He’d spent the last fifteen minutes parked under a skinny palm tree with the engine running, aircon cranked high, waiting for the turn of the hour.
Back at the house, the phone the Food Panda guy’d delivered had rung just before ten.
“Yes?” Michael said, still sitting on the sofa.
A Thai man with a reedy, asthmatic voice said, “Have three hundred and sixteen million baht cash?”
“Yes.”
“Put money in case in rear hatch of SUV. Not lock car. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You go Kamala. 11:00 AM leave Kamala drive Patong. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
The man ended the call.
They were charging a two million baht fee for the black market dollars. About sixty thousand USD. Less than Michael had expected.
He removed the surplus money from the case and took it upstairs and stashed it in his desk.
Carrying the case outside, he put it in the load space of the SUV and pressed the remote to close the hatch door.
He drove over to Kamala and waited under the tree.
Michael knew Kamala well. He’d been here before he’d met Caroline. He’d never told her he’d been to Thailand. The episode was shameful for him and he’d buried it deep in the locker he reserved for such things.
Twelve years ago, when he was in his late twenties, he’d drifted through Southeast Asia without purpose. In Cambodia he met a young Norwegian woman, Annika. Tall and blonde. They traveled together onto Vietnam and then Thailand.
Annika was a photographer who sold her pictures on-line. She photographed only buildings. She would wait patiently in the relentless sun for people to clear the frame to get the shot she wanted.
“Why don’t you just nuke them in Photoshop?” Michael asked. “Nobody would know.”
“I would know,” she said, regarding him through the smoke of her joint.
After three months they ended up on Phuket, staying in a hotel on the beach in Kamala. One day she told him she was pregnant. Showed him the pee stick. It was definitely his. He’d bought her tampons in Phnom Penh.
Michael said nothing, just walked out and crossed the road and plunged into the ocean. He was swimming when he felt what was like a strong earth tremor.
Sirens started to blare and people were running away from the beach. Thai men were dragging jet skis out of the water.
This was only a few years after the killer tsunami and people were terrified.
Michael heard a group of Brits jabbering as they gathered their belongings from the sand. There had been an underwater earthquake off Aceh, Indonesia. The same thing that had happened back in 2004, triggering the devastation.
Michael returned to the room and saw Annika’s face.
“You feel it?” he said.
“Sure.”
“We have to go somewhere high.”
They grabbed their passports, a few clothes, some fruit, bottles of water and a liter of Scotch, and headed down to the motorbike.
People were panicking. The roads were thick with cars and bikes. Foreigners with gingery kids clinging to them like orangutans desperately tried to hail taxis.
Michael rode up on the sidewalk to clear the jam and then headed for the Patong road that switchbacked up a very steep hill. They’d be safe there.
A lot of other people were making for the high ground, too.
They found their way to the top of the hill and stopped in a clearing under a cell phone mast. It was nearly sunset. If there was a tsunami it would hit in around six hours. They sat on the grass beside the bike, sipping Scotch, listening to the radios of the cars around them.
They were the only farang amongst the crowd of Thai Buddhists, who were drinking and eating and napping. Fatalistic. They’d been through this before.
At around 02:00 AM the all-clear was sounded.
People cheered and climbed into cars and straddled scooters, ready to go back down.
As Michael helped Annika onto the bike he knew he was done with her.
They returned to the hotel room and slept. He woke early and did an on-line transaction on his tablet, transferring a shitload of money into Annika’s account.
He left without waking her and never saw her again.
He burnt his SIM card and bought a new one.
They’d never felt the need to exchange email addresses.
Michael had no idea if she’d terminated the pregnancy or if he had an eleven-year-old kid somewhere out there.
Not a story he’d ever wanted to share with anybody, least of all his wife.
He was driving the Mercedes up the winding road, jungle on both sides, ocean hidden by the dense vegetation, when the phone rang.
The same man as earlier. “Ahead can see shop?”
Michael spotted a souvenir store off to the left, alone on a short stretch of straight road.
“Yes.”
“You stop. Go inside. After five minute you come out and drive Patong. No lock car.”
Michael nudged the indicator and parked outside the store, beside four minibuses and a clutter of bikes. He left the SUV and went inside. The smell of incense and the cloying sweetness of jackfruit. Nuts and candies. Buddha candles and wax flowers. He wandered amongst a group of Chinese tourists who were going at the foodstuffs like looters.
After five minutes he went back out to the Mercedes.
The suitcase was gone. There was nothing in its place.
Michael felt a spike of panic and scanned the parking lot.
Nobody.
He wiped sweat from his face and got back in the car and started the engine and felt the blast of the aircon, the coolant sharp in his sinuses.
He drove out into the road and started the steep descent to Patong.
89
Caroline lay on her back on the concrete floor wearing only her foul underwear. It was even hotter today.
If that were possible.
Her stomach was bloated from all the water. But she hadn’t peed much—just a few trickles in the bucket.
The holes in the tin roof lasered her pupils, and remained as afterimages when she closed her eyes.
She hadn’t spoken to Charlie since last night. He’d shoved in a few bottles of water and a plate of rice and bolted and locked the door.
There was something in the air.
Some urgency.
Was today the day it ended?
Was Charlie already withdrawing from her, ring-fencing himself?
Caroline thought of her mother’s warning in the dream.
She opened her eyes.
The sun had shifted a little and something flared in the ceiling.
A wire.
A wire that had worked loose from the bamboo rafters, and stabbed down toward her.
Then she wasn’t looking at a wire. She was looking at a weapon.
Caroline stood and walked to beneath the wire and stretched upward. Her fingertips came up a foot short. She lifted the slop bucket. It held a few dribbles of her urine. She emptied it onto the floor, past caring about such things.
She upended the bucket and stepped onto it. It held her weight. She reached up and her fingertips brushed the wire. It was as she’d imagined: the thickness and rigidity of a metal coat hanger.
Caroline tried to wind it free of the rafters. She couldn’t.
She lifted herself on tiptoe, like she had when she’d done ballet as a child. Her bad leg screamed at her.
She lowered herself. Breathed.
Caroline raised herself again and grabbed the wire and untwisted it and pulled it free.
She stepped off the bucket, breathing hard.
Shoving the bucket into the corner, she folded herself to the floor, hiding the wire behind her.
Calming her breath, she could hear Charlie shuffling around in the next room. Then his footsteps grew louder, coming to the door.
No, this was too soon.
She pressed against the wall, c
oncealing the wire.
Charlie tapped on the door. “Darling, I’ll have a bottle of cold water for you in a couple of minutes, okay? Just chilling it.”
“Okay,” she said.
He walked away.
She examined the wire. About ten inches long. Slightly rusted. One end was tapered. Not quite a barb, but sharp enough to do damage.
She folded the wire in two and clasped it in her fist, the sharp end jutting from her hand.
Yes.
She found her stinking blouse and shirt and pulled them on. Then she sat with the wire in her hand, hidden at her side, waiting.
90
Michael rounded a bend in the road and saw the ocean for the first time since leaving Kamala. The sweep of Patong beach was below, where even now police divers were searching for Caroline’s body.
But Caroline wasn’t dead.
Not yet.
Although it seemed increasingly unlikely that he’d be able to keep her alive.
He’d thrown away the ransom money.
Jesus Christ.
How naive—how gullible—he had been.
He saw a group of stringy yellow men crouched over the suitcase of dollars, dividing up the spoils while they cracked wise about the imbecilic farang.
The road flattened out and he came to a circle, and then drove into the outskirts of Patong. Low rent hotels, massage parlors, tattoo shops and titty bars. He stopped at a light and wished that he smoked just to give his hands something to do.
He heard the hatch door open and the whump of its closing.
By the time he looked around nobody was there. A big black bike, with a helmeted rider and passenger flashed by him.
The light went green and the driver of the minibus behind him stood on his horn.
Michael drove away. Half a block later he pulled over under a street light decorated with a dolphin jumping through a hoop.
He left the wheel and went to the rear door, fingering the remote.
The hatch yawned open and he saw a red Manchester United kit bag lying in the load space. He felt someone behind him and swung around. An androgynous figure selling Lotto tickets waddled by.
Michael unzipped the bag.
It was stuffed full of hundred dollar bills.
91
Caroline was almost asleep. She’d fallen into a stupor from the heat and the lack of air in the room. She sat slumped against the wall, her chin on her chest, when she heard the screech of the bolt sliding free.
She blinked, disoriented, and sent a hand to her face to sweep away a tendril of wet hair.
Her other hand crabbed along the floor and bumped something. The wire. It lay exposed on the floor.
The door creaked open on rusty hinges and Charlie rolled a bottle of water inside.
Caroline clutched the wire, hiding it with her body. She slowly got to her feet, swaying.
Charlie was already closing the door.
“Wait,” she said, her voice a whisper. “Please.”
The door stopped moving and she saw his face through the crack.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie said.
“I’m feeling sick. I’ve got a really bad headache. I’m struggling to breathe.”
He nudged the door open and looked at her.
“Drink some water.”
She bent and reached for the bottle, lifted it and then let it fall from her hand, collapsing against the wall.
Charlie clucked and came into the room. He grabbed the bottle and screwed off the cap, holding it out to her.
“Here.”
Caroline stepped forward as if she were about to take the water, then she lunged with the wire and caught him in the side. It was a glancing blow, the sharp point bouncing off a rib, but he yelped and dropped the bottle and tried to get back to the door.
She stabbed at him again, going for his face, and as he blocked her thrust he lost his balance and toppled to the floor.
Caroline ran past him and through the door. She was halfway into the next room when Charlie threw himself at her and seized her ankle. She slammed the door on his wrist and he cursed, but gripped her tighter. She slammed harder and he released her. She yanked the door shut and shot the bolt.
The lock, dangling from the hasp of the bolt, fell and skittered away under a chair and she didn’t want to waste time retrieving it.
She fled out the open front door and into the searing glare. The white van was parked outside, windscreen kicking back a starburst of blinding sunlight. Caroline ran to the driver’s side, looking for keys. The ignition was empty.
She could hear Charlie smashing at the door of her cell. The wood was splintering.
A track led off between rows of skinny rubber trees and she followed it, her bare feet tearing on the rough ground.
She tried to run, but the best she could manage was a fast hobble. Her right leg cramped up, and she dragged it behind her.
She could see a road ahead, and she found a reserve of energy and drove herself toward it. It was noisy in the trees—shrieking birds and sawing insects. But she thought she heard a car.
Caroline stopped, trying to muffle her rasping breath.
Yes. A car. Growing louder.
She rushed through the trees and out onto the dirt road. A small white car rattled toward her, throwing up a dust cloud.
She stood in the middle of the road and waved her arms.
The car skidded to a halt, and she blinked away dust and grit.
The passenger door opened and a young man stepped out.
No.
A woman.
A woman with hair cropped short.
When Caroline saw who it was she stumbled backwards and fell to the dirt. She scrambled to her feet and tried to run.
Liz Keller caught her easily, and kicked her legs from under her.
Caroline hit the ground hard, winded. Gasping, crawling, clawing at the earth with her nails, she tried to pull herself forward.
Liz was over her, blocking out the sun, swinging a rock.
It struck Caroline on the temple and the world went dark.
92
Michael Tate was cold.
Steering the SUV southward through the night he wore a zippered hoodie, and though he had the Jim Morrison T-shirt on underneath, he was still shivering.
The onset of some tropical fever, perhaps?
Or was it dread alone that chilled him to his marrow?
Just after sunset he’d been at his post on the sofa, wearing the talismanic T-shirt, the red bag of dollars at his side, when his phone rang.
Unknown number.
“No names,” Liz Keller said. “Drive to the Phuket Aquarium. Put the money on the passenger seat. Keep the doors unlocked. You will be contacted en route.”
“Wait,” he said, “I need—”
“You need to get off your ass and do as I say.”
As the call ended Michael felt the first of the shivers.
In the kitchen he swallowed two Tylenol.
He went up to the bedroom and hooked the hoodie out of the back of his closet.
It smelled of mold.
He hadn’t touched it since he’d arrived on the island.
Shrugging it on, he pulled up the zipper.
The wasp’s nest buzz of meshing teeth was unnaturally loud to his ear, and he felt a moment’s dizziness.
He blinked it away and went downstairs and got the bag and walked out to the car.
He’d punched coordinates for the Phuket Aquarium into the GPS and let the droning voice guide him along roads he’d never before traveled.
His journey had started on busy highways, then he was led onto a progression of narrower roads and the traffic thinned. So did the endless sprawl of low-rise buildings.
Now there were stretches of jungle and the silhouettes of hunched hills.
After he’d been driving for about forty minutes Michael came to a traffic light at an intersection.
His was the only vehicle at the light and he sat shiv
ering, staring out at a 7-Eleven and a Shell gas station with yellow neon the color of melting butter.
Michael, a man who prided himself on his ability to adapt to any given terrain, his internal compass always locked on polar north, felt completely lost.
He heard the clatter of a scooter and the creak of a kickstand. A shape was at the passenger door. Michael tensed, turning.
The door opened and a helmeted man reached in for the kitbag.
Michael, obeying some desperate impulse, grabbed hold of the strap of the bag.
The man lifted a gun and shot him twice in the head, yanking the ransom money from his fingers.
Michael slumped over the steering wheel, his foot jamming the gas pedal flat.
The SUV surged forward and in an explosion of glass and twisted metal impaled itself on a concrete electricity pole, the airbag enveloping him like a shroud.
93
At dawn Caroline stumbled through a tangle of trees and onto a deserted beach.
Her hands were zip tied in front of her and her feet were bleeding.
Her hair was matted with blood and sweat, and her left eye was swollen closed.
When her tongue prodded one of her upper teeth it was loose and tender.
She fell to her knees in the soft, cool sand and she wanted to lie down and never get up.
But she forced herself upright and staggered on.
She saw a wooden longtail anchored near the beach. Two Thai men were in the water up to their waists, their backs to her, stowing boxes on the boat.
She tried to call out but no sound came from her throat.
A third man appeared from the tree line, carrying a stack of bottled water toward the longtail.
He saw her and stopped.
Caroline lifted her bound hands and fell again, her matted her covering her eyes.
The man dropped the water on the sand and shouted something.
His companions turned and stared at her.
Neither of them moved.
Caroline tried to stand and couldn’t.
Good Friends Page 18