Bangkok Bob and the missing Mormon

by Stephen Leather

  ‘They must be rich to have such a big house,’ I said.

  She nodded sagely. ‘Very rich,’ she said. ‘He has a big Mercedes and she has an Audi.’

  ‘And a daughter, right?’

  ‘A daughter and two sons,’ she said, nodding. ‘All the children are so polite. When they were very small they used to wave when they went to school.’

  Another customer arrived and she went over to serve him. I ate the somtam, washing it down with beer. Her husband came back over when my plate was empty and I ordered another helping. And another Heineken.

  When the woman came over with my second plate, I asked her if she knew what the husband did for a living.

  ‘He has many businesses,’ she said. ‘He has a property company and a computer company and an import-export business.’

  ‘It must be good to be so rich,’ I said.

  ‘It is more important to be happy, and to be healthy,’ she said.

  Which is true.

  Very true.

  I tried not to think about cancer. And death.

  She went back to her stall and started pounding papaya again.

  I finished my second helping of somtam and the beer and I went over to pay the woman. I took a five hundred baht note from my wallet and handed it over with the photograph of Jon Junior. ‘Did you ever see a farang boy visiting?

  She looked at the money, then at the photograph, and smiled.

  She understood.

  She looked at the photograph carefully, then called over her husband and showed it to him. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

  She gave me back the photograph and slipped the five hundred baht into the canvas bag hanging from her belt. ‘We’ve never seen the farang,’ she said. ‘We’ve never seen any farang go into the house.’

  I put the photograph in my pocket and thanked her. ‘Your somtam is delicious,’ I said. ‘The best in Bangkok.’

  ‘The best in Thailand,’ she said, and I had to agree with her.

  And that was when Mrs Santhanavit drove up in her large Audi.

  CHAPTER 33

  I always used to think that it was Rabbi Burns the famous Jewish philosopher who said that the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, and it wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I discovered that it was really the Scottish poet Robbie Burns.

  Who knew?

  But the point was, I suppose, that it doesn’t matter how you plan things, the unexpected can always happen. The trick is how you handle the unexpected. I had about thirty seconds to decide what do once I realised that the middle-aged woman at the wheel of the silver-grey Audi 8 was turning into the Santhanavit house and beeping her horn so that whoever was inside would open the gate for her.

  An old lady in a stained denim dress dragged the wheeled gate back, using her shoulder to push it. Mrs Santhanavit tapped her fingers impatiently against the steering wheel until there was a gap large enough to drive through and she eased the Audi forward.

  The old woman wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her dress and began to drag the gate closed. I jogged across the road and slipped through, ignoring her protests.

  Mrs Santhanavit was climbing out of her car when I jogged up the driveway, a large Louis Vuitton bag on her arm.

  ‘Mrs Santhanavit?’

  She frowned at me through a pair of Dolce and Gabbana glasses.

  I stopped jogging. ‘My name is Bob Turtledove,’ I said, ‘I’m from the Betta English Language School.’

  Which, if you think about it, was strictly speaking true.

  I decided against speaking to her in Thai and to play the slightly-stupid English teacher.

  ‘I was wondering what had happened to Tukkata.’

  ‘Tukkata?’ she repeated. She leaned inside the car and pulled out half a dozen Siam Paragon bags.

  ‘Your daughter hasn’t been to the school, I wondered if I could talk to her.’

  She closed the car door. ‘Tukkata?’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes, Tukkata.’

  ‘She’s not here,’ she said. She was heavyset with short-thick legs wearing a multi-coloured silk shirt and white trousers and white flat shoes, with a heavy gold bracelet on her right wrist and a gold Cartier watch on her left.

  The old lady had stopped closing the gate and stood where she was, watching me and probably wondering whether or not she should call the police.

  ‘Do you know where she is, Mrs Santhanavit?’

  She shook her head and began to walk towards the house. I followed her, but then the front door opened and a stocky man in a starched white shirt and dark trousers glared at me. ‘Who are you?’ he shouted. ‘What are you doing here?’

  He was about fifty, his hair was greying at the temples and thinning at the back. He had a wristwatch that matched his wife’s and around his neck was a gold necklace as thick as my thumb from which hung a large Buddhist medallion that was the size of a coaster.

  He spoke to his wife in rapid Thai, telling her to go into the house. He sounded like a man who was used to being obeyed.

  He walked past her and came up to me. He was about six inches shorter than me and he had to crane his neck to glare up at me. ‘Get off my property!’ he barked.

  ‘Mr Santhanavit, I’m from the language school, I just wanted to check that Tukkata was okay,’ I said. ‘We haven’t seen her for a while.’

  ‘She’s fine,’ he said. ‘I want you to go.’ He pointed at the gate. ‘Go now or I will call the police.’

  ‘Can I speak to her?’

  ‘Why do you want to speak to her?’ he said.

  ‘To see if there’s a problem.’

  ‘There’s no problem,’ he said. ‘She’s sick. In her room. Go now.’

  I looked over at the house. A curtain moved in one of the ground floor windows. It was probably Mrs Santhanavit. I looked up at the bedroom windows. All the curtains were open. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe that his daughter was sick and I didn’t believe that she was in her bedroom.

  I believed Mrs Santhanavit when she said she wasn’t there.

  Which meant that Mr Santhanavit was lying.

  Interesting.

  I nodded and smiled and turned around and walked back through the gate. The old lady smiled and began dragging it shut behind me.

  CHAPTER 34

  Noy wasn’t home when I got back. I wasn’t surprised. Sunday buffet was often followed by Sunday shopping and if they were really enjoying themselves it would be topped off with Sunday drinks. I went through to my study and switched on my computer, then fetched myself a bottle of Phuket Beer from the kitchen.

  I swung my feet up onto the desk which is something I only do when Noy isn’t around because like most Thais she has a thing about feet. It’s bad manners to point with your feet and even worse to put your feet on the furniture, but I figure that when I’m alone in the apartment I’m king of the castle so if I want to put my feet up, I will. I pulled my MacBook on to my lap and logged on to my email account.

  Most were work related but there were half a dozen questions about Thailand from guys on their way for the first time and more than twenty possible sighting of Jon Junior.

  That was the problem with asking for help on the Internet – every man and his dog was keen to help but when all they had to go on was a couple of photographs there were bound to be false leads.

  Seven readers of the Stickman site had contacted him to say that they’d seen Jon Junior. One was in Laos and he said he’d seen Jon Junior at a temple, another had spotted him in Burmese market, and another said he’d seen him in Orchard Towers in Singapore, known throughout Asia as the Four Floors Of Whores, buying drinks for a couple of ladyboys. As I knew that Jon Junior was in Thailand, they could all be discounted. One Stickman reader said that he’d seen him on Koh Samui, an island in the south of Thailand. Another said he’d been asleep on a bus heading for Korat, another that he’d been eating at a seafood restaurant in Pattaya, and yet another that he had been on a hiking tour
visiting hilltribes around Chiang Mai.

  The four sightings in Thailand were all valid possibilities but none of the readers provided any information that would help me to follow them up.

  I went through the rest of the responses – six were overseas and I could ignore them straight away, especially the one that said Jon Junior had been spotted playing blackjack in a Las Vegas casino. The rest included Udon Thani, Surin, Koh Samui, Phuket, Koh Chang, and three in Pattaya. Again the readers hadn’t provided any information that would positively identify Jon Junior, though the one in Koh Samui and one of the guys in Pattaya had said that they were called Jon, and the one in Surin was wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap and had an American accent.

  I drank my beer and wondered what I should do next because while I had managed to establish that Jon Junior hadn’t been caught up in the fire at the Kube I was still no closer to finding out where he was.

  I logged out of my email address and onto Jon Junior’s account but there was nothing but junk mail.

  His parents had said that he wasn’t using his credit card which meant that he was in hiding or that he was physically unable to use his card, which pretty much implied that he was dead because if someone had stolen the card they’d have used it and if he’d lost it he would have got a replacement by now.

  I took out my cellphone and called his number but it when straight through to the Thai recording, and I called the number that the receptionist in Soi 22 had given me but that was switched off.

  I put the laptop back on the desk and took a long drink from my bottle. I wasn’t getting anywhere finding Jon Junior. The only real clue I had was that a girl he might or might not have known also appeared to be missing. I was running out of options.

  The front door opened and I heard Noy calling me.

  ‘I’m in the study!’ I called, swinging my feet off the desk. I’m only king of the castle so long as she’s off the premises.

  She pushed open the door, looking lovely in a black and white dress that was probably Karen Millen, one of her favourite designers. ‘Working?’ she said.

  ‘Still looking for that missing Mormon.’

  ‘No luck?’

  I shook my head. ‘How were the girls?’

  She grinned. ‘Girlish,’ she said. ‘They wanted to go to Q-Bar but I bailed out.’

  ‘I’m glad you did. I missed you.’

  ‘You say the sweetest things.’

  She slid onto my lap and kissed me, on the lips.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘You look tired.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Except for the cancer.

  If it was cancer.

  Now would be a good time to tell her.

  ‘Are you worried about something?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  She rubbed my temples with her fingertips. ‘Because you’re doing that frowning thing you always do when there’s something worrying you.’

  Noy was my wife.

  I loved her.

  And she loved me.

  I smiled and took a deep breath, and lied.

  ‘Just a bit of a headache.’

  I’d tell her later. When she didn’t look so darn sexy.

  I hugged her.

  I told her that I loved her.

  And we went to bed.

  I didn’t think about cancer until I woke up.

  CHAPTER 35

  I was in the shop bright and early Monday morning, dealing with orders that had come in through the website over the weekend. I had put some small bronze bowls from Laos onto eBay and they’d all sold. They were nice pieces but hard to date. They were either a hundred years old or clever fakes, and frankly even an expert would be hard pushed to tell the difference. I just described them as old Laotian bowls and let the photographs speak for themselves.

  A buyer in New York had taken three, one had gone to a buyer in Paris, another to a woman in Italy and a regular customer in London had bought one and sent me an email asking if I could sell him another dozen at the same price. It was a good weekend’s work considering that I hadn’t lifted a finger. I loved ecommerce but I also liked meeting customers face to face.

  Usually, that is.

  Sometimes there were visitors to the shop that I really didn’t care for.

  The little bell on the door tinkled as it opened and Ying already had her welcoming smile in place as she looked up from the box she was sealing.

  Two men walked in and at first glance I knew that they weren’t customers. They were big men, well over six feet, both wearing tight Versace jeans and black leather jackets and with thick gold chains around their necks. One had shaved his head, revealing an ugly scar above his left ear, and the other had slicked his hair back with gel so that it glistened under the shop’s fluorescent lights.

  ‘Are you Bob Turtledove?’ said Shaved Head, jutting his chin forward.

  ‘Who wants to know?’ I said, trying to sound less apprehensive than I felt.

  ‘Mr Shevtsov wants to talk to you,’ said Gelled Hair.

  ‘So Mr Shevtsov can call me,’ I said.

  ‘Now,’ said Gelled Hair, pulling back his jacket to show me the handle of a Glock pistol nestled in a nylon holster. He did it cleverly so that Ying couldn’t see the weapon. ‘Don’t make me ask you again.’

  ‘Is something wrong, Khun Bob?” asked Ying.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ I said, even though it wasn’t. ‘I’m just going out with these gentlemen to see an old friend. His name’s Petrov Shevtsov. Mr Shevtsov is a Russian who runs the Betta English Language School in Sukhumvit Soi 22.’

  Ying looked at me quizzically, wondering why I was giving her so much information, but I could tell from Gelled Hair’s annoyed stare that he knew why. If anything should happen to me, Ying would know where to send the police. I smiled at him and gestured at the door. ‘Let’s not keep Petrov waiting, shall we?’ I said.

  I expected the two heavies to take me to the language school in Soi 22 but instead we headed for the expressway and north towards Don Muang, which had served as the city’s international airport until Suvarnabhumi had opened in 2006.

  They had walked me from the shop and straight to a large Mercedes. The driver was smaller than the two heavies, with close-cropped hair and a goatee beard. Shaved Head sat in the front passenger seat and Gelled Hair sat in the back with me. He didn’t take out his gun.

  He didn’t have to.

  They didn’t push me down to the floor or put a bag over my head, which could have meant one of two things. Either they weren’t going to hurt me or they were going to hurt me so badly that I wouldn’t be able to identify them or where they’d taken me.

  The driver asked me if there was any particular channel I wanted to listen to on the radio, which was nice of him. I said I was fine with whatever he wanted.

  We left the expressway at the turn-off before the airport and drove through farmland until we reached a walled estate with two uniformed guards manning a barrier at the entrance. They raised the barrier as soon as they saw the Mercedes and we sped through.

  There were just five modern houses on the estate, massive homes three stories high with swimming pools and tennis courts. The Mercedes pulled up in front of one of the houses and parked between a black Bentley and a red Porsche. Gelled Hair opened the door and climbed out and then waved for me to follow him.

  He and Shaved Head took me around to the back of the house where Petrov was sitting on a lounger at the deep end of a massive oval pool. Sitting next to him was the blonde girl I’d seen with him at Paragon. She was wearing a tiny black bikini and black Chanel sunglasses and rubbing suncream over her long legs.

  Petrov was wearing a miniscule pair of red Speedo swimming trunks that left little to the imagination and Oakley sunglasses. His chest was matted with thick black hair and he had a wicked scar across his stomach, as thick as a finger, and what looked like an old bullet wound at the top of
his left thigh.

  There was a bottle of Cristal champagne in an ice bucket by his side and he poured some into a glass as I walked up, flanked by his two heavies. He drank from the glass then put it on the table next to his lounger. ‘So you’re not a teacher,’ he said.

  ‘I gave it my best shot.’ I smiled as if I didn’t have a care in the world but my mind was racing. Sweat was starting to pool between my shoulder blades. The sun was fierce and there was no shade by the pool.

  ‘What’s your game, Turtledove?’

  I smiled again. ‘Tennis, but I like watching football. American football, I mean. Not soccer. I’m a big fan of the New Orleans Saints.’

  The Russian frowned. I guess he didn’t have much of a sense of humour. ‘Why did you come to my school?’ he asked.

  He obviously knew that I wasn’t a teacher, so there was no point in continuing with the charade. ‘Okay, I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry that I claimed to be something I wasn’t. But I was looking for someone and your people had already lied to me.’

  His frown deepened. ‘My people? What people?’

  ‘I phoned your school, they said they’d never heard of Jonathon Clare. But I was pretty sure that he’d worked for you as a teacher.’ I shrugged. ‘I figured the only way I could be sure was to check the school out for myself.’

  ‘This Jonathon Clare, why is he so important?’

  ‘He isn’t,’ I said. ‘He’s just a kid whose gone missing. His parents are worried about him.’

  The Russian nodded slowly. ‘And have you found him?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  He reached for his glass and drank his champagne before continuing. ‘Why didn’t you just ask me? Why go through that charade of pretending to be a teacher?’

  ‘That’s a good question,’ I said.

  ‘And I’d like an answer,’ said Petrov. ‘Because if I don’t get an answer from you that I like, something very bad is going to happen to you.’