The Burma Legacy

by Geoffrey Archer

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘Okay. The Myanmar regime has just gone through one of its regular exercises trying to convince the outside world it’s doing something to curb the drug trade. Secretary-2 held a press conference in a place called Mong Yawn a couple of days ago. That’s in the Triangle. Then the Tatmadaw – the Myanmar military – took a truck load of carefully chosen foreign media to a poppy farm and burned the crops for the cameras. After that they stuck an army officer on a charge to demonstrate their determination to stamp out corruption and drug trafficking.’

  ‘But where’s the Jimmy connection?’

  ‘This is the amazing bit. The officer they nailed admitted having dealings with someone travelling on an Irish passport. Name of Vincent Gallagher.’

  ‘The alias Jimmy Squires used in Phuket.’

  ‘Exactly. The Tatmadaw notified the Thais and the Thais told us.’

  ‘So is that enough? You could get a warrant?’ Then he frowned, realising the unlikelihood of it. ‘The Burmese officer’s testimony would never stand up in an Australian court.’

  ‘Highly improbable. Anyway the junta wouldn’t allow their guy out of the country – in case he spilled the beans on how many of the military commanders flesh out their pay packets with drug money.’

  Sam leaned back in his chair. ‘Poor old Jimmy. Shafted from both ends.’

  ‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke.’

  ‘So, let me get this straight. After Phuket, the Thai military dropped him from their payroll.’

  ‘Too right. And put him on their wanted list.’

  ‘So he really is out of business now?’

  Midge scowled. ‘What do you think? That bloke’s probably got half-a-dozen different aliases. More than likely has someone else lined up already to ship his stuff out of Myanmar. But we’re getting closer, Steve, that’s the point. The tomcat’s lives are running out.’

  She said it with passion – or desperation. Sam wasn’t sure which.

  The beers arrived. Large glasses alive with condensation. The waitress hovered for the food order.

  ‘You choose,’ said Sam. ‘You’ve been here before.’

  Midge selected fish, prawns, noodles and vegetables and the girl went away again.

  ‘What exactly did the junta say?’

  ‘Simply that the Tatmadaw officer – he’s a Major Soe Thein – was using military transport to move Jimmy’s heroin down to Rangoon. Nothing about how it was shipped out of the country.’

  Sam sat back and folded his arms. ‘So what’s the next step?’

  ‘Nailing the bastard.’ Midge pulled a long face. ‘That’s the trouble. We still don’t have the hard evidence to put him away. Don’t even know where he is right now.’

  ‘I’m going to Yangon tomorrow.’

  ‘You are?’ She looked as if she’d seen a vision. ‘That’s incredible. That’s the third time this evening. Things clicking into place, I mean.’ There was a childlike wonderment about the way she said it.

  ‘Yeah, but I’ve got a job to do there. Finding Jimmy Squires isn’t in my brief.’

  ‘Make it your brief.’

  ‘He who pays the piper …’

  She gave him a withering look.

  ‘How are you going in?’

  ‘On a tourist visa. I pick it up tomorrow.’

  He could see she wasn’t going to waste her breath asking what he was being sent there to do, but from the calculating look in her eyes he knew she would use his visit if she possibly could.

  ‘This lot get through five hundred million tabs a year now,’ she announced out of the blue, gesturing towards the affluent young Thais at the tables nearby.

  ‘Tabs?’

  ‘Methamphetamine tablets. Speed. Half a billion produced in the Triangle this year. On top of the heroin. The Wa make ’em in a couple of huge sheds just inside the Burma border. You can see them from a military observation post in northern Thailand. Most of it comes here. But we’re getting some in Oz too.’

  ‘And you’re telling me this because you think Jimmy’s into that trade as well?’

  She shrugged. ‘More a fear he might get into it at some future date, I suppose. His smack trading is what matters for now. Because it’s so lethal.’

  A veil seemed to slip across her face and she looked away from him as if to prevent him seeing into her mind. He suspected she was thinking of the boyfriend who’d died from contaminated heroin, the man she’d told him about when drunk on New Year’s Eve.

  ‘You said his name was Barry?’

  She glared at him, angry with herself for giving him an opening into a domain she liked to keep private. ‘The man we were talking about was Jimmy Squires …’

  ‘… who supplied the dope that killed your boyfriend.’ He knew he had no right to dig into that area of her life, but there was a part of him which wanted to see her vulnerable again, like the last time they’d had a meal together.

  Midge bit her lip and stared at the table as she got a grip on herself.

  ‘Now look, Steve,’ she grated. ‘Don’t you try and make anything out of that. No snide, pommy suggestions that I’m letting my personal history interfere with my professionalism. I want Squires nailed because he’s a crook. Nothing to do with Barry. Okay?’

  Sam raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

  ‘All right. Shit … Maybe Barry did have something to do with it.’ She smiled self-consciously. ‘But Christ … What d’you expect? I was only fifteen when I fell for him. You fall pretty deep at that age. Took ten years for the rose-tinting to fade and for me to realise what a damaged creature he was.’

  Sam knew it would be kinder to stop there, but his curiosity wouldn’t let him.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  She shot him a glance that he thought said mind your own effing business, then surprised him by answering.

  ‘It was in Cabramatta that he died. Heard of it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A suburb of Sydney where the druggies hang out. I worked on the squad that made arrests there. We got a call to a squat and there he was, splayed out on the floor, stark naked. Thin as a skeleton – I think he’d given up on food. No money. There were abscesses on his arms, a couple of syringes and an empty vodka bottle on the floor beside him. The autopsy showed the heroin he’d used had been cut with brick dust. Two of his fingers were black with gangrene because the dust caused blood clots. But they reckoned he just stopped breathing. The mix of booze and smack paralysed his chest.’ She gulped in a lungful of air, then let it out again. ‘Hadn’t seen him for the best part of a year and there he was, dead as a rat.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yeah. So was I. Waste of a great body.’ She said it with a bitter smile, but kept her eyes looking down.

  ‘And there’s been nobody else for you since then?’

  She looked up startled. ‘Aw, shit! I’ve had my fair share of blokes, Steve. Don’t get some idea I’m in love with a ghost.’

  ‘I meant nobody else you’ve loved in the same way.’

  ‘Yeah, but that was the sort of sick love you have when you’re in plaits and tooth-braces. Doesn’t happen when you’re older, does it?’

  ‘You had plaits?’ Sam tried to imagine it. ‘And the boys pulled them?’

  ‘Now you’re piss-taking.’

  ‘No. I’m interested. What colour were they?’

  ‘My natural hair’s pretty fair, if you really want to know. Used to go blondish in the summer … Heck, that’s enough! Watch it, or I’ll start on you as a kid. Bet you had loads of spots and stuck your fingers into your nose like it was a bag of sweets.’

  Sam laughed. ‘Okay. I was intruding. Sorry.’

  ‘I should bloody well think you were.’

  She looked fetchingly vulnerable all of a sudden.

  ‘It’s just that I like to know as much as possible about my dinner dates,’ he explained.

  She pulled a face. ‘I think it best if we stick to talking shop this evenin
g. Don’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Whatever you like.’ The waitress appeared behind Midge’s head bearing a tray. ‘Only trouble is, if we keep talking about Jimmy Squires, it’ll spoil the food.’

  She’d been right about the restaurant. The shellfish were sensational. They ate in silence for a while, Sam noticing how she kept glancing towards the end of the restaurant where the door was. He could sympathise. He knew what it was to be hunted.

  Midge’s mind wandered off somewhere for a few moments. Then, as if she’d thrown a switch, she was back with him again.

  ‘Changed my mind. Tell me about you as a kid. I want to know.’

  He shrugged and began talking about his upbringing in a south coast town. A philandering, submariner father and an uptight, moralistic mother.

  ‘There was a lot of hate at home, which created what I suppose you’d call an anxious childhood. I was glad when it was over.’

  Midge nodded sagely, as if the conflicts he was describing went a long way towards explaining the defects she’d spotted in his character.

  ‘There must’ve been something good about it, though. What’s your happiest memory?’

  ‘Sailing with my dad.’

  ‘Ah yes. The love of boats.’ She said it as if it were a sickness. ‘Got you into the navy – I remember that from New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘’Sright.’ He told her about his days in RN Intelligence during the dying years of the cold war. ‘Throwing up on stinking trawlers, taking photographs of Soviet warships.’ He grimaced at the memory. ‘And you? I suppose your upbringing was like something out of Neighbours. Mum in the kitchen and endless horny teenagers dropping by.’

  ‘Oh yeah. All Aussies live like that.’

  Her jaw set firmly, her mouth in a thin line. He had the impression she was trying to decide how much to tell him.

  ‘Actually it was more like something out of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,’ she said, taking in a deep breath. ‘My mum worked in shops or cafés – and occasionally did other things she wouldn’t talk about. We lived in a slum in Sydney and I never knew my father. Not sure mum did either, except for the few minutes it took him to jerk his stuff into her. She claimed the johnnie broke, but I suspect she was pissed as usual and didn’t check he was using one. Then when I was eleven she married a real arsehole she happened to have fallen in love with. A couple of years later he started abusing me when my mum was too drunk to notice. Always used a condom so there’d be no evidence of having sex with me. A sly bastard. Real criminal type. And I was too scared to do anything about it. Mum was out of it most of the time and when I eventually told her, she accused me of lying. So at sixteen I ran away from home.’

  Sam gulped. It had come out so pat, he thought for a moment she was making it up. But from the look in her eyes he knew it was no lie.

  ‘Christ …’ he grunted, feeling humbled. ‘Where … where did you go?’

  ‘To stay with Barry’s family.’

  ‘You told them what had happened?’

  ‘Not about the abuse, no. Couldn’t talk to anyone about it then, because I didn’t think anyone would believe me. But Barry’s folks were aware of my situation at home. And they were great. Got me into a new school so I could finish my studies. Barry’s dad was a policeman and he encouraged me to give it a go in his profession. I liked the sound of the training – and the idea of putting people like my step-dad behind bars – so I did. And here I am.’

  ‘Did Barry sign up too?’

  ‘No way. Whatever his dad did, he was going to do the opposite. Which was fine in principle, only he never settled at anything for longer than a few weeks. Always had a good reason for giving things up.’ She bit her lip. ‘Yep. He was a master at that.’

  ‘Didn’t give you up, though?’

  ‘Oh no. I was his fairy on the Christmas tree. Trouble was, that’s where he wanted me to stay. But I moved on. Wanted to do something that mattered. And although he did too in theory, he just couldn’t work out where he fitted in. Couldn’t even find a ladder, let alone get his foot on it.’

  ‘But you went on loving him.’

  ‘Oh yeah. To bits. And hated myself for not being able to help him find his way. For not being able to stop him sliding into addiction …’ The sense of failure was written on her face. ‘But sometimes we’re powerless to help the victims, Steve. I’ve learned that.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Which is why we go for the people who damage them instead.’

  ‘People like Jimmy Squires.’

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  They ate on in silence for a bit, Midge’s gaze drifting repeatedly towards the door.

  ‘Bloody wonderful,’ said Sam, pushing his plate away.

  ‘Glad you approved.’

  The softness of her smile made him wonder if she was a little in love with him.

  ‘When are you going to Yangon?’ she asked.

  ‘Tomorrow evening, so long as the visa’s through.’

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘Give me a clue.’

  ‘Why I’m going?’

  She nodded.

  ‘To try to prevent a killing.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘Take care of yourself.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Otherwise that girl of yours’ll be broken-hearted.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  His less than certain reply caused her to lift her eyebrows.

  ‘You’re not sure?’

  He shrugged. ‘There seems to be another man on the scene.’ He kicked himself for telling her that.

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ But her eyes said she wasn’t sorry at all.

  ‘I guess it’s the price one pays for not being there all the time,’ he said, ignoring the alarm bells clanging away in his head.

  ‘I guess it is.’

  She didn’t say any more. And that was the last either of them spoke about their private lives. They talked a little about London and Sydney and the beats they worked. About friends who did normal jobs and led predictable existences. And about how, despite all the hassles, they couldn’t imagine themselves doing anything else.

  ‘We ought to go,’ she announced eventually. ‘It’ll have to be a taxi. The river buses will have stopped for the night.’

  They paid up and began to walk towards a main road. To their left a Buddhist temple gleamed under spotlights, its gold stupa rising above an explosion of red and blue. Beside the road, small, savoury-smelling food stalls glimmered under oil lamps, their customers crouching on benches to eat. The night air was still very warm, but pleasantly so, with less humidity than earlier. Sam found himself putting an arm round Midge’s shoulders. She didn’t object. He wondered uncomfortably if Jack might be doing something similar with Julie back in London.

  The main highway when they reached it was busy with tuk-tuks and cars. Within a couple of minutes a cab was pulling into the kerb.

  Midge used her Thai to ask the price of a ride back to the city centre, then scornfully waved the driver on his way.

  ‘They’re robbers, some of these guys. Total con men.’

  Another car stopped soon after and this time the fare was acceptable. They sat in the back not speaking, aware of the decision they would each have to make in a few minutes time.

  Midge’s hotel was only a couple of blocks from Sam’s. Walking distance. They both got out there and he paid off the taxi.

  ‘So …’ he said.

  ‘So …’ she replied.

  They smiled awkwardly.

  ‘Feels like we’ve been here before,’ he told her.

  She laughed and looked down at the ground. He put his arms round her waist.

  She looked up and it seemed only natural that he should kiss her. She let him, parting her lips and drawing him in. Then she put a hand on his chest.

  ‘I don’t know …’ she breathed, pulling back a little and resting her forehead against his chin. ‘I mean I like you a lot. But …’

  He bent to kiss her neck.
/>
  She shivered at the feel of his lips on her skin and pressed her hips forward instinctively. Then pulled back again.

  ‘Not drunk enough,’ she mumbled.

  ‘You have to be drunk to make love?’

  ‘No … not if the circumstances are right.’ She frowned and banged a hand against her head as if trying to get a grip on what she felt. ‘I mean …’ Her eyes rolled for a moment. ‘I’m not saying things aren’t right, Steve. It’s just that I don’t know you very well yet.’

  ‘I know a good way to remedy that.’

  She pulled a face. ‘Need a good night’s sleep. I’m flying to Chiang Mai for a conference tomorrow. Runs through Saturday. And …’ She gave him an apologetic smile. ‘And also, I don’t know what’s going on in your head.’

  Which was fine, because he didn’t either.

  ‘Then it’s goodbye, I guess. Until the next time.’

  ‘Make it soon, Steve.’ She gripped his hands.

  ‘Goo’night.’

  He turned and began to walk.

  ‘Steve …’

  He swung round again.

  ‘There is something you could do that would kind of clinch it next time round.’

  He detected mischief in her eyes.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Get me Jimmy Squires.’

  Twenty-two

  Yangon

  Earlier that same day

  The hotel which Saw Lwin’s aunt had transferred Perry Harrison to the day before was costing him eighty dollars a day, four times what he’d been paying at the Inya Lodge. But he’d passed an extremely comfortable first night there and he’d told himself he could afford it.

  Early that morning, when the sun was still low in the sky, Saw Lwin had driven him and Tin Su back to the jailer’s house. His former wife’s dislike of him and her annoyance at what he’d persuaded her to do had been more apparent than ever. In the car she’d kept her face turned away, and when they reached the prison officer’s home she’d walked several paces behind him.

  As soon as the door opened Perry had known the answer. The man was full of self-justification. Tried his best. Passed on part of the Englishman’s ‘present’ to other officials further up the chain. But in the end the request for a special visit to a political prisoner had been refused. The best he could suggest was that Harrison apply for a permit from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It might take months, but if he could prove he was the father of Khin Thein, then there was every possibility of success.