A man living in the Cambodian city of Battambang believes that his friend - then living in the Thai capital city of Bangkok - was murdered and his death then made to look like a suicide.
Nuneaton-born Brian Waine, 57, was the long-time friend of fellow Englishman Moys Kenwood, the two having first met when the latter applied for work as a teacher at Siam Computer & Language in Bangkok in 1999.
After Kenwood was successful and taught at Siam for several years, the pair would meet up in various branches of McDonalds, and chew the fat whilst chewing their burgers.
Waine left Siam, and made a career for himself in IT, but the pair kept in touch until he met a slapper from Buriram in north-east Thailand who bore him a son called First. He was happy for a short while, but his 'wife' made his money disappear like a leaking pipe. Cracks appeared.
In the picture - and in the way - was his father-in-law, a man who disliked foreigners, and put up with Brian simply because he paid the family's way, and most of the bills. Brian was an easy-going type, and kept out of this runt's way, leaving him to his drunken and debauched lifestyle which he enjoyed at Brian's expense.
Once, this grunting specimen needed Brian's help, but didn't get it. Traveling back from some 3-day drunken binge with friends, his Brian's father-in-law alighted from a train at a station that was still 20 miles from his home. He rang Brian, and told him where he was, and to get there as quick as he could. Brian replied that he was unable to help, because he was in Bangkok. This wasn't what the blathered fuckwit wanted to hear. He cursed Brian down the phone, and told him he would have him killed one of these days. Brian shrugged and ignored this idiotic threat. The incident passed, and time moved on.
Eventually, the cracks that had appeared in his relationship grew wider. The couple decided to live separately for a while, with Brian covering all expenses. All of the above was revealed to Kenwood in telephone calls after the latter had relocated to Cambodia in August 2016.
Meanwhile, Kenwood had met someone as well. In between having two children, he and his new partner left Bangkok for Battambang, from where she hailed. Kenwood and Waine kept in regular touch by phone.
On Friday 3 November 2017, the two men spoke on the telephone, and Kenwood told Waine about a new job he was due to start on Monday 6 November. They also spoke about Waine's work which took him to both Hong Kong and Indonesia, some stuff from the Siam days, and about that bloke who had designed a rocket to 'prove the Earth was flat'. They spoke for about thirty minutes, and when they ended their call, Waine told Kenwood he would ring him the next Friday to find out how his job was going.
Kenwood went off to his job on the Monday, and remembered on the Friday - the 10th - that Brian had said he would ring him. During a long break, he decided he didn't want to wait, and that he, himself, would ring Brian, at around 1pm. At first, there was no answer, so he waited five minutes then tried again. This time, a crying woman answered, and blubbered various unintelligible things in Thai into the phone. Kenwood asked if his friend was there, to which the woman replied that he was not. Confused, the Englishman asked again:
"Where's Brian?"
to which, came the reply:
"Dead."
Thinking that he may have misunderstood, and that his Thai might be 'rusty', he asked if there was anyone there who spoke English. A man came to phone, and in 'very good' English, confirmed that Brian was, indeed, dead, and had been "for two or three days". Kenwood asked what had happened, and the man told him that the police had said that Brian had "killed himself".
As soon as the police were mentioned, a dirty, horrible thought started to fester in Kenwood's mind: murder. Not, of course, by the police, but common knowledge in expat communities in Thailand, is that expats who die in suspicious circumstances invariably have the suspicion removed by the police, so that the case becomes 'easier to solve', and, therefore, becomes a suicide. It's just so much cleaner on the paperwork.
- FOREIGNER DEAD
- LIVED ALONE
- NO WITNESSES
- SUICIDE
- CASE CLOSED
Simple. Another one for the 'Solved' file.
Of course, Kenwood knew very well about people who were planning to kill themselves, but had very good ways of hiding it, but there had been such in-depth conversations with his friend only the previous week, that he could not believe, even after several days of careful consideration, that Brian had died by his own hand. He sent an email about his suspicions to the British Embassy in Bangkok, but received only an automated reply about services available and opening times. Great!
And that was that. A British citizen dies, and is forgotten. His belongings, his cash, his condominium worth 1.6million baht go straight into the hands of his 'wife', from whom he was separated, who he never wanted to see again, and her swaggering father, who might well know more about Brian's death than he will ever have to answer for.
Sleep tight, Brian.
