Cockroaches(91)
“It’s a big city,” she said. “In our experience these boys disappear like dew in the morning sun the minute we start looking for them. Besides, we’d have to involve lots of other people.”
“OK, forget it,” Harry said. “We can’t risk Klipra getting wind of what we’re doing.”
Harry tapped a pen rhythmically against the edge of the table. To his irritation he noticed that “I Just Called to Say I Love You” was still buzzing around his head.
“So, to summarize, we assume Klipra has carried out this kidnap on his own and that he is in an out-of-the-way place a drive away from Bangkok.”
“What do we do now?” Løken asked.
“I’m off to Pattaya,” Harry said.
* * *
He was on the margins of the expat scene. Harry hadn’t felt he was very important in the case, just another Norwegian seeking better weather. Roald Bork looked the same as he had at the funeral, same lively blue eyes and gold chain on display. He was standing at the gate as Harry swung around the big Toyota 4×4 in front of his house. The dust settled on the gravel while Harry struggled with the seat belt and the ignition key. As usual, he was unprepared for the heat that hit him as he opened the door and instinctively gasped for breath. There was a salty taste to the air, which told him the sea was right behind the low ridges.
“I heard you coming up the drive,” Bork said. “Quite a vehicle, that one.”
“I rented the biggest they had,” Harry said. “I’ve learned it gives you a kind of priority. You need it with the nutters here driving on the left.”
Bork laughed. “Did you find the new motorway I told you about?”
“Yes, I did. Except it wasn’t quite finished, so they’d closed it with sandbags in a couple of places. But everyone drove over them, and I followed suit.”
“That sounds about right,” Bork said. “It’s not quite legal and not quite illegal. Is it any wonder we fall in love with this country?”
They removed their shoes and went into the house. The cold, cooling stone tiles stung Harry’s bare feet. In the living room there were pictures of Fridtjof Nansen, Henrik Ibsen and the Norwegian royal family. In one a boy was sitting on a chest of drawers squinting into the camera. He must have been about ten and had a football under his arm. Documents and newspapers were tidied into neat piles on the dining-room table and piano.
“I’ve been trying to organize my life a little,” Bork said. “Find out what happened and why.”
He pointed to one of the piles. “Those are the divorce papers. I stare at them and try to remember.”
A girl came in carrying a tray. Harry tasted the coffee she poured and looked up at her quizzically when he realized it was ice-cold.
“Are you married, Hole?” Bork asked.
Harry shook his head.
“Good. Keep well away. Sooner or later they’ll try to get one up on you. I have a wife who ruined me and an adult son who is trying to do the same. And I can’t work out what I did to them.”
“How did you end up here?” Harry asked, taking another sip. Actually, it wasn’t that bad.
“I was doing a job for Televerket here while they were installing a couple of switchboards for a Thai telephone company. After the third trip I never went back.”
“Never?”
“I was divorced and had everything I needed here. For a while I seriously believed I longed for a Norwegian summer, fjords and the mountains and, well, you know, all that stuff.” He nodded in the direction of the pictures on the wall, as if they could fill in the rest. “Then I went to Norway twice, but both times I was back within a week. I couldn’t stand it, yearned to be here from the moment I set foot on Norwegian soil. I’ve realized now that I belong here.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a soon-to-be-retired telecommunications consultant, I take the occasional job, but not too many. I try to work out how long I’ve got left and how much I’m going to need in that period. I don’t want to leave one single øre for the vultures.” He laughed and waved a hand over the divorce papers as if wafting away an evil smell.
“What about Ove Klipra? Why’s he still here?”
“Klipra? Hm, I suppose he has a similar tale to tell. Neither of us had very good reasons for returning.”
“Klipra probably had very good reasons not to.”
“All that gossip is absolute rubbish. If Ove had been up to that sort of thing I would never have had anything to do with him.”
“Are you sure?”
Bork’s eyes flashed. “There have been a couple of Norwegians who have come here for the wrong reasons. As you know I’m a kind of senior figure in the Norwegian circle in town, and we feel a certain responsibility for what our compatriots do here. Most of us are decent, and we’ve done whatever had to be done. These bloody pedophiles have destroyed the reputation of Pattaya to such an extent that when people ask us where we live many have begun to answer with districts like Naklua and Jomtien.”