Cockroaches(15)

Harry ran his index finger up the suit material where the knife had entered. A gray, Vaseline-like deposit gathered on his nail.

“What’s this?”

“The weapon was obviously greased. Samples have been sent for analysis.”

Harry rifled through the pockets and pulled out a worn, brown wallet. It contained a 500-baht note, a Ministry ID card and a photo of a smiling girl in what appeared to be a hospital bed.

“Did you find anything else on him?”

“Zip.” Crumley had removed her cap to waft away the flies. “We checked what he had and left it alone.”

Harry loosened the belt, pulled down the trousers and turned him on his stomach again. Then he pulled up the jacket and shirt. “Look. Some of the blood ran down his back.” He lifted the elastic of the Dovre underpants. “And down between his buttocks. Which means he wasn’t stabbed while lying in bed. He was standing. By measuring how far the blade went in and determining the angle we can work out the murderer’s height.”

“Assuming the murderer was standing on the same level as the victim when he or she struck,” Crumley added. “The victim could also have been stabbed while he was on the floor and the blood ran down when he was moved to the bed.”

“Then there would have been blood on the carpet,” Harry said, pulling up the trousers, fastening the belt, turning and looking Liz in the eye. “And you wouldn’t have needed to speculate, you would have known for certain. Your forensics people would have found fibers from the carpet all over his suit, wouldn’t they.”

Her gaze didn’t deviate, but Harry knew he had exposed her little test. She nodded, and he turned back to the corpse.

“One victimological detail might confirm he was expecting a female visitor.”

“Yes?”

“See the belt? It was fastened two notches up from the worn line before I loosened it. Middle-aged men with burgeoning waistlines often pull their stomachs in when they meet younger women.”

It was hard to say whether they were impressed. The officers shifted from one foot to the other and their stony young faces betrayed nothing. Crumley bit off a chunk of nail and spat it out between pursed lips.

“So here’s the minibar.” Harry opened the door of the little fridge. Singha, Johnnie Walker and Canadian Club miniatures, a bottle of white wine. Nothing appeared to have been touched.

“What else have we got?” Harry turned to the two young officers.

They exchanged glances and then one pointed out the car in the drive.

“The car.”

They went outside, where there was a dark blue Mercedes of recent vintage bearing diplomatic plates. One of the police officers opened the driver’s door.

“Key?” Harry asked.

“It was in the jacket pocket of …” The officer nodded toward the motel room.

“Fingerprints?”

The young man gave his superior a resigned look. She coughed.

“Obviously we’ve checked the key for prints, Hole.”

“I wasn’t asking if you’d taken prints, but what you found.”

“His. Otherwise we’d have told you at the outset.”

Harry bit his tongue.

The seats and floor of the Mercedes were strewn with rubbish. Harry noticed some magazines, cassettes, empty cigarette packets, a Coke can and a pair of sandals.

“What else have you found?”

Nho took out a list and read it out.

“Stop,” Harry said. “Could you repeat the last item?”

“Coupons for betting on horse races, sir.”

“The ambassador obviously liked to gamble now and then,” Crumley said. “Popular sport in Thailand.”

“And what’s this?”

Harry had leaned over the driver’s side and picked up a small capsule partly buried under the carpet between the seat adjuster and the floor mat.

The officer looked down at his list, but had to give up.

“Liquid Ecstasy comes in capsules like that,” said Crumley, who had stepped closer to see.

“Ecstasy?” Harry shook his head. “Middle-aged Christian Democrats might fuck around, but they do not take E.”

“We’ll have to get it checked out,” Crumley said. Harry could see from her face that she wasn’t best pleased to have missed the capsule.

“Let’s have a look in the back,” he said.

The boot was as clean and tidy as the inside was messy.

“A man of orderly habits,” Harry said. “The women of the family reigned supreme inside the car, but he didn’t let them touch the boot.”

A well-equipped toolbox glinted in the light from Crumley’s torch. It was spotless; only plaster on the tip of a screwdriver revealed that it had been used.