‘It’s in your interests that we should do it like this. Remember, take one step outside this building and the Malaysian authorities could pick you up. As far as they are concerned, you are in their country illegally. And they, too, have an extradition treaty with Thailand. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they weren’t watching the entrance at this minute. Looked at like that, it is surprising they didn’t pick you up when you first arrived. Tempting Providence twice might be once too often, I think.’
Greg felt like a naughty boy being ticked off by his teacher. How he resented these puffed-up officials! But for the moment he needed him, puffed up or not. He would bite his tongue for now; when he was safely home in Tasmania, he’d be only too willing to tell the world how he’d been treated.
‘If you care to wait in the lobby, I will send for you when the travel document is prepared.’
Arrogant: there was no other word for it.
And Adam Sinclair smiled. ‘I have one final question for you.’
Greg’s nerves jumped. ‘Yes?’
‘You are aware Thailand has the death penalty for drug smugglers?’
‘My understanding is they have not imposed the death penalty—’
‘Please. You are aware the death penalty exists? Yes or no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it may interest you to know that the Australian government’s policy is never to extradite any of its citizens to a country where the death penalty can in theory be imposed.’ Adam Sinclair had a smile on his suddenly human face. ‘Get you back to Tasmania, you’ll be quite safe.’
Forget puffed-up officialdom; forget arrogance; at that moment Greg could have kissed him.
A car took him to the airport; an official stayed with him until he went through emigration: the high commission was clearly taking no chances and Greg was grateful.
Eight hours to Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport. Exhausted after everything that had happened, the weight of terror lifted from his shoulders at last, Greg even managed to sleep a while.
He had decided during the flight that he would first go not to Noamunga but to Hobart. It was nearer and more convenient. Most important of all, it would enable him to give Tamsyn his heartfelt thanks for putting up the bail money that had enabled him to escape. Without that money he would still be in the remand centre and that thought filled him with horror.
It was only while he was waiting to catch the flight to Hobart that he caught a fleeting glimpse of a face that he thought he might know.
Almost certainly he was wrong, but it woke him to possibilities that he had not previously considered. Terror returned.
CHAPTER 53
It had been raining all day. Tamsyn had worked late and when she got home it was still coming down, a chilly drizzle that was more mist than rain, but enough to soak you all the same, and the surface of the road was shiny in the darkness.
She saw the figure of a man standing close to the entrance of the building but took no notice of him. She drove down the ramp into the parking garage, locked the Nissan behind her and went into her apartment.
The air in the apartment felt chilly and a little damp, as it always did in wet weather, so she turned on the heater and poured herself a shot of Scotch. She had bought a tuna steak from the fish shop on the wharf and thought it would make a fine supper with chip potatoes and maybe a carrot or two that a friend had grown in her garden.
She put down her half-full glass and had just taken the tuna out of its wrapping when there was a knock on the door.
When she opened it she was astonished to find Greg standing there.
‘Well, here’s a surprise! What are you doing in Tasmania?’ And then: ‘Come in, come in.’
He did so; she closed the door behind him. No embrace but that had never been her style.
‘What’s happened? Why are you here?’
He did not answer. He took off his drenched coat, hung it over the back of a chair and went quickly to the window. He looked out at the empty street for a minute before turning back into the room.
It was odd behaviour but Tamsyn said nothing. Instead she took a moment to check him out. His face was tight and scared-looking and she remembered how panicky he’d sounded when he’d phoned three weeks before. She’d done nothing about it at the time because she’d thought it was just Greg being Greg, but this was different. Fear was etched in every line of his face.
‘What’s the problem?’
He shook his head but did not answer. His hands were shaking.
Patience, she told herself.
‘You want a drink?’
He nodded.
‘Help yourself.’
She watched as he poured himself a king-sized Scotch. When he drank his teeth rattled on the glass.
‘Sit down and tell me what’s bothering you.’
She spoke indulgently, as she always did when she was talking to him. As they all did. And that, she thought, lay at the root of the problem. He’d been so much younger than the rest of them that they’d humoured him when they should have been telling him to stop behaving like a fool. They’d treated him like a naughty little boy, but Greg was thirty-four years old.
‘I’m scared they may be planning to kill me,’ he said.
Tamsyn stared. ‘What?’
‘It would make a lot of sense from their point of view.’
‘What on earth are you talking about? And who are they?’
‘The ones who got me locked up. My partners. The men I trusted.’ A laugh that was more like a cry. ‘The ones I called my friends.’
Now it was not just his hands; his whole body was shaking. His voice was rising. She was afraid that any minute he might burst into tears. She took his hand and held it tight.
‘Greg, I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Come and sit down. Tell me from the beginning.’
He stretched his eyes as wide as they would go and took a deep breath. ‘May I have another drink?’
‘Go ahead.’
He did so. The alcohol seemed to steady him and when he began to speak his voice was almost normal.
‘I’d no idea there was a problem. Then, out of the blue, they turned on me.’
‘They?’
‘Mongkut and Somchai. My partners in developing the resort. It was a party at my place, the usual crowd, and everyone was having a great time. That was when they told me construction was over budget and they needed quarter of a million dollars to put things right. And of course I hadn’t got it.’
‘You should have told them they’d have to wait.’
‘They’re not the sort of blokes you can say that to. Besides, it was in the contract. I hadn’t been bothered about it when they got me to sign. I trusted them, you see, and they’d told me it was just a formality.’ An unsteady smile. ‘I was a fool. Because it wasn’t a formality at all. Anything but.’
‘So what happened?’
Tamsyn listened in growing horror as he told her everything that had occurred since. With admiration, too. No doubt he’d been foolish to get into the situation in the first place but she was flabbergasted, not only by the extent of the catastrophe that had engulfed him, but by the determination and resourcefulness her brother, the most laid-back of men, had shown in escaping from it. It had been a truly courageous performance. She would never have thought he had it in him but the evidence was plain: Greg, her kid brother, was far tougher than she’d ever imagined.
‘But why do you think they may be planning to kill you?’
‘Maybe they’re not but they want to take over Nirvana. The lawyer told me that had almost certainly been their plan from the first. When they set me up over the cocaine they must have thought they were rid of me. But I escaped. So now I’m thinking that maybe they’ll send someone after me to finish the job.’
‘Send someone to kill you? Here in Australia? Why would they do that? You’re no threat to them. Maybe once, but not now. If you go back to Thailand they’ll arrest you. Killing you wou
ld make no sense.’
‘I know. But so many senseless things have happened in the last few weeks that you start to believe that making sense has nothing to do with anything.’
Tamsyn saw that might be so. ‘I still think you were incredibly brave to do all the things you’ve done.’
He shook his head. ‘I owe it all to you. If you hadn’t put up the bail money I’d still be there.’
She stared at him. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘The ten thousand bucks you put up for my bail.’
‘I didn’t put up anything. No one contacted me. I didn’t even know you were in jail.’
It was Greg’s turn to stare. ‘Somebody did. I can’t believe Charlotte—’
They agreed it couldn’t have been Charlotte. Which left only one possibility.
‘How would Mum know you’d been arrested?’
‘Maybe the lawyer phoned her. Or the woman from the consulate.’
‘But where would she have found the money?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Best you ask her.’
‘I will,’ Greg said.
Tamsyn felt she’d landed in a world of make-believe. Every day you read stories like this in the paper, saw things on television, but when it happened to your own brother it was hard to get your head around it.
‘I don’t think anyone’s after you but you’d better stay in my spare room for the time being. Until we’re sure the coast is clear. But give Mum a call, okay? She’ll want to know you’re safe.’
She was right. Greg picked up the phone.
‘And I’d like a word with her when you’ve finished.’
CHAPTER 54
For Marina, it had come like a hammer blow out of nowhere: the phone ringing on an afternoon of dark cloud, rain driven on a wintry wind, the woman’s unfamiliar voice saying she was speaking from the Australian embassy in Bangkok, Thailand.
‘We have you listed as Gregory Trevelyan’s next of kin.’
A hand colder than the wind clutched Marina’s heart.
‘I’m his mother. What’s happened?’
Marina felt mounting horror and disbelief as the calm voice on the other end of the phone spoke of Gregory’s arrest and imprisonment, the accusation of attempted drug smuggling, the likely outcome.
‘That’s impossible!’
‘The Thai authorities allege he was found with cocaine he was trying to bring into the country—’
‘That’s nonsense. My son would never be so foolish …’
Johnny Head-in-the-clouds he might be, she thought. Foolish in some ways, perhaps, but he wasn’t an idiot. And no one but an idiot would mess with drugs in a country like Thailand.
The woman was still talking. About a lawyer, appointed by the embassy; about the possibility of bail; about the possible outcome if Gregory were convicted.
‘Twenty years?’ Marina couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
‘Which would be halved if he pleaded guilty. The lawyer thinks that might be the best option. But I must tell you conditions in Thai prisons are not good.’
Terror for Gregory made Marina strong. ‘I know my son and do not believe he would have done this. You said something about bail?’
‘Bail would cost ten thousand dollars, which would be forfeit if he absconded. The police are already holding his passport to stop him leaving the country but under the bail conditions he would not be permitted to leave Bangkok.’
Ten thousand dollars. It might as well be ten million. Then she thought of Kelsey Reinhardt’s money, the twenty-five thousand pounds that was now hers, still in the suitcase that Marrek had told her Kelsey had brought it in. And this woman had just said conditions in Thai prisons were bad.
‘Can I speak to him?’
‘Unfortunately the prison authorities won’t allow that. But if you care to give me a message I’ll make sure it’s passed on.’
A message? What was the use of that?
‘Let’s not waste time,’ Marina said. ‘If I send you the money, can you arrange the bail?’
‘Ten thousand dollars for the bail plus another thousand for the lawyer’s fee,’ the official said. ‘We can arrange bail as soon as we receive the funds. You understand, as I mentioned earlier, that if your son breaks the terms of the bail, the bail money will be forfeited?’
I pray he does. ‘I understand.’
It wasn’t much, but it was the best she could manage. What Gregory would do if he were released she had no idea, but she hoped he might find a way to get out of Thailand. Never mind the money; that wasn’t important. She yearned to hold him safe in her arms; nothing mattered but that her son should be safe.
Gregory a drug smuggler? She would never believe it.
She took the money from the suitcase, drove into Boulders and paid it into the bank, earning some strange looks when she did so. Much she cared about that. She arranged for eleven thousand dollars to be sent to the Australian embassy in Bangkok.
She went home. She waited. The following day the embassy acknowledged receipt of the money but after that Marina heard nothing. She had thought about telling Tamsyn and Charlotte what she’d done but, in the end, decided against it.
Her mind was in turmoil. She wanted with all her heart to know Gregory was safe but was frightened of the implications if he were caught trying to leave Thailand. She was nervous about contacting the embassy, scared of what she might hear. She decided she would wait, at least until the end of the month, before trying to find out what was going on.
Day after day she waited, and every day had a thousand hours. She wasn’t much into praying, had done very little since darling Jory’s death, but now she prayed continuously: for her son’s safety, for his return to Australia, for his return to her.
It was spring and late daffodils were flowering in the bed she’d created behind the house but the terror that consumed her made it feel more like the coming of winter. She kept telling herself that no news was good news, that if he’d been killed or sent back to prison the embassy would contact her. But would it? She had no way to know.
To wait and hear nothing, to be devoured endlessly by fear, was to suffer a slow and insidious death.
To make things worse, if that were possible, the pains in her stomach had come back, as the hospital doctor had warned they would. Sometimes they were no more than a subdued murmur but at other times they were a savage beast tearing at her. The pain was hard to bear, but she did her best to ignore it; she had neither the time nor energy to think about it.
Gregory, and what had happened to Gregory, had become her world.
In the last week of October, while she was telling herself that she really must find the courage to contact the embassy, the phone rang. She looked at the receiver with something like terror before picking it up.
‘Hullo?’
Oh, thank you, God. Dear Lord, bless you, bless you, bless you.
CHAPTER 55
It was 31 October, by a neat symmetry Esmé’s thirty-first birthday, and what should have been a balmy spring day bedecked with flowers had instead brought an aftertaste of winter with a slant rain, ice cold, blowing in across the Derwent River, and both flowers and people hiding their heads from the unseasonable wind.
Umbrellas were useless in that sort of weather and as the evening closed in Esmé scurried uphill through the park above Salamanca Place, sheltering herself as well as she could beneath the trees.
Not for the first time, she asked herself why Tamsyn should have chosen to buy an apartment in such an exposed position; not for the first time she told herself she knew the answer very well: because Tamsyn would not let herself be put down by anyone or anything, weather included, and the location of her home was a gesture of defiance, confirming her determination to stand firm against all comers. To be seen to be doing so, too, because Tamsyn needed the world to recognise and respect her strength.
Esmé wished she had even a fraction of Tamsyn’s fortitude, the will to defy what increa
singly seemed to be her destiny, that she had been born needing male company yet had still not found any man she could tolerate for longer than a month or two. Or who could tolerate her, come to that, because she was well aware she was not the easiest of women, expecting more from the world and its occupants than they seemed willing to give.
Gloomy thoughts for what should have been a happy day, but the previous day had seen the latest episode in her catastrophic love life when she had broken up, conclusively and finally, with Donovan Lewis, university lecturer and grade-one imbecile, who had expected her to cohabit with him and had resented it, volubly, when she had declined the honour.
Words had led to more words and eventually she had walked out and gone home to her own place.
So much for Donovan Lewis and his belief that he was God’s gift to every woman on earth.
To spend even a fraction of her life with such a man would have been intolerable. So here she found herself, on her thirty-first birthday, fed up with the world and herself, heading up the hill in the rain to seek solace with Tamsyn, her oldest friend and never-failing support in times of need.
The rain was harder, the wind stronger, as she came out from the trees and she pulled the hood of her coat higher over her head as she hurried across to the door of Tamsyn’s apartment. She had the key that Tamsyn had given her when she had bought her own place but Esmé had always been cautious of using it since the time she had walked in unannounced to find Tamsyn in the arms of a man she had—mercifully—not known. It had been an embarrassment she had no wish to repeat, although Tamsyn hadn’t seemed to care in the least.
She had these brief relationships and, unlike Esmé, never seemed to be scarred by them, but Tamsyn, as Esmé well knew, was still in love with Esmé’s father Grant. He had died almost a quarter of a century before, but it seemed he would be Tamsyn’s true love forever and beyond.
Esmé felt good about that but sometimes—often!—wished she could experience something of the same herself.
Now, unannounced, she knocked on Tamsyn’s door.
She sensed she was being watched from a side window: strange? Then the lock clicked and the door opened. Facing her, the light bright behind him, was a man whose shadowed features she could not distinguish.
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