Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

“Good for her,” I said.

“Even more impressive if you consider she’s four.”

“So we shouldn’t put too much faith in it.”

“No. I’m told she’s quite a prodigy when it comes to license plates. Anyway, they’re running the number. There are also developments on the attack on Phoom that I’m not at liberty to tell you about. The person who phoned in the accident on his cell didn’t stick around once the ambulance arrived. That’s quite common. Folks wanting to help but not to get involved in reports and interviews.”

“Better than not taking the trouble in the first place,” said Granddad Jah.

“Couldn’t agree more,” said Chompu. “But there was something. We had the local radio station, 106.50, ask for witnesses and a lady called in saying she’d passed an accident on the road. There were two vehicles parked already so she hadn’t stopped. But she saw a man and a woman leaning over the victim.”

“Two vehicles?” I said. “Really? Did she mention what types they were?”

“One pick-up truck and one car was all she remembered. No make or color.”

“Is there any way to trace the good Samaritan call to the hospital?” I asked.

“It’s not easy. We’d need a warrant from a judge.”

“But it can be done.”

“I’m assuming the major has already started the paperwork. What’s on your mind?”

“Well, suppose the killer bumps Sergeant Phoom’s bike, is afraid the sergeant could identify him and decides to stop and finish him off. He’s bent over the body with a tire lever when this lady in a truck comes around the bend and stops to help. Our killer pretends he’s just come across the accident and is aiding the victim. The woman phones the hospital and our killer flees the scene. The woman, for reasons of her own, also vanishes as soon as she’s certain the sergeant’s taken care of.”

“In which case, the woman would have been in close contact with the killer,” said Granddad Jah. “She could identify him.”

I hadn’t seen Granddad this animated since the great diarrhea onslaught of 2005. I liked him like this — without the diarrhea, naturally.

“Good,” said Chompu. “I’ll keep prodding the major on the phone records.”

“Remind him what a boost it would be to his career chances,” I suggested. “The man’s a bubbling volcano of ambition.”

“There’s one other possibility,” said Granddad.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The one you’re deliberately avoiding,” he said. “Somebody might want to call the hospital and ask whether it was a man or a woman who phoned in the accident.”

I got it immediately. I didn’t want to imagine my nun having a secret life outside the temple with wigs and fast cars and sharp knives. Granddad Jah was right. I really wanted the killer to be a man.

“I’ll get onto that first thing this afternoon,” said the lieutenant.

“Which brings us to the VW case,” I said.

“There’s more?” Chompu feigned horror. “Should I cancel my pedicure?”

“You should at least order us a couple more bottles,” I told him. “You could be here for some time yet.”

Again I left it to Granddad Jah to tell of his visit to demoted Captain Waew of the Surat police force. I kept expecting Chompu to say, “Of course, I knew all that.” But it was evident that he didn’t. He had his Paddington Bear notepad open on the table and was throwing down a rapid shorthand. Granddad excused himself at one stage to take care of his long-suffering bladder, and it gave me a chance to ask Chompu what he’d done about the photos.

“It’s difficult,” he admitted. “I considered leaving them at the front desk and running away, but I realized everything would fall back on you as you were the one who found the camera. I can’t plant them anywhere and it’s a bit late to discover them at the crime scene. So, I admit, I’m boggled. I’m hoping something will come up to make their appearance unnecessary. Meanwhile, they’re under my mattress.”

“I appreciate you doing this.”

“We’re partners in crime.”

I looked up to see whether Granddad had completed his ablutions.

“Which reminds me,” I said in my low, conspiratorial voice, “have you heard of any…serious crimes committed today?”

“How serious?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A killing?”

He laughed. “You’re insatiable.”

“So, have you?”

“No.”

“No missing persons? Almost fatal injuries? Suspected poisonings?”

“Be patient. All these things will come.”

I hoped in my heart that they wouldn’t, but it looked as if Mair might have got away with it so far.

“Oh, and I forgot,” said the lieutenant. “We traced your Dr. Jiradet the so-called adviser to the Pak Nam hospital. It appears he was there at the resort on a tryst with a juvenile harlot. They checked into separate rooms but nobody was really fooled, particularly his wife. Word has it that when her doctor left town the young lady in question found herself a tourist. You have to admire her opportunism, don’t you?”

Two more suspects dust-bitten. I was running out of possibilities. Granddad returned. I’d considered not telling Chompu about my visit to ex-MP Sugit. I supposed there’d be arguments made that I was interfering in police business and unduly alerting a potential suspect in a dual homicide inquiry. In Chiang Mai I would have been arrested for it. But this was Pak Nam, and Chompu and I were already up to our necks in evidence tampering so I figured, what the heck. When I was done, he closed his mouth.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe how dull life was in Pak Nam before you lot arrived.”

I wondered at that moment whether he might be considering us suspects. Odd family turns up in town — bodies everywhere. But I got the impression he wouldn’t have minded that either.

“So, you aren’t angry?” I asked.

“Angry? I’m throbbing with excitement. Batman and Robin have arrived. Whatever will they do next?”

I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the analogy, especially if I was supposed to be Robin. But Granddad Jah continued to glow, both from the beer and the adulation. He rather spoiled the mood once the bill was paid, by informing me that we were both over the alcoholic limit for safe driving and insisting we walk half a kilometer to the 7-Eleven to get motorcycle taxis home. He ignored my pleas that most of the drivers were addicts or imbeciles and we were safer driving drunk. He then wasted another twenty minutes arguing with the freak circus that he wouldn’t allow them to go anywhere unless they put on helmets. I hadn’t seen a motorcycle helmet in all the nine months we’d been here.

Eventually, we arrived home with doggy bags of Esarn food for Mair and Arny and a peopley bag of scraps for Gogo. As we pulled up, I saw Mair in front of the shop talking to the same elderly lady I’d seen at the plastic awning detective agency. This, I remembered, was the mother of Maprao’s only known villain: an alliance I felt most uncomfortable about. I paused nearby for a moment but the two women were deep in conversation and seemed not to notice me. I went in search of Arny to give him his lunch but he was nowhere to be found. A family of four, young parents and two toddlers, were sitting in front of one of the cabanas. The door was open but their bags were on the front steps. I’d noticed a Suzuki Caribbean in the car park but I’d assumed its owner was walking on the beach.

“Excuse me, do you work here?” the father called to me.

“Kind of.”

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but we couldn’t find anyone to talk to and the door was open.”

“Are you staying the night?” I asked. Iwo.