The two men had to be discrete when they met. It would have been bad for Colonel Somchai to be seen in public with the monk. His motives could have easily been misunderstood.
The place the monk had chosen was a well-known vegetarian restaurant. He was a frequent visitor and it had a discrete back entrance which gave onto a sheltered courtyard where Somchai could drive up and leave his Toyota, then slip through the shadows into the restaurant.
Two of the monk’s close associates guarded the door to the private room. They’d been in the army with him and were fiercely loyal. They wore dark trousers and light-colored shirts and it was obvious to Colonel Somchai that both men were armed. The monk had many admirers and many followers but just as many enemies and someone who polarized public opinion to such an extent was an obvious target. There had been a number of attempts on his life, none so far successful, due to the vigilance of his close supporters.
Somchai entered the room and bowed low giving the traditional wai greeting. The monk did not return the greeting as was the custom for a religious person in his position. He waved to the mat-covered floor and Somchai sat down, tucking up his legs. Food was brought immediately and they began eating. As they ate they spoke in quiet, polite Thai. There was only one other person in the room, the monk’s private secretary who was there to take any notes if there was occasion. It was unlikely that he would document anything for this meeting. It was a confidential occasion that dealt with matters of life and death. The kind of subjects that had to be deniable under all circumstances.
“We are making a lot of progress,” the monk said, tossing aside part of his saffron robe which had slipped forward. He used his hands to take a ball of rice and eat it with calm detachment.
Colonel Somchai nodded. “Did you see in the news about the drug dealer in Korat? He was shot twice with a sniper rifle.”
“A real professional then?” the monk asked.
Both men knew that to find a man willing to kill in Thailand was easy. A handful of ya-baa and twenty thousand Baht would bring a platoon of volunteers, but they had wanted discretion and consistency. Somchai had heard about the perfect killer from a colleague who dealt with a case involving some element of international intrigue. It was rumored that there was a man, a person to be precise who’d been working for many years quietly and steadily. Any mysterious killing where evidence was hard to come by, was attributed to this person. They called him the Reliable Man, but he was like a wisp of smoke, barely tangible. His existence could be scarcely believed except that Somchai had found a way of getting in touch and, like a ghost from another world, there had been a reply. And when he had provided information, a target and payment, there had been results which proved the existence of the killer.
“There may be more than one man. It could be a team. It could even be a woman,” he said.
“A team of killer women?” the monk said with a smirk. “That sounds like a Hong Kong movie.”
“Yes,” Somchai said, “I think it’s a man. Someone retired from the Army. A special forces American veteran. Somebody like that. That is the most likely profile.”
“So, a foreigner?” commented the Monk reaching for a plate of vegetables while pushing another towards his secretary.
“A foreigner I think. He is too calm and careful in his work. A Thai would go crazy, spend the money, make himself noticed.”
“A Japanese? Some people say they still have Ninja schools run by traditionalists?”
“It could be possible,” Somchai conceded. He didn’t want to drive himself crazy speculating. The killer was working well. A steady wave of death that engulfed every person the monk considered to be corrupt. Somchai provided the details. The monk and he discussed the evidence and when the person was found wanting, he gave the nod and Somchai arranged the details with the assassin. It was gratifying how efficiently the process worked. It was a bit frightening. Somchai had rarely encountered something so reliable in his world.
“What about the Chinese people in Pattaya?” The monk asked. “What is the status with that?”
“It is messy,” Somchai admitted. “I have an undercover person in place and I have a lot of information but it’s not the time to make any moves yet. Did you hear about the foreigner who is accused of killing several people?”
“Yes, have they arrested him yet?”
“He escaped. In fact he is innocent but he is my bait for the big fish and I am letting the line run.”
“Are you sure you are not trying to be too smart sometimes, my old friend?” the monk said with a smile and took a sip of cold, plain water.
“Sometimes I think I have become old and dull.”
“Keep control. But you know best. We know Kornsak is involved and he is too close to the other one who is still pulling so many strings with his bag of gold. If you prove to me that Kornsak is involved in all this corruption then I feel happy that he should be removed.”
“Give me a bit of time. I know who all the people are. Then we can decide how to clean up.”
“A clean country is what we want,” the monk said, tapping two gnarled fingers on the low wooden table to reinforce his point.
* * * *
They called her Tang Tai Tai, Madam Tang. She had never been comfortable using her husband’s name and those who’d known her for a long time couldn’t ever think of her as Mrs. Bottle.
Her brother had been a powerful man in his time, lording it over their clan and all the nightclubs, massage parlors, karaokes and other businesses that had been part of his fiefdom. He’d been a cruel, vicious man until one day someone had killed him with a hail of bullets. Others had taken over from him but never with the same level of control or success. Then some of his followers had gravitated towards his sister who had stepped up and taken over management of the Triad’s property portfolio. She’d always had a flair for buying buildings and enjoyed the collecting of rents as much as the negotiating with tenants and agents.
At first it had started small, then it grew steadily and they looked beyond Hong Kong in other countries where they had Chinese connections and where William and his team could intimidate and manipulate.
By that time the relationship with her English husband had long gone frosty. It was a marriage of inconvenience. A grudging and mutual respect where either party simply got on with their work and their lives. Mrs. Bottle was never seen in public and never attended formal functions with her husband. Many people had even doubted her existence, preferring instead to speculate that Bottle kept a stable of Filipino fillies hidden away at home or even that his thing was not for girls.
But she’d always been there, doing her stuff. Bottle was aware that she was busy with property deals while he was still working in the police, however he had no idea of the extent of her involvement with her brother’s former brothers—the hing daai of his Triad. He only found out later, once he’d hung up his uniform, and by that time it was too late to walk away easily.
Now Madam Tang stood staring at the young girl who was tied to the bed and whose stony expression could not hide the terror behind her eyes.
“Chisin can beat you all night long and will do it with a smile,” Madam Tang said, stepping forward and touching the girl’s leg just above the knee. There was a livid bruise from an earlier kick.
“Don’t do something that you will regret. You are a pretty girl now. Will you still be pretty with no teeth and a hand that can’t hold a cup?” Tang shook her head slowly to emphasize her point. “It is sad to hurt a young girl like you. With all your life ahead. So don’t be foolish and tell us where he is hiding.”
Tang had always thought there was something wrong with the girl but couldn’t put her finger on it. Her husband had been far too close to her and the loyalty that the girl was showing was beyond expectation. It annoyed her and she used it to increase her anger.
Pim stared at Tang with a mixture of loathing and fear now. They had tracked her down at the place she was using outside Pattaya and William and Chisin had cuffed her, beaten her and taken her over to the house for Tang to interview.
Where was her damned husband hiding? Tang had long ago relinquished any special feelings for Cliff Bottle. They had been married when both of them were too young to understand what they were doing. He had been dashing in his uniform, bowling her over with his fluent Cantonese and his cocky colonial arrogance. She had felt stifled by the petty traditions of her parents and grasped the chance to upset them. What she thought was romance had turned out to be rebellion.
It was an unacceptable marriage at the time because Western police officers were not supposed to marry the local Chinese girls. They could fool around with them, and visit the brothels in Mong Kok but it was expected for them to marry a nice white girl. Yet men like Bottle did marry Chinese or Filipina girls and found themselves ostracized by their colleagues and banned from the sporting clubs where they were members. After a while they found different more accommodating social circles and did not appear in public with their Asian wives. If they were good sorts and capable at their jobs the fact that they had married across the racial divide wasn’t mentioned and seemed at times almost forgotten.
Tang had got into trouble with her father. For many years he had disowned her and refused to talk to her for marrying a filthy, smelly gwai-lo, not a person, not a Yan but a Gwai, a ghost, not even human because he was not Chinese and never would be. But like with all things, time had slowly healed some wounds and Hong Kong society had changed, adjusted to a more modern world. If they had been able to have children it might have been different. Harder in some ways but easier with the pleasures and satisfaction that babies could bring.
In the end Bottle and his wife had drifted apart without caring or noticing, each absorbed in their own world and responsibilities. They shared a house but went their separate ways in the mornings. His career as a policeman progressed fast and steadily and at some point her brother and husband crossed paths and made an uneasy alliance which was not uncommon in the venal Hong Kong of the seventies and eighties.
Tang now stood over the Thai girl and grabbed hold of both her cheeks, twisting the flesh hard until Pim’s eyes began watering.
“Tell me where he is, you little bitch. He is nothing to you and he is not worth any amount of loyalty. I should know. I have been married to him for forty years and he is a selfish man who does not care for other people’s sacrifices.”
“I don’t know where he’s staying,” Pim whined. “Please stop. I’ve told you all I know.”
“You will regret this,” Tang said angrily and turning to leave the room, said to Chisin, “Do what you want with her. She is a piece of garbage.”
* * * *
“Did you take any kickbacks in your time in the Force?” Scrimple asked, taking advantage of the fact that Bottle seemed to be in a confiding mood.
The former Assistant Commissioner turned on him. “That’s a damn impertinent question.”
Scrimple shrugged and stared back. “Everybody did, that’s what they said.
Bottle looked away, at the man in the corner with the gun who seemed to see and hear everything but remained impassive.
“That was before your time,” Bottle said, glaring at Scrimple. “They were different times. When the ICAC started coming after our brothers and friends it was a nasty business. All we had been doing was adapting to the cultural environment.” He smiled ruefully and took a swig from his glass of whiskey. “That’s what we called it and it was the right thing to do for that time and that place.”
“Then things changed?”
“They changed for the better but it was a painful transition. Anyone who went through it would never talk about it,” the old man said, shaking his head.
Scrimple asked, “Didn’t you feel you’d compromised your principles?”
“I never compromised my principles,” Bottle said angrily. “I was a damn good copper. And a bloody successful one. More than could be said for you.”
Scrimple shrugged sadly. “Yes, I was bit of a failure as a policeman. And I don’t seem to be doing much better now.”
The reminder of this seemed to brace him with his own anger. “I had a nice little job and lifestyle just a week ago and you came back into my life and fucked it all up.”
“It wasn’t my intention. I’ve already told you that. Now how are we going to fix this thing? You’ve got my papers. I’ll give you enough money to get away from Thailand and I’ll help you with a passage to Cambodia by boat.”
“It’s the least you owe me,” Scrimple said petulantly.
“Now don’t piss me off or I’ll have Poom here shoot you in the knee and you’ll tell us where the papers are anyway.”
* * * *
Bottle was going to give Scrimple fifty thousand American dollars and a passage on a fast boat. That had been agreed.
The question now remained whether he could trust the old man and his blank-faced bodyguard. On balance and having no other choice Scrimple decided that he could, but the exchange of the documents and the money would be done downstairs in the lobby where plenty of people could protect him from any funny business. It was absurd that he was worrying. This was a man who’d been his boss for a number of years. One of the most respected policemen the Royal Hong Kong Police had known. The old bugger even had the Colonial Police Medal and a medal from the Queen herself. And here was Scrimple worrying that the old man might give a signal and Poom would gun him down for a measly few thousand dollars.
But it had been a mad few days and nobody could be trusted anymore.
“Where are the documents?” Bottle wanted to know.
“Downstairs with the concierge. I’ve got the ticket in my pocket.” Scrimple patted his trousers which were crusty with dirt and stank of unwashed cotton. “What I want to do is for us all to go downstairs. Once I get out the briefcase you can hand me the cash. I’ll hang around while you check the documents, then I’ll leave.”
Bottle nodded. “Sounds fair.” He spoke in fluent Thai and explained the situation to Poom who indicated his understanding.
They filed down into the corridor and walked over to the lifts. Bottle looked grim, while Poom kept his inscrutable expression. The gun had disappeared but there was a lump under the shirt where Scrimple knew it to be.
“I’ll need a way to get hold of you,” Scrimple said.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll contact you on that mobile number.”
“How do I know you won’t do another vanishing trick on me?” Scrimple asked.
Bottle eyed him for a moment. “You don’t. You’ll have to take a leap of faith.”
“I’ve had too much of that already.”
“I’ll get in touch with you, lad,” he growled. “Leave it at that.”
The lift got to the lobby and when they exited and walked around the corner towards where the concierge's desk stood, Scrimple felt nervous for a moment. He stared around looking for any familiar faces but the small lobby seemed empty and only two middle-aged Caucasians were standing at reception paying their bill.
He approached the concierge and pulled out the ticket stub. The man checked the details then went back into his cloak room and brought out the briefcase. Scrimple walked over to the sofas with Bottle and Poom trailing him.
He placed the briefcase on the low table while Bottle watched with great care.
“It’s a nice briefcase. Took me a long time to figure out where the secret compartment was,” said Scrimple.
“You’d never have found it if you didn’t know there was one.”
“I suppose not,” said Scrimple as he snapped open the latches and laid the case down. He gestured to Bottle who took over and worked the mechanism, then took a quick glance at the vital documents.
“Seems a lot of killing for a pile of paperwork,” Scrimple commented.
“People weren’t supposed to die over this.” Bottle shook his head and looked angry again. Over his shoulder stood Poom, registering only mild interest in what was going on.
“That won’t bring back my mates Declan and Liam and Nari and Walter.” Scrimple heard the plaintive tone in his own voice.
Bottle snapped the briefcase shut again and looked Scrimple sharply in the eye.
“Stop thinking about what’s happened. Focus on what you need to do to get your life back on track. I’ve promised to help you as best as I can but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. You’ve got to stay ahead of the Thai police. I’ll put a good word in for you,” he said.
“I suppose so,” replied Scrimple listlessly.
Bottle nodded and took out a thick brown envelope from his jacket pocket. “Here’s the money. I suggest you go into the toilet to count it.”
“It doesn’t look like much,” Scrimple said, surprised that Bottle had the money on him all the time.
“They’re thousand Euro notes. You’ll have to trust me on the exchange rate,” Bottle gave him a wink. “Get them changed into smaller denominations or Thai Baht without raising too many eye brows.”
Scrimple peeked into the top of the envelope and saw the notes and that they had the number 1000 on them as Bottle said. That would do. Maybe even better than American dollars.
“I trust you,” he said and turned on his heel, walking out of the lobby and down the ramp which led to the ground floor.
He began walking quickly, still holding the brown envelope in his hand. When he’d gone fifty yards he looked up and saw William jump out of a dark Mercedes which was paused in the immobile traffic on Sukhumvit Road. The Chinese gangster didn’t notice him but was intent on striding up the ramp to the Sheraton Hotel’s lobby.
Scrimple hesitated. If Bottle had a mobile phone it would have been easy to warn him. Instead he called the hotel number and asked to be put through to the room. The room phone rang and rang until a voicemail message came on.
Scrimple shrugged. He wasn’t going to go running back in after William. Let Bottle take care of himself. He had Poom with him and they were armed, so the odds were evenly stacked.
* * * *
Technical diving involves the use of mixed gases to reach deeper depths. It is a complex form of recreation and if incorrectly executed can result in death or serious injury to its practitioners.
Jedburgh enjoyed the challenge and the risks of technical diving but he took great care when pushing beyond the standard limits of recreational diving.
This morning they’d done sixty meters, which was neither difficult nor to be taken lightly. They had looked around for something interesting to see at that depth, found nothing and then ascended again steadily until they reached the levels where gases had to be changed.
During a technical dive one commonly strapped two double tanks which contained “travel gas” to one’s back. Another set of tanks went under each arm. There were a myriad of permutations and schools of thought but it was all about ensuring that the nitrogen and oxygen levels were safe in order to avoid both decompression sickness and convulsions or blackout while at depth.
The most daunting thought to a technical diver was the notion of “theoretical ceiling.” Once he’d passed through the decompression threshold a technical diver couldn’t simply ascend to the surface in an emergency. He had an invisible barrier over his head which was as real as the roof of a cave. Pass through this barrier without taking the precaution of the carefully calculated stops and he risked the terrible danger of “the bends” which could bring paralysis or death.
On ascending, the technical diver had to take into account deep and shallow stops to allow his body to decompress and release the saturated nitrogen. To facilitate this process he breathed greater and greater percentages of oxygen until at six meters he would have a small tank of one hundred per cent oxygen that helped flush out the nasty nitrogen bubbles that could damage the nerves and tissue.
Jedburgh was hanging at nine meters, slightly negative, with a line all the way up to his surface balloon. He was breathing from his last tank which had an oxygen-rich mixture and he was watching his dive computer to control depth and time. It would tell him he could move to his next and final decompression stop at six meters.
With technical diving the concept of the dive buddy became a bit blurred. It was much harder to help each other if something went wrong because the margins of error were so much slimmer. You had to take care of yourself and solve any problems on your own.
Steve was hanging from his line not far away and the gentle swell of the surface waves made both of them bob up and down. Steve looked like a puppet that had been hung out to dry, except that he was a man and immersed in the salty ocean.
They had planned a two and a half hour dive. There were fifteen minutes to go and as Jedburgh looked at his prune-shriveled fingers he thought about what he was intending to do about the Scrimple situation. It was one of the beauties of this type of diving that one was forced to do nothing while the metabolism went about its business. One spent time contemplating the steady rhythm of one’s breathing while the clock ticked slowly along on the decompression penalty.
Finally the dive was over and they broke the surface, inflating their wing-type BCD’s that were specially designed to handle the load of all the extra tanks. The boat was nearby and it took a crew of four to heave the two divers out of the water.
It was a good hour before Jedburgh had sorted out his gear and was sitting at Ernie’s for his breakfast. He looked out over the water and watched the large banca ferry pulling in from Batangas. The tide was low and people would be getting their feet wet.
He slowly buttered his toast then pulled out the correct mobile phone. It rang five times and he got Scrimple on the phone.
“You know who this is,” Jedburgh said by way of avoiding his name.
“Yes,” said Scrimple, sounding more relaxed and hopeful from down the end of the line.
“Do you still need my help?”
There was a pause while Scrimple considered his answer. “I’ve sorted some of it out. I found Bottle and he gave me some money. But I could still use your help getting out of the country and avoiding the police.”
“What’s the deal with Bottle?”
“You mean how is he involved?”
“Yes.”
“He got dragged into some dodgy Triad stuff through his Chinese wife. Might gave gone back to his time in the police. He’s a bit cagey about it all but sounds as if he’s hiding and has fallen out with the rest of the gang.”
“Strange,” Jedburgh commented.
“Well, the old fucker apologized for getting me into this mess but he can’t help much to get me out of it. He’s offered to fix me up with a boat but I’m not holding my breath on that one.”
“You don’t trust him?”
Scrimple made a noise that indicated frustration. “Half and half. The problem is that when I left Bottle the bad guys who killed all my friends were just arriving. I tried to warn Bottle but he wasn’t answering his phone and I wasn’t going to step back into a fight. It’s none of my business. I need to clear my name.”
“You do,” said Jedburgh and took a sip of his water while he thought things through. “You’ve got money now, have you?”
“Yeah, enough to pay some people off if need be.”
“That’s useful. I’m all done here in the Philippines. I can’t get on a plane right away. I’ve been diving and I need to wait twenty-four hours to clear all the nitrogen from my system. I’ll be over as soon as I can. Meanwhile I suggest you get in touch with Julian McAlistair. He’ll hide you away somewhere until we can come up with a workable plan.”
“Okay, you know I really appreciate this. I’m screwed otherwise.”
“We’re old Hong Kong coppers. We help each other out. You know that. We’ve been through this before. Now McAlistair is still down in Rayong where he was ten years ago. I’ll text you his number and give me a few hours to brief him first. Are you okay to make your way down there?”
“Should be okay. It’s an hour past Pattaya isn’t it? They’ve got my picture in the papers but I look like a million other fat bald speck-eyed expat Brits.”
“You haven’t changed much then since the last time we met,” said Jedburgh drily.
“Probably lost fifteen pounds from stress in the last four days.”
“Nothing that a few days at a holiday resort won’t put back.”
“If the police get hold of me again and stitch me up with all these murders I’ll be spending the next twenty years on a prison diet.”
“You keep away from trouble,” Jedburgh said with a calm confidence, “and get yourself down to McAlistair’s and you’ll be fine. No, shackles and chain for you.”