Number Twelve

by Colin Cotterill

  “Some enjoy the notoriety.”

  “It’s the Web. If he didn’t log on, he’d be invisible. He’s one of the good guys. Give him a call of thanks.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t sound very pleased.”

  “It means I’ve lost my only suspect,” I said.

  “What suspect? You put a bag of money in a trolley and drive away. It’s more like a donation.”

  “All right,” I said. “I admit it. I’m guilty of early senility. But I’m disappointed in the falling standards of crime. Any fair-weather thief presented with a windfall like this would have a conscience. Let’s say his mother’s in hospital with cancer, and the money is enough for that final chemo shot. He should be so pleased, he’d take out the cash, and, in gratitude, leave behind the cards and the license. Thence, some other good Samaritan would find them and hand them in to the police in hope there would be a humble reward for his honesty. Damn it, I have to cancel all my cards.”

  Throughout the day I continued to get Line calls from people who’d seen the post, people who were kind and concerned, and who promised to do what they could to find my wallet. There were calls from people I’d helped directly or indirectly since my arrival in the south, people who’d found it difficult to say ‘thank you’ but were now on my team. The names in my inbox sparked memories of cases I’d worked on, victories we’d had. The feedback began to outweigh the loss. I felt I had a community at my back. People power was a tool I’d never experienced before, and I realized that this was the future of crime fighting. I was at the heart of an infinite Neighbourhood Watch. Criminals didn’t live in a vacuum. People knew them or knew of them. The Internet could harness enough amateur detectives to solve all the silly crimes that clogged up a policeman’s schedule.

  *

  “Name?”

  I’d finally made my way to the police typist’s desk, and was about to confess.

  “Jimm Juree.”

  “Address?”

  The young fellow obviously hadn’t been keeping up with events on social media. We plodded through all the sections on the statement of loss. We’d just arrived at ‘detailed description of item lost’ when Major General Suvit appeared at the door. We’d worked together before, but I wouldn’t describe our relationship as warm. I got the feeling he resented my intrusion on his cases, even though they resulted in convictions for him and good-news articles for me. He was a good-looking older man with a straight back and a reputation for honesty – which always made me wonder why he’d joined the police. Corruption was one of the perks of the job.

  “Jimm Juree, what are you doing here?” he asked.

  “She lost her handbag, sir,” said the typist.

  “Stolen?” he asked.

  “No, just misplaced,” I said, and began describing the scene. He wasn’t that interested in listening.

  “Pretty damned stupid thing to do,” he said. “Much money in it?”

  I considered lying but there was no point, especially if the bag was recovered.

  “Twenty thousand baht,” I said.

  He laughed quite rudely.

  “I’d just withdrawn the salaries for Mair’s Burmese school teachers,” I said.

  He laughed again.

  “Well, you’ve got no chance in hell of getting that back,” he said.

  It was nice to see the police had so much confidence in their own abilities. But I suppose he knew if someone handed in my bag, it had to pass through several police hands before it was returned to me, and police salaries were embarrassingly low.

  “The Lang Suan social network’s on it,” I said, and realized it was a mistake the moment it left my mouth.

  “Oh, yes?” he said, and leaned over me like the shadow of a monsoon cloud. “Oh yes? You of all people should know better. Do you know how many years of study I put in to reach the position I’m in now? Do you know how long it took me to hone my craft?”

  I could have taken a guess but I got the feeling that wasn’t his point.

  He continued, “Do you know how many laws and by-laws a policeman has to memorize? How many months of weapons and self-defense training he has to invest in? Being a law enforcement officer is not a hobby, young Jimm. It is a vocation. It is not something a group of vigilante would-be detectives on computers can ever emulate.”

  I guessed he wouldn’t be recruiting the network anytime soon. So much for my idea that public-police cooperation would be the future of detection.

  “So you’d be willing to spare an officer to help me find my handbag?” I asked.

  That put him in a difficult position.

  “Certainly,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Just as soon as I’m certain a crime has been committed.”

  “My handbag’s been stolen,” I said. “I’m lodging a complaint right now.”

  “It hasn’t been stolen. It just isn’t in the place you last saw it. It’s lost. Misplacement is not the same as robbery. It may have been picked up by a conscientious citizen who is waiting for the right moment to hand it in to the authorities.”

  “So, according to the by-laws, what exactly is the statute of limitations on a loss becoming a theft?”

  “As long as it takes for all the other possibilities to be ruled out.”

  “What other possibilities are there?”

  “That you dropped it in the bank. That it fell into a drain in the car park. That it’s on the floor of your truck. That you forgot to bring it from home in the first place. Middle-aged women are known for their dottiness.”

  Did I mention he had misogynistic leanings?

  “I withdrew money from the bank,” I said. “So I know I had the handbag with me.”

  “Just an example, young Jimm. You exhaust all the other possibilities, and we’ll consider it to have been stolen.”

  I was always exasperated after a visit to the Lang Suan Police Station. I completed my statement and signed it, took my three copies to the truck, and spent twenty minutes exhausting another possibility. My handbag wasn’t in there, but I did find an unopened Mars bar tucked down behind the rear seat. I hadn’t had any lunch, but I had no memory of buying it, and the truck was twenty years old. For all I knew, it could have belonged to the original owner. So, reluctantly, I walked to the garbage bins and threw it away. I was returning to the truck when I heard “You’re Jimm Juree, right?”

  The question came from a bush, but I assumed there was somebody behind it.

  “Yes,” I said, walking around to the other side of the bush.

  There, on his knees, was a police cadet with his shirt sleeves rolled up. He had a gardening fork in one hand and there was a large basket full of gnarled plants beside him. He looked about fifteen, but his head and his body didn’t match. He worked out. I could see that. He was buff, but I was sure he was hoping for some facial hair to mask his baby face.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said. “Pretend you’re admiring the bougainvilleas.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “The major general told us not to talk to you without his permission.”

  “So, why are you?”

  “I need your help.”

  “To weed?”

  “To write,” he said. “I want you to write an article.”

  “What about?”

  He looked in the direction of the station, and handed me a slip of paper. On it was the name of a lieutenant I remembered from one of the task forces. I recalled he looked more like an ice-cream salesman than a cop, and he wasn’t particularly sociable.

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  “He shot my dog,” he said.

  There. Bloody dogs again. I wasn’t exactly anti dogs. I’d had my moments when I was quite fond of them. But I wasn’t what you’d call a dog person. Yet, if you analyzed my case histories, you’d notice an inordinate over-representation of canines to people. They were starting to call me the pet detective.

  “Not just my dog,” he
went on. “Most of the neighbours have lost animals to him. A dozen or so over the past few months.”

  “Why?” I asked, admiring a dazzling pink bract.

  “He claims they were killing his chickens, but it’s not true. He shoots them for sport. Anything that wanders onto his property, he blasts with shot. Doesn’t even kill them humanely with bullets. They end up peppered with metal shards, and die slowly and painfully. My dog wasn’t even a year old. Just wanted to explore, you know? Died in my arms.”

  His was the type of face you’d expect to find tears springing from, and he didn’t disappoint. He’d clearly been very fond of his dog. I could see his dilemma. I’d had the same problem on an earlier case. Who do you report a policeman to? The new animal cruelty laws didn’t help. It was evidently okay to kill dogs if they threatened your property or livestock. Hundreds of dogs were shot or poisoned every month under the guise of protecting creatures that were destined for the frying pan. It was sad but there wasn’t a story in it ... not one that anyone would bother to read anyway. It was the dog’s lot. I didn’t make any promises I couldn’t keep, but I took his bit of paper and told him I was sorry. As I was leaving he held up his cell phone, where there was a selfie of Babyface and his best friend. Sweet-looking dog. Must admit, I was a little bit choked when I climbed into the Mighty X.

  I spent the afternoon debating whether to cancel my credit card. I suppose I should have done it immediately but, to tell the truth, there wasn’t much money in my card account and I suppose I held out hope that my handbag would be returned. By five I was running low on hope. I was just about to make that infuriating call to the bank when my cell rang. I didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Are you Jimm Juree?” said a male voice.

  “Yes.”

  “I have your handbag.”

  My first reactions should have been elation and relief, but my mind played the scene like a kidnapping. He had my handbag, and I’d have to leave half-a-million baht in a brown paper bag in a litter bin at the train station at midnight. If I didn’t, the handbag might get hurt.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “Here on the table in front of me,” he said.

  “No, I mean where are you calling from?”

  “Tesco.”

  “You’re at Tesco and you have my handbag?”

  “Yes, but I have to say there’s no money in it.”

  I hadn’t expected the cash to survive the ordeal, so I wasn’t so disappointed. ‘Make us suffer.’

  “Should I go to the information desk”, I asked.

  “No, he said. “I don’t work for Tesco. I’m in the discount clothing tent.”

  “That’s in the car park?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How do I recognize you?”

  “My name’s Tip.”

  Slightly confused, I sped to Tesco in the Mighty X, hoping to get there before the place shut down for the night. After I’d hung up, I realized knowing his name wasn’t going to help identify him. Victimization really played havoc with your logic. I parked in the first available spot, the one with the handicapped icon painted on it, which everyone ignored. I asked at the permanent outside stalls if anyone knew Tip, but came up blank. Yet the Five Star chicken lady and the lottery ticket sales woman both asked if I’d found my handbag. They were presumably in the loop, and I was a celebrity.

  The special promotions vendors took over a complete car park lane several times a year, so parking was a nightmare for those two weeks. There were coloured banners and loud music and flashing lights, but basically all they sold was junk – that nobody really needed – imported from China. But the light and sound spectacle obviously impressed enough people with more money than sense to warrant the dealers’ return. I enquired at the first booth, where a very young girl in make-up was attempting to sell cartoon flip-flop couples: Fred or Mickey or Popeye on one; Wilma or Minnie or Olive on the other. She appeared not to be doing a thriving trade.

  “Do you know Tip?” I asked.

  She nodded in the direction of a chubby young man dressed in clothes inappropriate for someone of his build. The self-same clothing looked much better on the mannequin behind him, and he was attempting to convince two youths that leather pants and skin-tight silk shirts were the ultimate babe magnet. I waited for the boys to move on before I approached.

  “Tip?”

  “Jimm Juree,” he said, and pointed to my beloved handbag that hung on a hook beside his desk.

  “There’s no money in it,” he said, and the fact that he’d found it necessary to alert me of that fact, not once but twice, made me wonder how he knew there’d once been money in it. But surely I was just being nasty me. Of course a wallet in a handbag should contain cash. It was only natural to think so. But once the seed of suspicion is planted, it’s hard to stop it growing into a bush of mistrust.

  “How did you–”

  “The cart collector,” he replied. “He found it in one of the carts and didn’t know what to do with it. He trusts me, so he brought it here. You want to check what’s inside?”

  He unhooked the bag and watched as I thumbed through the cards in the wallet. Everything was there. My sigh of relief registered on seismic equipment around the planet.

  “This is so great,” I said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “It’s my civic duty,” he said. “I don’t want a reward. Just the look on your face is good enough for me.”

  I did have a modest sum of banknotes in my pocket, which I’d planned to hand over in thanks, but there were a lot of questions in my mind that, were I a journalist and not a gushing, thankful victim, I would have asked.

  “Then I’d like to give a small donation of gratitude to the cart collector,” I said. “Where do you think I might find him?”

  “There are two of them on shift,” he said. “It was the morning guy. He won’t be back until tomorrow morning. No, wait, I recall he’s off for a couple of days.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t really....”

  “You said you knew him, right?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know his real name. His nickname’s Put.”

  “Is that right?” I said. “Then all I can do is come back one day when he’s on duty. And for you, I shall make merit on your behalf next time I’m at the temple.”

  I wasn’t that fond of temples or religion in general, or people who lied to me. And I was sure I’d just been lied to. My instincts as a crime journalist were weighted down beneath my total relief that I didn’t have to spend the next week cancelling and replacing my IDs. That should have been enough, but those journo questions flashed across the Mighty X windscreen on my way home. If the Tesco guard was right, the trellis collector didn’t start work until ten. I was there with the guard at nine-thirty, and my handbag was already gone. But, if, for some reason, the collector had arrived an hour before he was on salary, and had found my bag, why would he hand it to some sleazy guy who sold pseudo-macho, poor quality junk clothing, rather than hand it in to his employer? And why, given that my name and number were on my documents, would the leather pants guy wait until the evening to get in touch with me?

  It was about nine that night. Mair and Granddad Jah and brother Arnie had gone to bed, and I was alone with the obnoxious dogs on my balcony, celebrating my good fortune with a bottle of Chilean red. Dogs in our care, it has to be said, have very few duties. They eat. They run foolishly around. They eat again. But the one thing we expect from them is a little security. When the old fellow emerged from the unfinished bungalow behind mine, I saw his silhouette against a pile of burning coconut fronds on the horizon. The only reaction from my pack was to flick an ear here and there, lean in the direction of the intruder, and return to the comfort of the wooden deck, confident there was no danger. I don’t know how he’d found me, but the old fellow waied me and stood with his head bowed.

  “You are Jimm Juree,” he said.
/>   I knew that already, but I was aware that my name had become household during that fateful day. A lot of people I didn’t know, knew me. I offered him a drink and, surprisingly, he accepted. He refused the rocking chair beside mine, and sat on the top step. Dog two, Sticky, saw this as a good opportunity and staggered across to the old man and lay with his head on our visitor’s thigh, and returned to his dream. The old man wasn’t fazed.

  “How did you find me?” I asked. The why would come later.

  “My granddaughter works at the land office,” he said.

  “And, don’t tell me,” I said. “She has a lot of free online time on her hands, and she’s been following my case.”

  “She told me all about it when I got home,” he said.

  “And how did she know where to find me?”

  “Her cousin works for the lawyer who handled your negotiations with the bank.”

  “And despite any lawyer-client confidentiality that may exist in this town, he gladly handed over our address.”

  “Yes.”

  He took a few swigs of the wine, as if he’d been drinking it forever. Sticky snored in his lap.

  “All right, that explains the how,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “I work at Tesco,” he said.

  “And?”

  “I was the collector of carts this morning.”

  “Aha!” I said. “Everything becomes clear. You’ve come for your reward.”

  The small wad of bank notes was still in the pocket of my jeans. I suppose by then I should have had a shower and changed into something somnolent, but it had been a big day and Chile had called. I pulled out the money.

  “No,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “It’s a reward,” I said.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he said.

  “You found my handbag and saved me a lot of trouble.”

  He knocked back his drink.

  “I didn’t do that either, Little Sister,” he said. “I didn’t find anything. I arrived at ten, I did my rounds of the car park as usual, but I didn’t see your handbag. In fact, I didn’t hear about it until my break at twelve. Everyone in the canteen was talking about you and your bag. They were sorry that you’d lost all your documents, and there was a lot of chatter about where the bag might have gone and who might have found it. Of course, I was one of the suspects. A few people in the network suggested I was the most likely thief.”