Cockroaches(25)

A man in a suit sat smoking a cigar by a fire-ravaged shack.

“And then you went to Police College, became a detective and shaved off your hair?”

“Not in that order. And I didn’t shave off my hair. It fell out one week when I was seventeen. A rare form of alopecia. But practical in this climate.”

She stroked her head with one hand and gave a weary smile. She had no eyebrows, no eyelashes, nothing.

Another boat came up alongside them. It was loaded to the gunnels with straw hats, and an old woman pointed to their heads and then the hats. Crumley smiled politely and said a few words. Before the woman shoved off she leaned over to Harry and gave him a white flower. She indicated Crumley and laughed.

“What’s thank you in Thai?”

“Khop khun khráp,” Crumley said.

“Right. You tell her that.”

They glided past a temple, a wat, close to the canal, and could hear the mumbling of the monks coming from the open door. People were sitting on the steps outside praying with folded hands.

“What are they praying for?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Peace. Love. A better life, here or in the sweet hereafter. The same things that people want everywhere.”

“I don’t think Atle Molnes was waiting for a prostitute. I think he was waiting for someone else.”

They glided on, and the monks’ mumbling faded behind them.

“Who?”

“No idea.”

“Why do you think that?”

“He only had enough money to rent the room, so I wouldn’t mind betting he had no intention of paying for a prostitute’s services. But he had no business being at the motel unless he was going to meet someone, right? The door wasn’t locked when they found him, according to Wang. Isn’t that a bit odd? If you close a hotel door it locks automatically. He must have consciously pressed the button on the handle so that it would remain open. There was no reason for the murderer to press it in. I suppose he or she wasn’t aware they were leaving a door unlocked. So why did Molnes do that? Most people who frequent such establishments would prefer to have the door locked when they were asleep, don’t you think?”

She wagged her head from side to side. “Maybe he was afraid he wouldn’t hear the person he was waiting for.”

“Exactly. And there was no reason to leave the door open for Tonya Harding because the agreement with the receptionist was that he would ring first. Right?”

In his excitement Harry had shifted to one side and the boatman shouted at him to sit in the middle so that they didn’t tip over.

“I think he wanted to keep the name of the person he was meeting hidden. That was probably why they were getting together in a motel outside town. A suitable place for a secret meeting, a place where there was no official guest book.”

“Hm. Are you thinking about the photos.”

“It’s impossible not to, isn’t it.”

“You can buy that kind of thing anywhere in Bangkok.”

“He might have gone a step further. We might be talking child prostitution.”

“Maybe. But apart from those photos, which really are everywhere in this city, we have no leads.”


They had come a long way up the river. The inspector pointed at a house at the end of a large garden.

“A Norwegian guy lives there,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“There was a real stink in the papers when he built that house. As you can see, it resembles a temple. The Buddhists were outraged that a ‘heathen’ would live there, they called it a blasphemy. To make matters worse, it turned out he’d built it using materials from a Burmese temple in disputed border territory. The situation was a little tense at the time; there were several shootings, so people moved out. The Norwegian bought the temple for next to nothing and since everything in northern Burmese temples is constructed with teak he dismantled the whole shebang and moved it to Bangkok.”

“Strange,” Harry said. “What’s his name?”

“Ove Klipra. He’s one of the biggest building contractors in Bangkok. I guess you’ll hear more about him if you’re here for a while.”

She ordered the boatman to turn around.

“Do you like takeout?”


Harry looked down at the noodle soup in the plastic bowl. The white pieces were like pale, skinny versions of spaghetti and it made him nervous that the soup moved in unexpected places when he wound the noodles onto the chopsticks.

Rangsan came in to announce that Tonya Harding had reported in for fingerprinting.

“You can talk to her now if you like. And one more thing: Supawadee said they’re checking the capsule from the car now. The result should be in tomorrow. They’ve given us top priority.”