‘These are called flower smoke rooms,’ Spaulding continued. ‘The girls are the flowers. Curtis thought you could get to Elysium by boat, that was his mistake; the gateway is a simple pipe. Hard to believe we had to force the Chinese to take the stuff at gunpoint – usually you need a gun to take it off people. What you have to understand is, it’s not good for you to go looking for him. There are issues of … well, the security of England, do you see what I mean?’
‘Not really,’ I said.
‘He probably isn’t here anyway. Malaya’s your best bet.’
‘Funny, you are the second person to tell me that. The second in the space of a day to recommend I leave Bangkok straight away.’
‘Who was the first?’
‘Mr Fink.’
‘Oh was he indeed? Did he tell you he and Curtis used to be very thick?’
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘Until they fell out. Had a blazing row the night of my party. A real fireworks show it was. At one point Fink threatened to kill Curtis, and we had to restrain him. We never saw Curtis again after that night. Perhaps Mr Fink has good reason to direct you somewhere else.’
I pondered his words. Had Mr Fink been a touch disingenuous with us?
‘What did they fall out over?’
‘A girl I believe. With blue eyes. That’s why I suggested you go to Malaya. You get more European girls there, hoping to find a husband among the lonely ranks of exiled plantation owners.’
‘I see.’
‘I suppose,’ continued Spaulding, ‘the real question is why you are looking for him. Why are you?’
‘He’s a friend of mine.’ I became aware of a growing sleepiness. My voice no longer sounded like it was mine, as if it came from the cellar or somewhere far away.
‘Really? How long have you known him?’
‘Quite a long time.’
‘What does he look like?’
I paused. I had no idea. Spaulding let out a laugh that was partly a sneer. ‘You’re a lousy liar, Wenlock. You are not a friend of Curtis. If you ask me, you are a detective sent to investigate his disappearance. Am I right?’
I forced a merry laugh. ‘You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried.’
‘You think so? I’m pretty sure I’ve got you down right. I’ve met a lot of detectives, they all have a similar smell. You’ve got that smell, Wenlock. It’s that sour, slightly cheesy odour you get behind the ears of boys who don’t wash very often. All cops have it. You strike me as being a former police detective, dismissed for impropriety and now scraping a grubby living working privately. If we were in England it would be unmistakable because you would be wearing the trademark of all cheap gumshoes, a shabby mackintosh that has acquired a sheen from the grease of years – grease accumulated from many nights sleeping on the back seat of a car. Am I right, Mr Wenlock? I’m seldom wrong about these matters.’
I said nothing, my mind too preoccupied with the task of preventing my eyelids from closing.
‘Am I right? Eh? Is that how you spend your life, sleeping in cars outside grand town mansions, spying on chaps committing adultery? That’s what you do, isn’t it? I know your sort. Vermin, that’s what you are. The first thing you say is, “I don’t do divorce,” but of course your sort would starve if you didn’t, in truth it’s all you do, isn’t it?’
For a brief second, perhaps triggered by the increasingly bitter tone in his voice, a clear patch emerged in the fog of my mind. ‘You sound awfully familiar with it,’ I said in a groggy voice. ‘Did something similar happen to you?’
I sensed rather than observed Mr Spaulding flush in a manner that suggested my words had struck home.
‘You bloody little cad,’ he said in a harsh whisper. ‘Carry on like that and you’ll get a bunch of fives. Enough of the phoney war, let me ask you straight. If you don’t answer, it will be the worse for you. Who are you working for?’
I was having extreme difficulty focusing. ‘I … I … me? Working for who?’
‘Whatever Curtis was mixed up in is none of your bloody business, do you see? Nor of the man who hired you. I’m not the sort of chap to issue threats twice, so mark my words carefully, Wenlock. You keep out of this or you will get what for.’
Some time later I opened my eyes. I was lying on a bed in a darkened room. Downstairs I could still hear the muted sound of the nightclub singer. I dimly remember searching the corridor for a washroom. When I eventually found one, the door opened and a man walked out carrying a chamber pot. He wore a dressing gown over pyjamas. The chamber pot was full of yellow liquid in which floated with obscene simplicity, a stool. He looked at me and with that unerring air of Englishmen abroad who spot one another and crown the recognition with a banality said, ‘I see it’s turned out fine again.’
Much later I awoke in the hotel, in my bed, with a terrible headache. Jenny was sitting in a chair staring at me.
Chapter 12
Jenny brought me a glass of water and said, ‘Golly!’
I drank.
‘I can’t believe you went to a real opium den and had a cup of tea. Well, actually I can.’
‘It’s the cup that refreshes but not inebriates.’
‘You really are a flat tyre.’
‘Yes, I rather suppose I am.’ I added with a grin, ‘You would be better off with the sort of chap who enjoys that sort of thing.’
She lay down beside me and rested her head against my ear. ‘Yes, I think you might be right. Were the girls very pretty?’
‘Yes, I suppose you could say they were.’
‘I’m asking you if you would say they were.’
‘I find them quite austere, rather cool. It’s disconcerting actually. One gets the impression that they do not think much of one.’
‘I’m not surprised, ordering a cup of tea in an opium den.’
I laughed. ‘It was clearly very strong tea judging by the way I’m feeling now.’
‘Do you think they slipped something … opium even, in your drink?’
‘It would certainly explain a lot.’
‘What did they want? I mean, really. They didn’t show you very much.’
‘I think they had three aims. First to warn me off. More particularly to accuse me of being a detective and gauge my reaction. I mean, really, to find out who or what I was. And third to give a spurious impression – that Curtis was some sort of licentious rake.’
‘From what we know, he doesn’t sound like one.’
‘It didn’t ring at all true to me. At one point Spaulding said something about national security being involved.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘He also told me Curtis and Mr Fink had a blazing row the night Curtis disappeared.’
‘I was speaking about that with the hotel manager,’ said Jenny. ‘Apparently there was a break-in at the hotel that same night. An earthenware jar and a rug were taken.’
‘Is that all?’
‘So he said. You’d expect burglars to be interested in more than that, wouldn’t you? The guests’ jewellery, for a start.’
‘Or the hotel safe.’
‘Perhaps they had a fight and broke the vase and blamed it on intruders. Isn’t it odd that Mr Fink forgot to tell us about his row?’
‘Very odd. We must confront him about it. Apparently the argument had something to do with a girl.’
‘The manager also talked about his bill. It hasn’t been settled. He suggested that as old friends of Curtis we might like to protect his honour by settling his account. He said there was some uncollected mail for him that he would be happy to pass on to us.’
‘You mean he will give us Curtis’s mail if we pay his bill?’
‘He didn’t put it quite as bluntly as that.’
I laughed. ‘He must suspect us of being detectives too! The sly old fox.’
‘We could tell him to go jump in the lake.’
‘No, I think we should settle Curtis’s bill. We are after all representing the family here,
in a way, and have substantial funds from Lady Seymour.’
There was a knock on the door and the boy outside handed me a note saying that Lieutenant Colonel Nopsansuwong of the Royal Siamese Police, Foreigner Division, would like to see me in the lobby at 9 a.m. This news set me on edge slightly. Even in England such a request would stir up the heart: one assumes the worst and wonders, ‘What have I done?’
There were still fifteen minutes before the appointed time, so we went down and strolled out on to the lawn. A marquee was being erected in preparation for the St George’s Day party. Hoshimi was seated at a side table folding her cranes. She smiled, and pointed out three cranes that had already been folded from the writing paper Jenny had given her. A boy in a blazing white jacket with a mandarin collar and silk jodhpurs brought us a tray of fresh orange juice. Earwig appeared, looked at Jenny, and said, ‘That Yank spent the night with Sugarpie, the damn swine.’ He walked off.
As if on cue, Kilmer and Sugarpie joined us. Kilmer made the introductions. Sugarpie wore a bright flashing grin that seemed to be both genuine and an impudent smirk.
‘Madam first time Bangkok?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Jenny. ‘It’s … it’s very nice.’
‘I no like so much. Why you come Siam? If Sugarpie have money, she go to Europe.’
‘Is Sugarpie a Siamese name?’ I asked stupidly.
‘It America name,’ she replied. ‘My name Namwaan. It mean sugar water.’
‘Honey,’ said Kilmer. ‘Sugarpie is an approximation.’
‘Europe beautiful, see picture.’
Earwig returned. He stared hard at Sugarpie, who responded with a look of aristocratic disdain.
‘I’ll be having a word with you, later,’ he said.
‘I no speak.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that. We had an understanding.’
‘Hey, buddy, relax,’ said Kilmer, in a voice that managed to combine affability with a hint that it would be a very good idea to heed his instruction.
‘When I want your opinion I’ll ask for it,’ Earwig said coldly.
‘If I want to give it, you’ll get it. Now quit bellyaching. The girl doesn’t belong to you.’
‘I don’t see what business it is of yours, this is a private matter.’
‘Don’t be boring, Earwig, or I’ll throw you in the drink.’
Earwig sniffed disapproval, but did not take Kilmer up on the offer.
I left Jenny and returned to the lobby to meet Lieutenant Colonel Nopsansuwong. He was seated reading at one of the rattan chairs. There was a fat leather book resting on the table. The policeman wore a chocolate-brown uniform that bore numerous insignia, braid and epaulettes, in a style that looked distinctly military. He stood up at my approach, put the newspaper down, and reached out to shake my hand.
‘Mr Wenlock,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Siam. And thank you for taking the time to see me this morning.’ His face was soft and round, like a moon, and his hair glistened with pomade, but what struck me most was the quality of his voice. His English was almost entirely accent-free, and suggested an intelligence at odds with the slight music-hall quality of the braid, epaulettes and other finery. He smiled.
‘That’s quite all right,’ I said, knowing as well as he did that I could hardly have declined the request to meet him.
‘I am afraid I have never heard of Weeping Cross,’ he said, ‘but I know Cheltenham well, I went to school there. Please, follow me, I wish to show you something.’ He picked up the book and nestled it under his arm, and then beckoned for me to go before him.
We went out through the main entrance, to a waiting car – a shiny black foreign make that I did not recognise.
‘Am I under arrest?’ I asked only half in jest.
He laughed with a slightly exaggerated air. ‘Not at all. I want to show you something that may help you enjoy your stay in Siam.’
We both sat in the back, the policeman uttered a few words to the driver, who drove us off.
‘Good book?’ I asked. Lieutenant Colonel Nopsansuwong tapped the spine of the book. ‘It’s my favourite book. Written seven hundred years ago in China by a man called Song Ci. It’s called Washing Away of Wrongs, a handbook for coroners. Long before your Sherlock Holmes, he solved crimes using his brain. The book tells the tale of a murder in which a peasant was killed with a sickle. So the magistrate ordered all the peasants locally to bring along their sickles to the village square. He told them to put the sickles on the ground, and then they waited. Well, what do you know? Before long the blade of one of the sickles began to attract flies. Soon it was covered in them, and all there knew whose sickle had recently been covered in blood, and so the murderer confessed.’
I expressed approval and he continued, ‘Yes, it is a clever story, and the whole book is filled with similar stories. I greatly admire it. Who knows, maybe we will find something in here to help us find your Mr Curtis.’
I flinched slightly at the suddenness of that comment, sure that was his intent. He smiled at me as if he had just passed a remark about the weather. Then he added, ‘This is our Chinatown, much bigger than yours in London.’ The road was clogged with cars, the pavements overflowing with people all seemingly bent on errands of great urgency.
‘Tell me, Mr Wenlock, are you familiar with the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch?’
‘No, I’m afraid I’m not.’
‘He paints very gloomy things, like a child standing at the bedside of her dead mother. We Siamese are not Norwegians, we do not like to mope and be gloomy, we do not regard suffering as ennobling. We prefer something we call sanuk. This word is usually translated as “fun”, but it has a deeper significance than that, it reflects our desire at all times to get enjoyment out of whatever it is we do.’
‘I see,’ I said, although I didn’t. It seemed to me the policeman liked to give the impression of spontaneity to his remarks, but really they were most craftily chosen. ‘How did you know I was interested in Mr Curtis?’
He tapped the book again. ‘From reading this.’
I looked surprised and he laughed. ‘No, I’m joking. Mr Earwig told me. He has a loose tongue. You understand, of course, that we cannot permit private detectives to investigate our missing persons cases.’
‘I can assure you I am nothing of the sort!’
‘Mr Earwig said you were.’
‘Oh did he? Well, he couldn’t be more wrong if he tried. I’m here on behalf of Mr Curtis’s mother, who is worried about him.’
Lieutenant Colonel Nopsansuwong nodded. ‘It is the same the world over, mothers were born to worry. We Siamese venerate our mothers.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To the other side of the river, a part of Bangkok little visited by tourists. It’s called Thonburi.’
As if on cue the car left the thoroughfare and drove over a three-lane metal bridge. A latticework of girders rose like walls on either side of us, and through them glimmered the river.
‘This bridge was named in honour of the first king of the present dynasty,’ said the policeman. ‘His title is Phra Bat Somdet Phra Paramoruracha Mahachakkriborommanat Phra Phutthayotfa Chulalok. But you can call it Memorial Bridge. It was built by the Norman Long Company of Middlesbrough. They also built the Sydney Harbour Bridge.’
‘By Jove! I believe they may also have built the Dessouk Railway Bridge over the Nile.’
The skyline of Bangkok flickered through the steel frame. A temple glittered in the hot sun. It had a bright orange-tiled roof, with elaborate swooping curves like the rails of a sleigh beset by golden towers like giant upturned ear trumpets. Down below, the riverbank was lined with slums of wooden houses built on stilts in the water. The pavements were just planks and boards, seemingly frozen in the moment just before collapse. Boys dived like gleaming seals into the water and waved; women bathed in the brown soup wearing sarongs knotted under their armpits.
In the district of Bangkok we had just left the streets were bedecked with si
gns and advertisements, neon scribbles recommending Dunlop, Horlicks and The British Overseas Airways Corporation. These familiar words felt comforting in so exotic a locale, reminding one of home and providing reassurance that there were people near at hand who spoke the same language and drank Horlicks. But all that vanished once we crossed the bridge. The locale grew more obviously alien. If I had been sitting in a private car, a taxi perhaps, I would have registered mild alarm. Sitting with a policeman I wasn’t sure what I was to make of it. He seemed very refined in his manners, the reverse of domineering. What was he playing at?
Eventually we arrived at a small square before a toy-sized railway station. On the right side was a shabby hotel, the same one the chaps had brought me to the night before. In the light of day I noticed a broken sign saying H tel 90.
It appeared, however, that the policeman took more interest in another building on the other side of the railway station. It stood in a walled compound, and set in the wall was a rather ornate gate that might have adorned the palace of a maharaja. This fairytale quality was contradicted by the walls of the building that rose above it: the windows were barred and beyond, to the left, the corner was topped by a watchtower. It too had an ornate roof that made it look like a pagoda. Two chaps stood sentinel, and it looked to me as if they were armed. It was clearly a prison.
‘Don’t worry,’ said the policeman. ‘We are not going in. You wouldn’t like the smell. I wanted to show you, that’s all. Inside there somewhere lives the world’s loneliest man.’
‘You are not telling me Curtis is in there?’
‘His name is not important. He is a metaphorical man. A European man, from a land where the consular officials do not care to intercede on his behalf.
‘Imagine it: you sleep on the stone floor with no bed nor blankets. Thirty men to a room, many of them the most desperate of men imaginable. Your food is a bowl of rotten rice, with the occasional fish head, once a day. You never wash. The stink is enough to knock a man unconscious the first time he encounters it. Outside these walls you will, as a European man, be treated with great respect and deference, but inside – ah! There you have no such luck. Outside those walls your status as a white man will be so high, and within them it would be correspondingly low.
The Corpse in the Garden of Perfect Brightness Page 14
