I could never get the hang of changing time zones. I know that if I fly to Hong Kong I lose an hour and that if I fly back to Bangkok I gain an hour. And I know that the clocks in the UK are moved an hour during the winter months so that farmers don’t have to get up in the dark, and that the Americans change their clocks a week after the Brits. But other than that it’s a mystery to me. I couldn’t work out if Salt Lake City was ahead or behind Bangkok time, but I figured that as it was pretty much on the opposite side of the world, the difference would be about twelve hours either way. I left it until eleven o’clock in the evening before calling the Clares. Mrs Clare answered and she sounded wide awake so I guess I hadn’t woken her up.
‘Is he okay, Mr Turtledove?’ she asked as soon as she realised it was me.
‘I haven’t found him yet, Mrs Clare,’ I said. ‘But I’ve checked with the police and the hospitals and he’s not been in any trouble. And I’m fairly sure that he wasn’t in the nightclub. I’ve spoken to some of the people who worked there and no one remembers seeing him that night. So that at least is good news.’
I was trying to sound as optimistic as possible but she was obviously close to tears. I asked her about Jon Junior’s degree. Had he taken it with him or asked her to send it to him in Bangkok? She said that he hadn’t mentioned it to her and that so far as she knew his degree was framed and hanging on his bedroom wall.
I asked her to go and check. I waited for almost four minutes. The Clares must have lived in one hell of a big house.
While I waited I booted my laptop and went to the Google Mail page. I tapped in Jon Junior’s user name and clicked the button that said I’d forgotten my password. It asked me for Jon Junior’s date of birth and I got that from the photocopy of his passport. The next stage was to answer Jon Junior’s security question. ‘What was the name of your first pet?’
Mrs Clare came back on the line.
‘It’s still on the wall,’ she said.
‘Is it possible he took a copy before he left?’ I asked.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘It’s in a frame.’
‘And did he take some sort of teaching class before he came to Bangkok?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘We had no idea that he was considering teaching as a career until we got his phone call.’
‘He wouldn’t have done it in secret?’
‘Why would he have done anything in secret, Mr Turtledove?’ she said archly.
‘Perhaps if he knew that you wouldn’t approve.’
‘I thought I made it clear in your office. We support our son fully in whatever he decides to do. Our philosophy in raising our children has always been to offer guidance and support, not to lay down the law.’
That’s not quite what the Clares had said in my office and I didn’t have to look at the notes I’d made. They’d wanted Jon Junior to join the family business. And if he was set on becoming a teacher, they wanted him to teach in Utah, not Thailand.
‘Did he mention taking a teaching course in Thailand?’ I asked.
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘I’m told it would cost about sixty thousand baht for a four-week course. About one thousand five hundred dollars. Nothing like that showed up on his credit card statements did it?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘Did he have that sort of money on him?’
‘He was on a tight budget, Mr Turtledove. I don’t think he would throw away fifteen hundred dollars on a teaching course. Would you mind telling me why you have this sudden interest in my son’s educational qualifications?’
‘I’m trying to find out which school he was teaching at. It would make it easier if I knew what qualifications he had.’
I didn’t want to tell her that if Jon Junior’s degree was hanging on the wall in a frame then he’d probably had a counterfeit copy made in the Khao San Road. I figured that a devout Christian would probably regard that as a sin.
‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ she asked.
‘Actually there is,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me the name of Jon Junior’s first pet?’ I asked.
There was a long pause during which time she was no doubt wondering whether I’d gone insane.
‘I’m trying to access his email account,’ I explained.
‘Isn’t that illegal?’ she said.
That was a good question, and the answer was probably yes.
‘It’ll be a big help to see if he’s still sending emails,’ I said. ‘And with any luck there might be clue to his whereabouts in his inbox.’
‘Jeeves,’ she said. ‘He had a cat called Jeeves. He was a big fan of P.G. Wodehouse at school.’
I tapped in ‘JEEVES’ and the server allowed me to reset the password on the account.
‘All right, Mrs Clare, I’m in,’ I said. ‘Please stay on the line and I’ll see if there’s anything useful here.’
I opened Jon Junior’s inbox. Nothing had been opened for two weeks. There were more than fifty unopened emails, about half of which were spam offering cheap Viagra, millions of dollars from Nigerian bank accounts and cheap flights. I clicked on a personal message, from a friend back in Utah asking him why he hadn’t been in touch.
‘I don’t see anything recent, Mrs Clare,’ I said.
‘That’s not good, is it?’ she asked.
‘It might not mean anything,’ I said. ‘He might just be away from a computer. Did he have a laptop with him?’
‘It’s here, at home,’ she said. ‘He wanted to travel light. This isn’t good, is it, Mr Turtledove?’
‘He could be travelling,’ I said, trying to put her at ease, even though I was beginning to share her concern. ‘A lot of backpackers go up north to visit the hilltribes or over the border into Laos or Burma. Not everywhere has internet coverage.’
‘Tell me one thing, Mr Turtledove. If Jon Junior has started working as a teacher in Bangkok, why hasn’t he called us?’
It was a good question. One that I couldn’t answer.
‘We’re not bad parents,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you’re not.’
‘We love our son.’
‘I’m sure you do.’
She was upset.
I’d upset her.
I thanked her, promised to call her when I had any news, and cut the connection.