Lek arrived with the car at six thirty when Craig was halfway through his second beer there, but it was not a problem, he just paid up and took it with him, which was quite acceptable. It would also be acceptable to drink the other half at the restaurant they were going to, whichever one it was. Shell was not with her but one of their cousins was and his best friend.
Lek chose a new open-air restaurant, which had a good reputation for barbecues Thai style, which means that a bucket of glowing charcoal is placed in a hole in the table for the diners to cook the raw ingredients themselves. It was a lovely evening, but at eight o’clock, fifteen minutes after they had finished eating, a storm blew up. It was rare for the village farmers to be caught on the hop like that. Craig knew that Soom
