Everyone Burns (13 page)

I
have to attend to my proper business for a few hours. I tell Da to have a good weekend, smoke a cigarette downstairs to clear my head of homicides, and climb into my jeep.

*       *       *       *       *

This murder investigation stuff is all very well, but it’s not going to keep me in caviar. I have to clock up some time on Jingjai for Vogel, otherwise my German client will be wanting his advance back.

I park the jeep near the
Ocean Pearl. At this time of the afternoon the bar will not be open, but the cleaning ladies should be in. The place is open-fronted, so I’m hoping to drop in casually for an ‘unofficial’ beer and see what I can find out.

There are two women there when I arrive, one sweeping the floor while the other wipes down tables. By night the bar looks quite hip, but in the stark sunlight it bears an altogether more worn and dusty appearance. The girl at the tables is chubby with cropped hair and a large dark skin discolouration by her left ear. She wears a faded red polo shirt, denim shorts and a sulky expression. I decide to try my luck with the old lady wielding the big broom. She looks shabby and gnarled, but at least has a twinkle in her eye.

I greet her charmingly in Thai and enquire politely if there is any chance of a cold
Chang
beer. And if so, would she and her fellow worker like one too? Her creased face brightens at this unexpected treat, and she moves quickly behind the bar and pops the tops off three bottles. The sulky one suddenly looks more cheerful too, and she acknowledges me shyly from a few tables away as the old woman thrusts a beer into her hand.

I invite the wrinkled lady to join me at my table, and she simpers and compliments me on my Thai. We chat about the heat, the lack of rain and other trivia for a few minutes before I move the conversation on to the subject of the
Ocean Pearl.

“There is a very attractive young lady I’ve seen working here,” I say. “She mixes a mean cocktail. Has a diamond in one of her teeth.”

“Oh, you must mean Jingjai,” replies the old woman with a wicked throaty chuckle. “You want to know about her?” she says craftily. “I wondered why you wanted to buy me a beer.”

She is shrewd, this one. So much for my subtle strategy.

“I was just making conversation,” I say unconvincingly. “I noticed her the other evening when I was out and –”

The crone pats my hand. “No, no,” she says, “
you are doing your homework first. That is good. Not many men are that smart.” She laughs again. “But Dear is the one you should talk to,” she says indicating the girl wiping the tables. “She knows Jingjai. Lucky you bought her a beer too.”

She rattles off something fast to Dear, which I can’t catch, and the girl flip-flops over to us. Again some quick colloquial Thai – I suspect obscene – is exchanged, and the chunky-thighed one giggles.

“This gentleman is interested in Jingjai,” the mature lady says, once more speaking in a language I can follow.

I can feel myself blushing as I stammer out, “I wouldn’t say I was interested in her exactly. I was just –” I shrug, as if that explains everything.

“Just checking to see if she is available?” smiles Dear putting a hand on my arm.

I laugh and shake my head as if I have been caught out.

“Well,” says Dear cheerfully, her sulky mood forgotten, “she doesn’t have a boyfriend at the moment. Not one that I know of, anyway. She used to hang out with a local musician, but I don’t think that was anything serious, at least not on her side. I haven’t seen him around for some time. Naturally she gets a lot of attention from the farang
customers, but she’s not interested in a holiday romance.” She looks at me meaningfully. “But there are lots of girls in Chaweng who are.”

“I’m sorry I got into this conversation,” I say as humorously as I can.

They both grin and exchange knowing glances.

“I’d better pay for the beers and leave while I have some dignity left. Please don’t say anything to Jingjai.”

Fat chance
, I think.

I pay up, leave a tip and saunter out into the sunshine.

*       *       *       *       *

“Before you say anything,” I tell Wayan as I walk in through the front door, “I have phoned Mr
. Sinclair.”

It looks for a moment that Wayan is going to give me a spontaneous hug, but I’m not that lucky. Instead she regales me with one of her infectious smiles and says, “That is good, Mr
. David. Mr. Sinclair is a nice man. He takes care of his boy.”

Here we go again with the Saint Bloody Sinclair theme
.

“Anyway, I am going to see him tomorrow.”

“But you do not work tomorrow. It is the weekend.”

“I know. I’m making an exception since it is the nice Mr
. Sinclair.” I try to keep the irony out of my voice, but Wayan picks up on it and wags a finger at me like I’m a naughty schoolboy.

“You are teasing me, but it is kind of you to do this on a Saturday.”

Wayan is so utterly disarming, I decide to let the subject drop and bask awhile in her good opinion.

“I’m going out later, Wayan, but not for a few hours yet. Perhaps I could have something light to eat in the garden?”

“Certainly, Mr. David. What would you like?”

“Surprise me. I’m sure it will be delicious whatever it is.”

I shower, change and go out into the garden with my laptop, taking refuge from the still-hot day in the shade of the sala. I type up some notes for Vogel, then wonder what to do next. On impulse I go into the study and return to the sala with my two-volume collection of Sherlock Holmes stories.

If Charoenkul could see me now he would wonder what sort of na
ïve nutter he had asked to help out in a murder investigation. Be that as it may, I flick through the books in search of inspiration. There is something I remember reading in one of the stories that is hovering on the fringes of my consciousness. I can’t articulate what it is, but it is
something
and it is irritating me. I have some nagging intimation that it might be relevant to the murders. Don’t ask me how. The subconscious mind, like the Good Lord, can work in a mysterious way, and mine has been known to work in a way that is completely unintelligible, if not downright barmy.

When I find what I am looking for, I fear my subconscious has been taking the
Michael. It is a passage in the short story
Silver Blaze
about the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. The ‘curious incident’ was the fact that the dog did not bark when he should have. From this, Sherlock Holmes goes on to crack the case in high Victorian style.

I scratch the back of my head vigorously and try to work out what my sun-baked brain is trying to tell me. I fail.

It strikes me moreover that there is a problem at the heart of Holmes’ deductive method:
when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth
. The problem is that you need to have all the possible scenarios set out in front of you to start with. Then you knock them down one by one. The last one left standing is the solution to the riddle.

This might be fine in fiction, but with the burning murders I’m missing too much data for this to work.
I need an intuitive leap and it isn’t happening.

Wayan arrives with a tray laden with home-made
nasi goreng
, fresh mango and coconut milk. She has also thoughtfully brought an ashtray even though she doesn’t approve of my smoking. I ask her to join me and she brings a banana and a glass of papaya juice from the kitchen.

Endeavouring to keep my mind off the obvious as she peels and eats the banana, I enquire as to whether she is still reading
Alice in Wonderland
. She nods.

“Oh, by the way,” I say, “I worked out why a raven is like a writing desk.”

“Why?” She looks at me expectantly.

“Because they both begin with the letter ‘R’, apart from writing desk.”

“Are you being funny?” she asks.

“Obviously not,” I reply.

*       *       *       *       *

I spray on mosquito repellent and slop around the garden until the sun disappears behind the hills. An hour after sunset and Claire has not put in an appearance.
I sling the camera across my shoulder and ride my motorbike down to Chaweng: this will make it easier for me to follow Jingjai through the traffic after she finishes work.

The air is slowly cooling down and there is even a faint breeze as I leave the bike on the tourist-choked main street. I see Vladimir, the big Russian, cruising down the pavement with a tiny Thai girl under each of his overdeveloped arms.

“Hey, Braddock,” he calls, “You want a girl? I have one extra. Or we can share the two.”

“Thanks Vlad, but I’m working this evening.”

“Ah, you take photographs of the naughty ones,” he laughs, seeing my camera. “I hear you are a private consultant and you speak good Thai. Someday soon maybe I come to you on business. Not following young girls, I mean real business.”

“Sure. Anytime.”

“I am also working this evening.” He squeezes the girls and they giggle. “But first, Muay Thai at Chaweng Arena.” He indicates the sports bag over his back. “I will be on about ten o’clock. I am big kick-boxing star now in Samui:
Vlad the Impaler
. My girls know all about this, of course. Don’t you, girls?” He puts his two companions in headlocks and they titter knowingly and roll their eyes. Freeing an arm, he hands me a complimentary ticket. “If you finish early perhaps you come and watch.”

“Thanks,” I say taking the ticket, “I’ll see. But I think tonight will be a late one for me.”

“Some other time then, Braddock. I have no plans to leave Samui for a while.”

“Are you doing some business here?”

“Oh yes, but very secret.” He winks. “See you soon.”

I take the same table as previously over the road from the
Ocean Pearl
, and settle myself for a long evening on Vogel’s expenses. I order
tom yum goong
and a mineral water. I have to pace my drinking if I’m going to stay on my bike later.

It is a boring evening. I take some photographs but nothing’s happening. Jingjai is behaving herself concentrating on her work – which she needs to because the Pearl
is busy. Some well-groomed Westerner at the bar spends hours trying to chat her up. She’s friendly and polite, and serves his cocktails with a smile, but that looks to be as far as it’s going.

I smoke lots of cigarettes, have a few beers and generally
get fed up with the restaurant’s limited musical fare as ‘Putting out the Fire with Gasoline’ comes round for the umpteenth time.

After my restaurant closes I move to the bar next door and wait for the
Pearl
to shut up shop.

When Jingjai puts on her motorcycle helmet, the Westerner who has been paying her attention climbs off his stool and waves farewell. I take this as a cue to climb on my bike. At a discreet distance I follow her weaving in and out of the now-sporadic traffic. She goes straight back to her apartment block and passes inside. I wait around smoking for an hour until I’m sure she’s not coming back out again. Then I ride home.

*       *       *       *       *

I love Samui in the wee small hours. I especially love it on nights like this when the white moon stares down from the blackness like the pockmarked eye of a blind god. At such times, when the island’s bright signs have paled to grey and the broom of sleep has swept the revellers to their beds, my mind’s cynical crust cracks open a little, and some fanciful poetry leaks in. Then the dark hills appear to me as slumbering prehistoric
leviathans, the clouds assume the air of restless ghosts, and the moon-dusted sea murmurs in some long forgotten tongue of the divine.

Fortunately I catch myself just in time before I dissolve completely into this
schmaltz
. I force myself to think about all sorts of horrible atrocities, giving special attention to man’s worst inhumanities to man. That’s better. Now the moon looks like the face of a drowned man and the shadows under the trees are just plain scary. Now I’m in a more suitable frame of mind for what follows.

I steer the jeep off the near-deserted ring road onto the concrete surface, pass slowly by the half-finished buildings and park with the headlights pointing at the police hazard tape that still marks the crime scene. I switch off the engine and the lights
, and look up towards Yai’s shack, but can see nothing. Then I realise how dumb it is to expect a blind man to have a lamp burning at night.

I also realise how spooky this place is.
Even the insect noises sound hushed and hesitant. The unfinished columns of the abandoned structures stick up like grey, snapped bones and the lunar shadows look dark and threatening, as if concealing something monstrous. I switch the headlights back on.