Chapter 17: They both lied to

"Right now Tong is also looking for Van because he is getting rid of all his subordinates who create trouble. Doctor, try to use the information here to find him before it's too late."

Not long after Gunn met with Deputy Superintendent Bird and Sergeant Narong at the Palliative Care Unit office, Gunn left the hospital and traveled to the place he never thought of going. The doctor raised his head to look at the large two-story house located within a large area surrounded by a beautiful and delicate wrought iron fence. There were at least five men dressed in black who looked like security guards.

The doctor looked at the man in black who opened the door for him to enter, "I can come in now, right?"

"Tong is waiting for you inside," the man in black replied dryly and then closed the door tightly. Gunn nodded in gratitude and walked towards the front door that was already open as if to wait for him. Gunn walked in, trying not to show that he was scared. "Doctor"

Gunn saw a middle-aged man with gray hair, looking dignified with his legs crossed on a luxurious sofa. The doctor stood still to assess the situation for a while before approaching him.

"Tong"

The owner of the house opened the door wide open: "You are not the first public official to come to see me. Don't be too rigid. Make yourself comfortable as if this were your own home."

Gunn plopped down on the couch opposite, "I need your help regarding Tao... No, Van."

Tong raised his hand to stop Gunn from continuing to speak, "Doctor, you got to the point too quickly. Let's have tea first." After saying this, he turned to order the maid behind them. "Go get us tea."

Gunn looked at the maid curiously and Tong pursed his lips into a smile. "Do you like it? I can give it to you."

"No, thanks." The doctor turned to look at Tong.

"Doctor, you're not fun to talk to." Tong leaned his body closer to Gunn. "The thing is, doctor. I hate mistakes. If my subordinates made stupid mistakes like being fooled by a police sting operation, I would never keep them on board. My gunmen are very precise. If they aim for the head, they will shoot the head. If they aim for the tail, they will shoot the tail."

Gunn stood still with a simple expression. He returned to the topic he wanted. "I'm about to meet Van at a house tonight."

"You know, the fact that I allowed you to come talk to me inside my house is not because I'm interested in Van, but because I'm interested in you." Tong pointed at Gunn. "A doctor who asks to see me in front of my house, knows who Van is and tells me that you will help me find him, makes me curious. Like, hey! Who is this person? Very interesting. Please tell me more about yourself so I can can make a decision."

"If I tell you something illegal, the police won't come after me, right?" Guntapat asked to test the waters.

Tong laughed out loud. "I'm someone who does something illegal and the police decide not to pursue me."

Gunn was silent for a moment before deciding to say, "Van, whose previous name was Tao, used to work as an orderly at the same hospital as me. He was fired and then came to work for you." The maid returned with a teapot and cups of tea. The doctor waited for her to serve the tea and left the room before continuing, "I was part of the reason he was fired. He must have held a grudge and investigated me until he found a secret of mine. Then he went after me and killed me." to my patients."

Tong's eyes widened, "Now you've given me hope. What was your secret?"

Gunntapat looked Tong in the eyes and said, "I... perform euthanasia on terminally ill patients."

"Damn!" Tong slapped his knees hard, looking extremely pleased. "Damn! I knew you're not normal. Do you know that someone like you has this aura? Only people of the same type will be able to detect it. I like you a lot." The middle-aged man stood up. "I will have my men go with you. Send me the details of the time and place."

"And you...will you kill him?" -Kan asked. "I don't want him dead, I just want him to stop killing my patients and be under his control. Not to leak my secrets to the police."

"Doctor, you don't have to bear the burden of this decision. To kill or not to kill will be my decision. Just bring him out of hiding. This asshole has caused enough damage. I can't control shit." Tong walked towards Gunn and patted him on the shoulder. "Your secret will remain a secret here. I'm glad we met. I hope to use your service sometimes."

Tong left the room while laughing contentedly. After leaving, Guntapat took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He didn't know what the outcome of this decision of his would be. It may not have been a good choice, but Gunn couldn't stop Tao on his own. He couldn't ask the police for help. The secret that Gunn told Tao was the price he had to pay. The last sentence Tong said was like an employment contract that Gunn might have to fulfill according to Tong's wishes in the future. Okay, it would be enough as long as Guntapat could get out of this mess.

Wasan lied.

When he told Gunn that he had consecutive shifts from morning to late at night, he was not telling the truth. Although he dressed in full police uniform when he left home, what he did was park his car by the road and looked at the app that tracked Gunn's phone. Everything seemed normal. Gunn left the house and went to the hospital. His location remained in the hospital for a long time.

Nothing seemed unusual. Gunn went to work normally. But something told Wasan that he should follow him, in case Gunn did something out of the ordinary. As soon as Wasan thought that, he turned off the location tracking app on his phone and took out a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants to wear instead of the police uniform before driving to the hospital.

The plainclothes policeman wore a cap to cover his short hair and entered the hospital building he was used to, especially on the way to the usual Gunn examination room and the Palliative Care Unit office. Wasan walked towards the OPD and found that there were name tags of doctors in each examination room. One of them belonged to Dr. Gunn Akaramethi. Wasan adjusted his cap to cover his face and snuck in to be among the many patients waiting to be examined. When he took a look inside Gunn's examination room, he only saw an empty room.

"Dr. Gunn suddenly asked for sick leave," the nurse in front of the room told Wasan. "But there will be another doctor who will do the examination for you. Please wait a while."

The policeman was very surprised. He came out to be alone and took out his phone to look at Gunn's location again. He found that he was still in the hospital as before. Wasan felt lost for a while before deciding to walk to the place in the hospital he knew well, which was the Palliative Care Unit office. When Wasan reached the front of the office door, he saw a middle-aged man and a middle-aged woman opening the door and left the room with worried expressions. Wasan hurriedly hid behind a pillar and listened.

"Dr. Gunn left the phone in the room while he was God knows where," the man said. "Director, I think it's best to wait in the office. I will coordinate with others to help search for Dr. Gunn."

"I'll have to bother him about that," said the woman the man referred to as a principal. "I just want to hear from Gunn what this is all about. Right now, the news has announced the plan to arrest Nurse Ornanong for hiring assassins. Our hospital's reputation has been severely damaged."

"Why do bad things happen so often in our hospital?" The middle-aged man sighed deeply. "I think we should hold a press conference to tell the public that this was what one individual did, not because of the deficiencies of the hospital system."

"Of course, we have to hold a press conference to communicate this, but we also have to look at the real cause of the problem of why crimes are committed so frequently in our hospital." They both walked past the pillar where Wasan was hiding: "Dr. Somsak, the former director, left a lot of problems behind. I don't know if I can solve them myself. I'll have to ask everyone's opinion."

"In that case, I will call an executive meeting this afternoon."

The sound of conversation grew quieter and when they were out of sight, Wasan emerged from his hiding place and quietly entered the Palliative Care Unit office. He could see that there was a phone charging on top of Gunn's desk. When he picked it up to look at it, he found that it was definitely Gunn's phone.

"Where the hell did he go?" Wasan was a little upset because if Gunn intentionally left the phone here, it meant that he intended to trick Wasan, which was such a clever and cunning plan that Wasan started to feel afraid.

He had to go take a look at the parking lot to see if Gunn's car was still there.

Wasan knew that Gunn had its usual parking space at the back of the Department of Social Medicine office building. The police officer put Gunn's phone back in its place before quickly leaving the room. When Wasan walked towards the corridor that connected the buildings, he saw the tall figure of the man in a dark blue shirt walking hurriedly from afar.

"Gunn", Wasan hid behind a wall. When he was sure that Gunn had not seen him, Wasan followed him carefully. Gunn hurried towards the parking lot and opened the car door. This confirmed that Gunn intentionally abandoned the phone and the hospital. However, this was not the time to get angry. Before Gunn left, the policeman looked for ways to follow Gunn in time. Wasan ran towards one of the male hospital staff who was boarding his own motorcycle.

"Brother, excuse me. I'm a police officer." Wasan took out his police ID: “Police Major Wasan Khamboonreung, Investigation Inspector.”

"Yes sir?" The staff seemed extremely confused.

"Can I borrow your motorcycle to follow a suspect? He's about to leave. If I go back to look for my own car, I won't be able to catch up."

"Um..."

"What is your name?"

"My nickname is Boy."

"You work in this building, right?"

"Y...yes."

Gunn's car was about to leave the parking lot towards the exit. Wasan stuffed his ID into the other person's palm and hurriedly said, "Please keep my ID. When I finish using the motorcycle, I will park it here. If the motorcycle is lost or broken, you can take this ID and look for me on the police station. All the police officers there know me."

The police officer took advantage of the moment when the staff was still in extreme confusion to grab the key and straddled the motorcycle. He put the key in, started the motorcycle and left. He left the poor owner of the motorcycle with his mouth open where he was.

“This place is…” Wasan raised his head to look at the huge mansion in a large area in the middle of the city, feeling surprised. While riding the motorcycle he tried to guess where the doctor was going. He could do some transactions at a bank or home visits, but this place was not in Wasan's thoughts at all. Wasan knew this place since he was a child. This was the Ord mansion, which belonged to a millionaire mafia family in the area for a long time before disintegrating last year due to the Professor Jenjira murder case. Wasan heard people say that the current owner of the house was another millionaire named Tong. He rose to power in Ord's place. This person owned many pubs and restaurants. Wasan knew very well that his income did not come solely from legal businesses.

Wasan hid behind a large tree on the opposite side of the road and secretly watched the large door opening that allowed Gunn to enter easily, as if they were already waiting for him to arrive. Wasan did not understand this. He wanted to grab Gunn by the collar and force him to answer all the questions, but he couldn't. The young inspector tried to control his anger. What he had to do now was to keep a close eye on Gunn and not lose sight of him.

Time passed for about 30 minutes when Gunn finally came out again. His facial expression seemed worried. He opened the door of his own car that was parked in front of the door and entered. Wasan quickly returned to the motorcycle and mounted it to immediately follow Gunn, who started driving.

The next place Gunn went was his house. Although his vehicle changed, Wasan was still able to pass through the gates in front of the village because he knew the security guard well. Wasan pretended to park in front of other houses and turned his back to Gunn's house. After a long time, there was still no sign of Gunn leaving the house again. If he continued to watch from here any longer, it would seem too unusual and the owner of the house where he had parked his car in front might call the police. Wasan decided to return to the security guard's kiosk.

"Inspector, will you return to work?" The chubby security guard asked with a smiling face.

"Can I stay at the security guard's kiosk?" Wasan's request made the other party very confused. "The thing is, I'm following a suspect into this town. I want to know when he leaves the house."

"Er...r... But it's hot here."

"It's okay. I've been trained. I can handle the heat." Wasan entered the small space of the security guard's kiosk and pulled out a chair to sit on. "Think of it as helping with police work."

"Y...yes, of course." The poor security guard scratched his head. "Inspector, would you like a cold drink?"

"Yes, please. Thank you." Wasan adjusted his cap to cover his face, crossed his arms, and stood still. The security guard stood there awkwardly staring at Wasan for a while before walking around the back of the kiosk to get him some water in the cooler.

A long time had passed and Wasan did not see Gunn leave the village again. Even after the security guards changed shifts, Gunn had no signs of leaving the house to go anywhere again. Wasan wasn't sure if maybe Gunn knew he was being followed or not and decided to park his car at home while he had already left to do other things.

"Officer, officer," the call from the night shift security guard woke Wasan up. "It's 1am now, if there's anything I can help you with, please let me know."

The young inspector has just realized that he had fallen asleep. Wasan stood up and stretched his sore body before returning to look in front of Gunn's house again. He discovered that the doctor's car was still parked in the same place. At that point, Wasan gave up and thought that continuing to watch would be a waste of time and he would try to catch Gunn's lie the next day.

Suddenly he heard the sound of the front door. Wasan widened his eyes in surprise and quickly hid behind a bush. He heard the sound of the car engine starting, followed by the bright headlights of the car.

Will you leave the house at this time?

Wasan waited until Gunn passed the house before running towards the motorcycle. He hurriedly started the motorcycle and followed Gunn without turning on any lights so that the other side would not realize that he was being followed.