Jacinta had made a special effort for the semi-formal affair held at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club. She looked spectacular in a long black evening dress, which was split to the hip and showed off an ample bosom, not entirely tucked into a sequin-laced bodice. Nearly thirty people attended the function and the former schoolboy cricketers had all gone on to do something with their lives. Only one, an actor of stage and screen, had had a less than stellar career, which had faded to TV advertisements and voice-overs in radio commercials. There was a judge, a former senior diplomat, a former top federal politician, three school teachers, two doctors, a private school bursar, an antique dealer and two businessmen. Jacinta was the youngest person there by about fifteen years. Soon she was the centre of attention for the men, one or two unashamedly attempting to flirt with her in front of their embarrassed partners. She was reserved but polite, and when she was given a compliment, ignored it as if she had either not heard or understood it.
She and Cavalier were seated together, and the judge engaged Jacinta, while Cavalier spoke with the diplomat’s attractive French wife. The judge asked Jacinta how long she had known Cavalier.
‘Not long,’ she said.
‘How did you meet?’ he said, with a schoolboyish grin of admiration.
‘Through work.’
‘Oh, you’re a journalist too?’
‘No. An investigator . . . with the Thai police.’ Changing the subject, she asked, ‘You are a close friend of Victor?’
‘Well, no. I only see him every ten years, at this function.’
‘He has always been a journalist?’
‘As far as I know, yes.’
‘I am worried about his drinking,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘I am trying to understand him. Did he become a big drinker after his daughter . . .?’
‘Ah, yes, his daughter—lost in the Amazon or something,’ the judge said.
‘Mexico. Did that trigger his alcohol . . . addiction?’
‘I don’t believe it was the tragedy over his daughter,’ he said with a frown. Then he brightened and added: ‘I remember him after the first reunion, thirty years ago. He drank a helluva lot that night! I think we had to drive him home!’
He laughed at the memory and Jacinta joined in, belatedly.
After the entree, Cavalier left the dinner table, put on a wig in the bathroom and returned, as the coach, to laughter and applause. He stood behind a lectern and mimicked the coach’s voice, expressions and hand movements, while gently roasting all the players, including himself. He handed out copies of the books he had written on cricket.
When they were driving away from the club after the function, Jacinta remarked, ‘You did not have any alcohol.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I wanted to perform well.’
‘Are you off it altogether?’
‘I’m trying. Can’t go cold turkey.’
‘Have you kept in contact with any of them since school days?’
‘Not really.’ He was reflective before he added, ‘Unless you’re really close at school, who does keep their mates after such a long time?’
‘I did with two friends.’
‘Did?’
‘They are both dead.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. How did they die?’
‘Murdered.’
He glanced across. Her expression was closed off. He wanted to probe further but checked himself. They did not speak until twenty minutes later, when they reached his home and Jacinta’s hire car.
‘Did you have fun?’ he asked as she climbed into her car.
‘It was more interesting than I anticipated. And I liked the French woman and the doctor’s Indian wife.’ She started her car. ‘None of your friends seemed to know what you did when you left school.’
‘Why should they?’ Cavalier asked. ‘I don’t know what most of them did.’
‘They thought you might have gone straight into journalism.’
‘No,’ he said casually. ‘I bummed around for a while before joining a paper.’
‘Bummed around?’
‘Um . . . I travelled in Europe and Asia, had part-time jobs. Tried for an army job after two years in the air force. Didn’t get in.’
Jacinta glanced at him.
‘I’ve signed on for that cricket tournament in Thailand I told you about,’ he said.
‘It’s not a good time,’ she answered.
‘I’ll phone you if I come.’
Jacinta drove away without even a wave.
‘Welcome to Bangkok, Mr Bond,’ Cavalier mumbled to himself.
The next morning, Cavalier returned the rented wig to a party-wear shop. He spent an hour there, trying on a score of wigs, and in the end bought three, including the dark-brown one he had hired for the school reunion.
‘You’ll have to have your hair a bit shorter to make that one look good,’ the young saleswoman said, patting down one that was flecked with grey. Cavalier nodded and took out a credit card.
‘May I ask why you want three?’ she asked.
‘Oh, just a bit of fun,’ Cavalier said with a grin. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know a stylist who could make them appear, you know, real?’
The saleswoman smiled. ‘That’s what I do,’ she said, ‘the items in the shop are for fun. But if you want them to look natural, that’s my other job.’
Two days after having the wigs fitted and styled, along with additional pieces of hair for sideburns and goatee beards, Cavalier had three sets of passport photos taken while wearing the wigs and other pieces. He then drove to the Melbourne suburb of Murrumbeena for an appointment with a passport forger, Tony Jones, whom he had dealt with on several earlier occasions before assignments abroad. But when he arrived, he was surprised to meet Anthony Jones, Tony’s grandson, who, although in his twenties, looked like a teenager.
‘My granddad’s semi-retired,’ he told Cavalier. ‘I handle all his clients now. But he sends his best regards. He always enjoyed working with you.’
Jones ushered Cavalier into his office at the rear of a car mechanic’s workshop and locked the door. ‘What’s the assignment?’ he asked.
‘Something challenging in Asia,’ Cavalier replied with a non-committal grin as he handed him the three sets of photos.
‘Crossing several borders?’
Cavalier nodded.
‘Try not to use more than one passport per country. Avoid main entry points if you can. Can you tell me which countries you’ll enter?’
‘Thailand for certain, and then Burma, and maybe another emergency exit route via Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam, or even China.’
‘I can only do visas for Thailand and Cambodia these days. It’s all done by passing the ‘visa’ to the passport chip. No paperwork.’
‘I’m aware. But that’s okay. I’ll take my chances without for other countries, if necessary.’
‘This is “journalism”, as always, I take it?’
‘Yes, but I’ll be travelling as a tourist.’
Jones examined the photos. ‘They’re very well done. You do look different, especially with that facial hair.’
‘Coming from you, that’s a compliment.’ Cavalier pointed to the first set of photos. ‘I want a Frenchman. The name is on the back . . .’
‘You’re fluent in French, my granddad told me.’
‘Sa memoire est très bonne, Monsieur!’ He indicated a second set. ‘This one is as a Thai.’
‘You don’t look anything like a Thai,’ Jones said, shaking his head.
‘I speak Thai . . .’
‘Irrelevant. Your nose is flat but Caucasian.’
‘Flat?! What about the indentation?’
‘That’s an injury. Boxing?’
‘A cricket ball.’
‘The basic structure is nothing like an Asian nose.’
‘Couldn’t I have a Caucasian grandfather?’
‘No,’ Jones said, peering at him, ‘your eyes are nothing like an Asian’s. And your lips, not thick enough. Your chin . . .’
‘Okay . . . okay.’
‘May I give you some advice?’
Cavalier nodded.
‘Do everything not to draw attention to yourself. Having a Thai name, unless you did some significant make-up work or surgery, would cause people to remember you.’
Cavalier thought for a moment. He scribbled a name on the second set of photos. ‘Okay, make him an Englishman. Make the third a European from a nation where people are proficient in English: Germany, Holland, Sweden. I don’t care which; surprise me.’
‘I’ll give you different heights and weights for each document, so dress accordingly. Make sure you wear a hat and glasses each time you use one. Passport control will make you remove them but it all helps when they examine you. Be ready too for controls with fingerprint recognition.’
‘Cambodia has them, I believe.’
‘The Americans’ve bribed them into using this equipment, but not at all border control points yet. They want to catch terrorists. The Cambodians take all five fingers. So, if you front with a . . . er . . . one of my bits of artwork, they may have your prints and it’ll alert the controller, if you’ve passed through another country they’re linked to.’
‘Like Thailand?’
‘They’re implementing fingerprint technology but it’s not everywhere yet. Be careful of Burma too.’
‘You can’t forge fingerprints.’
‘Granddad may have told you that,’ Jones grinned slyly, ‘but I have a forensic-specialist mate working on it.’
The request for three passports delayed Cavalier’s departure by a week but he was pleased to have the extra days. In that time, he managed to book a seat on a Boeing 787-8, and also learned from Gregory the dates that Mendez was expected to travel from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. This allowed him to adjust his plans. He spent some time preparing his luggage, particularly his metre and a half green ‘coffin.’ It was lined with a special new alloy material that would allow its contents to pass through any detector without metal being discovered.
Cavalier packed in it his two bats, including ‘Big Betty’, an outsized blade he carried on all cricket trips. On it were the signatures of the world’s top cricketers and he claimed it was his good luck charm. There was also a streamlined helmet, steel-lined protector, chest and thigh pads, and two sets of gloves and inners. In went a professional camera with three lenses, all covered in bubble wrap. The bag would be marked ‘fragile’, as insurance against any rough baggage handling. Cavalier then filled a large backpack with clothing, toiletries, and books, including one about the Iraq War, a second about drug smuggling and an unauthorised biography of Mendez’s father: War of the Drug Lord. He was as ready as he could be.