Hungry Ghosts (8 page)

“No, I didn’t.”

I imagine him smiling at the other end of the phone while he delicately removes the eyeballs from a cute family pet.

“Well, there you have it. I knew I could rely on you.”

“What I don’t understand is why you would need any Russian money for expanded port facilities at Na Thon. I should imagine your company and contacts can easily put together the finance for a project like that.”

“Perhaps you overestimate us,” he answers wr
yly, “and we are simple island-dwelling Thais, after all.”

“I think not, Mr
. Rattanakorn.”

“So what do your private detective instincts tell you then, Mr
. Braddock? Please, share with me. I’m interested.”

It’s not a request. I’m wishing I’d kept my big mouth shut.

“I would guess it’s something to do with the airport.”

“The airport?” His voice is non-committal.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

“It’s well known Samui’s current airport can’t be expanded, and that
New Siam Airways who own it aren’t keen to see any competition. I understand they have been active in blocking any plans to develop a second airport in the south of the island.”

“So?”

“So the logical thing to do would be to build a new international airport at Surat Thani on the mainland and ferry people across. The existing airport there is too far out of town, so that would mean a brand new one; which in turn would signify a lot of political string-pulling, but also a large amount of investment. It would in addition require the upgrading of capacity at Na Thon port to receive faster boats.”

Rattanakorn laughs.

“I do believe you are already half-Thai, Mr. Braddock. You seem to have it all worked out.”

“Not quite.
I don’t know how political leverage works on the mainland, but I
do
know all Samui infrastructure budgets are controlled from Bangkok. So I don’t actually
see
how you’d get the port project through.”

“Simple demographics.”

“I don’t understand.”

“When the population of Samui reaches a certain threshold, some central government budgets will be devolved to the island’s administration. We are close to that point now.”

“I see. So when we hit about a hundred thousand people, your friends here can push through the project?”

“Something like that. Hold a moment.”

He pauses briefly for a side conversation, then resumes.

“So you see, Mr
. Braddock, although the port is only a small part of our plans, it is nonetheless a vital part. I need to be sure that I have confidence in our Russian partner. Your co-operation is therefore appreciated.”

I don’t say anything.

Rattanakorn goes on, “Please call your Muay Thai friend and tell him you’ll be happy to undertake the assignment.”

That wasn’t a request either.

“I’ll be sending him a big bill.”

“They have a lot of oil
and gas in Russia. I am sure your remuneration won’t be a serious obstacle. Perhaps I might be minded to reward you with a little bonus myself if the discussions go well.”

“I
’d consider it somewhat unethical for both sides to be paying me, Mr. Rattanakorn,” I reply.

He chuckles.

“So English. So proper,” he says before cutting the line.

I light a cigarette and mull this over.

Common sense tells me I should ring Vlad and tell him I’ll do it.

Braddock stubbornness says I shouldn’t.

Apprehension trumps ethics.

I call the big man and
quote him my fee. He doesn’t even flinch.

“Thank you, Braddock
.” He sighs with relief. “You are good friend and good man.”

Whatever
.

I stub out my cigarette and put the whisky bottle back in the drawer.

Gangsters. How delightful. Probably the only thing that Philip Janus and I have in common is that we’re both up to our testicles in gangsters.

My next appointment isn’t until mid-afternoon.
I tell Jingjai I’m going to the temple, to Wat Son, for some spiritual cleansing.

She smiles like she doesn’t believe me.

6

Preparations

“He’s losing it,” said the athletic-looking man to his companion. He indicated with a slight flick of his head the burly, older Thai standing behind him leaning over the handrail.

“Keep your voice down, Virote, he’ll hear you,” whispered the second man.

He was a leaner and less sculpted individual. He bore a prominent scar across his right cheek as the memento of some erstwhile episode of drug-related violence. His name was A-Wut, and like the other
two he was a member of the gang known on the streets as the
Jade Serpents
.

“Like I give a fuck,” Virote replied, rolling up his sleeve to reveal on his inside forearm a large tattoo of a fanged snake coiled around a sword. He took the proffered Pepsi from his colleague, chinked
A-Wut’s bottle and glugged back the dark liquid.

The three Thais were in one of the backrooms of a big, old warehouse which overlooked the meandering river in Bangkok’s impoverished district of Phra Khanong. The
rusting cranes of Khlong Toei port were only a little way upstream, abutting one of the city’s most infamous slums.

The building was being pressed into service for the manufacture of fireworks; one of a number of legitimate businesses
owned by the Family. It was doubtful this was a suitable location for making products containing gunpowder, since if there was an incident the fire could spread along the wharf. Indeed the building itself had all the makings of a firetrap; part concrete, part wood, the occasional bit of brickwork, and small, dingy windows. However, nobody much seemed to care. The wages paid to the largely illiterate and elderly workers of the factory were a source of gratitude to their recipients, albeit such sums barely kept them above subsistence-level. Many factories had decamped from the City of Angels to areas of cheaper land and abundant easily-exploitable labour; and where business-start-ups were sometimes sweetened by fiscal incentives.

A good part of this four-storey building was empty since it was not needed for
firework manufacture, and these unoccupied areas of the structure were gradually becoming more dilapidated and less weatherproof as time went by.

A corner of the fourth floor had been partitioned off for the use of the Jade Serpents’ enforcers when they had nothing much to do. It was equipped with a fridge, a kettle, a sink, a small table with four non-matching chairs, and a couple of shabby sofas whose springs were long gone.
A bottle of brandy and a bottle of gasoline were kept under the sink for ‘emergencies’. The room had an external fire escape and a separate internal staircase which meant the men could come and go without any contact with the workers downstairs.

A-Wut stole a surreptitious glance at the object of their conversation, but the big man still had his back to them.

“I really thought he was going to kill that woman last night,” he said in an undertone. “I think he’s gone a bit psycho since his brother died. I’m not sure I feel safe around him anymore; he’s too unpredictable.”

Virote yawned. “Well, he better pull himself together. Much more of this and the boss will want rid of him. All this short fuse shit is bad for business.”

Bumibol Chaldrakun knew from their lowered voices that the two men were talking about him, but he couldn’t have cared less. He leaned over the steel barrier which had been installed when the opening had served as a loading bay, and looked down at the slow-moving water of the Chao Phraya. He spat and flicked his still-glowing cigarette butt out into space. Smoking was forbidden in the building, for obvious reasons. He couldn’t have cared less about that either.

“Hey, Chaldrakun, we’re going out for something to eat,” A-Wut called to him. “Want us to bring you anything back? Some noodles maybe?”

“Noodles,” he grunted without turning round.

A-Wut shook his head and exchanged a look with Virote. They grabbed their jackets and left.

Bumibol lit another cigarette, moved away from the opening and slumped down on one of the sofas.

He hadn’t slept much, and he was wondering how he was going to get through the afternoon and the evening business. His brother’s phantom was stepping up its campaign in his over-tired brain, and its call to action was
becoming more insistent. Bumibol had tried calling Tathip’s cell phone on several occasions over the course of the previous day and it had always been switched off. He had taken out his frustration last night on the female junkie, and would probably have killed the woman if Virote and A-Wut hadn’t intervened.

This morning, however, he had managed to get through to Tathip and had told the nervy policeman that he was coming to Samui to tidy up his brother’s affairs and that he wanted to see him.
Bumibol could feel an immediate tightening-up at the other end of the phone. A cascade of pathetic excuses and put-offs had streamed from the little weasel’s mouth, but the enforcer had been persistent if uncharacteristically non-threatening. He needed to sort out Preechap’s apartment and personal effects and he simply wanted to talk to Tathip about a couple of things pertaining to his brother. Surely he could make a little time available?  Eventually, the constable had agreed to meet him but with a very obvious reluctance, which, Bumibol reflected, went way beyond any sense of inconvenience.

The little worm was nervous, frightened even.

The big Thai would find out why.

Bumibol
had immediately phoned his boss and obtained his agreement to a few days off. The boss had obviously heard about the incident with the junkie and said it might be a good idea to take some time out to clear his head. He made a mental note to pay back A-Wut and Virote in due course for reporting the beating.

His brother
.

Preechap had been an idiot to allow hi
mself to become besotted with the Lamphongchat girl. Bumibol had been happy enough to supply the incapacitating drug that his brother had used on the hapless farangs he’d found hanging around the girl, and so far as he was concerned he wasn’t about to shed any tears on their behalf. They were just game. But for Preechap to put his life and liberty at risk over a mere woman was stupidity of the basest kind. Especially for one to whom he had never so much as spoken, and with whom he would have had no chance.

His brother
.

He thought back to his childhood most of which had been spent in this part of the city. He and
Preechap had been wharf-rats for much of their youth, and he knew this area like no other. Their collective dream had been to escape from the grinding hopelessness of their surroundings; to get away from the worn faces, the dead eyes; to garner for themselves some little power over the deadbeats and junkies of their marginalized world. And now his brother was dead and here he was, back again. Back in the slums.

He had never really left.

Bumibol lifted his backside slightly off the wrecked sofa and farted loudly.

Tomorrow
, he thought.
Tomorrow I’ll be on Samui
.

He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke up towards the flaking ceiling.

Then we’ll see what needs to be done
.

7

David Braddock’s Journal

The
Wat Son gardens are still wet from last night’s thunderous downpour. The green leaves look almost luminous in the dazzling afternoon sunshine. One of the dogs that hangs around the temple grounds is lapping from a brown puddle. A young orange-robed monk leans against one of the walls flicking idly through a newspaper.

The Old Monk is squatting on a large rock smoking one of my cigarettes. He has another one tucked behind his ear ‘for later’. He is wearing an expensive pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses which look suspiciously like the ones that used to be on the mummified monk that is housed in a glass case
in the temple. I make a mental note to check whether he’s switched them for a cheap pair left behind by a forgetful tourist. Not that there would be much point challenging him on it; he’d come out with some verbal legerdemain that since in Buddhism
All Is One
, the mummy is still technically wearing the glasses and he hasn’t pinched them. Or some such sophistry.

I wonder briefly whether a schizophrenic Buddhist would be
At Two
with the universe.

I don’t voice this since I don’t want him to whack me with his stick
again.

He stubs out his cigarette on the side of the rock and shouts at the young monk with the newspaper to go and do something useful.

I light up a Marlboro and he indicates for me to give him another one.

“You’ve just put one out,” I say.

He shrugs.

“And you’ve got one behind your ear.”

“That’s for later.”

“Don’t you ever buy your own cigarettes?” I ask grumpily.

“Where would a poor monk like me get money for cigarettes? Besides I only smoke when you’re here. And don’t buy them from the airport shop in future. These taste a bit stale.”

I sigh and pass him the packet. He takes one out and puts the box into an inside pocket of his robe.

“So why are you here today, White Tathagata?”

He exhales the smoke into the bright air. He looks like a bald orange dragon.

“Absolution, maybe?”

The Old Monk snorts.

“There are no sins from which to be absolved,” he remarks. “I have told you that before.”

He looks at me
as though he is examining some exotic insect.

“I take it you’ve been to Bangkok?”

“Yes.”

“Enjoying cheap women?”

“Enjoying expensive women.”

“It’s all the same.” He pauses thoughtfully. “You haven’t spoken about the
farang murders for some weeks.”

“The police cleared all that up. Don’t you read the papers?”

“I read about it in the papers, yes. That doesn’t mean the murders were solved. It just means the police told the papers they were solved.”

“Well, there haven’t been any more murders,” I say carefully.

“That’s true. Although my son was unconvinced that the real perpetrator had been found.”

“
Your son?
” I blurt out. “You never told me you had a son.”

“That’s because you never asked,” he states simply. “In fact I have two sons. They are both policemen. One in Surat Thani, one in Bangkok.”

I look at him.

“There was an investigator from Surat Thani here looking into the ‘burning murders’?
Katchai
? Is he your son, by any chance?”

The Old Monk nods.

“He is my honest son. My elder son is a senior policeman in Bangkok. He is not honest. Unfortunately.”

I think about all the discussions I’ve had with the Old Monk on interconnectivity – how everything is connected to everything else; how the web of karma ensnares
all in its net of reflecting mirrors.

The stone falls into the pool and the ripples spread out.

“You never mentioned this before.”

“It is of little consequence. I know nothing of their investigations
or daily routines. We rarely talk.” He laughs suddenly. “They have never come to terms with my leaving them and becoming a monk. Neither has their mother.”

“Your wife is still alive?”

“Yes. She lives in Bangkok. We still speak on occasion.”

“My wife is dead.” The words are out of my mouth before I’ve had time to think.

He takes off his sunglasses and scrutinizes my face.

“She is the reason you cannot integrate your life, I
would assume. You keep her in a locked box inside yourself, like a ghost in your heart.”

“A hungry ghost.”

“No,” he says simply. “
You
are the hungry ghost, not your wife. It is you that can never eat enough to satisfy the hunger. She is beyond hunger. And the way you go about things you never will be. Not unless you open all your locked boxes and let the spirits and memories mingle. Only then can you live in the now and integrate your past and your present. Only then will you be free. In the meantime your karma controls you.”

“There is one box I think I can never open.”

“You mean you
choose
not to. It is not your fate, it is your choice. There is no such thing as fate.”

“So in the
interim I sleep with different women to dull the pain, you think?” I inquire with unsubtle sarcasm.

He makes a non-committal movement of the shoulders.

“That may be one of the reasons. Or perhaps you are just a dirty bastard and your penis speaks with a louder voice than that of your conscience.”

I laugh.

“A talking penis? I could make money from that.”

The Old Monk snorts again.

“Self control. You need to learn some self control. In older times, we monks would spend days and nights in charnel houses and burial grounds to mortify ourselves against the desires of flesh.”

“I can think of one or two women I’ve been with where the
degree of responsiveness was not dissimilar to sleeping with a corpse.”

He shakes his head.

“Too much joking. You should think less about your physical needs and more about your spiritual development. If you had truly understood the words of Lord Buddha, you would know there is no birth and no death; no coming and no going; that nothing is the same and nothing is different. Birth and death are merely notions. It is because you believe them to be real that you suffer. That is why you mourn for your wife.”

“Death
is
real.”

“You are an idiot.
Give me another cigarette.”

“I can’t. You’ve got
the packet.”

“So I have.”

“You can give
me
a cigarette.”

“Buy your own.”

I
’ve spent longer than intended at the temple pontificating with the Old Monk and burning incense sticks, so I don’t have time to drop in at home and see Wayan before returning to the office.

I have even deeper misgivings about my next client than I had about Da’s honeytrap idea.

For starters, I’ve been recommended to him by Peter Ashley, my co-conspirator in the killing of Preechap Chaldrakun – and I’m wondering
exactly
what Peter has told him about me. He conveyed to me over the phone that he has simply said I am a resourceful investigator who gets results, but I’m still apprehensive. I don’t want it to get around that my services include the efficient and judicious assassination of public officials.

As I enter
the David Braddock Agency, a man with sandy-coloured hair is sitting in reception looking distracted and not a little stressed. I’d guess his age at mid-to-late thirties. Simon Fletcher, I presume. He’s early. A small suitcase sits on the floor beside my rucksack: he must have come straight from the airport.

“Mr
. Fletcher? David Braddock.”

We shake hands and I take him through to the West Office after telling Jingjai to make us some tea. Fletcher looks like he could do with it
, maybe fortified with a dash of Bells.

“Your sister is missing, Mr
. Fletcher. So much I have gathered. But both Peter and your good self have been sketchy on details.”

He nods.

“You know Peter Ashley well?” I ask as casually as possible, although in truth I’m more anxious to learn how much Fletcher knows about
me
.

“Peter is a friend of a friend,” he replies.
“I don’t know him terribly well. However, I do know that he is very impressed with you, and that you helped clear up the mystery of his brother’s death a few weeks back. He described you as a good man to have on your side if you were in a tight spot; and that you were completely discreet.”

“He probably overstates my role in that investigation,” I reply
with caution. “But as to the discretion part, that
is
true.”

He takes a deep breath and shuffles in his seat as
though uncertain how to proceed.

“Take your time, Mr
. Fletcher. I can see this is distressing for you.”

I take out
a notebook.

“Please don’t worry if I take a few notes. No-one else will see them. I don’t like to rely on my memory these days.”

“My sister Rosie is missing. She disappeared over a week ago.”

“She went missing on Samui?”

“No, in Bangkok.” He pauses a moment. “But there’s more.”

I wait.

“I’m pretty sure she was acting as a mule.”

“Smuggling drugs, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Into or out of Thailand?”

“Out of Thailand. She had planned to travel overland down into Malaysia then on to Singapore. She’s a formidable world traveller, my sister.”

“Was she travelling alone or with a boyfriend or … husband?”

Fletcher smiles wanly.

“Rosie is something of a free spirit, Mr
. Braddock. She’s not married and she travels alone. If needs dictate, she can find a boyfriend while she’s travelling but she doesn’t take one in tow with her.”

“Sounds like an independent-minded lady. What makes you think she might have been smuggling drugs?”

Jingjai brings in a tray with two cups of tea but Fletcher is unfazed and continues.

“She phoned me from Chiang Mai about three weeks ago, and said she’d met some Scot
sman called Lauchlan Andrews who had told her she could make money to fund her trip by acting as a courier.”

He looks at me directly.

“We both know what that means, right?” he asks.

I make no comment.

“I told her she shouldn’t be getting involved in anything suspicious and potentially dangerous, but she just pooh-poohed me. Rosie’s pretty strong-willed and a bit reckless at times. But,” he adds quickly, “it’s the first time she’s ever done anything like this.”

“So far as you know,” I say bluntly.

Jingjai is hovering around the desk.

“It’s OK, Jingjai. We don’t need anything else right now.”

She leaves, closing the door behind her. I take the half-full bottle of whisky from my drawer and splash some in my cup.

“Tea stiffener?” I proffer.

He shakes his head.

“I don’t
really drink,” is his response, “except for the odd glass of wine.”

I raise an eyebrow.

He chuckles slightly in spite of the situation.

“
It’s a legacy of my time as a priest.”

“You were a Catholic priest?” I say in surprise.

“A Church of England vicar. Vicars are priests too, you know.”

So an ex-vicar is asking a guy who’s killed his wife and a policeman to help find his drug-smuggling hippie sister. You couldn’t make this stuff up, could you?

“Whereabouts?”

“In Leicester.”

“Really? I lived outside Leicester for thirty-odd years. Which church?”

“St Mark
’s, in the city. Ever been there?”

“I’m not much of a churchgoer, Mr
. Fletcher. I did visit St Mark’s once a few years ago.”

Just after
I killed my wife
.

It’s not a memory I care to explore now.

“So why did you leave the priesthood?”

“I lost my faith, Mr
. Braddock,” he states simply, “so I couldn’t go on being a priest.”

“Was there a woman involved?” I ask rather rudely. Just checking whether everyone is like me. It’s a vanity thing.

I think for a moment he’s going to tell me to fuck off and mind my own business. Then Fletcher drops his gaze.

“You’re very direct, Mr
. Braddock.”