Cambodian Book of the Dead (19 page)

 

CAMBODIA DAILY

 

The young journalist watched Maier nervously across a table of the Boat Noodle Restaurant. A few of the surrounding tables were occupied by employees – Khmer and
barang
– of the NGOs who had their offices in the adjacent buildings.

He could see that the young man was not comfortable, though he'd chosen the restaurant. Maier was in a hurry and journalists were badly paid in Cambodia. The detective pushed a hundred-dollar bill across the table at Sorthea Sam. The young writer stared at the money and asked in French, “What do you expect for this money? That's more than I earn in a month. I don't think that I have information that is worth one hundred dollar to you.”
Maier guessed that the man was very frightened. Otherwise he would have taken the money straight away.

“I have a few questions in relation to the article on the death of the human rights activist. The story you wrote.”

“A crazy, dangerous story that will never be resolved,” the journalist answered in a shaky voice, and finally, without looking at Maier, slipped the money in his breast pocket.

“Who were the three girls who visited the victim on the day of the murder? Why were the children even mentioned?”

Sorthea Sam looked across his shoulder.

“You say you are a detective from Germany? Not a journalist?”

“No.”

“And you are here to watch a German who might be involved in this?”

Maier ordered a coffee and nodded. The young Khmer ordered tea and a glass of water. Sorthea Sam lit a red Ara and sat quite still, smoking in silence. Finally, the young man began to talk.

“Eyewitness accounts. Preah Sim lived in an apartment block not far from the palace. We spoke to the neighbours. The police did not. Four families in the same building confirmed that they saw the three girls arriving and going into Preah Sim's room. They came out shortly afterwards, moments before Preah Sim emerged, bleeding heavily. A black SUV, tinted windows, no plates, dropped the kids off and collected them again. The police published a photograph of a young man who allegedly stabbed Preah Sim. The suspect is in prison and the case is closed.”

“And the girls?”

The young journalist mulled over his answer for a moment.

“I only mentioned the girls because I had a strange visitor a few weeks ago. A young man came to see me. He was half Khmer and half
barang
. His name was Sambat and he was working for an NGO in Kampot that was looking after orphaned children. I had heard of Sambat before he visited me, from a colleague with whom he had followed and exposed a Swiss paedophile. Otherwise I would never have believed the story he told me.”

Maier stirred his coffee and tried to look as unconcerned as possible.

“Sambat told me that he had seen these girls do military training at Bokor, the hill station on the coast. I thought, this guy is mad, but Sambat was a serious man. I snooped around a bit after that and found out that a former Khmer Rouge general is trying to buy the casino. I even sent someone to Bokor, but there was no trace of the girls. My informant only met a drunken Russian. But then one of the park rangers told him about the girls. The story is so bizarre that I checked back with a few contacts I have in government here. When I mentioned the name of this general a couple of times, I was told to let the matter drop. At the same time I found out that the son of this general had shot some nouveau riche kid in the Heart of Darkness bar in front of a hundred witnesses. That killing was suppressed as well.”

The Khmer laughed bitterly.

“I never wrote the story. I never heard from Sambat again, except for the news that he'd disappeared. When Preah Sim was killed and the neighbours talked about the girls, I remembered Sambat. Do you know what happened to him?”

“He is dead.”

Sorthea Sam looked at Maier in disbelief.

“Dead?”

“He was killed in Kep two weeks ago. The corpse was fed to the sharks, so that they could declare him missing. No body, no murder.”

The journalist looked scared.

“How do you know?”

“I was there.”

“Where?”

“At the crime scene. I was scuba-diving off the Kep coast and watched how sharks ripped the young man apart. He'd been sunk alive, with stones around his feet.”

The Khmer nervously shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette.

“Another reason not to follow this story any further. That could become very unhealthy for me. And for you too.”

Maier sank back into his chair and relaxed. He also felt like a cigarette, but he repressed the urge. He'd hated himself as a smoker too much to start smoking again.

“So what is your theory? Is there anything in it?”

“My theory is absurd, monsieur.”

“I would like to hear it any way.”

“Money. It's all about money. Everything in Cambodia is about money. There's never enough and the Cambodian government is doing everything it can to shovel international aid into its own pockets, to sell the land to foreign investors and deny our people any opportunity to live a decent life. There are more than enough orphaned girls in Cambodia. It's a brilliant idea. If I had not stumbled across it, I would not have connected Sambat with Preah Sim. But like this…”

Maier smiled softly. He was on the right track.

“Will you pick up the murders again now, with what I have told you?”

The young Khmer shook his head.

“No body, no story. I believe you, but I assume I can't quote you. And the case of Preah Sim is still hot and it is unlikely that they will let the young man who is sitting for it go. He has a good alibi, but his family was forced to stand as witness against him. The man was betrayed by his own father. What does that take? You can imagine what kind of pressure my newspaper will be under if I continue my investigations.”

Maier finished his coffee and waited. He had the feeling that the journalist had something more for him.

“I have a small consolation for you – there was another murder three months ago and three girls were seen near the scene of the crime. That one had nothing to do with politics. The wife of a minister had her husband's second wife disfigured with acid. The girl died of shock in hospital. A young man was arrested and sentenced shortly after. They never touched the wife of the minister. I reported the case and interviewed a few of the witnesses. One mentioned the girls. It didn't mean anything at the time. Now we are talking about at least four dead.”

Maier thanked the writer and thought of the fifth victim – Daniela Stricker, Kaley's sister.

 

KAMPOT

 

An hour later, Maier raced his Kawasaki dirtbike through the suburbs of the capital, on his way to Kampot. The road south had improved since the UNTAC days, but the traffic was still life-threatening. He needed to reach Daniela's alleged killer alive, but he knew that time was running short.

Cambodia knew no driving licences, nor was there a minimum age for drivers, and most private vehicles had no number plates. No one was insured. Every few kilometres, Maier passed an accident. Every time, a small crowd gathered and people stood staring at a mangled motorbike or its dead or dying driver. No one tried to help. No one called an ambulance. Ambulances and doctors were for the rich, who, in the event of an emergency, would have themselves taken to Phnom Penh Airport and medevaced to Bangkok. If there was enough time. Less fortunate members of the population died, in the event of a serious accident, right by the roadside. Just like today. Just like every day. Despite the traffic, Maier reached the small river town before sundown and drove directly to the prison.

Kampot was a sleepy community, held together by a few blocks of French colonial and Chinese buildings from the early twentieth century, which spread around a large Art Deco-style market hall. Many of the old buildings were in need of restoration. Especially the old jail.

The prison was in the centre of town, on the banks of a stagnant, dirty pond. Coconut palm trees and high grasses grew around the compound. The prison wall was topped with rusty barbed wire that had once been electrified, decorated by torn pieces of prison clothing. An old watchtower leaned away from the wall across the street as if trying to escape its responsibility.

Maier parked his bike in front of a café on the other side of the pond and walked through the open prison gate. A group of soldiers sat around a rickety plastic table and played cards. They didn't notice him pass.

The main building looked like a French small-town apartment block from the Fifties – four storeys, rectangular and drab, thought up by bureaucrats. The two other buildings that served as accommodation for the guards had survived from the colonial era and were about to collapse.

Maier walked through the main entrance into the cool semi-darkness of the almost empty reception hall. A naked bulb flickered uncertainly in the ceiling. A soldier sat in a dirty green shirt and faded shorts at an empty table and played with his mobile phone. The building was deadly quiet. There couldn't be many inmates.

“
Soksabai
.”

The guard raised his eyes, an expression of well-worn boredom on his blank face.

Maier offered his hand and looked the man directly in the eyes, smiling broadly. The guard put his phone down carefully and accepted the handshake and the enclosed ten dollars with a gentle, impenetrable smile.

As in any proper prison, a large key ring hung from a rusty nail on the wall behind the desk. The guard slipped the money into his pocket, grabbed the keys and waved for Maier to follow. He wore no shoes and Maier followed the patter of his bare feet along a pitch-dark corridor. The cells on the ground floor were all empty. Suddenly the guard stopped and felt along the wall for a switch. In the light of a solitary bulb, Maier followed him up a naked stairway to the first floor. The layout was the same. Maier followed the soldier along a corridor until they reached the third cell. The guard switched the cell light on and unlocked the heavy steel door.

An unimpressive man in his forties sat, obviously confused, on the edge of a bunk. Maier nodded to the man and turned to the guard, but the soldier had already disappeared. He'd left the door open.

The man didn't move and stared into empty space, like a deer that had been caught in a car's headlights. He was unshaven and had black rings under his eyes. He didn't look dangerous. Another victim.

The damp cell had no windows. The bunk was the only piece of furniture. The half-finished plate of rice and
prahok
on the floor had been taken over by cockroaches. The room stank, as it does when misery gains the upper hand. The man must have sat in darkness all day.

“Good afternoon, my name is Ernst. I am a representative of the International Red Cross. I have been sent to see how you are being treated.”

The man looked at him in disbelief.

“What time is it?”

“Two o'clock in the afternoon,” Maier lied. “I am here to ask you how you are being treated. Do you understand my question?”

“Is this a joke?”

Maier shook his head with a serious expression in his eyes and showed the man an ID card of the Red Cross.

“Your name is Renfield? Wayne Renfield?”

The prisoner was still watching him doubtfully. Maier felt his fear. This man was scared of being killed. He nodded carefully.

“Are you the only prisoner here?”

The man shook.

“I think so. There was an old man on this floor a while back, but he died. Every now and then they put some motorcycle thieves in here, so they don't get lynched by irate villagers.”

“How long have you been here?”

Renfield suddenly fell to his knees and looked up at Maier.

“Can you get me out of here? I'm sitting here waiting for someone to come and kill me. I am innocent. It couldn't have been me. I was already sitting here before the woman got murdered. I've never killed anyone. I was only here for the kids. They gave me one year…”

Maier didn't care much for the men who came to Cambodia to abuse children. It brought out his vigilante side. He tried to push evil thoughts aside. But not altogether. The children who'd tortured him in the temple cell had been on his mind all day.

“I can help you, Mr Renfield. But you have to trust me. You have to tell me why you are here. I am sure this is a typical local misunderstanding, and that we can resolve it, if you did not commit the murder of which you are accused.”

Maier sat down on the bunk next to the man and offered him his hand. The handshake of the Canadian was coated in fear.

“What was your name again?”

“Ernst, Robert Ernst. The Red Cross in Phnom Penh sent me, after we read an article about you in the
Phnom Penh Post
.”

Renfield was skinny and tall and had a chin like Kirk Douglas. His cheeks were grey and his white fingers shook nervously. He had chewed his nails down to the tips of his fingers. He wore torn, stinking socks, baggy and stained khaki pants and a stone-washed denim shirt. He wiped his hand continuously through his greasy long hair that dropped across his shoulders. Not a pretty picture.

But Maier was not here to hand out Christmas presents. So, they would come to kill this man.

“You told me you were already incarcerated here before the murder?”

“That's what I tried to explain to the cops in Phnom Penh. This English guy with bright red hair, who said his name was Pete, came to see me a week ago and told me I was free to go. He told me Tep had bailed me out and that I owed him a favour. No problem, I thought. Either I fuck off out of the country right away or I pay my debts. The English guy left the keys to a motorbike and disappeared. He left the cell door open, it was unbelievable. I simply walked out. I got on the bike and drove off towards Kep to go and thank Tep. No one tried to stop me.”

Maier looked into the eyes of the prisoner and tried to smile with a neutral, officious expression.

“And what happened next?”

The Canadian jerked around. “You don't believe me either, do you? This is just another trap. You'll tell me I'm free to go and then I get shot in the back on the way out.”

With a calming gesture, Maier tried to wave the man's paranoia away.

“I am not in a position to free you, Mr Renfield. I merely want a statement from you so that we can help you from Phnom Penh. Now that I have your statement, I am sure you will be released soon.” Maier laughed politely. “Of course, I cannot just take you with me.”

“I understand, I understand,” the prisoner mumbled eagerly and tried to relax.

“So you never saw the woman you allegedly murdered?”

“Never saw her. Never met her. Have no idea who she might be.”

Renfield swallowed. Perhaps he realised that the truth was not doing him any favours.

“You understand? You must understand. I didn't knock her off. I was right here in jail and after the English guy had given me the bike keys I left. That sounds mad, but that's how it was. And the soldiers who guard this dump said nothing to their colleagues; otherwise they would have lost face.”

There was nothing more to find out.

“Mr Ernst, how does it look? Will I ever see the prairies of Alberta again? Will I get out of here alive, or am I sitting in a trap, waiting to be sacrificed for something I didn't do?”

Maier looked at the man for a moment. The truth was secondary today. It was time to go.

“Mr Renfield, I will tell your embassy and the police in Phnom Penh that I am of the opinion that you are not the killer of Mrs Stricker. The Red Cross has no sympathy for you in regards to your actual crimes, the abuse of children, and we will pass this on to the Cambodian authorities. I assume you will be able to serve the rest of your sentence in Phnom Penh, while the murder of the woman is likely to be resolved later this week. Have a nice day.”

Maier got up and shook the Canadian's hand once more. Still moist and full of dread. Renfield knew how quick the end could come in Cambodia. That's why he'd told the truth. This paedophile had not killed nor disfigured Daniela Stricker.

Maier left the man in his cell and felt his way back to the stairway.

Downstairs, the guard had returned his attention to his mobile phone. He nodded to Maier and smiled gently. The detective escaped into the humid afternoon.