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  Number One

  The Funeral Photographer

  A Jimm Juree Short Story

  By Colin Cotterill

  Number One: The Funeral Photographer

  Copyright © Colin Cotterill, 2017

  First Published 2017

  eBook Edition published by

  DCO Books, 2017

  Proglen Trading Co., Ltd.

  Bangkok Thailand

  http://www.dco.co.th

  ISBN 978-616-7817-93-4

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and other elements of the story are either the product of the author's imagination or else are used only fictitiously. Any resemblance to real characters, living or dead, or to real incidents, is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Colin Cotterill

  Dr. Siri Paiboun series

  The Coroner's Lunch (2004)

  Thirty-Three Teeth (August 2005)

  Disco For the Departed (August 2006

  Anarchy and Old Dogs (August 2007)

  Curse of the Pogo Stick (August 2008)

  The Merry Misogynist (August 2009)

  Love Songs from a Shallow Grave (August 2010)

  Slash and Burn (October 2011)

  The Woman Who Wouldn't Die (January 2013)

  Six and a Half Deadly Sins (May 2015)

  The Rat Catchers' Olympics (August 2017)

  Jimm Juree series

  Killed at the Whim of a Hat (July 2011)

  Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach (June 2012)

  The Axe Factor (April 2014)

  The Amok Runners (June 2016)

  Other publications

  Evil in the Land Without (2003)

  Ethel and Joan Go to Phuket (2004)

  Pool and its Role in Asian Communism (2005)

  Cyclelogical (2006)

  Ageing Disgracefully (2009)

  Bleeding in Black and White (2015)

  Contents

  Introduction to Jimm Juree

  The Funeral Photographer

  Introduction

  Brief description of how the Jurees ended up in Maprao, the buttock-hole of the earth.

  I’ll keep this brief because it still irks me to tell our story. My name is Jimm Juree and I was, at one stage, a mere liver failure away from fame and fortune in Chiang Mai. But our mother, Mair, dragged the family down south to run a decrepit seaside resort on the Gulf of Thailand. I’m a reporter. A real one. And as soon as the head of the crime desk at the Chiang Mai Mail completed his impending suicide by Mekhong Whisky, I was to step into his moldy old shoes; only the second female in the country to hold such a prestigious position.

  Then Mair – nutty as peanut brittle – sold our family home without telling us and headed south. With her went her father, Granddad Jah, the only Thai traffic policeman to go through an entire career without accepting bribes or kickbacks, my brother, Arny, a wimpy lamb with the body of a Greek God, and me. The only one to pass up on family obligation was Sissy, my transsexual brother. Once a cabaret star, and briefly a TV celebrity, now an ageing recluse, Sissy had become something of an internet criminal and although I haven’t forgiven her for deserting us, I do find her skills useful from time to time.

  You see, although I would never have guessed it, Maprao and its environs is a hotbed of crime. Although I’m technically the part-time social events reporter for the shitty local newspaper, barely a week goes by that I’m not chasing down some misdemeanor or another. Our local police (who make the Keystone Cops look like the SAS) are of the belief that I brought all this crime with me from the city. I know that it’s always been here but our gentlemen in brown prefer not to notice it. As they say, and quite rightly too, they just don’t get paid enough to stand in front of a loaded gun. All we get from them are complaints about all the extra paperwork we’re causing them.

  So it’s down to our disjointed family to solve the mysteries and put the perps away. We’re a surprisingly efficient team of crime fighters but I have to confess we were hopeless at running a resort and deserved all the disasters that befell us. At the time of writing this, we still haven’t been able to salvage our monsoon ravaged bungalows from the depths of the bay and we’ve spent the past year doing odd jobs to make ends meet. The bank has been particularly slow in paying out on our disaster insurance claim. But we’re refusing to budge until they do.

  As it turned out, there was some method to Mair’s madness in bringing us down south, but in order to learn what that was you’ll have to fork out some money for the actual books that tell our sorry story. Details of those are below. I can’t say too much because Sissi and I are in a long ongoing dialogue with Clint Eastwood who probably wants to turn our family exploits into a movie. In the meantime, the files that I’m sending you in this series of shorts have been collated from the astounding cases I’ve been involved in since the floods. There is an expression, “Only in Thailand”, used freely by frustrated and frustrating foreigners who like nothing better than to complain about us. But, I have to confess, most of the cases I’ve been involved in here really could only have happened in my country. I hope you enjoy them.

  Novels most likely currently under option consideration by Malpaso Productions;

  Killed at the Whim of a Hat (July 2011) - Minotaur Books, New York ISBN 9780312564537

  Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach (June 2012) - Minotaur Books, New York ISBN 9780312564544

  The Axe Factor (April 2014) - Minotaur Books, New York ISBN 9781250043368

  The Amok Runners (June 2016) - CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN 9781533265289

  There’s also an exclusive short at Criminal Element called Hidden Genders that gives you some background on Sissi.

  It won’t help you much but the writer of these stories has a web page you probably shouldn’t bother going to.

  www.colincotterill.com

  The Funeral Photographer

  I was a genius at creating shadows where there were none, at capturing that split second of despair on a joyful face. These were the qualities that collapsed my first photographic career. What couple could be pleased with a wedding album full of sombre reminders of their happiest day? Wedding photography was just one of the many professions I launched myself into on that first year after we lost the Lovely Bay Resort and Restaurant to the monsoons. And, like our beachfront kitchen and bathroom block, they went under without trace.

  I guess somebody like me should have known better. I’d been one of those women in white. I’d smiled the phony smile and gazed lovingly into the eyes of a man who, even on our wedding day, was already hoping for something better. I could imagine him going through the album once we were divorced and photo-shopping Michelle Yeoh in my place. He ended up with some stork of a woman who had a firm belief that pink would make her more attractive. Her wardrobe looked like someone had emptied a bottle of rosé into the washing machine. Perhaps my clients could sense my aversion to pink and my resentment that anyone else should smile sincerely on that, their supposed happiest day. But, to cut a long story short, after five months my name was mud in the betrothed community.

  The only thing classy about me was my equipment. I had a very expensive second-hand Nikon given to me by a retiring photographer in Chiang Mai. He said I was the best crime reporter he’d ever worked with and he wanted to remain a part of my career. He had faith in me and even when I gave up that career and moved to the end of the earth to keep my mental mother safe, he didn’t ask for the camera back. He told me it was a gift that would always remind me how great I was. So it hurt me more than a little that I had to sell it. We needed the money. I’d placed an advertisement in the Ban Kow news and prepared myself for an ignominious return to the airport taxi service counter in Surat –
my previous, brief career. It would kill me to beg for my old job back. Since Chiang Mai, my life had been one of deflated ambitions. It was like the day after a launch of floating paper lanterns. So bright and quick to rise only to burn and drop to earth and burn down poor people’s houses before the morning came.

  Then, a miracle of sorts. On my way to delivering the camera to a crooked dealer in Lang Suan, I’d taken our resort motor scooter on a distant detour. Perhaps I’d been delaying the moment when the camera and my greatness would part company forever. Or perhaps I was just hungry. After several wrong turns I’d found the funeral. The invitation card had been impersonal and badly printed. I barely remembered the host and had never met the deceased. But no matter. A Thai funeral was a feast. No end of poor folk with rumbling bellies honed in on the overly loudspeakers of a funeral party. I wasn’t one to let insincerity stand in the way of a good meal. I could never have dreamed that attending a celebration of death might bring me back to life – however temporarily. But that is exactly what happened.

  The flashing police sign warned motorists half the road was taken up by a clumsy plastic awning on metal legs. It gave speeders no time at all to brake, and many a road top celebration had become a massacre at the hands of a drunk Benz driver. A second awning filled the small front yard of a wooden house. The awnings, sixty stackable plastic chairs, eight stackable plastic tables, four-square metres of assorted plastic flowers, a temporary casket (ostensibly teak but actually plastic) to view the body, and an easel with a blown-up photograph of the departed comprised the set. It was known as the Compact Village IV package, one of many put together by an events company in the town. The flashing road sign was compulsory but extra, payable to the police driver upon delivery. As I looked around, I could tell the whole show was beyond the means of these poor villagers. They’d be paying it off far into the future, but the relatives were obliged to preserve face. To help them keep up the payments, the company heavies would drop by once a week to jog memories and crack knuckles. The guests handed over envelopes when they arrived but these would contain the smallest denomination of foldable money. Hardly any help at all.

  I dropped my envelope into the cardboard donation box and looked at the time on my cell. It was 7pm and nearly all the chairs were occupied. Three tables contained card players and their supporters. Betting on cards was illegal but the police usually turned a blind eye to the perpetration of the evil crime during a period of mourning, not wanting to disturb the spirit’s progress to the next life by conducting a raid on a funeral. Most of the players were beady-eyed women saying farewell to their housekeeping money. The other tables housed the menfolk; reefs of crusty males around atolls of empty bottles. They’d probably been drinking since the tents were erected that morning. Conversation had given way to head nodding to the beat of nostalgic Thai pop on speakers that shimmied back and forth from their own vibrations. The only person I recognized amongst the drinkers was Bung, although I had to take a second look to be sure. Like me, Bung had been chubby at school but now wore skin a size too big for him. His jowls hung like mud flaps.

  ‘Sister!’ Bung cried when he finally focused his gaze on me. He tried to rise but the sudden altitude was too much for him and he flopped back onto the flimsy chair. ‘Over here, Sister.’

  I wai’d the partygoers and joined my schoolmate of what felt like half-a-century ago. We hadn’t been that close in class and hadn’t been in touch that much since. He’d lived with relatives in Chiang Mai for a couple of years and went to my high school. He’d probably mentioned where he was from but, back then, Lang Suan had meant nothing to me. I couldn’t have located it on a map. To tell the truth, it meant even less to me once I moved here. I was at Tesco supermarket one day buying adult diapers for my granddad. Bung had recognized me straight away and came running over to me like a saggy wild pig. I had no idea who he was. He wai’d me politely and proceeded to remind me of the great times we’d had together at school in the north. Even when he’d exhausted his nostalgia I was none the wiser. It was only when he mentioned an incident where he brought a live chicken to class on a leash that I remembered him at all, although I remained at a loss as to why he’d brought the chicken. I couldn’t be bothered to ask.

  And that afternoon meeting at Tesco was as intimate as it would ever get. We’d nodded once in a while at the Lang Suan market and I’d heard rumours about him from mutual friends. But funerals, and weddings and inaugurations brought out the old address books. Every donation helped. And here we were. I nodded to the drunks at his table and noticed how few of them were aware of my presence. My unremarkability had always been my outstanding feature. By the time I’d borrowed a chair from the neighboring table, Bung had already poured me a strong Thai rum and soda and was attempting to drop an ice cube into the evasive glass.

  ‘He was a good man,’ said Bung, indicating the far corner of the yard where the deceased lay staring at the manufacturer’s label on the inside of the coffin lid.

  ‘Your father?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bung. ‘I mean, no. Uncle Beung. But he was like a father. Better than a damned father, I’d say.’

  While Bung was sorting out his relationship issues I scanned the party for the food table. I spotted it under a halo of Christmas lights. I got to my feet and nodded in the direction of the meal. I thought a parting comment might be in order, so I asked, ‘How did he die?’

  ‘They killed him.’

  I sat back down.

  I was no longer a crime reporter. I was writing unread columns on rural issues for the Chumphon Gazette on a part-time basis. But the word ‘killed’ stirred some deeply embedded ache.

  ‘Who did?’ I asked.

  ‘Them. The neckties,’ said Bung.

  ‘The neckties?’ I said, ‘That’s what? A gang name?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bung with renewed energy and volume. ‘A gang. That’s exactly what they are. Right boys?’

  The drunks in their own respective comatose ways reacted, although it was clear not all of them knew what they were agreeing with.

  ‘Yeah!’ they said, and banged their palms on the table.

  One man fell off his bendy plastic chair.

  ‘A gang,’ Bung repeated. ‘But our gang’s gonna get their gang. Right boys? We’re gonna mess ‘em up.’

  One or two of the men who still had hand-eye coordination looked warily at Bung then nodded towards the outsider in their midst.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Bung. ‘This is Jimm. We’re family. Like this we are.’ He squashed his first two fingers together, noticed how much like a gun they looked, and fired them off into the darkness. He’d made his point but, naturally, country folk never stopped at level crossings even when the train was on its way.

  ‘Me and Jimm were something at school,’ he continued. ‘Right Jimm? We were the lovebirds of the fourth form. Right Jimm? Eh?’

  It was obvious Bung was confusing me with another much better-looking fantasy character but I nodded anyway. I wanted to hear more about the neckties. To endear myself to the gathering I said, ‘Voted the most envied couple in Form Four, we were. They all thought we’d be married before we graduated.’

  It worked. The account was met by screams of lustful approval and clinking of glasses and a vile smelling hug from Bung. While I had him close, I asked, ‘How did they kill Uncle Beung?’

  ‘They squashed him, Sister,’ he said. ‘Squeezed him. Drained him.’

  It sounded violent but I assumed that Bung, in his own tethered chicken way, might have been speaking metaphorically.

  ‘Did they use weapons?’ I persevered.

  The oldest member of the group, a crunchy old man deep-fried by the sun, leaned over to me.

  ‘Sweet mouths,’ he said. ‘Sweet mouths and dirty money. That’s how they do it nowadays. No blood. We’ll all be dead by the year’s end and they’ll have got away with it.’

  ‘But we’re gonna get ‘em,’ said Bung. ‘Right boys?’

  ‘
Yeah.’

  Again, all eyes turned to me. I thought for a second, raised my glass and said,

  ‘Death to the neckties.’

  The table was toasted to life. Glasses clashed, drinks were downed, Saeng Thip and sodas were replenished. Someone threw up under the table. I was in, but for all my probing I still wasn’t clear what I was in to. And I had no idea how the neckties had killed Uncle Beung. I excused myself and went in search of dinner. I couldn’t think on an empty stomach. At the food table, two large women with ladles sat like circus elephants on tiny stools. The first nodded at the clean plate stack and I took one and handed it to her. The other woman lifted the lids of the aluminium pots and dished a little of everything onto it. Southern curries are wicked. The victuals on the plate sizzled with spice. But I’d developed an indestructible stomach and the women watched with glee as I tucked into dinner.

  ‘Is that a camera?’ said the first woman.

  I patted the black camera bag that hung from my shoulder and all my disappointments came bouncing back on me.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘You a photographer?’ the woman asked.

  I should have said, ‘I used to be,’ or, ‘I never really was,’ but what the hell? While the camera and me were together I was still, technically, a camerawoman.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘There’s not much money left,’ she said. ‘My Beung spent most of it. That’s him over there in the box. Big appetite for a little man. But I’ve got some put away. Think you could take a few?’