Spirit Tiger (9 page)

‘He had nothing to do with that,' Suleiman cried, stung. ‘No one introduced us. She was just … there. And anyway, it's over and I'm back. Aren't you happy about that? That I came back, to take care of you and the children?'

Are you taking care of us,' she asked ominously. ‘You're in charge now?' Her voice had been rising as she spoke, and she suddenly became aware she was now audible to many of her neighbours, and she dropped it to a low growl, which Maryam thought was even more intimidating than a shout.

‘Then maybe you should go to work. Because you can't go back to gambling, even if
Cik
Noriah opens the place again. You have nothing! We have nothing! And no one will let you run up a debt without any land to give away. You realize that, don't you.'

With great effort, Puteh calmed herself into silence, though she was still breathing heavily. Maryam pitied her and the burden of anger she so clearly held. It would be so hard to get rid of, and it was deserved. She wondered how Puteh would ever be able to live contentedly with Suleiman after all this. It didn't seem as though she had many options either.

Chapter XIII

Ruslan had died in a particularly nightmarish way, alone and terrified. He lay forlorn in a stand of rubber trees off the main road between Tumpat and Pengkalan Kubur, across the river and north of Kota Bharu, almost to the border with Thailand. How he got there was anyone's guess; certainly no one was looking for him there, so far from his home, and it was only by chance that a man tapping rubber happened to notice an unfamiliar heap through the trees.

His body, now a bloodless husk, had been dragged to a darker corner from closer to the road, a corner bordering on some vacant land returning to secondary jungle. It was not near any homes or villages, just an empty stretch of road, desolate as only roads can be when even their destinations aren't much to visit.

And Ruslan had not died easy. He was huddled on his side, his arms wrapped around his knees. He was pale, almost translucent, and all his blood had leaked into the dark ground around him, leaving little trace of where it had once been. Ruslan's throat had been torn out, leaving a gaping hole in his neck and shoulder where the blood had poured from him, and the expression on his face would give the man who found him nightmares for the rest of his life.

‘We've had tigers here,' that same man explained to Osman after he'd examined the body. Osman thought he'd become hardened during his years in Kelantan when murders seemed to blossom in gay profusion compared to the time before he'd arrived. But this face! The poor soul must have been petrified to see his death rushing towards him.

‘Not always regular tigers,' the man continued, eyeing Osman warily. He was a poor man, his sarong well-worn, his T-shirt ragged around the seams. The house couldn't be seen from the road, it was farther in through the trees. It seemed a lonely spot, and Osman wondered why anyone would live so far from other people.

The man appeared to read his mind. ‘It's the only land we own,' he explained, watching Osman take in the area. ‘My wife wants to move back to Pengkalan Kubur, but I said no, we need to be out here to keep on eye on our rubber. I don't mind it myself, but she gets nervous at night, you see, when it's so dark. We hear tigers sometimes. Not regular ones,' he repeated significantly. Osman realized he was being prodded to ask.

‘Regular tigers?'

The man's voice dropped. ‘
Hala
, were-tigers,' he explained. ‘There are people around here who become tigers, they change into tigers and hunt at night. In the morning, they change back into people. I don't like to go in there,' he indicated the heavy growth at the back of the stand of rubber trees. He looked intently at Osman, as if to judge whether to tell him the rest of the story. It seemed he thought the police could handle the truth. ‘They have a village: the houses are made of human bones and the roofs of human hair.' He nodded. ‘All the were-tigers, you see. Families of them.'

‘No wonder your wife is afraid,' Osman commented. ‘What about your kids? Aren't you worried the tigers might go after them?'

‘Of course, I'm worried,' he answered indignantly. ‘I'm their father! What do you think? What can I do? This is where we live.'

Osman nodded. ‘And you think it was one of these tigers …?'

‘Who else?' The man lit the cigarette Osman offered him and leaned against one of his trees. ‘Did you see his throat? Do you think a man did it with his teeth?'

‘But it could be a natural tiger, or a dog maybe.' Osman would not accept a supernatural out if a natural suspect could be identified.

The man shrugged. ‘If you think so,' he said doubtfully. He drew circles in the dirt with his foot and admired them. ‘Maybe where you're from, there aren't any
hala
, I don't know.' He disavowed knowledge of wherever it was Osman called home; somewhere on the west coast, it would seem by his accent. ‘Here we have them, and people who have the
hala
spirit, tiger spirit, even if they don't look like tigers. Maybe you don't know about that.' He indicated the marks showing where Ruslan's body had been dragged. ‘Something very strong brought him here and hid him so he could come back later and eat him. Tigers do that: people or animals.'

‘I don't see any tiger tracks,' Osman mused.

‘You don't see any footprints either,' the man pointed out. ‘There aren't any tracks at all. And all the blood is gone.' He shrugged. ‘
Hala
are strong, and violent, I'm telling you. When they take their tiger form, I think they're stronger than even the real tigers, and more vicious. It's because they have to hide their tiger nature during the day,' he explained quietly. ‘So when they become tigers, they're finally themselves. It's the hiding themselves that makes them all the more fierce. You don't have to believe me. You'll find out ‘for yourself who did it.'

Alone with the dead, Osman wondered whether someone collecting gambling debts would send such a bloody message, or if they would disguise it in such horrifying garb. Wouldn't it be better to make it clear to any other gamblers considering flight from non-payment to know who'd killed him, rather than have rumors spread (as surely they would) that there were were-tigers abroad in Tumpat district? The whole point to the death, if indeed it was gambling-related, would be to clearly state that debts must be paid. This corpse stated nothing clearly except that the death was chilling and bloody. But there was no mention, symbolically or otherwise, of accounts yet unclosed.

The Tumpat Police Chief,
Che
Harun, ambled over, keeping his distance from the corpse and remaining in the full light of the road. He had called Osman upon realizing he had a dead body on his hands: better that the Chief of Police in Kota Bharu handle it than it land on Tumpat's desk. And Osman, for his part, assumed the corpse to be Ruslan, for how many men did he have missing?

‘Any clues?'

‘That fellow there thinks it's a were-tiger.'

Harun nodded solemnly. ‘It could be. Look at the wound.'

‘Couldn't it be just a regular tiger? Or a dog?'

Harun was noncommittal. ‘Maybe.'

‘Are there a lot of were-tigers around here?'

Harun was now cautious. ‘I don't really know. You know, if they don't do anything like this, then they could be around, but you wouldn't know it. I mean, when it's a human, how would you recognize it?'

He warmed to his topic: he'd been thinking about it since he'd seen Ruslan's corpse. ‘If you catch them when they're turning from tiger to man, of course, you'll know. My cousin said he'd seen one early in the morning, before
subuh
once, and his legs were still tiger's legs and he had a tail, but his face and arms were already becoming human. He was standing under his house, waiting to change back completely before going home.

‘Some families run them,' he continued, looking off into the distance. ‘Though I would think, looking at the body, that when the
hala
changed back, he'd still be all bloody, and would have to wash. Too bad it didn't happen this morning, we could find whoever bathed so early.' Looking at Osman's face, he realized this was the wrong approach to take.

‘But of course,' he backtracked, ‘there might not be any
hala
. I've never actually caught one.' He assumed an expression of benign neutrality.

Osman began venting his frustration. ‘This is a vicious killing. Whoever did this needs to be brought to justice. I don't want to see anything like this ever again.' He quickly realized what he had just said did nothing to disprove the were-tiger theory, which only increased his annoyance.

‘You've never seen anything like it,' he told Azrina later that evening. ‘I don't even want to describe it to you.'

‘You should!' she said stoutly, ‘perhaps I can help you. Or at least listen to you,' she amended demurely. She was itching to hear the details, and yet Osman would insist the delicacy of her soul might not withstand the horrors he could relate. She in turn believed she could withstand them with more fortitude than he could, but a frontal assault on his ego was likely to end badly, so she instead launched a determined end run.

‘You can't carry this all by yourself,' she began sweetly. ‘That's why you have a wife! To help you. To share with you. You worry too much about protecting me and not enough about caring for yourself.' She dropped her eyes momentarily, and then brought them up to look deeply into his. A small, tremulous smile appeared, and Osman swooned – figuratively.

‘Ina, you wouldn't believe it. It does look like a tiger attacked him. It took out his whole throat, there's no blood left in him at all!' At this, Azrina did seem to pale somewhat, but Osman had the bit between his teeth and continued unperturbed. ‘He looked terrified. Just terrified. And whoever, or whatever, did it then dragged him through the trees to the back of the plot near the jungle. I tell you, I almost thought of a tiger myself, but it's too much of a coincidence: a man with large gambling debts goes missing and then gets conveniently eaten by a tiger. I don't believe it.'

‘You're right, it would be too neat. Someone wants him dead. But the message …,' she said thoughtfully. Though she had no experience with the Underworld, she'd read enough crime fiction to know about the meaning of murder, and if there was a code here, it was pretty murky. Underworld denizens, she knew, were not the subtlest of readers, and she surmised any message sent to them would need to be clear and unmistakable. Without tigers of any kind.

‘What was he doing up there, anyway?' she asked.

‘I have no idea,' Osman answered morosely. ‘There isn't anything around there: no village, no nothing. Just these rubber trees.'

‘Was he running away?'

‘That's what I think, but I still can't get it clear. Why there?'

‘Was he coming back from Tak Bai?' she asked, naming the closest Thai town to Pengkalan Kubur.

Osman looked at her thoughtfully, and then slowly started to smile.

Chapter XIV

Azmi's wedding was rapidly approaching, and Maryam felt as though she had done nothing to prepare. Finally, Rosnah had decided on her colours. (Blue and white: Maryam had been doubtful about white, suggesting cream or even light pink, but Rosnah was adamant, in a sweet and apparently pliant way. This was a talent which would stand her in good stead in the years to come, if she was at all interested in getting anything she wanted, which Maryam did not.) Plus, the sky blue
songket
had been woven and made into the wedding dress already. Azmi would be wearing a white
baju melayu
with a light blue songket
kain selamping
around his waist to keep to the motif. He wisely kept away from the planning and offered his opinion on the proceedings only to agree heartily with whatever Rosnah suggested. Another ability likely to foster future happiness.

Aliza, whose hair had been shaved off due to a head injury the year before, now sported a thick, shiny bob, hanging fashionably to her shoulders, showing off the natural curl. She had grown into a lovely young woman, rivaling her older sister Ashikin, a renowned beauty throughout Kota Bharu. Even as a young mother of one with another child due in two months, Ashikin still turned heads on the street. Aliza had never considered herself in the same league as her sister (and her sister certainly never considered anyone in the same league as herself), but watching Aliza one day, Mamat was surprised to see she was as beautiful as Ashikin, though no one else seemed to notice.

He pointed it out to Maryam, who agreed with him and noted Ashikin had been so widely acknowledged as peerless for so long, it no longer seemed possible for anyone to match her. And since Aliza had grown up believing Ashikin was prettier, it did not occur to her that she'd arrived. Plus, Maryam concluded, if it didn't occur to Aliza, it would never occur to anyone else either. She tasked Mamat with bringing this to Aliza's attention and perhaps guiding her to the realization of how she really looked. Maryam had wedding plans to finalize and could not now undertake self-esteem training.

Yi had entered a gangly stage. Clearly never going to challenge either of his sisters for best looking in the family, he did have a kind of goofy charm Maryam hoped might attract girls looking for more than just a handsome face. He was too young to consider marriage yet, but as a mother, it never hurt to consider the possibilities early. He was due to enter secondary school next year, and was really no longer a baby, but as
bongsu
, the youngest, he was inclined to be indulged and perhaps (only perhaps) acted a bit younger than he was – at least at home.

The wedding itself – that is, the
bersanding
, the sitting-in-state where the bride and groom sit before their guests in their finest
songket
amidst as much decoration as the family can provide – would be held at Rosnah's family's house in Kuala Kelantan, a small
kampong
where the Kelantan River met the sea. Preparations had reached the level of frantic: the main room of the house had been cleared of all its former furniture and the thrones where the bride and groom would sit were placed on a dais, which they had begun festooning with
songket
, lights, flowers and paper ornaments. Almost all Rosnah's female relatives, and the majority of Azmi's, were involved in the redecoration: Aliza, Ashikin and Rubiah's daughters had sat for hours weaving paper wreaths and stringing them with lights, committed to giving Azmi and Rosnah the most beautiful
bersanding
possible, and preserving family honor in so doing. Rubiah made cakes with a single-minded focus which in a lesser woman might have unhinged reason. But really, how could anyone else provide sweets for Rubiah's own family?