‘Jon Clare isn’t like that,’ I said. ‘He’s a good kid.’
‘They’re all good kids until they get to Thailand,’ said Petrov. ‘Then they walk into a go-go bar and it’s all over.’
‘Did he ask you for more money?’
The Russian nodded. ‘Sure. I told him that I paid what I paid. There’s no shortage of teachers in Bangkok, I replaced him the day he left.’
‘And I don’t suppose he said where he was going?’
‘He just didn’t turn up one day.’
‘And why do your office staff say that he never worked there? Why is there no file on him?’
Petrov rubbed his chin. ‘You sell antiques, right?’
‘That’s my day job,’ I said. ‘But I help people when they need it.’
‘You were a cop, right?’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because you’ve got a cop’s eyes.’
I nodded. He wasn’t the first person to have told me that. ‘I used to be, yeah.’
‘In the States?’
‘New Orleans.’
‘Yeah, well you’re not in New Orleans now.’
The blonde girl stood up, stretched, and dived into the pool. She began to swim lengths in a lazy crawl.
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ I said. ‘Why is there no file on Jon Junior at the school?’
‘Because he was a complainer and I thought he might make trouble for me.’
‘You think that’s what he was going to do?
Petrov shrugged. ‘He was a moaner. A complainer. I wouldn’t put it past him to try to get me in trouble with the authorities so I removed all his details. That way if anyone came knocking I could just say that he’d never worked there.’
‘And did anyone come knocking?’
Petrov shook his head. ‘Not so far,’ he said. He pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head. ‘Why did you want to know how much tax I paid?’ he asked.
‘What?’ I said, even though I’d heard him perfectly.
‘You went to the tax office with some cock and bull story about looking for a school for your daughter. But we both you don’t have any children, don’t we?’
I looked at him but didn’t say anything.
He was right, I didn’t have any children. Not anymore.
He’d been checking up on me, and I didn’t like that.
I didn’t like it one bit.
‘A friend’s daughter,’ I said. ‘I was looking for a school for the daughter of a friend.’
‘I want you to understand something, Bob Turtledove. If I find out that you’ve been asking anyone else about my business, anyone at all, I’ll have you killed.’ He looked at me with unfeeling pale blue eyes and I could tell that he wasn’t making an idle threat. He meant it.
‘A contract killer in Bangkok costs less than fifty thousand baht, even when it’s a farang being killed. You cause me any more problems, and I’ll have it done. Do you understand?’
I nodded.
Yeah, I understood.
‘Is that what happened to Jon Junior?’ I said quietly.
His eyes hardened. ‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘You think I had him killed?’
‘You just threatened me with a hitman. Maybe you did more than threaten him.’
Petrov laughed. ‘He was a kid. Why would I kill a kid?’
‘Maybe he found out something he shouldn’t have. Maybe he was annoying you. Maybe he made a pass at your wife. How the hell do I know what makes you tick. That’s why I’m asking you, did you kill Jon Junior or have him killed?’
‘You’re a sick bastard, Turtledove.’
‘Yeah? Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not. But Jon Junior is missing and you seem to think it’s clever to threaten to kill people, so I’m just putting two and two together.’
‘I didn’t kill him,’ said Petrov. ‘He wasn’t that important. He couldn’t do anything to hurt me. He wanted more money, I said there wasn’t any, he said he’d get another job, I told him to go for it.’
I nodded slowly. ‘There’s something you should know, Petrov.’
He jutted his chin up. ‘What?’
‘I don’t threaten easy,’ I said. ‘I know people often say things in the heat of the moment that they don’t mean, but if you ever try to hurt me or my family, I won’t bother with a hitman. You’re right, life is cheap in Thailand, but I fight my own battles and you won’t be the first man I’ve killed.’
I looked at him long enough for him to know that I was serious, then I smiled and left.
Did I mean what I’d said?
Damn right, I did.
CHAPTER 36
The night before I was due to go in for the colonoscopy, I told Noy what was happening. I had to. As part of the procedure I had to drink eight pints of a solution to clean out my intestines and there was no way I could do that in secret. I wasn’t supposed to eat dinner so when she asked me what I wanted to eat, I told her that I had to go back to the Bumrungrad and what they were planning to do to me.
She wasn’t happy. But then neither was I.
I told her that it was only a precaution, that I had no symptoms, just a blood test that suggested that there might, just might, be a problem.
I didn’t say anything about a red flag.
Or cancer.
But I could see from the look on her face that she was scared.
‘Really, it’s nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s just a precaution. Hundreds of thousands of people have it done every year and more often than not there’s nothing there.’
‘Tomorrow?’ she said. ‘You’re doing this tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘Bob, why are you telling me this now? How long have you known?’
‘There’s nothing to know,’ I said. ‘It’s just a test. An examination. It’s no big deal.’
‘You should have told me before,’ she said. She wasn’t angry. She was hurt. I tried to hold her but she took a step back which was more painful than if she’d slapped me across the face.
‘Honey, I didn’t want you to worry.’
‘Ignorance is bliss? I’m your wife, Bob. You shouldn’t shut me out, not at a time like this.’
‘Honey, it’s a test. A routine test.’
‘For cancer.’
I tried not to wince at the sound of the word, but I didn’t do a very good job.
‘That’s what colonoscopies are for, aren’t they? They look for cancer?’
The word made me wince just as much the second time she said it.
I stepped towards her and this time she let me hold her. ‘I don’t have cancer,’ I said. ‘I swear.’
‘So why are they giving you a colonoscopy?’ She held me tightly and for the first time I was really scared, not because of what might lie in my intestines but because I’d hurt her.
‘They did a blood test that showed up a marker that sometimes, just sometimes, indicates a problem. But
