Anyway, from then on she wouldn’t even look at a guy from Australia, no matter how much money he had. I heard that she hooked a rich German and she now lives with him in Bonn in a huge house and is pregnant with her second child. All’s well that ends well, I suppose. Except for Damien, of course. But hey, even a Thai private eye can’t win them all.
THE CASE OF THE BLACKMAILED BEAUTY
Klaus was a German, and I don’t get too many German clients. Nothing to do with the war, it’s just that for some reason Germans don’t seem to have as many problems with bargirls as guys from other countries. I used to ask the girls why Germans never seemed to lose their hearts to the girls who dance around the silver poles. The general consensus seemed to be that Germans think with their heads. The Americans think with their hearts. And the Brits think with their dicks. When a tearful bargirl starts to tell a Brit or a Yank that her father is in hospital or her sister needs a new pair of shoes or the water buffalo has died, he gives her money. The German just shrugs and reaches for his beer. The Germans are more pragmatic, they understand that a bargirl has a history and deals with it. The Brits tend to believe every lie they’re told. No, the girl doesn’t have a husband. No, she doesn’t have kids. No, she doesn’t spend hours in an internet cafA© talking to her sponsors around the world. So when Klaus phoned me up and said that he wanted to talk to me about a girl, alarm bells started ringing. I knew it wouldn’t be a straightforward bargirl investigation.
He’d worked in Thailand for almost a decade, and that sent up a red flag too because most long-term expats are well aware of the dangers of getting involved with a bargirl. And if they wanted to check out a bargirl’s story they usually had plenty of friends who could do the job for them. I’d had a quiet week so I ignored my reservations and arranged to meet him at a Starbucks close to my office.
He was waiting for me at an outside table, smoking a cigarette with an espresso in front of him. He was in his early forties, balding, and looked as if he spent quite a bit of time in the gym. I ordered a white coffee and then joined him at his table. He started by giving me a potted life history. He’d lived in Berlin, married with two children, then divorced and moved to Thailand to start a new life. He’d built up a successful computer company, importing components from Europe, and now had offices in Germany, Hong Kong and Bangkok. He’d married again to a Thai woman, but happily admitted to a series of affairs. Nothing serious, more often than not just a matter of barfining a bargirl and taking her to a short-time hotel.
His life had ticked along perfectly until the time he flew down to Phuket to see about opening an office there. In one of the island’s up-market pickup joints he met Nut, the love of his life. She wasn’t a bargirl but a law student, twenty-seven years old and drop dead gorgeous. She was bright, and according to Klaus was able to talk to him about everything. Economics. Politics. Literature. She was on vacation, footloose and fancy free. He had never met such a smart girl before and he was besotted. He started thinking about divorcing Wife Number Two and starting afresh with Nut. He persuaded her to go on holiday with him to Hong Kong, and on their return she said she had to go back to Rhamkamheng University to prepare for her final exams. Klaus was keen to play the white knight. He offered to give her a lump sum to cover all her expenses, and give her a laptop so that she could email him as he travelled around. Nut jumped at his offer of sponsorship. Klaus probably saw it differently, but in my experience young girls aren’t attracted to rich middle-aged farangs because of their good looks, witty conversation or sparkling personalities. Nut said she stayed with her sister in Bangkok but that he could visit whenever he wanted. It was a done deal. Klaus gave her 60,000 baht for her first month’s ‘salary’ and a brand new laptop.
After they returned to Bangkok, Klaus gave Nut a couple of days to settle in and then phoned her. There was no reply from her mobile and his emails went unanswered. Klaus was distraught. He was already planning to divorce his wife, he believed he had finally met the love of his life, and now she had disappeared. He’d phoned the apartment block where she stayed with her sister but someone there told him that she had moved out.
‘I vant you to find her, Varren,’ he said. ‘Money no object.’
Ah. The three words that every private eye loves to hear. He was as good as his word and took out an envelope containing 50,000 baht. I spent half an hour with him getting as many details as I could and he gave me a photograph that he’d been carrying in his wallet. She was a pretty girl, all right. High cheekbones, rosebud mouth, long lashes.
My first port of call was the apartment block where Nut was supposed to be living with her sister. I was lucky, it was quite small, just a few floors above the offices of a cleaning company. All residents and visitors had to go in through the offices, which I reckoned was good news because the staff there would almost certainly be able to put names to faces.
Klaus had told me that Nut had spoken of a previous boyfriend, an English guy who’d returned to London a couple of years earlier. I adopted one of my regular personas-an embassy offcial. Most Thai girls would do anything to get a visa to the West so I walked into the office in a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase. There were two girls sitting at a reception desk and I told them that I was from the British Embassy. I told them that Nut had applied for a tourist visa and that we had some questions for her but we weren’t getting a reply from her mobile. I spoke in English and gave them no indication that I spoke or understood Thai. When I finished my prepared speech, the two girls spoke to each other in rapid Thai. I just stood there smiling as one girl said that she thought Nut had moved out two days earlier and that she was now living in an apartment in Rhamkamheng 53.
‘Shall we tell the farang?’ said the other girl.
‘I suppose so. He looks quite handsome doesn’t he?’
The two girls looked at me and giggled. I kept what I hoped was an uncomprehending smile on my face.
‘She move to Rhamkamheng,’ said the girl who knew.
I feigned disappointment. ‘That’s a pity, I said. Do you know where?’
‘Rhamkamheng 53,’ said the girl.
‘I think I have her mobile number,’ said the other girl, in Thai.
I tried to show no reaction. ‘Is there any way I could phone her, just to let her know about her application?’ I asked.
The two girls exchanged a look, then they nodded together. ‘I call her for you,’ said the second girl. She took her mobile phone from her handbag, scrolled through her address book and called the number. She handed the phone to me with a smile. I put it to my ear. It was still ringing. I didn’t know if it was the number that Klaus had been trying or if Nut had acquired a new SIM card, but a girl answered.
‘Is that Khun Nut?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said a voice, hesitantly.
I couldn’t believe it. I’d barely been on the case for ten minutes and I was talking to the girl that I’d been paid 50,000 baht to track down. I explained that I was with the British Embassy and that I needed to speak to her about her visa application.