by AD Davies
I looked at myself afresh: slight bruise to my face, my hand strapped, and my ribs discolored. Mikey’s work still bloomed the size of an orange around my sternum. The head-shot in Tomas Gerard’s passport sported a piercing that had healed many years ago, but the smooth pate and rough goatee, combined with sleep-deprived eyes, made me look like an utter scumbag.
Good. As far as I can get from smart, well-groomed Adam Park the better.
I applied moisturizer liberally on every shaved area, dried off and stood naked in my room with a bottle of water. I was about to get dressed, when the phone rang, making me jump.
The British caller said, “I’m Carl Walker from CQP Solicitors. I’ve been retained by Park Avenue Investigations to oversee your defense. I will liaise with local experts—”
“What’s the catch?” I said.
He harrumphed before replying in a clipped, business-like way. “That when your defense is complete, successful or otherwise, you will relinquish all authority over the company and sign full chairmanship to Roger Gorman.”
“Thought so.”
“Well?”
I sipped the water.
“Mr. Park? Are you there? I need you to agree to this before you engage my services.”
“Mister Gorman seems to forget I already have a healthy bank balance. I can already afford the best defense possible. I won’t be giving up anything to Mister Gorman.”
His turn to pause. “Sir, we have considerable expertise in—”
“I don’t care. I’m out of the cop shop, and that’s really all I needed from you.”
“If you don’t use us, sir, your funds will be frozen. Your private funds—”
“You’re fired,” I said with a laugh, and hung up. Not even Roger Gorman could freeze my personal accounts.
I itemized my equipment again, before securing it in my pack: iPad, which was fine; the remaining smartphone and the nuts-and-bolts Nokia; gaffer tape, which is something every traveler should carry (no better tool for patching-up torn rucksacks); my miniature tool kit; my precious camera and binoculars.
I dressed in cargo pants, a long-sleeved cotton shirt and a pair of walking sandals, heaved my rucksack onto my back, and examined my reflection. I was some distance away from myself, both inside and out.
I left enough cash on the bed to cover my bill, then lugged my rucksack to the lobby and selected a free map from the dispenser. I unfolded it and held it up like a dumb-ass tourist. Outside, I kept it up but not so much that it obscured my face. I pretended to be confused by the directions, and headed toward the Metro, folding the map badly as I went.
I listened.
No car engine.
No footsteps.
Nobody followed.
I warned myself not to get too excited as I reached the Metro and, unmolested, caught the shuttle to Charles de Gaulle airport.
Without incident, I purchased a first-class ticket to Vietnam on the cloned card, intending to repay the money directly to the real person’s account as soon as I landed. I now had four days left to reach Vietnam—a communist country about which I knew hardly anything—and locate a man and a girl who may or may not wish to be found.
Unfortunately, the only flights from France, every one of them, stopped over in Bangkok.
ASIA
Vietnam
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I thought it would have meant more to me, being back in the city that drove me to grow from lean to strong, to seek out people who need helping, and taught me more lessons than I could have hoped to learn otherwise. Had I commuted to the city itself, perhaps the vibrations of my past might have shook something loose. For now, I remained in the embrace of Bangkok’s airport, a sprawling town-sized structure with amenities to service every whim. At one point I found myself staring out the huge windows at the distant city, willing myself to grow scared or angry, but it was just a place—a speck of dirt on the global map. Technically no different than any other place. It wasn’t as if the soil retained homeopathic traces of my blood, filtering it out through veins beneath its surface, to infuse with my psyche. I may as well have been gazing at a photograph of Milton Keynes. Eventually, someone bumped my leg with their case and I snapped myself away, and paid for a much-needed massage while I waited for my connecting flight.
I landed at Ho Chi Minh City Airport on Tuesday evening, eight hours ahead of France and the UK. It was sparse and clean, and virtually deserted but for pairs of soldiers roaming with dogs. I was one of a dozen or so people waiting patiently for luggage and our footsteps and voices carried high into the metal fixtures and echoed back at us. Once I collected my rucksack, I wrestled with the visa-on-arrival paperwork, breezed through immigration control, and finally stepped out into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
And it was hot. Not warm, but hot.
Local time was seven p.m. and the sun had long-since left the sky, yet the air clung damply to my skin. I’d been hotter in the past, but humidity always takes some getting used to. When I travelled through India and Thailand, the taxis were sweatboxes on wheels, so the air-con in the one I snagged was a refreshing surprise.
I asked the driver to take me to Pham Ngu Lao in District One, the street on which, according to the data Jess had mined, Gareth’s ill-gotten credit card first transacted a two-night stay in the Saigon Backpacker Hotel.
The barefoot driver said, “English?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. David Beckham, yeah? You like him?”
I couldn’t help a smile. David Beckham: universal ice-breaker. “Sure,” I said. “Good footballer.”
“Old, though. Lost pace.”
Like a pub conversation back home. I said, “He’s retired now.”
We drove in silence for a minute or two, the dark dual-carriageway zipping by outside. He said, “You know Wayne Rooney?”
We chatted like that for the next half an hour, passing through small pockets of civilization—settlements of twenty-or-so buildings at a time—with empty stretches of darkness in between. Each mini-town was active, with kids playing in vests, sinewy men smoking or drinking, and every place without exception owned emaciated animals; pigs and goats, cats and dogs, ribs showing beneath their fur. Many displayed tiny birds crammed into cages, and when we slowed I could hear their pained chirps while men, women and children paid them no mind.
The driver also enjoyed his horn a little too much. Every time we approached a moped or pushbike or piece of rust on wheels he’d honk loudly before overtaking. Sometimes we’d get a honk in reply. We passed a lot of mopeds. The driver’s football talk was almost constant, pausing only to tell me no one called Ho Chi Minh City by its official name (christened after Vietnam’s North Vietnamese leader). So I got it into my head that I was in Saigon now. Ho Chi Minh City was for when dealing with officials.
Soon, the surroundings grew taller and more solid. Fewer breaks in the buildings and the road was less dusty. We pushed into a box junction at traffic lights and stopped. To my right, a line of—literally—hundreds of mopeds waited for a green light, revving as if about to commence a race. One scooter held a man, woman and two kids. All except the man wore crash helmets. Another moped-owner rode with some sort of grass-like vegetable piled on the back, towering higher than he was. Others were young people wearing face masks, like surgeons.
Adam’s Smug Travel Tips #23: In South East Asia, face masks are used, not for health reasons, but to keep the sun off people’s faces because, unlike in the west where a tan is considered attractive, lighter skin is desirable here due to the notion that peasants working the fields are cursed with darker looks. You even get lotions that claim to help bleach skin pigments.
The lights changed and the race launched en-masse and surrounded us on all sides. Horns beeped and honked like a fight could break out, yet the parade flowed on. The driver kept his eyes forward and asked who I thought Manchester City might sign next. We inched forward and swung into the throng, which parted lazily with each blast of noise
. No one died. No one got hurt. And after much maneuvering between barely-protected riders and cyclists, he eventually deposited me outside a bar on Pham Ngu Lao.
Recalling a word both Anh and Fanuco said back in France, I asked, “Do you know anything by the name of Giang?”
“Giang?” he said.
“Might be a bar, a restaurant, a street…”
He told me he hadn’t heard of it, and charged me twenty US dollars for the journey, which is far preferable to the local currency, the dong. Yes, the dong. Despite the country’s violent history with America, the people still preferred the simple dollar (about twenty-three thousand dong to one dollar). I paid him, retrieved my rucksack, and stepped out into the sauna of Saigon’s nightlife where, even on this insignificant crossroad after eight p.m., the motorbike procession was endless. Whenever the lights changed, dozens, maybe hundreds, droned by, chugging fumes into the air, so it made crossing the road look impossible. I didn’t have to face that right now, though.
The Go2 Bar, from Jess’s list, would not have looked out of place on the corner of a New Orleans street, a canopied awning over tables and chairs on the pavement, open windows and dark wood furniture. Inside the bar, I ordered a Diet Coke, where western faces mingled with what may have been locals or tourists from neighboring countries.
I chose to sit outside.
A tall, skinny waitress in denim shorts and a Go2 t-shirt skittered out with a menu. “Pizza is good,” she said with a strong accent. “Burgers good. Noodles very good.”
“Just the drink, thanks.” I pointed at the glass, smiling like an idiot.
I made a mental note to try to learn some key Vietnamese phrases. I should have done so already but, on the plane, sleep had been far more pressing.
As she was about to depart I asked her to wait, and showed her some photos of Sarah and Gareth that I printed out at Bangkok Airport.
She shook her head. “No, don’t know.”
I asked her if she’d show the photos around for me. “To your colleagues,” I said.
“Coll …? What?” Her English was passable, but not conversational.
“Staff. Waiters. Waitress. Show them?” I handed her twenty dollars.
“Ah, yes.” She took the photos and sizable tip, and placed the menu before me, then disappeared inside.
From what I could tell from my perch, Saigon’s District One was nearly all tourism: groups of young girls, probably students on gap years, giggled past; older men in denim waistcoats hanging around on powerful motorcycles; couples, arm in arm. Music beat out from various colorful-fronted bars, and gaping shops flogged t-shirts and hats, knock-off designer names alongside local Vietnam-orientated merchandise. Already, the never-ending honking and droning from the traffic blended into the background, and my ears zoned in on nearby conversations about where people had been and where they might go next and how much they loved Vietnam and how they missed real tea.
The waitress returned with the photos and said, “Sorry, no one know these people. One guy say maybe the man was here, but not the girl. He don’t know when. You police?”
I left another ten dollars and hit the street. Pham Ngu Lao was a narrow road with a pavement on one side, the other open frontage and a dusty channel on which people walked and traded. It was reminiscent of the Kao San Road in Bangkok, but without the persistent haranguing from flyer vendors. For the length of the street, I was left alone except for an eighty-ish man selling cigars and packs of postcards from the vantage point of his wheelchair. I smiled and shook my head and tried to go past, but he shifted his chair into my path, face sagging as if I insulted him. It took me a few seconds to remember that, like many poorer nations, people in Vietnam see tourists as wealthy phantoms, gliding through their lives, taking a break from paradise. When we wave off a five-dollar tea towel or ten-dollar elephant statue, they simply cannot understand why; if we have money to burn, all of us, why not buy a flute or hat or whatever they are flogging?
I put my hand in my pocket. “How much?”
He grinned toothlessly. “One dollar. You like Manchester United?”
“You know the Saigon Backpacker Hotel?”
“Of course! I know all hotels, hostels, guesthouses. You go down there.” He pointed past a vegetable stand, to what looked like a narrow alleyway. On his hand, only his thumb, index and little finger remained, the rest having healed over. I bought a pack of postcards from him for a dollar and gave him a second dollar for his trouble, but he thrust it back in my hand and shook his head like I was stupid and held up his little finger. “No, no. One dollar.”
The Saigon Backpacker Hotel was located a hundred yards from the main stretch. Each alley, I realized, was an extension of the road, not a new address in itself. This particular passage was litter-free but coated with a layer of wet grime. Three foraging rats fled as I trudged toward the hotel with its white sign and blue writing that no doubt once lit up.
In the tiled lobby, the air was thicker. I noted the usual book-exchange in a corner beneath one of four wall-mounted fans. Whenever the oscillation twisted in my direction, the cold air brought goose-bumps to my sweat-filmed skin. Two girls manned the reception desk, both aged between fifteen and twenty, with flouncy dresses and flowers in their hair.
The one wearing glasses stood and said, “Help you, sir?”
“You speak English?” I asked in a voice so tired it surprised me. Must’ve been the heat.
“Many in our city speak English now. And French. And sometime little German. Saigon is very modern. We like English. Good English.”
It pays to speak the language of the tourist.
I said, “Do you have a room?”
“For how many nights please?”
“I’ll pay for three, but I may leave sooner.”
“For three nights, sir, thank you.”
I went through the booking-in procedure, handing over whatever they asked for. They checked Tomas Gerard’s passport against my face and against a list of some sort, and told me they would keep it until my departure. I didn’t object. It was standard practice in plenty of countries, and no one questions security procedures in Vietnam. Ever.
When it came to paying, I asked if they remembered my friends who stayed a couple of weeks ago. “I don’t suppose you have their room? They said lovely things about this place.”
She opened the book. “What name?”
“Isabella…” Damn it. Suddenly, I was drawing a complete blank.
“Isabella and Joseph,” said the girl.
“Isabella Laurent and Joseph Coulet,” I said. “Of course.”
“They check out two weeks ago.” As she came across a note, she frowned, slid my passport to one side. Out of my reach. She said, “They had to leave.”
“Why did they have to leave?”
“Trouble,” said the girl with glasses. “Police came.”
“They were arrested?”
“Not arrest. Just … sir, we cannot talk about them. Their room is not available.”
“Did they do something wrong?”
The girl adjusted her glasses. “We were not working that day.”
I thumbed three twenties and placed them on the counter. “Can I ask who was on duty when the police came?”
The girl pushed the money back toward me. Would not meet my eye.
The other girl handed me my passport. “No rooms. Very sorry.”
I took the passport and money. If the police wanted Sarah and Gareth’s activities to remain confidential, I could waste no more time. I needed to move. And move I did.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
My French SIMs were not working, presumably cancelled by the authorities when I absconded, although there was no shortage of phone shops around the corner from Pham Ngu Lao. I bought a genuine iPhone from an elderly lady with one leg, and she was happy to accept an Adam Park credit card (I figured now I was outside Europe they couldn’t touch me). I added two hundred dollars to the SIM. It wasn’t fully charged, but stored
enough juice to set up my Outlook account, then call Jess on her personal mobile. It was mid or late-afternoon in the UK so I thought she was still at work.
“Where the hell have you been?” she demanded.
“You still okay?” I said. “No one suspects?”
“Everyone suspects. The police interviewed me. Gormless Gorman told me I’d be in for some serious problems if he caught me helping you. You are in trouble, mister.”
“What do you have for me?”
“Where are you? And what is that noise?”
The honking went on, and on, and on. I couldn’t hide it. “I am in Saigon and what you can hear are the residents of Saigon heading home from work.”
“Saigon? Figures. So you’ll want some info on Mr. Delingpole’s spending habits? Or should I say Mr. Gallway?”
“I just came from the backpacker district. He and Sarah checked in together at a cheap hotel, and Gareth drank in at least one bar. They were here. I need to know the most recent spend.”
She paused and I heard typing. “The Rex Hotel.”
“Really?” I said. “The most recent place is called the Rex?” It sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it.
“Last night,” she said.
“Yesterday?” So I was closer than I hoped.
Jess continued. “Lots of smaller transactions last night too, and a lot of nights before that. Doesn’t look like he spent enough to stay the night in the hotel. Drinks, maybe food.”
“He’s using it for living expenses. We got lucky on that earlier hit, but I guess he’s started using cash in the hotels so he can bribe them to stay off the grid. No questions asked if they’re suspicious about his passport. But why? What’s he doing here?”
“Holiday?” Jess suggested.
“This is more than a whim, more than simply fancying a new country. Vietnam, it’s too random. It’s the sort of place I would have visited. Heck, I’d come back on holiday myself, but…” I was losing myself in the place. Back to the task at hand. “He’s enjoying himself,” I said. “But it’s not a pleasure trip. It has a purpose.”