The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,38

he could.”

“The numbered company’s account was emptied?”

“According to Rocca the money had been transferred offshore. I asked him where and he wouldn’t tell me. He said the bank was going to take matters into its own hands and that I wasn’t to worry myself.”

“Easy to say.”

“He said they’d find Purslow, find the money, and return it to me. In the meantime they wanted me to stay quiet. I said that was kind of hard to do when my clients were getting more and more demanding. At that point Muljadi stepped in and said the bank was prepared to advance me the month’s payments that were due. That would buy us all enough time to get things sorted out, he said.”

“How much was that?”

“Just over three hundred thousand dollars.”

“Of course. So you took the money and kept your mouth shut.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Ava said, and then regretted it as his face fell.

“What else could I have done?” he said, talking to himself as much as to her.

“Not much, I suppose,” she said. “Now, when was the next time you heard from the bank?”

“Never.”

He said it so simply that she thought she had misheard. “What?”

“Never. I never heard from Rocca, Muljadi, or the bank, at least not directly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I saw them on a Monday afternoon, the day Purslow was supposed to be back from his holiday. They put the money they had promised into my account the same day and I paid it out to my clients. Then I sat and waited for them to contact me. A week went by without any word. Halfway into the next week, I was starting to get really, really paranoid again when a brown envelope was slid under my apartment door. I opened it, and whatever bad feelings I had about the way things were going were multiplied by ten — no, make that a hundred. It was a newspaper clipping from a Costa Rican newspaper called the Tico Times. The bodies of two headless men had been washed up on shore near a resort, and police were working to identify them. Attached to the clipping were two photos. They were of the heads of Purslow and Lowell, each set up on a wooden chair, with a note that read, This is what happens to faggots who steal,” he said, fighting for breath.

Ava had stopped writing when Lam mentioned the envelope. He had been looking sideways at one of the bookcases while he talked, so she found it difficult to read his face. “Mr. Lam, look at me, please,” she said.

He turned towards her, and she knew immediately he was telling her the truth. “I was terrified,” he sobbed.

And you still are, Ava thought. Suddenly nervous, she swivelled her head towards the door to see if someone was there. “You should have been,” she said, feeling a deep disquiet.

He began speaking quickly, as if in a rush to get it all out of his system. “I had no idea what to do. I paced for hours. Then I drank some whisky and finally worked up enough nerve to leave my apartment and go to the bank. Of course, when I got there, it was closed — completely shuttered, everyone gone.

“I ran down the stairs to the lobby. I wasn’t thinking that clearly, but I thought that if I went to see my lawyer he could at least tell me which police force or government officials or whoever I should go to . . . I didn’t get out of the building. They were waiting for me in the lobby — two of them — they looked like bikers. They were huge. Each of them took me by an arm and almost carried me out the door. They told me to keep quiet if I didn’t want to get hurt. Then they bundled me into the back of a big SUV with tinted windows. They sat on either side of me and asked if I’d had a chance to look at the envelope. I couldn’t talk, so I just nodded. They said it was time for me to forget that I had seen the photos, and time to forget about the bank and my money. If I opened my mouth to anyone or showed the photos to anyone, they’d come after me and do the exact same thing they’d done to Purslow. The next day I was on a plane to Ho Chi Minh City.”

Ava sat quietly, trying to absorb everything he had told