Colin Cotterill - Grandad, Thereэ's head on the beach

A long silence followed.

"So?" he said.

"That's all I get? A 'so'?"

"Look. Even if you know. Even if you have proof. Even if you're out there on the big boats taking photographs. What do you think you could achieve? What Thai prosecutor really wants to go to the trouble of prosecuting Thais for crimes against the Maung? We're dispensable."

"Well, that's one thing we can achieve. Make you less dispensable. Put names and faces and family backgrounds to the slaves. Talk to loved ones. Show that-"

"Nobody would give you a name."

"OK. So I'd make it up. Photoshop a loved one. Hell, who's going to rush down here to prove me a liar? Aung, this is Thailand. We manipulate public opinion all the time. The masses feel what Channel Nine tells them to feel. If I couldn't splash up a wave of sympathy for the poor country boys chained to the oars of a galley, I wouldn't be much of a journalist, would I now?"

"Who do you work for?"

Damn, the man just refused to get caught up in the splendor of the rhetoric. And he'd hit another nerve.

"I'm freelance. That means I can work for anybody."

"Or nobody."

I was starting to see why we hated the Burmese.

"All right. Here's the deal. My family and I are going to fight this. We had a grenade thrown at us because we refused to give in to bullies. If you aren't into human rights, fair enough. Somehow we'll get evidence and somehow I'll write about all this and somehow it'll make the eyes of the world. And I do this with you or I do it without."

Clint would have put some background music in there.

Violins rising to a cello and kettledrum crescendo is my guess. All I had for emphasis was the belch of a tugboat horn. I hoped it would be enough for Aung to sense my sincerity.

"Good luck."

"That's it?"

"You'll need it. You don't know what you're up against."

"So I can't count on any help from you?"

"I didn't say that. I'll give you information when I can. As long as it's off the record."

"That's big of you. All right. Information. Give me some now. Explain how your people are lifted from the street in broad daylight without anyone seeing."

"Are you serious?"

"Sometimes."

"Then why do you think nobody sees?"

"Thais down here may be stubborn, proud to a fault, but they have a sense of justice. If they saw someone being bundled into a truck, they'd do something about it."

"Not if that truck was brown and cream with a flashing police light on top."

"What's that in your pocket?"

"Dog."

"You don't say. How does it breathe in there?"

"I lift the flap from time to time."

"If it's a shih-tzu, I'll take it off you."

"You like shih-tzus?"

"Who doesn't? Those broken little Chinese noses. Those pus-filled squinty eyes. And they do so attract the boys. 'Ooh, what a lovely little doggie.' "

I was having lunch with Chompu at Pak Nam's famous chicken and rice restaurant, called The Chicken and Rice Restaurant. The chicken and rice were average, but the sauce-passed down through Yunnan dynasties-was what brought in the customers. They traveled from as far away as Lang Suan to eat there. The place was never empty.

"Even so, it appears to be quite agitated," Chompu observed.

"Look, will you stop whining about the dog? It's a survivor. I'm asking about the Pak Nam constabulary picking up Burmese off the street."

"Happens all the time."

"Ha. You admit it."

"Hard to deny. Random ID checks. Work cards. It's policy."

"To harass?"

"You know? With the right interior decorator, they could really make something of this place. I'd go Japanese. Bamboo on the wall. Short-legged tables with-"

"Chom!"

"Perhaps we harass a tad. But nicely."

"Why?"

"Well, those without work permits hand over a fine."

"Which is signed for, paid into the police fund, and sent to the police ministry in Bangkok, naturally."

"Which goes directly into the wallet of the harassing officer to be spent on base desires such as karaoke."

"And you think that's OK?"

"We aren't paid very much, you know? And it's better for them than going to jail. Paying the fine is the penalty they opt for when they decide not to go through legal channels. They know the risk."

"I have witness statements that Burmese were stopped on the street and bundled into police vehicles, never to be seen again."

"Uh-oh. Hold the Pulitzer. That isn't exactly a secret either. It happens every day, darling. After our random stops, if the migrants don't have work permits and don't want to contribute to our pleasure fund, they're invited into the truck and whisked off to immigration in Ranong. We have to keep up our quota. We'd look suspicious if we didn't have any illegals at all, wouldn't we now?"

"How many?"

"Six to a dozen a week."

"So what would you say if I could prove these vanishing Burmese had work permits and sponsors?"

"I'd say, 'Bring me the witnesses.' And you'd say, 'Ooh, they aren't comfortable speaking to the police.' And I'd say, 'Mm, I'm not surprised, considering they're all figments of your imagination.' "

"Don't you be so sure."

"Oh I'm sure. If they were Thais, they'd have no idea whether the Burmese we picked up were illegal or not. So that leaves only the Burmese themselves. And the only way one of them would step up and accuse the Royal Thai Police of kidnapping a fellow countryman is if he was certifiably insane. In which case his statement would be inadmissible. Ta-daa! I rest my case."

"All right, so-and this is hypothetical-if I could prove a legal Burmese was kidnapped by the police and sent to the deep-sea vessels, would you file the report?"

"Let me see now. You're asking whether a smart, virile young police officer, a-k-a me, who carries a burden of sexuality that makes his tenure in the police force tenuous if not feeble, would pursue a criminal case against his friends and colleagues in order to bring justice to the citizens of a country none of us particularly likes?"

"Yes."

"Having thus outlined the negative aspects of such foolishness, all that remains is to inquire as to what, if any, the positives might be."

I told him about the pride that could be felt by adhering to moral and professional standards, and when that didn't work, I told him he'd get Egg out of his office and his ferns back.

"With no career, I wouldn't have much need for an office, would I now?" he reminded me. "And do you have this hypothetical witness?"

"Not yet."

"Then I don't have to hypothetically commit my career to the garbage pail, do I now? Get back to me when reality steps boldly from the shadows."

"You don't think I can do this, do you?"

"I don't think you should."

"Why not?"

"Just a hunch. But if we're talking about slavery and murder and decapitation, I doubt this is a sideline of the local embroidery society. Your foes have already tossed a grenade into your midst."

"Do you want to make my life safer?"

"How could I do that?"

"I'm planning to break into Lieutenant Egg's files. I'd bet he has a metal filing cabinet right there beside his desk."

"With a lock."

"OK. So I sneak in there and find all his files relevant to missing Burmese. And I steal them."

"And what would I have to do to make your life safer?"

"Break into it yourself."

He squealed a little and the customers looked around. "There is no way," he said. "He's a beast. He'd beat me to death."

"Chom. You're supposed to be in that office. He'd never know. Any policeman worth his stuff could open one of those files with a bobby pin."

"Heavens. I haven't worn a bobby pin since the good old days."

"I'll lend you one of Mair's. You can find a time when he's out of the office. Take the files down to the copy room. And replace the originals before he gets back. Nobody would need to know you were involved."