The Lady In The Tree

2 ENTRENCHMENT-1

2 ENTRENCHMENTThe new security measures added to the firm’s overheads, but not a great deal. They paid two boys an extra one hundred Baht each to sleep in the shop and another two a hundred each to sleep in Lek’s suan or garden, which Craig called her orchard. This amounted to a free meal each and a bottle of whisky to keep them amused. The boys were happy to do it and devised a rota in order to take it in turns. After the first day, they reduced the number of men working around the shop to one, because Lek had been quite right that any attack would come at night not in broad daylight when there would be too many witnesses.

However, there was no more vandalism on Ayr’s rice fields, probably because the thugs didn’t know which ones were hers. Lek insisted on placing a man in the grounds of their house, since everyone knew where she lived and Craig was there alone all day. The man busied himself repainting the exterior of the house and weeding the garden, both of which did sorely need doing. They also got their dog back for nighttime surveillance. He was a great guard dog. Not only would he not let anyone he didn’t know into the garden, but he also warned of any snakes that had found their way in by barking and pointing at them until someone did something about it or the snake left for a more peaceful life elsewhere.

There were no follow-up abusive emails, so life went pretty much back to normal, in that they were not so frightened any longer. Five days after posting them, the security systems arrived. Craig and the lad at the house installed their own system first and then they did the shop. It took two days to complete, but it then meant that security duties could be relaxed on all fronts except for Lek’s suan.

Ayr arrived in a taxi from Bangkok on the day that she had promised, but she had left Ron there because he had some business to attend to. Lek was waiting anxiously to see her friend again, although they had been keeping in regular contact by phone, but typically, she had forgotten to tell Craig.

“Craig, come quickly, Ayr’s taxi is just pulling up outside the shop!”

By the time he got there the friends had already kissed and hugged and the security boy had taken all Ayr’s luggage, which was quite considerable, inside. Several of the boxes were the rest of the security equipment that Craig had been waiting for. Ayr rushed over, hugged Craig and kissed him on both cheeks, which shocked the security guy so much that he had to turn away and pretend to be busy tidying the shelves. Both Lek and Ayr noticed his reaction and they smiled to each other. It was just not the done thing to kiss another woman’s husband in front of her in Thailand and they knew that he probably suspected that something unusual was afoot, like a kinky love triangle or a secret affair.

Both Ayr and Lek, even after being back for ten years, found it difficult to behave as the villagers expected them to, life in Pattaya had changed them too much to ever fit in completely again. Most people could not understand why some women insisted on kissing Craig in public, but then they even thought that about his wife, although she was less prone to do it now than she had been when they had first arrived.

“Come on you two, I’ll treat you to a Chang in Nong’s and you can tell me what’s been going on around here.” Ayr called up a round from Nong who pretended to be startled to see her, although she could not have missed the taxi arriving next door or seeing Ayr get out of it.

“Come on then, Ayr, tell us all about your wedding and Australia! I bet it was fabulous…” she said.

“Yes, it was, but I am sure that Craig doesn’t want to hear about all that. We can talk about Australia later, when he’s not here. You’re not interested, are you, Craig?”

“No, not really, if you want the truth. When you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all.” He said it in such a way that he might have been joking, but the three friends knew that he wasn’t, Lek hit him on the shoulder.

“That’s very rude, Craig! Ayr has never been to Australia before and never been married before either. Of course she wants to tell us all about it and Nong and I want to hear it too. We’ve been waiting weeks for this. You can be such a wet blanket sometimes – no, often these days. Why don’t you go home if you don’t want to hear it, or go sit over there outside our shop on your own.?”

“It’s all right, Lek, no offence taken. I know Craig and I know men. They just aren’t interested in these things. We can have a good girly chat about it later. Ross is the same. These falang men are not like Thai men and most men are not like women anyway. At least he was honest and I prefer that. Anyway, I want to know what the Hell has been going on here while I’ve been away. That month in Oz just flew past – and we came back a day earlier to see if we could help.”

Craig did some counting on his fingers. “How do you mean you’ve come back a day early? Ross said ten days and this is the tenth day, you are on time, for a change. Very unusual for a Thai woman… or man for that matter.”

“When I told Ross ten days, I meant eleven, so I am a day early.”

“I see, it all makes sense now… I don’t think I will ever understand Thais and their sense of time, you know. Even when they are on time, it is only by mistake… I missed an important wedding here when I first arrived, because Lek told me that our friend’s only daughter was getting married at four o’clock. I naturally assumed four in the afternoon, but oh no, she meant ten o’clock in the morning and she forgot to come and get me even though it was only next door here. Remember that, Lek?”

“No, not anymore… I live for the present, not the past.” He could see that she was not best pleased with him, so he decided that he had said enough. “Look, you talk about the wedding if you like, I don’t mind… honestly, go on, really. Talk about whatever you want to talk about, and I’ll just sit here, enjoy my beer and try to work out what you’re on about. I’ll treat it like a Thai language conversation lesson.”

“Yes, OK, but don’t interrupt if you don’t understand something, it puts me off and I forget what I was saying.”

“OK, Mam, received and understood.”

Ayr hit him that time, but started speaking anyway.

“I really would like to know what has been going on here, Lek, this is our livelihood and it needs sorting out. When we’ve had a few and can’t talk sensibly any longer, I’ll tell you about the wedding. I have hundreds of photos. So, when did all this harassment start and how far has it escalated?”

“The exact dates are in the desk diary, but it started about two weeks ago. If Craig phoned Ross ten days ago, then about two days before that, I suppose. We, or I really, opened up and saw that the door to your flat was open. I went in and saw that the rear door was open too, but there was such a mess that it was obvious that someone had broken in. I thought it best to leave it for you to see. They also tipped a bucket of paint over your car and wrote some rude words on it. Again, it is all there for you to see, but I covered it over with a tarpaulin.

“The next night they set fire to the rice crop in two of your fields – the day before we had planned to harvest it and they tipped tons and tons of smelly rubbish in my suan. I have already cleaned that up. Then, ten days ago, I had a nasty death threat at the shop by email. Craig sorted that out and had their web site and email address shut down, I think. You’ll have to ask him the details about that, but that was the only one we had, so whatever he did has worked.

“Then we have taken certain other measures. I have had two guys sleeping in my suan every night for ten days, but I paid them for that out of my own pocket. I’ve had a bodyguard for the same period, but he has been doing odd jobs around the shop – I’ll show you later and I put a man in our own garden, because I was worried for Craig. And I’ve had two people sleeping here as well to keep an eye on the place.

“Then Craig has installed our security system and yours, using one man as help. Craig has suggested booking his work against the man we’ve had and balancing it out, but we can sort this out anyway you think best, and that’s about it really.”

“Ah, I got most of that I think, except the bit about the ‘dead camels flying into the garden’ bit. What was that all about or was it a joke?” interjected Craig when there was a gap in the conversation.

“Craig, you are not being funny. His is serious business and I have to bring Ayr up to date, so could you just keep quiet, please?”

“Yes, I know, my dear, just my little joke. It won’t happen again for at least another hour. So, what do you think, Ayr, did my beautiful wife do a good job or what? She was like Hitler around here, bossing people about, nobody got a minute’s peace.”

Ayr slapped his hand and Lek gave him a look that said ‘I have warned you once’.

“I think that Lek has done a tremendous job and so have you. Thanks for your help with that email problem and the shop’s security system. I’ll have to take a look at that later. Perhaps you can show me how it works later, Lek, if you wouldn’t mind.

“Ross has told me about these security cameras. I’m really looking forward to seeing how they work. Where are you thinking of putting them, Craig?”

“Well, they are battery-powered, so basically, they can go anywhere, but the battery is charged by a solar panel, so it has to be put where the sun will shine on it. The best places in Lek’s suan would be up in trees. I don’t know what Ross was able to find, but the models we wanted were motion-activated and transmit over the Internet. They are not cheap, but they are the best for us.

“They won’t transmit unless someone moves in front of them, which will save the battery and it means that no news is good news, unless someone spotted them and shot them down, but they would only be able to do that during daylight hours.”

“But you won’t be able to get up a tree?”

“No, I’m afraid not, not any more, but I can supervise and they only need strapping in place with packing ties. That’s the easy part, for me anyway.” He smiled and so did Ayr, but Lek just looked away. I’ll take one home with me tonight, and find out how it works.”

“Have you spoken to the mayor about the email yet, Lek?”

“Yes, and put my complaint in writing to him and the police, but no-one has done anything about it yet, as far as I can tell.”

“Haven’t they? Maybe I’ll send them a letter too. In fact, let’s send them three, one from you as a private individual, one from me, and one from the company. That might make them do something. It’s worth a try at least.

“Look, let’s just leave everything as you have it for now, it all seems to be working very well, but we can get a few more beers and get something to eat later. Let’s just sit hear and bounce ideas off one another. I’ll start back to work tomorrow.

“Do you think that you can get those cameras up tomorrow, Craig? I’d really like to see them working soon.”

“Yes, I don’t see why not, they usually come with everything you need to install them except the packing ties, but I think Nong stocks them or that shop, er, Noy’s at the top of the road, I’ve seen them here somewhere.

“Nong, bia eek sam kuwat, kap – three more bottles of beer please!

“So, how was your wedding Ayr, and where is Ross hiding?”

“He has some business to see to in Bangkok, but he’ll probably be here in a few days or so. I’ll go and get my photos… oh, if we are going to do this now, I won’t be able to get my flat sorted out today. Can I sleep at your place tonight?” she didn’t have to wait for an answer. She took a swig of beer and ran back to the shop.

∞

Lek made rice soup for them both for breakfast, but let Ayr sleep in while she went to open the shop and allow the two boys sleeping there go about their normal duties. Bot picked them up in the Thailand as he drove his workers to the rice fields. Craig kept the guy in their house to help him put up the surveillance cameras and security lighting. They did their house first as it was the easiest. Two days later all the equipment was fully installed and Craig was showing Lek and Ayr how to access the cameras’ output on the Internet, which meant that they could check them on their mobile phones or laptops.