Behind the Night Bazaar

by Angela Savage

  ‘Nae jai, Khun Jayne,’ the lieutenant colonel had said with his reptilian smile. ‘I agree. It would be best if the Australian police agent wasn’t inside the premises when it is raided. It might cause a conflict—’ he paused for effect ‘—a conflict of interests, I mean. And no one wants any added complications.’

  Mark glanced at the deserted street, before ducking into the booth where Simone was waiting, crouched by her camera.

  ‘Hey!’ he said in a low voice. ‘How are you—?’

  Before he knew what was happening, she grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down towards her. Caught off-balance, he fell onto his knees, his mouth colliding with hers as she tried to kiss him.

  ‘Jesus, Simone!’ he hissed, pulling back and squatting on his haunches. ‘You’ve got a bloody lousy sense of timing.’

  ‘Sorry, Officer,’ she said with a grin.

  She reached out a hand but Mark ignored it, swivelling out of reach to brush the dirt from his pants. ‘Honestly,’ he muttered, ‘what the hell were you thinking?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I’m nervous. It feels as if… as if there’s something strange going on tonight.’

  ‘What?’ He raised his head sharply. ‘What do you mean? Have you seen anything?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ She looked through the lens of her camera. ‘It’s more of a gut feeling…’ She turned back to him. ‘I don’t know, maybe it’s this weather. If the storm doesn’t break soon, I’m going to suffocate in this humidity.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we could sit and chat for hours about the weather,’ he said impatiently, ‘but we’ve got work to do.’

  He started to rise to his feet, but Simone held up her hand.

  ‘What is it?’ he whispered.

  ‘Hang on…’ She looked through the camera again.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said, peering through a gap in the slats.

  ‘I thought I heard something, but…no, it’s OK. What were you saying?’

  Mark shook his head. ‘I don’t remember. Look, I have to get going. Are you all set?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She placed her hand over the camera. ‘Where’s your equipment?’

  He patted his shirt pocket. ‘The lens is in the button.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ she grinned. ‘That’s amazing, you must feel like James Bond.’

  Mark managed a smile.

  ‘It didn’t get dislodged, did it?’ she added. ‘I mean, when I knocked you…’

  She waved vaguely and Mark found himself growing impatient again. Frowning, he squatted with his back to the wall to check the camera was still in place, becoming aware of the sound of vehicles in the street.

  ‘What time is it?’

  He looked up. Though she directed the question at him, Simone’s attention was fixed on her camera.

  ‘Eleven-forty,’ he said, glancing at his watch again.

  ‘Why?’

  He saw her swallow, her face pale. ‘I think they’re early,’ she whispered.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’

  Mark pivoted, peering through a gap in the woodwork to see two police cars pull up outside the Kitten Club.

  ‘Shit!’ He leapt up. ‘I’ve gotta get in there before they—’

  With a strength that took him by surprise, Simone grabbed him by the wrist and jerked him back down again.

  ‘I don’t think they’re here for the pay-off,’ she hissed.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Look at them, Mark. There’s a whole squadron arriving!’

  Police vehicles were flooding into the street in force, motorcycles and several vans in addition to the two squad cars, blocking off either side of the Kitten Club. There must have been around forty uniformed cops. Mark watched as they took up positions, some around the back of the building, others forming a barricade between the entrance and the street.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ he groaned. ‘They’re going to raid the place.’

  As he spoke, a man he recognised as the ringleader of the protection racket, Lieutenant Colonel Ratratarn, got out of one of the squad cars. Beside him was one of the other guys Simone had identified—the sergeant, Pornsak—his gun already drawn. Under Ratratarn’s orders, a group of about ten officers armed with rifles fell into line behind them.

  Still crouched on the ground, Mark slowly drew his own weapon from the holster above his ankle.

  ‘Put that thing away!’

  The fury in Simone’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘I’ve gotta go and—’

  ‘And do what?’ she hissed. ‘Look at the firepower out there. You go out waving a pistol in the air and—’

  She stopped abruptly as two police officers scuttled across the road and crouched down within metres of where they were hiding, their rifles pointed at the club’s entrance. Another two flanked the front door. Simone was right: the situation was potentially explosive.

  ‘But I’ve gotta do something,’ Mark whispered.

  His voice was drowned out by a cracking sound as Pornsak kicked in the door of the club. With Ratratarn at the helm, the troops surged forward and entered the place. A burst of music came from inside the club, before screaming and shattering glass drowned it out.

  Seconds later, a panic-stricken group of patrons poured outside, only to be pounced on by the cops waiting for them. Most customers were middle-aged farangs — Australians, Germans, Dutch, Americans judging from their accents—though there was also a clutch of embarrassed- looking Japanese, one of whom dropped to his knees and had to be lifted into a waiting van by two police officers. A fit-looking man with white-blond hair made the mistake of resisting the officer who approached him, before the thrust of a rifle butt in the stomach brought him to heel. A punter who tried to escape by tumbling headfirst out of a side window found a gun barrel in his face.

  As the men were seized, they were steered over to the police vans and bundled inside. Several were crying. Others frantically pulled their shirts over their heads to hide their faces. One American loudly protested his innocence and demanded to speak to his lawyer.

  Some of the cops who’d entered the club with Ratratarn re-emerged with more patrons in tow—those too far from the door or too drunk to flee when they’d burst in. One was bleeding from a cut above the eye, another clutched at his bloodied nose, while a third had to be dragged to the van between two officers. The Thai man who’d been the auctioneer four nights earlier was among those arrested, as was Kelly’s bouncer, who allowed himself to be led away by a skinny officer whose neck he could have crushed with one hand.

  Mark couldn’t bear to watch any longer. Returning his gun to its holster, he slumped against the wall of the booth with his head in his hands. After several minutes, he heard the vehicles moving and the sound of a siren. He looked up to see Simone still staring at the spectacle through her camera lens.

  ‘What’s happening now?’ he said dully.

  ‘One of the vans is full. It’s pulling out. Looks as if they’re arresting everyone in the place, though I haven’t seen Kelly yet.’ She paused. ‘God, I can’t believe how quickly these guys get around.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The media. They’re arriving in droves. There’s a Channel 4 van pulling up and a couple of others—’

  A volley of gunshots rang out from inside the club.

  Mark sprang up, instinctively placing an arm around Simone’s shoulders. Trembling beneath his touch, she kept her gaze through the camera. He looked again through a crack in the wall. Everyone in the street—the cops, their captives, the press—seemed to hold a collective breath. Mark felt for his gun with his free hand as Ratratarn marched out of the club.

  The lieutenant colonel made a beeline for one of the squad cars, reached through the window and grabbed the radio handset. In the eerie silence that descended on the scene, Mark could hear him barking orders.

  ‘Can you understand what he’s saying?’ he whispered.


  ‘He’s calling for an ambulance,’ Simone said.

  Nervous chatter started up in the crowd and the journalists took it as their cue to get to work. A small clique surrounded Ratratarn and began firing questions at him, while the cameramen and photographers set about getting visuals. At first Ratratarn seemed to be fending off the journalists’ inquiries. But when the ambulance arrived, he signalled for them to wait by the entrance while he accompanied two paramedics inside the club.

  After a minute or so, Ratratarn reappeared in the doorway, ushering out a police officer who was carrying a young girl. Mark recognised her as the one whose virginity had been auctioned off. The officer cradled the girl in his arms like a baby, and Mark suspected this whole episode was staged for the press. Indeed, no sooner was the first officer’s photo taken in a barrage of flashing cameras than the second appeared, his arms around the shoulders of another child. Then six other young girls were herded out, one dressed as a baby bride. Pale and frightened, they shuffled through the crowd, clutching at each other and shielding their eyes from the glare of the cameras. The two police officers—both handsome men, no doubt hand-picked by Ratratarn for the occasion—slowed and smiled benevolently for the photographers before steering their pathetic little wards into the waiting squad cars.

  A second procession followed, led by Ratratarn. A combination of police and ambulance officers carried two stretchers between them, a couple more cops bringing up the rear. The photographers switched their attention to the bodies on the stretchers, covered from head to toe in blankets. In what seemed to Mark like another orchestrated detail, the left arm of one corpse had been allowed to slip from under the covers, revealing the chocolate-brown shirt of a police uniform.

  Standing between the two stretchers, illuminated by the glare of television lights and camera flashes, Ratratarn gave a brief statement in Thai, before a wave of his hand sent the press scampering back to their vehicles.

  As the bodies were loaded into the ambulance, the remaining police van drove away with its siren on, escorted by a cavalcade of motorcycle cops. Ratratarn’s squad car pulled out in the wake of the ambulance; the clamour of sirens resonated through the streets.

  Two police officers posted as sentries set about cordoning off the entrance to the club with orange plastic tape, watched by a small crowd of onlookers, mostly Kitten Club staff who hadn’t been arrested. A jacket lay in a heap in the middle of the street, dropped by one of the punters, and the air was hazy with churned-up dust.

  Mark was still staring at the scene when he felt Simone standing beside him.

  ‘Kelly’s dead,’ she said flatly.

  ‘The second body on the stretcher?’

  She nodded. ‘I heard Ratratarn tell journalists that Kelly pulled out a gun and shot one of their officers. They returned fire and he was killed.’

  ‘Oh, shit!’ Mark said. ‘Do you know—?’

  But Simone rushed out of the booth into the street. He jammed his pistol back into its holster and followed to find her retching into the gutter.

  Kelly’s death was a slap in the face so violent, it made Jayne throw up. While Mark went off to find a tuk-tuk, she forced herself to go back over the details of her conversation with Ratratarn.

  ‘All your conditions will be met,’ the lieutenant colonel had said. ‘I give you my word. Take it or leave it.’

  She’d taken it, and now another two men were dead. One corpse was Kelly and she suspected the other was Sergeant Pornsak. She’d seen Pornsak kick in the door and enter the Kitten Club when the raid began, but she hadn’t seen him come out.

  Ratratarn told journalists at the scene that Kelly’s death was accidental. It was clear to Jayne, though, that he’d never intended to arrest Kelly at all. Kelly had too much dirt on him and Ratratarn would never have risked putting him on trial. The raid on the club had been little more than a pretext for getting Kelly out of the way. That it meant having to account for the deaths of two foreigners—Didier and Doug Kelly—at police hands in the space of a week was a measure of Ratratarn’s confidence.

  As for Sergeant Pornsak, something told Jayne that his death, too, was part of Ratratarn’s plan. The lieutenant colonel didn’t flinch at sacrificing his own sidekick. It was the thought of how narrowly she’d escaped the same fate that overwhelmed her.

  By the time she cleaned herself up, Mark had returned with a tuk-tuk. He directed the driver to take them to the Riverside, squeezing her hand reassuringly as they drove through the streets. The first few fat drops of rain began to fall as they pulled up. A brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the sky and within seconds, the trickle turned into a downpour. It was only a short dash across the road to the shelter of the bar, but they were soaked by the time they reached it.

  Mark found them a table by the edge of the balcony, which was under cover but only just; the rain bounced off the railings onto their feet. The house band, cranking up the volume to compete with the storm, was performing ‘We Are the Champions’. Over Mark’s shoulder, Jayne could see the lead singer—a bare-chested Thai man with a shaved head and handlebar moustache—belting his heart out in homage to the late Freddie Mercury. Jayne liked the band, but the song was so much at odds with how she knew Mark must be feeling, she silently begged them to stop.

  ‘We are the dickheads, more likely,’ Mark said, tilting his head towards the band. ‘Are you up for a drink?’

  ‘God, yes! Whisky.’

  ‘Make mine a double.’

  When their order arrived, Mark raised his glass. ‘Here’s to yet another resounding victory for the forces of good over the forces of evil,’ he said. ‘Not.’

  He gulped the contents and signalled the waiter to bring another. ‘I’m warning you, Simone,’ he said, ‘I intend to get plastered tonight. Can you handle that?’

  In lieu of a reply, Jayne drained her own glass. The whisky felt like fire in her empty stomach and she held her breath until the blaze subsided.

  ‘Will you be OK for a minute?’ Mark took a mobile phone from his pocket. ‘I have to make a call.’

  Jayne nodded and watched as he headed for the relative quiet of the bar’s main entrance. The Thai Freddie Mercury was singing ‘Can anybody find me somebody to love?’ The lyrics made Jayne maudlin. She lit a cigarette.

  Lightning flashed like a strobe, followed by thunderclaps that reminded Jayne of the shots fired at the Kitten Club. Suddenly feeling cold, she shook the droplets from her hair and rummaged through her backpack for a jacket.

  Condensation on the whisky refills had formed puddles on the table by the time Mark reappeared.

  ‘You know you smoke too much,’ he said, nodding at her cigarette as he sat down. He took his glass in hand. ‘Another toast,’ he said. ‘This one’s to the Chiang Mai police.’ He drank half the contents in one gulp. ‘I’ve gotta hand it to those bastards. They knew just when to strike. Totally fucked up my plans.’

  ‘So what will you do now?’ Jayne said, moving the ashtray to the corner of the table furthest from Mark.

  ‘Oh, I’ll be flying out tomorrow morning a little later than planned, and I’ll be travelling solo since Kelly can’t make it.’ He laughed cynically and finished his drink. ‘I still can’t believe it,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I mean, the timing was un-fucking-believable. You’d think they knew exactly what I was planning down to the last minute.’

  Jayne stared into her glass.

  ‘And now Kelly’s dead,’ Mark said, ‘leaving no one to testify to the cops’ role in all of this. Without the photo of the pay-off, we don’t have a leg to stand on. Everything we’ve got is circumstantial. Or else it comes down to our word against theirs. And after tonight’s performance, I’d have to say the smart money’d be on the cops, wouldn’t you?’ He waved at a waiter and held up his glass, then leaned across the table and took Jayne’s free hand. ‘I’m really sorry, Simone,’ he said softly. ‘About your friend, I mean.’

  ‘I’m sorry, too,’ she said, ‘for both our sa
kes. I know how hard you worked on this, Mark.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘But maybe it’s better this way.’

  She felt his muscles tense beneath her touch.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you said yourself the Thai government’s getting tougher on child prostitution. And this raid proves they’re serious about it.’

  Mark snatched his hands away. ‘What? We both know Ratratarn doesn’t give a shit about child prostitution. He’s corrupt!’

  Jayne glanced around the room. ‘Even so,’ she said in a low voice, ‘it’s ultimately up to the Thais to deal with that. I mean, it is their country.’

  ‘What are you saying? That we should all go home and let them sort it out for themselves? Jesus, Simone! That flies in the face of everything I’ve worked for—not to mention the whole philosophy underlying the Australian laws.’

  The arrival of the waiter with another round of drinks gave Jayne a moment to choose her words.

  ‘Of course there’s value in your work,’ she said carefully. ‘The problem is, you can launch a police operation in this part of the world on perfectly reasonable grounds, only to find that things are far more complicated than they seem—’

  ‘I can’t see what’s so fucking complicated!’ Mark interrupted her. ‘Corrupt cops shouldn’t be allowed to get away with murder.’

  ‘Oh, what?’ she said, losing her patience. ‘And that doesn’t happen in Australia? For Chrissake, Mark, you worked in Brisbane! What about all the scandals under the Bjelke-Petersen government?’

  ‘It’s not the same thing!’ he said.

  ‘On the contrary, there’s a lot in common between what happened in Brisbane in the eighties and what’s happening in Chiang Mai today. If I remember rightly, the Queensland police were found to be instrumental in running illegal prostitution rackets there, too.’

  Mark took a swig from his third whisky. ‘So there’s police corruption in Australia as well as Thailand. So what? That doesn’t make any of it right.’

  ‘No,’ Jayne said, ‘it doesn’t. The point is, you shouldn’t beat yourself up over what happened here.’