“And did you hear anything at all unusual during the flight?”
The flight attendant frowned. “Unusual?”
“A gunshot? A loud bang?”
The stewardess laughed nervously and put a hand up over her mouth. “Of course not,” she said. She looked at Captain Kumar. “A gunshot?”
“There was no gunshot,” said Captain Kumar. “I was sitting in the cockpit with the first officer just ten feet away, we would have heard a shot if there had been one. As would the rest of the passengers. There was no shot.”
“Well I can assure you that there is a bullet hole in the body and gunshot residue on the shirt,” said Inspector Zhang. “He was shot and at close range.”
“But that’s impossible!” said the pilot.
“Yes,” agreed Inspector Zhang. “It is. Quite impossible.” He reached into the dead man’s inside pocket and took out a Thai passport. He opened it and compared the picture to the face of the victim. They matched. “Kwanchai Srisai,” read Inspector Zhang. “Born in Udon Thani. Thirty-seven years old.” He closed the passport, handed it to Sergeant Lee and turned to look at the cabin. “The cabin appears to be almost empty,” he said to the pilot. “Have some passengers moved to the rear of the plane?”
The pilot shook his head. “At this time of the year the Raffles Section is rarely full,” he said. “The business class fare is quite expensive and the flight from Singapore to Bangkok is short so most of our passengers choose to fly economy.”
Inspector Zhang did a quick head count. “Eight passengers in all, including the victim.”
The pilot looked across at the flight attendant. “Is that what the manifest says?”
“That is correct,” she said. “Eight passengers.”
“And during the flight, did any passengers from the economy section come forward to this part of the plane?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“I need to know for certain,” said Inspector Zhang.
The flight attendant nodded. “You will need to ask the other members of the cabin crew,” she said. “I was busy in the galley for some of the flight and twice I had to clean the toilets and I had to go to the cockpit with coffee for Captain Kumar and the first officer.”
“She did,” said the captain. “I always have a cup of coffee mid-way through a flight.”
“Then I will need to talk to the rest of the cabin crew at some point,” said Inspector Zhang. “So tell me, Miss Sumin, was everything okay with Mr. Srisai during the flight?”
“In what way, Inspector?”
“Did anything out the ordinary happen? Before you discovered that he was dead, obviously.”
“I don’t think so.”
“He ate his meal?”
She nodded. “Yes, and he drank a lot of champagne. He was always asking for champagne.”
“And he went to the bathroom?”
“Just once. About halfway through the flight, just after I had cleared away his meal things.”
“But nothing unusual?”
“No Inspector. Nothing.”
Inspector Zhang turned to Sergeant Lee. “So, Sergeant, run through the passengers for me, please.”
“As you said, there are seven passengers in addition to the victim,” said Sergeant Lee. She turned and pointed to a young Thai girl who was listening to music through headphones, bobbing her head back and forth in time to the music. “The lady in 14A is a Thai student, Tasanee Boontaisong. She studies in Singapore and is returning to see her parents.”
Inspector Zhang frowned as he looked at the girl. “I see that there are no rows numbered one to ten and that the front row of the cabin is row 11, he said. “She is in the third row. That would make it row 13, would it not?”
“There is no row 13,” said Captain Kumar. “In some cultures the number 13 is considered unlucky.”
Sergeant Lee looked up from her notebook. “Clearly on this flight it was number 11 that was unlucky,” she said.
Inspector Zhang looked at her sternly but she didn’t appear to have been joking, merely stating a fact.
“Two rows behind Miss Boontaisong in 16A is Lung Chin-po, the Singaporean businessman who you spoke to,” she continued. “He says he is a friend of the Deputy Commissioner and that he will sue our department if we continue to hold him against his will.”
Inspector Zhang chuckled softly. “Well I wish him every success with that,” he said.
“Those are the only two passengers sitting on the right hand side,” said Sergeant Lee. “Mr. Lung and Miss Boontaisong.”
“Port,” said Captain Kumar. “That’s the port side. Right and left depend on which way you are facing so on planes and boats we say port and starboard. As you face the front, port is on the left and starboard is on the right.” He smiled. “It prevents confusion.”
“And I am all in favour of preventing confusion,” said Inspector Zhang. “So, Sergeant Lee, who is sitting in the middle of the cabin?”
The Sergeant nodded at the man in sunglasses sitting in 11F. He was sitting with his arms folded, staring straight ahead at the bulkhead. “The man there is Mr. Lev Gottesman, from Israel. He is Mr. Srisai’s bodyguard. Was, I mean. He was Mr. Srisai’s bodyguard.”
“And why would Mr. Srisai require the services of a bodyguard?” asked Inspector Zhang.
“I didn’t ask,” said Sergeant Lee. “I’m sorry. Should I have?”
“I shall question Mr. Gottesman shortly,” said the Inspector. “Please continue.”
Sergeant Lee pursed her lips and looked at her notebook. “In the row behind Mr. Gottesman, in seat 14A, is Andrew Yates, a British stockbroker who works for a Thai firm. He was attending a meeting in Singapore.” Inspector Zhang looked over at a man in his early forties wearing a grey suit. His hair was dyed blonde and gel glistened under the cabin lights as he bent down over a Blackberry, texting with both thumbs.
“Directly behind Mr. Yates are Mr. and Mrs. Woodhouse from Seattle in the United States. They are touring South East Asia. They were in Singapore for three days, they have a week in Thailand and then they are due to fly to Vietnam and then on to China.”
She nodded at the final passenger, a Thai man sitting at the back of the cabin in seat 16H, adjacent to the aisle. “Mr. Nakprakone is a journalist who works for the Thai Rath newspaper in Bangkok. He is a Thai.”
“I have heard of the paper,” said Inspector Zhang. “It is one of those sensationalist papers that publishes pictures of accidents and murders on their front pages, I believe.”
“Mr. Nakprakone said that it sells more than a million copies every day.”
“Sensationalism sells, that is true,” sighed Inspector Zhang. “I am personally happier with more dignified newspapers such as our own Straits Times. Did you ask Mr. Nakprakone why he was flying in the business class section?”
“I didn’t. Should I have done?”