Hungry Ghosts (21 page)

I call out again, but as before there is no reply, and this time the hammering continues unabated. It sounds much closer now.

It has become difficult to see and I take out my cell phone. There is no signal but I can use the display light as an impromptu torch so I don’t lose my footing on the now-uneven steps. After two more levels all the bulkhead lights are out, but on the next landing there is a door. It sounds as though the pounding is coming from somewhere behind it. Crudely daubed on the wall in large letters are the words YOU MUST LEAVE THE GARDEN.  The paint glistens as if still wet. I push on the door and to my surprise it swings open easily. Immediately the hammering ceases.

Beyond is a wide corridor. Fluorescent lights hang from the ceiling: some sputter on and off but most are working, flooding the bare expanse in a harsh industrial glare.

At the far end of the corridor is a familiar figure wrapped in an orange robe. He sits cross-legged on a raised platform watching my approach.

“Where are we?” I ask the Old Monk.

He shrugs. “Who can say? This is your new Level. How many flights did you come down?”

“Lots.”

“Give me a cigarette.”

I reach into my pocket and flip open the box. “It’s my last one,” I say.

“It doesn’t matter. You don’t need cigarettes now anyway.”

He lights up and inhales deeply, closing his eyes for a moment.

“You need to choose a room,” he announces abruptly.

“Choose a room?”

He indicates four doors behind him.

“What is this? Are we playing Alice in Wonderland games?”

The Old Monk looks at me steadily.

“I don’t know,” he replies. “This is all down to you, not to me.”

“Is this supposed to be some kind of test?”

“Not really
,” he adds with a twinkle, “but then as we both know, nothing is real.”

“What was that hammering noise I heard?”

“They were getting one of the rooms ready for you. It took longer than anticipated, but it’s done now.”

I examine the doors. They are all of the same bland design and each has a small nameplate attached to it. The names read Kat, Anna, Wayan and Claire.

The Old Monk climbs down from his platform and stands behind me.

“You probably want to discount the first one. She’s almost done.”

“What the hell is this?” I demand angrily.

The Old Monk continues smoking. He is annoyingly calm.

“Just choose.”

“You know whom I’ll choose. Every time, you know.”

He shrugs again.

I feel my throat go dry as I approach the door marked Claire.

“She’s actually in here?” I ask.

There is no answer from my companion. He simply looks at me, his face expressionless.

I turn the handle and open the door. Inside the room is empty apart from a pile of heavy chains in the middle of the floor.

I spin round on the Old Monk.

“I chose,” I say heatedly. “I chose Claire. Where is she?”

“This is all she is now.”

“Screw you and screw your metaphors. I want Claire. I want my wife.”

I grab the Old Monk’s robe and pull his face up close to mine.

“Give me back my wife,” I yell at him. My sight becomes blurred as the tears come and my voice catches. I can feel the words starting to choke me. “Please, please, give Claire back to me. I promise it will be different this time. I swear it will. Just give her back to me.”

“I cannot,” he says.

“Please.”

“I cannot.”

With a start, I wake up.

It’s still night.

I’m feverish and sweating. The thought crosses my mind that maybe they put something in the food but it’s late to worry about that now.

My head is still sore but the throbbing has abated.

I
n the absence of anything else to do, I perform some stocktaking.
How have I screwed up?
Let me count the ways.

Rosie Fletcher is going to stay missing. I’ve failed her and her brother.

I’ve failed to tell my daughter how much I love her: Katie probably thinks I’ve abandoned her. My disinterest in her boyfriend must be only too obvious. But I’m not disinterested really it’s just … me.

Kat is dying and I’m doing what I’m doing with her. To her.
Select your favourite preposition, and insert HERE
. Mind you, she gives as good as she gets. She gives more, in fact. Logically speaking she’s the one person I don’t need to feel guilty about. Although it’s debatable of course what guilt and logic have to do with one another?

Anna doesn’t really know how I feel about her either. My
ludicrous suspicions have kept a barrier between us. A barrier it is too late to dismantle.

And then there is Wayan; sweet, patient Wayan. I don’t know what to say about her, except that at least – all my other mess-ups aside – I can die knowing that she is safe. In the David Braddock laundry of soiled relationships, hers is the only one that remains spotless. Sinclair will take care of her, I’m sure. It’s a
strange realisation how important her well-being is to me, although it shouldn’t be.

So many things unsaid to so many people. I haven’t even touched on my scratchy relationship with my father, although frankly for many years it’s been beyond redemption.

The list is too long.

I switch out the light. Maybe I’ll sit and meditate awhile.

Or sleep.

Or die.

“You were never very good at meditation,” growls the Old Monk. “I often suspected you’d fallen asleep.”

I am back in the white-lit corridor and he is back cross-legged on the platform.

“Why am I back here?” I ask.

“Unfinished business,” he replies. “Did you bring any more cigarettes?”

I feel in my pockets and respond, “No.”

A look of disgust crosses his face. He waves his hand at the doors.

“Choose again,” he says.

The doors marked Kat and Claire have been bricked up. Only Anna and Wayan remain.

“I’m not choosing anything until –”

A scream from behind Wayan’s door stops me. I rush to it but it’s locked. I take a run at it and kick it in.

Wayan is crouching in the corner of the room like a trapped animal. She looks at me and rises slowly. Her palms are covered in blood, as is her dress.

“Mr. David,” she says with a trembling voice, “I think I am hurt.”

“Wake up,” says Claire. “David, wake up and get out of there.”

I am unsure whether Claire’s voice is part of the dream, but it hardly matters. I can feel the hair standing up on the back of my neck.

“Pull your fucking self together, Braddock,” I say
and slap myself hard around the face a few times.

Outside it’s daylight.

It is time to leave and to drop this fatalistic, self-pitying bullshit.

I re-examine the contents of my prison with a more alert and imaginative eye. After a few minutes I have a plan, so I set to work.

First, I take a dump in the plastic scooper. It is quite a large scooper fortunately and it’s a rather large dump. Happily it’s also soft which makes it easier to break up using the narrow end of the water bottle. I dip the scooper in the water barrel and stir the brew. It smells gratifyingly disgusting. The shit cocktail is almost complete, but it needs a little something to give it a kick.

I unscrew the light-bulb from the ceiling, wrap it in the sheet then smash it against the wall. Now I have some broken glass, which I add to the evil brown liquid.

I rip the rusty cover off the ailing air-con. There is nothing inside I can dismantle without a screwdriver, so the cover will have to do as a makeshift weapon. I practice swinging it around for a few minutes until I’m comfortable I know how to use it to maximum effect.

Finally I examine the broken window. There is a useful triangular shard of glass which I manage to dislodge from the frame after a good deal of wiggling. It might be useful in close-up fighting.

I tuck the sharp piece of glass in my back trouser pocket, point downwards.

This is going to depend on quick, precise timing. Like a Wild West gunslinger, I mime the movements until I can execute them seamlessly. I press my ear to the door and wait.

I don’t have to wait long.

There is the sound of footsteps – two sets – and I hear the key in the lock.

As the door starts to move I kick it open, and the gunman comes with it, temporarily thrown off-balance. At the same instant I throw the shit and glass cocktail in his face from close range and heave his gagging, spluttering body past me.

I hurl myself into the corridor at the second man and pin him against the wall, my left forearm against his neck while I reach into my back pocket for the glass dagger.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at, David?” the man asks.

It’s my father.

24

David Braddock’s Journal

I’m sitting in the back of a black Mercedes with my father as we wind our way through Bangkok streets I don’t recognize.
From the position of the sun we appear to be moving east, and we don’t cross the river so I surmise we are heading towards the suburb of Samut Prakan.

A Thai I haven’t seen before is driving while the guy who received my noxious entrée is in the passenger seat, glowering at me over his shoulder. His face is peppered with glass cuts and, despite his efforts to clean himself up, the slightly acidic tang of human excrement floats in the air. The windows are partly down but it makes little difference to the
ambiance de toilette
. I still have no shoes, belt, watch or cigarettes; and I probably also smell rather ripe.

My
Dear
Papa
, Edward Braddock, is looking dapper and urbane, his silver hair neatly groomed and his manicured hands folded across his lap. He hasn’t spoken a word since we climbed into the car and neither have the two goons in the front.

“So are you going to tell me what’s going on or am I expected to guess?” I say testily.

He swivels his piercing blue stare towards me and I am put in mind of a World War II anti-aircraft gun tracking its target. As is usual in our interactions, I feel like some miscreant undergraduate about to receive a dressing-down from the Head of Faculty.

“You know,” he intones in his gravelly voice, “
you could have blinded our friend in the front with your antics.”

“Yes
, well, people who lock me in a toilet may just have to put up with my ‘antics’.”

He purses his lips before permitting himself a small laugh. But it’s not my witty banter that amuses him.

“Your escape plan was not terribly well thought through you know, David.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. For a start, if the gentleman here had been carrying a gun and was worried about you getting out, he would never have put his weight against the door. That would be highly amateurish, and these people are very professional at what they do. It was only because he had come in peace, as it were, to release you that you could pull him into the room. Otherwise you would have been left standing there with your little cup of poo-poo feeling rather silly.”

“Fascinating, father.”

He looks like he is going to say something more, but thinks better of it.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I continue through gritted teeth.

“Ah, your question,” he replies enigmatically.

“Yes. In fact I have two questions to be going on with. Like what are you doing here and how is it you know the Sangukhon family?”

Edward Braddock sighs and tosses me a look of pity.

“You aren’t very good at this private detective business, David. You should try doing something else.”

“Just answer my bloody questions.”

“You imagine you have been held by the Sangukhon family for the last day-and-a-half?”

This is worse than talking to the Old Monk. Any moment I expect he will produce a stick and hit me with it.

“Yes,” I hiss.

My father and the two comedians in the front share a chuckle.

“You have not. You have been enjoying the hospitality of the Lamphongchats.”

“
Hospitality
, did you say?”

“Exactly. And if your employee, Miss Lamphongchat, had not phoned her uncle and asked him to keep an eye on you, I am quite sure you would be dead in some Bangkok alley by now. You probably owe that resourceful young lady your life.”

“What?”

My father
carries on with annoying patience and not a little condescension.

“The Sangukhons have been following you, but so have the Lamphongchats’ people. When the Sangukhon gang members tried to take you by force at that
club, the other family intervened and took you for your own protection. If you weren’t being such a live-wire they wouldn’t have had to knock you out,” he adds dryly.

I just stare at him. He is enjoying himself, the bastard.

“I understand a full-blown gang-fight broke out outside the club: even a couple of warning shots were fired. It could have got very nasty. That, of course, was entirely your fault.”

“
My fault?
”

“Yes. Relations between the two gangs have been strained for a while. Your presence here has merely served to increase the tension. It’s all very regrettable.”

“I’m very sorry to have been such an inconvenience to everyone,” I respond with no attempt to conceal the sarcasm.

“You should know better than to go blundering around in matters you know nothing about, David.”

“Excuse
me
, father, but I’m here looking for a missing woman and these gangsters are involved with her disappearance.”

Glass Face looks around at me anxiously.

Edward Braddock gives an ‘it’s of no consequence to me’ movement of the shoulders.

“So how do you come to know these people?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I think we have time, right?”

He ignores me and addresses the man in the front seat.

“How long before we get there?”

“Ten minutes or so,” the man replies.

My father looks back at me. “We’ll discuss this after you’ve cleaned yourself up and changed. All your things are at Nathon
Lamphongchat’s house. That’s Wiwatanee’s uncle, in case you don’t know. He arranged to have your bag collected from your hotel and to check you out.”

“Is Nang here with you?”

“Yes, she’s at the house.”

“So she knows these people too?”

He gives me a sideways look and nods.

“I need my phone.”

“All in good time.”

“All right, but just tell me something. When did Lamphongchat contact you?”

“He called me right after his people picked you up.”

“So if he’s such a big buddy
of yours, why have I spent the last two days locked in a toilet fretting for my life?”

He looks at me evenly.

“I told Nathon to lock you up until I arrived. I thought a period of sober self-reflection would be good for you.”

We pass the rest of the journey in silence.

The house is impressive and fortress-like.
It stands out starkly from its neighbours.

Five-metre-high walls topped with razor wire and surveillance cameras surround the property. Beyond the huge steel gate the drive entrance has its own mechanical road barrier that would stop a tank. Two non-uniformed security men
check the underside of the car with mirrors on poles.

Either the owner of the house is paranoid or the organization is on a war footing.

As the Mercedes stops outside the imposing three-storey façade my father says, “Go up the stairs to the first floor landing and turn right. Your room is the second on the left. We’ll meet later downstairs when you look more respectable.”

I glower at him, get out of the car and pad barefoot past a couple of flunkeys at the entrance. I try not to look self-conscious but my crumpled, unshaven appearance and lack of footwear is not exactly James Dean ‘cool’.

Inside the hallway is large with gold teak Thai art deco furniture pushed against the walls. The floor is marble. The whole place reeks of opulence.

I take the ornate staircase ahead of me and enter my designated bedroom. I am pleased to see the only lock on the door is on the inside. I turn the mechanism.

The room would not look out of place in a very upmarket hotel, although the décor is a little too heavily Thai for my tastes. It has an ensuite bathroom and a balcony overlooking an unusually-large tropical garden at the rear of the house. A thug is sitting in a
sala
by the back wall and judging from the bulge in his jacket he is armed.

My bag is on the bed and a pair of freshly-pressed chinos and a linen shirt laid out beside it. I fish in the bag and find my watch, cigarettes, lighter and cell phone. I push open the balcony windows and light a Marlboro while I check my phone for messages.

There are lots of missed calls from Da, Charoenkul and a couple of numbers I don’t recognize; plus a few from Kat and Vlad. There is none from Sinclair or Anna.

I ring Wayan’s number first.

“Khun David?”

It is Da’s voice.

“
Da?
What are you doing with Wayan’s phone?”

“Wait a minute,” she says curtly.

There is a pause and it sounds like she is moving somewhere. When she resumes the conversation she is in combative mood.

“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling and calling.”

“What’s going on?”

“You have no idea –” the anger in her voice suddenly collapses and with shock I
realize she is crying. Sensible, pragmatic Da is
crying
.

“Da? What’s wrong?”

She struggles to get the words out.

“Mr
. Sinclair has been murdered at your house and Wayan …” Da begins sobbing wildly.

“What about Wayan?
”

Something cold and vile puts its hands around my heart.

“Take a deep breath. What has happened to Wayan?”

She sucks in some air and manages to get out, “She was attacked and … oh,
Khun
David, she was covered in blood.”

Attacked
. The word could signify so many things and my brain is immediately swamped with all the worst possible images and meanings. My mouth is so dry I can barely speak.

“She’s been … molested, you mean? Interfered with?” I can’t bring myself to say the word
raped
.

I feel Da working to control her breathing as she says, “When the police found her, her clothes were torn and bloodied and her legs …” She pauses a moment, searching for words. “She was
hit on the head ... unconscious, Khun David, and she went into a coma.”

“A
coma?
Oh my God.”

“But … she hadn’t been raped. They thought she had but no.
The tests came back and … she hadn’t. The blood on her wasn’t hers: she had no cuts or wounds other than those to her head. It was probably Mr. Sinclair’s … They think something must have disturbed the man –”

“Da, is she awake? Has Wayan woken up?”

I hear her give a long sigh of release.

“Yes. Yes, she has. She woke up about an hour ago.”

I realize I haven’t breathed for a while and I lean against the balcony.

“
Khun David, are you still there?”

“I’m here. What happened to Sinclair?”

“Your neighbour Mijit didn’t say how he was killed, but he said the body had been burned like in those awful farang murders a few weeks ago. But that has all been cleared up, hasn’t it?”

Burned
.

It’s Chaldrakun. It
has
to be Chaldrakun.

My karma is not only catching up with me, it’s leapt ahead and is waiting for me holding a blunt instrument. Or maybe a sharp one.

“How much of this did Wayan see?”

“She saw them fighting then she was thrown against Mr
. Sinclair’s car and hit her head. The next thing she was aware of was waking up here at the hospital.”

“Does she know his body was set alight?”

“No. And I stepped out of her room when you called.”

“I see.”

“I’ve paid for her room and treatment on the Agency credit card, by the way,” Da adds in typical businesslike fashion.

“I don’t care about that. But she knows Sinclair is dead?”

“Yes.”

Another thought rolls over me.

“Where’s Jingjai?”

“She’s here. She’s only just arrived. I wanted to talk to her before the police did.”

“Have the police spoken to you?”

I hear the indignity in her voice.

“Some officer called Buajan was here. A real pompous prick he is.” I marvel at her ability to slip into the English vernacular even under such trying circumstances. “He was asking me all sorts of questions about you and Wayan and Mr. Sinclair. From his attitude, I’d say they were looking to pin all this onto you. Fortunately they can’t now that Wayan is conscious.”

I can imagine that fitting me up would be tempting for Charoenkul, presenting him with a tidy, gift-wrapped solution to a messy murder. Plus the burning of Sinclair’s body must have seriously freaked him out.
Ahhh, bless
.

Tathip. What’s happened to Tathip?

“Da has there been anything in the paper in the last couple of days about a policeman dying on the island?”