Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

by Colin Cotterill

  “Yes?”

  “Me.” It was Chompu. “Lang Suan just e-mailed us the digital recording of the interview. I’ve sent a copy to your inbox.”

  Something Chiang Mai in me was shocked that Lang Suan might have the concept of digital.

  “What? Why? We aren’t online here,” I reminded him.

  “Then get somewhere that is.”

  We plodded along on the motorcycle, me on the back, Granddad Jah driving. I thought the excitement and urgency might prod him over sixty kph, but no. The law was the law. With such short notice we had just the one option to check my e-mail. It was three forty-five on Sunday and I knew the Internet café would be overrun with star troopers. I’d underestimated just how many there were. The line of motorcycles in front of the shop left us no choice but to park forty meters away. We pushed our way inside through a flock of young people with nowhere else to go. The owner, a young man with long hair and moon-landscape acne looked up briefly from his laptop when we entered, then looked back down again as if the door had merely been blown open by the wind. All five computers were in use, each occupied by two or three teenagers in the process of penetrating castles or massacring herds of villains.

  “How long would we have to wait?” I asked the owner.

  The man shrugged. It was his big profit margin period, early evenings and weekends. At twenty baht an hour he could clear, ooh, a hundred-and-twenty baht easy on an evening like this. In seventy-three years he’d have paid off the cost of the computers. It was a business that baffled me.

  “All right,” I shouted. “Who’d be prepared to give up a machine for…fifty baht?”

  They all turned back to their games. I tried one hundred and two hundred baht and got the same reaction.

  “All right,” I said. “How much would it take?”

  One group huddled and came up with a figure of five-hundred baht. They weren’t open to haggling. It was extortion but I was desperate. I handed over the money, asked for an extra set of headphones and Granddad and I hunkered down to listen to the interview. It took fifteen minutes to download the file and, by then, Granddad was grinding his teeth. Just as well they weren’t real.

  In.

  The recording began with several minutes of personal questions: name, address, occupation, et cetera. Then Major General Suvit, who was interviewing, got down to the nitty-gritty.

  MAJOR G:

  Koon Wirapon, why did you come to Lang Suan last week?

  DRIVER:

  Had a job, sir. A client wanted a Benz for eight days.

  MAJOR G:

  Who was the client?

  DRIVER:

  It’s here, (crinkle of paper) Ming Xi Wu, from Hong Kong.

  MAJOR G:

  Description.

  DRIVER:

  Around fifty, short, in pretty good shape for her age, tight short perm, could have been a wig, typical Chinese face with those big old-fashioned sunglasses. Dressed in safari clothes and boots.

  MAJOR G:

  Where did she want to go?

  DRIVER:

  No plan really. Just look around. When she first contacted the company, the e-mail said she wanted to see temples and local birds. She was a birdwatcher. She had cameras and binoculars and stuff.

  Granddad Jah and I exchanged a look. I knew his mind had gone directly to the ornithologist in our first cabana. Coincidence?

  MAJOR G:

  So, you just drove her around?

  DRIVER:

  Pretty much, sir. She’d ask to stop here and there and she’d hop out and take pictures or look through her binoculars.

  MAJOR G:

  Did you take her to Wat Feuang Fa?

  DRIVER:

  To tell the truth, sir, I’m not familiar with the names of the temples down these parts. I’m from Trat. This was my first visit to the Gulf.

  MAJOR G:

  You might recall it. It’s a small temple but it’s on the crest of a hill. You can see it from the road. There’s a bank of bougainvilleas to one side.

  DRIVER:

  Oh, yes. I do recall that. My passenger was particularly interested in that one.

  MAJOR G:

  What happened?

  DRIVER:

  It was the second day. We’re driving along and she sees this temple and it’s like it’s the best thing she’s ever seen and she’s babbling on in Chinese and I don’t know what she wants. I speak English well enough but she’s all single words: stop, go, slow, turn. She tells me to slow down at the temple but not stop. She directs me onto this dirt track a little bit farther on. I try to tell her we could just drive straight up to the temple but she’s not having any of it. Probably didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.

  MAJOR G:

  So?

  DRIVER:

  So she wants to take pictures of something or other, I’m guessing. Tells me to pull over on this little lane, gets her camera all set up, grabs her shoulder bag and tells me to wait. She runs off into the bushes. I turn the car round, come back and park off the track. About, I don’t know, fifteen, twenty minutes later she’s back and in a real state. Looks like she’s been in a fight. She’s all sweaty and her leg’s cut. And mad, oh, is she mad. And she’s going on in her language, on, on, on. I don’t know what got into her but I tell you she frightened me. She says, “Go, go,” so I drive her back to Pak Nam and drop her off.

  MAJOR G:

  Where was she staying?

  DRIVER:

  With friends, according to the e-mail. No idea where they lived. She always had me pick her up and drop her off at the hospital intersection.

  MAJOR G:

  How did you know when to pick her up?

  DRIVER:

  She’d either write down a time on a bit of paper or she’d turn up at the Tiwa. That’s where I was staying. She’d arranged that.

  MAJOR G:

  And when was the next time you saw her?

  DRIVER:

  The next night. I hadn’t seen her all day. Didn’t know what she wanted me to do. She turns up at the Tiwa at about eight p.m. And there I am enjoying a glass of Saeng Som and Coke on the veranda. I’m just in my shorts, aren’t I? Well, it didn’t occur to me she’d want the car at night. Not a lot of luminous birds out, you know? But she’s all smiley and she wants to go for a drive. So I think perhaps she’s in the mood for a little night life. I’m fond of the odd disco myself. But, no. She doesn’t want me along. She seems to think she can just take the car off on her own. But we’ve got regulations, you see. If someone’s renting the car to drive themselves we have to do security checks. The company hangs on to their passports and makes sure they’ve got international licenses. That’s the law, right? But this woman booked with a driver and so there was no background check. I couldn’t let her take it.

  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.

  On the drive home I was thinking about the ornithologist who’d spent a week in our end room and checked out a day early. I also considered our local postman’s wife, the noodle lady and forty-odd other local women who fitted or could be decorated to fit the description of the killer from Hong Kong, Ming Xi Wu. And I thought about my nun and wondered whether anyone would take the driver’s statement seriously. It didn’t make any sense at all to consider her a suspect.
But it was only by seeing the photos that anyone else might understand. I was afraid we’d have to give them up. My thoughts were interrupted by the jaunty Swedish tone of my cell phone. It was Chompu.

  “Was that your doing?” he asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “Sergeant Phoom’s amnesia with regard to the telephone number.”

  “Word gets around fast.”

  “The major had me trace it. We still had some mileage left on our old warrant with the phone company. The caller had left a return number so we didn’t think they’d be directly connected to the crime. We were right. It was the number of a business service center called, uRinguist.”

  “What’s that got to do with a missing camera?”

  “Well, I haven’t actually called the number yet, but I looked up their Web site. It appears they do a thriving trade in translations and interpreting. A business person arrives from overseas and needs to send a message to, say, a Thai factory owner. He calls uRinguist and leaves a message in his own language whence it’s translated into Thai. A native Thai speaker then calls the factory owner ostensibly passing on the message as the visitor’s personal assistant. If there’s a reply, the process reverses itself and the visiting business person receives the reply in his or her own language. It gives the visitor some added status and a little class. It’s one of those huge ideas everyone wishes they’d thought of.”

  “So, you’re saying Sergeant Phoom was called by a service?”

  “Yes. They just read the message. ‘Hello, I’m calling on behalf of…’ et cetera.”

  “And he called back to the service.”

  “So it would seem. They translated the reply and probably sent a text message to the killer in her own language telling her the camera was on its way to Lang Suan. It was the moment she’d been waiting for all this time. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to make googoo eyes at the judge again to get into the uRinguist records. It’s a confidential service. And all that will have to wait till the morning ‘cause no self-respecting judge works on a Sunday. And I don’t even have a client’s name to give him.”

  “The Hong Kong connection was false?”

  “Surprise, surprise. None of the details sent to the rental company checked out. We have no idea what her real name is, but we do know something about her.”

  “Shock me.”