Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

We walked back to my bicycle, the nun and I squashed together beneath the umbrella, her arm around me. An unannounced intimacy had crept up on us.

“Abbot Kem said he’d gone up to the path on Saturday because the dogs were acting up,” I said. “He told me he was afraid they’d come across a cobra.”

“There are a lot around here.”

I looked back at the funereal procession behind us. Only Sticky Rice with a coconut husk in his mouth seemed oblivious to the cross he bore as one of the doomed dogs of the apocalypse.

“This crowd doesn’t strike me as the excitable type,” I confessed.

“It’s hot,” she replied. “None of us has much energy this time of year.”

“So, what would spark a riot?”

The nun smiled and reminded me of Mair for a second. She reached up and lowered the umbrella. She folded it and handed it to me.

“Wait a few seconds, then walk after me,” she said and headed off down the path.

It seemed like a weird request but I did as I was told. First one, then another of the dogs at our feet looked at me with the umbrella in my hand. Then at the nun’s back. Then at me again. And suddenly I was in an alligator pit. Fangs and drool and frenzied howls and a sort of group ire that frightened the daylights out of me. I wanted to throw the umbrella down and run but the nun turned and walked to me and took back the weapon. The dogs tucked away their frenzy like cowboys holstering their guns and returned to their languid march.

“They’re very protective of us,” she said.

“It was Monday the seventeenth of June, 1978,” Mair began. “The second time I lost my virginity.”

Arny and I looked up from our squid fried rice, our spoons in mid-air. Granddad Jah continued to eat, either because he’d heard it all before, or he hadn’t heard it this time. I wasn’t sure I wanted Mair to continue, not over dinner.

“I was at the temple again today,” I said. It was the first thing that entered my head. I hadn’t planned on sharing news of my discreet investigation but this seemed like a good time.

“His name was Krit,” Mair pressed on.

“Why didn’t you say?” Arny asked. “I could have given you a ride.”

“Because I thought arriving on a bicycle wouldn’t alert anyone. And look at me, I’m already a kilo lighter and I’ve only been riding for a week. A month of this and I’ll be modeling bikinis.”

“He was very good looking,” Mair said.

When we were younger we’d let go of the leash and allow Mair to run wild with her stories. We’d travel with her through her confusing history. Her accounts often fizzled and died without a punchline or a point but we’d encourage her in hope that one day she might mention our father. But she never did.

“Mair, I’m telling a true story here,” I said. “Give me a minute.”

I hoped I’d be able to distract her long enough to forget her second virginity anecdote. I told them about the attack on the guard and the abbot’s arrest and the dogs and the cigarette lighter. Arny listened spellbound as he always had to my stories. Mair waited patiently for a gap. Then, to my surprise, Granddad Jah drank a swallow of water and stared at me, eye to eye like he was about to put a curse on me. Then he said:

“He was looking for something.”

Granddad Jah had spent forty years in the Royal Thai police force and never made it beyond police corporal, traffic division. I’d often considered there were those who were natural policemen, who climbed the ranks and passed exams and landed on a perch that was just a flutter above their ability. Then there were those who had money and could buy their promotions all the way to the top. Then there were people like Granddad Jah who just didn’t have a clue. Like, I really needed advice from a traffic cop.

“Who was?” I asked, just for the rare experience of engaging my grandfather in conversation.

“Abbot Winai’s killer,” he said.

Of course I’d considered this possibility. If this were a crime novel, every reader, even the educationally challenged ones, would have shouted, “HE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING.” Thank you, Granddad.

“Well, if he found what he was looking for we’ll never know what it was,” I said. End of story.

“Maybe they had CCTV cameras,” said Arny, never the most astute of the litter. He had visions of a world where every street, every house, every tree was covered by closed circuit cameras. Every crime could be solved by replaying the tapes — something like England.

“Arny, little brother, I — ”

“He didn’t.”

Granddad was getting annoying.

“Didn’t what, Granddad?”

“He didn’t find what he was looking for.”

“What makes you think that?”

“There was a thick cloud cover last night. No moon to see by. He didn’t dare use a torch ‘cause it would have been seen for miles. All he had was his cigarette lighter and he used that till he ran out of fluid. He didn’t find what he was looking for.”

“Granddad Jah” — I tried to filter out the condescension — “the lighter could be anybody’s. It could have been dropped there a month ago.”

“Ha,” said Granddad. “You don’t spend much time in temples, obviously. The novices are out at first light with their long straw brooms and their litter spikes. Then all the widows come with their food donations and they’re on their hands and knees picking up rubbish. And then, just two days ago the place is crawling with detectives looking at a murder scene. Even the idiots they have in the CSD these days would have spotted a lighter. No, girl, the lighter arrived after all that. It was dropped there last night. It belonged to the killer and he’ll be back.”

He took his plate and dropped it in the washing up bowl and left. I was astounded that Granddad knew so many words. That was the most we’d heard him say since before Granny died. And, I’ll give him credit, it wasn’t such a bad point, either.

“Can I finish my story now?” Mair asked.

“Go ahead, Mair,” I said. “But I warn you, Granddad’s was a tough act to follow.”

“His name was Krit,” she said.

“Was that before Dad?” I asked.

“He was very good looking but he was a bastard. He was a lecturer at the university. He got one of his students pregnant and pretended he knew nothing about it. Don’t forget those were the days before DMZ.”

“DNA, Mair.”

“Before any of that. So, there was no evidence. No proof. But I knew the girl and believed her. Krit used to come into our shop and I cornered him one day. I told him I was a virgin and I wanted my first time to be with a real man, not one of the boys on campus. I wanted a man who knew what girls expected.”

There’s something squalid about sitting around the dinner table listening to your mother telling sex stories, but she had a way of making the dirtiest anecdote sound like a fairy tale. Arny and I were twelve again. We smiled at each other and nodded for her to continue.

“I was a little older than his usual taste but I was petite enough to get away with it, particularly in my borrowed CMU uniform. I arranged to meet him late one night at the Little Duck Hotel just in front of campus. I even booked a room. I was already inside when he arrived. I asked him to go and take a shower. By the time he came out I’d turned off the light. He could just see me under the sheet by the light from the bathroom. I told him to turn that off as well. I think he liked the dominant type. I told him I was completely naked and asked him to remove his towel and I heard it drop to the floor. That’s when I screamed. The door flew open, the light came on and three students from the campus photographic club rushed in with their flash cameras and took pictures of me and him running around in our birthday suits in a state of panic. It was such fun.