The Burma Legacy (3 page)

‘How long you guys got for your vacation?’ Squires asked, handing each a can of Singha Draft.

‘A week,’ Sam told him. ‘Escaping the concrete of Singapore and smelling real air for a change. You?’

‘Same idea. Poodling around for a few days, seeing the new century in.’

‘What sort of business are you in, Vince?’ Midge asked.

Sam flinched at the directness of her question.

‘This and that.’ The ex-soldier narrowed his eyes. ‘Know this area?’

‘First time here.’ Sam took a swig of his beer.

For a while they chatted about anchorages and inlets, the price of prawns and which islands had provisioning and restaurants. A second beer followed the first, but Sam noticed Squires had moved onto soft drinks. Nige and Vicky took little part in the conversation, while Jan seemed more than a hanger-on because Squires kept turning to her for approval.

After a while Nige got restless, nudging Vicky until she got up and stepped into the saloon.

‘We’re eating soon,’ Squires announced. ‘Sorry we don’t have enough to ask you to join us.’

‘No problem,’ said Sam, making to stand up.

‘No rush,’ Squires insisted. ‘It’ll be a while before she serves up. Finish your drink and tell us more about the two of you. Finance, you said. Doing what, exactly?’

‘Investment management,’ Sam replied, trying to give the words a mystique they didn’t deserve. ‘Private clients. People who want to use their money cleverly. Which means not losing it to the taxmen.’

‘Or explaining where it comes from …’ Squires suggested, playfully.

‘We … we have to make sure it’s in a useable form,’ Sam cautioned.

‘Of course.’

Tempting smells of hot ginger began to waft up from the galley below. Vicky emerged clutching cutlery which she plonked on the table.

Midge rested her hand on Sam’s arm. ‘Time we left these good people to their dinner, sweetie.’

Squires stood up. ‘Nice to know you. If you’re
partying tomorrow night, give us a call on the VHF to say where you’ve dropped your hook.’ He took Midge’s arm as they stepped onto the pontoon. ‘Give us a chance to get to know each other better.’

‘Mmmm … I’d like that.’ She put a leg up onto their own boat.

‘You two been together long?’ His eyes swept over her body like an airport scanner.

‘A while,’ said Sam, uncomfortably realising it was a detail they hadn’t discussed.

‘Nearly a year,’ Midge added.

‘See you in the morning then. Before you head off.’ The drug-runner climbed back over the rail onto the
Estelle
.

Down in the saloon, they flopped onto the sofas, hunching forward so they could speak without being overheard.

‘Now I know what fledglings feel like,’ Midge whispered eventually. ‘When a cat gets hold of them.’ She tilted her head back and let out a long gasp of relief. The exposed ridge of her throat had a purity to it which Sam found disturbingly erotic.

The smell of the food on the
Estelle
had made him hungry. Midge read his mind.

‘Try that restaurant next to the yacht club?’ she suggested.

‘Absolutely.’

Going ashore again would take his mind off the fact that in a couple of hours he’d be sharing a bed with this disconcertingly well-put-together woman, but with physical contact strictly taboo.

Friday, 31 December

Millennium Eve

Sam was woken by the daylight streaming in through the cabin window. Instantly alert, he sat up and peered out, fearing their neighbour might have slipped away in the night. But the
Estelle
was still there.

He swung his legs to the floor and listened. Rigging pinged against a mast nearby, signifying a breeze. Its sound triggered a yearning to be under sail.

The space where Midge had lain was empty. He found her in the galley making coffee, still wearing the tee-shirt and briefs she’d slept in. The sight of her neat behind and slim brown thighs as she stuck bread under the grill brought him fully awake.

‘Been up long?’ He rubbed his eyes. The bulkhead clock said 7.15.

‘Half the bloody night. You were snoring like a walrus.’

‘Sorry.’

‘How does Julie put up with it?’

‘Elbows me in the ribs and I turn over. If you hadn’t been so against laying your hands on my body …’

‘Yeah, yeah …’

‘Any sign of life next door?’

‘Nope.’ She turned and looked quizzically at him. ‘Who d’you reckon sleeps with whom over there?’

‘Jimmy has Jan,’ said Sam firmly.

‘You’d think. Only he’s not getting any. That guy
was gagging for it last night. And why itch to make out with me if he had that little Thai poppet to play with?’

‘Maybe you’ve got a better bum.’

She raised a contemptuous eyebrow. ‘Seriously, I don’t get the impression Jan’s his playmate. She’s more like a minder.’

‘And Vicky?’

‘Does the cooking – and anything else Nige wants. Looks to me like he found her in some bar. Not a very classy bar at that.’

‘Thai police have anything on them?’

‘Nothing useful. They tailed Jimmy to the airport, which is where Jan joined him. But they don’t know who she is. The name on her ticket didn’t fit anything on official records.’

‘So,’ Sam murmured, taking the coffee Midge offered him, ‘where do we go from here, Inspector?’

‘Whatever happens, we stick with him.’

‘And if he doesn’t tell us where he’s going?’

‘Then I’ll have to make it clear I just can’t bear to be parted from him.’ She set her jaw, her eyes steely with determination.

After they’d breakfasted and tidied the saloon, she handed him the wrench he’d used on the engine.

‘I found this on the floor. Don’t want to nag, but it probably has a home.’

‘Leave it by the cooker and I’ll put it away in a while.’

They washed, put on shorts and fresh tee-shirts, then went on deck to top up the water tank from a hose on the pontoon.

It was well after nine before Squires made an appearance, leaning over the rail of the
Estelle
’s sundeck. When he spoke, there was a coolness to his voice that made them both uneasy.

‘Off shortly, are you?’

‘We were just talking about that,’ Sam hedged. ‘What about you?’

‘The girls have gone shopping. Nige and I plan to relax until they get back. He’s still in his pit, lazy bugger. Then we’ll see. Might go north to Phang Nga, maybe over to Phi-Phi. Jan’s got a friend visiting today.’

Sam’s antennae twitched. There’d been no mention of a visitor last night.

‘We still going to be able to toast the Millennium with you guys tonight?’ Midge checked, stepping onto the foredeck and spreading out a towel to lie on.

‘Maybe.’ As Squires watched her apply cream to her legs, he smiled like a man who’d spotted a trap but who reckoned falling into it might be rather pleasurable. He turned his attention to Sam again. ‘By the way, Steve, I was interested in what you were saying last night.’

There was something distinctly disingenuous about the way Squires said it.

‘Anything in particular?’

‘How you preserve confidentiality when you’re hiding clients’ money …’

It was as if Squires was testing him on his cover story, but he played along. No alternative. He talked about nominee holdings and anonymous accounts.
Squires listened hard, putting in questions every few minutes.

‘Interested for yourself?’ Sam queried.

The drug trader half-smiled and shook his head. ‘For a friend.’

It always was. ‘I’ll get you one of my cards. You can pass it on to him.’

A charade, but it couldn’t be
him
that ended it. As he turned to enter the saloon Squires called after him.

‘While you’re at it, give me one of Beth’s too.’

Sam rummaged in his bag for the visiting cards they’d printed the previous day. Then he felt the boat rock slightly. He looked through the window. Jimmy Squires had come aboard. Midge had sat up and was making room for him on the deck.

Sam re-emerged with the cards in his hand. Midge shot him a glare that said to leave her to get on with her seduction, so he climbed up to the bridge and pretended to busy himself with charts and the pilot book. Over on the
Estelle
Nige had surfaced. He was facing away from them, his eyes on the shore. Sam followed his gaze and saw the women returning. Squires had spotted them too and was hunching forward in anticipation.

Jan’s ‘friend’ turned out to be male. An oriental, dressed in a white polo shirt and dark trousers. He strode purposefully towards them, scowling at their foredeck as if there was something seriously amiss there which needed dealing with immediately.

Sam sensed things were about to go horribly wrong. He saw the alarm on Midge’s face and watched her pull her knees to her chest in an
instinctive move to protect herself. He guessed she’d recognised the man.

By the time he’d clattered down to the deck, Squires was on his feet. Midge too, clutching the towel to her chest.

‘Scuse me a minute …’ she whispered, trying to slip away.

Squires hooked an arm round her and pinned her to his side.

‘Don’t disappear, darlin’. This bloke spends a lot of time in Singapore. You’ll have things to talk about.’

The man approaching them looked more Chinese than Thai. A hard, square face with slicked back hair. He marched along the line of boats like a military commander, a small leather attaché case under his arm.

Midge began to panic. ‘Get off me!’ she snapped, struggling to escape Squires’ grip. But the drug-runner had no plans to let her go.

Sam sprang forward and wrenched Squires’ arm from her shoulders. Midge ducked away and stumbled across the deck towards the saloon. The former soldier bunched his fists.

‘I don’t know who the fuck you two jokers are, my friend …’ He raised his right hand as if to give it to Sam full on the nose, but instead the fingers formed into the shape of a pistol which he jabbed against the middle of his forehead. ‘But if I come across you again, you’re dead!’

Holding his gaze for a couple of seconds, he turned away and hopped onto the pontoon, a hand snaking out to greet his guest.

Sam ducked inside the saloon, heart pounding. Midge was scrabbling through lockers. ‘Handset …’ she hissed. ‘Where the fuck’s the …?’

Sam pulled the police radio from a drawer and gave it to her.

‘Tell me …’

‘Know his face.’ She turned the set on. ‘From photos in the files. Works for Yang Lai, the guy I was telling you about. Golden Triangle. He’s number two or three in the organisation. Name’s Hu Sin. And for some reason I can’t explain, the bastard seems to know
me
.’

From outside there was an explosive roar as the
Estelle
’s engines started up. Sam heard feet on the deck and spun round.

Hu Sin filled the doorway. In his hand was a gun, its barrel extended by a silencer.

Sam stopped breathing. Midge had the handset to her mouth, but couldn’t speak, transfixed by the pistol levelled at her head.

Packer backed against the galley counter, remembering the wrench they’d left on the worktop. Fingers closing round its shaft, he lunged forward, cracking it down on Hu Sin’s arm.

The man yelped and the gun clattered to the floor. Midge unfroze and made a dive for it. His face twisting with pain, Hu Sin spun round and fled the saloon. The policewoman grappled with the pistol and took aim.

‘Leave him!’ Sam snapped. ‘He’s not the one you want.’

They heard the clunk of feet on the finger pontoon
as mooring lines were freed. Then the engine noise declined as the
Estelle
reversed from the berth.

‘Fuck!’ Midge hissed. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’

‘
How
does he know you?’ Sam growled, furious at coming so close to death for a cause she’d told him so little about.

‘
I don’t know
…’ she howled. Then she caught herself, put a fist to her mouth and closed her eyes. She’d remembered.

Through the wide stern window of the saloon they saw the
Estelle
accelerate away. Jimmy Squires was at the wheel. On the cruiser’s aft deck Jan and Hu Sin stood side by side, the man talking on a mobile phone, the woman clicking with a long-lensed camera.

Sam turned his face away. Theirs was a photo album he had no wish to grace.

They had their bags packed within minutes. The charter agent looked outraged when they returned the boat keys and asked for a taxi to the airport.

‘But, this is New Year Eve,’ he protested, as if no sane person would abandon plans for a millennium celebration.

Their haste to get away was being driven by Midge.

‘Hu Sin was on the phone. You saw. Yang Lai’s mob won’t waste time. People who get in their way don’t live long.’

At the airport they hid in a crowd of European tourists, then got lucky at the check-in. An extra flight had been put on for the busy Bangkok run and within minutes they were boarding an Airbus.

They spoke little on the flight, but by the time they landed in the Thai capital an hour later both had recovered their composure.

‘It was that twat of a narcotics agent at the marina café,’ Midge muttered, as they walked through the terminal to the baggage collection. ‘Might as well have had a label on his head.’

With their luggage on a trolley they queued at an agency desk to find a hotel.

‘
Two
rooms,’ Midge stressed, to the surprise of the girl behind the counter.

They took a taxi to the centre, checked in to an anonymous tourist monolith and began the painful process of reporting back to their respective headquarters, agreeing to meet up later.

Sam was startled by his controller’s lack of concern. The man was a dry Ulsterman called Duncan Waddell.

‘It was an Oz operation, Sam. From what you’ve just told me, no mud will stick to the firm.’

‘That’s hardly the point, Duncan. Jimmy Squires …’

‘They’ll catch him eventually,’ Waddell interjected. ‘And when they do, our concerns about the man will be history. Essentially he’s their problem, not ours.’

Clean hands. All that mattered to a bureaucrat.

‘Anyone who threatens to kill me is
my
problem,’ Sam snapped.