The Dying Beach Read online

  He called ambulance dispatch. ‘We’ve got three casualties, two critical. One male, late fifties. Unconscious. Lacerations to the head and face. Possible skull fracture and internal bleeding. Second male, mid-twenties. Also unconscious. Knife wound to the stomach.’

  ‘Looks like a head injury, too,’ Officer Da piped up.

  Yongyuth relayed the information. ‘Third male, mid-twenties. Conscious. Suspected concussion.’ The sergeant flipped his phone shut and squatted beside Officer Da. The knife, still embedded in Othong’s gut, was the type used for cutting fruit. He looked up to see the farang woman approaching.

  ‘Sergeant Yongyuth?’

  He rose to his feet. ‘Krup.’

  ‘We spoke earlier on the phone. I’m Jayne Keeney.’ The farang gave him a wai, noticed the blood on her hands, and put them behind her back out of sight.

  ‘You’re Police Major General Wichit’s associate.’

  ‘Ka.’ Jayne nodded.

  Yongyuth unbuttoned the chest pocket of his uniform and extracted a notebook. ‘Can you tell me what happened here, Khun Jayne?’

  ‘I’ll do my best, Sergeant. I came this morning with my business partner, Khun Rajiv.’

  She gestured to the South Asian man, who’d managed to get up and was sitting on one of Bapit’s throne chairs, gingerly touching the back of his head. ‘We were meeting with Khun Bapit when this young man burst into the room and began threatening us. His name is Othong, yes?’

  Sergeant Yongyuth nodded.

  ‘Without provocation, Khun Othong grabbed me by the throat and when my partner tried to intervene, Othong threw him to the floor, knocking him unconscious. Khun Bapit saved my life. He hit Othong over the head with a whisky bottle.’

  Yongyuth glanced at what remained of the bottle of 100 Pipers he had shared with Bapit the previous evening. ‘He broke the bottle over Othong’s head?’

  ‘No, Othong broke it, just before he stabbed the old man in the face. Excuse me—’ She leaned forward with her hands on her knees. Yongyuth thought she might vomit, but she took a deep breath and steadied herself. ‘I’m sorry. Where was I?’

  ‘Khun Othong allegedly stabbed his uncle in the face with a broken bottle.’

  ‘Nothing alleged about it,’ she said. ‘You’ll find Othong’s and Bapit’s fingerprints on the bottle and—’ She looked from him, fear in her eyes. ‘Othong, he’s not—’

  ‘He’s still alive.’ Yongyuth tilted his head towards the man on the floor. ‘But he’s not in good shape. He’s been stabbed in the stomach.’

  Jayne averted her gaze. ‘It was self-defence.’

  Yongyuth said nothing. In his years of experience as a police officer, he’d learned you got more information by practising silence than by asking questions.

  ‘I just wanted to stop him. I didn’t think he’d go down like that. I mean—’ She narrowed her eyes and Yongyuth got the sense she was onto him. ‘Before Khun Bapit was knocked out, he accused his nephew of murdering three women. Said he’d found evidence under the floorboards in the spare bedroom.’

  ‘Jing reu?’ Yongyuth wasn’t sure whether to believe her.

  ‘That’s what Khun Bapit said.’

  Yongyuth told Officer Da to keep an eye on things while he searched the room. It took him several minutes to find the stash: a wallet belonging to Suthita, the girl in Ban Khlong Haeng who allegedly committed suicide the previous weekend; and a camera Yongyuth suspected would turn out to belong to the dead farang girl, Annabel Craven. Such a haul would make him a local hero.

  He placed the items in separate zip-lock bags and joined Jayne back in the office, notebook at the ready. ‘You say Othong murdered three women,’ he said. ‘The evidence here only pertains to two deaths.’

  ‘The other was the Thai girl whose body was found on Princess Beach. Her death started it all.’

  Yongyuth pocketed his notebook and sighed. ‘You’re going to have to accompany me to the station for questioning. And I should warn you, Khun Jayne, that I may have to press charges.’

  38

  Jayne didn’t try to talk Sergeant Yongyuth out of charging her. She got Police Major General Wichit on the phone and let him do the talking for her. Not even saving her life cancelled out the debt Wichit owed Jayne for her role in once helping him avert a disastrous loss of face; and while most Australians would have to be desperate to call in a favour, in Thailand it was considered good form to give the other person opportunities to sam neuk boon khun—to honour their debts—as often as possible.

  Sergeant Yongyuth agreed to Wichit’s face-saving compromise to release Jayne on the condition she surrender her passport and present herself at the Krabi police station for an interview later that afternoon. Yongyuth also ordered the clothes she was wearing to be entered as evidence.

  Siri came to her rescue on that front, the young secretary’s hauteur giving way to remorse. ‘Kor thort na ka,’ Siri said with a wai, bowing so low Jayne feared she might pitch forward and lose her balance.

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ Jayne said. ‘You did the right thing by calling the police.’

  ‘Aie,’ Siri said, stooping even lower. ‘I only wish it were true.’

  ‘You mean, you didn’t—’

  The Thai woman gave her such a pained look, Jayne decided not to push it. Siri produced an outfit Jayne could only guess belonged to Bapit’s late wife: a shapeless blouse with gold buttons in a lilac floral print that clashed spectacularly with Jayne’s auburn curls, and navy blue flares with an elasticised waist. One hundred per cent pure synthetic. Regarding herself in a mirror, she looked only marginally less frightening than she did in the bloodstained clothes she’d bagged for Sergeant Yongyuth.

  With Othong and Bapit occupying the two stretcher berths in the ambulance, Sergeant Yongyuth transported Rajiv to the hospital in his pick-up, while Jayne rode shotgun on the rented motorbike. Rajiv’s nausea had subsided and he claimed to feel fine apart from a headache. But the doctor who palpated the goose egg on the back of his skull insisted on keeping him at Krabi Hospital for observation.

  At the Police Sergeant’s request, Jayne consented to a medical examination and had photographs taken of her injured neck. The bruises looked like a purple choker with a large thumbprint as a pendant at her throat. Apart from that, she’d come off lightly.

  Cleaned up and still wearing Bapit’s late wife’s clothes, Jayne was sitting beside Rajiv’s hospital bed when her phone beeped with a message.

  ‘It’s from Paul,’ she said. ‘His bus has arrived and he’s on his way to the guesthouse.’

  ‘You should be going to meet him,’ Rajiv said.

  ‘I want to stay with you,’ she said.

  ‘That is not necessary.’ He made as if to prop himself up higher on the pillows, winced and slumped back down again.

  ‘Are you in a lot of pain?’

  ‘When I move, it is not good. But if I am lying still it is okay.’

  ‘What about speaking?’

  ‘When I am not speaking, it is better.’

  ‘So—’ Jayne hesitated.

  ‘So you should be going and meeting this Paul fellow,’ Rajiv said.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’

  He closed his eyes in lieu of a nod.

  She stood up. ‘I’ll be back before they discharge you.’ She kissed his eyelids and his lips. ‘You’re a very brave man, Rajiv Patel,’ she said.

  Rajiv didn’t feel like a very brave man. He felt like a fool. How could he have let Jayne convince him to pose as a security guard? Rajiv couldn’t defend himself, let alone anyone else. Othong had swatted him away like a pesky insect. The skinny old man made a better fist of coming to Jayne’s rescue than Rajiv did.

  Rajiv knew Jayne didn’t rely on him for muscle. He brought to their partnership business acumen, computer skills and a general knowledge Jayne professed to be in awe of. As recently as two months ago, he’d been smart enough not to intervene in a fight he stood no chance of winning. Why on thi
s occasion had he chosen to throw himself into the fray? The result didn’t surprise him, but the impulse did. Was Jayne’s influence starting to cloud his better judgment?

  Perhaps Rajiv wasn’t cut out to be a private investigator, the profession too wild and unpredictable for a bookish type like him. It would be poor form to back out now, when he’d been the one pushing to formalise the partnership, but surely better than letting himself get killed.

  He felt his head ache as if the weight of indecision was pressing against the lump on his skull. He told himself that lying in a hospital bed recovering from concussion was not the optimal circumstance for major decision making.

  He was relieved Jayne had left. He needed to rest. He needed to think clearly, to examine the situation without her presence distracting him like sparks in his peripheral vision.

  39

  Jayne Keeney was a female detective not a femme fatale, but Paul’s imagination had conflated the two. He’d expected someone glamorous, not the frump who met him at the guesthouse reception desk. If there was an opposite of mutton dressed as lamb, Jayne was it. She couldn’t have been more than thirty-five, but her clothes were the sort his grandmother might wear. With so little regard for fashion, Paul wondered if she might be one of those evangelical Christians who gravitated towards countries like Thailand in the pursuit of souls to save.

  ‘Sorry not to be here when you arrived,’ she said, extending her hand. ‘Ran into some trouble. Shall we get a cold drink?’

  Paul nodded and followed Jayne to the guesthouse restaurant, an open-sided, faux rustic affair fringed by a tropical garden. A young girl hovered while they perused the menu.

  ‘Christ, I could do with a beer,’ Jayne said. ‘You?’

  Not an evangelical Christian then.

  Paul glanced at his watch, a habit he’d picked up from his father, who always made a show of hesitating but never said no to a cold beer. ‘Sure.’

  The waitress looked expectantly at Paul. Using his limited Thai language skills, he ordered two bottles of Kloster, neither the cheapest nor the most expensive of the local beers.

  Jayne pulled a packet of cigarettes from her bag. ‘Smoke?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  She leaned across the table for the ashtray.

  ‘Shit, what are those marks on your neck?’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘You’ve been in Thailand too long, mate, pointing out my disfigurement when we’ve only just met. Next you’ll be asking if I’m married and how much money I earn.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’m taking the piss.’ She held a cigarette between her teeth to light it and exhaled. ‘We caught the guy who killed Pla.’

  Paul’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Pla was killed?’

  ‘Like you said yourself, it never seemed right that she drowned.’

  ‘But who? Why?’

  ‘Young guy, real thug. He’s the one responsible for the bruises.’ She angled her neck to give him a closer look. ‘Motive’s still not clear. I think he was trying to impress his uncle, a local businessman, big fan of the power plant. Might’ve crossed swords with Pla during the consultation process.’

  The arrival of their beers gave Paul a moment to try to absorb the information. People in his social circle didn’t die violent deaths, nor survive violent attacks, for that matter. He looked on Jayne Keeney with new respect. Beneath the frumpy clothing beat the heart of a tiger.

  ‘Cheers.’ She touched her bottle to his and took a deep swig.

  ‘Sorry, but I’m having trouble getting my head around this,’ Paul said. ‘Are you saying there is or isn’t a connection between Pla’s death and her work on the power plant?’

  ‘I’m hoping you can tell me.’

  ‘I already told you what I know over the phone.’

  Jayne took a drag of her cigarette. ‘How did you and Pla meet?’

  ‘On a tour. I was in Krabi for work and took a day off to see the sights. Pla was so smart, so switched on. I told her about my work in environmental advocacy and she wanted to be part of it.’

  ‘She worked for you?’

  ‘She volunteered. Like I do. I took her along to the first consultation because I thought she’d be interested. It was her idea to keep it up.’

  He must have sounded defensive as Jayne held up a hand. ‘Mate, I’m just trying to get a handle on what arrangements were in place. I know it’s insensitive plunging you straight into shoptalk like this. I’m forgetting that you and Pla were close.’

  ‘Pla did great work,’ Paul said carefully. ‘The concessions the company has made are all due to Pla.’

  Jayne eyed him as she sipped from her beer. ‘Do you know anyone in Krabi called Othong?’ she asked.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Does the name Bapit mean anything to you?’

  ‘Not really. There are a lot of names in Pla’s notes.’

  ‘You talk about Pla as a colleague. But the villagers we spoke with seem to think the two of you were an item. And the cleaning lady here at the guesthouse confirmed that you were—how can I put it—intimate.’

  ‘What the—’

  ‘And since you’re not coming clean about your relationship with Pla, I can’t help wondering what else you might be keeping from me.’

  ‘Now hang on a minute.’ Paul felt his face redden. ‘My personal life is none of your business. I don’t have to tell you anything. I don’t even know who you are.’

  ‘Did I skip the pleasantries? How rude of me. Near-death experiences always make me forget my manners.’

  Despite her bravado, Paul noticed her hands were shaking. He doused his anger with a swig of beer, took a deep breath.

  ‘We seem to have got off on the wrong foot. Can we start again? My name’s Paul O’Donnell. I’m from Tasmania. I came to Thailand on the Australian Volunteers Abroad program to work with TEDO, an environmental organisation based in Bangkok.’ He held out his hand.

  She put down her cigarette, smiled, shook his hand. ‘Jayne Keeney, from Melbourne. I work as a private investigator in Bangkok with my partner Rajiv Patel.’ She handed him a business card.

  ‘How long have you lived in Thailand?’

  ‘A few years. You?’

  ‘I’m nine months into a year-long placement.’

  She took a notebook from her bag. ‘Do you mind if I ask you about your work on the power plant?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘How did it start?’

  ‘My boss at TEDO thought we should keep an eye on it. I’m not exactly sure why, to be honest. It seems pretty benign as far as power plants go, compared with the shit that goes down in the north-east with the damming of the rivers for hydropower.’

  ‘The stuff behind the Forum of the Poor protests?’

  Paul nodded. The Thai farmers groups regularly staged peaceful sit-ins in front of Government House in Bangkok. He’d visited their makeshift village once, unable to do much other than smile and take photos.

  ‘Weeratham, my boss, is active in an alliance of progressive NGOs who are pushing for greater scrutiny of the Environmental Impact Assessment regime. I think the Pakasai power plant was a way of flexing some muscle. I was asked to sit in on the community consultations to make sure the villagers were getting all the facts and being given the chance to express any concerns.’

  ‘So you speak Thai?’ Jayne said.

  ‘Not exactly. There were a couple of farang consultants involved so the company provided interpreters. I think my presence was largely symbolic. You know, like, there’s a farang with an interest in this process so we’d better watch ourselves.’

  ‘You really think it works that way?’ Jayne toyed with her cigarette. ‘I always thought farangs were fair game. The Thais can pull the wool over our eyes in a way they can’t with each other.’

  ‘Yes, but we don’t play by the same rules,’ Paul said, putting his thoughts into words for the first time. ‘We’re not stopped by the whole kreng jai thing from asking impolite questions and p
ushing for answers.’

  ‘Ah yes, the kreng jai thing. Difficult concept to translate into English. Impossible to translate into Australian.’

  ‘You’re not wrong.’

  They clinked beer bottles again and shared a grin.

  ‘So was that your role, to ask impolite questions?’

  ‘More or less,’ Paul said. ‘I relied on Pla to tell me how I could be useful. I brought her on board but, to be honest, I was more like her assistant than the other way around.’

  ‘The villagers seem to hold her in high regard.’

  ‘She was an amazing person…’ Paul felt a lump rise in his throat, and forced it back with beer.

  ‘I only met her once, but feisty Thai women are pretty special.’

  ‘So how did you get involved in investigating her death?’

  ‘It’s a volunteer job.’ She butted out her cigarette. ‘Like yours.’

  ‘Seriously? The detective business must be more lucrative than I thought.’

  ‘Believe me, there’s no shortage of work for me and my partner.’

  ‘And where is your partner?’

  ‘At the hospital recovering from concussion. I’ll pick him up once I get clean and change out of these hideous clothes. The police bagged mine as evidence.’ She gathered up her things.

  Paul had hoped they might order another round and continue the conversation. He cast about for something to say. ‘What time’s the funeral tomorrow?’

  ‘Not till five, but we can go to the temple this evening if you like. Have you been to a Thai funeral before?’

  Paul shook his head.

  ‘They go for several days. The cremation’s tomorrow, but there will be chanting tonight. And food.’

  ‘I’d like to go.’

  ‘Let’s meet back here around six and go together,’ Jayne said. ‘You’ve got your room sorted out?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks for that.’

  ‘I’ll put the beers on my tab,’ Jayne said, standing to leave.