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  Chapter 8

  Kirsty sat in the bus station watching the night bus to Vientiane trundle towards her. She was travelling alone again now. Her latest patchwork group of friends had gone their separate ways in Hanoi. She was feeling lonely for her little group already.

  The bus was a regular coach on the outside. Inside, instead of having several rows of seats running along either side of one aisle, there were three rows of narrow, almost flat, cushioned benches, with two aisles running between them. At the back of the bus, the two aisles ended at a block of five benches, with five more situated above them. Kirsty’s ‘bed’ was the third of the bottom five; a nightmare for even the mildly claustrophobic. Typical, Kirsty thought grumpily. Cram the stupid tourist in the crap seat. She pointed at the end recliner, which was empty, raising her eyebrows to the driver.

  “You sit here,” he said, pointing insistently at the middle bunk.

  Kirsty crawled into the tight space, resigned to a very long, bumpy night. A couple of minutes later, the empty side-bunk was occupied by a newly-arrived Vietnamese man, who quickly removed his t-shirt to reveal a doughy brown chest. Even from two seats away she could smell the acrid stench of body odour and stale cigarette smoke.

  “At least you’re not beside him, mate.”

  Kirsty had been too busy despairing at her new home for the next twenty four hours to notice the guy in the bunk beside her. Now that her impatient eyes had met his twinkling blue ones, she wasn’t sure how she could have missed him. Perhaps this wouldn’t be such a nightmare journey after all, she thought as she introduced herself.

  Grace sat at the bar of the rooftop lounge, the majestic view wasted on her. She had grown bored of waiting in the hotel, and had left the building with no idea of where she was going. After wandering for what felt like hours, she had stumbled upon this place, and attempted to fool herself into believing that an overpriced cocktail might help her to relax and make the most of her time in Bangkok. A couple of weeks before, she had booked flights to the Andaman coast for her and Kirsty. She presumed the flight had departed that morning as scheduled, only without them aboard.

  The view from the bar was truly spectacular: despite the waist-high green-tinted glass barrier, she had an almost three-hundred-and-sixty degree view of the glinting lights of the entire city from her stool at the bar. She had spent most of the second day sleeping, before working late into the night, still not adjusted to the time different. Today, she forced herself to wake up early, despite only sleeping for a couple of hours the night before.

  Hesitating for a moment, then reassuring herself that three days was beyond even Kirsty’s capacity for oblivious inconsideration, she wrote an email to Kirsty’s parents. She didn’t know them very well: they’d always seemed unapproachable when the girls were growing up, and Grace had maintained that impression of them well into adulthood. But if something was wrong they needed to know, she reasoned.

  She had little doubt now that something was wrong, but what on earth was she going to do, she wondered. She felt helpless relying on emails when her friend mightn’t even be checking her account. After sending yet another email to Kirsty, she opened Facebook, feeling slightly foolish for the idea that had entered her head. Kirsty would have mocked her for it, she was sure. She clicked through to Kirsty’s profile hoping there’d be something there to explain what the hell was going on, squinting as she tried to read the tiny screen.

  Kirsty juddered awake in the middle of the night. Half delirious, she looked around, not recognising her surroundings. Slowly coming to, her heart stopped racing, and she remembered the Australian who was currently snoring softly on her left side. She became acutely conscious of the dry trail of drool that snaked down her cheek to her chin.

  Rubbing her face, she lay back on the cramped bunk, hoping to get some more sleep. She switched on her camera and could just make out the face of her watch in the dim light. It was 5am: there were still several hours to go before they would reach Vientiane.

  So far on the journey, time had flown by: she’d spent the first couple of hours chatting in whispers to the Australian – who had introduced himself as Grant – and sniggering at the elephantine snoring of the middle-aged men surrounding them. At some point she’d drifted off to sleep: no mean feat when she considered the confined nature of her quarters, and the fact that what looked like an entire Vietnamese family was sharing the two beds on her right. In the first hour, the bus had stopped several times to load up with the most random combination of items imaginable: sacks of grain, crates full of Pepsi, electrical goods, garden strimmers. Various extra passengers had also boarded the bus, sought out the floor space that wasn’t covered in bags and boxes, and lain down to sleep. She had enjoyed picturing Grace on that bus, imagining how her friend would have reacted had she been asked to share her seat with a gallon bottle of bleach or an old-fashioned radio, as some of the other passengers had had to.

  She was suddenly aware of a gnawing hunger, and regretted not bringing any food. All she had was a small water bottle, around three-quarters empty, the remaining water now warm. She had no idea when – or if – the bus would stop for food.

  She was shaking the water bottle disconsolately and debating whether to pry open the corner of one of the sacks at her feet, when she heard movement beside her.

  “Hey, I’ve got some noodles left from earlier. Wanna share?”

  She smiled in the darkness.

  Chapter 9

  Grace couldn’t focus her eyes on her phone’s tiny screen any longer. She had spent hours in the bar the night before trying to make sense of Kirsty’s non-appearance. After breakfast, she stared blindly at the colourful cafe wall in front of her. It hadn’t seemed real until the day before: she’d been angry at Kirsty, but she had pictured them strolling around Bangkok in a huffy silence for a couple of hours, before Grace inevitably thawed, as she always did. Now though, she was worried for her friend. Should she call the police? How did one call the police in Thailand? Wearily, she paid the waitress and returned to the hotel with a thousand questions for the receptionist.

  Lumpini police station was thronged with people; the air thick with the frenzied hum of a language and culture she didn’t understand. She scanned the room for some semblance of a queue. Seeing none, she pushed her way apologetically to the desk on the far side. The officer – an affable looking young man with brilliant white teeth, who looked several years her junior – smiled brightly as she approached, before bursting into a torrent of rapid-fire Thai. Appearing unsurprised at her expression of total incomprehension, he stood quickly, and hurried through the door behind the desk. Behind her, the crowd jostled and chatted, ignoring her.

  The young officer soon returned, followed by an older man, who was dressed in a more decorous grey uniform.

  “Hello, how can I help you?” he asked in slow, heavily-accented English, gesturing towards the door behind him. She followed him through the door and along a narrow corridor to a rudimentary interview room.

  Sitting in one of the blue plastic chairs, Grace explained her situation, feeling reassured by the grave expression on the officer’s face.

  “Your friend. Where she stay?” he asked, looking down to his notepad, pen poised.

  “She was due to fly into Bangkok five... no, six days ago.”

  He looked up, waiting for her to continue.

  She tried to think of more to add. Where had Kirsty been?

  “Do’n know if she in Bangkok. In Thailand?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “I don’t know! She should be - she didn’t meet me at the hotel. I don’t know where she was flying from but she definitely had a flight booked, she told me, and...” Grace realised that she was babbling. “No, I don’t know if she’s in Thailand,” she admitted.

  Sitting down at the grubby internet cafe computer, Grace discreetly tried to wipe the keyboard with hand sanitiser. She had been trying to figure out what to do all the way back to the hotel in the cab. For starters she needed
a real screen, she decided: spending so long focussed on the tiny display on her phone the day before had given her a severe migraine, which she still hadn’t managed to shake. The police would be no help until she could provide them with more information as to Kirsty’s whereabouts. The officer was right: she could be anywhere, maybe she never made it to Thailand at all. But she had been preparing to leave for the airport, Grace thought, remembering their last conversation.

  Opening the browser, Grace typed ‘Bangkok airport’ into the search field. Clicking on the first result, she navigated through to the list of arrivals. There were hundreds of flights with countless airlines. She tapped her phone looking for the call log, trying to remember the date Kirsty had last called her, before her heart sank with the realisation that they had spoken on her office line. Without a rough idea of the departure time, or the departure city, this was hopeless. Grace drummed her fingers on the table and opened Kirsty’s Facebook profile to resume her search for incongruities.

  Twenty four new friends since she’d left, two months before. Status updates bearing no new information over and above what she’d already told Grace in her emails. Posts on her wall from people Grace hadn’t heard of before, mainly about places they’d been together and suggestions of new places to go. Full of what looked like little in-jokes. Grace presumed it must be intense, spending all that time with people in countries completely different to anything she’d experienced before. She was about to close the page, when a short post caught her eye:

  Hannah Grimes: hola chica [Grace groaned inwardly], hope you and your sexy boy are having fun in Vientiene, my bus was late but I’m finally in Vang Vieng. Msg when I get to Vientiene xxx.

  Head spinning, Grace willed the adrenaline to reach her brain and register the date. The old Thai man at the counter gazed at her inquisitively, looking away when she shook her head. Who was this sexy guy? Maybe it was just another one of those in-jokes, but deep down Grace felt otherwise. Kirsty was an open book where the opposite sex was concerned. If she had met someone significant, Grace would have heard all about him. Opening another tab in the browser for her email, she scrambled around in her bag for a pen, and pulled a piece of paper from the printer, scoring another curious look from the old man.

  ”I need to be methodical,” she muttered, drawing vertical and horizontal lines until she had a grid of almost one hundred little boxes. She started a timeline, beginning with Kirsty’s departure. After scribbling this in the first box, she paused, grabbed another page, and started to note the names of Kirsty’s new Facebook friends too.

  Simon stared at the computer screen aghast. He had tried to forget Kirsty, but hadn’t succeeded in preventing himself from keeping up to date with what she was doing. Her attempts to contact him had dwindled, but she hadn’t removed him from her Facebook friend list. This gave him some hope that she wasn’t completely done with him, but he knew in his heart that it was more likely she’d forgotten all about it. She had never been a big user of social media before she left, but she was all over it now.

  He had been taken aback when the tall, tanned man started making an appearance in her pictures. Phil had had great fun with that one, laughing about how she’d taken the opportunity to trade up. She looked so happy, wrapped around that He-Man; so carefree. He could only imagine how much everyone was laughing at him behind his back right now. Daniel especially.

  It was all his fault. Simon had been shocked to see him that day in the canteen. What were the chances? Initially, he thought that Daniel might keep his mouth shut; after all, what was in it for him? So much time had passed now, that Simon had gradually stopped anticipating the worst.

  What a naive idiot I’ve been, he thought.

  The little room was dimly lit from the bluish glow of the old monitor. He clicked on, facing more images of the happy couple. Was he going to keep going on like this? What would happen the next time he met someone, if he met someone. Would Daniel come crawling out of the woodwork again and destroy that too? He shut down the machine, not moving even as the light ebbed from the screen and left the room in warm, still darkness. Thinking.

  It was different now than it had been all those years ago, locked away for all that time. Back then, he expected the knocks, and life didn’t disappoint. Now, he had built up some semblance of a life for himself, only to see it all fall away when he least expected it. He had to do something.

  Chapter 10

  Kirsty and Grant sat side-by-side in a dingy internet cafe near the hotel Grace had booked for the next day, giggling and unable to keep their hands off each other. They were staying at a much cheaper establishment down the street. A subtle disapproving tut from the old man sitting at the counter brought a fresh fit of laughter, but they abruptly moved away from each other and smiled apologetically.

  “’Hannah Grimes: hola chica...’ oh my god, that girl was such a pain,” Kirsty groaned, reading through her messages on Facebook. “Ugh, talk about over-sharing. How do I delete her?”

  “Stop putting it off, just email Grace,” Grant chided.

  “I know, I know, I’m doing it now. ‘Hi Grace, someone’s going to be tagging along with us...’” she dissolved in a fit of giggles when he punched her thigh playfully.

  “Stop, you’ll get us in trouble!” she laughed, looking back towards the counter.

  “Just write the bloody email so we can go eat, I’m starving!” He looked up to see why she hadn’t responded.

  Weeks later, in the same corner, Grace was sending an email to her entire Contact List, as well as to a list of Kirsty’s colleagues, gleaned from the latter’s farewell email to her colleagues at the bank.

  Hi everyone,

  I’m sorry to contact you out of the blue. I’m currently in Thailand, having travelled here to meet my friend Kirsty Anderson. Kirsty didn’t show up to meet me when I arrived here several days ago. I’m really worried and unless I can confirm that she’s in Thailand, the police here won’t be able to help.

  If you’ve heard from her, or heard about her, I’d appreciate if you could get in touch and let me know, whether at this email address or at (0718) 454 2319.

  Regards,

  Grace Harris

  Grace awoke and began what had now become a new ritual. After checking her phone for news from Kirsty, she turned on the TV for background noise, then she showered quickly and dressed. After a quick breakfast in a smart little cafe down the street from the hotel, it was time for her to go back to the internet cafe.

  The old man smirked as Grace pulled her sleeves over her hands, ready to face the communal computers. She started with the responses to her email about Kirsty. Although there were a lot of well wishes among the out of office messages, no one provided any pertinent information that might help her find out where Kirsty had last been.

  She pulled the crumpled list of Facebook friends from her bag. Kirsty’s profile hadn’t been updated since she’d last checked. Grace noticed the photos at the top of the page: a smiling sunburned Kirsty at the beach, in the mountains... She clicked on one of the photos for a closer look. She hadn’t thought of looking through them before, probably because she seldom used Facebook herself. She was definitely getting a crash-course now, she thought.

  Grace marvelled at how Kirsty could have appeared in hundreds of pictures when she’d only left two months before. She clicked on the last photo of her friend’s leaving party and began to work through them from there.

  From: Richard Jones

  To: Grace Harris

  Hi Grace,

  I have just received your email about Kirsty. I haven’t heard from her, apart from an email she sent a couple of weeks ago. She was in Malaysia, heading for Vietnam, but I’m sure you received the same message.

  Let me know if there’s anything I can do. My sister’s husband is Thai and I’m sure he’d be happy to help if you need assistance speaking to the police there.

  Best Regards,

  Richard Jon
es

  From: Daniel Lane

  To: Grace Harris

  Grace,

  Re. Your email about Kirsty. I’ve been getting emails from her every now and again but haven’t heard from her in about a week or so. We split up before she left, as I’m sure you know.

  I know there’s not much I can do from here but let me know if there’s any way I can help.

  Daniel

  Grace’s eyes ached after she’d studied one hundred or so of the photos. Kirsty looked so happy relaxing on beaches and abseiling down cliff-faces. Grace swallowed a fleeting feeling of envy: here she was running around trying to convince the police that her friend was in trouble, and Kirsty was probably having the time of her life somewhere with all of her new friends.

  On her list, Grace had noted any places mentioned in the photos those friends appeared in. She had gotten to pictures of Vietnam, but Grace still had a lot to sift through. She started to notice a tall, muscular, blonde man in the most of the more recent pictures, wrapped around Kirsty in front of mystical rocky outcrops and in frenetic markets, both of them grinning like children. He’s the ‘sexy boy’ that girl mentioned, Grace realised. She could tell from Kirsty’s expressions in the photos that he was more to her than just a travel buddy. She couldn’t understand why Kirsty hadn’t mentioned him to her.

  She created a new message, and added the names of Kirsty’s new friends to the recipient list.

  Hi,