Live Fire (23 page)

Mark beckoned Shepherd. ‘Come on, John, give him some.’

Shepherd glanced over his shoulder. Nobody was looking in their direction. He could hear the traffic driving down the beach road and, in the distance, the thud-thud-thud of a stereo system. He turned back to the brothers, who were still kicking Slater and stamping on his limbs. Slater was grunting with each blow but he’d stopped putting up any resistance. His knees were against his chest and his hands covered his face.

Mark knelt down and punched him on the side of the head. ‘We don’t want your sort here, do you understand?’ he shouted. Slater didn’t respond so Mark punched him again. ‘You get the hell out of Thailand, or we’ll kill you.’ He pulled the man’s hands away from his face. ‘You hear me?’

‘Okay,’ said Slater. ‘I get it.’ He began to sob. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You make me sick,’ said Mark, and spat in his face.

Mickey walked around the prostrate man and kicked him in the stomach. ‘Bloody paedo,’ he said. ‘Come on, John. Your turn.’

Tears were running down Slater’s cheeks and there was blood on his lips. Mark stamped on his left foot and Shepherd heard something crack. ‘He’s had enough,’ he said quietly.

‘He’s a bloody nonce,’ said Mark. ‘You saw him with those kids.’ He kicked Slater savagely.

‘Go on, John,’ said Mickey. ‘Give him a kicking.’

Shepherd had no love for paedophiles, but he didn’t believe in vigilante justice or in kicking a man when he was down. But Ricky Knight was a villain who’d been inside and, like all villains, he’d have a burning hatred for paedophiles and rapists. He had to stay in character and that meant getting violent. ‘Scumbag nonce,’ he said, and kicked Slater in the small of the back, grunting loudly to make the blow seem harder than it was. ‘Bastard!’ Shepherd shouted, and kicked Slater again, making sure he didn’t hit the man’s kidneys.

Now Mickey was kicking Slater viciously, and Mark stamped on his legs. Slater was crying but, other than curling into a ball, he made no effort to protect himself. Shepherd could see that if they carried on, the man would be crippled for life. He looked towards the beach road. Two Thais were standing by a street-lamp.

‘Guys, I think they’re cops over there,’ said Shepherd.

‘Where?’ said Mark.

‘Over there,’ said Shepherd, pointing at the two men. ‘One of them just used a radio. We should get the hell out of here.’

‘He’s right,’ said Mickey. ‘Let’s go.’

Mark knelt beside Slater and grabbed a handful of his hair. ‘Get on the next plane out of Thailand or you’re dead,’ he spat. Slater groaned. Mark pushed his face into the sand, then hurried after Shepherd. Mickey gave Slater a final kick in the stomach and jogged to catch up.

‘Does this sort of thing happen a lot?’ Shepherd asked Mickey.

‘When we find one, we sort him out.’

They ran a couple of hundred yards along the beach, then cut across the sand back to the beach road. The three girls were waiting for them, smoking and talking animatedly. They jumped up and down when they saw the men coming.

‘I’ll get a baht bus from here,’ said Shepherd. He stuck out his hand. ‘Thanks for an interesting night,’ he said.

Mickey grinned. ‘We’ll do it again, for sure,’ he said.

Mickey wandered out onto the terrace, sipping his coffee. The espresso was slightly bitter and full-flavoured. He’d had the beans flown in from Colombia and the coffee machine from Italy. It had taken him two weeks to teach his chef to make espresso but now he did it perfectly, day after day. He smacked his lips. ‘Lovely,’ he said. He heard a bird singing in one of the trees on the other side of the wall and raised his cup to it. ‘And a good morning to you, my love,’ he said.

Andy Yates was on a sun-lounger by the pool. ‘You all right, Mickey?’

‘Couldn’t be better,’ said Mickey. ‘Is Chitpong here yet?’

‘At the main gate,’ said Yates.

The two girls who had come home with Mickey were frolicking in the shallow end of the pool. They waved at him and he waved back. ‘Did you bring anyone back last night?’ he asked Yates.

‘Nah, we didn’t fancy them for all night so we went to a short-time hotel off Walking Street,’ said Yates. ‘Right flea-pit, it was.’

Mickey gestured at the two girls. ‘Help yourself to Bee and Boo,’ he said. ‘Can’t for the life of me remember which is which, but they do a great threesome. Very enthusiastic.’

‘I might just do that, thanks,’ said Yates.

Mickey went inside the main building and over to a large painting of the sun going down in Phuket. It was hinged and he swung it back to reveal a large safe with a numeric keyboard. He tapped in the combination and pulled open the door. Inside there were stacks of banknotes – dollars, pounds, euros and Thai baht. He took out a wad of thousand-baht notes, then closed the safe and replaced the painting. He picked up the phone on the desk by the window and tapped out the number of the main gate. He didn’t know the name of the man who answered but he told him to send Chitpong up to the main building. Chitpong was a police sergeant with two elder brothers who were high-ranking police officers in Bangkok. His brother-in-law was a general in the Thai Army. He had his fingers in pies all over Pattaya, from the Turkish baths on Second Street to a golf course and spa on the outskirts of the city. Mickey paid him a retainer of two hundred thousand baht a month to arrange security at the compound. Chitpong hired his own men to work on their days off at the compound and took a cut of the wages Mickey paid them.

Chitpong ambled up the path to the main building. He was wearing his dark brown police uniform trousers, shining black leather boots and a black sweatshirt with the logo of the Royal Thai Police Force across the front. His police-issue Glock was in a nylon holster on his hip. ‘Good morning, Khun Mickey,’ said Chitpong. He was overweight and like most Thai police officers he favoured a close-fitting uniform so the trousers strained across his groin.

‘I need a favour from your friend at Immigration,’ said Mickey. ‘Landing-card details of a
farang
who arrived last week.’ He handed Chitpong a sheet of paper. ‘His name’s John Westlake. I’m not sure what flight he was on. He’s British but he could have flown in from anywhere.’ Chitpong took the paper. It was a faxed copy of John Westlake’s passport, courtesy of Dominic Windsor. Mickey gave him the wad of banknotes. ‘Soon as you can, yeah?’ he said.

Chitpong forced the cash into his trouser pocket. ‘No problem, Khun Mickey,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a copy sent out before lunch.’

Mickey slapped him on the back. ‘You’re a star,’ he said. He sipped his coffee as Chitpong walked back to the main gate. First he would get as much information as he could about John Westlake or Ricky Knight or whatever his name was. Then he’d decide what to do with him.

Shepherd was getting to the end of a forty-five-minute run on a treadmill set to a five per cent incline when Yates and Black walked in. He raised a hand to them and switched off the treadmill, then joined them in the weights area.

‘Last night was a blast,’ said Yates. ‘I had the mother of all hangovers this morning.’

‘You and me both,’ said Shepherd. He rubbed his chin. ‘Plus I had a sore jaw and bruises all over my body.’

‘Yeah, Mark’s an animal,’ said Black.

‘You did all right, though,’ said Yates. ‘Right up to the moment he kicked you in the head it was fifty-fifty.’

‘Yeah, I didn’t see that one coming,’ lied Shepherd.

When he’d finished his workout, Shepherd picked up his towel and headed for the showers.

‘Fancy a swim instead?’ asked Yates.

‘What? In the sea, you mean?’

‘Bloody hell, no,’ said Yates. ‘You’d be mad to swim in the sea here. They pump raw sewage into it. Nah, back at the ranch. We’ve got a fair pool. Might get a poker game going later.’

‘That’s the plan, yeah? Play me for a mug?’

Yates slapped Shepherd on the back. ‘We’re pussycats, pal. Come on, it’ll be a laugh.’

‘Okay,’ said Shepherd. ‘You’ve talked me into it.’

They walked together out of the gym. ‘Where’s your Harley?’ asked Yates.

Shepherd nodded at his Jeep. ‘I’m driving that today. The Harley’s misfiring and I’ve got to get a mechanic to check it over.’ In fact the bike was fine but he’d already had several near misses driving the Harley on the Pattaya roads and he felt a lot safer behind the wheel of the Jeep.

Yates climbed onto his Harley and pointed down the road. ‘You follow us. We’re about ten miles outside town.’

Shepherd got into his Jeep and threw his gym bag into the back. Yates and Black pulled out of the car park on their bikes. Shepherd switched on the engine and followed them. As he drove, he called Sharpe on his mobile and told him where he was going.

‘The lion’s den, huh?’ said Sharpe. ‘You want me to take a ride up there to be close by?’

‘They live in a compound behind a bloody big wall,’ said Shepherd. ‘I don’t think there’s anything you could do. A swim and poker, Moore said. I think I’ll be okay.’

‘A swim and poker? Won’t the cards get wet?’

Shepherd cut the connection. The bikes had accelerated and Shepherd put his foot down. He overtook a family of four crammed onto a 125cc Honda motorcycle, a leathery-skinned father with Buddhist tattoos on his neck, a plump mother with her hair tied back in a bun, a small boy with a Power Rangers backpack clinging to her, and a toddler sitting on the father’s lap and holding the handlebars, her hair whipping in the wind. The mother smiled at Shepherd and the small boy waved.

The bikes took a left turn and drove through a village of wooden houses with corrugated iron roofs. They passed a large factory with smoke billowing out of two metal chimneys. There, the road branched into two and the bikes powered to the right, Shepherd behind them.

The compound was about half a mile after the factory. The bikes turned left off the road towards a high concrete wall topped by metal spikes and covered with CCTV cameras. Two well-built Thai men in their late twenties were standing at the entrance. One raised a red and white pole to allow the bikes through. Yates stopped and pointed at Shepherd’s Jeep. As Shepherd drove through, the guards saluted him.

The compound had been landscaped with rolling lawns, towering palms and spreading fruit trees. The road curved in front of a Thai-style building, with a sweeping red-tiled roof, and ended in a parking area with spaces for more than two dozen vehicles. There were two black Range Rovers, a red Porsche, a black Humvee, a Bentley convertible, an old MGB sports car and three Toyota saloons. Shepherd reckoned the latter belonged to the staff.

He parked his Jeep next to the Humvee. A flight of steps led to a massive antique carved wooden door that must have been at least twelve feet high. Over to the right, Shepherd glimpsed the roof of a villa, and there was another to the left, shielded by a line of banana trees.

Yates and Black walked over to him. ‘How big is this place?’ asked Shepherd.

‘It’s about twelve acres in all,’ said Yates. He gestured at the main building. ‘This is where we hang out most of the time, but we’ve got our own villas for privacy, all state-of-the-art.’

Shepherd heard the buzz of an electric drill and banging from the villa to their right. ‘What’s going on over there?’

‘We’re getting Tel’s place fitted for his wheelchair,’ said Black. ‘We’re putting in ramps, electric lifts in the bathrooms, lowering the kitchen surfaces, raising electric sockets. We had a disability expert in to tell us what he’ll need.’

‘He’s not going back to the UK?’ said Shepherd.

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ said Black. ‘Have you used the NHS lately? They’d send a home help around a couple of times a week if he was lucky. Here we can get him a couple of sexy nurses living in, pay for any drugs he needs, and if there’s anything that has to be done surgically we’ll pay for it here. Thai medical care is great, so long as you’ve got the money. Come on, I’ll give you the tour.’

Black and Yates took Shepherd up the steps and through the door into a double-height hallway with a vaulted teak ceiling and a seven-foot-tall golden standing Buddha wreathed in garlands of purple and white flowers. The hallway led to a huge room filled with sofas and teak planters’ chairs, a large LCD television on one wall and a library of paperbacks. ‘Chill-out area,’ said Yates. ‘We’ve got our own satellite dish out back so we can pick up pretty much every channel there is.’ He took Shepherd along to a dining room with a table long enough to seat twenty, then opened a door to reveal a private cinema with a dozen La-Z-Boy reclining seats. Shepherd was impressed. He’d thought his own villa was luxurious but it paled in comparison to this.

‘The guys are in the bar,’ said Black. He and Yates led Shepherd down corridor that opened into a double-height area, with vaulted teak ceilings and large wooden-bladed fans. It had been fitted out in the style of a hotel bar, with leather sofas and armchairs, a mahogany counter complete with beer taps, a popcorn machine and a full range of spirits. Glass-fronted fridges were filled with wine and soft drinks.

The five-star feel was spoiled somewhat by the three video-game machines, the Wurlitzer jukebox, a massive fruit machine and a pool table.

Mickey and Mark were at the bar, sitting on stools and drinking Singha. They raised their bottles. ‘It’s Bruce bloody Lee!’ Mark laughed.

Shepherd put up his hands. ‘Just don’t hit me again!’

‘Found him in the gym,’ said Yates, pouring himself a draught beer. ‘He was working on his muscles for a rematch.’

‘Bloody wasn’t,’ said Shepherd.

‘He’s only breaking your balls,’ said Black, as he sat on one of the leather sofas. ‘It’s what he does for fun.’

‘This is one hell of a place, guys,’ said Shepherd.

‘It’s taken a lot to get it this way,’ said Mickey. ‘We ended up flying in builders from England – the locals just weren’t up to it. We let them do the pool and it was a bloody disaster so we had to start again.’ He slid off his stool. ‘Come and have a look – it’s one hell of a pool.’

Mickey wasn’t exaggerating. It was Olympic size but designed in the shape of a tropical lagoon, with rocks big enough for sunbathing at one end, two diving-boards at the deep end, and two curved artificial beaches. At the shallow end there was a Jacuzzi big enough for a dozen people, and around the edge, half a dozen teak cabanas, their roofs fringed with palm leaves. A covered area, with a brick-built barbecue the size of a regular kitchen, was positioned to the right, with a circular teak table and a dozen chairs. ‘The pool’s just over a thousand square metres,’ said Mickey. ‘One of the biggest free-form pools in the world. We’ve got two poolboys and three full-time gardeners, plus half a dozen maids and a handyman. Plus two full-time chefs. Plus security. Plus a manager to keep them all in line. Plus an accountant to make sure no one’s ripping us off.’