Harry Hole 02 - Cockroaches (22 page)

‘Old school trick,’ he said to a wide-eyed Nho. ‘You’ll have to take over the negotiations from here. Bloody hell, it’s hot . . .’

Nho jumped out of the car, and after a short parley he poked his head back in the car, nodded and Harry followed the other two down into the basement, while the attendant kept a glowering eye on, and a suitable distance from Harry.

The video player hummed, and Harry lit a cigarette. He had some notion that nicotine in certain situations stimulated the mental processes. Like when you needed a smoke.

‘Right,’ Harry said. ‘So you think Brekke’s telling the truth?’

‘You do too,’ Nho said. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought me down here.’

‘Correct.’ The smoke made Harry’s eyes smart. ‘And here you can see why I think that.’

Nho looked at the pictures, gave up and shook his head.

‘This cassette is from Monday the thirteenth of January,’ Harry said. ‘At about ten in the evening.’

‘Wrong,’ Nho said. ‘This is the same recording we saw last time from the day of the murder, the seventh of January. The date’s even on the edge of the picture.’

Harry blew out a smoke ring, but there was a draught coming from somewhere and it collapsed at once.

‘It’s the same recording, but the date’s always been wrong. My guess is our pantless friend here can confirm it’s easy for them to change the date and the time on the machine and therefore on the picture.’

Nho looked at the attendant, who shrugged and nodded.

‘But that doesn’t explain how you know when this recording was made,’ Nho said.

Harry nodded towards the monitor. ‘I realised when I was woken up this morning by the traffic on Taksin Bridge outside the flat where I’m staying,’ he said. ‘There was too little traffic. This is a six-storey car park in a busy business complex. It’s between four and five o’clock and we see
two
cars pass in an hour.’

Harry flicked the ash of his cigarette.

‘The next thing I thought about was these.’ He got up and pointed at the screen to the black lines on the cement. ‘Tracks of wet tyres. From both cars. When were there last wet roads in Bangkok?’

‘Two months ago, if not longer.’

‘Wrong. Three days ago, the thirteenth of January, between ten and half past, there was a mango shower. I know because most of it went inside my shirt.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Nho said. He frowned. ‘But these video recorders never stop. If this recording is not the seventh of January but the thirteenth, it must mean the cassette that should be there for that time had been taken out.’

Harry asked the attendant to find the cassette with 13 January on, and thirty seconds later they could see the recording had been stopped at 21.30. Followed by a five-second snowstorm before the picture settled down again.

‘The cassette was taken out here,’ Harry said. ‘The pictures we can see now are what was on the cassette before.’ He indicated the date. ‘The first of January 05.25.’

Harry asked the attendant to freeze the picture and they sat looking at it while Harry finished his cigarette.

Nho pressed his palms together in front of his mouth. ‘So someone here has fixed a cassette so that it looks as if the ambassador’s car has never been in the car park. Why?’

Harry didn’t answer. He looked at the time. 05.25. Thirty-five minutes before the new year reached Oslo. Where had he been? What had he been doing? Had he been at Schrøder’s? No, it must have been closed. He must have been asleep then. At any rate he couldn’t remember any fireworks.

The security company was able to confirm that Jim Love had had the night shift on the thirteenth of January, and they gave Nho his address and telephone number without a murmur. Nho rang Love’s place, but no one answered.

‘Send a patrol car there and check,’ Liz said. She seemed elated to have something concrete to go on at last.

Sunthorn came into the office and handed her a file.

‘Jim Love doesn’t have a record,’ he said. ‘But Maisan, one of the undercover guys in Narco, recognised the description. If it’s the same guy he’s been seen at Miss Duyen’s several times.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Harry asked.

‘It means he wasn’t necessarily as innocent in that opium story as he made out,’ Nho said.

‘Miss Duyen’s is an opium den in Chinatown,’ Liz explained.

‘Opium den? Isn’t that, erm . . . illegal?’

‘Of course.’

‘Sorry, stupid question,’ Harry said. ‘But I thought the police were fighting that sort of thing.’

‘I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, Harry, but we try to be practical. If we shut down Miss Duyen’s, another opium den would open somewhere else next week. Or those guys just do it in the street. The advantage with Miss Duyen’s is that we have control, the undercover guys can come and go as they please and the people who choose to scramble their brains with opium can do so in relatively respectable surroundings.’

There was a cough.

‘Plus Miss Duyen probably pays well,’ a voice mumbled from behind the
Bangkok Post
.

Liz pretended not to hear.

‘Since he hasn’t turned up for work today and he’s not at home, I bet he’s lying on one of Miss Duyen’s bamboo mats. Why don’t you and Harry take a peek, Nho? Talk to Maisan; he’ll be able to give you a hand. Could be good for our tourist to see something.’

29

Friday 17 January

MAISAN AND HARRY
walked into a narrow street where a red-hot breeze blew the litter alongside the fragile house walls. Nho stayed in the car because Maisan thought he stank of cop from miles off. Besides, he was worried they might be suspicious at Miss Duyen’s if three people turned up at once.

‘Smoking opium is not really a social thing,’ Maisan explained in an approximation of an American accent. Harry wondered if the accent and the Doors T-shirt weren’t a bit over the top for an undercover narc cop. Maisan stopped in front of an open wrought-iron gate doubling as a door, stamped his cigarette butt into the tarmac with his right boot heel and entered.

Coming in from the bright sunlight, Harry couldn’t see anything at first, but he could hear low, muttering voices and followed two backs disappearing into a room.

‘Shit!’ Harry hit his head on the door frame and turned when he heard familiar laughter. In the darkness by the wall he thought he could discern a huge shape, but he could have been mistaken. Woo was probably keeping a low profile today. He hurried along so as not to lose the two in front. They disappeared down a staircase and Harry jogged after them. Banknotes were changing hands and the door opened enough for them to squeeze in.

Inside it stank of earth, piss, smoke and sweet opium.

Harry’s only idea of an opium den came from a Sergio Leone film, in which Robert De Niro was tended to by women wearing silk sarongs, all lying on soft beds with big cushions; everything was lit by a forgiving, yellow light which gave the whole scene a sacred feel. At least that was how he remembered it. Apart from the muted light, there was little that was reminiscent of Hollywood. The dust floating in the air made it hard to breathe, and with the exception of a few bunk beds lining the walls everyone was lying on rugs and bamboo mats on the hard earthen floor.

The darkness and the clammy air which resounded with muffled coughs and throaty rasps led Harry to assume there were only a handful of people inside, but gradually, as his eyes became accustomed to the light, he could see it was a large, open room and there must have been a hundred people, almost all men. Apart from the coughing, it was eerily quiet. Most appeared to be asleep, others barely moved. He saw an old man holding a pipe with both hands while inhaling so hard the creased skin around his cheekbones tightened.

This insanity was organised; they lay in rows, which were divided into squares so that there was room to walk in between, much like in cemeteries. Harry followed Maisan up and down the rows, looking at faces and trying to hold his breath.

‘Can you see your guy?’ he asked.

Harry shook his head. ‘It’s too bloody dark.’

Maisan grinned. ‘They tried putting up neon lights for a while, to stop all the stealing. But people stopped coming.’

Maisan ventured further into the darkness of the room. Soon he reappeared from the gloom and pointed to the exit. ‘I’ve been told the black kid occasionally goes to Yupa House, down the street. Some people take their opium away and smoke it there. The owner leaves them in peace.’

Now that Harry’s pupils had widened to see in the dark, once again they were subjected to the big dentist’s lamp faithfully hanging in the sky outside. He grabbed his sunglasses and put them on.

‘Harry, I know a place where I can get you cheap—’

‘No thanks. These are fine.’

They collected Nho. Yupa House would demand a Thai police ID for them to be able to see a guest book, and Maisan didn’t want to be identified in this neighbourhood.

‘Thanks,’ Harry said.

‘Take care,’ Maisan said, merging into the shadows.

The receptionist at Yupa House looked like a thin version of a distorted reflection in a fairground mirror. An oblong face sat on a condor neck above narrow, plunging shoulders. He had thinning hair and a stringy beard. He was formal, courteous and, as he was wearing a black suit, reminded Harry of a funeral director.

He assured Harry and Nho that no one by the name of Jim Love was staying there. When they described him he smiled and he shook his head. Above the reception desk hung a sign declaring the basic house rules: no weapons, no odorous objects and no smoking in bed.

‘Excuse us a moment,’ Harry said to the receptionist, pulling Nho towards the door. ‘Well, you’re so good at reading liars . . .’

‘Tricky,’ Nho said. ‘He’s Vietnamese.’

‘So?’

‘Haven’t you heard what Nguyen Cao Ky said about his countrymen during the Vietnam War? He said the Vietnamese were born liars. It’s in their genes, having learned generation after generation that the truth brings nothing but bad luck.’

‘Are you saying he’s lying?’

‘I’m saying I have no idea. He’s good.’

Harry turned, went back to the desk and asked for the master key. The receptionist smiled nervously.

Harry raised his voice a tiny fraction, enunciated ‘master key’ and smiled back at him through clenched teeth.

‘We’d like to go through this hotel room by room. Do you understand? If we find any irregularities we will of course be obliged to close the hotel for further examination, but I doubt there will be a problem.’

The receptionist shook his head and suddenly seemed to have difficulty understanding English.

‘I said I doubt it will be a problem. I can see you have a sign expressly forbidding smoking in bed.’

Harry took down the sign and banged it on the desk.

The receptionist stared intently at the sign. Something was stirring beneath his condor neck.

‘In room number 304 there’s a man called Jones,’ he said. ‘That might be him.’

Harry turned and smiled to Nho, who shrugged.

‘Is Mr Jones in?’

‘He’s been in his room ever since he checked in.’

The receptionist led them upstairs. They knocked, but no one answered. Nho motioned to the receptionist to open up, and from a calf holster Nho drew a loaded black 35mm Beretta, with the safety catch off. The receptionist’s head began to twitch, like a chicken’s. He turned the key and took two hasty steps back. Harry carefully pushed the door open. The curtains were pulled tight, and the room was dark. He put a hand inside the door and switched on the light. On the bed lay Jim Love, unmoving with closed eyes and headphones on. A ceiling fan hummed and whirred, ruffling the curtains. The water pipe was on a low table beside his bed.

‘Jim!’ Harry called, but Jim Love didn’t react.

Either he was asleep or he had the Walkman on loud, Harry thought, surveying the room to make sure Jim didn’t have company. Then he saw an unhurried fly emerging from Jim’s right nostril. Harry walked over to the bed and laid a hand on his forehead. It was like touching cold marble.

30

Friday 17 January

EVERYONE EXCEPT RANGSAN
was assembled in Liz’s office later that evening.

‘Tell me we’ve got a lead,’ she said menacingly.

‘The Forensics people found loads,’ Nho said. ‘They had three men there and found a stack of fingerprints, hairs and fibres. They said it didn’t look as if Yupa House had been cleaned for six months.’

Sunthorn and Harry laughed, but Liz just glared at them.

‘Any clues that could actually be linked to the murder?’

‘We don’t know if it is a murder yet,’ Harry said.

‘Yes, we do,’ Liz snapped. ‘Suspected accomplices in murder investigations don’t accidentally overdose a few hours before we arrest them.’

‘He who is destined for the gallows will not drown, as we say in Norwegian,’ Harry said.

‘What?’

‘I agree.’

Nho added that fatal overdoses were rare among opium smokers. As a rule they lost consciousness before they could inhale too much. The door opened and Rangsan walked in.

‘News,’ he said, sitting down and picking up a newspaper. ‘They’ve found the cause of death.’

‘I didn’t think the autopsy result would be through until tomorrow,’ Nho said.

‘Not necessary. The boys in Forensics found prussic acid on the opium, a thin layer. Guy must have died after the first drag.’

For a moment the table was silent.

‘Get hold of Maisan.’ Liz was back in the groove. ‘We have to find out where Love got his opium.’

‘I wouldn’t be too optimistic on that score,’ Rangsan warned. ‘Maisan’s talked to Love’s main pusher, and he hadn’t seen him for a long time.’

‘Great,’ Harry said. ‘But now at any rate we know someone has obviously tried to finger Brekke as the murderer.’

‘That doesn’t help us,’ Liz said.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ Harry said. ‘We don’t know that Brekke was just a scapegoat chosen at random. Perhaps the murderer had a motive for pointing the finger at him, an unresolved grievance.’

‘And so?’