As he walked me courteously to the door, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had just heard the reading of my own death warrant. The sentence would be executed as soon as a deal had been arranged for the merger of our two interests. My only hope of reprieve was a marriage with Laura Larsen and a formal act of fealty to the code of the Friends which lay behind all the courtly phrases of the dialogue: ‘There is no halfway house, Martin Gregory. You are with us or against us. If you are against us, there is no place on the planet where you can feel safe again!’
The only weapon I had – and that would soon be denied me – was time. Marius Melville would not move against me until he was sure I had delivered every scrap of information and provided him with full access to Cassidy’s trust funds in the event of my death. That was the code of the Honourable Society: no leaks, no loose ends. Marius Melville would neither report to the Friends nor call in the executioners until he was sure he had a tidy and controllable situation.
That was the real purport of the ‘heads of agreement’ discussion. My best, my only, hope of survival was to string out that debate as long as possible. Melville would expect no less. I was a hard-headed lawyer, trained by Cassidy. I had been at pains to appear arrogant and all-knowing, absolutely confident of my tenure over Cassidy’s trust funds.
So, time! I hurried to my room and set down the crucial figures. In Bangkok it was coming up midday. In Sydney and the other eastern cities of Australia it was three in the afternoon. In London it was six in the morning. In Zurich seven…
My first call was to the Commissioner in Canberra. He was out; he was not expected back for two hours. I left a message telling him to expect a fixed-time call from me. Then I called Arthur Rebus. He was in the middle of a clients’ conference. I pleaded with his secretary to drag him out of it, by the scruff of the neck if necessary. I gave him a hurried rundown on my conversation with the General and with Marius Melville. He was almost as worried as I was. We discussed moves and strategies and arranged that he would double up on all calls and contacts, in case my own communication system broke down. He uttered one final caution:
‘…You can’t make any agreements without appropriate documents. We’re holding everything here. When it comes to the final crunch, tell Melville you’ll have me bring them up to Bangkok. I’ll arrive with a clerk, who I hope will be lent to me by the Commissioner… So keep talking, Martin, and try to keep it as friendly as you can. Good luck!’
Next I called John Marley of the Australian Federal Police in Bangkok and invited him to lunch with me in my suite. Then I called Klosters. My palms were sweating and my mouth was dry as the ringing went on and on. Finally, the housekeeper answered and reluctantly agreed to wake Mrs. Gregory. When she came on the line I talked in a desperate rush of words.
‘Listen, darling! I beg you not to hang up on me this time… Don’t talk, just hear what I have to say. There’s been a murder… yes, a murder. Your father’s mistress, the Thai woman. It happened in Sydney. I’m here in Bangkok to see her father and Marius Melville. It’s a long story that I can’t tell you now; but this is a time of great danger for everybody – for me, for you, for the children… No, I’m not exaggerating; it’s a simple, brutal fact. I’m in touch with the Federal Police, but I’m out of their jurisdiction. So are you and the children… I want you to pack your bags now. Get a car or a train to Zurich and take the first available plane to London… Don’t make any farewells, please, please, just go!’
‘Martin, if this is some kind of trick to get me home, I’ll never forgive you.’
‘It’s not a trick. You’re the one who’s been tricked. This is murder – the mother of your half-sister, strangled in her apartment. It wasn’t rape, or robbery. It was a coldblooded criminal conspiracy that began with your father and now touches all our lives. I can’t say anything more. I’m here, trying to hold back an avalanche, and I can’t do it much longer. Now, will you do as I ask? Whatever you think I’ve done, whatever you’re involved with, don’t fight me now. If you don’t believe me, think of the kids… Now tell me you’ll do as I ask!’
There was a long pause, then finally she said, ‘All right, Martin. I’ll go. When will you be back?’
‘As soon as I can. Four, five days at the outside. I have to call into Zurich on the way back.’
‘Couldn’t I wait for you there? That was your first suggestion, remember.’
‘No! Everything’s changed. I want you home, with Clare and the children.’
‘What has Mr. Melville got to do with all this?’
‘Don’t ask me. I can’t talk about it. And please don’t you talk about it either, especially not to the servants there. Just tell them there’s a family crisis. Anything…’
‘Martin?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you really care for me any more?’
There was a whole tirade of anger, love and resentment ready to my tongue, but I couldn’t utter it. Suddenly I understood how much malignant damage had been done to us both. I said very gently, ‘Yes, my love. I care. I care enough to kill for you – and I may have to do it. Now please, pack and go home!’
‘I will. I promise. I’m so sorry… I’ll try to make it up to you.’
After that, I needed a drink. I made myself a long vodka and tonic and sipped it, standing on the terrace, watching the daytime traffic on the swirling brown waters of the Chao Phraya River. Time was when I could have woven a fantasy about every pagoda and every ramshackle go-down. I could have read you the course of the great rice boats and the logging barges and the narrow-gutted vegetable boats with their outboard motors trailing on the end of a long spindle. Not now. All I felt was a sense of utter solitude and alienation, of murderous indifference and the relentless creaking of the wheel of life.
I went inside and called General Rhana. I wanted another meeting as soon as possible. This time he suggested we meet at his house on Soi Kasemsarn, near the old Jim Thompson estate. He would send his car for me at two o’clock and have me back in good time for my meeting with Marius Melville at five. He had come to a conclusion: ‘Things begin to make sense – not good, but unhappy sense. I am not content to be pushed from one side to the other like the beads on an abacus…’
I wasn’t content either. I had to hold his confidence. He was my only conduit into the complex, contradictory market-place of Asia, where now I was an unwilling speculator. I had hardly put down the phone when it rang again. Laura was on the line, pleasant but formal.
‘Martin, a request from father. Would you mind if he deferred the meeting until tomorrow morning at ten? Apparently the Palace lunch is going to be a long one. The discussions may extend themselves afterwards. After that, he simply must rest. I don’t want him to overtax himself.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll be able to spend some time by the pool…’
‘I may see you there, if we get back early enough.’
‘Have a pleasant lunch.’
I had my own lunch date with John Marley of the Federal Police, a gangling fellow in his mid-forties, who looked like an attentuated basset-hound and talked in the long, flat twang of an outback farmer. He turned out to be much brighter than he looked.
‘…Things you have to know, Mr. Gregory… We have no general policing authority in Bangkok. We’re part of an international anti-drug force. I couldn’t do anything for those two silly girls last night except take information and make sure the Consul-General was informed. So, if you create an affray or get mugged in an alley, it’s the Thais who’ll deal with you – and none too gently at that. Next… Nothing is simple in Asia. Ethical judgements are based on different premises. Prostitution, the girlie bars, the liquor traffic are concessions run by the army and the police. Nobody talks about that because it comes up as a Human Rights question at United Nations. Drugs? They’re a multi-level operation. If you’re on the high level, you stay clear and make millions. If you’re low-level, you get busted and go down for twenty years – unless you can raise a hefty bail, when they let you skip the country… Now, your Möller from the Philippines. He’s legitimate here. Import, export, mostly through Chinese houses. Entertainment too – bands, singles, club acts. With those kinds of connections, you can front anything… Have you thought where that puts you, if you’re acting for the late Mr. Cassidy’s interests… ?’
‘I’ve thought about it. I don’t like it. I don’t know quite what to do about it.’
Marley popped a spicy shrimp into his mouth and then grimaced as the hot sauce seared his tongue.
‘…That’s our problem, too. How do you pick the grass seeds out of a sack of wheat? How do you tell clean money from dirty in your own wallet? You can’t. In a democracy, you have to make a case before you can convict a villain and take him off the streets. You’re a lawyer. You know how long that takes. So we concentrate on the possible – which is two silly girls with glassine bags taped round their navels… I guess my message is, Mr. Gregory, that on us you shouldn’t depend – not for your life, anyway!’
‘What can you tell me about General Rhana?’
‘Not much. That’s Thai politics, out of my line of business. The significant thing is that there’s been nothing in the Thai press but a four-line obituary for his daughter. That’s bad image, bad luck.’
‘Marius Melville?’
‘Again, what would I know? Hotel magnate, questionable financial connections; but who gets a look at a bank account in Thailand – even if you could read the damn thing, which I can’t. One of the biggest financial institutions in the country is run by the army. So what does that tell you? Where does Cassidy’s company fit, Mr. Gregory?’
I had to tell him I didn’t know. That simple admission was the measure of my ignorance and naïveté in this intricate international power game. One thing, however, was becoming clearer and clearer: that the simple rules of moral, social and political judgement became quickly obscured. Pragmatic judgments had to be made at short notice. Absolutes were impossible to discern. Relatives were the rule – the possible good, the avoidable evil, the acceptable compromise. All in all, it was an informative but depressing lunch, and I was glad when it was over.
General Rhana was hardly more informative. His residence was a beautiful old Thai house, in the middle of a large compound enclosed by a high brick wall, topped with coils of sharp-bladed anti-personnel wire. The garden was a riot of tropical plants. Big golden carp cruised slowly around the pond. The portals were guarded by gilded demons. Our drinks were presented by kneeling servants. The General himself seemed to be endowed with some antique splendour of authority.
He listened in silence when I told him of my meeting with Marius Melville. Then he began to question me. His manner was quite different: firm, full of power, sceptical as a judge.
‘You are convinced, Mr. Gregory, that Melville was responsible for the death of my daughter?’
‘I have to be very precise about this, General. You must not put words into my mouth, especially since they are words from another language…’
‘Please!’ He made a small apologetic bow. ‘It is important that you be precise. Go on.’
‘I believe, though I cannot prove, that Melville conspired in the murder of your daughter. He admits the motive. He wishes to take control of Chao Phraya Trading and the other companies which Cassidy formed throughout South-East Asia. He has suggested that we buy out your shares and Pornsri’s at a very generous figure. I believe also that he wanted to teach me a lesson – that if I stood in the way of his ambition I, too, would be eliminated… Life is very cheap to people like him.’
‘It has always been cheap in Asia, too,’ said the General. ‘However, one thing does concern me. You have not at any stage said how you yourself intend to act. Indeed, a few moments ago, when you were talking of buying me out, you used the word “we”, as if you and Melville were still acting in concert, singing a duet as it were.’
‘I have to maintain that impression with Melville – and indeed I have to maintain my situation of control as Cassidy’s nominee, until I can decide what to do.’
‘Meantime, what are you advising me to do, Mr. Gregory?’
‘I’m advising you to sell your shares – no, let me be exact. I am advising you to say that you will consent to sell, provided the price is right. If Melville plays tricks, I personally will arrange to purchase the shares.’
‘Which,’ said the General coolly, ‘would then put you in control of the company; which might then raise the reasonable question whether you and not Melville arranged my daughter’s murder!’
His dark eyes never left my face. I had the absolute conviction that, if I gave him the wrong answer, he himself would have me killed quicker than Marius Melville. I pointed to the phone on his desk.
‘Can you dial an international call on that?’
‘I can, yes.’
‘Then I’m going to give you a number. You will dial it yourself. You will find yourself connected to the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police in Canberra. I will introduce you. You will ask him any questions you choose to verify my good faith. Here is the number.’ I scribbled it on his desk pad and pushed it across to him. He lifted the receiver and dialled. There was the usual pause, then I heard the number ringing and an indistinguishable voice responding.
The General said, ‘Mr. Gregory would like to speak with the Commissioner. He is calling from Bangkok.’ He handed me the receiver.
When the Commissioner answered, I told him: ‘Commissioner, I am with General Rhana. I want you to explain to him as concisely as possible my relations with your department… No, you and I can talk at another time.’ I handed the receiver to Rhana and waited out a long, one-sided conversation.
Finally, the General put down the receiver. He said quietly, ‘I have insulted you, Mr. Gregory. I beg your pardon.’
‘There is no insult. You’d the right to prove me out. You have just done so. Now, let me tell you two things. First, you should sell the shares, because it is I and not Melville who is going to take control of those companies and I am either going to purge them of criminal activities or destroy them. That is the bargain which I have made with the Police Commissioner. Second, I am at war with Melville. He has invaded my life, as he has yours. He will not scruple to kill me if it suits him. So this is a war, General. I’m not sure I can win it, but I have to fight it. However, I am not at war with Melville’s daughter. She has done me no harm, only good. I want no harm to come to her.’
‘Cobras hatch cobras,’ said the General flatly.
‘You and your daughter engaged with Cassidy in a criminal enterprise. Does this mean your granddaughter must share the responsibility? There has to be some hope of a new beginning.’
He looked at me with something like pity in his dark eyes.
‘There is no new beginning, Mr. Gregory, only the slow extinction of desire. For most of us there are many more incarnations, before we arrive at Nirvana… Now, let me explain how we should handle this matter. I agree to sell you the Chao Phraya shares. You agree to sell them to the man who really wants them, Melville’s friend at the Palace, the one who can clear the way for his hotel project. Two things happen: I am reconciled with a man who could otherwise do me much harm; I am also reasonably rewarded. Melville’s project is approved. You are, for the moment, reprieved, because he believes that you have become a willing tool in his hands. After that, there will be much business to discuss, but you must first go home and visit your family… The rest you leave to me…’
Let me say it plainly, once and for all. I knew exactly what he was proposing and how I had led him to it. I had judged Marius Melville on circumstantial evidence and my own interpretation of it. I had communicated that judgement to a powerful man whose daughter had been murdered. I had exposed Melville to the same threat that he was holding over my head: the tribal executioner, the legendary sacred man who suddenly came and purged out the traitor and disappeared as suddenly into the crowd.
I remembered what Marley had confessed to me of the impotence of the police. I remembered what Arthur Rebus had said of our friend the Commissioner: ‘He won’t give all his blood to keep you alive. He won’t weep too long at your grave.’ The conclusion was all too obvious. In outlaw country you look after your own skin, otherwise someone’s going to nail it up on the wall of the barn… And yet, and yet… was not this the whole sum and substance of Cassidy’s philosophy: ‘the minimum of law, the fullest possible play for the natural forces of society’? What else was General Rhana telling me in his carefully modulated English?
‘…This is my country. We have never been colonised. We have learned from the “farangi”, the foreigners; but we have never been directed by them. So, you ask no questions. You let me handle this business in my own way. You stay only as long as I tell you. When I say it is time to go home, you go. Understand?’
‘I understand, General. But there are people in Bangkok who are connected with the man who arranged your daughter’s murder.’
‘Who are these people?’
I told him what Marley had passed onto me about Erhardt Möller’s office in Patpong Road and my own guess that Möller himself might visit Bangkok.
He made a note on his pad and said grimly, ‘If he comes, he will never leave. As for the others, they will find life so uncomfortable, they will have no time at all to think of you. Is there anything else, Mr. Gregory?’
‘I am still waiting for your answer on Melville’s daughter.’
‘He robbed me of mine, Mr. Gregory.’
‘One for one, General. It’s enough.’
‘And if I say it is not?’
‘May I borrow a sheet of paper?’
As he fished in the drawer of his desk, I took the lethal pen out of my pocket. When he lifted his head it was pointing at his forehead.
I told him very slowly, ‘General, this is a killing weapon. I’m sure you’ve seen others like it in your military career. I have only to press the trigger mechanism and you are a dead man. This is how much I care that nothing should happen to Laura Larsen.’
He did not flinch. He smiled.
‘This is the first time I have been threatened in my own house.’
I put the pen back in my pocket.
‘That’s the illusion, I’m afraid. We’re all under threat, every day. The barbarians are at the gates.’
‘Perhaps we are less afraid of them than you are, Mr. Gregory. You have my word… no harm will come to the woman.’
‘Thank you, General.’
‘Let me walk you out to the car.’
In the garden, he plucked a bloom from the frangipani tree and handed it to me. As I inhaled the heavy sweet perfume, he said, ‘That’s how I remember my daughter best: a little girl sitting by the fishpond, making garlands of flowers… I must visit my granddaughter as soon as I can face her without shame. At present she is staying with a relative of mine in our embassy… If you would call to see her it would be a great kindness. She knows only that her mother is dead. The circumstances are being kept from her… Strange! She and my daughter loved Cassidy so much. I wonder if he knows how much grief he left behind!’
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t believe Cassidy gave a hoot in hell. What kept me silent was the unbidden thought that I was living Cassidy’s gospel to the letter: ‘Never get mad, get even. A man can smile and smile and still be the son-of-a-bitch he wants to be.’
When I got back I was numb with fatigue and half stifled by the lethal smog of the city. I went down to the pool, which was crowded with guests, found myself a lounger on the shady side, ordered a Planter’s Punch and settled down to watch the passing beauties: Thai, Chinese, Japanese, American, Australian, Burmese, Indian, and all the flavours in between. The embarrassment of riches overwhelmed me very quickly, because the next thing I remembered was Laura prodding me awake and telling me I was snoring my head off and disturbing the other guests.
I ordered another drink to celebrate her arrival. She talked about the luncheon in one of the dependencies at the Palace and the long tour of inspection on which she had been taken while her father was discussing business with the Air Marshal who was to be his principal associate. Everything seemed to have gone well, although there were one or two crucial questions to be decided. I guessed that I might have the answer to one of them, so I asked the pool steward to bring me a telephone and called Melville in his suite. The masseur answered. I asked if I could interrupt his ministrations long enough to convey some important information to Mr. Melville. When I told him I had seen the General and that he had agreed to sell his and his daughter’s shares, Melville gave a small bark of approval.
‘Good! Very good! You work like Cassidy. Tic-tac! The matter is settled… Did you discuss a price?’
‘It wasn’t appropriate. I told him, as you had told me, the buy-out would be generous. We should demonstrate that.’
‘We shall, we shall! It sounds as though you are talking from the pool.’
‘I am.’
‘Is Laura with you?’
‘She’s just arrived. Do you want to speak with her?’
‘No. You can pass the message. Tell her I’m calling the Air Marshal now to see if we can arrange a visit to the hotel site tomorrow. That means putting off our meeting; but it seems we’re on the same wavelength now, so there’s no real hurry, is there? You might care to fly down with us to Phuket… Think about it. Talk to Laura.’
When I passed her the message, she gave me a long, questioning look. Then she asked bluntly, ‘Am I hearing right? I expected fireworks between you and father. He told me your talk this morning was very abrasive. What’s happened to change things?’
‘Nothing. I did what I promised: offered to buy out the Rhana shares. The General agreed. That obviously has cleared an obstacle from your father’s path. He’s happy. For today, I’m his white-haired boy.’
‘And tomorrow?’
I looked around. The bathers were drifting away. The seats left and right of us were empty. So I told her the truth.
‘Tomorrow or the next day, or the day after, he’ll have me killed. Unless, of course…’
‘Unless I dump my wife and family and marry you!’
I knew what she wanted to say: that it was all a paranoid fiction and she didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t believe one crazy word of it. Instead, she sat, dumb and dejected, shaking her head from side to side as if to clear away the vestiges of a nightmare.
Finally, she found voice. ‘I know at least part of that is true, because he put the same thing to me in a different way. He said: “If you’re fond of this Gregory, grab him and take him to bed and keep him happy there. If you can’t, the boys are going to drop him off the deep end of the pier, because he’s dangerous. Cassidy was dangerous too, but he was dancing to the same music as we were. Not this one! We’re in waltz-time, he’s doing a barn dance. So see what you can do, like a good girl!”’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Like a good girl, I said I’d try. I want to keep you alive, Martin.’
‘Did your father tell you what he had done with my wife?’
‘More than he told you, I think, Martin.’
‘Then I want to hear the rest of it.’
‘Once he’d got her thoroughly upset with rumours of your fictitious escapades – Pornsri was one of the names mentioned, by the way; I was another; God knows who else was on the list – then he paid a very handsome ski-meister to seduce her into a love affair. She was angry enough and enough of her father’s daughter to say to hell with you and toss her cap over the windmill.’
‘Just like we did – borrowing a little fun out of a lousy lifetime. I can’t say I blame her!… But, by the living God, I hate your father’s guts!’
‘How do you think I feel? I used to think there was something wonderful and sacred about being old-country, old-family. Now I know what it really means. I feel like – like a she-camel, up for barter in the bazaar. Order me another drink, will you? I want to get drunk!’
I couldn’t afford her drunk, or talkative, or betrayed by self-pity, so I made her dive into the pool with me and we swam, up and down, until the anger in us both was damped to a dull glow. Then we made a pact of silence – our own omertà – and sealed it with a long and very public kiss under the frangipani trees.
I hoped Marius Melville saw the kiss from his eyrie in the Royal suite. I hoped and prayed that what I had learned of his daughter in bed was the truth and that I could trust her to play out her part of our comedy of surrender, even though she didn’t know the end of it, and my guess was a mile wide of the mark.
My first act when I got back to my room was to call General Rhana. My next was to have the concierge book me a limousine and a reliable driver. Then I telephoned Melville’s suite and, with old-country formality, asked permission to take his daughter out for the evening. He consented, with old-country grace.
So, in mutual desperation, we hit every night spot in town and I delivered her back to the Royal suite at four in the morning. If that meant anything to Mr. Marius Melville, it had to mean that I was family now – that I belonged to him, body, soul and breeches.
Our night’s carouse was a mistake. At seven I was wakened by a call from Melville’s masseur. We would leave at nine for the military airfield at Don Muang. He would be down at seven-thirty to help me to recovery. I told him to go to hell. I would recover in my own time. By eight I was regretting my refusal of a healing service. By nine, hidden behind dark glasses, primed with a litre of black coffee, bilious with resentment, I was downstairs waiting for Laura and Marius Melville.
As we climbed into the big limousine, Laura and her father sitting together in the rear seat, I perched on the jump seat, Laura made a theatrical virtue of fragility and announced: ‘My God, Martin, I’m sorry! Father’s just impossible! He insisted we both come along on this goddamned excursion. I don’t know why he needs us, for Christ’s sake! Half the Thai army and air force and Cabinet seem to be invited, not to mention the press… Three military jets. I’ve told him there’s no way you and I are going with his party. We’re going where the drinks are and we don’t have to talk politics or money.’
Melville listened to her tirade with amused tolerance. He seemed happier to have me as courting lover for his daughter than a sour-faced lawyer with a chip on his shoulder. However, he was too good a businessman to pass up a chance in the money-market.
‘…It wouldn’t hurt, Martin, to plant the information that you’re in the banking business in London and that you have access to the Rotdrache trust. We’ve got a lot of our friends’ money in this project, but a London cachet never hurts – or a Swiss one, either. I’ll mention it to the Air Marshal and…’
I thought it was time to call a halt and let him know that I wasn’t yet wholly shackled to his interests.
‘You’re pushing me, Mario! Don’t do that! I took your daughter out on the town last night. I’m in no shape to talk money with the armed forces’ bank. That way, you and I will both get screwed. You carry on with your programme. Laura and I will tag along with the press and stay out of sight until we’ve recovered.’
He didn’t like it, but he bought it. After all, I had made the whole thing possible and, in spite of his irritation, he had put up with this pair of casualties. He even praised my usefulness.
‘…Everything fell into place the moment I told the Air Marshal he could have the company shares. I’d better tell you we’re selling them to him at market value and I’m picking up the difference myself. Even if we pay double the market price to Rhana, it’s a good deal… It also heals a long-standing breach between him and the Air Marshal. So we get ourselves two friends in the high echelons of the armed forces. Rhana’s been invited to come along today. He won’t be travelling with the Air Marshal and me, so perhaps you and Laura wouldn’t mind looking after him.’
To which Laura, not unreasonably, made answer that if we survived the run to the airport and an hour’s flight to Phuket and ninety degrees of heat and a Thai luncheon, we might – just might – be able to spare a thought for General Rhana.
Melville, flushed with yet another victory, laughed and patted her hand and urged me: ‘You have to work on her, Martin. She has so much to learn about this financial world of ours.’
Then he launched himself into a lecture on the Palace and its hierarchies and all the whirlpool currents that coursed about the throne, as the great-grandchildren of the Chulalongkorn dynasty still jockeyed for preferment and influence.
‘…This is the sort of thing you have to learn, Martin. Cassidy and I absorbed it with our mother’s milk. We never escape our past. It is mirrored in our present. It repeats itself in our future. Those who understand that will be the new oligarchs. Those who ignore it will be swept away in the wreckage…’
‘Father dear,’ said Laura desperately, ‘you are becoming a bore. It’s too early, and too hot. Be grateful that I’m your daughter and Martin is too polite to quarrel with you. Cassidy wouldn’t have stood this for two minutes.’
‘I’ve thought often,’ said Melville. ‘We should dedicate a memorial to Cassidy… Nothing grandiose. He would have hated that. A bust, perhaps – or, even better, a priapic figure with a real goat’s grin! – where people could come and leave their complaints and their satires as they do on Pasquino in Rome.’
For a moment, I lost control and let the truth slip out.
‘I’d be happy to subsidise the priapic figure. It would be the perfect answer for Charles Parnell Cassidy.’
It was admittedly an arcane joke for a smoggy morning in Bangkok and it hung in the air for a long moment. Laura got it first and burst into immoderate laughter. Melville caught it just before it fell to earth and was not amused. He told me so curtly.
‘Cassidy was my dear friend.’
‘He was my sworn enemy. That’s a difference you have to wear.’
Instantly the knife was out, thumb on the blade and striking upwards.
‘He was once my daughter’s lover also.’
‘Stop it, Father!’
‘Take it easy, Laura. I’ll deal with this.’ Suddenly I was talking like a husband and the illusion I had sought to create was almost complete. ‘I told you yesterday, Melville, never again to interfere in my private life. You’re doing it now. You’re putting horns on me before I’m even betrothed to your daughter. I won’t stand for it, not now, not ever.’
‘And what the hell do you think you can do about it, Mr. Martin Gregory?’
Very slowly, I reached into my jacket pocket, brought out the pencil, pointed it into the upholstery of the seat an inch from his head and pressed the release. There was a crack like a snapping pencil, a puff of vapour and a neat round hole appeared in the fabric. Laura gave a stifled cry. Melville’s thin body contracted in a spasm of fear. Behind his plate-glass screen, the driver heard nothing. Finally, Melville managed to find the words he needed to patch up his pride.
‘It seems I have not too much to teach you, Martin Gregory.’
‘It seems all you have to learn, Mr. Melville, are better manners.’
He did not answer me, but addressed the question to Laura: ‘Are you sure, my dear, you want this dangerous man? If you don’t, I can always dispose of him.’
‘I would like to keep you both,’ said Laura, and – God bless her heart! – the fiction was complete. Melville reached out and drew me into a paternal embrace. He kissed me on both cheeks and muttered what might have been an apology. I was happy he didn’t kiss me on the lips. It seemed my death was to be deferred, at least for a little while.
In the military area of the Don Muang airport, there were three executive jets drawn up on the tarmac. Inside the air-conditioned staff room, tea, coffee and iced drinks were being dispensed to a small army of dignitaries and guests. There were the Air Marshal and his staff, members of the Palace household, the chief architect, the chief engineer, the contractor, a couple of bankers, a gaggle of people with clipboards, the air crews, a small contingent of press and, slightly separate and a trifle forlorn, General Rhana and his aide-de-camp. He gave us a brief, formal greeting and then stood aside while we were presented to the others in descending order of magnitude.
Mindful of the role we had agreed to play, Laura and I behaved like lovers, anxious to be together. In spite of the protest I had made in the car, Melville still tried to manoeuvre me into discussions with the Air Marshal.
‘…Mr. Gregory is senior counsel to an important banking group in London. He could be a strong ally in our projects here…’
The Air Marshal was properly impressed and anxious to talk, but I begged off. I never liked to talk without an adequate briefing. Naturally, the project would merit serious consideration. Given Mr. Melville’s connection, it would be given priority in the discussion of my bank and of the Rotdrache trustees… Meantime, I was squiring a beautiful woman. We had both had a very late night. The Air Marshal would surely understand…
He did. He assured me he, too, had once been young and devoted to women. Now he was no longer young but still devoted. I laughed dutifully and he waved me away and devoted himself to serious talk with Melville and the Palace people.
Laura and I fell into talk with our pilot, a handsome young man, nephew of the Air Marshal, who had trained with the US Air Force and was obviously slated for a brilliant career under his uncle’s patronage. He showed us our route on the chart: down the river to the Gulf of Thailand, then south by east over Hua Hin, along the Burmese border to Ranong, then down the shore of the Andaman Sea to the island of Phuket. We would be there in an hour, drive to the site, have lunch with the air force and be back in Bangkok for cocktails and dinner.
It was just after ten-thirty when we were called for boarding; the Air Marshal, the Palace people and Marius Melville in the lead aircraft, the General and the minor functionaries in the second, Laura and I happily tucked in with the junior officers and the press men. Five minutes later we were airborne, climbing in wide spirals eastwards, in the wake of the Air Marshal’s plane, then levelling out for the sweep over the lower reaches of the river, the paddies and salt-pans of the delta, and the beaches of the eastern gulf.
The pilot did his best with a dutiful commentary on the route; but I dozed through most of it while Laura, with intermittent groans, nursed a canned Bloody Mary and a hangover headache. We were about two hundred miles south of Bangkok, just skirting the bulge of the Burma border, when it happened.
The pilot yelled and banked steeply to the left. We felt a single, sudden jolt as though we had hit an air pocket, then the aircraft levelled out and we saw far below us a fireball and a scatter of debris tumbling down towards the grey sea. We were all silent, listening to the hurried chatter from the open cockpit.
Then the pilot announced shakily, first in Thai and then in English: ‘Ladies and gentlemen. An accident has taken place. The Air Marshal’s plane has blown up in mid-air. There is nothing we can do. I am ordered to return to base.’
Laura gave a single choked cry and hid her face against my breast like a terrified animal. I held her there all the way back to Bangkok. I felt the silent sobs that racked her; I felt the pulse racing in her white throat; apart from that, I felt nothing.