devious. I opted to sneak out of the truck in search of witnesses. As there was no crime scene marked off I was perfectly within my rights to do so.”
I was grateful that the expense and the lost weekends of my M.A. course hadn’t been totally in vain. If nothing else, my analysis of George W.’s oratory style had taught me that a sincere countenance and a confident stance were sufficient to distract your audience from the fact that you were talking rubbish.
“Which brings me to the camera,” I said. “This may be harder to believe, but there was a small dog called Sticky Rice who was in the habit — ”
“All right,” said longan skin, “we know the dog story. What we need to know is whether you made a copy of the photographs.”
“How dare you?” I said, with heapings of indignation in my voice. I was ashamed at how quickly the deceit had sped from my mouth. In the background I could see Arny’s eyeballs roll.
“I confess, when I found the camera I did attempt to turn it on,” I said. “I mean, it could have belonged to someone at the temple. But it had experienced serious damage at the paws of the dog and I couldn’t operate the ‘play’ mode.”
“You didn’t think to take out the memory card?” asked the paunch.
“Cameras have memory cards?” I gasped. “I thought that was just computers. Whatever will they think of next? Why are you asking? Haven’t you been able to open it?”
I hadn’t seen so many heads exchange guilty glances since our secondary school chemistry teacher asked us who was responsible for exploding a stink bomb in the staff room. There was a geometric web of eye contact around me. At last the tall detective nodded to Mana.
“First of all,” said the major, “nothing you’ve heard over the past week, nor things you’ll hear tonight, are for publication. You print anything before we’re ready to release it and I’ll have you arrested.” He paused but I didn’t react at all. “The reason we called you in, is that…the camera’s lost.”
“Lost?”
“Stolen.”
The police were always good for a laugh.
“From a police station?”
“No,” he said, grimly. “This afternoon I had Sergeant Phoom run it over to the Lang Suan station on his motorcycle. There was an accident.”
“That was no accident,” said Chompu.
“Lieutenant! Quiet! We don’t know for certain. It could have been an accident.”
“Is the sergeant all right?” I asked.
“He’s in Pak Nam hospital,” said Chompu. “He was run off the road by a car. He lost a lot of skin and was knocked out. A passerby phoned an ambulance and the hospital called us. When we got there, the passerby was gone and so was the camera.”
“Technically, it could have been highway robbery,” said longan skin. “But it’s unlikely. There are much safer targets than a police officer in uniform. That’s why we need to know who you’ve told about the camera.”
“Who I…?”
I had to think about it. If they asked Arny he’d tell them without even a suggestion of thumbscrews.
“Just me and my brother knew,” I told them.
“You didn’t tell anyone at the temple?”
“I didn’t see anyone, apart from Abbot Kem.”
“You told him?”
“Er, no.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I said goodbye to him, went to get my shoes, then followed the dogs to the back of the hut.”
“What about the nun?”
“She wasn’t there.”
“But she could have seen you. She could have been somewhere else.”
I looked around the room. Some of the men turned away in embarrassment.
“Is the nun…?” I began.
“That’s nothing for you to worry about,” said Mana. I could see he was perturbed at being outgunned in his own station. He’d been relegated to crowd control. I didn’t want to think about the nun being a suspect. I swung the subject back to the accident.
“Is anyone with Sergeant Phoom?” I asked.
“We’ve got a man there,” Chompu said.
“Were there any other witnesses apart from the person who phoned it in?” I asked.
“It happened at a point on the way to Lang Suan where the road curves around the river,” Chompu told me. “There are no houses there and the road’s very quiet after midday.”
It was the perfect location at the perfect time.
“All right, then assuming I’m not lying, and I really didn’t tell anyone,” I said, “how could the perpetrator know that Phoom had the camera? Did the sergeant have any idea?”
“He’s still unconscious,” said Mana. “But we didn’t actually invite you here to conduct an interview. We just want you to answer our questions and leave the inquiry to us.”
“And there I was thinking I’d been helpful,” I said.
“You have,” said the paunch. “Did you happen to note down the make of the camera?”
“Yes.”
He produced a piece of paper from his folder.
“Do you remember if it was a Nikon DSLR D3555?”
There was something going on between Bangkok and our Major Mana. They glared icicles back and forth across the room. I wondered why the police needed to ask me about the make of the camera. I have a good memory for little facts with numbers and letters in them.
“That’s the make that I wrote down,” I told them.
“Are you sure?”
I wished he’d stop asking me if I was sure. If I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t say anything, would I now?
“Yes. Why?”
“Because, according to our detective friends from Bangkok, here” — Mana smiled — “the camera details that both you and I wrote down are wrong.”
“We didn’t say they were wrong,” said longan skin. “All we said was there was no such camera listed in the Nikon catalog. We’d have to contact the company and have them run a check on it. It may be a discontinued line.”
“And you’re sure you didn’t make a copy of the film?” asked the paunch.
If only I’d had a machete on me…
“Sir,” I said, earnestly, “not all reporters are rebels. I worked for a responsible newspaper and they taught us ethics. My grandfather was a member of the Royal Thai Police force for over forty years. He taught me the difference between legal and illegal.” I noticed Arny duck out of the room. “My mother is a religious woman. She taught us all the difference between right and wrong. Please don’t insult me by suggesting I’d do anything underhanded.”
See? I didn’t exactly say, no.
“Then that’ll be all,” he said. “We may have to contact you again.”
I was dismissed. The meeting broke up. The detectives and city cops retired to Lang Suan and I heard Major Mana’s souped-up truck growl out of the car park. I didn’t know where Arny was. He was probably in the temple opposite, sulking. Lies weighed heavily upon him even if they belonged to somebody else. My lieutenant had told me to meet him in his office in five minutes and I was sitting on his side of the desk enjoying its neatness when he arrived. He was carrying two suspiciously non-steaming mugs and put one down in front of me. I gazed into it and saw the stain on the bottom. “Water?” I asked.
“Vodka tonic.”
“They’ve got tonic down here?”
