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

and just told them about the house and the answers he’d given. We were on dessert—ordained nun banana in coconut sauce—when I dropped the bombshell that his wife had left him.
    “I’m not surprised,” said Mair. “I did notice a considerable age difference.”
    According to Google, the pretty wife was the same age as me.
    “I don’t see that age has anything to do with it,” said Gaew.
    “Well, you wouldn’t, would you?” said Grandad. “You robbed the cradle yourself. Didn’t you?”
    “Grandad!” said Arny, almost angrily.
    “What?” Grandad stuck out his grasshopper chest. “You gonna defend your great aunt’s honor? Challenge me to a duel? You’re going out with a woman the same age as your own mother. Disgusting.”
    “You can’t—” Arny began, but Gaew put a hand on his arm.
    “It’s all right,” she said. “Let it go.”
    “Don’t humor me,” said Grandad. “Defend yourselves.”
    Mair, who could always be counted on to inadvertently deflect tension, came out with, “William seduced me in the classroom. On a desk, in fact.”
    First there was silence, then Gaew laughed.
    Grandad said, “Oh, don’t!”
    “Who’s William?” I asked.
    “He was good-looking, too,” said Mair. “An Irishman. Twenty years my senior. I’m not saying all British people are good-looking. Some are downright ugly. Goodness, I wouldn’t touch Mark Jagger with a pool cue, but your author reminds me a lot of William. He came to Chiang Mai University for a couple of years to teach literature.”
    Grandad stood up in a huff, put his bowl in the sink, and left the kitchen.
    “Go on,” said Gaew.
    “There’s no ‘on,’” said Mair. “William had ginger hair and smelled of tobacco. To make matters worse, he wore corduroy. I could never let myself be seduced by a man in corduroy.”
    We laughed.
    “So there was no seduction in the classroom?” I asked.
    “Not by William, heaven bless his soul,” said Mair. “But I knew it would shut somebody up. My father’s been very testy lately. I mean, more so than usual. I think something’s wrong.”
    That was it with Mair. You never knew. One minute she’s putting together a chain of extension cords so she can vacuum the beach, the next she’s defusing volatile moments over dinner. I didn’t necessarily believe there had been nothing between her and William. She was sexually active in the sixties. You see? No Thai stereotypes in our family. Good Thai girls back then didn’t even let their fiancés have a peek until the honeymoon. I bet there were a lot of disappointed honeymooners. But Mair didn’t give a hoot. If her recent stream of consciousness was to be believed, she’d left behind a trail of drooling lovers.
    “So I think you should make a play for him,” said Mair.
    “William? He’s probably dead by now,” I countered.
    “Conrad,” she said. “Successful, rich, good-looking, reached an age where he probably isn’t interested in sex, as long as you can keep him away from the Niagara. Sex with old men isn’t really anything to write home about. He’d be perfect for you.”
    “It’s Viagra, and what makes you think he’d be interested in me?”
    “Don’t be silly. Look at you,” she said. “Take him a pie. Englishmen like pies.”
    “Where would I find a pie?”
    “Bake one.”
    “We don’t have an oven.”
    “You need an oven?”
    Like I said, she wasn’t spectacular in the kitchen.
    “Bananas, then,” she said. “Bananas are international. Nobody’s ever disappointed with a banana. You know? I wondered where she’d gone, that wife of his. I haven’t seen her for, ooh, two weeks?”
    “Do you mean two months?”
    “I think I know the difference between a week and a month,” she huffed. “She was here on December the eleventh. The day they delivered the chicken manure. She had to step over the sacks to get in the shop.”
    Of course, there was no way Mair could confuse November and December. She’d get my