The Half-Child (24 page)

To be on the safe side Jayne locked the bathroom door behind her so she could come in private.

29

M
ax gazed at the smooth brown back in bed beside him. His name, Oud, was the Thai equivalent of ‘oink'. But there was nothing porcine about this lover, a featherweight
muay thai
boxer, with not an inch of fat on him. Even his arse was solid muscle. Max doubted they had much of a future together. He was too old for workouts at the gym, and sooner or later someone fitter and richer would steal Oud away. Max intended to enjoy it while it lasted.

He reached to cup that sculpted ass in the palm of his hand when his mobile phone rang.

‘Bugger.'

He glanced at the screen but didn't recognise the number. It could be a diplomatic emergency. Max couldn't afford not to answer it.

‘Hello?'

‘Max, it's Jayne.'

‘Jayne? This isn't your number. Where are you calling from?' He must have sounded as annoyed as he felt.

‘So, would you have answered if it was my number? Or I am interrupting something important?'

‘Yes, no.' Max watched Oud roll out of bed and disappear into the bathroom. ‘Go ahead, Jayne,' he sighed. ‘What is it?'

‘I'm still in Pattaya working on the Maryanne Delbeck case. And I've stumbled across something that raises significant questions about the verdict of suicide.'

‘Really?'

Max sat bolt upright, excitement and dread slugging it out in his head. While he took pleasure in his friend's investigative prowess, Maryanne Delbeck had died on his watch and re-opening the investigation would be a diplomatic nightmare.

‘I'm still putting together the evidence but I need you to contact immigration at the US Embassy and ask them to put a hold on a visa for a recently adopted baby boy. Adoptive parents' first names are Leroy and Alicia.'

Was one diplomatic nightmare not enough for her?

‘Jayne, I don't think you understand. I can't do something like that without just cause.'

‘I have reason to believe the baby was stolen from his mother and his identity falsified.'

Max whistled.

‘That would do.' He rubbed his temples. ‘But where's your evidence? I can't recommend a NOID without something more concrete than your word.'

‘A
noid
?'

‘Notice of Intention to Deny. It's what the embassies issue when there's doubt raised about the legality of an adoption. It's a very big deal. Rarely happens in Thailand these days.'

‘Well, does it have to be that formal? Couldn't you just have a quiet word with your counterpart in the US Embassy so they lose a form or something?'

Max sighed. ‘I'm not promising anything, but I'll see what I can do.'

‘You're a prince among men,' Jayne said.

Among men is where I'd much rather be
, Max thought as he terminated the call.

He could hear the shower running—perhaps all was not lost. He slipped out of his boxer shorts and headed for the bathroom.

Jayne hung up the phone and sipped her plastic bag of iced coffee. It wasn't yet eight o'clock but she'd been busy. She left Rajiv sleeping, with a note promising to be back at six to take him out for dinner. On her way to Chai's office, she had dropped into an express photo lab and had Kob's photo duplicated, together with the shot showing Frank and Doctor Somsri with the adoptive parents. Next she found a street café serving rice noodle soup. While waiting for her breakfast, she consulted her English-Thai dictionary— she spoke Thai with greater fluency than she wrote it—and composed a short message that Mayuree would be sure to understand: ‘I believe your son is alive. Please contact me as soon as possible.' She included her mobile phone number.

It was too early for the post office, but Wichit's nephew Chai was happy to add Jayne's letter, addressed to Kanchanaburi, to his office mail. It was his phone she'd used to call Max in Bangkok. He also proved to be a good source of information on restaurants in Pattaya.

She thanked Chai and set out for the centre, keen to make sure there wasn't any fallout from her confrontation with Chaowalit. She saw Frank on the way into the orphanage, but his brief greeting and leave-taking cry of ‘God bless' gave her no reason to believe he suspected anything.

The day passed like any other. The Thai staff fed the babies, the volunteers played with the babies and Jayne cleaned up after the babies.

She parried another attempt by Dianne to invite her out and escaped at five on the dot. Back at Chai's office, she drafted a letter to Police Major General Wichit. She didn't plan to send anything until she had evidence, but it was an opportunity to collect her thoughts, get a handle on how the scam worked.

By his own admission, Frank knew which children in the nursery were sought after for overseas adoption—
look kreung
and Thai girls—and his first tactic was to pressure the mothers to give up their children. To Jayne's mind, this in itself pushed ethical, if not legal boundaries. When that didn't work, things got really interesting. The desirable babies were given a falsified identity and forged paperwork to make them eligible for adoption. Jayne recalled Frank saying they often held the children's official papers at the centre.

This would come in handy when putting together the bogus identity: if the child was born in Krabi in Thailand's south, for example, the forged birth certificate would be sure to list place of birth as somewhere like Nakhon Phanom in the northeast, making it harder for the child's family of origin to be traced. Perhaps a counterfeit maternal death certificate was produced or a fake statement of relinquishment. Jayne assumed Frank and his associates would vary the details to avoid suspicion.

Perhaps the trickiest part of the operation was to account for the child's death when there was no way of producing a corpse. In the case of itinerant parents, excuses could be made about communication difficulties and time pressures.

Where the mother was close at hand, as in Mayuree's case, exotic illnesses had to be invented and cremations expedited on public health grounds. Producing a fake death certificate was probably the easiest part of the operation.

Money would change hands. Jayne suspected the doctor and those behind him with access to official records took the biggest cut. Frank's reward would be more spiritual: the knowledge he'd saved innocent souls from their prostitute mothers and sent them to good Christian families in the West.

Frank would have to keep some sort of paperwork. But what use was falsified material to Jayne without proof it was falsified? She had no way of knowing under what name Kob was adopted out or what grounds had been fabricated to explain how he became an orphan.

What she could prove was that he wasn't dead. It followed that if she could get hold of Kob's death certificate, she could prove it was a fake. And that should be enough to keep Kob in Thailand, if not justify an investigation into adoption fraud at the New Life Children's Centre.

Frank Harding would have no reason to keep a copy of Kob's death certificate. However, Doctor Somsri who'd signed it would be obliged to keep a copy on file.

Jayne rummaged through her bag for the doctor's business card. She checked the address on her map: his consulting rooms were conveniently located within a few blocks of the orphanage.

‘Death certificate for Kamolsert,' she typed. ‘Check Dr Somsri's office.'

‘Is it okay if I save a file on your computer?' she called over her shoulder to Chai.

‘Sure,' he said. ‘Save it to the desktop. I'll have a folder set up for you next time.'

‘Thanks,' Jayne said on her way out. And because she knew it would reflect well on him added, ‘I'll be sure to tell your uncle what a great help you've been.'

She called Rajiv to let him know she was running fifteen minutes late.

30

T
he
songthaew
took them along the winding clifftop road to a gateway dripping with fairy-lights. They continued on foot down a path lined with wax ginger flowers and lit with flaming torches, pausing to allow a peacock to cross in front of them. After a minute or two the tropical garden gave way to a neat lawn lined on three sides with thatched wooden huts, each one a private dining room.

Jayne and Rajiv left their shoes at the foot of a short set of steps and sat down on triangular floor cushions. Their low table was set with blue glazed plates and white linen serviettes folded into the shape of lotus buds, the bronze forks, spoons and chopsticks heavy enough to double as weapons. The air smelled of lemongrass and melancholic
look thoong
music hummed in the background. They could see white rabbits grazing on the lawn outside their hut.

‘We've stumbled into Wonderland,' Jayne said.

‘It certainly is wonderful,' Rajiv said. ‘I am liking it very much.'

Jayne took his hand, held it for a moment.

‘I'm glad,' she said, smiling.

Rajiv returned the smile. It had crossed his mind to seduce her the second she returned from work to undo the night before. But he lacked the nerve. And the mood was wrong. A romantic meal, a few drinks, some conversation— this was better.

Jayne was wearing a black short-sleeved dress that made her skin glow. Rajiv wore a long cream-coloured
kurta
over white jeans, an ensemble Jayne joked made him look like a Bollywood star. At times they looked mismatched, him with not a hair out of place, clothes ironed and sandals polished, Jayne messy haired and rumpled with dirt under her nails.

At other times, like tonight, they complemented each other.

White on black and black on white, they'd be at home in the pantheon of Hindu gods with dualities like these.

As usual Rajiv let Jayne order the food—green papaya salad, steamed seafood curry and a chicken and bamboo shoot soup so spicy it silenced conversation for several minutes. Jayne didn't volunteer any more information about the case and Rajiv didn't ask in unspoken agreement to leave work aside for the night.

They talked about travel. Jayne had backpacked through India on holiday from university, seeing more of his country than Rajiv had.

‘What was your overall impression?' he asked.

‘Hardly a fair question,' she said. ‘Every new place was different.'

‘Did you enjoy yourself?'

‘It got a bit overwhelming at times—' she paused to light a cigarette ‘—but I enjoyed myself. Enormously. I'd go again.'

‘Would you ever live there?'

‘Ah…' she wavered.

‘You know,' he added quickly, ‘if you were offered a good job.'

‘I guess I've never thought about it before. I could live in India, though it would depend on where.' She paused to ash her cigarette. ‘What about you? Would you want to live somewhere other than India?'

‘Like where?'

‘Well, Thailand for example.'

‘Not sure.'

‘What about Australia?'

‘I don't—'

They were interrupted by Jayne's mobile phone. She looked at the number, a pained expression on her face.

‘Sorry, Rajiv, I need to take this.'

She slid off her cushion, slipped on her shoes and wandered out on to the lawn, scattering rabbits in several directions. Rajiv followed her with his eyes, his stomach sinking.

He helped himself to one of her cigarettes and was halfway through it when she returned. She didn't remove her shoes. Rajiv knew what was coming.

‘You need to be going, isn't it.'

‘I'm so sorry about this—'

He held up one hand. ‘Just one question.'

She raised her eyebrows.

‘Do you want me to be staying or going, because if this will be your way of saying that you're too busy—'

She took his face in her hands. For a moment he thought she was going to kiss him, and wanted her to, despite his upbringing.

‘I would much rather stay here with you,' she said.

‘But I'm racing against the clock. That was my friend at the Australian Embassy. Mayuree's baby is headed for the United States the day after Chinese New Year unless I stop it. Chinese New Year starts tomorrow. That gives me three days to find what I need, get back to Bangkok, brief the adoptive parents, and help Mayuree retrieve her son before they issue him with an immigration visa.'

‘Please do not be worrying about me,' Rajiv said. ‘It's okay.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Where is it you will be going?'

‘I have to visit a doctor's surgery to pick up some paperwork.'

Rajiv glanced at his watch. ‘After hours clinic, is it?'

‘More along the lines of self-service.'

‘Is breaking and entering normally something you are doing every day, Jayne?'

She shrugged.

‘Are you needing me to come?'

‘No offence, but it'll be quicker if I'm on my own.'

Rajiv exhaled. While he supposed there was a parallel between Jayne's cavalier attitude towards crimes against property and his own interest in hacking, Rajiv preferred to push legal boundaries from the safety of a computer.

‘See you back at the hotel?'

‘Within the hour,' she said.

31

A
notice outside Doctor Somsri's consulting rooms announced business was closed for three days and wished customers ‘Happy Chinese New Year' in Thai, English and Chinese. Alongside it a gold and red cardboard figure of a bull signified the Year of the Ox.

Jayne pressed her face against the window and could just make out the reception area. She crossed to the other side of the road to take in the whole, narrow two-storey building. She suspected the doctor's office was upstairs where the blinds were drawn.

The building was in a quiet
soi,
but a streetlight over the entrance ruled out picking the lock on the front door. It was tightly wedged between two neighbouring Chinese-style shop-houses: businesses on the ground floor, residences upstairs with small balconies overlooking the street. Jayne walked down a narrow laneway on the left to check out the back of the buildings and found them fused into a single concrete wall. No rear exits.