His stomach tightened as he reached the doorway. He had to see this; it was the first real step of his search. He wouldn't flinch, he mustn't show fear. That was his only clue as to how to deal with the situation in which he found himself – you didn't show fear in front of primitives or mad people or wild beasts.
He blinked the rain out of his eyes, wishing that they could stay blurred. Now he could see that the shape in the hut lay on a mattress. Old though it was, the mattress must indicate respect for the victim. He forced himself to peer into the dark, to see without going closer. The spears were pricking him, he was going to have to stumble in, but suddenly there was no need, for a flash of lightning showed him everything.
He thought he'd managed to steel himself. But it was one thing to be told what the Leopard Men did to their victims, quite another to see for oneself – albeit briefly -the red, ragged hole that the heart had left, the raw stumps where fingers had been torn off, the eyes that had seemed to glare at him. They looked far too big for their sockets now that the skin had gone from around them.
He'd seen all that, but it was only a memory now. He could turn away before the next flash; what else could the spearmen expect him to do? The lightning flashed again, but he was turning; the mutilated corpse was at the edge of his vision. The splintered hole in the chest, the fingerless hands, the eyes bulging from their raw sockets. .. Then he realized that the Leopard Men did this to children, their own children. It was too much. His torso jerked forward convulsively, and he vomited into the mud and the rain.
When he straightened up at last, so weakened now that he didn't care what the spearmen were doing, he saw that they were all staring ambiguously at him. Even if he'd been able to, he wouldn't have dared to move, not even to brush the dribbles of rain from his eyebrows out of his eyes. Had he shown disrespect to their dead? What would they do now?
They stepped forward, and his muscles stiffened until they felt like bone. But the men gazed approvingly at his vomit, poked it with their spears. Gradually, with a wave of relief that made him afraid his legs might give way, he realized that he'd done the right thing. He'd proved he was human, free enough of the taint of the Leopard Men to be appalled by what they'd done. For a moment – only a moment – he felt he could go home.
No, that was a false hope. He had to go on, and now he felt he could. Though he was shuddering, he felt cleansed; the rain was almost refreshing. When they indicated that he should return to the chiefs hut, he managed to control his legs enough to walk without stumbling.
Once the men had spoken to the chief, he made a sign for Isaac to address him. Again, Isaac seemed to speak for hours before the chief replied. Sometimes the heavy lids drooped further, and Alan wondered, as his legs twitched with the strain of standing, if the old man was dozing. He wouldn't have blamed him. The endless incomprehensible stream of language was sending Alan to sleep on his feet.
He started awake when the chief suddenly spoke. The old man was sitting even straighter in his chair, his throne. He was gazing expressionlessly at Alan as he spoke to Isaac. Whatever he was saying, Isaac had reluctantly to agree, though not without a glance at Alan that looked apprehensive, or worse. Alan restrained himself from demanding what was wrong. He'd soon know; the chief had raised one hand in a gesture of dismissal. The audience was over.
The tribesmen led Isaac and Alan back to the edge of the forest. The din of rain and screams of birds and animals sounded gigantic as the trees. When he blinked rain from his eyes, Alan could just see the trail that led back to the jeep. Beyond the tribesmen, children were venturing out of their hut to splash in the mud, rushing in again to take refuge as the lightning flashed. As Alan turned to follow Isaac, one of the tribesmen lifted his spear. Alan thought he was wishing him victory.
Once Isaac was sure of the trail, he began to talk, shouting to make himself heard above the downpour. 'I had to tell him you were under the curse of the Leopard Men, otherwise he would have told us nothing.'
'What did he say?'
Isaac hesitated. 'He seemed to know already.'
Alan shook his head, impatiently and nervously. Water sprayed from his hair. 'I don't mean that. What did you learn?'
'Well, they saw the men who did it. They were too far away to be stopped. From the description they sound like the old Ju-ju men, but I don't understand how they could have survived all these years. They were very thin, not like men at all, so I was told. You saw what they did to their victim. I was told they used only their teeth and nails.'
The forest was growing darker, except where the lightning glared down, and even that blackened the shadows. Screams greeted every flash. 'Does he know where they are?' Alan demanded.
'His men pursued them into the forest to the east, but then they lost them. I had to be careful what I asked. Ordinarily he wouldn't admit that to outsiders – certainly he wouldn't tell the police. It's a matter of pride that his warriors should deal with the culprits themselves.'
Suddenly he was avoiding Alan's eyes. 'He told you something else, didn't he?' Alan said.
Isaac didn't look at him. 'You're sure the claw is lost.'
'Stolen.'
'Gone, at any rate. It's probably all to the good. There's no reason to suppose you're meant to give it back, and besides, one wouldn't like to think that it was anywhere near your wife and child. The Leopard society was exclusive to men, but that needn't mean that its influence is.'
His reluctance was almost palpable. 'Is that all?' Alan demanded, and when Isaac didn't answer, 'What else?'
'I am afraid I may have been wrong about the legend -about what must be done for the power to be consumed.'
'I'll do anything if it works.'
'I ought to have known,' Isaac said to himself, as if he could still avoid telling Alan. 'I should have known what might be necessary to consume the power of a cannibal society.'
'I'll do anything that's necessary.' The look in Isaac's eyes had made him quail. 'Anything,' he repeated, but most of his fierceness was directed at himself, for he felt sick and fearful. He was close to recalling what he had had to do in his dream.
Thirty-Three
'Isobel,' Liz said suddenly, 'have you a key to my house?' They were washing up after dinner at Isobel's. Outside the open kitchen window, the wind groped over the twilit fields. Though they were too far inland to hear the sea, the grasses sounded like waves. It was that time of day when everything is vaguest, when one's eyes are no longer to be trusted, and Liz couldn't convince herself that the fields weren't full of crouching figures, or perhaps just one figure that was ranging back and forth. At least the house itself was brightly lit. It ought to have felt like a refuge, but, instead, it always made Liz think of a ceramics showroom – hardly lived in at all, each room a display of pottery and porcelain and glass, everything neatly and tastefully in its place: a lonely woman's house. Whenever they visited, Liz was always terrified that Anna would break something, which was why she was nervous as she washed up, passing the child the plates to wipe. Suppose Anna dropped a piece of the best china? It was partly nervousness that had made her blurt out her question. 'Why, whatever makes you think that?' Isobel said. 'That day you were waiting – I honestly don't think I left the door open. Did you let yourself in?' 'Well, dear, what did I say to you at the time?' 'I'm not talking about what you said.' Isobel had been patronizing her ever since they'd arrived, treating her as if she was ill in some way, and Liz had had enough. 'I asked you a straight question. Have you got a key?'