Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

“So,” he sniffed, walking around with his hands behind his back like a very confident bullfighter. “Flew to the south for the VW case, decided you liked it so much you convinced your family to move down here permanently, uh? Swift move.”

“I didn’t actually say — ”

“Deceiving a police officer.”

“Which isn’t a criminal offense unless I’m a witness or a suspect,” I told him and immediately bit my tongue. “As I’m sure you know.”

“Of course. And I’m willing to forgive you.”

That didn’t make sense but I’d take it.

“Thank you.”

“After all, you did spell my name correctly in three major newspapers.”

I knew it. I bet he went out and bought all the dailies the morning after our interview.

“Spelling’s one of my strong cards,” I told him.

“And I see this as a beginning, rather than an end. It certainly can’t hurt to have a reporter with such lofty connections just ten minutes down the road. I can see us forming quite a formidable alliance. A little bit of information here, a mention in a report there.”

“I was hoping for exactly the same.”

“But…”

I’d been waiting for a ‘but’. He was leading me toward the beach with one hand gently annoying the small of my back.

“…you did me a great disservice.”

“I did?”

“My favorite restaurant. Staff who know and respect me. A regular customer taken ill in the bathroom and his female acquaintance flees the scene. Not at all good for a senior policeman’s reputation.”

“I assumed you’d been called away on a case. I waited twenty minutes.”

“I was disturbed to find you gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s only one way to make up for it.”

Surely not.

“I know,” I said. “You should come and have lunch here someday.”

“Wouldn’t work, Nong Jimm. That wouldn’t clear my besmirched name at my favorite restaurant, would it now?”

I suppose I did owe him.

“All right. I’ll just have to clear it with Ed.”

“Ed?”

“My fiance.”

His hand didn’t leave my back but it stopped massaging.

“Very sudden.”

“Not really. Ed was the reason I…we all moved down here.”

It was a ploy that usually worked but Mana was a slimy one.

“Very well,” he said. “Clear it with Ed. I’m at Lang Suan tomorrow so we should make it the weekend. I’ll call you re the place and time.”

He was bulletproof. He hadn’t even met Ed and he’d already dismissed him as small fry. He didn’t even know the man cut grass for a living. Arrogant. But wait…Lang Suan?

“Actually, Thai Rat have asked me to look into the Wat Feuang Fa murder,” I said, as casually as I was able. He was a dark-skinned man who was suddenly flushed vanilla.

“You? They what?”

“Abbot Winai’s killing.”

“How could you possibly…?”

“Lofty connections.”

“The press knows about it?”

“Just us at the moment. But we have plenty to run with when I’m ready.”

“When you’re ready?”

The guilty hand fled from my back and rejoined its colleague behind his.

“You know. Right place right time. Just ten minutes down the road. I think it would be a very good idea for us to swap notes over lunch. There’s so much I need to know.”

I could see the word ‘leak’ spill out of his brain one letter at a time. I knew he’d been warned not to have anything to do with the press on this case. And here I was, his pet reporter. Where else would I be getting my information from?

“Ah, look,” he said. “We should certainly liaise on this in the future. But perhaps now isn’t such a good time. As I hear of developments I’ll pass them on to you, of course. In the meantime it would probably help both of us if you sent me your notes on the case. Then I can fill in the gaps for you. I’m playing a key role in the proceedings.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“My source tells me Pak Nam isn’t in the loop anymore. Something about not being trusted. I heard you even lost one of the Lang Suan crime-scene cameras.”

“That is not true. I have no idea where that rumor began and I can refute it categorically. I’ve talked to the forensic department at headquarters. I went there in person. It’s a very small department. One man, in fact. Not only did he not lose a camera at the crime scene, he was off getting rabies shots that day and didn’t even visit the site.”

“Interesting.”

“So I would appreciate it if that rumor did not find its way into the newspapers.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” I was alpha now and snarling.

“Are they still holding the Abbot Kem in Lang Suan?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “He’s back at the wat . They have him under house arrest there.”

“How’s it looking for him?”

“Not good,” Mana confessed.

“Murder weapon?”

“Not so far, but there are any number of places to toss a weapon over there.”

“Any other suspects?”

“No. Look, I really can’t…”

“Car, motorcycle sightings around the time of the killing? Strangers in town?”

“No.”

“Anyone with a grudge against the Bangkok abbot? I mean, his job was to investigate wayward monks and make recommendations for them to be disrobed. There may be a cause for revenge there.”

“We haven’t found anything. That is to say, no comment.”

So much for our new open relationship. Either the Bangkok detectives had shut him out, or there really were no other suspects or motives, or he was lying to me. I didn’t like people lying to me. He leaned too close to me and smiled.

“I could arrange for you to interview Abbot Kem,” he said.

“I already have,” I said, haughtily.

He looked at me with awe. The press had climbed several rungs in the power rankings of his admiration and I knew there’d be no more hanky-panky lunches with the good major. He doffed his cap, vowed to recover our lost TV, and even waved at me as he climbed into his truck.

Abbot Kem was back home and living in his stilted hut at the rear of Wat Feuang Fa. Two uniformed constables from Lang Suan had been assigned to watch him, but when I cycled past them in my disguise — baggy flower-patterned shorts way past my knees, Red Bull T-shirt under a long-sleeved gingham shirt, flip-flops and straw hat — they barely looked up from their comics. I was so obviously nobody to admire or fear that I depressed myself.

I found the abbot alone. He was sitting on the same front step drawing patterns in the hot air in front of him. The dogs sat at his feet watching his fingers sculpt.

“Good morning,” I said.

He turned to me and smiled. There was no evidence on his face that the murder inquiry was causing him any grief at all. But I guess that’s what it’s all about. When you get to warp-factor gamma three on the self-discovery orbit, worldly worries bounce off your defense shield. I envied him. I could use a little karma when the handlers brought their monkeys to collect coconuts and the wicked beasts deliberately threw them down onto my vegetable nursery. I wish I had the patience to take it all seriously, this religion thing. But I have sacrilegious ideas rushing through my mind all the time like a continuous, graffiti-laden subway train passing through a station. There’s no way I can eviscerate the troubling thoughts and leave myself with purity. I’d implode.

“So, they let you out, I see,” I said.

“Yes.”

“Did they treat you well?”

I was mired in cliches, too. I needed a good clean out.

“Yes.”

“I’m assuming they didn’t actually charge you with anything.”