The Half-Child (25 page)

She returned to the street, convinced the surgery must have more than one entrance. She studied the three facades again. Apart from different paintwork and signage—one was a tailor, the other sold votive paper offerings for burning at funerals—the shop-houses were a matching pair, twins separated by the modern edifice of the doctor's rooms. All three buildings shared identical dimensions and most likely the clinic had once been a shop-house, too. Triplets.

Jayne knew from wandering the backstreets of Bangkok's Chinatown that while Chinese shop-houses look solid from the front, they were usually built around hidden courtyards to allow air and light to circulate. Multiple doorways led off the courtyard to rooms in the front and back sections, with upper storey rooms joined by a narrow bridge. In a row of shop-houses, adjoining courtyards created open space and enabled neighbours to mingle from one end of the block to the other.

She tried the laneway on the right and found an entrance to the courtyard behind the first shop-house. The ground floor windows were dark, upstairs the blue flickering light of a television. She sidled along the damp wall of the back half of the building. She froze at the brush of fur on her feet, glanced down to see a white cat with a small head and stub of a tail rubbing against her ankles. She slipped one foot under its belly, lifted it out of her way and continued inching towards the doctor's rooms. Her toe hit a wall where more courtyard should have been—it was the doctor's renovated building.

Jayne could see enough shadows to tell that the wall wasn't solid. She walked her hands along until they reached empty space. A swoop of her penlight revealed a narrow tunnel, no doubt grudgingly conceded to allow the neighbours to wheel their motorbikes through to the back of their houses.

The good news for Jayne was that on either side of the tunnel were doors leading into the front and back sections of Doctor Somsri's surgery. The door to the back section was padlocked. The one closest to reception was not. She chose the path of least resistance.

‘Chinese New Year,' Frank read aloud with distaste. The desk calendar was a gift from his colleagues at the Pattaya International Church. Why they insisted on acknowledging these pagan festivals was beyond Frank.

It wouldn't be a holiday for him anyway—the festival provided the opportunity to expedite another adoption. Chinese New Year would see a renewed influx of tourists to Pattaya and the whores would be busier than usual. This gave Frank more time to get the baby away and Doctor Somsri more scope to account for the infant's hasty cremation—such as lack of space at the morgue due to a spike in accidents connected to Chinese New Year festivities. It helped avert suspicion to keep the stories fresh.

Frank pulled out the files on the newest arrivals. It was always difficult deciding how long a child should be at the New Life Children's Centre before they were adopted out. The advantage with the newer ones was that their demise could be blamed on a pre-existing health problem. The disadvantage was it could spook others into withdrawing their children from care. They could minimise this, Frank surmised, by offering another round of health checks to the remaining children so that they didn't suffer the same fate as little…

He shuffled through the files.

‘Pornpan Sasomsab,' he read aloud, ‘A.k.a. Num, nine months.'

Where did they get these dreadful names? God willing, the little girl would soon be given a decent Christian name.

Frank began the preparations, determined to demonstrate to Somsri and his backers that they could rely on him.

Jayne wore a chain of skeleton keys around her neck, the ultimate accessory of choice for the fashion conscious cat burglar. They were a gift from her friend Simone, formerly a teacher at the British Council in Bangkok. The card that came with them read, ‘I did a deal with some shady East End types to score these for you, the perfect gift for a private investigator.' She was right: they were the perfect gift.

The lock on the rear exit of the doctor's rooms surrendered without a struggle and Jayne stepped inside, closing the door behind her. A few steps forward brought her alongside the reception area. She noted some filing cabinets, but had her money on the important stuff being in Doctor Somsri's office. She skirted over to the staircase, level with the front entrance. There was little chance of being seen but she checked the street all the same before creeping up the stairs two at a time.

The upper storey smelled of bleach, most of the space was occupied by consulting rooms. Jayne walked into one, scanned the contents of the cupboards and helped herself to a pair of latex gloves. The door to Doctor Somsri's office was locked but coaxed open easily enough. Jayne closed the door, pulled the blind aside to check the street again, thought about turning on the desk lamp, decided against it.

She used her penlight to inspect the desk. She found a ring-binder diary in a drawer and leafed through it. Nothing other than a few notes and numbers. Obviously not the doctor's appointment diary. She was about to toss it back but paused to check Wednesday 5 February, the date Mayuree's son was taken. There was an entry on that day: a few Thai letters—some kind of shorthand—and alongside the 19.00 appointment time,
khing
, the Thai word for ‘ginger'. Some kind of code? She tore out the page.

She returned to the consulting room and pilfered some zip-lock plastic bags. She placed the diary page inside one and shoved it down her bra.

Nothing else of importance in the desk, she turned her attention to the filing cabinets. They were locked, pointlessly, as the key was blue-tacked to the back. Doctor Somsri didn't take the same precautions as Frank. Perhaps he had nothing to hide. Or nothing to fear.

His files were arranged in Thai alphabetical order, which took Jayne some time to decipher. The air-conditioning was off and she soon worked up a sweat. Most of the files were medical records. Jayne assumed the doctor would want the adoption-related paperwork to look routine and therefore would keep it among his general files rather than in a special location. Sure enough, there was no master file for adoptions.

While he probably wouldn't file under the child's real name for adoption paperwork, she figured he'd have to for the death certificate.

There was no file for Kamolsert. Jayne wracked her brain to remember his surname, one of those long, elaborate Thai names that had grown over generations. She remembered it started with a vowel and one of the syllables was the Thai word for ‘heavenly blessing', which had the unfortunate English transliteration
porn
. She scanned the labels, reading aloud as she went.

‘
A-ss-a-wa-wat-ta-na-porn
.'

A mouthful, but that wasn't it.

‘
At-ta-mang-porn
.'

Close.

‘
A-porn-su-wan-na
.'

Apornsuwanna sounded right.

She pulled out the file and there at the top was what looked very much like Kob's bogus death certificate. The date checked out. Doctor Somsri's signature was in black ink beneath a red stamp in the lower right-hand corner.

Jayne didn't stop to read the rest. She folded the certificate in half and sealed it in a second zip-lock bag.

Shots rang out. She ran to the window and peered around the blind. At the end of the street she saw sparks and smoke, heard more explosions, saw a crowd massing.

Firecrackers. Chinese New Year festivities designed to scare away evil spirits so the good spirits can get to work bringing prosperity to the household or business.

Jayne let the blind fall and wiped her damp forehead.

She glanced at her watch. It was taking longer than she'd thought. She returned the Apornsuwanna file to the cabinet drawer and was about to close it when she caught sight of the same Thai word that was in the diary.
Khing
. She pulled out the file. It contained adoption papers, in English and Thai, signed by Leroy King and Alicia King, co-signed by Doctor Somsri and witnessed by… ‘Chao-wa-lit,' she read aloud.

‘
Krup
?'

Jayne spun around. Standing in the doorway was Chaowalit and behind him Doctor Somsri. The fireworks had masked the sound of their approach. The King file fell from her hands, paper scattering at her feet.

‘I can explain—' she began.

Chaowalit reached her in two strides, grabbed her and pinned her arms behind her.

‘I knew you were a lying cunt,' he muttered in her ear, droplets of spit spraying on her face.

It was almost a relief when Doctor Somsri pressed a cloth against her face and she blacked out.

32

J
ayne's head throbbed and her knees ached. Her eyes were closed but she was aware of an overhead light. She was in a lift. Its rattling motion increased the pain in her head and she groaned involuntarily.

‘She's moving.'

A man's voice, in Thai, above her.

She went limp against the floor, willing her body not to shake.

‘That's twitching, not moving,' said a second man's voice.

‘I'm telling you, I saw her move.'

‘And I'm telling you she's drugged. She's moving in her sleep, okay,' said the voice Jayne recognised as Chaowalit's.

‘I could lose my job letting you use the service lift like this,' the first said, petulant.

‘Shut up,' Chaowalit said. ‘You're getting paid.'

The other man mumbled something as the elevator shuddered to a halt. A pair of hands grabbed Jayne under the armpits and dragged her out of the lift. She opened her eyes just enough to glimpse the elevator doors closing on a man in a chef's uniform.

It was humid: they were outside. Knowing Chaowalit was now alone and couldn't see her face, Jayne opened her eyes. The rooftop terrace looked familiar. Had he brought her back to the Bayview Hotel? Would he risk a second crime at the scene of Maryanne Delbeck's death?

A new surge of fear swept Jayne's body. A stabbing the previous year had convinced her to get fit, learn a few self-defence moves. But groggy and sore, she was in no state to put her training to use.

Chaowalit lowered her to the ground, then a swift, hard kick sent her tumbling into the swimming pool.

More pain ripped through her. She imagined the relief of drifting back into oblivion, but her body surged to the surface, gasping for air. Chaowalit was waiting, arm raised, a blunt object in his fist. Jayne kicked fiercely at the water, moving just out of reach, but his blow still struck her shoulder.

Adrenaline followed the pain turning her panic into fury. A few well-placed strokes took her to the middle of the pool and she turned, treading water, to glare at Chaowalit.

‘What the fuck are you doing?' she yelled.

‘Shut the fuck up!' the man shouted, running around the edge of the pool like a dog.

‘I will not shut up, you murderous dog-fucker,' Jayne shrieked.

If he kept yelling at her, he'd do half the work of attracting attention.

‘You little white bitch.' Chaowalit growled. ‘Maybe this will shut you up.' He snapped opened a flick-knife, blade catching the light.

Jayne shivered, the scar on her arm tingled.

‘Oh, come off it,' she said, trying to hide the waver in her voice. ‘This is supposed to be a simple drowning accident, right? Your friend Somsri is probably preparing the autopsy report as we speak: dumb farang tourist drinks too much, falls into the pool and drowns. Maybe I knock my head on the side of the pool on the way in. No one will connect it with Maryanne Delbeck's death since I'm just another guest here, though at this rate the Bayview might think twice about letting female guests from Australia out on the roof after dark.'

Chaowalit sneered.

‘Doesn't a stabbing spoil your plan?'

He looked from the knife in his hand to Jayne and back again.

‘I'm good at improvising,' he said and flicked the blade back into the handle.

He reached down to pick up something from the ground.

A Coke bottle. He held it by the neck and smashed the bottom on the side of the pool.

‘There's more than one way to draw blood,' he said, jabbing the air. ‘Here's an idea: dumb farang tourist hits her face on a broken bottle that was lying by the side of the pool as she fell in. Hideous injuries. Death by drowning will seem merciful.'

Jayne kept treading water, wondering how long she could keep it up, wondering if Chaowalit could swim.

‘You're smart,' she said, a shameless attempt at flattery.

‘Does Frank Harding know what you're up to?'

‘None of Khun Frank's business,' Chaowalit said.

‘So this is just between you and Somsri.'

Chaowalit said nothing.

‘Do you do all of the Doctor's dirty work?' Jayne continued. ‘Like, getting rid of Maryanne, for example?'

Chaowalit yelped with surprise. ‘Is that what you think?

Farang girl dies, son of a bitch like me must be behind it?'

‘I meant it as a compliment,' Jayne said, inching her way towards the side of the pool. ‘Her death has kept everyone guessing. Was it suicide? Was it murder? No one seems to know, but I think you do.'

‘Why?'

‘Because, as I said, you're smart. Smarter than people realise.'

Chaowalit considered this for a moment.

‘I was there when Khun Maryanne died, but I didn't kill her.'

‘Then who did?'

‘You won't believe me if I told you.'

‘Try me.'

‘It was an accident.'

Jayne laboured to keep her head above water and her expression neutral.

‘I believe you.'

Chaowalit shrugged. ‘Doesn't matter if you believe me or not. You weren't there.'

‘Was anyone else—apart from you and Maryanne, I mean?'

‘Yes.'

‘What happened?'

Chaowalit looked at the bottle in his hand and shrugged again. ‘It was Sumet's idea.'

‘Sumet?'