Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

use the motorcycle but I had Granddad Jah with me, and he was old-school when it came to sexism. There wasn’t a hope in hell that he’d let me drive the motorbike. He even tried to get me to sit sidesaddle as it was more ladylike. I won that tussle, but Granddad Jah on a motorcycle was road safety personified. We spent half an hour digging out the spare helmet from the removal boxes before he’d agree to set off. He rode 100 % by the book: correct procedure, hand signals, turning protocol, but, as everyone else was ignorant that there was a book, they were busy doing everything the wrong way just as their forefathers had done before them. That made us the most dangerous people on the road. And heaven forbid you’d be in a hurry. He practiced what he called ‘defensive driving’ which meant we traveled so slowly we were often overtaken by maimed war veterans on tricycles.
    We’d gone first to Wat Feuang Fa as I’d wanted to show him the crime scene and, perhaps, get him in conversation with Abbot Kem. It took us so long to get there I could feel myself aging. I wished I’d brought some embroidery to while away the trip but instead I yelled the details of the case through his thick helmet. All I left out was the contents of the camera. I was afraid if I told him, he’d be morally obliged to pass on the information to the police. He was a tough one to read.
    At the temple, we were to be disappointed. All we found there was a young novice whose duty it was to feed the dogs, and a monk so ancient and so covered in religious tattoos that he looked like he’d been excavated from some historical site. He seemed half blind, staring out through misty opal eyes and massaging each shuddering hand with the other. I joined him in the office. Granddad Jah had opted to stay outside. He seemed uninterested.
    “We’ve come to see Abbot Kem,” I told him. I half expected his inner workings to be as rusted as his casing but his voice was surprisingly young and his mind bubbled with energy.
    “Vanished, poof, into thin air,” he said. “Haven’t seen a sight of him since they took the girl.”
    “The girl?”
    “The nun. Can’t remember her name but we only had the one.”
    “Who took her?”
    “Those scruffy Bangkok detectives, the tall one and his podgy mate.”
    “Was she formally arrested?” I asked the monk.
    “Must have had a warrant, I’d suppose. Not even Bangkok detectives can just kidnap a nun and whisk her off, can they now?”
    “Do you think the abbot followed her?”
    “You know I do a bit of palm reading on the side but I can’t claim my ESP’s all that hot. All I know is she’s gone and he’s gone and I’m left holding the fort. Just hope I can stay alive long enough to welcome him back. Wouldn’t want to be running a place this size all by myself.”
    I thanked the old fellow and went outside to join my granddad. I was surprised to find both sandals there waiting for me although I did spot one black eye peering out from the bushes. We walked up to the crime scene along the concrete path. Granddad stood back for a few seconds and shook his head.
    “If ever I saw a murderer who wanted to get caught,” he said.
    “Open, isn’t it.”
    “Look at it. Top of a slope. Well used road at the bottom. Bright flowering bushes advertising the location. Plain view from the temple. And you say the dogs attacked him?”
    “Abbot Kem said he’d been alerted by the sound of the dogs barking.”
    “Well then, anyone might have looked up once the dogs got going.”
    “So he was lucky?”
    “I’d say so. And where did he run? A man with a pack of dogs after him. He’s not going to head downhill into a wide open space. He’d have to go this way.”
    Granddad Jah pushed his way through the unruly bougainvilleas and, for want of a better plan, I followed him. We emerged on the far side where the temple perimeter posts were lined up alongside a wood. There was no wall. To the left, the posts stretched all the way down to the road. To the right I could make out a small green roof.
    “Any idea what that is?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    He waited.
    “Gonna tell me?”
    “It’s the nun’s hut.”
    “Well then.”
    I’d suggested the possibility of the nun being implicated in the murder and done my best to make it sound unlikely. The concrete path meandered over the crest of the hill and approached the living quarters from the south. It was a very open track. But looking along the perimeter