Grandad, Thereэ's head on the beach

'They won't.'

I glared at him.

'They won't,' he repeated.

The only competent officer at the local police station was Lieutenant Chompu, and he was warm and snug in my pouch. He'd be no problem. Whoever else they sent to investigate our explosion would merely ask the questions as they were laid out in the regulation manual. All I needed to do was get to the witnesses and make sure we all told the same lies. Arny was our weakest link. They wouldn't need interview room violence to break him down. If they raised their voices, he'd confess-even if he wasn't responsible. I found him squeezing pilchard cans back into shape and reminded him he was interfering with a crime scene. He pouted. I grabbed his thick arm and led him outside.

'Arny,' I said. 'Grandad Jah didn't shoot at the body snatchers.'

'He didn't?'

'No.'

'You know I'm not very good at this?' he said.

'I know. But this is family, and I need us all to stick together with this one. Do you really want to see Grandad locked up in chains in the Lang Suan prison, the handcuffs chafing his old flaky wrists? His body riddled with rat-and flea-bites from the communal bedding? Abused in the shower room by perverts with fetishes for… skinny and ignorant old men?'

He thought about it.

'No,' he said at last.

'Then you didn't see him shoot at the body snatchers.'

'OK.'

And I knew I was pushing my luck, but I needed one more small lie from him. This one was for me.

'And Noy and Mamanoy? They don't exist.'

'They don't?'

'Not at all. We weren't having lunch with them today. We still don't have any guests. In fact, if you moved our truck over, I bet we could squeeze their car under our carport too. Put one of those silver gray plastic covers on it and nobody would even notice it was there.'

My little brother looked uncomfortable. He lowered his voice.

'There's something suspicious about them, isn't there?' he said.

'Yes. But if Pak Nam's finest come by in force, it might just frighten them away and we'll never find out what the Noys have been up to. It wouldn't surprise me if they were in their room packing as we speak. And whatever mess they've got themselves tied up in will only get worse if they flee past the entire population of Maprao in their unregistered car.'

'I should tell them not to panic.'

'Good boy. Tell them to go for a blustery stroll along the garbage-strewn beach, like good tourists, and not to come back till the excitement's died down. Tell them…I don't know. Tell them we don't want to lose our only paying guests of the month. Don't, and that means, do not tell them we think they're suspicious.'

The last witness tampering I'd have time for was Mair. I knew everything would depend on who or where or when she was at that particular moment, but it turned out she was way ahead of me…or somebody.

'Sissi, darling,' she said. 'You know I've never condoned dishonesty in any of my five children.'

'Yes, Mair.'

'But this is a family matter. It's my father's life.'

'I didn't see him fire a gun,' I said.

'What? But you were standing right there.'

'No, I mean, wink wink I didn't see him fire it.'

'Oh. That's right. You didn't. It was a tern.'

'What was?'

'A tern, disoriented by the northeasterly wind, was thrown into the side window of the big black car, which caused the glass to smash. It had been flying so fast it might have been mistaken for a bullet. A tern flying at high speed makes a similar sound to .41 caliber gunfire.'

'Either that or we don't know anything about a broken car window.'

She gave that a lot of thought.

'Yes,' she said. 'That might work too. If it happened, which I doubt it did, it didn't happen here. Good. Then there's the situation with the older and younger Noys.'

'I've never heard of them.'

'Is that a wink wink?'

There were eleven police officers permanently attached to the Pak Nam station. Nine of them came to investigate our explosion. Life could be dull for crime fighters down here. The charge was led by Major Mana, who had obviously been having a slack day in his Amway direct-sales dealership- which afforded him the time to investigate a crime at last. Alighting from the truck with him were constables Ma Yai and Ma Lek and a skinny officer with a Nikon, all of whom I was acquainted with. Then came the fat fellow with the cheap toupee, with whom I was not but felt I needed to be.

Right behind the truck were two motorcycles carrying two uniformed officers apiece. The only one I recognized was Lieutenant Chompu. He was riding pillion with his arms locked around the good-looking young driver.

'Little Jimm,' said Major Mana for everyone to hear. He was middle-aged, shiny brown and short. Yes, I'd once rejected his clumsy attempts to seduce me, but I'd also made a name for him on a case a few months before. He owed me a favor. But he had a short memory and wandering hands. 'You know? Ours was a very peaceful little district before you and your family turned up here.'

His hand was already kneading the small of my back.

'Right,' I said. 'And look. Here we are blowing up our own shop just to mess with your statistics.'

'I'll be the judge of that,' he said, the sarcasm sliding past him like an oiled eel.

They set to work, although most of them seemed to have been assigned gawking duty. Chompu was chief interviewer. We sat together on my porch. He led with:

'Nice one, Jimm.'

'I know who did it,' I told him.

'Well, hooray. That makes our jobs just that much easier. Who?'

'A couple of goons from the SRM. They came to pick up the head nobody's investigating.'

'And why would they want to damage your shop?'

'They were rude cretins with knives. They threatened us.'

'And did you make a complaint to the police about that threat?'

I laughed, then he laughed. Reporting a threat to the Pak

Nam police would have been like reporting a mosquito bite to the provincial health authority.

'We chased them off, so I imagine their noses were put out of joint.'

'How?'

'How what?'

'How did you chase them off?'

'Well, there was me, Arny, Grandad Jah, and Mair. We outnumbered them.'

'A fearsome foursome indeed. I'm surprised they haven't already brought out a comic book about you all.'

'Don't make fun. We can be pretty frightening. Look at Arny.'

'Ooh, I have.'

'Right. If you didn't know he was a hamster…'

And talking of animals, out of the corner of my eye I saw Sticky carrying something large and dirty in his mouth. He was heading toward the crime scene. I had a bad feeling about it. I called out to him, but he didn't exactly know his name yet.

'Give me a minute,' I said to Chompu. 'Go interview Mair.'