The Half-Child (29 page)

‘So you haven't told her he's alive?'

‘Sister, to be honest, I'm not sure I dare believe it.'

‘Oh, he's alive all right,' Jayne said.

She put a photo of Kob on the table between them, the same one she'd already mailed to Mayuree.

‘This is not all we have,' she said. ‘I've been investigating an adoption scam connected to the New Life Children's Centre.'

Mayuree nodded. They'd gone over this on the phone.

‘I had reason to believe Kob was handed over to an American couple. Last night I traced them to a hotel in Bangkok near the US Embassy. And Kob was with them. I saw him with my own eyes.'

‘And he was okay?'

‘He was fine.'

‘That's wonderful—' Mayuree began. ‘But why are you telling me this? Why haven't you brought my son back to me? Where's my baby now?'

‘Still with the Americans.'

‘Didn't you explain to them—'

‘Of course I did.'

‘And?'

‘They didn't believe me. They thought I was trying to blackmail them.'

Mayuree buried her face in her hands and shook her head.

‘They've applied for a visa to take him to America,' Jayne said. ‘The embassy is closed for Chinese New Year until tomorrow. We still have time to get to them. But you have to confront them, Mayuree. You're the only one who can get Kob back.'

Mayuree thought about her little son in the arms of strangers and felt
sia jai.
‘Sorry' in English, but much stronger in Thai. Not merely sorry. The heart was altogether lost.

‘We'll take the bus to Bangkok today,' Jayne was saying.

‘You need to bring as much evidence as you can—things that belonged to Kob, photos of the two of you together, messages addressed to both of you—anything that helps prove you're his mother.'

Mayuree thought of her bag tumbling from the motorbike as she left Pattaya, splitting open as it hit the ground. Her heart sank further.

She took her hands away from her face and looked at Jayne. ‘I'm not sure I have anything left.'

‘It doesn't matter. Your family and friends can swear that you're Kob's mother and didn't consent to his adoption.

I know a lawyer who can help with that stuff free-of-charge.

The most important thing is for you and Kob to be reunited.

No one will be able to refute your claims once they see the two of you together.'

They sat in the dappled sunlight of the garden for a moment without speaking.

‘How can you be so sure?' Mayuree said, staring at the ground.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean maybe Kob's already forgotten me. I wasn't a good mother to him. I left him with strangers. I didn't protect him. I
lost
him.

‘That's not true—'

Mayuree cut her off. ‘You don't understand, Khun Jayne. You don't know me. Kob is better off where he is now. He's destined for a rich country with two parents to care for him.
Laew teh duang
. Thai people believe it always comes down to fate.'

Mayuree didn't look up but she heard her farang companion groan and mutter something in English.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?' Jayne asked.

‘Please.'

Jayne lit a cigarette, drew back and exhaled in a long, smoky sigh.

‘Look, maybe I'm just a farang who doesn't understand Thai culture. But with all due respect, I think what you just said is
bullshit
.'

The English expletive gave Mayuree a jolt. She raised her head. Jayne was seated in profile to her, colour in her cheeks.

‘You love your son, sister, and he loves you. I know you tried to spend time with him, resisted the pressure to give him up. I saw your apartment in Pattaya and the effort you made to keep it clean and welcoming for him. I know the long hours you worked in order to build a future for him.'

She turned to face Mayuree.

‘I don't know you well but I know enough. You're a good mother, Mayuree, and Kob's rightful place is with you.

And if you're going to call it fate, make sure you've read it correctly that it's your fate to let someone steal Kob away rather than stand up and fight for him.'

She butted out her unfinished cigarette.

Mayuree struggled to contain her emotions. No one had ever told her she was a good mother. She felt the strong beat of a heart she thought was lost.

‘This lawyer who will help me free-of-charge. Is that because she's no good?'

For the first time since she arrived, Jayne smiled.

‘On the contrary, people like you and me could never afford her fees. She owes me a favour. So you'll come to Bangkok with me?'

‘Can you give me a few hours?'

Jayne glanced at her watch. ‘Think you can make the three o'clock bus?'

Mayuree nodded.

Jayne took out her phone, hesitated.

‘There's one other thing I need to know, sister,' she said. ‘Where's Sumet?'

37

S
umet paused by the pond at the base of the Little Hill Cave Temple to watch a father and his infant daughter try to coax fat, indolent carp to eat the pellets they proffered. It was an exercise in merit-making to feed the fish, but the carp were not obliging. An old woman was faring better at a nearby shrine, where an ancient monk muttered blessings over her bowed head. On the ground between them was a cloth laid out with offerings of incense, candles and flowers. Sumet recalled how it grated on Maryanne that women and monks were forbidden to touch.

Not even to be allowed to pass something directly to a monk without making him unclean,
he could hear her say.
How's that supposed to make me feel?

It's because women are so much more powerful than men
, he told her ghost.
Surely you can see that now.

But in death as in life, she wouldn't see reason. She was too strong-willed—part of what Sumet found attractive about her. Had his sister Mayuree been more like Maryanne, she would never have allowed herself to get into the trouble she did. The problem for Sumet was never Maryanne's character. The problem was one of fit.

Phit fah, phit tua
, as the saying goes. ‘Wrong lid, wrong box.'

Maryanne's behaviour was at odds with what was expected of women in Thailand. She was neither patient nor accommodating. She was passionate, laughed out loud and treated everyone as an intimate friend. While Sumet might be able to tolerate this, others would not. She didn't belong in Thailand and never would.

Maybe Sumet didn't belong in Australia either, but he could adapt. Sumet was used to farangs whereas Maryanne, by her own admission, had grown up in a part of Australia where there were no Asians. For these reasons, he should've been able to convince her that the best option for them once they married was to live in Australia, not Thailand. But she wouldn't listen.

During one of their more heated exchanges, he bit back the urge to ask what good there was in marrying a farang if it meant having to stay in Thailand.

Sumet had lived with his parents in a Kanchanaburi shop-house with ceiling fans, cold running water and a kitchen on the back veranda. He'd supplemented his paltry teacher's wage with work as a tour guide and translator.

His family had no political connections, nothing to get him ahead in life. But he was good looking and spoke English well, which made him a good catch. At least, that's what the older Australian woman who took him to bed after one memorable tour told him. So when his sister called to ask for help with the new baby, Sumet followed her to Pattaya, where he could meet a nice, wealthy farang girl.

Mayuree told him about the orphanage where farang girls volunteered, and he advertised his services there as a Thai language teacher, sure that only very wealthy people could afford to work for nothing. When Maryanne answered his ad, he thought his prayers had been heard. She was sexy and fun and her family was rich. Sumet figured once they moved to Australia, with her contacts and his language skills, it wouldn't take long to get him a job in the family business. He would be able to buy everything they wanted, even a car. After a while he would send for Mayuree and Kob. He had it all planned.

But Maryanne refused to live in Australia.
We've got love
, she'd say.
That's all we need
.

Sumet knew for a fact it never was, but he was in too deep to walk away. He grew desperate as he glimpsed a future in which his responsibilities increased but not his income.

Since Maryanne wouldn't listen to reason, he had to play on her fears. He didn't want to, but he was starting to panic. He came up with an idea to undermine her confidence, leave her off-balance enough to lean on him for support. In her vulnerable state he'd convince her they were better off in Australia. No one was supposed to get hurt.

But Sumet's plan went horribly wrong, leaving him with a
phi tai hong tong klom
—most fearsome of ghosts—at his back, and a karmic debt it would take the rest of this lifetime as a monk to atone for.

He turned his back on the pilgrims and made his way past the gold Chinese lions that guarded the entrance—the male on the left playing with a ball, the female on the right with a paw on her cub—and headed up the hill to his place of meditation.

The name Tiger Cave Temple suggested a secret refuge concealed by dense jungle where a man on the run might hide out undiscovered for years. So when, after a twenty-minute ride from Kanchanaburi town, her motorcycle taxi driver pulled over at the foot of a hill behind several tour buses on a stretch lined with crowded restaurants, Jayne thought she was in the wrong place. The driver assured her that this was Wat Tham Seua.

A steep green and gold
naga
staircase leading to the summit was swarming with Chinese New Year holidaymakers posing for photos with the temple's great terracotta tiled
chedi
tower in the background. A meandering path off to the right offered a less crowded climb. Jayne passed half-constructed shrines, picnic platforms, a peacock aviary, and a nondescript gash in the hillside sign-posted as the entrance to the Tiger Cave. She emerged near the summit opposite a snack stand. Grateful to live in a country where no site was too sacred to serve refreshments, she purchased a plastic bag of iced tea and sipped it through a straw as she sauntered up a short flight of stairs to the main terrace.

The vision that greeted her was a lustrous gold Buddha large enough to cradle a ten-year-old child in the palm of his outstretched hand. His crossed legs rested on a platform of concrete lotus petals, and at his feet was a giant alms bowl fed either side by a conveyor belt.

A row of vendors opposite the Buddha sold flowers, incense, candles and coins. Jayne watched as a Thai woman and her child fed a stack of baht coins into the little metal dishes attached at regular intervals to the conveyor belt, which transported and deposited these offerings into the oversized alms bowl. Low-tech, high-kitsch, gloriously Thai.

To the left of the Buddha was a gaudily painted concrete tiger with a big head. To the right was a Bodhi tree hung with brass bells and coloured sashes. Beyond the tree a terrace opened on to a breathtaking vista of the Mae Klong

River valley and Kanchanaburi town in the distance.

Jayne could have lingered, but the monks in yellow, orange and ochre robes arranged like a string of marigolds on a nearby bench reminded her of her purpose. She approached a young man at one end of the row.

‘
Phra ka
,' she said, using the honorific reserved for monks, nobility and Buddha images. ‘Can you help me? I've come to see
Phra
Sumet. His sister Mayuree sent me.'

‘You'll find him at Wat Tham Khao Noi,' the young monk said. ‘He goes there to meditate.'

He gestured into the distance, and Jayne realised he was referring to a pagoda on top of another hill.

She nudged her way through the crowds on the
naga
staircase and descended to find her
motercy
driver. He ferried her as far as the base of Wat Tham Khao Noi, which although its name translated as Little Hill Cave Temple, was another steep climb. She followed a path that passed through buildings guarded by fierce stone warriors and connected with a staircase that zigzagged towards the summit, its balustrades formed by sculpted dragons spewing water.

As she neared the top, she paused on a small sheltered balcony to wipe the sweat from her face. The view looked away from the river over ripening rice paddies dotted with white herons to limestone cliffs beyond. Branches of frangipani trees stretched towards her like hands. There was hardly a sound, just birds and the breeze. This was more like the quiet retreat she'd imagined for Sumet.

Reluctantly she turned from the view to ascend the last steps to the pagoda and found herself face-to-face with a young monk whose resemblance to Mayuree was unmistakable. He had the same heart-shaped face and almond eyes but he was prettier than his sister. His smile turned his eyes into little half-moons and revealed straight white teeth. There was far more stubble on his head than on his chin. He looked so innocent, Jayne almost felt guilty for what she was about to do.

‘
Phra
Sumet?' she said.

The man's smiled wavered but he nodded. He sat down on one of the bench seats lining the balcony and gestured for her to take the seat opposite.

‘
Phra
, my name is Jayne Keeney,' she began. ‘I'm a private detective. I'm trying to help your sister to get her son back.'

Sumet nodded.

‘I was actually hired by the father of Maryanne Delbeck to look into her death.'

He blanched, nodded again.

‘You don't seem surprised to see me?'

‘I've been expecting you.'

He had a sweet, almost childish voice.

‘Did Mayuree warn you I was coming?'

‘No,' he said. ‘I should say I wasn't exactly expecting
you
, Khun Jayne. But I knew it could only be a matter of time before someone came.'