Death Trip (15 page)

After leaving King’s bar, Mann went back to Mary’s. The evening seemed to have livened up there. The volunteers that he had seen in King’s were now carrying on the party back at base. There seemed to be an opendoor policy up and down the corridor and there was a lot of giggling coming from the rooms. Mann wasn’t bothered by the noise. It was the quiet he couldn’t stand. That’s why he never liked going back to his apartment. It was just so empty. He knew that he could have someone in there, a woman to share his bed and make him feel wanted, but Mann didn’t intend to fall into that trap; it wasn’t fair to anyone. He had seen too many men do it. Just live with anyone rather than be on their own. What was it with men? They couldn’t bear to be alone? They left their mother’s house and moved straight in with a woman? As much as he loved women, mothering was something he had never needed from them.

He closed his door and walked along the corridor. The first door was open but no one was there. The second was open and a woman stood looking at Mann
as he appeared in her doorway. She had on a loose cheesecloth blouse and a sarong wrapped around her hips. She had the look of a middle-aged hippy with money. She had a thinness to her that smacked of years with no appetite left for anything but alcohol and sex.

She stopped mid-swig of a beer and put the bottle down.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I saw you talking to one of the medics in King’s. I was there with the rest of the NGOs.’ Her voice was raspy from too many cigarettes.

Mann leant on the door frame and waved a hello with one hand, brandishing a pack of beer with the other.

‘Johnny,’ he said. ‘Can I come in?’ He handed her the beers.

‘A stranger bearing gifts—fantastic. Sit down.’ She pointed to the bed. ‘I’m Hillary.’

‘How long have you all been here?’

Mann sat, she stood, Hillary shook her head and screwed up her face. ‘About six months. This is our last night. They’re flying us out because of the troubles. What about you? Strange time to arrive when everyone else is leaving.’

‘Ah, well, never could plan a holiday right.’

‘Is that what this is, a holiday? We thought you must be a new medic of some kind.’

‘No, just a traveller. So, you’ve been staying here for six weeks?’ Hillary nodded. ‘At Mary’s?’ She smiled and nodded again as she opened a beer. ‘So you were here when the five volunteers were kidnapped?’ Hillary stopped drinking.

‘Oh, so that’s it?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You’re a reporter of some kind?’ Mann didn’t answer. ‘Well, thanks for the beer, but I’ve already said all I know about it.’

‘What if I told you I am here to help find them?’

‘Then I’d still say, sorry, no comment. I was interviewed by the police. NAP have been very good to us. I’ve said all I will.’

‘So you don’t give a shit, basically?’

The atmosphere in the room was tense.

‘Please leave.’

Mann went back into his room. There was certainly no more party going on now, his presence had definitely put a dampener on things. He checked his phone. He had a message from Alfie. He called him back.

‘What is it, Alfie? You all right? I can hardly hear you.’

‘I am not supposed to use my phone. I am in hospital. I followed Katrien when she met up with the guy she was emailing. I got knifed. I took a photo of him—he’s been identified as one of a ring of drug traffickers under surveillance here. It’s a Burmese connection. They import massive amounts of heroin and methamphetamine, ice. She’s into the big league.’

‘Is he the one who knifed you?’

‘No. It was the two guys that you met outside Magda’s flat that night, the Asians…’

‘You must be doing something right to piss Katrien off so badly she’s called in her friends. What about the two-million ransom money? How did she take that?’

‘She was straight on the webcam, wetting her knickers and telling someone how it was all going to
work out peachy for them. But she has left Amsterdam in a hurry. She was about to be hauled into an investigation about where the money from NAP has gone. I think things have got a bit sticky for her. She decided to get out while she could. Anyway, she’s headed your way, Mann.’

‘She must have a plan for getting her hands on the two million.’

‘Yes, she’s too greedy to fuck it up now.’

In the morning Mann sat next to Sue in her old Toyota as they drove along the main road out of Mae Sot, towards the mountains and Mae Klaw. The road began to straighten and level out and they crossed a wide bridge. Mann looked down and saw the people beneath the bridge by the side of the river, flanked either side by thick forest. People were washing themselves and their clothes in the shallow banks of the fast-flowing river, children were playing, and downstream a man was cleaning the wheels of his scooter. Palm-thatched roofs started appearing on the left, rising as if organically from the wide leaves and verdant greenery. From far away it looked like an idyllic jungle village. But Mann had been in refugee camps before—they were only one up from squatter towns like the ones he knew well in the Philippines. Here the houses weren’t made from cardboard boxes or flattened Coke tins, they were made from recycled forest material. There was not a corrugated iron sheet in sight, just thousands of tiny bamboo huts on stilts ringed in by a barbed wire fence. It was a pretty place—but was still nothing but an overcrowded prison.

‘It’s a big camp. How many people live here?’ asked Mann. He could see that the huts stretched as far as the horizon and the start of the mountains.

‘At the moment there’s two thousand but more arrive all the time.’

‘Is Riley a medic too?’

‘Not officially, but he’s sat in on enough operations to make a good go at sewing someone up or delivering a baby if he has to,’ said Sue. ‘Riley has been here for so long that he has had to learn to do everything. That’s the way it is here, people can be what they want to be, you can reinvent yourself, start afresh.’ She looked across at Mann and he could see that her eyes were shining, whether with pride or with love, he wasn’t sure. ‘There is no one else who cares about these people as much as Riley. He lives, eats and breathes the refugee camps and the Karen people; it’s all he really cares about. They have even made him an honorary Karen. You’ll like Riley. He’s a good guy.’

‘What’s his history?’

‘He’s lived all over the place before he came here, speaks French, Spanish, as well as Thai and the Burmese dialects. We’ve known each other for years. We used to be…’ she flashed Mann a sidelong glance ‘…together. Now, we still share a house but we are not, you know, a couple.’

This information altered Mann’s perception of this man he was about to meet. Riley had been on the list given to him by Katrien at NAP. All he’d managed to find out about him was that he was a long-standing charity organiser who had lived in the area for the last
fifteen years and who knew everything there was to know about the refugee camps. Mann had seen his name mentioned in several reports about volunteer workers in the field. He was a champion for the needs of the Karen refugees. He seemed to never stop lobbying on their behalf, raising a lot of money for them over the years. In his head, Mann had an image of a worthy, khaki-shorted, comb-over type running around frantic ally organising, whilst the volunteer kids sniggered behind his back. Would Sue have been involved with a guy like that? Unlikely—though you just never knew with women and father figures.

Sue turned off the road and stopped just in front of the gated entrance to the camp. Its name, Mae Klaw, was spelt out with sticks of bamboo and mounted across the top of the gate, ranch-style. Two Thai policemen were smoking cheroots and watching the comings and goings of the camp with their guns resting in their holsters. They were sitting on sheets of bamboo that had been split and cut into lengths and bound together. Sue waved at them as they turned in.

Just inside the gate was a checkpoint, a small hut and two more policemen. Sue kept the car running whilst they waited for one of the officers to come over. He sauntered over deliberately slowly whilst the other one remained where he was, leaning against the side of the door frame of the hut and scowling.

‘Papers?’ He leant in the open car window and rested one hand on his holster as he addressed Sue but stared at Mann.

She answered him in Thai and a banter began
between them. Mann could see Sue wasn’t fazed by his show of testosterone. She was all smiles, hands skipping in the air as she explained what Mann was doing there. Whatever she said seemed to please the officer who beamed in at Mann, his demeanour transformed from a sullen-faced, trigger-happy thug to that of a starstruck teenager.

Sue turned to Mann, a frozen smile on her face.

‘I have just told him that you are a film maker and are looking for locations and extras.’

‘Why did you do that?’ said Mann, returning the gritted-teeth smile and nodding.

‘Because otherwise they would have pretended to cooperate and then shot you or me or maybe both of us. Either way, it’s best to lie. This way we’re all happy.’

‘You’re a little too good at the lying bit.’ Mann smiled and he leant across to shake the policeman’s hand and wave at the other officer, who was watching closely.

‘Only when dealing with Asians; it’s the loss of face thing. Better to lie than to risk making them look stupid.’ Sue drove through the camp gates and they parked up.

‘That’s what worries me. I
am
Asian.’

‘You don’t fool me. You’re whatever suits you at the time.’ She smiled.

One of the policemen who had been sat outside on the bamboo logs approached Mann’s side of the car. His face was stony. He was obviously not impressed by Mann’s movie-making ambitions.

‘Passport.’

Mann gave it to him and watched as his eyes flicked
back and forth from Mann’s face to the photo. He called over to the policeman who was still leaning on the door frame of the hut.

‘Shit,’ muttered Sue. ‘Trouble. He wants your details checked. The other policeman thinks you are lying. If he gets on the radio, we are all screwed. They want us out of the car.’

Mann looked over to the gate. There were a lot of people around. A pregnant woman, selling a stack of dried leaves for thatching. Kids marching past for school. They’d never make it out, it was way too congested. They would have to deal with it. All four policemen were now standing by, their hands resting on their holsters. The policeman at the side of the car was more animated this time—he wanted them out of the vehicle now. His face had turned angry. He unclipped his gun.

Before Mann opened the door he slipped the set of twelve three-inch-diameter throwing stars into his left hand.

‘So, Deming came to visit you, how often?’

Alfie had been home from the hospital a few hours. He had just got off the phone to Ng.

‘Once a month,’ answered Magda. She was emptying the drier and had her back to him. ‘I told you all this before, Alfie. It was never an issue then.’

‘It was never an issue before because he was just the man who impregnated you when you were a teenager. Now his son goes missing and we are being threatened. Was he a violent man?’

‘Of course he wasn’t, Alfie. He was gentle and sweet and very caring.’

‘Did you love him?’

‘Yes.’

‘But he was an old man compared to you. How could you have a proper relationship with an old man?’

‘He wasn’t an old man, Alfie! For God’s sake, it happens every day. Young girl falls for older man—so what?’

Alfie was about to say something but thought better of it. He was pushing Magda. She hated criticism, she
hated discussing her feelings. She hated the way her past came back to spit at her sometimes. She had built this big wall around her life. But Alfie had been allowed to scale it. By now he knew every chink in it where daylight got through and he knew where to get a foothold. But he also knew where it was crumbling.

‘All right, but we must do what we can now, Magda.’

Magda turned her back to him and he watched her head and shoulders drop as she thought about what he said. He knew she was only going through the motions of sorting towels from the drier.

‘You are right.’ She turned to face him. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I want you to think back. Go through your things, mementoes, photos. I want to see if there is anything in there that will tell us more about him and his associates. Someone thinks we’re hiding something here, Magda. Maybe we are without knowing.’

‘Okay. You’re right.’

‘I’m right?’ He leant forward and felt her forehead. ‘I’m right? Twice? You sick?’ She smiled at him sheepishly.

‘You know I love you, Alfie.’

‘I know.’

After Alfie had left, Magda sat at the kitchen table and she let her mind drift back. It was something she hated doing, even more so now that she was dying. She had never liked to live in the past. Even thinking about the boys was just too painful. But now, she knew she had to do it and she sat and stared into space
and thought about Deming. She thought first of how she had heard of his death. A solicitor had written to inform her. Magda had been breastfeeding Jake in her bed when she opened the letter. She hadn’t heard from Deming in two months. She had been beside herself with worry, without even a contact number to reach him. The letter said he’d left instructions in the event of his death and that he had died, simple as that. It wasn’t until six months later that she managed to find out the truth about his death—that he had been murdered. She was a mistress, after all. She had no rights.

Then Magda’s mind skipped back to the first day she saw him, looking at her through the glass. He had just stared. She hadn’t known what to do for a minute. He didn’t want to buy her services; he was just staring at her as if he knew her. There was a silence inside the window, its glass was thick. Even dressed only in her bikini she was hot beneath the neon lights. Deming hadn’t even looked her up and down as they usually did, imagining her naked. He had just stared at her face. She remembered that she’d smiled at him and his smile began slowly, his eyes still intently studying her face, but then it broadened and she remembered feeling embarrassed, as if they shared something beautiful. And at that moment she knew that he had fallen in love with her and she with him.

Magda got up to unload the dishwasher, which had begun to beep that it had finished its cycle. She was glad of the interruption. She looked out of the window; the sky was blue, and she wondered if the sky was blue
over Jake. Deming had loved his sons; he had lavished them with gifts. Deming had given her more than she ever thought she would have—love, a family, a home. He had bought her the flat. He had encouraged her to start up the PIC. She owned the lease to the ground floor of that building. It never made any money—it was a charity—but it would be an asset to sell one day and it was a place where she could store things.

Magda nearly dropped the glass she was holding. She gripped the edge of the sink and screamed with joy. Yes! Her precious boxes of mementoes hadn’t been lost in the burglary at all. She had stored them at the PIC.