“Is that prescribed?” I asked.
“He swears by it.”
Whatever works, I thought. Why not a placebo of sucrose and glucose and caffeine? The sergeant turned his bruised and bloody head slowly to my side of the bed. It was like watching a piglet turn on a rotisserie.
“
“Isn’t this ward a bit noisy for you?” I asked.
“It’s like this all the time,” he said.
I looked to the constable for an explanation.
“His family,” he said, nodding at the floor party. A couple of them waved at me. I waved back. I pulled across a chair and sat close to the sergeant.
“Did you see the car that hit you?” I asked.
“I’ve asked all that,” said the constable.
“Poor man’s hit his head,” I reminded him. “It always pays to ask twice just to confirm the answer’s the same. Sergeant?”
“I got a brief glimpse of it in the mirror,” he said. “It was right on top of me then. Black Benz. New one.”
I got that bat in the belly flutter and looked up at the constable.
“That’s what he said before.” He nodded.
“Have you got your radio with you?” I asked. He patted the back of his belt. “All right. Call the station. Ask them if anyone’s been to the Tiwa Resort. If not, tell them there’s a guest from out of town staying there in room seven. He’s got a black Benz.”
The young man looked uncertain.
“Go ahead,” said the sergeant.
The constable called through and passed on the message. There was silence as he listened. I listened. The three patients and the family on the floor listened. The policeman nodded when the reply came through and he switched off the radio.
“They’ll send some men out there right away,” he said.
That didn’t result in a cheer exactly, more a group “Hmm.” There really is no way to describe that feeling you get when you believe you’ve contributed to the solving of a crime. I might have even joined the police force but for the fact I’d be cleaning toilets and making tea for the rest of my career. Gender equality hasn’t found a home in the police force. At least as a journalist I was allowed to ask questions. I leaned back down to the sergeant.
“Did you see the driver?” I asked.
“The glass was smoked,” he said. “All I got was a shadow. Little fellow. It all happened in a flash. I hit the ground. I was woozy for a second. I looked around and then I was out of it.”
Something troubled me.
“Were you riding without your helmet on?” I asked him.
He laughed and the scent of a dentist’s office, blood and antiseptic, puffed into my face.
“More than my career’s worth, that would be,” he said. “You just have to sit on the saddle, parked, without your helmet and they’ll have your stripes these days.”
“And it was fastened?”
“Strapped tight.”
“So, how did you get that crack on your skull?”
He reached up slowly and painfully and caressed his head.
“I was wondering about that myself,” he said.
I found the office of the hospital director, Dr. Fahlap. He was a small man of Chinese stock in his late fifties. He had the most forgettable face I’d ever seen. In fact if you asked me now to describe him, I wouldn’t be able to. I asked him whether the injury to Sergeant Phoom’s head could have been a result of him hitting his head on the road. Fahlap was the type of man who gave thought to questions and you could see the replies forming in his eyes.
“No,” he said at last. “It was a blow from a blunt object. Perhaps a tire lever.”
That’s what I’d been afraid of. On a quiet stretch of road, the killer had removed the sergeant’s helmet and smashed him over the head. He wanted the policeman dead. Perhaps he was afraid he’d been seen and could be identified. So why was the sergeant still alive? Why just the one blow? Of course. The killer was interrupted. That had to be it. We needed to find who phoned in the accident. I bet that person had seen the killer.
I was just about to thank the doctor and get back home when I had another thought.
“Doctor, do you know anything about a hospital adviser staying at the 69 Resort?”
A pause.
“What hospital is he advising at?”
“Yours,” I said.
“Do you have his name?”
“Dr. Jiradet.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
I arrived home at ten fifteen. Sitting at the concrete table out front of the shop were my Lieutenant Chompu and Ed the grass man. They seemed to be getting along famously. It had a strange effect on me. It wasn’t jealousy exactly. Neither of them belonged to me or ever would. It was more like an annoyance that they should form an alliance so quickly. I ignored them both as I stepped down from the truck and walked into the shop.
“
“I don’t want to interrupt,” I said, deliberately not looking at Ed the grass man.
“When’s showtime?” the policeman asked.
“Give me five minutes.”
I walked in through the open shop front. There was no sign of Mair. I looked in the storeroom and peered out into the back garden. There were chickens aplenty but no mothers. I was on my way back when I noticed two bare feet sticking out from under the counter. By edging sideways I was able to take in the entire vista of my mother’s backside.
“Mair?”
“Shhh.”
I went to the counter and knelt down.
“Mair, why are you under the counter?”
“There’s a policeman out there.”
“I know.”
“It’s all over. The game’s up.”
I had the strongest urge to laugh but I felt there was some method to this particular madness.
“Mair, what have you done?”
My mother was shaking like a rat at a lab interview. I reached under the counter and hugged as much of her as I could.
“Mair, the policeman’s here to see me. He’s a friend of mine. We’re working on a case together. There’s nothing to worry about.”
One by one the shakes subsided and I heard a couple of recovering breaths, then a rapping sound. She was tapping on the underside of the counter with her knuckles.
“I’ll have to get Ed in,” she said.
“What?”
She reversed past me and climbed stiffly to her feet. She started to knock now on the top of the counter.
“Everywhere, they are. Little bastards.”
“Who?”
“Termites.”
I really had to laugh then.
“Mair, that down there had nothing to do with termites.”
“Don’t be silly, child. What else would I be doing on the floor?”
