Inspector Zhang and the Disappearing Drugs (9 page)

I'd met Khun Chauvalit several times through my wife. He's a fan of Chinese art and so is she and we kept bumping into each other at exhibitions and I discovered that he is a big fan of Cajun food and as I'm from New Orleans we had a lot to talk about. During a very long Sunday lunch at the Bourbon Street restaurant he gave me his business card and said that if ever I needed any assistance I shouldn't hesitate to contact him.

I have done just that, several times, and he has always been helpful and never asked anything in return.

I called him on his cell phone and he answered after just two rings.

“Khun Chauvalit, how are you this fine day?” I asked in my very best Thai.

“Working hard for little or no appreciation, as always,” he replied.

He asked me about Noy and I asked him about his wife and five children, and then I got around to the point of the conversation and asked him about Jon Junior.

“He flew in on Delta on January the eighth with a tourist visa. I'd like to know if he's still in Thailand and if so if he'd arranged to have his stay extended.”

“I'm not in my office just now, Khun Bob, so I'll have to call you back.”

I gave him Jon Junior's passport number and date of birth, thanked him and ended the call.

The Clares had been told that the American Embassy had contacted the police and the hospitals, but I've learned from experience that embassies aren't the most efficient of institutions so I didn't think it would hurt to check for myself.
 
I had a list of local hospitals in my desk drawer and I methodically worked my way through them, patiently spelling out Jon Junior's name and his passport number.
 
He hadn't been admitted to any, and there were no unidentified farangs.

Farangs.
That's what the Thais call foreigners.
  
It's derived from the word for Frenchman but now it's applied to all white foreigners.

Okay, so Jon Junior wasn't lying in a hospital bed with a broken leg or a ruptured appendix.

So far so good.

I phoned my best police contact, Somsak. Somsak's a police colonel in the Soi Thonglor station, just down the road from my apartment.
 
He's a good guy, his wife's a friend of my wife but our real connection is poker.
 
We play every Friday along with four or five other guys, taking it in turns to host the game.
 
Somsak's a ferocious player with a tendency to blink rapidly whenever he draws anything better than a pair of kings.
 
He never bluffs, either, just plays the percentages. He's a tough player to beat; he either blinks or folds.

Somsak's assistant put me through straight away.

“Khun Bob, how are you this pleasant morning?” said Somsak.

Somsak always called me Khun Bob.
 
I could never work out whether he was being sarcastic or not, but he always said it with a smile. He always spoke in English, too.
 
My Thai was better than his English but he was close to perfect so it was no strain.

“I'm trying to find a missing American,” I said.
 
“He's a young guy, came here as a tourist but it looks like he's teaching English now. He hasn't been in touch with his parents for a while and they're starting to worry.”

“And you're wondering if he's been caught trying to smuggle a kilo of white powder out of the country?”

“It happens.”

It happens a lot. Despite the penalties – and Thailand still executes drugs smugglers – there are still hundreds, maybe thousands, of backpackers and tourists who try to cover the costs of their trip to the Land of Smiles by taking drugs out of the country.

Heroin is cheap in Thailand.

Really cheap.

A couple of hundred dollars a kilo.
For heroin that would sell for a hundred times as much in New York or London.

“I will make some enquiries,” said Somsak. “You have checked the hospitals?”

“Just before I called you.”

“Why are you contacting the police and not his parents?”

“His parents spoke to the embassy and they said they'd talk to the police. I'm just covering all bases, that's all.”

“He is a good boy, this Jon Junior?”

“He's from a good family. “

“I hope he is okay.”

“Me, too,” I said. “How are things going with the Kube fire?”

“You think he might have been there?”

“It's not impossible,” I said. “Unlikely, but not impossible.”

“We still have some unidentified bodies.”

“The identified ones, their relatives have been informed?”

“Mostly,” said Somsak. “But not all.”

“Two hundred and eighteen dead?”

“Two hundred and twenty-three,” said Somsak. “Five more died overnight.”

“Terrible business,” I said.

“I'll be there tomorrow with the Public Prosecutor. About nine o'clock. You should come around.”

“I will,” I said. “Is someone going to be prosecuted?”

“Hopefully,” said Somsak. “Let's talk tomorrow.”

He ended the call.
 
I didn't hold out much hope that Jon Junior was in police custody. A farang being arrested was always big news.
 
A more likely possibility was that he'd been the victim of a crime, but if he'd been badly injured he'd have been in a hospital and if he wasn't, then why hadn't he contacted his parents?

I had tried to be optimistic while I was talking to the Clares, but I was starting to get a bad feeling about Jon Junior's disappearance.

A very bad feeling.

###

Bangkok Bob and The Missing Mormon is about 63,000 words, equivalent to about 250 pages, and is available at Kindle.

Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers and is published in more than twenty languages. He was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series, and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were turned into movies. You can find out more from his website at www.stephenleather.com