The Dying Beach

by Angela Savage

  Sah jai, he thought. What goes around comes around. Pamela had dropped them in the shit when she appropriated their land for her ridiculous golf course. It was only fair she got dropped in the shit, too.

  He ignored her order to hurry, slowing to a shuffle once he rounded the first bend. It was too hot to hurry. Did farangs never learn that? He chuckled as he walked, replaying the afternoon’s events in his mind.

  He’d found the cow pat in a plastic bag in the bushes, right where Aed said it would be, wrapped in a wet sack and hidden in a shaded area to prevent it baking in the hot sun. Samyan’s challenge was to get the dung into position without the red-headed farang woman catching him in the act. He hadn’t counted on her sticking around instead of following the others. She gave him a strange look while their respective bosses were distracted by the shit on the shoes. Was she onto him?

  Samyan told himself to stop being paranoid. He had nothing to fear. Pamela trusted him as much as she trusted any Thai person. She handpicked him for her driver and she was never wrong. In that blind spot of vanity, Samyan could plant cow shit, let the air out of one tyre and allow the not-so-slow leak in the other tyre to do the rest of the work for him. It didn’t matter where the car was towed or how many times Pamela changed mechanics. A bottle of Vat 69 and a carton of Marlboro would give Samyan and Aed after-hours access to most workshops in the district on a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ basis.

  He would have everyone in Ban Laem Kaeng laughing until their faces hurt when he told them the story. The thought of it brought a real smile to his face. The tuktuk driver who pulled over in response to his wave may well have mistaken him for the happiest man in Krabi that afternoon.

  The local tuktuks differed from those in Bangkok, with smaller motorbikes and passengers riding in an open-sided box behind and to the left of the driver. Pamela tried to insist that her driver return to the main road and flag down a proper taxi—royalty like Ravi should not be expected to ride in what she called a ‘motorised rickshaw’—but Rajiv declared that he’d always wanted to ride in a tuktuk and it would be a great adventure. He assured Pamela he would follow up with her regarding his investment plans, but she seemed deaf to his reassurances. As they boarded the tuktuk, she looked as if she might throw up.

  Keeping in character as the purse-lipped Mrs Keyes, Jayne frowned and fussed as she climbed in, perching on the edge of the bench seat as though fearful of contagion. But once out of eyesight and earshot, she burst out laughing.

  ‘Oh my god, that was priceless,’ she said loudly over the tuktuk engine. ‘Talk about getting shit from the locals.’

  ‘So you are thinking what happened was no accident?’

  ‘Not only that, I’m pretty sure the driver was involved. Did you see the look on his face when Pamela stepped in it?’

  ‘Ah, no,’ Rajiv said. ‘I was occupied with coming to the poor woman’s aid.’

  ‘You’re too kind,’ Jayne said, untying the bow at her neck and loosening her top button. ‘What she said about the villagers being in favour of the project is bullshit—no pun intended. The villagers are clearly giving as good as they get.’

  ‘So where to now?’ Rajiv asked.

  ‘The nearest village, of course.’

  Jayne leaned forward to speak to the driver, who slowed and did a U-turn.

  ‘The only bummer about not going back to Ao Nang first is I have to stay in these awful clothes,’ she said, undoing another blouse button.

  Rajiv removed his glasses and stashed them in the pocket of his jacket together with his tie. His socks went into another pocket.

  They headed back past the entrance to the golf driving range and narrowly avoided being spotted by Pamela, who pulled out in front of them in a taxi. Jayne instructed their driver to pull over and wait a few moments until she was out of sight. While they were hanging back, a motorbike turned down the service road in front of them. Moments later, the same bike roared past them with Sam, the Apex driver, riding pillion on the back. He appeared not to notice them and with the tuktuk barely nudging forty kilometres an hour, he was soon out of sight.

  A hazy dusk had descended by the time they pulled into Laem Kaeng Village. The air smelled of cooking fires and thrummed with crickets. Plump children and scrawny chickens competed for dirt-scratching honours. Women with babies on their backs shooed them all home. Lighting was limited to kerosene lamps and a couple of fluorescent tubes suspended above the village beer stall, where half a dozen men sat around a concrete table pouring glasses of draught beer from a plastic jug.

  ‘Let’s start with the beer seller,’ Jayne said. ‘They usually know everyone’s business.’

  As they moved into the light, Jayne saw two empty jugs, a smouldering ashtray and a plate of discarded clamshells on the table in front of the men. An older woman in a black sleeveless blouse and batik sarong sat to one side, fanning herself with a plastic bag tied to the end of a stick.

  ‘Sawadee ka bah.’ Jayne addressed the older woman politely as Auntie.

  The woman acknowledged her greeting with a flick of her plastic bag.

  ‘We’re after information about the golf driving range being built nearby and—’

  ‘Pid paak bah Rune.’ A man at the table swung around and stood to face them. The driver from Apex Enterprises.

  ‘Keep your mouth shut, Auntie Rune,’ he said again in Thai. ‘Don’t talk to them. They’re spying for Apex.’ He pronounced it Apeck but there was no mistaking what he meant.

  ‘How do you know this, Samyan?’ one of the men at the table asked.

  ‘They were at the project site today with mah dam Pamela.’

  The men rose from the table and formed a semi-circle around Jayne and Rajiv.

  ‘We were at the project site today, that’s true,’ Jayne said in Thai, eyeing the angry faces. ‘But we were spying on Apex, not for them.’

  ‘You lie,’ Samyan said. ‘You were doing business with them. I drove the car. I heard you talk.’

  Jayne shook her head. ‘You heard us pretend to do business with them. We were actually seeking information—’

  Samyan took a step closer. ‘Farang kee nok.’ He spat the insult. ‘Bird-shit foreigner.’

  Jayne could smell the beer on his breath. His friends edged closer. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one brandishing what looked like a stick but could have been a machete. She felt Rajiv’s back press against hers but kept her eyes on Samyan. The man was young, drunk, pissed off and looking to impress his mates. The flashbacks to high school dances were coming thick and fast.

  ‘Young man,’ she said in her best teacher’s voice. ‘My name is Jayne and this is my partner Rajiv. We run a private investigation business in Bangkok.’

  ‘Private investigators,’ Samyan said to his friends. ‘See, I told you they were spies.’

  ‘We are not working for Apex or anyone associated with them,’ Jayne said. ‘We are investigating the death of a Thai girl, who we believe may have been present when you were consulted about the golf driving range.’

  ‘What do you mean, consulted?’ one of the other men said. ‘We weren’t consulted. One day we were grazing our cattle on the grassland and harvesting bamboo shoots from the forest like we always did. The next day a sign went up saying the land had been sold and anyone found trespassing would be fined or put in jail.’

  ‘How can you be a custodian one day and a criminal the next on the same piece of land?’ said another man.

  ‘Consulted my arse,’ added another.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Rajiv said.

  ‘It seems there were no consultations,’ Jayne said, ‘which means Pla couldn’t have been here.’

  ‘Pla’s identity card,’ he hissed. ‘Show them her photo. Ask if they know her.’

  ‘I think there’s been a mistake,’ Jayne said in Thai. She raised her handbag so Samyan could see it. ‘May I?’

  He nodded. She fished Pla’s ID card from her wallet and held it out to him. ‘This is the girl I w
as talking about. Her name is Chanida, nickname Pla.’

  Samyan took the card and tilted it towards the light. After a moment, he shook his head and passed it around the group. None of them seemed to recognise her. The last man in line passed it back to Jayne.

  ‘Why are you interested in this girl?’ he said.

  ‘She was helping villagers with consultations for a project somewhere in Krabi province and we believe this might be linked to her death. But we don’t know which project.’

  The man whistled. ‘You thought the project was the driving range.’

  ‘It looked that way. So we disguised ourselves as business people to see what was going on. Our jewellery wasn’t even real. We bought it this morning at Vogue.’

  A couple of the men chuckled, but Samyan remained wary. ‘Not a very convincing story.’

  ‘Let me ask you something, younger brother,’ Jane said. ‘When you met me today, did you know I could speak Thai?’

  Samyan kicked a bottle lid. ‘No.’

  ‘That’s because I was pretending to be someone else, someone who couldn’t speak Thai.’

  ‘She does speak Thai very well,’ Auntie Rune chimed in.

  ‘And I didn’t tell mah dam Pamela it was you who left the cow shit for her to step into.’

  ‘How did you know—’ one of the men began, before Samyan glared at him.

  ‘I thought I’d burst out laughing and give the game away when she got shit on her toes,’ Jayne added.

  ‘On her toes?’ Another man slapped Samyan on the back. ‘You never told us it was on her toes.’

  Samyan smiled in spite of himself. ‘I didn’t get a close enough look. But it was a high quality product, right, Aed?’

  He nudged a man with the taut, dark skin and broken fingernails of a farmer. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine him as the supplier of quality cow dung.

  ‘Come on, brother.’ Aed put his arm around Samyan’s shoulders and gestured at the table where their beers were waiting. ‘Let’s all sit back down and enjoy ourselves.’

  ‘My partner and I would like to offer you a jug of beer,’ Jayne said quickly, recognising an ally in Aed and seizing the opportunity for a goodwill gesture to win Samyan over.

  He seemed surprised. ‘Maybe I was wrong about you.’

  ‘Not a bird-shit foreigner then?’

  Samyan grinned. ‘That depends on how many jugs you’re buying. Two litres and two more glasses, please, Auntie.’

  22

  Rajiv sipped his beer and concentrated on trying to follow the conversation. Jayne translated snippets, but it was good practice for him to listen and see how much he understood. Though the men used simple language, their southern dialect was hard to decipher.

  They introduced themselves as Samyan, Aed, Tao, Pu, Choom and another whose name he didn’t catch. Tao and Pu were easy to remember as their names—meaning ‘turtle’ and ‘crab’ respectively—had something to do with the sea and they were both fishermen. Choom, whose name meant ‘wet’, was some kind of salesman. Aed and the other man were farmers. Samyan worked as the village mechanic when he wasn’t driving for Apex.

  Rajiv enjoyed watching Jayne in action, winning Samyan over. She’d bought two rounds so far and was matching the men beer for beer, sharing her cigarettes, accepting one from Choom. She pressed Samyan to retell the story of the shit on the shoes, and had the men laughing all over again when she told them how Rajiv pretended to be Indian royalty.

  Rajiv figured at least one of them should stay sober, given they were in a strange place, it was getting late and only an hour earlier their new friends had wanted to beat them up. He half expected Jayne to initiate a round of drinking games—he’d seen her do it before—but to his relief, she had other plans.

  With enough beer under their belts to loosen their tongues, Jayne asked about the golf course. The farmers in the group had lost land they’d used collectively for generations. And while they were prepared to risk trespass charges to gather bamboo shoots and other food from the forest, they worried about poisoning from the chemicals Apex was putting into the soil.

  The local fishermen, Tao and Pu, were concerned about chemical run-off into nearby streams and the impact on fish breeding areas. Though Choom didn’t live in Laem Kaeng village, he sympathised with their plight.

  ‘The big businessman eats the small businessman just like the big fish eats the small fish,’ he said.

  ‘Samyan has an uncle in Hua Hin whose village became uninhabitable after a golf course was built nearby,’ Jayne translated for Rajiv. ‘The pesticides and chemicals they used on the turf poisoned the stream and killed all the fish. Chickens on neighbouring farms died, the wild birds left, and a cow gave birth to a two-headed calf. People became too frightened to drink the water or eat rice from the adjoining paddies. The men fear the same things will happen here and the village will die.’

  ‘What can we do?’ Rajiv said, conscious they’d spent a whole day on a false lead and could ill afford to get further sidetracked.

  ‘I’m going to suggest they send a delegation through the Forum of the Poor to seek compensation for the loss of their commons.’

  ‘We don’t want compensation,’ Samyan said in response. ‘We don’t want the money, which is intended to shut our mouths. We need clean water and a good environment so we can make a living for ourselves.’

  The other men murmured in agreement.

  ‘Let me think it over,’ she said. ‘I’ll find someone who can help.’

  Samyan nodded but looked unconvinced. The farmers were starting to yawn and the village was falling asleep around them.

  Rajiv was wary of accepting Choom’s offer of a lift back to Ao Nang. But he appeared relatively sober and turned out to drive a Landcruiser similar to the one owned by Apex. There was a logo on the side, a fire-bolt ringed with words in Thai.

  ‘Lightning Diesel Power Generators,’ Jayne translated for him.

  Choom dropped them at the entrance to their guesthouse, refusing Jayne’s offer of payment.

  ‘You help my friends,’ he said. ‘I help you.’

  ‘What a nice guy,’ Jayne said as his car pulled away. She turned to Rajiv. ‘You have first shower while I check my phone. I’ve had it switched off all afternoon.’

  Rajiv didn’t argue, his hair stiff with dust, his skin coated in dirt. When he finally emerged from the bathroom, scrubbed clean, Jayne was sitting on the edge of the bed with her phone in her hands, looking as if she’d just seen a ghost.

  ‘Listen to this.’

  She played a voice message on loudspeaker. It was from her friend Gavan.

  ‘Jayne, story just through on the wire that police found a body in the estuary west of Krabi town. Farang woman. Sounded just like you. Thirties, long black curly hair, pale skin, Australian. Dead twenty-four hours. If you hadn’t texted me this morning, I’d have sworn it was you. Christ, it gave me a fright. Call me, okay?’

  23

  Bapit pressed a handkerchief to his upper lip to blot the sweat that formed during his phone conversation. Normally he didn’t turn on the air conditioner until later in the morning, but today was an exception. First the dead Thai girl on Princess Beach, then Othong’s misadventure with the roommate, and now a dead farang in the river. Not only a farang but a woman, strangled to death. A potential public relations disaster, which was why—as Police Sergeant Yongyuth explained over the phone—only a select few would ever know what really happened. Test results showing a dangerous level of alcohol in the woman’s bloodstream would be leaked to the media and the coroner would return a finding of death by accidental drowning. No one wanted to see Krabi’s reputation as a tourist destination damaged.

  But Sergeant Yongyuth made it clear he’d be working hard behind the scenes to ensure this terrible, cowardly crime would never be repeated. He was determined to apprehend the person responsible for the deadly assault and he was counting on Bapit to help him.

  ‘You employ many of our district’s strongest you
ng men on your projects. Chances are one of them fits the profile of the type we like for this sort of crime. Physically strong but not smart. Quick-tempered, impulsive, not a man who thinks about the consequences of his actions. A jai hin son of a bitch.’

  Strong, dumb, stonehearted. Sergeant Yongyuth’s profile made the assailant sound like his nephew Othong. Bapit wiped under his nose where the sweat gathered, despite the air conditioning.

  ‘Perhaps the assailant is a nak leng from Phuket?’ Bapit ventured. ‘I’ve heard rumours that jealous businessmen are hiring gangsters to do the public relations equivalent of throwing acid into Krabi’s face.’

  ‘Jing reu?’ Sergeant Yongyuth sounded unconvinced. ‘Can’t say I’ve heard those rumours.’

  ‘There are a few boys on my construction sites who come from outside Krabi province.’

  ‘Well, keep an eye out for anything unusual, wherever they’re from,’ the police sergeant said. ‘We found film canisters among the victim’s possessions but no camera, and her wallet was empty. Take note if one of your labourers suddenly turns up with new goods. See if talking about the case makes any of them jittery.’

  Bapit hung up the phone, wiped his face again and stood in front of the air-conditioning unit, waiting for his heart rate to return to normal. He wanted to help Sergeant Yongyuth find the killer. Bastards like that had no place in the glorious future Bapit was helping to build for Krabi. The province was finally coming into its own as a tourist destination—the airport would be finished by the end of the year—and Bapit wasn’t going to let some thug stand between him and the promise of prosperity.

  Bapit checked his watch. It was just after seven. Siri, his secretary, wouldn’t be in for another hour. He made a note to ask her for all the payroll lists. He would identify the boys from neighbouring provinces and sound them out directly about the death of the farang, see how they reacted. It would give Bapit a purpose, something to stop his mind from wandering back to his nephew and dwelling on his doubts.