Table of Contents
The Kiss of the Dragon
Chapter 1: London, England. April
Chapter 2: Ticky
Chapter 3: On the banks of the Thames
Chapter 4: Phuket, Thailand. April
Chapter 5: Stuck in a sack
Chapter 6: Stafford, England
Chapter 7: Meeting the girlfriend
Chapter 8: End of the road for Ticky
Chapter 9: Back in Thailand
Chapter 10: Captain Morgan’s Bar
Chapter 11: Back to Captain Morgan’s Bar
Chapter 12: Escape with Ling
Chapter 13: Innocence lost
Chapter 14: Ling’s apartment
Chapter 15: Time to leave Phuket
Chapter 16: Udon Thani
Chapter 17: Party at Mama’s
Chapter 18: Building Foundations
Chapter 19: Isaan life
Chapter 20: Back to Phuket
Chapter 21: Surat Thani
Chapter 22: A boat trip for Ticky
Chapter 23: City of good people
Chapter 24: Back to Patong Beach
Chapter 25: Work at the Bar
Chapter 26: In a hotel with Nok
Chapter 27: Pieces of a puzzle
Chapter 28: Now we have leads
Chapter 29: The morning after
Chapter 30: Building the house
Chapter 31: Pattaya
Chapter 32: Back to the Lamai Hotel
Chapter 33: Kanchanaburi
Chapter 34: Ticky’s new life
Chapter 35: Crocodile Farm
Chapter 36: Undercover Operations
Chapter 37: Bangkok
Chapter 38: The hunter becomes the hunted
Chapter 39: Khaosan Road
Chapter 40: As clear as mud
Chapter 41: Special agents
Chapter 42: Information is power
Chapter 43: Wannadee Corporation Head Office
Chapter 44: Ticky’s tears
Chapter 45: The News
Chapter 46: Khonkaen, Isaan
Chapter 47: Laos
Chapter 48: Nong Khai
Chapter 49: Where’s the gun?
Chapter 50: Meeting Mr Wong
Chapter 51: Looking for Nok
Chapter 52: Back to Pattaya/Jack Morgan
Chapter 53: It started in Bangkok
Chapter 54: Sgt. Wattana
Chapter 55: It’s complicated
Chapter 56: Operation Tiger Lily
Chapter 57: Goodbye Nok
Chapter 58: Welcome Home
About the author
The Kiss of the Dragon
3rd edition 2013; ebook
Text by
Guy Lilburne
eISBN 978-616-245-059-4
Published by www.booksmango.com
E-mail: [email protected]
Text & cover page Copyright All rights reserved. © Guy Lilburne
Edited by Burnie Sinclair
Cover page model: Miss Fai Pansa Tarren
Also by the author:
The Thai Dragon
My Thai Story
Cocktails & Dreams
The Flower Girl
Tika
This is a work of fiction. Characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, stored or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from the publisher. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
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Chapter 1: London, England. April
The early morning had been crisp, but now it was warm and sunny; a beautiful April day. It was already mid-morning and Danny O’Brien sat on the bench alongside the Thames, just watching the river meander its way to the sea. He had half a bottle of Jack Daniels in his pocket, but he was trying to find reasons not to open it. He lit another cigarette to give himself some more thinking time.
His retirement from the Police had passed virtually unnoticed six months ago.
He received a letter from the Commissioner and a letter from the Divisional
Commander; both wishing him well in his retirement and thanking him for his 30 years Police service. He walked out of the CID office without even saying goodbye on his last day, and nobody noticed. Detective Sergeant Danny O’Brien was now just Danny O’Brien. His best friend since their childhood back in Dublin, Ch. Supt. Bob Malone, did go to his office to say goodbye in the afternoon, but Danny had already gone by lunch time. Bob knew that his friend would be in the pub and he thought about going to find him, but then he thought better of it.
Danny sat on a bench and watched the Thames. As usual, he thought about his time in Thailand. It was almost exactly a year ago since he was sent there on his last ever case. He had already been back in the UK for six months, arriving back just two weeks before he retired. He thought about Thailand most of the time, whether he was sober or drunk. At night he used to be plagued by nightmares of his wife and children, murdered in the arson attack; no doubt a revenge attack for him shooting and killing the East End gangster Mad Mickey Harrison. Since Thailand his nightmares had stopped. Now he only had dreams of Ying, the beautiful Thai detective who had worked with him on his last case in Patong, before she so tragically died.
Ying had brought a peace and spirituality to Danny that he had never known and, since her death, she came to him often in dreams, always smiling, always so beautiful. More recently in the dreams she seemed to be holding a baby, but it always vanished as Danny tried to get close enough to see it.
Danny was thinking more and more about returning to Thailand. He thought about the mystical Thai Dragon that he had been told about when he was there; the power of the Dragon that made people return time after time, or just give up everything and stay there. He remembered the warnings about how easy it was to be destroyed by the Dragon, but he was not concerned by that. He had nothing to stay in England for. That was the simple truth. No friends and nothing to do but get drunk.
Getting drunk was going to land him in prison, he knew that for sure. He had been arrested more times than he could remember in the last six months for ‘Drunk and Disorderly’ and assaulting Police upon arrest. The last time was yesterday. They took him to court, still covered in urine, after he had collapsed in a drunken stupor under one of the bridges further along the river from where he was sitting now. Danny hoped that it had been a dog that had urinated on him, because the thought of another human urinating on his unconscious drunken body was too humiliating for him. But he still cursed the ‘fecking bastard’ anyway, just in case.
The Magistrates had threatened to send him to prison many times and their patience was running very thin with him, even if he had once been decorated with a medal by the Queen. Danny knew that the next time he appeared he would be going to prison. That’s why the half bottle of Jack Daniels was still unopened in his pocket. The battle with himself raged within him, coming up with reasons not to drink it, but knowing that he was going to.
Chapter 2: Ticky
There was a lot that Ticky did not know. She did not know who her mother was. She did not know that her mother was and still is a working bar girl living in P
attaya. She did not know that her father was now an old German man who, 13 years ago, had his first ever holiday in Thailand as a middle aged man and paid a 17 year old bar girl extra baht to have sex with him without a condom. She did not know that she was the result, although, to everyone who saw Ticky, it was obvious that she was half farang (foreign). She was beautiful.
She had just had her 13th birthday a week ago. She had been raised by the woman she called Grandma and had lived all her life in the old woman’s shack, which was made up of bits of wood, two pieces of corrugated steel and some plastic sheeting. They lived in some wooded hills owned by the monks at the back of the temple, with a whole community of the poorest of the poor. There was no water or electricity, but they lived clean and they lived happily. Like everyone else living on the hill behind Karon Beach, they made a living doing laundry, selling cigarettes, selling flowers, sweets, cans of coke or anything else that they could sell, including themselves, to eke out a living. In Ticky’s case, she had been selling flowers with her grandma since she was 3 years old; all day and every day. They worked from 8:00am until 2:00am, walking the streets, visiting the bars and restaurants, smiling and waiing to the rich farangs who patronized them.
Ticky did not know that the woman who she loved as Grandma was actually her great aunty. She did not know that the two young Thai men, who had got out of the pickup truck and were talking to Grandma, were actually negotiating a price for her. She did not know when she saw them hand over two bottles of Sangsom whisky and a bundle of notes that she had just been sold for the equivalent of £500. Just over what she made selling flowers for her grandma in one year. She did not know when her grandma called her over that it would be the last time she would see her.
Ticky did not know that when she was grabbed by the men and bundled onto the back of the pickup truck, trussed up, gagged and placed in a sack, that she now belonged to them. She did not know what was happening, but she knew she was terrified and she cried until her body ached. After hours of driving and not knowing where she was going, she fell asleep.
Chapter 3: On the banks of the Thames
His thoughts were disturbed by an old familiar voice. It was his friend Bob Malone. The more Bob had been promoted over the years, the more he had lost his Dublin accent. But he let it slip sometimes, especially when he was with Danny.
“How are yer Danny? Thought I might find you here.”
“I’m grand. And yerself?”
Bob sat down on the bench next to Danny. He guessed that he would find his old friend here, because this is where he had been arrested on the last six occasions.
“I thought that they were going to send you to prison the other day Danny. I think they are tired of it all now. You are running out of chances, you know that?”
“Yes, I know that.”
“I’m not going to try and give you advice Danny. Jesus knows you never listened to me anyway, but I have something for you that might help you decide what to do with your life.” He pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to Danny.
“It’s a letter” he continued.
“I can see that. I can see it’s been feckin opened too.”
“I didn’t open it. It arrived yesterday at Scotland Yard. Someone must have opened it, in case it was police business. It’s from a Thai lady offering you a job in Thailand to track down her boyfriend. It might be a great opportunity for you Danny.”
“So you’ve read my letter then?”
“Sure I haven’t. I just glanced at it. I think you should think about it Danny. It might give you a purpose again. It’s better than sitting here and getting drunk now. And I don’t want to be visiting you in prison, my old friend.”
“Thanks for not giving me advice Bob.”
“You’re welcome.”
Bob did not know it, but Danny had already been thinking about going back to Thailand. He had no reason to, but the pull to return had been getting stronger by the day. He had nothing to keep him in England and now, maybe this letter was just the reason he needed to return. He looked at the open envelope he held in both hands. It was simply addressed to D/Sgt. Danny O’Brien, New Scotland Yard, London. He pulled the letter out and unfolded it.
Nui Chaidee
Royal Bangkok Thai Restaurant
35 Mill Bank
Stafford
01785 258 206
D/Sgt. Danny O’Brien
New Scotland Yard
London
Dear Mr. Danny
My name is Nui and I own a restaurant in Stafford. My boyfriend is Jack Morgan and he owns a bar in Phuket, Thailand. I very worry him. He missing no contact. I pay you money to go to find him. I think he have big problem. I read you in Phuket Gazette, great British detective. I think you help.
I need to find Jack Morgan very quickly time.
Nui
Danny smiled as he read it. He could almost hear her accent.
“Well Danny, what do you think? It might be a great job out in Thailand, tracing a missing person. You might even be able to start your own business out there.”
Danny looked at Bob. He knew that his old friend only had his interests at heart. He also knew that he had caused his friend more than his fair share of worry and embarrassment over the years. But, Bob had never deserted his friend even when he was advised by the ‘top brass’ to distance himself from the drunken Detective Sergeant.
“Bob, I’ve been thinking about going back to Thailand anyway. I know that there is nothing here for me, and I don’t want to go to prison. I have to go back to Thailand. There is something I have to find for myself and I think I can only find it in Thailand. So I guess I might as well try and find her boyfriend when I’m there.”
“That sounds great Danny. Now you have a reason to go. There is nothing to keep you here Danny, nothing……”
“You’re right Bob, it sounds grand. I think I will go and see this woman.” Danny looked back at the letter.
“Where is Stafford? Has Stafford got a railway station?” he continued.
“How the feck should I know? I’m not a fecking travel agent.” Bob stood up and slapped his friend on the shoulder.
“Danny, I’m hoping you start a new life out in Thailand. I’m hoping I never see you again. I’m hoping you are going to be alright now. I hope you find what you are looking for.” He put his hand out to shake.
“Yer a good man yerself, Bob. Looks like I’m off to Thailand then.”
Danny stood up and the two men embraced. As Bob walked away along the Thames, Danny pulled the bottle of Jack Daniels from his pocket and took a swig. He had reason to celebrate now.
Chapter 4: Phuket, Thailand. April
The Dolphin Bar was in a quiet soi (street) at the south end of Patong Beach. Marc, the French owner, was a good boss. Still in his early 30’s, he had a good head for business and the way he wore his glasses half way down his nose gave him the look of a professor. The bar girls nicknamed him ‘Brains’. He had a good group of bar girls working for him. They had been handpicked and there was a variety of ages and looks. The girls were happy working for Marc because, unlike most of the bars, he actually paid a small wage to the girls and they all got one day off a week. In nearly every other bar the girls did not get any days off and got no salary. They made money from getting a cut from the sale of over-priced ‘lady drinks’, which they would try to get the customers to buy for them. Of course, customers would pay them for short time sex, after paying a ‘bar fine’ of about 400 Baht (£8). This all created a happy atmosphere in the Dolphin Bar and each and every girl worked a lot harder for the boss.
Marc had, of course, taken one of the bar girls as his girlfriend. Because she had been elevated to the position of girlfriend, she did not actually work the bar anymore, but was always there, hanging around in a sort of supervisory role. Mos
tly, she just chatted to her old co-workers. It never seemed to be a permanent position though. The role of Marc’s girlfriend was always on a temporary basis. His current girlfriend, ‘Nut’, was his third from the bar. The previous two had lasted about 12 months each. After that, when it was all over, they just left.
They could have stayed and resumed their previous role as working girl in his bar but, to save face, they found it easier to just leave as the next bar girl took over the role as girlfriend. So, if Marc was true to form, then Nut had about another nine month to enjoy her current status.
The newest recruit to the Dolphin Bar was Ling, an Isaan girl from Udon Thani in the north-east of Thailand. She had been recommended by a former worker from the bar and she went along to visit Marc a couple of months ago. When she turned up for the job interview everyone was astounded by her beauty. She was tall and slim and had fantastic breasts, big for a Thai girl.
There are hundreds of thousands of beautiful Thai girls, but Ling really was something else. Besides her amazing beauty, she had a body to die for and a natural elegance and charm, which seduced people. Few people could resist. She was offered the job on the spot and she liked the look of the bar. It was an open air bar, but it was big and oblong in shape. It was clean and new looking. Everyone looked happy and it felt right.
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