Confessions of a Bangkok Private Eye: True Stories From the Case Files of Warren Olson

THE CASE OF THE BLACKMAILED BEAUTY

Klaus was a German, and I don’t get too many German clients. Nothing to do with the war, it’s just that for some reason Germans don’t seem to have as many problems with bargirls as guys from other countries. I used to ask the girls why Germans never seemed to lose their hearts to the girls who dance around the silver poles. The general consensus seemed to be that Germans think with their heads. The Americans think with their hearts. And the Brits think with their dicks. When a tearful bargirl starts to tell a Brit or a Yank that her father is in hospital or her sister needs a new pair of shoes or the water buffalo has died, he gives her money. The German just shrugs and reaches for his beer. The Germans are more pragmatic, they understand that a bargirl has a history and deals with it. The Brits tend to believe every lie they’re told. No, the girl doesn’t have a husband. No, she doesn’t have kids. No, she doesn’t spend hours in an internet cafA© talking to her sponsors around the world. So when Klaus phoned me up and said that he wanted to talk to me about a girl, alarm bells started ringing. I knew it wouldn’t be a straightforward bargirl investigation.

He’d worked in Thailand for almost a decade, and that sent up a red flag too because most long-term expats are well aware of the dangers of getting involved with a bargirl. And if they wanted to check out a bargirl’s story they usually had plenty of friends who could do the job for them. I’d had a quiet week so I ignored my reservations and arranged to meet him at a Starbucks close to my office.

He was waiting for me at an outside table, smoking a cigarette with an espresso in front of him. He was in his early forties, balding, and looked as if he spent quite a bit of time in the gym. I ordered a white coffee and then joined him at his table. He started by giving me a potted life history. He’d lived in Berlin, married with two children, then divorced and moved to Thailand to start a new life. He’d built up a successful computer company, importing components from Europe, and now had offices in Germany, Hong Kong and Bangkok. He’d married again to a Thai woman, but happily admitted to a series of affairs. Nothing serious, more often than not just a matter of barfining a bargirl and taking her to a short-time hotel.

His life had ticked along perfectly until the time he flew down to Phuket to see about opening an office there. In one of the island’s up-market pickup joints he met Nut, the love of his life. She wasn’t a bargirl but a law student, twenty-seven years old and drop dead gorgeous. She was bright, and according to Klaus was able to talk to him about everything. Economics. Politics. Literature. She was on vacation, footloose and fancy free. He had never met such a smart girl before and he was besotted. He started thinking about divorcing Wife Number Two and starting afresh with Nut. He persuaded her to go on holiday with him to Hong Kong, and on their return she said she had to go back to Rhamkamheng University to prepare for her final exams. Klaus was keen to play the white knight. He offered to give her a lump sum to cover all her expenses, and give her a laptop so that she could email him as he travelled around. Nut jumped at his offer of sponsorship. Klaus probably saw it differently, but in my experience young girls aren’t attracted to rich middle-aged farangs because of their good looks, witty conversation or sparkling personalities. Nut said she stayed with her sister in Bangkok but that he could visit whenever he wanted. It was a done deal. Klaus gave her 60,000 baht for her first month’s ‘salary’ and a brand new laptop.

After they returned to Bangkok, Klaus gave Nut a couple of days to settle in and then phoned her. There was no reply from her mobile and his emails went unanswered. Klaus was distraught. He was already planning to divorce his wife, he believed he had finally met the love of his life, and now she had disappeared. He’d phoned the apartment block where she stayed with her sister but someone there told him that she had moved out.

‘I vant you to find her, Varren,’ he said. ‘Money no object.’

Ah. The three words that every private eye loves to hear. He was as good as his word and took out an envelope containing 50,000 baht. I spent half an hour with him getting as many details as I could and he gave me a photograph that he’d been carrying in his wallet. She was a pretty girl, all right. High cheekbones, rosebud mouth, long lashes.

My first port of call was the apartment block where Nut was supposed to be living with her sister. I was lucky, it was quite small, just a few floors above the offices of a cleaning company. All residents and visitors had to go in through the offices, which I reckoned was good news because the staff there would almost certainly be able to put names to faces.

Klaus had told me that Nut had spoken of a previous boyfriend, an English guy who’d returned to London a couple of years earlier. I adopted one of my regular personas-an embassy offcial. Most Thai girls would do anything to get a visa to the West so I walked into the office in a suit and tie and carrying a briefcase. There were two girls sitting at a reception desk and I told them that I was from the British Embassy. I told them that Nut had applied for a tourist visa and that we had some questions for her but we weren’t getting a reply from her mobile. I spoke in English and gave them no indication that I spoke or understood Thai. When I finished my prepared speech, the two girls spoke to each other in rapid Thai. I just stood there smiling as one girl said that she thought Nut had moved out two days earlier and that she was now living in an apartment in Rhamkamheng 53.

‘Shall we tell the farang?’ said the other girl.

‘I suppose so. He looks quite handsome doesn’t he?’

The two girls looked at me and giggled. I kept what I hoped was an uncomprehending smile on my face.

‘She move to Rhamkamheng,’ said the girl who knew.

I feigned disappointment. ‘That’s a pity, I said. Do you know where?’

‘Rhamkamheng 53,’ said the girl.

‘I think I have her mobile number,’ said the other girl, in Thai.

I tried to show no reaction. ‘Is there any way I could phone her, just to let her know about her application?’ I asked.

The two girls exchanged a look, then they nodded together. ‘I call her for you,’ said the second girl. She took her mobile phone from her handbag, scrolled through her address book and called the number. She handed the phone to me with a smile. I put it to my ear. It was still ringing. I didn’t know if it was the number that Klaus had been trying or if Nut had acquired a new SIM card, but a girl answered.

‘Is that Khun Nut?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said a voice, hesitantly.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d barely been on the case for ten minutes and I was talking to the girl that I’d been paid 50,000 baht to track down. I explained that I was with the British Embassy and that I needed to speak to her about her visa application.

‘I didn’t apply for a visa,’ she said.

‘Your boyfriend did,’ I said.

‘He not my boyfriend anymore,’ she said. ‘I not want to go to England now.’

I could tell she was about to end the call so I started speaking quickly, assuring her that she could still have a visa even if he wasn’t her boyfriend anymore and that I just needed to go over a few things with her.

‘I busy with exams,’ she said. ‘I not want to go to England. Thank you.’ She cut the connection.

The two girls were watching me so I couldn’t show how frustrated I was. I just smiled and fiddled with the locks on my briefcase. I opened it and made a show of fumbling with some papers. What I was really trying to do was steal a look at the last number dialled. The phone was a Siemens and I was used to Nokias but I managed to call up the number and memorized it before handing the phone back to the girl. Outside, I checked the mobile number against the number that Klaus had given me. It was a different, which meant that either Nut had two phones or that she’d dumped the old SIM card.

I caught a taxi to Rhamkamheng 53 and wandered around. Finding Nut was going to be like nailing a needle in a haystack. There were at least fifty large apartment blocks lining the soi, mainly cheap places catering to the 50,000 or so students that attend the nearby Rhamkamheng University. It’s rumoured to be the largest university in the world. I stopped off at the motorcycle taxi rank at the head of the soi and spoke to the guys there. They were dark skinned, Isaan boys all of them, so I spoke in Laotian, dropping in an obscenity every few words. I showed Nut’s picture around but all I got was shaking heads. I offered a thousand baht to anyone who found her and that got their interest going, but as much as they wanted the money none of them remembered seeing her. I told them the thousand baht was a standing offer and handed out a few business cards, then I strolled over to the university campus.

I went to the registration office and went through my British Embassy speech again, that Miss Nut had applied for a visa to visit England and this age of terrorists and criminals we needed to do thorough background checks on all applicants. I gave the office manager Nut’s full name and date of birth but after a few minutes on the computer she returned, shaking her head. There was no one of that name registered at the university.

That was interesting. It was the first lie that I’d caught her telling. And in my experience, where’s there’s one, there’s many.

I went back to the office and phoned Klaus. He was relieved that I’d spoken to Nut. ‘At least I know she’s okay,’ he said. ‘I vas starting to think that maybe she had been in an accident.’

He didn’t sound quite so cheerful when I pointed out that she’d lied to him about studying law at Rhamkamheng University. I gave him Nut’s new mobile number.

Ten minutes later, Klaus called me back. He’d tried phoning the number but after it had rung a few times the phone had been switched off. He figured that she was refusing to take his call. ‘I vant you to find her for me, Varren,’ he said. ‘I need to talk to her face to face.’

I told him that the next step would be to get a list of phone calls made to and from the two mobiles, and to get a friend of mine to crack Nut’s email account. And that was going to cost more money. Fifty thousand baht in all. It was up to Klaus to decide if he wanted to pay the extra. I’d already shown that she’d lied about going to university, and she’d got herself a new phone number which suggested that she didn’t want to speak to Klaus. My advice, if he’d asked for it, would be for him to cut his losses and either stick with his wife or look for a new love of his life. But he didn’t ask, and he promised to send the 50,000 baht around by courier, so I kept my big trap shut. The client is always right. Even when he’s wrong.

Once the money arrived, I got in touch with my phone contact. I gave him the two mobile phone numbers and he promised to get back to me with a list of calls and locations where she’d used the phone. Then I phoned my secret weapon, an American by the name of Pete who works for one of those shady American Government organisations that spend their time analysing phone and email traffic listening for words like ‘bomb’ and ‘al-Qaeda’ and ‘assassination.’ He was based in Washington and had access to some very heavy computing power and code crackers and he owes me a favour because a while back I did a check on his Thai girlfriend at the time and uncovered a husband upcountry and two daughters that she hadn’t told him about. He had a Harvard degree and a doctorate from MIT and an IQ close to 200 but intelligence and common sense don’t always go hand in hand. Anyway, he dumped the lying bargirl and promised me that any time he could help me he would. Not for free of course, but payments to Pete were money well spent. I gave him Nut’s email address and Pete said he’d call me as soon as he had anything.

Pete got back to me two days later with the password for Nut’s email account and some very interesting information. Somebody else was hacking into her account on a regular basis.

Most of the email traffic was from Klaus, and so I was pretty sure that it was the German who was monitoring her account. But when I told Klaus what was going on he insisted that it wasn’t him. I called Pete again and asked him to see if he could find out who was hacking the account.

I started checking Nut’s email to see if she was talking to other ‘boyfriends’ but there was no activity on the account. The emails that Klaus had sent after she disappeared went unanswered.

Pete got back to me with some worrying news. He had the email address and password of the guy who’d been monitoring Nut’s email account. He’d had a quick look at the guy’s account but backed off immediately when he saw the content of his emails. The guy worked at the American Embassy and from what Pete saw it was clear that he worked in law enforcement, either with the FBI or DEA.

Pete passed on the details and warned me to be careful. The guy’s name was Miles Beattie. The account was his personal one but there was some business stuff in it, nothing classified but enough to show that Pete was right to be worried. There were emails from the FBI in Quantico requesting information on two possible drug dealers who were living in Chiang Mai, and responses from the DEA field office in Miami to questions that Beattie had been asking about a Thai family who had extensive property interests there. Among Beattie’s personal emails were messages from a friend called Frank, including a promise to get together for a drink at a well-known go-go bar in Soi Cowboy. And there was one email from a guy in Texas which referred to a porno movie.

Like Pete, I was getting a bad feeling about this. American law enforcement officials working in Thailand tend to have high-level police and military connections, the sort of connections that could lead to an inquisitive private eye being locked up and the key thrown away. But I wanted to find out what was going on and that meant I had to go the bar to ask a few questions.

I went in on a midweek night before nine so that it wouldn’t be too busy, ordered a Jack Daniel’s and then looked around for an older bargirl, one who was past her best and had a chip on her shoulder. Someone who’d spill the beans on what was going on in exchange for a few drinks and the prospect of a bar fine. I found what I was looking for. She was in her early thirties, slightly chunky and with bad skin, the result of too little time in the sun and too long spent in smoky bars. I flashed her a smile and offered to buy her a drink. She looked surprised and pointed at her chest. ‘Me?’ she said.

‘Sure,’ I said.

She got herself a cola and then came over to sit next to me. Her name was Um and she was from Surin, so I chatted away in Khamen. I took it slowly, knocking back the JDs and buying her lots of colas. That’s how she made her money. The bar paid her a commission on every drink I bought for her. She was a waitress and not a dancer so she didn’t have to go with customers, but with so much young flesh on display I doubted that there’d be a rush to pay her bar fine. I gave her the impression that I might take her to a short-time hotel, stroked her leg and planted the occasional kiss on her cheek. She started to beam, probably planning how she was going to spend the thousand baht or so she thought I was going to give her. I persuaded her to start drinking Singha beer instead of the cola lady drinks, and waited until she’d knocked back a few before I raised the subject of Miles Beattie. Um knew him, and wasn’t impressed. He was a friend of the owner, another American, and he tended to take young girls and mistreat them. Several had returned with bruises after going short-term with him. I asked her why the girls didn’t just refuse to go with him. She smiled tightly and told me that Beattie had a lot of ‘mafa’ friends. That was the last thing I needed to hear. It was bad enough that Beattie was involved in law enforcement. Now I was being told that he was involved with criminals, too. If I crossed him, I could end up being caught between a rock and a hard place.

A few more drinks under her belt, and Um became even more talkative. She grabbed my arm and whispered conspiratorially, ‘we no use short-time room, here, okay?’

I asked her why. She looked around as if worried that someone might be listening, then told me that the owners of the bar had rigged up a camera in the short-time room. ‘They make DVDs, sell overseas.’

That came as a shock, all right. I’d heard rumours of short-time hotels having video cameras behind the mirrors, but this was a first. Most girls barfined from go-go bars take their customers to nearby hotels, but this bar had its own room upstairs where for a modest 200 baht the customer could get down and dirty with his temporary girlfriend. It was good news for the girls because they could be back dancing a few minutes after taking care of the customer, but clearly it was bad news for the customer if his nocturnal activities were going to be on sale for all and sundry to gawp at.

‘We go hotel, okay?’ pleaded Um. ‘I give you good time.’

I bought her another beer and asked her to get me a Jack Daniel’s. I was starting to get the picture. Beattie liked to be rough with his girls, and he was friends with a guy who was secretly recording sex sessions of his customers. And he was monitoring Nut’s emails, which suggested that he had an interest in her. Either she was a girlfriend, former or otherwise, or he wanted something from her. Beattie would have seen the emails from Klaus and realised that the German wanted to marry Nut. Maybe he’d threatened her, with violence or blackmail.

Um brought me a fresh Jack Daniel’s and I sipped it. I knew Nut was alive and well, but she was obviously hiding. But now it was starting to look as if it was Beattie she was hiding from, not Klaus.

I paid the bill and gave Um 1,000 baht as a tip. ‘I still go with you,’ she said. ‘Free.’

I told her that I had a wife at home and that if I fooled around she’d cut off my private parts and throw them to the ducks. She laughed at that, told me that I was a good man with a good heart and kissed me on the cheek. I felt sorry for her. She was the sort of woman that Klaus should have fallen for. She was closer to his age and I was sure she’d be so grateful to any man who took her away from the bar scene that she’d be a loyal and faithful partner. But Klaus had fallen for a girl almost half his age and he was paying the price.

The lie about being a student at Rhamkamheng was still worrying me. I wanted to make absolutely sure that she wasn’t there. One of the problems with tracing people in Thailand is the language. The Thai alphabet has forty-four consonants and twenty-six vowels, so translating a name from Thai into English is fraught with problems. If I was just one letter out, a computer check might well show a negative. Nut was her nickname, the name that everyone knew her by, but her official name was much longer, six syllables in all. To be absolutely sure that I had Nut’s official full name correct I’d have to go back to the municipal office in her home town. That was going to cost money, so I had to go and see Klaus to see if he wanted me to continue with the investigation or call it quits. I warned him that an American law enforcement official was checking Nut’s emails so that he should refrain from emailing her or checking her account. He wanted to know who the guy was and I gave him the name but it didn’t mean anything to him. I didn’t say anything about the porno DVDs or the fact that Beattie liked to abuse his girls.

I explained that I’d have to go to municipal office in Surat Thani and gave me a further retainer and an advance on expenses. I flew down to Surat Thani. The officials in the municipal office were very helpful. They usually are when a farang turns up wearing a suit. The story I was using this time was that I was a lawyer representing a foreigner who had died leaving a considerable sum of money to Nut. I explained that I was having trouble finding the girl in Bangkok and showed them the name and address that I had been given. The young woman who was helping me tapped away on her computer terminal, then gave me a beaming smile. She told me that the reason I was having such a hard time locating Khun Nut was that she had recently changed her name by the Thai equivalent of a deed poll. Name-changing is common practice in Thailand, and it’s relatively easy to obtain a new ID card and passport in a new name.

The girl wrote down the new name for me, and also a list of Nut’s family members, including Nong, a young sister who had moved to Bangkok.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself on the flight back to Bangkok. It wouldn’t take me too long to track her down now that I had her new name.

My contact in the phone company had come through and there was a printout waiting for me in the fax machine when I reached home. I opened a bottle of Jack Daniels, flopped down onto the sofa and went through the printout. I knew most of the dialling codes by heart and I could see that the majority of the calls to Nut’s mobile had come from Rhamkamheng, with a few from the Sathorn Road area. The printout also showed me the nearest transmitter to Nut’s mobile at the time of each call.

Nut had only made a couple of dozen calls over the past month. Most were to a landline in Rhamkamheng. I phoned up my contact and asked him to get me an address for that number. He called me back within the hour. It was an apartment on Rhamkamheng Soi 53. I promised to send him another 5,000 baht.

The next day I went around to the apartment block with a bag full of Thai food for the office staff. That got them on my side right away, and they were more than happy to check if Nut was living there. Nut wasn’t, but the younger sister was. The room wasn’t rented in her name but as far as the staff were aware she lived there alone. Nong was in her early twenties so I assumed that she was a kept woman, possibly a minor wife, or mia noi. I didn’t want to raise suspicions by pressing them for the name of whoever was paying her bills. Besides, it was Nut I was interested in, not Nong.

The staff hadn’t asked what my interest was, but I could sense they were becoming increasingly nervous at my questioning. I decided that the best way was to go in hard. I told them that I was a policeman from Interpol investigating a serious crime involving pornography, and that while Nong probably wasn’t involved, her sister almost certainly was. The staff phoned up to Nong’s room and asked her to come down as there was a farang policeman who wanted to speak with her.

As soon as Nong stepped out the elevator I waved her over to a couple of sofas by the window. She was a pretty little thing, short hair and large, soulful eyes, and looked a good five years younger than her true age. I had no doubt that someone was paying her bills in exchange for sexual services. I kept a stern look on my face as I explained that I was a policeman with Interpol investigating pornographic material that was being sent to Europe. I told her that I believed that her sister Nut was involved, along with an American called Miles Beattie. I spoke to her in Thai and was quite aggressive because if at any time she demanded to see my ID it would be all over. By speaking quickly and forcefully I was able to keep her off balance. I told her that Nut had changed her name and address and I needed to know where to find her.

She kept shaking her head and said she knew nothing. I told her that I knew Nut had phoned her at home, and that she often phoned Nut. Then I told her that if she didn’t talk to me I’d take her to Rhamkamheng Police Station for further questioning. I was really pushing my luck because she could see that I was there on my own and any moment she was going to start wondering why I wasn’t accompanied by the local boys in brown. But like most Thais she feared authority and feared even more being held in police custody.

Close to tears, she admitted that her sister knew Charles Beattie but that’s he didn’t see him any more.

‘He was a boyfriend?’

Nong nodded tearfully.

I asked her about Klaus. ‘He help my sister. He bought her a laptop and gave her money. But she doesn’t see him any more.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘He very jealous. Ask my sister about other men all the time. Now she just want to be on her own so she can study.’

I asked her where Nut was living but she said that she didn’t know. I didn’t think she was lying. ‘But she comes to see you, right?’

Nong nodded. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘You real policeman?’ she asked.

‘Real enough to put you in prison,’ I said harshly. I could see that she was starting to realise that it was unusual for a farang policeman to be operating in Thailand, and even more unusual for him to be working alone. I told her that I’d be back with more questions and left.

I figured that it wouldn’t be long before Nong was on the phone to Nut. If I was lucky, Nut might phone Klaus to see if he knew what was going on. And even if she didn’t, tracking Nong’s phone records might give me Nut’s new home number.

I phoned Klaus and arranged to meet him at Starbucks again. This time I got there first and I had an espresso waiting for him. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke as I ran through everything that I’d discovered. He looked hurt when I told him that Nut had changed her name, and I could see the anger burning in his eyes when I ran through what I’d found out about Miles Beattie. I told him what Nong had said about Klaus being jealous and he nodded with tight lips. ‘Ve argued sometimes,’ he said. ‘There vere phone calls on her mobile in the middle of the night, times ven she disappeared for a few days. Said she was with her family and I guess I suspected the worse.’

‘Even though you were supporting her? I guess you were annoyed.’

Klaus shrugged. ‘I know the way these girls are. But I had hoped that Nut vas different.’

‘What about the mobile? Did you call again?’

‘I call her every day. Most times it’s switched off. When it’s on, she doesn’t answer.’

‘So what do you want me to do now?’

‘I vont you to find her. I vont to talk to her.’

I sipped my latte. If I had a baht for every time I’ve heard that, I’d have enough money to barfine every hooker in Patpong. I don’t know what it is about farangs and Thai girls. I’ve no doubt that if Klaus had met a German girl and she’d given him the runaround the way that Nut had, he’d have walked away without a moment’s hesitation. He’d paid her a monthly salary, given her a place to live, promised to marry her, and in return she ran away and changed her name. If it was me, I’d have just cut my losses. But then I wouldn’t have got into that situation in the first place. I’ve never seen the point in paying a woman to stay with you. If you’re paying them, they’re hookers. And why would any man want a hooker with him full-time. I know that Klaus wouldn’t want to hear that his beloved Nut was a prostitute, but she was taking money to live with him and if the cap fts, wear it, as my old grandmother used to say.

Then I had a brainwave. ‘How did you pay her?’ I asked.

He frowned. ‘Vot do you mean?’

‘You were giving her a lot of money. Did you give it to her by bank transfer or did you give her cash?’

‘Bank,’ he said.

‘Which bank?’

‘Bangkok Bank. In Silom.’

I grinned. I had a very good Thai friend who had contacts in most of the local banks who would happily give me all the information I wanted. For the right price, of course. I explained to Klaus that I could probably come up with Nut’s home address but it would mean 5,000 baht for my contact and another day’s retainer for me. He had his wallet out before I’d even finished the sentence. Klaus had it bad.

Klaus gave me the bank account details and on the way back to the office I phoned my friend. I gave him the information and stopped off at an ATM to transfer five thousand baht into his account. I hadn’t been back in the office for ten minutes when my mobile rang. Nut was living in the City Court apartment block on New Petchburi Road.

Game, set and match. Just as I was about to call Klaus with the good news, my phone rang. It was Klaus, and he was frantic. He’d just received a phone call from an American. The Yank didn’t say who he was but told Klaus that if he didn’t get out of Thailand he was a dead man. It could only have been Miles Beattie, and that opened up a whole can of worms. How had he found out about Klaus? And more importantly, did he know about yours truly?

I tried to calm him down. There was a good chance that he’d just found Klaus’s number by checking Nut’s phone records. It isn’t difficult, providing you know the right person to pay tea money to. And as Beattie was in law enforcement, he’d know the right people. Klaus told me that his phone was on a contract which was bad news because Beattie would also have Klaus’s address. I always use Pay-As-You-Go mobiles. And I change the SIM card every few months.

‘Vot’s going on, Varren?’ he asked.

I told him that I now had an address for Nut.

‘I must talk to her,’ said Klaus. ‘And I vont you to come with me.’

‘Why?’ I said.

‘Protection,’ he said.

I didn’t like the sound of that. If Beattie’s bite was as bad as his bark, who was going to protect me?

‘I vill pay you twenty thousand baht,’ he said. ‘Just to go with me while I talk to her.’ I said I’d see what I could do and that I’d call him back. I went back out to Petchburi Road and cased the apartment block. It was ten floors high and looked like a typical low-rent building, probably all studio flats, room for a bed and a sofa and a tiny bathroom with a toilet and shower. I was pretty sure by now that if Klaus and I turned up and rang her bell Nut would refuse to see us. And I didn’t think Klaus would want to be shouting through a locked door. And Klaus had already tried phoning.

I bought a carrier bag full of Chang Beer and walked over to the nearest group of motorcycle taxi drivers. There were half a dozen Isaan teenagers wearing orange vests playing checkers under a tattered beach umbrella and smoking Falling Rain cigarettes. I gave them the bag and showed them a photograph of Nut.

A couple of the guys recognized her and said that she usually left the building at eight o’clock in the morning and headed to a nearby bus station. As she wore a white shirt and black skirt band carrying a large shoulder bag, she was obviously on her way to university.

The next day, Klaus and I were outside the apartment block bright and early. I had an envelope containing 20,000 baht in my jacket pocket and a small can of mace in my trouser pocket, along with a brass knuckleduster that I usually had on my desk as a paperweight.

She walked out just after eight. Without make up and with her hair tied back, she didn’t look especially pretty, but the white shirt was tight and showed of her firm, full breasts and the skirt was a good six inches above her knees and it was clear she had one hell of a figure. Even so, Thailand is full of beautiful women and if I were Klaus I would have cut my losses long ago.

She froze when she saw Klaus and for a moment I thought she was going to turn and bolt back into the apartment block but then her shoulders sagged and the fight went out of her. Klaus put a hand on her shoulder and told her earnestly that he loved her and wanted to take care of her and that he couldn’t understand why she’d run away.

Nut listened, then shook her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m a bad girl.’

Her English was okay, good enough to talk to Klaus. He told her that he didn’t care what she’d done in the past, that he could take her to Hong Kong or Germany, he didn’t care if she had a boyfriend before. ‘Ich liebe dich,’ he said. ‘I love you.’

She started to cry. Passers-by started to pay attention, wondering why two big farangs were bullying a poor little Thai student. If we weren’t careful someone might call the police. Or decide to take matters into their own hands. I suggested that we adjourn to a nearby coffee shop.

While Klaus went to order our coffees, I spoke hurriedly to Nut in Thai. I told her that we knew that she was involved with Beattie and that he was involved in the production of pornographic DVDs. And I took a chance by saying that I knew he was blackmailing her.

She buried her head in her hands, sobbing. I was right.

‘You have to tell us what happened,’ I said. ‘If you tell us, we can help you.’

‘You can’t help me,’ she sobbed. ‘He’s a policeman. He works in the American Embassy.’

‘He took you to the bar? To the upstairs room?’

She nodded and wiped her eyes. ‘I said I wanted to see the bar and he took me. I didn’t like it, but he gave me something to drink. I felt dizzy and the next thing I knew I was in bed with him.’

‘And he filmed the two of you together?’

More nods. ‘I didn’t know what was happening at the time. But when I tried to stop seeing him, he sent me an email with some video. You couldn’t see his face but you could see mine. He said if I didn’t keep seeing him he’d send it to everyone I knew. And he said he’d send it to the university.’ She looked at me fearfully. ‘How could I ever be a lawyer, with people seeing something like that? If my father saw it, he’d kill me.’

‘So what happened then?’

‘I moved apartments. I changed my name. But he found me again. I had to see him. I had to do whatever he wanted.’ She shivered, and stared down at the table. ‘I have to do whatever he wants. Until he is tired of me.’

‘And what about Klaus?’

She looked over at Klaus who was putting the coffees onto a tray. ‘He is a good man. He wanted to take care of me.’

‘Do you love him?’

Nut shook her head sadly. ‘I just need someone to take care of me.’

‘This American, he gives you money?’

Nut nodded. ‘Some.’

‘And does he make you do the videos?’

She nodded again. ‘Sometimes. I have to go to the room with men. Sometimes two or three men at the same time. Afterwards, he pays me. He says they are only for sale in America and that no one else will ever see them.’

Klaus came over with the coffees. He put them down on the table and then went back to the counter.

‘You have to tell him,’ I said.

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Will you? I don’t want him to keep bothering me.’

Klaus returned and sat down next to Nut. He put a hand on her arm but she flinched and sat with her arms crossed.

‘Vot is the problem, theerak?’ he asked.

‘I have to go to university,’ she said. ‘I am late.’

‘Ve need to talk,’ said Klaus.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I will phone you.’

Klaus gave her his business card. ‘Phone me when your classes are finished this afternoon,’ he said.

She nodded.

‘Maybe we could have dinner tonight,’ said Klaus.

‘Okay,’ she said.

‘Whatever the problem, I can help you,’ he said. ‘I vont to take care of you.’

She forced a smile. ‘You are a good man, Klaus. You have a good heart.’

‘I love you, Nut,’ he said.

‘I love you, too,’ she said. I could tell that she didn’t mean it. But Klaus beamed, accepting what she’d said at face value.

‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ he said. I knew that what he said was every bit as false as her declaration of love. The difference was that Klaus meant what he said. Which was a bit sad, really.

Nut stood up and walked away, clutching her bag. Klaus was smiling as he watched her go. He turned to grin at me. ‘See, Varren,’ he said. ‘She does love me. This will work out.’

She never phoned, of course. The next day, Klaus went to the apartment block but she’d moved out of her room without leaving a forwarding address. Her mobile phone was switched off. He asked me to find out where she’d gone, but I told him there was no point in throwing good money after bad. I didn’t tell him what Nut had said. There was no point. There was nothing Klaus could have done to help her.

Being a private eye in the real world isn’t like it is in the movies: there aren’t always happy endings. Sometimes you find out the truth but realise that knowing the truth doesn’t help you one bit. Sometimes you just have to accept that the world can be a shitty place and get on with it.