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

The same factory I'd visited earlier.

"Wouldn't that be a bit noisy?"

"It's a start. And to start badly is better than never to start at all."

That was, of course, so not true.

I doubted whether my TV would have been much more entertaining had there been power. I lay on my bed staring at it anyway. The screen reflected the tiny glow of the mosquito coil burning on the floor beside me. Beyond the window was a sort of final blackness. It suited my purpose: a clean slate.

Here we go.

The Noys. An upper-middle-class family. Father a successful businessman. Mother, the head of a large suburban middle school. Daughter, as bright as the Big Dipper. She gets a scholarship to study in the U.S. She struggles right up until the final year, when suddenly she outscores everyone on her finals. Far from being elated, she runs away without collecting her degree and reappears in Thailand, where her entire family is forced to flee, pursued by some mysterious "they." If I didn't have such a problem with cliches, I might, at this point, have told myself I was missing something. So I didn't. Even though I obviously was. I wondered whether the father's gambling debts had something to do with it. But how would that follow Noy to the States? I wondered whether Noy really was hooking to pay her way through school. What if, suddenly, she got serious about her studies and-I don't know-missed a date with some Saudi oil sheik? But how many D.C. pimps had a network that would hound the Noys all the way back to Thailand? And what about the mysterious sex-change boyfriend? How did the clerical department of one of the country's top universities stuff that one up so badly? That, I decided, was the place to start.

I flicked on my all-night rechargeable electronic hurricane lamp-made in Taiwan. Guaranteed eight hours of almost daylight. The picture on the box showed Saddam Hussein and his officers in an underground bunker, plotting by the light of the Shinomax. It momentarily bathed my room in an impressive warm light before fading down to dim. It was just enough to help me thumb through the pile of handouts Sissi had e-mailed me from Chiang Mai. She'd pretty much cleared out the Georgetown files. There were financial records, course registrations, and what I was looking for, the student lists. I found the name Chaturaporn on all of Noy's class files. He did indeed begin his academic life as a Mr. before reappearing as a Ms. by semester two. That would have remained a mystery to me had I not come across the list of deposit receipts from overseas students. I paused only to boggle at the cost of overseas study. No wonder my local education department sent me to Sydney Tech. Financial records rarely thrilled me, but that one list provided two fascinating discoveries that sent shudders through my knees.

First was the reason the clerks had initially classified our Ms. Chaturaporn as a man. They had condescendingly assumed that anyone from Thailand couldn't spell. Admittedly, we can't. But that wasn't the case in Chaturaporn's fee receipt. The name was not Mr. Chaturaporn but ML, Chaturaporn. The clerks had taken the liberty to adjust the spelling, but anyone who grew up in my country would know there was no error. The ML was an important clue. It painted the scenery an entirely different color.

I was about to put down the bank transfer details and move back to the lists when I noticed the second startling piece of information. According to the receipts, ML Chaturaporn had received her deposit via the Bangkok Bank Corporation. It made me curious about who had funded Noy s study. But I certainly wasn't expecting what I found. The wire had been from exactly the same account. The bank details for both girls were identical. And there, like that first ever orgasm from a totally unexpected donor, the stars burst before my eyes. I had it. I wanted to shout. I wanted to call the Chiang Mai Mail to remind them what a great head of the crime desk I would have made. But, of course, I could not announce what I had learned. I could, however, confront the lawbreaker.

My Shinomax offered little more than a gray puddle of light to guide me to the Noys. It felt like midnight in Transylvania, but my phone told me it was only 8:37 P.M. Candles still flickered behind the Noys' curtains. I knew what crime they'd committed and had an idea who was after them. I had to admit they were totally screwed. I didn't bother to knock. The Noys were on their beds, reading by candlelight. With no fan to cool them, they wore the flimsiest of sleepwear. But I didn't let their gorgeousness distract me from my task. They didn't seem at all flustered by my arrival.

"Sorry, ladies," I said, and sat down at the end of Mamanoy's bed. They both knew the story, so I guess my purpose there that night was to confirm that I knew it as well.

"Here's the drama as I see it," I began. "A straight-A student is hired by a family to be a study friend to their eldest daughter while overseas. Of course, they didn't employ you for your social skills. You were there to attend every class together with your new friend. Perhaps we should call her…the duchess. I was confused that the registrar's office had her listed as a male in the first semester, then changed to female in the second. It didn't seem like the kind of error a university clerk would make But our Ms. Chaturaporn had indeed intended to write ML. As you know, it had nothing to do with gender. It was the abbreviation of Mom Luang. ML Chaturaporn was a member of the aristocracy. Her father, I imagine, is a very powerful man, I'm sure you know that. You were a shadow student to a little duchess. And in return for you kindly keeping their daughter company, they agreed to pay off all your father's gambling debts, unmort-gage your house, and rescue you all from the threat of poverty."

"Jimm, I don't think-" Noy began.

"And all you had to do was switch ID cards before the tests or when you handed in the papers. I wouldn't even be surprised if you switched names for the entire time you were there. Your faces were similar enough. And heaven knows, we Asians all look alike. Now, the rest of this-you can just stop me if I'm wrong. Your duchess was an average student with no motivation. But her family expected excellence from her. It's a system that goes way back. So many of her ancestors had traveled the same route. Brain-box study buddy. No risk. The daughter passes with honors. The shadow either fails in the end or, if she's very lucky, squeaks through with poor grades. The sponsor has to do the very least to keep the shadow in class right up to the final semester. She can't fail too many courses before then or they'd send her classmate home. But in that final term she doesn't need the shadow anymore, so if she's of a mind, she could just not attend any classes. Send the shadow home with no degree at all. No problem. Who cares?"

The Noys said nothing. Their faces contorted in the candle flickers.

"But, Noy," I said, "you cared. You were an excellent student. The material was easy for you. You loved the courses. You devoured them. But at the end of each semester, you'd reluctantly hand over your student ID card and accept whatever grade she'd deign to eke out for you. And what was she doing while you slaved over books? She was in the nightclubs, wasn't she? Driving the BMW around with her high-society friends? And I bet she didn't show any respect at all. Not a word of thanks after those A grades. You were the maidservant. You labored for her. You and your family were taken care of financially, so why give thanks, eh?

"And it built up in you," I continued. "All this injustice. You knew the duchess was intent on failing you. She hardly attended classes that final semester. You were a brilliant student, yet people looked down on you as a dunce. And after three years of it, you were Mount Etna. The humiliation bubbled up inside and you blew. You marched into those exam halls, turned up with your term papers, and brushed past the outstretched ID card of your duchess. And you hammered everything that final semester, just like you did the entire course, but this time the honors were in your name. You'd stayed on for the Honor Council inquiry, passed the extra oral tests, suffered the humiliation of the lie-detector test. And all because your foolish courage would have meant nothing if they'd stripped you of your degree. You were in a red funk. A mad rush of blood. And it wasn't until it was all over that you realized what you'd done. What danger you'd put your family in. You probably called your parents then and told them. It was no small matter. You'd broken a contract. But, more important, you'd broken the face of a dynasty. You'd destroyed a century-old tradition. And, Noy, do you know what?"