The Tsunami File

by Michael E. Rose

  “And your love life? Thailand’s reputation being what it is?”

  “I’m a one-woman man, Brian.”

  “That is not what young Kate Hunter of the RCMP tells me, my friend. Which woman are you referring to exactly? Kate called me last week, pretending to inquire after my pancreas but clumsily fishing for information about her missing loverboy. It seems you call your ailing pal O’Keefe more often than you call Captain Hunter of the Mounted Police. She seems to think you’re a bit of a nowoman man right now.” “Complicated,” Delaney said.

  “We know that. Are you guys on again or off again? She seems to want to know.”

  “Not sure.”

  “You never are.”

  “Correct,” Delaney said.

  “Are we on the record on this, or off? On again, off again with Kate, on or off the record.”

  “Off.”

  “The record, or Kate?”

  “No comment.”

  Conchi was in a bad way, too, when she called Delaney later that morning in his room at the Metropole. She was very upset, almost in tears, losing her English in the agitation, her Spanish accent heavier than usual.

  “Jonah’s lying there with bruises, bruises, bruises, all over him, Frank. He is breaking my heart, my heart is gone in two. They gave him a bad, bad, bad beating, Frank. For what? For what?”

  “What hospital, Conchi. Where?” Delaney asked.

  “Phuket International. On the bypass road near the airport. They seem good there, Frank, they seem like they are smart. They say he will be OK. He is just sore, he says.” “He’s conscious,” Delaney said.

  “Yes, yes. But he went unconscious right after. Someone found him near the Electric Light. Very late.”

  “You weren’t with him?”

  “He wanted to stay for more beer with the Dutchman and some others. I went home in a taxi.”

  “Who was with him?”

  “Nobody, I think.”

  “Why? We were in a big group at the end.”

  “Frank, Frank, I don’t know this, we were drunk, everybody’s drunk, who knows? It is like this with drinking, no?” “Who beat him up?”

  “Frank, Frank, please, how can I know? Come to the hospital. You find out who beat Jonah, OK? You are a reporter. Find out who beat up Jonah and put it in your newspaper, OK? Bastards, bastards . . .”

  “Is he badly hurt?”

  “The doctor say no. Bruises, concussion probably. Cuts. Jonah says they used sticks.”

  “How many?”

  “Sticks? Frank please, don’t act stupid, OK?”

  “How many people, how many guys beat him up?”

  “I don’t know this, Frank. Come to the hospital, OK?”

  Delaney got there by midday. He was not sure the wheezing Mazda taxi he had climbed into outside the hotel would make it in the intense tropical heat. Conchi was waiting at the hospital entrance, wearing her UN shirt though Delaney doubted she had been to work that morning.

  With her was an extremely disreputable-looking individual, unshaven and smelling distinctly unfresh, wearing a crumpled Interpol shirt. He was clutching a dented red Thermos flask, stained with coffee.

  “Frank, good, good, you are here,” Conchi said. She kissed him on both cheeks. “This is one of Jonah’s Interpol people. He’s just arrived too.”

  “I am Brajkovic, Janko, Interpol team leader on this operation,” Brajkovic said stiffly. “And you are?”

  He offered Delaney his hand. Delaney took it, despite the filthy fingernails that came with the package.

  “This is Jonah’s friend,” Conchi said. “Frank Delaney. A Canadian.”

  “His friend,” Brajkovic said. “I do not know you from this operation. Which team?”

  “I’m a journalist, actually. Covering this story. For International Geographic. Jonah has been helping me out.”

  “As a friend,” Brajkovic said.

  “I suppose so, yes. I’ve interviewed him a couple of times. We’ve had some drinks.”

  “Janko, Janko, stop playing policeman, OK, please,” Conchi said. “Frank is OK. Jonah likes him.”

  “A journalist and a friend,” Brajkovic said.

  “Not always an easy combination in my experience, in my country Croatia in any case.”

  Delaney had heard variations on this refrain throughout his career.

  “Your country Croatia is a Fascist hole, Janko,” Conchi said. “Please stop this now. Jonah wants to see Frank.”

  “I have not authorized press interviews, Conchi. Not now and not even before, in fact, though Jonah seems to have gone ahead anyway.”

  “I’m visiting him today as a friend,” Delaney said.

  “Possibly,” Brajkovic said. “But it’s a good little story, Mr. Delaney, you would agree? Police official getting beaten in Thailand while trying to do his work after the tsunami. An Interpol man?”

  “I don’t know if it’s a story or not,” Delaney said. “People get beaten up and robbed on resort islands all the time.” “Do they?” Brajkovic said.

  “Was he robbed, Conchi?” Delaney said. Conchi looked uneasy. She gave Delaney a steady look and then looked at Brajkovic. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Didn’t Jonah say?” Brajkovic asked.

  “No,” Conchi said, with another look at Delaney. “He just said they gave him a bad beating up.”

  “Let’s go see him now,” Brajkovic said.

  “He’s tired, Janko, and sore all over,” Conchi said.

  “Too sore to see Mr. Delaney as well, then, too,” Brajkovic said with a thin smile jammed with nicotine-stained teeth. “Frank is a friend.”

  “I am his team leader. I will come too,”

  Brajkovic said.

  “Let him come, Conchi,” Delaney said.

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Delaney,” Brajkovic said. “For your kind permission to see one of my men.”

  “Don’t be Fascist, Janko, please OK?” Conchi said.

  Hospitals in Thailand can be very good. This appeared to be one of the good ones. The surroundings were clean and ordered. An extremely young, white-uniformed Thai nurse was bustling around when they came into Smith’s room—filling a water glass, straightening Smith’s covers, adjusting the speed of a ceiling fan. There was another bed in the room, unoccupied. The nurse gave the visitors a brief wai, a quick smile, and retreated saying nothing at all.

  Smith did in fact look very bad. He was propped up in his white metal bed, pale and bruised. What was left of his thinning hair was tousled. He needed a shave. He was not wearing his glasses, and one of his eyes was blackened and swollen almost shut. One side of his mouth was also swollen and cut, with stitches showing where doctors had patched him up. His sinewy forearms, protruding from a white hospital gown, were bruised and cut; wounds, Delaney knew, that were inflicted on those who have fended off police batons or civilian sticks in a beating.

  “Well, you are a mess, Smith,” Brajkovic said, placing his Thermos flask on the bedside table.

  “And you’ve brought me some of your foul coffee as a gift, thank you for the gesture,” Smith managed to say through his swollen lips. Spittle glistened at edges of his mouth as he tried to form the sounds. He winced. “It’s a bit hard, talking.”

  “Don’t talk, Jonah,” Conchi said, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Rest. We will talk later.”

  “Who did this to you, Smith?” Brajkovic asked. “Robbers?”

  “Yes, probably,” Smith said, looking over at Delaney. “I would imagine so.”

  “Did they get your wallet?” Brajkovic asked, ever the steely Croatian police investigator.

  “I think so. It’s missing anyway,” Smith said, dribbling slightly. Conchi dabbed the corners of his mouth with a tissue.

  “I will have to make a report. To Braithwaite and Colo
nel Pridiyathorn, and to the SecretaryGeneral in Lyon,” Brajkovic said.

  “OK,” Smith said, putting his head back on the pillow.

  “Why would anybody want to beat you up, Smith?” Brajkovic asked. “Have you been annoying people again with your questions, questions all the time? Is that it? This file business?” Smith said nothing. He sighed in his bed. “He’s tired, Janko. Talk later,” Conchi said.

  “And our journalist friend?” Brajkovic asked.

  “I’m not interviewing anyone today,” Delaney said.

  “Thank you very much,” Brajkovic said. “I will be the source of comment on this incident, in any case. On behalf of Interpol.”

  “I’m not writing a story about this,” Delaney said.

  “That is good news,” Brajkovic said. “I will therefore leave you nice friends all together.”

  He turned to Smith.

  “We have told your wife in England about this, of course,” he said. “You have been injured on assignment. She says she will come immediately to your side. As wives do.”

  Brajkovic looked from Jonah to Conchi and back again, flashing beige teeth, clearly enjoying his minor role in a major domestic drama. “Thank you very much,” Smith said.

  After Brajkovic had gone, coffee flask in hand, Delaney tried to get more information from Smith, though it was hard for the battered fingerprint man to speak clearly through his swollen lips.

  “They just came at me out of nowhere,” Smith said slowly.

  “Thai?” Delaney asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “Three.”

  “You see their faces? Anyone you’d recognize?”

  “No. It was really dark, I was drunk, they came at me really fast and then it was all a blur of sticks and kicks. I went into a ball and tried to protect myself.”

  “They say anything?”

  “They were sort of yelling at me or at each other in Thai, mostly.”

  “Nothing you could understand.”

  “I think one of them was saying in English, “Watch out, watch out.” But he could have been talking to his mates for all I know. I hardly heard what they were saying in any language.”

  “How were they dressed?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Not police?”

  “No. Civilians,” Smith said. “They wouldn’t beat me up in police gear, Frank.” “I’ve seen it done, Jonah. In a lot of countries.” Conchi said: “Police wear civilian clothes too, Jonah.”

  “These were Thais, Conchi,” he said.

  “Not Germans,” Delaney said.

  “Definitely those men were not Germans,”

  Smith said.

  “And they robbed you,” Delaney said.

  “My wallet’s gone. But whether they took it, or it fell out of my pocket, I don’t know.”

  “It could be lying in the karaoke bar, Frank,”

  Conchi said.

  “Maybe. Or maybe they took the wallet to make it look like it was a robbery,” Delaney said.

  “Or maybe it was a just a robbery,” Smith said.

  “Maybe,” Delaney said.

  “There’s the letter,” Conchi said.

  “They gave you another blackmail letter?”

  Delaney said, looking over at Smith. “No, no, I just got the one.”

  “But that letter said you should back away,” Conchi said. “They beat you up as warning number two, no? Frank?”

  “We don’t know that, Conchi,” Smith said.

  “I know that, Jonah,” Conchi said. “In my heart I know they are warning you again about that file business you won’t let go.”

  Smith put his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

  “You sore?” Delaney said.

  “Yes. The headache’s a bit bad now.”

  “They said he should rest a lot and take care of himself, Frank,” Conchi said. “Let’s go now.”

  As if on cue, the Thai nurse came in and said quietly: “This patient must sleep now.”

  “We’re leaving,” Delaney said. “But Jonah, we’ll need to talk about this some more.”

  “Tomorrow,” Smith said wearily. “OK?”

  “When does your wife come,” Delaney asked.

  “No idea. Whenever she wants. I’ve not spoken to her,” Smith said. “Good,” Conchi said.

  In the corridor Conchi looked worried. “He’s OK, no?” she said.

  “Sure,” Delaney said. “He’s just been knocked around a bit. No permanent damage.”

  “Mister no problem journalist man. Now a medical man. You see people beaten every day, correct?”

  “Every day, correct,” Delaney said.

  “He is crazy, that Jonah, about this file,” Conchi said, lighting a cigarette as they exited the hospital into the brilliant midday sunlight. Delaney had never seen her smoke before. She stood flicking ash compulsively onto the shimmering parking lot asphalt.

  “Someone is very angry with him now,” she said.

  “It could have been a robbery, Conchi.”

  “You do not believe that, Frank. Do you?”

  “No, not really. No.”

  “There. So who? And what do we do?”

  “We try to find out where the file went and why it went.”

  “And Jonah gets beaten up again, maybe worse next time.”

  “He’ll be more careful now, Conchi.”

  “Who cares about a lost file, Frank? There are hundreds of people dead around here. Families with no kids anymore. Kids with no parents. From all over the world. Who cares about just one file here after the tsunami anyway.”

  “Jonah.”

  “He’s crazy. He always wants to identify people. He even took my fingerprints too.”

  “He’s a professional. He wants to do the right thing.”

  “He’s crazy.”

  “We’re all crazy sometimes, Conchi. Me too.”

  “Journalists and police, crazy, crazy,” she said.

  “You always get into trouble.”

  “You’re in trouble maybe now too,” Delaney said.

  “Me, no,” she said.

  “You’re his girl, people know that.”

  “And now his wife will know, right? So maybe I am in trouble a little bit,” she said, with a giant Mediterranean siren’s smile. Coy, shy, experienced, sensual, all at the same time.

  “That note they wrote him, have you seen it?” Delaney said. “Jonah never actually showed it to me.”

  “I have it right here,” Conchi said. “Jonah wanted it out of his hotel room and I don’t want it in mine.” She rummaged in her leather knapsack. “Here.”

  It was on a single sheet of plain white paper, photocopier paper apparently, folded once. Inside, in neat printed script in black ballpoint pen, a very short message: “Mind your business, Smith. Mind your business or your wife will know your Spanish business.”

  Delaney wondered if a linguist would be able to tell him whether the writer was a native English speaker. The message was too short for such analysis, probably, even if he had access to the expertise required.

  “Short and to the point,” he said.

  “His Spanish business,” Conchi said. “Funny.”

  “Jonah’s wife is coming quite soon,” Delaney said. “Someone may tell her.” “I know that, Frank, I know that,” she said. “I will be a good little mistress girl and stay back.”

  “That part’s not really any of my business, Conchi,” Delaney said.

  “Oh? Good. You are the only one not interested in that, in this big gossip place,” she said ruefully.

  “The faster we find out what’s going on with that file, the faster we can find out who’s interested, who wrote the note, who gave Jonah the beating.”
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  “And so, we find out, big deal. What do we do when we find out?”

  “We’ll decide that when the time comes,”

  Delaney said.

  “And until then?”

  “We take care.”

  “And I stay away from British ladies for a while.”

  “Probably a good idea, in this case,” Delaney said.

  “The case of the British wife,” Conchi said.

  “The big bad British wife.”

  They got a taxi from the rank outside the hotel. A good car this time, a gleaming Corolla with air conditioning and a properly functioning transmission and suspension, unlike so many of the Phuket cabs. The driver wore an oversized dress shirt with epaulettes, baggy shorts and rubber flip-flop thongs.

  “So sorry you have illness in your family,” he said before they set off, making a wai.

  “Thank you,” Conchi said, getting into the back seat beside Delaney. “I’m going to the International Management Centre. Frank, where do you go?”

  “Me too, I suppose, the management centre,” he said. “I’ll check in with the press officer.”

  “Reporters?” the driver said as they pulled away from the hospital. “TV? Big-time TV?”

  “Yes,” Delaney said. “But not TV, not big time.”

  “Not me,” Conchi said. “Police.”

  “Ah, police,” the driver said, growing quiet. Then he said: “Too many dead now. Who is who, even all you police, nobody knows.” “We’re trying,” Conchi said.

  “Too many bodies, everywhere. I saw right after the wave. On the beach, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, too many bodies.”

  “Did you lose family?’ Delaney asked.

  “Yes, yes, my aunt, some of my cousins, some of my driver friends. Everyone loses someone in Phuket in the wave.” He drove very slowly, looking often at them in his rearview mirror. “Too many.”

  “The bodies were found? The people you knew?” Conchi asked.

  “Some,” the driver said. “Some still in the sea. The spirits are still in the sea.”

  Their route took them past the airport. In the distance, Delaney could see activity in the place from where identified foreign bodies were sent home. It was where he had first met Jonah Smith. Today, three coffins with Australian flags on them were ranged under the canopy and a small crowd stood beside them while an official spoke.