by Guy Lilburne
“Thanks anyway,” smiled Simon.
“Khawp khun ka,” she said “Oh, she have to leave the hotel at 10:10am exactly. She take one case with her and another taxi come at 10:15am and collect her other case. 10:15am exactly. His name Ching. Miss Tika write his name on piece of paper to collect case 10:15am exactly. She say very important exactly times.” The girl handed Simon the piece of paper.
“She left in one taxi and five minutes later another taxi came to collect her suitcase?”
“Yes.” The girl behind the reception desk shrugged her shoulders and offered no further explanation.
“Thank you.” Simon handed her another 200 baht, turned away again and walked back to the bike.
Simon rode around Patong looking for Tika but, after an hour, he realised that it was useless and he went back to his hotel to shower, think and eat.
Chapter 15
A wave of panic had swept over Tika when her mother rang to tell her that Yuda knew she was in Phuket and was coming to find her, and it got even worse when her mobile phone was stolen. She felt isolated and alone but she knew that she had to remain calm. Yuda was capable of violence and he was always quick to anger, but he wasn’t the smartest man that Tika had ever known.
The night she walked back along the Beach Road from the Saxophone Bar, after the phone call from her mother, she was in a state of shock and losing her mobile impaired her thinking. After she had soaked in the cool shower back in her room she lay on the bed in the dark unable to sleep. Her mind was racing. She wasn’t surprised Yuda had found out where she was, in fact she would have been more surprised if he had not, but how did he find out? Nobody knew she was in Phuket, not even her mother.
“My mobile!” she whispered.
She knew that he had contacts in the police in Jakarta and they must have traced the calls to her mother. Knowing Yuda the way she did she assumed that he would already have someone watching her until he arrived to collect her. Her mind relived the last few days in a matter of seconds. As her mind went over her days, she desperately tried to think of anyone she recognised, anyone she kept bumping into, anyone who seemed to be in more than one place with her, but it was blank. She couldn’t think of anyone who had made her suspicious, but then again, she wasn’t looking for anyone who might be following her. She jumped to her feet and sneaked a look through the tiniest gap in the curtain. She was looking for anyone hanging around outside the front of the hotel, but there was nobody to be seen. It was dark but she could see from the street lighting that nobody was on the beach, nobody sat on the long row of parked motor bikes, hardly any movements at all, just the gentle swaying of the palm trees, the roll of the ocean waves and a couple of stray dogs searching for scraps of food. Occasionally a motorbike or a tuk-tuk would go past, but she was at the south end of the beach, away from the main area and there wasn’t much passing traffic, either on foot or in vehicles. She couldn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t somebody unseen, watching her. She pulled up the solitary chair in the room and positioned it to maintain her watch through the curtain, but she didn’t see anything. She breathed deeply and tried to subdue her rising panic and fear. She had to establish if she was being followed or not and decided that, the next morning, she would go for a long walk around Patong and see who, if anyone, was following her. She thought about the places that she could go and keep stopping without making it obvious, so that she could keep checking if she had a tail. She didn’t want to lose the tail, she wanted to identify them, who they were and how many. She continued her watch at the window until she fell asleep in the chair.
She awoke at 5:00am and went and lay on the bed and drifted off to sleep for another couple of hours. Then she got up and showered. She thought about her task ahead. She knew that she would have to have her wits about her and think on her feet. She would have to stay calm even after she had identified the tail, if at all she did. She decided that she would cover it with a shopping expedition. This would give her plenty of excuses for stopping and starting, pausing and looking, without alerting anyone who might be following her. She had her usual breakfast at 8:00am, but this morning she was very alert and she was checking out everyone. She had never realised before how many people looked at her and now she was suspicious of everyone. After breakfast she wandered out and along the Beach Road. She was in her loose fitting white dress and wore big dark sunglasses. She looked sensational and would stand out from the crowd. She didn’t want to make it difficult for any tail to keep up. She was excited, but scared at the same time, and her stomach was churning. She looked calm and unconcerned to anyone who might be watching her, but her heart was pounding. She walked a slow steady pace and had already decided that at no time was she going to turn around to see who, if anyone, was behind her. Any checks that she made would have to look natural and she would only use reflective surfaces like mirrors or glass or shiny metals. She would have to be very careful not to give anything away with her body language. She felt the pressure upon her was enormous.
She walked along the Beach Road but couldn’t find any reason to turn around and look behind her. The urge to do just that was overwhelming, but she resisted. She came across a small soi (street) on the left hand side. It was full of market stalls and closed to traffic. She wandered along and suddenly the opportunities to check behind her were countless. There were glass mirrored stands with sunglasses to use, mirrors and glass everywhere. Behind the market stalls were shops, all glass fronted, selling clothes and tourist trips, massages and copy DVD’s. Tika looked and shopped and tried on sunglasses and jewellery, held up ornaments and knick-knacks, examined clothing and watches. It gave her lots of opportunity to look behind her, to see who was watching her, but there was nobody. At least, nobody who appeared to be taking any interest in her. There were lots of people all busy doing the same as her, but nobody was paying her any attention. She carried on slowly along the soi, buying a couple of things that she didn’t even want, just to keep up the charade.
Further along there were a cluster of massage parlours. Women sat in the downstairs of the shop having their feet massaged, or their hair or nails done. The male customers were taken upstairs for a little more than a foot rub. Tika went in for a foot massage. Most of the women in there receiving the treatment had their heads back on the low slumping seats and looked asleep. It gave Tika the chance to look the same way. She kept her eyes squinted, but open, and watched through the shop window.
Lots of people walked past the shop and most of the men who passed looked inside as they did so, many of them were accosted by the girls sitting outside the shop trying to attract the male customers.
After 15 minutes of nothing that alarmed her she suddenly held her breath. A Thai man walked past the shop and looked inside. The only thing different about this man was that he had already walked past once.
He was probably in his early 30’s and quite scruffy in appearance. He had a chubby face for a Thai man and a little black moustache. His hair was short and slightly spiky. He was wearing an orange tee shirt and brown shorts with blue flip flops. Both his arms were heavily tattooed. One of the tattoo’s on his left arm was a dragon, but she couldn’t tell what the others were. This man had walked past and looked inside about ten minutes ago. Could this be her tail? Ten minutes later he walked past again. Tika had five minutes left of her foot massage. She thought that she had tagged her tail, but now needed to make sure. When her massage finished she left the shop and turned right towards Rat-U-Thit Road, which ran parallel to Beach Road. At the junction to Rat-U-Thit Road there was a cluster of parked taxis.
As Tika approached she was greeted with the usual chorus of hopeful calls,
“Taxi?”
“Does anyone speak English?”
“Yes I speak good English,” said one of the smiley taxi drivers.
Tika got into his taxi.
“Where to Mis
s?”
“The Jonceylon shopping centre please.”
The taxi had to turn right onto the road and do a big circuit of the one way system to get to the shopping centre.
“Do you know the Baan Yin Dee Hotel?” asked Tika.
“Yes, I know.”
“Tomorrow I need you to collect my case from there at 10:15am exactly and then pick me up at 10:20am at the same place you picked me up today. Can you do that?”
“Yes can do. You want me to collect suitcase at 10:15am from hotel and meet you here, same same as today at 10:20am. No problem.”
“I’ll give you 500 baht for collecting my case and another 500 when you pick me up here, but the times have to be exact.”
“Yes, can do exact time. My name is Ching.” Ching was smiling happily. Business always made him smile.
Tika wrote her name and the hotel on a piece of paper and the times that she wanted her case collected and herself picked up and gave it to Ching.
“This is very important Ching. You have to be on time and be waiting for me where you picked me up today. The hotel will have my case ready for you to collect. Okay?”
“Yes okay lady.”
There was a silence before Ching said,
“Are you in trouble lady?”
“I think I’m being followed.”
“You no worry. Ching be here on time. Nobody follow Ching.”
“Thank you.”
“Mai pen rai khrap.” (You’re welcome)
Ching stopped outside the Jonceylon centre
“That’s 100 baht please.”
Tika gave him 200.
“Tomorrow Ching?”
“Yes tomorrow.”
Tika walked into the huge Jonceylon centre and wondered around up and down the escalators in and out of the shops. A few minutes later the tattooed man in the orange shirt was also in the centre. Tika stayed remarkably calm and wandered down into the food hall, where she sat and had coffee with some rice and vegetables. The man in the orange shirt came and sat behind her. She did some more shopping, buying a black suitcase and wandered around. The man stayed with her all day, but once she had identified him he was easy to spot. He seemed to be working alone and he wasn’t aware that Tika had him tagged.
When Tika got back to the hotel she rang the reception from her room and told them that she would be checking out at 10:10am the next morning and that a taxi would be coming to collect her case at 10:15am.
“No problem Miss Tika,” said the ever helpful girl on reception.
Tika stayed in the hotel for the rest of the day and didn’t want to wander out during the night, so she ate in the hotel restaurant. She went back to her room early and, as soon as it was dark, she set up her observation post at the gap in the curtain, but she couldn’t see her stalker. Tika packed her old suitcase with all her clothes, leaving her new one empty. The cases weren’t identical, but they looked pretty close.
The next morning Tika took her case down to reception before breakfast with instructions about Ching collecting it at 10:15am. She had the hotel order her a taxi for 10:05am and told the reception that she would be checking out and wanted to leave the hotel at 10:10am exactly.
“Okay, no problem,” said the girl.
Tika went down to reception at 10:00am and checked out. They checked her room and she settled her bill. The taxi was waiting outside.
She left the hotel at 10:10am exactly, pulling the empty suitcase behind her. As she approached the taxi the driver got out to help her.
“It’s ok, I can manage thank you.”
The driver opened the boot and she lifted the case inside. She got inside the back of the taxi.
“Yes please, where to?”
“I want you to go along Beach Road and I need to stop at some market stalls near to the Holiday Inn.”
“Yes I know the place. My name is George.”
“Hi, George. I want you to drive quite slowly and when you stop I’ll go into the market. Then I want you to wait for a few minutes before you drive off.”
“What about your case?”
“It’s empty George, you can keep it.”
“What about my money?”
“Here, there’s 500 baht.” She handed him the cash
“Is there a problem?” George sounded concerned.
“No problem George, but it’s important you wait for 3 minutes before you drive off. Is that okay?”
“Yes, okay!” George didn’t sound too sure.
When the taxi pulled out from the hotel Tika checked her make up in her compact mirror and she could see the man from yesterday on a motorbike behind them. He was wearing a different shirt today, but there was no mistake, it was him alright. It was only a short journey by car to the market stalls in the soi that joined Beach Road to Rat-U-Thit Road and, as the taxi indicated to pull over, the bike pulled over to the other side of the road a little distance behind them.
Tika didn’t look behind her. She got out of the taxi and pointed at her watch to George and held up three fingers, hoping that her stalker would take this to mean that she would be back in three minutes. Her suitcase was in the boot so why shouldn’t she be back! She turned to walk into the market and, as soon as she entered it, George panicked and screeched off along Beach Road. He didn’t know what was going on, but he was scared and didn’t want to be involved. Tika ran as fast as she could along the soi towards the taxi rank. She didn’t look back until she dived into Ching’s waiting car. She could see the man running after them along the Soi, but she had a good head start on him and they were out of sight along Rat-U-Thit Road before he reached the taxi rank. Tika panted for her breath in the back of the taxi.
“Thank you Ching.”
“No problem, where we go?”
“I don’t know. I need a nice hotel but not in Patong. I need to find somewhere where I can think, but busy with lots of people, I don’t want to be on my own.”
“I know good place, Kata Beach, quiet and busy, make you think. Man who follow you will think we go to airport.”
“Thank you,” Tika laughed. “Is it far?”
“No not far, nice hotel. Alpina Phuket Nalina Resort, have Spa”
“Okay Ching, thank you.”
“Are you in trouble lady?”
“I don’t know Ching. My husband is a very bad man. I think he is going to hurt me and he is in Phuket looking for me. The man following me works for him. I have a friend from England who can help me, but my phone was stolen and I don’t know his number.”
“Who your friend? Maybe I can find him!”
“His name is Simon; he’s a doctor from England, that’s all I know.”
“You want police lady?”
“Tika, my names Tika. No I think my husband will find me more easily if the police know where I am. He has friends in the police. He gives people money to tell him things. I’m scared Ching.”
“No problem Tika, I’m your friend. We stop and buy you new phone, I give you my number. You ring me anytime. I help you.”
His kindness really touched Tika and she couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. Maybe it was the stress of the situation, or maybe it was just the relief of escaping her stalker, or maybe it was just the human kindness that Ching was so unselfishly showing her in her time of need. Whatever it was, once the tears started, she couldn’t stop and sobbed openly. Ching passed her some tissues. He didn’t know what else he could do. She calmed again after a little while and thanked him again. They stopped at a small market in Karon Beach and Tika bought a new mobile from one of the stalls. She swapped numbers with Ching.
“I ring you every day, make sure you okay. You want anything, you tell
Ching, okay?”
“Okay, thank you.
”
They drove to Kata Beach and Ching dropped her off at the Alpina
Phuket Nalina Resort and Spa. It looked a beautiful place and Tika was happy to be there. She suddenly felt a lot safer.
Chapter 16
Yuda was still in bed with his two hookers when he got the text from Jaya. It was just before midday. The text read;
5:00PM CLUB RIO, BANGLA ROAD, PATONG.
Yuda paid the girls and they left, while he packed and then checked out.
He took a taxi to Patong and booked into the Burasari Hotel. He then got a tuk-tuk to take him to Bangla Road and at 5:00pm he was outside the Club Rio Bar at the top of Bangla Road. It was closed so he sat at one of the tables outside and within seconds he was approached by the man who had been following Tika.
“Yuda?”
“Yes.”
“Follow me please.”
The man started to walk away before Yuda could say anything else. He followed the man, who walked a short distance and turned right at the top of Bangla Road. He crossed the busy Rat-U-Thit Road, dodging between the cars, tuk-tuks and motorbikes. Yuda followed and they went into a small bar and ordered two beers.
“I am Watana,” said the man and wai’d Yuda.
The girl behind the bar flicked the tops off two ice cold Singha beers, placed the bottles in insulated plastic cups and put them on the bar in front of the two men. She scribbled out a bill and stuffed it into the little wooden cup that was already on the bar and pushed it towards them. She walked back along the bar and sat on the floor and continued to eat her papaya chilli salad and sticky rice from out of the plastic bags in which they were served by the street vendor.
“Where is Tika?” asked Yuda.
“Now I don’t know, she booked out of hotel this morning.”