Highway Robbery

by Colin Cotterill

  ‘Oh, oops,’ I said. ‘There I go mixing up my technological terms again. Did I say there was no internet access? Silly me. What I meant was no satellite dish access. But as far as I know the cable optic works fine, or have I muddled those up again?’

  We all heard a laugh from Silver at the window.

  ‘What?’ said Amorn.

  ‘And cell phones usually work fine,’ I continued. ‘I may have misled you a little there too. It’s just that we used a clever little device to block the signal temporarily. We have to thank my sister for that too. It was a birthday present. It was all part of the charade to make you think we were living in the bush down here. Of course, everyone has a cell phone.’

  The men sitting around the table pulled their phones from their shirt pockets and waved them at the visitor.

  ‘And I’m sure you know, you don’t have to be online to record,’ I said. ‘The quality might be a little fuzzy but I’m sure between us we have an accurate recording of your confession.’

  ‘Euhx,’ said Amorn. I assumed it was a word.

  ‘And just in case we don’t,’ said Chom. ‘We have what they call a live feed from my primrose cam hiding here in the leaves.’

  He plucked out the little camera from the potted plant in front of him.

  ‘Say hello to the web,’ he said.

  ***

  ‘Normally, we would have celebrated our victory at the Gulf Bay Lovely Resort but it was currently floating somewhere off Vietnam. So, instead, we arranged to meet at Beer Thai, a steak place on the highway. The Surat General couldn’t make it and Granddad Jah didn’t want to do anything sociable, but everyone else from the fateful fake press conference was there. Major Mana, out of uniform, was dressed like an elementary school principal and Chom, to nobody’s surprise, wore skin-tight hipster jeans and a crop top to show off his tattoo. All the other off-duty police were smart and gelled which allowed me the probable misapprehension that they were tarted up for me. But my focus of the evening was sweet Warm who sat beside me like a faithful Labrador still grateful that I’d rescued him from a life back in jail. We would never discuss Faust or go on political rallies together but he did tingle me.

  Predictably, we drank beer and ate steak, all funded by Chom who seemed to have a bottomless family money pot to dip into. Mana, basking in the glory of heading the force that brought down Amorn’s criminal empire, pursued the restaurant owner’s wife whilst simultaneously phoning his concubine and showing her a live feed from our table. But at one stage he did stay focused long enough to ask the question that had been eating him since the meeting: the question from the press and TV people he hadn’t been able to answer.

  ‘How did we do it?’

  The answer was shorter than the question but we couldn’t tell him. We’d lied. There was probably a website called Road Madness but we doubted anyone in Thailand would be excited enough about bad driving to bother to video it. You saw road madness every day so the novelty would wear off quick enough. My cancelled wedding couple had been stuck behind three trucks that were jostling for position and holding up several kilometres of traffic. So, we assumed the trucks were Amorn’s. All we had on the Banx manager was that he’d hired an ex-con. That would have been enough for him to lose his job but not to put him inside. But when we discovered he’d been in Bangkok with Amorn’s shipment, and when Sissy found his signature on the inspection sheet, that’s when everything came together. But at the Pak Nam station he was only under arrest for hiring Warm. We’d told him if he kept his mouth shut we’d go lightly on him. Some hope of that. That’s when Chom came up with the counterfeit money theory. That was the motive for robbing the security van. But even then we didn’t have anything concrete to directly implicate Amorn. All we had was a theory. So, we made a three-dimensional model of our hypothesis, painted it up and held it out for Amorn to see. I knew he was a bad loser with a temper. He was a spoiled kid used to getting his own way. We hoped that all we’d need to do was make him angry, make him think he’d been outsmarted by a team of hillbilly cops. The only way we could convict him was if he’d confess to the whole show. And he did. To the heist, and the cover-up back in Bangkok. We did rather exaggerate the state of Pak Nam telecommunications network but what’s a little fib now and then?

  If our Major Mana had known all this, he would never have condoned the investigation or allowed his station to host the meeting. Our general from Surat, on the other hand, was in on the subterfuge. He’d been a member of the team that investigated Amorn’s nightclub killing in Bangkok and had been ordered to destroy evidence. It had burned and churned in him when the murderer walked free and became a TV star. Chom and I knew this and when we went to see him with our plan he was all for it, rabid, you might say. But, like Mana, he had to stay on the sidelines just in case, just until he was sure the prey was in the trap. Commitment was taboo in the Thai police force. Major General Prapat was now handling both investigations personally and the son no longer had the father’s influence to get him out of the mud. In my humble assessment of the state of affairs, Khun Amorn was truly and royally buggered.

  Thanks to us.

  THE END

  Jimm Jurree’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."

  Coming Soon

  Number Four: The Zero Finger Option

  A letter a day from 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.