The Dying Beach

by Angela Savage

  Rajiv woke on Tuesday morning to the sound of Jayne’s muffled voice coming from the bathroom. She was on the phone but he couldn’t catch what she was saying. He sat up in the bed and waited until she emerged.

  ‘The dead woman’s name was Annabel Craven, aged thirty-one, from Sydney. Gavan says there’s an article in the Bangkok Post today reporting her death as accidental, the result of a drunken swim. But Gavan’s got sources who say she was murdered.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed and shook her head. ‘I can’t help feeling this is my fault.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Rajiv moved closer to her.

  ‘What if whoever killed Annabel thought he was killing me?’

  ‘Because she happens to be looking a little like you before you had your hair dyed?’

  ‘It’s not just that. Annabel was killed the morning after we found Suthita’s body. What if someone saw us at Suthita’s and tried to come after me?’

  ‘Then why would they have killed Annabel?’ Rajiv said.

  ‘A case of mistaken identity. Us farang women all look the same.’

  ‘You are not being serious.’

  ‘I am,’ Jayne said. ‘Annabel’s body was found near the passenger port west of Krabi town, but police think she died further upstream. They found her backpack weighed down with stones.’

  ‘That is dreadful,’ Rajiv said. ‘But I still don’t see how this woman’s death is connected to you.’

  ‘The backpack was in the canal right near Wat Sai Thai. The very same day we visit that temple, an Australian woman who looks like me is killed nearby and you don’t think there’s a connection?’

  There was an edge to her voice, dark circles under her eyes.

  Rajiv shook his head. ‘As tragic as the Australian woman’s death is, evidence of any links to you and our current case is circumstantial at best. And it was you who taught me that circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing.’

  She sighed. ‘I was quoting Sherlock Holmes.’

  Rajiv took her hand. ‘Why would anyone want to kill you, Jayne?’

  ‘For the same reason they killed Pla and Suthita. They’re after the notebook.’

  Rajiv frowned. ‘But there is nothing worth killing for in Pla’s notebook.’

  ‘Maybe they don’t know that.’

  Tired, distressed, she wasn’t making sense. But it would be unwise for Rajiv to point that out. He squeezed her hand. ‘If you are in danger, then we should return to Bangkok. We are under no obligation to stay.’

  It was as if he’d flicked a switch. Jayne lifted her head, unclasped her hand from his and patted his leg.

  ‘True,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘But if you’re right and there’s no connection between me and Annabel Craven’s death, then we must get back to work on the case.’

  She kissed his cheek and disappeared into the bathroom. Jayne stood under a cool shower and swallowed a couple of Panadol in an effort to clear her head. It wasn’t like her to spook so easily. But Gavan’s voice message had hit a nerve. Farang woman. Thirties, long black curly hair, pale skin, Australian. She’d spent half the night ruminating on her own death notice, and the other half freaking that she might have put not one but two women at risk. There was also Suthita to account for.

  Most of the time Jayne pushed aside the more dangerous aspects of her work. She’d tell anyone who’d listen it was the thrill she liked best. But something was shifting. Maybe she was getting older. Maybe she had more to lose.

  The idea of heading back to Bangkok had occurred to her in the dead of night. But as soon as Rajiv put it into words, she knew she couldn’t do it. Maybe he was right and there was no link between their case and Annabel Craven’s death. But if he was wrong, the thought that someone was trying to scare her off only made her more determined to see the case through.

  As long as she didn’t think about Annabel. Or Suthita.

  By the time she got out of the shower, Rajiv had gone ahead to order breakfast. Jayne was grateful for a moment to herself, conscious of being two days into the seven he’d allotted for them with little to show for it. She hoped day three would bring some kind of breakthrough, otherwise she’d have a hard time convincing him to see it through.

  Rajiv had coffee waiting for her. Caffeine and painkillers, the breakfast of champions. Jayne slowly started feeling better.

  She picked at a plate of fresh mango while Rajiv plotted a course to the power plant site on his map. Neua Khlong district was south of Krabi town, close to the golf course run by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.

  ‘It’s quite far,’ Rajiv said. ‘Perhaps we should be thinking twice in case we make another costly mistake like yesterday.’

  ‘Gavan said there were two major infrastructure projects in Krabi,’ Jayne said. ‘It was just bad luck that we picked the wrong one first.’

  Bad luck, unfortunate coincidence, mistaken identity. Just as well Jayne wasn’t superstitious or the omens might start to get to her.

  ‘Speaking of luck, I forgot to translate my fortune.’ She pulled out the strip of paper from the machine at the Vogue department store. ‘“You need to be patient or you will have problems”,’ she translated aloud. ‘“Watch out for accidents.” Oh great.’

  She signalled for the waiter to bring them another round of coffee. ‘Can you think of anything else we should be doing? I feel like I’m forgetting something.’

  Rajiv reached into his pocket and handed her Pla’s phone. ‘There were three missed calls while we were out last night. I’m sorry, Jayne. I left the phone to recharge in the room when we left for the meeting at Apex. I didn’t realise we’d be back so late.’

  Jayne decided to take the soothsayer’s advice and practise patience. ‘Neither of us could’ve predicted how last night panned out. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘All the calls are coming from the same person,’ Rajiv said.

  Jayne dialled the number.

  24

  Paul had pursued Karin in the hope of a short-term fling, though not quite as short as she had in mind. The morning after a date that seemed to go well, culminating in an hour of athletic sex, she responded to his suggestion they get together again with a flat refusal.

  ‘No, thanks, Paul. It was fun, but I’m only here for a month. I don’t want to tie myself down.’ She gathered her clothes and headed for the bathroom. ‘I’m getting married when I go home,’ she added over her shoulder, as if that explained it.

  When they crossed paths later at the TEDO office, she acted as if nothing had happened between them, and openly flirted with a bemused Thai researcher. Though by no means heartbroken, Paul was still affronted by Karin’s indifference. The strain of acting like it didn’t matter triggered a headache, which he used as an excuse to leave work early.

  Back in the apartment, he opened a beer and sat on the couch. Something on the floor caught his eye and he leaned down to pick it up. Karin’s axe pendant. He walked into the kitchen and dropped it in the garbage bin. A photo of Pla stared down disapprovingly at him from the fridge. She seldom smiled in photos, self-conscious about the gap between her teeth. Nothing Paul said could convince her of how sexy he found it. He returned to the couch and his beer, remembering how it felt to run his tongue across that gap between Pla’s teeth.

  Pla was nervous the first time they made love and Paul figured she had to be a virgin. The thought of being her first lover—anyone’s first lover—was both erotic and humbling. He felt powerful and responsible in equal measure. He wanted the experience to be memorable in a good way for Pla, something she would look back on as special. At the same time, it would be a feather in his cap. Not something he would boast about. He wasn’t as crass as that. Something he’d share only with his closest mates.

  They lay naked in the dark in his guesthouse bed. He stroked her hair and whispered her name. He kissed her neck and shoulders, rolled her onto her stomach and stroked the skin on her back until he felt her body start to relax. He pressed her again
st his chest, felt her nipples harden as he cupped her petite breasts in his hands. His cock was stiff against the small of her back. He guided her hand so she could feel him, while his fingers worked their way between her legs. Her cunt was a small, tight cleft in a clump of soft down, which yielded so slowly beneath his touch that for once Paul was grateful for condoms. Naked, he would never make it inside her without coming.

  His cock hardened at the thought of entering her. Pla gasped and pulled her hand away. Paul whispered there was nothing to fear, all the while stroking her clitoris and massaging her cunt until it felt warm and wet. She breathed in sharply, body tensed like a bow, before releasing her breath in a moan, shuddering beneath Paul’s touch.

  He let her lie there for a moment while he rolled on a condom, then moved into position above her.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered.

  Pla gasped but did not pull away as Paul eased his cock inside her. He summoned reserves of self-control he didn’t know he had in order not to come straightaway. But he was only human.

  Pla clung to him afterwards, calling him teerak, ‘darling’, and sniff-kissing his chest and neck.

  They’d made love again on his two subsequent visits to Krabi, before Paul contrived to end the relationship. Not because of anything Pla had said or done. If he were honest, his attempts to find fault with her—deciding she was manipulative—said less about Pla than they did about his guilty conscience. He’d bailed because he was scared.

  He blamed his colleagues in the Australian volunteer corps.

  ‘In traditional Thai culture, a man who violates a woman but does not marry her is required to pay compensation to her family for causing offence to the ancestors,’ said Lucy, a serious university student, during a gathering one evening. ‘But it is worse for the woman. Once she loses her virginity, that’s it. She’s damaged goods. Unmarriageable.’

  Paul wondered if Lucy was telling him this to impress him with her knowledge of gender politics in Thailand. Or had rumours circulated about his relationship with Pla?

  ‘I heard that’s why they become prostitutes.’ This from Alethea, on placement at an orphanage in Bangkok teaching children English. ‘Girls whose boyfriends fucked them then didn’t marry them.’

  Paul hoped she didn’t talk like that in front of the children.

  ‘Kho ka lah hai maa dii jai,’ Lucy said, showing off her language skills.

  ‘Huh?’ Alethea said.

  ‘Tapping the top half of the coconut will make the dog happy.’

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

  ‘Beware of false promises. They will only break your heart.’

  ‘I still don’t get it. What the fuck does a dog want with a coconut?’ Alethea turned to Paul. ‘Do you get it?’

  Paul shook his head. Damaged goods. Prostitution. False promises. Heartbreak. It was all too much for him. He didn’t want to settle down, let alone get married. He was barely twenty-five, for Christ’s sake. Better to nip in the bud any expectations Pla might have and hope to god he hadn’t already ruined her chances at making a good marriage some day. He only wanted what was best for her.

  He found excuses to postpone further trips to Krabi and didn’t always answer the phone when she called. But he often thought of Pla, and what happened with Karin brought home just how much he missed her. Karin made him feel insignificant. Pla was the only person in Thailand who made Paul feel like he mattered.

  Thoughts of how poorly he’d treated her left a bad taste in his mouth. He doused it with another beer, and then another.

  He tried Pla’s number. Still no answer. If he didn’t know her better, he’d think she was being cruel. But it wasn’t in her nature. She was the kindest person Paul had ever met.

  He figured she’d run out of power again or maybe lost her phone. He drank another beer and tried calling a couple more times before the combination of alcohol and exhaustion got to him. He fell asleep quickly but slept badly, uneasy about Pla’s silence.

  When Paul woke to the sound of his mobile phone and saw Pla’s name on the screen, he felt a surge of gratitude. He sprang out of bed, snatched the phone with one hand and his diary with the other, ready to set a date to see her again.

  ‘Pla, I’ve been trying to call you for days. Teerak, how are you?’

  Silence.

  ‘Pla, are you there?’

  ‘This is Pla’s phone but it’s not Pla.’ A female voice, Australian by the sound of it. ‘Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘Who are you speaking to?’ Paul said. ‘Who are you and what are you doing with my assistant’s phone?’

  ‘Your assistant?’ The voice sounded wary. ‘So you’re in Krabi?’

  ‘No, Bangkok, not that it’s any business of yours. What the hell’s going on? Where’s Pla?’

  ‘My name is Jayne Keeney. I’m a private investigator. You’re a fellow Aussie by the sound of it.’

  ‘Y-yes.’ Paul hesitated, anger giving way to anxiety. What was a private investigator doing with Pla’s phone?

  ‘And your name is?’

  ‘Paul.’

  ‘Paul, I’m afraid I have bad news. Pla died in the early hours of last Friday morning.’

  ‘What?’ he spluttered. ‘Is this some kind of sick joke?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I’m sorry.’

  Paul staggered back to the bed and sat down, head in his hands, phone pressed to his temple. He took a deep breath and swallowed hard to ease the tightness in his throat.

  ‘Are you still there?’

  The voice vibrated against his head. He put the phone back to his ear.

  ‘How?’ he said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘The police say she drowned.’

  He felt a surge of hope. ‘There’s obviously been a mistake. Pla’s a better swimmer than I am. She’s got her diving ticket and—’

  ‘There’s no mistake. But there are suspicious circumstances surrounding her death. My partner and I are investigating and we found Pla’s notebook.’

  ‘What notebook?’

  ‘It contains her notes on consultations with villagers about a proposed power plant in Neua Khlong district and—’

  ‘The power plant?’ Paul said. ‘You don’t think that had anything to do with her death?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. It’s taken us a couple of days to confirm what Pla was working on. The notes don’t actually mention the power plant.’

  ‘I told her not to include any identifying details to safeguard the research we were doing.’

  ‘I see. Can you tell us why the project is controversial?’

  ‘It’s not.’ Paul squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, struggling to concentrate. ‘As large infrastructure projects in Thailand go, this one’s pretty benign.’

  ‘Then why all the secrecy?’

  ‘We didn’t know it was going to turn out that way.’

  ‘I see,’ she repeated. ‘We’re heading to the site today to see if anyone knows anything about Pla’s death. It would help if you could tell us who to talk to.’

  ‘Don’t bother trying to get onto the site,’ Paul said.

  ‘What about the surrounding villages? Any contacts there?’

  ‘Try the headman at Pakasai village, Amnat. He’s usually sitting out the front of his house waiting for people to drop by. Then there’s Ban Huay Sok—I can’t remember the headman’s name—and Laem Kruad might also be worth a visit. They’re the villages that have put up the most objections.’

  ‘Thanks,’ the woman said.

  ‘I still don’t understand how this is connected to Pla’s death,’ Paul said. ‘She was only there as an observer to monitor the consultations.’

  ‘We’re not sure about the connection either. But we’re looking into it. Perhaps we could call you again later. You might be able to help—’

  ‘I want to help now,’ Paul blurted. ‘I can’t believe Pla is dead.’

  ‘Please hold a moment,’ the woman said. />
  Paul heard muffled conversation as he gulped water from the glass on his bedside table, forcing down the lump in his throat.

  ‘Pla’s body will be cremated on Thursday at a temple here in Krabi.’

  Two days’ time. Paul didn’t hesitate. ‘I’ll be there. How can I find you?’

  ‘We’re staying at the Sea View Guesthouse in Ao Nang.’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘I’ll text you my mobile number. Call me when you get here. Should I book you a room?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks…ah…what was your name again?’

  ‘Jayne,’ she said. ‘Jayne Keeney. And my partner is Rajiv Patel.’

  Paul put the phone down and gave up fighting back the tears, his grief erupting in loud sobs. He staggered to the bathroom, used the toilet, grabbed a wad of toilet paper and blew his nose.

  Pla had loved him. She was loyal even to the point of disguising her notes just as he’d told her. And how had he rewarded her loyalty? By backing off in search of something less complicated.

  He’d exchanged Pla’s love and loyalty for Karin’s indifference. Now Pla was dead. She’d been dead four days and he hadn’t known.

  He was a fuckwit.

  25

  Jayne talked Rajiv out of hiring a car and driver for the trip to Neua Khlong district. He thought they needed someone who knew the terrain. She insisted they’d be fine on a motorbike and could always stop and ask for directions. She was also aware of the difference in cost between hiring a car and a motorbike and was determined to stretch the money in Rajiv’s budget as far as possible.

  As it happened, the power-plant site was easy to find, located a few kilometres off the highway beyond the golf course. Jayne retraced their tracks to the last village they passed through, which turned out to be Ban Pakasai. The houses were a mix of wood and concrete and almost all had small, elevated huts made of bamboo and palm fronds in the front yards. Some huts functioned as small shops, others as places to lounge, eat and gossip.

  Jayne stopped by a group of supine young men and asked for the village headman. They directed her past a temple to a pretty white house with aqua gables and window frames. They found the chao ban as Paul predicted, sitting cross-legged in his hut by the roadside, waiting to receive callers.