Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

“I wouldn’t have put it quite as dramatically but yes, I may have hinted that Sugit had referred to the Chainawat family in less than glowing terms.”

“So, we’re going there now, as a team, heavy back-up, to accuse them of kidnapping and torture.”

“No, you’re going there as an innocent young lady and her elderly but very competent grandfather. I’ll be parking several blocks away. I can’t be seen there again, just in case I’m right about the feud. You just happened to be in the neighborhood and you had such a nice time when last you met them, you thought you’d stop in to say hello. You just need to get a sense of whether you think they had anything to do with last night.”

“And why should we do that?”

“Because you’re both as curious as I am.”

“And what if we’re right and they throw us in a cellar and cut us up into little pieces?”

“Then that’s proof that they’re up to no good. I’ll be able to wear my captain’s stripes to your funeral and shoot real bullets in the air. Can you believe I’ve never fired live rounds outside the shooting range? Such a shame. I’m a terribly good shot.”

Granddad Jah was grinning like a crocodile in the front seat. He loved all this. It was as if his life had been recharged. Me? I was wondering whether we’d make it to lunchtime.

“My mother wants to know why she should answer any of your questions.”

The son’s face had become even more enchanting since the last time I’d seen him but he was using his smile less generously. We were sitting at the same coffee table with probably the same uneaten rambutans and peanut snacks in front of us. The old lady’s fuse was shorter than ever without a uniformed policeman beside us. It had taken a very long time for her to grant us an audience and I could tell she wouldn’t be staying long. The question had been simple, “Do you know Koon Sugit Suttirat?”

With thoughts of torture and disembowelings in my mind, I planned to tread a very diplomatic path. But Granddad Jah headed off into the jungle again.

“Because Sugit says your family’s as corrupt as a Burmese general,” he said. “He told the press you couldn’t be trusted, then, a few hours later, he was kidnapped and tortured to within an inch of his life. That puts you way up there on the list of suspects.”

It was fascinating. I sort of admired my granddad and wanted to hit him over the head with a blunt machete at the same time. The son started to translate but Granddad interrupted him.

“Enough of that,” he said. “The old witch has been in the country forty years. She understands everything that’s being said, don’t you, dear? Yes. I’ve seen enough of these fake translation dramas to last me a second lifetime. You aren’t fooling anyone. It doesn’t make you look or sound like you’re somebody. You’re just another foreigner, no more or less important than those day laborers you employ out there.”

There followed several seconds of chilled silence.

“I more important than Burmese,” the old woman spat in clipped Thai. “More important than you, old man. Who are you?”

“None of your business,” he said.

That was it. That was when the hands clap and the coolies rush in with knives between their teeth and they bundle us down to the dungeon. Good one, Granddad. I held my breath. But it didn’t happen. She glared stiffly at my granddad until a horrid betel nut smile filled her little mouth. There was almost a flirt in her eyes.

“Sugit is bastard,” she said. “I happy his face break. I shake hand this kidnap man. Sorry he not dead, old Sugit.” A pause to calm her excitement, then: “But is not me.”

And, for some peculiar reason, I believed her. I didn’t like her. I didn’t trust her. But I believed her. Once she’d exhausted her Thai language supply she reverted to speaking through her son although he no longer needed to translate what we said. She understood everything. She had a lot of dark tales of broken land deals and underhanded profiteering. She smiled when she related victories she’d had over Sugit and even spat betel on the floor at one stage as she recounted his dishonesty. I saw it as a turf war between two old Thai Chinese bandit empires. They’d each assumed an air of respectability in modern times but deep down they were all crooks. I didn’t favor one camp over the other but neither did I see a connection between this rivalry and the little plot of land at the back of Old Mel’s plantation. I dared ask the question again as to why she’d sold that small sliver of land. The answer was different this time and she answered personally.

“People who make connect past and future may know the present,” she said.

It sounded like a fortune cookie. I had no idea what she was talking about. It must have been an inscrutable Chinese thing that I could never hope to understand. In the police truck on the way back Granddad Jah and I tried to recall every small detail of our discussion. Did we believe her? Who were we to say? But…no, not all, not completely. Did she have Sugit abducted? I didn’t think so. Her final riddle stuck with me for some reason and it’s just as well it did.

We arrived at Lang Suan at eleven thirty. Meteors had landed, dinosaurs had turned into goldfish, sprouted legs and become presidents, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. Lieutenant Chompu drove us directly to Sugit’s house. The lieutenant assured us that the old politician was in the hospital on a drip, milking all the sympathy and press attention he could get.

“So, why are we here?” I asked.

“We’re taking his daughter out for lunch,” he said. “I called to make a date while you were off partying with the Chainawats.”

Upmarket dining wasn’t easy to find in Lang Suan. You could forget French, Japanese and Italian, even American, Vietnamese and German. It was all too fancy for the locals. Even the new KFC had been empty since its launch a month earlier. So, we took the ex-minister’s daughter to a tiny place beside the Uaychai Department Store. It was owned by the minor wife of a propane gas tank baron who didn’t really care what she cooked as long as she turned a profit. The food was cheap but tasty and eclectic and the service was so slow it gave you plenty of time to chat.

The daughter, Mayuri, was indeed the crimson-haired servant I’d met, but not been introduced to, at the house. She’d come with us without protestation or fuss, just walked out past the camouflaged gardeners and climbed into the truck with a friendly smile. She seemed truly delighted to have an excuse to leave the property. She was funny and as colorful as her hair, but she seemed to be sadly lacking in instincts. She had no apparent fear that we complete strangers might have motives for this lunch other than food, and no sense at all that our questions were leading. It didn’t take a great mind to deduce that Mayuri wasn’t the brightest squid boat in the sea. I felt no pressing need to be discreet.

“A VW Kombi…” I began.

“I read that” — she thrashed into the gap. “Can you believe that? Buried. Unbelievable. Those poor people.”

I had no idea where to go from there.

“But you knew what a VW Kombi was before you read about it?” Chompu asked.

“Oh, yes.” She grinned. “They were so ‘it’ back then. They said there were more VW vans criss-crossing the world than there were in the whole of Germany. And that’s where they were made. Imagine that. A flock of, like eagles flying out in a fleet of Kombis all round the world. Wow!”