Everyone Burns (25 page)

Charlie somehow manages to squeeze me onto a small table after admonishing me for not booking ahead. I look around the restaurant but can’t see Jingjai, although I do see a scrubbed-up PC in civvies scowling over a beer at the far side of the bar. An unlikely music lover, I’d have thought. I wonder if he’s paying for the beer or if it’s part of Charlie’s ‘police tax’ arrangements.

After a few minutes the beaming host steps up to the microphone on the micro-stage to announce that
Silk Thais
will be performing their set shortly. I groan inside and hope the steak will be worth the assault on my eardrums.

Much to my surprise the music
is
good, really good. The six-piece Silk Thais look and sound every inch a professional outfit. Saxophone, rhythm guitar, electric piano, double bass, drums and vocalist – they launch into their opening number, ‘Moondance’.

The real revelation for me however is the female vocalist.
It’s Jingjai
. And blow me down, but she sounds like a combination of Diana Krall, Nora Jones and Nina Simone; though not all at the same time, obviously. The girl can flip between low-throaty-sexy or clear-and-ethereal, and she knows how to make love to a microphone. I look around the restaurant. Guys are sitting entranced, practically drooling: either that or they are telling their wives/girlfriends to shut up so they can listen. Best quality Australian beef steaks go cold on their plates.

When the band takes a short break and Jingjai takes over the keyboard to perform a solo version of
‘Cry Me a River’, Bophut Jazz’s patrons break into loud, spontaneous applause. Even PC is clapping madly and smiling: a pretty gruesome sight. I snap some photos of the girl for Vogel. And for myself.

As the band finishes their set with an old Sade number I grab Charlie.

“Where did these guys come from, Charlie? They’re fantastic.”

“I don’t know which hole you’ve been hiding in Davy, but they’ve been my Monday night regulars for the last three months. I’m surprised you’ve not heard of them.”

“That singer works in a bar in Chaweng.”

“You know her?”

“Slightly. Well, I thought I did. Now I’m not so sure. Her voice is amazing. Those musicians are first class too, especially the keyboard man.”

“Yeah, yeah, well, everyone falls in love with Jingjai. Just keep that napkin over your lap, Davy. We don’t want any accidents.”

Afterwards I go to congratulate Jingjai. Up close her makeup looks as theatrical as it did that evening at the Ocean Pearl. Now I know why.

She recognises me and smiles, and the diamond flashes in the light.

“Khun David,” she says, “how kind.”

This time she lets me buy her a drink provided I buy one for the rest of the band too
, which I do. They all toast my health apart from the tattooed rhythm guitarist who looks to be in a sulk.

Later Prem meets me at the near-deserted western end of Fisherman’s Village. I hand him my second-best camera, show him a photograph of Jingjai and give him instructions for the next two evenings. He nods as if spying on girls is the most natural thing in the world for a teenage boy to do. Which of course it is.

He hands me a small clump of weed wrapped in cellophane and some rolling papers, and I hand him some cash. My fifteen-year-old dealer. He rides off happily on his bike smoking one of my Marlboros.

I walk to a deserted stretch of beach and sit down, careless of whether the sand gets into my pants.

The black sky has star-holes in it. A few fire lanterns are drifting gently out to sea on the faint breeze. Across the water rises the dark mass of Koh Phangan, its lower slopes dotted with tiny twinkling lights.

Using some tobacco from one of my cigarettes to mix with the weed, I make up a joint, light it and lie back on the sand. I allow my mind to empty.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been lying there when my cell phone rings. It’s Kat. Finally.

Calmly I recount
some of today’s conversation with her husband, and explain I’ll be tailing her tomorrow. We’ll even be travelling on the same flight to Bangkok. The line goes quiet as Kat’s bravado fails her for once. I hear myself reminding her to look surprised to see me at the airport. Then the absurdity of the whole situation suddenly overwhelms me and I start giggling.

“Are you stoned?” she asks crossly.

“If I’m not, I’m certainly getting there.”

“You are a degenerate, David Braddock,” Kat announces in mock-disapproval, “A disgraceful scoundrel.”

“You may be right,” I say. “Come and join me on Bo Phut beach and we’ll put that theory to the test right now.”

“Do you think you could manage it, David, really?”

“I’ve only had a couple of beers and one joint. I’m certainly happy to give it a try.”

“I’ll bet you are,” she laughs. “Some other time,
tirak.”

“I might just hold you to that.”

“I might just let you.”

8

“In every man ... there is in the depths of his nature,

a mob of low and vulgar desires

which constitutes him an animal.”

Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims

I dreamed I was walking alone through an apocalyptic landscape of burnt leafless trees sticking up from the ash-strewn earth like twisted black wires. Above me, dark swollen clouds hung low in the sky, faintly backlit in places by a red sun and random flickering bursts of sheet lighting. Distant booms of thunder were the only sounds: no birds, no insects, nothing living to cry out. The dead trees stretched off in all directions towards barren mountains, whose higher reaches were cloaked in grey mist. My feet crunched on dry branches buried beneath the snow-like ash, and occasionally on broken animal skulls and bones. Ahead of me a narrow plume of smoke rose almost vertically in the torpid air, and I resolved to head towards it.

As I neared, I could see the smoke was issuing from the chimney of a white weather-boarded house which was surrounded by a picket fence. The earth inside the fence was stained red
. As I entered through the garden gate I noted with shock that the ground was swollen with blood, as if the land were delivered of some deep and fatal wound.

Sitting on a striped deck-chair in the midst of the garden
was an ancient man. His yellowed skin was stretched like old parchment across his bent bones. A dirty cloth had been tied across his eyes and his faded clothing hung from him as nothing more than frayed rags.

I stepped
cautiously toward him, feeling the ground suck at me, and trying as best I could to keep the sticky blood off my shoes. He turned his face towards me at my approach.

“What do you want?” he asked,
with a voice that rasped like dried leaves.

“I am lost,” I replied. “I need your help. Tell me what I must do.”

He shook his head. “It is not yet time,” he said.

“Not yet time?” I echoed. “Time for what?”

“It is not yet time,” he repeated, pointing beyond me, “and you must leave the garden. You must leave the garden now.”

After I wake I lie looking up at the ceiling fan’s slightly wobbly rotation and am put in mind of the opening sequence of
Apocalypse Now
. Unlike Martin Sheen’s character, however, I have no urge to climb out of bed, practice martial arts moves, drink alcohol, smash up the mirrors and end up with my blood all over the room. The mellow mood engendered by last night’s two joints still lingers, my Daliesque dream notwithstanding. I can’t even be bothered to light a cigarette.

The morning sunlight ha
s crept under the curtains towards the foot of the bed, but is unable to progress further. I can hear the muffled noises of Wayan moving around downstairs, presumably preparing breakfast for her lazy boss. My bedside clock tells me there is no rush to get up since I have a couple of hours before I need to go to the airport and begin the unreal experience of following Kat to Bangkok to try and catch myself sleeping with her.

Eventually however my rumbling stomach and post-toke food cravings drag my indolent backside out of the pit and propel me towards the bathroom. On the way I slid
e back the wardrobe doors to check that Claire’s clothes are still hanging inside. They are.

In the mirror my eyes look bloodshot and
the skin on my face is blotchy and dry. I have a tepid shower under the strong jets, and watch the soapy water run down my body. There are some mosquito bites on my legs and a bruise on my hip that I have no idea how it got there. I close my eyes and the retinal images put me in mind of a spinning pool cue. I have a vague presentiment that it means something important, but like the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, my subconscious may be having a laugh at my expense. I try to think what it might mean, but fail. It probably means I shouldn’t have had that second joint.

After shaving and brushing my teeth I look a little more respectable.
I throw some overnight bits and pieces into a shoulder-bag and go downstairs.

“You seem more like yourself this morning, Mr
. David,” says Wayan pouring my coffee. She is wearing an outfit that makes her look like a Singapore Airlines flight attendant. At least she looks like that to me.

“Yesterday you seemed agitated. Is that the right word, ‘agitated’?”

Well, Wayan my dear, if my craving to ravish you without mercy over the breakfast table among the fruit and cereals classifies me as ‘agitated’, then yes.

“I think I was running a bit of a fever yesterday.”

Although I am not today seeing Wayan through the distorted lens of naked lust, I am nonetheless still stirred by her femininity and the charm of her movement. I recognise in myself a jarring chord of sexual frustration, like a swollen spot that needs to be squeezed.

Some may be surprised to learn, given my general track record, that I have
not
enjoyed the fragrant delight that is Wayan’s body. Not yet anyway. So far I have managed to maintain that particular line in the shifting sands of my malleable principles. Of course I would hardly be the first Westerner in Asia to sleep with his domestic help. And I wouldn’t be the last, that’s for sure. But something about Wayan’s gentle temperament and her almost sisterly attitude towards me, keeps me in check. I also tell myself that, so long as Claire is still part of my life, physical intimacy with Wayan can’t be allowed to happen. That’s what I tell myself, at any rate. But then I tell myself a lot of things, especially these days.

What was really going on in my mind when I brought Wayan here from Bali, I wonder. Friendship? Companionship? The need to have someone around me I can trust? A hope that some of her goodness might rub off on me? Making sure the windows got properly cleaned?

She probably knows me better than anyone else in my life – my ups and downs and in-between moods – and yet she was happy to pack up her life in Bali and come here. It’s a bit strange when I think about it. She has never intimated any romantic feelings for me. Her behaviour has always been impeccable in that respect; unlike many other Asian women in her position who have been quick to exploit the libidinous weakness of their male employers.

In many respects Wayan and I resemble the long-married couple where the wife turns a blind eye to the husband’s peccadilloes. We just don’t have sex, that’s all.

Wayan is a decent woman,
I muse. Sometimes it might be better if she were either less attractive or less decent. Or if I were more decent. None of these things is going to happen anytime soon.

My Singapore Airlines stewardess lookalike pours me another coffee while I give her the details of my trip to Bangkok. This excludes the bit about my following Kat Charoenkul, naturally. That sorted, I pick up my bag and have a surreptitious peek at Wayan’
s cleavage as she bends forward to clear the table.

I close the front door behind me, throw my bag in the jeep and light a Marlboro.

*       *       *       *       *

Samui International Airport.

Sounds impressive, but in reality it’s more cute than impressive. For a start it’s largely open-air: concrete poles cunningly disguised to look like wood supporting grass roofs or something equally pastoral. After you’ve checked in for international flights, you go
back outside
and wander through Samui Park Avenue, a shopping boulevard with fountains, trees and red and yellow flowers poking up through the greenery like small fires. The departure gate is more poles and grass roofs, a civilised outdoor smoking area, and free refreshments while you buy your last-minute tourist souvenirs from the kitsch gift shop. Vehicles reminiscent of 1960s Butlins then transport you unhurried to your plane.

My flight, however, is a domestic one, so I take a left turn after the elfin check-in girl has processed my boarding card and put up with my sad middle-aged flirting.

I really need to get laid. And soon. While my mental Not-To-Do-List contains a strict prohibition with regard to
Samui
bargirls, it is silent on the subject of
Bangkok
bargirls. Thus far I have managed to honour this distinction, despite frequent urges for good old-fashioned horizontal jogging sans commitment or boring preliminaries. My personal moral code draws an arbitrary boundary line once the Samui coastline is safely behind me; and Bangkok is well outside the fifty mile exclusion zone for reprehensible sexual behaviour with young women. Whether intercourse with mature women and/or married ones on Samui is allowable, is a somewhat grey area. However, I’m fairly confident I can convince myself this is OK, should the need ever arise.

I’m hoping I will be able to find some time while in the capital to visit
Siam Welcomes You in Patpong – an unprepossessing little establishment where all customers are guaranteed both an enthusiastic greeting and a lighter wallet.

I’m early arriving at the departure gate and, as yet, there is no sign of Kat. I sit down with a coffee and a copy of today’s
Island Gazette.

The cadaver formerly known as Lewis Carroll has hit the headlines and, in contrast to the last murder, the writing has a slightly hysterical edge to it:
Another Tourist Found Dead
. Someone must have got careless because the burning of the body is mentioned. There is a map of the island showing the murder sites and a rather fuzzy photograph of bemused policemen at the most recent scene. Katchai has suddenly gone low-profile: no reassuring words from the investigation team, just some murmurings about examination of forensic evidence and interviewing being ongoing.

An editorial on page six questions whether visitors to Koh Samui are safe, but concludes with some ‘no need for panic’ statistics. The writer makes no outright criticism of the police, and the non-disclosure of Ashley’s murder continues. I suspect pressure has been brought to bear behind the scenes; but there must be a limit as to what can be suppressed from now on.

If bodies keep turning up things are going to get nasty, and I don’t mean just for the hoteliers.

“Why, it’s Mr
. Braddock,” Kat says with a straight face for the benefit of anyone who might be watching. “You’re going to Bangkok too?”

“Mrs
. Charoenkul, what a pleasant surprise. Yes, a couple of days in the capital. Business, I’m afraid. No rest for the wicked.”

We continue with this baloney for a couple of minutes, and I’m worried that the absurdity of our situation will get the better of me and I’ll start laughing out loud. Fortunately the guy sitting on the other side of me stands up and wanders off. Kat and I maintain our formal body-postures but drop our voices and proceed to more pertinent matters.

“I need to know your schedule of movements over the next two days.”

“Do you indeed.”

“I do indeed.”

“You are not seriously proposing to follow me around Bangkok, David, are you?”

“Not all the time, no, but I do need to find out if you’re having sex with anyone. That
is
what your husband is paying me for.”

“Anyone apart from you, you mean.”

“I didn’t mention it on the phone last night, but the Chief has received an anonymous letter. It’s from the same author as the notes to us.”

Kat looks disconcerted for a moment, but mindful of the public place we’re in, she maintains her cool.

“What did it say?”

“That his wife is unfaithful.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“You know very well that’s about
us
. You and me.”

I run a hand over my forehead and wipe my eyes. “I know,” I say wearily.

Kat goes off to get a fruit juice then sits back down.

“Do you know
why
I’m going to Bangkok?” she asks.

“The Chief says you’d told him it was a shopping trip.”

“It is – partly. But a good friend of mine there is seriously ill. I’m going with her to the SIH Hospital this afternoon to get her test results. She hasn’t told her husband yet and she wants me there.”

“I see. And afterwards?”

“You are a prying bastard. For your information we’re having dinner together. Then tomorrow we’re going shopping. All right?”

“To celebrate or to commiserate, depending on the results?”

“Yes.”

“So why not just tell your husband what you’re doing?”

“I
have
told him,” she says crossly. “Evidently he chooses not to believe me.”

We sit in silence for a while until our flight is called.

“Just one thing before we separate,” I say. “What time and where are you meeting your friend today?”

“Three thirty. We’re meeting in the lobby of my hotel.
Why
,” she intones icily, “are you coming with us?”

“I need to follow you and take some photographs.”

She gives me a withering gaze.

“Look,” I say matter-of-factly, “I have to get some innocuous shots of you and your friend so I can convince your husband you’re not up to no good. Work with me on this, Kat.”