He is a loner who does not always drink with the others. You can smell him when he’s ten metres away. He showers in cheap aftershave. It’s repugnant and seems to match his personality, if he has one. Geoffreys says he is ‘a bloody predator for all the girls from twelve to sixteen in the villages’. Geoffreys spoke to Farquar and Hollos about it. They just laughed. I suspect they are too scared to warn Dubois off. He murdered Deere.

Number six, known as ‘Amaz’, is a woman, so well built that I find it hard to judge her age, but it seems to be about twenty-eight. She has short-cropped hair, which accentuates chiselled features of cheekbones and jaw. A former Laotian kick-boxer with an American father, Amaz has been based in Thailand for the last decade. She plays up to Farquar and Hollos, enough to suggest she is sleeping with both of them.

Cavalier sent photos of the gang and his notes by phone to Wombat and put the notes in an envelope. He marked it for sending to Wombat and slipped it into Pin’s handbag.

15 THE PLOT

15

THE PLOT

Cavalier managed less than an hour’s sleep and woke at 6 a.m. to the sound of discordant music in the village with a drum prominent. He sat up to see his ex-wife packing her case.

‘Good morning,’ he said, hopefully.

‘Maybe for you,’ she grumbled.

‘Relax. The boat doesn’t leave until 8 a.m.’

‘I’m not going. I can take an earlier one back to Thailand. I checked with Geoffreys last night.’

Cavalier protested. Yet he knew her mood fluctuations and expressions so well that he believed she was serious.

‘I don’t like the tour; the drunkenness of those people. The fact that they tried to invade our room last night! Not to mention your secret life.’

‘Darling—’

‘Don’t darling me. I always suspected you of having a double life. All those last-minute trips for your paper!’

‘They were legit!’

‘Rubbish.’

The tension was high. Pin finished packing.

‘You could try it for another day,’ Cavalier suggested.

‘I don’t like the heat.’

‘I want to carry on.’

‘You can do what you want.’ Pin zipped her case.

‘I beg one favour of you,’ Cavalier said. ‘There is an envelope in your handbag. Could you please send it on to Wombat? The address is on it.’

Pin fumed. ‘So you are on some spying mission! Do you understand why I couldn’t live with you anymore?’

‘Just do this one last thing,’ Cavalier said. ‘Please.’

*

Pin found a boat that left a half-hour before the tour group. Cavalier was relieved although he was now more exposed as a lone traveller. He knew the rudiments of the presumed smuggling operation. Staying on tour meant he could learn more, although he imagined he would now be top, or near the top, of the gang’s suspect list.