The Tunnel Rats

by Stephen Leather

  'When was this?’

  'Seven years ago.' She frowned. 'No. Eight.’

  'Sister Marie, Max Eckhardt wasn't on the tour, was he?’

  She frowned and put a hand up to her cowl. 'No, I'm pretty sure he wasn't,' she said eventually. 'Actually, I can't be sure, because I wasn't told all their names. There was a guy called Lehman, Dan Lehman, and a man with an artificial hand called Larry.' She smiled as if recalling a fond memory. 'The reason I remember their names is because although they came as part of the goodwill tour they returned a few months later and gave the orphanage a lot of money.' She paused and sipped her tea.

  'How much, if you don't mind my asking?’

  She held his look for several seconds. 'A lot,' she said. 'Enough to solve all our financial problems. Dan and Larry stayed in Vietnam for a few months then returned to the United States. Eric stayed.’

  'Do you know how I can contact them?' asked Wright.

  She shook her head. 'I'm afraid not. We occasionally get Christmas cards from Dan, but he seems to move around a lot. Believe me, none of them would want to hurt Eric. You never saw such close friends.’

  A bell began to ring and seconds later came the sound of children laughing and running down a corridor. It was a happy place and Wright felt that the atmosphere had a lot to do with the fact that Sister Marie was in charge.

  'What happened to the orphanage in Vietnam?' he asked.

  'Oh, it's still there, and our Order still runs it, but the Vietnamese made it harder and harder for foreigners like myself and Eric to stay there. It became increasingly difficult for us to get visas and the authorities made it clear they'd rather have the orphanage in Vietnamese hands. It's still a Communist country, you know, and the petty bureaucracy has to be seen to be believed. At first we paid off the right people, but after a while even that wasn't enough and we had to leave.’

  Wright smiled at Sister Marie's admission of bribery, but he guessed that in her mind the end justified the means. Even so, he couldn't help but wonder what other transgressions there had been in the nun's life. He wanted to ask her if she'd always been a nun, or if prior to taking holy orders she'd had a normal life, of pubs and dances and boyfriends. Wright could imagine a lot of broken hearts when Sister Marie turned her back on the outside world and chose a life of chastity and%prayer.

  'Eric offered to set up a new orphanage here in Bangkok.' She waved her hand, indicating the room they were in. 'He paid for everything. The building. The staff. Medical care.’

  'And no ulterior motive?' Wright regretted the words as soon as they'd left his mouth.

  She stiffened and her eyes narrowed. 'What do you mean?' she said.

  Wright smiled awkwardly. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but I think like a policeman. I'm not used to dealing with philanthropists. Everybody I meet has a dirty secret, an axe to grind . . .' He tailed off as he realised he was rambling.

  'Not Eric Horvitz. He was truly a good man.’

  'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply otherwise.’

  She smiled and inclined her head, accepting his apology.

  'You said his two friends went back to the States. What about here in Bangkok, does he have many friends here?’

  'Some,' she said. 'He chose his friends carefully. He played jazz with a group at a bar in Lang Suan.’

  'Lang Suan?’

  'It's an area near the embassies. Upmarket nightclubs, expensive restaurants. Eric played at a club called Cowboy Nights. He sang and played percussion.’

  'Drums?’

  'No, not drums. The tambourine, and those things you shake.’

  'Maracas?’

  'That's right, maracas. He had a good singing voice.' She smiled at the memory.

  'You went to a jazz club to hear him?' asked Wright, surprised.

  Sister Marie raised an eyebrow. 'I'm not a prisoner here, Sergeant Wright. They do allow me out from time to time.’

  'Could you give me the address?' he asked.

  She reached for a sheet of paper and wrote on it. When she handed it to him he realised it was in Thai. 'You read and write Thai?' he said.

  'And Vietnamese. I was always good at languages. I studied French and German at university.’

  'Don't you miss it?' asked Wright. 'The real world?’

  There was more laughter outside and running footsteps. Sister Marie smiled as if she had a secret only she knew. 'This is the real world,' she said softly. 'I'm not hiding under these robes. I chose them.’

  Wright emptied his glass. She didn't offer to refill it. A sudden thought struck him. 'Oh, I've been trying to get hold of the policeman in charge of the investigation. I don't suppose you know who he is, do you?’

  'Of course,' she said. There was a Rolodex on her desk and she flicked through it and pulled out a business card. 'He hasn't been in touch for a while,' she said. 'I think they haven't made any progress and he's too embarrassed to tell me. It's a question of face, you see.’

  She handed him the card and Wright studied it. There was an ornate crest and writing in Thai. He turned the card over. The man's name, title, address and telephone number were reprinted in English. Police Colonel Vasan Srihanam, the officer quoted in the newspaper. He slipped it into his wallet, put his empty glass on the tray and thanked her.

  'I'll show you out,' she said.

  'He was found in the basement, wasn't he?' asked Wright.

  Sister Marie shivered but quickly regained her composure. Wright wondered if she had been the one who'd found the body. 'Yes,' she said quietly.

  'Can I take a look?' he asked.

  The nun shook her head. 'It's been locked and sealed by the police,' she said. 'Colonel Vasan said the seals mustn't be broken.’

  Wright felt a sudden surge of relief. He hadn't relished the prospect of going down into the basement.

  'Maybe you could ask him for permission,' said Sister Marie.

  She walked him out of the orphanage and to the gate. A dozen children, boys and girls, were playing on the swings and the slide, laughing and giggling. She was absolutely right, Wright realised, this was the real world, children were all that mattered. He wondered how long it had been since he had heard Sean laugh. Far too long.

  Sister Marie interrupted his thoughts. 'You were asking about Eric's motives for helping us,' she said. Her face was turned towards the children and he couldn't see her expression. Wright said nothing, sensing that there was something she wanted to tell him. 'He had his own demons to deal with, that much I can tell you. He was at peace here, with the children, but I think that perhaps you're right, he was atoning for something, something in his past. He never spoke about the war, but I think that was where his demons lay. Whatever he did back then, he's more than 1 made up for it since.' She turned to face him and the sun glinted off her white cowl so brightly that Wright had to avert his eyes. 'He was a saintly man,' said the nun. 'Maybe not a saint, but a saintly man.’

  She left him at the gate and Wright watched her walk back to the building. Two children, a boy and a girl, both wearing white shirts and red ties, ran over to Sister Marie. They stood either side and she took a hand each and they walked together, a huge white mother hen and her clucking chicks. Wright felt an urge to see his son again, a longing so strong that it made him gasp.

  G erry Hunter lay back on the sofa, the remote control in his right hand. Janie had gone upstairs to bed soon after they'd finished making love, taking with her the bottle of wine. It wasn't the first time that she'd taken the initiative so aggressively, but it had still caught him by surprise. He wondered if it had had I anything to do with the fact that he'd been so keen to work on ?j the Eckhardt case. Janie demanded constant attention and Hunter felt that she was as jealous of his police work as she would be if he looked at another woman. It was almost as if she wanted to prove to herself that he loved her more than his job, and once she'd proved it she was happy to go to bed alone.

  I Hunter watched the television and tried to push Janie out of I his mind. He wouldn't nee
d much encouragement to follow her upstairs and slip under the quilt with her. Janie had one of the sexiest bodies he'd ever seen, taut and soft, the skin flawless, her breasts soft but firm and showing no signs of her having had a Jchild. And Hunter knew from experience that she was at her sexiest when she'd had a couple of drinks. Alcohol seemed to wipe away what few sexual inhibitions she had and it was all he could do to keep up with her. He sat up and forced himself to concentrate on the movie. He had all night to join her in bed.

  He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands supporting his chin. Hunter wasn't a fan of war movies, in fact he didn't enjoy watching any films containing violence. He'd spent too much time clearing up the aftermath of violence to take any pleasure in watching it on the big screen, and he preferred comedies or historical dramas as entertainment.

  His attention was caught by a scene early in the movie, at the start of Lieutenant Willard's journey down the river in search of Colonel Kurtz. He watched .Robert Duvall striding through a Vietnamese village in the aftermath of an American attack. He was wearing a black cavalry officer's hat and a silk scarf wrapped around his neck as he strutted arrogantly past a line of corpses. A soldier ran up and handed Duvall a pack of playing cards. Duvall ripped the pack open and began throwing a playing card on to each body. Martin Sheen, as Willard, had picked up one of the cards and was staring at it. 'Death card,' said Sheen. 'Lets Charlie know who did this.’

  Hunter sat bolt upright, his eyes wide. He scrambled closer to the television so that his face was inches from the screen. There wasn't an ace of spades and he couldn't make out what brand the cards were, but Hunter knew that if Edmunds had watched the movie he'd have seen the connection with the Eckhardt case. Hunter retrieved the remote control from the sofa and replayed the scene. Had Edmunds seen the movie on the night he died? Hunter wondered. And if he had, what had happened to the video cassette?

  Hunter stood up and paced around the sitting room, all thoughts of Janie forgotten.

  When Nick Wright arrived back at his hotel, Somchai had gone and his replacement, an elderly man in a stained T-shirt, was asleep with his head in his arms. Wright collected his key from behind the counter, then went upstairs and showered. He lay down on his bed, swathed in two thin towels.

  When he opened his eyes again it was dark outside. He stared at his wristwatch. It said four o'clock. He frowned. Four o'clock in the morning? Impossible. Then he remembered that he hadn't reset his watch to local time. Bangkok was six hours ahead of London, so it must be ten o'clock at night. He'd slept for the best part of eight hours.

  He sat up and swung his legs off the bed. It was sweltering in the room and his mouth was dry. He went into the bathroom and drank from the tap, then splashed water over his face. He dried his face and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. There was a small yellow sticker in the corner of the mirror warning guests not to drink the water from the tap. There was still a bad taste in his mouth and he took his washbag out of his suitcase and cleaned his teeth. His hair had dried in a mess, unkempt and spiky, and he dampened it and recombed it.

  Wright's original plan had been to call on the police colonel, but that would have to wait until tomorrow. He changed into a fresh shirt and a pair of black Levis and left the hotel.

  The first taxi driver that Wright stopped had no trouble reading the note that Sister Marie had given him. Wright flopped down in the back seat. The traffic was much lighter than it had been during the day, though the roads were still far from quiet. There were motorcycles everywhere, buzzing around the cars and trucks. Some were clearly being used as taxis, the riders wearing brightly coloured vests with numbers on; others were workhorses, piled high with cartons or bags.

  The pavements were as busy as the roads. Small restaurants had been set up, with plastic chairs and folding metal tables, and old women ladied out noodles and roast duck and steaming vegetables. Lines of stalls sold T-shirts and cheap dresses and wristwatches, and vendors called out to the tourists who walked by. Small children ran around the stalls, laughing and playing, and skinny dogs with curly tails lay at the roadside, panting in the evening heat. At one of the makeshift restaurants two Thai businessmen in suits were eating noodle soup, their portable phones standing to attention on the table in front of them, while next to them two labourers in threadbare T-shirts and shorts argued over something they were reading in a Thai newspaper. It was like no other city Wright had ever seen, a jarring mixture of old and new, East and West.

  They drove past a park where the trees had been bedecked with hundreds of tiny white lights. In the distance, Wright could hear a band playing, a tune he vaguely recognised but accompanied by Thai words.

  'You want massage?' said the driver, his guttural voice lancing through Wright's thoughts.

  'What?' replied Wright irritably.

  'Massage,' repeated the driver, twisting around in his seat even though they were speeding down a main road. He handed a creased glossy brochure to Wright. 'Many pretty girls. We go now?’

  Wright studied the brochure. It featured a massage parlour and the main photograph consisted of more than a hundred smiling Thai girls dressed in white togas, each with a numbered blue badge pinned to her left breast, presumably to aid in identification.

  'Okay?' asked the driver, nodding vigorously. The taxi narrowly missed smashing into the back of a bus packed with strap-hanging passengers, but at the last second the driver looked back at the road and swerved across into the next lane. 'Okay?' he repeated.

  'Not okay,' said Wright, giving him back the brochure. It seemed that every time he got into a taxi he was offered sex. He'd never complain about London cabbies and their banal chatter again.

  'You not like Thai girls?' asked the driver as he powered through a red light.

  A huge elephant stood on the pavement, a bare-chested man sitting astride its neck. A second man was selling small bunches of bananas to passers-by who took it in turns to feed the animal.

  'I don't like paying for sex,' said Wright.

  'Huh?’

  'Sex. I don't want to pay for sex. Not give money for sex.' Wright realised that he was behaving like the typical Englishman abroad: if the natives don't speak English, talk loudly and slowly in the hope that they'll get it in the end. Surprisingly, it actually worked, and the driver began to laugh.

  'Everybody pay,' he said. 'Nobody get free sex.' He slapped his leathery hands on the steering wheel and rocked backwards and forwards.

  The driver was still chuckling when the taxi came to a halt outside a three-storey building which had been lined with wooden planks to make it look like a building from the Wild West. A group of young Thai men in leather jackets lounged around on motorcycles smoking cigarettes and drinking Thai whisky from a bottle. A lazy saxophone solo leaked out from the double doors which opened inwards saloon-style. To complete the Western motif there was a hitching post on either side of the doors, and a gold-embossed wooden sign across the middle of the building read 'Cowboy Nights'.

  Wright paid the driver and climbed out of the car. The Thai motorcyclists stared at him but without hostility. The guy with the bottle raised it in salute and when Wright smiled they all smiled back.

  He pushed open the doors half expecting to see men in cowboy hats and boots, but the people inside were conservatively dressed: Thai thirty-somethings in fashionable outfits, Westerners in suits, a group of teenage girls in short skirts and pullovers sipping Cokes through straws. The club was on two floors, with a wooden spiral staircase leading up to a second level from where balconies looked down on a dancefloor and a small raised stage where the band was performing.

  Around the edge of the dancefloor a dozen large leather sofas were grouped around wooden coffee tables, and winged leather armchairs that would have been more at home in a London gentlemen's club filled the corners of the room. Framed oil paintings were hung around the walls, between brass light fittings with green shades. There were two bars, one on the far side of the dancefloor, where a
group of Westerners sat on barstools holding bottles of beer and tapping their feet to the music, and a longer bar to the right where two waistcoated waiters juggled cocktail shakers. The nightclub was full, all the sofas and chairs occupied, and a sea of faces, mainly Thai, looked down from the balcony.

  A young Thai waitress with her hair pinned up smiled at Wright and held up one finger. He nodded and she led him to an empty bar stool. Wright sat down and ordered a lager from one of the bartenders. A Heineken arrived and Wright followed the example of the Westerners and drank from the bottle.

  He swivelled around so that he could watch the band perform. They were all Thais and Wright doubted that any of them was older than twenty-five. They were professional and played tightly, but they lacked emotion. It was as if they'd learned to play by listening to records, and though they could hit the right notes and keep the rhythm going, there was next to no improvisation. They didn't look at each other; each was concentrating intently on his own instrument, like session musicians who'd been brought together for a single gig.

  Another waitress appeared in front of Wright, holding a menu. She waited with her hands clasped behind her back while Wright read through it. It was in English and contained a selection of Western and Thai food. Wright realised the last thing he'd eaten was the tray of food he'd been given on the plane, and he'd left most of that untouched. He didn't want to dive into the unknown and order Thai food so he plumped for a club sandwich. The waitress frowned when he told her what he wanted, so he pointed at the menu. She nodded enthusiastically. Wright smiled. He felt that he was starting to get the hang of Bangkok.