Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

There were days when I asked myself how I could dedicate my life to solving crimes and apprehending villains yet do nothing to bring Sissi to justice. And the answer came to me one evening when I was playing Grand Theft Auto III with her. Why, I wondered, was I getting so much joy from blasting innocent old ladies with a sawn-off shotgun? Of course it was obvious: because it wasn’t real. The world in which Sissi perpetrated her crimes didn’t exist. The online banks she robbed had no bricks or mortar or pens on strings; the charities she made up were never there to begin with. Even the identities she stole were fictitious. Nobody was born with a name or address or Social Security number. They were all artificial add-ons. So, who cared if someone borrowed them? It was like kidnapping Winnie the Pooh off the street, locking him in a cold, wet cellar, slicing off little bits of him and sending them in manila envelopes to the police. You know what? They wouldn’t care. He’s fiction. “Go for it,” they’d say.

That’s how I justify Sissi’s career to myself. Her success in the cyberworld meant she had no need whatsoever for the actual, tree-dotted world beyond her walls. After dark she might have squeezed through the gate of the university and done a little power walking but she was too ashamed of her looks to go out in public in daylight. Her looks, I might add, were far from frightening. Once she’d abandoned the demon drink and started to eat Mair’s nutritious but tasteless food, her old ruddy complexion began to break through the crust. Granddad Jah set her up a little exercise station in the backyard with a stationary bicycle and a fold-up yoga mat. She was looking better and starting to feel good about herself. She’d done one or two heavily disguised forays to Tops supermarket and even attempted a daylight stroll around the campus. And I think that’s why Mair’s act of treachery hit her so hard.

She was back in her shell now, a small dark condominium bedsit shell. She ordered in meals, had a young girl assistant who ran errands for her, and she disappeared completely inside her computer. I was one of her few links to reality so you can imagine how disappointing my regular reports from the bush had been to her so far.

“Hey, Sissi.”

“Wassup?”

Oh, I forgot to mention, Sissi and I throw large helpings of English into our conversations. If we were more confident we’d probably forgo Thai completely. This stew is our sort of private language. English is what they speak inside her computer screen and I get the feeling she doesn’t trust the Thai language anymore, or anyone who speaks it. The staff at her condominium think she’s a Filipina. I, on the other hand, speak English because I had an overseas bridging year between high school and university. I wanted to go to an English-speaking country but they were all full so they sent me to Australia. By the time I’d worked out what they were saying it was time to come home. Mass Communication was my undergraduate major and English my minor. I was halfway through my M.A. in English when Mair sprang her little surprise on me. I speak English with the sort of Thai accent that makes words sound as if they don’t have endings but Sissi understands me perfectly well.

“Nothing much. How’s the Net?” I asked.

“Rocking.”

“How’s Leather?”

Leather was her current online Lothario. They had a stormy frantic sexual monsoon of a relationship on the Internet. In his photos he was a sort of George Clooney in bondage gear. Sissi’s online persona was…Sissi, eighteen years earlier and knee-wobble gorgeous. In her mind that’s how she still was.

“He’s getting a six-inch screw in his scrotum,” she said.

“Impressive.”

“Yeah. How’s the chicken ranch?”

“Two new cocks just started last weekend. They’re on probation. If they haven’t performed by Friday they’re out.”

“How hard can it be?”

“Exactly.”

“Mair?”

“She’s…I think it’s good for her down here. She’s crazy about her dogs and we’ve got the ocean right here and…you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Sissi?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got people dying down here.”

“Boredom?”

“No. Murder. Do you think you can help?”

“Bloody oath.”

I’d taught her that. It’s Australian. It means ‘yes’. It was one of the few things I learned down under. I talked Sissi through the VW situation right up to the last visit.

“And I found something, Sissi. This van had a shallow tool chest attached behind the driver’s seat. The tools were still in there. But I found a stash of grass wrapped in plastic. It was taped to keep it dry.”

“Did you smoke it?”

“Forty years on? I don’t think ganja improves with age, Sis.”

“It’s worth a try.”

“OK, but the point is, the water hadn’t got in. There was paper in there, two sheets torn into quarters. I imagine they were using them as papers to smoke the ganja. And they were torn from advertising flyers I’d have to assume were from the company they rented the van from. It was a Thai travel agency called Blissy Travel located in Surat Thani.”

“Phone number?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t long enough. They only had six digits back then. There’s no Blissy Travel in the book now and the post office in Surat told me the address is now a Honda service center. So I’m stuck.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks. And while you’re at it, can you check out a family called Chainawat? They’re the ones who sold the sliver of land to Old Mel. It strikes me as more than a coincidence they’d want to off-load a plot of land with dead bodies on it.”

“Any idea how they got the van in the ground?”

“The police are assuming it was a pit. Dig a big hole. Push the van in. Cover it up.”

“But you don’t agree.”

“No, but only because it doesn’t make sense. I saw the bodies as soon as they were dug out. The skeletons were seated like — all right, they were skeletons — but it was as if they were sitting there enjoying the drive. They weren’t tied or gagged. If you’re about to be dumped into a pit you panic, right? You try to fight your way out. You don’t just sit there and stare out the windscreen clutching the wheel. The girl had her hand on the driver’s thigh, damn it.”

“That’s really poignant.”

“So you get my point?”

“Absolutely. It’s weird. They’d have to die calmly, drugs or gas or something. Probably dead when they were put in the van. Sounds like a very considerate killer.”

“Or a psychopath.”

“Do you know whether they’re foreigners or local?”

“The forensic people didn’t want to hazard a guess. They said their stature was small but they’re waiting for the boss from Bangkok instead of making any wild predictions. Do you think it makes a difference?”

“Sure. If they were Californian they might have just insisted on being buried with their favorite vehicle. They do stuff like that over there. I assume you don’t know how old they were?”

“No, and I imagine we’re out of the loop down here. I don’t think anyone at the forensic lab would tell Pak Nam even if they did find that out.”

“Where there’s a Web there’s a way.”

“You won’t do anything too illegal, will you?”

“If people are foolish enough to wander through darkest cyberspace with their pockets full, they deserve to get mugged. It’s a lawless wasteland out here.”

“And you’re the queen of bandits.”

“You’re too kind. Anything else I can do for you?”

“I’m not sure. You got time for another story?” I told her about the abbot and his nun problem. The more I told her, the more I realized I didn’t have enough background on any of the main characters. I’d have to make another trip over there. I gave her what little information I had and she promised to help. I was hoping she’d be able to tell me why there was a press blackout on the case. I also ordered a copy of the Vinaya Pitaka , the Discipline Basket containing the 227 rules for monks. It outlined the rules and regulations that governed the dharma in Thailand. I didn’t want to have to compete for the printer with the game fiends at our local Internet shop so I asked if Sissi could get her Girl Friday to post it to me. “No problem,” she said.