Hungry Ghosts (34 page)

Tonight’s reckless sex with the Englishman was Kat’s own version of Dutch courage. She knew she needed
something
before she spoke with Deng, and a risky and passionate encounter with Braddock seemed just the ticket. Besides, she wanted to draw blood from him one more time before … Before what? Kat didn’t know. Everything about her future was uncertain now.

Prior to arriving
home, Kat pulled the car off the road and checked herself in the rear-view mirror. She applied lipstick, brushed her hair and sprayed perfume. She hoped she didn’t look too much like someone who had just been doing what she had just been doing. One last time she practiced her speech then she put the car into gear and completed her journey.

She threw her keys in the box on the hall table and entered the lounge.
Kat felt her limbs begin to tremble as she saw her husband.

“Deng, there is something I need to talk to you about.”

Charoenkul leapt up excitedly waving his cell phone.

“My dear,” he shouted, “I have just had the most tremendous news.”

“What?” said Kat, thrown off-balance.

“I have just had a call from one of the Deputy Commissioners, and although it is not confirmed officially, it looks
like we are going to Bangkok.”

He grabbed her and twirled her in his arms
, before releasing her and pacing the room animatedly.

“Can you believe it? All my work has paid off.
Our
work rather,” he added graciously.

“That’s wonderful, Deng,” Kat said, trying to come to terms with this new situation.

Charoenkul continued to burble enthusiastically, oblivious to his wife’s anxious mood, until a thought struck him.

“I am sorry, my dear. Forgive me, I am getting carried away. I think you said you wanted to talk about something?”

She looked at his beaming face; at the obvious pride that he felt in his forthcoming promotion; and she knew in that instant she could not tell him. Not until his posting was confirmed. Not until they were firmly established in the capital. Not until she had had time to prepare him. Not
now
. And perhaps not
ever
.

However, there was
something
she could resolve now.

Kat took a deep breath.

“It’s the beard, Deng. It’s your beard. You must have noticed how powerful my climaxes have become recently. You need to shave it off, my darling, or you are going to kill me. Please, just shave it off.”

Charoenkul’s smile became broader
and he took Kat in his arms again.

“Tomorrow morning I
promise I will shave it off, but first I will make tonight an extra special night for you. And I will be very careful you don’t die of ecstasy.”

*       *       *       *       *

In Bangkok a heavy downpour began, punctuated by rattling thunder and the occasional white glare of sheet lightning stripping bare the night sky.

To the east of the
City of Angels, Nathon Lamphongchat lay in bed holding his sleeping wife. He kissed her tenderly on the forehead and wondered what the coming years would bring; and specifically how much time he had left with her.

In another part of the c
apital, having checked on her sleeping daughter, Mongkut’s mistress Anchalee opened the window of her bedroom and put out her hands to catch the falling raindrops as they cascaded from the roof of the building. The cool rain and the gusts of air on her body were a welcome relief from the stuffiness of the day.

Anchalee
stared out into the night and thought about where Mongkut was and when he would next come to visit.

In his own way he loves me
, she said to herself.
I am sure he does
.

35

David Braddock’s Journal

Some things don’t change.

Policemen
get themselves stabbed, factories burn to the ground, gangs rise and fall, deadly pharmacological merchandise crisscrosses the leaky borders of Asia. Plus there is one thing on which I can always rely: Da will never stop thinking of new ways for the David Braddock Agency to make money.

I’ve only been back on the island a few days and she has already informed me that she and Ting are going to the United States.

“OK, run this one past me again,” I said.

She did. The gorgeous Miranda Tesman was apparently so taken with our firm’s performance that she spread the word around her circle of harpies
. It transpires that one of these members of the Monstrous Regiment of Women (USA Branch) wants Ting to fly to the States to enmesh her husband in a new horizontal jogging scandal. Da tells me she would accompany Ting as she has always wanted to visit the USA ever since she watched pirated DVDs of
Baywatch
.

“Why would this woman – what’s her name, by the way?”

“Bianca. Bianca DuBois.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

“Someone has been reading too much Ten
nessee Williams.”

“I don’t understand that.”

“Why would Mrs. DuBois pay to fly two of you all the way from Thailand to the USA when she could get the job done cheaper by using locals?”

“Because,” Da explained patiently, “
we come with Miranda’s personal recommendation; and we have a track record of coming good for the client.”

“I think it’s more like the client’s husband that’s coming good,” I
commented, “and several times if Tesman is anything to go by.”

“
In any case, money is not really a problem for these people. Summer’s husband, is in real estate and he’s worth a fortune.”

“And is he the sort of guy to rely on the kindness of strangers?”

“Sometimes, Khun David, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, that makes two of us.”

With Da’s wheedling, Jingjai has volunteered to stay on with us for a few more weeks while the
American Job is going on. This gives the girl with the diamond tooth time to complete her musical engagements in Samui before her tenure as a singer in one of the Lamphongchat nightclubs begins. Her visit to Bangkok triggered something of a family reconciliation and Wiwatanee has decided, at least for the moment, to allow the Lamphongchat influence to give her a leg-up in her chosen profession.

I shall miss Jingjai around the office when she goes. She does have a great bod.

Kat Charoenkul, of course, also has a great bod and one I’m very much into. She has become more reckless of late and we are now enjoying trysts and each other in places previously we would have deemed way too risky. God, she reduces me to the level of an animal, but when she calls I can’t refuse her. Moreover, I don’t know how much longer she will be around, and I’m not just talking about her cancer. I’m also referring to Papa Doc’s promotion to Bangkok.

He appears to have become a bit of a poster boy in police circles with the Chaldrakun episode, which made the
national papers. The fitting-up of Jarun Katchai also went well, at least from a technical perspective. Whether either or both of these happenings will be enough to propel the Chief onward and upward remains to be seen. If they do then my enjoyment of his wife’s body and her enjoyment of inflicting pain on my body will become logistically more difficult.

Meanwhile I have other unresolved relationship
issues with the various women in my life: Claire, Anna, Katie, Wayan.

Of Wayan, more in a
moment.

With regard to my male
relationships, however I have been attempting of late to put matters in order.

I touched base with Vlad and Rattanakorn about the upcoming business meeting between the Thai and Russian gangsters. Frankly, after everything that happened in Bangkok, my role in this holds no fears for me. I’m more concerned
about whether Nittha Rattanakorn will start fondling me under the table when I join them for dinner next week. She told me on the phone two days ago she wants to book a session with me. I hope she’s talking therapy.

I
can’t help wishing Nittha was ugly and old.

I wish every woman I know
was ugly and old. It would make life so much easier.

I took Charlie Ro
rabaugh for an expensive dinner by way of thanks. I gave him the ‘official’ version of events that I’m giving to everyone, namely that Chaldrakun had developed an irrational obsession that somehow Tathip and I were responsible for his brother’s death because we had been working with him. He seemed to accept this at face value.

The gods
had rewarded Charlie for his good deed, he informed me, with a double puncture on the drive back to Samui. “But that’s just par for the course,” was his philosophical comment.

This morning I went to see the Old Monk.

He was praying in the temple when I arrived.

I sat on a wall outside and smoked a few cigarettes until he had finished.

He barely acknowledged me as he left the temple and headed into the garden.

“I am afraid you will not find me good company today,” he said as I followed him.

“Why is that?”

The Old Monk sat on a stone bench and held out a hand.

I
offered him my pack of Marlboros. He took one and I lit it for him.

“My son in Bangkok is being retired from the police
, apparently in disgrace, although naturally there will be no public announcement. He called me yesterday to tell me, to ensure I didn’t hear from anyone else. Like from his brother, for instance.”

I lit myself a cigarette and
squinted at the old man.

“He’s being retired because of me,” I said.

He looked at me for a long while as if he were reading on my face the words I had in my mind.  Then he shook his head.

“I do
not need to know,” he responded quietly. “It is enough that he will have no more occasions for corrupt dealing. He has brought a lot of shame to his family. I am relieved it is over. This way he has the opportunity to reflect at length on his misdeeds. Perhaps he will be a better man for it.” He took a deep pull on the cigarette before exhaling. “Although I am rather doubtful about that,” he added.

“I’m sorry.”

“Is that why you came to see me today? Because you are sorry?”

“Yes.”

“Then you had a wasted trip.”

We sat in silence for
some minutes gazing at the rocks and flowers while our cigarettes burned down to the filter.

Eventually the Old Monk said, “Have you allied yourself with the forces of darkness and chaos, White Tathagata?”

“Hardly that. Although I have flirted with them awhile.”

He tutted.

“
Not in the sky, not in the depths of the ocean, not in a mountain cave, not anywhere, can a man be free of the evil he has brought to pass
.”

“
It sounds like I’m pretty much screwed then,” I remarked.

“I was not talking about you,” he said. “I was speaking of another.”

“Ah.”

“
Although we have much work to do to pull you back to the path.”

“Indeed we do, Old Monk.”

“Then we shall start in earnest tomorrow, when you bring me a carton of cigarettes.”

“One day this smoking is going to kill you. And me.”

The Old Monk looked at me.

“You forget,” he said
, “we are Buddhists. There is no death. We are, both of us, immortal.”

Sometimes I come across as superficial. Of this I am aware. However, you may be confident that inside my head I am forever plumbing new shallows, finding novel ways to express the obvious, reheating old jokes.

And why is this, you ask?

The simple reason is that deep thinking begets in me gloom and despondency. As long as I splash about on the surface of things I can fool myself that I am not this deeply troubled man who killed his wife and who forever chases consolation in the arms of women.

There are, however, times when self-examination cannot be deferred
. The day after my return to Samui was one of those occasions.

On the matter of the anonymous poison-pen letters, Claire told me – that is to say
, I told myself – I was the author. I needed to verify that before I did anything else.

I stared for a while at the stationary stationery in my study.
I checked the stock of paper and envelopes. I printed out some sample documents on the printer. I sat at my desk and tried to visualize myself typing into my laptop, printing, putting the damned sheets into envelopes. I addressed an envelope to myself, writing with my left hand, and compared it with one of the earlier envelopes. The shape and size of the characters were the same.

The notes were even in my favoured font. The
epistles were my work. I knew in my heart that was the case even before I even examined the evidence. It
couldn’t
have been anyone else. Nobody aside from the late Bumibol Chaldrakun hates me enough to want to write these things. Nobody except me, perhaps.

After I had torn all the letters into tiny fragments I picked up the phone and called an Austrian psychiatrist by the name of Braun who lives on the island in semi-retirement with his Thai second wife. I booked a counseling appointment for myself and
a separate one for Wayan.

Since that call we have both been to see him twice.

He seems to be helping Wayan to work her way out of the trauma she has undergone. I have been worried about her since I saw her in Bangkok. I so much want to hold her and tell her how much I care for her. But I am fearful that she would shrink from me, and I tell myself she needs time to grieve for Sinclair and to put the terror of that evening behind her.

That
time I will give her, and until the point she is healed I will play the part of concerned employer and nothing more. I will remain in public the irresponsible, flirty, yet somewhat charming Englishman with the offbeat sense of humour: the one whom nothing fazes and yet everything fazes.

I was surprised how much I warmed to Braun when I went to see him as a client. I had met him briefly on a couple of occasions when I was checking out the competition and he had struck me as a rather self-satisfied, smug individual; the sort who would wear Christmas sweaters with reindeers on them. He is short and chubby with white hair and a beard, not unlike Father Christmas. I suppose that’s what made me think of the reindeer.

While our first session was inconsequential, i
n today’s session I found myself talking about my father and it suddenly dawned on me that Braun actually knew what he was doing. The crafty bastard was getting me to
own up
to things, particularly feelings. This of course is pretty distasteful to me and I realised I needed to be careful otherwise I would start telling the truth. That would never do. While I want to be free of the ghost-whispering psychosis, I have no intention of confessing to murder.

Relationships
were a recurring theme of the psychiatrist’s probing and I danced around them a lot. However, what Braun most triggered in my brain was the thought of how lucky my father is to have Nang.

My stepmother is, in many ways, rather amazing.

In her Edward Braddock has found his Eden. With her he can be his true self, unconstrained by the strictures and expectations of the world. In her company he wears no mask. He can relax and be vulnerable. I try to imagine what it must be like to have lived your entire life with the woman you love; unfettered, unmindful towards the demands of work, of friends, of family. And I think I resent my father a little more for what he has and for what I have not.

Like Braun, my father is happy and content
and apparently not haunted by the past.

They are
among the lucky few.

For the rest of us, we tread the path of Daedalus. We create labyrinths in which to hide away our monsters or else we fashion wings that will carry us too close to the sun. We are the artisans of avoidance, the fabricators of falsehood
s. We sell ourselves snake-oil and we call it medicine. As Teresa of Avila observed, not only do we not understand ourselves but each day we move a little further away from that which we really need.

The spirits of the dead are all around us, but it is we, the living, that are the true hungry ghosts.

By the time my session is over the sun hangs low in the sky.

I drive to the south-west of the island and pull off the road at a quiet spot.

There
, on an isolated beach, a flame-haired girl waits patiently for me.