by Morris West
‘Good. So now she is back from the hairdresser. What time would that be?’
‘You rang about seven-thirty. She was back shortly after your call. She mentioned that she gave the girls an extra tip because she had held them back.’
‘It is now eight or thereabouts. Where did you go for dinner?’
‘We had a light meal served here. Afterwards, Miko went to her own room to pack.’
‘Her own room?’
‘Whenever we travel, we have two bedrooms with a common lounge room. Look for yourself.’
It was a simple arrangement common to most hotels: three rooms in line, a bedroom on either side of a large salon. In this case, all three rooms faced the river and each had a separate balcony. I noted that Tanaka’s room had a large king-sized bed while Miko’s had twin beds. That was the extent of my examination. I was concerned to know the line of Tanaka’s narrative and to guess how the police might attack it.
‘Now, let’s take this part very carefully. When I saw you on the terrace shortly after the accident, you were fully dressed, as you are now.’
‘That’s right.’
‘So obviously you didn’t go to bed. What were you doing while Miko was packing?’
‘I was on the third floor, conferring with my staff, the two who accompanied me to the terrace.’
‘Are you telling me you did not go back to your room?’
‘Precisely that. When we had finished our discussions we went down to the foyer together. My boys were going to have a drink. They invited me to join them. We were on our way to the bar when the assistant manager stopped us and told us there had been an accident and a Japanese lady was involved. We went with him to the terrace and…the rest you know.’
‘Had you and Miko quarrelled during the evening?’
‘On the contrary, we were very tranquil in each other’s company. More so than we had been for some time. The report of your conversation with Max Wylie was profoundly important to both of us. I knew about Miko’s arrangement with Cubeddu, but only in the most general way. I am impatient of such side issues, as you know. I told Miko that if Cubeddu were fool enough to pay her a success fee, she would be foolish not to take it. That’s where the matter ended. I confess that her later meeting with Cubeddu raised certain suspicions in my mind, but your report was so clear and objective, it banished them instantly.’
‘I’m glad to know that. I would also feel happier if you did not have to open the matter of Cubeddu and Hoshino with the police. If they themselves raise it, then you must be concerned only with the truth of your evidence.’
‘Do you have any experience with the Thai police?’
‘Some, yes. There is a wide range of quality in the force, but you will find, I think, that they will assign a top man to this case. This hotel is rated the best in the world. It is a key element in the tourist image of the country.’
‘One moment, Gil. Why do you assume that there is what you call “a case”? All I can imagine is a tragic accident.’
‘The police will begin with murder and work their way back to tragic accident which, of course, is exactly the label they want. However, with a foreign national, connected with an important international conference, they have to display due diligence. Besides, given all the circumstances of which you and I are aware – Hoshino, Cubeddu, Max Wylie – are you sure that murder should be ruled out?’
‘I simply cannot conceive it.’
Watching him carefully, I was convinced that he was still in shock. He showed no evidence of grief, resentment, anger, any of the emotions that one might have expected after the violent death of a beloved mistress. Even his answers to my questions were mechanical, as if they had been constructed in a computer and intoned by a robotic voice. Then I perceived for the first time that I myself was in the same state.
I had identified the shattered body of a woman, whom I had seen only a few hours before living, breathing, talking in this very room. Now, ten minutes later, I was discussing the event in the bald terms of a police interrogation. I got up, went to the liquor cabinet, poured myself a large drink and offered the bottle to Tanaka. He waved it away.
‘My head is full of cobwebs already. What the hell is keeping these people? Do they expect us to sit up all night for them?’
A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. When I opened it, two people entered the room: a uniformed lieutenant of police and an older man in civilian dress. The older man made the introductions, in English.
‘This is Lieutenant Sarit. I am Captain Aditya. I know who you gentlemen are. I offer Mr Tanaka my sincere sympathies and to you, Mr Langton, my thanks for your helpful intervention. First, I should like Mr Tanaka to show me round the suite and then respond to some questions. Are you happy to work in English, Mr Tanaka?’
‘For the moment, yes. When we come to depositions I should prefer to have Mr Langton translate from Thai to Japanese.’
Captain Aditya was too polite to show surprise. He bowed his acquiescence and then asked Tanaka to lead him on a tour of the three rooms. He suggested that I might care to sit and enjoy my drink in peace until they were ready to take Tanaka’s statement. I was happy to do just that, but when I picked up the glass again my hand trembled violently, so that the ice rang against the glass and some of the liquor slopped into my lap. I drank, holding the glass with both hands, and felt the raw spirit burning my gullet. Finally, I was steady again, counting off the seconds and the minutes that Tanaka was absent with the police: three minutes in the master bedroom, a cursory glance in the lounge; ten, twelve, twenty minutes in Miko’s room, with long silences punctuated by bursts of talk, too low-toned to be intelligible.
When they returned, I was surprised to hear Captain Aditya announce cheerfully: ‘That will be all for this evening, gentlemen. I understand you will be in the hotel all day tomorrow. We’ll talk again when you are rested, Mr Tanaka. As for you Mr Langton, perhaps you’d be good enough to ride down with us to the foyer and give us a brief account of your movements this evening.’
‘Whatever you say, captain. Will you be all right, Kenji? I can call back before I go to bed.’
‘No thank you, Gil. I’ll be better alone. Thank you for your help. Our breakfast meeting stands. Goodnight.’
As we walked down the corridor to the elevators, Captain Aditya told me with a smile: ‘You come up nice and clean on our computers, Mr Langton. Also, your friend Doctor Kukrit is doing the autopsy at his clinic. We, too, are old friends. He is working late to oblige me. Just to complete the formalities, would you give me a rundown on your evening?’
I gave it to him in sixty seconds flat. The elevator arrived and we rode down together to the lobby. The young lieutenant saluted and left us. Captain Aditya steered me to a quiet corner out of earshot of the few remaining guests. Then, without warning, he began conversing in Thai.
‘This is an embarrassing business, Mr Langton, as much for you, I imagine, as it is for us.’
‘I agree, captain.’
‘Did you know the lady well?’
‘I’ve met her many times in my association with Tanaka.’
‘What precisely is your association with Mr Tanaka?’
‘He is a partner in my Japanese publishing company, as Doctor Kukrit’s sister is my partner in the enterprise here. I happen also to command a number of languages, so I function sometimes as a mediator, arbitrator, consultant at international conferences like this one.’
‘To return to the lady. It would appear that, while her relationship with Mr Tanaka is of long standing, she runs an independent business in Los Angeles.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is it possible that in the course of that business she has made enemies?’
‘It’s possible in any business.’
‘Even in yours, Mr Langton?’
‘Even in mine. For instance, here in Bangkok we compete for contracts to produce school textbooks. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. When we win, someone else loses
. So there is always a potential enemy.’
‘Have you any reason to believe that the business carried on by this young woman was in any way drug related?’
‘As I have always understood it, from hearsay only, Miko supplied commercial services to Japanese companies operating on the West Coast. I am speaking of legitimate business services. She was not in the escort or entertainment business. Drugs? I wouldn’t think so for a very simple reason. It’s a dangerous trade and she was not in need of money. However, if you’re asking me whether any of her clients were drug-connected, I have no first-hand knowledge at all.’
‘You obviously feel a need to be very precise in your answers.’
‘A matter of training. Hearsay evidence is inadmissible in British and American courts. In a travelling life, I hear enough gossip to fill a dozen scandal magazines. Even in this project, we have had long debates on the origin of funds offered for investment. It was agreed that if the funds were offered through legitimate agencies, we had neither duty nor right to enquire as to their origins, though we might ultimately decline to use them. Does that make my position any clearer to you?’
‘It does. I am not sure that it advances my case very far.’
‘Are you able to say what your case is likely to be, captain?’
‘I have no doubt at all, Mr Langton, that we are dealing with murder.’
Suddenly I had run out of words. I sat gaping at him like an idiot, while he waited, placid as a Buddha, his hands folded on his lap. Finally, with a singular gentleness, he said: ‘You are shocked, Mr Langton. You should not be. We live in violent times, when rational solutions to human problems seem sometimes fruitless and often too tedious to accomplish. But let me make a confession to you. I believe we have a murder on our hands. I am not sure we can prove it. I am even less sure that we want to prove it. Can you understand that?’
‘Yes.’
‘A scandal solves nothing. It may do much damage to good people and important projects.’
That little ploy was like a needle jabbed in my backside. It not only woke me up, it made me very angry indeed. I was being asked to give tacit assent to two separate propositions: that I might well have access to vital information and that I might be prepared to conceal it to avoid a scandal. But remembering my long education in Thai manners, I could not show anger and I could not make the captain lose face by telling him I had seen the barb under the bait. My response was sedulously mild.
‘I see your dilemma, captain. It’s the problem we all face from time to time: expedient solutions or legal ones? I’m glad it is you who has to make the decision, not I. Be assured, however, of my fullest co-operation in your investigations. Now, if there is nothing else, I beg you to excuse me. I have a breakfast conference at eight in the morning and committee meetings after that.’
‘Be assured I shall bother you as little as possible.’
I stood up, laid my hands palm to palm and offered him the goodnight salutation. He returned it with a graceful compliment.
‘It is a pleasure to hear you speak my language, Mr Langton.’
‘Thank you. My only regret is that we have such a sad subject to discuss.’
As I walked across the foyer to the elevators, I knew that he was watching me, counting my sluggard paces in case I faltered or stumbled. This was his bailiwick and however beautifully I spoke his language, I was still the farang, the foreigner, the outside man, who had always to mind his manners.
Sixteen
By the time I reached my room, I was rocking with fatigue, sour with indigestion. There were messages under my door from Leibig, Laszlo, Vannikov and Max Wylie. The tenor of each was the same: ‘Call me, any hour!’ I tore them up and tossed them in the waste basket. There was, however, one more missive: a note written on hotel stationary. It was in English.
Dear Gil,
I am writing this under the drier in the beauty parlour. This is the last and only place I can be private now. You thought you were doing me a favour when you let me down so lightly over the Max Wylie report. When I heard you tell it to Kenji and me I was grateful. I had never been half as kind to you.
Kenji, however, was enraged. I have never known him so cold and bitter and cruel. He ordered me instantly out of his life. Had there been a night flight to Tokyo, he would have put me on it. He called Hoshino and arranged to have me escorted to the airport and physically conducted on to the aircraft like a criminal. I am to stop in Tokyo only long enough to collect my belongings. Then I am to go back to Los Angeles for good – or for bad, who knows! Kenji has sworn to destroy my business. He can do it, too, simply by withdrawing his own patronage and putting the word about that I am no longer to be trusted. Then Cubeddu can move in and turn me into anything he wants, from whorehouse madam to coke dealer.
Does that surprise you? It surprises me, too; but I’ve just learned something. When you’ve lived as long as I have under an invisible umbrella of protection, you forget how to come in from the rain. Silly and sad, but true. I don’t know when I’ve ever felt so helpless. For the first time, I understand why Kenji wants to take what he calls the short way out.
Long before we left Tokyo, he asked me to make a suicide pact with him, so that we could go out together. Part of me was attracted to the idea. Part of me rejected it utterly. Kenji refused to understand. That was when he began to close me out and I began to make separate plans for my life after his death. Now the estrangement is total and all my plans are in ruins.
I’ve called Marta and told her I am leaving – just that; the rest of the story is too long and complicated. She is relieved, I think. She’s another one with a foot in two worlds and not yet enough courage to choose between them. I didn’t take her away from you, Gil. She never really belonged to you, though she could and would if you ever wanted her enough to reach out and lift her over the barrier.
Why am I telling you all this? You of all men, I of all women? If you hadn’t been so locked into your loyalties to Kenji, you could have had me any time – no strings, no questions. Who knows what we might have done together? But that’s all fairytale and illusion, like the legend of the fox-woman who destroys the men who love her. Not true, Gil. Not true at all. It is always the fox who is hunted and, in the end, destroyed.
I wish I could say I love you. It would be pleasant to dream that you loved me. At least believe I’ve never hated you. Sayonara, Gil-san.
Miko.
I folded the letter and locked it in my briefcase. I opened the sliding doors that gave on to the river terrace and stood leaning on the metal railing, staring down at the tropic garden and the long vista of the river reaches, lined with new developments: hotels, apartments, warehouses. I changed posture several times, making macabre experiments. Could I fall if I stood like this? If I leaned thus, what kind of force would be needed to tip me over the rail? If I really wanted to jump, how would I do it? Somersault over the rail? Or climb over it and drop myself into space?
For one drunken moment, I was tempted to straddle the rail and test the sensation on the other side. I drew back, sweating and shivering, went inside and closed the door. It was time to sleep, if sleep would come. I stripped off my sweat-sodden clothes, doused myself under the shower, put in a wake-up call for seven in the morning and lapsed into a dead, dreamless slumber.
The phone rang at six-thirty. Max Wylie was on the line.
‘What the hell happened, Gil? I was expecting a call.’
‘Very little. A Captain Aditya interviewed Tanaka and me. The autopsy was going on at Kukrit’s clinic. Nothing more will happen until this morning. We’ve been asked to hold ourselves available for further interviews. I gathered the police would like a tidy solution.’
‘And that’s all?’
‘All we should discuss on the telephone. I’ve got a breakfast meeting at eight, a conference at nine. Why don’t we meet for coffee in the Writers’ Lounge at ten-thirty?’
‘Done. Meantime, I’ve got something for you. Domenico Cubeddu shipp
ed out of Bangkok at three-thirty yesterday afternoon – Korean Airlines to Seoul. That takes him right out of this picture. Interesting, yes?’
‘Very. Do you know this Captain Aditya?’
‘No, but I’ll check him out before we meet. What’s going to happen about the conference?’
‘I’ll know that by ten-thirty. Ciao, Max!’
Since I was awake, I saw no good reason why others should sleep. I called Boris Vannikov who, much to my surprise, was just back from an hour’s exercise at the gymnasium and jogging track across the river. I suggested it would save time if he joined our breakfast conference on the terrace.
‘We’ve all gone round and round the mulberry bush. A decision has to be made. As I read it, we could get a consensus to break off at the end of this week and announce a continuance after further study. The way things are in the Gulf, with war almost certain, it would make sense and save face for everybody.’
‘I’ll need time to clear it with Moscow.’
‘You’ll get it, Boris. But let’s establish the general agreement, then we can go into conference at nine with a clear direction. By the way, we should open with a brief silence for our colleague Miko.’
‘What news do you have?’
‘Police investigations are in progress. Everyone is hoping for a decision in favour of accidental death.’
‘Nobody more than we, Gil. I’ve just turned on the American news. We seem to be living in a chamber of horrors. Moscow has sent our black beret paratroopers into the Baltic republics, into Georgia and the southern Ukraine. I confess to you, Gil, I want to go home. I don’t want to be stuck here, lusting after little Thai girls, while they’re cooking up a new revolution at home. By the way, talking of Thai girls, your Siri is wonderful, and so was the dinner. It worked wonders for Tanya. I’m almost prepared to go on living with her. See you at eight.’
Leibig and Laszlo were both astir. I gave them a quick résumé of the night’s events and told them that I had invited Vannikov to join us for breakfast. I had the impression that neither wanted to discuss the circumstances of Miko’s death. She belonged to Tanaka. He should look to his own house. I was Tanaka’s man; they expected me to keep the thoroughfares of business clean and tidy.