Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

The German saluted when the police parade marched past his room, and his unexpected girlfriend ran inside the cabin. The receptionist opened the door to the Korean’s room: B4.

“Has anyone been inside this room since she checked out?” one Bangkok detective asked.

“Yes, the cleaner,” she replied.

“Apart from that?”

“No.”

The room was a little cramped for an eighteen-man search but neither Bangkok nor Lang Suan, nor Pak Nam was prepared to yield the responsibility to the other groups. They settled on a delegation of two men from each section, a total of six. They all wore standard issue rubber gloves but they carefully lifted bedsheets and towels and opened drawers with the non-writing ends of pencils. By some incredible chance, it was an officer from the Pak Nam station who uncovered the only clue in the room. And what a clue it was. A clue so vital, in fact, that it blew the case wide open. What had, until then, been a domestic murder inquiry was suddenly of concern to the world.

Lieutenant Chompu, it was, who discovered the tiny scrap of paper that had evidently slipped down behind the cushion of one of the uncomfortable vinyl chairs. On it was a handwritten Web site address. Anyone who’d read Chompu’s pep-talk notes on the Pak Nam notice board might have recognized some characteristics in the style.

He’d disguised his handwriting as best he could but, as the Bangkok detectives took possession of the paper immediately, it was a connection that would never be made. Neither would anyone think to ask why the guest would write her own Internet address on a slip of paper. From the criminal point of view, there was a lot to be said for police non-cooperation.

We sat, the three of us, me, Granddad Jah and Lieutenant Chompu, at one of our beachside tables. An array of local food, bought from here and there, was covered in plates and clingfilm and untouchable in front of us. We had a bottle of 100 Pipers whiskey that Granddad Jah drank over ice, and me and Chompu drank mizuwari . That’s Japanese for ‘drowned to death in water’. But we still had a buzz going just from the lieutenant’s telling of events.

“I zeroed in on the chair,” he said. “I was able to palm the Web site address, but I thought I might be pushing my luck to slip the photo prints under the mattress. I mean, there were six of us in a room of two-by-two meters.”

“Do you think it’ll be enough?” I asked.

“To tie crazy Mika to Abbot Winai’s murder? It’s hard to say. They’re very likely to find camera footage of Do Ik passing through immigration and compare it with the Web site photo and say it’s a completely different person.”

“She used her real passport to enter and leave the country,” said Granddad.

We both looked up.

“What makes you think so?” I asked.

“She went to so much trouble to avoid showing her ID to the rental firm. By hiring a car with a driver, she didn’t need to leave her passport. And the resort didn’t check either. She came to the right area. Hotels here are so desperate to get paying guests they really don’t care who you are.”

“The passport theory would certainly make life a lot easier if it were true,” said Chompu. “But it still doesn’t tie her to the murder. Unless they can get a recent photo of Mika Mikata to the Benz driver or the 69 receptionist, there’d be nothing to connect her to the killing at all. It’s only your reporter’s nose that ties the two women together. There’s no evidence. There are no witnesses. No murder weapon’s been found. And, as our Bangkok friends would hurry to point out, there’s no motive.”

“So, we might still be forced to give up the photographs?” I asked.

“They’re not incriminating,” he said. “All you can see is a hand in an oven mitt.”

“Damn,” I said. “It should be easy now.”

“Look out! Mother at seven o’clock,” said Granddad.

“Hello, you conspirators,” Mair said. She’d snuck up on us from the beach side. She joined us, pushing me along the bench with her backside.

“What would we be conspiring about?” I asked her.

“I don’t know the details,” she said. “But I can see secrets floating around you. You have guilty auras. Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”

“No,” said Granddad Jah. “You know what you get like after half a glass.”

“You see, Lieutenant?” Mair smiled at the police officer.

“A girl never really grows up. Her father’s always there to remind her of her morals.”

A few days ago she’d thrown herself under the counter to avoid him; now she was flirting with him. Mothers! We mixed her a drink so weak the soda bubbles were beside themselves in the search for whiskey atoms. We fell into a peaceful silence, staring at the little lights out at sea, bobbing along on their polystyrene rafts. After a few months of fishing, the locals became lethargic. They put together traps of fine mesh and suspended them from small foam platforms illuminated by gas lamps. The boatmen would come back the next day to see what their indiscriminate snares had collected. They took as many immature fish as they did squid and it screwed up the ecosystem. It’s illegal and irresponsible, but it’s terribly pretty. The pearl tears of lamplight dotted the surface of the water all around.

“I was talking to Auntie Summorn today,” Mair said.

See? A mere sip and she was about to confess to the police.

“How is she?” I asked, and elbowed her in the kidney.

“She was very well,” she said. “She was telling me about her son. I’m sure you’ve run across Auntie Summorn’s son, General…”

Chompu pepped up at the address.

“Mair, I — ”

“His name’s Daeng,” she continued. “He’s our local villain.”

“We know him very well.” Chompu nodded. “Very well.”

“Then you’d probably be surprised to hear he’s given up drinking and applied to enter the monkhood for a month.”

“And I’m thinking of having my left leg amputated because I’ve lost a sock,” was Chompu’s response.

Mair chuckled.

“It’s official,” she said. “He’s signed up for detox at Wat Ny Kow.”

“Then wonders will never cease,” said the policeman. “Whatever’s come over him?”

“Oh, I just think a man comes to a point in his life when he gets tired of running away from his conscience. All his past deeds catch up with him and…I mean, they’re coming from different directions, obviously, the conscience and the deeds, otherwise they’d be bumping into each other and complicating things. But that’s probably when his life turns around…because of all that jostling.”

Mair had a way with idioms. Chompu looked from me to Granddad Jah and we both shrugged.

“Well, then here’s to villain Daeng,” said Chompu, raising his glass and downing the contents. I clinked my glass against Mair’s and sniffed her cheek.

“Well done, Mair,” I whispered in her ear. She threw back half her drink and smacked her lips and fluttered her eyes.

“General Chompu,” she slurred, “do you know I once tied a police officer to a bamboo raft and set him off down the Kok River? It was — ”

“All right, girl. You’ve had enough,” said Granddad Jah, taking her half-empty glass. “She makes up stories when she’s drunk.”

“I do not. His name was Police Sergeant Major Grit Maleenon. He was naked because he — ”

“Mair!”

She grabbed back her glass and laughed. We were saved the rest of the story by the arrival of our truck. In fact, hearing Mair’s story might have been better. It was a moment I’d been secretly dreading, so I can’t imagine how Mair felt. Arny had invited his girlfriend (and I use the term with generous caution) for dinner. The spread in front of us was all cold. Arny was half an hour late.