The bullet had ripped through the fleshy part of William’s arm and he could hardly move it. He’d ducked through the kitchen and come out of the house by the swimming pool, skirting along its darkness and found himself at the back gate which was unlocked. It explained where the other men had come from but it also meant he was out on the back street fast and running along in search of a place to hide.
The shooting and all the noise would have attracted attention. Someone would have called the police and they should be coming soon. He still held the Glock 17 and with much satisfaction reminded himself that he’d disobeyed Madam Tang. Her husband would be dead by now. William had fired two shots into the old man’s chest and the rounds he carried in the handgun were designed to cause maximum damage. He’d blame the men who’d come with Bottle. Whoever the others were. It had been unexpected. Somehow the old man had rustled up reinforcements and they’d looked professional. Except for that fat fuck Scrimple. Although he’d turned up firing as well.
William cursed himself for being too relaxed. He shouldn’t have underestimated the old man. But now it was all too late. They had the girl, they still had the papers and he guessed Chisin and everyone else was dead.
These things happened. Now the most important thing was to get out and get away. He needed to save his own skin and get to a doctor who could check his wound. It still felt numb so he couldn’t be sure what was damaged but there seemed to be no arterial bleeding. He ducked and dived between the occasional parked cars, listening for the sound of sirens which didn’t come. He panted and heaved as he pushed his body to run and walk fast, despite being in shock from where the bullet had torn through his flesh. When he’d turned a few more dark corners and the distance from the house was larger he decided it was time to find a car. He needed to get out of town and up to Bangkok where he could get help. For a moment he debated stopping off at one of the hospitals nearby but that was too risky. They would try and hold him and ask him difficult questions and even the Thai police would figure things out within half an hour. He felt fine. He felt as if he could get up to Bangkok. He needed to drive and get some more miles behind him. Then he would stop and look at the wound and try to bandage it up.
He saw a car he liked. An older model Nissan pickup truck, parked with two tires up on the pavement. William checked the street, up and down and, comfortable that there was nobody watching he used the butt of his Glock to smash in the passenger window. It shattered across the inside seat but no alarm went off. He reached past the jagged, milky pieces and popped open the door, then crawled cautiously across to get into the driver’s seat. It had been a long time since he’d stolen a car but he still remembered how. A few minutes of work on the steering column and the engine sprung to life. He checked the petrol gauge, which showed half full, smiled to himself and put the vehicle into gear.
Ten minutes later he stopped at a filling station and got tissues, nappies, tea towels and disinfectant which allowed him to bandage up the wound on his arm. It was still bleeding but he could staunch the flow now, and drank down two bottles of a glucose drink which made him feel a bit sick but helped perk him up. The petrol attendants had looked at him strangely but it was none of their business and they knew better than to get involved with gangsters or bleeding men. One didn’t know what kind of trouble that could bring. William had scowled at them and gone into the toilet out at the back to tie the nappies around his arm, fastening them tight with the cheap tea towels. The seventy per cent pure alcohol had stung like the clap but he gritted his teeth and waited for the liquid to evaporate which only took a minute.
* * * *
The girl had screamed and she was still angry now but Jedburgh had made the decision to leave Bottle’s dead body where it was. There was no point in taking him now, he’d said. There was nothing they could do for him. She could collect his body later once the police had come and taken him to the morgue.
Scrimple had understood the logic although it made him feel uncomfortable. He had some idea from American war-movies that you had to take your dead with you. Jedburgh had snarled at all of them and rushed them into the cars. They were long gone by the time McAlistair said he thought he could hear police sirens. A few neighbors had come out onto the street and even if any of them had wanted to be involved and been sharp enough to look, they wouldn’t have been able to read the plates that had been obscured with mud. The cars shot off without lights and were gone from the scene within a minute.
Now they were back at the Bolthole and in the privacy of McAlistair’s suite Jedburgh was debriefing the team over bottles of Glenmorangie and Absolut.
Pim looked terrible. Her eyes were swollen with tears, she stank of piss and vomit and it seemed as if both of her cheeks had been burnt. The skin was raw, red and black. She wouldn’t go for a shower but sat in one of the armchairs clutching her legs to herself muttering under her breath in Thai.
Next to Scrimple—who was sitting on the floor by the sofa clutching a bottle of the Swedish vodka in one hand and a bottle of water in the other—stood Rung. He was grinning and re-enacting the battle going “paff, paff” as he used his finger to shoot everyone else in the room. Poom had twisted an ankle at some point and sat quietly on a chair drinking a coke while McAlistair lounged expansively on the sofa sipping malt whiskey from a cut-glass, looking as unperturbed as if he’d just brought down a Highlands buck.
Jedburgh sat on the table, dangling one leg and sipping from a bottle of Evian. There was a triumphant smile on his face as he looked around the round.
“We couldn’t have done anything about Bottle,” he said. “He didn’t want to wear a vest and he was too close up to William. It’s just one of those things.” He was talking for the benefit of the group and Scrimple nodded and wanted to agree but still felt bad about the whole thing. Jesus, suddenly all the rounds just started flying and he was ducking and he’d killed that poor bastard of a guard with the Kalashnikov. He recalled the suddenness of the violence and they were just broken images like an old newsreel. Like a video camera that had suddenly been knocked from a photographer’s hand.
He took another large sip from the Absolut and the liquid burnt down his throat until he chased it with water. Every muscle in his body was still tense. It hadn’t been until they’d got back in the cars and then started driving and as he sat there, watching the road, listening to the girl sobbing in the back and Jedburgh calmly maneuvering through the traffic, suddenly the reality of what had just happened took over and he started shaking and felt the overwhelming urge to go for a piss, which he’d managed to contain until they reached their destination.
“We let that one bastard get away,” Jedburgh said.
“Lousy shooting,” McAlistair commented lightly. “You should have done better.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a fire fight,” Jedburgh said with a shrug.
“Never been in one with that amount of fire power. Those MP5’s are something, eh, Rung?”
“Paff, paff, paff,” the Thai said with delight and got out his cigarettes to light himself another one.
Scrimple took a swig of the Absolut and shuddered as the liquor hit him at the top of his esophagus and partially winded him. At least he’d had the satisfaction of seeing the dead body of Chisin. McAlistair had put half a magazine into the Chinese man and although he’d got off one round it had gone wild.
Scrimple had resisted the urge to kick the body. There was nothing left but torn flesh and mangled bones. There was no point in being angry anymore. And anyway, Chisin had just been a foot soldier, born in a Kowloon housing estate, raised to violence and viciousness, not ever knowing better. He’d been an animal but there was no point in getting angry when the beast was down, the eyes empty of every emotion.
“You did good,” Jedburgh said nodding at Scrimple who gave him a weak smile back. “Pim why don’t you go and have a shower? You’ll feel much better for it.”
The girl shook her head sullenly. Scrimple tried not to imagine what unbearable things had been done to her. He wanted to give her a hug and tell her everything would be fine now. But she stank badly and he was afraid she would scratch and bite him: she looked so angry with the world.
After another half-hour everyone began to unwind in their own way. Rung packed up his weapons and said goodbye by pointing his finger at everyone and going “paff, paff.” McAlistair said he was going home but Pim and Scrimple should stay and he would come to check up on them in the late morning. Jedburgh gave Poom a stack full of grey thousand Baht notes and told him to disappear up country for a few months and take it easy. The man grinned sadly, shrugged and turned towards the door. He stopped for a moment next to Pim and spoke in a low voice then gave her Wai holding his hands high to his forehead and bowing. She touched him on the arm and they exchanged a few more sentences before he left.
Scrimple felt the vodka numbing all his senses and finally stumbled to his feet and made his ponderous way to his room.
* * * *
It was six in the morning by the time Police Colonel Somchai got the news about the gun fight in Pattaya. He was still in bed staring at the packet of Dunhill cigarettes on his bedside table.
He decided not to drive down because there was nothing to be done now. They said the old man Bottle was dead, shot with two bullets in the chest. There were several dead Thais and two dead Hongkongers. There were some people missing from the body count and that was how he could keep himself busy. He wanted to know where the others were and most likely they were in the Bangkok area by now.
He put down the phone and checked his black diary for the private number he wanted at the Immigration Police Department. The man had been at officer school with him and they spoke regularly, helping each other out when they could.
And where was the girl Pim? If the Old Man was dead then she should be around somewhere. Of course there was a chance that she was dead too. No body so far. He hoped that she was fine. He had liked her, even though she was too clever for her own sake. She had too much passion, too much of the foreigner in her—but if she wasn’t dead and had time to grow older and more mature she could be a useful asset to Somchai.
* * * *
It had been four in the morning by the time William reached the gambling den that was his destination. He knew they would help him. It was their duty.
The drive had been hard work, especially the last half hour through the streets of Bangkok that he didn’t know so well. His concentration kept on fading from the loss of blood but he knew that to stop and rest would be fatal. By will power and recalling the hard Kung Fu training he’d endured as a younger man, he managed to avoid crashing the car half a dozen times.
The manager of the gambling place called an Indian doctor who was known to be discrete and very fond of money. He regularly lost most of his in the place so was happy to be given the chance to make up some of his debts.
When the turbaned man had gone, William lay on a bed in one of the rooms that were intended for sex and tried for the fifth time to reach Madam Tang. Her phone had been off all night. He didn’t know what other business she had in Bangkok nor where she might be staying. She played her cards close to her chest because, like all good Chinese bosses she didn’t entirely trust all the men who surrounded her. William toyed with the idea again whether the time had come to stand up to her. To try and take her position. Not today, not this month. He had to get back to Hong Kong. He had to get better and let the wound heal, then decide what was next for him.
The doctor had tutted over the wound, cleaned it, injected an anesthetic and sowed up the flaps of skin, then told him that it should be fine as long as he took the medication and changed the bandages regularly. It should take a few weeks to heal because it had only ripped the flesh and a small part of the muscle.
Finally at around seven in the morning William managed to get through to Madam Tang. She sounded annoyed and impatient. He explained the situation, what had happened and apologized to her that he’d let matters get out of control. There was no point in shifting the blame or pretending it was bad luck. She would look at him to be responsible and he might as well take the load and begin working on the damage control.
“Who were the people with him?” Tang demanded to know.
“I’ve no idea. They were soldiers, trained men, I guess. Bottle had found some manpower. Maybe they were former policemen. That would make sense. There are lots of them around in security positions that might have been willing to help him.”
“Foreigners?”
“Yes, English guys. And that idiot Scrimple.”
“Not such an idiot for leading them all back to you. You should not have tried to play him like a puppet. That was trying to be too smart.”
William scowled at the blank wall opposite him. It had been his idea but she had agreed to let Scrimple go so they could follow and watch where he went and what he did.
“And my husband is dead?”
“Yes,” he said with conviction. “Scrimple was standing behind him and shot him by mistake with a machine gun.”
“What about the girl? Did you get rid of her before they came for the meeting?”
“No, I thought we might want to show her to him first.”
“So they got her now?”
“I think so. She was still upstairs in the room. So they would have found her.”
“You’re a fool. You never were this stupid. I don’t know what has happened to you,” she scolded him. “This whole Thailand business has made all of us lose face.”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Fool!” she said again.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
Madam Tang made further sounds at the end of the phone to show her discontent. “My husband is dead. All of our team is dead. We’ve lost money and face. This cursed country. I am going back to Hong Kong this afternoon and you can come with me. We’ll concentrate on what we know best before we try new risky ventures. Book yourself on the afternoon Cathay Pacific flight.” She cut the line abruptly.
William lay back against the pillow and wondered if he had enough time to go back down to Pattaya and kill the man Kornsak. It would be pure spite but it would feel good and they had decided to do it anyway.
* * * *
There was a discrete knock on Scrimple’s bedroom door and he opened his eyes. As usual there was a hangover and he tried to remember what it was all about.
Then the previous night came back while the discrete knocking on the door became more of a tapping.
“Wait, wait,” he heard himself croak and fell onto his knees next to the bed. “Ah, shit,” he said and dragged himself up on the side table.
When he opened the door Pim was standing there. She looked somewhat better now, scrubbed and wearing new clothes, a floral fragrance emanating from her. But her eyes were still heavily circled as if she’d not slept and only cried for the last few hours. The burn wounds on her cheeks were red and brown, covered in iodine and it made her look like a garish doll that had been made up to look scary with too much rouge.
“Come in,” Scrimple said. He stepped back and she went and sat in the arm chair by the window. He pulled the curtains aside so that bright sunlight flooded into the room.
“Give me a minute,” he said and went to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. He hadn’t bothered taking off any of his clothes from the previous night. A bottle of 4711 cologne was provided as an amenity and he splashed some of that on his cheeks and around his neck. That would help to disguise some of his unwashed odor.
Pim was sitting in the fetal position again, curled up in the armchair, looking out of the window where golf players were already marching off to their morning sport.
It was about eleven in the morning and Scrimple wished he’d been left alone until the evening.
“I’m really sorry about your father,” he said.
She shrugged.
Not so feisty now, he thought but realized it was unkind, given the circumstances and what she’d been through.
“That guy William is a bastard,” he said. “I wish we’d killed him.”
She shrugged again. “How did you know Bottle was my father?” she asked.
“He told us. If you hadn’t been held a prisoner by them I think he would have just taken all the documents and disappeared. That would have been the best thing.” Scrimple sighed. “All those fucking dead bodies.” He shook his head remembering the horror of it and also everything that had gone before.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like that,” she said. “We had a plan. Now I don’t know anything. I am not sure what will happen.”
“I suppose all I can tell you is that life goes on.”
“And your life? Is that going on?” she challenged him.
He went to sit on the sofa that faced her. “My life? My life is still all buggered up. Who knows what the police will make of it all now?”
Pim gave him a weak smile. “You know that we have a special relationship with the Police Colonel, Somchai. We were working together on this.”
“I didn’t really believe you before. I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”
“We will need to speak to Somchai. I haven’t been able to make a call from here.”
“They have a device that blocks all mobile phone calls,” he explained.
“Oh, I thought my phone was broken.” She shook her head. “Everything else is broken.” She paused and looked at him with the sad look of a little girl whose favorite pony has just been put down. “I was a virgin, you know. I was waiting for the right man. That bastard William. Why didn’t you kill him when you had the chance?”
“I would kill him willingly. I’ll stab him in the eyes with a pencil if I ever meet him again.”
“He should be torn apart by wild dogs.”
“At least Chisin is dead. He was just as bad. Fucker.”
Pim nodded in mute anger and agreement.
“So what do you mean by having to contact Somchai?” he asked.
She sighed and shifted her position. “When my father retired from the Hong Kong Police he came to live in Thailand. My mother had already died from cancer but he’d bought us a nice house in Bangkok. And we lived there. I suggested he should keep himself busy with some property investments. He had saved plenty of money. He did that for a year until suddenly the witch from Hong Kong turned up and began blackmailing him to help her manipulate a big property deal here in Pattaya.”
Scrimple was trying to twist the top off a bottle of well-sealed mineral water when she paused. “Go on,” he said. “How did she blackmail him?”
“I never found out but it was something he had done while he was in the police. She found him through some mutual friends and forced him to help her and her gang. But she never knew I was his daughter. She never found out about my mother. She thought I was his girlfriend and his employee and we played it along that way. Then we made a plan to set her up. There was a guy called Kornsak who is a local corrupt politician and I’d met Colonel Somchai from when I was working as a journalist full-time. I knew Somchai was an honest man who wanted to clean up dirty politicians if he could.”
Scrimple nodded, his forehead creased with concentration. It was too early to understand complicated stories.
“Then the plan went wrong when William became suspicious. My father took all the title deeds and documents and decided to go into hiding. But William found out about the secret flat in Bangkok and he killed a girl who was working for my father and left her there as a warning to come back and not to defy Madam Tang.”
“So Somchai knew all along I hadn’t killed any of those people?”
“Yes, but everything was out of control by then. That’s why he let you escape after you’d been arrested in Pattaya.”
“This is all making my head ache. All I can hear you telling me is that Somchai knows about me being innocent and maybe he could get my name cleared?”
“Maybe. Yes, he could get you out of your trouble.”
“Yes or maybe?” Scrimple demanded urgently.
The girl shrugged.
“Will you help me kill William and the witch?”