Everyone Burns (38 page)

This takes her aback.

“You still want to have sex with me? Knowing I have cancer?”

“Why
not?” I reply. “There’s nothing unethical about it. You’re not a client of mine, after all.”

“But I
am
married.”

“But I’m
not
. So that makes it unethical for you, but not for me.”

Kat looks
grave for a moment.

“Can we keep this between ourselves
for now, David? I really
don’t
want Deng to know. Not yet.”

“All right,” I respond. “I won’t say anything so long as you continue to have sex with me.”

“You are incorrigible.”

“I’m also entirely serious.”

Mrs. C studies me closely.

“Yes,” she says, “I do believe you are.”

She becomes suddenly businesslike and stands up.

“We’ll discuss this some other time, Mr
. Braddock. I have to leave you now for a lunch appointment.”

“Not with a man, I hope.”

“No. With a woman friend of mine. With Nittha Rattanakorn, as it happens. I gather she’s been availing herself of your professional services. She tells me you’re very good. Although, of course, I knew
that
already.”

*       *       *       *       *

My jeep is parked on the waste ground next to Bophut Police Station. I’m trying to summon up the enthusiasm to go inside, to recapture the resolve I showed to Peter Ashley this morning. But that seems like a long time ago now. That was before my meeting with Kat.

After Kat left I sat in the East Office feeling numb, my superficial jollity
gone, my energy seeping away like ash through a grate. I took the whisky bottle from the West Office and downed a couple of shots; hardly a wise action on an empty stomach but I needed it.

I
’d thought about Charoenkul and our impending confrontation. I don’t like him. In fact I
dislike
him. But it is hard not to be touched in some way by his situation. He is, after all, about to become a member of the Widower’s Club; a select society which includes myself and Kenneth Sinclair on its roll. The Club doesn’t have many perks, but the subscription is free and membership is for life.

Moreover
the Chief has no idea that his application has already been submitted by his wife on his behalf.

I’d picked up my cell
phone and called him.

His voice was animated
. He was delighted to hear from me. He didn’t even ask why I was calling.

“Come in to my office, Braddock,” he’d said. “
Something truly amazing has happened. Come straightaway and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Then he’d rung off before I could think of anything to say.

I climb out of the jeep and trudge slowly to the reception wishing I’d had another whisky. A few more even. Five minutes later I’m entering Charoenkul’s office.

“Ah, Braddock, come in, come in,” warbles
Papa Doc cheerfully. “Take a seat.”

His obvious elation makes me feel even more despondent. I want to say
,
Your wife is ill: your world is a chimera, a fantasy. Go to her
. My ode to epistemology: knowing can be a toxic blessing.

“I think a celebratory drink is in order. Normally I wouldn’t indulge in the office, but this is a special occasion.” He takes two spirit glasses from his cabinet and a bottle of whisky from his desk drawer. It’s even the same brand as I have in my office.

What shall we drink to? Your wife’s health?

“What are we celebrating?” I ask, endeavouring to sound
positive.

He hands me a glass.

“To the dogged determination of the Royal Thai Police and to Lady Luck. The burning murders case is solved.”

Papa Doc sees the shocked expression on my face and laughs.

“Drink up, Braddock,” he says.

I knock back the whisky quickly and ask, “You mean the killer is in custody?”

“Better than that,” he replies. “The killer is
dead
. No need for an expensive trial and ensuing media circus. Isn’t that great news?”

I need to sit down, so I do. He pours us both another whisky.

Something tells me I’m not going to like the answer to my next question, but it has to be asked.

“So who
is it?”

“Who
was
it?” he responds with a twinkle.

“Whatever.”

“His name is – or rather
was
– Arthit Bussakiam, an itinerant from Phayao. He’d been on Samui for months, supposedly looking for work.”

“You mean he is – sorry,
was
– a tramp? A vagrant?”

“That’s right.
He was known to a couple of my officers. I believe they had previously spoken to him about his begging activities.”

“It seems like a long way from begging to murder,” I interject.

“I’m getting to that,” he replies slightly miffed. “Apparently seeing all the wealthy farangs around made him resentful, and it started to eat away at him.  He couldn’t get any work, and there were all these foreigners running around with money to burn. After a while it tipped him over the edge and he started killing.”

“So how did all this come to light?” I ask, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

“Well,” says Charoenkul warming to his theme, “by the most amazing stroke of luck. Late last night one of my officers was driving through Chaweng and this figure suddenly fell out into the road. It was too late for my officer to swerve and so he hit the man. Since he was in mid-fall, the man’s head was struck hard by the front of the vehicle.”

“Doesn’t sound too lucky so far.”

My irony is lost on the Chief. “Ah, but it
was
lucky for us. An ambulance was called and the man was rushed to hospital in a serious condition. He died this morning of his injuries.”

“Who was driving the police car?”

“I don’t see why
that
is relevant,” Charoenkul replies indignantly.

“Never mind,” I say. “Go on.”

“Anyway, the man – Bussakiam – was passing in and out of consciousness. He realised he was dying and said he wanted to clear his conscience. He told my officer in attendance that he’d committed three murders. When it was realised that these were the farang killings I was called. I was actually
there
in the hospital today when he made his statement,” he says proudly. “Worth missing a round of golf for, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely,” I say trying to process all this.

“I have already spoken to Surat Thani, and they, naturally, are delighted. Everyone is delighted,” he beams happily, “Except for poor Katchai, of course. He and his team should be going back to the mainland this week.” He looks like he wants to say some derogatory comment about the Investigator, but he thinks better of it and instead clinks my glass. “Cheers.”

“So,” I summarise, “
you’re saying a tramp killed the three Europeans.”

“That’s right.”

“And how did he get his victims to the murder sites?” I ask. “I presume, as a tramp, he didn’t have a vehicle.”

Charoenkul smiles condescendingly. “Braddock,” he purrs, “I realise you must be disappointed that your efforts for me eventually came to nothing.
Nevertheless your work
is
appreciated, believe me. I wouldn’t hesitate to consult with you again if ever the need arose. Your insights were very valuable. But please, don’t worry yourself about the
details
of the case. Alas, some of these I cannot share with you. Just be happy it’s over. I know
I
am.”

“It’s not that, Chief. I was just thinking how awful it would be if it turned out that you’d got the wrong man. If the murders continued, that is.”

Papa Doc looks me in the eye. “We
don’t
have the wrong man. But if we did, and I was the
real
murderer, I’d take the hint and stop now, while I was in the clear. Wouldn’t you?”

How appropriate that one of the victims was named Lewis Carroll. Because this is all
nonsense
. Worse than that, I’m left with a deep unease that Charoenkul might know the
real
truth and that the Police Chief, our bulwark against the forces of crime and chaos, is perpetrating a whitewash.

I wonder if the dead tramp was the one I’d given money to. I wonder if he was even alive when he arrived at the hospital, or whether the doctors there are also complicit. I wonder who was driving the police car
– presumably not PC who I know was home last night – and whether the ‘accident’ really an accident. I wonder how I could ever have felt sympathy for Charoenkul, even if his wife is dying.

“By the way,” he remarks as an afterthought, “
what was it you were phoning me about earlier?”

“Oh, it was just about the forensic summary you sent me on Carroll,” I reply. “It hardly matters now.”

*       *       *       *       *

I sit in my jeep and chain-smoke.

With the announcement of Charoenkul’s successful conclusion to the burning murders and Ashley’s eventual departure from the island, my hold over Tathip will be gone. It won’t be very long before the little canary sings to Chaldrakun. David Braddock’s prospects of a long and happy life are not looking great.

Everyone burns, as the Buddha says, in
their own way. Some burn with anger, some with lust, some with a desire for vengeance, some with fear. But inside us burn many fires, not just one. We are legion, we contain a multitude.

Yes, everyone burns.
However, human beings are not the
only
things that burn.

I start the engine and drive into Chaweng.

The streets are full of people; voting, gossiping, shouting, flirting, selling, and stocking up for the New Year celebrations. I move among the throng unnoticed. A white ghost. A dead man walking. Just another unremarkable European face.

I make some purchases and call ahead for Peter Ashley to meet me in his room at the
Lotus Blossom Villas.

When I arrive he asks, “How did it go? By the look on your face, I’m assuming not well.”

“Charoenkul has already fitted up somebody for the murders. It’s ludicrous, but the police will run with it. He couldn’t
wait
to tell me. I didn’t get the chance to say anything; not that it would have made any difference if I had.

“I don’t even know whether the Chief suspects what has really been going on, and this is pre-emptive to close the files and get everybody off the hook. One thing is clear to me, however. Chaldrakun is never going to stand trial.”

“So what’s our next move?” Ashley asks grimly.

I empty onto his
bed the contents of my shopping bag: firecrackers, rockets and other assorted fireworks. He looks at me quizzically.

“You’re ex-army, aren’t you? Do you know how to make a
slow-burning fuse?” I ask.

“Of course I do
,” he replies. “Why? What do you have in mind?”

“What I have in mind, Peter, is killing Preechap Chaldrakun,” I say. “Are you up for that?”

14

“How tedious is a guilty conscience!

When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden,

Methinks I see a thing arm’d with a rake,

That seems to strike at me.”

John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

Thaksin Shinawatra’s Thai Rak Thai Party won the election by a landslide, no longer requiring the support of the former coalition partner to govern. The polls had closed at 3.00pm on Sunday, and the Monday edition of the
Bangkok Post
carried the headline
Single Party Rule
, with the
Nation
announcing
One Party Rule Looms
.

Initial results showed that out of 500 seats in the House of Representatives Thaksin had taken 375, with the Democrat opposition collapsing
humiliatingly to a mere 96. Bangkok had fallen and only in the South was there any resistance to the landslide.

Today,
Thursday, there is still too much political coverage in the national papers for them to hold my attention.
The Island Daily
, however, does have an interesting little piece on the inside page entitled
Local Policeman Dies in Bizarre Accident
.

I put down my saxophone and wipe my sweaty brow. Although the fan is going full tilt in the
sala, it’s fighting a losing battle against the relentless heat. Still no rain.

On a whim I’d pulled out my instrument to see just how rusty my playing has become; it being two weeks since I last picked it up.
The answer is: pretty rusty. But then a sax is not really at home in the tropical daytime, it’s more a creature of the night. Like me, I guess.

Wayan knows telepathically it’s time to bring me a cold beer.

She’s been pensive and a little withdrawn since Sinclair pitched up, as promised, to make his stumbling confession and apologies. She had listened quietly and assured him this would not affect their friendship. I know this because I was eavesdropping, naturally.

After the old boy left, I felt a little guilty so put in a good word for him. He’s not such a bad stick really, all things considered. For a Neanderthal, anyway.

I suggested to my Balinese Princess that she should think about a serious relationship with someone; that she was not going to want to look after me forever.

She’d given me a somewhat hurt look and explained that, as she’d told me before, her
karma
was to be alone. I’d squeezed her shoulder and suggested she at least
think
about it.

Klaus Vogel had meantime returned to the island for a quick stopover en route for Europe, and to clear up for me the mystery of his interest in Jingjai. It turns out
his attention was not romantically-based. He’s in the music business and he’d shortlisted Jingjai for a contract and upwards career move to Germany. Unfortunately for the girl with the diamond tooth, Vogel’s subsequent scouting in South East Asia had thrown up a Filipina beauty who had pipped her at the post. So no contract for Wiwatanee Lamphongchat, who will have to make do with Monday evenings at Charlie’s place for the time being.

As an interesting coda, the charmless Vogel had slipped me some extra cash to convey the bad news to Jingjai
, explaining that
it might upset her more
if it came from him. It seems that some Germans – though not all – could use lessons in interpersonal relations and empathy.

Do you know, by the way, that German is the only language in the world that has a word for ‘
pleasure derived from the misfortune of others’?
Schadenfreude
. That must tell you something.

In truth, I undertook the assignment willingly. I wanted to see Jingjai again
; the girl whose mere existence had unwittingly put in motion a firestorm that had engulfed the lives of three people.

Talking to her quietly and privately I could see how PC might have become obsessed with her. I’m the obsessional type myself: I can recognise the
leitmotif
.

For a girl who’d just lost her job at the
Pearl
and whose dream of a musical career was – at the very least – postponed, she took it stoically.

“Well, I’ll just have to keep at it. No-one told me it would be easy,” she’d said.

I hope she never finds out about Chaldrakun. I don’t know what it would do to her. In any event, she certainly won’t
ever
find out from me.

Of the other people in my life, Da has
still
not produced that damn baby yet, and is confined to bed with high blood pressure. Although that hasn’t prevented her from ringing me to enthuse about the piece in the local paper on my sponsoring Yai’s eye operation. I resolve to take her some flowers tomorrow, and possibly an enema.

Prasert’s brother Nikom is meanwhile still AWOL, and Vlad is back to his unbearable best after a narrow
points victory over the Polish fighter. He’s still promising me work of some murky and unspecified type. We’ll see.

Yesterday I spent a few hours with
the soon-not-to-be-blind Yai and his family, joining in their Chinese New Year festivities. It turns out his daughter-in-law – a tubby and rather bossy woman, if the truth be told – has Szechuan ancestry which she’s quite passionate about.

The occasion had a quality of domestic normality about it: exchanging red envelopes, seeing friends drop by, performing prayers
to the ancestors, burning paper money for good luck, watching the dragon dancers in the street outside, and listening to the noisy drumming and cymbals. All this was punctuated by the extremely loud bangs of firecrackers and other exploding gunpowder ushering in the Year of the Rooster. My
own
Chinese horoscope year in fact.

Chinese
tradition dictates that this is a time to be nice to everyone and to cause no harm; otherwise bad fortune will follow you for the whole year.

If that is correct then the Year of the Rooster is going to be a real stinker for me.

Wayan interrupts my ruminations.

“Mr
. David, the Police Chief, Mr. Charoenkul is here to see you. I thought it best to show him into the study.”

“Is he alone?”

“Yes,” she says, looking apprehensive.

“Good. He can’t be here to arrest me, then,” I respond with a grin.

I ask her to put my saxophone away and to bring some green tea.

I knew Charoenkul would turn up at some point. Best to get it over with today.

When I enter the study he is examining a large, well-crafted woodcut depicting a naked female being entered simultaneously by two men; one at each end, as it were. The piece had arrived this morning, a gift from Rattanakorn, with an accompanying card:
As a memento of our shared experience
. Who says gangsters don’t have a sense of humour?

“This is a bit explicit, isn’t it?” he asks.

I’m tempted to reply
,
Yes, but I don’t feel the artist has properly captured your wife’s eyes. What do you think?

Instead I say, “A gift from a client who is something of an art collector.”

Papa Doc drops himself into a chair and begins drumming with his fingers. He seems uncertain how to begin. I help him out.

“So, Chief, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I was in the area, and thought I’d drop by and pick up those files I sent over to you. Best we get them back into the police archives for safe keeping.”

“Sure.”

I unlock the drawer, take them out and hand them to him. Fortunately it hadn’t proved necessary to leave them with Ashley.

The policeman
shows no sign of leaving. Wayan brings in the tea. Charoenkul appraises her arse as she leaves the room.

“Attractive woman, your maid,” he says approvingly.

“She’s my
housekeeper
. And yes, she
is
a very attractive lady.”

He sips his green tea.

“I suppose you saw the article in t
he Island Daily
about Chaldrakun’s death, did you?” This said casually.

“I did. It was a bit short on detail though. What happened exactly?”

He looks at me.

“It was all rather odd, in actual fact.”

“Odd?” I ask with a straight bat.

“Mmnn.
Well, it happened late on Tuesday evening; the eve of the New Year. Chaldrakun was on his cell phone to Officer Tathip at the time when some children started setting off loud firecrackers outside his apartment. Tathip said he could hear the bangs distinctly. Chaldrakun rushed outside to chase the children away, slipped and fell down the concrete stairs leading up to his apartment. Broke his neck on the wall at the bottom.”

“Wow.”

“Tathip heard a thud then the phone went dead. He raised the alarm, and one of our patrol cars found Chaldrakun’s body a few minutes later.

“The patrolman said there was no lighting on the landing or stairs; all the bulbs were either burnt-out or missing. Chaldrakun must have lost his footing in the dark.
His cell phone was in pieces beside him; his front door still open. The landing was strewn with spent firecrackers.

“We’ve been questioning the neighbours, but naturally they all deny that
their
children were out letting off fireworks. I doubt we’ll find the spawn responsible.”

Charoenkul shifts slightly in his seat.

“There are a couple of puzzling aspects to the death, however,” he remarks.

“Oh?”

“First, the position of Chaldrakun’s hands.”

“His hands?”

“When someone is falling, the natural reflex is to put out the hands for protection. Like this.” He illustrates. “Yet there was no indication that my officer had done that from how his body was lying.”

“Maybe he’d been drinking; slowing the reflexes, or whatever.”

“There was a glass of whisky on his side table, that’s true,” he says, “But still.”

I keep quiet and watch him.

“And curiously,” Papa Doc goes on, “the large spent firecracker on his landing had an abnormally long fuse, a home-made one by the look of it. What do you think of
that
?”

I shrug. “Who knows? Maybe the kids were experimenting. Boys will be boys.”

“Perhaps.” He continues to look at me.

“And to think,” I say, “
while all this excitement was happening, I was having a boring evening parked up in my jeep in Girly Bar Heaven snapping time-stamped photographs of the latest unfaithful bargirl.”

He holds my gaze for a couple of seconds then announces, “Well, I must be going. Thank you for the files and for the tea.” He stands. “Don’t forget to behave yourself in the Year of the Rooster, Braddock. Remember,
I’ll be watching you
.”

After he’s gone I send the pre-arranged SMS to Peter Ashley:
Case closed

The price of DTs’ clemency had been his participation in Chaldrakun’s killing.

Ashley and I had knocked on PC’s door that evening with a spurious request for assistance in my investigations. Grudgingly, and with obvious suspicion, the big lug had admitted us to his apartment. When Tathip called PC’s cell
phone at the appointed time, and the gorilla turned his back to answer, Ashley sprang to his feet and twisted Chaldrakun’s neck. PC was dead before he hit the floor. I had thought that thick collar would be difficult to break, but the former army man snapped it like a twig, and with an efficiency that made me shudder.

After checking outside, we each took an arm and a leg, and after a few swings and considerable exertion, threw the corpse down the steps. He flew like a black demon descending into the depths. I tossed the phone down after him.

Ashley then lit the long fuse on the monster firecrackers, giving us enough time to make our escape before the bangs started. We walked quickly, but not too quickly, back to the car hired by Ashley for the occasion. My jeep had already been parked for some hours in Girly Bar Heaven while my teenage drug-dealing employee unwittingly established my alibi by taking photos of ‘Ching Ching’ Ting.

The following morning, Peter Ashley was on a plane heading for Bangkok, and thereafter England.

Ironic to think three days before this I was concerned Ashley might turn into a vigilante. Now we were both vigilantes, for our own different reasons.

On my path to Enlightenment, clearly I’ve taken a diversion. The Old Monk would be disappointed if he knew. But then again, perhaps he wouldn’t. He understands that some fires are difficult to extinguish.

I had
destroyed a mad dog; a lonely, bitter and dangerous one. I had put the demon down where he belonged; at the bottom of a dark stairwell that smelled of urine and dirt.