Grandad, Thereэ's head on the beach

'Do you…?'

I turned around. Felt quite drained of blood. The gatekeeper grabbed my arm to steady me.

'No, he's not there,' I said.

'And you're certain it was one of our trucks that collected the body?'

'Black SUV. Registration number Gorgai 2544.'

She looked at me as if I was the first woman to ever memorize a number plate.

'I wrote it down because the men you sent out were extremely rude,' I told her. 'Men like that can only give an organization a bad name and make the general public think twice about donating money.'

I couldn't mention the knives because then we'd have to involve the police. Apart from the fact that most officers here moonlighted as criminals and fell somewhere between jellyfish and tree stumps on an IQ chart, there was the matter of Grandad Jah's gun and the shattered window.

'I'll look into it,' she said without enthusiasm, hurrying me back along the aisle. 'That is certainly one of our vehicles. Perhaps they took your uncle to the hospital. Are you sure he was dead?'

No heartbeat, respiration, nerve reaction or physiology beneath the neck.

'Pretty much,' I said.

'Then all I can think is that somebody else claimed the body. Another relative?'

'You know? I was just thinking the same thing. He did have a number of minor wives dotted around. It's very likely one of them wanted his body all to themselves for the first time. Yes, that's probably it.'

'Well, there you are.'

And with that her interest in me vanished completely. I held my ground.

'So, if there's nothing else?' she said.

'I was just wondering…'

'Yes?'

'That little room at the end?'

'What about it?'

'I couldn't help notice there's a lot of empty space in the units. Why weren't those bodies laid out here with the others?'

'The freezers are for viewing. Nobody's going to claim the bodies from the end room.'

'How do you know?'

'We just know.'

She'd been hustling me out of the morgue and into the reception area. I stopped and turned around. I didn't like being nudged.

'I'm asking you a polite question,' I said, and I did the glare thing. This time it worked.

'They won't be claimed because they probably don't have relatives here. And if they did, the relatives wouldn't be brave enough to come to collect them. By law we have to hold the bodies for ten days. Then we cremate them. We have a monk at the center. They get a decent sending off. Better than they deserve, most of them.'

'But who are they?' I pushed.

'They're Burmese.'

'They're Burmese,' she said. Like they were windscreen debris in fire-ant season. Then she kicked me out 'cause she knew she wouldn't be getting any money out of me. Nasty little bitch.'

Lieutenant Chompu sat opposite me, smoking a joint. He was wearing a white silk ankle-length dressing gown and probably nothing else. I didn't ask. He was elegant rather than handsome. There was something early Duke of Edinburgh about his looks. But he was unashamedly effeminate. Gay men seemed to flock to me. Chompu had his official police barrack room near the Pak Nam station and this, a single bedroom bungalow with a nice view of Pitak Island. Here he lived his other life. Family money had prodded him as far as lieutenant in the Royal Thai police force, but that was where his career had stalled. His refusal to act like a good, manly cop-just pretend a little-had seen him dumped here at the end of nowhere. We were both refugees from real life, and we were friends of a sort.

'It's their fault,' he said in one of those high-pitched don't-try-to-speak-while-you're-inhaling-ganja voices.

'Whose?'

'The Burmese.'

'For what?'

'All those years when they were totally nasty to us. All those rude invasions and mass murders. It all comes back to haunt you in the end.'

'Oh, right. Like we didn't rape and pillage the neighbors too. It was a primeval hobby. They didn't have football in those days. And I think there's a statute of limitations on exacting revenge. Chom, they're just trying to make a living wage.'

'They can't have everything, dear. If they want to be spared abuse, nobody's forcing them to come here.'

He lay back on his cushion-strewn chaise longue, posing for some unseen photo shoot. The gusts whipped beetle-nut fronds against the glass of his picture window.

'Oh, good,' I said, and sipped my lemon juice. 'That's a relief. There I was thinking you had no faults.'

'And I do?'

'You're a racist pig.'

'It has nothing to do with racism. Are they here to help develop our country? Noooo. Do they try to learn our language and assimilate? Noooo. They come solely because on this side of the border they can make three times what they could in Burma.'

'And three times what they could earn in Burma still doesn't equal our minimum wage. They're slave labor, and they're doing all the jobs we refuse to take on. If it weren't for the Burmese, there'd be no fishing industry in Thailand, no palm oil or rubber, a greatly reduced tourism…'

'Oh, Jimm. You know how my eyes puff up when I cry. It's my day off. Can't we talk about boy bands?… Making souffle?…Anything but Burmese.'

'I'm angry.'

'I know you are, darling. But don't forget, just four days ago you couldn't give a titty about the state of our slave laborers, just like the rest of us.'

'I…I didn't know four days ago.'

'Know what?'

'That we were exploiting them.'

'Of course you did.'

'Did not. I just looked it up at the Internet cafe yesterday. Exploitation-Burmese-Thailand. Forty-six thousand sites.'

He took a deep toke and blew a little cloud of heaven out of each nostril. I had no problem with ganja, but there were times when I needed to be mellow and times when I wanted to lead with my animosity.

'Jimm,' he said. 'When you lived in Chiang Mai, how many of your neighbors had Burmese nannies or maids?'

'Well, a lot, but…'

'And didn't you think it was interesting that they started making breakfast at six and were still there washing the dishes at midnight? What? Did you think they were just showing their love for the kind family that hired them for 120 baht a day? And I doubt they got a day off. They knew if they complained there were plenty more menials available in the refugee camps. Sadly lacking a trade union, those people, don't you think?'

'Well, I'm going to do something.'

'Fine. There were two million of them working in Thailand last count. I think you should call them in for a meeting.'

'No, we'll do it one at a time-or fractions thereof. Let's begin with the head.'

'Oh, my word. I've told you.'

'I want it investigated.'