clamour in cambodia

a short story by Martin Bradley

Hi, I’m Steve Maldon, but if you want to be really picky the name on my passport is Stephen Muldoon. I pretend to be a PI (Private Investigator) to pull the ‘birds’ in Malaysia. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn’t. I have a small office at the back of the tourist enticing Central Market, Kuala Lumpur. I do ‘divs’ (divorces), ‘mispers’ (missing persons), background checks and the usual nonsense we ‘PIs' are known for. Last year I solved a murder. True I had a little help, but it was mostly me...

The AirAsia flight from Kuala Lumpur, (Malaysia), to Siem Reap, (Cambodia), is delayed. I, and a whole host of others, constantly look at the digital display. We are looking for the boarding time, looking at that ominous digital clock read out. The eternal question arises, do I have time to take a pee? “Should I stay, or should I go”, (those lyrics by The Clash have never seemed more relevant). I go. Just as I enter the cubicle, close the door and begin “Final call for passengers on Air Asia AK 540.” That’s my flight. Of course it is. Damn, my pee takes ages to stream under stress. Now I’m hurried and anxious. I rush the process. Well, I’m wearing dark trousers, no-one will notice. Just out, rushing to the gate (L8) “Mummy, mummy look. That Mat Salleh peed his trousers” a small Chinese child shouts out for the world to hear, tugging on her mother’s dress. Bugger!

The on-board, ‘complimentary’, ‘Nasi Lemak’ (some airlines give alcohol, this one gives coconut milk rice) doesn’t really make up for the extra half hour I had spent cooling my heels at the overcrowded ‘Gate’, but the tightness of the air hostesses’ red uniforms, does. I am a simple man with very simple needs. the Costa Brava (Spain) a couple of years ago, has one of the locks broken off. Now, it’s either that my clothes were in such a hurry to get out and sample Cambodia that they impatiently broke the lock, or some nefarious individual was too eager to gain egress. He (or she, for it’s an equal opportunity world in which we live) would have been most disappointed to see only a collection of cheap, white, Cambodian shirts, Marks & Sparks black underpants and black socks, and my practically antique leather belt. Or, there again, maybe not, it is an ever increasingly strange world in which we live. I continue trying to keep a brave face on as I make a report at the airport office, and fill in the (probably unnecessary) form.

“Can I help?” A tall, thin, man dressed in the tight dark blue of the local Police, asks. His name tag identifies him as Saroeun Sok, his stripes as a sergeant. I explain. He smiles, and walks off. Now what the hell was all that about? I think no more about the strange Police Officer, and go outside to change my phone SIM card to a local ‘Smart’ SIM ($3).

In the burgeoning heat (and have you noticed that Asian heat generally is, burgeoning, that is) I take a brown dust covered tuk tuk, (which is basically the local taxi comprised of a small motorcycle and rider at the front, and an open sided four seater ‘cabin’ at the rear). My tuk tuk, for whatever reason, is made out in Batman livery. Its painted all shiny black, with the yellow bat insignia on both sides, all of which is covered in the local red laterite dust. I jolt up and down the long, straight, dusty, brown, road from the airport, the tuk tuk constantly dodging potholes and green motor-cycle lorries (which are pretty much tuk tuks but with a lorry flat bed attached). I enter into a very busy Siem Reap town.

Along the way there is constant construction. New hotels have continued to sprout up inbetween shops selling ‘Apsara Angkor Silk’, and shopping arcades being renovated. Each time I travel that Siem Reap airport road, there is ever more building going on, what with restaurants and shops catering to the new hotels, and the hordes of tourists they have attracted. The December tourist season is visibly underway. The traffic too has worsened since my last visit. Now Siem Reap somewhat resembles an Indian city, without the wandering cows.

Kandal is in the Krong area of Siem Reap. It is being re- imagined as an art hub, aiming for the young and the trendy. My hotel, the KP (Kandal Place) hotel, with its Artist Cafe, is part of that overall gentrification. The Kandal area is on the opposite side of town from the more infamous ‘Pub Street’, which is nearer to the Old Market and is where the tourists hang out. Day and night it’s filled with tourists, though it’s much worse at night with drunks staggering around, just like my former sea-side home in Blicton-on-sea, in Blighty. My hotel is near the Siem Reap Hospital for Children, and has, obviously, been recently refurnished. There’s the stench of fresh paint everywhere. I’m particularly sensitive to smells, so this gets right up my nose, so to speak.

“ Stephen Muldoon.” Some times you have to give what’s on the passport. The Khmer receptionist looks at me blankly. I repeat “ Stephen Muldoon, it’s there.” I point to the passport. “I have a reservation confirmed from Extra Travel. Seven days, Kingsize bed.” The receptionist moves slowly to his Dell computer screen. “ID”. “ There, you have my passport” “Extra Travel ID.”

Ok, so it’s already one of those days.

I pass my phone across to the chap behind the counter. The receptionist has a droll sort of face which looks intently at the email from Extra Travel. “Well” I say pointing at the only number Extra Travel have given in its communication to me, “ This is it. This is all I got”.

For the next half hour we deliberate. He checks and rechecks his computer screen. I check and recheck all the correspondence I have from Extra Travel, both to no avail. I’m about to get into my Englishman abroad mode (raise of voice, flush of blood to cheeks etc.), when a youngish, and quite attractive, Khmer girl appears.

“I help? What problem? I Honey Lyly, call Lyly.”

If I was to hug her, which might have been a distinct possibility in an alternate universe, her head would have come up to my shoulder. She is slim, has a round face and distinctly Khmer eyes. She is sporting a ponytail tied with a scrunchy, and has on what could be a man’s plaid shirt, and those jeans that my mother would have sewn up long since. You know, the ones with the torn slits over the knees. I’d not be surprised to learn that they were made in Cambodia, because most things are these days. Cambodia or China, one of the two. My attire, on the other hand is entirely practical for air travel - a cheap, white, Cambodian shirt bought in Siem Reap Old Market (Psar Chas) on a previous visit, with a breast pocket to hold passport etc. My Marks & Sparks trousers are loose and made of cotton dyed a dark indigo, (and according to the label are made in Bangladesh) but their most important feature is the ties which enable me to travel without a belt. My shoes are simply Adidas Alpha Bounce, built for comfort and not for speed, like me. Not at all suitable for impressing freshly made female acquaintances.

Slowly, I explain my problem. She fires rapidly away to the receptionist, in Khmer. Sadly, Khmer is one of the many languages I have failed to grasp more than three words in. I don’t think that a sentence containing Soksaby, Arkun and Som ket loy (how are you, greetings and can I have the bill) is going to help somehow. So I resign myself to the expertise of others.

“No record of you reserve,” she said, then machine gunned the receptionist again. “No, sorry, can give room, check Extra Travel next day.” And that is precisely what I do, after I give Lyly my Malaysian PI business card, swap WhatsApp and Facebook details, because it seems crazy to pass up on a gift (sent by whichever guardian angel), even though I have no idea who she is, or what she does.

Waking after a solid night’s sleep, I brandish the fresh email from Extra Travel at a new receptionist, explaining my predicament. I agree to get breakfast - Eggs (somewhat) Benedict and a pot of Earl Grey(ish) tea, which may or may not be a cliché, while I wait. Then I re-approach the receptionist.

“Okay”, he says. “Okay, what”, I say. “Okay seven night, confirm” he replies. “You mean that you have now confirmed my booking, and I can stay with no extra charges for seven nights.” Okay I am being awkward and it’s not this chap’s fault, but I have to vent. He, literally, scratches his head, smiles and says. “Can stay,” like he was giving me an Oscar. I mumble a thank you, return to the room and consider my options.

Mr Nathan Thiagarajan, in Kuala Lumpur, had been most insistent.

“My silly daughter, Rajini has eloped.” He had stopped for a dramatic pause before continuing, “that girl will be the very death of me. I want you, Mr Maldon, to bring that ungrateful girl home, kicking and screaming if need be. Her mother, my beautiful Lakshi, is beside herself with worry. Do whatever it takes Mr Maldon, but do bring my foolish daughter home.”

“And where has she eloped to.” I had slipped in.

“ She, and that useless fellow Paul Menon, have run off to Cambodia, to see Angkor Wat. I want you to follow, post haste, young man. Go. Go now!” And, with that, he had thrust a roll of Malaysian Ringgit, which turned out to be all one hundred Ringgit notes tied with a red elastic band and to the tune of eight thousand Ringgit, into my hands along with a photograph of the couple, then had ushered me out of his Brickfields Semi-D door. That’s why I’m here, shaking my legs on the side of a single bed, one of two because there were no kingsize beds available. On my ageing I-Pad air, I am going through all the tour guides to Angkor Wat, using the official Angkor Wat guide name list. Did you know that there are over five hundred official English speaking guides to Angkor Wat? There are French speaking guides, guides speaking Thai, Japanese, Russian, etc. etc. etc.. And they are only the official ones. Needles and haystacks spring to mind. Hey Ho! However, there are only twenty-four Indian restaurants in Siem Reap, and there is a pretty good chance that the eloping couple will visit at least one during their stay. Next stop is the photocopy kiosk. I am looking for somewhere convenient, to print up twenty four copies of the photograph that Thiagarajan had given me.

Siem Reap does not look especially large on the map. No more than a small town really. But, in reality, it has taken me the best part of a day walking past sellers of small, skewered and grilled, bananas and those with wooden flat carts laden with cockles (liberally sprinkled with salt and chillies), to visit all the Indian restaurants on the list, press a suspect A4 printout of the unlucky couple into several grubby hands and elicit promises of them contacting me (should the couple enter, or even pass by their establishment). That would be a miracle. Some proprietors, severely lacking in community spirit, needed added incentives. I must make up an ‘additional expenses’ list for Thiagarajan.

Back in my hotel room (301), and just as I am to remove my shoes prior to ‘resting’ (a term used by the over 50s for an afternoon nap) there is a very loud, and a very shrill, scream. It feels like my world is exploding, or maybe just my ears. I drop my iPad on the bed, hurriedly get clothed, and dash out of the hotel bedroom, grabbing the key from its plastic wall holder on the way. I dash down two flights of narrow terrazzo stairs and almost collide into a couple of Khmers. There are standing at the bottom of the second flight. On that landing, the door is open to the first room (201). The room directly below my own. A crowd of people mooch around outside, talking animatedly in the narrow

corridor and trying their best to avoid the large black plastic bag full of bedlinen beside the housemaids’ mop, broom and dustpan, all lined up opposite room 201.

One (obviously) distraught girl is in floods of tears. I see the receptionist on his hand phone, just inside the room. From where I am standing, all I see is a pair of legs laying supine on the large, grey, floor tiles, and a rather large patch of a dark liquid. The receptionist is shooting Khmer words into his phone, getting more and more hysterical as he does so. More people are trying to crowd into the room, which I now recognise as belonging to the Chinese artist Mr Foo.

I only met Mr Foo briefly, and that was in passing, but he seemed okay. He struck me as a man happy with his own company, so a cursory good morning, or good afternoon is all that had passed between us. I understand that he is from Singapore, and is in Siem Reap to sketch. But beyond that, I haven’t a clue. Some detective I am, hah!

While the receptionist is otherwise busy, I push past him a little. Yup, it’s Foo laying face up on the cool, hard, tiles, his glazed eyes stare, wideopen, and his head oozing that dark liquid, I now recognise as blood. There is a red fire extinguisher laying on its side. A patch of dark something around its base, and on one side. I’m feeling a little queasy, as I notice that blood has spread over the tiles and collected around the bottom of a complimentary pair of rubber slippers, protruding from under the double bed. The blood glistens in the light seeping through the light blue curtains. I want to close those eyes, give the man a little dignity, for there’s little doubt that he’s dead, but I daren’t disturb a crime scene. The internet indicates that there are seven murders everyday, in Cambodia, can we expect six more? I do hope not.

Instead of doing nothing, I start talking to some of the non-Khmer quests, hoping against hope that they might speak some English. The hotel isn’t full. Many guests were here only for the weekend. My enquiries end when a bunch of loud talking (shouting) police arrive, accompanied by the man I met before, Sergeant Saroeun Sok. Is this a coincidence, or is this something else. The sergeant and his men start prodding everyone out of the way with their wooden batons. I decide to melt into the background before the sergeant notices me. Which is not difficult, as the formerly peaceful nosey parker brigade, when poked, turn their orderliness in melee. I slink back upstairs and leave them to it.

There is so much shouting below, that I can’t hear myself think. Looking out the bedroom picture window, facing the road, I see an ambulance appear and take something, which could be Foo’s body, away. There is more shouting. I hear loud crying, and peek out of my window just in time to see the housemaid, she who had discovered the, now late, Foo, being practically dragged out of the hotel, roughly, and thrown into a white police car. She is in handcuffs. I expect a knock at the door at any second. None has come so far. The police, leaving the door to Foo’s room bound with yellow ‘Crime Scene Do Not Pass’ tape, have got their man (woman) and that’s that, case closed. It’s all very bizarre.

Then, this morning, two things are happening.

My phone is ringing.

“Er, hello.”

“Mister Martin?”

“Yes”

“This Lyly, met, help you room, remember.”

Of course I remembered her. How could I forget the only fanciable Cambodian I’ve actually had a conversation with.

“Can come, see you? Need talk.”

I asked her to meet me at The Little Red Fox Espresso (a cafe just down the road a few yards), at nine. True the coffee is a bit pricey, but it’s some of the best in Siem Reap, and I fancied their All Day Breakfast bagel, thus effectively killing two birds with one stone, or seeing one bird and eating a mixed metaphorical bagel.

from when I lived in Roman Road, in London’s East End. There’s this great little 24 hour bagel place called Beigel Bake, in Brick Lane. I loved to drop in there, late at night, when it was quieter, stand and eat a salmon and cream cheese bagel with black pepper and a squeeze of lemon, served up with the best mug of tea in London. From there, I would watch the world (and his brother) buy salt beef sandwiches, or fantastic pastries. Kandal area’s Little Red Fox Espresso is not quite up to that, but it’s the best bagel place in Siem Reap.

Then the phone rings, again.

“Mister Martin, Amir here, Bukhara”,

“Hi Amir, d’you have news for me.”

“Yes, yes, you were looking for a couple from Malaysia, well they were here, they enjoyed their meal and are coming back tonight.”

“Why didn’t you let me know when they were there? That was our deal mate.”

“I know, I know, but I was just too busy, and I forgot. I am so sorry. But they made a reservation for eight tonight.”

“Okay, many thanks, see you tonight, thanks again for calling.”

Well, at least I can wrap that up, and what with the date with Lyly, things are certainly looking up.

After running the gauntlet of exceedingly small parked dogs, and their much, much, larger owners, outside the front door of The Little Red Fox Espresso, I sit, upstairs, in the Foxy Den, as Middle Eastern fusion music brings to mind the Medina in Tangier. I notice that all the tables in the room are rectangular and wooden. The chairs too are wooden, and screech on the earthenware floor tiles as I move. The walls are painted medium grey on two sides, magnolia on another while the final wall is glass and gives a view to the second storey of the opposite shops. All walls display square boards replicating 1960s/70s Khmer ‘singles’ record covers. I order a very Derridian ‘Deconstructed Salmon Bagel’, which comprises of all the ingredients you might need to construct a Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese bagel, thus saving the staff time (I imagine) and, for my sins, order a Large Flat White coffee (it’s a New Zealand thing).

Still being pestered by that haunting music, the digital clock first displays 9.00, then 9.15, 9.30 and finally 9.45am. Lyly hasn’t shown. I ring the phone number she gave, three times. It goes straight to voicemail. I can’t pretend that I’m not disappointed. That, and a tad worried too. What had she wanted that was so urgent, just to see me, or something much more important?

I arrive back at the hotel. The receptionist is in floods of tears being, or rather not being, consoled by one of the housemaids.

“Sorry to intrude, can I help.” I say realising that there is nothing practical I can do to help.

“My sister, Lyly, she dead.”

“I am so sorry.” Thinking just how inadequate that is.

“Traffic accident. She ride motorcycle, big black car no see. Hit. Finish.” He says. “Police call. Go hospital, identify.”

I say sorry again, then.

“Lyly, was she the young woman I met here the other day, the one who tried to help me.”

“Yes. She come see me.”

“Fuck”, I say to myself, and wander upstairs to my twin-bedded room (don’t ask!). I’m a bit shocked too, and with a thousand and one thoughts running through my head, like - “Just what the fuck is going on here. First Foo, now Lyly.” I can’t get the thought out of my head that Lyly was no accident. It’s all too much of a coincidence, and we (ex) coppers don’t believe much in coincidences. But, there again, it is Cambodia, and we can expect another five deaths.

Someone knocks on my bedroom door. There’s no spy-hole in the solid wood door. I open it to the length of the fake bronze, curiously oblong

shaped, door latch, being on guard against knives, guns and any or all other weapons that can be wielded in a hotel, in close proximity. “ Well, bugger me!” Quite needless to say really, but I’m shocked. “Anaïs Souaïdia.”

Anaïs Souaïdia looks somewhere in her twenties. She’s got raven hair, brown eyes and high cheek bones, with dark, curved, eyebrows and lips which have been known to be quite luscious. Today, she’s wearing tight black motorcycle leathers, as if in some S&M fantasy. I look for a whip. She has none that I can see. She looks hot, and hot.

“Hello Steve” says the darling of Interpol and Mossad so seductively, that my knees start wobbling. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

I fumble with the door, do a quick scan to make sure that nothing untoward is lurking on either of the twin beds, and let her in. Anaïs and I had met over that previously mentioned murder in Malaysia. She, it had turned out, is an Interpol agent, seconded out of the Israeli secret services. So what the hell is she now doing in my hotel, in Cambodia, I’m wondering. How does she even know that I’m here.

“And so, here you are again, right in the thick of it. Just how do you manage to do this Steve?” It would have been a fair question, if I had even the slightest inkling what the hell she was talking about. All I can muster is “Huh!”

“Foo, downstairs, or should I say Pua Hwong Tan, and that girl Honey Lyly, my informant. Don’t tell me you know nothing about all this, as we found your name-card on her body, and you were observed talking to the man who called himself Foo.” She said.

“We? Well firstly, I haven’t a bloody clue what you’re talking about. Lyly was killed in a road traffic accident before we could speak, and I only just about passed the time of day with Mr Foo. Of course I wondered who and what he was, but he and I were just guests in the same hotel.”

“Steve, I find that very hard to believe.”

“Hard or not, it’s the truth, and don’t you come here making accusations either, you deceived me before, now don’t go shouting the odds, I won’t have it.” I sit on the corner of the nearest bed, a bit broody, with the wind gone out of me.

“Sorry, okay. Let’s start again.” She suggested.

“Apart from prostitution, paedophiles and the odd murder or seven, what is Cambodia, or more specifically Siem Reap, known for,” she asks matter if factly.

“Er, knock-off designer wear, knock-off perfume, dried, stuffed crocodiles. Hmmm drugs.”

“Yes, drugs. But in this case it’s not coke, not snow (heroin) or even ice or dope.”

“Then what,” I venture.

“I am so glad you asked that question.” She says, with a wry smile on her lips. “Counterfeit Viagra.”

I admit to blushing, and raising one eyebrow (Roger Moore fashion).

“Cambodia, but more especially Siem Reap,” she continues “has taken over the mass trade in producing and supplying fake Viagra, from China. China used to be number one, but Cambodia far outstrips it because of its tourist trade.”

“Why is fake Viagra such a problem.” I limply enquire.

“Because it’s a killer Stephen. It can contain just about anything from blue household paint to road paint, detergents, talcum powder, heavy metals, amphetamine and plaster etcetera. Between 1998 and 2007, there were over 1,824 deaths, and 26,451 adverse events in the USA alone from these different types of fake Viagra.”

“Okay, okay I got the picture, no need to go on. I get it. It’s bloody dangerous. I see your point.”

“Now I need to share something with you. Come.”

“Okay, but I have to be back before 8pm. There is something I need to do.”

Then. “What on earth is that.” I am looking at a very odd, mat black, motorcycle. It’s no

“It’s my new ride. Like it? It’s an Indian made prototype I’m testing. They call it the Mankame EP1. It’s all electric, has a top speed of 250 kmph, is as silent as the wind, and this special edition is vantablack, the blackest black that you ever will see. Vantablack absorbs 99.96 % of light, making it virtually invisible at night, and looks like a hole in the fabric of the universe in daylight. Cool eh!”

I cling for dear life as a pillion passenger, on the back of Anaïs Souaïdia‘s bike. She collapses the stand and shoots off without a sound (other than my involuntary groan). I see blurs as she swerves in and out of tuk tuks, around parked vans, other motorcycles, cycles, pedestrians and the odd stray dog undecided which side of the road it wants to be on. Anaïs barely slows at crossroads. She shoots down Pokambor Avenue, onto Sivutha Boulevard, then catches Street 63 all at silent speed. We rush alongside the river, past brightly coloured small and larger temples.

It’s Saturday, and obviously the day marked out for khmer weddings, or at least their receptions. Music blares out, as we pass golden clad young ladies trying to cross the road for at least three wedding receptions. There are waving banners, percussion music and golden swathes of cloth tweaked by a breeze as we pass. We silently throttle past open fronted general stores displaying fruits - small watermelon and bananas and dirty glass bottles of petrol, stacked next to huge woven rattan baskets. The hot day is a little chilly, as my shirt becomes puffed with a cooling wind, my hair blown all over my head. Anaïs wears a vantablack crash helmet. I don’t. I’m very visible, and more than a little nervous. The rushing cool air is interfering with my bladder. I am just not cut out for this spy lark, anymore.

Street 63 follows the Siem Reap riverside for kilometres and would, eventually, lead to Tonle Sop (lake) if we continued on that dry, dusty road. Anaïs slows, there is a minuscule pathway, hardly more than a pot-holed dirt track, off to the left. She is being more cautious now. We take a right, then another right, and then bounce along until there is an even smaller track off to the right again. We are parallel to Street 63, and in some small village with a tiny jerry-rigged shop. Anaïs stops the bike. With one hand she motions me to keep still, and quiet. She then edges behind a small moringa (drumstick) tree, and points.

At first, all I see is a newish rectangular bungalow with a large front awning spread with some sort of dried leaves. “There”, she whispers. Then I see, and count, one, two, three, four very beefy men, possibly carrying firearms. Nothing, apart from the men, seems out of place. Then I notice some plastic barrels dotted around, some fallen over. The bungalow is situated on a sizeable plot of land, waterlogged rice fields on three sides, easy to guard, I imagine.

“But what am I looking for?” I whisper

“We think this is their local lab.” She replies. “They could take their product across land and into Thailand or Vietnam, it would be quite easily from here.”

I’m still trying to get my head round the idea of viagra being dangerous. But then, looking at those large men, the isolation of this place, I can easily imagine some nefarious activities going on.

Finished spying, Anaïs Turns the bike around, re-starts the engine without even the tiniest of sounds, and motions for me to climb on. I do, and off she goes again, smoothly, swiftly, carefully at first but, as we get back to Street 63, she opens the bike up. I can’t hear the bike at all, and I’m sitting astride it. There’s no vibration either. I’m mulling this over as she slows and stops, about ten minutes into our journey. She pushes the bike round the back of a small street-side eatery, which doubles as a general store. “I doubt they understand much English here, so it’s safe to talk.” She says.

“I need to go back to that place tonight, have a look around. What do you think?” She’s still talking softly, keeping our privacy.

“After about 10, perhaps, I told you that I have something to do. Anyway, why’re you asking me. I though this was your hush, hush, Interpol mission.”

“It is, but aren’t you just a tiny bit curious about what’s going on? Later, I’ll tell you about the man you call Mr Foo. Be ready at 12, midnight. At your hotel.”

Interested, of course I bloodywell am. Once I get this eloped couple sorted out, I want to find out what really happened to Lyly and Foo. I feel that I owe Lyly something. It’s silly really as we only met briefly, but it was that phonecall. I feel guilty about her. She was trying to tell me something. And Foo, well, curiosity really. Anaïs drops me outside my hotel, and disappears on her contraption.

The Bukhara Indian (halal) Restaurant has freshly opened on Two Thousand Street, next to the Blue Pumpkin French bakery and patisserie. It’s five doors down from the Viva Hotel and Restaurant, probably Siem Reap’s best Mexican restaurant, on the corner of Two Thousand Street and Street 9, and is opposite the burned out Soup Dragon restaurant.

I am here early, just in case. Dev motions me into the usual shop lot, freshly converted into a restaurant. Everything is ‘ping’ new. New heavy wooden chairs, rectangular wooden tables with glass inlaid, and magnolia walls. Nothing like the flock wallpaper of the British equivalent. No sitar music either, just Western pop muzak. And the place is packed. There are only two tables left. Both tables have a small tent of white plastic, with ‘reserved’ printed on both side, one table for me and one for the expected couple. It’s dinner time, so I order. I am tempted by the sampler dishes of a ‘Tali’, but settle just for ‘Naan’ bread, and tiny blue ceramic bowl of dhal.

I don’t have long to wait. Amir nudges my elbow as he passes. I swivel my head to catch the couple coming in. I look at all the images Thiagarajan has sent over the last day or two. I look again. Enlarge the images, one by one, focus in on the faces, and curse. Whereas Thiagarajan‘s daughter is a very fanciable young woman who could easily be a model, this woman isn’t. The chap she is with isn’t even of the same race. He is obviously of Chinese extraction. I come to the conclusion that Amir has led a very sheltered life, and pass him the bill for my untouched food. Bugger. Against my better judgement I use the ‘app’ on my phone and call a ‘Grab’. And, before you question, yes they do have ‘Grab’ here, in Siem Reap, but they tend to be tuk tuks rather than cars. Progress huh!

It’s 11.30pm. I’m back at the hotel and all freshly showered. Anaïs is early. She has just sent a message. ‘Come on Steve,’ it’s an oblique reference to the Roland Davies comic strip creation, ‘Steve the Horse’. I teeter a laugh (Okay, it’s a Brit thing). I finish dressing and clamour down the four staircases, knackered before I start. She’s in a hurry and shoots off as soon as my copious backside hits the passenger seat, such as it is.

The bike is silent, and so are we. Entering the final ‘road’, Anaïs turns the bike’s lights off and navigates via the ‘night sight’ built into her motorcycle helmet, courtesy of Mossad. She stops and allows me to climb off, then hides the bike in some very handy bushes. There is only one security light shining at the front, and one at the rear of the building we have come to enter. No one is about. There are none of the armed guards evident during the day. It all looks too easy. And it is.

The path to the building is narrow, comprised of compacted earth. Each side of which, is what looks like rice fields, with small shoots poking through water. Rather than march straight up the path and attempt to gain access, Anaïs opts to approach the hard way, that is, on her belly through the rice field, motioning me, the amateur, to stay with the bike. I’m happy to do so, and try her bike helmet on for size and, suddenly, everything becomes varying shades of green. I cannot look towards the building as the lights are so blinding, so I wimp out and take the helmet off, feeling a bit sick.

As Anaïs emerges from the water, looking every inch a ‘Bond Girl’, two previously unseen dualcolour (black and brown) Doberman Pinschers attack. They must have been waiting in the long shadows each side of the building. Anaïs is quick, I’ll grant you. First one, then the other security canine receive hefty kicks to the sides of their heads and lay flat. Unconscious but otherwise unharmed.

Anaïs slips into shadow. There is a small door to her left. A weighty chain and padlock secure it. Unseen by Anaïs, a small red light snaps on as she starts to manoeuvre the lock. The light corresponds to a small black key pad, the size of a fingerprint, to one side of the door and scarcely noticeable in the dark. I see the light come on and run to warn Anaïs. But I am too late. As she stealthily picks the lock, the red light flickers rapidly. I am half way up the path when all hell breaks loose. The door blows off the building. Anaïs is hurled into the paddy field. The roof shoots up under the force of a second explosion, and the building’s contents burn crisply under the fierce heat. There is a strong smell of roasted dog. Anaïs is saved from most of the damage, but is out cold.

I run, jump into the paddy, never mind the noise. It’s too late for that now. The whole front of Anaïs’s clothing is burnt. The flames put out by the paddy water. I expect to see her skin, charred, like BarBQ ribs. But she has something on underneath. I’ve seen it before, but never used it....the latest, sleek fitting, Kevlar fullbody armour.

“Anaïs, Anaïs, are you okay, where does it hurt. Oh! My god ARE YOU OKAY!” The last just jumped out in my panic. I start giving her the ‘kiss of life’ and maybe am getting a little carried away when....

“Steve, Steve, you can stop now. I’m okay and, besides, you’re the wrong gender.” Having stopped the attempted resuscitation, she has given me something to think about. “You mean..” “Yes, Steve, I’m sorry, you’re a lovely man, but I prefer women. And no, I’m not okay, but I’m trained in Krav Maga, so I’ll survive. Probably.”

Then softly she says “Get me to the bike, someone will come soon. We have to get out of here before they do.”

“But can you ride.” It is an honest question.

“Steve, if I can’t then we’re buggered, aren’t we?”

She has a point. People are switching on lights in their homes as we ride silently out, like a two- headed shadow. On the road we drive in stealth mode. Anaïs is once more wearing her helmet, with the bike’s lights out, until we reach the main road, then she switches the lights on. On the other side of the road pass fire engines, and Police cars, as we speed away silently from the site of the explosion, and the rosy red glow it has given to the rural sky.

I can see she’s hurting, so I sneak Anaïs past the sleeping receptionist, and up the four flights of stairs to my dingy room. I dampen a towel and set about cleaning her up. Her energy levels spent like some undercharged cell phone. When I am done, she is asleep. Luckily it’s a twin-bed room, so I don’t have to disturb her.

Eight o’clock. I’m awake. She’s gone. I’m surprised that I am surprised. I stagger into the shower, dress and wander down to The Little Fox Espresso for breakfast, only it’s closed. I look in at Common Grounds (cafe), which us just opening up, but really don’t fancy anything they have on the menu. I walk on. I walk along the riverside under a decidedly warming sun, until I reach the Sister Srey Cafe. I sit, order ‘Eggs Bene-licious’ and a ‘Flat White’ coffee, and think over the night’s events.

Back in Blighty, when I attended classes at Hendon, there was this triangle diagram in a section called ‘The Effective Detective’. Yes, admittedly I took little in, except the questionable name and ended up drawing an eye just below the apex of the triangle, similar that found on American Dollars. I Googled and found it to be called the ‘Eye of Providence’. But, what I want to say is that triangle was supposedly representative of the ‘Integration of Skill Clusters’. It took into account ideas such as ‘ Role Management’, ‘General Management’, ‘Investigative Ability’, ‘Knowledge Levels’ and ‘Investigative Management’. In its way, that triangle suggested how to move on with an investigation. It reminded its reader of the obvious. My brain is telling me to think, consider and reflect. So, back in my twinbedded room, I do.

The, what ever that was, was well defended. The people behind that hidden enterprise were

more concerned with secrecy, than with their property. I imagine that the building must have burned to the ground and its illicit substances with it, leaving few clues. Essentially, we are back to square one. If there is a ‘we’ that is. Who did kill Mr Foo, if Mr Foo was Mr Foo. Was Lyly’s accident an accident, or something else. Did that building really contain a lab to manufacture fake viagra. And who the fuck is this Sergeant Saroeun Sok. Too many questions, and zero answers. Intriguing but frustrating. Somehow, I need to get some information from someone, somewhere..

There is nothing funny about being kidnapped, or overweight and over the hill mannapped in this case. I have just come too. My pounding head feels as heavy as hell, and my tongue has all the feeling of Roy Harper’s ‘Chinese wrestler's jockstrap cooked in chip fat on a greasy day’ (from his album ‘Come Out Fighting Ghengis Smith’). I had been ejected from my reverie by a loud thumping on my room door. I’d no sooner opened the door a fraction, than I was assisted into oblivion, and found myself here. Here, is somewhere, I have no bloody idea where, because I have a very smelly sack thing over my head, and it itches like buggery. My hands are tied, possibly by a plastic tie. My wrists hurt. But, there again I don’t think that my capturers give a damn about my comfort. There is Cambodian ‘pop’ music playing, loudly, which is obviously the first stage of my torture.

A soft Khmer voice, only just discernible above the music, and with an obvious lisp, whispers...

“Misster Muldoon, it iss soo nicess to meet you again.” I can’t help thinking that this chap is deliberately putting on a ‘Gollum’ accent (from Lord of the Rings). He continues...

“We alwayss sseem to be bumping into each other don’t we.”

“I really couldn’t say with this incredibly itchy, scratchy, thing on my head. You could be any random kidnapper with a James Bond fetish. Random being the operative word here.” Then I remember. That sergeant mooching around after the death of Mr Foo, or whoever he was really, he too had a speech impediment. “Yes’, I say very patiently” (patiently for me that is).

“It sseemss that you, Misster Muldoon, have involved yoursself in ssomething rather unssavoury.”

“And that might be?”

“You are an innocent, are you not Misster Muldoon, and you have involved yoursself with Anaïs Ssouaïdia and Interpol, I believe. Caught yoursself up in ssomething above your punching weight Misster Muldoon. You being such a humble PI, former beat Policeman from your essteemed country. Perhapss Misster Muldoon, you might want to leave well alone. Take this ass a ssimple messsage of good will between friendss, ass it were.”

“Friends do not kidnapped each other mister……"

“Nisse try my friend”.

A heavy blow descends on the back of my neck. “Ow, Fuck!”

So here I am. Hands untied, but wrists still hurting from the ties. I’m laying at the bottom of what appears to be a boat. I lean and look out under the bright morning sun, and see a large lake, is it Tonle Sop lake? It, seemingly extends as far as my miserable life. My head throbs badly. The sun is painful to my eyes. My entire world is governed by this very prominent pounding, not to mention the stench of slowdrying fish. What the hell is that by the way? But I am thankful that my neck isn’t broken, thought it feels as thought it should be.

My world of pain continues as I try to look around. I see that this boat is adrift, but tied to a larger craft, by a thin rope. The larger craft looks all the world like a floating blue bungalow. WTF! I am alone. Having nothing better to do, and no immediate plan except to survive, slowly, I pull that rope, my wrists screaming their own agony. I edge the boat closer to the larger craft. When the front of the smaller boat is kissing the ‘bungalow’, I quickly tie it off, then crawl the length of the boat,

keeping the floating bungalow in my hand. It is slow, painful work, with lots of bumping and wrist pain. I have now reached the end of the boat. Luckily there’s another rope. I tie this end of the boat also to the larger floating craft. Now all I have to do is move from one to the other without immersing myself in the mud coloured, stinking, lake. This proves not an easy task. My boat wants to play. It is not content with a mere brushing, side by side, with the larger craft, but wants to play bumps-a-daisy too. So here I am, with one foot on one, and one foot on the other and, with one mighty heft, I shoot forward onto the floating blue bungalow. Phew! Wonderful! Now my knees are as painful as my wrists. A big thank you to whichever deity, for this.

As I stagger through the first room of this bungalow ‘boat’, I realise that it doubles as a restaurant. Folding chairs are stacked beneath fading pictures of Khmer royalty on the wall. Folding tables are stacked up against another wall. In another, smaller, room at the back, a little old mahogany brown Khmer lady is just rousing from her nap, in a dirty antique hammock. Perhaps my noise awoke her. Beyond this lady is a small general store/cafe. It’s the sort of place where I might to able to get some water and a strip of Panadol Rapid, perhaps.

I hadn’t noticed, but there is another large ‘bungalow boat’ beyond this one. Maybe attached to the ‘shore’. There is also a collection, nay a virtual armada, of small boats, also painted blue, arranged so that some weary foreigner (whose energy is sorely depleted) could, dare he to do so, step, or make that climb, from one boat to another and reach that similar bungalow boat adjacent to the shore, which seems not too far away. And so, armed with a 1500 ml bottle of Angkor Puro (pure drinking) water, and having taken two capsules of Panadol, I begin my hurdle race.

In writing, this seems such an easy task. In reality it isn’t. The first small boat is easy enough, once I lower myself into it, adjust my footing, and attempt to climb into the next. And that is where the trouble begins. Climbing ends as falling. I spend the next twenty minutes painfully falling into boat after boat, after boat after boat, and loose my water bottle after the first. But I have arrived. There are even wooden steps for me to shakily climb onto the larger, moored, craft. But no one said anything about dogs. I am not a dog fan at the best of times, so I certainly do not appreciate coming face to face (literally) with some snarling mongrel hybrid.

“Oh just fucking piss off!” I scream into the dog’s face with all my pent up anger and frustration. And it does. There is a doggy whine. Its tail hangs between its legs and it slinks off, suitably chastised. Then I see a tall, slimmish, Khmer chap, with a dog whistle in his mouth. And a pistol in his hand.

Oh! Come on fucking fate! What fresh nonsense is this?

“Language Misster Muldoon. Did you enjoy all that? I have to ssay that it wass certainly intriguing, and mosst entertaining, the way you went about esscaping your fate. Well done you. But, of coursse I wass jusst having my little fun with you. But, now, of course, I musst kill you!” Spoken like the true villain he is.

I have resigned myself to my fate, as I have no other option. However, the words have barely escaped from Police Sergeant Saroeun Sok’s mouth when there is a ‘pssssst’, pssssst’, and the gun flies from his hand. He falls over. His right kneecap is in tatters.

Anaïs Ssouaïdia emerges, from somewhere at the rear of the floating house, with a BUDK sports 8mm ballbearing throwing catapult in her hand. “Thought you might appreciate a little assistance at this point.” She calmly says, then “Grief Steve, your face looks like a freshly boiled lobster.”

“What, how?”

“How did I get to be here just in the nick of time? That the sort of phrase you’re looking for?” I nod dumbly.

“Well, unsurprisingly, I tracked you via the transmitters I placed in your ‘trainers’, one in each, just in case. They are called GPS Smart Sole trackers. My bike has the receiver built it. Simple really, I had observed your trainers and got hold of insoles similar, complete with trackers.” I

continue to look on dumbfounded. “Huh” is all I can manage, and “Anaïs, you’re a lifesaver, er literally.”

Saroeun Sok lays on the floor nursing his knee the best he can. His right hand is also injured due to Anaïs’s marksmanship in shooting his weapon from him. Sok looks a sorry site and, unless he can give the answers we need, will be a whole lot sorrier, soon.

“Best we tie this creature up. I have some questions for him.” She replies.

Anaïs binds Saroeun Sok’s shattered knee with things discovered in his house, just so he doesn’t bleed to death before she can question him. Anaïs slips Sok a hip-flask she has found containing, what tastes like, very poor whiskey, and lets him take a few gulps for his immediate pain. All this I leave to her. I am really not an expert in interrogation.

“Right, you sorry son-of-a-bitch, time to talk, and this is for Honey Lyly.” I hear Anaïs say, as I leave the room to find something non-alcoholic to drink. All I hear, in reply, is what sounds like Khmer cursing and Sok’s screaming. Women can be hard sometimes.

I hear Anaïs washing her hands. She’s been ‘questioning’ Sok for about half an hour.

“Okay” she says. “You rested? I’ve a phone call or two to make, then we can be off to see the fun.” And, with those few words, I imagine that she got all the info she needed from her captive.

The news from her team, is that there have been reports of ‘ghosts’ in the old school. Night after night, wandering lights are seen. The locals are afraid to go near. “My team leader, Seyaha, expects that’s the gang we are after. They’re hold up in that abandoned school. We go tonight.”

After some heavy debate (Anaïs wanted to out another ballbearing in Sok, this time in his head) we decide to drop Sok off, in the care of the local floating blue and white police station. However, Sok, is loosing a little too much blood through his ruined knee. Further phone-calls take place. Anaïs makes contact with her local man. He in turn contacts the local floating Tonle Sap police station. Reverse message ask us to wait until an officer arrives to sit with Sok, as a guard in the hospital.

All around are tree skeletons, burnt out in the 2015 fire which swept across the lake. Thousands of trees were destroyed in just a few hours. Now the only inhabitants seem to be filthy plastic bags.

“Come on Steve”. I smile, not a big smile, because my face still hurts from being out in the sun. “You want to be in on the kill, don’t you”, she says, and I hope she means that metaphorically.

After maybe half an hour the local officer is here. We all climb aboard (a little precariously when it comes to me), and set off in failing light towards the hospital. The hospital comes as a bit of a shock to me. It’s on dry land. A little island in fact. We have to manhandle Sok up the many stairs, get him a room and a doctor to see to his wounds. The local officer (Officer Soben Hour) stays. We dash back, using the police boat, to Sok’s houseboat. To further await Anaïs‘s team. As we cross the lake, the water resembles the colour of British milky tea, which is perforated with floating plastic bottles. There are few inhabitants to see except for men going hither thither in small craft, and various lake birds flying over.

According to Anaïs‘s intelligence, the school we are about to invade is 10 minutes from Sok's boat house. We are, officially, on the Batambang side of Tonle Sap lake and two hours away from Siem Reap by boat and car. Using her Sat phone, Anaïs contacts her Interpol team once more. Directions are given. Plans made. This time they are to go in full force, dragging me with them. So we wait as Anaïs collects her team of local swat officers (in full protective gear, for this is to be a massive operation to shut down the entire drug manufacturing).

It is a very long wait until 2am.

“Steve. Take a rest. We have a while to go and you’ve had a busy day.” What Anaïs really means, is that I am the weak link in the assault chain, and need all my personal resources to see me through. She’s not wrong. I doze. The next minute, I feel Anaïs shake me gently awake.

“Ready Steve? It’s gone one in the morning, we’re just getting ready.” I look at her, make a silly face, and try to grasp the night.

A slicker boat awaits us. On board are some of Anaïs‘s team. The rest are on ‘stakeout’ at our destination. The team is mostly composed of local Gendarmerie Royale Khmere, and all personnel, except for me, are dressed in sleek black and are carrying very dangerous looking M4 carbines, and various handguns. I have no weapon.

It takes about ten minutes to approach the former school. The school was abandoned because of structural difficulties, and left to rot. Or so one of the English speaking police officers informs us. The building is constructed of bricks and concrete, built upon concrete pillars rising from a tiny island. Local police already had their suspicions about the place, mostly due to reports of ghosts; figures in white and spectral lights floating through the building at night. Locals, having respect for spirits, have stayed well clear, and just let them get on with it.

The officer in charge undertakes a ‘coms’ check. Making sure everyone understands their role, their position and checks that the channels on their devices are working properly. I can’t make out if I’m scared, or excited. Or both. The officer’s hand goes up, asking for preparedness and silence.

All lights are out on the boat. We can see the target ahead of us and, yes, it does look as though ghosts are wandering through the upper part of the building. Two officers slip silently into the water, and swim to the base of the old school. We hear nothing, but a brief ‘click click’ on the coms, indicating that their mission to remove the two downstairs guards, is successful. We wait, barely breathing. The Cambodian Police officers prepare the way for their onslaught. Another ‘click click’. Okay, that’s mission go, targets observed.

Most of the remaining officers slip over the side, along with Anaïs, who motions for me to sit down and observe. In other words, keep out of the way, which I’m happy to do. The officers are emerging from all sides of the school, now. There are three entrance/ exits. Black clad officers climb stealthily up all three. The previously hidden moon makes an appearance. There is a shout. A firearm barks, followed by a cacophony of weapons fire. Doors burst and windows smash. More barks of weapons fire, and softer pht, pht of suppressed weapons. People are jumping, diving or falling out of the building into the dark lake. I see bright flashes of ‘flash bangs’ light up the interior, hear more gun fire. Then. Silence.

There’s a coms squawk. The bud in my ear says “hostiles down, running checks”. But it is too early. The coms are still alive, as I hear a very loud gun shot, and the death rattle of the officer. Another gun shot explodes. Another coms, “Clear.” Bullets spray the river immediately near the small island. I hear cries of pain from those in the water. More gunfire, then, silence once more.

“Okay Steve, ask someone to get you closer, then you can take a look at our prize.” Says Anaïs, in a very jubilant mood.

I step onto the base, work my way upstairs, watching out for dead bodies. The place is a mess. With all the lights on, I can clearly see the elaborate laboratory set up. Anaïs rushes over with some sort of mask. “Here you’ll need this” she says as I put it on. “Too much unknown white powder around. We don’t know what it is. Better be careful.” She explains. “And don’t go nosying around, it is, after all, a crime scene.” I nod and stay where I am, just moving my head to see the carnage. “Phew!” Blood everywhere, pink where it comes into contact with whatever powder that is.

Later, or is that earlier, I never know with 6 am, we have all taken showers in the Teuk Vil Commune (Siem Reap) Police Station , changed into fresh clothing and can finally start talking.

“Sorry, Steve, but some of what has happened is secret. But I can give you the overall picture. I have permission from both Interpol and Gendarmerie Royale Khmere to tell you some things, but not others. Hope you understand.” I nod.

I say “meow”, perhaps a little disgruntedly .

“But how could you know that I would come here. It was quite by chance that Nathan Thiagarajan’s daughter went missing, and asked me to find her.”

“Er, actually, that was Officer Ram, one of Interpol’s more talented undercover officers.” Anaïs Says.

“And the daughter?”

“Never existed.”

“So I been running around on a wild goose chase.”

“With the smell we were getting earlier, it’s more like a red herring, don’t you think.” She quips.

“Anaïs, I’m not laughing. You and Interpol used me like a, well like a staked out goat. Bait.”

“Oh, but you are laughing Steve, you just don’t know it yet.” She says.

“What about that Singaporean artist, Foo.”

“Actually, Leonard Chow, and yes from Singapore, but no artist. He was one of our undercover operatives. He had discovered that Sergeant Saroeun Sok was not only bent, but was a ringleader for both smuggling, and the manufacture of the fake ‘Viagra’. This I found out from Sok himself in our little question and answer session earlier. Sok either had Chow killed, or killed him himself. I hadn’t worked with Leonard before, and we were just working out our roles when he was murdered.”

“So where did Honey Lyly fit in.”

“She was a dear, dear girl. I didn’t, really, have time to know her, if you know what I mean. But I should’ve like to have done. She didn’t know anything about Leonard but, by chance, had heard him being grilled by Sok, before he died. Sok must have found out what she knew, and arranged that ‘accident’. She was such a sweet girl too, and before you say anything Mr Muldoon, that wasn’t a pun, well it was, but she was sweet. We were just starting a relationship when her brother got that job at your hotel. In a way it’s all my fault, that and the job.” “I’m sorry to have dragged you in Steve. But I had faith that you would manage in your own exceptional way. Managing under stress really seems to be your forte, doesn’t it. Your talents were never really appreciated by ‘The Force’, were they?”

It is a hell of a lot of take in. I still don’t know how I feel about being used that way, even though it was for a good cause. Anaïs can really be troublesome at times, but we seem to get on okay, even though I now know that I am the wrong gender for her. In a way, it makes it easier to like her without all that unrequited passion stuff. I have no doubt that our paths will cross again, some day. But, for a while, I’m going to be a little more cautious about which cases I accept. Maybe take a rest, for a while, somewhere different, like, say, Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, Anaïs has promised me a slap-up meal in one of the more salubrious eateries in town, perhaps Malis, it’s not too far away either, on Pokambor Avenue, beside the whiffy river but with none of the whiff. It’s her shout. Perhaps she knows some local girls who aren’t gay.