46. No accusation
Larson arrived at the Pattaya bus terminal at 7pm and took the 20 baht pickup truck together with other passengers from the bus. So far Pattaya didn’t impress Larson. He could not even see any beach. The songtaew started with a roar from the faulty exhaust system and struggled up the hill.
Pattaya looked better when the baht bus went downhill and after a bend entered Beach Road. Palm trees, a sandy beach and the sea. This was more like it. Larson watched people who were walking along the promenade, in particular Thai boys. Larson spotted several candidates who were walking or sitting in the evening light. It was a relaxed and pleasant scene Larson thought, and wondered if Bjorn had exaggerated when he had warned Larson that he should expect to pay any boy in Pattaya cash regardless of where he met him.
Bjorn had recommended Honey Lodge hotel. The English teacher in Larson thought this was a suspiciously sweet name for a hotel but Bjorn had assured him that Honey Lodge was like any other budget hotel in Pattaya, only with a central location.
Larson paid 500 baht in advance for his room. He felt dusty and sweaty after the trip and took a shower. He turned on the television and watched the local television news. It seemed the news in Pattaya was either Thai officials sitting in meetings or bizarre crime scenes with murder victims shown up close and suspects re-enacting their crimes.
But Larson had not come to Pattaya to watch telly. He changed to beach clothes, put a small map in his pocket and set out to explore Sin City.
*
Duff had advertised his Volkswagen Polo with a low asking price to make buyers interested. It worked and several people called. A girl with her boyfriend acting as technical consultant came to see the car and test-drove it around the neighbourhood. They haggled a little and Duff accepted the bid. He would rather sell the car quickly than be stuck with it. The remainder of his time in Manchester he could take the bus.
Duff had finished the car deal when the email from Peter arrived in the evening. Duff sat at his home computer (which was also for sale) and tried to make sense of what Peter wrote.
To: Dandy Duff
From: Peter Hart
Subject: We have something we need to discuss
Please understand that I am not accusing you of anything. But I need to ask if you have any knowledge of how a photograph of you came to be in my boyfriend’s possession.
Peter Hart
No TagsPages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141