the website with a clear warning that they were decorative and not antiques.
I had lunch at Fatso’s. Big Ron wasn’t there and a tourist in a Singha Beer sweatshirt and union jack shorts was sitting in the big chair while his wife took a photograph with her cellphone.
I sat at a stool at the other end of the bar and drank a Phuket Beer and had one of Big Ron’s famous steak and kidney pies with French fries and peas before walking along Soi 3 to the Bumrungrad.
I was due to see Doctor Duangtip at two o’clock but I got there at one and went up to see Ronnie Marsh in the burns unit. I’d spoken to a Thai lawyer who I sometimes played tennis with and he wanted Marsh to call him but I wasn’t sure if he had access to a phone. I knocked on the door to his room and pushed open the door and then stopped as I saw a teenage girl lying on the bed, an oxygen mask over her face. ‘Sorry,’ I said, and closed the door. I frowned as a looked at the room number. It was definitely the right one.
A nurse was talking down the corridor pushing a trolley and I asked her what had happened to Khun Ronnie. The look on her face gave it away before she even opened her mouth to speak.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Khun Ronnie passed away.’
‘What happened? He was okay when I spoke to him,’ I said.
‘He passed away last night.’
‘Passed away?’
‘He had heart failure.’
‘Heart failure?’
The nurse nodded. ‘Are you a relative?’ she asked.
‘Just a friend. Is there somebody who can tell me what happened to him?’
The nurse took me along to an office and introduced me to a doctor who looked as if he was in his twenties. He shook my hand solemnly and asked me to sit down, then explained that Ronnie had suffered a massive heart attack in the middle of the night.
‘Is that usual with burns victims?’ I asked.
He pushed his spectacles higher up his nose and shifted in his seat. ‘It can happen,’ he said. ‘But Mr Marsh did seem to be recovering. We had a resuscitation team in his room within seconds of the alarm sounding but they were too late.’ He tapped away at his computer terminal and squinted at the screen. ‘We don’t have a next of kin for Mr Marsh,’ he said. ‘Do you know where his family is?’
‘I don’t,’ I said.
The doctor frowned. ‘That’s a pity,’ he said.
‘I’ll ask around,’ I said. “Look, I know this might sound a little strange, but it isn’t possible that something caused his heart attack?’
‘Such as?’
I shrugged. Like somebody injecting him with potassium chloride, sodium gluconate, or even a straightforward air bubble, is what I wanted to say.
But I didn’t.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. There was no point because if someone had killed Ronnie then there’d be no way of proving it. Potassium chloride and sodium gluconate disappeared from the system within hours and an air bubble was almost impossible to spot. ‘It’s just that he seemed fine when I spoke to him last.’
‘These things do happen,’ said the doctor. ‘Burns of the sort that Mr Marsh suffered cause a massive shock to the system.’ He leant back in his chair. ‘There will be a post mortem of course. I am sure we will know more then.’
On the way out I dropped by the nurse’s station. There were three young nurses sharing a box of cookies and I asked them if Khun Ronnie had received any visitors before he died.
One of the nurses had been working the night shift and she said that yes, two men had come to see Khun Ronnie and brought him some oranges.
I asked her to describe them and I was pretty sure it was Lek and Tam, the kickboxers.
Funny that.
I wouldn’t have pegged either of them as fruit fans.
CHAPTER 17
‘Well, it’s good news, bad news, Khun Bob,’ said Doctor Duangtip, flicking the corner of my file with his thumbnail.
That wasn’t exactly what I’d been hoping to hear. The last three times I’d been in for the chat about the yearly check-up it had been a beaming smile and a pat on the back and see you next year.
And this time I was five pounds lighter.
And I’d been playing a lot of tennis.
And I’d cut down on my drinking.
Good news, bad news didn’t sound reassuring.
The last time I’d had to break good news, bad news to anyone it had been a data processor from Manchester who’d asked me to run a check on his Thai fiancee. I don’t normally get involved with relationship cases because when you tell people something they don’t want to hear about their loved one, they tend to lash out at the messenger. Besides, I also figure that what people do in the privacy of their bedrooms or a short-time hotel is up to them and their consciences. I’d taken Jason’s case, though, mainly because he wasn’t the normal case of a tourist falling head over heels for a bargirl. Jason worked for a website design company in Hua Hin and he’d met the girl of his dreams. Her name was Fun. It means rain. Jason was planning to marry her and then take her to Manchester to meet his parents and introduce them to his new bride. While he was in the UK he planned to sell a flat he had there. With the money he was planning to buy a piece of land near the beach in Hua Hin and build a house where he and Fun could live happily ever after. Under Thai law, foreigners can’t own land, so Jason wanted to be one hundred per cent sure that he was doing the right thing. He’d heard horror stories of expats who’d lost everything after marrying local girls and so he wanted me to check that there wasn’t a Thai husband waiting to come out of the shadows once all Jason’s assets were in Fun’s name. He was a friend of a friend so I agreed to help.
It was an easy job. Fun was from Udon Thani, in the North East. Jason gave me her full Thai name, her date of birth and her parents address. I drove up to Udon Thani and spent an hour drinking tea with two middle-aged ladies in the local amphur – the district office.
Good news, bad news.
The good news was that Fun was totally loyal, totally faithful, loved Jason to bits and would probably make him a great wife.
The bad news was that Fun was a man.
Oh yes, it happens. It happens a lot in Thailand. A snip and a tuck and a six-month course of hormones and Mr Fun was Miss Fun.
Good news, bad news.
Jason took it quite well, I thought. So far as I know, they’re still together. He’s given up any thoughts about taking her back to Manchester. Tells everyone that she’d hate the rain and the cold but the real reason is that all her legal documents, including Fun’s ID card and passport, show that she’s male. The British Embassy would laugh in his face if he applied for a visa for her. So they live happily ever after, sort of, in Hua Hin. He processes data for a couple of Bangkok companies, and Fun does whatever men who have had their penises surgically removed do. They’re thinking about adopting a baby, apparently.
‘The good news,’ said Doctor Duangtip, ‘is that your cholesterol level is on the way down at last. You must be exercising.’
I shrugged and smiled. ‘A bit of tennis.’
‘Your heart is strong, your chest x-ray is clear and your vision and hearing are exceptional.’
Good news.
Great.
Fantastic.
So what’s the bad news?
