Hungry Ghosts (17 page)

19

David Braddock’s Journal

From the outside the Bump and Grind is every bit as seedy and undesirable as I had anticipated, perhaps even more so.

For starters the entrance is from a side alley not from the main street, and that in itself speaks volumes.

A brain-dead bouncer slouches against the wall. In the feeble light coming from the entrance he is passing the time fiddling with his cell phone. He looks uncomfortable in his suit and occasionally scratches his groin with his free hand.

I consult my watch
. I’m early. I’ve time for another Marlboro before I go inside. I light up.

Apart from offers for half-a-dozen blow jobs – one of which was from a man – my afternoon
proved fruitless; and I am left with the uncomfortable sentiment that if this lead doesn’t pay off I’m not going to find Rosie Fletcher. Not alive, anyway.

Now I realize that I should be
adopting the Scarlett O’Hara philosophy that
tomorrow is another day
and subscribing to all the rest of that sanguine phuquerie, but frankly my feet hurt and I feel weary. Even a lukewarm shower hasn’t served to stir me from my lethargy. Aching arches are the mortal enemy of cheerfulness; or perhaps excessive walking breeds curmudgeons. Either way, I’m feeling about as happy as a pig on a plate.

Maybe I’m suffering from some kind of delayed shock following my phone conversation with Jingjai, but I shouldn’t be really. Precautions have been taken and at this moment Wayan is no doubt having dinner wi
th Sinclair in some appropriate setting with gently burning candles and the scent of night jasmine infusing the scene with starry-eyed significance. Yeucch.

The thought causes me to g
rind my teeth, and I contemplate ringing Sinclair just to break the romantic flow. But no, that would be childish. And anyway, if the quixotic Geordie bastard has any sense he’ll have switched his phone off.

I have, however, made some other calls
today. One to England, to Peter Ashley to give him a coded heads-up about our little Chaldrakun problem, and another to my partner, Asda, to say I’ll probably drop by our art shop in the morning to say hello. I’ve also just got off the phone to Mama-san’s establishment to let the indomitable proprietress know I’ll call round tomorrow evening; the main purpose of
that
visit being to salve my conscience with Pichaya. Mama-san herself wasn’t there but no matter, I’m sure the barman
Dino the Gormless
will pass on the message. Bless him.

The bouncer scratches his balls again and
is joined by another ape in a suit. I tilt my head back and blow a smoke-ring into the oppressive air.

I’m standing at the junction of a main street in Patpong and the dingy little thoroughfare that leads to the club. While the alleyway itself is dark and uninviting, to my other side the early
-evening throng is on the move. All is colour, bustle and superficial jollity. On small stages behind the concrete and neon façades ping-pong balls and darts are doubtless already being fired through the air from female genitalia. There is one notable lady here whose stage-act consists of having an assistant attach a car battery to two leads protruding from her vagina. As the assistant slowly backs away a long string of bright fairy lights emerges from the performer’s birth canal – usually to gasps of amazement from the audience. Shakespeare it ain’t, but it occurs to me that London’s West End theatres could learn a thing or two from the Patpong clubs.

Speaking of which, I
should stop prevaricating and enter one such club now. I should also adopt a more optimistic approach to the Rosie Fletcher assignment. That
is
what I’m being paid for.

The Chaldrakun conundrum I need to put out of my head before it explodes.

I grind the remnants of the cigarette under my shoe.

Two hours later and I’m playing Patient Penelope perched on a bar stool waiting for the elusive Mr. Lauchlan Andrews.

Lise continues to scurry around behind the bar keeping glasses filled and throwing me the occasional wink and flirty lick of the lips. Periodically she also scans the swelling number of clientele for my quarry
, the Scotsman. If Lise is scamming me about knowing him she’s damn good at it; and furthermore if she can act this well when she’s vertical I can only imagine how impressive her repertoire is when she’s horizontal. I’m thinking
screamer
.

Moreover with a few beers down me Lise is starting to
appear presentable. She actually scrubs up quite well and with the low lighting and a layer of makeup over the sun-damaged face, she looks rather pretty in a dirty, slutty, can’t-take-you-home-to-my-mother type of way. If it weren’t for my preoccupation with weightier matters and the fact that I have a lifelong aversion to yeast infections, I might be tempted to follow through and test my
screamer
hypothesis.

Anyway.

The Bump and Grind to my surprise has no stage, merely two psychedelically-decorated levels each of which has a dance floor and a long bar. The downstairs area – which is presently fairly deserted – seems to be for more elderly patrons, the ones with dodgy hips who will later need to be lowered by a pulley system onto their companion for the night.

The place has an oddly 1970s feel to it, emphasized by a party of Russians wearing retro suits
: two of them even have gaudy medallions slung around their bull-like necks.

Inevitably the music is loud and unmemorable unless you happen to be one of those humanoids for whom the sound of pneumatic drills digging up a road sets the feet tapping.

In the last half hour the upper level has filled up so the sweat is starting to flow and every now and again I get the whiff of testosterone-laced body odour as some party animal squeezes past me to get served.

From time to time I catch
sight of Claire’s red hair on the dance floor, but I know for sure it can’t be my wife. She wouldn’t be seen alive in a place like this, let alone dead.

All pe
rsonal, guilt-fuelled hauntings aside, I am experiencing a sense of being stared at; which I find vaguely unnerving. A couple of Thai guys at one end of the bar keep looking across at me, and I can see in the bar mirror another brace of Siam manhood sipping what look like Cokes at one of the high tables and casting the odd interested glance in my direction.

The possible explanations are that I’m mutating into a gay icon, somebody has pinned an obscene message to the back of my jacket, I’m imagining things or I
’m under scrutiny for some reason other than my obvious drop-dead gorgeousness.

I think we can safely discount the first two reasons, so to amuse myself while I await the arrival of Andrews, I decide to check out whether I am being dogged by paranoia or by something more sinister.

I wave nonchalantly to Lise and indicate in flamboyant sign language that I am going to wash my hands and that she should set me up with another beer. She nods happily and raises a thumb.

M
aking my way through the warm throng, I casually palm an empty beer-bottle from one of the tables en route all the while being careful not to look behind me. I take the stairs down to the sparsely-occupied lower floor and make for the restrooms where a two-metre-high wall acts as a modesty screen to the entrances to the Ladies and the Gents. At the last moment, I take a sharp right and push through the door normally used by the fairer sex. Fortunately, there is only one girl inside applying makeup, and after giving me a dirty look she leaves hurriedly.

I wait a few seconds, then crack open the door.

The door to the Gents is just swinging closed and I see a suited back disappear inside, while outside a second man swings around to face outwards and presumably keep anyone out while his colleague is inside. It is one of the men who were watching me from the end of the bar.

The next thing he knows he has what feels like the barrel of a gun poking in his back and hears me saying, “Keep your hands by your sides or I will put a bullet in you. Understand?”

He nods and a bead of sweat drips off the end of his nose.

I push him ahead of me into the Men’s Toilet where I see his colleague checking the stalls, presumably looking for me. He spins on his heel at our entry and I realize I haven’t thought this plan through properly.

The second man holds in his right hand a revolver fitted with a silencer, whereas the gun I am pressing into his partner is in fact the neck of a
Chang
beer bottle. Psychology might have got me this far, but I’m not sure it will get me too much further.

“Drop it,” I tell the gunman.

He looks at me through narrowed eyes.

“Or what?” he asks unmoved.

“Well, let me see,” I muse. “I suppose I could spoil the back of your friend’s jacket. Probably the front of his shirt too. And incidentally, the security in these nightclubs is shocking, don’t you think?”

He continues to look at me. I don’t think he’s going to go for it.

“Now drop it,” I say with a hard edge to my voice.

He doesn’t move a muscle, although his colleague is trembling violently at this point.

“Very well,” I sigh, “on your head be it.”

My erstwhile prisoner cannons forward into the gunman propelled by a hefty shove from yours truly and they both fall to the floor.
I hear the
thunk
of the gun going off and see a large chunk of plaster fly off the wall. I don’t hang around to see more. Reversing my hold on the bottle, I heave open the door.

Outside is one of the other pair from upstairs. His eyes widen in surprise and as he reaches into his jacket I swing the bottle hard against his forehead. The bottle doesn’t shatter, but he goes down.
Apologies if you’re reaching for a handkerchief rather than a gun, but I really don’t have the time
…

I can’t see the fourth man, but I have no intention of hanging around.

I tear through the club entrance, bundling past two surprised bouncers, and I’m outside. My blood pounding in my ears, I see my way to the main street – and possible safety – is blocked by what seems to be a fistfight with half-a-dozen Thai men going at it with gusto.
Just my luck
.

I swing over a railing into the dark
er side of the alley, but before I’ve gone a few yards hands grab me from a side doorway. I try to swing the bottle again at my attackers, but my right arm is held fast and I am abruptly whirled around. I hear shouts and the sound of a gun being fired then something hard hits me on the back of my head and Bangkok fades to black.

20

The Nightmare Returns

Arc lights had already been set up in the front garden of Braddock’s house by the time Charoenkul arrived. The Scene of Crime Team was busy examining the undergrowth; for the moment giving a wide berth to the body lying face-down on the lawn. This time there were no curious spectators craning their necks to see what was happening. The road and adjacent coconut grove were shrouded in obsidian darkness, and the police lights glared like alien interlopers.

“So what do we know?” asked the Chief.

Buajan consulted a notebook.

“Around eight-thirty we received a call from the next door neighbour
, a shop-owner called Manjit. He had seen flames in Braddock’s front garden and came round to investigate. He found
this
.” Buajan indicated the charred corpse on the grass.

“We sent a car for an initial look.
Manjit is a key-holder and he let the officers in. They discovered the woman on the floor in the hallway.”

“Show me.”

As the front door of the house had been taped off, the two men made their way round the side of the property and entered by the back door. They found Ho on his knees examining a substantial bloodstain on the floor. The Iceman looked up and peered at them through his thick glasses.

“Good evening, sir,” he said.

“
Is it?
” snapped Charoenkul.

Buajan
stepped in quickly to forestall the Chief’s annoyance.

“The woman was found here on the floor, lying on her back,” he said, indicating where Ho was kneeling. “Her clothes were
dishevelled and the front of her dress was covered in blood, as were her stomach, thighs and panties. Her panties are over there.” He indicated a torn scrap of red-soaked material lying to the left of the front door.

“Go on,” Charoenkul whispered.

“She had a serious wound at the back of her head.” Buajan pointed to the pool of crimson close to the kneeling Ho. “It looks as though the assailant beat her head on the floor then raped her while she was unconscious. You can see it must have been pretty violent: there is a lot of blood around. He would have been kneeling in it while he violated her.”

“Excuse
me
,” said Ho indignantly, “but we do not know that the woman was raped. That is pure supposition. We need to wait for the results from the swabs to know that.”

Buajan
gave a short sarcastic laugh. “Sure,” he said. “We find a woman unconscious, naked from the waist down, her legs apart, her thighs covered in blood and her ripped panties thrown in a corner and
maybe
she hasn’t been raped?”

“The only thing we can say for certain at this stage is that she has been assaulted,” Ho asserted priggishly. “As for the rest, that is a forensic matter.”

“Unless she beat her own head on the floor, covered herself in blood then ripped off her knickers and threw them away before she passed out. Your assertion that she has been assaulted is therefore also supposition.”

“That’s enough,”
said Papa Doc sternly. “I assume the woman in question is Braddock’s Indonesian maid?”

“Yes,” replied
Buajan. “Wayan Lastri. The neighbour confirmed that.”

“Quite an attractive woman, if I recall. A pity.”

“She’s in a bad way,” replied the other officer. “They don’t know whether she’ll regain consciousness.”

“She’s at the Samui International Hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s with her?”

“The neighbour called Braddock’s office manager.” Buajan consulted his notebook again. “Da  Pintaraporn. Apparently she knows the maid quite well.”

Charoenkul took a final look around the hallway
; at the sticky blood stain where the woman’s head had rested and the smeared traces of red fluid where her thighs must have been. As if reading his thoughts Ho said, “Yes sir. There’s a lot of evidential material here. I feel very confident about it. We’re also having the maid’s dress analysed, and once we get the detailed results from the vaginal swabs –”

“Let’s go outside,” cut in the Chief. “Ho, come with us.”

With obvious reluctance, the Iceman followed the other two men as they retraced their steps to the garden.

“So what’s your hypothesis?”

“Well,” replied Buajan carefully, “I’m guessing the perpetrator raped the maid after he’d killed Braddock, and then burned Braddock’s body just before he left. Either that or Braddock interrupted the assault and was then murdered. Whatever the order, the body burning must have come last.”

Ho sighed and shook his head.

The three men looked down at the charred corpse on the lawn, and Papa Doc again had to work hard to control his gag reflex as the acrid tang of burned meat assailed the back of his throat.

“We’ve found a knife,” called out one of the investigation team from the shrubbery.

“Bag it,” said Ho tersely.

“As for the burning of the body,” continued Buajan, “
it looks as though he used a couple of bottles of gasoline from the garage. The maid probably kept them there for her bike.”

“What killed him?”

“We don’t know yet,” butted in the Iceman before his colleague could respond. “The body hasn’t been examined.”

“It looks as if the
‘burning murders’ are continuing,” proffered Buajan unwisely.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped Papa Doc. “That case is closed. I heard the murderer’s confession myself.”

“But –”

“There are no ‘buts’, Buajan. All the ‘burning murder’ victims had their heads beaten in. This one hasn’t. You can see that even through the charring. Any wounds must be on the front of the body.
If anything, it’s a copycat killing and a very poor one at that.”

Charoenkul considered the
farang
corpse for a moment.

“Turn him over,” he said.

“We need to conduct this examination properly –” Ho began, but Papa Doc cut him off.

“Shut up. Turn him over. I want to see the face.”

Ho shook his head dispiritedly as with the assistance of another team member, the body was turned onto its back.

There was a moment of stillness, broken only by the sound of the cicadas.

“This is not Braddock,” announced the Chief.

Buajan’s mouth dropped open. “Are you
sure
, sir?”

“Of course I’m sure. I
know
Braddock. This is not him.”

The Iceman was enthusiastically looking over the blood-drained carcass. In the harsh white light, the skin looked like ivory, the dried blood black and lava-like.

“Stab wound to the stomach, and throat wound – probably a slash,” he muttered to himself mimicking the arm movement of the murderer. “Efficient job,” he sniffed dispassionately.

“Look through his pockets, Ho. See if we can find out who he is,” ordered Buajan.

The Iceman looked at Charoenkul, but the Chief simply nodded.

Ho’s gloved fingers probed carefully through the dead man’s clothing, and he pulled out some small items.

“Cash … credit card … business card,” he muttered. “
Kenneth Sinclair, Smiley Cars
.”

“Contact Sinclair’s home,” Buajan told one of the uniformed officers. “Find out if he’s missing, but don’t mention any of this.” The officer nodded and walked
off.

“If this isn’t Braddock, sir, then where is he?”

“A very good question,” answered Papa Doc. He took out his cell phone and called Braddock’s number, letting it ring until the network cut off. “Where indeed?”

“I’ll put out a search for his car,” said Buajan. “We’ll start with the airport.”

“Good idea. In the meantime, I’ll give you Braddock’s number and you can get someone to call him every half hour.”

“This is what happens when you jump to hasty conclusions,” observed Ho looking a Buajan meaningfully. “And when you don’t let forensics do its job.”

“You take too long,” growled the Chief. “I’m still awaiting your report on the Tathip case.”

The Iceman
looked sorrowful. “We are working as methodically as we can.”

“Tomorrow morning I want you to go to the hospital personally, Buajan. Talk to the maid if she’s awake – assuming she’s still alive. If not, question this woman, Da Pintaraporn, Braddock’s employee. Find out what connection there
is between Braddock and Sinclair; if they’ve rowed, if they’ve had any business dealings, whatever. And whether there was any connection between the maid and Sinclair.”

“You think there could be some jealousy angle here, sir?”

“I have no idea. Find out. Call me after you’ve been to the hospital.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And Ho?”

“Sir?”

“Do what you need to do here, and get those reports written. I want to see them as soon as possible.”

The Iceman nodded forlornly, put Sinclair’s effects into an evidence bag and sealed it.

On his way home in the car, Charoekul’s mind bubbled with apprehension. Two violent murders on the island in as many days, and knives involved both times. Could there be a connection? And if so, what?

Another burning murder
. He shuddered.

Papa Doc’s
nightmare had returned. Surat Thani would be on his back once they received the news. Once again his career was hanging in the balance. Somehow Braddock was the key to unlocking the mystery. He needed to find the Englishman, and soon.