Number Seven

by Colin Cotterill

  “What are you talking about?” said the second son. It was the first time I’d heard him speak. He seemed meek, a lot less confident than his humpy brother.

  “Well,” I continued, “Your daddy decided that was a good time to bring in his boys at the Kamala North police station. There’d been a directive circulated recommending or, perhaps more accurately, insisting that crimes against foreigners be under-reported until the acting government could fix the damage done by the protests in Bangkok. Thirteen percent of the Thai economy came from tourism and the country needed every dollar it could bring in. They didn’t want any alarms going off in the tourism heaven of Phuket. That left the individual stations here to interpret the directive as best suited them, and it meant that Kamala could disappear a murder for long enough to set it up as a foreigner against foreigner crime. They had a prime suspect in Te Win. Customers had seen them chatting and leaving the bar together but they had to hang on to him until they could set up an alibi for the actual killer. That took longer than it should have because your police lackeys screwed up.”

  “What do you mean?” Dum asked.

  “Someone at the station had their own little scam going,” I said. “No idea who it was, but he was part of a group that had set up a website claiming they were an NGO run by volunteer lawyers to help foreigners in Thai jails. They’d contact family and friends and let them know how much it would cost to get their loved ones out of jail. They had a payment network set up. Te Win was arrested in his room where they found his documents and personal letters. It didn’t take much detection to find his bank manager girlfriend’s details and his ubiquitous Facebook presence on his cell phone. They contacted the girlfriend and told her what he’d been arrested for. She sent a bribe to their website. When nothing came of that, she contacted me. I got in touch with the Chiang Mai Mail and told them what I’d heard and they offered to cover our trip down here. I’ve been sending daily updates of our findings. It was pure chance that I’d meet a police captain who’d just returned from his vacation and wasn’t yet apprised of the situation. I doubt too many officers at the station knew of the actual murder. Maybe just a select few. But they were all sworn to silence about the mysterious prisoner in their cell.”

  Dum, stood and smiled and clapped his hands slowly.

  “Marvelous,” he said. “Fucking marvelous. Now I understand how you got here and I do believe you’ve answered all my questions. The stupid Spanish holiday captain we’ve already dealt with. It shouldn’t be hard for me to find the officer with the fake website. He will be a lesson to the others not to fuck with me in the future. Given her position and her family commitments, I doubt the bank girlfriend in Pak Nam will pursue this with any great enthusiasm. You did go to see the old tramp at the Phuket Gazette, a journal with an easily pliable editor and a Thai reading public of about twelve so I doubt we need to worry about them. Which leaves just you, my little fat girl. Your eulogy was very fucking impressive. But I’m sorry to remind you that you have had no contact with the Chiang Mai Mail and you’ve not written or sent any updates on your findings here to anyone. We’ve been following you both very closely. In fact, given your admission, I have come to the conclusion that we no longer need you both.”

  “May I ask how you’ve decided to do away with us?” I said.

  “Nothing heroic,” said Dum. “I’m afraid you’re both just going to vanish from the face of the earth. We’ll start a rumour that you crossed the Burmese mafia and they weighted you down in the Andaman Sea to be eaten by fish. But, in fact, you’ll be major contributors to the foundations of our new hotel. You should be proud. We might even name a wine cellar after you. But, don’t worry. I’m not a beast. We’ll shoot you before we throw you into the cement.”

  “You’re so kind,” I said.

  The last thing I remember that morning was one of the men standing in front of me with a metre length of PVC pipe and spitting into it. They told me later I’d been hit with a dart loaded with some sort of ketamine cocktail. I imagine they’d needed two or three darts to knock out Arny. Before they could put him on the dolly and take him to the van, they’d had to prize my cell phone from his grasp. It was then they would have noticed it was in the middle of a call.

  *

  “Man, you sleep a lot,” said Jim.

  He was blurry but he looked like that even when I wasn’t drugged. I was in a white room under a white sheet. I always wondered why hospitals didn’t decorate in cheerful colours for fun and vitality.

  “I been here long?” I asked.

  “Coming up to thirty hours.”

  “And you’ve been sitting at my bedside the whole time? That’s sweet.”

  “Actually I just got here. How you feeling?”

  “As I’m not embedded in concrete I assume we won?”

  “Emphatic victory for the away side,” he said and sat on the bed. I could smell sweet mango soap.

  “Where’s Arny?”

  “He’s in the next room. He’ll be sleeping for a while yet. He saved both your lives.”

  “You know, he has a habit of doing that. He’s like one of those bad deus ex machina endings. He’s invisible for the entire story then leaps in to take credit for saving the pretty heroine. That’s me, by the way. How did he do it this time?”

  “He had your phone. He speed dialed me and turned off the call volume. I could hear everything that was going on in the room. I was with the media people waiting for the press conference. The TV guys recorded the dialogue and things moved pretty fast. I knew where you were staying. We obviously couldn’t call the local police to rescue you but once the big beef at the central station heard what was going on, they sent in mobile units from Patong. They got to you in ten minutes. The press weren’t far behind. Just as well you talk so much.”

  “It’s one of my many skills.”

  “You didn’t know you were being recorded?”

  “Not a clue. I was just buying time, hoping something might happen to take their minds off killing us.”

  Jim grabbed a plastic beaker of water. I thought he was going to give me a drink but he quaffed it himself.

  “Not for me, thanks,” I said. “So, how much of my theory was correct?”

  “Pretty damned good, girl,” he said. “I watched all the footage from the 7-Eleven video you copied for me. If you’d been a little more patient you would have seen Dum’s eldest, Gahn, following Te Win and the Italian down to the beach.”

  “Her name’s Saphira.”

  “Right. He waited for the Burmese to leave, had his wicked way with Saphira, killed her and left her on the sand. I guess she was coherent enough to tell him she wasn’t interested in him. He obviously didn’t handle rejection that well. He beat her with a coconut hook blade the harvesters had left in a palm tree. He went back to the Happy House and told his dad and brother what he’d done. It wasn’t the first time they’d had to clear up after him. They’d disguised his other murders: the insecticides, the fire, the drowning. They were all the result of Gahn being rejected by Western women. Not easy having a psychopath in the family.

  “That morning they went to the beach, buried the girl and started the process of fabricating evidence and setting up an alibi for Gahn. They were a bit slow in confiscating the CCTV footage from the 7-Eleven. In fact they didn’t think about it until after they’d followed you there. Then there was the suspect. They had a perfect patsy to take the fall but they had to make sure the Burmese was still around when the body was found. So they had him arrested. Dum’s guys at the police station started putting the ideas into his head that he’d killed the girl. They thought sleep and food deprivation might disorient him enough to confuse reality. Eventually get a confession out of him. But Te Win had his mind together. He meditated his way through those four days. His memory of events was clear but he’d seen his countrymen convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. He knew nothing was certain.”

  “It might have worked if it wasn’t for the extortionist,” I sa
id.

  “Right. They couldn’t have reckoned that into the mix. He wasn’t even one of Dum’s guys. All he knew was that there was a Burmese in custody and talk of a murder and a missing girl. He was on the raid when they picked up Te Win at the guest house. He had access to Te Win’s belongings. He passed on the information to his buddies at the fake NGO and they got in touch with the bank manager. And in rides Jimm Juree and her faithful sidekick, Arnie. Once Dum knew who you were they had to delay finding the body until they were certain you didn’t know anything. It was most accommodating of you to stay at Dum’s guesthouse. I guess the barman you talked to is part of the hotel foundations now. There’s no sign of him.”

  “And Saphira?” I asked.

  “The body’s on its way home. The Italian embassy was pretty good about it. Her mother had been in touch a week before to report she’d lost contact with her daughter. They’d even traced her to Phuket before the trail went cold.”

  “Jim.”

  “Yes, Jimm?”

  “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  *

  The combination of Manager Doom’s attorney brother and my felonious sister, Sissy, led to the acceptance of our insurance claim. Sissy uncovered a number of government reports that argued that the ‘so called experts’ were wrong in their theory of passive erosion. They stated that there was no evidence erosion occurred as a result of the high profile, much touted, enormous budget engineering projects dotted along the coast. As these were official government reports, the bank had no choice but to dismiss the relevance of Section 23 and give us the full five million baht hand out. I suggested we take the money and run. But Mair, whose name was on the policy, had her heart set on making the Lovely Resort work. And we, as obedient, caring offspring, had no choice but to stay with her to see it through. God damn it.

  I went to see Manager Doom to thank her for keeping her promise. With Dum’s arrest, Te Win lost his job at the hotel site but he didn’t return to Pak Nam. Contact with him became less frequent over the weeks until one day she’d not expected to hear from him and he’d not expected to call. That’s the way it worked, I guess. Passion. Highly overrated. Sissy checked out Doom’s family fortune. She really did have enough not to need to rob her own bank. Mair still wasn’t convinced. The five-hundred thousand the manager had sent for Te Win’s release was long gone but I admired her in a way for sending it. Stupid it may have been but also loveable. I wished I had someone I cared enough for to give my entire life savings to. At that moment my nest egg amounted to five-hundred and fifty baht. Just enough to buy a bottle of Chilean Red. I couldn’t even afford Sex On The Beach.

  The End

  Jimm Juree’s Short Stories

  Number One: The Funeral Photographer

  In this story, Jimm, exiled from the north of Thailand and just about surviving in the south, finds a new career by accident. Being Jimm, a crime is never far away.

  Number Two: When You Wish Upon a Star

  A car drives into a river and a woman is dead. A terrible accident and a broken hearted husband. Or it would be if Jimm’s sixth sense didn’t cut in.

  Number Three: Highway Robbery

  "First, my only appointment of the week phoned to postpone. Second, on the TV news in the evening I was astounded to see scenes from our own Highway 41 where an armoured security van had been deserted minus its cash. And, third, I was awoken just before midnight by the sound of groaning coming from the empty shop house beside mine. It was a while before I learned how these three events were connected."

  Number Four: The Zero Finger Option

  A letter a day delivered by a good looking young postman leads Jimm into a new mystery. It starts as a case of internet scamming, but ends up somewhere far worse.

  Number Five: Trash

  Not a message in a bottle; instead it's in a sealed plastic bag which once held medicines, stuffed inside an old sardine can and washed up on the beach. A cry for help by someone held against their will? And is there any connection to the Burmese labourers dying from malaria? Another case for Jimm Juree.

  Number Six: Spay With Me

  "On the day I, Jimm Juree, sent one of my mother’s dogs to hell, someone robbed the Siam Commercial Bank in Pak Nam. The two events sound unrelated, but they weren’t. The connection between the two was me and one amazingly bad decision I made. This will all become evident as I talk you through the events of that Thursday."

  Number Seven: Sex on the Beach

  When a tourist is raped and killed at a resort in the south of Thailand, the police place the guilt on a Burmese migrant worker. Jimm is recruited to help the arrested worker and soon smells a rat, or rather a number of them.

  **COMING SOON**

  Number Eight: Smelly Man

  Who is trying to kill the smelly tramp? The tramp doesn't know, but he hires Jimm to find out. Jimm with her family and a friendly gay cop set to work on the mystery as only they can.