The Dying Beach (24 page)

‘You could say I saved the best for last. Like the song, yes?'

She drew blank looks until a karaoke tragic in the group shouted, ‘Vanessa Williams!' and burst into the chorus of the schmaltzy pop song.

Not even a poor Vanessa Williams impersonation could detract from the beauty of Princess Beach, which was lovely, unspoilt and a little wild. Pla was right about saving the best for last.

Paul doubted there was a more fitting place for her body to come to rest. He beat a hasty retreat to his room before the waitress saw him crying.

40

From the doorway Jayne smiled to find Rajiv fully dressed and sitting on the end of the bed. But her smile faded as she entered the room and saw he was not alone. On a chair sat Sergeant Yongyuth, frowning into his notebook. Jayne locked eyes with Rajiv. He looked ghastly, like he might throw up again.

‘
Sawadee krup,
Khun Jayne,' the police sergeant said. ‘I wish to inform you that Khun Othong has regained consciousness. I was able to interview him in the last hour.'

‘But that's good news,' she began. ‘It means I didn't—'

‘No, you didn't kill him,' Sergeant Yongyuth said stiffly, ‘despite what Khun Othong says about giving it your best shot.'

‘
Kor thort na ka
?' It was Jayne's turn to be formal. ‘Excuse me?'

‘Khun Othong claims it was your friend Khun Rajiv here who hit him with the whisky bottle. Othong says when he tried to stop Rajiv from assaulting his uncle, you stabbed him with a fruit knife.'

‘With all due respect, Sergeant, that's ridiculous.' She turned to Rajiv. ‘Have you told him how crazy this is?'

‘Khun Rajiv cannot be considered a reliable witness on account of his concussion,' Sergeant Yongyuth interjected. ‘Even setting aside the possibility he was working as your accomplice.'

‘Accomplice to what?' Jayne struggled to keep her cool, knowing if she lost her temper it would kill the détente between her and the police sergeant. ‘What possible motive could my partner and I have for attacking Khun Bapit?'

‘I put the same question to Khun Othong. He couldn't give me an answer. But he knows what he saw.'

‘My arse,' Jayne muttered in English, loud enough to earn a worried look from Rajiv. ‘What about Siri, Khun Bapit's assistant?' she asked, reverting to Thai. ‘What does she have to say?'

‘Only that you arrived without an appointment and insisted on meeting with Khun Bapit. She heard the fracas. But she makes a point of not eavesdropping on the affairs of her employer.'

Jayne bit back the expletive that longed to escape. ‘And Khun Bapit himself?'

‘Yet to regain consciousness.'

Sergeant Yongyuth snapped his notebook shut and restored it to his shirt pocket. ‘You'd better hope he comes around and can verify your story, Khun Jayne. Otherwise I will have no choice but to arrest you, with or without Police Major General Wichit's blessing.'

‘But you have evidence that Othong killed at least two women.'

‘He claims you and your partner planted that evidence.'

The young man was smarter than she'd given him credit for. She opened her mouth to protest when a horrifying thought stopped her in her tracks. ‘Where's Khun Bapit?'

‘In the intensive care ward,' Sergeant Yongyuth said.

‘Where's that?'

‘Second floor. Why?'

‘And Othong?'

‘Also on the second floor. In a private room under police guard.'

‘There's a guard outside Bapit's room, too, right?'

‘Khun Bapit is not under suspicion,' the police sergeant began.

‘Not to police him, to protect him. Sergeant, you have to go to him. Please.'

Yongyuth hesitated but only for a moment. He stood up, withdrew his truncheon and marched out with Jayne at his heels. They took the lift down to the second floor, walked through a set of swinging doors and came upon a body in a policeman's uniform lying on the floor.

‘Get a doctor,' Yongyuth yelled over his shoulder as he drew his gun and sprinted down the corridor.

As the police sergeant left the room, Othong congratulated himself on using his head, especially given how much it hurt. The blow with the whisky bottle had seriously knocked him about. A lucky shot. Bapit would never get another chance to hurt him.

Killing Uncle Bapit would solve all Othong's problems. Shoot two hawks with one arrow, as his Chinese grandfather used to say. Othong would have his revenge and remove the only witness who could dispute his account of what happened that morning. In a case involving farangs and Thais, the system always sided with the Thais. As it should. It was Uncle Bapit who'd broken that golden rule.

A nurse appeared to check his blood pressure and intravenous drip. Once she was gone, Othong eased himself up and removed the needle from the back of his hand. He stood to detach the rubber tube from the contraption beside his bed, wincing at the pain in his side as he stretched to reach it. The fruit knife had done little damage but the wound hurt like hell.

He shuffled across the floor, feeling exposed in his hospital gown, stooping as the stitches in his side grew accustomed to the movement, straightening as he reached the door. Through a crack he saw the guard sitting with his back to the door, reading a newspaper. Othong had the rubber tubing over his head and pulled tight around his throat before the cop knew what hit him.

As he released the body, Othong noticed the cop wore a Buddha amulet around his neck. Clearly the monk who'd blessed it wasn't powerful enough. Othong hoped that strangling someone over the top of an amulet didn't amount to insulting Buddha's image, as the penalty for that was hell.

He had perhaps displeased the Buddha, as with his next step he realised the flaw in his plan. He'd intended to sneak into his uncle's room and smother the old man with a pillow, making it look like Bapit had succumbed to his injuries, before slipping back into his room unnoticed. But how to account for the dead cop?

Othong nudged the man with his foot. He was still breathing. He hadn't actually seen who attacked him. And if Othong made it look like he was incapable of attacking anyone, the cops would have to find someone else to blame.

Yeah, that would work.

He slipped into the room where his uncle lay attached to an oxygen mask. The old man was pale as a ghost. If not for the cloudy puffs of breath against the mask, Othong would've thought Bapit was already dead.

A spare pillow encased in white lay on the end of the bed. Othong thought of the thick envelopes that arrived from Bapit's rich business associates, inviting him to lavish ceremonies. He held the pillow for a moment as if weighing it up, just as he'd seen his uncle do with the party invitations, calculating the size of the cash gift that would be expected by the quality and weight of the paper. Othong imagined his mother receiving a white envelope advising her of Bapit's funeral arrangements. He saw her take out the card, scraping together some baht notes to contribute to the funeral expenses.

Could Othong really kill his own uncle?

‘Stop torturing yourself,' he said to his distorted reflection in the chrome railing of his uncle's hospital bed. ‘It is Uncle Bapit who has forced you into this situation.'

Still, Othong hesitated. Perhaps it was better to injure himself before doing the deed so if he was spotted before he made it back to his room, he could pretend to have responded to his uncle's cry for help. He needed something sharp. The IV needle was still attached to the rubber tubing around the police guard's neck. Othong searched for an alternative, and found a pair of scissors. He raised his hospital gown, ripped the dressing from his knife wound and cut open the stitches. Blood seeped from the wound and stained the gown but not enough to make him look incapacitated. He needed something more dramatic.

Othong took hold of the railing at the base of his uncle's bed and banged his head against it with as much strength as he could muster. A harpoon of pain pierced his skull and blurred his vision. Holding the railing with one hand to steady himself, he raised the other to his forehead. It came away wet, his vision blurred by blood.

He was still holding the scissors, fumbling for the pillow, when the door to the room burst open. Othong raised the scissors like a dagger over his uncle's chest.

Sergeant Yongyuth had no choice but to aim for the chest. The gunshot sent Othong reeling, scissors clattering as he fell to the floor.

Gun still trained on the young man, the policeman approached with caution. Othong's face was streaked with blood, and his hospital gown stained red. Yongyuth felt like he'd walked back into the horror movie that started earlier that day.

He kicked the scissors out of reach and squatted down to take a closer look. Seeing no signs of life, he holstered his weapon and rose to his feet. Officer Da appeared in the doorway ahead of a medical team.

‘It's okay.' Yongyuth nodded for them to come in. He remembered the police guard lying on the floor outside. ‘Officer Southong?'

‘Alive,' said one of the medicos.

‘More than I can say for this one,' said another, removing the stethoscope from his ears and releasing Othong's wrist.

‘What about the old man?' Yongyuth asked the doctor, who was peering at the machine by Bapit's bed.

‘Stable,' she said.

‘Thank you, Lord Buddha,' Yongyuth muttered under his breath.

A pair of medical orderlies appeared, wheeling a gurney between them. In their wake was the farang woman.

‘Khun Bapit?' she said.

‘Same as before. But only because I got here in time.' He nodded at Othong's body and saw Jayne shudder.

The two medical orderlies hovered expectantly. Yongyuth knew that, strictly speaking, he should seal off the room as a crime scene and wait for the police photographer. But with Officers Da and Southong to back up his account, he figured a few shortcuts could only make it easier on everyone.

He stepped aside while the orderlies loaded Othong's body onto the stretcher, covering him in a sheet before wheeling him out. Jayne stepped aside to let them pass.

‘I got the doctor to bag this for you as evidence.' She spoke softly, discreetly handing Yongyuth a zip-lock bag. ‘It's the rubber tubing Othong used to bring your officer down.'

Yongyuth waited for her to say something more, but Jayne's eyes were on Bapit. Her restraint surprised him. The evidence bag was significant. Handled differently, he could have lost face for not being on top of it himself. Yongyuth didn't know farangs could
kreng jai
like this.

‘You and your partner are free to leave the hospital,' he said. ‘Come by the station tomorrow morning and I'll return your passport.'

Jayne turned to him. ‘Sergeant, there's a favour I would ask of you.'

Yongyuth knew he owed her for Bapit's life. He held his breath to see what payment she would extract.

‘If Khun Bapit regains consciousness, please ask him about the Thai girl who drowned. Khun Pla. I need to know for sure that Othong was responsible for her death.'

A strange request, in keeping with a very strange day. Sergeant Yongyuth made a note to follow up.

41

The highway traffic was inaudible beneath the chanting of the monks and the chatter of the villagers who filled the assembly hall at Wat Sai Thai. The dining area was also packed with people talking, eating, playing cards and arguing. If not for the monks and the simple white coffin surrounded by flowers, Rajiv might have mistaken Pla's funeral rites for a festival.

Their arrival turned heads, eyes lingering longest on Paul. He was hard not to notice. Fair-haired, blue-eyed and freckled, the Australian volunteer stood a head taller than Rajiv and seemed to take up twice the space. When several villagers recognised him and shuffled over to say hello, Paul looked like the leader of a cargo cult being venerated by his devotees.

Rajiv was happy for the villagers to take Paul's attention away from Jayne. Since their meeting at the guesthouse, when he'd greeted Rajiv with a painfully firm handshake, Paul had paid him little attention. On the ride to the temple, Paul sat between Rajiv and Jayne in order to keep the tuktuk evenly weighted. The trip was dominated by Jayne's account of Othong's attempt to murder his uncle at the hospital and the young man's death at the hands of the police. As Jayne had not witnessed the actual shooting, Rajiv thought it wrong of her to ruminate on whether Othong had been fatally shot or summarily executed by Sergeant Yongyuth. She seemed to forget Major General Wichit had vouched for him. But having missed the drama altogether, Rajiv had nothing to contribute to the conversation.

Jayne seemed more excited than exhausted by the day's events. Rajiv had seen her like this before. She was like an appliance without an off switch that kept accelerating under pressure until it threatened to short-circuit. There was no fear in the story she told Paul, none of the dread Rajiv felt in the pit of his stomach when he thought of the danger they'd been in.

He took a seat on the ground beside her. ‘It's been a long day.'

‘We don't have to stay,' she said. ‘We're only here tonight for Paul's sake.'

As if on cue, the Australian called to Jayne from amid the crowd. ‘My Thai's not good enough to follow what they're saying. Can you help me out?'

She squeezed Rajiv's arm. ‘This shouldn't take long. We'll get going soon.'

Rajiv watched as she moved towards Paul, shuffling forward on her knees out of respect for the monks. As he watched her act as translator, it struck Rajiv that anyone walking in on the scene would assume Jayne and Paul were the couple, not Jayne and Rajiv. She and Paul looked well suited. Paul looked like he could protect her.

No one seemed to notice as Rajiv withdrew to the temple grounds. He walked towards the cliff where the large statue of the reclining Buddha was illuminated by a fluorescent streetlight. To the right, a sign pointed the way to the ancient marine sea-shell excavation site. As an attraction it proved disappointing, even for a fossil enthusiast like Rajiv. Little more than a square pit lined with dirty shells. But it was located in a cave shrine formed by the overhang of the cliff, which was interesting in itself. A collection of Buddha statues was illuminated by candlelight, those at each end of the row scaly with patches of gold leaf. Thai people made merit by pressing squares of the tissue-thin gold onto images of Buddha, often targeting parts of the statue that corresponded to pain in their own bodies. Judging by the appearance of the Buddhas in the cave at Wat Sai Thai, the local devotees were plagued by headaches, chest pain and problems of the heart. Looking at them, Rajiv was reminded of the Thai idiom
pid thong lang phra
—‘to attach gold leaf to the back of the Buddha'. To do good deeds behind the scenes.