Chapter 4- Eulalia Cross Begins the Story
We weren’t even planning to go to Trabbia. My friend Dorothy Brown and I had traveled from the UK to Thailand, where we had spent some time in Bangkok. After that, we were relaxing on the beach, soaking up the sun during the day and partying at night. There, we met that American girl, Barbara Moore. The three of us started hanging out together, having a lot of fun flirting with the guys, both foreign and local.
Barb had read about the ruins at Mongha, just across the border in Trabbia and wanted to go. “Why not?” I thought. There was a direct bus and we were there in a few hours. We poked around the ruins, which were pretty interesting and pitched our tents in the campground nearby. That evening, we were having dinner in one of the local cafes, when three guys in police uniforms sat down at the next table. They weren’t bad looking. One spoke great English and the other 2 spoke a bit and seemed to understand us very well.
Did we flirt? Yes. Did we lead them on just a bit? Perhaps. But it was all harmless fun. We told them how much we enjoyed the ruins.
“They are much more beautiful at night,” the cop who spoke English well said. “Especially when there is a full moon, like there is tonight.”
“Aren’t they closed at 6?” Barb asked.
“Not if you are police. Would you like to see them as our guests?”
I looked at Dorothy and Barb. “That might be fun,” I responded.
“Well, then, when we have all finished our dinners, we will go,” the cop said.
Once we had all eaten, the cops led us to a gate in the fence surrounding the ruins. They opened the gate. “You wait outside here and we will check that everything is OK. When you see us flash our light 3 times, then come in,” the English speaker said as they went through the gate. A few minutes later, we saw the 3 flashes and went in.
The ruins really were gorgeous by moonlight, mysterious and quiet without the hordes of tourists that were there during the daytime. As I stood admitting one of the temples, I felt someone standing next to me. It was one of the cops. He reached his arm out and put it around my bare shoulders. Gently, but firmly, I removed it. He put it back. I removed it again.
“We have been friendly to you. Now you should be friendly to us,” he said.
Well, I wasn’t the sort of girl to sleep with a man just because he bought me dinner or let me into some ruins after hours. “I’m sorry if you got the wrong impression,” I said, “But all I’m interested in doing is seeing the ruins at night. And now I’ve seen them, so I will be going.”
“I’m sorry but that won’t be possible,” said the cop with the good English, who was holding Dorothy by the arm. “You are trespassing on a Trabbian national treasure and we will have to arrest all of you. Unless you wish to properly thank us for our hospitality, that is.”
“Fuck off!” Dorothy spat at him. I might not have put it quite that way, but I shared the sentiment.
“This is ridiculous,” Barb said, “You invited us here. Now let me go!”
“I’m sorry, but you ladies are under arrest. You will come to the station with us.”
They put handcuffs on us and walked us back through the gate to their van and drove us to the station. There, they uncuffed us and put us in a room with a table and some chairs and left us there. A couple of minutes later a detective who spoke excellent English came in. “We want a fuckin’ lawyer and we aren’t sayin’ anything until we get one,” Dorothy yelled in her wonderful Yorkshire accent.
“No need to be rude,” the detective said calmly. “You have a perfect right to a lawyer. I will arrange for one.”
And, surprisingly, about an hour later, a lawyer did arrive. Her name was Sata, a slim woman with long hair, dressed in a sundress and sandals and she seemed to know her stuff. We told her our story and she took some notes on a legal pad.
“This is a pretty basic case,” she told us in excellent English. “They have you dead on the trespassing. I can get you off with 8 strokes of the cane and after you recover you will be kicked out of the country. Should I draw up the papers?”
“Wait a minute,” I asked. “Cane? Like schoolboys back in England?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Sata replied. “These are much, much worse. Like a whip and excruciatingly painful. But my clients have all recovered and gotten on with their lives.”
“You’ve had other clients who’ve been caned?” I asked.
“Oh, many, it’s what they do here with minor violations. It’s quite standard.”
“Well, it isn’t standard for me,” Barb replied. “Those cops invited us to see the ruins by moonlight, and then wanted sex. When we said no, they arrested us.
“Yeah, it’s bullshit,” Dorothy added.
“Well, the police have a different story” Sata responded. “They say you went in on your own through a gate that some employee had forgotten to lock. They claim when they found you, you offered them sex to let you go, which they refused. So, if you don’t accept the plea, they will charge you with attempting to bribe officers. That is a very serious crime here and could easily get you a few years in a prison camp, which you would find most unpleasant.”
“Bribing officers?” I asked, outraged. “That’s ridiculous. They demanded sex and we refused.”
“Well,” Sata replied. “That may be so, but my advice, based on years of experience with such matters is to accept the plea.”
“I not pleading to something I didn’t do,” Barb said.
“Me neither,” I said. Dorothy agreed.
“I have given you my advice in the strongest terms, but it is your decision in the end,” Sata said. “Since this is ‘he said, she said’, they will try to get you to confess. I have heard some not so nice stories, but again, it’s up to you. I should tell you that Trabbian law allows them to hold you and interrogate you for 48 hours. If you can hold out that long without confessing, then they will have to let you go. As soon as that time has passed, I will go see a judge and demand your release, but until then I cannot help you. I hope you can remain strong. Good luck.” With that, Sata left.
Not long thereafter, several cops threw the cell door open, grabbed each of us by our arms and marched us to a room where the detective who spoke English sat behind a large desk.
“Sit down,” he ordered, indicating 3 chairs ranged in front of the desk. We sat. Two officers stood behind each chair. “I understand you have accused some of our officers of demanding bribes in the form of sex. Is that so?”
“You’re damned right, that’s so,” I said. Dorothy and Barb nodded.
“They say you offered sex if they would let you go. They say they refused and arrested you. Are you saying they are lying?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I don’t believe you,” he replied. “These are very honest officers. Bribery is a very serious offense. I need the truth.”
“That is the truth,” I said.
He pulled three pieces of paper out of a file. “These are your confessions, stating that you attempted to bribe the officers and they refused. You will sign them.”
“No fuckin’ way,” Dorothy retorted. One of the officers behind her stepped in front of her and slapped her hard in the face. She looked like she was in shock from the pain and the unexpected violence.
“You will sign. Now. Or you will go downstairs. We can do it the easy way or the hard way, but eventually you will sign.” None of us picked up the pen. The detective looked at his watch, then said something in Trabbian. An officer grabbed each of my arms and hauled me roughly to my feet. They marched me along a corridor and down a flight of stairs to a large dingy basement storage room. My two friends were right behind me, each with a cop holding each arm.
