Wan di, wan mai di (part 11)

This is Thailand. Every day there are reports of murders on the television morning news. And not only in Bangkok but everywhere in Thailand: Pattaya, Chumpon or Udon Thani.

A man kills his wife because he thinks she has a lover. A woman kills her husband for the same reason. A young man kills his father, mother and brother (a policeman in my area) in order to claim only the inheritance.

A man kills young girls after assaulting them. A doctor kills his Burmese servants because they know too much about him. An elderly woman pays hitmen to kill her son-in-law who constantly grieves her daughter.

Usually it's a far-from-my-bed show. Not in the case of the police officer who was murdered together with his mother and father a few weeks ago. I knew the man because he is one of the local cops and sometimes comes by when there is 'hassle' in the soi.

But now we're talking about a different cake. Murders are being committed in my soi. And not one, but seven. It is most likely a serial killer. It involves murders of newborn and innocent creatures. The murders were committed on two different days. The first four murders took place in March this year and the remaining three in April.

Which Thai sparrowhawk sees a white foreigner every day?

The exact location is the birdhouse on the outside of my condo. To ensure the safety of the sparrowhawk love couple and their offspring, I had hung the cottage as close to my front door as was reasonably acceptable to all parties. I had to take into account that Pa and Ma Sparrowhawk would be afraid of me. Not surprising, because let's face it: which Thai sparrowhawk sees a white foreigner every day, sometimes even in shorts and smoking a cigar?

I had already seen it, or rather heard it, arrive in mid-March. The male sparrowhawk had his eye on an attractive female specimen of the species and started aubades in my soi. They took turns inspecting the empty birdhouse and came to the conclusion to build a nest in it. But first love had to be made.

Entirely against Thai rules of decency, this happened in public and in broad daylight. I was able to see it with my own eyes once. I don't know if this was enough for fertilization, but building started soon after this incident.

Four eggs in the nest

After a week my wife checked the house and sure enough: four eggs in the nest. I then expected the expectant mother to sit on the eggs during the day, but the outside temperature was apparently high enough to leave the work to the sun. At night Mum sat on the eggs and Dad ran up and down to find her favorite food: not som-tam pala because I must have smelled it the next morning.

After about ten days the time had come: the birth of quadruplets. For a few days, mom and dad were busy dragging food for the kids and cleaning the nest of sparrowhawk baby faeces.

But one morning I opened the door in the morning and I heard………nothing. I checked the nest: empty. Mom and Dad flew around bewildered, looking for their offspring. But no sign of them. Not on the ground either, so they hadn't fallen out of the nest.

The police are conducting a thorough investigation

The same thing happened about a month later. Now with three eggs. There was one difference: around the date of the dastardly murders, I saw a large black bird. He looked a bit like a Dutch rook. The Thai in the soi confirmed to me that this bird loots nests.

After the second serial murder I immediately alerted the police. He is now conducting a thorough investigation, the Thai way. In concrete terms, this means that people are looking for a 'bird in black'. I'm waiting but I don't think I'll ever hear the results of the investigation.