I was in the shop helping Ying wrap a bronze statue of a Khmer dancer that we’d sold over the internet to a collector in Texas when my cellphone rang. I didn’t recognise the number or the voice, but it was a Frenchman speaking accented English and he said that his name was Philippe and that he was the owner of the company that had taken Jon Junior to Cambodia. I asked him if he remembered Jonathon Clare but he ignored the question.
‘Who exactly are you?’ he asked.
‘My name’s Bob Turtledove, I sell antiques. I’m trying to help Mr and Mrs Clare find their son.’
‘And where are you now?’
‘My shop. Soi Thonglor.’
‘Can you come and see me?’
‘You can’t tell me on the phone?’
‘I’d be happier talking to you face to face,’ he said. ‘I’m in On Nut. Not far from the Skytrain station. There’s a coffee shop under the station. I’ll be there in an hour.’
I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock in the morning and On Nut was only half an hour away by taxi. ‘Okay, I’ll come,’ I said.
‘And bring your passport or photo ID with you,’ he said. He ended the call before I could say anything.
I finished helping Ying wrap and box the statue, then called Federal Express to come and collect it. I left Ying filling in the paperwork while I went outside and flagged down a taxi.
When I got to the coffee shop, the Frenchman was sitting at a table by the window. He was in his sixties, balding with a greasy comb-over and wearing a rumpled linen suit. He stood up and shook my hand and immediately asked to see my passport. I gave it to him and he put on a pair of reading glasses and he looked at my photograph, then checked my name before giving it back to me.
‘I’m sorry if I seem over-cautious,’ he said as he sat down. ‘But my assistant said that you spoke perfect Thai and the Government isn’t very keen on the service that we offer.’
‘But visa runs aren’t illegal,’ I said, sitting down opposite him. A waitress came over and I ordered an Americano. The Frenchman already had a frothy cappuccino in front of him.
‘Not illegal, but the authorities would rather they didn’t happen. They think that too many people are using the visa runs as a way of staying in the country indefinitely.’
‘And you thought, what? That I was a Government spy?’
The Frenchman chuckled. ‘I didn’t know what to think,’ he said. ‘But I thought better safe than sorry.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘The thing is, the majority of people using our service are using visa runs to stay in the country. And a lot of them are regular customers working in Thailand without work permits. They obviously want to keep a low profile.’
‘Obviously,’ I repeated. I took out the photograph of Jon Junior and gave it to him. ‘He was on the bus on March fifth, right?’
The Frenchman nodded. ‘First time he’d used us.’ He handed the picture back to me. ‘Hadn’t been in Thailand long. You could tell, most of the regulars watch the movie or sleep, he was looking out of the window the whole way there and back.’
‘Did you talk to him?’ My coffee arrived and I stirred in a spoonful of sugar.
‘Just to say hello and take his money. It was a straight through and through run and we were late setting off so we didn’t even stay for lunch in Cambodia.’
‘Did you take any details from him? Address, place of work, anything like that?’
‘All we ask for is a name and to be honest we don’t even check that. We take bookings but anyone can turn up on the day and if there’s a seat they’re on the coach.’ He gestured around the coffee shop. ‘This is where we meet. Seven in the morning and we head off at seven thirty.’
‘Was he travelling alone?’
The Frenchman nodded. ‘Sat near the back next to the window.’
‘Anyone sit next to him?’
‘One of our regulars, he got here just before we left. Almost missed us.’
‘Can I talk to him?’
The Frenchman looked as if I’d asked him to give me a couple of pints of his blood. ‘He’s not the sort to talk to people he doesn’t know,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure that he’d want me to give you his name.’
‘I really don’t care who he is or what he’s done, I just want to know if Jon Junior said anything that might help me locate him.’
The Frenchman dipped a biscuit in his coffee and then bit into it. A large chunk fell into his cup but he pretended not to notice. ‘He’s working illegally, that’s the problem. He runs a go-go bar in Soi Cowboy. His boss won’t apply for a working visa so he’s here on tourist visas and that means at the moment he’s doing a run every two weeks.’
‘Like I said, what his visa status is no concern of mine.’
‘He won’t want to talk to strangers, that’s the problem.’ He took an iPhone out of his jacket pocket. ‘I’ll give him a call.’ He stood up and went outside. I watched him through the window as he paced up and down, talking animatedly into the phone. After a couple of minutes he came back and gave the phone to me. ‘He’ll talk to you now.’
I took the phone from him and he sat down. ‘This is Bob Turtledove,’ I said. ‘Thanks for agreeing to talk to me.’
‘Philippe says you’re cool,’ he said. He had a British accent, Liverpool maybe, as if he was talking through his nose and not his mouth.
‘That was nice of him,’ I said.
‘You are cool right?’
‘As a cucumber.’
‘Because I don’t like busybodies sticking their nose in my business.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘I just want to know about Jon Clare. The American boy you were sitting next to on the way back from Cambodia.’
‘The Yank, yeah. Total newbie. Didn’t know his arse from his elbow.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘Not much, I was asleep most of the way. He asked me about what I did for a living and I told him about Soi Cowboy. He’d never been inside a go-go bar, can you believe that?’
‘He’s a Mormon,’ I said. ‘His family’s religious.’
‘Yeah? He seemed like a mummy’s boy.’
‘Did he say where he was working?’
‘Some English school. I don’t think he said where. He was complaining about it, said it was run by some dodgy Russians. He thought they were up to something.’
‘Did he say what?’
‘I don’t think he knew. But he wanted out.’
‘Was he in trouble?’
‘I’m not sure. He wasn’t exactly opening his heart to me, it was just chit-chat.’
‘Did he say where he was living, where he hung out? Any clue as to where I might find him.’
‘He said he had a girlfriend. We were talking about the bars and he said he’d never been inside a go-go bar and he didn’t think that his girlfriend would like it if he did.’
‘So she’s Thai?’
‘I assumed so,’ he said.
‘Didn’t he say?’
There was a pause of several seconds. ‘Hand on heart, I can’t remember. But a single guy in Thailand, why would he be hanging out with a farang girl?’
‘And when you got back to Bangkok, did he say where he was going?’
‘He didn’t say anything. Just goodbye and then he took his bag and went.’
‘Taxi?’
‘Motorcycle taxi,’ he said. ‘Just down from On Nut Skytrain station. I saw him go by.’
‘Heading which way?’
‘Back to lower Sukhumvit,’ he said. ‘And he was talking on his cellphone.’
I thanked him for his help, ended the call and gave the phone back to the Frenchman.
‘Any help?’ he asked.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘We’ll see.’