Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

Sergeant Phoom was in a small ward with four beds. The other beds were occupied by people who looked like there was absolutely nothing wrong with them. They were chatting with seven or eight village types who were sitting cross-legged on the floor eating. Only the sergeant seemed poorly and I wondered whether I should suggest the revelers keep the noise down. A young constable I didn’t know sat beside him reading an illustrated brochure on kidney diseases. He looked up when I walked to the bed.

“How is he?” I asked.

I had a bag of mangosteens that I placed on the bedside table. Phoom wouldn’t be in any state to peel away the thick skins for some time to come. Both his eyes were purple and bloated and a shaved section of hair framed a nine-centimeter millipede of stitching. His mouth was closed and bloody. His arms and legs were wrapped in bandages like a cartoon explosion victim.

“He’s fine,” said the constable.

He was a pretty boy, not rugged enough to grow into a gnarled old detective.

“Really?”

“He was awake a little while ago.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Nothing coherent. Um, who are you?”

I was about to dive straight into a lie just in case they’d told him not to allow in the press, but in this little corner of Utopia, that would always come back to bite me.

“My name’s Jimm Juree. I — ”

“You’re the journalist.”

“I know the sergeant. I just — ”

“I always wanted to write.”

Nine months earlier, my reaction to such a straight line would have been ‘You should have paid more attention at nursery school’ or ‘Lucky the police entrance exam is all pictures’. I doubt I would have voiced those smarmy comments although I would certainly have imagined them. But something was happening to my sarcasm skills and I didn’t like it. I found myself feeling disappointment on his behalf, sad that he’d become a policeman and missed out on the chance to be nominated for an S.E.A. Write Award.

“It’s never too late to start,” I said.

Sergeant Phoom coughed and the constable held a small bottle of Red Bull to the older man’s bloody lips.

“Is that prescribed?” I asked.

“He swears by it.”

Whatever works, I thought. Why not a placebo of sucrose and glucose and caffeine? The sergeant turned his bruised and bloody head slowly to my side of the bed. It was like watching a piglet turn on a rotisserie.

“ Nong Jimm,” he said. I had to strain to hear him.

“Isn’t this ward a bit noisy for you?” I asked.

“It’s like this all the time,” he said.

I looked to the constable for an explanation.

“His family,” he said, nodding at the floor party. A couple of them waved at me. I waved back. I pulled across a chair and sat close to the sergeant.

“Did you see the car that hit you?” I asked.

“I’ve asked all that,” said the constable.

“Poor man’s hit his head,” I reminded him. “It always pays to ask twice just to confirm the answer’s the same. Sergeant?”

“I got a brief glimpse of it in the mirror,” he said. “It was right on top of me then. Black Benz. New one.”

I got that bat in the belly flutter and looked up at the constable.

“That’s what he said before.” He nodded.

“Have you got your radio with you?” I asked. He patted the back of his belt. “All right. Call the station. Ask them if anyone’s been to the Tiwa Resort. If not, tell them there’s a guest from out of town staying there in room seven. He’s got a black Benz.”

The young man looked uncertain.

“Go ahead,” said the sergeant.

The constable called through and passed on the message. There was silence as he listened. I listened. The three patients and the family on the floor listened. The policeman nodded when the reply came through and he switched off the radio.

“They’ll send some men out there right away,” he said.

That didn’t result in a cheer exactly, more a group “Hmm.” There really is no way to describe that feeling you get when you believe you’ve contributed to the solving of a crime. I might have even joined the police force but for the fact I’d be cleaning toilets and making tea for the rest of my career. Gender equality hasn’t found a home in the police force. At least as a journalist I was allowed to ask questions. I leaned back down to the sergeant.

“Did you see the driver?” I asked.

“The glass was smoked,” he said. “All I got was a shadow. Little fellow. It all happened in a flash. I hit the ground. I was woozy for a second. I looked around and then I was out of it.”

Something troubled me.

“Were you riding without your helmet on?” I asked him.

He laughed and the scent of a dentist’s office, blood and antiseptic, puffed into my face.

“More than my career’s worth, that would be,” he said. “You just have to sit on the saddle, parked, without your helmet and they’ll have your stripes these days.”

“And it was fastened?”

“Strapped tight.”

“So, how did you get that crack on your skull?”

He reached up slowly and painfully and caressed his head.

“I was wondering about that myself,” he said.

I found the office of the hospital director, Dr. Fahlap. He was a small man of Chinese stock in his late fifties. He had the most forgettable face I’d ever seen. In fact if you asked me now to describe him, I wouldn’t be able to. I asked him whether the injury to Sergeant Phoom’s head could have been a result of him hitting his head on the road. Fahlap was the type of man who gave thought to questions and you could see the replies forming in his eyes.

“No,” he said at last. “It was a blow from a blunt object. Perhaps a tire lever.”

That’s what I’d been afraid of. On a quiet stretch of road, the killer had removed the sergeant’s helmet and smashed him over the head. He wanted the policeman dead. Perhaps he was afraid he’d been seen and could be identified. So why was the sergeant still alive? Why just the one blow? Of course. The killer was interrupted. That had to be it. We needed to find who phoned in the accident. I bet that person had seen the killer.

I was just about to thank the doctor and get back home when I had another thought.

“Doctor, do you know anything about a hospital adviser staying at the 69 Resort?”

A pause.

“What hospital is he advising at?”

“Yours,” I said.

“Do you have his name?”

“Dr. Jiradet.”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

I arrived home at ten fifteen. Sitting at the concrete table out front of the shop were my Lieutenant Chompu and Ed the grass man. They seemed to be getting along famously. It had a strange effect on me. It wasn’t jealousy exactly. Neither of them belonged to me or ever would. It was more like an annoyance that they should form an alliance so quickly. I ignored them both as I stepped down from the truck and walked into the shop.

“ Nong Jimm,” Chompu called. “Are you not talking to me?”

“I don’t want to interrupt,” I said, deliberately not looking at Ed the grass man.

“When’s showtime?” the policeman asked.

“Give me five minutes.”

I walked in through the open shop front. There was no sign of Mair. I looked in the storeroom and peered out into the back garden. There were chickens aplenty but no mothers. I was on my way back when I noticed two bare feet sticking out from under the counter. By edging sideways I was able to take in the entire vista of my mother’s backside.

“Mair?”

“Shhh.”

I went to the counter and knelt down.

“Mair, why are you under the counter?”

“There’s a policeman out there.”