Jayne shed her work clothes and headed for what the brochure referred to as the garden pool at the Bayview Hotel. Lake-like and shaded by large trees, it wasn’t conducive to swimming so much as floating, frolicking and sipping cocktails from submerged barstools around a central island bar. The pool on the rooftop of the Tower Wing would be quieter, but it was hardly a place where Jayne could relax given its association with Maryanne’s death. So she dropped her towel on a white plastic sunlounge and, leaving her sunglasses on, waded through a sea of holiday makers to a quiet spot in the water.
At the bar a man with acne on his back was sipping beer and shooting glances at a couple of topless women sunbathing. An Asian couple next to him—honeymooners, Jayne guessed—took turns at photographing each other drinking the juice of whole green coconuts. Over by the steps, a small Indian-looking girl floated in an inflatable pink ring, protesting at the attempts of a blond man to fish her out of the pool.
The man signalled for help and was joined by an equally fair woman, who succeeded in cajoling the child into her arms. The woman cuddled the child while the man retrieved the ring and ran ahead to get a towel. The child grizzled as they wrapped her in the towel, bundled up their belongings and joined the exodus of families heading back to their rooms as dinnertime approached. They stood out only because the little girl, being so physically different from her parents, was clearly adopted.
Perhaps because she’d spent the previous three days looking after other people’s children, Jayne felt a surge of respect for the adoptive parents. At the same time she wondered about their decision to adopt a child so wholly different from themselves. Was it gutsy or showy? Did they even have a choice?
Jayne floated on her back, allowing water to fill her ears and block out the noise. She recalled her conversation with Tommy about his cousin adopting a baby, and Tommy’s comment that the child’s father ‘looked like one of us’. She supposed adoption agencies tried to match parents and children where possible: in Tommy’s cousin’s case, allocating to an African-American couple a Thai child most likely fathered by an African-American man.
A child like Kob.
Despite her best efforts to unwind, Jayne’s mind kicked into overdrive. It was one hell of a coincidence that on the same night Doctor Somsri had pronounced Kob dead from a rare illness, a child matching his description was adopted in Pattaya by an American couple. And if it wasn’t a coincidence, then what? Were the staff at the New Life Children’s Centre involved in adoption fraud? Could this be linked to Maryanne Delbeck’s death? Or was Jayne’s mistrust of religious zealots clouding her judgment?
She gave up on the swim, picked up her towel and headed back to her room. She showered and dressed, all the while turning the case over in her mind. She took her cigarettes, phone and notebook out to the balcony and wrote down everything she remembered about Tommy’s cousin Leroy, his wife Alicia, and the adoption. Then she wrote down what was nagging at her: ‘No one believes Maryanne was suicidal apart from Doctor Somsri. Doctor Somsri says he cremated Kob’s body for infection control, but the disease he says killed Kob isn’t infectious. Doctor Somsri is lying.’
She lit a cigarette and called Major General Wichit.
‘What is required for foreigners to adopt a Thai baby?’ she asked.
‘It depends in part on the country.’
‘What about the USA?’
‘Proof the child has no parents due to the death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, separation from, or loss of both parents,’ the Police Major General said, ‘or written evidence that any surviving parent has irrevocably released the orphan for emigration and adoption.’
‘You sound like you’re reading from the manual.’
‘I’ve committed it to memory. You’d be surprised how many tourists drift into my office with the idea that a Thai baby would make the perfect holiday souvenir.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Jayne muttered in English, adding in a louder voice, ‘What does all that mean in terms of paperwork?’
‘Baby’s birth certificate, maternal death certificate and/ or written evidence of relinquishment.’
‘Could such documents be forged?’
‘The Thai government has strict rules in place to protect children from adoption-related trafficking,’ he said. ‘Thanks to the work we have done over the past few decades in improving access to institutional care for poor families, we have effectively stamped out baby selling.’
Jayne knew Wichit was obliged to give her the official line, though she doubted he believed it any more than she did.
‘Jing reu?’ she said, a useful Thai expression that could mean either ‘is that so’ or ‘bullshit’, depending on the context.
‘I’m not talking about baby selling. I’m talking about baby laundering: taking children placed in institutional care and transforming them into orphans without consent.’
She paused to let it sink in.
‘So, notwithstanding the Thai government’s excellent policies and safeguards, is it possible that criminal elements could arrange for the necessary paperwork to be forged?’
Another pause.
‘Very difficult,’ Wichit said slowly, ‘but not impossible.
What evidence do you have for this baby laundering?’
‘No evidence yet, just a hunch. I’m working on it.’
‘Be careful, Jayne. For an operation like that to succeed it would need the support of powerful people with connections both inside and out of official channels. Make sure you don’t tread on any toes.’
She liked the way the Police Major General translated English idioms into Thai.
‘I’ll do my best. One last thing, what sort of time is involved in taking a child out of the country once it’s been adopted?’
‘Again, it varies. For American citizens, assuming all the paperwork is in order, there’s a wait of about a week while the immigration visa is issued.’
‘And that can only be done at the US Embassy in Bangkok?’
‘Correct.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Mai pen rai,’ Wichit said. ‘And, Jayne, if you do find any evidence of adoption fraud, I urge you to contact me immediately.’
‘Very well, Major General.’
‘I mean it,’ he said.
Jayne read back over her notes. Conjecture. Guesswork.
Pure speculation. She wasn’t lying when she told Police Major General Wichit all she had was a hunch. She lit a cigarette and started jotting down ideas for evidence.
Signed confessions from Frank Harding and Doctor Somsri: strike that. Copy of the baby’s medical records: might be useful, worth considering, not sure how she’d get her hands on them. Copy of birth and death certificates: perhaps she could get these from Mayuree. Jayne could take a statement from Mayuree, too, about Kob’s health prior to his being pronounced dead. Then again, no one would believe the word of a bar girl over Doctor Somsri. And was it fair to involve Mayuree in her investigation when there was still a possibility Kob was in fact dead?
She tapped the ash from her cigarette and closed her notebook labelled ‘Maryanne Delbeck Case’. She was working on Jim Delbeck’s time. Could she justify pursuing an investigation that seemed tangential, at best, to his daughter’s death? She flicked through her earlier notes and found her hastily scrawled reminder to follow up with Mayuree about Maryanne. Finding out what happened to Kob gave her the chance to get close to Mayuree, and she was sure Mayuree knew more about Maryanne than she was letting on.
Jayne took another drag of her cigarette and returned her thoughts to the conversation with the Marines. Tommy had taken pictures with his camera at the ceremony where Leroy and Alicia collected their baby. If Jayne could get her hands on those photos, at least she’d know if she was on to something.