The Payback (14 page)

‘You don’t seem the type to be a dive instructor in a place like this,’ she said as we sat together on the side decking of the boat, our feet dangling over the edge.

‘What’s the type?’

‘I don’t know. More shallow.’

I laughed. ‘How do you know I’m not shallow?’

‘I can tell. You’ve got sad eyes.’ She grinned. ‘A lot of dark secrets in there.’

‘I wish,’ I said, and proceeded to give her my revised background – the one I’d learned off by heart for just this kind of eventuality. How I’d grown bored in my job as an IT software salesman and had one day pooled together all my savings and simply taken off round the world, settling first in the Philippines, then here.

Emma bought the story. In the end, there was no reason for her not to. I’m a good liar, and it was a plausible enough tale. I was mildly concerned that she might twig who I was because she would have been in the UK when my face was splashed across the front pages there, but I trusted in the effects of time and the plastic surgery I’d had in the Philippines, and found myself relaxing in her company, enjoying the fact that for once I was having a non-diving conversation.

At the end of the day, as the boat pulled up in the harbour, with the sun setting behind us, Emma asked if I’d like to join her and her friend for a drink. I should have said no – it would have been safer that way – but life in paradise can be very unfulfilling, and I felt a real yearning for good company. So I told her I’d love to, and offered to bring a couple of the dive staff along too, thinking that I didn’t want Emma’s friend to feel too left out.

We met up at a beach bar near where they were staying, and as the evening progressed it became more and more obvious that Emma was interested in me. I was interested in her too. At thirty-six, she was only six years younger than me, and she had a hell of a lot going for her. She was fun; she was interesting; she was attractive. She was, I realized to my surprise, everything that I’d been missing over the
years, and I ignored my innate instinct for caution and let the moment take me.

After we’d walked Emma’s friend back to the beach bungalow they were sharing, the two of us went for a walk along the beach, hand in hand. We kissed, we touched, we carried on talking, and it was three a.m. when I finally dropped her back.

The next day they didn’t come diving. The friend wanted to hire a car and drive round the island, but we met up again in the evening, and again we managed to slip away alone and wander down the beach, enjoying the warm breeze and the silence. By the time I dropped Emma off again that night, I knew that this was something special.

A week later I was in Bangkok with a week’s leave and staying at her tiny apartment in the heart of the city.

It was, without doubt, the happiest week of my life. We ate, we drank, we made love. We were the only two people in the world. In forty-two years on the planet, I’d never been truly in love. Until that point. Now I was absolutely smitten. I’d finally discovered the swirling, intense, gut-wrenching feeling that encompassed excitement, passion, helplessness and sheer terror all in one go, and it was unstoppable.

I started seeing Emma whenever I could. It wasn’t that easy, because being a dive instructor can often be a seven-day-a-week job, but I had the advantage of being a part-owner in the place and, although money was tight, I got to Bangkok at least once a month, while Emma got down to see me at similar intervals, often for no more than a couple of days at a time. One time we even managed to get ten days off together and took off to Borneo to go diving and trekking.

Everything was rosy. The world, finally, offered a future of hope and contentment.

Which should have been a warning to me. Life can never be rosy for too long, at least not for a man like me – a man for whom freedom has always been a fragile, desperate gift. But I’d become complacent, so when the end came I still couldn’t quite believe it. In fact, I still can’t quite believe it now, three years later.

It all started when Emma fell pregnant a little over a year into our relationship. It was a complete accident. At least I thought it was. Perhaps she’d been secretly planning it. After all, she was well into her thirties and her biological clock would have been ticking pretty fast. But the fact was, when I found out I was happy. Nervous too, because it meant a huge commitment, but I also felt that it would bring Emma and me together and move our relationship up to a new level.

And at first it did. She was incredibly excited and we talked of our plans for the future.

Unfortunately, it seemed that our plans were very different. I wanted her to move down to Ko Lanta and have the baby there, because with my stake in the business I had enough money to support us all. But Emma wanted us to return to England. Her family were all still there, as were a few of her close friends, and she felt that it would be a better place to bring up a baby. She even suggested that I could get a job back in software sales.

‘Come on, Mick, you didn’t want to do this for ever, did you?’ she asked incredulously when I’d knocked that particular suggestion. ‘You’re too good for this.’

But the point was, I did, because the alternative – going back to the UK – simply couldn’t happen. I suppose I’d always known in the back of my mind that something like this was inevitable, yet I’d chosen to ignore it. We argued and, with her being strong-willed, she announced that she was going back anyway, telling me that if I loved her, I’d come back too.

It was a terrible position to be put in. I tried to persuade her to change her mind, saying I was the owner of a business, that I was happy here in the sunshine, and that she and the baby would be too if we only gave it a chance. For her part, she continued to try to persuade me that England offered the best, most secure future for us and our unborn child.

Eventually, we settled into an uneasy détente, neither of us wanting the arguments to destroy our relationship before it had had a chance to grow, and life continued with the two of us living apart. But then Emma announced that her parents were planning to visit, and wanted to come with her to Ko Lanta for a short holiday, and to meet me.

So it was with a heavy heart and a growing feeling of dread that I met them off the ferry a couple of weeks later.

Straight away, I knew her father didn’t like me. A short, rail-thin man in his late sixties who dressed like he’d just come from the eighteenth hole, he regarded me with barely suppressed suspicion from the moment we shook hands, his eyes scouring me for confirmation of my unsuitability. His name was Stephen, and he made a point of emphasizing the second syllable as if I might forget myself and insult him by calling him Steve. Emma’s mum, Diane, was the complete opposite, a cheery, smiling woman a few years younger who gave me a welcoming hug and a kiss on both cheeks; but I hardly noticed because I was too worried about the old man. An accountant by profession, he was the classic retired busybody who read the papers from cover to cover, doubtless bemoaning the state of the country, someone I knew would have devoured every detail of a story about a renegade police officer implicated in at least six murders.

Emma, on the other hand, seemed hugely happy to be introducing her parents to me, and talked with pride about our relationship, my business, and the good times we’d had together.
Three months into the pregnancy, she was blooming, her face a picture of health, the bump not yet showing. Acting like a woman without a care in the world.

After they’d settled into their hotel, half a mile down the road from where I had my bungalow, we went for a late lunch, and then I drove them round the island in a jeep I’d borrowed from a friend, showing them the various sights. It turned out to be quite a pleasant afternoon, mainly because I managed to avoid talking too much to the old man. At the same time, he seemed to be on his best behaviour, asking me the odd question about the business and my background, but mainly keeping his own counsel.

But when we met for dinner that night, I could tell he knew that something wasn’t quite right about me. He asked me more in-depth questions about my background – what I’d done in England; who I’d worked for; where my family were – a forced casualness in his tone that contrasted with the cold suspicion in his eyes. Diane playfully told him to stop interrogating me. Only Emma seemed to notice that something wasn’t quite right with her father.

I tried to shrug it off, turning on the charm full throttle, asking questions of my own, discussing current affairs, putting my hand in Emma’s to demonstrate our closeness. But inside I was rattled, a situation that grew steadily worse as the evening progressed and I caught Stephen watching me out of the corner of his eye when he thought I couldn’t see him, as if he knew he’d seen me before and was trying to remember when and where.

It was then that my panic gave way to something else. A numb resignation that my relationship with Emma and our unborn baby – my one true shot at happiness – was over. Her father might not have made the connection yet, but it was only a matter of time before he did. And then I wouldn’t just lose Emma. I’d effectively lose the rest of my life.

Lying in bed that night, with Emma’s head nestled in the crook of my shoulder as I listened to the chirping of the cicadas in the long grass outside the window, I made my plan.

The next morning, I told her I was feeling sick, and said that if she didn’t mind, I’d stay in bed a little longer and see if I could sleep it off. We’d only arranged to go to the beach with her parents so I could walk down to meet them later.

‘Of course,’ she said, touching my brow and looking concerned. ‘Take your time. I think they’ll be disappointed though. Especially my mum. She likes you.’

‘I like your mum too,’ I said, pulling her in closer, holding her for one last time, taking in her scent, the smell of shampoo in her hair, my hand running gently over the tiny bump as I silently said goodbye to a child I’d never meet, before finally letting her go.

I’ll always remember how low and empty I felt as I watched Emma disappear out of the door with a grin and a wave, knowing that as long as I lived I could never set eyes on her again.

Ten minutes later I was out of the bungalow carrying a holdall full of possessions, not even leaving a note behind. Using the car I’d borrowed the previous day, I drove down to the port and on to the car ferry, making my way to Krabi Airport. Six hours after that I was on an Air Asia flight from Bangkok to Phnom Penh in Cambodia – the kind of destination where I’d be able to lie low while I worked out my next move.

But things didn’t quite go according to plan. When I arrived at Phnom Penh Airport I was stopped at immigration, and before I knew it I was being taken down an adjoining corridor and into a windowless room by two silent men in uniform, who told me I was under arrest. When I asked on what charge, I was met with blank faces.

I was locked inside the room and left to stew for what was one of
the toughest hours of my life. I knew that somehow they’d found out who I was. I didn’t know how – although I suspected that my prospective father-in-law might have had a hand in it somewhere – but that was irrelevant right then. All that mattered was finding a way out of the situation. The problem was that there was no way out of it. I was trapped in an unfamiliar country with no weapon, no friends, and definitely no escape route.

The door finally opened, and I remember my stomach lurching as a hatchet-faced Cambodian in the uniform of a military officer came in and sat down at the table opposite me.

‘My name is Lieutenant-Colonel Thom of the Royal Gendarmerie,’ he said in heavily accented but perfect English. ‘And your name is Dennis Milne.’

‘No,’ I said firmly, determined not to show any sign of the panic that was tearing up my insides. ‘My name is Marcus Baxter. It says so in my passport.’

His face remained impassive. ‘You are Dennis Milne, and you are wanted by Interpol for murder. We can take a DNA swab from you and it will match the DNA of your family members back in Britain. You will be held in prison here in Phnom Penh while we await the results, and then you will be extradited back to your own country to face trial.’

I felt the whole world closing in on me. This day had always been coming, but now that it was here, its true ramifications were still impossibly hard for me to comprehend. Only twenty-four hours earlier I’d been driving round the paradise island of Ko Lanta in an open-top jeep with the woman I loved sitting next to me. Now my life was effectively over, because as soon as they got me back in the UK I’d be behind bars for the rest of my natural life. Even death was preferable to that, and it took every ounce of self-control to stop myself from breaking down.

So much so that I hardly heard Lieutenant-Colonel Thom’s next word.

‘Unless . . .’

I stopped. Looked into his dark eyes. Wondered if this was a trick to get me to admit who I was. ‘Unless what?’

‘Unless you do exactly what I say. There is a possibility that things do not have to . . .’ He paused, as if choosing the right word. ‘Escalate. If you are in agreement, then we are going to walk out of this door and go for a drive. Your passport will be left here. It will be destroyed. It is no use now anyway as the name on it has been identified as an alias used by you.’

‘But how will I be able to move around?’

‘You must ask no questions. You just do what I say. Yes?’

I had no idea what I was getting myself into but figured that it had to be better than the situation I was already in. So I said yes.