The Kiss of the Dragon

by Lilburne, Guy

  A small group of adults, mostly women, sat at some tables under the shade of a tree just up in front of him on the right. Behind them was a big wooden building, larger than most of the others. The group of women all looked at the farang followed by the excited, laughing children.

  One of the group stood up and took a few paces forward, stopped and gazed. It was Nok. Danny looked up and saw her. He recognised her as soon as he saw her. The wide beautiful smile he remembered so well suddenly spread across her face. She squealed something in Thai and then ran to Danny with arms stretched out wide. Instinctively Danny put his arms out and Nok ran into them. He swung her around and they hugged. Danny was happy to see his friend again and Nok cried with joy at seeing her great British detective again. She had talked about him so many times and all the villagers knew about him. But she had long ago given up any hope of ever seeing him again. Her heart was jumping.

  “I so happy” she repeated, over and over again.

  “How are you, Nok? You’re looking grand.”

  Nok took Danny by the hand and led him back to the group of people, some of whom were already standing and clapping. All were smiling. They all knew who Danny O’Brien was already. The front left side of the wooden building was Nok’s shop and photographs cut from the Phuket Gazette were pinned up around the walls. The rest of the wooden building was Nok’s granddad’s farm house and behind that was his land.

  Granddad appeared from the shade of the house when he heard all the screams and laughter. He beamed a toothless smile when he saw Danny. He was a skinny old man wearing a vest and trousers that both looked too big for his body. He went back into the house for a moment and then reappeared with a bottle of rice whisky. His face and body were old beyond his years, savaged by a lifetime of hard work and baking sun. But he had a happy grin and Danny liked him instantly. He wai’d to Danny and sat on the ground in the shade of the tree, beckoning Danny to join him and share the whisky. Everyone was talking at once and Nok was doing her best to translate. She had no time to ask Danny all the things that she wanted to ask him, but she didn’t care. She was just happy and there was always tomorrow to talk. The gathering grew quickly as word spread around the village and soon there were too many people to count. Barbeques were fired up, bottles of beer and whisky were passed around. Old women with dark red teeth spat out red spit on the ground and carried on chewing on the betel nuts that years of chewing had caused such shocking red discolouration. Now the meeting had become a full blown party and Danny and Nok had no chance to talk together, but they both knew they could talk later. They smiled and nodded when they caught each other’s gaze. Danny drank whisky and beer and smoked cigarettes with men from the village. In England he was alone. It occurred to him that here, in Thailand, he had friends.

  Chapter 22: A boat trip for Ticky

  Ticky had been working alongside a lot of girls. Some were Thai, others were from Laos, Cambodia, Burma and China. She had made some friends, but everyone was afraid to speak too much, so nobody got to know much about anyone else.

  Nobody really knew where they were and everyone had a different opinion. Most of the men with guns seemed to be Chinese, but not all.

  Without any prior warning Ticky was taken with a group of other girls and blindfolded. They were put onto trucks and driven away over bumpy roads for nearly an hour before they were taken off the trucks and walked into another building. It sounded metal. Then she heard the metal doors close, locks being clicked and chains being rattled. Slowly, the girls inside started to remove the blindfolds. They were in a container. They screamed and cried as it was suddenly lifted up and they felt it swing in the air before being lowered again. Soon they realised that they had been loaded onto a boat. After hours, the container was opened again and they were fed and given water. They were also warned that they would be killed if they made any noise. They were told that they were going to be freed and go back to their families, because they had worked well. The container was later lifted off the boat and, after a few hours, was lifted onto a ship. The sea crossing went on for days and days. Ticky lost count. They were all sick and hungry, tired and dirty, and three girls died.

  Chapter 23: City of good people

  Danny awoke and did not know where he was. He could hear a cockerel crowing from somewhere outside and a dog barked. A motorbike started up and the noise faded as it travelled away into the distance. He was hot and sweating. He opened his eyes. It was daylight, but only just. He was lying naked on a thin, rolled up mattress cocooned in a mosquito net. He saw the naked sleeping figure of Nok lying next to him.

  “Holy Jesus Mother of God! What the feck have I done?” he whispered to himself.

  He leaned over to take a closer look at Nok’s face. She was still sleeping soundly. Danny peered through the mosquito net and saw his clothes neatly folded in a pile on the floor. He knew that was not his handiwork. He tried to sneak out of the netting without disturbing Nok, but she stirred with his movement and placed a hand on his bare back.

  “Tee rak, (Darling) where you go?” she sighed sleepily.

  “Jesus, I need a shower and we need to talk.”

  “No problem. Can do. Towel under your clothes and shower downstair in kitchen.” She closed her eyes again.

  Danny wrapped the thin cloth striped towel around his waist and carried his clothes with him. Just like the shower at Ling’s mother’s house in Udon Thani, the shower was a case of standing in the bathroom and pouring big scoops of cold water over himself with a small plastic bucket. It was fantastically refreshing, after the first bucketful took his breath away. He stayed pouring water over himself for a long time. He was thinking about Ling, thinking about sleeping with Nok last night and being too drunk to know anything about it. He was worrying about what to say to Nok. He had come to see her to ask for her help; not to sleep with her or do anything else to make her think he had come to be her boyfriend. Last night a party just happened and they did not get a chance to talk at all. Now, this morning, he had woken up naked with her.

  “Jesus! Yer fecking eejit” he said to himself.

  By the time he was towelled dry and dressed, Nok was already up and waiting to hand him a cup of coffee. She was dressed only in a towel and, as soon as she handed Danny the coffee, she skipped past him to take her shower. Danny took his coffee and stepped out of the back door and lit up a cigarette.

  Although he had stepped outside it was obvious he was now standing in the kitchen. Even though he was standing outside he was standing next to a bench under which there was piled various pots and pans. There was a little gas cooker set up at the end of the bench. Just in front of him, set up under a tree, was a free standing pipe with a tap and a sink set up on four breeze blocks. Danny could see from where the earth had been washed away in a meandering trail to the trees, that this is how the waste water was drained away.

  It was already humid and too hot to stand in the sun, even at this time in the morning. He saw three old ladies sitting on what looked like a low table placed under a nearby tree. A fourth old lady was standing close by searching the ground for fallen betel nuts. The hallucinogenic nut, which a lot of the old ladies loved to cut up and chew all day long, was a nut that permanently turned their teeth and gums a deep shade of red. All the old ladies wai’d to Danny and he smiled and waved back to them for a second, before he remembered and changed the wave into a wai. He didn’t know if these old ladies were at the party last night or not, but they all smiled as if they knew him, so he smiled back.

  The rubber trees were planted in rows just after the small clearing that surrounded the back of the house. The rows went on for as far as Danny could see and provided a green roof canopy as shade from the baking sun. There was a little concrete table with two concrete benches just about being covered by the tree shade and Danny decided he was going to sit there, away from the old ladies. As he walked to the little concrete table he notice
d the little pots nailed to the rubber trees and all the scars from cutting born by the trees. He mentally prepared himself for a heart to heart with Nok. He already knew that she thought he had come back for her.

  He was still thinking what to say when Nok appeared from the back of the house. Her wide smile was beaming and she looked happy. She wai’d with respect to the old ladies, who were now all sitting on the low table chewing betel nuts, and she joined Danny at the concrete table. She kissed him on the cheek as she sat down.

  “Jesus!”

  “What’s the matter, tee rak?”

  “Nok, we need to talk. I have something to tell you and I have something to ask you……..Jesus! I don’t know where to start.”

  “Easy, you start at the beginning. I listen. Then we both talk. No problem.”

  Danny lit up another cigarette. He leaned his head back and blew a long trail of smoke into the hot humid air.

  “Nok, I haven’t come back here to be your boyfriend. I have come to see you because I need your help. I’m here on another case, but I need some help and I don’t know who else can help me. Yesterday I didn’t get a chance to talk to you, and the party just happened. You looked very happy all night and then, this morning, I wake up and I’m naked in bed with you. I need you to know that I have not come here to be your boyfriend.”

  Nok took a moment to respond. The smile dropped from her face, but only fleetingly, before she gathered herself and beamed her huge easy smile at Danny making him instantly relax. Whatever thoughts had just gone through her mind, she had no intention of sharing them with Danny. Well, at least not now.

  “I am from here, Surat Thani. This is the name of my city. The name given by the King Rama V1. Surat Thani means ‘City of good people.’ I am good people and I will help you everything.”

  Danny was both touched and impressed by her calm dignity. He knew that he had hurt her feelings and she was probably deeply embarrassed by the misunderstanding, but now, without hesitation, she was offering her help with the most brilliant of smiles. He just remembered how much he liked Nok, and why.

  “You don’t even know what I want you to do yet. You had better hear what I have to say before you offer to help. It is a big ask, and I will understand if you say no. I have just realised how wrong it is for me to even be here asking you to help in the way I need….” his voice tailed off.

  Nok touched his hand and smiled reassuringly.

  “I help you anything. You big friend to me. You make my life good. You make my family life good for every person in my family. You give me big chance in life to make good shop, good farm, good rubber tree. You give me big money to take me away from bar and make good life. No more sleep with customer for money. You give me my dream for me and my grandpa. Every day I think about you and say prayer to Buddha for you. You my big friend and I help you anything.”

  “Yes, we are special friends, I guess.”

  “Friendship is like the sea, sometimes very deep, sometimes……” she held her hands out and flipped them over and back again. “Sometimes not deep.”

  “Shallow” offered Danny.

  “Yes, sometimes shallow. We are big deep friend. Always I help you and I think always maybe you help me.”

  Danny nodded and they both smiled.

  “What you want me help you?”

  “I need you to come back to Patong with me and start working in a bar.”

  Once again the smile dropped from Nok’s face. Even Danny could see the sadness and shock sweep over her pretty face, as the realization of what he had just said sank in. She could only manage a sad limp smile as she gently nodded.

  “OK. I do this for you. For how long do I have to work the bar?”

  Danny grabbed hold of Nok’s hands.

  “Oh Jesus! No Nok. I don’t want you to work the bar really. I just want you to pretend. I never want you to go with any customers. I just need you to get a job in a bar and get some information for me. I’m on another case, but I need someone on the inside to get some information for me.”

  “Danny, cannot. Nobody give job in bar unless lady go with customer. But I will do this for you, to repay all the money you give to me.”

  “No, Nok. I have a plan. I need you to get a job in a bar called Captain Morgan’s Bar. It’s on the Beach Road in Patong. The man who owns the bar is a farang called Jack Morgan. He is a retired policeman from England. His Thai girlfriend in England sent a letter to me. She thinks he is missing and that something bad has happened to him. She has paid me to find him. Somebody is still running the bar. I have been there and had a look, but there is no sign of Jack Morgan. Nok, I only need you to work at the bar for a few days, maybe a week at the most, to find out what you can about Jack Morgan. I will come to the bar early each night and pay your bar fine so everybody think you go with customer. But really, you’ll be safe with me.”

  “OK, we do like this.” Nok was beaming her usual smile again.

  “Obviously, I will pay you for working with me and pay all expenses, and put you in a nice hotel.”

  “Danny, I not need money. Just 1000 baht.” (£20)

  “Why just 1000 baht?”

  “I give 1000 baht to my sister to run shop and look after grandpa for one week. If I stay with you more than one week, I need another 1000 baht. Is OK?”

  “Yes, of course that’s OK, and I will pay you for your time. I have to Nok.”

  “OK, no problem. Can do.”

  “Nok, I thought that you told me you just had a brother who was now a monk. I did not know you had a sister.”

  “Not real sister. Just friend, but same same as sister.”

  Danny just nodded and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I need to ask you something else” he said.

  “What you want to ask?”

  “Did we have sex last night?”

  Nok put her hand up over her mouth to cover a laugh.

  “No cannot. Khun moaw mak mak.” (you were very drunk)

  “Holy Jesus Mother of God! Thank the Lord for that.”

  “Why? You not like me anymore?” she frowned.

  “Oh, I think you’re grand, but there is a lot more I have to tell you…………”

  Danny told Nok about arriving back in Thailand, visiting Patong and meeting Ling at the Blue Dolphin Bar, then travelling up to Udon Thani and meeting her family. He told Nok that he thought that Ling was in love with him and that he had fallen for her too. He told Nok that, after the case, he was going back to Ling and he was hoping to settle down with her, maybe even get married. Nok listened without comment until he had finished talking.

  “OK. We get ready now and take train to Phuket. We talk about Ling later.” She flashed Danny another smile and skipped away into the house.

  Chapter 24: Back to Patong Beach

  The train ride back to Phuket was a very pleasant one and Nok was a great companion. They ate well on the train and Nok chatted away excitedly about everything. She was careful not to ask anything about Ling, but everything else was up for discussion. She wanted to know absolutely everything that had happened to Danny since he gave her the money in the Moon Bar that night just over a year ago. She was very animated as she listened to Danny’s answer to each of her questions. She put both her hands over her mouth and gasped when he told her about him hitting Sgt. Wattana and the Thai policeman, who fired a shot at him in response. She cried when he told her about him drinking himself into a stupor and sleeping under bridges along the Thames. She laughed when he told her about waking up soaked with urine and hoping that it was a dog that had done it. She listened intently when he talked about the letter from the Thai lady asking him to look for her boyfriend, Jack Morgan, about the meeting with her and the subsequent visit to his bar in Patong. When Danny tried to talk about Ling she changed the subject back to t
he case, but all the time she looked at him with love in her eyes. If Danny noticed then he didn’t let on.

  “How you want I find out about bar?” she asked.

  “Just by being there for a few days, listen to what they say. If you have their trust, ask questions, but don’t make them suspicious. The lady, who calls herself Fon, says that she is the owner and one of the other girls who works there told me that she had bought the bar from a farang (foreigner). I do not believe them. I think they know a lot more than they would tell me. But with you working there, I think you can find the answer to my case.”

  “What you think happen?”

  “Nok, I would rather you just go in and find out what you can, without me telling you what I think.”

  “OK. You think they do something bad to Jack Morgan and now have his bar. No problem. I not think anything and find out something. Can do.”

  Danny looked at her, raised an eyebrow and gently shook his head. Nok smiled and put a finger to her lips

  “Sshhhh. Secret. I understand” she whispered.

  When they got in the taxi at Phuket Nok spoke in Thai to the driver. He nodded and they set off on the 40 minute drive to Patong. The taxi pulled up outside the Lamai Hotel on Rat u Thit Road.

  “OK, we get out here. You pay 300 baht to taxi please” said Nok.

  Danny paid and gave a 50 baht tip. Nok shook her head, because it was too much. They had already been over charged because he was farang. Danny followed Nok into the open front of the Lamai Hotel and looked on as she spoke with the young girl behind the reception desk. After a lot of nodding and both women saying ‘ka, ka, ka,’ a lot, Nok turned to Danny and said “You are staying here. I go now. I have to buy sexy clothes for tonight work at bar and I have to find room for me on Nanai Road with other bar girls.”