Jimm Juree 01; Killed at the Whim of a Hat

beside the Uaychai Department Store. It was owned by the minor wife of a propane gas tank baron who didn’t really care what she cooked as long as she turned a profit. The food was cheap but tasty and eclectic and the service was so slow it gave you plenty of time to chat.
    The daughter, Mayuri, was indeed the crimson-haired servant I’d met, but not been introduced to, at the house. She’d come with us without protestation or fuss, just walked out past the camouflaged gardeners and climbed into the truck with a friendly smile. She seemed truly delighted to have an excuse to leave the property. She was funny and as colorful as her hair, but she seemed to be sadly lacking in instincts. She had no apparent fear that we complete strangers might have motives for this lunch other than food, and no sense at all that our questions were leading. It didn’t take a great mind to deduce that Mayuri wasn’t the brightest squid boat in the sea. I felt no pressing need to be discreet.
    “A VW Kombi…” I began.
    “I read that” – she thrashed into the gap. “Can you believe that? Buried. Unbelievable. Those poor people.”
    I had no idea where to go from there.
    “But you knew what a VW Kombi was before you read about it?” Chompu asked.
    “Oh, yes.” She grinned. “They were so ‘it’ back then. They said there were more VW vans criss-crossing the world than there were in the whole of Germany. And that’s where they were made. Imagine that. A flock of, like eagles flying out in a fleet of Kombis all round the world. Wow!”
    “Did you ever see one?” Chompu asked.
    Mayuri was sitting next to him and she leaned close and cupped her hand around her mouth as if she were about to impart a deep secret.
    “Not only did I see one,” she whispered aloud, “I rode in one. That’s why it was so awesome when I saw it in the newspaper.”
    She had my undivided attention. There weren’t that many VW Kombis around.
    “When was that?” I asked.
    “Nineteen seventy-eight,” she said.
    She’d hammered the year. Put herself right there.
    “How old were you then?” Chompu asked.
    “Twenty…what? Twenty-two?”
    “How did you get to ride in a VW Kombi?” I asked.
    She tutted and sipped her Coke.
    “The things you do,” she said. “The things you do when you’re young.” She looked around at us all staring at her and decided it was probably no big deal to go on. “The seventies were crazy,” she said. “This army coup and commies everywhere, and government spies, everyone suspicious and blaming each other. It was a really hard time to grow up and, you know, believe anything. Some of us headed down to the beaches where the backpackers were. We had these wild times down there. We met this crazy Thai guy who’d been living in the jungle hiding out from the junta, and he had this family land outside Surat. He asked us to live with him there. There was like a group of us. We thought we were flower children but I think we’d been just pretend hippies till he came along. This Thai guy gave us a chance to live a real alternative lifestyle, you know? We set up this, what do you call it? This cooperative farm. He’d lived on something similar in the States, he said. We were trying to do it all without money. We grew most of what we needed, raised animals, cut wood for cooking, you know? It was this very simple, like, beautiful life.
    “But there were needs, you see? The bigger our commune got, the more we needed – petrol for the pumps, you know, a truck, a little tractor – but we weren’t making anything from the stuff we produced. We were just, you know, surviving. And we needed money. I guess, when I think about it now, that means we weren’t very good at being self-sufficient. The whole point was that we…Anyway, I had this father, of sorts. I hadn’t spoken to him for years but I got in touch and asked him if he could let me have some money. He wasn’t into it but he said he had a few odd jobs he could let us do to earn some bread. He told me about this car rental deal. He’d front the rental money and arrange IDs. Two of us would hire a rental car, drive it to this friend of my father up the coast, and leave it there. His friend would take it to Hua Hin and sub-rent it to foreigners at three times the price. Then he’d drive it back.”
    “What makes you think that’s what they did?” Granddad Jah asked.
    “What else would they do with them?” she asked.
    “Steal them.”
    “Ooh, do you