Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

I could hear the crunch of footsteps on the gravel and there was no mistake they were heading directly toward me. I ducked inside the toilet block and hunted desperately for a weapon by the glow of the little red nightlight. Bathrooms are notoriously poor arsenals. There was a toilet brush, a plunger and a bunch of aromatic plastic tulips. None of these instilled in me the confidence to step outside and confront our invader. Then I found my weapon. Leaning against the far wall was a meter section of PVC piping. It was solid enough to bang an intruder over the head but light enough not to bring me up on a murder charge.

I took one step outside with my pipe raised and there, facing me like a mirror image, was the dark ninja with a block of beach bamboo hoisted. I screamed. She screamed.

“Mair?” I said.

“Jimm?”

We dropped our weapons and embraced, mainly to bring our respective shakes under control.

“Child, what on earth are you doing hanging around the public toilets at this time of the morning?”

“I woke up earl — No, wait. Never mind me. What are you doing creeping along the beach dressed like a bun-raku puppet master?”

She pulled down her mask, lowered her hood and looked down at her costume.

“Oh,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I got dressed in the dark. I had no idea I was wearing black. And besides, these trousers are navy blue. You’ll see when the sun comes up. And this?” She pulled the surgical mask up over her head. “Chicken flu.”

“Chicken flu?”

“From the poultry manure. Very high incidence of chicken flu from dung. It’s airborne.”

“Where exactly do they sell black face masks?” I took it from her.

“There are so many viruses around you can buy almost any color. It’s become a fashion statement.”

“Mair, this is a regular surgical face mask colored in with a black felt pen.”

“Really?”

“All right. Enough.”

I led her by the arm to the nearest table and sat her down. A puddle of pink was leaking out through the gap at the bottom of the night. The sun was rising somewhere beyond the Philippines and our sky was rushing through the dark tones in an effort to find something suitable to wear for the new day.

“Mair, what have you done?” I asked, staring her straight in the eyes. She stared back and slipped on an entirely different skin.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” she said. “And I’m your mother. And I remind you that I am the breadwinner of this family and the day you go out and earn a salary, then, and only then, will you have the right to criticize your mother. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

She stood and huffed away from the table with an indignant gait. She walked toward the shop but realized that wasn’t where she’d intended to go and retraced her steps toward her hut. I watched her march. I knew that walk and that speech well. All of us did. Eight-year-old Jimm had heard it a thousand times. On every occasion Jimm junior complained about having to clean her room or do her chores she’d had to sit through that same rant. Mair was in a dangerous altered state and wherever she’d been that morning I needed to know before the police found out.

Granddad Jah and I had arranged to meet Lieutenant Chompu at the Northeastern Seaside Restaurant overlooking the concrete battleship. Arny had wanted to take the truck to his gym and he sulked so much when I challenged him that I finally relented. He wouldn’t even tell me why he needed it so badly but he was dressed up: long-sleeved shirt, jeans with a crease, real shoes. I tried to joke with him about a date and he turned the color of ripe chili.

That left me with a new problem. I had to use the motorcycle but I had Granddad Jah with me, and he was old-school when it came to sexism. There wasn’t a hope in hell that he’d let me drive the motorbike. He even tried to get me to sit sidesaddle as it was more ladylike. I won that tussle, but Granddad Jah on a motorcycle was road safety personified. We spent half an hour digging out the spare helmet from the removal boxes before he’d agree to set off. He rode 100 % by the book: correct procedure, hand signals, turning protocol, but, as everyone else was ignorant that there was a book, they were busy doing everything the wrong way just as their forefathers had done before them. That made us the most dangerous people on the road. And heaven forbid you’d be in a hurry. He practiced what he called ‘defensive driving’ which meant we traveled so slowly we were often overtaken by maimed war veterans on tricycles.

We’d gone first to Wat Feuang Fa as I’d wanted to show him the crime scene and, perhaps, get him in conversation with Abbot Kem. It took us so long to get there I could feel myself aging. I wished I’d brought some embroidery to while away the trip but instead I yelled the details of the case through his thick helmet. All I left out was the contents of the camera. I was afraid if I told him, he’d be morally obliged to pass on the information to the police. He was a tough one to read.

At the temple, we were to be disappointed. All we found there was a young novice whose duty it was to feed the dogs, and a monk so ancient and so covered in religious tattoos that he looked like he’d been excavated from some historical site. He seemed half blind, staring out through misty opal eyes and massaging each shuddering hand with the other. I joined him in the office. Granddad Jah had opted to stay outside. He seemed uninterested.

“We’ve come to see Abbot Kem,” I told him. I half expected his inner workings to be as rusted as his casing but his voice was surprisingly young and his mind bubbled with energy.

“Vanished, poof, into thin air,” he said. “Haven’t seen a sight of him since they took the girl.”

“The girl?”

“The nun. Can’t remember her name but we only had the one.”

“Who took her?”

“Those scruffy Bangkok detectives, the tall one and his podgy mate.”

“Was she formally arrested?” I asked the monk.

“Must have had a warrant, I’d suppose. Not even Bangkok detectives can just kidnap a nun and whisk her off, can they now?”

“Do you think the abbot followed her?”

“You know I do a bit of palm reading on the side but I can’t claim my ESP’s all that hot. All I know is she’s gone and he’s gone and I’m left holding the fort. Just hope I can stay alive long enough to welcome him back. Wouldn’t want to be running a place this size all by myself.”

I thanked the old fellow and went outside to join my granddad. I was surprised to find both sandals there waiting for me although I did spot one black eye peering out from the bushes. We walked up to the crime scene along the concrete path. Granddad stood back for a few seconds and shook his head.

“If ever I saw a murderer who wanted to get caught,” he said.

“Open, isn’t it.”

“Look at it. Top of a slope. Well used road at the bottom. Bright flowering bushes advertising the location. Plain view from the temple. And you say the dogs attacked him?”

“Abbot Kem said he’d been alerted by the sound of the dogs barking.”

“Well then, anyone might have looked up once the dogs got going.”

“So he was lucky?”

“I’d say so. And where did he run? A man with a pack of dogs after him. He’s not going to head downhill into a wide open space. He’d have to go this way.”

Granddad Jah pushed his way through the unruly bougainvilleas and, for want of a better plan, I followed him. We emerged on the far side where the temple perimeter posts were lined up alongside a wood. There was no wall. To the left, the posts stretched all the way down to the road. To the right I could make out a small green roof.