The Ambassador's wife

The man in the guardhouse did not reply. He only pointed to Tay’s warrant card still lying in the bottom of the tray.

Further argument was obviously useless so Tay collected the warrant card and put it back in his wallet.

The steel tray made a squeaking noise as it closed again.

There was another click and a hiss from the intercom.

“Have nice day,” the man said.

THIRTY-SIX

Tay found a taxi and told the driver to take him to the Marriott. As soon as he was in the back seat he pulled out his telephone and dialed his direct line at the Cantonement Complex in Singapore. No one answered and he found himself listening to a disembodied metallic voice instructing him to leave a message for Inspector Tay.

“Shit,” Tay mumbled.

He hung up, dialed Sergeant Kang’s cell phone, and watched the Bangkok sidewalks through the window of the taxi as he listened to it ring. A group of uniformed schoolgirls passed through his field of vision and Tay glanced at his watch. He wondered if children in Thailand actually went to school. Perhaps just wearing uniforms and walking around in the middle of the morning was good enough to satisfy the local culture. After a half dozen rings another metallic voice started up, different from the first voice but again instructing Tay to leave a message.

“Call me immediately, Sergeant,” he snapped. “You know I wouldn’t be talking to this fucking machine if it weren’t important.”

Tay pushed the phone into his pocket, tilted his head back against the seat of the taxi, and closed his eyes. He supposed he would just hang around the Marriott, order something to eat from room service, and wait until Cally got in touch or Kang returned his call. It wasn’t much of a plan, but he really couldn’t think of what else to do.

Twenty minutes later he was back in his room at the Marriott and Tay had already changed his mind. Something was wrong here, he was sure of it, and he damn well wasn’t going to sit around and watch CNN until somebody told him what it was. He fished out his phone again and dialed the OC’s office. He had to get into that embassy building and find Cally.

“Is he in?” Tay blurted out the moment he sensed signs of life on the other end of the telephone. “This is Inspector Tay.”

“Hello, sir, this is Nora Zaini. How is Bangkok?”

The OC had a new secretary the last time he went up to his office. He remember that, but was Nora Zaini her name? Yes, now that he thought about it, it probably was.

“Ah…fine. Look, is he there?”

“I’m sorry, no. Is this urgent?”

“Yes.” Tay reconsidered. “No, maybe not.”

“I could probably get a message to him if you like.”

Tay could only imagine how that would go down.

“No, don’t do that. I’ll just call back. Do you know when I might be able to talk to him?”

“He won’t be back until the end of the day, I’m afraid.”

“Okay.” Tay thought a moment. “Have you seen Sergeant Kang in the last few hours?”

“He’s taking personal leave, sir. This afternoon and tomorrow. Didn’t you know?”

Tay wondered if Kang had mentioned taking some leave when he called this morning and that maybe he had just forgotten.

“Ah, yes, I remember now,” he said, just to be on the safe side. “I was thinking it was next week.”

“No,” Nora Zaini added helpfully, “this week.”

Tay thanked her, mumbled some pleasantries without being too specific just in case he wasn’t talking to the woman he thought he was, and hung up.

He walked to the windows and looked outside, although he had no idea what he hoped to see. He glanced at his watch again, although he already knew the time. Where the hell was Cally? He picked up his cell phone and tried her again, but her number still didn’t answer. Tay sat down on the bed and then immediately stood up again.

All right, stop jumping around like a fool and think this thing through.

Tay got a Coke out of the minibar, turned on the television for company, and sat down again on the bed. He pulled two of the pillows out from under the bedspread, propped them against the headboard and sank back against them. He tilted the Coke up to his lips and, forgetting for a moment that he wasn’t entirely upright, poured a big slug of it straight down his shirt front.

“Shit,” Tay mumbled as he stood up and wiped the Coke away with his free hand. He went into the bathroom and studied the stain in the mirror. Judging it too big to wash out, he pulled off his shirt and dumped it on the floor. Opening a drawer in the bureau, he took out the last fresh shirt he had brought with him and put it on. He sat back down on the bed and shook a Marlboro out of the box on the bedside table. He lit it and took a long, hard pull.

However he looked at things, he kept coming back to DeSouza. Was DeSouza himself the killer? No matter how much he would like that to be true, he really doubted it. For someone disturbed and unstable enough to murder two women to go unnoticed in the ranks of the FBI seemed unlikely to the point of utter impossibility.

Still, DeSouza knew something. Tay had no doubt about that. He would bet DeSouza either knew who the killer was or thought he did; and either way, he was trying to bury Tay’s investigation. So why would he want to do that? Because the killer was someone prominent? Possibly. Because the killer was someone who would embarrass the embassy if he got caught? Probably.

Tay started running through the obvious candidates in his mind. Who would embarrass the American embassy most?

Ambassador Munson would certainly have to be at the top of the list. The first person you look at when a wife is murdered is the husband, of course, and Ambassador Munson’s involvement in his wife’s murder would be a natural nomination for a cover-up. But what about the murder of Ambassador Rooney? Munson might very well have wanted his wife dead, and he seemed to have no difficulty admitting to Tay that quite a few people knew it, but he appeared to have no motive at all for killing Ambassador Rooney.

Then there was a practical problem, too. An ambassador who was intent on shooting two women in two different countries would have a number of logistical problems to solve, not the least of which would be figuring out a way to slip around quite a bit without anybody noticing him. Even if Tay could somehow break Munson’s alibi for the time his wife had been murdered in Singapore, could Munson have made a quick trip from Singapore to Bangkok on the Tuesday after he returned from Washington, killed Ambassador Rooney, and then flown back to Singapore again without anyone missing him? No, of course he couldn’t.

Tay was just scratching Ambassador Munson off his mental list when his cell phone rang. He snatched it up and punched the green button.

THIRTY-SEVEN

“Inspector Tay?”

Not Cally. Not Kang. A man’s voice. One Tay didn’t recognize.

“Yes?”

“This is August.”

Yes, it was indeed August and next month would be September. So fucking what?

“What are you talking about?” Tay snapped.

“This is August, Tay.” Now the voice had an edge in it. “John August. Cally introduced us in Pattaya.”

Tay’s irritation was quickly replaced by surprise, and then almost immediately by embarrassment.

“Oh…of course. Sorry.”