Captured (9 page)

“Think, man,” Daniel said aloud, to the bustling city far below. He was standing on his balcony on the fiftieth floor; the penthouse suite. He was wracking his brains, trying to come up with a plan. I’d be a lot different this time, he reasoned. It was a marathon, not a sprint. He shook his head, wondering why he had suddenly started thinking in business jargon. Why was it so difficult to think clearly?

He knew the answer: she was getting to him. It had been easy at first; he had seen straight away that she was bored with her humdrum life. Why wouldn’t she be, going out with that loser and spending all of her time either cooped up in the office with waste-of-space-Jones or with the loser. Or with that mouthy lawyer friend of hers. Daniel had met her only a handful of times, and wanted to keep it that way. He found her too intense; her clever eyes probing his thoughts in a way he didn’t like. He had felt like she could see right through him. She couldn’t, of course: if she had been able to, he would be locked up forever, of that he had no doubt.

Once he’d snared Kirsty’s attention, a curious thing had happened: she had captivated his. It took him a while to realise that he wasn’t putting on an act around her; it was the closest he had come to normal in his entire life.

He had thought that telling her about Simon would push her closer to him, and he had been right. Initially at least. He had quickly taken Simon’s place in her life, and it was all going swimmingly, until that mouthy cow went and put ideas into her head about travelling. Then she was off, ditching him unceremoniously.

Plan of action
, he thought. He was still at a loss.

He had already called work and announced that he had broken an ankle and would be working from home for a while, choosing to tell Susan. If she exaggerated, as he knew she would, he could legitimately stay away for several weeks. He congratulated himself on having the clear-headedness the morning before to grab his laptop from the living room, where it had sat in its case for several months gathering dust.

“So where the hell are you?”

The line was crackly, which Daniel found extremely ironic: it was possible that they were only steps from each other – not that she knew that. Nor did he intend to tell her until the timing was right. For now, he had to play it cool.

“Bangkok,” she answered.

Now that he knew to listen for it, he could definitely tell that something had changed with her. She sounded happier than he had ever heard her. He tried to identify the noise in the background, but couldn’t hear anything distinctive.
What did I expected?
he wondered. The big guy was going to jump on the line and challenge him to a duel? He hoped not: Daniel was going to have to get rid of him somehow, but there was no way he was pitting himself physically against that giant.

“Wow, lucky you,” he exclaimed. “How’s it been so far? Where are you staying?” he tried to make it  sound like a throw-away question.

“Oh some cheap guesthouse in Bangkok,” she answered, nonchalantly.

“I know Bangkok, but
where
?” he asked, trying hard to keep the urgency from his voice. Time was passing by much faster than he wanted.

“I don’t know.
Hey Grant, what district we in
?”

So
that
was his name. Grant. He played around with the sound in his mind.
Grant
.

She came back on the line. “Sukhumvit, apparently. We’re in this grotty little guesthouse called the
Welcome Inn,
how cheesy?! Why are you so interested anyway, I didn’t know you’d been to Bangkok!”

“Just wondering.”
I’m right here
. “Some of us are stuck in work and need a little excitement. Listen, I have to go. Meeting. Everyone says hi.”

After speaking to Kirsty, he resolved to be as prepared as possible, even though he still had no idea of what he was going to do. He returned to the balcony with an icy gin and tonic, thinking. He couldn’t afford to make a wrong move. He put his drink down with a clink on the glass table, and watched as humidity-induced rivulets of condensation ran down the glass. He smiled: he had finally had an idea.

He had found the apartment the same day, paying cash to the expat rental agent, who didn’t bat an eyelid. He remembered then all the stories and rumours he had heard about shady foreigners in Bangkok. What was it his friend Kenny had said?
“Like moths to a flame, they can’t help themselves.”
That was fine by him; he could use the anonymity.

He walked back to the hotel, in order to familiarise himself with the neighbourhood around Kirsty’s guesthouse. He wore fake Ray-Bans, a pair of stripy cotton shorts and a souvenir t-shirt he had picked up from a stall near the apartment: even if Kirsty saw him today, he doubted she would recognise him. That was vital. He had rented the apartment on the basis of its proximity to the guesthouse, and was surprised to discover it was in close proximity to the hotel too (though that was moot – there was no way he could have brought them to the hotel without attracting attention).

Options were the key, he thought, before embarking on a cross-city treasure hunt for knives, ropes, needles and industrial bin bags, taking care to return to the apartment each time, and to make his purchases appear innocuous by buying in different areas.

The gun had been trickier to procure: he’d known he couldn’t contact anyone for recommendations, not even his shadier acquaintances. In the end, he had walked the streets before settling on the seediest expat establishment he could find. He sussed out the owner for several minutes, pretending to be engrossed in one beer after another, before making his move. The guy behind the bar – Daniel couldn’t place the accent but thought he heard a light Northern inflection – looked as if life had thrown him a series of uppercuts to the chin, and he’d grown tired of deflecting them. He looked pathetic enough to trust, but sufficiently rough to be in a position to provide Daniel with the guidance he desperately needed. He looked up, and Daniel realised that he’d been staring.

“Nice bar you have here.”

“Hmm,” the bartender nodded, his expression disagreeing. “You British?”

“Yeah.” Focussed on his mission, he found it difficult to muster the necessary small talk. “Been here long?”

He zoned out as the other man spoke of his life back in Britain as a long-distance truck driver: the long boring hours, his bitch ex-wife who had left him for his best friend. He certainly looked animated now. Simon nodded when he noticed the man looking to him, expectantly. Silence.

“I said, ‘you married?’”

An opening
. “Yeah. Well I should be. Except I found out she liked my brother more. We were supposed to get married here actually. But I suppose that’s off now...” he trailed off, sneaking a glance at the other man. “Sometimes I think if I just had a gun...”

“I know the feeling.”

“What’s it like over here? I lived in the States for a couple of years, now there I could just walk into a shop and pick one out. Just like that. Come back in a few days, pick it up. Now at home of course, no such luck...”

A light went on behind the barman’s eyes. “Well you could do that here. Not legal of course, but you can get anything you want in Bangkok. I got one for protection. I knew a guy who knew a guy. Job done.”

“Your friend also happen to have a friend who could get me something a little stronger than this?” he raised an eyebrow and gestured towards the whisky his new friend had placed in front of him.

The erstwhile truck driver laughed a deep hearty chuckle. “I know a lot of people,” he confided, leaning forward.

His hands were steady as he rapped four times on the peeling red door, as he had been instructed to, and they remained so as an uncharacteristically tall and broad Thai youth frisked him and muttered something in Thai. Then one of the older men had leisurely counted his banknotes, examining some, and nodded his head towards two black plastic bags that were sitting on a filthy dining table. Lifting the bags from their nest of cigarette butts and old brown bottles, he hesitated.

“You want try?” the oldest man raised an eyebrow and smirked.

He shook his head and held the man’s eyes, curious at the jagged scar extending from his hairline to his brow. Seemingly satisfied, the man turned away. Daniel’s cue to leave.

He opened the pill capsules and mixed the white granules with a few teaspoons of sugar early the next morning. He still had no idea how he was going to approach this. He couldn’t stop thinking about Kirsty. Not in that focussed way he usually thought. That might have
helped
him. No, this was different. Coupled with Grace’s arrival in less than twenty four hours, he felt more pressure than he could remember ever feeling before.

“Daniel! What are you doing here?” it took her a few seconds for her brain to process the figure standing near the door of the little internet cafe: they had spoken the day before and he mentioned nothing about a visit to Thailand.

Grant nodded noncommittally to the newcomer, unsure of his relationship to Kirsty and waiting for a less ambiguous response from her, since he couldn’t see her face to read her expression.

“Hi Kirsty! I hoped I’d bump into you! They sent me to work in the office here for six months to help finalise a deal for private wealth management. An old friend of mine works for the client and they thought that I might hold some sway with him.” He hoped she hadn’t spoken to Susan. If she had, well... he’d think on his feet.

He had returned to the guesthouse first thing that morning and waited in the ground floor cafe, burying his face in a book. It was noon when they had eventually appeared downstairs. He made a mental note of what they were both wearing. He was pleased to see that neither of them carried a bag: they weren’t going far. Kirsty didn’t travel light. It had been easy to follow at a distance – Grant stood out like a sore thumb.

“Why didn’t you tell me, you idiot!” Kirsty smiled, walking over and hugging him.

“I wanted to surprise you. I thought I’d wait and see if I ended up bumping into you. Even in a city of nine million people I bump into someone from home my first week. Typical, eh?” she seemed to believe it. The guy was bigger than Daniel had imagined from the picture. He was glad of his plan now – it was the most sensible one by far.

“Well let’s go grab some beers and catch up then,” Kirsty said, leaning down to log out of her email. “Do you know anywhere good around here? By the way, this is Grant. Grant, my friend Daniel from London, we used to work together.”

Grant stood up to shake Daniel’s hand while Kirsty walked ahead to pay. “What brings you to an internet cafe mate, the company must be putting you up in a pretty plush hotel?”

Daniel shrugged, “you’d think, wouldn’t you? But I’ve been given an apartment with no internet.”

Grant nodded as Daniel walked ahead and caught up with Kirsty at the door. “I’ve got an apartment a couple of streets away from here with some cold beers in the fridge. Do you want to just head there?”

“Sure,” Kirsty smiled, opening the door.

“Wow, this place is so...” Kirsty struggled to find the right word to describe the apartment. “I’d have expected the bank to provide something a little more...”

It was a grey-looking serviced apartment, in a non-descript, slightly dilapidated block. It was unremarkable in every way; the intended occupants were corporate tenants who wouldn’t care about the appearance of their accommodation. The block had fallen victim to the intense competition in the market, and the improved options available for corporate visitors – the real estate agent had been desperate for him to take the place. After he had handed over the money, she had confided that the building was practically empty. Little did she know that was a huge selling point for Daniel. He didn’t care about the grey walls: he wasn’t there for a holiday.

Simon shrugged, looking up from the chopping board. “I know. I guess it’s all the cost cutting. I hope you guys like Caipirinhas?”

Scooping his hands around the large glasses and a bottle of water, Simon walked over to where Kirsty and Grant were standing, watching the street below. “Here you go,” he smiled, holding his hands forward so they could each take a glass. He leaned over quickly to pull the curtains fully closed.

Noticing Kirsty’s quizzical glance at the water bottle, he explained quickly. “I’ve got a lot of work to do; need to keep a clear head. Cheers!”

Turning his back as Kirsty and Grant sipped their cocktails, he smiled to himself, waiting.

It had taken all his strength not to punch Grant’s big manly face as he waited for the drug to kick in. The only thing preventing him from doing so was his knowledge of what was to come. He had far more in store for the grinning idiot than a little smack on the nose. He would have hated the big smug bastard even if he hadn’t stolen Kirsty, he thought, looking at the two of them sprawled on the grey carpet with what was left of their second drinks. The tranquilisers, if that’s what they were – they hadn’t exactly come with a manufacturers label, so he’d had to take it on trust – had taken almost an hour to kick in.