The Merry Misogynist

you won’t get the story.”
    Civilai afforded him a polite nop . “My humble apologies.”
    “I’d had a lot of time to think about things during the ride. Phan was my prime suspect, but one of the other collectors, young Nouphet, also fitted the bill in some respects. So I wanted to keep my options open. All I knew for certain was that the truck was involved. They’d seen it in Vang Vieng and in the south. I believed if I could keep the truck in sight, or at least in earshot, I’d have a good chance of discovering who was using it for his nefarious deeds.
    “I learned from the locals that there was only one track leading to the first base at Ban Noo and there was nothing beyond it. When the truck came back down I was sitting by the road with a group of old fogies eating peanuts so I was fittingly camouflaged. Nobody in the truck noticed me. I could see they’d dropped off the first census collector. They dropped off the second, Nouphet, at base two: the next intersection at Ban Nahoi. That only left Buaphan and the driver on the journey to base three. I decided that was where I should be. Sound carries up there in the hills so when I saw the lamplight up ahead I got off and pushed the bike the last kilometre.”
    “I admire your stamina.”
    “It killed me. I hid the bike in the bushes at the top of the track. It was dark. I was covering it with branches so they wouldn’t know I was there and I managed to skewer my hand on a sharp sprig and bled like a spigot.”
    “But you didn’t cry out in pain, thus giving away your position?”
    “No. By now I was in my undercover mode. I swept around the outskirts of the village like a black moth on a dark night and located the hut of Buaphan. He was sitting out front, reading by the light of a hurricane lamp. There was something…how can I put it? Something serene about him. I talked to Daeng about it after the event and she’d come to the same conclusion in her own way. He didn’t match our mental picture of the perpetrator at all. The man we were looking for had to be charming. He had to win hearts. Neither of us could imagine Buaphan switching so drastically. He just didn’t like people. His Nirvana was to be alone. That was his motivation for working on the census project.
    “And it was while sitting watching Buaphan read that I heard the truck start up. I could see the headlights veer off down the track. I’d adopted a ‘keep the truck in sight’ policy but I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to follow it without the driver seeing my lights. I was tired and I knew by the time I’d uncovered the bike he’d be long gone. And I still had my mind set on the census collectors at that point. Nouphet had moved up to take the lead in my suspicions. I planned to go down the track the next day and see what he was up to.
    “But as I sat there and meditated, I started to think about the driver. He spent a lot of his time ferrying between the three bases. He was their only form of communication. Who could possibly know where he was at any given time? He could tell base two that he’d spent the night at base one and none of them would be any the wiser. He had plenty of opportunity to disappear. The only thing that made him an unlikely suspect was his looks.”
    “Plain – bald?”
    “It didn’t fit. Then I thought back to the reports. Nobody ever said the man was good-looking. They talked about his healthy hair and his interesting face and his bearing. You tend to use the term ‘interesting’ to describe someone who’s average-looking but oozing with sexual charisma. You, for instance – you’re quite ugly but women find you irresistible. They see beyond your bald head and your grasshopper features.”
    “I take your point.”
    “Our perpetrator had to be a clever actor. He was able to lie to his victims credibly. The driver had every reason to hate Buaphan but he also had the opportunity to study him. He could steal his identity: walk like him, talk like him, adopt his mannerisms. All he needed was hair. And, these days, with so much vanity in the world, a convincing wig isn’t that hard to find.”
    “And all this came to you as you sat in the bushes watching your original suspect fade from your reckoning?”
    “Yes, until I fell asleep. It had been a long day. Much as I love Madame Daeng, I sleep much better beside a shrub. Being surrounded by greenery takes me back to my years in the jungle. I slept like a sloth. It was the sound of the