SUSPECTS
Azelaporn and Huloton did their best to have Rodriguez placate the Mexicans, now they had lost their commander. He was their new leader, yet doing everything not to be labelled that way. Huloton told him that he had to bring his men under control.
‘If they start a fight with my security people,’ Huloton said, showing surprising strength for a persistent ditherer, ‘there will a bloodbath—admittedly, with your people winning. They outnumber my men.’
‘I have never had direct control over them,’ Rodriguez said.
‘Sir, the issue for them should be protecting the bullion,’ Azelaporn said. ‘It is most regrettable that Señor Cortez has been dealt with this way. But now the issue is the fortune in those chests. If you let your men lose control, the KL police will take the bullion over. It won’t reach Singapore.’
Rodriguez nodded his reluctant agreement.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said with a sigh.
‘Why not offer them incentives for behaving themselves? What’s a few ingots among thousands, after all?’
‘Please don’t just think, do something!’ Huloton pleaded. Rodriguez adjusted his silk tie and strode off to bring his countrymen and indirect employees to heel.
*
One by one in the train’s central piano bar carriage, Makanathan questioned possible suspects. By quizzing the Mexicans and security guards, she had an idea of the passengers who had come through carriages 30, 31 and 32 and on to the observation cars.
There was Ben Dempster the Australian grazier, who’d had an altercation with the Mexicans in the Kanchanaburi Cemetery. He would have a vague motive, perhaps, to murder Cortez, and he admitted being handy with rifle and handgun. But his wife swore she had been with him all night. They were in carriage 8 and had not been near carriage 30, except on one occasion in the afternoon. That was backed up by two of the security guards who sat in on the interrogations. They had not seen the Australian near carriage 30 for twenty-four hours.
There was also Bowles, the large American former construction business owner. He had been in the Vietnam War and knew how to use a range of weaponry. He was at first bemused by the questions and later distinctly amused when asked if he had any reason to want to kill the Mexican.
‘Depends on what business he was in,’ the American said and followed it by a loud guffaw. ‘I have operations in Texas. I both love them because they are prepared to work cheaply for my companies, and hate ’em for the goddamn drugs they bring in.’ He laughed again. ‘But I didn’t know the guy. What did he do?’
‘Er, this is not the issue,’ Makanathan said, unwilling to mention Cortez’s background. She dismissed the American and, just as she called for the next couple, was surprised to see Hinkley and Cowboy walk into the bar.
‘Sorry to jump the queue,’ Hinkley said in her forthright manner, ‘but Cowboy thinks he knows who did the killing.’
‘Oh, really?’ Makanathan said, glancing at her watch, which said 5 a.m. ‘Who?’
‘He thinks it’s either the nice Frenchman or the American in the wheelchair. He is not sure which one.’
‘It can’t be the Frenchman,’ Makanathan said. ‘This guard here was outside his door all night.’ The guard in question acknowledged her comment with a firm nod. ‘Monsieur Garriaud did not venture out. In fact, as far as we know he has not been out since the late afternoon. But please reassure Cowboy I shall be speaking with him very soon.’
Cowboy stomped his foot twice.
‘What about the American in the wheelchair?’ Hinkley asked, responding to Cowboy’s second choice.
‘You don’t think he is just relating to someone in a similar situation to himself? Someone … er … different?’
‘Cowboy notices everything.’
‘Is there anything specific about the American’s behaviour that has caught Cowboy’s attention?’
‘He noticed him crying. He also noted the Frenchman crying.’
‘Crying?’
‘That’s what he observed,’ Hinkley said confidently, despite the paucity of the evidence. ‘He’s also suspicious that the American never came to the set lunches and dinners.’
‘This American,’ Makanathan glanced at her passenger list, ‘Mr Blenkiron, has a disability. He is eighty. Does Cowboy realise that this makes it very difficult for him to carry out this heinous crime, physically?’
‘He notices anomalies. They stay with him. He sees many different things we don’t.’
‘It’s true that Mr Blenkiron was in the observation car area at the time. But there were fifteen people in that category.’
‘Cowboy notices patterns in behaviour that others miss.’
‘Are you saying he is a savant?’
‘No, but his intelligence is very different. He observed and thought about these two individuals because they were alone, they cried, and he had been in contact with both. I think he sees them as similar kinds of people.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Not sure. It has to do with character. He likes them both, despite him thinking that the Frenchman was coming on to me.’
‘Did he?’
‘No,’ Hinkley said, blushing, ‘if anything, I was interested in him. He was a touch aloof.’
Makanathan looked at her watch again.
‘We really must move on,’ she said with a hint of impatience, while glancing at others waiting at the other end of the piano bar, ‘but I promise you and Cowboy that I will chat with Mr Blenkiron.’