Free The Axe Factor: A Jimm Juree Mystery (Jimm Juree Mysteries) by Colin Cotterill Page A

wearing a dress. Scullery maids never wore dresses. The English sign over the cashier’s table said: WE NOT COSH CHICKS.
    “I should hire you,” he said.
    “What as?” I asked.
    “Researcher. Cultural adviser. Odd-jobs woman.”
    “You already have someone to hold your watermelons.”
    “Right. That wouldn’t be in the job description.”
    Not a flinch. I was expecting at least a blush. Men who defile their maids usually show remorse. I decided to keep pushing.
    “Your handywoman seems very content in her work.”
    “You think so? I really hope you’re right. I do try to keep her happy.”
    Brazen.
    “I’d hate to lose either of them,” he continued.
    “Her and her son?”
    He laughed so loud the four uniformed bank employees at the next table looked around.
    “Did I say something funny?” I asked.
    “No. You’re right. Jo does look so young. I thought the same when I first met him and A. But he’s her husband.”
    “But he’s…?”
    “Twenty-four. A’s twenty-seven. She graduated from Meiktila University. Literature. She spends a lot of her time typing. I gave her my old laptop. She speaks Thai and English as well as Burmese. Smart girl. And here she is, making beds and washing dishes. What a messed-up country Burma is.”
    That’s when it first occurred to me that he might not be diddling her after all. Especially not with her baby-faced husband walking around the grounds with a machete. So, was her warning for me to stay away from him because she had plans to get Little Jo deported and move in on her boss? Or was there something else I needed to know? I had to get her alone and find out what she meant.
    Most good Thai meals give way to periods where you’re enjoying the food too much to be bothered with conversation. We were in one of those vacuums. Fish lahp , prawns and broccoli in oyster sauce, spicy bamboo shoot and sweet basil, and cold Singha beer. He’d insisted I select the dishes. It was good to see a foreigner enjoy Thai food, even with sweat leaking out of him faster than he could throw in the beer. It was like perpetual motion. But even damp he looked adorable. With the maid issue sort of sorted out, I only had one more query to address before I’d allow myself to be seduced.
    “Did you beat your wife?” I asked.
    Again, no twitch, no tic, just a smile.
    “Would it help sales if I had?”
    “Either that or a transvestite lover. The editor seems to think, as it stands, you aren’t worth a headline. You promised me a dark side.”
    “And you think my wife is the gateway to sensationalism.”
    “Why did she leave?”
    “Is this the newspaper asking or you?”
    “That depends on the answer.”
    He took a few sections of tissue paper from the roll and wiped his face dry. He gently flapped his hand at the flies waiting in the wings for his leftovers.
    “She wasn’t ready for this life,” he said. “She was young. Your age. So you know exactly what I’m talking about. No decent cappuccino. No bars. No pizza. No variety or stimulation. Stuck with me in Eden.”
    “Did she have a lover?”
    “Several, probably. Is this on the record?”
    “I’m going to embellish everything you say. But, don’t forget, nobody reads the Chumphon News .”
    “Right. Then, it wasn’t the lovers. The desire for sex I could forgive. Understand even. But the deceit…”
    A hood of gloom seemed to lower over him at that point. The toothpick snapped between his fingers.
    “I’d made a commitment,” he said. “I’d never done that before. I promised myself to her. She wasn’t the easiest person to love, but I worked on it. I changed … so it would be successful. I gave up things I thought were sacred. I refurbished my id so it could accommodate another. All this was based on the fact that she said she loved me, and I valued that more than anything. A beautiful young woman loved me. So I gave her me. But that me wasn’t enough for her. She deserved what she got.”
    I should have taken