“Hey, Mike,” she said.
“Hi.”
“Scotch rocks,” she said to the barman. He nodded and walked away and she looked down at her painted nails and said, “This is when I could pull on my widow’s weeds and plead grief, loneliness and confusion.”
“Please don’t,” Michael said.
She looked at him. “Truth is I had a serious case of the hots for you. Simple as that.”
“I think it was mutual.”
“Yeah. Anyway, now I feel like a purebred shitheel.”
“Ditto.”
“Not only because of our potential business thing, but because of Caroline. I like her.”
“And she likes you,” Michael said, although he wasn’t sure this was true.
“Jesus,” she said, shaking her head, and downed half of her drink in one gulp. “For my late husband fucking around was like breathing, you know what I mean?”
“I guess.”
“But that’s not you, Mike, is it?”
He looked her straight in the eye and said, “No, Liz, that’s not me.”
“Which makes me feel flattered and even more of a shitheel.”
He signaled the barman for a refill. “Liz, look, this whole autopsy...”
“I know. A pain in the ass.”
“Let’s just move on, okay? It happened. It won’t happen again. Nobody got hurt.”
She nodded. “You’ll still work with me?”
“Yes, I’ll still work with you.”
Her phone murmured. She thumbed it and read a text.
“Sorry. I’ve got a thing.”
“Fine.”
“You don’t have to look so relieved, Mike.”
Michael smiled and for just a moment he saw her back on the beach, her eyes blurred with desire. He shut that down fast.
She stood. “I may be away for a day or two. Bangkok.”
“Enjoy.”
She shouldered her bag. “So we’re cool?”
“As a pair of cucumbers.”
A flash of a smile. “Bye, Mike.”
“Bye, Liz.”
She walked away and his drink arrived and as he lifted it and sipped Michael felt as if he had dodged a bullet.
65
I love you.
As Caroline ran a bath she thought of what Michael had said on the phone earlier. Of course he had said it to her many times since the accident, but it had always seemed like a plea in mitigation: I know I have ruined your life but I love you.
Today it had sounded rawer, more pure. More honest.
Like he was thinking less of himself and more of her.
She shut off the bathwater, and, still dressed in the clothes she’d worn on her outing with Charlie Hepworth, walked into the bedroom and opened the closet. She took her time selecting something nice to wear. A simple black dress. Sandals that were flattering but accommodated her limp.
She crossed to the bureau and found herself choosing her most enticing lingerie. She laughed, as if she had caught herself out at something.
Was she thinking of making love to her husband?
Perhaps.
If she were it was not only because of what Michael had said. As much as she had enjoyed her day with Charlie Hepworth she had felt sad for him. Sad for his looming death, sure, but also because he was so alone. She had detected a well of regret beneath his gung-ho exterior. A sharp sense of what he knew he would never know.
Caroline shook this off.
Opening her vanity she found a pair of earrings. Pearl. They’d look good with the dress.
Then she remembered her conversation with Tin the lawyer.
Where had Michael hidden those mysterious earrings?
Since he had no way of guessing that she had knowledge of them, she was sure they would be easy to find.
She went into his office and clicked on the light. Michael liked everything tidy and squared away. She opened his desk drawer and saw a calculator, a pair of sharpened pencils, a Montblanc, a note book, and the Blue Planet guide to Phuket.
She lifted the travel guide and revealed a small blue box.
The box made a little creak as she opened it. A pair of earrings gleamed inside.
Any doubts she may have felt about who they were intended for were instantly dispelled.
Michael had bought these for her. And they were perfect. White gold lotus flowers studded with constellations of diamonds.
Unable to resist, Caroline lifted out one of the earrings and went through to the en suite, turning on the light. She fitted the earring to her pierced ear and looked at herself in the mirror.
She could only smile.
Surely Michael had been waiting for an occasion like tonight’s meal to give them to her?
She slipped the earring from her ear and went back to Michael’s desk. She replaced the earring in the box and made sure she put the box exactly where she had found it.
Caroline returned to her bathroom and was about to strip off her clothes when her phone mewled.
An incoming message.
Expecting something from Michael, she swiped the face.
But it was from an unknown number.
Caroline opened the video attachment and felt as if she had been sucker punched in the gut.
She sat down on the closed lid of the toilet and watched the thing until the end.
66
Sitting at the bar, finishing his drink, Michael made reservations at the island’s only Michelin starred restaurant. A place Tin took his dates to make them pliant.
Michael’s cell announced the arrival of a message.
When he saw his wife’s name he smiled and swiped at the phone.
The message read: I can’t go through this again, Michael. I’m done.
He opened the attachment and found a very graphic video of his tryst on the beach with Liz Keller. He stared at it, paralyzed, watching Liz straddling him, her head thrown back, her mouth agape.
Michael killed the thing and with palsied fingers speedialed Caroline.
Voice mail.
He threw too much money on the counter and ran from the bar.
67
Hazards flashing, hand on horn, Michael forced his way through the traffic. He shot a red light, ignoring the chorus of horns and the curses of an irate Food Panda bike rider he nearly flattened.
As he drove he tried Caroline’s phone repeatedly.
Straight to voice mail.
After he made his way through the intersection near Central Mall, he was able to leave the main road and thread the SUV through a warren of narrow lanes with small houses and stores, almost empty of vehicles.
He called Liz Keller and left a message in a voice he struggled to recognize as his own.
“Liz, it’s Michael. I need to talk to you really urgently. Please call me.”
He skidded to a stop when a woman wheeled a food cart across the road. She froze, staring at him in terror. Then she fled to the sidewalk, cart clattering.
He took off again, jouncing over a row of speed bumps.
He was mouth breathing. Hyperventilating. He dug a bottle of water out of the cooler and drank. Poured water into his hand and splashed his face.
Traffic was choked at an intersection close to his house. Michael swerved into the gas station that straddled the junction, speeding past the pumps, sending an attendant diving for his life. He skidded back onto the road, leaving the traffic behind.
He flung the Mercedes up the road leading to his home, the rear fishtailing, tires struggling for traction. Powering his way through the drift, he hit his driveway at full speed.
He felt momentarily buoyed when he saw lights on in the glass house, a beacon in the gathering gloom that came early and fast here near the equator.
Michael left the car and ran at the front door. Locked. He dropped his keys, scrambled for them, stabbed at the lock like a drunk, and finally got it open.
Throwing the door wide he shouted for his wife.
No reply.
The
re was nobody downstairs so he raced up the stairs.
In their bedroom he saw Caroline’s clothes laid out on the bed, and a bath drawn in the en-suite. He touched the water.
Still warm.
Shouting her name again, he checked all the rooms and the en-suites.
No sign of her.
He was sweating and stank of fear.
Michael returned to the bedroom and threw open the closet. All of Caroline’s clothes were there. He ripped open the bottom drawer of the bureau, flinging socks and underwear aside.
The container of pills was gone.
Michael slumped against the wall and slid down into a squatting position. He tried Caroline’s phone again.
Voice mail.
He sank into a kind of funk.
When he shook himself free it was dark outside and the cicadas were going at it like power tools.
He tried Caroline. He tried Liz.
Nothing.
He called Tin, and, with the way his luck was running, he was ready to leave a message when he heard the lawyer’s antipodean twang.
“Mike! How are you?”
“Uh, not great, Tin. I have a bit of a situation. I need some advice.”
“Sounds like this is an in person thing?”
“Preferably.”
“Where are you, mate?”
“At home.”
“Okay, as luck would have it, I’m finishing up a meeting in Wichit. I can be with you in, say, twenty minutes? Yeah?”
“Thanks Tin.”
“No worries.”
Michael ended the call and went into the shower that was heavy with Caroline’s scent. He scrubbed himself as fast as he could and, wrapped in a towel, found some clean clothes.
68
“So you’re saying somebody made a video of you and this woman doing the dirty and sent it to your wife?” Tin said.
“Yes.”|
“Any idea who it was?”
“No.”
“Or why?”
“No.”
“And then Caroline sent it to you?”
“Yes.”
“Can I see her message?”
“You want to watch the video?” Michael asked, his voice uncertain.
“Christ, Mike, you’re my mate and all but I have to draw the bloody line. I’d never be able to unsee it. No, I just want to read what she wrote you.”
Michael dug out his phone, found Caroline’s text and showed it to Tin.
The lawyer read it and handed the cell back.
“I know how this must look, Tin,” Michael said. “Jesus, I’m not proud of what I did.”
Tin held up a hand.
“Steady on, mate. No judgments here. And believe me a bit of the old how’s your father on the beach between two consenting adults is the Disney Chanel compared to some of the nasties I have to deal with.” He paused and ran a hand through his spiky hair. “Now I have to make a confession, Mike.”
“What?”
“Caroline called me two days ago.” Michael squinted at him. “She said you gave her my card. She couldn’t reach you and she was in a bit of trouble.” The lawyer shook his head. “The cops had picked her up for shoplifting at Central.”
Michael gaped. “What?”
“Yeah. It was all bullshit, mate. She looked at a scarf in some fashion store, draped it around her neck and forgot it was there and then walked out. Tourists steal the bloody place blind, so the security blokes are a mite overzealous. Anyway, they called the police who took her to the cop shop and scared the crap out of her. She called me and I went over there and had a word and common sense prevailed. Problem solved.”
“I had no idea,” Michael said.
“No, she didn’t want you to worry, and she was embarrassed at what had happened. Asked me not to tell you. So, I invoked client privilege and kept mum. I’m just disclosing it now in case it’s relevant.”
“How would it be?”
“Her state of mind? She seemed a bit frazzled, but that was to be expected. What I’m saying is, how extreme is her reaction going to be to this video? A night in a hotel to scare you straight, or something more worrisome?”
Michael scratched at his stubble. “After her accident last year she developed a serious opioid addiction.”
Tin looked at him.
“Okay.”
“She went to rehab and has been clean for five months. But I found a container of OxyContin in her drawer. Unopened, but it was there.”
“I’m guessing it’s gone?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, that casts her message in a more disturbing light.”
“Yes, it does. Do you think I need to involve the police?”
“Look, mate, if you went to the cops you wouldn’t get much joy. They’d tell you what any copper on the planet would tell you: wait twenty-four hours and then file a missing person’s report. But I’m going to take the inside track, okay?”
***
A half hour later a small black Nissan pulled up in the driveway and parked beside Tin’s Porsche. A young woman in a yellow T-shirt and blue jeans left the car and walked toward the front door.
Tin spoke to her in Thai and she nodded and stepped into the living room.
“Michael, this is Captain Vee. She’s with the Tourist Police.”
The woman waid and said “Sawadee kah” and Michael returned the greeting.
Michael showed the cop to a chair and she sat forward on the cushion, with her knees together. She was wearing very expensive running shoes.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked.
“Thank you, no.” She turned to Tin and spoke in Thai.
“She wants to know if you have any objection to her looking at Caroline’s room. Her clothes and so on. She just wants to satisfy herself that there hasn’t been any foul play, you know?”
“Sure,” Michael said. “Absolutely.”
He stood and led them upstairs. Showed them the bathtub and the cocktail dress.
“We were going out to dinner. She was getting ready. Then she got the video and messaged me and must’ve dressed and gone.”
“You know what she wear?” Captain Vee said.
Michael shook his head. “No. Sorry.”
The cop pointed at the closet. “I can look?”
Michael opened the doors and she looked inside and said something to Tin in Thai.
“Any suitcases or baggage missing?” the lawyer said.
“No. It doesn’t look like she packed anything which worries me even more. And all her make-up is still here.”
A further exchange in Thai.
“Does Caroline have any friends she may have gone to?”
“No. Well, there’s some British guy she met at the hospital. She spent the day with him today. I don’t know his name, or how to reach him.”
Tin spoke to the cop and then he said, “The woman in the video... Have you spoken to her? Is she aware of what happened?”
“I tried to call her. Got voice mail. She hasn’t returned my call. Should I try again?”
Tin nodded and Michael dialed Liz’s number. He held up the phone for them to hear the recorded message.
“She said she was going to Bangkok.”
“When did you see her last?”
“Earlier, before I came home. We had a drink at Blues.” Tin and the cop exchanged a look. “It was a business thing. We may be doing a project together. She’s my landlady. Her name’s Liz Keller. She lives next door.”
Tin and the cop spoke again.
“Vee says we should take a walk over there.”
“Surely she doesn’t think Caroline went after Liz?” He shook his head. “Look, Caroline didn’t go there looking for vengeance. That’s not her.”
“Why don’t we take a peek anyway?” Tin said.
Michael grabbed a flashlight and they walked down to the beach and along the sand. To an onlooker they would’ve looked like a trio of friends out for an evening stroll.
They arrived at the stairs to Liz Keller’s house. A few outside lights burnt, otherwise the house was in darkness.
“Still want to go up?” Michael said.
“Yes,” the cop said.
They climbed the stairs and walked around Liz’s house. Tin tried a few doors. They were locked. The cop peered into the living room window.
She said something to Tin who shrugged.
“Okay, Mike, let’s go,” Tin said.
They returned to Michael’s house.
As they entered the door from the beach Captain Vee said, “You have security camera?”
“No, we don’t,” Michael said.
They stood in the living room and the lawyer and the cop spoke in Thai.
“She wants a recent photograph of Caroline. She’ll get it to the CCTV guys, get them busy with facial recognition.”
Michael left them standing downstairs and went up to his office and found the passport photographs of Caroline that she’d needed for her visa application.
He took one down to Captain Vee. “This was taken just over a month ago.”
“Good. Thank you.”
The cop said a little more to Tin and then she left. Her car started and whined off down the driveway.
“Thanks for this, Tin.”
“No worries. Vee’s a mate. She’ll get things moving.” He saw the look on Michael’s face. “Don’t be fooled by her appearance, Mike. She’s a heavy hitter, believe me.”
“Sure.”
“She asked me to tell you not to leave the house, okay?”
“I’m not a suspect am I?”
“Jesus, no, Mike. It’s just you’re probably tempted to go off half-cocked and tear around the island looking for Caroline. Normal response, but it’s not going to be helpful. Better to sit tight in case she pitches up. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Michael said.
“Mike, I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass. You have every right to be worried. But I’m prepared to bet Caroline’s okay. Just gone off somewhere to get her head straight.”
Michael nodded.
Tin walked to the door. “I’ll be in touch. And if anything happens you call me immediately, okay?”
“Okay.”
Michael watched the lawyer get into his Porsche and speed away.
Good Friends Page 13