One night, shortly after Yot Fa had entered the monastery, I awoke from a terrible dream. I heard footsteps running, and a courtier was soon shaking me. “Come,” he said. “Quickly. The young king asks for you.” The man was shaking so much he could hardly speak.
It was a long trip across the river in the dark, to Khbk Phraya. The courtier would tell me nothing. Part of me thought the young king was just being, well, kingly, and wanted his friend with him. The other trembled at the thought that something terrible had happened. By the time I had arrived, however, I had persuaded myself it was the former and was annoyed with the young man for not having the fortitude for the monastic life and for disturbing my sleep.
A monk met me at the gates of the temple. “I fear you are too late,” he said. I did not comprehend what he was saying, did not do so, until I entered the tiny cell where the Prince slept. He was dead, his face and body contorted, still, in agony. On the floor beside the humble cot a wooden cup lay empty. The monk who had greeted me picked it up and sniffed it. “Poison,” he said. I fled.
By morning, Chat was dead.
What I remember most is the wrenching cry of pain from Jennifer when she found him, not so much a scream as a primitive groan of grief. It will stay with me forever, even more than the sight of his body, curled up like a baby, except for the head that was thrown back in a horrible grimace of agony.
I also remember Wongvipa, standing over the body of her dead son, looking from him to Yutai, who stood in the doorway. On her face was an expression of what? Surprise? Complicity? I couldn’t tell. I tried to comfort Jennifer, but the words wouldn’t come.
“She’s asleep now,” Praneet said. She looked exhausted, but more than that, older, as if she’d aged overnight. Maybe she had. Maybe we all had. “I have given her something. She shouldn’t wake for at least eight or ten hours. I’m so sorry,” she said, touching my shoulder. “Try to remember she’s young, she’s resilient. She’ll get over this eventually. Have you called her father?”
I nodded.
“Would you like me to give you something to help you sleep as well?”
“No,” I said. “I want to feel every bit of this. I want it to hurt very much. This is my fault. It happened because I wasn’t paying attention.”
“No, please, Lara,” she said. “Don’t do this to yourself. As painful as it may be to realize this, Chat took street drugs. I know you liked him, Lara,” she said. “We all did. And you want to think the best of him. But he took recreational drugs. Crystal meth, ice. It is horribly addictive. If Jennifer didn’t notice, how could you?”
“He doesn’t do drugs,” I said. “Jennifer said so. I don’t care what you say, she would know. I’m sure he thought he was taking painkillers.” Inside my head a voice was screaming and screaming and wouldn’t stop. Somebody had killed Chat. I knew it was Yutai, maybe with the tacit approval of Chat’s mother. Yes, I was accusing Wongvipa of the worst crime a woman could commit, that of killing her child. Worse still, I knew I would never be able to prove it.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done,” I said to Praneet in as normal a voice as I could muster.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” she said as she left.
“Yes,” I said. But I wasn’t. I was convinced this was my fault, and nothing anyone could say would make me feel better. I had spent my time looking for someone I knew only casually, while evil was swirling right under my nose. Will Beauchamp’s wife and daughter were worthy of some effort, yes, but not at the expense of Chat and most especially my Jennifer. I was responsible in some very fundamental way for her happiness, and I had failed her. Chat had seen something bad happening at Ayutthaya, and he’d come to me for advice. And what had I done? I’d gone off to read some diaries of a dead painter! I hadn’t been paying attention to what mattered most.
I was so angry at myself I thought I’d lose my mind. I grabbed Will’s bubble envelope full of junk and dumped it on the desk. I tore the clipping and the letter from Prasit into a million little pieces. Then I took one of the unbroken amulets and smashed it against the side of the desk. When that didn’t work, I dropped it on the floor and stomped on it. Then I took the portrait and shook it. I wanted to cut it to shreds, but I couldn’t think what I had that would do that. Then I remembered the sword and went for that.
I was poised to slash the painting when I noticed a computer floppy disk that must have fallen out of the back of the painting when I’d shaken it. I was about to grind that beneath my heel when I saw something else: a red eye winking at me from the dust that had been the amulet. I knelt down and found six rubies, beautiful ones, stunningly perfect, in the remains. I took the second amulet and broke it, to find six blue sapphires in the dust. And I realized then that the carefully wrapped pieces of broken amulet in the envelope were a message from Will. He was telling Natalie that a broken amulet meant something. No wonder the horrible man in the amulet market had wanted them back and someone had been searching my luggage. And didn’t it just explain why someone had risked trying to snatch my purse in a crowded marketplace! The computer disk, too, was a message from Will. I picked it up, went downstairs and through the etched glass doors of Ayutthaya Trading, and spoke to the first person I came to. He introduced himself as Eakrit, the new CFO. I told the little worm I wanted a computer with a printer with lots of paper in it, and I wanted it right now.
Paradise Lost
The Untold Story of Helen Ford
Copyright William Beauchamp
CIO The Bent Rowland Agency, Bangkok, Thailand
InNovember of 1949, as Loi Krathong celebrations to mark the end of the rainy season got under way, revelers floating their lotus flower-shaped boats on the Chao Phyrajust north of Bangkok made a grisly discovery. The torso of a farang, a white foreigner, was found near the edge of the river. With no head nor limbs to help with identification, it seemed the murder, which clearly it was, would go unsolved.
But within weeks, through a fortuitous discovery of bone fragments and teeth in the ashes of a large fire, the body was identified as that of Thomas “Tex” Ford, an appliance salesman from the U.S. living in Bangkok. Shortly thereafter, in February of 1950, his widow, Helen Ford, was charged with his murder.
The lurid case caused a sensation in the expatriate community in Bangkok. The beautiful Mrs. Ford had been a fixture on the social scene, and many hearts had been broken when she married Ford. Some said a jealous former suitor had murdered him in the hope of marrying his widow. Others said Tex Ford had gotten involved in some shady business dealings with Thai traders and had paid with his life. Helen Ford herself said that she had thought that Ford, whom she claimed had been abusive, had deserted her, taking with him their young son. His death, she claimed, had come as a complete surprise to her.