty bar in the world!” Barnier’s laughter was like a vulgar heckle. “The Japs love it here, and the girls love them back. You know why? You wanna know what the girls call Japanese men? Mr. Four. They call Jap johns Mr. Four—”
“I’m sorry—”
“’Cause they pay four thousand baht for a fuck, they last just four minutes, and they are four centimeters long! Hah. Look, there’s our good friends. Let’s get some Tanquerays and tonic and talk. Corner left, nine o’clock.”
Julia followed Barnier’s gesture and noticed a particular female figure sitting discreetly in the darkest corner, with her back to them. Her body language was stiff and uncomfortable; she seemed Asian, judging by the petiteness, the dark bare arms, dark long hair. Julia empathized with any discomfort the woman might be feeling: they were virtually the only two women in the bar who weren’t half-naked, or dancing, or serving drinks.
The woman’s companion was a young white guy, tall, presumably Jake. Julia glanced back at the woman. Her profile, seen obliquely, was familiar in other ways.
The shock of recognition was liquefying. This was no ordinary Asian woman. This was no coincidence.
Julia swayed as the cliff edge of fear dropped around her.
Barnier was gesturing to a smiling bar girl.
“Nong? Hello? Sawadee? We go talk-talk with friend over there? Gin tonic. Bring three. Kapkap.” He pointed at the table, then turned to Julia. “Let’s go over.”
“No. Stop.”
Barnier didn’t hear her. Julia whispered again, urgently: “Stop!”
She reached out a hand and pulled at the Frenchman. He was bemused.
“Eh? What is it?”
A pause. Julia hesitated. Maybe she was wrong? She wasn’t wrong. That long dark hair, the curve of the back, the profile.
She was right. As she stood, immobile and silent with shock, Barnier shoved on and walked to the table and said, “Chemda, Jake! Look! I have brought yet another exciting new friend. I am such a fucking wanted man.”
Jake rose and offered a hand and said hello to Julia. But Julia’s focus was still fixed on the face of the woman: Chemda Tek.
Then Chemda Tek spoke.
“Hello?”
This was it. The final proof.
She even had an American accent.
Chemda Tek was the killer.
32
Jake watched this woman’s reaction with astonishment: the American woman, Julia, was refusing to sit down. She was muttering, half-shouting, she was frightened and gabbling and staring at Chemda.
Finally she managed to say: “It’s her. It’s her.”
Barnier turned to Julia.
“What?”
Julia pointed directly at Chemda.
“Her. That’s her. That… thing. It’s her.”
“That’s who? She’s who? What are you saying?”
Jake listened, confounded.
The American stammered: “That is… the same goddamn person I saw in Paris. The woman who killed the archivist. The curator. Who tried to kill me. That’s her, the killer—”
Jake stood. “You fucking what?”
Barnier was leaping away from the table, as if the bar stools had just been electrified. Chemda suddenly reached for Jake’s hand, her own hand damp and trembling. Trembling violently. Jake was standing and shouting.
“How can you say this?”
The Frenchman turned, shouting at the staff, demanding that they chuck Chemda out of the building and instantly fetch the police. Bar girls were gathering. Staring. And in the middle of the flashing lights and the thumping music Julia stood, still, her face awash; transfixed, appalled, terrified; Chemda gave the appearance, in the melee, of a little girl lost and bewildered.
Jake gazed, motionless. What the fuck was happening?
Even the pantyless schoolgirls were agitated, peering inquisitively down through the glass ceiling, trying to work out the reason for the hubbub. Several Japanese men were pointing, alarmed.
Now Barnier ripped it all up, yelling at everyone.
“Get that bitch out of here, nong! Papasan! Mamasan? Now! Get her out of here before she fucking knifes someone—”
Chemda found her voice. It was uncharacteristically weak.
“But…. but it’s not me! How can it be me? I have been in Cambodia. Jake, tell them!”
But Jake was staring at Julia’s face, the pale, soft face of the young archaeologist, and it spoke a kind of truth. The woman really believed what she was saying; she really believed this outrageous accusation.
Jake swallowed his next words. Momentarily, he was dumbfounded. Chemda flung his hand away.
“You believe them, Jake?”
“No, of course not!”
“But you do. You do! I see it in your face!”
“I don’t. Sorry. A moment. Only… Chemda—”
But it was true, she was right, even though a few seconds’ consideration told him that the accusation was absurd, he had let the shadow of a doubt pass across his face: thinking of her odder behavior; inviting him to the Sovirom compound—
His Khmer girlfriend was staring his way, with tears jeweling on her eyelashes. She was finally breaking, after all of this — she was falling, losing, unhinging.
“Don’t ever speak to me — ever again—”
Chemda pushed aside his protesting arms; she stepped down from the table and strode through the parting crowds, through the g-stringed dancers and the Taiwanese tourists and the trio of fat and chortling white businessmen just coming through the doorway curtains.
The curtains rustled and closed. Chemda was gone. The bar returned to life. Lady drinks were fetched. Someone ordered short time. Once again, the clientele stared up at the glass ceiling, where the girls in plaid miniskirts and no underwear resumed their bored and languid shuffle.
Jake was momentarily paralyzed by anger and guilt. Run after Chemda? Phone her? Give her space? Why had he let the doubt even enter his mind? The idea that she was the killer was beyond absurd, it was physically impossible — how could Chemda have been flying to and from Europe to kill people? Just surreally ridiculous. And then there was the moral impossibility: Chemda. Of all people. No. Not Chemda.
But then why did Julia appear so genuinely shocked and convinced?
The American woman was tentatively approaching. She put a hand on Jake’s shoulder.
He shrugged it off. Snapped in her face.
“You are wrong. She’s been with me in Asia for the last few weeks. Every minute of every day. What you said was grotesque.”
Her answering expression was pained.
“Mr. Thurby. Jake… I’m sorry, but I thought it was true—”
Barnier was behind her.
“So you think, Julia, it might not be true? Then why did you fucking say it?”
“Because it was the same woman, only with darker skin! I’m not joking. I wouldn’t joke. Not about this! Chemda is the same, only with much darker skin. But the same age, same eyes, same face, same stance, same everything else.” Julia frowned. “Jake, does she have any siblings? Close in age?”