The Dying Beach (3 page)

Rajiv, by contrast, lived to plan. With a string of qualifications, including a bachelor's degree in information technology and a diploma of business administration, he was Jayne's ideal partner, a Doctor Watson to her Sherlock Holmes. Registering as a company was one thing. What she really needed was a business partnership with him.

She sought advice from her friend Police Major General Wichit, who once saved her life, which in the Thai scheme of things left him indebted to her and not the other way around. Wichit volunteered a nephew, whom Jayne knew, to be their nominal majority Thai shareholder to meet the legal requirements.

Jayne wanted to call the business ‘Thai Spy', but Rajiv objected on the grounds they were neither Thai nor spies. They settled on Keeney and Patel Private Investigators, aka KAPI, which sounded like both the Thai word for shrimp paste and a type of classical Indian raga.

Jayne thought they should wait until the paperwork made them official, but Rajiv had a marketing strategy underway while the ink was still drying on their signatures. First he set up a post-office box and email addresses, despite Jayne's scepticism about the value of the latter. In addition to
Metro
, he placed ads in Thai women's magazines, glossies with English titles such as
Lemonade
and
Oops
. He targeted publications provided free of charge in Bangkok's mid-range hotels, the KAPI blurb appearing amid ads for massage and escort services.

Though spying on unfaithful lovers had always been Jayne's bread and butter, the surge in demand took her by surprise. KAPI was inundated with requests to run background checks and surveillance operations on girlfriends, boyfriends, bar girls, bar boys, fiancés, spouses, minor wives and partners of indeterminate gender. A number of these requests came through on email, forcing Jayne to admit the anonymity of this new technology did seem to encourage more clients to make contact. And being farang—the ubiquitous Thai word for ‘foreign'—gave Jayne and Rajiv universal appeal. Expatriates and tourists trusted them because they were foreigners, while Thai clients lost less face exposing their weaknesses to farangs.

Rajiv seemed disappointed when the Thai New Year holiday shut down business for five days in mid-April, putting the registration process on hold. But Jayne welcomed the chance to pause for breath. On the surface, things seemed to be going well. Better than ever. But it was happening so fast. Jayne needed time to reflect on how she felt. Entering a business partnership was a big commitment. And while she trusted Rajiv, she wasn't so sure about her own ability to stay the distance.

As it happened, both their visas were due to expire not long after Thai New Year. In the past, Jayne had done her visa runs to Laos, as it was closest and cheapest. But having worked solidly through February and March without a break—Rajiv honing his surveillance skills, Jayne improving her use of the computer—they'd saved enough money to combine a visa run to Malaysia with a few days' sightseeing in Krabi.

Jayne couldn't believe it had taken her five years to discover the beauty of Thailand's Andaman coast. She squeezed Rajiv's hand as they paused on their beach walk to gaze at the view. Bathed in white-gold light and shimmering in the heat, the bay of islands seemed unreal, a magical world poised to disappear into the mist like Avalon. Rajiv, likewise, seemed part of that mythical world. With his black eyes, pointed beard and sun-darkened skin, he was a gold earring and a parrot short of a starring role in
Treasure
Island
. But his hand in hers was real. And in this place, away from the demands of work, with thinking time to spare, she found her strongest doubts no match for how good it felt to be with him.

‘In the past, villagers called this beach Hat Khlong Haeng, the dry stream beach, because the tide goes out so far it appears to drain the nearby canal,' he told her, eyes on the horizon. ‘You can walk to the nearest islands at low tide.'

‘Now, how does a boy from Bangalore know a thing like that?'

Rajiv nodded his head from side to side, a gesture as nuanced as Thai smiles, Jayne had come to realise. This one she thought of as his ‘elementary, my dear', surely-it's-obvious nod. His vast general knowledge had become a game between them. Jayne's challenge was to introduce a subject Rajiv knew nothing about. So far, she was losing.

They headed to the coast road and waved down a
songthaew
, a pick-up truck with two benches in the tray, which served as public transport in the area. Their destination, Ao Nang, was the next beach to the east, separated from Nopparat Thara by a small headland. Although only five minutes away, Ao Nang was Krabi's main resort town and was significantly more developed, the jumping-off point for day trips to its exquisite islands and beaches. Two days earlier, Jayne and Rajiv had taken a Four Islands tour with a twenty-something Thai guide nicknamed Pla. They'd enjoyed themselves so much, Pla proving to be an exceptional guide, that they planned to book a second day trip with her.

The counter at Barracuda Tours was staffed by a boyish young man with gel-spiked hair and mirrored sunglasses. A stocky girl sat on a low plastic stool behind him, eating noodle soup. Both wore lolly-pink polo shirts with a blue fish embroidered over their hearts.

‘
Sawadee krup
,' the boy said with a beaming smile.

‘
Sawadee ka
. Which tour is Miss Pla taking today?' Jayne asked in Thai.

The young man's smile froze. ‘Miss Pla?' he said.

‘
Ka
,' Jayne nodded. ‘She took us on the Four Islands tour on Thursday.'

‘Miss Pla?' he said again.

‘
Ka, ka
.'

The girl set aside her noodles and poked her head above the counter, a lazy eye making her appear to look left and right at the same time.

‘Miss Pla is dead already.'

‘
What?
' Jayne said in English. She reverted to Thai. ‘Excuse me?'

‘Dead,' the girl said again, matter of fact.

Jayne saw her own shock reflected in the boy's sunglasses. ‘But how?'

‘Accident,' the girl said. ‘She drowned.'

‘
Sia jai
—'

‘Jayne?' Rajiv placed his hand on her arm. ‘Am I understanding correctly that something has happened to Miss Pla?'

‘This girl is saying that Pla died in a drowning accident.
Nae jai mai
?' Jayne asked the girl. ‘Are you sure we are talking about the same person?'

‘Only one Pla here. Short hair, dark skin.
Goong haeng
.'

Pla had been on the slender side, but referring to her as a dried shrimp seemed a bit harsh. Jayne relayed the information to Rajiv, who shook his head.

‘I am not believing it,' he said.

She squeezed his arm, turned back to the girl behind the counter. ‘Younger sister, we're very sorry to hear about Miss Pla. Do you know what happened?'

‘The police came yesterday,' the boy piped up.

‘The Ao Nang police?' Jayne asked.

The girl elbowed the boy aside. ‘
Chai, chai
.' She nodded. ‘They say she drowned. Her body was in the water more than eight hours.' The girl was more excited than horrified by the news. Only her wildly wandering eye seemed attuned to the ghastliness of what she was saying.

‘Where was she found?'

The girl shrugged.

‘Who found her?'

The girl shrugged again.

Jayne changed tack. ‘Do you know who I could talk to about the funeral arrangements?'

The girl tilted her head. ‘Try Suthita, Pla's roommate.' She picked up a pen with her left hand, wrote an address on a small square of paper and slid it across the counter. Still holding the pen, she smiled as if they'd just walked in the door. ‘So what tour can I book you on today?'

2

‘D
id you say the girl is dead?'

Even shovelling gravel, Othong could overhear his uncle Bapit's conversation. The old man treated his new mobile phone the way he treated his employees, as if it couldn't be trusted to work unless he was shouting at it.

‘Yes, well, thanks for letting me know.' Bapit pressed the button hard to terminate the call. Othong guessed he'd soon wear the numbers off the keypad.

‘Who died, Uncle?' he asked, resting his arms on the handle of his shovel.

‘You wouldn't remember her,' Bapit said. ‘Girl involved in the power plant consultations. Gave me nothing but grief and now she's dead.'

Othong took umbrage at his uncle's assumption and racked his brain for an image of the girl. He always tried to exceed his uncle's low expectations of him, even though he rarely succeeded.

‘The dark skinny one?' he ventured. ‘Worked as a tour guide?'

Bapit continued as though Othong hadn't spoken. ‘I'd kill to get my hands on that notebook of hers, find out what misinformation the little bitch was sending to Bangkok. Maybe now she's out of the way, things might move on at last.'

‘What's that, Uncle?'

Bapit looked at his nephew and frowned as though suddenly annoyed to find him there. A look all too familiar to Othong.

‘What are you doing eavesdropping on my conversations?' the old man barked. ‘Get back to work. You don't see the other boys slacking off, do you? You might be family, but I expect you to put in as hard a day's work as any man. Harder, since it's the family business and you have a greater stake.'

The lecture was not new. Othong returned to his labour, making a point of shovelling two loads for every one of the next-fastest man. Not that Uncle Bapit noticed. The old man had twenty-twenty vision when it came to Othong's faults and a blind spot for his strengths.

The more Bapit criticised Othong, the more determined the young man became to please his uncle. Like surviving an endurance test at the gym, or the kinds of challenges his cousin Vidura used to throw down. Climb higher up that mountain. Go deeper into that cave.

Bapit might have dismissed him but the exchange planted the seed of an idea in Othong's mind, and he wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to earn the old man's respect.

3

The news of Pla's death left neither Jayne nor Rajiv with any desire to go on a tour. Rajiv wasn't keen on a visit to the Ao Nang police station either—it felt too much like work when they were supposed to be on holiday—but Jayne promised to make it quick so he indulged her.

The walk from the tour agency to the police station took them along the beach road. The sky was a cloudless blue, the sea so beautiful it should have lifted Rajiv's spirits. Instead, it heightened his sadness to think of Pla forever denied this beauty.

Though they'd known her only for a day, Pla had left a big impression on him. Unlike Jayne, Rajiv was not a strong swimmer. While she leaped off the boat into the water whenever they stopped at one of the islands, Rajiv only walked along the beaches or remained on board.

At one point the boat was moored off Chicken Island, named for a rock formation that looked remarkably like a chicken's head and neck. Jayne grabbed a mask and snorkel and plunged in to examine the surrounding coral, while Rajiv watched anxiously from the prow. After a while, she swam back towards the boat.

‘Can't I convince you to join me?' she called out, treading water. ‘You'd love it. You could tell me the names of all the beautiful fish down here.'

Rajiv shook his head. ‘The water is too deep for me.'

‘You could try with a life jacket,' she said. ‘Or are you too chicken?'

Rajiv forced himself to smile though his pride was hurt.

‘At the next island we can snorkel in the shallows right off the beach,' Pla said, arriving alongside him. ‘And the fish are even more beautiful there.'

‘But I've never snorkelled before,' Rajiv said.

‘
Mai pen rai
. Never mind. I can teach you.'

Pla was true to her word. When the boat stopped at Koh Mor, she took Rajiv to the shallows and taught him to snorkel. Jayne, though encouraging, proved too impatient to wait for him to master the breathing technique. But Pla stayed with him until he got the hang of it.

Snorkelling gave Rajiv access to a world he'd only read about in books, a world illuminated by filtered light, where iridescent creatures seemed to shine back at the sun. Orange-and-white clownfish darted among the pink-tipped anemone tentacles that beckoned like mermaid's fingers. Wrasses of shimmering purple and green nibbled at the coral. Yellow rabbit-fish with zebra-striped faces swam in connubial pairs among butterfly fish whose tiny mouths were puckered in permanent kisses. Black-and-white moorish idols, a species millions of years old according to fossil records, trailed wispy dorsal fins. Giant clams pursed their cobalt-blue lips as Rajiv's shadow passed over them, while sea cucumbers lay scattered on the sand like discarded bitter gourds. And those were just the species he recognised.

Captivated, Rajiv forgot his fear. When he finally managed to drag himself away from the shallows and wade back to the boat, he was astonished to learn an hour had passed.

‘This is it.'

Rajiv's thoughts returned to the present as they reached the police station. He followed Jayne into the building, a small squat box of smoked glass and aluminium. The reception area was decorated with portraits of the Thai royal family and posters extolling the benefits of motorcycle helmets, a message evidently lost on the pale man with the grazed face and bandaged arm in the waiting area. A clock on the wall showed the time as ten minutes to nine. It seemed much later, but Rajiv's watch said the same thing. He took a seat as Jayne approached the police officer at the reception desk.

Though out of earshot, Rajiv could see enough to guess what was happening. The young cop's nervousness gave way to surprise then relief as he realised Jayne could speak Thai. His raised eyebrows showed Jayne had succeeded in piquing his curiosity. With a glance over his shoulder, the cop leaned forward and started talking.