The Half-Child (2 page)

‘Can you do that?'

The nurse moved forward and inserted the needle into Pornthip's arm.

‘Yes, we can do that,' Frank said. ‘And we'll also make sure the baby is well looked after. I mean, it's not realistic for you to take her with you, is it?'

Pornthip frowned, confused, as the words penetrated the euphoria washing over her.

‘She'll need food, clothing, shelter. And you know you can't provide for her,' he continued.

‘I don't want to leave my baby.'

The words came out slurred, without the force she intended.

‘Don't think of it as leaving her,' Frank said. ‘Think of it as giving her the best possible start in life. She'll be cared for by a mother
and
father who'll be able to provide her with all she needs. And when she gets older, you'll be able to visit her.'

Pornthip smiled, her anxieties fading.

He snapped a sheet of paper on to the clipboard and placed a pen in Pornthip's hand.

‘All you need to do is sign here and leave the rest to us.'

He balanced the clipboard on her chest, blocking her view of the baby. Pornthip didn't read well at the best of times and the words danced on the page.

‘I can't see it,' she muttered.

‘That's okay,' Frank said. ‘Here, let me help you.'

Pornthip felt his hand close over hers. She peered where he pointed, scrawled on the dotted line.

‘You'll look after my Nok, my baby bird?' she yawned.

‘Don't worry about a thing,' he said.

Pornthip smiled and closed her eyes on the image of her daughter's sleeping face.

The farang bundled the baby in the towel and lifted her off the young girl's chest.

1

A
t four o'clock on Tuesday morning a concrete girder as big as a bus fell from the sky and crushed a taxi, killing the driver. There were no passengers in the vehicle— fortuitous but not surprising. A driver would have to be desperate, wired on
ya ma
and Red Bull to be trawling Sukhumvit Road for a fare at that hour. Like most of his ilk, the deceased was a failed farmer from the northeast. He left behind a widow, three sons and a daughter, whose future now depended on how many of their chickens survived the cool season.

Tragic though this was, the Thai press couldn't help speculate on how much worse the accident would have been had it occurred at almost any other hour. The front page of
Thai Rath
featured a diagram demonstrating how an incident of this kind during Bangkok's peak times could kill dozens, if not hundreds of people.

The diagram came to life in Jayne Keeney's imagination as she was forced to a standstill on Silom Road alongside an orange crane dangling a metal strut from its jaws above her head. She could picture the crane opening its maw, the beam plummeting towards her. She inched her motorbike forward, narrowly missing a hole in the bitumen, and brushed up against the flimsy blue-striped plastic sheeting, all that separated her from the Skytrain building site. There was no escaping the sense of impending doom.

The girders in this stretch, the site of what would be Silom Station, were wide enough to cast a shadow over six lanes of traffic. Concrete pipes stacked in pyramids threatened to tumble on to the road at any moment, flattening labourers, pushcart vendors and traffic police. Great bundles of metal rods would gouge out the eyes of any who veered too close.

On a nearby footpath, all that remained of a pedestrian overpass was a set of stairs leading nowhere.

Jayne had always thought Bangkok would make a great setting for a disaster movie. The Skytrain construction sites strewn across the city made it look as though disaster had already struck.

The bus in front of her belched thick, black smoke that crept under the visor of her helmet and stung her eyes. She cursed herself for taking the motorbike, but after more than four years in the Thai capital, it simply didn't occur to her that she might walk anywhere. Only crazy farang tourists walked. Even pushcart vendors left their carts locked by the side of the road at night and set aside enough
baht
to take a motorcycle taxi or
tuk-tuk
home.

At the end of Silom Road, Jayne turned right into the relative peace of the Dusit Thani Hotel grounds and parked her motorbike beneath a teak tree. It was a mark of the hotel's quality that such rare trees were preserved in its grounds rather than sold off for timber. To the amusement of the doorman, she paused to check her reflection in the spotless exterior windows, fluffed up the black curls flattened by her helmet and wiped the grime from her pale skin before nodding for him to let her in.

The spacious hotel lobby was carpeted in red and gold, with pillars covered in tan leather. Elaborate bouquets of tropical flowers almost brushed the ceiling. Jayne had dressed up for the high-class venue, substituting her usual T-shirt, chinos and runners for a dark-green blouse, black A-line skirt and strappy sandals. But creased and grubby from the journey, she fell way short of the grooming standards set by the women at the reception desk. Their crimson silk jackets and matching skirts looked ironed on, hair pulled into buns tight enough to cause migraines. Jayne was reconciled to the fact she could never compete with local women's commitment to the
riab roi
principle of tidiness and decorum. Still, she thought it was excessive for the receptionist to wince when Jayne asked her to page Mister James Delbeck.

The man who appeared was stocky and ginger-haired with a weather-beaten face, as ill at ease in his expensive suit as Jayne felt in her semi-formal attire. His red-and-white striped tie was knotted loosely, the top button of his pale blue shirt undone. Gingery curls crept above his collar at the back of his neck. The same fuzz coated the wrist that extended from his sleeve as he introduced himself as Jim. The backs of his hands were dotted with the round pink scars of excised cancers. Similar scars marked the bridge of his nose.

He smelled of something loud and pricey, and carried a flash leather briefcase. New money, Jayne guessed. Farmer or tradesman turned entrepreneur. But for all the props, Jim Delbeck lacked the pomposity and nervous energy typical of the Australian businessmen who came to Bangkok to negotiate deals. Puffy-eyed and greying, he looked defeated.

His thick, shiny business card bore a logo in the shape of a truck and listed his position in corporate jargon that suggested authority and a six-figure salary. She felt sheepish exchanging it for one of her own, a modest scrap of paper with her name, ‘Discreet Private Investigator – Speaks English, French and Thai' and her mobile number, printed in English on one side and Thai on the other. Jim responded with a satisfied nod and gestured towards the lobby bar.

Jayne followed him to a corner table. He pulled out a chair and waited until she was seated before taking his place. A single white lotus floated in a glass bowl in front of them. An indoor fountain bubbled in the background.

Jayne ordered a juice from the waitress shadowing them.

‘You won't join me in a beer?' Jim said.

‘Normally, yes,' she said. ‘But I'm driving.'

‘In this traffic? Bloody hell. You're a brave girl.'

Jayne didn't know whether to feel flattered or offended.

While she liked to think of herself as brave, it was a while since she'd thought of herself as a girl.

‘Probably a good thing, given your line of work, eh?' Jim continued. ‘Speaking of which…'

He cleared his throat. ‘My daughter Maryanne allegedly committed suicide in Pattaya last year. It was in all the papers. You might have read about it?'

He handed her a plastic sleeve containing a newspaper article from
The Bangkok Post.
It featured a photograph of a wide-eyed young woman with a smile not even newsprint could dull. Fair hair in a ponytail and daypack slung over one shoulder, she wore a T-shirt with the logo ‘Young Christian Volunteers' on her chest and carried a boarding pass, held out for the benefit of the photographer, for Qantas Flight 01 to London via Bangkok on Saturday 18 May 1996. Less than five months later, according to the article, twenty-one-year-old Maryanne Delbeck jumped from a hotel rooftop in Pattaya, falling fourteen storeys to her death.

Even without the T-shirt, Jayne would've taken the young woman for a Christian. Unlike Jayne whose skin showed the signs of regular, often excessive, alcohol consumption and a fifteen-year smoking habit, Maryanne had the wholesome air of the clean-living. A look in her eyes suggested she had her sights set on something further away from her home in rural Queensland than the seedy Thai coastal town of Pattaya.

Jayne skimmed the article, raised her head. ‘I remember seeing something.'

‘Maryanne couldn't have committed suicide,' Jim said.

‘I don't care what the Thai cops say. She was a good girl.

Didn't drink, didn't smoke. Never gave her mother and me a moment's trouble.'

The drinks arrived. Jim waved away the glass and took a swig from his bottle of Tiger beer.

‘No way was Maryanne the type to…to do that to herself.'

‘The article said something about your daughter being clinically depressed—'

‘I don't believe that,' Jim interrupted her. ‘She was always so bloody cheerful. Too cheerful. Used to drive me crazy.'

He grunted, the sound of a man choking on emotion, and upended the bottle too quickly; beer spilled from the corners of his mouth.

‘Bugger.'

Jayne looked away as he wiped his face with a serviette.

‘There are some conditions where people swing between excessive cheerfulness and depression,' she said cautiously.

‘Is there any history of mental illness in the family?'

‘No there bloody well isn't,' Jim said. ‘We're fourth generation Queensland farmers. We don't have time to get depressed. We work for a living.'

Jayne toyed with the swizzle stick in her drink.

‘Besides, she'd have told Sarah if anything was wrong.

Maryanne and my sister were as thick as thieves. Told her she was going overseas long before her mother and I knew about it. Not that we could've stopped her. Maryanne was too bloody headstrong. Guess she got that from me.'

Jayne stirred her juice, taking a moment to choose her words. ‘Some people are very good at hiding their depression, even from people closest to them—'

‘I know where you're going with this,' Jim said. ‘I'm in denial, right? I'm only her father. What would I know?'

‘I didn't mean to imply—'

‘I got the same response from those useless bastards at the Australian Embassy. As for the Thai cops, they pretend they can't speak English when they don't want to answer my questions. And the YCV won't cooperate. They're shitscared of the investigation being re-opened 'cause it means more bad press for them.'

‘YCV?'

‘Young Christian Volunteers.'

He pointed at Maryanne's T-shirt in the photo, then took a swig of beer as if washing a bad taste from his mouth.

‘So if I'm going to find out what really happened to Maryanne, I have to do it myself. That's where you come in. You're a private contractor. I'm a paying customer. I've a job that needs doing and I'm prepared to pay you to do it.'

‘You want me to investigate a case both the Thai police and Australian Embassy consider closed?' Jayne met his gaze. ‘I won't bullshit you. It's a long shot.'

Jim smiled. ‘And I won't bullshit you either. I was planning to hire a professional out of Australia. Then I met with this guy at the embassy—a bit of a poof, but he seemed to know what he was talking about—and he suggested I try someone who speaks the language, knows the place. He gave me your card.'

Her friend Max Parker, Second Secretary at the Australian Embassy. Jayne made a mental note to call and thank him.

‘Find out what happened to Maryanne,' Jim said. ‘I don't care what it costs.'

Jayne raised her eyebrows. She wanted the job, but she didn't want to dupe a grief-stricken father to get it.

‘Say I agree to take the case. Are you prepared for the possibility that I might not come up with anything new?'

‘I just want someone I can trust.' He reached into his briefcase. ‘I had my lawyer draw up a contract. It's the company standard—unless of course you'd prefer to use your own.'

Jayne shrugged as though she signed contracts all the time. Her usual arrangement rarely involved more than a handshake—a
wai
for her Thai clients—a cash advance and more cash on completion.

She scanned the text. There were sections on the responsibilities of Mr James H. Delbeck (‘the client') and the responsibilities of Miss Jayne Keeney (‘the contractor'), together with a timeline (‘one month, subject to review').

His proposed budget allowed for an advance that, like the price of the drinks at the Dusit Thani, was five times what she was used to.

‘This looks fine.'

‘I'll get another copy made—' Jim signalled for a waitress

‘—and we can sign before you leave.'

‘Do you have any background information that might help?' Jayne asked.

He dipped into his briefcase and handed Jayne a large envelope. ‘I made copies of Maryanne's letters. I don't know if they're useful, but they give you an idea of what she was like and the work she was doing. There's a photo in there, too. Might help. And there's this.' He handed her a document. ‘The embassy report, though I'm not sure how useful that is.'

She glanced at it, recognised the author's name. He was a staffer at the embassy whom Max described as ‘ballast', code for one who never rocked the boat. Jayne thought he was an arse-licker.

She scanned the text, a testament to the minutiae of bureaucratic procedures, both Thai and Australian. She added this and the other material to her daypack, wedging them amongst her camera, maps, drink bottle, and the crime novel she was reading, and took out a notebook and pen.