Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

MAJOR G:

So, what happened?

DRIVER:

She takes out this big wad of thousand baht notes and throws it on the table in front of me. There was twenty thousand baht in there .

MAJOR G:

You counted it?

DRIVER:

Later, yeah. It was a lot of money but I couldn’t let her just drive off. If she had an accident or drove into a brick wall, it was my arse on the line .

MAJOR G:

So, you refused to let her take it?

DRIVER:

At first, yes .

MAJOR G:

But then?

DRIVER:

I let her have it .

MAJOR G:

You accepted a bribe and allowed her to break the law?

DRIVER:

No. Yes, well, I took the money, but that wasn’t the reason I let her have the car .

MAJOR G:

And what was the reason?

DRIVER:

I was afraid of her .

MAJOR G:

You’re a big boy. You were afraid of a little Chinese woman?

DRIVER:

Yeah, I know. Saying it like that makes it sound ridiculous. But there was something about her. Something in her eyes wasn’t right. And she had this shoulder bag like a military kitbag and she kept reaching into it and I started imagining she had a gun in there or something .

MAJOR G:

But you didn’t actually see one .

DRIVER:

No .

MAJOR G:

Or a knife?

DRIVER:

No .

MAJOR G:

So you let her drive off in your car because you imagined she was dangerous .

DRIVER:

( long pause) Yeah. She had her hand inside her bag when she asked me for the key .

MAJOR G:

Sounds terrifying .

DRIVER:

You’d have to have been there .

MAJOR G:

I’m sure. And you gave her the key .

DRIVER:

Yeah .

MAJOR G:

And when did you drive her again?

DRIVER:

I didn’t .

MAJOR G:

You were booked for eight days. This was day three .

DRIVER:

That night I heard her arrive at about ten. I went outside but she’d gone .

MAJOR G:

She’d been out alone that night with the car?

DRIVER:

Yes, Major .

MAJOR G:

And she returned the vehicle in one piece?

DRIVER:

That’s right. The Benz wasn’t wrecked so I slept easier. But she kept the key with her, and the spare. Three days I don’t see her at all. The Benz is parked beside my room and I had no idea what she wants me to do, so I just hang out in the cabin and watch TV and drink and eat. I mean, I was getting paid whatever happened .

MAJOR G:

But you didn’t mention any of this in your driving log .

DRIVER:

I was afraid the boss would dock me for the days I didn’t drive. I didn’t tell him about the car going off without me or the money, either .

MAJOR G:

So, why are you telling me?

DRIVER:

They said in Phuket this is a murder inquiry. I’m not about to get myself tied up in lies if there’s a murder rap at the end of it .

MAJOR G:

Very wise, son. You’ve done time?

DRIVER:

Four years in Prem. Housebreaking, when I was younger. I’ve been clean since then .

MAJOR G:

So, did you see her again before you left for Phuket?

DRIVER:

Yeah, it was Thursday and I was due to get the car back before Friday morning. I still didn’t have a key. I was starting to think I might have to call the boss. But then she turns up. I’m on the balcony and she ignores me completely, jumps in the car and she’s off. Doesn’t say a word. Seems excited about something .

MAJOR G:

When did you get the car back?

DRIVER:

I found it parked on the side of the road outside the resort later that day. The key was in the ignition so I assumed she’d finished with it. She’d put a dent in the front bumper so I imagined she was embarrassed. There was another ten thousand baht on the front seat. I tell you, a Benz with the key in the ignition and cash on the seat. In Phuket that would have survived all of forty seconds. Must be a lot of saints living down here. I left straightaway. I’d had enough of her. I stopped at a body shop on the way home and had them hammer out the dent .

There followed a good deal of back and forth establishing the times that Ming Xi Wu had the car and crosschecking the reliability of the witness. Major General Suvit wanted to know where they’d been to on the first day of the itinerary, everything the customer had said and done, and what direction she headed when she got out of the car. He was very thorough. Then he surprised me by speaking English to the driver. The policeman was pretty good, clear, easy to understand, but the driver had no idea what he was saying. The major general tried several times without success. That immediately established that it was likely the driver’s communication skills that were lacking rather than the passenger’s. Finally came the question I’d been waiting for.

MAJOR G:

At any time, did she get you to make a telephone call to the Pak Nam police station?

DRIVER:

No, sir .

MAJOR G:

Nothing to do with a missing camera?

DRIVER:

No .

And that was pretty much it. There were a few more questions but that was the bulk of it. We paid our forty baht and walked slowly back to the bike, chewing everything over.

“That major general’s sharp,” said Granddad.

“They’ve snuck one or two smart ones in since you left the force,” I told him. “Were there any questions he didn’t ask?”

“I would have pushed him on whether there was any chance at all of this woman being Thai, acting like a foreigner.”

“You aren’t still thinking about the nun?”

“Not necessarily. There’s that one missing link about the phone call to Pak Nam police station reporting the lost camera. If a foreigner had made the call, they would have picked up on it.”

“It could have been the friends she was staying with in Pak Nam. Accomplices. She could have had them call.”

“Then there’s the question of how she knew the camera had been found. How did she know it was on its way to Lang Suan with the sergeant?”

I stopped and considered the sequence of events.

“Who would have received the original call?” I asked.

“The desk sergeant.”

“Sergeant Phoom himself, right. He would have passed the message upstairs. But what if nobody had bothered to tell him the original call was a fake? There was a lot going on at the station around that time. Isn’t it possible he wasn’t included in the loop?”

“More than likely, knowing the workings of a police station.”

“And what if he’d been given a return number to call if there was any news? He’s handed the camera to take to Lang Suan but before he leaves, he calls the number and lets them know he’s on his way. He’s a considerate man. He thinks he’s just doing the forensics department a favor. Putting the owner’s mind at ease.”

We were closer to Pak Nam hospital than we were to home so we detoured. Sergeant Phoom was looking a lot better but his relatives were still there around the bed making a lot of noise. I was sure he’d be grateful for his official release so he could get some peace. There was no longer a police watchman on duty. We sat with the sergeant and I asked him about the phone call. It had been placed from a cell phone and the speaker was a woman, he recalled. She was certainly a Thai and she told him she was calling on behalf of the Lang Suan police headquarters. She’d left a contact number and, as I’d suspected, Sergeant Phoom had called her back to tell her he was returning the camera. He’d inadvertently triggered his own attack. The major had ordered him to deliver the camera, but as he was a mere sergeant, nobody had bothered to explain the history or relevance of the delivery. He thought he was merely returning a lost item. He still had the number on a slip of paper in his wallet. The temptation to call it immediately filled my bladder with excitement, but I’d messed around enough with evidence. To pep the sergeant up a little, we had him phone in this revelation himself. He could blame the delay on concussion. I thought it might help him feel less like a complete loser. I told him if he was promoted on the strength of this new evidence I wanted a slap-up meal comprising anything without fish in it.