Stephen Leather
Confessions of a Bangkok Private Eye: True Stories From the Case Files of Warren Olson
THE CASE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONMAN
THE CASE OF THE RELUCTANT VIRGIN
THE CASE OF THE LESBIAN LOVER
THE CASE OF THE WAYWARD WIFE
THE CASE OF THE LYING BARGIRL
THE CASE OF THE INTERNET SCAMMER
THE CASE OF THE MACAU SNATCH
THE CASE OF THE TWO-TIMING THAI
THE CASE OF THE MILLION-BAHT BARGIRL
THE CASE OF THE PATTAYA PLAY-AWAYS
THE CASE OF THE BARGIRL WHO TRIED
THE CASE OF THE BLACKMAILED BEAUTY
THE CASE OF THE VANISHING BEER BAR
THE CASE OF THE CHINESE CLIENT
THE CASE OF THE HUA HIN HUSBANDS
THE CASE OF THE MAGIC FINGERS
THE CASE OF THE SUSPICIOUS SPOUSES
THE CASE OF THE WORRIED HEIR
THE CASE OF THE BAD GOOD GIRLS
THE CASE OF THE RESTAURATEUR’S WIFE
THE CASE OF THE PERSISTENT SPONSOR
THE CASE OF THE MISSING MOTOR
AFTERWORD
Stephen Leather
Confessions of a Bangkok Private Eye: True Stories From the Case Files of Warren Olson
THE CASE OF THE DOUBLE-CROSSED DUTCHMAN
There are a whole host of things I love about living in Thailand: the gorgeous women, the climate, the food, the beaches. But right at the top of the list of things I hate is being pursued at high speed by two motorcyclists with gun-toting pillion passengers. The guys out to put a bullet in my head weren’t flashing the smiles that Thailand is famous for-they were glaring at me with murder in their eyes. I swerved over to the right, trying to clip the rear wheel of the bike nearest to me but he moved away easily. The pillion passenger was caught off balance and he grabbed the waist of the driver. I took a quick look over my left shoulder. The second pillion passenger had his gun aimed at my head. I slammed on the brakes and the bike roared by, the passenger’s hair whipping in the wind.
I cursed, spitting out pretty much all the swear words I knew. I was in deep, deep shit, and it had all been the fault of my brand new digital camera.
The case had started easily enough. I’d received a phone call from a Dutch detective agency in Amsterdam that I’d done business with a few times. They were good payers and good payers are like hens teeth in the private-eye business.
They were acting for a well-known Dutch businessmen who’d married a girl from Bangkok five years earlier. The businessmen had started taking his wife to a local Thai restaurant and was worried that she might have started a relationship with a young waiter. The Dutch detectives had put the wife under surveillance but so far hadn’t caught her misbehaving, but now the wife was planning to fly to Thailand for Songkran, the Thai new year. It’s the traditional time for Thai families to get together, and the businessman was too busy adding to his millions to go with her. A red flag was raised when the Dutch detectives discovered that the Thai waiter had booked onto the same flight to Bangkok. It could have been a coincidence, of course, but the Dutch guys wanted me to mount a surveillance operation once they’d arrived in Bangkok.The girl’s parents lived in Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand, so the first thing I did was to check if she had booked an onward flight from Bangkok. She hadn’t, but she might be planning to buy the ticket once she’d arrived, or even travel up by train or bus. I asked for a description of the jewellery and watch she usually wore, because photographs were often surprisingly unhelpful for identifying people and there would be several dozen young and pretty girls, all with black hair and brown eyes, getting off the KLM 747 from Amsterdam. The information, along with her passport number and a copy of her Thai ID card, came over with her pictures, plus a photograph of the waiter, and a sizeable retainer was transferred into my account with Bangkok Bank.