“Yes. You’ve watched all those Hitchcock movies. You know how it works.”
He exhaled, shaking his head. “Forget it. You’d toddle off straight to the cops.”
“Why?”
His eyes widened and he waved the cigarette around the room. “This, darling. You’ve been kidnapped. And smacked around a bit, sadly.”
She shrugged. “Oh come on, there are yoga boot camps tougher than this.”
He laughed. “You’re a tonic, darling. Truly. I have to admire your spunk.”
Caroline had a narrow window, and it was closing fast.
She stared at him. “I’m serious, Charlie. When I got that video of Michael and Liz I wanted to die. I really did. But after these last few days I’ve changed my mind. I want to live. I want to start my life over. Without Michael. But with his money. I’m owed that.”
“Darling...”
“I know it sounds really sick, but you’ve done me a favor.”
Charlie gaped at her through smoke. “You’re honestly asking me to take you at your word that you wouldn’t turn me in?”
“Yes. If I turned you in you’d tell the cops that I got you to kill my husband, wouldn’t you?”
He shrugged. “I suppose. But they’d never believe me.”
“Perhaps. But why would I want to take that chance when we could disappear into our wonderful new lives with our little secret tucked away safe and sound?”
“And what about Liz?”
“That’s your call, Charlie.”
He cocked his head to the side and said, “Purely as a matter of interest, what would we be talking, money wise, if I were to do what you ask?”
“Let’s say five times the ransom.”
He laughed. Then he blinked. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, I am. Do I have your attention now?”
Charlie ground his cigarette dead on the floor. “Oh yes, darling, you have my complete and undivided bloody attention.”
100
Caroline sat in the dark, the only light coming from under the door. Liz Keller was alone in the next room. Caroline hadn’t seen her, but she heard her moving around. Heard the click of her cigarette lighter, the bubble of a kettle and the chime of a spoon against a mug as she made coffee.
Not long after nightfall Charlie had left. Caroline had heard the churn of the van’s motor as he’d struggled to start it. When it had finally fired he’d revved it hard, and roared away. It had taken a long time for the whine of the engine to disappear.
Time passed. Caroline didn’t know how long. Then she heard Liz Keller speaking on her phone. Caroline couldn’t hear her words, but Liz’s tone was curt and the conversation was short.
She wondered if Liz were talking to Michael. Instructing him where to take the ransom money.
Would Charlie do as she asked?
She had no way of knowing. It was out of her hands. She felt curiously relaxed. Fatalistic even.
More time passed. She dozed.
The rattle of the van on the track woke her, and she moved close to the door. Brakes squealed as the van stopped outside the house. A door slammed and feet crunched on gravel and somebody entered the next room.
Liz asked a question and Charlie replied. Caroline heard the thump of something being deposited on a table and the whine of a zipper.
Then gunshots.
Three hard, flat smacks.
A chair toppled, clattering to the ground.
The sound of sobbing.
A pause and then a fourth shot.
Then quiet for a few seconds, until footsteps approached and the door was unbolted.
It swung open and Charlie stood silhouetted against the light. A gun dangled from his hand.
Caroline waited for him to speak but he said nothing. He took a step into the room and then he dropped the gun and pitched forward and she had to jerk herself to the side to avoid him falling on her.
He had been shot in the back. She hesitated, then reached out her fingers and touched his throat.
There was no pulse.
Caroline, panting, crawled to the door.
She listened. Heard only the hum of the fridge and the scratch of night insects.
She pulled herself through into the next room.
Liz Keller lay sprawled on her back, the toppled chair across her legs. Blood pooled beneath her. Her empty eyes stared at the ceiling. A gun lay at her side.
A red kitbag stood on the table beside an empty plate, a breadknife, a mug, the van keys and a few black zip ties. The bag was open, dollar bills bulging out.
Caroline dragged herself to the table and reached up for the knife. She cut the zip tie that bound her ankles. She held the knife between her feet and sawed at the tie on her wrists. At last she was free.
She stood and almost fell. She held onto the wall and steadied herself.
Caroline lifted the keys and put a zip tie in her pocket. She walked out to the van.
She had already heaved herself behind the wheel, jabbing the key into the ignition, when she knew she had to go back. She returned to the house and slung the bag of money over her shoulder.
It was heavy.
She hauled it to the van and dumped it onto the passenger seat.
She turned the ignition key. The engine churned and moaned but didn't fire.
Caroline muttered something that may have been a prayer and tried again and the engine caught. She drove down the track, headlights poking yellow fingers through the dust.
She found the gravel road and followed it through the trees until she came to a T-junction. Some intuition told her to turn right, toward where the sky was lightening, and she rattled onto asphalt that was cratered and cracked in the van’s tired beams.
She drove past fields and trees.
A rusted sign in Thai and English pointed to a beach.
She stopped the van and dragged up the emergency brake. Stepping down, she went around to the passenger side and took out the bag of money. She walked into a stand of trees and threw the bag into the darkness.
Caroline returned to the van and drove toward the beach. She wound down the window and when she heard the hiss of surf and smelt the ocean she drove the van into the bush until it was hidden from the road.
She came to a line of trees and sat and lifted out the zip tie. Winding it round her wrists, she used her teeth to pull it tight. It made a sound like cloth ripping.
Caroline stood and walked through the trees and onto the beach.
101
When the white van drove out of frame Vee stopped the video on her phone and regarded Caroline impassively. Her painted lips were slightly open on an overbite.
Caroline looked at Tin. He tapped his fingers on the back of his chair.
“This video came to light just a few days ago,” he said. “There had been some stock theft in the area a year or two back, hence the camera. A local cop was doing a search through the archives and he came across this. When he saw a foreigner doing something a little weird he thought it might interest Vee.”
“I see,” Caroline said.
“The source footage has been wiped,” Tin said. He nodded at Vee who held the phone up to Caroline as she deleted the video. “So. Poof. Gone. It never happened.”
“Just like that?” Caroline said.
“Yup.”
“What does she want?”
Tin shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, she wants you to prosper.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
“She realizes, obviously, that I played a little fast and loose with the truth?” Caroline said.
Tin laughed without humor. “Come on, Caroline,” he said, “You flat-out bloody lied.”
“Yes, I lied.” She took a slug of wine. “Does she want the real story?”
“No.”
“Do you?”
Again Tin shook his head. “No.”
“And she
doesn’t want to throw the book at me for lying to her?”
Vee said something in Thai. Caroline raised her eyebrows at Tin.
“Vee has quoted a Thai proverb,” he said.
“A proverb?”
“Yes. It loses a little in translation but this is the gist: Taking revenge is like shooting out the streetlights outside your own house.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Look, Caroline, Vee came out of that whole thing last year smelling like roses. A farang was murdered. She found the two farang perpetrators. Conveniently dead. No Thais involved. No embarrassment for Thailand. Everybody was happy. It got her promoted. It’s in nobody’s interest to dig it all up again.”
“Then why didn't she just bury this? Why is she showing it to me?”
Tin shrugged. “She’s making merit by doing a good deed. It’s the Buddhist way.”
Caroline looked at the cop. “Thank you.”
Vee waid and stood, smoothing down her dress.
Tin stood too.
“Good night, Caroline,” he said. “Sleep well.”
“Goodnight.”
She opened the door and watched them walk away into the darkness. She felt very American.
Caroline closed the door and took her drink out onto the balcony. She looked down at the light spilling from the restaurant onto the beach. For a second the presence of Michael was so intense that she expected to see him strolling along the sand toward her.
But, of course, if anything of him remained it was only as a sort of engram, a memory trace, imprinted on the atmosphere of the island.
If you believed in that kind of thing.
Which she didn’t.
Caroline went back inside and walked through to her bedroom and removed her clothes. She slipped naked between the fresh linen sheets and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
THE END
Good Friends Page 21