“Maipen rai,” she said, as we parted company. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s not blood,” Ferguson whispered, sliding into the seat beside me. “I assume that’s good news.”
“I guess it is. So what is it?” I whispered back. As we spoke, an auctioneer was trying to whip up enthusiasm for a particularly uninspired painting of the Thai countryside.
“Good question. They didn’t say. I expect once they’d determined it wasn’t blood, everybody pretty much lost interest. Any chance we could talk outside? I’m afraid I’ll wave my arms around in here and be the proud purchaser of an extraordinarily expensive treasure. Or is there something coming up soon you want to bid on?”
“There’s something I’m interested in, but it’s not coming up for awhile. How about a coffee?”
* * *
“You know,” Ferguson said as we looked around. “I’ve lived in Bangkok for three years, and I’ve never been here. This is really something.”
It is. The River City Shopping Complex is four floors, atrium-style, around a central indoor courtyard, right on the edge of the Chao Phyra. It is filled with very fancy shops, many of them antique dealers. The third and fourth floors house some of the most gorgeous Asian antiques and antiquities I have ever seen. Just being there made my pulse race. I knew I could do serious damage at the auction if I put my mind to it. I was trying not to.
The auction was to take place in what is referred to as the exhibition center, a glassed-in space on the top floor. From where we were standing with our coffees, leaning against the railing overlooking the atrium below, the auction was well in view through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, so I could keep one eye on the proceedings.
“So where does this latest information get us?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I had several scenarios in mind when I got here. My personal favorite is the one in which I find Will the day I arrive, he tells me he really wants to go home but has been afraid to call his wife, then Natalie welcomes him with open arms.”
“I can see you’re a romantic at heart, but presumably that one has to go. Was there a scenario B?”
“I think B is the one that Natalie was working herself up to, which is that I get enough information to have Will declared legally dead so she can collect the insurance. If that had been blood, I would have had a start on that one. Then there’s C, of course, which may be the option I’m left with.”
“Which is?”
“That’s the one where I track him down and give Natalie and her lawyers enough information to nail his ass.”
“I see. I must remember to try to stay on your good side. I have some additional information that may or may not help clarify your thinking,” he said. “Will had, still has, in fact, 500,635 baht in his account with the Krung Thai Bank.”
“Isn’t that more than he owed Ayutthaya Trading?”
“It is.”
“And could you check the activity on the account?”
“I could, and did. Regular deposits and withdrawals, usually on a Thursday. Nothing spectacular, but reasonably regular was our Will. Last deposit and withdrawal July third, except for his rent checks for the apartment that cleared on the first of every month. Presumably he had left a year’s worth with the building manager or owner.”
“I’ve been thinking about the amount owing his landlord at the store. Now that I’ve seen the place, I’m wondering about it. I don’t know rents in Bangkok, but on the assumption that he owed rent for three months before Ayutthaya moved in on him, that lease is fairly steep.”
“I thought so, too. I checked into that as well. I talked to Ayutthaya’s lawyers. Apparently Will borrowed a reasonably substantial sum from Ayutthaya to get started—to acquire merchandise for the store. The monthly sum was rent plus loan repayment, which was based on a percentage of sales, and to my eyes at least, once again there was nothing particularly unusual about it.”
“I suppose he could have oodles of money somewhere and was able to leave that much in his account as a clever ruse, to make it look as if something bad happened to him, I mean. That seems to be a little farfetched, though. He left Toronto with whatever he had in his suitcase. His wife had the store and the house.”
“But she still couldn’t manage?”
“I think there’s a pretty sizable mortgage on the house, and she couldn’t run the shop. The daughter has some problems that require twenty-four hour care. Did he strike you as well off?”
“Not particularly. Certainly by Bangkok standards he lived reasonably well, on the river and everything. But the building is no luxury condo. He had nice furniture, but not a lot of it, as you saw. There was the art, of course. You’d have a better idea what he had to pay for that. There are still bargains here if you know where to look, and he should have been an expert.”
“You said you got together for drinks from time to time. What did you talk about?”
“Not much really. I’ve been thinking about him since you arrived in my office. We met from time to time, I got invited to his place a couple of times—the most recent was that Fourth of July party—but we didn’t talk about anything important. I didn’t even know he was married. He was certainly chatting up the young, unattached women at his own party. We talked sports, weather, guy stuff and not particularly revealing. I had the impression he partied pretty hard, but it was an impression only. I didn’t run into him that often at social events. I saw him a couple of times at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club. I don’t know if he was a guest or a member.
“The only thing even remotely out of the ordinary was that he claimed to be writing a book. Not that that in and of itself is all that extraordinary. There are lots of us Westerners planning or trying to write about their experiences in exotic Thailand. He must have been more serious than most about it, though, because he had an agent. Met the guy at the party. Rawlings, something like that. Unusual first name, but I can’t remember it. It will come back to me. Anyway, one of those nights in the bars of Bangkok, Will told me that he was almost finished with it. He wouldn’t tell me what it’s about, but said it would blow the lid off Bangkok society, or words to that effect. Corruption in high places or something, I suppose. He was convinced he’d be able to retire on the proceeds. Not much to go on, is it?”
“No. He seems to have been a model citizen in many ways, or at least a typical bachelor even if he wasn’t one. He goes to work every day, pays the rent, has a reasonably nice apartment, which is paid for until the end of the year, he meets friends for drinks, he holds a party every now and then, goes to a number of others, chats up young women, and in his spare time, like millions of would-be authors, he attempts to write a book. One day he just stops. He lets his landlord take over the store and leaves all his possessions behind. Anything else you can tell me?”
“No. Well yes, one thing. We check airline records, of course, to see if he has left the country. It will take a few days to check that out. However, so far we have discovered he made regular trips to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand last spring. That wouldn’t be unusual, by the way. Lots of dealers go to Chiang Mai to find antiques.”
“Not much to go on, is there?” I said.
“Unfortunately not,” he said.
“Surely in this day and age you can’t just disappear,” I said. “Without someone noticing.”
“Apparently you can.”
“I don’t think so. No matter what the scenario, someone knows where he is,” I said.
We stood in silence for a minute or two, digesting that thought. “We seem to be at a dead end here, don’t we?” Ferguson said. “We’ll keep checking, of course, and if you come up with anything, let me know. The police are no longer terribly interested, with no clear evidence of a crime. I’m not sure what more we can do.”