Escape (29 page)

‘Now you don’t look like you need fattening up with cream. Do quite well for yourself, I’d say.’ Then before I could respond he said, ‘Ah, there’s my daughter, Violet. She’s about to say something.’

‘May I have your attention everyone? My dad has asked me to distribute the gifts.’

Violet was a television actress, then just twenty-one, and had played a young policewoman in
The Short Arm
, an Australian soap. But this day she was every inch the daughter of a missionary. Brave and warm in ash nainsook, professionally in control of the natural revulsion that had scattered Campbell’s children.

Violet stood beside a large cardboard box under the canopy’s shade. She effortlessly plunged her hands into the box to capture a dozen green travel bags, freebies intended to promote the Sydney 2000 Olympics. ‘There seems to be some extras, I’m sure you’ll find friends for them.’ Violet let drop this polyurethane bounty on the table before returning to the box with a look of childlike wonder at what it might contain.

‘Ah, books!’

‘Ah, fuck!’ muttered Dale Hollowcheeks.

Violet took a book from the box as she passed her eyes over a small card on which our names were written. She leaned toward Tim and read the book’s title for the first time as she offered the much-read paperback.

‘Alive!
The gripping story of survival following the Andes mountains plane crash. Now that’s interesting.’

Tim released the lock of his wheelchair and grabbed for the book just as Violet decided that this tale of cannibalism in the snow might not be suitable for emaciated Tim. Violet dropped
Alive!
back in the box announcing, ‘That one’s a little dog-eared, I think,’ and looked for another title.

Tim’s lunge forward on unfamiliar slopes had set his wheelchair rolling back, a retreat he attempted to correct by clutching for the table. His grip fastened on four slices of inconveniently placed Port Salut and it was only the practiced reflexes of an accountant from chancery nearby that halted Tim’s backward slide.

Violet closed a serviette around
Dr Ernesto’s Golden Cummerbund
and set it beside Tim’s plate.

‘I know you’ll like that, Tim.’ Violet had become more selective. ‘Love and magic under Ceau
esescu’s Rumania,’ she read.

The other civilian and professional guests returned to talking among themselves as Violet read blurbs in the book box before offering them as gifts.

‘You could have them all but we have to call at the women’s prison next door before we go.’ Violet set aside a diet book, a guide to Provençale cooking and several self-help books before giving Martin Sallowface a sports autobiography,
If Memory Serves.

‘I don’t get a chance to play tennis often these days,’ Violet chirped. ‘Martin, you look like a sportsman, I’ll bet.’

Martin took the paperback and tried reading it with each eye from under an airline eyepatch mask. ‘Yeah, thanks,’ was all he could manage. That afternoon dealing with outsiders and the heavy food had combined to drain the effervescence of the Australian prisoners.

‘Now, what have we here?’ Violet held up an oversized grey paperback. ‘The new one from Laura Dragoman Smith,
The Seven Portals Of Pavlodar.
A mystical journey through Kazakhstan. It’s the best one, I think and it’s yours David for being so patient.’

Violet’s bubbling performance ended neatly with, ‘Well, I’m sure you all have little messages to give and to take before we pack everything up and don’t forget to take all of this food.’

As I’d been to three of these events that month I was prepared with a wad of zip-lok plastic bags. Campbell, the vice consul, gave me a sharp look until he saw me dividing the plastic carriers between Brian and Dale Hollowcheeks. Letters were surreptitiously passed for posting and cash given in envelopes. Most of this was against prison rules and although it was easy to be cynical about the limits and stated premise of the embassy staffers’ rule-breaking, it was impossible not to be a little charmed.

As I had no cash to collect, messages to entrust or requests of any kind, I stood aside with Dennis Effusius. I blathered idly about the mysteries of diplomatic immunity—this mostly to avoid speaking about my case and the help the embassy was giving the Thai prosecution.

Dennis, trained against questioning, had determined that I’d been trying to get some inside information and so changed the subject.

‘Not taking any of this food back?’

‘Eh? Oh, I’m full. Still, I’ll be taking something. Thanks.’

‘I must say, you don’t look in bad shape.’ Dennis looked at the others before turning sideways in accusation. ‘Considering the circumstances for everyone. I suppose it’s not all the same in there.’

‘You know everyone here will be dead before any make it home.’ I was already cursing myself for rising to the bait. ‘I’m just new here. Give me some time and I’ll look the same.’

Dennis didn’t answer and was immune enough to stand next to me with serene tolerance before moving away.

As anvil clouds moved across the sky, the table and picnic canopy took on the appearance of a cavernous cellar where some madman has tied his victims to chairs while rats and cockroaches scurry over cake crumbs. The villain raises his glass to his long-dead and decomposing guests then exclaims, ‘You didn’t listen to me, did you? Now we have all the time we need and we’ll be such good friends.’

The office was empty when I returned. Bo-Jai’s helpers brought the usual steel canisters of food for the night, which was good as I found I was hungry after all. Stateless Arib saw me at my desk and began to sweep around my feet. I waved a hand at the floor, telling Arib that he could finish for the day.

Sten arrived, soaked with sweat from weightlifting, something he’d been doing twice each day in recent weeks.

‘Enjoy your lunch?’ Sten removed his leather mittens. ‘Make any new friends?’ He raised a doubtful eyebrow.

‘One on medical transfer from Bangkwang. As if the hospital here is better. I give him four months, six if he gets on the hammer. The other, some Vietnamese kid—in for the long haul.’ I was tired.

Sten drank from a bottle of iced water and sat by the doorway. ‘We start paying for this tomorrow.’ He held up the plastic bottle of tap water. ‘Water strike. Barely enough to drink. No showers—’

I sat up, about to protest.

Sten raised a hand. ‘Don’t worry, Jet’s got a tap opened.’ Sten stood to leave. ‘He’s getting our tanks filled in the room.’

‘Anything else?’ I queried.

‘Since you ask, the chief wants a new air conditioner and the foreigners have to pay for some new covered kitchen but haven’t any money, of course. Ah, your factory worker’s in the
soi
and your Chinese friends have been bushwhacked in the coffee shop. The chief sold it out from under them to the son of some rich guy who wanted to give his kid something to do in prison.’

‘Okay then.’ I took my keys to lock our cupboards. ‘Another fine day in Klong Prem.’

‘Yep. Oh and one other thing. English Martyn was bundled to court this morning. He got fifty years and he’ll be off to Bangkwang tomorrow.’

Sten took a towel and moved out under the new drops of rain to cool himself. Looking across to the building entrance I saw Jet struggling up the steps with buckets of water. Lifting our food canisters, I thought I must try harder to keep my friends.

Dean Reed was lying well: offhandedly, casually, from the hip, even warmly—which was how he sounded at his best. The problem was that they weren’t buying his stuff.

Dean sat in the purposely low chair provided in the shuttered debriefing room of the American Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. A man and a woman stood at the bare table without speaking. They were Dean’s countrymen—officials—impossible to identify and difficult to bullshit.

‘I just want a full passport. I’m entitled to that.’ Dean wanted to take off his own jacket to join them with their white shirts but he thought they might suspect nervousness. ‘Every time I renew my Thai visa they ask about that cut corner on the passport. It’s not easy to get the ninety days, you know.’

The woman interrogator wore her hair pulled back. She said, ‘You weren’t thinking of going home?’

‘No! I’ve told you people in Bangkok—I’ve got no reason to go home, my
home
is in Thailand.’

‘And not planning to travel elsewhere? Europe, somewhere outside of Asia perhaps?’ asked the man.

‘No!’ Dean whined in exasperation.

‘Odd thing that, Dean.’ The man sat on the edge of the table. ‘Just yesterday you were in the Australian Embassy trying to get a visa. They didn’t think much of you either. Mind if we take a look at that Filofax there?’

Dean had realised that these two were not passport officials and he felt foolish agreeing to this interview. ‘Look at what you want,’ he said. ‘But I can’t see what right you have. I’ve done nothing. Nothing.’ This sounded weak.

‘Who were you planning to see in Australia?’ It was the woman’s turn to ask questions. ‘Someone in Melbourne? Yes?’ No answer. ‘The Australians wouldn’t give you a visa, Dean. Not with a full passport, not with any passport—and not with your drug record.’

‘Oh that,’ Dean began dismissively. ‘That’s nothing.’

But the interview would not improve. Eventually Dean gathered his bits, loosened his tie and left the embassy and the town.

Again he would have to return to Thailand by train. The officials at Padang Besar would allow him only a thirty-day visa. If nothing more he could afford to take a plane from Hat Yai home to Bangkok.

Dean let himself in to the neglected but palm-shaded house in a watery lane off Soi Ekamai. Fortunately Tara was not at home. Later he would tell Tara a version of his failure when she returned from work. A version that blamed David and his friends. She had accepted his story about Swiss banking and currency manipulations to explain the cash he’d been spending for the last seven months. Yet she’d seen little of that money. And now it was gone. For now Dean would draw the yellow blinds and turn on the television set. Play
Natural Born Killers
just one more time—

‘Natural Born Killers?’
Chas wondered where that came from. ‘I don’t know what Dean did when he got home. And don’t interrupt—who’s telling this story anyway? I though I was!’

‘And you are,’ I assured Chas from behind the mesh at Klong Prem. ‘It’s just that I know Dean. That silly fluff was his favourite film. He once told me that he’d played it to death. It was his comfort video, would you believe. He’d be sure to watch it under stress.’ I apologised for interrupting. ‘Anyway go on, Chas.’

‘Right. Well, Tara didn’t like being broke. She was packing to go when I called by. She said Dean was on another visa run. Talked of their breaking up. No sign of him, not that I could see.’

‘Did you believe her?’ I’d never met Tara, an Amerasian born in Thailand, although she’d been with Dean for five years.

Chas smiled and held his hands out. ‘Believe? Now, what would that mean?’ Chas had been surrounded by true believers since he’d campaigned against the death penalty in the 1960s. He’d heard so much belief from all sides that he saw no need to add his match to the bonfire. ‘I think she really was going somewhere for a while. Or maybe she doesn’t eat fruit or use toothpaste.’

Not much of either in the house, I presumed. Chas thought the Swiss banking nonsense was something Tara would repeat, whether she believed it or not. He didn’t see Dean as a smuggler of anything but the cash he might fleece.

‘I suppose if he’d made it to Melbourne he’d cook up another backhander-for-bail story,’ Chas speculated. ‘Not that he’d get anything from me. Michael might’ve felt differently.’

Michael would be new territory for Dean. He’d already taken my old friend Myca for US$48,000 and would get no more. I was sure Dean would try to sink new wells by travelling the world filling a war chest from my friends. Big chest, no war. Chas knew that sometimes my schemes to misdirect the opposition could create too much disturbance and had made his own investigations.

I said, ‘Michael knows Dean’s no smuggler. It’s sad that Dean thought I would like the sound of that. Him smuggling drugs to raise the necessary funds for bail. Any idea what the spooks in KL got from Dean’s pocketbook?’

Chas raised his eyebrows. ‘Let’s just go out on a limb and assume that they got everything he had to give.’

This forced me to think of any stray bits of papers, notes, receipts left in Dean’s hands. I’d taken some care that there shouldn’t be much. ‘Well forget him, Chas.’ The time had passed for such digressions. ‘How did Charlie make out with my photo?’

‘He’ll be out to see you as soon as I leave. He wanted to show me some passport he seemed proud of. Hidden in a grooming kit. Charlie thought me terribly thick that I couldn’t open the thing.’

I saluted Chas. ‘And not even willing to try the catch, I’ll bet. So no fingerprints there.’

Chas was nodding at the ground and paused before speaking. ‘I’m sorry you’re on your own. Here.’ He looked up at the walls. ‘It’s just too much for those of us left. Too old, I guess.’ Chas smiled and I knew he wasn’t speaking for himself.

Chas left me with a fresh credit card, more cash and best wishes before taking a taxi straight from Klong Prem to the airport. He took the first available flight from Bangkok carrying the same collapsible shoulder bag with which he’d arrived. A Kevlar-fabric bag impossible to line without easy detection. Chas didn’t wish to think the worst of the authorities but neither would he give them a chance.