Harry felt an urge to smoke.
“That’s a lot of responsibility to carry,” he said.
“Yeah, but I guess sometimes it’s easier to take responsibility for the dead instead of the living. The rest of us have to look after them, Harry. The living. After all, that’s the responsibility that drives us.”
Responsibility. If there was one thing he had tried to bury last year, it was responsibility. Whether it was for the living or the dead, himself or others. It only involved guilt and was never rewarded anyway. No, he could not see how responsibility was driving him. Perhaps Torhus had been right, perhaps his motives for wanting to see justice done weren’t so noble after all. Perhaps it was just stupid ambition that prevented him from allowing the case to be shelved, that made him so keen to catch someone, no matter who, so long as he could find damning evidence and stamp the file “Solved.” The newspaper headlines and the backslap-ping when he returned from Australia, had they actually meant as little as he liked to believe? This idea that he could trample over everything and everyone because he wanted to get back to Sis’s case, perhaps it was just a pretext? Because it had become so, so important for him to succeed.
For a second there was silence, it was as though Bangkok was drawing breath. Then the same foghorn rent the air again. A lament. It sounded like a very lonely elephant, Harry thought. And then the cars started honking their horns again.
A note lay on the doormat when he got back to his flat. I’m in the pool. Runa.
Harry had noticed that “pool” was next to the figure 5 on the lift panel, and when he got out on the fifth floor, sure enough, he could smell chlorine. Around the corner was a swimming pool under the open sky with balconies on two sides. The water glittered softly in the moonlight. He crouched down by the edge and stuck out a hand.
“You feel at home here, don’t you?”
Runa didn’t answer, just kicked out, swam past him and ducked beneath the water. Her clothes and prosthesis lay in a bundle by the sunlounger.
“Do you know what time it is?” he asked.
She appeared from below, grabbed him around the neck and kicked off. He was caught totally unprepared, lost his balance and his hands found naked, smooth skin as he slipped into the water with her. They didn’t make a sound, just pushed water to the side like a heavy, warm duvet and sank into it. Bubbles formed in his ears and tickled, and his head felt as if it were expanding. They reached the bottom and he pushed off with his feet and took them to the surface.
“You’re crazy!” he spluttered.
She chuckled and swam away with rapid strokes.
He was lying on the side in dripping clothes when she came out of the pool. When he opened his eyes she was holding the pool net trying to catch a large dragonfly floating on the surface of the water.
“That’s a miracle,” Harry said. “I was convinced the only insects that survived in this town were cockroaches.”
“Some of the good ones always survive,” she said, carefully lifting the net. She released the dragonfly and it flew over the pool with a low buzzing noise.
“Aren’t cockroaches good?”
“Yuk, they’re revolting!”
“They don’t have to be bad because they’re revolting.”
“Maybe not. But I don’t think they’re good. It’s like they just exist.”
“They just exist,” Harry repeated, not sarcastically, more reflectively.
“They’re made like that. Made for us to want to tread on them. If there weren’t so many of them.”
“Interesting theory.”
“Listen,” she whispered. “Everyone’s asleep.”
“Bangkok never sleeps.”
“Yes, it does. Listen. They’re sleeping noises.”
The pool net was attached to a hollow aluminum tube, which she blew through. It sounded like a didgeridoo. He listened. She was right.
She followed him down to use the shower.
He was already standing in the corridor and had pressed the lift button when she emerged from his bathroom with a towel around her.
“Your clothes are on the bed,” he said, closing the apartment door.
Afterward they stood in the corridor waiting for the lift. A red number above the door had started the countdown.
“When are you leaving?” she asked.
“Soon. If nothing turns up.”
“I know you met Mum earlier this evening.”
Harry put his hands in his pockets and looked at his toenails. She had said he ought to cut them. The lift doors opened, and he stood in the doorway.
“Your mother says she was at home the night your father died. And you can testify to that.”
She groaned. “Honestly, do you want me to answer that?”