Missing Louise Read online

  Title Page

  MISSING LOUISE

  A Missing Backpacker, A Body And A Mystery Buried In The Revolution

  By

  Nicholas Frankcom

  Publisher Information

  Missing Louise Published in 2013 by

  Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  The right of Nicholas Frankcom to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

  Copyright © 2013 Nicholas Frankcom

  All the characters and events in this book are fictitious, any resemblance to actual events or characters is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  Foreword

  The more information you are able to give us, the more easily we will be able to locate your friend or relative. Thailand is a large country and communications and infrastructure in many parts of the country are not highly developed.

  Advice from US Embassy website in Thailand

  You should be aware that responsibility for conducting searches overseas rests with the local police force abroad... We cannot use public funds to finance rescue operations for people missing in remote areas nor pay for the recovery or repatriation of the body in the unfortunate circumstances where this may be necessary.

  Extract from FCO leaflet “Missing Persons Abroad”. March 2009

  Prologue

  A tinge of fear blunted the morning. Early starts were the worst, the day longer to invite omens. The pre-dawn rise from his stiff military cot knotted the young airman’s stomach into a leaden fist of tension. He was not one for premonition but today felt different, bleak under a sky of wakening sunbeam. The hard mattress kept any dreams from home lightening any mood. Breakfast doses of caffeine ingested with gulps of nicotine did little to break it up. Daybreak sorties were needed for the light, the same light which could map out the flying silhouette from a mile away for all to see. The growing morning sunshine drew out beads of sweat as he waited anxiously beside the wired window. A narrow corridor with framed maps and a cheap water-stained Monet copy provided little distraction outside the colonel’s airless pre-fab office. The single plastic fan circulated stale sweat and flakes of tobacco ash around, collecting from ashtrays overflowing with the stubs left by anxious pilots. He used the time to nervously floss with a bamboo splinter lying to hand. All too soon he would be presented with the deepening furrows permanently etching themselves into the colonel’s forehead. The past month was a black one. Two more eager pilots were missing. Jez, a wide grinning optimist from the cattle fields of Utah was the latest AWOL. No more would his pale receding matt of hair attract the vicious rays of sun. Gone right off the radar; his opaque pearl dot vanishing forever. Never now could Jez bed that sweet smelling valley girl with the rhythmic hips he dreamed of. Any youthful excitement the small group of airman felt for covert flying was long blurred by a reality of just how shit it could all fall apart. Search and rescue expectations could be left in the hangar with all the other notions of aviation health and safety. They weren’t supposed to be flying so much as a kite, let alone any probing kit capable of snapping pictures two miles beneath.

  Within minutes he was back out in the heat negotiating a tight airstrip to allow the powerful twin engines to suck his aircraft high enough to disguise all markings. He allowed his racing mind to touch down before his tightening grip squeezed the controls to bring the craft airborne. Irrigated paddy fields and rural towns quickly gave way to dense jungle. Below he knew the tall South East Asian trees cloaked many hidden mysteries, the thick canopy smothering crack shooting enemies, able to conceal far-flung forgotten towns reached through a labyrinth of unmarked tracks. At 3000 feet the postcard seductive cloak of green looked more menacing than tantalising. He chewed on the same ulcerated wall of his mouth he was used to tasting these past six months, a new tickle of blood tipping his tongue as he settled into the flight.

  Up above the plush carpet of green the young pilot’s concern was to keep alert, try to exercise the mind. Fear boosted the senses, chiselling a clear view of the drop below. He knew that with time his body would tire, the fuel fear gave would fall away. Round trips could take some hours, especially when straying a few clicks over the border. Radio silence prevailed in the high altitude. There were no airwaves open to air traffic control guidance; no clipped English accent to welcome him back from international airspace. Most traces of danger were buried far below, miles from the cockpit and a whole world from his closed environment of magnetic dials and recycled air. With the risks of war hidden amongst the trees and ditches he needed to remain humanly aware of each danger, try to use his fear. Rarely did he glimpse any tracer smoke. Amongst the clouds a serious attitude mattered most, the need to remain professional and not become detached from the pitched battles fought far below. Peering through the enforced cockpit glass all he could make out was a mass of dark trees pushing every horizon, punctured only by strutting cliffs and hostile mountains. Before volunteering each recruit knew there were few clearings providing any safe oasis to land. None long enough to nose down unharmed. Even if luck brought him a paddy field or cleared strip of muddy road a small raiding party would soon take him. Flying across guerrilla saturated jungle rated as bad as the going could ever get. Forget the pacific airborne fleet, this was far worse.

  The enormous size of the jungles brought an unpredictable natural chaos stretching across countless plains and boundaries. Much of it lay un-chartered, too dense and remote to mark down on a map. Too bloody dangerous! The main inhabitants were a scattering of hardened tribesmen and lawless scavengers, those with no choice.

  Article 56 in their introduction manuals made the risks clear enough for any unlucky soles forced to bail out above the tree-line. Even without a military directive he knew the dank forest seeped danger. The Black Ops guys knew best, many practically lived in netted hammocks with the flies and snipers. They knew that sense of lingering unease the further you strayed from the gravel tracks skirting the trees; away from domestic security, away from camps or hostels. The placed carried the scent of death; old traps primed for swallowing legs, venomous snakes and exposure. The animals came in packs, scavenging for all they could find. A half crushed airman crawling from a hidden pit scored highly on their menu.

  A mile above the trees he mastered the controls with the confidence only ex-military aviators could show. His youth belied experience. Civilian training or logged flying hours didn’t include live ammo discharges. Like his assorted collection of eccentric colleagues he was chosen because of countless sorties over the unforgiving terrain. It was airspace he knew, flying zones he zigzagged daily on sorties kept to an exclusive few. The pay was good, enhanced by the need to be bloody wary, the money often pumped into a high octane lifestyle adopted to blur away panic attacks.

  The Colonel’s instructions for that morning looked promising. He was to keep to one of the quieter sectors. Zone three flights generally involved high-level photography. Inquisitive lenses produced grainy images of scenes played out far below. Today’s task was a little different; a canister containing some rare Russian document. Who would want such transcripts out here was beyond him. He knew they weren’t intelligence scripts or frontline orders. These were dropped in black
bundles. Weapons or medical drops he could understand, bare essentials of jungle skirmishes. Paperwork on the other hand, written in Russian, there was something in that he might never know.

  The coordinates for despatch were very precise and he fully intended to drop down just low enough so that the mile high cross winds wouldn’t take the weighted canister far from its expectant audience far below. Soon it would be gone then to hell with it. His curiosity would wane, it always did. Back later to a chilled bourbon, poured over ice in the chaotic mess beside the tarmac. Homely posters and pictures of family to surround him, his own patch of Asia. Not long now.

  The young pilots were happiest with sorties in zone three. They talked it up as the long straw bet. Most would grope for the mission tags that might take them that way. If you kept a high altitude then trouble stayed away. You might have to take a dip for any drop, but little more. This was no hero stuff, he didn’t volunteer for that. The problem was that relaxation could set in, more so after smoking strong local grass washed back with the bourbon, his night-time poison borne from loneliness and boredom. A temptation was to take in the view and get on with the flying, doing little more than maintaining a steady speed and course. It was so easy to lose that alertness, the essential requirement for combat. If things went wrong with your eye off the horizon the unexpected happened, most of it bad. This was exactly how it now caught him. There was no preparing you for a ruptured fuel-line. Debris probably became lodged in an inlet, maybe a bird, causing an edge to be pushed back into the pipes. Something very sharp must have caught the line; the rubber was reinforced and reliably strong. With the high octane fuel pumping over the heated engine fins, it was seconds before billows of dark smoke indicated an engine fire. Within a heartbeat the flames had taken hold, severing all control and rendering the plane into a fierce dive. The drone of the engine broke into a stutter, briefly trying to jumpstart, before terminally stalling.

  Crashing down in the jungle was the one thing that spiked their heads with naked fear. They could live with much else, so long as it was an each way bet on making it back. Here every tree represented a sharp pike intent on impaling him to his leather seat. A bowel clenching descent would rush him to instant death, where treetops and branches could rake and spear the fuselage, rupturing the fuel tank as the plane tore through their midst. The stalling engine was a solid kick to the spine. Black smoke seeped through the vents, clogging his nostrils with the pungent smell of burning rubber. His nemesis was violently unfolding.

  The vibrations running through the controls jerked his hands free. Clenching harder, he fought to hold on and steer the plane as far as possible. Pressure pushed back his cheek muscles and brought bile to the back of his throat. All of his senses confirmed the worst whilst his mind raced with an intense surge of adrenalin; he was going to die and probably die fucking horribly. If he survived the initial impact, the chances were that he would sit strapped to his seat and fry. He had to decide whether he should take his chances crash landing the crate or bailing out. A scan of the horizon gave little comfort. There were no roads, no rivers, just trees. Staying with the plane probably meant suicide, but little alternative remained. Time had moved too fast, leaving the option for bailing out redundant. Clenching his teeth he gripped the controls, unaware that his tongue had been pinned between two nicotine-streaked molars. As the landing gear clipped the tip of the first great Asian Rosewoods, now parallel with the flight-path, he half wondered why he was not dwelling on his life, his young daughter overseas. Wasn’t that supposed to happen? He wanted so much to see the best clips of those closest to him play back in his mind’s eye. No tunnel of light beckoned him to walk into lasting peace, no close relative to lead him home. Nothing. Just a black vortex crashing towards him as his body fell numb. Death was rarely heroic.

  One

  “I got them to put extra whisky in.”

  Louise looked around to peer at the figure behind her. She was met with an unflinching gaze directed through two yellowing eyes. The gap between the two front teeth suggested that a high annoying whistle would accompany any dialogue, though in this she was wrong. The pale skin seemed largely unaffected by daytime temperatures pushing over forty Celsius. Sun-bathing was evidently not a strong hobby, nor walking out in daytime hours given the pasty exterior. His fledgling beard was made uneven through tufts of growth sprouting from several facial moles, as if fertilised. Under most circumstances, the ugly geek would have drawn either pity or derision from her, but here he flustered her. She was out of her own environment and had little idea how to handle certain situations. A guy easily swept under the carpet back home could present a real problem out on the road. Deep within she clenched, determined to keep a strong presence against her growing uncertainty. She disliked him all the more for making her do this. The guy might not be an immediate physical threat, though he had that unpredictable weirdness streak running through him.

  His scrawny arm held out the small aluminium bucket, a lone hair dancing on his wrist as he did so. Two straws protruded from the ice filled bucket’s top, tempting Louise to pick one and draw in the sweet intoxicating mix of coke and local whisky. She searched her memory for a name, and thought she remembered it as being John or Jonathan. She was sure it was a “J”. Now fully turned to face him, she had the time to take in all that she had remembered. This guy put her on edge, his burrowing eyes almost looking to lick her body. Earlier in the day there was that involuntary shudder. She had first spotted him earlier that afternoon on Lonely Beach, the last remaining traveller enclave on Koh Chang, itself the largest of the Thai Islands. The skeletal creep had been walking along the water line, taking time to letch over any female figure wearing less than a long sleeved top and knee-length shorts, which was pretty much most. It was just Louise’s luck that she should look up just when he had been passing her stretch of beach. Even when eye contact had been made, she still had not expected him to wander up and crack some one-liner about there being a crap surf, as if he had been drinking in a wooden fronted Bangkok club, not sauntering along the edge of paradise. Given the sheltered nature of the cove, there was never likely to be any surf, leaving her in the belief that the creep was either totally insane or wasted when surfing. Probably both. A polite smile and return to her paperback had not dissuaded him. Seating himself within the rim of her shrinking comfort zone, he had first introduced himself (she felt sure that it had been “John” now) and then gone on to talk at length about a conspiracy theory involving the Thai army building a road straight through neighbouring Cambodia’s porous border. Any interesting points were lost in a sea of irrelevant diversions and unnecessary foot movements. He had used breaks in his story to push his toes through the sand, each time ebbing closer to her outer thigh.

  Unnerved by his unwanted and persistent attention, Louise had taken her leave shortly afterwards, seeking solitude in her wooden stilted cabin, halfway up a steep vegetated hill leading out of the cove. Tired from the strong afternoon sun, she had allowed the rhythm of the fan to lull her into a short, deep sleep. A beach bar-b-q several hours later consisting of squid and skewered tiger prawn revitalised her enough to seek out company and more than a few “Chang” beers. A couple of Kiwi girls encouraged her to watch some late evening fire juggling at a makeshift beach bar. The Thai bar crew had skilfully hurled the lighted batons in the air to the accompaniment of old school dance music, lines of pink scar tissue testament to the hours of practice needed. She carefully allowed herself a few more beers, happy in the company of the Kiwis, even accepting a joint rolled with intoxicating Thai sticks. Wholly relaxed, she had found herself giggling to the most benign comments and jokes, content to draw back on the joint and allow life to temporarily wash over her. The tropical beach, fire show and peaceful atmosphere were savoured and committed to memory. She was old enough to appreciate the comparative rarity of such an evening. Even those lucky enough to be on the road still had timetables and structures to follow, sights to see with b
uses and accommodation to arrange, agendas to be set.

  As the show had climaxed towards its finale, word was passed on that there was to be a half-moon party at the Jaba, a complex tree house that served as a bar on the wooded incline the other side of the single-track road. Casually walking with a mixed group of travellers, she had been totally absorbed in her own thoughts and found that several minutes had elapsed since she last checked on the Kiwis. Although dark, the beach’s only illumination being the crescent moon, with a brief glance she quickly satisfied herself that they must be some way behind. They were certainly out of her limited range. Giving little time for decision, she elected to push on towards the Jaba, safe in the knowledge that there was a small gang of revellers just in front of her plus the odd straggler behind. Her reasoning was that if the Kiwis didn’t show she could always latch on to new groups and conversations. Though far from shy, her confidence was brimming, spurred on by recent independence learnt through travel. Louise then took a further swig from the bottle that she had all but forgotten and moved on, giving more care to her footing in the soft white sand as the sea breeze tried to sway her. Moving over the road, she soon found herself clambering up the few remaining steps to the Jaba without having fully realised it. Her eyes now slightly out-of-focus, she gently pressed her way towards the crude bar, still firmly gripping her earlier acquired bottle of Chang Beer, it’s bitter tang warming her belly. It wasn’t until she selected a suitable isolated stool and was edging her way over that she heard the voice behind her. The two straws were inches from her face, enticing her to have the bucket with added whisky.

  With her foggy recollections slowly labelling him weird and a possible threat, she tried to make sense of the yellow-eyed creep that she now remembered as John. The scrawny over eager figure before her hardly seemed to pose any immediate danger to her. Her reservations lay in becoming embroiled in a baloney conversation, something that the Kiwis would soon rescue her from. A vindictive part to her could see the three of them cut him down with jibes and belittling remarks, something he almost certainly deserved anyway. It wasn’t in her nature, but she had that streak in her this evening. This streak was less vicious than it was experimental. The confrontation could lead to any number of conclusions. In one sense it would feel good to see them all come up before them, an invisible barrier of tempting selections, then be able to watch which direction any exchange might take. She felt different, giddily reckless and somewhat argumentative. A further side to her personality jostled to be more risqué and adventurous. This enticing element now had the loudest, more persuasive voice within her head and won her inward battle of decisions.