“What do you say in response?”
“What the hell can I say? Language problems, misunderstandings, the Thai police sending us flawed information initially, that sort of thing.”
“And they buy it?”
“No, they don’t. But they can’t accuse us of misinforming them, either. In the press release it says the ambassador was found dead in a hotel and that is correct. What did you say when you found the daughter and Klipra, Hole?”
“I didn’t.” Harry took some deep breaths. “Listen, Torhus, I found a couple of porn magazines at Klipra’s house which suggest he was a pedophile. That hasn’t been mentioned in any of the police reports.”
“Really? Well, well.” The voice didn’t betray for an instant that he was covering anything up. “Anyway, you no longer have an assignment here in Thailand, and Møller wants you back as soon as possible.”
Boiling hot coconut-milk soup was placed on the table, and Torhus stared skeptically at his bowl. His glasses steamed up.
“Verdens Gang is bound to take a nice photo of you when you arrive at Fornebu Airport,” he said acidly.
“Try one of the red ones,” Harry said, pointing.
46
Friday, January 24
According to Liz, Supawadee was the person who solved most of the murder cases in Thailand. His most important instruments were a microscope, some test tubes and litmus paper. Sitting opposite Harry, he was beaming like a sun.
“That is correct, Harry. The bits of lime plaster you gave us contain the same limewash solution as the dust on the screwdriver in the boot of the ambassador’s car.”
Instead of contenting himself with answering yes or no to Harry’s inquiry, he repeated the whole question so that there would be no misunderstandings. Supawadee had an excellent grasp of linguistics; he knew that in English questions and answers can be complicated for a Thai. If Harry had got on the wrong bus in Thailand, started doubting himself and said to another passenger: “This isn’t the bus to Hua Lamphong, is it.” with the correct stress and intonation, the Thai might have answered “yes,” in the sense of “yes, you’re right, this isn’t the bus to Hua Lamphong.” Farangs know this happens. Supawadee’s experience was that most farangs, being less intelligent, weren’t aware of how questions worked, so he had come to the conclusion that it was best to answer the questions in full.
“That’s also correct, Harry. The contents of the vacuum cleaner bag at Klipra’s cabin were very interesting. It contained carpet fibers from the boot of the ambassador’s car, the ambassador’s suit and also from Klipra’s jacket.”
Harry noted this with mounting excitement. “What about the two tapes I sent you? Did you send them to Sydney?”
Supawadee beamed even more, if at all possible, for this was the bit that pleased him most.
“This is the twentieth century, Officer, we don’t send tapes. They would have taken at least four days. We recorded them onto a DAT tape and e-mailed the recordings to this sound expert of yours.”
“Jeez, can you do that?” Harry asked, half to make Supawadee happy and half resigned. Computer freaks always made him feel old. “And what did Jésus Marguez say?”
“At first I told him it was absolutely impossible to tell what kind of room someone was phoning from, based on an answerphone message. But your friend was extremely persuasive. He talked a lot about frequency domains and hertz, which was very educational. Did you know, for example, that in one microsecond the ear can distinguish between a million different sounds? I think he and I could—”
“Conclusion, Supawadee?”
“His conclusion was that the two recordings are from two different people, but it is very likely they were recorded in the same room.”
Harry could feel his heart racing.
“What about the meat in the freezer?”
“You’re correct again, Harry. The meat in the freezer was pork.”
Supawadee blinked and laughed with sheer elation. Harry knew there was more to come.
“And?”
“But the blood wasn’t just pig blood. Some of it was human.”
“Do you know who from?”
“Well, it’ll take a few days before I get the definitive answer from the DNA test, so provisionally I can give you only an answer with ninety percent accuracy.”
If Supawadee had had a trumpet Harry was sure he would have played a fanfare first.
“The blood comes from our friend, nai Klipra.”
At last Harry got through to Jens in his office.
“How’s it going, Jens?”
“OK.”
“Are you sure?”