Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

6

In the ever-flowing words of ex-politburo member Civilai, before the epee murders time in the People's Democratic Republic of Laos had been speeding by like a thirty-year-old Peugeot on blocks. The country had been stone-cold frozen to the edge of its seats waiting for news of the two major initiatives of 1978. After three years of planning, the cooperative movement was finally launched as outlined in the order № 97: Regulation of Cooperative Farming. Under this accelerated programme the government was certain it would be self-sufficient in food grains by 1981. The economy would be revived and the purest tenet of communism would be realised at the rice roots level.

But the leaders very quickly realised that, like communism, collectivism worked much better on paper than on dirt. The five cooperative principles as per order № 98d had been sound enough: 1. Volunteerism. 2. Mutual benefit. 3. Democratic management. 4. Planned production. 5. Distribution of produce and profit according to labour performed with the right attitude. Thirty to forty families would be gathered together in one collective and all their resources pooled. Each man and woman would receive work points based on an eight-hour day. Technically, the families would be able to join and leave at will.

But villages in Laos had traditionally been self-sufficient.

They hadn't given anything to the government and the government hadn't given them anything back. So questions were asked such as, "Why should we start sharing now?"

Siri explained the problem to Dtui like this: "Farmer A. has two buffalos and a hectare of land. Farmer B. has one buffalo and half a hectare. A smiling cadre arrives at the village one day and congratulates them on their acceptance into the greater cooperative network. He informs them that, as from today, they have one-and-a-half buffalos each and three-quarters of a hectare of rice field to tend. Farmer B. runs off to tell his wife of their good fortune while farmer A sits on a rock wondering where he went wrong."

In fact, if the system had operated truly on a voluntary basis, everyone would have volunteered themselves out. As a result, they were strongly urged — often by the toothless smile of an AK47 — to give it a go for three years. Of the five principles of cooperative farming it was soon clear that only those who had nothing to begin with would progress with any joy past the first. Yet the leaders not only believed the system would be successful, they also held that the agronomic revolution would miraculously transform Laos from an agricultural economy to a technologically advanced socialist state. Naturally, in order to get there, they had to do a little work on the raw material: the Lao themselves.

The second initiative, a big public relations push for 1978, planned to coincide with the billboard invasion, was the creation of Socialist Man. A sort of poor relative of Super-, Bat-, and Spiderman, Socialist Man was the ideological Frankenstein of the Party. He was the embodiment of everything perfect in a good socialist. He was steadfast, had a spirit of solidarity, was a good father and respected the laws. One evening, Siri, Daeng and Civilai had even gone so far as to design him a costume; a green leotard to represent the young rice shoots, rubber boots to keep his feet dry, naturally, a red cape adorned with a hammer and sickle, and a scabbard for his hoe. Daeng had been insistent there should be a New Socialist Woman to keep him company. If any of them had had even the remotest skills as artists they would have produced an entire comic book, perhaps even submitted it to a publisher in New York and — ignoring the irony completely — become wealthy capitalists.

So, given the lack of other stimulating news, it was evident why the deaths of three apparently unrelated women — all skewered with a weapon 99.9 (recurring) per cent of the population had never heard of — was the talk of the markets and the Lao Patriotic Women's Association tea rooms.

When Siri and the two detectives had arrived back at K6 on that painfully long and wet Monday, Security Chief Phoumi was at the gate to meet them and he was looking far more ruffled than he had been during the investigation of the first murder. He sat in the back of the jeep and directed Sihot to the auditorium. Siri knew it well. It was the same hall in which he had watched ten minutes of The Train From the Xiang Wu Irrigation Plant not two days earlier. During the American days it had been an open-air gymnasium, basically a roof on posts with a stage for dramas. Not given to openness or drama, the Pathet Lao had bricked it up, attached air-conditioners, and had been using it as a meeting hall.

The jeep splashed to a halt at the foot of the steps and they hurried up to the auditorium doors and pushed through a gaggle of onlookers and into the hall. The chairs had been stacked neatly to one side and there was a pile of tumbling mats and gym equipment at the rear of the room, presumably left over from the high-school days. Whereas the previous two murder scenes had been comparatively neat, almost serene, the auditorium was a bloody mess. A crimson trail of drag marks and splashes began at the mats and snaked across the concrete floor in the direction of the stage where the victim lay in a crumpled heap. She was face down on the handle of the sword with the blade sticking out of her side like a toothpick in a cocktail sausage. Siri and Phosy exchanged glances.

"This one put up a fight," said Siri.

With Major Dung and half-a-dozen Vietnamese soldiers standing in the doorway watching, Siri and Sihot eased the victim onto her side. She was about thirty, short and muscular like victim one. The sword pierced her left breast, entering her chest between the fifth and sixth ribs. Not a frontal hit on the heart like the others but a hit nevertheless. Her face might once have been attractive but it now wore a death mask of horror. She had been in torment when the life left her, of that there was no doubt. She wore a thick denim jacket and, incongruously, culottes and running shoes. It appeared a mark had been cut rudely into her thigh but it was impossible to read as the area was awash with blood. It would need to be cleaned to see whether it was the same Zorro brand as appeared on the two previous victims.

"That's one a day," Phosy said, looking back at the trail of blood. "How many damned more are there going to be?"

"He got sloppy," Siri said. "If we're going to find evidence, this is where it'll be. This is where he made his mistake. If you can get those sightseers out of here and give me half an hour, I'll see what I can come up with."

Phosy yelled "Out!" and, to Siri's surprise, the Vietnamese entourage left without a fight. The policeman followed them outside. The double doors slammed and the silence of the auditorium made Siri feel uneasy. Again he had the sense he was close to a spirit but it was holding back. He wondered if it knew it was on the other side. Some ghosts took a lot of convincing they were dead. He called out, "I know you're here," and his words seemed to cause some consternation in the afterlife. He caught the briefest of glimpses, no more than a flash, like two people on trains going in opposite directions. And the glimpse he'd been afforded was frightening enough. The spirit was incensed, its face contorted, its middle finger raised. He was mystified.

It took him a few moments to catch his breath but no interpretation of the vision came to him. He walked unsteadily to the point where the blood trail began. The tumbling mats were leaning against the rear wall, six deep. At the level of his heart there was a puncture mark in the front mat. A narrow trail of blood trickled down from it to join a veritable atlas of spots and splotches about twenty centimetres from the ground. Thence a cascade to the concrete where a deep pool of blood congealed.

Siri shuffled through the mats but the sword had only penetrated the one at the front. There were splatters on the mats and the wall. Beside the stack was a scratched wooden beam with two bolts at waist height. For some reason an inordinate amount of blood had spurted in its direction. Siri assumed it was at the level of the exit wound. It might have been an irrelevance but he was prone to remember even the smallest detail. There were bloody footprints leading to and from the mats. At first glance they appeared to have been made by the same shoes but Sihot would have to confirm that assumption. The footsteps leading towards the stage told a miserable story. They were meandering and interspersed with puddles of blood becoming more desperate as they reached the body of the victim. A body drained white as cigarette paper.

He knelt beside her and turned over her bloody hand. There were deep scratches on her palms that he took to be defence wounds. What must she have gone through? She was a fighter, there was no doubt about it. Although the original colour of her shoes was unrecognisable, the tread seemed to match the footprints all around. The doctor was certain she'd have a lot more to tell him when they got her back to the morgue but he wanted to be certain he hadn't overlooked anything in the auditorium. He made one more slow circuit. He retraced the blood trail, taking note of footprints which could have been those of another person or merely skid-marks and distortions. He returned to the mats, imagined her leaning back against them, skewered with a sword but not dead. How could she have gone so far once her heart had been pierced? What was the murderer doing as she staggered around? Did he watch her? Had he already fled, assuming she was dead?

Siri would leave Sergeant Sihot to photograph the scene but the pictures would never capture the menace that lurked there in this musty room. Nor could they recall the scents of sweat and blood and fear. He walked to the door and, like a painter stepping back to admire his work, he turned around to take in the scene one last time. And that was when he saw it, a small white speck on the window ledge above the mats. He hurried back and dragged a balance bench over to them. He angled it against the window ledge, being careful not to disturb the mats or the pool of blood, and shimmied up it. As he neared the top he could see that the object was a small brown medicine bottle with a white label. He pulled a tissue from his pocket, took hold of the bottle by its cap and read the handwritten lettering: 'vitamins'.

In front of the auditorium, under the porch roof, Sihot and Phosy were questioning the woman who'd found the body. Her face was still blanched from the awful discovery. The Vietnamese were nowhere to be seen but on the far side of the street, beneath a small shelter, sat the gardener with his chin perched on the handle of his broom. He raised his hand when he saw Siri but the doctor felt oddly uncomfortable returning the wave. Siri approached the policemen and raised his brow to Sihot who broke away and went into the building to take his photographs. Phosy thanked the woman and she headed off into the rain on wobbly legs.

"Anything?" Siri asked.

"The witness is a cleaner here," Phosy said. "She recognised the victim. Says she's a medic, based out at the old Settha Hospital at Silver City. But she comes here to K6 three times a week to man a clinic they opened for the staff. She has a little office at the old youth club. Yesterday was one of her regular days. The cleaner unlocked the hall at eleven to get it ready for tonight's lecture. Any idea how long the medic's been dead?"

"I'd say sometime last night. Around ten?"

"Damn." He looked at the bottle in Siri's hand. "Find something?"

"It might not be connected. I found it on the window sill above the sports equipment. The label says it's vitamins but labels have been known to tell fibs."

"You haven't opened it?"

"Not yet. I want to take it back to the morgue…"

"And perform more of your fingerprint magic?"

"Don't mock. One day, that magic will solve one of your cases, Inspector."

"I'll believe that when I see it. So, is she ready to go?"

"As ready as she'll ever be."

"I'll go and take a look around. Did you find anything unusual in there?"

"It's all unusual, Phosy. All of it."?

Nurse Dtui and Mr Geung were still waiting in the morgue office when Siri and the third victim arrived. They'd been waiting all day, not knowing where their boss was. Waiting and bailing. There were steps leading to the front door of the morgue, which was just as well because the building was surrounded by sixty centimetres of water Most of the lower buildings were barricaded with sandbags and Mahosot was taking on the appearance of a hospital deep in the heart of Venice. X-ray had already brought in a rowing boat to ferry patients back to the ward. The morgue would have held up to the flood but for a slight crack in the back wall which allowed water to seep into the cutting room. Dtui and Geung had failed to patch it up with adhesive bandage so they resorted to surrounding it with a semi-circular orchestra pit of sandbags. It refilled every half hour and looked like a small ornamental pond.

They walked into the vestibule to watch the arrival of the new body.

"My adoring husband isn't with you?" Dtui asked Siri.

"He had to go straight to police HQ with Sihot," Siri replied.

"I'm sure he did."

On any other day, Siri would have followed up on Dtui's comment, but this was far from any other day. Two orderlies carried the corpse past the office door and into the autopsy area. The body was wrapped in a tarpaulin in an attempt to preserve the blood trails.

"Ano…another guest f…for room one," smiled Geung. He liked to keep busy. He followed the orderlies and barked at them to be careful.

"Oh, Doc. That isn't — " Dtui began.

"It's another one. Yes, Dtui."

"The same MO?"

"I get the feeling it would have been. Except this one fought back. She refused to go quietly."

"I like her already."

They removed the epee and placed it with the other two. There was something different about it, lighter or…But Siri would get to that later. They undressed the young woman as Dtui made notes about the bloodstains on her skin and clothing. The victim was physically fit, with a well defined musculature. Unusual for a Lao woman. Probably an athlete. They took their allotted three photographs. They washed the corpse and noticed immediately that the Zorro brand on her thigh was deep, much deeper than those of her predecessors'.

"In fact," Dtui said, looking closely at the wound, "I'd say one of these cuts is deep enough to have sliced an artery. What do you think, Doctor?"

When Dtui wasn't breastfeeding or burping or lulling Malee to sleep, Siri liked to have her comment during autopsies. He still had hope she'd secure a scholarship in the Soviet bloc and study to take over from him at the morgue. She already showed more enthusiasm and acumen than Siri himself.

"Let's have a look," Siri said, and leaned over the body.

He cut gently at the flesh around the Z and worked his way inward towards the slashes. The cuts were wild, almost fanatical. Completely different from the carefully carved thigh of the second victim, Kiang. It was the cross cut, the axis of the Z, that had dug deepest and had, in fact, nicked the femoral artery.

"Hmm. Now that's interesting," he said.

"This is where all the blood came from," Dtui decided.

"And, if that's the case…"

"The Z had to have been cut before she was killed with the sword."

"Otherwise?"

"Otherwise the wound wouldn't have bled like the Nam Pou fountain. How did he keep her still enough to sign her thigh? It must have hurt like hell."

Siri thought about the bottle of medicine. If it had contained some kind of sedative, that might have been enough. The killer drugged the woman and was signing her thigh when she came round. All possible. Once they were done with the autopsy Siri would spend time with the bottle and its contents.

"She might have been drugged," he said. "In fact they all might have been drugged. Teacher Oum's off at a mini re-education seminar and she's the only one with the chemicals to find out what our three ladies had in their stomachs, we won't know for sure until she gets back tomorrow. So, let's keep delving."

The medic had been a well-endowed young lady and the sword had entered her left breast from the south-west. After his Y incision, Siri and Dtui set about tracing the path of the blade. They arrived at the point where it had passed through the rib cage. The bones were unmarked so they had to assume the sword passed between the ribs without touching them. Enter Mr Geung. He wielded his rib-cutters like a ferocious Greek warrior. If one were to ignore his perm he might have been taken for a middle-aged Achilles. Siri and Dtui stood back to admire his work.

"You really have to stop treating our Mr Geung like a poodle, nurse," whispered Siri.

"I really don't know what you mean," she replied.

"I think you do. And I'm serious. Enough's enough."

Dtui adopted a Lao band-aid smile to cover her embarrassment. Within minutes, Geung's work was done and they had access to the inner sanctum of organs. Siri stepped forward and began to probe. Then stood back in surprise.

"Well, I'll be…" he said.

"What is it?" Dtui asked, and stepped up to the table. Her face dropped in astonishment. "She…"

"I know," Siri smiled. "Fascinating, isn't it?"

"I don't know." Dtui shook her head and began to fumble around in the victim's chest cavity. "Does the word 'fascinating' describe something that's physically impossible? She hasn't got a heart."

The lung was clearly visible but there was no heart nestled against it.

"Nurse Dtui, surely your medical training would have told you we all have to have a heart in order to function. So, as we know this young lady was walking around just twenty-four hours ago, logic would dictate that she must have a heart. We just have to go looking for it."

He pulled back the flap of skin to the left of his incision and smiled.

"There you are, you sneaky devil," he smiled. The heart smiled back at him from beneath the medic's right breast.

"It's on the wrong side, Doc," Dtui said.

"It certainly is."

"You seen this before?"

"Seen? No. Not with my own eyes. But I have heard of it. The most famous example of it was in the 007 film, Dr. No. They thought they had dispatched the villain with a bullet through the heart. But it wasn't there."

"That's a movie. They make those things up."

"In this case, no. It's a real condition called dextrocardia and we have a perfect example of it right here. Mr Geung, the camera please. I think this deserves a photograph. We may never see anything like this again."

Geung took one photo in close-up of the victim's chest and one of Siri and Dtui crouching by the misplaced organ. Naturally, Mr Geung wanted to have his photo taken too with the right-sided heart but they were able to convince him not to make a V sign. All three apologised to the corpse but they felt she wouldn't have objected.

"Do you think she knew?" Dtui asked.

"Hard to tell. It doesn't look as if she's had any major surgery. They might have mentioned it to her during medicals but, given the overall standard of nursing skills here it's quite possible nobody noticed. Present company excepted, of course. It probably didn't affect her physically, in fact she looks in very good shape. Less inconvenient than being born with two thumbs on the one hand, I'd guess. But one thing's for certain, the perpetrator certainly couldn't have known. And that could explain why she didn't die immediately."

"You mean, the sword didn't kill her?"

"Let's take a look. If it didn't puncture the lung she might have survived the wound."

Siri was right. There was no puncturing of the lung, not so much as a nick. The sword had passed behind the ribs and through the no-man's-land where her heart should have been. There was damage to muscle and tissue but nothing life-threatening. The blade had slid in front of the lung and out the side of her body. Hard as it may have been to believe, the sword through her chest looked much worse than it was. It hadn't killed her. The Z signature on her thigh had.

"It must have confused the heck out of the killer," Dtui said as they washed up. "He pins her through the heart and starts to cut her thigh and there she is wandering around like the living dead. He probably had to chase after her to finish it. No wonder it was messy. Doctor?"

Siri was deep in thought, going back over the crime scene in his mind, the bloodstains, the footprints.

"Doc?"

"Yes, sorry. I was just trying to organise a few things in my head."

"It's all explained, isn't it?"

"What? Yes. All explained."

"Good, so I can go? I have a daughter who thinks the creche worker's her mother."

"Yes, of course. Get out of here. I don't want to be the…"

He was going to say, "the cause of a family break-up." It was supposed to be a joke but something about the past few days made him think it wouldn't have been all that funny.

"Be the what, Dr Siri?"

"Be the evil employer who forces his staff to work all night."

"Oh, I don't mind. And…I'll apologise to Geung on my way out. I understand. I'm stuck in mothering mode, venting my frustrations on the poor dear."

"Thank you. I — "

"OK, I'm gone." And she was. Their serious talk would have to wait.