by Fiona Barton
“So you are saying that our daughters were the only ones in the guesthouse at the time of the fire? Where are all the other guests? You can’t have a party with just two people, can you?”
The officer shrugged delicately.
“They have not found any witnesses,” the interpreter repeated.
“We heard there was a young man with burns at the hospital,” Lesley said, remembering her conversation with Kate.
“He is not relevant to the inquiry.”
“What does he mean?” Lesley asked the interpreter.
The officer remained stony-faced as he rattled out a longer explanation.
“He says the young man at the hospital could not tell them anything,” the interpreter said. “They are not even sure he was at the guesthouse.”
The colonel spoke again, then shook hands limply with the families.
“He said they will release the bodies in the coming days,” the interpreter said. “They will give you the documentation and you can take them home.”
* * *
• • •
Afterward, Clive Barnes escorted them to the minivan again. “You didn’t look very happy in there, Clive,” Lesley said. “I don’t think Harry Potter was telling us everything his boss said.”
Barnes looked pained. “My Thai is not fluent, but he definitely skipped over some parts.”
“What did he leave out?”
“That police had been to the guesthouse previously in connection with drugs. Let’s say it was known to the authorities. There was a little more detail about how the girls were found. They did not suffer any burns or injuries—they must have died from smoke inhalation. The store they were in was metal, which would have kept out the flames, and they had wrapped themselves in some matting to protect themselves.”
“Oh God.” Lesley had an image of her frightened child, hiding from the flames.
“Why are they saying there was a party if there are no witnesses?” Jenny suddenly asked.
Barnes shook his head. “Perhaps the other guests have made themselves scarce because they don’t want to be questioned about drugs by the Thai police?” he said carefully.
“Our girls didn’t take drugs,” Jenny repeated.
Barnes paused. “We don’t always know what our children get up to when we’re not there, do we?”
“Do you think that’s why the boy in the hospital didn’t say anything? He must know something if he was there,” Lesley said. “The police should be questioning him again.”
BANGKOK DAY 11
(WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2014)
FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
Subject: ROSIE IS A COMPLETE NIGHTMARE
Hi, Mags,
It’s been a mare of a day. First R decided she was definitely going to get a tattoo! She begged me to go and hold her hand. I told her it was a bad idea. That she wouldn’t be able to go out in the sun, swim, or do anything that might cause an infection. But she wouldn’t listen. I’m not sure how she can afford it—what with all the nights out. And her mum would kill her if she knew.
JW said it would hurt like hell and showed her his tattoo—a little dagger someone did for him one night with a needle and a bottle of ink when there wasn’t anything on the telly, apparently. But she wouldn’t listen. Course, she started crying as soon as the tattooist put his needle on her skin. She was shouting, “He’s hurting me, Alex. Make him stop!” Sooooooo mortifying. She made so much fuss the woman who had taken her money came through and told her she was frightening the other customers. She was smiling like it was a joke—they smile all the time here, especially when it is completely the wrong moment—and said there’d be no refunds and told Rosie to basically sit still and shut up. She’d ordered a big gecko on her shoulder, like Lars has, but I persuaded her to go for something smaller. She chose a rosebud in the end. It looked horrible when it was finished, all oozy and bloody. Gross.
We came straight back to the guesthouse after so Rosie could have a lie-down, and I was helping her get her T-shirt over her shoulder so it didn’t touch the wound and something really weird happened. You know when you get that feeling someone’s watching you? And I thought I saw something move where our curtains don’t quite meet in the middle. It made me jump and Rosie screamed because I touched her arm. It spooked us both. Rosie made me go and look. I was really scared. I pulled the door open slowly. I kept thinking about that horror film we saw, Hostel. I was really shaking. But there was no one there. There had been, though. I’m sure.
Rosie was more interested in taking some painkillers, but I got my emergency sewing kit out and sewed the curtains together. More soon, A x
Rosie was still playing her new tattoo to the hilt that night, wincing theatrically if anyone went near her and boring everyone to death with how much it hurt.
“It was like being stabbed,” she told Mama, the only person in the guesthouse still willing to listen to her tale of woe. “They should have warned me.”
Mama clucked and smiled as she inspected the wound. “Poor Rosie,” she murmured. “I have something for this.”
Wads of cotton wool were brought from the back room, the mysterious area where Mama appeared to live.
She hadn’t been interested in Alex’s report about a Peeping Tom. “Probably the fan blew the curtains,” she’d said. “This is a good guesthouse. No problems here.” End of subject.
I wonder if there’s a Mr. Mama, Alex wondered, watching the landlady swishing around in a caftan and high heels as big as small boats.
Alex had made herself laugh out loud, and the nurse and patient wheeled round to glare.
“Shut up, Alex. I’m in pain here,” Rosie said.
“Take this, dear,” Mama said, putting a pill in her hand. “This will make it better.”
TWENTY
The Reporter
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2014
The doctor thought we were relatives. We hadn’t said we were, but we’d screamed up to the hospital in our taxi and jumped out, looking desperate and Western, and the security people had ushered us through to an office immediately.
Don and a grave-looking young doctor had a conversation in Thai, strings of words playing up and down the register, ending with the doctor nodding and smiling sympathetically at Mick and me.
“What have you told him?” I’d asked, but Don had shushed me and walked me out.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me!”
“That you’ve flown out from England to see the fire survivor. He immediately assumed you were family.”
“And you put him right? Don . . . ?”
Don had winked at me and said, “Shut up. You’re in. Third floor, room six. Doctor says you’ve got five minutes.”
I’d stood, undecided, as people milled around us, until Mick had nudged me. “Come on, Kate. We’ll go and ask if he wants to see us. No harm in that.”
I’d nodded and walked to the lift.
* * *
• • •
And here we are. Looking at an empty bed. Not just empty; the mattress has been stripped of sheets, ready for the next patient. Don goes outside to make sure we’ve got the right room and comes back in, shaking his head.
“This is definitely room six. I’ll find a nurse.”
When he comes back he looks grim. “He’s gone. Discharged himself first thing. The nurse said there was nothing they could do to stop him.”
While I was waiting for Mick, I fume silently.
“A name, an address?”
“No. She says it’s confidential. She wanted to know who I was. I think she’s going to find someone in charge. We might have to make a quick exit.”
“I thought you said you had a contact here.”
“I do. I’ve tried him but he’s on a ward round.”
I want to scream. So close. If we’d been here a couple of hours earlier . . .
I’m looking in the locker for anything with a name on it when the grave-looking doctor from the lobby and a female colleague come in.
“Hello,” she says in English. “I was looking after this patient, Mr. Waters.”
“It’s Mrs. Waters, actually,” I correct her.
She looks puzzled. “Sorry, not important,” I say quickly.
“Do you know where your patient has gone?”
She shrugs. “No. The police might know. They came to talk to him. This morning he said he wanted to leave. He did not have money to stay.”
“Was he English?”
“Yes, Mr. Waters, he is English.”
“Mrs. Waters,” I say again, trying not to show my irritation.
“You are Mrs. Waters?” the doctor says.
“Yes, yes. What else do you know about your patient? His name?”
“Mr. Waters,” she says.
“Look.” I am starting to feel as if I am in some bizarre comedy sketch.
Who’s on first . . .
“Are you saying his name is Mr. Waters?” Don interrupts.
“Yes. The patient is Mr. Waters.”
I feel like I am stepping off a precipice. “First name?” I croak, but I already know.
She pulls out a sheet of paper. “Jake.”
TWENTY-ONE
The Reporter
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2014
“What’s going on? Do you know him?” Mick asks, his voice suddenly loud. “Kate?”
“It’s my son,” I say and sit down on the chair beside Jake’s empty bed.
“No! Stone me!” Mick says, pulling up another chair.
“I can’t believe it’s him,” I say and hear Mick muttering, “Fucking right . . .”
The female doctor and Don are discussing something in hushed voices.
“Why did no one tell me?” I say. “Why was I not contacted after he came in?”
“He didn’t want us to tell anyone,” the doctor says. “It was his right, Mrs. Waters.”
“Why? Why didn’t he want us to know?” I shout into the empty air, and everyone starts moving toward me. Don helps me stand on trembling legs.
“Come on, love. We need to take you to the hotel. You’ve had a shock. Get her other arm, Mick.”
“Was he badly hurt? Was he burned?” I ask, shaking them off.
“Not too badly,” the doctor says. “His injuries were not so serious. He has burns to his hands and some scorching on his right cheek and nose.”
She is talking about the thickness and surface area of the burns, the rate of recovery, and I try to take it all in but my mind keeps slipping back to an image of him trying to get out of the burning building. The panic he must have felt, roiling in my gut now. I want to hold him to know he is safe now, but I can’t. I pat the mattress he once lay on instead.
“Does he know about the girls?” Don says to the doctor, and I suddenly remember why I’m here.
She nods. “The police asked him about them when they came. But we don’t know if he understood. He was in shock when he was admitted. He couldn’t speak for the first two days and he didn’t mention them when he started to talk. But all of this is completely understandable in the circumstances.”
I’m nodding as if I, too, understand, but the facts keep slipping away from me.
“And it was definitely Jake?” I say.
She holds up the sheet of paper to show me. It has his date of birth, his passport number. My boy.
Beside “Next of Kin” is written Not known.
* * *
• • •
“I have to call Steve,” I say to Mick, and he signals to Don to leave.
“We’ll get you some water,” he says, and I hear them talking as they walk away.
“Bloody hell, you couldn’t make it up,” Don is saying.
I dial slowly, putting off the moment.
What am I going to tell him? What am I going to say? I don’t know anything. Like why Jake was there in the guesthouse or what he’s been doing. What has he been up to for the past two years?
Steve picks up immediately.
“Hello. You’re early. Luckily I’ve just woken up. What time is it there? How was the flight? The play was wonderful—I’ll try to get more tickets for when you’re back.”
“Steve, something’s happened. It’s Jake,” I blurt.
“Jake? What? What’s happened?” His voice is loud, spilling out of the phone into the room. “Are you in Phuket already? How is he? Can I speak to him?”
“Steve, I’m in a hospital in Bangkok. Jake was in the fire. The hostel fire I came out here to cover.”
There is a beat of stunned silence as my husband wrestles with the news.
“What?” he shouts. “I don’t understand. What has Jake got to do with the fire?”
“He was there, Steve. I don’t know why. The police have talked to him. They came to the hospital and questioned him.”
“Hospital? Police? Was he a witness?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh Christ, is he hurt?”
“The doctors say he’s not in danger. They say he’s got burns on his face and hands.”
“Haven’t you seen him?”
“No. He’s gone. Disappeared from the hospital.”
“Disappeared?”
“Yes. Disappeared. I’m frightened for him, Steve.”
“I don’t understand, Katie.”
“Neither do I. The doctor said he left after the police came. He didn’t want us to know, Steve. He asked the hospital not to contact us.”
I’m crying too hard to speak. “Take three deep breaths, my darling,” says Steve. “I need to be able to understand everything you are saying. And I need to see your face, Katie. FaceTime me so I can see you.”
I hang up and close my eyes, taking slow, juddering breaths, and letting the panic slide from my throat back into my stomach before FaceTiming Steve back. I can see the strain in his face when he appears on the screen.
“Now start again from the beginning,” he says.
And I do. As if I am filing a story to a copytaker in the old days. New par. He said, colon quote. Full stop.
And Steve is talking in his calm consultant voice, telling me we will find him and how skin recovers, telling me we will bring him home as soon as possible, telling me everything is going to be all right. All the things I need to hear.
* * *
• • •
And when we reach the end of the story, I say, “I’m sorry, Steve.”
“Why are you sorry?” he says. But he knows.
“I lost him. Just like you said I would.”
He sighs. “This isn’t your fault. Go to the hotel. We need to speak to the authorities. We need help to find him. But we will find him. Ring me when you get there. Okay?”
“Okay.”
But nothing is okay. Everything has changed here in this room that smells of bandages and antiseptic. I’m not the reporter here. I’m the mother.
TWENTY-TWO
The Reporter
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 2014
Don is making calls to the Tourist Police and my ears prick every time I hear him say Jake’s name. I wonder what he’s telling them. Mick sits me down on a bench in reception and I try to think like a reporter. Where would an injured man with little money go? Would he check into the nearest hostel? Would he go to the embassy? Would he go to stay with friends? He’d need a pharmacy for painkillers. Did he have a prescription? I need to ask the doctor. She could alert the pharmacies. I write pharmacies on my notepad. My writing is shaky and my mind wanders back to the empty bed.
Where are you? I think. I’ve been asking t
his question since the first of May 2012 when he walked out of the house with his backpack and his hurt feelings. I should never have let it go on this long.
I need to do something. Anything. I call Clive Barnes at the number on his business card. He is not happy to hear from me.
“There is nothing for the media at the moment, Ms. Waters. You will have to wait. I’m a bit busy with the families of the girls, so if you will excuse me . . .”
I interrupt his formal leave-taking and throw myself on his mercy. I tell him about Jake. His voice changes instantly to victim-support mode, hiding any surprise—and any secret triumph he must be feeling at having Her Majesty’s Press on the back foot.
“I see,” he says simply. “You must be very worried. Please tell me his details—his date of birth, his passport number if you know it, description—and let me see what I can do. Try not to worry too much.”
He is following a script, I think and try not to notice.
“Can I ask if you have told the O’Connors or Shaws?” he says. “I understand you are talking to them regularly.”
“Er, not yet. I’ve only just found out myself.”
“I’ll tell them. We don’t want them to hear it from the media, do we?”
A small moment of triumph, then.
“I would like to tell Lesley myself,” I plead. “I can answer her questions. I will be talking to her as a mother . . .”
“As you wish. I’ll be in touch, Kate. And please let me know if Jake turns up.”
Mick is tugging my arm. “They’re here,” he hisses. Through the doors I see the pack clambering out of a convoy of taxis. They pour into the reception area and spot me immediately.
“Bloody hell, she’s got here first,” I hear Louise say.
Mick tries to head them off.
“Hi, have you been to the site of the fire yet? What about the press conference?” he says. “Are police saying anything about theories yet?”
“Not much coming out so far,” George says. “We’ve heard the guesthouse was known as a good place to get drugs. Everyone’s waiting on the IDs and the PM, so we’re all filing color from the scene and interviewing the same stoned backpackers.”