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

name wrong four times a day. She’d phone our old distributor in Chiang Mai and complain that we hadn’t received goods from him that we hadn’t actually ordered for a year. Who knows when the bride of Coralbank was actually in our shop?
    “Oh, manure, that reminds me,” she said. “I need you to take Gogo to see Dr. Somboon tomorrow.”
    “Can’t. I’m going to Chumphon.”
    “Not a problem. He has his livestock work during the day. He won’t open the clinic till five. You’ll be back by then.”
    “What’s wrong with Gogo?”
    “Nothing yet. I made an appointment to have her neutered.”
    “Oh no. Absolutely not.”
    “I suppose you’d sooner she pumps out puppies till her tits are dragging along the ground?”
    “Neuter? Objection? No. Me take her? Not on your life.”
    “Why not?”
    “Dr. Somboon doesn’t have a nurse, Mair. He makes you stand at the operating table and hold the victim down just in case she wakes up in the middle and goes nuts when she sees her insides spread out on the table. I’m not going to be a witness to the end of a woman’s hopes and dreams of a happy family.”
    “She’s a dog, darling.”
    “Dogs can be symbolic. Let Gaew take her.”
    “I’m off to Petchaburi for a seminar on steroid abuse tomorrow,” said Gaew.
    “Arny?”
    “Blood,” he said. “You know how I am.”
    My brother was built like the Coliseum, but the slightest dribble of blood and you’d need a team of paramedics to bring him round.
    “Jenny, my child,” said Mair. I assumed she was talking to me. “Gogo needs a liberationist. Someone to explain to her how she’s no longer obliged to be any dog’s doormat. Those little bristles on the doormat of indignity no longer have to prick her underbelly even if the word ‘Welcome’ is spelled out beneath her.”
    “That dog hates me,” I reminded her.
    “Then it’s your chance to bond. One female whose ovaries are in a pedal bin with one other whose reproductive system is unlikely to be put to use.”
    “In that case, why don’t you take her?”
    “I won’t be here.”
    “Where are you going?”
    “To see your father.”
    “Oh? Where is he?”
    She looked out of the small kitchen window to a point where the indigo sea met the charcoal sky. There was one green light flickering out there. We all stood up at the window.
    “That’s Captain Kow?” asked Arny.
    “He’s out there all by himself,” said Gaew. “There isn’t another boat in sight.”
    “Isn’t he brave?” said Mair. “No other fisherman dares go out in this season, but there he is in the sea putting rice on our table.”
    “Mair,” I said. “There’s a very good reason why nobody else is out there. It’s the season when little shiplets get smashed to matchsticks. You get seasick in a pedal boat on a reservoir. You are not going out there.”
    “I have to.”
    “Why?”
    “It’s all part of the process.”
    “Of what?”
    “Reconciliation.”
    “Mair. You sold our home and dragged us kicking and screaming to this hellhole for him. Don’t you think you’ve done enough to prove your worth? How many tests is he going to put you through?”
    “There are a lot of things you don’t understand. This was my idea. To live his life. See the world through his eyes. Understand the sea.”
    Arny stepped in.
    “Mair! That’s a boat. A squid boat. It doesn’t have a cabin. That’s really romantic under a starry sky with no surf, but this is the monsoon season. You’ll be exposed to the elements. They don’t have coastal patrols out there to rescue you.”
    “Fear not, little Arthur,” she said. “I have a survival kit. It includes a waterproof groundsheet and an umbrella. I go prepared. Don’t worry about me.”
    “And you’re planning on swimming out there?” I asked.
    “I’ll be getting a ride from Nu’s husband,” she said. “He goes out every morning to check his squid traps.”
    I decided it was probably for the best. A couple of hours on the