The Half-Child

by Angela Savage

  ‘Perhaps I can visit you there.’

  Rajiv spoke without thinking, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew he had to make it happen. It was the chance he’d been waiting for. At the same time, he didn’t want to seem obvious.

  ‘I mean, I haven’t seen much of Thailand,’ he added quickly, ‘and I’m keen to visit the seaside. It would be the perfect opportunity.’

  ‘I don’t know about perfect, Rajiv. I mean, Pattaya is a bit of a dive.’

  ‘A dive?’

  ‘Not exactly a romantic holiday destination. Foreign navies use it as an R&R port for their personnel and the bay is surround by petroleum plants. The beaches are polluted— you wouldn’t want to swim there.’

  Rajiv shrugged. ‘Perhaps I would be in the way of your work.’

  ‘No, no, no.’ She shook her head. ‘You’d be more than welcome. Once I get settled I’ll give you a call and we can work out the timing. I’ll find out if there are any sights worth seeing before you arrive.’

  It was on the tip of Rajiv’s tongue to say that the only sight he needed to see was her naked body in his arms, but felt he lacked the heroic quality necessary to deliver such a line without sounding corny.

  ‘I am confident we can find some way to occupy our time,’ he said.

  His mind was already ticking over with thoughts of which cousin-brother would be most susceptible to bribery.

  4

  Every weekday morning, Police Major General Wichit paused by the sarn phraphum in the compound of his apartment building to light a cigarette and place it on the balcony of the small house-shrine for the guardian spirit who lived there. Although Wichit was not a smoker, the phra phum was and the Police Major General was keen to express his gratitude to the spirits that looked after him.

  He used the time afforded by the slow pace of Bangkok’s peak hour traffic to count his blessings. Wichit was the proverbial nou tok thang khao sarn, the lucky mouse who falls into the rice bin. As a young man, he had the sort of looks that made women gaze at his face longer than was considered polite. It was the juxtaposition of ruggedly handsome features—dark eyes and eyebrows, high forehead, strong jaw, thick mane of black hair—with the mouth of a pretty child, that accounted for his allure. He looked like a warrior who would salvage flowers from the same field where he’d slain enemies. Never mind that Wichit was neither brave nor romantic, but a lackadaisical man who liked a quiet life and did a remarkable job of avoiding conflict for a police officer. The promise of his looks was enough for him to win the heart of Sangravee and marry into her well-connected family, a move that would have been unthinkable if he’d been an ordinary looking traffic cop. In time his hair thinned and his sedentary lifestyle dulled the sharper edges of his beauty. If Sangravee was disappointed, she never let on. They got along well enough and their union produced two adored children, a boy and a girl, Nathee and Naree.

  With a father-in-law in the Interior Ministry and a grasp of English learned at the knee of his grandmother, a former housekeeper to a British diplomat, Wichit secured one of Bangkok’s most enviable postings as head of the Tourist Police. He worked in air-conditioned comfort where his toughest challenge was not to laugh in the face of reports made by exasperated farangs. How they’d paid a large sum of money for a handful of Burmese rubies that turned out to be red glass. How they’d given their passports to a tour guide who said he could get them cut-price visas to Vietnam, only to lose the man and their passports in the crowd. How they’d agreed to a friendly game of cards with a fellow who said he worked as a croupier at the casino, only to be robbed of all their travellers’ cheques. How they’d exchanged money with an agent outside the currency exchange booth only to come away with a wad of ‘Hell Bank Notes’—fake money the Chinese burned at funerals—sandwiched in between a few baht. It never ceased to surprise Wichit how people kept falling for the same old tricks. He almost longed for his countrymen to show a little more ingenuity in the scams they pulled.

  Youthful good looks, gracious wife, healthy children, cushy job—these were the blessings Wichit counted as he crawled from one intersection to the next amidst four lanes of traffic. When he approached Wat Benchamabophit, the resting place of King Chulalongkorn who saved Thailand from European colonisation, Wichit counted his final blessing, the one that saved him from ruin when he stood to lose all the good fortune that came before. As he took his hands off the steering wheel, pressed his palms together and raised them to his forehead in a wai of respect for the King’s ashes, the irony of giving thanks for a foreigner was not lost on him.

  Wichit first met Jayne Keeney in connection with a timeworn card scam. She’d come to him with information on a group of Filipinos who were targeting farang tourists at the temple sites. Wichit was impressed: she brought him names, addresses and a detailed account of their modus operandi.

  Most farangs seldom got beyond ‘Asian appearance’ on their report sheets. Of course, it helped that she spoke Thai.

  When she gave him her business card—‘Discreet Private Investigator’—he wondered in passing about her visa arrangements, but figured that was the business of his colleagues at Immigration. Jayne’s information resulted in a successful prosecution that made his office look good. But it was her work in relation to a personal matter for which he was indebted to her.

  Wichit had insisted his children study English. Sangravee was unenthusiastic, but he knew from experience the difference it could make to their future employment prospects and income. As a result, Nathee and Naree attended a private English language college after school three days per week.

  However, unbeknownst to their parents, Nathee skived off to play video games with his friends at Panthip Plaza, leaving sixteen-year-old Naree—who’d inherited her father’s good looks and her mother’s romanticism—unchaperoned and at the mercy of a lecherous American teacher. All was revealed when Naree tearfully confessed to her father that she was pregnant.

  If word got out, Wichit and his family faced insurmountable shame—‘loss of face, eyes, mouth and hands’ as the villagers would say. And it would be Wichit’s fault, his daughter’s indecency blamed on his association with foreigners. He would lose his job, his reputation and probably his marriage. Naree’s life would be ruined, regardless of whether or not she kept the bastard child or gave it to one of their relatives in the countryside to raise among their own.

  She’d be damaged goods. No respectable man would ever marry her.

  In desperation but acting on instinct, Wichit dug up Jayne Keeney’s business card and enlisted her help to find a discreet, farang doctor to perform a termination—a procedure illegal in Thailand except on medical grounds. Jayne took the girl to and from the clinic and even volunteered her apartment for three days’ recuperation following the procedure when, as far as the rest of the family was concerned, Naree was on a meditation retreat.

  Wichit didn’t know what Jayne said to his daughter during this time, but Naree had returned home calm and clear-eyed and proceeded to apply herself to her studies with renewed diligence. Of course, he’d seen to it that the American teacher was deported on a visa technicality and replaced with a suitably matronly type. Naree hadn’t given Wichit cause for a moment’s concern since.

  Thus did Wichit count Khun Jayne among his blessings. And while he would never be comfortable owing his honour to a farang woman some twenty years his junior, he respected Jayne as he would a Thai person when it came to sam neuk boon khun —to honouring his debts. He welcomed any opportunity she provided to demonstrate his gratitude.

  Wichit parked his car in the small area reserved for officials and entered the Tourist Police Bureau through a tinted plate-glass door. He acknowledged the wai from his secretary and proceeded to his office where he found the document Jayne requested on the top of his in-tray: the police report into the death of an Australian girl in Pattaya.

  Wichit often looked over his colleagues’ reports into cases involving foreigners in the Kingdom. They sought his
advice on everything from how best to phrase their findings, to the size of the fines they should impose for traffic infringements and other minor offences. Sometimes he looked over the translations in order to ensure use of appropriate language.

  He remembered doing so in this very case.

  He was leafing through the English version when his secretary buzzed to announce Jayne’s arrival.

  ‘Sawadee ka, Police Major General,’ she said.

  ‘Sawadee krup, Khun Jayne.’

  He returned her wai and nodded for her to take a seat.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine thank you, sir. And you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘How’s your family?’

  Wichit assumed this was politeness on her part and not a subtle reminder of the debt he owed her.

  ‘Everyone is well thank you. Now regarding your request,’ he handed over the reports. ‘The paperwork on the death of Maryanne Delbeck, in Thai and English.’

  Jayne accepted it with a nod.

  ‘Anything else I can do to help?’

  ‘I might have questions after I’ve read through this,’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Do you know anyone in Pattaya?’

  Wichit turned to a card file on the desk in front of him. ‘I have a nephew there, he’s a businessman.’ He leafed through the cards. ‘Here it is, Santiphap Accounting. My nephew’s name is Kritsanachai, Chai for short. Take it.’

  Jayne looked at the business card. ‘Will you let him know I’ll be in contact?’

  Wichit nodded. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Thanks, that’s all for now.’

  She slipped the card into her pocket. ‘Say hello to Naree for me.’

  ‘Of course,’ Wichit lied.

  While he would continue to give thanks to the forces, human and spiritual, that saved his family’s honour, it would only be inviting bad luck for Wichit to ever remind his daughter of her narrow escape from disgrace.

  Jayne spent the day preparing for her trip to Pattaya: collecting surveillance photos from the print shop, finalising another case report, invoicing two clients, arranging a deferral from another.

  Kate Murchison, the YCV coordinator, called mid-afternoon from Max’s office. She seemed unenthusiastic about a meeting, but Max must have put in a good word for Jayne as, after some muffled conversation, Kate proposed they get together later that evening after she’d had the chance to do some shopping. Jayne would have preferred to spend the night at home but supposed she should be grateful Max didn’t rope her into going along on the shopping spree, too.

  She arrived at Kate’s guesthouse at the designated time of nine o’clock. Twenty minutes later, she was still waiting.

  She leafed through The Bangkok Post. Yet again the only news from Australia was Pauline Hanson and her One Nation party, that had risen to prominence in the wake of the previous year’s election. The local media had a macabre fascination with One Nation’s racist agenda and gave Hanson so much coverage most Thais assumed she was the Australian Prime Minister.

  She turned to the comics to lighten her mood and had just unscrambled the day’s nine-letter anagram when a voice asked, ‘Are you Jayne Keeney?’

  The woman was heavy-set with a halo of frizzy red hair around a freckled face. Jayne nodded.

  ‘I’m Kate,’ the woman said, shaking her hand. ‘Sorry to keep you. I just had to have a shower. You know what it’s like. I can’t believe how hot it gets here.’

  Kate was wearing a sleeveless top, long skirt of flimsy material and sandals, a film of sweat on her forehead despite the shower. Jayne, who was wearing a jacket, felt cold in the air-conditioned lobby and wished she’d worn a long-sleeved T-shirt as well.

  ‘So I guess you’d rather not sit outside?’ Jayne said.

  ‘Are you joking?’

  Jayne started to think it might be a short meeting.

  ‘What would you like—apart from air-conditioning, I mean? Tea, coffee, something stronger?’

  ‘Oh, God, just because I work for a Christian organisation, doesn’t mean…’ Kate stopped herself with a laugh. ‘I’d love a cold beer, if that’s okay with you.’

  ‘That’s fine with me.’

  ‘I saw a pub nearby that looked good. What was it called…the Shamrock?’

  ‘The Rose and Shamrock,’ Jayne said without enthusiasm.

  Irish theme bars had proliferated throughout the world until the pale imitations way outnumbered authentic pubs in Ireland. The Rose and Shamrock was one of several Bangkok versions, a hang-out for soccer hooligans, sunburned tourists and backpackers en route to Australia for working holidays.

  If that wasn’t enough to put her off, Jayne once had a fling with the head barman.

  Kate was keen and if pseudo-Celtic was what appealed, then Jayne figured the charms of Bangkok’s unique and quirky bars would probably be lost on her. She led the way to the pub and winced as she opened the door on a group of pink-faced men and women drunkenly singing along to U2’s ‘Sunday bloody Sunday’. She gestured across the room, away from the crowd.

  ‘I’ll get us a table if you go to the bar.’

  ‘What do you want to drink?’

  ‘Whatever you’re having.’

  Jayne slipped into a corner booth and sat with her back to the crowd in an effort to block them out. The green vinyl of the bench seat matched the sickly colour of the carpet and a mural of maniacal-looking leprechauns stared down at her from the opposite wall. The coasters on the table said ‘Guinness is good for you’. She lit a cigarette in an effort to mask the smell of spilt beer and urine and had smoked it down to the butt by the time Kate reappeared with a pint in each hand. Jayne stared at the vase of watery lager in front of her and made a note to be more specific with her drinks order.

  They made small talk over the first round, sharing cigarettes and travel stories. Jayne bought a second round, another pint for Kate and a bottle of Heineken for herself.

  She had Kate pegged for a drink-too-much-and-tell-all kind of girl and she did not disappoint.

  ‘It’s not like I want to work specifically for a Christian organisation,’ Kate said, setting a third round on the table and raising her voice over the crowd noise. ‘I mean, I believe in God and all that, but I don’t go to church. I just want to get some experience, you know, to work in international aid.’

  ‘It must be a tough area to get into,’ Jayne said, trying to sound sympathetic.

  ‘I reckon.’ Kate gulped her beer. ‘I mean, you can’t get a job unless you’ve got overseas experience, but how do you get overseas experience when you can’t get a job?’

  Jayne saw a chance to steer the conversation towards Maryanne Delbeck. ‘I suppose that’s where volunteering comes in.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘People volunteer to work overseas as a stepping-stone to a career in international development.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Kate paused to light another cigarette, ‘though it doesn’t always work that way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We’ve never sent a single woman to South America who hasn’t come back married or pregnant or both.’ Kate giggled.

  ‘I’m putting up my hand for the next available posting.’

  Jayne forced a smile and tried again. ‘How tough is it to get a posting? I mean, do you have to pass some sort of test?’

  ‘Not really. There’s an orientation process that everyone has to go through, and a medical.’

  ‘Police check?’

  ‘Rarely. Most host organisations don’t require it.’

  ‘So you do the orientation and the medical. Then what happens?’

  ‘You get offered a placement.’

  ‘What if the applicant is not up to scratch?’

  ‘Like what? Crazy or something?’

  ‘Not even crazy. Just inappropriate. What then?’

  ‘Well, if they were really bad, we’d probably just string them along, not
offer them anything until they got sick of waiting and tried somewhere else,’ Kate said.

  ‘Okay.’ Jayne kept her expression neutral. ‘What if there’s a problem with a volunteer during a placement?’

  Kate shrugged. ‘YCV’s attitude is you either sink or swim. It’s part of the cultural immersion experience.’

  She must have realised how trite that sounded because she hastened to add, ‘YCV doesn’t believe in micro-managing relationships. Our job is to match the skills of the volunteer with the needs of the host community. After that, it’s up to the respective parties to make things work between them.

  They’re all adults.’

  ‘If someone was having problems would YCV be aware of it?’

  ‘It depends. We’d rely on the volunteer or their host to bring it to our attention.’

  ‘Did Maryanne Delbeck bring anything to your attention?’

  Kate seemed surprised at the mention of Maryanne’s name. She shook her head.

  ‘What about her hosts?’

  ‘Only after the…I mean, after she…’

  ‘After the alleged suicide,’ Jayne offered.

  Kate nodded. The topic of conversation seemed to be sobering her up.

  ‘Maryanne’s father has asked me to look into the circumstances of her death,’ Jayne said.

  ‘Oh?’

  Again, her surprise seemed genuine.

  ‘Did you know Maryanne well?’

  ‘I met her a couple of times during her orientation,’ Kate said. ‘She was a nice person. I was very sorry when she… when she died.’

  ‘Were you surprised?’

  ‘Yes.’ Kate swirled the dregs of her beer around in the bottom of her glass and spoke as if she were thinking out loud. ‘I was surprised. Maryanne didn’t seem like the type who’d…’

  She paused, flustered, caught saying something she shouldn’t.

  ‘I’m speaking from a personal perspective of course,’ she said. ‘I’m not qualified to comment.’

  She drained the last of her beer and placed the empty pint on the table.

  ‘I’m sure Maryanne’s father has his reasons, but YCV has nothing to add to what we’ve already told the Pattaya police and the Australian Embassy.’