The Dying Beach by Angela Savage Read Free Book Online Page A

underfoot. When he played rough and tumble games, the village boys ended up with broken bones. Othong had always misjudged his own strength. A clumsy stupid oaf, his uncle called him. Ngo ngao tao toon —‘stupid as a turtle and a mole’—the village boys chanted. But Othong wasn’t stupid. A turtle would’ve panicked and hidden inside its shell. A mole would have dug itself into a hole. But Othong was smarter than that. He made the girl’s death look like a suicide. He based it on a movie where the character had scrawled the name of her two-timing boyfriend on the wall in her own blood before bleeding to death and coming back as a phi hai to haunt him. Othong wasn’t afraid of being haunted by the girl’s ghost, though, seeing as he hadn’t offended her and only killed her by accident.
    It was a good plan but if he’d had more time to think it through, Othong would’ve searched the place before he cut into the body, as the blood made his task more difficult. As it was, he couldn’t find any notebook; the only thing worth taking was a wallet. Despite his best efforts, he ended up sticky with blood and had to wear the good jacket he kept under his motorbike seat to hide the stains on his T-shirt and jeans for the ride back to his uncle’s place. To Othong’s dismay, Bapit insisted he burn the jacket, along with the rest of his clothes.
    His uncle placed the call to his policeman friend as Othong headed outside to the bathing block. He stripped, careful to keep his clothes off the damp floor, and sluiced himself with water. Using a wedge of soap and a ragged toothbrush, he scrubbed away every trace of blood caught under his fingernails and toenails. He shampooed his hair twice, before wrapping himself in a sarong and heading out to the incinerator with his clothes. He fished the girl’s wallet from the pocket of his jeans before flinging them onto the fire and stashed it under a beam in the roof of the bathroom to collect when his uncle wasn’t looking.
    The old man was still on the phone, apparently on hold, when Othong returned to the living room. Bapit nodded for him to take a seat. Othong wore only the damp sarong, and in his uncle’s air-conditioned office he was soon freezing. It took a full ten minutes for Bapit to get the all clear from the sergeant, after which he focused on ticking off his nephew, before Othong was finally dismissed to get dressed.
    Wearing his dead cousin’s cast-offs, Othong faced Bapit again. ‘I’ll be off now, Uncle,’ he said, bowing with a humble wai .
    Bapit raised his hand. ‘Out of curiosity, did you happen to find out anything useful from the girl before you killed her?’
    â€˜Please, Uncle, it was an accident—’ Othong began.
    â€˜Just answer my question.’
    â€˜I asked her about Miss Pla’s things and she said something about ghosts and khon farang —’
    â€˜What about foreigners?’ The old man looked worried. ‘Was it something to do with the project?’
    â€˜I–I don’t know,’ Othong stammered. ‘She wasn’t making any sense. She said khon plaek nah came and collected Miss Pla’s things and—’
    â€˜Did she say strangers or foreigners?’ Bapit grabbed Othong by the shoulders and shook him. ‘Think, you moron. Which words did she use?’
    â€˜ Khon farang ,’ Othong said.
    â€˜Are you absolutely sure?’
    The more his uncle pressed him, the less sure Othong became.
    â€˜ Khon farang ,’ he repeated.
    His uncle released his grip. ‘How could this happen?’ His hands groped for the cigarettes in his chest pocket. ‘I’ve got to find out who this farang is.’
    â€˜Perhaps I can do that for you, Uncle,’ Othong piped up, eager for a second chance.
    â€˜You?’ Uncle Bapit spat. ‘You’ve got a nerve. The only thing you can do for me right now is get out