“So is yours,” was the cheeky reply.
Sophie laughed.
“Touché,” she said.
“I did my internship in general medicine in the emergency room at one of Sydney’s hospitals, perhaps that’s why,” he explained modestly.
“Sydney? Really?” questioned Sophie cocking an eyebrow, “Where?”
“Saint Vincent Hospital on the East side, do you know it?”
“Five minutes from my house!” exclaimed Sophie completely at ease now. “That must have been an eye opener!”
“I enjoyed it tremendously, that’s true, even though the emergency room tended to be quite chaotic at times!”
“Indeed, the fact that it’s located a mere 200 hundred yards or so from the Kings Cross injection room and the notorious nightclubs of Oxford Street would have nothing to do with it!” she added with merriment.
He smiled his agreement in return.
“So what brings you here?”
Instantly sobered, Sophie asked whether he could recall mid-July a DOA patient being brought in with multiple snake bites and then dispatched to the main land.
“I believe I wasn’t on duty that day or I would have remembered. We don’t have too many unusual DOA on this island. Sometimes we face drug overdoses, some cases of domestic violence and a lot of driving accidents but that’s about all. Let me check the roster though and then I can confirm it, one way or another.”
Sophie waited a couple of minutes while he checked his computer screen.
“Not only didn’t we have a DOA during the entire month of July but to my recollection, we didn’t treat any snake bites either. What are the dates exactly?”
“The 13 or 14th of July,” replied Sophie, feeling ill. “If someone was found in a critical state anywhere on this island, could they be transported anywhere else? Are there any other major hospitals anywhere?”
“We are the only hospital and all casualties would come here. What is this about?”
“My brother died last July. According to the autopsy, he died of snakebites. The death certificate is postmarked from Bangkok, but we have reason to believe that he died here and was afterwards transported to Bangkok.”
“What difference does it make?” asked the doctor gently.
“You don’t understand. The Chief of Police told our lawyer that he died here, but because there was no medical examiner on hand, he was immediately transported to Bangkok. He also mentioned that a doctor pronounced him dead at the scene and indicated that it was a bite from a cobra. Now you tell me that outside this hospital there are no other doctors; thus, it seems logical to me that he would have been transported here first, so as to determine the cause of death, even if an autopsy could not be performed right here…”
Dr Rarak interrupted her.
“I didn’t say there were no other doctors on the island outside this hospital. I said we were the only hospital and that all casualties would normally come here.”
“Well, what does that mean?” asked Sophie slightly exasperated.
“Some of the plantations do have their own medical team, nurses and even doctors. The plantations are quite remote and many things can go wrong and with so many people living on the plantations themselves, some landowners have resorted to having their own medical staff. None of them would be qualified to do an autopsy but certainly they would all be qualified to ascertain cause of death, especially if it is as obvious as a cobra’s deadly bite.”
Sophie paused to think through her next question.
“May I smoke?”
“Of course, the ashtray is right here. I’m sorry that I couldn’t help you but I still don’t understand why you are hunting for answers? A cobra bite isn’t a daily occurrence on this island but it has been known to happen. I’m surprised that a death on the island wouldn’t have made the news, especially when dealing with a farang, but, by the same token, most of this island’s survival depends on tourism and the authorities would be loath to scare the hand that feeds them. Moreover, there isn’t really anything unusual in what you’re telling me in a country like Thailand, where procedures and regulations tend to be followed only when the mood strikes.”
Sophie hesitated to tell him the whole story and inhaled deeply on her cigarette instead.
“You’re right; my sisters and I are trying to figure how our brother spent his last hours. You see, we hadn’t seen him in months and his death was such a shock…”
“I understand,” he replied sympathetically, standing up in a manner that clearly indicated that the conversation was over. “If there is anything else I can do for you, let me know.”
“Doctor, what does a cobra bite look like? You said that anyone could tell because it was so easily recognisable. Can you explain how?”
“Cobras leave very distinctive puncture marks. On a large prey – and a human being is a large prey – there would be multiple fang tip punctures as the animal would make sure he had delivered enough poison to paralyse his prey. There is usually necrosis or decomposition of the skin around the bite marks within a few hours. The cobra’s venom induces death by suffocation and thus the body of the victim shows all the signs of asphyxia. Do you want to know anything else?”
“No, Doctor, you just confirmed what we already knew. Thank you very much for your time.”
After closing the door behind her, Sophie exited into the scorching sun, even more puzzled than before, her chat having confirmed that her brother had obviously never passed through the official channels. She could not wait to tell Lily and Stephanie of her latest discovery.
Charles had waited for the sisters in the lobby, wondering why Sophie had not joined them, but her siblings had remained vague as to her whereabouts and seemed unconcerned by her absence. Nathon was located exactly opposite to Chaweng Beach on the other side of the island and Charles, as the designated driver, soon understood that neither sister were in the mood for chatting. Inwardly he was irritated by their lack of social graces which would have warranted they made at least some effort at conversation. After all was he not here because of them? Did he not have better things to do than baby-sit three young women on a wild goose chase? His annoyance soon passed when he observed how distraught they both were, as if they had not slept at all. But did not Stephanie go to bed immediately when he left her at the hotel? Was it not Sophie and Lily who went out on the town? Did something happen last night that they refused to talk about in front of him? Many years of experience had taught him that practising patience with clients held its own rewards; they always ended up opening up in the end. He would bide his time for now and pretend he did not notice their white lips and clenched jaws.
When they arrived at Nathon Police Headquarters, a white unpretentious building without any distinguishing marks, the girls noticed the busy bustle was clearly due to the island ferry, which jetted not very far from where they were standing. Charles pushed open the door of the station and asked to speak to Surat Kunini. If Stephanie could have drawn a caricature of a third world country Chief of Police, Surat Kunini would have immediately sprung to mind. The Chief of Police was a short and portly man, sporting a uniform a tad too tight, with highly polished shoes and a belt to match. His small and feral eyes darted from one woman to the other. His large fleshy lips could have been described as sensual on anyone else, but looked lascivious and disproportionate on his round face, dominated by a flat nose and low hairy eyebrows. The two sisters exchanged a look: under any other circumstances they would have giggled uproariously. Uncertain as to what the proper manner of greeting should be, they waited for him to simulate a short wei and did the same.
“Charles, I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” exclaimed Surat Kunini, with what sounded like forced joviality. “To what do I owe this honour?”
“Well,” replied Charles clearing his throat, “I did make an appointment with your secretary. We’re just a tad early. These two women are the young man’s sisters. The one we talked about a couple of days ago. The
y have a few questions they wish to ask you directly. If that’s possible of course,” he added quickly, as he watched the other’s man face cloud instantly.
“Naturally,” replied the Chief of Police with a tone that clearly indicated his disapproval. “Why don’t you come and sit in my office?”
The three of them filed down a corridor plastered with posters and notifications and, at the end, entered a rather large and airy room with a slow moving ceiling fan, a basic desk littered with papers and full ashtrays. A handful of uncomfortable chairs stood in front of it. Filing cabinets lined one side of the room and a makeshift library the other.
“Young ladies, what can I do for you?” he asked once they were seated, his small eyes inscrutable.
“Thank you for seeing us, Mr Kunini; we very much appreciate the honour. We’re trying to retrace our brother’s last hours,” explained Stephanie deferentially. “We understand that he died of snakebites, but we can’t quite understand why he would still be in contact with snakes when his documentary ended a few months before that.”
“What documentary?” queried Surat clearly puzzled by the unexpected question.
“Oh, Louis – that was our brother’s name – had come to Thailand to film a documentary on deadly snakes for a TV series. But his partner went back to France months ago and without him. We received a postcard from Koh Samui, telling us he was taking some R & R and was staying with a friend, so I guess we were very surprised by the coincidence,” added Lily.
Charles raised an eyebrow at the nonsensical explanation; there were snakes everywhere in Thailand, why would it be out of place in his jurisdiction? Sensing their interlocutor was about to dismiss them, Lily added quickly, “In his will, he left us a lot of money. And we aren’t quite sure how he came to so much money while vacationing in a paradise such as this…”
At the mention of these last words, Surat swivelled in his chair and faced the window, his back to his guests. Turning around after a few seconds, he addressed them.
“I can’t see how I could help you on that level…I suppose that certain sums of money could come from all sorts of unsavoury activities such as prostitution…” he added his voice trailing, while scrutinising the sisters’ faces.
Keeping her tone as even as she could, Lily, piqued by the insinuation, replied cleverly, “True, but I really can’t imagine a prostitution connection here. And certainly it couldn’t be drugs since Thailand is known for its tough stance on the matter. Louis was well travelled and he generally observed the laws of the countries he travelled to. He would have respected them under all circumstances, so I think we would be going down the wrong track by following either line of inquiry…”
Obviously pleased by her answer, Surat relaxed visibly and agreed that it would be a waste of time.
“All we want to know,” repeated Stephanie pleadingly, “is for you to walk us through what you have already told Charles. You were there. Do you mind? It would really help us.”
Surat took a file from his top desk drawer, a gesture Stephanie found rather strange since she would have assumed that a cold case would be filed in one of the cabinets behind her instead. He began to read.
“On a trail past the Hin Lad waterfall going up towards the Peak of Khao Yai Mountain, the body of a young man, in his late twenties, perhaps early thirties, was found next to an overturned jeep. A small group of English tourists on mountain bikes came upon the body at 6:00 am on July 14th. One of the tourists called the station on his cell phone and I dispatched two cars around 6:30 am. The wet and muddy terrain rendered its access difficult. I was first on the scene and took the victim’s pulse. When I did so, I noticed a number of puncture marks on his chest. The area is known for snakes and thus it wasn’t very hard to put two and two together,” he added with a self-satisfied smirk. “Afterwards, we took the body back down to the station and we drove to the airport where it was airlifted to the mainland to be handled by the police and the medical examiner over there.”
“Wouldn’t there have been lots of photos taken at the scene?” asked Stephanie as innocently as she could. “With a foreigner dying on the island, I’d guess there would have been lots of photographs taken at the scene to ascertain that locals weren’t involved in any way and that it had indeed been an unfortunate accident, the driver losing control in a storm. A sort of irrefutable proof in case the embassy had any questions later?”
Before Surat could answer, Lily, with the most cajoling smile she could surmise, leaned across the desk to peak at the file.
“Could we perhaps have a look at them?”
Surat slapped the file closed.
“This is police business; no, you can’t look at them and I assure you all precautions and manners of documentation were taken!”
The fleshy cheeks of his face had coloured, as if the girls had personally offended him. Charles was quick to come to their rescue and let the Chief save face.
“Surat, they don’t mean to question your abilities in any way,” he said placating him. “Wouldn’t you think, though, it’d be normal curiosity to want to see the photos? For sentimental reasons? I’m sure a man who has seen so much in the course of his brilliant career would understand this: indeed, the funeral was closed casket and they never saw his face and could never kiss his forehead good bye. Seeing photos taken at the scene would help give them a sort of closure, wouldn’t you agree? They certainly never implied that the police left anything to chance.”
Somewhat mollified, Surat re-opened the file and fanned several large A4 photographs on top of his desk. The images showed a body lying peacefully face up in the dense surrounding jungle, a couple metres away from an overturned car. In the photographs the young man wore a pale long-sleeved shirt and the hint of a figure eight necklace around his neck. He wore sandals on his feet and a baseball cap lay in the dirt next to him. Taken from different angles in the low morning light, none of the photos showed the body completely turned over. Facial features and markings of any kind for that matter were almost impossible to distinguish so grainy was the surface, but the siblings’ hearts stopped nonetheless. Any hope the sisters had held onto that their brother was still alive somewhere suddenly faded. With tears in their eyes, they gathered the photos, placed them back in the file and thanked the Police Chief, in a sudden hurry to leave as much space as possible between them and him.
At first, in their renewed state of grief, neither Stephanie nor Lily questioned the fact that none of the photos showed a close-up of the bite marks on the chest when their brother had allegedly died of snakebites nor was he shown bare torso, the only way which could have made snake bites evident at first sight. Nor did they question the overturned car which indicated that it had ran into a tree before flipping over. Yet the pictures did not show a body violently thrown from an upended car, but one almost resting peacefully a few feet away from the accident, in a position which almost looked staged. Nor did they wonder how a positive identity could be made from photos of such poor quality. Nor had they readily noticed the discrepancies between the Chief of Police’s previous statements to Charles, when he had told him a doctor had indicated cobra bites as cause of death, and his new account when he had disclosed that he alone had rendered the verdict. Moreover, the police had apparently never questioned why their younger brother would be driving on a remote mountain trail before sunrise. Moreover, the death certificate alleged time of death was recorded at 10:00 am. What happened during the three intermediary hours? As they left police headquarters, completely dejected, neither was in the frame of mind to question the discrepancies. In their opinion, Sophie, who had been saved the emotional impact of seeing the photos taken at the scene, would be able to sort it out better than they could. They rode back to the hotel, in a heavy silence punctuated here and there by fresh tears and sniffles. This time around, Charles did not seem to mind, his thoughts returning time and time again to his previous chat with Surat; in his professional opinion, the Chief was hiding something, yet he knew that figu
ring out the truth would be almost impossible. Police corruption reigned supreme and pointing out contradictions was unlikely to yield the results they were after; they would need to find corroborating evidence from other sources if they were to ever determine what had really happened to Louis on that fateful morning.
Since her sisters would not be back from speaking with the Chief of Police for a while, Sophie, on the way back from the hospital, decided to detour by the small airport which, at that very moment, happened to be deserted. There she asked a supervisor whether he would be kind enough to check whether a coffin had been checked in on the 14th of July on one of the commercial airlines back to Bangkok. The supervisor, an elderly man with an intense gaze, told her that only a private helicopter had received clearance on the morning of the 14th to take a body in a body bag back to the mainland. He could not, however, recall who had made the booking and would need a couple of days to go back through their files. He only remembered the incident because it had been so early in the morning; he was just finishing his shift that day and the police, for some reason, had wanted to keep it quiet and make it fast. The hundred-US-dollar bill Sophie gave him as a thank you insured that he would be more than willing to do the extra digging she had required. She left him her hotel number for him to call her at his convenience.
When her sisters returned from Nathon, Sophie was already waiting for them for a late lunch by the pool. Back from her fact-finding mission, she had gone for a lazy swim, pondering the morning events. The water, almost too warm for her liking, had nonetheless relaxed her like a warm bath and she had felt herself drifting more than once. Dressed in a silk caftan of turquoise, green and blues, she was perusing the menu when she saw the forlorn faces of her two sisters walking towards her. She waved to them to come and sit down. Stephanie’s face was streaked with dried tears.
“What happened?” interrogated Sophie alarmed.
“He is really dead,” replied Stephanie with finality in her tone. “We came all this way for nothing. It was a stupid dream. Why did we put ourselves through this?”
The Samui Conspiracy Page 23