Rahim bin Yusof

Rahim bin Yusof is 38 and has guided travelers along the trails of the Cameron Highlands since he was fifteen. He was born in a small village on a mountain slope, the son of a tea farmer and a mat weaver, and inherited from his father the conviction that the jungle teaches more than any school. He knows every stone, every vine, every spot where the ground gives way, and takes offense when anyone doubts it.

He lives in a wooden house on stilts, at the edge of a plantation, half an hour from the bungalow, with a yard of banana trees, free-roaming chickens and a spout of cold water that runs down from the hills. Inside, the living room is plain: a mat on the floor, a cedar cabinet and a battery radio he turns on for the weather forecast. He sleeps on a fiber mattress and wakes before the birds sing.

He is a sun-browned man with short black hair, a thin mustache and a lean, alert face. He wears a short-sleeved khaki shirt, almost always damp with sweat, and canvas trousers. A dented aluminum canteen hangs from his belt, which he fills at springs only he knows. Quiet and proud, he answers in few words and looks at the detective the way one assesses a trail.

About the case, his account is a guide's: the trail that starts behind the bungalow is number four, the jungle one, which crosses the hills toward the Tanah Rata road. A man takes five minutes to get lost if he leaves it, but the dogs searched all night and found no scent off the trail. He guided Walter the previous Tuesday, to the waterfall, and says he walked better than many a guide.

Rahim says little, and when the question nears where he was, he looks out the window. It may be the pride of a man hearing that his territory failed. It may be the caution of someone who prefers the police stay out of the jungle. The detective will have to decide which.