The Damage (David Blake 2) (32 page)

‘That’s a big risk,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

‘I waited till Gladwell came out, got back into his car and buggered off, then I took a gamble. I went right in there. I told the young lass behind the counter I was investigating a ring of stolen credit cards and could I look at the bookings she had taken in the past hour. There were only two and I assured her they were both legit. I didn’t want his booking to be cancelled.’

‘So where was he off to?’

‘That’s the bit you are going to be most interested in,’ he told me. ‘Thailand.’

I took Gladwell’s flight details from Sharp, then I hung up and left Simone’s. I called Sarah and told her not to leave the compound under any circumstances, and for once she didn’t argue, then I spoke to Jagrit so he knew there was a threat. Jagrit assured me he would change the rotas and increase the guard on the compound. I got myself onto the first flight back to Bangkok. Then I phoned Pratin to arrange an emergency meeting there with my bent Thai detective. I didn’t like the idea of leaving Danny but I had no choice. Palmer and Kinane said they’d visit him and I was gambling I wouldn’t be away for long.

I quickly packed a bag, then left. I knew if I moved now, I had a couple of days head start over Alan Gladwell – I was going to need them.

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I
spent the flight from Heathrow to Bangkok thinking about Alan Gladwell and why he was flying out there. Either the story about the huge consignment from the new supplier from the East was true, or he had found out about my compound in Hua Hin. I couldn’t gamble that Gladwell’s trip to Thailand had nothing to do with me. I couldn’t afford to take any chances where Sarah was concerned, so I planned everything like we were on a war footing.

I couldn’t see Gladwell coming out to the compound on his own, but who else would be good enough to trouble my Gurkhas? Perhaps he didn’t know about them, but if he’d found out about my place, surely he’d have had it watched – but wouldn’t my Gurkhas have spotted his surveillance? The same thoughts were going round and round in my head and none of them made any sense to me. I was relieved when Pratin met me at the airport.

I supposed I could have had Alan Gladwell killed the moment his feet touched Thai soil, but that was a bad idea for a lot of reasons. British tourists being murdered in foreign countries always attracted the wrong kind of headlines, and the Thai authorities would come under pressure to investigate. Besides, if I killed another Gladwell, that would just leave two more brothers behind who’d want to become Top Boy and continue the war against me in Alan’s martyred name. I explained this to Pratin, but I wasn’t sure he took it all in. I gave him very clear instructions as to what I wanted from him but he just nodded a lot and left me to make some calls. Christ, I thought, I really hope he handles this one right. If he fucked this up we’d all be in the shit for sure.

I couldn’t tail Gladwell all around Bangkok myself, so I left that job to Pratin, and hoped he was as good as he claimed to be. I told him to call me if he found anything we could use. Perhaps we could get a photograph of Gladwell having a cosy chat with one of the ‘Golden Triangle’s’ most notorious suppliers. That alone might be enough to severely piss off the authorities. I doubted Gladwell would be stupid enough to be seen talking to the big players in the market out here though. Thai justice is notoriously harsh on dealers, and conditions are appalling. You wouldn’t want to be banged up for life in a Thai prison, and when they say life here, they mean life.

With Pratin briefed and on the case, I could get back to Hua Hin to see Sarah. Jagrit met me at the gate and put my mind at rest. No one had been watching the compound. That would have been an impossibility, he told me, and I believed him. Sarah knew nothing of the threat against her. I walked into the house and she greeted me in a dishevelled state.

‘Are you alright?’ I asked, trying not to find her condition amusing.

‘No,’ she gulped the word, like it was an effort to get it out, ‘I’ve been chucking up all day.’

‘Nice image.’

‘It was Joanne’s idea.’

‘Thought as much,’ Joanne had stayed on long after the rest of Sarah’s friends had returned home.

‘It was our last night together so we did flaming Sambucas. Lots of them,’ and she winced at the memory.

‘That’ll do it every time.’

‘Sorry,’ her face was pale, and her hair was hanging down in a straggle that obscured one eye, ‘not much of a sight to come home to, is it?’

‘You look gorgeous, pet,’ and I wrapped my arms around her tightly.

‘Thank you for lying.’

I laughed, ‘have you been caning it all the time I’ve been away?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Good,’ I told her, ‘that was the idea.’ I drew her closer to me and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Did you have a good time?’

‘It was brilliant,’ she looked up at me, ‘thanks for sorting it.’

I instantly put any idea I might have had of telling Sarah about Danny being shot to the back of my mind. Why bring her down from the first genuine happiness she’d experienced in months? I’d have to tell her eventually, of course, just not yet.

‘Well I only did it for selfish reasons,’ I told her. ‘I figured I needed the brownie points.’

‘Oh you did,’ she assured me, ‘but you earned quite a few while you were away only…’

‘Only what?’

‘You are going to have to wait for your reward,’ she gave me an apologetic look, ‘it’s just, I think I’m going to throw up again.’

‘Nice.’

She broke from me without a word and walked quickly away. A moment later I heard the unmistakeable sound of retching coming from the downstairs bathroom.

I turned on the TV so I could watch the football. There wasn’t anything I could do now until Pratin called.

Pratin followed Gladwell all day, keeping his distance, and he was sure he had not been seen. He had tailed Gladwell while he checked into a four-star hotel and waited for him to shower, change his clothes, then emerge again on foot. He had followed the man as he sauntered past shops and markets and watched from across the road when he ate alone in a restaurant, waiting for his contact to show up. Blake had briefed him to watch out for someone joining Gladwell, particularly anyone known to be in the drug trade. Pratin assured Blake he knew every drug baron in the capital and all of their lieutenants. If they chose to join Gladwell at his dinner table, identifying them wouldn’t be a problem.

But nobody showed. Gladwell finished his meal and paid the bill. Afterwards he walked on into the seedier side of the city, but he ignored the entreaties of the prostitutes, both male and female, when they approached him. Pratin followed him for an hour, waiting for Gladwell to do what western men always did in his city when they were killing time before a business meeting; buy someone and use them. But Gladwell ignored the dance bars and night clubs. He just kept walking. Eventually, when he was far from his hotel, he sat down at a table outside a quiet bar at the end of a dead-end street. It was small and squalid – not an obvious choice for a prosperous western male. This had to be the rendezvous point. Pratin selected his position carefully, watching from a seat set back from the window of a virtually empty restaurant, a discreet distance from Gladwell’s bar. He ordered a bowl of Tom Yum Goong soup and waited for Gladwell’s contact to show.

Gladwell drank his beer and ordered a second bottle, looking like a man who was waiting for someone. Pratin was running the names of local crime barons through his head, wondering which one would have the balls to sell a huge shipment of heroin to a western gangster. He had to concede there were a few. A street kid wandered up to Gladwell’s table then and started to chatter away at him, begging for dollars no doubt. Pratin was annoyed by the young boy’s presence. He wanted the child to leave so he could get a clear view of Gladwell’s contact when he arrived.

Then, something odd happened. Gladwell sat up in his chair, leaned closer to the boy as if to speak to him and smiled warmly. It wasn’t the sort of smile you normally wasted on a beggar. It was the kind of smile a man would usually save for a woman. Pratin immediately understood what that smile meant.

I opened my eyes suddenly and realised I had dozed off while the match was still on. I sat up with a start to see Sarah standing there in the doorway. Her hair was still damp from the shower and she was wearing nothing but black lingerie.

‘Hello.’

I was a bit groggy, ‘that the underwear I bought you?’

‘Yes,’ she walked over to me and took my hand. ‘I know I’ve been neglecting you and I’m sorry. Come upstairs with me,’ she said, leading the way.

Later I cooked up some fish and we ate out on the terrace so we could watch the ocean. It felt like we were a proper couple again. I’d barely given Simone a thought since I’d flown out of the UK. She seemed part of a separate life that couldn’t touch us out here.

‘Did you ever go to Whitby when you were a kid?’ she asked me.

‘Whitby? Why do you ask?’

‘You cooked fish. It made me think of Whitby. Did you ever go?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I never really went anywhere when I was a kid.’

‘Dad used to take us there, for fish and chips. I mean it wasn’t exactly just down the road but he’d say, “who wants fish and chips for tea?” and when I’d say “me!” he’d get the Jag out and we’d drive to Whitby. I’d say to him “Dad it’s a very long way, don’t they sell fish and chips round here?” and he’d say, “not like these, pet. Whitby cod and chips are the best in the world and do you know when they taste their very best? When you pinch them off someone else’s plate, give us a chip!”’ She was smiling now. I hadn’t seen her do that much lately, but it gave me some mixed feelings, if I’m honest.

A lot of Sarah’s conversations sounded the same and they usually started with the words ‘Dad used to’. It was a nail through my heart every time she said it, since I was the one who killed him. It made me feel sick inside that she missed him so much. The fact that she didn’t know it was me was the only saving grace out of a whole shitty situation.

‘You don’t talk much,’ she told me, ‘about the old days, when you were a kid, I mean.’

‘Not much to talk about, really,’ I told her. I didn’t add that I tried not to think about my childhood because it wasn’t that nice. ‘We got by. My mam did her best, you know.’

‘What was your dad like?’ she asked me.

‘Never knew him. He left, apparently, just before I was born, so if I had to make a guess, I’d say he was a wrong-un, wouldn’t you? It was no big deal,’ I told her, ‘you don’t miss what you never had, right?’ There was a time when I did think about my dad, a lot, but I was little then and didn’t know any better. I used to hope he’d run off and joined the army or he’d become a spy. One of my early memories was seeing that footage of the Iranian Embassy siege, those TV pictures of the SAS before they abseiled into the place and fucked up all of those terrorists, and I used to dream that one of them was my dad and, now that he’d rescued those hostages, they’d let him come home to me. Then he’d walk down the street in a shiny uniform with medals on it and he’d be carrying a new football for me. I get embarrassed thinking about it now. Soft lad.

‘It must have been hard for your mum.’

‘Yeah, it was, but she managed. Mums do, don’t they? They just get on with it.’

She looked away then and I wondered if I’d been insensitive somehow. Had I reminded her about her own mother, who died years back and left her alone with the father she became so close to, before I ruined everything?

She forced a smile then. ‘I’ve just thought, we are the same, you and me, we’re both orphans.’

She was probably right there, but who knew? My dad walked out on me more than thirty years ago – he could conceivably still be alive, somewhere, but was probably dead. I didn’t care either way.

‘No,’ I said, ‘orphans are kids, and we are grown-ups. We can take care of each other.’ I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. She snuggled up close to me and rested her head against my chest. She took a bit of taking care of, did Sarah, but it wasn’t her fault. I knew that. I’m not entirely insensitive and I made myself a promise there and then that I would do whatever it took to keep Sarah safe from Alan Gladwell, or anyone else who tried to harm her. In fact there was nothing I wasn’t prepared to do for her. No matter how bad.

Ten minutes later, Pratin called.

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P
ratin watched from his car as the boy led the man towards the small dilapidated hotel. Gladwell was trying to look inconspicuous, walking slowly behind the boy with his hands in his pockets, like any tourist taking in the sights.

As soon as he had seen that smile from Gladwell, Pratin had changed his plans. The foreigner wasn’t stupid nor was he about to get up from his table in front of everyone and follow the child. He simply spoke to the boy and carefully palmed him a little money as a down-payment, but not so discreetly that Pratin didn’t spot it, then he left and headed back to his hotel. Instead of tailing Gladwell, Pratin now followed the boy, caught up with him and paid generously for the information he needed. That was how Pratin knew the name of the hotel, the time they’d agreed, even the room number. He watched carefully as the boy opened the main door of the hotel and he gave them a few more minutes. He estimated how long it would take the boy to procure the key. Not long, since he’d done it many times before and the guy behind the counter was used to seeing him there. Gladwell would have to pay, of course. He’d be paying three times over; once for the room, once for the silence and complicity of the man behind the reception desk and once for the boy.