why he was out in Isaan, slumming it with the likes of us. The others gaped in a way that must have been extremely gratifying for Tuy. Even I was surprised. It did not seem to fit in with the somewhat austere image that Maew gave out. We all stared across the room at him.
He admitted it. I was amazed. He just said very simply that he had been conviced of accepting money to influence a tendering process. I think we all expected this to be followed by some kind of protestation or justification - 'I'm appealing the decision' or even 'But my mother needed medical treatment'. Something of that nature. Instead he just picked up his cigarettes and left. A few minutes later I saw him standing by the cat ghost shrine, smoking and looking out at the tracks. Tuy and Ice gaped at each other and giggled.
"What happened next, I heard from Pink. That night, Tuy was scheduled to work until 4am, when she would come and take over. She got a call from central operations around midnight, saying that all of the signals on the Isaan branch were stuck and Tuy was not answering either the land line or his mobile. Nor could they reach Maew, who should, in theory, have been in the building. She got into her pick- up and made the twenty or so miles to Station 58 in record time. She was assuming that Tuy’d had a heart attack or that robbers had come for the dispatch centre's computers and bashed him on the head—something like that.
"When she skidded up the gravel path and halted in front of Station 58, everything was silent. Even the insects, she said. Having lived most of her life in the countryside, the lack of noise was deeply unnerving to her. To be honest, I think I'd have been even more frightened than she was. You know what night-time is like out there where they've cleared the jungle—like being shut in a big, dark box with lots of nasty things that you can't see.
"The lights were on upstairs, but she could hear nothing. She tried knocking on Maew's door first, but no one answered, so she crept upstairs, carrying a wrench from the pick-up for protection. At first she thought that the room was empty. According to her, she screamed the place down when she spotted Tuy crouching under the console, staring out at her with feral eyes."
"Just like Chandra, in fact."
"Just like Chandra. It took her a good half hour to coax him out and into her car. She drove him to Bounmi's house, this being the closest outpost of civilisation, and the entire family was woken up to wrap Tuy in blankets and pour shot glasses of laolao down his throat. It took a while to get him to speak, but the story finally emerged. He had just seen a goods train through, and knew that there would be little to do for the next twenty minutes, so he had slipped out for a smoke. This was not strictly allowed, as someone is supposed to be watching the computers at all times. None of the dispatch centre workers were entirely innocent of the practice, however. He had been standing by the downstairs door when he had thought he heard someone in the bushes. At first he assumed it was Maew, out for the same reason as him. He had called out, but there was no answer. He was about to go back inside when he saw something staring at him from the line of trees. The light from the open door was reflected in a pair of unblinking, yellow eyes, watching him steadily from between the branches."
"Pfft. A stray dog."
"According to Tuy, they were about five or six feet from the ground."
"A cat then, sitting in a tree."
"Well yes, possibly, but in the circumstances, no one really liked to mention the C-word. I dare say that the place was riddled with entirely non- metaphysical moggies, but it still brought up some uncomfortable associations.
"Tuy was put to bed in my room, and I volunteered to accompany Pink back to the dispatch centre. Bounmi came along too, bringing his knackered old hunting rifle. Frankly, I thought that we were more at risk from him than from anything supernatural, but I didn't say so. We rolled cautiously up the path towards the building, headlights on full-beam, sending the geckos skittering away into the shadows. The lights were still blazing out upstairs, and the downstairs door was gaping open.
"I must have been in a bit of a state, because for a second or two I was sure there was some nightmarish creature crouched on the step, readying itself to spring at us. It took a couple of seconds for the shape to resolve itself into Maew, drinking a flask of tea in the most prosaic way you could imagine.
"He looked a little surprised at the cohort of ghostbusters that had apparently come out to meet him. Pink was outraged. She was screaming, asking him where he’d been and what he was playing at. He just told her, mild-as-mild-can-be that sometimes when he couldn’t sleep he would go out to sit by the tracks. He certainly looked innocent to me, but I had difficulty imagining the other dispatchers being willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Pink stomped off upstairs to her post, muttering darkly, and Bounmi and I got back in the pick-up to head home. Maew was still sitting on the step when we left, staring out after us.
"True to form, when I climbed up the awkward wooden stairs to the dispatch centre for my lunch the next day, Lek and Ice were muttering in a corner. Maew was at his console, doing his best to ignore them. Despite my best attempts to remain neutral, they insisted on dragging me into their conversation. They had heard about what had happened the previous night, and had soon come to the conclusion that the whole episode had been orchestrated by Maew in revenge for Tuy's revelations of the previous day. I made hemming and hawing noises, and tried desperately to get away, finally announcing that I'd take my lunch outside, since it was such a lovely day. It was a crappy day, but I couldn’t help that. I sat down in the boiling sunlight and clouds of midges, on the step that Maew had occupied the previous night. The local cats were out in force that day. There were four or five of them sitting in the shade of the trees that lined the track, all watching me. I chucked them a couple of lumps of sticky rice, but they didn't move.
"Tuy arrived back a few days later. He still seemed a little shaky—clearly he was not half the man poor Chandra had been. I don't think it had occurred to him that his terrifying experience may have been the result of a practical joke. He had clearly described a pair of yellow eyes staring out of the darkness at him, after all, and whatever else Maew may have been guilty of, certainly no one could accuse him of having yellow eyes. Nevertheless, after a couple of days spent listening to the others' theories, Tuy's thoughts were clearly beginning to tend towards the belief that Maew had orchestrated the ‘ghost’ purely to frighten him. This was not an improvement. Being scared half to death by a bona fide ghost is, at least, semi-respectable. Having been induced to cower under a desk by an aloof khon Krungthep with a fashionable haircut was a humiliation not to be borne.
"The next incident happened around a week later. Maew and I finished our surveying late. It was already getting dark when we parked the maintenance car up in a siding and crossed the tracks back to the dispatch centre. I suppose that what happened next could have been our fault. We should have been wearing our fluorescent jackets, but the north-eastern branch isn't exactly frantic with traffic at the best of times, and we often didn't bother. On the other hand, the electric lights were on, and we had made more than enough noise parking the engine and shifting our kit. We weren't inconspicuous.
"There was a goods train parked on the up line, and rather than walking round, we climbed over the connector between two of the carriages. Another stupid move, I dare say. It’s certainly something they tell you not to do in training. I went through first, with my case and all the optical gear, and Maew followed me. I heard the jolt and turned just in time to see Maew stumble and fall between the two cars as they slammed together.
“The train got up to speed quickly, and I was on my hands and knees beside the rails, trying to see between each pair of wheels as they clunked past. The yellow halogen light didn't illuminate the underside of the coaches, and for all I knew Maew had been cut in half by the original impact. I tried yelling, but I could hear nothing over the noise of the train.
"When the last carriage had finally passed, I saw him. He was lying there on his back, on the gravel between the rails. He didn't seem hurt, but he m
ust have lain there perfectly still for the couple of minutes that the train was passing over him, knowing that any stray bit of metal hanging down beneath the carriages would be the end of him. I honestly don't know if I could have done it. The case he had been carrying had been wrenched out of his hand and caught between the wheels and the rail. It was one of those heavy aluminium jobs, but there were only a couple of shreds of metal left, spread along the track.
"I was telling him not to move, and blathering on about calling for an ambulance—like you do when this sort of thing happens. He just pulled himself up, holding onto one of the rails. He didn't even seem to hear me, but turned and walked off towards the dispatch centre.
“Only Tuy and Lek were up there, as far as I knew. Until then it had not occurred to me that what just happened could have been anything but an accident, but the fact was inescapable: it must have been one of them who gave the train the signal to proceed. They could not possibly have missed our arrival, and must have known that we'd be on the tracks: the decision to signal the goods train was either monstrously careless or an attempt at cold-blooded murder.
"This shook me, I