The Dying Beach

by Angela Savage

‘The funeral will be at Wat Sai Thai this Thursday. That’s in two days’ time,’ Jayne added for the pretty boy’s benefit. ‘The chanting starts tonight. Please let Miss Pla’s friends and colleagues know.’

  The boy’s jaw dropped; two Thai-speaking farangs in the tour agency proved too much for him.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ Jayne asked the farang.

  The woman nodded and extended her hand. ‘Sigrid. From Norway.’

  Sigrid from Norway. It took Jayne a moment to grasp the significance. ‘Jayne,’ she said, slowly shaking the woman’s hand. ‘From Australia. Shall we?’

  Jayne tilted her head towards the doorway and Sigrid followed her outside into the shade of a large tree.

  ‘Lucky for me you came along when you did or I might have throttled that boy.’ Sigrid gave her a crooked smile. ‘Did you know Pla well?’

  Jayne shook her head. ‘We took a tour with her the day before she died. But she was such a terrific young woman…’ She let her voice trail off, hoping Sigrid wouldn’t notice that in her excitement, she’d broken out in a sweat.

  ‘So true,’ the Norwegian said. ‘I had the good fortune to go on a few tours with Pla. She was exceptional. It makes her death seem all the more wrong.’

  ‘It doesn’t sit right with me at all.’ Jayne handed Sigrid a business card. ‘In fact, I’m taking a closer look into the circumstances of Miss Pla’s death.’

  ‘“Keeney and Patel Private Investigators”,’ Sigrid read aloud. ‘I’m guessing you’re Keeney, right?’

  Jayne nodded, pretending to fluff her hair while wiping the sweat from her brow. ‘The police have ruled Pla’s death as accidental, but I find it hard to buy the theory that she drowned.’

  ‘I’d say you’re onto something there,’ Sigrid said. ‘I actually saw Pla’s body when it washed up on Princess Beach and I’d be surprised if her death was accidental. It looked to me like she’d been strangled.’

  ‘You saw Pla’s body?’ Jayne feigned surprise. ‘That must’ve been awful.’

  ‘I admit, not what you expect to find at sunrise in paradise,’ Sigrid said. ‘But not the worst thing I’ve ever seen either.’

  Jayne murmured sympathetically, and waited a beat so her next question didn’t seem too eager. ‘What makes you think Pla was strangled?’

  ‘I’m a doctor. I’m currently working for Médecins Sans Frontières in South Africa. The murder of women by strangulation is a serious problem there. You learn to recognise the signs.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Jayne was both alarmed and impressed. ‘I apologise if I’m being insensitive asking a question like that. It’s just that I met with the forensic examiner in Krabi today who told me the ligature marks on Pla’s body were inflicted after she drowned, when the body was secured for recovery.’

  ‘That’s simply not true,’ Sigrid said. ‘The body didn’t need to be secured. It was floating in the shallows inside a cave. No one touched the body until the police arrived. The ligature marks were already there.’

  Jayne considered this for a moment. ‘Could her neck have become entangled in fishing line or rope after she drowned?’

  ‘Possibly. But in that case I would’ve expected to see the rope or line still in place.’

  ‘And the police?’

  ‘It took two of them but they simply lifted the body into their boat. They didn’t need ropes.’

  ‘The forensic examiner said she relied on the police report in her ruling of death by accidental drowning.’

  Sigrid folded her arms. ‘Well, someone’s not telling the whole truth.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jayne said.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For proving my instincts were right. Now I’ve just got to figure out who the hell would want to strangle Pla.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help you with that.’

  ‘Please don’t apologise. You’ve been more helpful than you can imagine. Perhaps I could buy you dinner tonight as a way of saying thanks. We could swap stories about how we both came to speak Thai.’

  Sigrid smiled. ‘My mother worked for the UN in Bangkok when I was a child. No need for you to buy me dinner.’

  ‘I confess I have an ulterior motive,’ Jayne said. ‘As I told you, my partner and I are investigating Pla’s death, but we’re not actually on anyone’s payroll. It’s kind of a charity case. Anyway, my partner needs convincing there are grounds to continue with the investigation, and the testimony of a qualified doctor would really help.’

  ‘I’m heading to Ko Tao tomorrow,’ Sigrid said. ‘I spent the last few days on Ko Phi Phi but the place has become so overdeveloped I couldn’t stand it any longer. I was planning to go to the temple this evening to pay my respects to Pla and then back to Krabi town for the night. I could catch up with you later.’

  ‘Name the time and place.’

  ‘You know the night market in Krabi?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s on the river near the dock. It’s my favourite place to eat in Thailand,’ Sigrid said. ‘I could meet you there around eight.’

  ‘Sounds great.’

  Sigrid took Jayne’s hand as though to shake it, but kept hold of it as she spoke. ‘I know from experience there is seldom justice for the poor, least of all when they’re young and female. But thanks to you, I will leave this place a little less cynical than I might have been.’

  Jayne had never been great with compliments. She blushed and withdrew her hand.

  ‘My mobile phone number is on the card in case you need to call me,’ she said.

  As she backed away from Sigrid, she almost tripped over a cop. For one panicked moment, she imagined he’d followed her to the tour agency and was waiting to arrest her. But he merely gave her a gruff smile and kept walking.

  When Jayne turned back, Sigrid had gone.

  She’d have chalked their meeting up to karma if she believed in such a thing.

  31

  The reclining Buddha at the foot of the cliff was draped in shadow, the white chimney of the crematorium ghostlike in the gloom of dusk. Othong cut the motorbike engine. He could hear the chanting of the monks as he wheeled his motorbike into the courtyard of Wat Sai Thai. He parked by the Bodhi tree, careful to avoid entangling the bike in the many coloured scarves that encircled its trunk.

  He headed for the assembly hall, where the monks were kneeling in a line on a small platform, chanting prayers for the young Thai woman whose coffin rested on a dais nearby. He recognised his friend, the fat monk, in the line-up and made eye contact. Uan fluttered his eyelids and closed his eyes, keeping them closed as he chanted. Othong wasn’t sure what to make of it. At the end of the line, furthest from the coffin, a small boy in the robes of a novice struggled to stay awake, his bald head drooping and bouncing with the tempo of the chanting.

  Othong knelt on a grass mat at the back of the group that had gathered in front of the monks. He pressed his hands together, closed his eyes for a few moments, and opened them to scan the crowd.

  Their worn clothes and dark skin marked most of them as villagers. Othong recognised the phu yai ban from Pakasai village from a meeting he’d attended with his uncle. Also a large woman who’d gone toe to toe with Bapit over his support for the power plant. If Bapit could see him now, he’d think Othong was fraternising with the enemy. Always jumping to the worst conclusions. But Othong would show him.

  His gaze rested on a blonde head in the sea of black-haired mourners. A farang woman. He scanned the group again. The only farang among them. Her hair was the wrong colour, but farangs liked to dye their hair. Othong only had to look at the photos of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren on the wall of his gym to know that. Besides, he’d learned from his previous mistake and, this time around, he’d start by establishing whether she spoke Thai. If she did, he’d know he was on the right track. He settled in to wait for an opportunity to approach the farang without drawing attention to himself.

  The chanting droned on. The boy novice fell asleep on his k
nees. Othong knew how he felt. Some of the mourners were playing cards while a group of women dished out bowls of fish soup and rice and passed them through the crowd. Othong’s stomach rumbled as he caught the scent of the fragrant soup. He was handed a bowl but to his chagrin managed only a mouthful before the farang woman rose to her feet. She pressed her hands together in a wai to the people around her, obviously intending to leave.

  Othong scrambled to his feet and followed, keen to stop her while they were still within the relative darkness of the temple grounds.

  ‘Kor thort krup,’ he said as he caught up to her. ‘Di chai pen pheuan kan kup Khun Pla mai?’

  ‘Ka,’ the woman nodded.

  Othong saluted his ingenuity. With one question, he’d established that she spoke Thai and was a friend of Miss Pla.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  ‘Ao Nang.’

  ‘I’m going that way, too. I’ll give you a lift on my motorbike.’

  ‘No thanks,’ the woman said.

  Othong hadn’t counted on having his offer rejected. Fumbling for his next move, he almost let her walk away.

  ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘There’s something I want to ask you.’

  She stopped but before she could turn around, Othong grabbed her in a headlock and slapped a hand over her mouth. She was a lightweight and her kicks did nothing to hamper him as he dragged her along the path that skirted the base of the cliff, into a shallow cave formed by the rocky overhang.

  ‘Where’s the notebook?’ he said.

  The woman shook her head beneath his grasp.

  ‘You’re lying,’ he said, tightening his grip and lifting her off the ground. ‘Pla’s notebook, where is it?’

  The woman stopped kicking and her body went limp in his arms. Othong swore under his breath. He didn’t want to kill her. Not yet.

  He turned her around to face him, held her under the armpits and shook her roughly.

  ‘Come on, come on. Wake up.’

  The kick came out of nowhere. Next minute he was on his hands and knees, dry-retching in the dust, an agonising pain in his groin. He was dimly aware of shouting—the woman calling for help—and distant voices growing louder.

  Othong struggled to his feet. He had to get away, but in his condition he could hardly mount his bike and pump the throttle. He couldn’t even get to the bike without heading towards the voices, and Othong could just see his way clear through the pain to know he needed to run from them.

  He followed the path around the base of the cliff, leaning against the rock wall for support. There was a shrine where the overhanging rock formed a natural shelter, extended with a lean-to of wooden posts and corrugated iron. Othong staggered past the altar and headed for the entrance to a tunnel he knew snaked deep inside the mountain.

  Othong was at home in the world inside Krabi’s limestone cliffs. As teenagers, he and his cousin Vidura had explored the vast hidden landscapes of tunnels and caverns, daring each other to venture deeper. Othong had learned to navigate in the dark, alert to changes in humidity, temperature and smell that indicated hidden lagoons, tunnels or air shafts, potential exit routes.

  He quickened his pace as he reached a cavern where a stone Buddha as tall as two men sat in meditation on a limestone plinth. In the far corner was a phallic stalagmite wreathed in coloured scarves. Candles burned in niches in the rock and the air smelled of incense.

  The cavern was as far as most worshippers would venture. But Othong knew of a tunnel behind the Buddha leading deep inside the mountain, where the candlelight did not penetrate. With a perfunctory wai, he ducked behind the statue and into a cleft in the rock. He walked several metres into darkening shadows, inching forward, anticipating the bump on his forehead where the gap in the rock narrowed. He was vaguely aware of voices in the cavern behind him as he dropped to the floor, crawling on his hands and knees through cool, damp stone.

  The tunnel narrowed further but Othong was not afraid. No one would dare follow him this far and a few more metres writhing like a snake would bring him into another cavern, where he could catch his breath and wait them all out in the welcome cover of darkness.

  32

  Dusk settled like a mauve veil on Krabi town as Jayne and Rajiv reached the paved promenade that ran along the river. The tide was out, the mudflats crawling with fiddler crabs and mudskippers. In the distance the twin peaks of Khao Kanab Nam rose like large crooked fangs out of the mangrove forest either side of the river.

  ‘They are finding human remains inside caves in those cliffs,’ Rajiv said, nodding at the limestone monoliths. ‘Early inhabitants of the area who were trapped by rising floodwaters and perished.’

  Jayne shuddered. ‘How can such a beautiful landscape harbour so many sad stories?’

  ‘I am thinking perhaps it was an extreme weather event—’ Rajiv began but something in her expression made him stop. ‘Another rhetorical question, I am guessing?’

  She smiled, leaning over the railing for a closer look at what was happening below them. The mudflats were covered in a filigree of trails. Fiddler crabs drummed the ground and beckoned with their single oversized red claws. The mudskippers propelled themselves on their fins through the ooze. Jayne noticed the strange walking fish often lost their balance, toppling over and bouncing back with a flick of the tail, bug-eyes scanning their surrounds to see if anyone noticed. It felt like an apt metaphor for their investigation into Pla’s death.

  The night market appeared as they rounded a bend, clusters of stackable plastic stools and tables laid out in what was probably a car park by day, hemmed in by vendor carts serving an astonishing array of food. The air was redolent with a heady mix of spices. Batter crackled in vats of smoking oil. Woks rang with the metallic clatter of stirrers.

  A man in a crocheted cap dished curries from pots the size of beer kegs. Children watched in rapt fascination as a woman in a yellow apron coaxed small sweet pancakes from a flat grill. There were carts offering seafood, noodles, rice, roti, soups, salads, all manner of deep-fried salty snacks and sweet treats in fluoro colours.

  It took Jayne and Rajiv a full ten minutes to do a circuit of the options before they settled at a table and ordered drinks.

  Jayne had briefed Rajiv on her conversation with Doctor Nuchanad and her encounter with Sigrid, but went over it again at his request. By half past seven she could see his metabolism getting the better of him and suggested they order some snacks. Jayne was too nervous to do more than pick at the fish cakes and fried mussels he brought back to their table, anxious for Sigrid to show up and convince Rajiv they had a case to pursue.

  Eight o’clock came and went. Jayne offered to order more food. Their waitress brought a plate of fried squid and a fish soup so spicy the steam alone made Jayne’s eyes water.

  ‘Your friend is running late,’ Rajiv said as the waitress retreated.

  ‘Don’t sound so sceptical.’

  ‘I am being totally open-minded about this, Jayne,’ Rajiv said, helping himself to the squid. ‘Can you say the same thing?’

  She was spared having to answer by the ringing of her mobile phone. Not a number she recognised.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Jayne, it’s Sigrid. I’m sorry but I won’t be able to meet you tonight after all. There was an incident at Wat Sai Thai. I have to make a police report.’

  ‘What kind of incident? Are you all right?’

  ‘Some guy attacked me, but I’m fine. A bit shaken.’

  ‘Why on earth would someone attack you at a temple?’ Jayne spoke into the phone but looked at Rajiv, whose eyebrows shot up.

  ‘He was asking me for Pla’s notebook,’ Sigrid said. ‘Do you know anything about that?’

  Jayne’s stomach churned, fear and excitement fighting it out.

  ‘Pla’s notebook,’ Jayne repeated for Rajiv’s benefit. ‘Why would anyone think you had Pla’s notebook?’

  ‘So there is a notebook,’ Sigrid said. ‘Well, someone wants it badly.’

/>   ‘They didn’t catch the guy?’

  ‘No.’

  Jayne’s mind raced. She signalled for Rajiv to pass her a pen.

  ‘Sigrid, I’m really sorry this happened to you. I think we’re dealing with a case of mistaken identity. Please, can you tell me exactly what happened?’

  ‘There’s not much to tell. I went to the temple for the chanting. The guy approached me when I got up to leave, asked if I was a friend of Pla’s. When I said yes, he grabbed me around the neck and demanded I give him Pla’s notebook.’

  ‘Was he speaking English or Thai?’ Jayne asked, as Rajiv handed her a pen.

  ‘Thai.’

  ‘Age, build, any distinguishing features?’

  ‘I’d say mid-twenties. Round-faced like a southerner. Taller than me and very muscular. A manual labourer, perhaps, even a body builder. He was wearing a red satin biker jacket.’

  Jayne jotted down the essentials on a paper serviette. ‘How did you get away?’

  ‘I was advised to take self-defence classes before going to South Africa,’ Sigrid said. ‘Comes in handy.’

  Sigrid was the coolest person Jayne had met in a long time.

  ‘You say he’s not in custody?’

  ‘No. He disappeared before I could get help. The temple backs onto jungle. He could’ve gone anywhere. Sorry, can you wait a moment?’

  Jayne heard muffled conversation.

  ‘I have to go,’ Sigrid said.

  ‘Of course.’ Jayne hesitated. ‘Can I ask if you have to mention Pla’s notebook to the police? Pla was working on an environmentally sensitive project and you never know whose side the cops are on.’

  The line went silent and Jayne feared Sigrid had hung up on her.

  ‘Okay, Jayne.’ There was less background noise, as if she’d moved away from a crowd. ‘In exchange for my discretion, you will promise me two things.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I will text you my email address and you will write and tell me the outcome of your investigation into Pla’s death.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And you will watch your back.’

  Jayne shook a cigarette free from the pack on the table but her hands were shaking too much to light it. Rajiv came to her aid and waited for her to speak.