Smoking Poppy Graham Joyce (free ebook novel .txt) 📖

‘Daniel and I were just having a drink. Do let me get you one.’

Mick looked at me and said, ‘I’ll have a beer, Daniel.’

Brazier-Armstrong chattered about the size of the area he was expected to cover. His mouth seemed to produce an excess of saliva, because every now and then he stroked his lips with a long and elegant white finger. He was a bag of nerves with a diploma from charm school. Or from public school, more like. One of the more expensive ones. Brazier-Armstrong looked like he might be a useful number three bat on the Eton cricket pitches.

A working-class bloke takes a mild dislike to you, and you know it immediately; whereas you can be utterly despised by a middle-class person, and you will never discover the fact until much later. I can see how this has benefited the middle rank; they depend on upward mobility, ingratiating themselves and minimising social conflict. The working mob has less to gain from dissembling.

I don’t know whether to conclude from this that the middle classes are dishonest or the working classes are thick, but at that moment Mick was resisting all Brazier-Armstrong’s seductive smiles and gay chatter by staring at me with one eyebrow cocked at altitude. Half turning to the man he said, ‘So you’re the British Consul then?’

‘For my sins,’ Brazier-Armstrong replied with a gallant laugh, swinging slightly and a little girlishly on his bar stool.

‘God help us.’

There was a silence while we absorbed the waves made by this remark. Brazier-Armstrong let his shoulders dip, and his face became serious. ‘Joking apart, we might need a wee bit of God’s help the way this case is turning out. At the moment I’m doing everything in my power to make sense of a very hairy situation. I’ve come here directly from the prison. I can tell you’ – and here he resumed some gaiety – ‘that you’ve got them running around like headless chickens.’

‘It’s not funny,’ Mick said.

‘Indeed not. Not funny at all. I was about to update Daniel on what we know.’

‘Let’s have it then,’ I said.

‘The girl in the prison. Her name is Claire Marchant. She was arrested on drugs trafficking charges. She was carrying what now appears to be your daughter’s passport. She has admitted that she stole it.’

‘When? Where?’

‘This we don’t know. She doesn’t look unlike the passport photograph, so she has been successful in passing herself off to the Thai authorities since her arrest.’

‘When did she steal the passport? Can’t you make her tell us?’ Mick put in.

‘We’re trying to get this information. The trouble is that Marchant has got nothing to lose. Assuming she doesn’t get the death penalty, she’s already facing life imprisonment. I’m afraid she’s not in a co-operative mood.’

‘No problem,’ Mick said, slamming down his beer and climbing off his stool. ‘To the prison. Slip the guards a few dollars for five minutes in the cell with her. Let’s go.’

Brazier-Armstrong pushed at some imaginary force between his knees. ‘Slow down, gentlemen! There are ways of doing things in this country. I can understand any impatience you might be feeling—’

‘No you fucking can’t,’ Mick said.

‘— but there is a correct procedure and it will get us what we want. You’ve been patient up until now. Just a little longer, and we can unearth whatever there is to know. I’m going back to the prison right now to interview Marchant myself.’

‘Can we come along?’ I asked.

‘The prison authorities said no. I already asked. I appeal to you, Daniel, to leave this to me. I can deal with the unpleasantness and the waiting around at Chiang Mai prison. Meanwhile I recommend that you both relax as far as possible and take advantage of the many pleasures Chiang Mai has to offer. Let me take the strain.’ He was already up off his stool as Phil showed up. ‘I will report back to you as soon as there is anything to tell you.’

He jabbed out a hand that wanted shaking again, saw Mick’s face and thought better of it. Then he was gone. We watched him leave the hotel grounds to wave his finger at a passing tuk-tuk.

Mick was disgusted. ‘His shit’s still yellow. Daniel.’

‘Who was that?’ Phil wanted to know.

‘Let’s give him a chance,’ I sighed.

‘And another thing,’ Mick said, picking up the bar tab. ‘The little runt didn’t pay for the drinks.’

15

Brazier-Armstrong failed to get back to me, as he’d faithfully promised he would, within the next twenty-four hours. In that period he became Mick’s favourite topic of conversation. It had come as a shock to him to see the type of floppy-haired individual responsible for representing British interests abroad. As a tax-payer he speculated about how many Brazier-Armstrongs there were dotted about the globe, and at what expense; as my friend and aide in this expedition, he doubly hated him for his apparently ineffectual offices.

I couldn’t get quite so steamed up about the prat. It wasn’t his fault that Charlotte had come this way to be parted from her passport by a drugs runner. Even though I was half out of my mind with frustration I knew that blaming this soppy public schoolboy wasn’t going to help the situation.

Phil, like me, thought we should give the man a chance to do his best. Mick on the other hand wanted to return to the consulate and kick his arse with a spiked boot. Meanwhile we flopped by the hotel pool, drank beer (or tea in Phil’s case), had another foot massage (or didn’t, in Phil’s case), and ate a green curry (yes, he joined us for that) which made those familiar giant blisters of sweat appear on my forehead before I’d even dipped my spoon in the stuff.

So we lounged by the pool. Where Mick sported dazzling fluorescent lime-green knee-length swimming trunks, Phil lay on his sunbed in stiff white shirt, black trousers, black socks and black shoes. After half an hour of this, and