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  But Kevin snapped, ‘Get in.’ And when Ding Ming hesitated, ‘I’m not pissing about.’

  Ding Ming climbed into the van and Kevin accelerated so fast that he tumbled over. He held onto the seat in front as the vehicle bumped over grassy tummocks towards the road. Kevin was driving far too fast – much more of this and the suspension would break. He wondered whether he could risk asking what was going on, but decided that the best course of action was to keep silent and watchful and not draw attention to himself.

  Kevin was talking on his mobile again.

  ‘Christ, I could have been there. Definitely dead? Can’t you just dump it in an alley or something? Okay, okay, no, I’m just saying.’

  Could have been! What a fiendish language to contain such constructions. What was that – perfective subjunctive? His teacher could have told him. But his teacher would have hardly understood a word of Kevin’s slurred and rapid speech. Himself, he was at that frustrating point with Kevin’s English, where, though the individual words were generally clear, the meaning was often obscure.

  Ding Ming felt that he could hardly remember a time when he wasn’t being driven around and told what to do. This was his fate, it seemed, and he’d better get used to it. A cunning person would welcome this chance to grab some rest. He put his forearm along the top of the seat in front and laid his head on it and closed his eyes and went over today’s words.

  This cake does not ‘please’ me in the slightest. It is a ‘pleasure’ to meet you. He was not getting through the dictionary as fast as he’d like, but with all the recent disruptions it was a great effort to keep up his studies. Those people have the manners of ‘plebeians’.

  He wondered if his wife remembered any of the English he’d taught her. She’d gamely given it a go, but hadn’t been very good at it. The oddest words had stuck – choo choo train, amazing, rabbit, doorknob, kitten but not cat. She’d been in awe of his ability and, he suspected, prompted their lessons not out of desire to learn but to delight in his astonishing talent.

  It was impossible not to think about her, so, as Ding Ming was practical in his mental habits, he decided to think about her in English. Darling, sweetheart, honey, my big love, my love person, that one I like the most. My favourite person in the world, the better – no the most best – no the best.

  Enough, he told himself, the exercise had backfired, he was nearly crying. He raised his head. The van was travelling a dirt track parallel to the coast. To the right, lights burned, and the lower part of the sky was orange with light pollution, but ahead was total darkness.

  They climbed, turned, entered a stand of trees and now all that could be seen was what the headlights revealed: a narrow trail between gnarled trunks. Kevin slowed and turned off the track and the van bumped further into the wood and the tyres crunched undergrowth. Ding Ming flinched as branches lashed the windscreen.

  Kevin stopped the engine and turned off the lights, and dismaying silence and blackness swooped down. He got out and beckoned Ding Ming to follow. They trudged downhill, and leaves crackled underfoot. A brook trickled and night creatures rustled and called. As Ding Ming’s eyes grew used to the gloom he made out fleshy fungal growths on a rotten log and twigs criss-crossing like the fibres of a net. To be surrounded by trees was to be in an unfamiliar, primal territory. And these trees were grisly and disfigured, their gnarled trunks spotted with breakouts, smothered in moss like a rash. Kevin gave him a spade and said, ‘Dig.’

  (33

  Ding Ming was glad to do as he was told. It was, after all, work, and that was what he was here for.

  A thick layer of mulch covered dark, loose topsoil. It was easy going, the spade biting deep, but it wasn’t a practical place for a hole – they should head to higher ground where the water table would be lower. Still, he had his orders.

  Kevin sat in the van and chain-smoked. The little red ember, the only point of light in the whole alarming darkness, was a reminder of civilisation. Though Ding Ming feared the man, he was glad to have his presence now, he’d hate to be out here on his own. He considered the man’s persistent demands. It occurred to him that perhaps what had been asked for was a thing of no consequence in this country, something men did for each other often and with enthusiasm, something that was more than paid for by the gift of the cigarette. Perhaps it was a token of friendship and he had caused insult by refusing. The thought brought no consolation.

  The harder Ding Ming worked, the less he reflected, so he threw himself into his job. He struck a steady tempo – spade in, up, turn and throw, in, up, turn and throw – and took pride in making his crater well and quickly. His shoulders would ache tomorrow, but it was a good feeling to be panting with exertion, an honest feeling. He hoped his wife was having a better time. Maybe she was sleeping now. When she slept, he liked to get right up close and follow the air going in and out of her nose. He fancied the rhythm of the spade to be the same as that of her breath.

  He rubbed sweat off his brow. His feet were soaking. As he’d predicted, he’d hit the water table. It was not possible to go much deeper. It was a good hole, more than a metre deep, and with sides as steep as could be expected in this soft soil, and the displaced earth piled neatly.

  Kevin turned the van’s hazard warning lights on, then tramped over, swishing through leaves. He dropped a cigarette into the hole and it fizzled out.

  ‘It’s full of water.’

  Ding Ming did not respond, it was not his place to offer comment. He’d done what was asked of him.

  Kevin ran his hands over his head. ‘You’ve built a pond.’

  A car, growling in low gear, all lights off, swung into view, its bonnet nosing snout-like through the trees. Ding Ming realised that it was following the van’s hazard lights. It eased to a halt and Black Fort got out, the man with air in his shoes.

  Kevin said, ‘I think Albanians. They fill some crackhead with rock, give him a tool, tell him to fuck people up or his family gets it.’

  ‘I know who he is.’ Black Fort lit a cigarette and toyed with the burned match. ‘A Chinese cop, acting alone.’

  ‘What’s his beef?’

  ‘A small misunderstanding.’

  ‘You better keep your head down.’

  ‘He won’t find me again, and if he does I’ll kill him. I’m going to pick up some shotguns now. I’ll go to the farm, start sorting out that fuck-up. I’ll pick up the next consignment. You got an ETA?’

  ‘Hold up in Zagreb – now he says five tomorrow morning.’

  Ding Ming understood very little of this, as the grammar was obtuse, the delivery rapid and mumbling, and so much of the vocab unfamiliar. Crackhead? Zagreb? Eeteeyay? The only statement he was sure of was ‘I’ll go to the farm.’ Still, he had the distinct impression that this conversation was one it would be better not to hear. He would like to sidle away, but where could he go? He was trapped in this pit. To clamber out would only draw attention to himself. Now Black Fort was pointing at him.

  ‘I’m not happy that you brought him along.’ Not wanting to catch his eye, Ding Ming pretended to examine the sides of his hole.

  ‘I’m not digging. You know what my back’s like. What’s the harm? He doesn’t know where we are – he could blab to all and sundry and it wouldn’t matter.’

  Black Fort opened the back door of his car.

  Kevin said, ‘William, help him.’

  Black Fort straightened and said in anger, ‘You brought the one speaks English? Of all the ones, you bring the one speaks English?’

  ‘He was there.’

  ‘Why don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s fine. He’s fine.’

  ‘You idiot. You want to make him one of your boys, fine, but don’t let him see things. Think with your head for a change.’

  Well aware that it was his presence that had caused the friction, Ding Ming felt embarrassed, and would dearly have liked not to hear any more.

  ‘I’m sorting it out aren’t I,’ hissed Kevin. ‘He was your ma
te. I don’t give a shit.’ The men glared at each other. ‘I’m doing you a favour here. You’re griefing me and I’m doing you a favour.’

  ‘Alright, alright.’ Black Fort slotted the match into his mouth and ran a hand through his hair. ‘I get short-tempered when my friends die and people try to kill me.’ He squatted at the edge of the hole.

  ‘Ni jiao shenme?… What’s your name again?’

  ‘Ding Ming.’

  ‘Come out of there and give me a hand, Ding Ming. We’ve got some cleaning up to do.’ He was glad to obey.

  ‘A bad thing has happened.’ Black Fort was tugging at something long and bulky rolled up in a blanket and lying in the back of his car. Ding Ming hurried to help, his feet squelching. It was an impressive vehicle, sleek and bright yellow, with tinted windows and flame decals above the rear wheels.

  ‘I told you, didn’t I, that people here hate you. We cannot always protect you.’

  The blanket fell open, revealing a pale Chinese face with a lolling tongue and staring eyes. Ding Ming stepped away, horrified.

  ‘That was a good man, a man like yourself, in the wrong place at the wrong time. What we need to do now is quickly clean this up, then never talk about it again. You don’t ever mention this to anyone. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry you had to see this ugliness.’

  Ding Ming was sorry too. It was all very frightening. He wanted to believe what he was being told, but could not help a suspicion that he had found himself in very sinister company.

  They laid the body down and Black Fort took a white sack out of the boot and dropped it. He said to Kevin, ‘You give that kid some money.’

  Ding Ming blurted, ‘Do you know where my wife is?’

  Black Fort was brushing twigs and earth off his trousers and tutting at the state of his shoes. ‘Huh?’

  ‘She got taken away to pick flowers and I want a number I can call her at.’

  ‘She’s fine, stop worrying.’

  He got into his glossy car and drove away, and Ding Ming was left alone with the lustful Kevin and a corpse.

  Kevin said, ‘Fucking ordering me around. He doesn’t even say thank you.’ He kicked the body. ‘What did you have to die for, twat?’

  He turned to Ding Ming.

  ‘What you looking at? Heh?’

  ‘Not look at anything.’

  ‘Heh? Cheeky chinky fucker.’ He slapped Ding Ming across the cheek. It stung, but did not really hurt. It was a humiliating affront, and he struggled to wear it lightly. A cool mental voice pointed out the triviality of the incident and the necessity, in trying times, of maintaining clarity. At least it was all Kevin seemed to require. The fat man was calm as he said, ‘Let’s get this fucker buried.’

  (34

  Ding Ming was on the legs and Kevin got the arms. The body wasn’t even cold. Blood oozed from two raw wounds in his chest and his shirt was soaked. His mouth hung open and Ding Ming kept catching his eye. He had the impression that this person was heavier dead than he had ever been when alive. Perhaps the brute fact of death was a weight that settled in the body.

  He’d assumed that Kevin, being twice as big as him, would be twice as strong, but that wasn’t the case at all, the white man huffed and puffed. Ding Ming tried to provide a minimum of decorum, but, because Kevin was dragging rather than lifting, the back of the man’s head bumped against the ground with every step, and with every bump Ding Ming winced as if his own head were being whacked. He imagined defending himself against an irritated ghost – ‘Sorry, I’m just not strong enough’.

  To keep the body from sagging as they struggled down the slope, Ding Ming held its thighs and stepped right up between its legs, almost to the crotch. The thing’s legs dandled, feet swaying, and its trousers hitched up. It was wearing white sports socks and leather shoes. Blood was still dribbling from its wounds.

  Ding Ming looked at his hands – yes, he was getting blood all over them. A dead body radiated ill luck, you could catch it like disease, his exposure was already at a dangerous level. They dumped the body in the hole. Ding Ming was glad it settled face down.

  Kevin said, ‘Hang on a sec,’ and jogged back to the van.

  The dead man had a tattoo of a dragon along one arm. It was detailed, in colour, and even the claws on the dragon’s feet were picked out. That picture would be lost, and so would the freckles on the back of his hands and that scar inside his elbow.

  He was wearing four gold rings: they would be worth hundreds and hundreds of yuan. A person could steal them and no one would ever know. That person would not even really be doing wrong – it wasn’t as if their owner had any further use for them. But Ding Ming was not that person. Ruefully aware of his foolishness, he regretted that he could not allow himself to rob the dead.

  His first day, and he was making a secret grave for a man who’d died violently. It was not an auspicious start to his new life. He wondered how often he would be asked to do this. Did it happen regularly? Once a week, say?

  Kevin returned with the sack. He tossed it onto the body and ordered Ding Ming to split it with the spade. Chalky stuff spilled out, Ding Ming guessed it was builder’s quicklime. He supposed its addition was a cultural practice, spirit suppression perhaps, until he saw the lime bubble and fizz as it reacted with the water and realised with a shiver that it had been put there to speed up decomposition. The lime would turn to acid, which would eat the dead flesh, and in a few days the body would have broken down almost completely, only the bones would be left.

  ‘Wait a sec. Take his rings off.’ Kevin pointed at a limp hand. ‘Get in there and get them off.’

  Ding Ming jumped into the hole and picked up a hand as pale and clammy as mushrooms. But the flesh was swelling – the rings were stuck. The lime burned his ankles.

  He yanked with hopeless desperation and felt the skin around the knuckles shred, and there they were, four rings flecked with bloody skin, clinking in his palm. He scrambled out and dragged his feet across the earth to get the stinging acid water off.

  Kevin took the rings. ‘Go on, get him covered.’

  Ding Ming determined to get the body buried before the acid started working on it. When it was out of sight it would not concern him any more. He gritted his teeth against the pain in his shoulders and heaved down huge gouts of earth, making sure to cover the head first.

  ‘It’s a fucker,’ Kevin said to himself. ‘I put my neck right out and not even a thank you.’

  When it was done, Ding Ming rubbed his arms against a tree to try and get some of the blood off. He needed a good scrub and a drink of water. But Kevin said, ‘Get those logs over it.’

  The decaying wood felt slimy to the touch, and crumbled and split as he dragged it. He almost tripped on a half-buried boulder, and when he had the logs in position he returned and lugged that over, too. Kevin gathered handfuls of leaves and tossed them over the exposed soil.

  Now you would never know there was a body under there. There was nothing to show for their gory work but the smell of freshly turned earth, which would soon dissipate. Ding Ming reflected on the transience of existence. Were we not all destined for such an end? How small, when it came down to it, a life really was.

  Kevin’s big arm slid around Ding Ming’s shoulders and squeezed his neck.

  ‘William, if you ever talk about this to anyone, you’re fucked. I will personally fuck you up. Do you understand?’ Ding Ming croaked ‘Yes’, and Kevin pinched his cheek, like teacher to errant student, and let go.

  On the drive back, Kevin, in jovial mood, began humming a tune.

  Ding Ming’s feet and ankles were red and itching, his clothes were filthy with blood and soil, and he felt the taint of death hanging on him. He fantasised about having a wash. He was anxious to scrub the dead man’s flesh from under his fingernails.

  Kevin parked the van. In the light of the rising sun, the mud was tinted pink. Wading birds scuttered back and forth, working the ooze, and in the di
stance men could be seen doing the same.

  Kevin said, ‘Why don’t you get in the front?’

  Ding Ming was not sure he had heard correctly.

  ‘What, you like it there in the back? I’m saying, get in the front.’

  Ding Ming clambered over the seat and sat with his hands in his lap on the passenger seat.

  It what seemed an unexpected spasm of generosity, Kevin gave him three coins. They were small in diameter but thick, gold in colour, and they shone appealingly. There was a picture of a woman on one side and a gate on the other and they were each as heavy as nuggets. Certainly it was the most robust currency he had ever felt. He had heard sterling described as stronger than the yuan, but hadn’t realised that that was a literal as well as a figurative truth.

  ‘See? Good workers get rewards.’

  He was moved to breathe, ‘Thank you’. Three whole pounds. His first real wage.

  ‘Big day for you, wasn’t it, William?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re a good lad. You’re going to fit in fine. You know where your bread is buttered.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Who pays your way.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now.’ Kevin laid an index finger on Ding Ming’s cheek, then ran it down to the corner of his lip. ‘There’s some business that we have to attend to.’

  Oh no, not this again. This fat man really seemed to have only one thing on his mind, even a brush with death had not dampened his ardour. Ding Ming felt distance from home as an ache like hunger. How was he going to get out of it now?

  (35

  Kevin began to slip down his tracksuit bottoms. Abruptly he stopped and gripped the wheel, and peered forward, frowning. He said, ‘Oh Christ.’ And wriggled them back up again.

  A colourful car was pulling up, white and black with yellow stripes. A man in a black uniform, some kind of official, got out.