Mac recognised the kind of front company he’d spent most of his working life hiding behind. ‘Got an address?’
‘Sure,’ said Samantha, reeling off a Phnom Penh street and number.
‘Can we reverse-search?’ said Mac, already fairly confident that the address would be a law or accounting firm.
‘That address has two tenants,’ said Samantha. ‘Law firm on levels one and two, a partnership of accountants on two and three —’
Mac was fading, irritable with pain.
‘You want more?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Mac. ‘I get the picture.’
Chapter 18
The sound of the phone woke Mac from his sleep. Rolling to grab it, his knee caught and pain surged up his leg.
‘Faaarrrk,’ he moaned as he looked at the phone screen — it was a text. He didn’t know the alert sounds yet.
Clicking, he saw the message: Call me. Ben.
Rolling gingerly onto his back, Mac realised he was lying in a puddle of water from the melted ice. He decided to walk around the suite and get the leg working. He had things to do and a new arrival to get rid of. With Quirk now dead, Lance Kendrick wasn’t needed and he didn’t want some new-guard ‘whiz-kid’ adding to his headaches.
As he put weight on the knee, the pain sang like a concert-hall organ, echoing in his brain as he opened his mouth to scream. Shaking in that spot beside the bed for ten seconds, Mac breathed it out with some deep diaphragm actions, making himself take the pain, forcing his brain to accept the signals and then get on with the day.
He managed to get through his shower and have a shave. Then, as he turned to grab a face towel, his leg gave way beneath him.
The consulate doctor arrived thirty-four minutes later.
‘It’s not broken,’ she said, poking his balloon-like knee with a wooden spatula. ‘But there’s ligament trauma.’
‘Yeah. Just like in footy, right?’ said Mac, trying to get the conversation around to him walking, not convalescing.
‘You’ve had injuries like this before?’ she said, wrapping her hands around the puffy joint and squeezing the interior ligament. ‘That hurt?’
‘No,’ said Mac, catching his breath with the pain. ‘It’s not painful, it just won’t support my weight.’
‘Oh really?’ said the quack, a fifty-something expat Aussie who eyed him suspiciously over her half-glasses. ‘Just won’t support your weight? Is that all?’
‘Yeah, doc — shot of corty should do it. Just to get me going.’
‘Hydrocortisone? Oh my God — you are a footy player, aren’t you?’ she said, moving to her medical bag. ‘You’re worse than my brothers.’
‘Where from?’ said Mac, as she opened a steel box.
‘Gladstone,’ she said, holding a bottle to the light.
‘Oh yeah?’ Mac rolled his eyes at the mention of a rival town from his childhood. ‘Fagstone?’
‘And you’d be from… let me guess: Frockhampton, right?’
‘Yeah, well,’ said Mac, eyeing the needle as it plunged into his knee, ‘just so long as you’re not from Mackay.’
Keying the phone from his seat on the cyclo, Mac looked down at the heavy blue brace that was now strapped around his knee — the trade-off the doctor had demanded to clear him for field duties.
Tranh came on the line and verified that the Air Vietnam flight from Bangkok was on time.
‘You speak with Loan yet?’ said Mac.
‘Yes, Mr Richard,’ said Tranh. ‘I told her we’re in Vung Tau — the name of my cousin’s restaurant is South China Dragon. We had barbecue fish and two beers. I say you went to see a school library official but not around.’
‘Nice work, Tranh,’ said Mac. ‘You scrub up okay?’
‘What?’ said Tranh. ‘I have bath.’
‘Beaut. See you at eleven o’clock,’ said Mac and hung up.
Shoving his hand in his left pocket, he pulled out Captain Loan’s business card. He didn’t want to call her but he knew she’d come after him anyway, maybe get him down to the cells. So it’d be easier to remain available and fake her out.
Mac listened to the ringing as they slowed for a red light. They were heading for the Southern Scholastic offices, where Mac wanted to make a secure call to Benny in Singapore.
‘Xin chao,’ came the female voice as Mac’s call connected.
‘Captain Loan — Richard Davis here. You called?’
‘Yes, Mr Richard, thank you for calling back,’ she said. ‘I’d like to have a chat, if you wouldn’t mind.’
‘I’m in a meeting right now,’ he said. ‘Just stepped out for coffee and then I’m in back-to-backs all day. Yeah, so, I’m just looking at my diary —’
‘What about now?’ asked Loan.
‘Well, yeah, okay then, let’s see,’ said Mac. ‘I’ve got an eleven o’clock at An Phu, and then a one o’clock at the Pharmacy University, down in Cholon — that’s always a two-hour affair, you know what academics are like.’
‘Okay,’ said Loan.
‘And I’m looking at my diary, it’s right in front of me…’
‘No, I mean right now.’
‘Well, I’ve just stepped out of this meeting to make this call —’
‘Why not talk in the car, rather than ride in that cyclo?’
Mac turned slowly and saw the white Camry parked behind the cyclo.
‘Yeah, why not?’ said Mac, and hung up.
Sliding into the passenger seat, Mac felt self-conscious. The doctor had given him a bottle of T3 painkillers and he was starting to wish he’d eaten more food on top of them.
Loan didn’t greet him. ‘What happened to your leg?’
‘Spider bite,’ said Mac.
‘Big spiders in Vung Tau,’ said Captain Loan, as she accelerated into the traffic. ‘Seen the paper this morning? Aussie killed — at the Mekong Saloon.’
‘That’s in Cholon, isn’t it?’ said Mac. ‘Famous place.’
‘Tourists and expats seem to like it,’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘You’re not interested that an Aussie was killed there?’
‘I’m interested, Captain.’
‘Don’t want to know the deceased’s name?’
Mac stayed cheery. ‘Haven’t even got my seatbelt on yet.’
‘Thought you Aussies stuck together?’
‘He could be anyone,’ said Mac, wanting to be out of that car.
‘How you know he’s a he?’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Mac, trying to make light of it.
‘It’s one of the consulate officers,’ she said, and left it there.
They drove in silence for just over three minutes.
‘It could have been you,’ she said, out of nowhere.
‘Really?’
‘You were there last night, weren’t you?’
‘Must have the wrong guy,’ said Mac, smiling. ‘I was down in Vung Tau.’
‘The staff are talking about an Aussie man who was there.’
‘What, who looked like Brad Pitt? Moved like Muhammad Ali?’
‘No — tallish, blond. Heavily built. Barman thought he was a soldier.’
‘Well, that counts me out,’ said Mac, his mind racing.
‘Does it?’
He took her in: she’d put on make-up, she was chewing gum and — the big giveaway — her nails were bitten down.
‘Parents must be proud, eh, Captain?’
‘Sorry?’ she asked, as if she hadn’t heard correctly.
‘Your parents — they must be proud to have their girl making captain in the police?’
They stopped at traffic and Loan whipped her sunnies off, looking at him. ‘You want to play games, Mr Uc?’
Mac was taken aback. ‘Look…’
‘No, you look, Mr Richard, or whatever your name is. You know very well that any man who sends his daughter to Monash University is going to be disappointed when she comes home and joins the police.’