Slowly it grew dark. His partners had not come. Did nobody know what had happened to him? Did nobody care?
Now he was no longer confident of an early release. Instead he was growing more and more scared of what the next day might bring.
When it was dark the chao chai came. Rent boys, Greg thought. Sex workers, plying their trade.
Furtive movements. Whispers. High-pitched giggles were followed by other sounds that left no doubt as to what was happening in the crowded cell, not three metres from him. The young man to whom he had given the money placed his hand, feather-light, on Greg’s thigh. His spread fingers squeezed tentatively. In the faint light from the corridor Greg saw the young face staring enquiringly at him.
Degradation … Was there no bottom to the pit into which he had been thrown? Or was it a gesture of kindness, a willingness to share, from a man who for all Greg knew might be as innocent of crime as he was?
Whatever the motive, it was not a game he was willing to play. He removed the hand from his thigh, patted it gently and returned it to the young man’s lap. From the man’s response one might have thought nothing had happened at all.
Greg lay in the darkness, thinking of what might have followed, had he permitted it. He had never made love with a man; his instinct rejected even the idea of it, yet to his amazement he found that a part of him regretted his refusal of the young man’s advances. In accepting him he might have been able to forget, if only for a few minutes, the situation in which he was now placed.
Too late to do anything about it now.
Once again he leant his head against the wall behind him and closed his eyes. Sounds faded. He slept.
The next morning began with chaos: the men in the cell fighting for the little water that was available for washing themselves, following by a breakfast of rice husks that had been put out earlier and were, by the time Greg managed to snatch a share, cold, stodgy and barely edible.
Later, shackled and in prison clothes into which he had managed to transfer both his money and his watch, he was paraded before an official who through an interpreter informed him that he was to be charged with attempting to bring cocaine into the country, a crime for which the penalty was a minimum jail term of twenty years.
As his Australian passport had been confiscated by the police, the Australian embassy had been informed and an official would be visiting him later that day.
Avis Willoughby came to see him that afternoon. She was in her late thirties, her chestnut-coloured hair cut short. She had brown eyes and her skin was tanned, as though she spent a lot of time in the open air. She wore a fawn business suit in a lightweight material so smart that it looked like a fashion statement. Apart from a pinched look about the nose she was a good-looking woman and Greg, always susceptible to good-looking women, was cheered by the sight of her.
This one will soon sort things out, he thought.
Wearing a distasteful expression, she checked her chair for dust or germs before she sat down. She stared at him for a minute without speaking. There was no warmth in the brown eyes and he felt a flicker of doubt that was confirmed when she began to speak, because it was at once obvious that she had the self-righteous purity of one who had committed no sin and who knew everything there was to know about the world and, in particular, the stupidity of Australian men who got themselves involved in the drugs trade.
‘It’s an offence that is taken very seriously by the Thai authorities,’ she said. ‘Do you realise you could even be sentenced to death for what you’ve done?’
‘I didn’t do it,’ Greg said. And yes, he was well aware of the possible consequences.
‘HE is very anxious we should do everything we can to help you,’ Ms Willoughby said. ‘But there are limits to what we can do.’
‘HE?’ Greg asked.
Ms Willoughby also had no patience with those unfamiliar with the niceties of service terminology. ‘His Excellency,’ she said. ‘The Ambassador.’
‘Ah,’ Greg said. ‘That HE.’
‘The death penalty is seldom applied,’ Ms Willoughby said with what might have been regret. ‘But you could still be looking at significant prison time. If you plead guilty, the courts will normally grant a reduction of sentence of up to fifty per cent. So, my advice to you is—’
‘I didn’t do it,’ Greg said.
‘My advice to you is to plead guilty. That way you might be sentenced to as little as ten years.’
‘Can you inform my family? And arrange for a lawyer to come and see me?’
Avis Willoughby’s lips were tighter than bowstrings. ‘I’ll see what I can do. But I still think a guilty plea is your best—’
‘A lawyer, Ms Willoughby. If you please. As soon as possible.’
‘Very well.’
‘One more thing,’ Greg said.
Ms Willoughby had stood up. No doubt she was in a hurry; Greg suspected that she, good-looking or not, was the sort of official whose life was consumed by the need to be busy.
‘My passport.’
‘What about it?’
‘The cops took it. I want it back.’
‘They took it for a good reason,’ Ms Willoughby said. ‘It is to prevent those on bail from absconding.’
‘I am not on bail. I want it back.’
‘Our policy at the Australian embassy is to co-operate with the authorities as far as we can. I do not believe it would be politic for the embassy to interfere in the matter of your passport.’
Shaking the dust of the jail off her crocodile-skin shoes, Ms Willoughby whisked herself away.
The lawyer came that afternoon.
Attorney Dangda was slender and dark-skinned, a man in his middle fifties with bright and observant eyes.
He listened to Greg’s explanation without interrupting him and Greg could not read his thoughts.
When Greg had finished, the lawyer pursed his full lips and appeared in thought for a minute before speaking.
‘How do you explain the cocaine being in the case when in Singapore you saw only electrical equipment?’
‘I can’t explain it.’
‘Your partners are Mongkut and Somchai, both of them based in Krabi?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I should tell you they have a reputation here in Bangkok. The word is they are unscrupulous, with a bad record and criminal associates, hard men.’ He looked at Greg. ‘I think we need look no further for an explanation.’
‘I don’t understand. I’ve found them very helpful to me.’
‘I’m sure you have, but in their own interests, not yours. They wish to take over your resort. They have influential friends in government but with their track record would have been unable to get authorisation to develop the island themselves. Therefore they used you, a foreigner. As a means to an end, you understand.’
‘They’ve put a lot of their own money into the development.’
‘A lot of somebody’s money,’ Dangda said. ‘And no doubt they asked you to make a contribution, too.’
‘Quarter of a million.’
‘Which I am guessing you could not pay.’
‘Why didn’t they wait, if what you say is true? They could still have set me up later.’
‘I suspect they would have been under pressure from their real partners, the syndicate here in Bangkok. And they may have formed the opinion that you were unlikely ever to be in a position to pay them.’
‘Who are these people you call the syndicate?’
‘No way to know. Could be customs officers, high-ups in the police or government, other businessmen. Someone in a position to switch the contents of the case. But in truth it doesn’t matter who they are. What matters is that you will be found guilty whatever you say.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘You will be held for eighty-four days while your case is investigated. That is the standard time. Plead guilty and matters will be resolved quickly after the investigation period. Plead not guilty and you will be held
for a minimum of six months before your trial, with virtually no chance of an acquittal. The Thai legal system is designed to discourage people from contesting charges, and offers the inducement of a commuted sentence—half the declared sentence—if the defendant pleads guilty.’
‘But I didn’t do it. I’m not guilty.’
‘Unfortunately, that is irrelevant.’
‘You are saying I should plead guilty, even though I’m innocent.’
‘It is the only sensible option.’
‘Any chance of bail?’
‘Certainly, if you are in a position to put up the bond fee.’
‘How much is that?’
‘Ten thousand dollars should be enough. But if you try to abscond the money will be confiscated.’ The lawyer stood. ‘I will leave you for a day or two to think it over. You can let me know your decision when I come back.’
At times like this his burden of shame was almost too much for Greg to bear.
In the days before his arrest, things had been different. It had been easy to let himself be distracted by the latest craze, the latest song, the latest woman. An experience he’d had with the Tasmanian police when he was nineteen had taught him that the only belief he should take seriously was the one that said you should never take life seriously, that its juices were there to be sucked freely by those, like him, who dared say to hell with responsibility and diligence and caring, and that, above all things, you should never trust officials or authority because they would stab you in the back the first opportunity they had.
Tomorrow, like today, was no more than another click on the turnstile of life leading to the happy lands where joy and licence were one. Now—surrounded by over a hundred prisoners crammed with him into a cell designed to hold twenty-five, their presence elbowing aside any possibility of joy—the thought that bedevilled him most was not, as it had been when he was nineteen, that he was innocent of the crime of which he was accused, but that this time he was at least partially responsible for the nightmare that now engulfed him, that his own folly in trusting too easily had brought him to this cell in this prison in this city where he had neither friend nor future.
What made things even worse was knowing that if, by some miracle, he managed to escape from his present situation, it would ultimately make no difference. He had learnt to trust no one in authority; nothing would ever change that; he was destined to be permanently at odds with the rules society sought to impose on him. There lay the greatest hopelessness of all, because he was determined to find his own path and that was something people with power would do everything they could to prevent.
Surrounded by those who would wipe him off the map, given half a chance, he thought once again of the events, fifteen years before, that had helped him develop the attitude to authority that had set him on the road to his present disaster.
1978
CHAPTER 45
It was Sunday, 13 August, thirteen days after his nineteenth birthday, and he was driving north along the road out of Queenstown. It was dark. Winter lingered late in that part of the world and the frosty sky sparkled with stars. There might have been patches of frost on the road, too, but Greg had to be at work early the following day so kept up a good pace.
He’d stopped for one quick beer with a mate before leaving Queenstown but he was a teenager; he knew he was bulletproof and the accidents you read about in the papers would never happen to him.
As he drove, he caught occasional glimpses of the ocean away to his left, its waters white under a gibbous moon, while on his right there appeared at lengthy intervals the clustered lights of a lonely farm.
He saw only the occasional vehicle.
Fifteen kilometres north of Queenstown he passed through the little settlement of Jericho, where ninety years before a gold mine had flourished briefly but which was notable now only for the police station servicing that section of the west coast and a twenty-five-bed hospital that had been funded originally by the gold mine’s owners but was now maintained by a reluctant state government.
Seven kilometres north of Jericho he passed what he thought was the body of a wombat lying at the side of the road. He drove on without slowing but a minute or two later found himself questioning whether it had been a wombat at all.
Instinctively he eased his foot on the accelerator. As the car slowed, he asked himself what else it could have been. The car stopped and he could hear the engine block ticking in the silence.
Far too big for an echidna, the wrong density for a wallaby, a wombat was the only creature he could think of that fitted the bill. And he really didn’t have much time to waste. He almost drove on but doubt continued to nag him.
Never send to know for whom the bell tolls: he had read it somewhere. It tolls for thee.
For a wombat? Don’t be ridiculous!
But what if it wasn’t a wombat?
It would take less than five minutes to put his mind at ease, so, reluctantly, he turned the car and drove back the way he had come.
He drove slowly, to make sure he didn’t miss the object he had seen. No vehicle passed him in either direction. It seemed a lot further back than he remembered, but eventually there the object was, lying just his side of a dip in the road where frost was sparkling on the bitumen.
He drew to a halt and got out, breath pluming in the cold night air. He could not see what the object was, yet instinctively he did know, and when he walked across the road he saw that he was right.
It was a child, a boy, little more than an infant. It looked as though he’d been hit a glancing blow by a vehicle that had failed to stop. The boy was unconscious, with some bruising, but as far as he could tell had suffered no broken limbs. There was no sign of blood but it was obvious that the child should be examined by a doctor.
He had read you shouldn’t move the victim of an accident until the nature of the injuries had been determined, but he couldn’t very well leave the kid untended at the side of the road.
With great care he lifted him onto the back seat of the car and drove back to the hospital on the outskirts of the town he had just left.
His intention was to leave the boy at the Jericho hospital and get on home. It was not his child, his responsibility, his grief, but when he explained the situation to the white-coated nurse in the office, the man said he’d better stay.
‘If you’re the only witness the police may want to speak to you.’
‘Okay. But what about the child?’
The receptionist was young, as starched as his coat. He lifted a phone on his desk and summoned staff who brought a stretcher. They fetched the still-unconscious child from the car.
‘Do I really need to wait? I don’t know anything—’
‘You must definitely wait. The police will want to question you.’
It seemed that becoming involved in an accident of which he had no knowledge carried with it a burden of some responsibility.
‘Okay. I’d certainly like to know if he’ll be all right. Do we know who he is?’
Because surely he must be a local? But the receptionist seemed suspicious of Greg’s interest in the child’s wellbeing. He said:
‘In the case of road accidents, it is not our practice to reveal the identity of the victim until the family has been informed.’
The police came. There were two officers; one with a sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve, and a younger man, presumably a constable. They went to the reception desk and had a word with the receptionist who answered them in a low voice, leaning forward as he did so and casting glances at Greg sitting in the waiting area.
The officers came across and invited Greg to accompany them to a private room. They sat on one side of a long table, Greg on the other. It made him feel he was on trial, or at least under investigation. The officers had not removed their caps. Like the receptionist, they were formally polite but clearly suspected he was responsible for what had happened to the child.
The sergeant leant across the table and sniffed deeply.
‘There’s alcohol on your breath.’
‘A beer with a friend. One beer.’
‘Drinking and driving,’ the sergeant said. ‘Not a good look.’
‘One beer,’ Greg said.
‘So you say,’ the other officer said.
I say it because it’s true.
He did not dare say it; he had no proof and these men were interested only in proof.
‘We’re not blaming you.’ The sergeant oozed sincerity. ‘The kid ran across the road in front of you: that what happened? Couldn’t avoid him.’
‘Happens all the time,’ the younger officer said. ‘Booze slows your reflexes, you know that?’
‘I never touched him. I saw him at the side of the road and brought him in. You saying I should have left him there?’
The sergeant shook his head sadly. ‘Getting mad at us isn’t going to help you.’
‘We didn’t knock him down,’ the other officer said.
‘Neither did I!’
‘I was you,’ the sergeant said, ‘I’d man up. Admit you clipped him. The courts will go easy on you when they know you brought him in.’
‘Even though you’d been drinking,’ the constable said.
‘Get off with a fine, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Lose your licence, of course.’
‘You got a valid licence, I s’pose?’
He hadn’t done it, hadn’t done it, hadn’t done it.
‘I saw him lying at the side of the road,’ Greg said. ‘I brought him in. I had nothing to do with the accident.’
Now both the officers had the same sad look, shaking their heads in unison.
‘You keep denying it and we check your car …’ the constable said.
‘The slightest scratch,’ the sergeant said.
‘Go badly for you if we find anything,’ the constable said.
‘Driving under the influence. Wasting our time. Dear oh dear. Maybe you should come with us to the station. Make a statement. Get it off your chest.’
It must feel like this to be mugged. A casual stroll down an empty street, listening to the magpies singing, then the violent blow from nowhere …
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