“Because this isn’t a brothel,” she said. “If I’d wanted red floor tiles, I would have ordered red floor tiles. Did you ever consider that?”
The southern building contractor smiled angrily.
“We just thought it wouldn’t show the blood so much,” he said.
“Oh, that’s so considerate of you,” said Dr. June. “Goodness knows we wouldn’t want to know where the blood was so we could clean it up.”
“But—”
“White,” she yelled. “Tear up these ridiculous things and find me some white ones. Either that or I’ll find a foreman who knows how to read plans and follow instructions.”
Chompu and I had been standing in the ante-room during this exchange. A lot of money had been pumped into the space where the surgeons would wash and have a quick bite to eat before heading into the cutting arena. It contained splendid stainless-steel sink units, an off-suite shower stall and toilet, an air-conditioning unit the size of Norway, and a fully equipped emergency firefighting cabinet with, among other things, a fifty-meter hose. There was a flat-screen computer and a large refrigerator. As often happens, the equipment for the theater itself had arrived long before the room was completed, so it was still packaged and piled up to the ceiling.
Dr. June turned and saw us in the doorway. She closed her eyes as if to say, “Haven’t I had enough to deal with for one day?”
“I take it you haven’t found her,” she said, walking between us and not stopping. We followed her out of the new building and across the car park.
“I’m not surprised,” she continued. “People like Dr. Somluk make enemies. Eventually she’ll push just a bit too far.”
“There are one or two things we need to discuss with you,” said Chompu in his rehearsed baritone.
She stopped and turned to us.
“We?” she said. “Has the police force adopted a community buddy system I haven’t heard about?”
“If we could go to your office…” he said.
“I’m sorry. I have no time for this,” she replied.
“Doctor,” he said, “we can either talk here or I’ll have no choice but to take you to the police station and get a statement from you there.”
Chom and I had once discussed the dropping of that line. It only ever worked in the movies. Most people knew you weren’t obliged to go to the police station just because a policeman told you to.
“Are you arresting me?” she asked.
“I’m asking you … nicely.”
She looked at her damned watch.
“You can have ten minutes.”
“Thank you.”
We passed Dr. Niramon whose name began with M as we neared the office. Dr. June became a much nicer person when she saw her. They smiled and joked, and Dr. June even gave her a little squeeze on the arm. Dr. Niramon said hello to Chompu and skipped off down the corridor.
“She seems happy in her work,” said Chompu.
“She’s new,” said Dr. June. “They all start off enthusiastic. She’ll leave soon enough. They all do. She’s already been hinting at a move.”
She sat at her desk. The guest chair had vanished, leaving a two-seater couch against the far wall. Without any discussion, Chom and I grabbed an end each and carried it to Dr. June’s desk.
“Feel free to rearrange my furniture,” she said.
“Thank you,” I replied.
We sat. Dr. June looked at her watch. Our time had begun.
“First,” said Chompu, “I need to point out that withholding information from a police officer is a criminal offense.”
“I’ll bear that in mind if ever I find myself doing it,” she said.
“But you’ve already done it,” said Chompu.
“I most certainly have not.”
“You led me to believe that you weren’t at the conference in Chumphon,” he said.
“As I never commented on my attendance, one would have to conclude that you led yourself.”
“You failed to mention that you organized the conference.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“You failed to mention you were in attendance when Dr. Somluk was forcibly removed from the microphone and dragged out of the conference room.”
Me and Chom had talked about this too. It was a bit of a bluff. We weren’t to know whether she was in the room at the time, but conference organizers are never far away from events.
“Again,” she said. “You didn’t ask.”
“Did you order her removal from the microphone?”
“We had ushers who had been briefed to limit microphone time for troublemakers.”
“Dr. Somluk had been there for no longer than ten seconds. She’d barely had time to ask her question before the bouncers were on her,” I said, even though I’d promised to keep my mouth shut.
“I … I had been expecting trouble from Dr. Somluk,” she said.
“Why?” Chompu asked.
“Because she’s intent on being confrontational.”
“But why were you expecting her to be trouble at that particular conference?”
“She’d announced to her fellow conspiracy theorists that she would interrupt us.”
“And where did she announce this?”
“On the Internet. Any number of misguided people can find companionship there.”
“How do you know?”
“Know what?”
“About her Internet activities.”
“The Internet is available to everyone.”
“So you Googled her? Checked all the Web sites to see if she’d written to them?”
“No, I’m not … I’m not obsessed with her.”
My turn.
“So, accidentally, you’re surfing the net for surgical trusses and you come across Dr. Somluk’s announcement to a subversive site?”
So much for me keeping my mouth shut.
“No.”
“Then how did you find this announcement?” I asked.
“Somebody sent it to me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t believe I’m obliged to be interrogated by a holiday resort cook,” she said.
Ooh. That hurt.
“Then you can tell me,” said Chompu. “Who sent you Dr. Somluk’s announcement?”
“A friend.”
“A friend with a team of employees with nothing to do but name-search?” I said.
“Just a friend,” she said and turned to Chompu. “Look, what is this? You can’t just bring your girlfriend along on a police inquiry, you know?”
“I’m gay.” He smiled, which completely derailed her.
“Why didn’t you tell me Dr. Somluk was working here with you?” I asked while she was still off the track.
“It wasn’t relevant.”
“Why would you work alongside someone who so violently disagreed with your policies?”
Dr. June breathed deeply to compose herself.
“In the beginning there were no conflicts,” she said. “I admired her spirit, her attitude. She worked hard. We soon became close. I’d taken note of the lack of longevity in her job records, but I chose to put that down to the spirit of adventure. New thrills and experiences. I’m an administrator. I sit. I write miserable papers on child morbidity for pediatric journals. She was different. She went out and did things. I respected that. It was six months before she started her rants.”
“Her tirade against Medley?”
“Yes. But I got the feeling if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. Medley has been indispensable for rural health centers and hospitals like this. If it hadn’t been for them, a lot of smaller clinics would have been forced to close down. They sponsor training for nurses. They buy us equipment.”
“And ask nothing in return but for you to convince nursing mothers to keep their bras on,” I said.
“There is nothing unhealthy about formula,” she said.
“Dr. Somluk didn’t think so.”
“Which is wh
y we parted company. I was sorry to lose her, an able deputy. But she deserted the team. If she’d merely put it down as a difference of opinion, we could have remained friends. But there was the campaign. We’ve already lost sponsorship deals as a result of it. You have to recognize this as what it is. A bitter woman looking to rock whatever boat she happened to be riding on.”
“Do you have any idea where she might be?” Chompu asked.
“I haven’t a clue,” she said. “On that Sunday, my ushers escorted her to her car and she drove off. She didn’t go back to the Maprao clinic. I haven’t heard from her since.”
“Why did you think it necessary to keep quiet about all this?” he asked.
She looked down at her desk and shook her head.
“Lieutenant,” she said. “Despite everything she’d done, I … I didn’t want to be the one to end her livelihood. I still believed her career was salvageable. If she could have just accepted some help—I mean some professional, psychological help—I believe she could have had many productive years ahead of her. And, to tell the truth, she really was a lovely person. A good heart. You know? That’s hard to find these days.”
* * *
We drove away from the hospital in Chom’s air-conditioned, SUV police Batmobile. Our police force allows officers to use their private vehicles on the job as long as they look ominous and have enough roof space to attach a flashing light. Chom had wealthy parents, so the SUV was the least they could do. Donna Summers blasted from the quad speakers. I turned her down.
“Did you notice the switch to past tense there at the end?” I said.
“It could just mean Dr. Somluk stopped being lovely. It happens.”
“Or she stopped being Dr. Somluk,” I said. “I need Sissi.”
I speed-dialed my sister on my smartphone. While I waited, Chom said, “If you’re going to suggest anything illegal, I can’t be a part of it. I’m going to put my fingers in my ears.”
“And steer with what?”
“Have you never watched the monkeys unscrew the coconuts from the trees with their tails?”
“You wish … Siss?”
“Hello, my lovely one” came my sister’s voice.
“You sound chirpy.”
“I just traced an Estonian computer dating scammer all the way back to his living room. I arranged for a couple of hoods I know in Tallinn to go there and beat him up.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
“I have no pity for men who break hearts. So what unpaid task do you have for me now?”
“We’re still looking for Dr. Somluk. She posted her intention to disrupt the Chumphon conference on some Web site. No idea where. How hard would it be to find that site and trace back anyone who accessed it and read her post?”
“For a human being? Virtually impossible. But me…?”
“Great.”
“You wouldn’t be searching for the Medley Mobster Department by any chance?”
“I think someone at Medley found Dr. Somluk’s threat and passed the information on to Dr. June. If you can use your magic to locate that communiqué, it would be very useful to know what other messages passed between them.”
“You do realize any dirty stuff would never be traceable back to Medley? These people invest a lot of money in covering their tracks. They’ve probably outsourced their threats and intimidation to Mumbai.”
“I don’t care for now. I just want to see what instructions were passed along to shut Dr. Somluk up.”
“You surely don’t think Dr. June buried her in cement?”
“No. But half of her programs are sponsored by Medley, so it’s quite possible she’s sold her soul to formula like all the doctors at the conference. I think her reputation rests on her good relations with her sponsor. Maprao would be a very small blip on the Medley radar, but the Web makes heroes of blips. They could see Dr. Somluk getting bigger. They might have dug the dirt and found something in her past to shut her up. Wherever it is, she’s gone to ground. I want to root her out and make this all right.”
“My little sister. The Aung San Suu Kyi of breast milk.”
“Er … thanks?”
I turned off the phone and had one other thought.
“Chom?”
“Yes?”
“How do you think Dr. June knew I was a cook in a resort?”
* * *
Chompu and I drove directly to the resort car park and covered the SUV with a tarpaulin. I doubted the psychologist from the police ministry was cruising the streets looking for him, but he’d decided to play it safe, especially as my name had come up in group therapy. The shrink had asked him to name a male and female role model in his life. He’d cited Bird McIntyre, the singer, and me. When asked to hypothetically make the choice as to which he would sooner be, he’d chosen me. But that was only because Bird was too gay even for him. The police psych department probably had my address on file.
Captain Kow was sitting on a fold-up chair at the edge of the car park, looking out to sea. I wanted to ignore him, but Chompu stopped and stood beside him. He hadn’t yet heard of our tainted rent-a-dad history.
“See anything?” he asked.
“Storm,” said the captain. “Big one. Tomorrow. Maybe the next day. Not violent but significant. Could be the highest tide we’ve seen down here for a long time.”
“Awesome,” said Chom. “That you can tell all that just by studying the whitecaps, the scent of the brine, the mauve clouds gathering on the horizon.”
The captain reached into his right ear and pulled out the earphone connected to the transistor radio in his jacket pocket.
“Government weather report,” said Kow and laughed. “There was a time we could predict the weather to within a centimeter of rain. I could have told you the height and shape of tomorrow’s waves, but we’ve screwed it all up. You and me and the lords of development. We take from nature and give nothing back. Ten years ago we’d listen to weather broadcasts and have a good laugh. We knew they made it up as they went along. Then all the natural indicators vanished: the ants’ nests, the early blooms, the migrations, the revolving seasons of sea life. It all went arse upward. Now the radio’s the nearest we can get to knowing what to expect. We deserve whatever Mother Nature chucks at us.”
That was him. That was the Captain Kow I’d grown to respect before I knew he’d sired me. Honest. Knowledgeable. Tied to the sea. He must have had a miserable time in landlocked Chiang Mai. He didn’t do it for the money. I knew that much. He followed my mother. He’d always loved her. A man doesn’t give up all this for a contract. It was at that moment I decided to cancel my hatred of him. I thought I might even try to call him Dad.
A text message tinkled from my phone.
Bangkok boring. Looking forward to Saturday. Conrad.
It was astounding how—all right, not love, but romance—scented everything around you. How the fact that somebody attractive found you interesting made even the most mundane activities fascinating. I de-scaled our lunch mackerel and laughed as the scales sprang into the air and fell like snowdrops to the ground. I’d never before noticed anything erotic about slicing open a fish and removing its intestines. Never spent so long staring at a carrot before slicing it. This was what—not love but romance—did to you. Trust Grandad to bring you back to earth.
“You put any more MSG in there and I’ll be preserved for life.”
He was leaning over my shoulder in the kitchen. I hated it when he did that.
“Isn’t that what you’ve been hoping for?” I asked.
“I want to be preserved as a living person, not a dead one.”
“Shouldn’t you be in a rowing boat spying on the glass house?”
“Not much to be learned there.”
“Why not?”
“Your Burmese aren’t likely to get up to anything until your writer leaves for Bangkok.”
“He’s already in Bangkok.”
“Not as of half an hour ago he wasn’t.”
13.
Room for Rant
(real estate)
I sat with the dogs on my veranda. Gogo was almost back to her old disagreeable self, growling at the other two. Sticky was chewing a shoe I didn’t recognize. Lieutenant Chompu was seated opposite me, raising his feet every time mange-ridden Beer nuzzled up to him.
“Just kick her, Chom,” I said. “She’s a Thai dog. She’d appreciate the discipline.”
“Right. And get mange-foot and have it slowly fall off.”
“That’s leprosy. It’s one of the few diseases she hasn’t got.”
“It’s nice to see you’re feeling chirpier.”
It was three p.m. and we were on our second glass of Chilean red. The wind had died down and we were in another one of those ominous lulls. The prediction of a storm surge in our area had even made a TV appearance.
“No,” I said. “Even before the wine, I was fine. I mean, I don’t have any claim over him. He can go where he likes whenever he wants. I just don’t see any point in pretending he’s in Bangkok when he’s actually here at his house.”
“There could be any number of reasons,” said Chom. “He didn’t like you in the first place. He’s gone off you. He started to notice your annoying habits. He doe—”
“All right. Thanks.”
“You know I’m teasing. He probably came back early because he misses you.”
“Then why doesn’t he phone me?”
“Call him.”
“I don’t want to sound like a desperate girlfriend.”
“You don’t have to. Lie. You’re a grand mistress at that. Ask him if he can pick you up something in Bangkok.”
“Like what?”
“Something you can’t get down here.”
“Well, that’s just about everything, Chom.”
“All right. Ask him for pizza. They sell it at Suvanaphum Airport.”
“If they believe you can hijack an aircraft with nail clippers, just think how much mayhem you could cause with hot cheese. They wouldn’t let him on the flight.”
“Jimm, it doesn’t matter. He’s here.”
“Right.”
So I called his number or at least the number he’d texted me from, but that same silly-voiced mutant insisted it didn’t exist. I’ve always wanted someone to invent a cell-phone avatar who could take on those annoying recorded messages. Engage them in a dialogue. Slap ’em around the head. But I was probably just venting my ire. On reflection, that was probably the moment I slammed my phone down on the side table and didn’t notice Sticky sneak up behind me and run off with it in his mouth. I should have known better than to think he wouldn’t have been fascinated by a smartphone. If I’d just been a little bit more careful, all the subsequent misunderstandings and disasters could have been averted. And one more person might still have been alive at the end of it all. That’s a lot of responsibility on the shoulders of one fat puppy, but theft is a crime against society and he has to accept the consequences of his actions.
The Axe Factor: A Jimm Juree Mystery (Jimm Juree Mysteries) Page 16
