Everyone Burns (33 page)

Th
is sense of looming catharsis is however put aside as I walk the darkening streets of Chaweng, and hear a ruckus in one of the bars near to the Ocean Pearl, which had been my intended destination.

All eyes in the
Destiny Bar are on an extremely belligerent and very drunk Englishman holding court by one of the pool tables and waving his half-full beer glass menacingly. He is (I guess) in his late thirties, not especially tall but built like a brick shithouse, his hair a severe crew-cut, and something about him suggests ex-armed forces. He is in mid-stream roundly cursing the locals, and indeed anyone within earshot. Spittle flies from his mouth. The veins in his neck bulge out and his face is red and angry. I judge he is going to take a pop at someone any moment.

“You fuckers,” he bellows. “You slant-eyed yellow-brown fuckers. First you kill my brother and then you have the cheek to nick my fucking cell
phone.”

“Nobody here has killed your brother, my friend,” says a nervous middle-aged backpacker. “Please just calm down.”

“Somebody on this rat-infested island killed my brother,” he asserts loudly. “Fucking set fire to him. Not enough just to kill him, oh no. And it never even got into the papers. Some slimy little Thai bastard knows what he did. And as for the fucking police –” Words fail him.

The customers are half-horrified and half-fascinated by this impromptu circus. I notice the barman reach carefully under the bar and grasp the handle of a baseball bat.

The drunk lurches to one side and turns his attention to the ladyboys. “What a pissing degenerate country this is. Men with
tits
. It’s a bloody freak show.”

Two of the
katoeys are already reversing their grip on their pool cues, and it’s about to get really ugly.

“
Peter Ashley
,” I call to the inebriate. “Peter Ashley, I need to talk to you.”

He swivels around in confusion and tries to focus on me.

“Who are you?” he says forcefully. “I don’t know
you
.”

Taking a chance
I put my face close to his ear and say quietly, “I know about your brother. I know about Anthony. I know about how he died. Come with me. We have to get out of here. Now.”

He half-hears me. “You knew Anthony?” he asks, sounding less pugilistic and more like a whining drunk.

“Peter, we have to leave before the police arrive.”

“But I want to see the police,” he says. His voice rises again as he addresses the whole bar. “They’ve stolen my cell
phone. I go for a piss and they steal it. And my cell phone had pictures of
her
on it. Pictures of that
bitch
.” He spits out the word. “They’re the only ones I have, the only ones. I’ll never find her without my pictures.”

Somehow I get him out of the
Destiny Bar and onto the street. People are watching us and pointing. I hail a cab and help him into it. Then I climb in beside him.

“Which hotel are you staying at?”

“What’s your name?” he slurs drunkenly, but not aggressively.

“David Braddock. Which hotel are you staying at
, Peter?”

He can just about get his mouth around the words
Lotus Blossom Villas. The same place he stayed with his brother. Nothing like a trip down Happy Memory Lane.

My half-formed resolution to disengage myself from the burning murders investigation has dissipated over the last few minutes. I need to get Peter Ashley rested and sober, so that I can pick his brains on his brother’s death, while at the same time keeping him away from the tender embrace of the local constabulary.

I want to hear Ashley Junior’s account of what happened. There may be stuff in his head that was not on the file. And that means stuff that Katchai doesn’t know.

But first I drag him out of the taxi – not a straightforward matter – and put my shoulder under his arm to help him to his room: which fortunately is not far from the reception.

Eventually he finds his keys and I dump him on the bed.

“They stole my phone,” he repeats emptily.

I tear a page from my notebook, write my name and cell phone number on it and put it on his bedside table.

I speak slowly and into his face. “Listen, Peter. Here is my name and phone number. Have a good night’s sleep then go out tomorrow and buy a cheap cell
phone and a SIM card. Then call me or SMS me. We’ll meet up later. Tomorrow.”

His eyes look like blood has been poured into them.

“Do you understand, Peter? Don’t go out. Stay in the hotel. Yes?”

He nods.

As I reach the door he lurches quickly to his feet, and scuttles to the bathroom. There is the sound of loud violent vomiting. Apparently not all army types can hold their booze.

I walk out of the hotel and into the hot night.

I light a Marlboro. Bad idea. A dull throbbing begins in my temples.

*       *       *       *       *

Although I have had the aircon blasting away in the jeep, my body is covered in perspiration and my head is pounding on the way home. The day, perhaps everything, is catching up with me. The cars, the street-lights, the trees; all have a sense of unreality about them. I have to concentrate hard on my driving to stay on the road. There is buzzing in my ears and my thoughts are spinning like broken pool cues.

Finally I park the car on my drive and take a deep breath.
I am unsteady on my legs as I climb from the vehicle and almost fall. My hands are shaking and there is no strength in my fingers. I drop the front door key twice before I manage to turn it in the lock.

Wayan is waiting for me in the hall. She looks anxious and immediately puts a hand to my forehead.

“Mr. David, you are hot. I think you are not well.”

She brings a cold towel and gently rubs down my face and neck, then my wrists, while I sit in the chair in my study
trying to gather my scattered attention. I’m concerned that I’m going to black out. Although my flesh is feverish, something icy is chewing at me inside. It feels like
fear
.

“You should go to bed,”
Wayan says.

A black flying demon circles the fringes of my imagination.

“Drink some water. Please, Mr. David.” Wayan hands me a glass and I drink. I see concern, almost panic in her brown eyes; and I know I need to make an effort.

I smile and squeeze her arm. “I’m al
l right, Wayan, really. I’ve just had a bit of an emotional day. I’ll go to bed soon, I promise. Just let me sit here quietly for a while.”

She says she will wait up with me, and that she will be in the kitchen until I turn in. She is reluctant to leave the study, but I pat her hand to reassure her. She is not reassured, and leaves the study door open – presumably so she can hear the thud if I faint.

Then my cell phone rings.

I am about to ignore it but then I see the caller is Anna. I take a gulp of water and wipe my clammy face with a handkerchief.

“Hello, Anna,”

I do my best to sound normal, but after a couple of minutes Anna picks up on my state.

“David, you sound odd. Are you all right?”

“I’m running a little fever,” I
reply.

She has heard this before.

“You’re ill,” she says, “I can tell from your voice.”

She is silent awhile and we listen to each other’s breathing.

Finally she says quietly, “Is it Claire?”

“Claire,” I say flatly. I find myself laughing softly. “Yes, Claire. Anna, you know better than anyone, it’s always Claire. One way or another, always.”

“David,” she says, “oh God, David. You have to stop. You have to stop this now.”

“You mean I have to stop talking to my dead wife?” I say angrily. “You mean I have to stop acting like a crazy person? Stop living with a ghost? Stop communing with the dear departed?”

“It’s been four years, David. Claire is gone.”

“Don’t you think I know that, Anna? Don’t you think I understand that all my conversations are with a ghost? That it’s all in my head?”

I can feel tears running down my face, but I don’t stop.

“
I know
, Anna, believe me
I know
.”

“I should have done something different to help you,” she says. I can hear her choking back her own emotion. “I shouldn’t have encouraged you to continue with
this
, but I thought it would help you to work through your loss.”

“It’s not your fault. You’ve been there for me. You’ve been the only person I could talk to about Claire. It’s not your fault.”

I feel something break inside me, and can imagine my pursuing furies slowly gaining ground. I see myself tire. I am on the precipice now.

“My wife is nothing more than cold ashes.” It is as if I understand for the first time.

“What can I do?”

“Just be there, Anna. Like you always have been there for me. It is enough.”

I cut the line.

I reach into the bottom drawer of my desk and remove a small cardboard box. I take off the lid and examine the contents, as I have many times before. There is a scuffed and dog-eared photograph of Claire and myself at Foxton Locks in our early days, wedding pictures, Claire in a silly hat at my
fortieth birthday party. There is a bundle of letters tied in a ribbon, some old Valentine’s Day cards, a lock of Claire’s fiery hair, her engagement and wedding rings, a necklace, and a host of other mementoes; the residual debris of a lost life. The detritus of my marriage, the things I could not let go.

At the very bottom of the box are some
very personal poems I wrote for Claire, and one I wrote perhaps for myself, after her death in England, entitled
Ghost
.

I saw you this evening

Walking along a street in Stratford

Your flame hair waving in the breeze

You were in the bookshop

I wanted to call out

As you turned your back

But when I reached you

You were not there

You were on the steps with friends

But quickly gone as the rain came

And later

In the dimness of the theatre

An arcing spotlight caught your profile an instant

Leaning forward, in frozen gaze

Then the glare was gone

And you became someone else

Someone else’s lover

I see you everywhere

I scan the faces in the crowd

Looking for your face

Because I long to see it

I see you so often

My heart roars at me

The expectation of seeing you

In impossible places

In parks, in high streets, in cars

In strange towns where you cannot possibly be

In the aisles of a supermarket

In the darkness before sleep

Everywhere

Everywhere you are with me

Everywhere I am alone

And I know
now why the man Sinclair fills me with deep revulsion. It is because he carries around with him his grief, as I do; because the smell of loss emanates from him like a sickness, as it does with me. It is because he is I, and I abhor what he is and what I have become. And I weep, clutching these relics of burned-out time. Because at the end and forever I am alone. Because in the face of death all the joking and the bravado eventually ends. Because I can never run fast enough or far enough away. Because the loss of Claire is too great for me to bear, because it is insufferable, because it is absurd. And I know now why a raven is like a writing-desk; because neither of them matter, because nothing matters, because in the darkness all is one and all is nothing and everything converges to a point, to a kind of emptiness, to a zero.

And Wayan hears my distress and comes to me
as she has other times before, and she raises me gently to my feet and takes me upstairs, and she helps me to undress and she puts me into my bed. She knows this sad routine, it is her burden and it is the reason she is with me. She is kindness and comfort, and she is my nurse and she is my angel. And she lies behind me on the covers, and she presses her body against my back, and she holds me tight, and nuzzles my hair, and she waits with an infinite patience until exhaustion and the shadows take me.

12

“All things are intertwined with one another;

United by a sacred bond;

And there is
scarcely any thing unconnected to any other thing.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

I am back in the
forest of charred trees. On the horizon a mountain is belching forth flame and acrid smoke. Scores of black winged creatures circle and swoop in the red light some distance away. Ash falls around me like snow. Ahead of me in a clearing is a long table set for tea, sitting at which are skeletons clothed in rotted Victorian garb. The bones in the host’s chair wear an oversized top hat. Everything is coated in the grey powder.

I move beyond the clearing and see again the white
-boarded house. With the passage of time it has become a ruin. The roof has fallen in, the front door hangs lopsidedly on its hinges and the windows are broken and dirty. The deck-chair in the garden is unoccupied, torn and stained; the rag that bound the old man’s eyes lies draped across it.

I
squeeze past the door and enter the house. As I make my way across the dim hallway, the dusty wooden floorboards creak beneath my feet. Against a peeling wall stands an ancient ornate mirror, its glass cracked and clouded. I gaze at my reflection and see a gaunt, stooped figure with burning eyes. I realise that I have become the old man.

I go back out into the garden and take my place in the deckchair.

I wait for the circling demons to see me.

When I awake it takes me a few moments to register I am in my bedroom and it is morning. The imprint of Wayan’s body is still apparent on the bedcovers, and on the pillow she has left a trace of her scent.

Whenever I have had one of these
cathartic episodes in the past, I have woken up feeling different, but this time
everything
feels different. I am slightly dehydrated, but calm and more clear-headed than I have been in weeks; almost
purged
. I can hope that perhaps I have finally re-emerged from the rabbit hole. In my personal version of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party the clock has been motionless for the last four years. I sense that time may be starting to drag itself forward again, albeit slowly. The ceiling fan whispers above me stirring the air.

I
resolve myself to action, climb out of bed, and shower away the night-sweats. Shaved and dressed, I feel almost euphoric. It could be just another manic upswing, but I think not.

When I go downstairs Wayan examines my face closely and decides she likes what she sees.

“Mr. David, you look better. You have come back to me.”

“I feel better.”

It appears as if she is going to hug me, then she changes her mind, then she changes her mind again and does hug me.

I put my arms around her.

“Welcome back,” she says into my shoulder and squeezes me tight.

I step back from her
and notice the wetness sparkle in her eyes. Holding her arms I say, “Come upstairs with me. We have something to do.”

“Don’t you want some breakfast?” she asks, not sure where this is leading.

“Afterwards.”

We go back up into my bedroom and I indicate Claire’s perfumes and lotions on the dressing table.

“I am having a clear-out today,” I say. “Do you want any of this stuff?”

Wayan is not sure whether to be happy or fearful. She shakes her head.

I fling open the wardrobe door where Claire’s clothes hang.

“How about any of these? Any good for you?”

She shakes her head again. “I do not think I should be wearing any of Miss Claire’s clothes, Mr. David. It would not feel right.”

“I understand,” I reply. “
Inappropriate. Anyway, your bum is probably too big.”

“Is it?” she says concerned.

“Not at all,” I laugh. “You have a lovely bum, Wayan. Now help me with all this. We’re going to have a bonfire.”

We sweep up all the cosmetics
and drop them into a box: this can go out with the refuse.

In big armfuls we carry
all of Claire’s dresses downstairs and deposit them in a pile in a corner of the garden. I fetch some lighter fluid and pour it over them. I hear Wayan catch her breath.

“Mr
. David,” she says in a concerned voice, “Are you sure –”

“I’m sure, Wayan. It’s time to let go.”

I start the fire, and watch as it consumes my dead wife’s clothing. It is as if I am bearing witness to her cremation for a second time. Wayan stands beside me and says some prayers or incantations quietly in Balinese. Her fingers lock into mine and we stare at the burning pyre. Images of the murdered farangs flick through my mind, although my thoughts are mainly of past days with a flame-haired girl. The hot bright sky looks down on this impromptu ritual as the smoke rises upwards and the green leaves wobble distortedly in the haze.

After a few minutes t
he fire dies and Wayan wipes my cheek tenderly. We go inside to breakfast together.

*       *       *       *       *

An unfamiliar number comes up on my cell phone.

“Hello, this is David Braddock.”

“Ah, hello,” says a hung-over English voice, “This is Peter Ashley. I’m calling on my new phone as you asked.”

“Good. How are you feeling today?”

“I feel like crap. I’m afraid I don’t remember too much about yesterday evening. I do remember however that you mentioned my brother’s name, and that you got me back to my hotel in one piece. Thank you for that.”

“Listen, Peter, I need to talk to you about your brother.
I’m a private investigator and I’m looking into your brother’s death. I’ll explain it all later.” I’m not about to go into details now about how I’m assisting the police in case he goes off on one.

“You’re a detective?” he asks hopefully.

“I’m what passes for one on Samui anyway. We’ll discuss it later, but in the meantime I’d suggest you stay at your hotel. Do some sunbathing or swimming. Have a massage. Do something non-aggressive. Keep your head down, just for today. Will you do that?”

He sounds reluctant.

“I suppose. Although I do need to find this girl –”

“I may be able to help you there. I
n my line of work I know lots of girls. But you need to stay out of trouble, Peter. The authorities here won’t hesitate to boot you out of the country if we have a repeat of last night’s floor show. You can’t go around getting pissed out of your brain
and
slagging off the police and the whole of the native population. If I hadn’t arrived when I did you’d be in a cell now. Probably with internal haemorrhaging.”

“OK, OK. I’ll lay off the sauce as well. But you’ll come and see me later today?”

“Yes. I’ve some errands to run first, but I’ll be over to your hotel later this afternoon. I’ll call you if there’s any change. I’ve got your number now.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

*       *       *       *       *

The American educational psychologist Patricia Alexander has expressed the view that fear paralyses and curiosity empowers. Accordingly,
she reasons, we should always be more interested than afraid.

Mind you, she’s probably never found herself driving to an appointment with a Crime Godfather.

However, although I’d have to be brain-dead not to feel some apprehension at the forthcoming meeting, I do confess to feeling a certain curiosity at seeing Kat’s
other
lover. I am also aware of a small twinge of jealousy nibbling at me. While I am hardly in a position to object to sharing her with her husband, I do feel slightly resentful of being number
three
in the queue for her favours.

Be curious, not fearful
.

Not that curiosity did the cat any good.

Rattanakorn’s office is a
modernistic steel and glass building outside Lamai, set inside a high-walled compound. Security guards scrutinise the underside of my car with a mirror on a pole and look inside. My passport is checked against a list before the barrier is raised.

One of the guards escorts me inside the structure. I’m taken up two flights of stairs where two other large guards – this time in suits, not uniforms – frisk me
intimidatingly, before knocking on the door of their boss’ office.

I am admitted into a large bright room whose walls are
adorned with modern artwork and antique statuary. In the centre of the room is an enormous carved mahogany desk behind which sits Thongchai Rattanakorn. He dismisses the bodyguards with a nod and indicates for me to sit.

“Mr
. David Braddock,” he says appraising me as if I am some curious
object d’art
.

“Mr
. Rattanakorn.”

The businessman is wearing a
white tailored shirt with his initials on the breast. His cufflinks look to be made of real diamonds. The tie is red and wide with a dragon motif. His sharp pinstriped jacket hangs on the chair behind him.

He is a handsome, beautifully groomed bugger
, and his face puts me in mind of the heart-throb actor Jet Li – maybe he has some Chinese ancestry. But his most striking feature is his piercing eyes. His whole persona exudes confidence and power. He should be stroking a white long-haired cat and plotting the death of James Bond. As I look at him I feel my peripheral vision shrink, my reality collapsing to a tunnel which ends in his unblinking gaze.

The contrast with Charoenkul could hardly be more striking.
Here
is real authority and intensity, compared to which Papa Doc appears as a jumped-up and anodyne bureaucrat.

Rattanakorn indicates for me to sit.

“Would you prefer us to converse in English or Thai?” he asks in my native tongue. “I am given to understand that you are fluent in my language.”

“I have no preference.”

“Then we will stick to English.”

Silence
. Rattanakorn smoothly raises a china teacup to his lips, takes a delicate sip and sets down the cup; his eyes never leaving mine. He sits unmoving and waits for me to speak.

“Well, first let me reassure you I have not come here with any malicious intent. I realise my telephone call to you may have caused you some concern
, but I felt it was necessary to meet you in person.”

There is another silence. When he speaks it is as if I had not said anything.

“Do you know who I am?” he asks. There is a touch of menace in his voice and I feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck.

Before I can answer he goes on. “It’s just that –” he pauses, picks up the teacup again, sips thoughtfully and replaces it carefully in its saucer. “It’s just that on occasion people seem to get the wrong idea about me. I have even come across individuals who seem to have a notion that I am some kind of
Crime Lord
here on Samui, that I am somehow an Underworld figure. Have you heard anything of this, Mr. Braddock?” His voice is mild, but all the more frightening for that.

“I have heard that you are well-connected,” I say carefully, “and from a very powerful Thai family; that you were educated at Cambridge and in the United States; and that you go about your business affairs in a very private – some might say secretive – fashion.”

“Anything else?”

“Also that wherever you go you are accompanied by bodyguards. And this to most people is a sure sign that you are a
jâo phâw.”

“On that reasoning,” he says, “
that would make most wealthy people gangsters.”

“Most wealthy people
are
gangsters.”

He opens a drawer of his desk, casually takes out a
pistol, flicks off the safety catch and points it at my head.

He says almost sorrowfully, “Do you believe me to be a gangster, Mr
. Braddock?”

“I suppose I do, Mr
. Rattanakorn,” I respond in the same tone.

“Then I suppose at this point you would expect me to shoot you.”

“No, actually I wouldn’t.”

“And why is that?”

“Two reasons: one practical and one artistic.”

“Please e
xplain,” he continues in an almost friendly fashion, although the barrel of the gun remains aligned with the centre of my forehead.

“First, you don’t really know why I’ve come here. You probably suspect a blackmail motive, but you’re not sure. Also I may have protected myself by leaving some incriminating document with a trusted person.

“Secondly, if you were to pull that trigger not only would the bullet pass through me and a rather splendid abstract canvas behind me, but also my ensuing blood loss would completely ruin the marvellously intricate and expensive Kashmir rug that is underneath my chair.