“Sakda, I want to buy your watch off you.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. O’Brien. It’s not for sale.”
“Then can I borrow it, just for one night. I’m going to a fancy function and I think it would look better on me than you.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. Can I borrow it?”
“Sorry. It’s not for sale and I don’t lend it out. It’s mine and, other than it being taken off me today, it never leaves my wrist.”
“Never?”
“No! Never. Why don’t you buy one of your copy ones? They might look better on you than the real thing.”
“I’m glad you said that, because that’s what I figured.”
“Officer, have you actually got any questions to ask my client?”
“The only reason that I haven’t put you through that fecking door is because I want you here to witness this. But I have to tell you, you’ve been fecking winding me up all morning.” Danny turned back to Sakda.
“I’ve got you Sakda. You are fucked. You wanted to know what forensics I’ve got to prove the case. Well, I’ve got human blood in the links of your watch strap. As we speak it’s being tested against Sarah Appleby’s DNA for a match, but I already know that it’s going to be her blood. No Nose, you’re a fecking black hearted bastard and I’ve just fecking got you.”
Sakda dropped his head into his hands. His solicitor shuffled in his seat and, flustered, he said,
“Don’t answer any more questions.”
“You’re too late. I’ve got no more questions to ask. I’ve done you.” Danny stood up.
Sakda looked up at Danny.
“Please, Detective O’Brien, please sit down. I want to tell you.”
“I don’t want to listen. Tell Detective Ying.” Danny went to the door of the interview room and called in the two guards and told them to wait with Ying while she finished the interview. He closed the door and went to the bar over the road from the police station. He lit up a cigarette and ordered a brandy.
Ying looked at Sakda.
“I’m listening” she said calmly.
“It was not supposed to be Sarah Appleby. I went to kill my wife. I was tired. Tired of rejection, tired of being laughed at, tired of women. I had tried to get my wife to come back to me, but she wouldn’t. She didn’t understand me. Why did she stop loving me? I don’t know why she left me. I loved her. I gave her everything, but she wanted a divorce and she wanted to take all my money. I tried to get another woman. I only ever wanted to be loved, but nobody wanted me, not even for my money. Do you know how bad that can feel? I know everybody laughs at me. I couldn’t cope with any more rejection. That night I went to the function I had offered to pay the twins to sleep with me. They agreed, and then ran away laughing at me. They only wanted a lift home. It was the last straw for me. I decided there and then that I was going to go and kill my wife. I was going to make her take me back or I was going to kill her and then kill myself. I went to the restaurant and picked up the knife. I went to the apartment. I have a key to my wife’s apartment, I’ve used it before. I just went to tell her that she had to take me back or I was going to end it all for both of us. When I got to the top of the stairs I saw Sarah with a little man. I had seen her before in my bar. She was always with different men. I thought that she was a prostitute. She was only wearing a little see through nightie. I knew that they had just been fucking. The little man ran past me, ran away without even looking at me. I wanted to fuck her too. I said ‘Hello’ and she tried to slam the door in my face. I just pushed her back and pulled the knife from out of my jacket. She went to scream. I saw her gasp in her breath ready to scream, so I just slashed out with the knife. It slit her throat and the blood came bubbling out of the cut in her throat. She put her hands on it and went back into the apartment. I went in after her, I just lost it, I couldn’t help myself. It’s as if it wasn’t me and I was just watching myself do it. I had no control. I kept slashing her, but she kept running away. I just wanted her to be still and maybe I could have stopped, but she kept running and I kept chasing her. I stabbed her a lot of times. I don’t know how many times. I had no control. I kept stabbing. I don’t know for how long, but it was for a long time and, when I came back into my own body and the red mist vanished, only then I could see her. She was lying on the floor underneath me. She was dead. I could see parts of her body were missing, cut off. Cut off by some monster that was inside me. I still had the knife in my hand, but the blade was broken, I couldn’t see where the rest of the blade was, it had just vanished. I was covered in blood, it was dripping off me. I went into the bathroom and stripped off. I showered and then I put all my clothes, my shoes, everything, in a black plastic bag. She had some men’s clothing in her wardrobe; trousers, jackets, shirts, shoes, everything. I dressed and tip toed out of the apartment with my bag of clothes, before I put on some more shoes that I had taken out of her wardrobe. I went home and burnt the bag of bloody clothes and the clothes and shoes that I had taken out of her wardrobe. I even took those off and burnt them. I stood naked in my garden watching everything burn. I had thrown the knife away into the jungle on the drive home. I don’t know where I threw it, in the jungle somewhere. I didn’t really come to my senses until the next day, and then it was as if it wasn’t me at all. I don’t know what happened to me that night. I’m not a bad person Detective Ying.”
“Yes you are, and you will be charged today with the murder of Sarah Appleby.”
“Will you tell Detective O’Brien what happened?”
“No. He already told you. He doesn’t want to listen. You had your chance to tell him. This interview is now concluded.”
She turned off the tapes and the guards took him back to his cell.
Chapter 38 Just a Drug Dealer.
Ying knew that she would find Danny in the bar and she walked across to him.
“We did it Danny” she smiled.
“Yes, I know.” He blew out a long stream of smoke.
“Do you want to know what he said. Why he did it?”
“No. I already know.”
“What’s wrong? Why are you so sad?”
He looked at Ying. He looked deep into her eyes. Sometimes she was so innocent, but always so very beautiful.
“Ying, it’s over now. I will have to go back to London and file the report. The case is solved. Maybe that’s why I’m sad.”
“Yes, I know you have to go back and I’m sad too. Danny, if I was all woman, would you stay here for me then?”
“You know I would, but you’re not. You told me once in Thai that you loved me.”
“Yes, it is true. In Thai, in English. It’s true. I love you Danny. I could not stop myself.”
“I’m going to go and see Prawat’s wife and tell her that he will be released from prison. I want to tell her that he is not a murderer, just a drug dealer, and I think he loves her. Maybe she will have him back. I hope so.”
“Danny, you have a soft heart after all” laughed Ying.
“Do you want to come and see her with me?”
“No. I think I have something that I need to do for you.”
“For me. What is it?”
“A surprise, darling.” Ying tossed him the car keys. “I’ll get a lift. See you later” she smiled and walked back across the road to the police station. She turned and waved to him before she disappeared inside. Danny sighed.
He finished his drink, stuffed a 500 baht note into the wooden cup holding his bar bill and walked out into the bright sunshine. He drove to see Prawat’s wife and she welcomed him into her home like an old friend. Danny explained everything to her and told her that Prawat really loved her. She cried at first, but then started nodding and even managed a smile. She loved him too. She told Danny that maybe they would be able to try again and, anyway, they had
a beautiful baby. It was already early evening when Danny got back to the police station. He remembered that Ying had told him that she would get a lift back to the apartment. He thought he’d just check and see in case she was still at the police station, but she wasn’t.
When Danny drove onto the apartment complex he could see that the apartment was in darkness and he wasn’t really concerned when he went in and Ying wasn’t there. He checked to see if she was sleeping, but she wasn’t. He looked inside the built-in wardrobe. Her clothes were still hanging there and her underwear was in the chest of drawers. He shrugged his shoulders. He was feeling happy and relaxed. He knew that she wouldn’t be far. Maybe she was getting his surprise for him. Danny opened the cupboard in the kitchen and took out the half empty bottle of Jack Daniels.
He went out and sat on the balcony in the warm sticky darkness and lit up a cigarette.
“Another day in fecking paradise” he said to himself and raised his glass to Thailand.
Danny had stayed on the balcony drinking until around midnight and Ying still hadn’t come home when he went to bed. Now it was 8:00am in the morning and she was still not home. Now Danny was starting to get concerned. He drove back to Kathu Police HQ and, inside, he found Ying’s friend Phong.
“Phong, where is she? Where is Ying?”
Phong gestured with his hands and spoke in Thai. Danny shook his head and Phong then gestured for him to follow him. They went to the bar across the road where Phong used the bar girl to translate for him. The bar girl smiled and wai’d to Danny before she said what Phong had told her.
“You friend Ying, she go hospital Bangkok, for you have operation today. Now no ladyboy, now real lady. She love you very much.”
“Holy Jesus Mother of God! For fecks sake, why didn’t she tell me? Where, which hospital? Ask him which hospital. I need the address.”
She spoke to Phong and then to Danny.
“Same same hospital you go pathologist, Bangkok.”
“Tell him he has to drive me to airport right now. Tell him to drive me in my car. We go straight to airport now. Tell him.”
Phong nodded as she spoke. He was all wide smiles and white teeth.
“He say you should be happy. Now everything good for you.”
Danny didn’t answer, ushered Phong to his car and he drove Danny to the airport. He had to wait for nearly two hours for the next flight to Bangkok. It was going to be another hour’s flying time and then maybe another hour to get to the hospital, so he reckoned he would be with her in four hours. He smiled quite a lot as he sat waiting at Phuket airport. He thought about Ying and he realised that he was delighted that she was a complete woman now. He didn’t know if he would be able to speak to her today. She might even still be in the operating theatre when he got there or maybe she will be in recovery. Either way, she probably wouldn’t know much about Danny being there, but he just wanted to be with her. He knew at that moment that he loved her, and he couldn’t keep the smile from his face. He was counting down the minutes until he would be with her.
Chapter 39 The Hospital.
It was 2:30pm when Danny walked past the old lady selling the flowers from a bucket at the front of the hospital. He smiled and shook his head as she offered him a bunch. He walked inside and saw a monk sitting on a bench in his burnt orange robes. It was Sak, the skinny old monk with the glasses that made his eyes look huge. Ying had introduced him at the children’s orphanage in Songkhla.
He recognised Danny immediately and nodded to him, Danny walked over and remembered to wai, just the way that Ying had taught him.
“Please sit with me Danny. I have been waiting for you. I knew that you would be coming.”
“I’m delighted to see you again.” Danny sat down next to the monk.
“How are you Danny?”
“Oh, I’m grand. How’s yourself now? Are you here for Ying?”
“Yes I am.” The monk had a kind gentle graciousness about him.
“She wants me to speak to you” he continued.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes. She is very happy now and she loves you very much. You don’t have to say anything. She knows that you love her too. She wants you to be happy Danny. You have no guilt to carry. Ying knew what she was doing and she knew what might happen, but she loved you so much that she just prayed that it would be okay. She wanted to take the risk for you. She knew that you could only be together if she was a complete woman. Now she is and she will wait for you. You will be together in the next life. She will always be with you Danny and she wanted you to know that.” The monk put a soft hand on Danny’s knee and smiled.
“Jesus! Ying is dead?”
“Yes, Danny. She died on the operating table. She just died. I’m sorry for your loss, but she really is still with you. In 40 days’ time she will be reborn, but she will stay with you until then. She is very happy.”
“She’s fecking dead!”
“Yes.”
“Jesus, I don’t know what to say, I’m just…………….”
“It’s okay. She knows.”
“How come you are here?”
“She told me yesterday that she was coming. I knew it was no good to try to talk her out of having the operation. Once she had met you she had met her true love. You are the love of her life, all her lives. She knew it and I knew it too. I know that you didn’t ask her to have this operation, but she just had to have it done for you, so that she was once again the woman you have loved in previous lives.”
“Jesus! I’m sorry, but I really can’t listen to all this shite right now. Where is she? I need to see her.”
The monk nodded to a nurse who was watching from the reception desk. She picked up the phone and pressed some numbers and spoke before she came over and greeted Danny. He followed her along a wide corridor and into a lift, which took them down to an underground level. She kept turning around to smile a sympathetic smile at Danny, but he couldn’t be bothered to smile back. He felt the dark lonely shadow of death, which you feel when someone you love dies. He felt it embrace him. Its grip was cold and it made him shiver.
The nurse showed him into a little room. It was softly lit. There was a small golden Buddha statue sitting between two vases of fresh flowers on a table covered with an orange sheet. A few small yellow candles and some incense sticks were burning in a sand tray in front of it. The flowers and the incense made the tiny room smell sweet. Ying was laid out in an open casket and covered with a white satin sheet. The nurse wai’d to the Buddha and then to Ying. Danny stood over Ying’s body. He looked at her face. She was still so beautiful, even in death. She looked as if she was smiling. He remembered her running over the road to the police station and turning, waving to him and smiling. It was just yesterday. He wondered why he couldn’t turn the clock back to that moment. Finally the tears rolled down his cheeks, dripping onto the jacket of his suit.
He leaned over her, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her upwards out of the casket. He leaned further over and held her in an embrace close to him. He stroked her hair back over her head and kissed her, again and again.
“Ying, I didn’t want you to do this. I didn’t want this surprise. I would rather have you here. I love you Ying. I’m sorry I never told you before” he sobbed.
“She already know, me think…..sorry” said the nurse and wai’d again.
Danny laid her back into the casket. He took a flower from one of the vases and placed it across her chest. He lit some more candles and incense and wai’d to the Buddha, because he thought that Ying might like to see him do that one last time. Then he walked back towards the way he had come and got into the lift. The nurse tottered after him on high heels that clicked on the marble floor. Danny walked along the wide corridor back into reception and Sak. The old monk got up to greet him again, but Danny just put a
hand up and shook his head. The monk nodded and smiled warmly, blessing Danny as he walked passed him and out of the front of the hospital.
He leaned against the wall and lit up a cigarette. He drew the smoke deep inside and blew it out with a deep sigh, the tears still glistening on his face. The old lady flower seller picked a bunch of flowers out of the bucket and held them up towards Danny.
“You buy please, good price.”
“Oh! Feck off.” Danny walked away into the heat of the afternoon sunshine.
Chapter 40 Goodbye Nok.
Danny walked along Bangla Road, his hands in his pockets and his back hunched up and head bowed down against the torrential rain. He had a large brown envelope tucked under his arm. The bars were full as always. Music blasted out and smiling mini skirted girls tried to wave him in each bar as he passed. Coloured lights shone brightly in the night. Most people had taken cover inside bars or shops from the downpour, but Danny needed to get to Moon’s Bar, halfway along the street. He wanted to see Nok.
He ducked into Moon’s. The place, like all the other bars, was packed full, but he could see Nok in the corner wrapped around a customer. One of the other girls came over to him and said hello and asked what he wanted to drink.
“I just want to see Nok for a minute.”
“Cannot. Nok with customer. He already pay bar fine. You like me?”
“No. I just need to have a word with Nok.”
Danny pushed his way through the crowded bar until he reached the small table and high chairs where Nok was sat with her customer. She had a white PVC mini dress and thigh length boots on. Danny could see that she wasn’t wearing any knickers again. He smiled and shook his head.
“Nok, can I have a word?”
Nok glanced up and beamed her wide smile at Danny.
“Danny, I miss you. You come back tomorrow. I have customer now.”
The Thai Dragon Page 18