Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

“Did you go back to the commune after that?” Chompu asked.

“No. We weren’t game. We figured the police would have found out about it and raided the place. Dad told us to get out of town and lie low.”

“Where did you go?”

“Just drifted. Smartened ourselves up. Got casual work here and there and the whole love-child thing sort of got old in a hurry. It turned out me and Wee couldn’t get along in the normal capitalistic world. We drifted apart.”

“Any idea what happened to the VW you’d rented?” I asked.

“No. Last time I saw it, it was in the parking lot behind the Chaiya police station. I imagine they sent it back to the owner.”

“No,” said Granddad, “he didn’t get it back.”

“No? Probably got adopted by some kind law enforcement officer, then,” said Mayuri, out-eating us two to one despite all the talking. “I’d been thinking perhaps the one they found buried was the one we’d used.”

“Any idea who rented the second van?” Chompu asked her.

“No, like I say, we didn’t go back.”

“Do you know the names of anyone else in the commune?” Granddad Jah asked.

“Yeah, but it wouldn’t help. We were all Bread and Steed and Morning Glory. We discarded our decadent labels when we joined the farm. We didn’t know anyone’s real names. Wee wasn’t really Wee, you know? It’s English for urine. It’s full of nutrients. Indian fakirs drink it like orange juice.”

“Nice,” said Chompu, putting down his glass. “Where did you drive your stolen…I mean, borrowed rental cars to?”

“Tako.”

Tako was about thirty kilometers up the coast. There were two routes from Surat. If you took the highway you’d pass through Lang Suan. The quiet back road that avoided police blockades would lead you along the coast almost to Pak Nam. Back then, there wasn’t a bridge so the detour would drag you way up-river almost past Old Mel’s land. We needed to find out who rented that second van. Tan Sugit still wasn’t in the clear.

“Mayuri, you still aren’t very close to your father, are you?” I said.

“Can’t think what gives you that idea. You’ve only met the old bastard once.”

“Oh, just a hunch, I suppose,” I continued. “You’re implicating him in all kinds of illegal activities. You’re calling him names. You aren’t sitting by his bedside holding his hand.”

She laughed and a noodle slipped out of her mouth.

“He doesn’t need his hand held,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“He was kidnapped and tortured,” I reminded her.

“He was not.”

“Do you know anything about last night’s events that you’d like to share with us?” Chompu asked.

“The doctor I phoned said the only evidence of torture they could find was in his imagination. He broke his nose but with all the reconstruction I doubt he felt it. No, I bet he just got downright drunk with his whores and they got carried away in some prank. He doesn’t have a clue when he’s drunk. The terrorist story was just something to save his face.”

“Why are you living with him?” I asked.

“He took me in as an unpaid housekeeper. I was out of work. Out of men. Out of luck. I contacted him and asked him if he had any odd jobs I could do. He asked if I could cook. I’d never actually lived in his house before. Ha, don’t look so surprised. I’m child number four of twenty-eight or so. Seven different women. There was only one that he married. I had to remind him who my mother was. There isn’t a lot of, what you’d call, paternal affection going on here, although there are nights I have to remind him we’re blood relatives, if you know what I mean.”

We dropped Mayuri back at her house, and on the way back across town we admitted we’d come full circle with the VW case. Granddad and I sat in the truck while Chompu popped in to see the duty officer at Lang Suan police headquarters.

“Granddad Jah,” I asked, “what do you make of it all? I mean, the kidnapping, the note to me?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “The girl could have been right. It might have been S amp;M that got out of control.”

“Stripped and handcuffed to a bench in the train station?”

“Some of those bar girls can be vindictive, Nong Jimm. You dump one and move on to another…”

“So, what about the words on his belly, sa som? ”

“It means ‘deserved’.”

“I know what it means, Granddad, but why would bar girls write it on him? Don’t you think it sounds like something a bit more sinister? And surely you don’t think the note to me was just a coincidence. There has to be a connection.”

But I didn’t get a chance, then, to hear his response. We were interrupted by the breathless return of Lieutenant Chompu who jumped into the truck and showed us his small but perfect teeth.

“I don’t need to tell you,” he gasped, “I’m not at liberty to tell you this, but…we’ve got good news and bad news and good news and bad news, and then good news. But it’s all better than no news at all. Where should I start?” We both glared at him. “All right. The good news it is. First, the girl child was indeed a genius because the Benz number checked out. They found the car. The bad news is that it’s a rental from a company in Phuket, and the fellow that stayed over at the resort was one of their hired drivers. His name’s Wirapon, nickname, Keeo.”

“That shouldn’t rule him out,” I said. “Rental car drivers can be murderers, too.”

“That’s true. But it appears he’s more than happy to help the police with their inquiries. They’re driving him over from Phuket along with the details of the customer who hired the car and the daily log.”

“Doesn’t sound like a criminal to me,” said Granddad Jah.

“Me neither. He’ll be here by three so we should have some answers then. So, where was I? All right. Good news number two is that the court gave us the go-ahead to trace the number of the person who called in the accident of — aka attack on — Sergeant Phoom. The cell number belongs to the owner of a wheelchair and crutch dealership in Lang Suan. The bad news is that the owner says he wasn’t the person who called in. He’d lent his phone to his brother who was visiting from Chonburi that day. He was doing some business down here and had forgotten to bring his phone charger with him. He said his brother was due back to his home the next day and didn’t want to hang around here making police reports. The hospital number was on speed dial on the phone.”

“Well, if that’s true…” I said.

“…and if the second witness was correct about seeing a man and woman at the accident scene,” Chompu added, “it means that the other car at the scene was driven by a woman. The police here can’t get hold of the brother. He presumably hasn’t yet worked out how to charge his cell phone. But the crutch dealer said his brother had mentioned the accident. He’d said something about a Chinese woman in an expensive car who couldn’t speak any Thai. She was all aflutter because she was the first at the scene. Once the brother arrived she drove off. He was by himself. He didn’t have any choice but to phone for help.”

“This is all getting rather complicated,” I said.

My head buzzed. There was a road team in there working on my narrow mind. Trying to broaden it. I had to go over all the events of the previous week, deleting a male perpetrator and replacing him with a female. How sexist was I? I hadn’t once asked the hotels and resorts about women. I hadn’t once considered the possibility of a female being capable of a series of violent acts. Even when they presented me with a female suspect, I balked at the possibility. I was a chauvinist of the worst kind.