Death Trip (29 page)

‘We are here.’ Gee pointed with his cane into the distance. Mann could see nothing but blackness ahead. ‘Gee has delivered you to a safe place. I know the fishermen here. We will be back in Mae Sot by morning. And then—where will we go?’

Mann thought back to his vision of Daniel and the monk on the shore and shook his head. ‘All I know is “We are what we think. What we think we become.”’

‘Of course!’ exclaimed Gee. ‘That is the
exact
translation.’

‘Of what?’

‘You saw the Buddha outside my lock-up. The inscription above it. You asked me what was on it and I tried to translate for you. That was what was on it. That is the saying—“what we think, we become”.’

Mann felt charged with adrenalin. Now he had the answer to the riddle.

They reached the jetty. Brigitte gave them a final nose with her trunk before heading back towards the forest and freedom. Mann knelt down on the jetty and splashed his face with the river water. The eels came
up to investigate. He trailed his hand in the water and they swam between his fingers.

It was nearly midnight. Gee whistled in the evening air. From the bushes came a whistle in reply and a man appeared. Gee negotiated with him and a boat was made ready. Within a few minutes they were on board and making their way downstream.

‘Rest, my friend,’ said Gee. Mann put his legs up and stretched out on the seat that ran the length of the boat. Mann dozed. His sleep was interrupted by a tug on the arm from Gee. Mann sat up to see what Gee was pointing excitedly at. The fisherman was steering towards a small jetty. Mann looked and saw a sight he never thought he would—Sue was waiting for a boat.

Sue opened her backpack and took out her medical kit. She tore open the sealed packet containing the diluted quinine salts and gave it to Mann. He drank down the liquid.

‘What’s that?’ She had begun preparing a hypodermic.

‘It’s just a shot of vitamins; help you recover your strength.’

‘No, thanks. No shots. By the time we land I will have all the strength I need.’

Sue looked put out for a second and then she slid over to Mann with a mischievous look in her eyes.

‘You’ll need to keep your stamina up. I have lots of arduous work in store for you.’

‘As nice as that sounds, Sue, it’s not going to happen any time soon. First, I intend to find Saw Wah Say and kill him and whoever gets in my way. I am going to make sure he feels the pain he’s caused. For every time he’s hurt one of those kids, I am going to hurt him a thousand fold. And, at the end, I am going to watch
him die. There will be no ransom for him. He has left it too late to bargain with me now.’

Mann got out his mobile phone and turned it on. It searched for a network and then buzzed into life.

Riley eased his bottom to the side of the hospital bed and reached for the crutches. Outside he saw his taxi arrive. The headlights shone through the window into the ward. He took out the gun from beneath his pillow and tucked it into his trousers. He was heavily bandaged up. His right foot had been saved but very badly cut and two of his toes had had to be amputated. He knew it was a tall order to expect it to take his weight. He had cut down on the morphine for the last two days. He needed to stay sharp. He had a job to do and it wasn’t over yet. The headlights stayed on. The taxi knew to wait for him. He put the crutches in place and gradually adjusted his weight onto his right foot. With a growl of pain and a head rush he stood and it took all he could muster to stop himself falling back down onto the bed. He wavered, grabbed on to the bedside locker for support and then took a few deep breaths to try and beat the pain that threatened to split his throbbing foot and burst the stitches on his amputated
leg as the blood rushed down. Already there was a bright red patch appearing on the stump. Riley pulled his trouser leg down over it and made his way towards the door.

Saw pushed Anna and Jake down the unlit lane at the back of the market and through the lock-up doors into the damp, dark room. Handsome locked the door behind them and lit a lamp and placed it on a table just inside the door. Saw pushed Jake and Anna into chairs opposite one another across the table, and then he refastened the piece of material that acted as a curtain at the window. He went over to one of the boxes stacked in the corner of the room and broke it open. He pulled out a bottle of rum and went back to sit at the table with Anna and Jake. He didn’t speak for several minutes as he drank the rum and watched them both. His eyes glinted in the light of the lamp. His chin ran with rum. Jake had never seen him look so menacing as he did now.

‘Do you know this place?’ Saw’s eyes hardened as he looked at Jake. Jake shook his head. ‘I came here with the master of the refinery.’ He looked around at the walls of the lock-up. ‘We sat at this table and drank rum and we talked about things that would come.’ Jake listened. Anna looked full of fear as her eyes searched
Saw’s face. ‘I brought you to this place because someone is coming here; someone I have waited a long time for and then…’ He leaned towards Jake and breathed into his face ‘…then I will have my revenge.’

Weasel came behind Jake’s chair, held on to Jake’s shoulders and pretended to be fucking him like a dog. Handsome howled. Saw drank deeply from the rum. He wiped his mouth and looked from Jake to Anna and then he reached over and stroked her hair. She turned away. He grabbed her around the neck and pulled her to him. He kissed her, his mouth wide, his teeth chewing her face, he covered her face in saliva, and then he twisted her face towards Jake.

‘This is your last night, boy. It will be a long night; the longest night of your life. By the time morning comes, you will beg me to end it. I will have my revenge and I will kill you. And your bitch.’ Anna’s eyes were shut tight and she began to cry. ‘You will watch me take her many times.’

Anna screamed as her chair was dragged out from beneath her.

Katrien had had too much methamphetamine. She was hyperventilating now. Her heart raced. She was feeling claustrophobic and panicky in the hot stuffy room. She looked at herself in the small mirror that she used for cutting lines on: her mascara was down her cheeks, her face was blotchy. She threw the mirror down on the bed as her phone bleeped; she had a message. She read it and started to laugh and couldn’t stop. This was it. This was what she had worked for. She re-read the message. She couldn’t believe it: all her dreams were coming true. She went back into the bathroom, redid her makeup, and smiled smugly into the mirror. She was a clever girl. Even if she had misjudged things slightly and had to leave Amsterdam prematurely, it would all work out tonight. Then she stopped and smiled at her reflection.

I wonder if anyone has found my leaving present yet?

Shrimp waited in Mary’s till the message came and then, at four in the morning, the money stowed safely in his backpack, he got on a scooter and drove down to Friendship Bridge. The night was nearly over now, the last few shipments were being loaded onto lorries and heading into Thailand. Tired dealers were at the last of their energy, nervous and jittery, and sweating with exhaustion and adrenalin.

Shrimp knew what he had to do. He parked his scooter and slipped around to the back of the market.

‘We are here at Mae Sot, my friend,’ said Gee
.

‘Moor the boat under the bridge, Gee,’ said Mann.

‘And then what?’ asked Sue as they stepped up onto the bank. ‘What do you want us to do?’

‘Head back to King’s bar. I’ll find you there afterwards.’ She was reluctant to leave him. ‘Go with Gee. I’ll be all right.’ Mann didn’t have time to explain.

Mann made sure that he wasn’t followed and then he went to find Shrimp. He had a hard time spotting him. He had camouflaged himself well—he looked like every other dubious type in Mae Sot, hot and dirty with a dash of colour. It also helped that his face looked like he’d been run over and then beaten up.

‘What the hell happened to you?’

‘Hello, boss. I had a lesson in Thai hospitality.’

‘Hope you returned the compliment.’

‘Sure did. What about you, you better?’

‘I’m okay.’

‘What’s the score, boss?’

‘You hold on to the money and I go in alone. When I need you I will call. Stay close but stay hidden.’

‘I’ve checked it out, you were right—they’re in a lock-up around the side of the market. I heard maybe five or six voices. How are you going to do it?’

‘I am not sure yet. But, if it comes to it, I will exchange myself for the boy.’

Alfie automatically took a step backwards, but his way was blocked by the owner of the shop. The first of the men, knife in hand, took a step towards him. But just as Alfie thought he was about to be stabbed for a second time, the man held out his other hand in a gesture of friendship. ‘Please join us,’ he said. Alfie watched the men slice through the rest of the boxes as he drank his coffee. He set his cup down next to the box of carved teak elephants.

‘Nice elephants.’

‘I told you, we did nothing wrong. You looked at our papers? All okay? You check up on my cousin Gee? He’s a good man. He helps his family many times. Now, take some pearls for your girlfriend.’

Alfie thanked him, accepted the pearls, and then he cycled over to Katrien’s. He had an urge to see if she had really gone for good.

Alfie opened Katrien’s door and punched in the alarm. He heard voices, muffled. It was like a bad porn movie was playing. And, from his place in the hall he could look into the lounge. The curtains were drawn;
the room was dark except for light from the PC monitor. There was the smell of stale perfume, of sex, rancid wine and there was something else, a sweet, rotten smell of meat thrown into a bin and forgotten.

Alfie walked into the lounge. He could see the back of the monitor and the edge of the chair in front of it and he saw a pale leg, with its knee jutting outwards. The inside of the leg covered in brown dried blood. Beneath the chair was a pool of congealed blood, vivid against the white carpet. He moved slowly to the right and around. As he came from behind the monitor he saw the contorted face of a young woman, blindfolded. Across her mouth was a gag, her hands were tied to a harness that looped around her neck and strapped between her legs. Between her legs was the dildo that Alfie had seen Katrien wearing. The girl was dead. It was the young receptionist from NAP.

Saw rested his bloodied hands on the table as he leant across Anna’s naked body.

Then he looked straight into Jake’s eyes.

‘Are you ready yet, boy?’

Jake nodded, mutely. He had reached the bottom of hell and now there was nowhere left to go. He looked at Anna. Her blonde hair was matted with dark blood and her head twisted unnaturally to the side. Through misting eyes she seemed to be watching the dawn as it filtered through the rank air and began its trespass into the long night.

Saw smiled as he turned his head and spat a glob of sticky black phlegm onto the dirt floor beside the table. Saw had faced death many times. He enjoyed watching others die. He looked down and breathed in the mist of atomised blood and death from Anna. It caught in the back of his throat, he could taste it. He could taste her. Then a shaft of light hit him in the eyes and he turned his head towards the window. The corner of the makeshift curtain had dropped and the sun was beginning to rise. He knew that the game was coming to its end now.

Saw’s men moved in around Jake like jittery wolves waiting to finish off their prey. Their chests were bare, rank with stale sweat, sticky and thick with smeared blood. Their breath was heavy with stale liquor. Saw had given them a night to remember. Now there was one thing left to do. They edged closer and looked back and forth from Saw to the boy, waiting.

As Jake looked at Anna, he felt a terrible calm. He glanced up at the hovering men, waiting for his death like vultures, and then he stared hard at Saw’s face. Jake stopped crying. A boy he might be called but he would end his life as a man. He reached out and touched Anna’s cold hand. In the morning light her skin was grey and he knew she was gone. But her screams still rang in his ears. He didn’t want to hear them any more.

‘Yes,’ Jake said. ‘I am ready.’

Katrien checked the room and made sure she hadn’t left anything behind. She wouldn’t be coming back, that was for sure. She was about to start her new life. She was nervous and excited. She couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong now. But, when she was the ringmaster in a circus full of unpredictable animals, she wouldn’t be happy until she was holding the money in her hands and long gone.

She checked her phone and smiled, reassured, no message from the Big Man, Boon Nam must have got away. She’d be joining him soon enough then they could really kick start their business partnership.

She texted Mann.

Wait near the main entrance to the market for my instructions. Bring the money

She closed her phone, picked up her bag and left the room. The taxi was waiting for her. It dropped her at the far side of the market. From there she made her way furtively, through the side entrance and onto the lane than ran alongside it and came to a standstill outside the lock-up. She looked at the Buddha beside
the door, read the inscription and sneered. She knocked lightly on the lock-up door and Weasel opened it a fraction for her to enter. She stood just inside the entrance, hands on hips, and looked around at Saw’s men and at Jake and Anna and she hissed at him:

‘Where are the other kids?’

Jake stared at her as if she had come from another world. She belonged to a different life. He knew her, and yet he didn’t know how, until he realised that it was the woman from NAP. It was the woman who had interviewed him about going away. But she hardly seemed to notice him or the hell that he was in. She barely glanced in his direction. She seemed more annoyed than shocked by what she saw. ‘Is this all that’s left?’ She looked around the room and then looked at Anna. ‘Fucking hell, Saw. Couldn’t you control these animals just once?’

Handsome came up behind her and held on to her hips and rubbed against her as he licked her neck. She pushed him off. ‘Get your fucking hands off me. You stink.’

She glared at Saw. ‘We’ll be lucky to get anything now.’ She looked nervously towards the door and then back at Saw. ‘At least the boy is still alive. He’s the only one who really matters. At least I have fulfilled my side of the bargain.’

‘Is he here?’

‘Yes. He’s waiting for me to text him. And he is bringing the money.’

‘I don’t care about the money.’

‘Fine. You have your fucking revenge and I will keep
the money. I will be starting a new life in the hills, growing opium, getting rich, whilst you are dead and gone. But that’s your choice. I have put two years of planning into this, Saw, I am not about to blow it.’

‘They both die here, tonight.’

‘Whatever…but I won’t be hanging around. As soon as he gets here with the money, I am going. You can catch up with me if you’re still alive. I will be meeting Boon Nam in the hills.’

‘Where are the deeds to the land? Did you get them?’

‘Forget that. We have to take what we have and run. We don’t need it.’

‘But I want what was promised. All my life I have waited to get back what was mine. And now here we are, in the very place where Deming promised me it.’

‘You seem to forget, Deming ruined my life too. He took me away from my home. He put me to live with some weird couple who never really loved me.’

‘When the opium lords warred and our village was destroyed Deming took you. I was your brother, they should have given you to me, but they did not listen. Deming had money, they listened to him. He gave you to the missionaries.’

‘They hated me. They left me nothing in their will.’

For a minute Saw’s anger flashed dark and brooding across his face and then he grinned at Katrien. ‘Perhaps they didn’t like you because they knew you were going to kill them.’ Saw grinned and offered her a swig of his rum. Weasel giggled.

She pushed the bottle away. ‘I didn’t do it.’

‘You made someone else do it, the way you always
do, hey, little sister?’ Saw stepped close to her and held her chin up to his face. ‘So beautiful, so evil.’

Her eyes were as cold as his. She pushed him away. Saw made another move to touch her. Weasel was still giggling. He turned towards Handsome and the giggle turned into a noise in his throat as if he had swallowed something that got caught, lodged, something that hurt like hell and had stopped him breathing. His eyes opened wide in panic as he twisted his long neck to turn and see what had hit him and then his throat opened like a shark bite and a bubbling plume of blood jetted out several feet. Mann burst through the window.