Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

I laughed.

“You were doing surveillance,” I said.

“I was not. I was just…interested. After all I’d heard that morning from Captain Waew I wanted to see for myself. It was curiosity. But I saw you waltz in there as calm as you like, and I tell you…”

I waited a long while but he didn’t finish the sentence. As time was pressing and I had a young man to let down gently, I ran through the content of the interview with Sugit as succinctly as I was able. Granddad Jah didn’t nod or make comments. He merely squatted on the sand in that rural toilet pose I’d always failed to get comfortable in. When the story was told, he stood without creaking and said:

“All right. I might have some free time this week if you need…”

He turned to walk away.

“Granddad?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m going to need a lot of help on this one.”

He looked back. Even with the moon masked by clouds I could see the glint of his false teeth by the lamps of the fishing boats. He grunted and walked back toward the lights of the huts.

According to my luminous pocket alarm clock it was seven fifty-five when my second visitor arrived. Punctuality wasn’t a word that found its way into the vocabulary of too many of my fellow countrymen so I was impressed.

“ Koon Jimm,” I heard and paused to study one or two more boats before looking back over my shoulder. Ed was standing behind me. He was wearing a white silk shirt, local style, and shiny black fisherman’s trousers. There was something heroic about the way he looked. Missing only a scabbard in his belt, I thought. Even his mustache fitted the costume.

“Ed, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yes.”

He walked down the sand and stood beside my deck-chair, breathing in the salt on the sea breeze with one healthy gulp. From where I sat he seemed every bit as tall as the coconut palms, every bit as upright and resilient.

“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.

“Looks like someone turned one of the table lights to face this direction,” he said. “I could see you a hundred meters away.”

“Well, that was a bit of luck, wasn’t it?” I said. “I usually sit here in the dark of an evening and disappear into my thoughts. I’m having a glass of wine. Would you like one?”

“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t drink.”

“Good for you. I have a glass rarely. It stimulates my imagination. Please sit down.”

There was only the sand but he found a spot two meters from my seat and folded himself down onto it. To my utter surprise, Gogo got to her feet and waddled over to him as if they’d been wagging buddies for years. He caressed her with one of his big hands and she rolled over to show him her belly. Her underside had always been taboo. Not even Mair got to touch it, but there was the grass man fondling her nipples with impunity.

“She’s skinny,” he said.

“She has a condition. She can’t digest her food. It passes right through her.”

“Has she been done yet?”

“Done?”

“Her tubes tied.”

“Oh, no.”

“She’s about five, six months old. She could come on heat any time soon. In the condition she’s in, one rooting from the local studs could kill her. I’d get her to the vet sooner rather than later. Get her tubes tied and it might help to settle her insides down too. Somboon’s a cow specialist but he’s good when it comes to de-sexing.”

That was quite a recommendation. Not once had he looked at me. His gaze alternated between the boats and Gogo’s belly. I surreptitiously emptied my wine out onto the sand beside the chair and stowed the glass.

“You seem to know a lot about dogs,” I said.

“We’ve had I don’t know how many over the years. You get to know what works for them.”

Enough about them.

“Anyway, what can I do for you, Ed?”

There was a long pause. Long enough for Thai Airways flight TG250 from Surat to Bangkok to pass overhead with its taillight flickering.

“I was talking to your mother,” he said.

“Oh, yes?”

“Asking about you. I’m sorry to be so nosy.”

“That’s all right.”

I think the wine had given me a little heart flutter. They say it’s a result of kick-starting a heart that’s already working just fine.

“Mine’s a small family,” he said, apparently trying to pick out stars in the moonlit sky. “Just me, my mother, and my sister. My mother’s doing all right. She’s got sixteen hectares of land with coconut and oil palm. Lots of fruit trees. Yeah, she’s doing all right.”

“That’s nice.”

Probably what they’d refer to down here as ‘a comfortable dowry’.

“My sister had a man for a while,” he continued. “What they’d call an arranged marriage. Don’t think that ever works. So she came back to live with us last year. She’s not…you know, her mind isn’t really here. She knows she’s different. She doesn’t really fit in. She’d probably be better suited for the city but she’s shy.”

It was quaint of him to tell me about his family. They seemed very normal, probably some girl’s dream relatives. I doubt anyone in their right mind would say the same about our family. I almost envied the simplicity of his life. I decided I owed it to him to perhaps go out for a meal with him so he could tell me about the grass business and how he’d learned roofing from Uncle Wit the builder.

“But she’s very attractive,” he was still going on. “Men are around all the time. I have to beat them back with sticks.”

I watched him smile. It was a lovely smile, warming like good whiskey.

“I was wondering if you’d like to meet her,” he said.

“Well, of course. That would be very nice. Sometime.”

“She heard about you and she’s seen you around. She saw you on the bicycle one day. It was all she could talk about over dinner that night. I’ve never heard her talk so much. The Chiang Mai girl with her trousers rolled up to her knees.”

We both laughed and then…I suppose there are times when you can’t see the rain for all the water that’s falling out of the sky. That was one of those times. I was already soaked before I knew what had hit me. I don’t know how it had gone so far without me getting the point. I’m usually a lot brighter than that. I felt sick, not wobbly sick, sick like I could happily throw up my entire day’s food intake right there on the beach. I was stupid. So very, very stupid. I couldn’t get away from there soon enough.

“OK, that’ll be fine,” I said without thinking. “I have to…cook dinner. Bye, Ed. Thank you.”

I left the chair and him and my wine and half my face there on the beach and clambered up through the soft sand to the resort. I lost one flip-flop but couldn’t even imagine going back for it. My hand shook as I reached for the handle of my unlocked hut and I threw myself onto the bed without turning on the light. Lucky the bed was in the same place as always. It wasn’t yet eight thirty. I wasn’t yet tired. The only thought in my wide-awake head was Ed the grass man trying to fix me up with his sister. I rolled onto my back and crossed my arms against my chest and willed myself to die.

I woke up at three a.m., four fifteen, five ten and five seventeen before I finally admitted I probably didn’t need ten hours sleep. I heard the grunt of returning squid boats in the distance and the pre-dawn rehearsal of the cocks. I turned on the bedside lamp and looked in the mirror. I was still stupid. I had a shower, dressed, and went to make an early start with breakfast. It was still dark and I was using a crack of shimmering gray at the bottom of the sky to see by. I was about to turn on the light in the kitchen when I saw a dark figure walking along the beach toward the resort. It was wearing baggy dark trousers and a black windcheater with the hood up. The lower face was obscured by a mask. There was something ominous in its heavy footfall across the sand. I took a step back behind the customer toilets, hoping I hadn’t been seen.