The Kiss of the Dragon

by Lilburne, Guy

  Danny was breathing deeply and Nok was smiling and looking up at the stars. Her perfect day had just got so much better.

  “I know you not love me tee rak, but now I am very happy.”

  “How can you be happy. I know you love me Nok, but I love Ling. So how can you be happy. I should not be doing this to you.”

  “Tee rak, I am happy, jing jing.”

  “Nok, how do you find happiness so easily in life? When life keeps letting you down?”

  “No, tee rak. Thai people understand something that make it easy for us to be happy.”

  “What do Thai people understand?”

  “We understand that it is not life that lets you down. It just your expectation of it that lets you down. Simple, tee rak. You have to learn to be happy. It is not something that just happens to you. I think you can have happy life with Ling but you have to learn to recognise happiness. Don’t feel guilty about what just happen. If your spirit friend Ying bring you back to Thailand to make you meet Ling, then she also make you find tonight with me for good reason. I think to make you realise what happy can feel like.”

  The silence of the night was disturbed by the noise from an outboard engine and it made Danny and Nok sit up and look out to the lake. The two men in the boat were getting nearer to Danny and Nok’s position. Danny thought that maybe they were coming to investigate the fire but suddenly they cut the engine and started mauling with something that was lying between them in the bottom of the boat. They were close enough for Danny to see that it was wrapped in sacking or dark cloth. It was stiff, heavy and he guessed about 6ft long.

  The two men either hadn’t seen the flicker of the firelight or, if they had seen it, they were happy to ignore it. They struggled with the dead weight and rolled it over the side of the boat and it plopped into the dark waters of the lake. The outboard motor started up and they headed back in the direction from which they came and the noise of the engine faded with the distance.

  “Holy feck! Jesus, did you see that Nok? They just dumped a body in the lake.”

  Nok put her hand over her mouth to stop her giggles until she composed herself.

  “No, tee rak. They not dump body. They hide wood.”

  “What?”

  The night was disturbed again by the sound of a second boat engine, this time coming from the opposite direction. Nok put her finger up to her lips.

  “Shhh! Watch. They will collect the wood.”

  Danny and Nok watched as the two men in the second boat stopped over the dumping site and dragged a pole until they found what they were looking for. They dragged the heavy cloth wrapped wood onto their own boat and then started the engine up and went back from the direction they came.

  “See?” laughed Nok.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Simple. In Thailand it is illegal to cut wood, but we all need to make houses, so wood cut is hidden and collected at night. Once wood made into house it is not illegal, but when it is still just wood very illegal. If police catch people they arrest them and send to monkey house.(prison) Better to hide wood and not let police see.”

  “The land of smiles is a land of surprises, I think.”

  They stayed until the fire died down and then went back to the cabin and showered, with ladles of cool water, before they settled down under the mosquito net and slept in each other’s arms.

  Chapter 34: Ticky’s new life

  Ticky was taken out of the container and another blindfold was put on her. She guessed that the men were probably Chinese, but this was a long way from Thailand. It was cold. The air felt cold in her lungs. The smell and the sounds were different from Thailand. Maybe it was only weeks since she had been taken, but it felt like a lifetime ago. Now she was scared again. She had been raped and abused so much that her body did not feel as if it was her own. She was scared and she just did not want to die. She had prayed a lot to Buddha in the last week or two, for help and forgiveness. She knew that this was only happening to her because she must have done something very bad in a previous life. She begged Buddha to forgive her her sins, and she begged the people that she must have hurt in her previous life to forgive her. Maybe these were the same people who were hurting her so much now.

  Ticky was taken away from the other girls and put in a van on her own. She was driven a long way. She had never known anything as cold as it was here and she was shaking with the cold for the entire journey. Eventually she was taken out of the van and dragged into some place. She thought that it must be a kitchen, because it was warm and smelt of food cooking. She could hear voices talking, both male and female, and the clatter of pans. She was so hungry. She felt somebody poke her body and then squeeze her small breasts. They opened her mouth and she felt someone’s fingers checking her teeth. She was not sure, but it felt like a woman who was prodding her. A big fat woman. She was talking quickly and again Ticky guessed that it was Chinese. The woman was talking to a man and, even though Ticky could not understand the words, she could tell that they were agreeing a price for her. After a few minutes the lady took her by the arm and dragged her away through the building. She was taken up some stairs and then tied to a bed rail. Two different men came in during the night and raped her while she was still blindfolded and tied to the bed. The next day she was taken out and driven in the back of a van to another place where she was untied and the blindfold taken off.

  Ticky did not know a lot of things. She did not know that now, at the age of 13, she was in a brothel in Birmingham, England and was destined to service up to 20 men a day for the rest of her life.

  Chapter 35: Crocodile Farm

  Danny slept well and was only awoken by Nok kissing him on the cheek. She was already up and dressed.

  “Tee rak, you stay here. I go and ask around about crocodile farm. Better you not with me. You relax.”

  Danny did not argue, he knew she was right. She took the car keys from his trouser pocket and left. He heard her footsteps as she was walking around on the veranda outside and then he heard her go down the steps. Bleep bleep. She opened the car door and started up the engine. It was so quiet and peaceful here that every single sound that would normally go unnoticed seemed to be deafening. It was still barely light. Danny did not look at his watch but he guessed it was about 6:30am. He turned over and drifted off to sleep.

  When he eventually stirred and scrambled out from the mosquito net it was 9:30am. It was hot and humid. He showered off outside with the ladle. The cool water felt fantastic on his body, after the initial one made him gasp. The only food that was left was some of the fruit. Danny ate some and drank half a bottle of bottled water, but it was warm. He grabbed the bottle of Sangsom Thai whisky. There was still ¾ of a bottle left. He settled down on the veranda, sitting on one of the huge sawn off logs that had been fashioned into a seat and looked out across the lake. He lit up a cigarette. He felt relaxed and as confident as he could be that, if anyone could find a crocodile farm around here without alerting everyone, then Nok could.

  When Nok got back, just after 2:00pm, she found Danny asleep under the mosquito net. When she saw the empty Sangsom bottle and all the beer bottles, she decided to let him sleep it off. She was pleased with herself. She had directions to the farm and she had come back with food and a bottle of Jack Daniels for Danny. She had a lot to tell him and she knew that he would be pleased with her, but it could all wait until later.

  It was the smell of Nok cooking chicken that eventually awoke Danny. After some water and some food, he listened to her telling him how she asked around and had the directions to the crocodile farm. There was only another two hours of daylight left now, so they decided that they would stay another night in the cabin and leave early in the morning to find the farm. Nok assured him that it was only about 30 minutes away, but a lot of driving along dusty tracks. It might not be easy to find when they got there. Nok als
o told him that she had already stopped at the hire shop and paid the man for the second night. He told her just to leave the hired bedding and stuff in the cabin when they left. He’d come and get it.

  It was another 6:30am start when they got up and left to look for the crocodile farm. The air was fresh, but warm, and as the sun was already rising, it was just going to get hotter. Danny was driving and Nok gave him directions from the map she had scribbled on the crushed up paper on her lap. Danny had not got a clue where he was. They were driving along little more than dirt tracks through the hills. There were some signs that had been erected, but they were not official road signs. They were just hand written on boards and nailed to trees. Danny guessed that they had been made by the people who owned the various plots of land and little wooden shacks, which seemed to be dotted around. It seemed that they had probably made the dirt track roads too. Without the help of Nok and her scribbled map they would be hopelessly lost. As the time passed, it occurred to Danny that they probably were.

  If Danny was getting concerned, then Nok was not. Suddenly, Danny could tell by her sudden excited movements in her seat that she thought they were there. She directed Danny to turn left along yet another track, which took them towards another lake. But, before they got to the lakes edge, it came to a stop at a little clearing with just the smallest, run down wooden shack that Danny had ever seen. A woman and a little girl of about eight years of age sat on the wooden boards that made up the veranda in front of the shack. They both greeted Danny and Nok with wais as they got out of the vehicle. Danny could see that these people were extremely poor. The little girl won his heart with a lovely smile; she was a very pretty little girl. A second child, a little boy of about five years of age, came running from behind the shack and stopped in his tracks to wai to the visitors before diving into his mother’s arms. The family members were all smiling at their surprise visitors, with no idea who they were, or why they were here. An older skinny man, dressed in nothing but ragged shorts, appeared from behind the shack. He was the husband and father and had just returned from the lake with a huge fish pierced on a stick over his shoulder. Even though Danny’s full attention was on the family, he had noticed the bananas, papaya and jack fruits growing wild all around them.

  Danny thought to himself ‘Even though these people are poor, they live in a beautiful part of the world and they will never go hungry.’

  The fisherman also stopped to wai to Danny and Nok, before he handed the fish to his wife.

  “They are not Thai. They are from Burma” Nok whispered to Danny.

  “Can you speak Burmese?”

  “No. They speak Thai enough.”

  The fisherman asked Nok if they wanted to stay and share the fish dinner. She related this to Danny, but his shaking head needed no translation for the fisherman.

  “Ask him about the crocodile farm. Tell him we will pay him for the information.”

  The fisherman smiled at Nok and gestured with an open hand for Nok and Danny to sit with him and his family in front of the house.

  Nok turned to Danny. “He wants us to sit down.”

  “I can see that. Just let me get something from the truck.”

  Danny went to the back of the vehicle.

  “The farang doesn’t want to sit with us?” whispered the fisherman in good Thai.

  Before Nok could answer Danny was back, carrying the cardboard box from the back of the truck. He put it down on the ground in front of the fisherman, reached in and handed him a full bottle of Sangsom whisky and a packet of cigarettes. He handed out the rest of the box’s contents to the wife and children. It was just bottles of water and juice. It was not much, but the family was thrilled with the gifts and they all wai’d to him several times. Danny, Nok and the fisherman all sat with the rest of the family.

  None of them noticed the two Asian men who sneaked silently through the jungle until they were just yards away from them, on each side of the little wooden shack. They stopped in the greenery of the jungle on the edge of the clearing. They were both armed with handguns and wore an ear piece. They watched the meeting in silence.

  “Welcome to my home. My name is Pon.” He had a good face. It was dark and weathered by a lifetime of working in the sun. He only had a few teeth that still remained in his mouth and there were strands of wispy silver hair that grew sparsely from his chin. But he smiled easily and his eyes were gentle and honest. Both Nok and Danny already knew that these were good people.

  “Thank you very much. You are very kind. My name is Nok and the farang is a great detective from England called Danny. He has come all the way to Thailand to find somebody……”

  She noticed that Pon had already started nodding as she was speaking, as if he already knew what she was going to say, but she continued.

  “……He thinks that the missing person might be in big trouble, or even dead and he needs to find the truth. He can pay money. We have come to Kanchanaburi to find a crocodile farm, because…. because…. Wait a minute, please.”

  Nok turned back to Danny “Why are we looking for the crocodile farm?”

  “Because Jack Morgan might be inside one of the crocodiles. Tell them that he owned a bar in Phuket and then ran up a lot of debt to some bad people. We think he came to look at a crocodile farm belonging to Fon, or whatever her real name is. We want to know if he knows where the farm is and did he see a farang around here looking at the farm.”

  Nok turned back to the fisherman and related what Danny had said. The fisherman kept nodding and was patient to wait until Nok had finished the whole story before he spoke.

  He told his daughter to get their guests some fresh fruit and she struggled to her feet. Danny hadn’t realised she was disabled until she stood up, but then he saw straight away that she had polio and her right leg was withered and twisted around 180 degrees. Her twisted foot was covered by one of her father’s old ‘Nike’ training shoes. The little girl’s mobility was poor and she dragged her useless right leg as she scuffled to the trees and picked a selection of fresh fruits. It shocked Danny, and even he could not understand why it shocked him so much. Maybe because he just was not expecting it, or maybe it was because the little girl had the prettiest face he had ever seen and she smiled all the time. He could not hide the shock or the sorrow that spread across his face.

  “Jesus!” was the only word he could muster.

  “The farang looks very tough. He has a hard face, but a soft heart I think” said Pon.

  “He has a lot of battles between his head and his heart. He just hasn’t realised yet that the heart is wiser then the head” whispered Nok, as if Danny could understand Thai.

  Pon smiled at Nok. He admired her wisdom for one so young.

  “The farang detective is good. He has come to the right place. There was a murder, but there is nothing left here to see.”

  “Oh my Buddha! You are joking?” Nok was shocked and instinctively put her hand over her mouth.

  “No, I not joke. The farang he is looking for was butchered and fed to the crocodiles two weeks ago. I saw it.”

  Nok turned to Danny. Her heart was banging in her chest. She had to compose herself before she could speak.

  “Tee rak, he say yes. The farang was murdered and fed to the crocodiles. What do you want me to do?”

  “Jesus! Nok, just stay calm. Ask him to tell you everything he can remember. Tell him to start at the beginning and tell you everything he can about the crocodile farm. Get him to tell you everything he can. How does he know that Jack Morgan was murdered…..?”

  “He already tell me he see murder.”

  “OK, Nok. Just stay calm and relaxed and ask him to tell you everything. I’ll get the note pad and you can make notes as he speaks, so you won’t forget later when you tell me.” Danny got up and went to the Mazda pickup once again to retrieve the notebo
ok, which he handed down to Nok. Her hands were shaking as she took it from him.

  “Tee rak, I am not detective. I scare now.”

  “Nok, you are a great detective. You are a natural. You have already done so much on this case with me. Just relax and get him talking and you write it down. I have faith in you.” Danny smiled to reassure her. She nodded and opened the pad and turned back to Pon.

  “OK. Can you start at the beginning and tell me everything you can about the crocodile farm, and about what you saw two weeks ago when you saw the farang murdered?”

  “I did not see the murder. I just saw the body being butchered and fed to the crocodiles.”

  “OK. Start at the beginning please” she said, remembering Danny’s words. Nok realised that she was holding her breath. She made an effort to relax and take deep breaths. She wished that her heart would calm down. It seemed to be beating so hard it felt as if it was shaking her whole body.

  Danny lit up a cigarette and offered one to Pon who accepted with another ‘wai’ to Danny. Danny nodded towards him and he started to give his account to Nok.