Cockroaches(56)

“How long do you keep the videos?”

“Ten days. Most people have worked out if something’s missing from their cars by then. Then we record over the tapes.”

“That would mean you’ve got four to five p.m. on the seventh of January on tape then?”

Jim peered up at a calendar on the wall. “You betcha.”

They walked down a staircase and entered a warm, damp basement, where Jim switched on a solitary lightbulb and unlocked one of the steel cabinets along the wall. The tapes were stacked neatly in piles.

“There’s a lot of tapes to get through if you want to check the whole parking lot.”

“Visitor parking is enough,” Harry said.

Jim searched along the shelves. Obviously every camera had its shelf, and the dates were written on the labels in pencil. Jim pulled out a cassette.

“Bingo.”

He opened another cabinet in which there was a video player and a monitor, inserted the cassette and after a few seconds a black-and-white image appeared on the screen. Harry immediately recognized the visitor parking slots; the recording clearly came from the same camera he had seen the last time they were here. A code at the bottom of the screen showed the day, month and time. They spooled forward to 15:50. No ambassador’s car. They waited. It was like watching a freeze-frame; nothing was happening.

“Let’s fast-forward,” Jim said.

Apart from the clock in the corner speeding up there was no difference. 17:15. A couple of cars raced by leaving wet marks on the cement. 17:40 and they could see the tracks drying and vanishing, but still no sign of the ambassador’s Mercedes. When the clock showed 17:50 Harry told Jim to switch off the video player.

“There should have been an embassy car in one of the visitors’ spaces,” Harry said.

“Sorry,” Jim said. “Looks like someone’s given you some bad information.”

“Could it have been parked anywhere else?”

“Of course. Anyone who isn’t a regular visitor has to drive past this same camera, we would have seen the car pass.”

“We’d like to see a different video,” Harry said.

“Oh yeah. Which one?”

Nho rummaged through his pockets. “Do you know where a car with this registration number parks?” he asked, passing him a slip of paper. Jim stared at him suspiciously.

“Shit, man, you speak English after all.”

“It’s a red Porsche,” Nho said.

Jim passed back the note. “I don’t need to check. No regulars drive a red Porsche.”

“Faen!” Harry said.

“What was that?” Jim asked with a grin.

“A Norwegian word you don’t want to learn.”

They walked back into the sunshine.

“I can get you a decent pair cheap,” Jim said, pointing to Harry’s sunglasses.

“No, thank you.”

“Anything else you need?” Jim winked and laughed. He had already started clicking his fingers. He was probably looking forward to listening to his Walkman again.

“Hey, Officer!” he shouted after them as they left. Harry turned. “Fa-an!”

They could hear his laughter all the way to the car.


“So what do we know?” Liz asked, putting her feet on the desk.

“We know that Brekke’s lying,” Harry said. “He said that after their meeting he accompanied the ambassador down to where his car was parked in the underground car park.”

“Why would he lie about that?”

“On the phone the ambassador says that he wants confirmation that they’re meeting at four o’clock. There’s no doubt the ambassador arrived at the office. We’ve spoken to the receptionist, and she confirmed it. She can also confirm that they left the office together, because Brekke popped by to leave a message. She remembers that because it was around five and she was getting ready to go home.”

“I’m glad someone remembers something.”

“But what Brekke and the ambassador did after that we don’t know.”

“Where was the car? I doubt he’d risk parking in the street in that part of Bangkok.”

“They might have agreed to go somewhere else, and the ambassador got someone to look after the car while he was fetching Brekke,” Nho suggested.

Rangsan cleared his throat and turned over a page.

“In a place that’s crawling with small-time crooks just waiting for a chance like that?”

“Yeah, I agree,” Liz said. “It’s still weird that he didn’t use the underground lot, when it’s the easiest and the safest thing to do. He could literally have parked next to the elevator.”

Her little finger rotated in her ear and her expression lit up.