The Half-Child (23 page)

She rifled through the desk drawer and the penholder beside the computer. Nothing. She felt around the back of the filing cabinet. Still nothing.

‘No spare in the usual places.'

She looked from the computer to Rajiv and back again.

‘I'll have to force the lock—unless I can get what I need from the computer.'

Rajiv raised his eyebrows. ‘I'll be your assistant, not your accomplice.'

He sounded more peeved than intended, but he was tired.

‘Fair enough,' Jayne said. ‘I'll do the actual work. You just talk me though it, okay?'

Rajiv wiggled his head.

‘Keep your hands in your pockets so you don't leave any fingerprints, right?'

He didn't know if she was teasing him or not. He slung his thumbs through the belt loops on his jeans.

‘First, turn it on,' he said.

Jayne gave him a sarcastic smile and switched on the computer, which rumbled into life like an old car engine protesting a gear change. After running through DOS, a prompt appeared requesting a password.

‘Shit,' Jayne said.

Rajiv leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen.

‘Most people are choosing familiar passwords, such as their name, date of birth, that kind of thing. They are usually quite easy to guess. Most people do not realise—'

While he was still speaking, Jayne typed F-R-A-N-K.

‘
No
!' Rajiv hissed, but it was too late.

She'd hit the ‘enter' key. The computer protested with a loud beep and ‘Incorrect password' flashed up on the screen.

‘Be careful. You will only be having three attempts.

After that the computer guesses that someone is trying to break in and is shutting itself down for protection.'

‘So what next?'

‘The password is usually something easy to remember, perhaps something the person can see from where they are sitting.'

They looked at the wall above the desk: inane animal posters and a map of Thailand, Pattaya marked with a gold star.

‘Try Pattaya,' Rajiv said.

Jayne typed it in. The error message reappeared on the screen. ‘Shit.'

She leaned back in the chair, put her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling. Rajiv glanced from his watch to the door and back again.

‘I've got it! It's so obvious.'

Rajiv put a hand on her arm. ‘I must be warning you, Jayne, if this doesn't work, not only will the computer be shutting itself down but the next time someone turns it on, they will know it has been tampered with.'

‘In which case we bust the locks on the filing cabinet and make it look like there was a robbery,' she said. ‘But that won't be necessary.'

‘I certainly hope not.'

Rajiv watched over her shoulder as Jayne typed ‘J-E-S-U-S'. They held their breath. The computer screen went black for a moment before flashing back to life and churning through the start-up functions. They sighed with relief.

‘What's the quickest way to find a file?' she asked.

Resisting the urge to take over, Rajiv talked her through the search function. The computer was archaic, the hard drive whirring and clunking as it scanned the files. Finally, they had a hit on ‘Mayuree', a document listing her places of work and the services she used at the centre, but no home address. They tried searching for Kamolsert, waiting another noisy minute before they hit paydirt.

‘Sixteen stroke two Thanon Mae Nam Kwae,' Jayne read aloud. ‘That's it.'

She scribbled it down on a scrap of paper, stuffed it in her pocket and was halfway to the door when Rajiv said, ‘Don't forget to shut down the computer.'

‘Do it for me?'

Rajiv hesitated. He hadn't touched a thing and turning off the computer meant leaving his fingerprints on the keyboard. Was it a test of his loyalty? Or was he being paranoid?

‘No problem,' he said.

Blocking her view of the keyboard with his body, he pulled his sleeve down over his hand and shut it down. He was about to head for the door when Jayne grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him to the floor.

‘Don't move,' she said. ‘Someone's coming.'

28

C
haowalit lingered in the street, leering at the girl selling dried squid from a
rot khen
on the corner. He liked that she used matching pink pegs to hang the stiff squid from the lines on her push-cart. The elastic bands she used to fasten her take-away bags were pink, too. He liked to watch her tenderise the squid through the mangle: it showed the muscles in her forearms and made sweat bead above her upper lip. As he bit into his salty
pla meuk
, he imagined he could taste that sweat.

Of course, the girl barely noticed him.

To watch her work the mangle, Chaowalit ordered extra squid and sold the surplus at a marked-up rate to the nurses at the centre. He had more mobility than most of his colleagues on the late shift and used it to his advantage, handling orders for food and other goods, and occasionally, in collusion with the night-shift nurses, off-loading surplus medicines.

His role as guard was largely symbolic: his employers didn't hesitate to send him off-site for more than an hour at a time when there was a baby to be despatched. Once he summoned the nerve to question Mister Frank about this.

‘I thank you for your concern, brother Chaowalit,' Mister Frank said, ‘but I trust in the Lord to watch over us.'

Chaowalit supposed the risk of theft or property damage was low, given their quiet location. Besides there wasn't much worth stealing; he'd looked into it. The good stuff was kept at the other compound where security was outsourced to a private company and the guards rotated on an eight-hourly basis.

Chaowalit wasn't complaining. The job was pretty easy and the sideline business gave him more power than any security company flunky.

He carried his bags of squid back to his post, locking the gate behind him. He took a fortifying mouthful of
Krating Deng
and resumed his post. The moon was on the wane, just as it was the night the farang girl died.

He still couldn't figure out exactly how it happened. He'd meant to set the girl straight, not send her over the edge.

He knew she liked him. She flirted with him, even when she was seeing Sumet. But Sumet couldn't protect her the way Chaowalit could. And he'd gone along with Sumet's ridiculous plan to show her that. Her response was not what they'd expected.

Chaowalit shook his head to dislodge the memory and reached beneath his chair for a second bottle also labelled Red Bull but filled with Mekong whisky. He took long gulps, feeling the fire in his belly. He bit his dried squid and this time imagined he could taste the push-cart vendor's tender cunt. The more he thought about it, the stiffer his cock grew until he couldn't sit still.

Putting aside the squid, holding on to the bottle, Chaowalit veered around to the back of the building and unzipped his pants.

‘Someone's coming all right,' Jayne said, peering through a gap beneath the blind. ‘It's the guard.'

‘Get away from the window,' Rajiv whispered.

‘I don't think his mind is on the job,' she chuckled. ‘He's having a wank.'

‘What?'

‘You know, playing with himself, jerking off.'

‘Oh dear.'

The masturbating guard didn't shock Rajiv so much as Jayne's nonchalance.

‘We should get out of here while he's got his hands full, so to speak,' she said. ‘Let's go.'

They heard the guard moan as they crawled out of the office and closed the door. Jayne paused briefly at the abandoned guard post then signalled for Rajiv to follow.

They sprinted across the open compound to the gate only to find it padlocked.

‘Shit,' Jayne swore. ‘We'll have to climb over.'

Rajiv's eyes widened but he nodded, scaled the gate, swung his lanky legs over the top and dropped to the ground on the other side like a cat.

‘You've done this before,' Jayne whispered.

Rajiv nodded. It was true. The same could not be said for Jayne. Lacking his dexterity and height, it was an awkward climb for her. She managed to get to the top and had one leg over when there was a shout from the compound. They looked up to see a guard running in her direction. Rajiv's heart sank.

‘Hide,' Jayne hissed, ‘I'll handle this.'

As he slipped into the shadows, Rajiv heard her call out. He angled his watch to check the time and sighed.

Jayne was about to launch into an explanation when she remembered that as far as Chaowalit was concerned, she couldn't speak Thai. She adopted her best guesthouse English.

‘Hello, where you go? I call you. I not ring bell because I not want to wake babies.'

Chaowalit had been running towards the gate, baton drawn, but slowed to a shuffle when he saw Jayne straddling the gate. She had one leg either side of a row of metal spikes, her weight resting on her hands. A slip-up would split her in two.

‘You help me down?' she added.

Chaowalit took pleasure in her predicament. He stopped and, smirking, took much longer than was necessary to restore the baton to his belt. He muttered an expletive and shuffled closer.

‘What you doing?' he growled.

Jayne bit back
none of your business
, and wracked her brain for a plausible excuse.

‘I no have ATM card. Maybe I lose here when I meet Mister Frank.'

Chaowalit frowned.

‘I lose ATM card,' she said in a louder voice. ‘I think here.'

It would be easier if she could free her hands to make gestures, but she couldn't let go of the gate.

‘No have money,' she pleaded. ‘Need money…' She finally hit on a word he recognised. Chaowalit reached and helped her down.

‘Thank you,' she said through gritted teeth.

She drew a small rectangle in the air with her fingers.

‘Need to find card for bank machine.' She pointed to the administration building.

Before he could respond, Jayne made a beeline for the entrance, eager to put some distance between them. She slipped back into the foyer and pretended to pick something up off the floor whilst fishing through her wallet for her card. She stood up and turned to leave, almost crashing into Chaowalit, hot on her heels.

‘Found it—' she waved the card at him. ‘Lucky me!'

‘Lucky,' Chaowalit agreed with an unpleasant smile.

Jayne turned towards the gate but Chaowalit grabbed her by the wrist. She caught a whiff of alcohol on his breath.

‘You want I tell Mister Frank you come here?'

‘Take your hands off me,' Jayne said firmly.

‘You want I tell Mister Frank you come here?' he repeated, tightening his grip.

She shook her head, more annoyed than frightened.

‘Then what you give me?'

He had her in a bind. If she offered him money, he'd know she was lying about not having any. What else did she have? He was too strong for her to fight and, assuming she could rouse him, Rajiv would be no match for Chaowalit either.

‘Open the gate,' she said, nodding towards the entrance.

‘What you give me?' He tugged at her wrist, probably with the same hand he'd used to pull his cock.

‘Listen pal,' she said in her best Thai slang. ‘You let me go now and I won't report you to Mister Frank for jerking off behind the admin building and being drunk on the job, okay?'

Chaowalit released his grip. ‘Older sister, you speak Thai,' he said, shocked enough to use the polite form.

‘That's right, little brother. Let's make that our secret, okay? Now it's late. Please, open the gate.'

Chaowalit nodded and stepped forward to remove the padlock. He seemed dazed.

‘Mister Frank doesn't need to know we've seen each other at all tonight,' she said.

Chaowalit closed the gate, restored the padlock. Instead of returning to his post, he stared after her. Jayne willed herself to turn and smile, but she was seething. Chaowalit now knew she spoke Thai, that made her vulnerable. She'd need to watch her back.

‘
Chowk dee nong Chaowalit
,' she shouted over her shoulder, hoping both to dismiss the guard and attract Rajiv's attention.

She scanned the street and caught sight of his lanky frame pacing across the
soi
, impatience in his gait. She'd set out hours earlier determined to find Mayuree without alienating Rajiv. But she'd failed on both counts and it was nearly two in the morning.

She joined Rajiv on the corner and hailed a
songthaew
.

They barely spoke on the way back to the hotel, Rajiv fading before her eyes. Jayne half-carried him to the reception desk, where the concierge handed over her room key, no doubt used to guests' tendencies for sudden couplings.

Jayne steered Rajiv through the door. He disappeared into the bathroom. After a few minutes, he re-emerged with damp hair, wearing nothing but a white towel slung low over his hips. Jayne noted the curve of his pelvic bone, slender waist, navel encircled by wiry black hair that tapered into a narrow line and disappeared beneath the towel like a question mark.

Yes
, she wanted to answer,
whatever the question
.

He looked at the double bed, registering it for the first time. ‘Do you want me to sleep on the floor?'

The question threw her. ‘No, of course not.'

‘Thank you,' he said. ‘You have my word that I will not molest you in the night.'

He kissed her gently on the forehead.

‘But—'

‘Jayne, I'm exhausted.'

She blushed at the thought her lust was so transparent.

‘Me too,' she lied, her body pumped with adrenaline. ‘I'm sorry about tonight.'

‘Don't be worrying about it,' Rajiv said through a yawn.

‘I'll make it up to you.'

He murmured something as Jayne turned to the bathroom. Reflected in the mirror, she saw Rajiv remove the towel from his waist and slip on a pair of white drawstring pants before collapsing into bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.