It is musical chairs time in the Royal Thai Police and a keen new officer has been sent to a provincial police station where he is eager to join in the fight against crime in the service of justice.  It is his first staff meeting and he wants to impress.

The locker-room joshing is brought to a sudden end by the appearance of a clearly incandescent station superintendent.  The assembled officers wait in fearful silence to find out what has gone so badly wrong.

‘Have you seen the paper?’

They all have but there was nothing on the football pages that could have caused this level of anger.  Not unless he’s been betting on Liverpool again.

‘That bugger in Maha Sarakham has done it again.’ 

His finger jabs at a front page story ‘Major provincial drug bust’.  The obligatory picture shows 3 shame-faced detainees sitting cuffed in front a table stacked with sealed plastic bags containing who knows what.  Behind them, looking smugly magisterial, stand the 3 top cops of the neighbouring province.

‘And you see what it says down here?  “An Assistant National Police Commissioner commended this important arrest”.  Well I can kiss goodbye to my chance of promotion to region, can’t I?  I’ll never raise enough ante to offset that.  Why can’t you lot ever catch anyone like this?’

A captain who has long since lost any hopes of preferment dares to explain.

‘Well it’s because you decided it would be a PR coup to have the province declared drug free.  You can’t then ask us to go round arresting people for possession, though lord only knows there’s enough of the stuff around.’

‘That is completely irrelevant and you know it.  It doesn’t have to be drugs.  Anything high profile will do.  What have we got in stock?’

The eager new officer is confused.  In stock?  He quietly asks his nearest colleague for an explanation and is told that the station holds a large number of arrest warrants that have never been acted on but held in anticipation of some future need.  An officer retrieves a bulging file stuffed with mai jab, some yellowed with age.  He flips through the pile.

‘Substandard constriction materials used on that primary school that went up 5 years ago?’

‘Won’t work until the place falls down.’

‘That judge taking backhanders?’

‘He’s already been promoted to Bangkok.  Can’t touch him.  No, we need something national, not local.’

‘Oh, well there’s this internet thing.  Somebody in town took offence to what somebody said on this site.  Haven’t a clue who actually wrote it, but we can do the web manager instead.’

‘That’s the sort of thing.  Now how do we find out who this manager is?’

The assembled investigative minds think about this as they gaze at the wall-mounted TV that plays soap operas 24 hours a day.  It doesn’t help.  They don’t know how to find out.  The eager new officer has been looking at the file.

‘Well, why don’t you look on their website?’ 

The room is momentarily silent.

‘You mean, use the computer and that internet thing?’

‘Just a sec.  Right, here you are.  It’s a she, by the way.  Oh, and it says she’s gone to Europe for some meeting on internet freedom.’

‘Well that’s suspicious for a start.  But how do we arrest her if she’s in Europe?’

The investigative minds once again glaze over.  The eager new officer wonders if he’s pushing his luck.

‘Well, we could ask immigration to check when she left and so on.  Shouldn’t be too hard to find out when she’s coming back.’

The superintendent’s eyes are beginning to gleam.  ‘So who’s got a contact in Immigration?  This is perfect.’

The eager new officer then blots his copybook. 

‘Just a minute.  This warrant’s over a year old.’

‘No matter.  They’re good for 10.  Right, you get the van sorted, and I don’t want the one with the wonky air-con.  You bring the video camera.  You polish my shoes and medals.  And you phone round the papers and make sure there’s a good scrum of photographers ready.’

The eager new officer is still eager.  ‘And me sir?’

‘I think you can stay here and hold the fort.  You still have a lot to learn.’