The Suspect

by Fiona Barton

  “We have got a bit of time before you have to be back at the hotel,” Clive said. “Do you want to make any phone calls?”

  “Yes,” Jenny and Lesley gasped at the same time. “Please,” Lesley added.

  * * *

  • • •

  She had to sit and listen as Jenny wept down the phone to her sister; she held her fists against her stomach to keep her grief still while Mike sat beside her, hollow-eyed with shock.

  Then it was her turn. Jenny curled up on the low settee with a box of tissues in the corner of the Visitors’ Room and Mike went outside to have a cigarette. Lesley dialed home, then listened dully to the blare of noncomprehension from the receiver.

  “It isn’t working,” she said, her voice made stupid by exhaustion.

  “Did you put the international code in front of your number?” Clive said gently, taking the phone from her and dialing the number.

  She could hear the ringing in her house and closed her eyes. For a moment she hoped no one would pick up. She was too tired to talk.

  “Hello, this is the O’Connors. Please leave a message for Malcolm, Lesley, Dan, or Alex, and we will ring you back,” the machine said.

  Alex.

  She couldn’t speak. “It’s, it’s . . .” she finally stammered.

  “Mum,” Danny’s voice broke in, “is that you?”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “How are you and Dad doing?”

  “Okay. We saw Alex yesterday. We’re arranging to bring her home, Danny.” She couldn’t—wouldn’t—use the word “body.”

  Her son was sobbing five thousand miles away and she couldn’t do anything.

  “Stay strong, my darling. We’ll all be home as soon as we can. Is Auntie Sheila with you?”

  “Yes, she and Uncle Rick came this morning. She’s here now if you want to talk to her.”

  The phone was handed over like a relay baton.

  “Les?” her sister-in-law said. “Are you all right? How’s Malcolm?”

  “We’re in pieces, Sheila,” Lesley said, her brave face no longer needed. “But we are bringing her home. Thanks so much for being with Dan. What have you told Mum? Does she understand?”

  “Not really. Maybe it’s a blessing. Don’t worry about Dan. We’ve got him. Look after yourselves and ring us when you have time.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Back at the hotel, the arrangements for their press statement had been made. Clive Barnes pointed out the chairs for the reporters and the stubby black microphones placed on the table where the families would sit. A young woman was setting out printed name cards on the white cloth. They’d spelled her name wrong. Lesley O’Conner.

  She went to say so but stopped. What did it matter? Alex was dead.

  * * *

  • • •

  Standing in the anteroom ten minutes later, she could hear the growing buzz of voices in the conference room next door, the squawk of chairs being shifted, the chirp of greetings. Clive had said they would be brought in when everyone else was sitting. Like guest stars on a talk show, she wanted to say. She would have said a week ago. Only a week.

  She looked at Malcolm, then at Mike, and Jenny, and they looked back.

  “I wonder if they’ll ask questions,” Lesley said and realized she’d said that already.

  “God knows,” Jenny said.

  “You don’t have to answer any questions,” Clive said firmly. “Probably best not to. It only encourages them.”

  He’d advised on the statement Malcolm was to read out. “Best to make it short and dignified,” he’d said, and they’d written it together. Clive had read it through, nodded his approval, and added at the bottom: “We would like to be able to grieve for our daughters away from the public gaze and hope you will respect our privacy.”

  “Worth a try,” he’d muttered.

  When they were led in, a noise like a flock of birds taking off startled Lesley. The cameras of a dozen photographers were pointed at them and she stumbled under their gaze.

  “Come on, love,” Malcolm said.

  * * *

  • • •

  The statement had gone well. Malcolm had managed to keep going until the end, when Lesley heard the choke as he said they were taking Alex and Rosie home. She’d put her crumpled tissue to her mouth to stop her lips trembling and then begun to lever herself out of her chair to leave. But a voice calling her name made her hesitate.

  “Mrs. O’Connor,” the voice said, “thank you very much for speaking to us today. We realize how hard this must be.”

  She’d tried to locate the person speaking, but she couldn’t pick the person out from the sea of faces.

  “Thank you for all your support,” she said to the room.

  A forest of hands shot up in response.

  “When did you know it was Alex who had died in the fire, Mrs. O’Connor?” a man in the front row called.

  “Yesterday,” she answered.

  “Do you know how the fire started, Mrs. Shaw?”

  “No,” Jenny answered, staring at the table.

  “We’ve heard that there was a party that night. Were the girls at the party?”

  “We think so,” Lesley said.

  “Do you know who else was there?” Joe called out from near the back.

  “Was Jake Waters there?” a woman asked from the front row.

  “Who?” Mike said.

  “Kate the reporter’s son,” Lesley whispered to him.

  “We don’t know,” she said to the woman. “He was taken to hospital with burns on the night of the fire. But that’s all we know at the moment.”

  “Are you happy with the police investigation?” the same woman asked, leaning forward to hear their answer.

  “Er . . .” Lesley started to speak.

  “Are the police treating Jake Waters as a suspect?”

  “A suspect for what?” Malcolm blurted, looking at the others for a clue. “What on earth do you mean? The fire was an accident. The police say so.”

  “It’s just, we are hearing some disturbing things about the guesthouse. Did you know that Mama’s Paradise is well-known to the police? It’s known as the Sweet Shop locally. Apparently, it’s where people go—sorry, went—to buy drugs,” the woman explained as if they were children. Innocents abroad.

  Lesley couldn’t take her eyes off the reporter.

  “And there has been a death there before. Late last year, a forty-two-year-old man died there in unexplained circumstances.”

  “No,” Mike said hoarsely. “Of course we didn’t know.”

  “I think that will have to be the last question,” Clive Barnes said smoothly, practically lifting Lesley out of her chair by her elbow. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”

  And it was over. But standing back in the anteroom, Lesley felt it was just beginning.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The Reporter

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2014

  Left on my own, I slump on a chair in the lobby, lost for a moment. I should be doing something. Shouldn’t I?

  Come on, Waters, get yourself moving.

  I walk out to the taxis and ask to be taken back to Khao San Road.

  The red-and-white tape that closed the alleyway to Mama’s yesterday has been torn down and discarded in the dust. The police have gone as well. I walk up to the shell of the guesthouse, the smell of soot tickling my throat and making my eyes water as I arrive at what once must have been the entrance. The sign has survived somehow, hanging by its last screw, but its wording is gone, the wood charred and the paint blistered and flaking.

  I peer in and then around. There’s no one here to stop me.

  “Hello,” I call into the gloom, just in case, and then tiptoe in. I don’t know what I think I’ll find here, but
when I hit a dead end in a story, my instinct is always to go back to the beginning and see what I missed. And this is the beginning.

  I pick my way through carefully, and as my eyes grow used to the darkness I start to see the full horror of the blaze. A forensic investigator I interviewed once told me that a fire itself can tell you where it started, with a V-shaped smoke or burn pattern pointing like an arrow to the seat of the flames.

  I start to look, and from what I can see, the worst of the damage seems to be at the back of the building, but I decide not to go farther in. The remains of the upper floors hang down above my head, with shards of wood and concrete balancing on one another like a circus act.

  “Get out of there,” a voice shouts. “Are you mad? You’ll get killed.”

  I poke my head out of the darkness. The stoned boy from the café yesterday is standing in front of Mama’s.

  “What’s it got to do with you?” I shout back. “I’m just having a look.”

  “It’s dangerous. Bloody hell, you’re old enough to be my mum—you should be telling me off.”

  His ridiculous indignation makes me laugh—for the first time in days.

  “Oh, get over yourself,” I say. “What are you? Fourteen?”

  “Twenty, actually. Why are you poking around in there, anyway? The police have finished. It was an accident, they say. But then they always do.”

  “Do they?” I ask.

  “If it’s a farang like me. And the girls.”

  “Did you know them? The girls?”

  The boy looks around quickly.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Just have to be careful,” he says. “Lots of people are asking questions.”

  “Look, my son was in this fire, too.”

  “Your son?”

  “Yes. And now he’s disappeared. I’m desperate to find him.” And I pull out one of the flyers from my bag.

  He looks at it and then at me, his eyes wide. “Jake,” he says. “You’re Jake’s mum?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Ten minutes later, we’re sitting in his room, him cross-legged on the floor, me on the end of his bed. Ross wouldn’t talk in the street; he says he’s afraid of the police and the reporters. I haven’t told him I’m one, too. He doesn’t need to know. He said he lived round the corner if I fancied a cup of tea, and I followed him. At the last minute, I texted Mick to say where I was going. As insurance.

  Ross apologized for the mess when he opened the door and looked to see if I was going to tell him off. I’m someone’s mum to him. But I just pushed the foil, straws, and dirty clothes off the mattress and sat down.

  He starts to make tea for us on a camping stove and I tap my feet impatiently. He looks up and I stop fidgeting and smile encouragingly.

  “How long have you lived here? You’ve made it very homey.”

  He laughs at my feeble attempt at conversation and turns back to the pan of boiling water. He hands me a filthy mug and I pretend to take a sip while he lights a spliff.

  “Do you mind?” he says as if he cares.

  Of course I bloody do.

  “No, it’s your place. You do as you please.” But can we talk before you get off your face?

  “So, you know Jake,” I say, and he nods slowly, holding his breath.

  When he finally breathes out he says: “He works at Mama’s—in the kitchen, doing the washing up and stuff. He says he doesn’t earn much, but she lets him live there for free. He’s been there for ages. He was there when I arrived and that was January 2013.”

  He’s been here all this time, lying to us, pretending to be in Phuket, counting turtles. My brilliant son working in a shithole kitchen.

  “I go there sometimes to see him,” Ross says. “Or he comes here.”

  “You’re friends, then?”

  “Yeah, sort of.” Ross takes another long drag. “We don’t talk much. We smoke together sometimes. He knows where to get good shit. A little helper.” And he giggles. I clasp my hands together to stop them slapping him.

  “Little helper?” I ask, although I know.

  “A bit of weed, that’s all. He doesn’t do yaba or smack. Nothing nasty,” Ross says. “He’s a good bloke, Jake.”

  A good bloke? I can’t believe we are talking about my son taking drugs. He was terrible at chemistry, I find myself thinking. Stop it.

  “Do you know where he is now?” I ask, desperate to get out of here.

  “No idea. Goes his own way. I was surprised that he came back here after that bloke died.”

  “What bloke?”

  “From Scotland. A bloke in his forties. He was found in his room at Mama’s just before Christmas. The police said it was suicide, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Well, he didn’t leave a note—let’s put it that way. He looked like he’d been in a fight and his stuff was gone when they found him. His money and passport had been taken.”

  “Had he been murdered?”

  “Don’t know. He’d been partying the night before, really out of order. Jake had served him a lot of booze at the bar and he told me the bloke had been snorting Special K.”

  “Special K?”

  “Ketamine. A lot of people take it here—makes you high really quick. It’s ace.”

  I want to stop asking questions; I don’t need to know any more. But I can’t help myself.

  “Did the police come? Were people questioned about the death? Was Jake questioned?”

  Ross grins.

  “No. Mama told him to disappear while she sorted it all out. She told him the cops always blame foreigners for crimes if they can. And his visa didn’t allow him to be working there. Mama knows the score—she’s got a thing going with the police. But it shook Jake up. He went off for a bit. A little holiday until things quietened down. It was the only sensible thing to do. And he stayed away while all the antigovernment riots were on. It was chaos here. Wild. But then he turned up back at Mama’s. Said he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Said he couldn’t tell his mum and dad because it was what they said would happen. That he’d fail.”

  “I never said that,” I say, but maybe I did. I try to remember.

  “When did you last see him, Ross?”

  “Last week. A couple of times. I saw him in the street and he said he was doing great. He’d met a lady, he said.” Ross winked and smiled sleepily.

  “That’s nice,” I say. “Did he say who she was?”

  “Nah. But I think she must have given him the elbow because he came round a couple of days later in a bit of a state and wanted a smoke. It was very early—I was still in bed. But he banged on the door until I opened it. He looked awful. He’d got some sick or something on his trousers so I loaned him a pair of mine. His are still here, actually. I haven’t had time to wash them, but you can take them if you like.”

  He fishes around in a heap of clothes and pulls out a pair of blue trousers and hands them over. “Sorry, they whiff a bit.”

  They stink and I push them to the bottom of my bag.

  He smiles again. “Look, he’s a good bloke. Don’t worry—he’ll turn up.”

  My head is buzzing with the unwanted information and I want this skinny kid to shut up now.

  “Have you told anyone else what you know about Jake?” I ask. Oh God, who else knows?

  Ross shakes his head.

  “A reporter was asking last night, but I told her I didn’t know anything. I didn’t like her. She was pushy. In-your-face. You know? They must be trying to talk to you, too.”

  “They are, but I’m not saying anything either. Will you keep everything—the Scottish bloke, Jake smoking weed—to yourself, Ross? For his sake. The press will hound him if they find out. When they find him.”

  Ross nods sagely. He fumbles to show that his lips are
sealed. I put my number into his mobile in case he hears anything and I leave him there in his sweet, numbing fug.

  THIRTY

  The Reporter

  WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2014

  George is outside the hotel, vaping and producing an industrial-size plume of fake smoke. It smells like cinnamon and apple when I get close.

  “Hi, Kate,” he says. “My new vice . . . Have you tried it? Disgusting but I can pretend it’s healthy because it smells of fruit. One of my five a day.”

  George has been to our house with his wife and kids. A barbecue, I think. His son got stung by a wasp and I put vinegar on it, like my mum used to when I was a kid. It was a good afternoon with friends, lying back in old deck chairs, laughing about work, and drinking cold rosé.

  He smiles his sympathy. “We missed you at the press conference, asking your killer questions. What have you been doing?”

  “Yeah, it felt odd not being there. I’m grubbing around, talking to people but not getting far. Was there anything worth filing this morning?”

  “Odds and sods. It was a statement and a few questions. I’ve just filed. The families looked like rabbits in the headlights, poor buggers. They’ve only just seen their kids in the morgue. And Louise asked them if they knew about the other death at the guesthouse.”

  My skin prickles. They are only one step behind me.

  “Oh?” I say.

  “Yeah, a plasterer on holiday who the police said committed suicide. His family say he definitely didn’t kill himself—he’d just paid thousands to renew his Arsenal season ticket . . . But the Thai police wouldn’t listen.”

  “Have you spoken to his family?”

  “Yeah, they’re nice people and it’s a good line for the story. We’re all filing it. That and the fact that Mama’s was a known drug shop. Stoner central, we’ve been told.”

  “Christ,” I say and hope I sound genuinely surprised.

  “Didn’t you know?” George says.

  I shake my head. I need to get away from this. Need to close it down.