Welcome to Hell (4 page)

4

In time, I built a new life for myself in Thailand. I gradually got used to Bangkok, its climate and its food. You could say that I gradually immersed myself into the city’s culture.

I grew to love the smells and sounds of the city, its people and even the constant traffic.

I also got to know my way around the city and its back streets. I moved into a small house outside the city. I bought food in the local market every week and discovered the joys of eating Thai food. I enjoyed a good quality of life.

All the time, the people fascinated me. While warm and friendly, they looked upon all foreigners as outsiders or as a potential means to escaping whatever problems they had. I would in time learn that nothing they said could be taken at face value, but at that time I was alone.

And I was desperately lonely.

I missed my children who lived with their mother in Ireland. I would talk to them by phone but I often felt like there was a part of me missing.

They say every cloud has a silver lining. I thought that mine was Nanglung, a beautiful-looking girl who had acted as my translator during my dealings with O’Connor and Hayes.

Nanglung and I had remained friends after O’Connor vanished. Her name meant Waterfall and I found her exotic and alluring. When I decided to stay in Thailand and search for O’Connor, she helped me. I was wild about her. I couldn’t help but fall for her. Everything about her was beautiful.

Don’t get me wrong – I’d be the first one to put my hands up and say that I don’t think she loved me for my looks or in any genuine way.

Thai women become involved with European men for various reasons. Some give themselves over for genuine love, but others do it for money.

Nanglung was mostly interested in me because she believed I had money. I was attracted to her for all the obvious reasons, though I have to say it wasn’t the same as dating a girl back home. I knew the foundations that our relationship was built on. But you must remember that I was alone and far away from home.

Eventually we got married. But when I say married, I don’t mean it in the conventional sense.

After we lived together for some time, she brought me home to meet her parents. Nanglung grew up on a farm in the provinces outside the city.

I remember arriving at her village which was rural and backward. Her parents lived in a small house and could not understand a word of English, but I could tell they were delighted she was marrying a foreigner. It was all very surreal.

At the time, there were two separate types of marriage in Thailand. The first was a Buddhist ceremony of traditional Thai marriage, and the other was a legal process of marriage registration with the Thai authorities.

Nanglung chose to marry me in a Buddhist ceremony which simply involved me visiting her village and asking her parents for her hand in marriage. I had no interest in entering into a legal marriage because I was still married.

The traditional arrangement suited me fine. In Thailand, a couple gets engaged during a ceremony known as
Thong Mun
. This involved me giving gold to Nanglung.

Whether traditional or official, Thai marriages involve a tradition called
Sinsod
. This is the custom of paying a dowry to compensate the bride’s family for the mother’s milk. Although I was told there was no set amount, the sum was determined by the suitor’s wealth. In my case, her family believed the
Farang
, or foreigner, marrying their daughter was wealthy. Little did they know. I gave them some money and they seemed genuinely delighted. The whole village shook my hand that day.

I have to say that the whole experience didn’t mean that much to me. I couldn’t talk to her parents or hold a conversation with her family, but I was obviously being taken quite seriously by everyone concerned. Her parents certainly regarded our wedding as a lifelong commitment. In the eyes of the Buddhist religion, marriage is sacred and everlasting.

I did love Nanglung. She was my only real friend at the time. At the time, I would have done anything for her. In fact, I did everything, and more and she reciprocated it. She fell pregnant soon after we moved in together. Almost a year later, she gave birth to a son. I called him Brendan.

* * *

Although I now lived in domestic harmony, I never stopped searching for O’Connor. He became my obsession. I checked his favourite bars and restaurants regularly and I continued to pay the motorcycle taxi boys to look out for him.

I also kept in contact with the police, and telephoned them at least once a month to check on the progress of the investigation.

The answer I received was always the same: they were still looking for O’Connor, but they said he hadn’t left or entered Thailand, or even returned to his apartment since the fraud.

I didn’t trust them one bit and continued to offer a reward for any information on his whereabouts. This generated some leads from time to time. I’d rush off to a bar or a restaurant after getting a tip-off to say he was there, but it would never be him.

One time, a friend of mine came back from a holiday in the Philippines and swore that he’d spotted O’Connor. I caught a flight the next day to Manila. I found the town, I found the bar, I even found a prostitute O’Connor had spent the previous night with. She showed me his hotel, but he had already checked out. He had vanished once again.

Still, I didn’t give up.

Two and a half years passed before I got a real lead. And it happened in the most unlikely of places. Because I was European, I was forced to leave Thailand every three months in order to get a new tourist visa.

I often travelled into countries neighbouring Thailand for a few hours or a day to give the impression that I was a tourist travelling through the region. On one such trip in June 1997, I crossed the border into Laos to spend a few hours shopping before returning to Thailand.

While I was in Laos I met an Australian man, and we got talking. One thing led to another, and I told him my story.

After I’d finished, he said that he knew a man who fitted O’Connor’s description. At the time, I carried a picture of O’Connor with me at all times, and I showed this to him.

‘That’s him,’ he said. ‘That’s Mitch!’

Mitch, he told me, was a crook – a professional con artist – and was best known for selling and dealing in fake diamonds. He had organised scams selling fictitious gold and diamond mines, and even sold fake share certificates. To the best of my friend’s knowledge, at the moment he was involved in something to do with construction machinery.

He said he didn’t have Mitch’s address or phone number, but would try his best to locate him for me. I gave him my work and home phone numbers.

A few weeks passed without any news. Then when I went home one night, my wife told me that someone had called and wanted me to call them as soon as possible. It was my friend.

He told me that O’Connor was currently operating a construction scam in Bangkok. He gave me his address and phone number. This was the closest I’d ever got to O’Connor.

I was determined to make no mistakes. If living in Bangkok had taught me one thing, it was not to trust the police.

So I decided to find O’Connor myself. I planned to entrap him and call in the police when I had him cornered.

I felt alive for the first time in years. I quickly began investigating O’Connor – and discovered that he had never even moved out of his apartment.

I hadn’t bothered checking his apartment because I didn’t think anybody would be stupid enough to stay at the same address if they knew the police were out looking for them.

It was then that I realised that the police had been lying to me for years. They’d never looked for O’Connor, and they’d certainly never tried to arrest him.

There was only one explanation that made sense: O’Connor must have paid them off. Nobody could walk around so freely if the police were really trying to arrest them. Nothing else made sense.

Given that I knew I couldn’t trust them, I figured there was a good chance that they’d tip him off if I told them of my plan.

I tried to remain calm.

I knew I couldn’t risk phoning him, just in case he recognised my voice. So I asked one of the secretaries at the company I was working for at the time to do it for me. She phoned O’Connor and explained that she worked for a large construction company, and her boss had heard he had some machinery for sale. She said the boss was interested in buying equipment if the price was right.

O’Connor took the bait. When I arrived at work the next morning, I found a fax waiting for me. It was signed Mitch. He’d sent an introduction letter and a list of his machinery for sale and the price per machine.

I couldn’t believe it – his company was called Offshore Construction Services. He hadn’t even bothered to think up a new name.

Although I wanted to go and punch his lights out there and then, I knew I had to play the long game. If I jumped straight in he’d know something was wrong.

So I responded to his fax in writing and asked for more information about the machinery for sale. I signed off as Mr Bill Turner.

For the first time in years, I felt as if I was winning. I asked a number of friends for help.

An American friend of mine called Chuck offered to play the role of Bill Turner.

Chuck telephoned O’Connor and told him that he was interested in some of his machinery, and arranged to meet at our offices to discuss prices and payment.

I told Chuck to offer O’Connor an incentive to arrive on time. He told O’Connor that if they could reach an agreement at the meeting, then he would place a cash deposit on the machinery. Chuck offered him $300,000 up front.

O’Connor said he’d be there.

I knew we had him. The cash deposit would bring him for sure. He wouldn’t trust anybody else with that amount of cash and would come himself. But I still had a hell of a lot to do before the meeting.

A friend of mine had a brother in the police. I asked him and another officer to attend the meeting and arrest O’Connor when he arrived.

I explained everything to them in detail, and why I couldn’t trust the tourist police in Bangkok. They both agreed to help.

Now I only needed somewhere to hold the meeting.

The solution turned out to be easy. The company I was working for was in the middle of building a new construction yard and offices. Most of the buildings were half finished, but there was a small office block that had just been completed. It would be perfect.

I faxed O’Connor a map giving directions to the office and set the date of the meeting for 21 July 1997, at 1 p.m.

Everything went according to plan. But I was still worried that O’Connor might not come alone. If he brought a lot of men with him, I would be in trouble. So I asked my secretary to ask for the names of those who would be attending the meeting, and some form of photo ID so that our security people could issue them with passes.

O’Connor didn’t suspect a thing, and faxed a copy of his passport immediately. He also sent one belonging to a man named Brett Holdsworth.

He was O’Connor’s bodyguard. Would you believe that O’Connor actually said that Holdsworth was coming in case we gave him a large amount of cash? He really thought that we’d fallen for his con and he was coming to pick up an easy $300,000.

On the morning of 21 July, everything was going according to plan. I had set up the office with a clear view of the main gate to see O’Connor when he arrived.

We waited for little under 30 minutes before O’Connor arrived. Chuck greeted him, then escorted him to the office.

I can vividly recall Chuck approaching O’Connor with his hand outstretched. After they shook hands, Chuck pointed O’Connor and Holdsworth in our direction and asked O’Connor to wait inside, before making an excuse and disappearing.

Next, one of my Thai friends went to the door and ushered O’Connor and Holdsworth in. I was sitting behind a desk in the office, with two armed police positioned just behind the door.

O’Connor came in first, followed by his bodyguard. When he saw me, he stopped dead. All he could say was, ‘It’s you!’

O’Connor next looked at the police, then back at me. He was trapped and he knew it.

Then he rushed at me.

All hell broke lose. He threw a few punches at me, then I managed to grab his arm and he wrestled me to the floor. Holdsworth stepped in, but one of the policemen immediately put a hand on his shoulder. He backed off, noticing that the policeman’s other hand was on his holster.

I belted O’Connor in the face. I wanted to kill him there and then. The bastard had destroyed my life.

The police had to pry us apart. O’Connor was built like a prop forward and far too strong for me, but I didn’t care. I locked on to him and continued to punch him in the face.

When I finally stopped hitting him, I noticed that I’d left a slight mark under his left eye, but apart from that he wasn’t hurt.

He was bloody angry though. I don’t know if it was because he’d been caught by one of his own scams, or if it was simply because he’d been caught, but he was not a happy man. His eyes kept darting around the room and his face was purple with rage.

The police now spoke and told O’Connor to sit down. Once he was sitting he seemed to recover himself slightly.

‘What the hell is going on?’ he barked. ‘I am a businessman. I did not come to this office to be attacked!’

My police friends told O’Connor that I had made a complaint against him, and then explained what I’d told them. O’Connor said that he didn’t know me and had never seen me before in his life.

This was all bullshit and everybody knew it. So the police laid it out very simply. He could either admit that he stole the money, or he could go to prison.

O’Connor thought about this for a minute.

‘Wait! Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘Maybe I do remember doing some business with Mr Martin. I didn’t steal any money, but Mr Martin might have lost out on the deal. I’m sure we can come to some agreement. Perhaps we could talk in private,’ he added, looking at me.

I still remember the look on his face. It struck me for the first time that O’Connor looked on fraud and deception just like any other business. Everything was a matter of negotiation.