Several food stalls had set up on the opposite side of the road, wheeled trolleys next to a few battered metal tables and plastic stools. The middle stall was selling somtam. I’m a big fan of the dish which is a speciality of the Isarn people, a fiery concoction of shredded unripened papaya mixed with chilli, sugar, garlic, shrimp paste, lime and fish sauce. It’s an acquired taste, but I’d been in Thailand long enough that there were times that I’d get a craving for the dish, ideally with chunks of barbecued chicken and sticky rice.
The Thais in the middle of the country make a sweeter and milder version and throw a handful of crushed peanuts into the mix, but the lady pounding the papaya with a stone mortar and pestle looked as if she was from Surin and she was making hers Isarn-style with padaek, brined land crabs found in ricefields and canals.
She grinned with blackened teeth when I ordered a plate and asked me if I wanted it spicy. ‘Of course,’ I said, and laughed. ‘Somtam isn’t somtam if it doesn’t make me cry.’
She waved me to a table with her pestle. Her husband came over and asked me what I wanted to drink. They didn’t have Phuket Beer but they did have Heineken so I ordered a Heineken and he brought me one with a glass filled with chipped ice.
I drank from the bottle. Ice is generally okay in Thailand provided it’s come out of a machine. Shaved or chipped ice has probably been hacked off a large block with a dirty knife and is a pretty efficient way of contracting hepatitis.
When the woman brought over my plate of somtam I asked her about the house opposite. ‘They are a good family,’ she said. ‘They bought the house ten years ago and we were already here. My husband and I asked if they were happy for our business to be on the street and they said it wasn’t a problem.’ She laughed. ‘Sometimes the husband comes here to eat. He says I make better somtam than his wife.’
‘They must be rich to have such a big house,’ I said.
She nodded sagely. ‘Very rich,’ she said. ‘He has a big Mercedes and she has an Audi.’
‘And a daughter, right?’
‘A daughter and two sons,’ she said, nodding. ‘All the children are so polite. When they were very small they used to wave when they went to school.’
Another customer arrived and she went over to serve him. I ate the somtam, washing it down with beer. Her husband came back over when my plate was empty and I ordered another helping. And another Heineken.
When the woman came over with my second plate, I asked her if she knew what the husband did for a living.
‘He has many businesses,’ she said. ‘He has a property company and a computer company and an import- export business.’
‘It must be good to be so rich,’ I said.
‘It is more important to be happy, and to be healthy,’ she said.
Which is true.
Very true.
I tried not to think about cancer. And death.
She went back to her stall and started pounding papaya again.
I finished my second helping of somtam and the beer and I went over to pay the woman. I took a five hundred baht note from my wallet and handed it over with the photograph of Jon Junior. ‘Did you ever see a farang boy visiting?
She looked at the money, then at the photograph, and smiled.
She understood.
She looked at the photograph carefully, then called over her husband and showed it to him. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head.
She gave me back the photograph and slipped the five hundred baht into the canvas bag hanging from her belt. ‘We’ve never seen the farang,’ she said. ‘We’ve never seen any farang go into the house.’
I put the photograph in my pocket and thanked her. ‘Your somtam is delicious,’ I said. ‘The best in Bangkok.’
‘The best in Thailand,’ she said, and I had to agree with her.
And that was when Mrs Santhanavit drove up in her large Audi.
CHAPTER 33
I always used to think that it was Rabbi Burns the famous Jewish philosopher who said that the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, and it wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I discovered that it was really the Scottish poet Robbie Burns.
Who knew?
But the point was, I suppose, that it doesn’t matter how you plan things, the unexpected can always happen. The trick is how you handle the unexpected. I had about thirty seconds to decide what do once I realised that the middle-aged woman at the wheel of the silver-grey Audi 8 was turning into the Santhanavit house and beeping her horn so that whoever was inside would open the gate for her.
An old lady in a stained denim dress dragged the wheeled gate back, using her shoulder to push it. Mrs Santhanavit tapped her fingers impatiently against the steering wheel until there was a gap large enough to drive through and she eased the Audi forward.
The old woman wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her dress and began to drag the gate closed. I jogged across the road and slipped through, ignoring her protests.
Mrs Santhanavit was climbing out of her car when I jogged up the driveway, a large Louis Vuitton bag on her arm.
‘Mrs Santhanavit?’
She frowned at me through a pair of Dolce and Gabbana glasses.
I stopped jogging. ‘My name is Bob Turtledove,’ I said, ‘I’m from the Betta English Language School.’
Which, if you think about it, was strictly speaking true.
I decided against speaking to her in Thai and to play the slightly-stupid English teacher.
‘I was wondering what had happened to Tukkata.’
‘Tukkata?’ she repeated. She leaned inside the car and pulled out half a dozen Siam Paragon bags.
‘Your daughter hasn’t been to the school, I wondered if I could talk to her.’
She closed the car door. ‘Tukkata?’ she repeated.
‘Yes, Tukkata.’
‘She’s not here,’ she said. She was heavyset with short-thick legs wearing a multi-coloured silk shirt and white trousers and white flat shoes, with a heavy gold bracelet on her right wrist and a gold Cartier watch on her left.
The old lady had stopped closing the gate and stood where she was, watching me and probably wondering whether or not she should call the police.
‘Do you know where she is, Mrs Santhanavit?’
She shook her head and began to walk towards the house. I followed her, but then the front door opened and a stocky man in a starched white shirt and dark trousers glared at me. ‘Who are you?’ he shouted. ‘What are you doing here?’
He was about fifty, his hair was greying at the temples and thinning at the back. He had a wristwatch that matched his wife’s and around his neck was a gold necklace as thick as my thumb from which hung a large Buddhist medallion that was the size of a coaster.
He spoke to his wife in rapid Thai, telling her to go into the house. He sounded like a man who was used to being obeyed.
He walked past her and came up to me. He was about six inches shorter than me and he had to crane his neck to glare up at me. ‘Get off my property!’ he barked.
‘Mr Santhanavit, I’m from the language school, I just wanted to check that Tukkata was okay,’ I said. ‘We haven’t seen her for a while.’
‘She’s fine,’ he said. ‘I want you to go.’ He pointed at the gate. ‘Go now or I will call the police.’
