Grandad, Thereэ's head on the beach

'About ten minutes?'

'About.'

'Damn. We need help.'

How on earth could they have traced it that soon, and how could they get down here so quickly? It was fifteen minutes from Pak Nam to our resort, if you didn't get lost. Most people got lost. But I couldn't count on that. I ran to the Noys' veranda and interrupted the mah-jong tournament.

'OK, I don't want anyone to panic,' I said.

My hands were shaking and my legs were wobbling. The mah-jong players stared at me curiously. I was the only one panicking. But my mind was clear.

'Noy and Noy,' I said. 'We might have had a security breach at the post office.'

The clock in Mair's cabin chimed midday. Our calm was over. The afternoon of the big chaos had arrived.

'They've found us,' said Mamanoy.

'We have about five minutes,' I said. 'This is what I want everyone to do…'

Once they'd heard me out, they set to work. The Noys apologized to the old men for interrupting the game and calmly collected the tiles. I jogged over to the shop, selected two members of the cooperative, and dragged them and Mair back to the cabins. I'd barely made it wheezing back up to the shop when a metallic gray BMW pulled into the car park. 'Mamma Mia' rang out from my back pocket. I took out the phone. Sender- Aung. Not now. Please don't let it be the message from Shwe. I turned off my phone and went to greet the new arrivals. The four doors opened simultaneously, and three middle-aged men in gray safari suits and a young woman in a skirt and blouse leaped out. It felt like a raid.

'Can I hel-' I began, but the visitors weren't in the mood for my reception niceties. Mair walked across to intercept them.

'Where do you think you're going?' she asked, stepping in front of the meatiest of the men. He grabbed the wrist of the hand she laid on him and attempted to fling her to one side. He obviously hadn't figured Mair's jungle training into that rash decision. With some innate sense of direction, her knee found the nest of his testicles. He sank slowly to the ground and issued a sound like a slow puncture in a whoopee cushion. But his colleagues were unconcerned. They hurried on to the cabins. Two of them held short metal bars, they used to jimmy open first door number one, then number two. We stood back, amazed. At room three they dragged two screaming women out to the veranda. They were in a state of undress, but nobody listened to their pleas.

The raiders moved on to the back tier of bungalows, using their bars to prise open each door of our family cabins, even though none of them was locked. In one of these rooms they found two frail old men, and they too were dragged to the veranda of cabin three. All this was completed in less than two minutes. We'd been rounded up like cattle, and every room had been searched. All businesslike and silent. Not even the gang of local women at the water's edge, dragging their cockle trays through the sand, had noticed anything untoward.

I'd been hoping the young woman was the head of this invading army. I like to see my gender assume dominant roles even in illegal activity. But I didn't hear her speak at all, so I had to assume she was the terror- pretty of the group. 'Pretty' had become a noun in Thai to describe women who use their sex appeal to show men how pathetic they are. The meaty man whose family jewels had been devalued by my mother walked uneasily up to the veranda. He was about fifty, short-haired, and I could smell military about him, about all of them. He glared at Mair, who gave him a glimpse of her Titanic smile.

'There's more where that came from,' she said.

'Mair!' I shouted through gritted teeth. 'Let's not antagonize our guests.'

'All right,' said Meaty. 'Where are they?'

'Excuse me,' I said. 'But who are you, exactly?'

'The two women staying here. Where are they?'

'Well, they're right here,' I said, pointing to Ning and Somjit, neither of whom seemed the least embarrassed to be standing there in their underwear.

'And the least you can do is allow them to protect their dignity,' said Mair.

She pushed past one of the other gray safaris into the room and came out with sheets, which she draped around the grinning co-op ladies. Another safari came back from the carport and whispered into Meaty's ear.

'Enough of this,' said the boss. He was obviously used to striking terror into the hearts of people. Arny was off lifting weights at the gym; otherwise I knew he'd be quivering now at all this aggression. The rest of us weren't particularly impressed, but we felt obliged to assume the submissive role of ignorant country folk.

'I want the owner of that Honda, and I want her now,' yelled Meaty.

He kicked the fence post in front of the cabin for effect. It shattered into a hundred shards. It was riddled with termites, so that wasn't as impressive as it looked. But the sound woke the dogs, and seeing their pack leader in danger, they came chasing at Meaty from the rear. Theirs, too, was a silent attack. He knew nothing until they were on him. He looked down as these three little dogs ran circles around him barking laughably. They weren't a fearsome pack, and he quite rightly ignored them. Sensing their failure, they lay down on the sand and scratched.

'Well, if you know them, you stay right where you are, mister,' said Grandad. 'If you're a friend of theirs, you can just pay their bill for them.'

'That's right,' said Mair with an impressive southern lilt.

'What?' said Meaty.

'Those two stuck-up bitches drive in here with their posh accents and their snobbish airs, stay here for four nights, eat all our food and sleep in our luxury cabins, and the next thing you know, they've gone. Didn't pay a damned baht and wrecked the TV to boot.'

Way to go, Grandad.

'When was this?' he asked.

'Sunday morning,' I said. 'We woke up and they'd gone.'

'Why didn't they take the car?'

I hadn't thought that far.

'The heads had seized up in the cylinders,' said Grandad. 'Happens a lot down here from the salt water. Japanese. What can I say? No idea how to make a decent car.'

'And you are?' asked Meaty.

'Retired mechanic,' said Grandad. 'Stockholder in this establishment.'

'I bet they got a bus out to the airport in Surat,' I said. 'Probably long gone by now.'

'Then explain to me why they were still in Pak Nam yesterday?' Meaty asked.

'Those bastards,' said Mair. 'I bet they're ripping off one of the other resorts now. If only I could get my hands on…

At that moment, one of the safari suits tapped his boss on the shoulder and pointed toward the road. My hero in brown turned into the car park on his police motorbike and headed in our direction. Chompu should have stopped in front of the shop because the sand was soft out by the cabins, so his arrival wasn't as impressive as it might have been. He got bogged down in the sand and fell over sideways. The safari suits exchanged glances while he got himself up.

'They're vandals, officer,' said Mair. 'Look what they've done with our doors. Arrest them.'

'What's going on here?' asked Chompu in a particularly manly voice.

Meaty sized him up, probably deciding whether to shoot him.

'Come with me, Lieutenant,' he said and started to walk toward the kitchen block. Chompu stood his ground.

'Tell me why I should be taking orders from you,' said Chompu.

'Because you'd be very sorry if you didn't.'

Wisely, I thought, Chompu walked a few meters away and stood beside Meaty, who seemed to be getting something out of his pocket. They faced away from us, heads bowed while Meaty spoke in hushed tones. Chompu nodded, then wai'd. When Meaty returned to us, Chompu stayed back as an observer.

'What cabin were the women in?' Meaty asked.

'Two,' I said. And one of the safaris went immediately into that room without being told.