Half the World Away

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Tom opens the window in his room and lights a cigarette. His hand is unsteady. Before we start looking at the photos he copied, I call Nick. His phone goes to voicemail. It is three in the morning at home. I imagine him asleep, on a camp bed beside Isaac.

I’d rather speak to him in person but I want him to know the news the moment he wakes up. So I leave a message: ‘Nick, please call me as soon as you can.’

Tom plugs his phone into his laptop so the images are bigger. There are fifteen photographs from Monday, 7 April. Lori hadn’t set up any GPS data so they don’t give co-ordinates but the technical data includes the time when each image was created.

‘Have you any paper?’ I ask him.

‘Under there,’ Tom says, nodding at a room-service menu on the desk.

‘I’ll do a chart,’ I say.

We go through all the pictures, making notes of the exact time they were taken and what they show.

The first six images are of traditional buildings, like the pagodas in the park. Tom thinks one looks familiar. ‘Where’s the map?’

I pass it to him. He opens it out and turns it over. ‘Yes.’ He points to a tiny photo of the same pagoda under the detailed list of tourist attractions. Wenshu Monastery.

‘Which is near Bradley’s,’ I say.

The six photos were all taken within five minutes of each other. The next one, of the river reflecting the built-up skyline, is some fourteen minutes later. There are then two pictures that we struggle to identify. One is like peeling paint on wood; the other resembles lichen. Next up shows a stencil of a laughing Buddha – the outline is in black and near the bottom of the frame there is a splash of faded red, like spray paint. That was timed sixteen minutes after the river scene. There are three photographs of overhead wires slung between trees and telegraph poles, then a blurry yellow image that looks like a shop sign but is so unfocused that it’s impossible to make out the strokes of the characters. It reminds me of those pictures that show streams of car lights at night. I wonder if she took it by mistake.

The last photo is a riot of colour. I think it’s wool at first, tangled wool, and then I see glints of metal at the end of some of the pieces. And I realize I’m looking at electrical cables: blue, yellow, white, red, black and grey. No context, just cables. It was taken at two minutes past eleven that morning. If their plan went ahead and Lori had reached Bradley, as she said in her text, she would’ve been with him by then.

‘We start at the monastery,’ I say. ‘I’ll fetch my bag.’

The taxi drops us off close to Wenshu Monastery. The area is milling with visitors, most of them Chinese but a good few Westerners too. There’s building work going on along one side of the complex. The streets around are full of souvenir and gift shops selling jade, brocade, antiques and pottery. I see old stamps and memorabilia, copies of Mao’s Little Red Book, toys and games, tea sets and fans, lucky charms hung with red silken tassels. Eateries are thronged with people. And, as always, there is the call and response of car horns. A woman sells double flower buds, cream-coloured – I catch the scent as we pass, sweet and peppery.

We pay and go in through the main entrance, which is a temple hall dominated by a statue of a laughing Buddha, gold and full-bellied, raised up in a glass case. In front of the case are gifts: bunches of flowers, eggs and fruit. Along the sides of the hall, more gold statues wear multi-coloured robes and headdresses. The building is open at the back, leading into a square with another temple straight ahead, and pagodas to either side. A huge cauldron releases clouds of smoke from burning incense.

‘They’re taken here,’ I say to Tom. ‘Look.’ The first photographs are of the area where we stand. The large pavilion has a single roof with curved eaves and pantiles. In front of the pagoda on the right there is a stall selling flowers and Lori has a photo of that.

I walk over the square to the temple and look inside. Three great statues, all elaborately decorated, and beneath them a sea of offerings: bunches of chrysanthemums and lilies, piles of red apples, black cherries and oranges, votive candles, sweets, seashells.

There are cushions on the floor and I watch a woman approach and prostrate herself, supplicant to the Buddhas. Should I do the same? Lie down and beg for help, pray that we find Lori?

‘Jo,’ Tom says, ‘the last of these photos is the tower, the one just outside.’

The cast-iron tower tapers like a chimney, and is designed like a pagoda with roofs all the way up, the eaves hung with bells. Each bell has a metal fish dangling from the tongue.

‘So we go to the river from here?’ I say.

I check the map: the river is north of us a couple of blocks and Bradley’s apartment is to the east. Did she call for him or did they meet somewhere else? At the river? I check the chart. The river photo was taken at ten twenty-eight. Was she waiting for him when she took it?

‘Fourteen minutes between the last photo at the monastery and the one at the river. How long to walk there?’

‘Let’s see,’ Tom says.

Stopping to cross the road, I look in one of the shop windows and see a pair of tiny shoes like bootees. Almost a hoof shape, elaborately decorated. And then I recoil as I understand what they are: worn by a woman whose feet were bound.

‘Look at the shoes,’ I say.

Tom realizes too. ‘Oh, God.’

The sun blazes down. When I take my sunglasses off to read the map, the glare is blinding and I duck into the shade of a willow tree where I can see better.

We reach the river after nine minutes and look at the skyline opposite but it bears no resemblance to the silhouette reflected in the water in Lori’s photograph. ‘We need two big towers together at the left,’ I say to Tom, ‘then these four smaller blocks, then another really tall one at the right.’

‘If we walk five minutes each way we should find it,’ he says.

We go left, to the west, first. A fisherman walks along the centre of the river, thigh deep in the muddy water, dragging a large fan-shaped net. There are cafés and shops across the road. The air smells of pungent spice.

‘I’ve finally worked out what it reminds me of,’ Tom says, ‘the Sichuan pepper. It’s like ouzo.’

I’m catapulted back. A night at university. Someone, I can’t remember who, had been on a Greek-island holiday and brought back a bottle of the clear liquor. We poured it into mugs and drank it as well as lager. There was possibly some smoking involved. Certainly cigarettes, if not something stronger. It was just before I found out I was pregnant. I know because when I got morning sickness it was like a flashback to that horrendous hangover, the sort that makes you understand the term ‘liver damage’. I was so happy then, giddy at my relationship with Tom and loving my course, and I felt it could only get better.

Now every fifty yards or so we assess the skyline but after ten minutes (to be absolutely sure) we haven’t found the one we want. We stop and drink water. My fingers have started to swell in the heat, my ankles too.

‘If she got a bus or the Metro,’ I say, ‘we could be in the wrong place completely.’

We’re about to start walking back the way we came when my phone rings. Nick.

‘Jo,’ he says, his voice thick with sleep.

‘Nick, it’s not Lori,’ I say in a rush, ‘the remains – they’re not Lori.’ I hear a sharp intake of breath. ‘They don’t know who it is, but it’s not Lori.’ Relief at that statement tears at my heart anew.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ he says.

‘I know.’ I watch the traffic flow across the other side of the river, the taxis and buses, the big fancy cars and bicycles, the phalanx of scooters.

‘Jesus,’ he says again. ‘They’re sure?’

‘Yes. Definite.’

I give him a few more seconds to take it in, then say, ‘How’s Isaac?’

‘The same, good, sleeping.’

‘It’s late,’ I say.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I needed a pee, saw you’d left a message.’

I wonder where he is. Is he on the ward or in some patients’ lounge or family room, or the corridor?

‘So we keep looking,’ I say. ‘We just have to keep looking.’

‘Yes. Oh, Christ, Jo.’ His voice snags and I beat back my own tears.

‘Ring me later,’ I say.

‘I will. Night-night.’

‘Night. I love you,’ I say.

‘Love you too.’

I close my eyes a moment, then look at Tom. He gives a rueful smile, acceptance in his gaze, and I return it. Then he dips his head and we start walking again.