My appointment with Doctor Duangtip was at eleven o’clock but I wanted to get there earlier so that I could visit Ronnie Marsh so I caught a taxi in Soi Thonglor at just before nine. It was raining. It was early May and the farmers in the north eastern Isarn provinces had suffered three months of drought that was threatening to destroy the rice crop. The rice paddies were so dry that they weren’t able to plant their rice seedlings and many were facing financial ruin. The skies had been cloudy for the best part of a week but the rain had steadfastly refused to come so the Bureau of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation had been seeding the clouds with salt and calcium and silver iodide. The clouds had fattened and darkened but then the wind had changed and by the time the rain started to fall they were over Bangkok. The rains had come but it was the citizens of Bangkok who were drenched while the farmers of Isarn were still despairing over their parched farmland and devastated livelihoods. In some of the more remote villages the headmen had given up on the official rainmakers and had organised the hae-nang-maew-kaw-fon festival where they dragged a cat around in a wicker basket and drenched it with water. The rains still hadn’t reached the north east but the road to Bumrungrad Hospital was under several inches of water.
Bumrungrad Hospital is often touted as the best in Asia. It’s in Soi 3, a hop, skip and a jump from Nana Plaza, one of the largest red light areas in the city, and just across the road from Little Arabia, home to most of the Arabs visiting the city. There were more than a dozen Arabs in reception, the men in man dresses and sandals and the women swathed from head to foot in black. I’ve never understood why the Arabs just didn’t build their own hospitals and import the doctor and nurses but whatever the reason it was certainly good for the Thai economy and brought in millions of dollars a year.
I’ve never liked hospitals but if you’ve got to go then you might as well go to one that looks like a five-star hotel and is staffed by hundreds of pretty young girls in tight-fitting starched white uniforms. There’s a Starbucks on the premises, a McDonald’s, a bakery, a top-notch Japanese restaurant, and other restaurants I haven’t even seen. When you check into the Bumrungrad for treatment you’re asked what sort of room you’d like, up to a two-bedroom suite, and your food is chosen from a room service menu. And you’re treated like a valued guest, not a patient.
Eat your heart out, Medicare.
It took me half an hour to get to Soi 3 and then another half an hour to get down the waterlogged street to the hospital but I still had plenty of time to go up to the burns unit before my health check.
The nurse I spoke to in the burns unit didn’t ask who I was or why I was there, she just smiled and showed me to the room.
It was a private room and Marsh was the only occupant, lying flat with a rack over his legs to keep the sheet off his legs and chest. There were dressings on his face and neck and what looked like mittens on his hand, but he wasn’t connected to any machines making beeping noises which I took as a good sign.
There was a flatscreen television on the wall opposite his bed showing a football match with the sound muted but his eyes were closed and he seemed to be asleep.
‘Ronnie?’ I said as I closed the door behind me.
His eyes opened. ‘Yeah?’
‘How are you feeling?’
Not the smartest of questions, I know, but I wanted to get him talking.
‘How do you think I’m feeling?’
‘It hurts?’
‘Not as much as it did when they brought me in.’ He looked across at a drip feed that was going into his left arm. ‘Whatever it is they’re pouring into me, it’s doing the trick.’
I nodded at a chair at the side of his bed. ‘Mind if I sit down?’
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘Bob Turtledove,’ I said, which was true.
‘From the Embassy,’ I added. Which wasn’t true, strictly speaking.
‘You’re American,’ he said.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘An American working for the Australian Embassy? That doesn’t make sense.’
‘I’m with the American Embassy,’ I said, which was sort of true in that Matt Richards had sent the Clares to me.
Okay, so it wasn’t true.
Sue me.
I took the photograph of Jon Junior from my pocket and held it in front of his face. ‘Do you remember seeing this boy, the night of the fire?’
‘What?’ he said.
‘This boy? Was he in the club?’
‘I’m lying here in the ICU and you’re showing me a bloody photograph?’
‘It’s important,’ I said. ‘His parents are looking for him.’
‘Yeah, well I’ve got enough problems of my own, mate.’
I took the photograph away from his face. ‘Look, I’m sorry you were hurt,’ I said. ‘But at least you’re alive. This boy might not be so lucky.’
‘Lucky? You think I’m lucky? You’ve no idea what’s going on, do you?’
‘So tell me,’ I said. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’
He sighed and closed his eyes. ‘I’m the fall guy,’ he said. ‘The farang fall guy.’
‘They’re going to blame you for the fire?’
He opened his eyes. ‘What do you think? I’m the token farang at the club, who else are they going to hang it on?’
‘But the papers said that the fire was started by the band.’
Marsh snorted. ‘And who hired the band? The farang. And who was responsible for the fire inspections? The farang. And who said that the fire exits should be locked? The farang. And who said it was okay to fill the car park to double its capacity?’
‘The farang?’
‘Exactly. They’re going to hang me out to dry, mate. Life behind bars if they get their way. You know that whatever happens, the farang gets the blame. And I’m the farang.’
‘Why do you think you’re going to be the fall guy?’
‘Because a lawyer came to see me yesterday saying he wanted to discuss my defence. He said that the police were preparing to press charges and he wanted to make sure that I was ready.’
‘He wasn’t your lawyer?’
‘He works for a firm that one of the partners uses,’ said Marsh. ‘I told him to go screw himself.’
I nodded. Telling Thais to go screw themselves wasn’t the smartest course of action.
Especially Thai lawyers.
‘I wouldn’t think that the police would be looking to charge you, unless you’d done something wrong.’
Marsh tried to sneer at me but he grunted with pain instead. ‘How long have you been in Thailand, Turtledove?’
‘A few years.’
‘Yeah, well you should have learned by now that people who do things wrong often end up getting away with it, and people who’ve done nothing often end up in prison. Getting punished here has more to do with who you are and how much you have rather than what you did.’
Marsh was a cynic.
But he was probably right.
‘The fire exits. Was it your idea to lock them?’
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘What do you think I am?
‘Whose then?’
‘Thongchai. He’s one of the owners.’
‘From Isarn?’
‘Udon Thani,’ said Marsh. ‘He ran away as soon as the fire started. Saw the flames and just turned and ran.’
‘And he wanted the fire exits locked?’
Marsh sighed. ‘We’d been having problems with people sneaking in through the back. One guy would pay to get in and he’d kick open a fire door and a dozen of his mates would pile in. I said we should just station security guards at the exits but he said we didn’t have a budget for that.’ Marsh shook his head. ‘Two hundred baht would get you a guard for the whole night. The price of one beer in the club. Cheap bastard.’
‘So he had the exits locked?’
‘Chains and padlocked. Did it himself and carried the keys. I screamed for him to come back and open the doors but he didn’t stop.’
‘They’re saying that it was fireworks that started the fire.’
‘Yeah. The idiot lead singer set them off halfway through his set.’
‘Didn’t anyone know what he was going to do?’
‘It was their first time in the club. I was there at the sound check during the day and there was no mention of fireworks then. I was near the entrance keeping an eye on things because we had a hundred or so kids trying to get in even though we were full. First I knew of it was when he takes a lighter out of his pocket and he lights these black things. Next thing I know there are white sparks everywhere and the crowd is cheering. Then the showers of sparks get bigger and then the ceiling catches fire and everyone starts screaming. That’s when Thongchai ran for it.’
‘How did you get burned? You said you were by the entrance.’
‘I was trying to get people out. The power went so all the lights went out. There was a surge to get out and people fell. I stayed as long as I could but…’
He closed his eyes.
‘You know what I don’t understand?’ he said.
‘What’s that?’
He opened his eyes. ‘When I did get out there were hundreds of people watching and most of them were holding up their cellphones, taking pictures and videoing. Why didn’t they help?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why were they standing there taking pictures of people dying? They could have helped but they didn’t.’
It wasn’t a question that I could answer.
I don’t thing anyone could.
It was the way of the world in the twenty-first century. People preferred to be observers rather than participants, and nothing was real unless it had appeared on YouTube.
‘They could have helped, but they didn’t. I helped and I got third degree burns and now they want to hang me out to dry. It’s not fair.’
He was right, of course. It wasn’t fair.
I held out the photograph again. ‘Ronnie, did you see this boy in the club that night?’
He squinted at the picture. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘You were at the door all night?’
‘That’s the thing, I wasn’t. I was moving around.’
‘So he could have gone in when you weren’t on the door?’
‘It’s possible.’
I sighed. ‘Well, it was worth a try.’
‘Who is he?’ asked Marsh.
‘Young American kid on his gap year. His parents are worried sick. They haven’t heard from him in a while and then they read about the fire.’
‘Close family?’
‘Mormons,’ I said.
‘I left home when I was sixteen and I don’t think my parents even noticed.’ He sighed. ‘I am in so much shit, Bob.’
‘It might not be as bad as you think.’
‘The lawyer said the prosecution were looking to put me away for life.’
‘I spoke to a Public Prosecutor yesterday and she said the investigation was ongoing.’
‘Maybe she doesn’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. The lawyer said that I was going to get the blame for the fire certificate not being up to date, for the locked exits and for the underage kids there. He said the best thing to do was to just admit everything and throw myself at the mercy of the court and that I’d probably only get ten years and that would get cut in half at some point.’
I nodded.
The bit about the sentence being cut was right. That’s how it worked in Thailand. On major holidays like the King’s birthday thousands of prisoners had their sentences reduced. It happened so often that a guy sentenced to thirty years for murder could easily be back home in five years. The only sentences that weren’t reduced were those of drug dealers.
‘Sounds to me like you need a lawyer, Ronnie. Someone with your best interests at heart.’
‘Do you think?’ he said, his voice loaded with sarcasm.
‘Do you know anyone?’
‘Never needed one before,’ he said.
‘I’ve got a friend who knows what he’s doing,’ I said. ‘I’ll get him to drop by.’
‘Thai?’
‘For this sort of thing, you need a Thai lawyer,’ I said. ‘And you need a good one.’
I stood up and both knees cracked. Marsh grinned. ‘You’re getting old, Bob.’
‘We all are,’ I said.
‘Can you see the remote?’
It was on a shelf next to his drip. I picked it up.
‘Put the sound up so I can hear it, will you?’ I boosted the volume and he thanked me. ‘You could try talking to Lek and Tam. They might have seen your boy.’
‘They were on the door?’
‘Yeah. They’re kickboxers, they train at the gym in Washington Square most days. You’d better say you’re a friend of mine or they’ll not talk to you.’
‘Thanks, Ronnie.’
‘No sweat. Just don’t forget that lawyer.’