The Assassin on the Bangkok Express

by Roland Perry

  Cavalier grunted a response.

  Rodriguez and Azelaporn shuffled off, Rodriguez still complaining. Cavalier was about to leave the cabin when he heard footsteps coming along the corridor from both directions. The Makanathans had finished their short break and were heading back to their cabin. They greeted two other couples who passed them. A minute later there was no one in the corridor near him. Cavalier switched off the light, opened the door, stepped outside and slipped into the wheelchair. He wheeled along the corridor, mindful of the guard outside Garriaud’s door. Cavalier could see the guard’s legs as he sat on a chair.

  Cavalier stopped at his door, opened it and rolled in. He noticed the guard move just as Cavalier shut and locked the door, making as little sound as possible. He slumped in the chair for about thirty seconds, trying to bring himself down. The adrenaline rush he’d been experiencing was not about to subside. He eased out of the chair, removed his glasses and hearing aid, and took his camera from his pocket. He sent the eight photos of Cortez’s body to Smith’s secure phone and email address. As insurance, he sent the photos to his own secure email address.

  Cavalier used the presidential suite bathroom to wash and scrub thoroughly. He had been careful not to allow any blood or mucus on his clothing. He dressed as the Frenchman and lay on his bunk, thinking over every aspect of the last twenty minutes. He felt his mobile vibrating. It was a text from Smith:

  ‘Congrats! Are you? Did you manage the swab or blood sample? My team is already in Singapore, ready. I have reinforcements from a brother agency. We will note the train schedule. If there is a delay, please inform.

  Cavalier replied:

  Thank you. Yes. Yes. Good. Will do.

  He used his ‘vanish’ app to destroy the communication.

  He was now consumed with how to steal Pon off the train safely. Cavalier could not take on the entire Mexican contingent, especially when they discovered Cortez had been assassinated. He had about six hours to work out a plan for his daughter. Thinking ahead first, he sent a text to Smith:

  Have ambulance and medico ready at Singapore and arrange immediate flight to BKK. The (late) Cortez had a drugged woman under his control. She will need immediate treatment.

  Ambulances, medicos and plane will be on standby. Will the Mexicans resist?

  Remains to be seen. Leaderless. May be desperate. Plan for worst case.

  35

  DOCTOR DEATH TAKES CHARGE

  At 4 a.m. the Express ground to a halt. Cavalier pulled the window curtain across to see only thick jungle. He heard shouting, threw up the cabin’s window and saw three security guards running along beside the stationary train. The locomotive driver had used high-beam lights and had spotted something large on the line. He had informed the guards. They investigated. Within two minutes, the guards were hastening back onto the train. Cavalier closed the window and opened his cabin door slightly, so he could hear what was going on.

  ‘There’s a block on the line!’ one of the guards said to Huloton.

  ‘Block? What do you mean?’

  ‘We … we could see something piled up on the line. When we ventured close with our torches, men appeared. We think they had weapons!’

  Huloton rushed to gather the rest of the guards and alert Cortez. He knocked on the Mexican’s door. When there was no reaction he banged hard. This woke Pon. In her dazed state, she noticed a terrible stench. She struggled down the steps from the top bunk and nearly tripped on Cortez’s body. She screamed.

  ‘Open the door, Madame,’ Huloton ordered, ‘open it!’

  With a squeal, Pon slipped on blood that had formed an asymmetrical ring around Cortez’s body. She managed to keep upright, and then unlocked the door.

  Huloton switched on the light. He stood there, gaping at the body. The Mexican guards took one look at the stricken leader and hurried off to gather the others. Within a minute security guards were struggling to restrain the armed Mexicans, who had filled the carriage corridor; they were shouting and waving their guns. Rodriguez was summonsed. Soon he, Azelaporn, Huloton and Jacinta were in urgent conference.

  ‘You must take charge of the Mexicans,’ Huloton said to Rodriguez. ‘They are your men, your people!’

  ‘And you must find the killer!’ Rodriguez fired back. ‘I take it you are in charge?’

  ‘Under the circumstances, this is not my jurisdiction, Monsieur. That falls to Dr Makanathan. She has a senior position in the Department of Justice.’

  ‘Then fetch her!’

  Huloton was offended by the young Mexican’s aggressive tone. Jacinta volunteered to raise the doctor in carriage 16. She and a security guard helped a very shaky, distressed Pon along the corridors. Jacinta stopped at Makanathan’s door and the guard took Pon on to the infirmary in carriage 3.

  Makanathan, her colourful hair awry, did not have time to look other than unkempt as she pulled on casual clothes and took a few seconds to dab on her face powder. She filled her green shoulder bag with work items and followed Jacinta along the corridors.

  ‘My role in Justice is effectively an inactive post now,’ Makanathan said to her as they hastened along towards the train’s rear. ‘But this may be an emergency.’

  ‘I’m told that you have the power to investigate the murder. Manager Huloton is washing his hands of the responsibility. But in any case, he is not Thai.’

  ‘Any suspects?’

  ‘Not yet. I would think it would be better to wait until we arrive in Singapore before making a proper investigation.’

  ‘I would prefer that too, but if the killer is on the train, it is better to apprehend her now. You see—’ she cut her sentence short, as if avoiding saying something she should not disclose.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I am not popular with the police and politicians in Singapore. Or Malaysia, for that matter.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I was asked to investigate the deaths of politicians in those countries.’

  ‘I remember. Azelaporn showed me reports. Their governments were embarrassed by your findings.’

  ‘Not even our own beloved government has been enraptured with me. The junta tolerates me, just.’ She emitted a short, cynical laugh. ‘That is until I expose a killer they’d rather not know about.’

  They arrived to find the Mexicans in a potentially dangerous confrontation with Huloton and train security. Azelaporn and Rodriguez were also in a heated discussion over how to proceed. Makanathan took charge.

  ‘Control your countrymen, sir,’ she ordered Rodriguez, ‘before there is an international incident.’ Then she took Huloton aside and asked him for his assessment. Huloton stammered over what he knew.

  ‘His girlfriend possibly could have done it,’ he said. ‘We could not find a gun, Madame. Monsieur Cortez has been shot twice.’

  ‘I don’t think she was in any state to do anything, let alone shoot someone,’ Jacinta said.

  ‘Where is the girl?’ Makanathan asked.

  ‘In the train infirmary in carriage number 3,’ Jacinta said. ‘The train doctor is examining her now, I trust.’

  ‘How did she look when you entered the cabin?’ Makanathan asked Huloton.

  ‘Oh, pfft!’ he said, flapping his arms. ‘She seemed drugged to the eyeballs. She claims she woke up when I knocked on the door. She said she looked down and saw the body.’

  ‘I’ll examine her later,’ Makanathan said. She ordered everyone out of carriage 30.

  ‘You are all contaminating the crime scene,’ she said, speaking loudly. ‘Please leave.’

  Jacinta watched as Makanathan put on gloves, bent down beside the body and began her examination. She ignored the bullet wounds and paid more attention to the syringe puncture mark in Cortez’s neck. She looked in the corpse’s mouth.

  ‘Well, blessed be the Buddha,’ she muttered, ‘there are signs of minor abrasions in his throat.’ Makanathan looked up at Jacinta. ‘This is looking like a professional killing,’ she said softly. ‘She knew what she was
doing.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘I always say “she”,’ Makanathan said with a grin. ‘Why should men always get the credit for such skilful work?’

  Jacinta half-smiled at this macabre remark. ‘What makes you say “she” is professional?’ she asked.

  ‘Not the actual kill. Two shots from close range could be fired accurately by a boy, even.’ She pointed to the neck mark. ‘That’s been done as well as the shots.’

  ‘A lethal injection?’

  ‘Maybe. Only forensics will discover if that was a cause of death. But the marks in the mouth and throat are very interesting.’

  ‘An attempt to choke him, perhaps?’

  ‘Not really. More in keeping with someone scooping something out rather than putting something in.’

  Makanathan probed further. She took tweezers from her bag. After some delicate teasing, she pulled out a wafer-thin splinter of wood about three centimetres in length.

  ‘Exhibit A,’ she said with a smile, clearly enjoying her work.

  ‘Any clues?’

  ‘There are a couple of possibilities emerging. First, a doctor or nurse would inject a poison. Or second, she wanted to extract blood, and …’ Makanathan paused, pointing at the slither of wood sitting on a white cloth, ‘perhaps a mucus sample from the mouth?’

  ‘I am confused.’

  ‘Oh, so am I, my friend, so am I …’

  Jacinta was ahead of her, or at least up with her thinking, but did not want to express her knowledgeable views.

  ‘What do you extract blood for, and mucus?’ Makanathan asked.

  ‘Identity.’

  ‘We’ve both done it many times, haven’t we? Taken samples from a body, Ms Cin Lai? I am aware of your excellent work with the SIU.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have lost that post.’

  ‘I’d prefer to say you’ve been “sidelined”. I have been there too after the investigations into those political killings. I have been restored. As you will be, I am sure.’

  Jacinta was flattered by these comments from such a prominent Thai.

  ‘I have seen you box, too!’ Makanathan added. ‘My Buddha! How my husband and I cheered for you when you flattened that massive Russian last year! I also had a five thousand baht bet on you at very good odds.’ Jacinta was caught off guard. She blushed. ‘Are you going to fight again? I read a report that you were thinking about it after you were … er … stood down?’

  ‘I had no money,’ Jacinta said frankly, ‘that’s why I took this job.’

  ‘I don’t know how you could associate again with that pig Azelaporn! Surely the ring, where you are so successful, would be preferable to supporting him?’

  ‘In some ways, yes,’ Jacinta said, showing emotion, ‘but I have had my time.’

  ‘Sorry, I do understand. Boxing is a very tough profession, especially when you give away so much weight to men when you fight.’

  Makanathan went on with her investigation. ‘Judging from the wounds,’ she mumbled after a while, half to herself, ‘he was shot from above—in the bunk, I suspect. You see? The weight of the bullet has pushed in harder from above. The impression is raised at the top when it entered. The two bullets hit dead centre of the heart, exploding it. Normally a professional would aim at the brain from such close range, disabling the victim.’ Makanathan stroked her chin and stood erect, just as her husband came in and handed her a cup of coffee. She thanked him and he left as silently as he came in.

  ‘Who was in the top bunk, again?’ Makanathan asked.

  ‘His … er … mistress.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that poor, poor woman. Mistress is a bit euphemistic, don’t you think? More like his captive, at least from the way he treated her, and she looked.’

  ‘Is there a chance she did it?’

  ‘I can say categorically, no.’

  ‘She had a motive.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Makanathan agreed, ‘but from what I have seen already, unless she is a professional assassin with a very cool head—cool enough to extract blood and mucus for whatever purpose—she could not have perpetrated this rather dreadful crime.’

  ‘So, if someone took those samples, they were wanting to show proof of identity?’

  ‘That is exactly what I am thinking! Jacinta, my dear, you have brains, exceptional beauty and great sporting prowess! The Buddha has been most favourable to you!’

  ‘A well-planned killing,’ Jacinta went on, ignoring the extra flattery. ‘One where the assassin was compelled to prove he’d carried out the “hit”?’

  ‘Exactly, again! This would narrow down the murderer to someone in the business of killing.’

  ‘There are plenty on board.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, all the Mexicans.’

  ‘Of course! But then, the motive?’

  ‘Who knows? Anger? Jealousy? A bid to be top dog?’

  ‘Why extract samples? Once a killing had occurred, none of the Mexicans would bother, would they?’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘No, we have two strands here. If we can find someone who fits the profile of a professional with a motive, we have our woman!’

  Makanathan continued her searching and examining. She took out a tape and measured distances from various positions on the bunk and stairs. After a few minutes of silence, she looked up and smiled cunningly.

  ‘I was just thinking after I joked about a “she” doing the job here. I asked questions about you after the Leonardo Mendez forensics were finished—a case, by the way that your dear boss Azelaporn would not let me near. I learned from a source that you are an expert shot.’ Makanathan waited and scrutinised Jacinta’s reaction. ‘I have to ask you, where were you between 2 a.m. and, say, 3 a.m.?’

  ‘I was asleep in my bunk.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, don’t be offended. We may have to interrogate everyone on the train before it reaches Singapore.’ She laughed. ‘Even my husband will receive a grilling!’ She began to pack away her instruments. ‘That reminds me, why has the train stopped?’

  ‘Huloton says there is an obstruction on the line a few hundred metres away. He was distracted by Cortez’s murder but is doing something now.’

  *

  Huloton stood by the side of the front of the train’s locomotive.

  ‘Go and see what that obstruction is,’ he ordered three train guards. He lit a cigarette and smoked nervously as the guards trudged off down the track. About fifty metres from the obstruction, shots were fired at them and they stopped and ran back to the Express. Huloton dropped his cigarette, climbed inside the train and dialled the Malaysian police, with whom he had liaised over the train not stopping at Kuala Lumpur. Huloton explained the situation.

  ‘We can get a SWAT team to you in an hour or so,’ the Malaysian Chief of Police said.

  ‘That is too long, Monsieur,’ Huloton said. ‘Please make it sooner!’

  36

  SUSPECTS

  Azelaporn and Huloton did their best to have Rodriguez placate the Mexicans, now they had lost their commander. He was their new leader, yet doing everything not to be labelled that way. Huloton told him that he had to bring his men under control.

  ‘If they start a fight with my security people,’ Huloton said, showing surprising strength for a persistent ditherer, ‘there will a bloodbath—admittedly, with your people winning. They outnumber my men.’

  ‘I have never had direct control over them,’ Rodriguez said.

  ‘Sir, the issue for them should be protecting the bullion,’ Azelaporn said. ‘It is most regrettable that Señor Cortez has been dealt with this way. But now the issue is the fortune in those chests. If you let your men lose control, the KL police will take the bullion over. It won’t reach Singapore.’

  Rodriguez nodded his reluctant agreement.

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said with a sigh.

  ‘Why not offer them incentives for behaving themselves? W
hat’s a few ingots among thousands, after all?’

  ‘I was thinking of that.’

  ‘Please don’t just think, do something!’ Huloton pleaded. Rodriguez adjusted his silk tie and strode off to bring his countrymen and indirect employees to heel.

  *

  One by one in the train’s central piano bar carriage, Makanathan questioned possible suspects. By quizzing the Mexicans and security guards, she had an idea of the passengers who had come through carriages 30, 31 and 32 and on to the observation cars.

  There was Ben Dempster the Australian grazier, who’d had an altercation with the Mexicans in the Kanchanaburi Cemetery. He would have a vague motive, perhaps, to murder Cortez, and he admitted being handy with rifle and handgun. But his wife swore she had been with him all night. They were in carriage 8 and had not been near carriage 30, except on one occasion in the afternoon. That was backed up by two of the security guards who sat in on the interrogations. They had not seen the Australian near carriage 30 for twenty-four hours.

  There was also Bowles, the large American former construction business owner. He had been in the Vietnam War and knew how to use a range of weaponry. He was at first bemused by the questions and later distinctly amused when asked if he had any reason to want to kill the Mexican.

  ‘Depends on what business he was in,’ the American said and followed it by a loud guffaw. ‘I have operations in Texas. I both love them because they are prepared to work cheaply for my companies, and hate ’em for the goddamn drugs they bring in.’ He laughed again. ‘But I didn’t know the guy. What did he do?’

  ‘Er, this is not the issue,’ Makanathan said, unwilling to mention Cortez’s background. She dismissed the American and, just as she called for the next couple, was surprised to see Hinkley and Cowboy walk into the bar.

  ‘Sorry to jump the queue,’ Hinkley said in her forthright manner, ‘but Cowboy thinks he knows who did the killing.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Makanathan said, glancing at her watch, which said 5 a.m. ‘Who?’

  ‘He thinks it’s either the nice Frenchman or the American in the wheelchair. He is not sure which one.’