Moogie became flat deadpan. ‘I’m sorry if you’re angry with me, Krystelle. But I want to be friends. If you would like a bath when you rise I’ll see that everything is in order. And there will be time to talk later.’
Grant was suddenly suspicious. ‘About what?’
‘The man Mark Goodenough. We must discuss how to kill him.’
‘We?’
Moogie’s face seemed suddenly to have aged. ‘I wish to destroy the man who killed my father. We can work together.’
Grant lit a cigarette without fully realising what he was doing. ‘Goodenough may have been the murderer, but I must find out who is behind him. There will be some sort of organisation and it must be wiped out.’
‘Then you wipe it out while I handle Goodenough.’
Krystelle relaxed back into her chair. ‘Moogie. Listen here. You did a good job tonight and you operated like an expert, but the fact remains that we were tired and you took us off guard. Rubbing out bad men is our job. If you try to mix it with professionals the chances are about two million to one against. In fact, baby, you’ll end up on a marble slab.’
‘You think so? But we can speak about it later. Now go to bed and be nice to David so that he sleeps well. I shall waken you in ten hours and we can have a meal.’ She opened the door and pointed across the hall to a short staircase. ‘There is a suite on the first floor and my servants have laid out some clothes which may be suitable. A sarong for David will help him to sleep comfortably and some Thai silk things will be kind to your own skin. Now I will say good night.’
‘Well!’ Krystelle stretched herself like a cat. ‘How about joining your concubine in the suite, man? She’s just waiting to see you in the sarong before she starts being really nice and making sure you sleep good.’
Two small brown men were squatting outside the bedroom door and smiled politely as Krystelle approached. They moved so swiftly that later she wondered if she had been dreaming when a tray with cups of hot tea appeared as though by magic and they were ushered into the suite.
‘Gentleman and lady sleep well and if want anything ring bell.’ The smaller of the two had a curiously high-pitched voice, but his eyes were warm with kindness and there was a wonderful gentleness in all his movements. ‘My name is Tom. Number one boy in house. Spik English bad, sorry please forgive.’
Krystelle flashed one of her more brilliant smiles. ‘Nothing to forgive, Tom. And thank you very much.’
The men bowed and left the room walking backwards.
‘Another world!’ Grant had only once before seen anything to compare with ‘the suite’ given by Moogie. Even Jim Thompson’s world famous house was just that little bit less perfect. Every piece from the ebony with inlaid mother-of-pearl and silver tester bed to the soap dishes were faultless antiques. Walls were draped with silk on cotton carpets or French petit point from old Indo-China. A Buddha worked in bronze and of the U-thong period sat upon a black lacquer Krueng Kohoen table beside a collection of tiny temple bells cast like Bhodi leaves. A row of bronze cannon, each shaped like a dragon, was mounted beside the windows and even the waste-paper basket was a gourd-shaped example of rare silver niello ware mounted with twin black buffalo horn handles. A vast plaque of repoussé silver showed a circle of richly clothed postulants adoring a mythical lion and had been mounted on the wall to the right of their bed above two deep arm-chairs upholstered in shorn crimson velvet. The overall effect would have been ‘too much’ had it not been for the richly brown highly polished wood of the floor and the ivory coloured rugs which had been scattered, it seemed, haphazardly around.
Krystelle snuggled into the bed and laughed. She knew that her laugh sounded off-key and that she must still be slightly tensed up. ‘David, honey. Do you believe her?’
Grant shrugged his shoulders helplessly. ‘Neither of us can really think straight right now. Off hand I probably do.’
‘Because you’ve fallen for her?’
‘I haven’t fallen for her. She’s just a child.’
Krystelle voice purred with satisfaction. ‘So you have fallen for her. That child routine gets strong men every time. Anyhow that little Asian doll knows more about some things than most women learn in a life-time. You know she as good as told me that she’s going to lay you, and lay you good whether you ask her or not.’
‘And you’re jealous!’
‘Maybe. I don’t know. But honey-chile David, if you want that doll as number two concubine you’re going to have problems. She’s got a strong constitution.’
Grant switched off a bed-light and folded Krystelle into his arms. ‘I’m a kind of one woman man and you’re my woman. Now let’s sleep.’
‘You might find her interesting. Maybe learn one or two new points of technique. Maybe you should make a big sacrifice and let her have fun.’
‘These house-boys,’ said Grant suddenly. ‘They might be guards. Like to bet that they’re still lying at the door?’ He tiptoed across the room and walked into the hall outside.
‘Yes, sir.’ Tom was in the darkness by his side. ‘You want something all you need do is ring bell. Not need look for things.’
Grant stared at him thoughtfully. ‘My mistake. Just to say some tea when you waken us.’
‘And now you sleep. Tea when you waken. But now bed. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ said Grant. ‘Very yes.’
‘Across the door?’ whispered Krystelle as he wriggled back into bed.
‘Across the door. They want us to sleep.’
‘Then let’s do just that.’ She kissed him slowly on the lips and he sensed that she was unexpectedly serious. ‘We’ll be careful, I think, David. This set-up feels sort of kinky. Promise to watch it.’
‘We’ll watch it,’ he said at last. ‘The Admiral angle sounds phoney. The old man would surely never have given our plans to anyone. Not even to his own daughter, assuming that he had one.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ said Krystelle. ‘And why not even give us time to settle in? But that kidnap run-around on the very first night was ideal timing. Kind of professional if you know what I mean.’ She sighed contentedly. ‘Anyhow now we know to expect anything. So there should be no more surprises. But I got a feeling I’d rather be up against your little playmate from Peking than our hostess here. Moogie’s got cool but when she blows hot I’ll bet even the jungle sizzles.’
‘Ruthless, you mean?’
‘She’d kill this guy Goodenough for kicks, father or no father!’
‘Now sleep,’ said Grant.
‘And the Hell with dysrhythia. We’re both cooked. Now hold me.’ She turned around and gently clasped Grant’s hand over her breast. ‘I like to feel your arm around me. G’night.’
First light was breaking over the palms outside when Grant finally closed his eyes. Moogie looked like being a problem.
Chapter Three – ‘This begins to look like an orgy’
Moogie was a perfect hostess and her guests wakened to find warm tea with flat rice biscuits served by the number two house-boy. Baths were already drawn and the water perfumed. Piped music ran through a selection from Engelbert to Cilia and Jim Reeves to Mantovani. A massage salon slotted between two bath houses was almost the last word in luxury, and for twenty minutes a Japanese woman went through a routine which would have cast out devils.
They dined feeling nearer to top form than either would have believed possible. ‘You do your guests proud,’ said Krystelle. ‘But how did you know my measurements? The trouser suit fits like a glove.’
Moogie looked at her carefully. Largest size Thai clothes were always too small even for the average western woman and her own dress-maker had run it up while the girl was sleeping. ‘A little tight across the shoulders, but not bad considering.’ She turned to Grant. ‘Tom gave me your room key and I went back to the hotel for the suit because I thought you would want to change. That bronze looks good. Especially with the striped tie and shirt.’
‘And he slept well,’ said Krystelle.
Krystelle swallowed the only reply she could think of. Moogie, she figured, was either very very innocent or looking for trouble.
Creamed crab rolls and Peking duck, chicken wings stuffed with pork, fried rice, pineapple and stuffed avocado, peppers with chilli sauce, spare ribs simmering on a portable charcoal stove and grilled espada with parsley sauce were laid out on a long table beside baskets of fresh passion fruit, lychees, wild strawberries and khanoms . . . Thailand’s mouth-watering sweets.
Wild flowers and greenery surrounded each dish and a nude moulded from rice flour stood on one corner. She was less then three feet high, but proportioned like a classical dancer and even her nails had been sculpted with an eye to perfection. ‘Nice,’ said Grant. ‘Often wondered how they do it. Remember seeing some beauties in Bali.’
‘Maybe one day I’ll show.’ Moogie’s face was more mobile than usual and her eyes sparking. ‘I also collected your mail, but first you must eat.’
‘Forgive,’ said Grant, ‘but how did you get it? I mean did you just walk up to the desk and say “my name is David Grant” or what? Because the Inter-Continental is old-fashioned about some things. Like mail reaching the proper person, if you know what I mean.’
‘So! You are angry. Well, it was easy. I just rushed up to the desk waving your passport and shouting “mail for Doctor David Grant.” A man began to ask questions, but I had a temperament and let him know that I was your private secretary and working for a difficult man who made me very unhappy if he didn’t get what he wanted right away. I told him that I didn’t want you to be angry but that you were a typical European with no patience.’ She lowered her head and Krystelle guessed that she was smiling. ‘Did I do wrong?’
Grant felt that he would have been willing to pay big money only to smack her well rounded little bottom. ‘And where did you find the passport?’
‘In your brief-case beside a book about Buddha.’
‘And what did you do with the book?’
‘I took it as well. You’ll find it in your room upstairs. I thought it must be important or you wouldn’t have carried it in your brief-case. And I didn’t think that you would be very interested in Buddha, so I guessed it was there for some other reason. Men like you carry Playboy or the New Yorker or something glossy. They don’t go on holiday with a beautiful woman and study the life of Buddha at the same time.’
Grant almost choked in his chilli sauce. The girl might be an amateur, but she had been way ahead of him all the time. ‘Did you tell the hotel people when we would go back?’
‘No. But I did say that they were to keep the rooms. You see, I guessed that when you read the mail you might change your mind about something and I didn’t want to worry them. So I promised to phone and keep in touch.’ She smiled slightly. ‘They seemed quite happy.’
‘And you left no address?’
‘No. But I think someone tried to follow my car when I left the hotel. A blue Mercedes stayed behind me for quite a long time until my chauffeur got rid of him.’
‘I like that phrase,’ said Grant. ‘“Got rid of him” sounds interesting. What did your man do?’
Moogie hesitated. ‘You won’t be angry? Well, maybe you will be angry but it doesn’t matter. Because I did it anyhow. We continued very fast along Phya Thai Road and swung into Rajvithi Road at the roundabout. We then stopped very very quickly and the other car overtook us. It then began to slow down just ahead and I fired two slugs into its rear wheels, three into the petrol tank and one for luck through the rear window.’
She looked curiously at Grant. ‘Now don’t get excited, David. It was only a heavy calibre air pistol and they were about twenty metres away. But I’m a good shot and got the tank, though I only punctured one tyre and cracked the rear window. Anyhow we went away as quickly as possible and I don’t think anyone saw us.’
‘But you had number plates.’
‘David!’ The girl was faintly reproachful. ‘I was thinking about the need to be careful all the way to the city and remembered about the plates, so when we passed a car dump I sent my driver to look round. He found two, and although they were different he replaced our own, so I still think I am safe.’
Krystelle began to laugh. Moogie was proving to be a heady experience, but the sheer novelty of the girl was fascinating. It went without saying that Grant would be impressed, and chances were that he would react. But Krystelle was broad-minded and hoped only that there would be no emotional entanglement. David, she knew, was a normal man with a sharp eye for off-beat broads who knew their way around and she wouldn’t want him any different. He could do anything he liked with the girl so long as he didn’t fall in love, and since she felt, deep down, that he was strictly a one woman man she could relax. ‘Tell me,’ she interrupted. ‘Were did you learn to shoot?’
‘At school, and later at the university. Mother was afraid that we might have war in Thailand. You know, an overflow from Viet Nam. And we lived deep in the country where there were rumours about guerillas training. It was sensible to have a gun.’
‘But why take it to Bangkok?’
The girl was genuinely surprised. ‘One is always kept in the car, but I don’t like live ammunition so I only use the big air pistol.’
Grant sipped the last of his coffee. ‘Now if you’ll excuse, I’ll take the mail upstairs. I’d like to read it in private.’
Moogie looked at him with interest. ‘You look very well in that suit, David. Or did I say that before? Anyhow I like it. But why upstairs? Or don’t you trust me?’
‘Why should a spy trust anyone?’ asked Grant sourly.
‘You bluff us, kidnap us, trick us into living in your house, collect my own private mail without permission, search us for arms while we are asleep, go through my baggage at the Inter-Continental and shoot up a car which was probably full of perfectly innocent people. Why on earth should I trust you?’
The girl shook her head sadly. ‘I’m sure there is no reason why you should trust me, but the fact is that you do. Or else you wouldn’t talk like that, or have a sort of guilty half-smile when you are trying to be serious. So you trust me. And now promise me just one small thing.’
‘What?’
‘Promise that if there is news about my father, or the man Mark Goodenough, you will tell me.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ said Grant. The girl still had him guessing. ‘But I’ve an idea that the less you know about some things the better.’
‘David.’ Moogie’s voice sounded unexpectedly urgent. ‘Don’t try to go away or anything. You know I might, just might, really have someone around to keep an eye on you. Maybe all this is just to put you off guard or something. You will be careful, won’t you?’
‘Yes, sir?’ Grant tensed slightly as Tom stepped out from the shadow of a door and bowed. ‘You go room?’
The little brown man led the way upstairs. ‘This house all your house, sir, so if you want anything please to ring and ask. Not need walk about. Just ring.’
The Life of Buddha was lying on a side table near a sun lounge bright with tropical plants. The mail consisted of a longish telex in code and a letter with local postmark. The telex came first, but took over twenty minutes to decode.
from acting director general to david grant bangkok stop autopsy juin confirms death cyanide poisoning stop incident being treated as planned murder stop suggest link with deaths cooper sidders and part exercise remove key personnel adsad stop imperative regard yourself further candidate elimination stop adopt all precautions cope situation stop sidders tape made when victim aware implications statements stop mark goodenough with male friend forties ex paris night juin death air france nice where private charter istanbul stop return london qf 733 2240 tuesday stop will meet stop confirm immediate stop
The telex was more or less what had been expected. The Admir
al’s death would have caused a flurry in the dovecots and it wasn’t surprising that the deputy DG had been landed with the buck. Bucks all had to stop somewhere and in Grant’s circle they tended to stop with the deputy DG!
The letter was likely to be more important. The envelope was very pale pink and the handwriting a thin scrawl. The stamp had been stuck on with almost pathological precision in precisely the correct alignment and the postmark showed that it had been franked after their arrival. Grant slit it carefully open. The letter itself was quite short.
Erawan Hotel
Bangkok
Sunday
Dear Doctor Grant,
It seems a long time since we first met at Sir Jonah Lyveden’s annual partridge shoot,[3] but I got a glimpse of you this afternoon at the air-port, though too late to make contact. Fortunately, however, they knew that you are at the Inter-Continental and I wondered if you would care to share drinks and dinner with me some evening.
One or two things which have been milling around my mind might interest you, but that apart I’d like to see you again.
You seem to be wearing well and your lady friend will honour my table if she will join us. To be frank, Admiral Cooper has sometimes mentioned her and it would be a privilege to meet.
I shall be here for about a week.
Very sincerely,
John G. Alvis.
Grant had a deep streak of Celtic superstition which helped to influence his mood swings, and for once, since arriving in Bangkok, he felt that he might be having a break. Alvis was a citizen of the United States but emotionally a full-blooded internationalist who might, had he not been an American, have become Secretary-General of U.N.O. and succeeded Dag Hammarskjöld. He had, for years, rated high as a back-room boy in the world scene and Grant had once told him that he doubted if there was a single thing he wouldn’t do if he felt that it might help to promote world peace and the Western alliance. He had remained close to every American President for over fifteen years yet continued a welcome visitor in Downing Street, the Elysée and Bonn. If John G. Alvis had ideas milling around in his mind and felt like discussing them Grant was going to be more than interested.
Paradise Spells Danger Page 4
