Behind the Night Bazaar (12 page)

An awful thought stopped her in her tracks. Didier had entrusted this material not to Jayne, but to Moira. He’d brought that stupid academic into his confidence—a woman with no understanding of Thailand—over a close friend who lived there.

Jayne slumped back into her chair, angry tears stinging her eyes. Why would Didier do this to her? She thought he admired her intelligence.

‘Shit!’ she groaned, pressing her palms into her eye sockets. Surely he knew Jayne wasn’t the gung-ho type. Despite her predilection for hard-boiled crime fiction, she preferred her real-life cases to be challenging rather than deadly—like the heroes of the ‘cosy’ books Didier read.

If the knife wound had opened Jayne’s eyes to the dangers of her work, learning of Didier’s lack of trust had now shaken her confidence. Max was right to warn her against staying in Chiang Mai. Perhaps Moira was right to erase the incriminating passages. Paedophile rackets, police corruption, cold-blooded murder—it was as if the whole mess had a sign over it saying DO NOT ENTER in luminous, red letters.

But how could she abandon her investigation? Of all people, Didier would have known what he was up against, yet he was prepared to take the risk. There was nothing reckless in his motivation; it was there in his paper. Those children mattered to Didier. And it mattered to Jayne that her friend had been killed and vilified for trying to do something to help them.

‘So, what would you have me do, Didi?’ she said aloud.

She reached to butt out her cigarette, knocking his document to the floor. It fell face down, revealing a note on the reverse side of the back page. It resembled a shopping list, written in French:
jus de citron, allumettes, bougie
.

Why would Didier write a shopping list on the back of an official document? And why lemon juice, matches and a candle? It didn’t make sense. It sounded more like the sort of implausible clue someone like Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple would stumble across— ‘Oh, shit!’

She put the paper back on the desk and opened the drawer beneath it. Room service menu, hotel stationery, tourist magazine. She searched the bedside cupboards and, alongside the Gideon Bible, found what she was looking for. Chiang Mai’s hotels weren’t immune to power failures and provided their guests with candles. Jayne melted the end of one, emptied the ashtray into the bin, and converted it into a candleholder. She lit the wick and picked up the document again.

If her instincts were correct, Didier’s shopping list was a set of instructions for reading and writing in invisible ink. It was a plot device in one of the novels he’d loaned her: Holmes, detecting the scent of citrus fruit and knowing what he did about ciphers, applied the heat of a naked flame to reveal the hidden message.

Jayne scrutinised the three-page document until she found an area where the texture of the paper was slightly irregular as if liquid had dried on its surface. Holding the page in both hands, she passed it slowly back and forth over the flame.

Just as she was beginning to feel stupid, the flame leapt up and as she snatched the page away, Jayne noticed a distinctive, dark-brown line against a smudge left by the candle. Trembling, she lowered it again, closer this time, allowing the flame to lick the paper. One by one, the letters appeared. D-O-U-G-K-E-L-L-Y. She blew out the candle and sat back in her chair.

Doug Kelly. The name meant nothing to her. But there was no mistaking what Didier meant by it: he’d written it alongside the mention of the expatriate entrepreneur in Chiang Mai known to offer pre-pubescent children to foreigners.

Jayne hugged the piece of paper to her chest. Didier
had
trusted her. He must have known he was in danger and slipped the Chiang Mai Plaza Hotel card into her handbag to pass on the details of his appointment with Moira O’Halloran. He knew he could rely on Jayne to ask the right questions and follow the trail of clues he’d left. And there was no doubt those clues were intended for her.

Heart racing, she used the hotel stationery to rush off an urgent, confidential fax to her friend Gavan at the
Bangkok Post
, asking him to send whatever he could find on Doug Kelly. She waited downstairs to ensure it went through, then shredded it into the bin once back in her room.

By the time she slid between the sheets, her heart rate had returned to normal, allowing a sense of dread to return. Hoisting herself back out of bed, she grabbed the copy of
Nemesis
she’d rescued from Didier’s place, hoping to take her mind off what lay ahead. Instead, in a case that rang with eerie familiarity, she found Miss Marple confronted by an entreaty in a letter from a deceased friend:

You, my dear, if I may call you that, have a natural flair for justice, and that had led to your having a natural flair for crime. I want you to investigate a certain crime…

L
ieutenant Colonel Ratratarn was back in his office six hours after leaving it. He glanced at the paperwork that had appeared on his desk, a report from Komet on top of the pile. Ratratarn scanned the account of the officer’s observations during his watch. It was written in excruciating detail, but contained nothing significant. Ratratarn snorted and as he tossed it into the filing tray, saw a fax from the Canadian Embassy advising him to expect a delegation that afternoon.

There was a knock on the door. Ratratarn lit his sixth Krung Thep for the morning. ‘Enter!’ he barked.

Sergeant Pornsak strode towards his commander.

‘Reporting directly to you as instructed, Sir.’

Ratratarn knew Pornsak looked up to him as a mentor, and he was reliable, but the young man’s vanity riled him.

‘What do you have for me?’ he said.

‘Sir, I conducted those interviews you ordered,’ Pornsak said. ‘The bar owner couldn’t shed much light on the identity of the farang woman. To the best of my knowledge, the subject had never met the woman before that night and knew nothing of her background. By that, Sir, I mean I interrogated him thoroughly and I’m confident he was telling the truth.’

Ratratarn nodded for him to continue.

‘As for my interview with Khun Mana, I obtained a physical description matching the one given by Khun Deng and ascertained that the farang is an Australian who lives in Bangkok.’

‘There must be hundreds of Australian women in Bangkok,’ Ratratarn said. ‘What about a name, Sergeant, or an address?’

Pornsak straightened his stance. ‘No one could remember her name, but I was able to jog Khun Deng’s memory sufficiently for him to recall that the dead Canadian was friendly with the manager at the Chiang Mai Plaza Hotel. She might have stayed there. But…’

‘But?’

‘I went to the hotel and they have five Australian women registered: three elderly women on a package tour, one on her honeymoon and a professor. None of them fit the description of the woman we’re looking for.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps she’s already left town, Sir.’

Ratratarn inhaled thoughtfully on his cigarette. ‘What about the professor?’

Pornsak extracted a notepad from his shirt pocket. ‘She’s older, Sir, nearly fifty according to her registration details. Address in Menbon.’

Ratratarn snatched the sergeant’s notebook. Moira O’Halloran had listed her address as the University of Melbourne. He walked to the cupboard containing the dead foreigner’s files. Rummaging through a folder marked Correspondence, he extracted a fax with the University of Melbourne letterhead.

‘Sergeant, the dead Canadian also worked as a university professor. Did it occur to you there might be a connection?’

‘Ah, Sir, I—’

‘Here is a fax addressed to Khun Didier and signed by Professor Moira O’Halloran,’ Ratratarn said, waving the piece of paper in the man’s face. ‘Didn’t you even think to interview her?’

‘Sir, I—’ Pornsak swallowed hard, all smugness gone. ‘Sir, the receptionist said the woman doesn’t speak Thai.’

Still holding the fax, Ratratarn sighed. ‘Right, fine, I guess I’ll have to interview her myself.’

‘Ah, Sir, sh-she was due to check out this morning.’

‘Damn it, Pornsak!’ The lieutenant colonel picked up his cap. ‘Why the hell didn’t you say so?’

It was 9.45 by the time Jayne got out of the shower. She dressed quickly, only noticing the envelope slipped under the door as she left. She didn’t open the message until she was in the back of a tuk-tuk on her way to the Somphet cafe. It contained a return fax from Gavan.

Dear Jayne,
Lucky you caught me on night shift. The guy who does the entertainment column here says Douglas Kelly was a well-known Bangkok (and Pattaya) identity before he left for Chiang Mai two years ago. He’s a fellow Aussie who used to run a bar in Soi Cowboy, co-owned another in Pattaya, and had interests in a tour company that ferried clients between the two. Rumour has it he worked as a mercenary for the Americans in Laos in the early 70s, but it’s likely he spread the story himself. More reliable sources say he fled a financial scandal in Australia in the 80s. He’s maintained a low profile in Chiang Mai, but if you do get wind of anything nasty (i.e. newsworthy) going on, I know I don’t have to remind you that you owe me.
Yours,
Gavan
P.S. Don’t know if the photo will fax through. I pulled it out of the archives at the Post from an article on tourism in Pattaya. GB.

Jayne flattened the lower half of the page. The man identified as Doug Kelly was standing behind a bar, his hands raised in a gesture of welcome. In front of the bar, perched on stools, were three Thai women in bikinis holding elaborately garnished cocktails. Kelly looked broad-shouldered and didn’t have much hair, but the fax wasn’t clear enough to show his face.

As the tuk-tuk approached the Tha Pae Gate in the remains of the old citadel wall, Jayne stuffed the pieces of paper into her day-pack and directed the driver to stop. She checked her watch. She’d made the appointment with two minutes to spare.

She almost didn’t recognise Nalissa. The woman’s oval-shaped face was clean, making her look several years younger. She wore a modest floral print dress with a lace collar and white rubber sandals.

Jayne greeted her with a wai and took a seat. ‘I really appreciate you meeting me like this.’

‘
Mai pen rai
,’ Nalissa smiled. ‘Somphet makes the best
khao soi
in Chiang Mai. You want to try it?’

She gestured to the cafe’s eponymous Somphet who was plunging a wire basket full of dried noodles into a steaming cauldron of water the size of a kettledrum. Beneath the pot, a terracotta brazier glowed with hot coals. A moment later, Somphet removed the basket and dumped the noodles into a bowl with one hand, ladling curry soup on top with the other. Garnishing the khao soi with a handful of beansprouts and a sprinkle of chopped shallots, he tapped loudly on the countertop to attract a waitress. Jayne nodded eagerly for Nalissa to place their order.

The soup came with the usual condiments, small caddies of dried chilli, sugar, vinegar and MSG, and Nalissa added a generous scoop of the latter to her bowl. It was only when they finished eating that Jayne got down to business.

‘Nalissa, you mentioned yesterday you’d seen Khun Sanga at around one o’clock on the morning he was…that he died.’

The Thai woman rested her chopsticks across her bowl and blotted her lips with a serviette.

‘Yes. I’d gone to Loh Kroh to meet a friend. While I was waiting, I saw Khun Sanga. He was with a farang man, but I don’t think it was your friend.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘The papers said the farang who killed Khun Sanga was from Canada. But the man I saw him with was Australian.’

‘How do you know?’

The Thai woman smiled. ‘Sometimes when we’re bored at work, we play a game to guess the country of the different customers. For the Asian men, it’s easy. You start with the face and you can tell if he’s Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and so on. Then you look closer.’

She started counting on her fingers. ‘Chinese face with bad haircut and cheap shoes means mainland China. Chinese face with brand-name clothes, good shoes and meu teu means Singapore or maybe Malaysia. You have to guess.’

‘What about farangs?’

‘Ah!’ Nalissa started counting on the other hand. ‘Germany, he drinks a lot of beer, has a loud voice and big shoes. England, drinks a lot of beer, too, but not so loud. And the skin is pink.’

Jayne laughed.

‘As for Australia,’ the Thai woman said, ‘he also drinks a lot of beer. Wears big shoes like the German, but is not pink like the English. But you know he’s Australian when he talks because he doesn’t move his lips very much. Like this.’

Her impersonation of an Aussie drawl was impeccable.

‘How old would this man have been?’ she said.

‘Much older than Khun Sanga. Maybe more than fifty. He had lines on his face and not much hair.’

‘Was he big, medium, small?’

‘Tall,’ Nalissa nodded firmly. ‘That’s why I remember. I couldn’t hear them talking, but it looked funny because this tall man was almost carrying Khun Sanga.’

‘What do you mean, “carrying”?’

‘I don’t know…as if Khun Sanga was too tired to walk by himself.’

Jayne thought about it for a moment. ‘Did you tell any of this to the police?’

‘Oh, no!’ Nalissa moved her soup bowl to one side and leaned across the table. ‘If I see police I run away because if they catch me I have to give them all my money. Otherwise they’ll put me in prison because of…because of my job.’

Jayne nodded and checked her watch, wondering if she’d catch Deng at Man Date. She needed to find out more about what happened at the bar after she left.

She reached into her bag for some money to pay for lunch and caught sight of Gavan’s fax. On impulse, she took it out and spread it on the table. ‘Nalissa, I don’t suppose this was the man you saw with Khun Sanga?’

The Thai woman studied the picture, a crease forming between the fine arcs of her eyebrows. ‘It could be, but…I can’t be sure.’

Jayne wasn’t surprised as the image wasn’t clear enough for a positive ID. ‘Thanks anyway,’ she said. ‘You’ve helped me a lot.’

‘
Mai pen rai
,’ Nalissa said, rising to her feet. ‘You helped me last night.
Kam sanong kam.
’