Everyone Burns by John Dolan Page B

affectionately. As she waddles out, my cell phone rings. The display tells me it’s Charoenkul.
    “Have you seen the newspapers?” asks the annoyed Chief.
    “Only the Island Daily .”
    “The others are just as bad.”
    “At least they’ve omitted the grisly details. It might be a marketing boost for petrol sales, but it’s better not to put ideas into any impressionable heads. As a farang I have a vested interest in there being no more human bonfires.”
    “Quite,” he says without a trace of concern.
    I’m very tempted to ask him how his golf game went, but I bite my tongue. I’m pretty sure that given his state of mind his swing would have been all over the place. But there is no sense at this point in pouring trouble on oiled waters. Plus I’m not feeling especially brave today as far as the Chief is concerned. There is still the little matter of his wife to be considered.
    “The files will be with you after lunch. Get working on them.”
    I’m about to tell him I have other things to do and a living to make, but he’s already rung off.
    I wonder whether Kat will bring in the files personally. Then I wish I’d put on a nicer shirt. Then I think about why I wish I’d put on a nicer shirt. Then I realise why I wish I’d put on a nicer shirt. And why I’m preening myself in the washroom. I press my forehead against the mirror and murmur an obscenity to myself. Next I take a good look at the idiot in the mirror. He shakes his head at me in sad disbelief, then splashes his face with cold water and tells me to get a grip.
    I take his advice, put away the newspaper and wipe my mind clear of Police Chiefs’ wives, anonymous letters and murder cases. I have a real live paying customer arriving in about half an hour, and I need to compose myself.
    I return my empty coffee cup to Da and enquire about the client.
    Da puts aside her baby magazine and consults the appointment book.
    “Mr . Prasert Promsai,” she replies. “He didn’t say why he wanted to see you. He’s a new client.”
    “Actually Da,” I say mysteriously, heading back into the office and pausing at the threshold for dramatic effect, “he isn’t.” I close the door.
    I reacquaint myself with Prasert Promsai’s case notes. Far from being a new client, in fact he is one of my very first clients; preceding the arrival of Da at the David Braddock Agency. Although it is quite some time since I last saw him in a professional capacity, he attends the same temple as I do, and we wai each other on a regular basis.
    Awaiting his arrival I sit cross-legged in the armchair, close my eyes and give attention to my breathing. By the time Da knocks on the door of the East Office I am the personification of calm.
    Prasert Promsai and I greet each other in the traditional Thai manner. It is some weeks since I last saw him at the temple and he looks tired. He is a big man for a Thai, which is just as well because in the early days of his construction business he was the third man in the trench. He once told me that he is descended from Genghis Khan, and has the blue bruise on his buttocks to prove it. Of course if this urban legend of the bruise were true, then the Mongolian Conqueror must have impregnated a goodly proportion of the females of his Asian Empire and, from what I have read, genetics and evolutionary theory are against it. But like all good fairy stories, it persists.
    There is, however, something decidedly un-Thai about my old client, even if there is no doubt about his devout Buddhism. Of the three Buddhist fires, his primary weakness is the fire of anger. When he first came to me his fiery temper was in danger of destroying his life. His short fuse had alienated his wife and most of his family, and was threatening to engulf his burgeoning business, in spite of the fact that he was known as the most honest and reliable builder on the island. For a proud Thai man to turn to a foreign counsellor about such a personal issue shows how desperate