Colin Cotterill - The Merry Misogynist

"Can I help you, Comrades?" he asked. Phosy and the policemen showed him their identification papers.

"We are here on a very serious police investigation," Phosy told him. "We need to contact the team collating the census data immediately."

"You mean immediately now?" the cadre asked.

"Unless you know of any other type of immediately."

"Well, that might be a problem."

"Why?" asked Phosy.

"The census people did pass by earlier, and they presented their credentials. But after they left here they were due to split up. They said they've got data to collect from twenty districts in two days. The only way they can do that is to set up three bases to make it more convenient for the collectors to get to."

"Presumably they told you where they'd be based?"

"My deputy, Comrade Sounthon, organized it for them. But he's off on a night hunt with the locals. You know? Headlamps, shooting lorises and other nocturnal game."

"Animals too drowsy to run away," Daeng remarked.

"Does anyone else have any idea where we can find the census collators?" Phosy asked.

"One or two people, Comrade Inspector, but they're all out on the hunt."

"Damn."

"Have you had an old fellow on a motorcycle here this evening asking the same question?" Daeng asked.

"Not that I've heard, Auntie, and I hear most things."

Daeng involuntarily squeezed Phosy's arm.

"What time are you expecting your deputy back?" the policeman asked.

"Sun-up usually."

Phosy looked at his weary passengers.

"All right. Then we could use a few hours' sleep. Can I trouble you for accommodation?"

"Guesthouse is just around the corner, Comrade. Turn left at the tyre repairers."

What the cadre had described to be the cheapest rooms in the province had every right to be. The kapok mattresses smelled of sweat and worse, and the stuffing had coagulated into lumps. The patter of tiny feet on the tin roof hinted at an all-night squirrel hoedown. Phosy had long since given up the thought of sleep. He sat on the veranda steps drinking weak tea from the communal thermos and waited for the sun. He hadn't said anything to Daeng but he was worried about Siri. Out here they weren't far from the Thai border. Rebels occupied the hills and insurgents crossed the river to create havoc. Bandit gangs and renegade gunmen often hijacked lone vehicles. A Triumph motorcycle in good condition would be quite a catch. He hadn't thought to ask at the police boxes they'd passed whether they'd sighted the doctor, and now, deprived of sleep and mad at everyone, he imagined all the fates that might have befallen his friend.

"Can't sleep, Inspector?" Phosy turned his stiff neck to see Daeng behind him in the candlelight. She came to sit beside him on the step, and he poured her tea.

"The kids up too?" she asked.

"No, they're made of putty. They could sleep on a pile of jackfruit."

"Jackfruit sounds quite comfortable compared to the beds in there."

The indigo sky had begun to pass through less depressing hues on its journey to blue, and the sounds of happy voices hummed in the distance.

"I wonder if that's our hunting party returning," Phosy said.

"I do hope so. I would like to get away early."

Phosy smiled. "Oh, no, Madame Daeng. You blackmailed your way onto the jeep yesterday. You aren't going to get away with that again."

"Inspector, you wouldn't leave a girl alone in the wilds?"

"There's a good restaurant on the main street. You can swap noodle stories with the owner. This is a police inquiry, not a tour. You'll stay in town and we'll pick you up on our way back."

"You're sure you can't use an extra gun?" She patted her fat handbag.

"If I thought for a second you'd brought a weapon with you, I'd have you in handcuffs right now."

"Why didn't I get offers like that before I got married?"

"Madame Daeng!"

"All right. I'm joking. I'll swap recipes and crochet while you're away doing manly things."

"Good."

The voices had become louder now, and a small posse of happy hunters loomed through the morning mist along the unlit street. At first it appeared they were dressed in large animal suits, but it was merely that they were festooned with carcasses. If there was a more frightening gallery of rare, beautiful, and bleeding creatures, Daeng hadn't seen it.

"Have a successful night, boys?" she called.

"Fantastic, auntie," said one.

"Half of them just fell out of the trees from the shock of hearing gunshots," said another. They all laughed.

"Bravo," she clapped.

"Which one of you is Sounthon?" Phosy asked.

A short, plump man wearing a lei of big-eyed lorises stepped forward. "I am."

"Well, I'm Inspector Phosy from National Police Headquarters, and I need the locations of the three census takers."

"Comrade," the man laughed, "I've just come back from — "

"Look! I don't care whether you're just back from the northern front full of bullet holes. I want the locations and I want them ten minutes ago."

Sounthon had arranged accommodation for the visitors in three villages that were central to the collection zones. They were thirty kilometres apart and formed a perfect triangle on the map. But the deputy had no information as to which collector was staying at which location. They'd have to go and see for themselves. Phosy and the two young officers were nine kilometres from the first site, a village called Ban Noo. It was only the absence of vegetation and a thin layer of sand that distinguished the road from the surrounding landscape. The journey had been more rock than roll.

"What do we do if he's there?" asked one of the fearful officers.

"We talk to him," Phosy said, concentrating on keeping the jeep on the track. "We ask a few pertinent questions. We check out his attitude. We say we're just making a few inquiries and we'd like his cooperation. We start with things like work, his routines, marital status, family — the usual. Then we hit him with something direct like, "Have you ever met a woman called Ngam in Ban Xon?" We look into his eyes and see if there's a reaction. And we take it from there."

"Then we shoot him," came a voice. Madame Daeng's smiling face loomed in the rear-view mirror as she rose from behind the back seat. Phosy slammed on the brakes and ran into a tall clump of swollen-finger grass. All three men turned to see her, large as life, clutching the roof.

"Madame Daeng? What the…?" Phosy yelled.

"I told you I could scrunch up to almost nothing," she smiled.

"But where were you?"

"Under the tarpaulin behind the back seat."

"There's barely ten centimetres down there."

"I'm pliable."

Phosy was furious. "Get out!" he said.

She laughed. "What, here?"

"I told you to stay at Natan."

"You want me to walk all the way back there on my arthritic legs?"

Phosy hammered his fists against the steering wheel.

"Madame Daeng, if you were a man I'd punch you on the nose, I swear I would."

"If you did, even if I weren't a man, I'd punch you back."

The young officers laughed.

"You two can wipe those smiles off, right now."

"Listen, son," she said, "believe me, I can help. If I thought I'd hamper your investigation I wouldn't have come. Really I wouldn't."

"I know your history. But that was…"

"Then you know I can only be an asset. Siri's up here somewhere and, brave as he is, I want to be around to…to support him. That's what couples do. And, Phosy, a steering wheel can only take so much abuse."

Phosy gave one last punch then put his hands on his head. He knew when he was beaten.

"Let this be a lesson to you boys," he said to the policemen. He left it there, and they didn't ever learn what the lesson was. Phosy reversed out of the grass and drove in silence to Ban Noo.