Reflections

Jim Pinnells

Description

Diana and Ed have everything - youth, happiness and success - until the birth of a brain-damaged daughter devastates their world. While Diana finds it hard to connect and rejects the baby, Ed, unable to understand his wife's coldness, loves and cares for the child. When Diana is offered a job at the UN in Bangkok, she flees from the situation, only to find herself alone, rootless and frightened for her sanity. Although Ed visits her in Bangkok, the distance between them remains. They can talk but they cannot communicate.The situation worsens when Ed, an artist who paints images of reflections, is mistaken for a blood-buyer by a gang in Bangkok which trades in human blood on the illegalinternational market. The gang runs blood-farms, where children with interesting blood groups are milked for their blood. In disgust and horror, Ed decides to infiltrate thegang partly to save these small children, and partly to appease the self-hatred that consumes him - Ed blames himself for the damage to the brain of his own beloved daughter.Reflectionsis the story of love lost and love recovered in a whirlwind of abuse, exploitation and infamy. It plays out in the seamy bars and luxury hotels of Bangkok, on thefilthy streets, and in the ancient warehouses of Chatuchak. Deceptions, kidnapping and a desperate love rocket the book to an end that will keep readers guessing until thefinal page.

Sujets

• Bangkok
• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789012514
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Jim Pinnells
Reflections
Copyright © 2018 Jim Pinnells

The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.


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ISBN 978 1789012 514

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.


Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

This book is dedicated to Malcolm
who kept it alive when it might
otherwise have died.
Contents
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 375
Day 1
Monday 26 th October 2009
‘He wants you to go where?’ Diana put down the battered menu and looked at him drily.
‘The morgue. That’s what he said.’
‘Merr wants you to go to the morgue?’
‘He said everyone goes to the Temple of the Dawn, but no one goes to the morgue. He thought I’d be interested.’
‘And are you?’
‘Not really,’ Ed shrugged. ‘I’ll just meet him there. Say hello.’ He scanned his own menu. ‘What exactly is jellyfish in chilli ?’ he asked. ‘Sounds slimy.’
‘Just order duck,’ she said. ‘That’s why everyone comes to Poon Sin. To eat duck.’
‘If everyone eats duck, what happens to the jellyfish?’
Diana smiled at him across the table, and he saw again how beautiful she was. And how dangerous.
‘When?’ Dy asked, jumping back, as she always did, to what interested her.
‘The morgue? This afternoon. Three o’clock.’
‘Your second afternoon in Bangkok?’ She shrugged, biding her time. ‘Shall I order?’ She liked ordering – she had the knack of it.
‘Sure,’ he agreed.
She beckoned the waiter and gave him the menu-numbers of half-a-dozen dishes. ‘And two Cokes,’ she added. ‘Open them at the table.’
The waiter nodded, snatched up the menus and disappeared downstairs.
‘You got through to Merr okay?’ Dy asked. ‘On the hotel phone?’
‘Sure.’
‘How was he? His usual sophomoric self?’
‘You haven’t seen him…in a while,’ Ed answered indirectly.
‘Not since the wedding.’
Not since the wedding. Unlike Diana to be so tactful.
The wedding. Four years ago. Four ugly years. Finished and done with. When she’d taken this job in Bangkok, they’d agreed – it was over. A long assignment in a far-away country – a clean break. Clean and final. Then, despite everything, her e-mail: We need to talk things over .
He glanced at her left hand, just to be sure. Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger. It astonished him, as always – anything you ever wanted to say, Shakespeare had said already. Not that he was King Richard, and not that Diana was Lady Anne. He studied the ring. It was strangely impressive – gold engraved with a pattern of sphinxes. From the day they got married, she’d worn it for five weeks. Then it had disappeared. And now it was back.
Well, maybe they would talk things over . He’d arrived the afternoon before. She’d met him at the airport in a hotel limo. And yes, they’d talked. But not about things . Not even about her job.
The waiter climbed the stairs with two bottles of Coke and two glasses on a tray. The bottles were already opened. He put a glass in front of Diana.
‘I asked you to open the bottles at the table,’ she said. She didn’t add: We have a contract and I expect you to keep it , but the lawyer’s snarl was in her voice.
‘No unnerstann,’ the waiter replied putting a glass and a bottle in front of Ed.
‘Then listen…’ she began.
The waiter half-filled her glass, put the bottle on the table and walked away unsmiling. Ed found his expressionless back encouraging – you had to admire anyone who could silence Diana.
For once she was gracious in defeat and swung back easily to Merr and the mortuary. ‘Where is it?’ she asked. ‘The morgue?’
He took a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket. ‘Got it off Google Maps,’ he said, unfolding a street map. ‘Institute of Medical Jurisprudence. Seems to be in a street called Thanon Henri Dunant. ’ He looked at her enquiringly.
She shrugged.
‘Merr said there’s a big sign outside. In English. You can’t miss it.’
‘If Merr says so.’
‘You want to see him?’ Ed offered. ‘I could ask him. Supper maybe?’
Merr and Diana had been living in the same city for six months without exchanging as much as an SMS.
‘He’s going up-country tomorrow,’ Ed explained. ‘That’s what he told me. So tonight might be the last chance.’
‘It’s up to you,’ Diana said.
The waiter brought a basket of soft, bappy rolls. Ed looked round the other tables. Everyone else in the place was Thai – or maybe Chinese. Oriental anyway. None of them had a basket of rolls. He sipped his Coke. ‘So tell me about the job,’ he said, trying to get closer to her fear, her anxiety, or whatever it was that had dragged him to Bangkok. ‘Is it what you expected?’
‘Let’s not spoil lunch,’ she replied.
He heard pain in her voice, and it surprised him – not the pain itself but the sudden hint of vulnerability. After Terry had been born, she’d retreated into herself, become untouchable. And during the few hours he’d been in Bangkok, that’s how she’d been – friendly but remote, lively but beyond his reach. As yet, she hadn’t so much as mentioned Terry. But maybe soon, maybe that was the point of the lunch-date.
‘So what’s the problem at the UN?’ he asked. ‘Bureaucracy?’
‘It’s huge,’ she said.
‘Lazy?’
‘Lazy and corrupt.’
‘The UN corrupt?’ he grimaced. ‘Worse than Judas Iscariot? Or better?’
Dy shook her head. Her blonde hair rippled in the down-draught of the fan. It was short now, shorter than he remembered. But still pretty. Still Diana. ‘You remember the brief?’ she continued. ‘Or probably you don’t – you weren’t particularly interested at the time.’ There it was – the prettiness and the stab of accusation, simultaneous and deadly.
‘International Protocol on the Eradication of Child Abuse?’ he offered. ‘Something like that?’
‘Not bad,’ she smiled. ‘Actually it was Child Exploitation and Abuse.’
‘Bitten off more than they can chew?’ He tried to sound concerned.
She nodded.
‘What’s the hold-up?’
‘Listen Ed – I’ve been here six months. The programme’s been going for five years, and they still haven’t decided if abuse and exploitation are the same thing.’
‘ Eradication ?’ he asked. ‘Defined that yet?’
‘No. Not even child .’
‘That always happens when you start with definitions.’ Words from the ivory tower, he realised, smug and discouraging – probably what Diana had come to expect of him. But at least he hadn’t quoted Shakespeare at her. Though he could have: Define, define, well-educated infant. Neat and apposite, but not worth risking until things had settled down.
He reached for one of the rolls. He’d missed breakfast – overslept. Dy had gone to work without waking him. Jet-lag always hit him hard for a day or two.
‘I told you what our budget is, didn’t I?’ she asked.
‘Millions.’
‘Eighteen. And how much do you think is spent?’
‘Most of it?’
‘Right,’ she shrugged. ‘And on what?’
‘Travel. Entertainment. Feasibility studies.’ He knew from his teaching days how research budgets are frittered away – twenty percent focus, eighty percent fritter.
‘Exactly,’ she sniffed. ‘And I think it’s disgusting.’
‘You mean, they should have warned you before you took the job?’ At one time she’d enjoyed jokes like that. But now, he could see by her expression, she’d have been happier with You’re right Diana, it is disgusting .
‘I didn’t exactly take the job,’ she flared up. Then she backed off: ‘You already know why I came here.’ She shrugged and smiled. ‘Go to Bangkok, or go to hell. At the time I thought it was a choice. Now I see it comes to the same thing.’
The waiter appeared again. He lit the chafing dishes on their table and opened a trestle for the tray he’d bring in few minutes.
‘Ed,’ she said, suddenly soft. ‘Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me.’ She filled her glass with Coke and sipped it. ‘So how’s painting?’
His painting? What could he say? He’d refused a commission for a portrait – a cat, the only love of an overexposed teeny head-banger. More hopefully – Warner Brothers was doing a film on da Vinci, and they’d asked him to fake a couple of portraits the great man forgot to paint. And his real work? Reflections? Diana had a problem with reflections. Pseudo-philosophical bullshit , she’d called one of his reflection pictures, driven not by spite but by a kind of puritanical outspokenness that had once seemed to him one of her attractions. Steer away from reflections. The story about Seymour Doll and her pussy would last through lunch, and the Leonardo fakes would cover coffee. But still, it was almost wifely, her sudden interest in his work. And it sounded real, as though she still cared in the same way she’d cared before… Before everything went to hell. He was puzzled.
*****
The ice-cold taxi growled its way into the sunshine from the shadow of the Skytrain tracks. It crawled past a building identified by a crest and a name-board as the Headquarters of the Royal Thai Police. Ed glanced at the Google printout. The In