by Morris West
The only weapon I had – and that would soon be denied me – was time. Marius Melville would not move against me until he was sure I had delivered every scrap of information and provided him with full access to Cassidy’s trust funds in the event of my death. That was the code of the Honourable Society: no leaks, no loose ends. Marius Melville would neither report to the Friends nor call in the executioners until he was sure he had a tidy and controllable situation.
That was the real purport of the ‘heads of agreement’ discussion. My best, my only, hope of survival was to string out that debate as long as possible. Melville would expect no less. I was a hard-headed lawyer, trained by Cassidy. I had been at pains to appear arrogant and all-knowing, absolutely confident of my tenure over Cassidy’s trust funds.
So, time! I hurried to my room and set down the crucial figures. In Bangkok it was coming up midday. In Sydney and the other eastern cities of Australia it was three in the afternoon. In London it was six in the morning. In Zurich seven…
My first call was to the Commissioner in Canberra. He was out; he was not expected back for two hours. I left a message telling him to expect a fixed-time call from me. Then I called Arthur Rebus. He was in the middle of a clients’ conference. I pleaded with his secretary to drag him out of it, by the scruff of the neck if necessary. I gave him a hurried rundown on my conversation with the General and with Marius Melville. He was almost as worried as I was. We discussed moves and strategies and arranged that he would double up on all calls and contacts, in case my own communication system broke down. He uttered one final caution:
‘…You can’t make any agreements without appropriate documents. We’re holding everything here. When it comes to the final crunch, tell Melville you’ll have me bring them up to Bangkok. I’ll arrive with a clerk, who I hope will be lent to me by the Commissioner… So keep talking, Martin, and try to keep it as friendly as you can. Good luck!’
Next I called John Marley of the Australian Federal Police in Bangkok and invited him to lunch with me in my suite. Then I called Klosters. My palms were sweating and my mouth was dry as the ringing went on and on. Finally, the housekeeper answered and reluctantly agreed to wake Mrs. Gregory. When she came on the line I talked in a desperate rush of words.
‘Listen, darling! I beg you not to hang up on me this time… Don’t talk, just hear what I have to say. There’s been a murder… yes, a murder. Your father’s mistress, the Thai woman. It happened in Sydney. I’m here in Bangkok to see her father and Marius Melville. It’s a long story that I can’t tell you now; but this is a time of great danger for everybody – for me, for you, for the children… No, I’m not exaggerating; it’s a simple, brutal fact. I’m in touch with the Federal Police, but I’m out of their jurisdiction. So are you and the children… I want you to pack your bags now. Get a car or a train to Zurich and take the first available plane to London… Don’t make any farewells, please, please, just go!’
‘Martin, if this is some kind of trick to get me home, I’ll never forgive you.’
‘It’s not a trick. You’re the one who’s been tricked. This is murder – the mother of your half-sister, strangled in her apartment. It wasn’t rape, or robbery. It was a coldblooded criminal conspiracy that began with your father and now touches all our lives. I can’t say anything more. I’m here, trying to hold back an avalanche, and I can’t do it much longer. Now, will you do as I ask? Whatever you think I’ve done, whatever you’re involved with, don’t fight me now. If you don’t believe me, think of the kids… Now tell me you’ll do as I ask!’
There was a long pause, then finally she said, ‘All right, Martin. I’ll go. When will you be back?’
‘As soon as I can. Four, five days at the outside. I have to call into Zurich on the way back.’
‘Couldn’t I wait for you there? That was your first suggestion, remember.’
‘No! Everything’s changed. I want you home, with Clare and the children.’
‘What has Mr. Melville got to do with all this?’
‘Don’t ask me. I can’t talk about it. And please don’t you talk about it either, especially not to the servants there. Just tell them there’s a family crisis. Anything…’
‘Martin?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you really care for me any more?’
There was a whole tirade of anger, love and resentment ready to my tongue, but I couldn’t utter it. Suddenly I understood how much malignant damage had been done to us both. I said very gently, ‘Yes, my love. I care. I care enough to kill for you – and I may have to do it. Now please, pack and go home!’
‘I will. I promise. I’m so sorry… I’ll try to make it up to you.’
After that, I needed a drink. I made myself a long vodka and tonic and sipped it, standing on the terrace, watching the daytime traffic on the swirling brown waters of the Chao Phraya River. Time was when I could have woven a fantasy about every pagoda and every ramshackle go-down. I could have read you the course of the great rice boats and the logging barges and the narrow-gutted vegetable boats with their outboard motors trailing on the end of a long spindle. Not now. All I felt was a sense of utter solitude and alienation, of murderous indifference and the relentless creaking of the wheel of life.
I went inside and called General Rhana. I wanted another meeting as soon as possible. This time he suggested we meet at his house on Soi Kasemsarn, near the old Jim Thompson estate. He would send his car for me at two o’clock and have me back in good time for my meeting with Marius Melville at five. He had come to a conclusion: ‘Things begin to make sense – not good, but unhappy sense. I am not content to be pushed from one side to the other like the beads on an abacus…’
I wasn’t content either. I had to hold his confidence. He was my only conduit into the complex, contradictory market-place of Asia, where now I was an unwilling speculator. I had hardly put down the phone when it rang again. Laura was on the line, pleasant but formal.
‘Martin, a request from father. Would you mind if he deferred the meeting until tomorrow morning at ten? Apparently the Palace lunch is going to be a long one. The discussions may extend themselves afterwards. After that, he simply must rest. I don’t want him to overtax himself.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll be able to spend some time by the pool…’
‘I may see you there, if we get back early enough.’
‘Have a pleasant lunch.’
I had my own lunch date with John Marley of the Federal Police, a gangling fellow in his mid-forties, who looked like an attentuated basset-hound and talked in the long, flat twang of an outback farmer. He turned out to be much brighter than he looked.
‘…Things you have to know, Mr. Gregory… We have no general policing authority in Bangkok. We’re part of an international anti-drug force. I couldn’t do anything for those two silly girls last night except take information and make sure the Consul-General was informed. So, if you create an affray or get mugged in an alley, it’s the Thais who’ll deal with you – and none too gently at that. Next… Nothing is simple in Asia. Ethical judgements are based on different premises. Prostitution, the girlie bars, the liquor traffic are concessions run by the army and the police. Nobody talks about that because it comes up as a Human Rights question at United Nations. Drugs? They’re a multi-level operation. If you’re on the high level, you stay clear and make millions. If you’re low-level, you get busted and go down for twenty years – unless you can raise a hefty bail, when they let you skip the country… Now, your Möller from the Philippines. He’s legitimate here. Import, export, mostly through Chinese houses. Entertainment too – bands, singles, club acts. With those kinds of connections, you can front anything… Have you thought where that puts you, if you’re acting for the late Mr. Cassidy’s interests… ?’
‘I’ve thought about it. I don’t like it. I don’t know quite what to do about it.’
Marley popped a spicy shrimp into his mouth and then grimaced as the hot sauce seared his tongue.
>
‘…That’s our problem, too. How do you pick the grass seeds out of a sack of wheat? How do you tell clean money from dirty in your own wallet? You can’t. In a democracy, you have to make a case before you can convict a villain and take him off the streets. You’re a lawyer. You know how long that takes. So we concentrate on the possible – which is two silly girls with glassine bags taped round their navels… I guess my message is, Mr. Gregory, that on us you shouldn’t depend – not for your life, anyway!’
‘What can you tell me about General Rhana?’
‘Not much. That’s Thai politics, out of my line of business. The significant thing is that there’s been nothing in the Thai press but a four-line obituary for his daughter. That’s bad image, bad luck.’
‘Marius Melville?’
‘Again, what would I know? Hotel magnate, questionable financial connections; but who gets a look at a bank account in Thailand – even if you could read the damn thing, which I can’t. One of the biggest financial institutions in the country is run by the army. So what does that tell you? Where does Cassidy’s company fit, Mr. Gregory?’
I had to tell him I didn’t know. That simple admission was the measure of my ignorance and naïveté in this intricate international power game. One thing, however, was becoming clearer and clearer: that the simple rules of moral, social and political judgement became quickly obscured. Pragmatic judgments had to be made at short notice. Absolutes were impossible to discern. Relatives were the rule – the possible good, the avoidable evil, the acceptable compromise. All in all, it was an informative but depressing lunch, and I was glad when it was over.
General Rhana was hardly more informative. His residence was a beautiful old Thai house, in the middle of a large compound enclosed by a high brick wall, topped with coils of sharp-bladed anti-personnel wire. The garden was a riot of tropical plants. Big golden carp cruised slowly around the pond. The portals were guarded by gilded demons. Our drinks were presented by kneeling servants. The General himself seemed to be endowed with some antique splendour of authority.
He listened in silence when I told him of my meeting with Marius Melville. Then he began to question me. His manner was quite different: firm, full of power, sceptical as a judge.
‘You are convinced, Mr. Gregory, that Melville was responsible for the death of my daughter?’
‘I have to be very precise about this, General. You must not put words into my mouth, especially since they are words from another language…’
‘Please!’ He made a small apologetic bow. ‘It is important that you be precise. Go on.’
‘I believe, though I cannot prove, that Melville conspired in the murder of your daughter. He admits the motive. He wishes to take control of Chao Phraya Trading and the other companies which Cassidy formed throughout South-East Asia. He has suggested that we buy out your shares and Pornsri’s at a very generous figure. I believe also that he wanted to teach me a lesson – that if I stood in the way of his ambition I, too, would be eliminated… Life is very cheap to people like him.’
‘It has always been cheap in Asia, too,’ said the General. ‘However, one thing does concern me. You have not at any stage said how you yourself intend to act. Indeed, a few moments ago, when you were talking of buying me out, you used the word “we”, as if you and Melville were still acting in concert, singing a duet as it were.’
‘I have to maintain that impression with Melville – and indeed I have to maintain my situation of control as Cassidy’s nominee, until I can decide what to do.’
‘Meantime, what are you advising me to do, Mr. Gregory?’
‘I’m advising you to sell your shares – no, let me be exact. I am advising you to say that you will consent to sell, provided the price is right. If Melville plays tricks, I personally will arrange to purchase the shares.’
‘Which,’ said the General coolly, ‘would then put you in control of the company; which might then raise the reasonable question whether you and not Melville arranged my daughter’s murder!’
His dark eyes never left my face. I had the absolute conviction that, if I gave him the wrong answer, he himself would have me killed quicker than Marius Melville. I pointed to the phone on his desk.
‘Can you dial an international call on that?’
‘I can, yes.’
‘Then I’m going to give you a number. You will dial it yourself. You will find yourself connected to the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police in Canberra. I will introduce you. You will ask him any questions you choose to verify my good faith. Here is the number.’ I scribbled it on his desk pad and pushed it across to him. He lifted the receiver and dialled. There was the usual pause, then I heard the number ringing and an indistinguishable voice responding.
The General said, ‘Mr. Gregory would like to speak with the Commissioner. He is calling from Bangkok.’ He handed me the receiver.
When the Commissioner answered, I told him: ‘Commissioner, I am with General Rhana. I want you to explain to him as concisely as possible my relations with your department… No, you and I can talk at another time.’ I handed the receiver to Rhana and waited out a long, one-sided conversation.
Finally, the General put down the receiver. He said quietly, ‘I have insulted you, Mr. Gregory. I beg your pardon.’
‘There is no insult. You’d the right to prove me out. You have just done so. Now, let me tell you two things. First, you should sell the shares, because it is I and not Melville who is going to take control of those companies and I am either going to purge them of criminal activities or destroy them. That is the bargain which I have made with the Police Commissioner. Second, I am at war with Melville. He has invaded my life, as he has yours. He will not scruple to kill me if it suits him. So this is a war, General. I’m not sure I can win it, but I have to fight it. However, I am not at war with Melville’s daughter. She has done me no harm, only good. I want no harm to come to her.’
‘Cobras hatch cobras,’ said the General flatly.
‘You and your daughter engaged with Cassidy in a criminal enterprise. Does this mean your granddaughter must share the responsibility? There has to be some hope of a new beginning.’
He looked at me with something like pity in his dark eyes.
‘There is no new beginning, Mr. Gregory, only the slow extinction of desire. For most of us there are many more incarnations, before we arrive at Nirvana… Now, let me explain how we should handle this matter. I agree to sell you the Chao Phraya shares. You agree to sell them to the man who really wants them, Melville’s friend at the Palace, the one who can clear the way for his hotel project. Two things happen: I am reconciled with a man who could otherwise do me much harm; I am also reasonably rewarded. Melville’s project is approved. You are, for the moment, reprieved, because he believes that you have become a willing tool in his hands. After that, there will be much business to discuss, but you must first go home and visit your family… The rest you leave to me…’
Let me say it plainly, once and for all. I knew exactly what he was proposing and how I had led him to it. I had judged Marius Melville on circumstantial evidence and my own interpretation of it. I had communicated that judgement to a powerful man whose daughter had been murdered. I had exposed Melville to the same threat that he was holding over my head: the tribal executioner, the legendary sacred man who suddenly came and purged out the traitor and disappeared as suddenly into the crowd.
I remembered what Marley had confessed to me of the impotence of the police. I remembered what Arthur Rebus had said of our friend the Commissioner: ‘He won’t give all his blood to keep you alive. He won’t weep too long at your grave.’ The conclusion was all too obvious. In outlaw country you look after your own skin, otherwise someone’s going to nail it up on the wall of the barn… And yet, and yet… was not this the whole sum and substance of Cassidy’s philosophy: ‘the minimum of law, the fullest possible play for the natural forces of society’? What else was General Rhana telling me in his ca
refully modulated English?
‘…This is my country. We have never been colonised. We have learned from the “farangi”, the foreigners; but we have never been directed by them. So, you ask no questions. You let me handle this business in my own way. You stay only as long as I tell you. When I say it is time to go home, you go. Understand?’
‘I understand, General. But there are people in Bangkok who are connected with the man who arranged your daughter’s murder.’
‘Who are these people?’
I told him what Marley had passed onto me about Erhardt Möller’s office in Patpong Road and my own guess that Möller himself might visit Bangkok.
He made a note on his pad and said grimly, ‘If he comes, he will never leave. As for the others, they will find life so uncomfortable, they will have no time at all to think of you. Is there anything else, Mr. Gregory?’
‘I am still waiting for your answer on Melville’s daughter.’
‘He robbed me of mine, Mr. Gregory.’
‘One for one, General. It’s enough.’
‘And if I say it is not?’
‘May I borrow a sheet of paper?’
As he fished in the drawer of his desk, I took the lethal pen out of my pocket. When he lifted his head it was pointing at his forehead.
I told him very slowly, ‘General, this is a killing weapon. I’m sure you’ve seen others like it in your military career. I have only to press the trigger mechanism and you are a dead man. This is how much I care that nothing should happen to Laura Larsen.’
He did not flinch. He smiled.
‘This is the first time I have been threatened in my own house.’
I put the pen back in my pocket.
‘That’s the illusion, I’m afraid. We’re all under threat, every day. The barbarians are at the gates.’
‘Perhaps we are less afraid of them than you are, Mr. Gregory. You have my word… no harm will come to the woman.’