‘Aw, nuthin’,’ Amaz said, tapping Hollos on the arm. Cavalier considered her light green eyes and decided that she had an odd sort of sex appeal. Her face’s regular features, cute nose and fine jaw were not quite beautiful. Yet there was an androgynous aura about her. Amaz sometimes batted her eyelids as if she were given to flirtation, a mannerism that did not fit with her body language. Cavalier stroked his chin as if in thought while glancing down at her hands. The knuckles were flattened, a bit like his from his schoolboy days playing Australian Rules football. The hands hung low at her thighs. Yet her walk and movements were more balletic than baboon-like.

‘Can’t be nothing, mate,’ Cavalier said, folding his arms and keeping a smile. ‘You were wanting to search our hotel room …’

Pin appeared in a matching white dressing-gown. She looked fierce.

Hollos and Amaz moved off.

‘What is going on?’ she asked Cavalier again as he closed the door.

‘You heard the woman—“nuthin”. I think they were searching for somebody.’

Cavalier followed her to bed, where she was soon asleep after a mumbled barrage about his stupidity and the rudeness of the couple at the door. Cavalier eased out of bed, retrieved the recorder, put in earpieces and moved into the bathroom to listen to what had been picked up in the gang’s drunken conversation.

*

It took him just on two and a half hours to listen to the recording. He skipped over the asides and the cryptic, insulting remarks about almost all onboard, and abuse about Geoffreys. They spoke in bursts about ‘the product’ and where they were going to market it. Cavalier learnt they would unload a third of it for a Laos drug cartel, at this first stop and then later, another third up the river to a Chinese Triad cartel based at Luang Prabang, Laos’ second biggest city. The remaining third would then be trucked to an airfield and flown to Chiang Mai, where it would be distributed to Thai drug dealers.

Patches of conversation indicated they feared there might be another American or Australian agent on board. They listed him as one of four men on the boat who could be an agent. It chilled him to hear them debate their suspicions about him.

Hollos remarked, ‘He is English and his wife is Thai. They are doctors …’

‘He’s about fifty-five, right?’ Amaz said. ‘He’s bull fit, I reckon. He always has dark glasses on as if he’s hidin’ somethin’.’

‘That’s crazy!’ Castro said. ‘We all wear ’em too!’

‘Kinda makes my point!’ Amaz said.

‘Just keep an eye on the doctors,’ Leni said. ‘We can handle anyone we think may be agents.’

‘What if they all are?’ Amaz asked.

‘Geoffreys doesn’t suspect anyone,’ Hollos said. ‘I doubt the ten single women on the boat could be armed spies!’