Stephen Leather - Confessions of a Bangkok Private Eye - True Stories From the Case Files of Warren Olson

I told Daeng to phone me on my mobile when he had the room number, then I drove back to the office to the get the equipment I needed. Nothing spectacular, just a mini video camera hooked up to a transmitter, one of a dozen designs they sell in Pantip Plaza, and a digital camera with a telephoto lens. I picked up a meatball sandwich from my local Subway, a foot-long because I was going to be up late and wasn’t sure when I’d get the chance to eat again. I’d just finished the sandwich when my mobile rang. The girls were back in the room. Number 506. I told Daeng to call me if they left the apartment, then I showered and changed. I packed up the equipment in my gym bag, then drove over. It was just after seven when I got there.

Daeng was standing on the pavement and I told him to get into the car with me. We waited with the aircon running and an hour or so later the two girls walked out of the block arm in arm and over to where Ying had parked the BMW. I took a few photographs and waved at the motorcycle guys to follow them.

When they were out of sight Daeng and I walked over to the apartment block. An old lady with snow white hair and skin the colour of polished oak was fumbling with her key card and Daeng helped her, then we slipped inside after her. Room 506 was on the fifth floor and we took the stairs. Daeng stood watch while I went to work on the locks. The door to the apartment had a metal grill across it with a large padlock that took me all of five minutes to pick. The door had an even simpler lock in the handle and I was soon inside the room. Daeng went back downstairs, ready to phone my mobile if the girls came unexpectedly.

The room was about four paces wide and seven paces long with a small bathroom at the far end and a window that had been curtained off. There was a double bed covered with a sheet with a teddy bear pattern and matching pillows and in one corner there was a rice cooker and a sack of Thai rice. On the walls were posters of Thai pop stars and a framed picture of the king of Thailand above the door.

There was a brand new television set and next to it a stereo CD player. Probably gifts from Ying. I used the screwdriver to pry the grill off the left speaker and fitted the camera so that it had a good view of the bed. The battery was good for forty-eight hours and would transmit pictures up to 200 metres. That was fine because I’d be parked across the road. I wouldn’t have sound but that wasn’t a problem either.

I gave the room a quick once-over on the off chance that there might have been something incriminating, but other than a few snapshots of the girls hugging and kissing, there was nothing to set the pulse racing.

I went back outside and told Daeng to call me when the girls got back, then phoned one of the other motorcycle taxi drivers for an update on her progress. Ying was clearly a creature of habit; she was back at the restaurant where I’d followed her to the first night. I drove over to the restaurant and parked in front of the office building I’d visited the previous night. Another bag of extra-salty grasshoppers and a crisp 500-baht note and I was back in the fifth-floor stairwell clicking away as Ying and her student friends smoked amphetamines and drank Thai whiskey. I did get quite a nice shot of Ying kissing her girlfriend full on the lips which I reckon was clearly more than platonic.

Ying and her girlfriend got back to the apartment at three o’clock in the morning. I paid off Daeng and his buddies and gave them each a 1,000-baht bonus. They were worth every baht because I couldn’t have done the job without them.

I sat in the rental car and tuned the receiver to the transmitter in the apartment. I watched the small screen of the video camera, waiting to hit the record button. I didn’t have long to wait. The girls went into the bathroom together and emerged a few minutes later wrapped in towels. The towels soon got tossed aside and Ying and her girlfriend hit the bed, kissing and stroking and generally giving me a hard on the size of a baseball bat. I didn’t know where to look. Actually, that’s a lie. I couldn’t take my eyes off the small screen. Ying was a stunner, I’d known that as soon as I saw the photographs that Knight had given me. But the baggy jeans and T-shirt had hidden the girlfriend’s figure and as she rolled on the bed with Ying I could see that her body was every bit as curvaceous and supple as her partner’s. It would be a tough choice to have to say which one I’d have preferred to have a session with, though from the way the two girls were going at it I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be in with half a chance with either of them. The tape ran out and they were still going strong though every so often they’d take a break from the sexual Olympics and smoke yah ba or drink some more whiskey. I kept on watching long after the tape had stopped. I didn’t have anything better to do, frankly.

I phoned Greig Knight on Monday afternoon and told him I had the evidence he wanted. I went to see him in his office and gave him a file with my report and the photographs I’d taken of Ying and her student friends. And I gave him a copy of the video.

He had a television and video player already set up and he gave the video cassette to Gung to slot into the player. I didn’t want to sit and watch the video with Knight. I’d seen it several times already while drinking a few JDs and Coke back in my apartment. ‘I’ll be on my mobile if you need me,’ I said, getting up.

Knight waved at me to stay where I was. ‘I might need you to do more work,’ he said.

I looked pained. The tape was as conclusive as you could get. Ying on her back. Ying on top. An especially seductive 69 that made me hard just thinking about it. It wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted to watch in company, and I was damn sure that Knight wouldn’t want me there either, not once the lovely Ying had dropped her towel on the bed. But Knight ignored my discomfort and stabbed at the remote control.

I looked across at Gung. He had moved to stand at the door, his face impassive, his arms folded.

I sat back in my chair and tried not to look at the screen, just grateful that there was no sound on the tape. Going by Ying’s facial contortions, I reckon she had at least two very vocal orgasms during the session.

Knight watched the tape for about twenty minutes before switching off the tape. He looked at me without a trace of embarrassment. ‘That’s it?’ he said.

I could feel my cheeks burning. ‘That’s it,’ I repeated.

‘There’s no guy?’

‘Not that I can see.’

‘Just the girl.’

‘She was the only one I saw her with. In an intimate setting.’ I thought that was a nice touch. Intimate setting. It made it seem a bit less sordid.

Knight nodded slowly. ‘It could have been worse, I suppose,’ he said.

‘If it had been a guy?’

‘I’m not exactly the faithful kind,’ said Knight. ‘I love Ying, but I’ve been out in Asia too long to ever want to confine myself to one woman. Even in Hong Kong…’ He left the sentence unfinished, but I knew what he meant. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. And while he didn’t want the lovely Ying doing the dirty with another guy, having her in bed with another girl every now and again wasn’t the end of the earth. Plus, if ever he decided the time had come to part company, the tape would make the split a hell of a lot easier.

‘The drugs are a bit of a worry,’ I said. If she ever got picked up by the cops while he was with her and they found yah ba, he’d be looking at prison time too.

‘I know about the yah ba,’ he said. ‘Never in the house and never in the car. She promised.’

‘That’s all right, then,’ I said. I wasn’t sure that I’d take the word of a girl who clearly had only a passing relationship with the truth, but Greig Knight was the client and the client is always right. Except, of course, when he’s wrong.