‘Back in a minute.’
He bent down and kissed the boy on the top of his head, a gesture that seemed all the more tender coming from such a big man.
As Alicia watched him leave, Jayne caught her eye and smiled.
‘He’s a lovely baby,’ she said, nodding at Kob.
‘Thank you,’ Alicia smiled.
‘Mind if I sit with you for a moment?’
Alicia gestured at the chair Leroy had vacated.
‘I’m Jayne Keeney.’
‘Where you from?’
‘Australia.’
‘I’m Alicia,’ she smiled, ‘and this beautiful boy is my son Jesse.’
Jayne offered the boy a finger and he toyed with her silver ring.
‘Actually, that’s why I wanted to talk to you. It’s about the boy.’
Alicia felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m a private investigator,’ Jayne said. ‘As painful as it must be for you to hear this, that little boy should never have been adopted. His name is Kamolsert, or Kob, and he was stolen from his Thai mother.’
‘How dare you.’
She snatched Jesse away from Jayne’s grasp. He startled and began to cry.
‘See what you’ve done,’ she hissed. ‘Shh, there, there, my darling.’
Alicia held Kob over her shoulder and patted his back. Her mind raced with possibilities. Could there really be a problem with Jesse’s adoption? They were led to believe the system was beyond reproach—another reason they’d chosen to adopt from Thailand and not Africa or South America where baby trafficking was rife.
No, nothing could go wrong. Not now. Not after all they’d been through. God wouldn’t do that to them. God wanted them to have Jesse.
It had to be a shakedown. The Thais, infamous for their scams, were getting more sophisticated, even involving Australians.
Alicia faced the woman squarely and narrowed her eyes.
‘I don’t know who you think you are or what you think you’re doing, but you should know my husband is an ex-Marine and he don’t take kindly to blackmail.’
‘Blackmail?’ Jayne sat back in her seat. ‘No, it’s nothing like that—’
‘We got papers,’ Alicia cut her off. ‘We got papers to show Jesse’s mom is dead. We got proof he’s ours.’
Jesse continued to cry. Alicia scooped up the pacifier from the table and put it in his mouth.
‘Shh, it’s okay my boy.’
‘The mother’s death certificate is a fake,’ Jayne said, speaking quickly and quietly. ‘The people at the New Life Children’s Centre, Frank Harding and the Thai doctor, have got a racket going. They take babies placed in the centre’s temporary care and turn them into orphans. They told Kob’s mother he was dead. Faked his death certificate, too.’
‘How come nobody at the US Embassy said anything?’
‘They haven’t been briefed yet. I’m helping the police put together the evidence to take to the embassy and—’
‘No, no,’ Alicia shook her head. ‘This is all part of a trick. You can’t fool me. I’ve been in Thailand before. Let me guess, the momma wants money and then she’ll call off the cops, right?’
‘The mother just wants her son back.’
Alicia sprang to her feet, drew herself up to her full height of five feet eleven inches and thrust out her chest.
‘He’s my son now,’ she said. ‘A good mother would never allow anyone to take her baby. I’m not about to lose mine.’
Jayne looked up at her.
‘Look I know this must be hard for you. But, please, meet with the mother. Hear her side of the story. She’ll be in Bangkok in the next day or two.’ Jayne reached into her bag and placed her business card on the table. ‘Here are my contact details. Call me anytime.’
Alicia watched her leave, picked up the card and shoved it in her back pocket as Leroy reappeared. He handed her a bottle of infant formula and clapped his hands to take hold of Jesse.
‘He been cryin’?’
‘He’s just hungry,’ she said, handing him over.
‘Good thing Daddy’s brought a bottle for his baby boy,’ Leroy chirped.
Alicia realised her knees were shaking and sank back down on the couch, fighting panic. Leroy, focused on Jesse, was oblivious to her distress. She made a spur of the moment decision not to tell her husband what had happened.
She shook the bottle, removed the cap and handed it back to Leroy. Jesse reached for the milk and settled into his father’s arms to drink.
Alicia gazed at her husband and son, forced herself to breathe, willed her heartbeat to slow down. Jesse sucked away at the milk, one hand on his bottle, the other reaching for the silvery hair poking out from the top of Leroy’s shirt.
Alicia felt a wave of love and, hot on its heels, a surge of anger.
How dare anyone seek to discredit their family. It was disgraceful. Alicia would not stand for it.
‘Honey, I know you said we need to watch what we spend,’ she said, placing her arm around Leroy’s shoulders. ‘But do you think we could move to the Hilton for the last couple of nights as a treat? I mean, nothin’s too good for our beautiful boy, right?’
She would stay one step ahead of the extortionists and by the time they cottoned on, she’d have her son far away, safe and sound.
36
Jayne slept fitfully, woke before her alarm, made her way in the dark to the Southern Bus Terminal. She arrived with twenty minutes to spare, the bus already idling in the departure dock. Despite the chill of the air-conditioning and the rousing smell of diesel, she fell asleep on the bus before it pulled out and didn’t wake until they arrived in Kanchanaburi.
As she descended, she was swamped by a horde of dark, scrawny men offering tours to the Bridge on the River Kwai. She waved them aside and found a place that made fresh coffee, rural style, filtered through a calico bag and brewed in a stainless steel jug until it was thick and strong, served in a glass over two fingers of sweetened condensed milk. She chased it down with a bowl of rice noodle soup, as salty as the coffee was sweet.
Over her second coffee and first cigarette, Jayne reflected on her encounter with Alicia King. While the first to admit she knew nothing about being a parent, let alone an adoptive one, Jayne was surprised by Alicia’s proprietary air, given Kob had been in her custody less than a week. Jayne had expected shock, denial, defensiveness in reaction to the revelations of fraud. She hadn’t expected Alicia to accuse her of extortion. Did the American woman even care whether the adoption was legitimate?
Alicia was preparing to fight; Jayne could only hope that Mayuree was up to it.
She left the café and hailed a samlor —literally ‘three wheels’—a kind of bicycle-rickshaw obsolete in Bangkok. Jayne directed the driver to Mayuree’s address and climbed behind him. The bench seat was upholstered in blue and yellow vinyl with a cover that looked like the hood of a pram.
The gentle pace of the samlor gave her a feel for Kanchanaburi town, which after Bangkok and Pattaya belonged to another era. Gigantic trees dominated the skyline, the street signs were in the shape of fish, and no building in the town appeared taller than three storeys.
Rajiv had included information on the area with her bus ticket. She found a map and figured they were headed northwest, tracing the path of the Kwae Yai—the River Kwai. Mayuree’s family home was located close to the town’s most famous tourist attraction. The samlor driver pulled over in front of a freestanding shop-house on the main road. Mayuree must have been waiting for her. By the time Jayne paid the fare, the Thai woman was at her elbow, ushering her down the side of the house to a shaded garden at the back.
‘The cleaner comes today,’ she said by way of explanation.
‘It’s easier if we stay out of her way.’
Jayne nodded, though she neither saw nor heard any movement inside the house.
‘My parents are not home,’ Mayuree added. ‘My mother thin
ks my father is visiting relatives, but he is really attending cockfights at a Mon village near the Burma border.’ She allowed a tiny smile. ‘My mother has gone to the temple.
She’s been going twice every day since Kob…since he was taken from me. I think she’s trying to build up merit to pacify the phi am of the grandson she rejected.’
‘Phi am?’
‘She’s been having trouble breathing. She thinks Kob’s ghost is haunting her, sitting on her chest as she sleeps.’
‘So you haven’t told her he’s alive?’
‘Sister, to be honest, I’m not sure I dare believe it.’
‘Oh, he’s alive all right,’ Jayne said.
She put a photo of Kob on the table between them, the same one she’d already mailed to Mayuree.
‘This is not all we have,’ she said. ‘I’ve been investigating an adoption scam connected to the New Life Children’s Centre.’
Mayuree nodded. They’d gone over this on the phone.
‘I had reason to believe Kob was handed over to an American couple. Last night I traced them to a hotel in Bangkok near the US Embassy. And Kob was with them. I saw him with my own eyes.’
‘And he was okay?’
‘He was fine.’
‘That’s wonderful—’ Mayuree began. ‘But why are you telling me this? Why haven’t you brought my son back to me? Where’s my baby now?’
‘Still with the Americans.’
‘Didn’t you explain to them—’
‘Of course I did.’
‘And?’
‘They didn’t believe me. They thought I was trying to blackmail them.’
Mayuree buried her face in her hands and shook her head.
‘They’ve applied for a visa to take him to America,’ Jayne said. ‘The embassy is closed for Chinese New Year until tomorrow. We still have time to get to them. But you have to confront them, Mayuree. You’re the only one who can get Kob back.’
Mayuree thought about her little son in the arms of strangers and felt sia jai. ‘Sorry’ in English, but much stronger in Thai. Not merely sorry. The heart was altogether lost.
‘We’ll take the bus to Bangkok today,’ Jayne was saying.
‘You need to bring as much evidence as you can—things that belonged to Kob, photos of the two of you together, messages addressed to both of you—anything that helps prove you’re his mother.’
Mayuree thought of her bag tumbling from the motorbike as she left Pattaya, splitting open as it hit the ground. Her heart sank further.
She took her hands away from her face and looked at Jayne. ‘I’m not sure I have anything left.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Your family and friends can swear that you’re Kob’s mother and didn’t consent to his adoption.
I know a lawyer who can help with that stuff free-of-charge.
The most important thing is for you and Kob to be reunited.
No one will be able to refute your claims once they see the two of you together.’
They sat in the dappled sunlight of the garden for a moment without speaking.
‘How can you be so sure?’ Mayuree said, staring at the ground.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean maybe Kob’s already forgotten me. I wasn’t a good mother to him. I left him with strangers. I didn’t protect him. I lost him.
‘That’s not true—’
Mayuree cut her off. ‘You don’t understand, Khun Jayne. You don’t know me. Kob is better off where he is now. He’s destined for a rich country with two parents to care for him. Laew teh duang. Thai people believe it always comes down to fate.’
Mayuree didn’t look up but she heard her farang companion groan and mutter something in English.
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ Jayne asked.
‘Please.’
Jayne lit a cigarette, drew back and exhaled in a long, smoky sigh.
‘Look, maybe I’m just a farang who doesn’t understand Thai culture. But with all due respect, I think what you just said is bullshit.’
The English expletive gave Mayuree a jolt. She raised her head. Jayne was seated in profile to her, colour in her cheeks.
‘You love your son, sister, and he loves you. I know you tried to spend time with him, resisted the pressure to give him up. I saw your apartment in Pattaya and the effort you made to keep it clean and welcoming for him. I know the long hours you worked in order to build a future for him.’
She turned to face Mayuree.
‘I don’t know you well but I know enough. You’re a good mother, Mayuree, and Kob’s rightful place is with you.
And if you’re going to call it fate, make sure you’ve read it correctly that it’s your fate to let someone steal Kob away rather than stand up and fight for him.’
She butted out her unfinished cigarette.
Mayuree struggled to contain her emotions. No one had ever told her she was a good mother. She felt the strong beat of a heart she thought was lost.
‘This lawyer who will help me free-of-charge. Is that because she’s no good?’
For the first time since she arrived, Jayne smiled.
‘On the contrary, people like you and me could never afford her fees. She owes me a favour. So you’ll come to Bangkok with me?’
‘Can you give me a few hours?’
Jayne glanced at her watch. ‘Think you can make the three o’clock bus?’
Mayuree nodded.
Jayne took out her phone, hesitated.
‘There’s one other thing I need to know, sister,’ she said. ‘Where’s Sumet?’
37
Sumet paused by the pond at the base of the Little Hill Cave Temple to watch a father and his infant daughter try to coax fat, indolent carp to eat the pellets they proffered. It was an exercise in merit-making to feed the fish, but the carp were not obliging. An old woman was faring better at a nearby shrine, where an ancient monk muttered blessings over her bowed head. On the ground between them was a cloth laid out with offerings of incense, candles and flowers. Sumet recalled how it grated on Maryanne that women and monks were forbidden to touch.
Not even to be allowed to pass something directly to a monk without making him unclean, he could hear her say. How’s that supposed to make me feel?
It’s because women are so much more powerful than men, he told her ghost. Surely you can see that now.
But in death as in life, she wouldn’t see reason. She was too strong-willed—part of what Sumet found attractive about her. Had his sister Mayuree been more like Maryanne, she would never have allowed herself to get into the trouble she did. The problem for Sumet was never Maryanne’s character. The problem was one of fit.
Phit fah, phit tua, as the saying goes. ‘Wrong lid, wrong box.’
Maryanne’s behaviour was at odds with what was expected of women in Thailand. She was neither patient nor accommodating. She was passionate, laughed out loud and treated everyone as an intimate friend. While Sumet might be able to tolerate this, others would not. She didn’t belong in Thailand and never would.
Maybe Sumet didn’t belong in Australia either, but he could adapt. Sumet was used to farangs whereas Maryanne, by her own admission, had grown up in a part of Australia where there were no Asians. For these reasons, he should’ve been able to convince her that the best option for them once they married was to live in Australia, not Thailand. But she wouldn’t listen.
During one of their more heated exchanges, he bit back the urge to ask what good there was in marrying a farang if it meant having to stay in Thailand.
Sumet had lived with his parents in a Kanchanaburi shop-house with ceiling fans, cold running water and a kitchen on the back veranda. He’d supplemented his paltry teacher’s wage with work as a tour guide and translator.
His family had no political connections, nothing to get him ahead in life. But he was good looking and spoke English well, which made him a good catch. At least, that’s what the older Australian woman who took him to bed after one memora
ble tour told him. So when his sister called to ask for help with the new baby, Sumet followed her to Pattaya, where he could meet a nice, wealthy farang girl.
Mayuree told him about the orphanage where farang girls volunteered, and he advertised his services there as a Thai language teacher, sure that only very wealthy people could afford to work for nothing. When Maryanne answered his ad, he thought his prayers had been heard. She was sexy and fun and her family was rich. Sumet figured once they moved to Australia, with her contacts and his language skills, it wouldn’t take long to get him a job in the family business. He would be able to buy everything they wanted, even a car. After a while he would send for Mayuree and Kob. He had it all planned.
But Maryanne refused to live in Australia. We’ve got love, she’d say. That’s all we need.
Sumet knew for a fact it never was, but he was in too deep to walk away. He grew desperate as he glimpsed a future in which his responsibilities increased but not his income.
Since Maryanne wouldn’t listen to reason, he had to play on her fears. He didn’t want to, but he was starting to panic. He came up with an idea to undermine her confidence, leave her off-balance enough to lean on him for support. In her vulnerable state he’d convince her they were better off in Australia. No one was supposed to get hurt.
But Sumet’s plan went horribly wrong, leaving him with a phi tai hong tong klom—most fearsome of ghosts—at his back, and a karmic debt it would take the rest of this lifetime as a monk to atone for.
He turned his back on the pilgrims and made his way past the gold Chinese lions that guarded the entrance—the male on the left playing with a ball, the female on the right with a paw on her cub—and headed up the hill to his place of meditation.
The name Tiger Cave Temple suggested a secret refuge concealed by dense jungle where a man on the run might hide out undiscovered for years. So when, after a twenty-minute ride from Kanchanaburi town, her motorcycle taxi driver pulled over at the foot of a hill behind several tour buses on a stretch lined with crowded restaurants, Jayne thought she was in the wrong place. The driver assured her that this was Wat Tham Seua.
The Half-Child Page 22
