Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

8

They sat in Madame Daeng's noodle shop like ragtag generals in a sweet-smelling war room. Not many of the shops in Vientiane had electricity, even though the hydroelectric dam just sixty kilometres away was pumping out six megawatts of the stuff every day. Most stores and restaurants closed before nightfall so they hadn't bothered to petition their local cadres. But Daeng's noodle establishment was on the same grid as the Banque Pour le Commerce Exterior Lao as well as the Women's Association, so burning brightly above the generals was one very new strip light, not at all dissimilar to the two in Siri's cutting room at the morgue.

Around the table were Siri and Daeng, Sergeant Sihot, Civilai, and Phosy who sat opposite Dtui and the baby. In many ways this group was a small army. They'd fought battles, defeated guileful enemies and suffered wounds. It was Tuesday evening and each of the generals had been too busy in one way or another to get together before this. Spread across the table was a large sheet of sugar paper upon which the names of the three victims had been written like locations on a map. They were labelled with their nicknames and the order in which they'd been dispatched; Dew 1, Kiang 2, Jim, 3. The generals had all sent a discrete and silent prayer to Buddha for not sending them a number four or five over the past two days. The State frowned on soliciting favours from heaven but it seemed to have worked.

Supper over, it was Sihot with his famous frittering notepad who was the first to speak. He had three loose pages laid side by side in front of him on the table.

"Victim number three," he said, flipping up the third sheet. "Sunisa Simmarit, nickname, Jim. Twenty-four. Single. Was trained as a medic in Laos by the Americans. End of seventy-five she was sent to East Germany with the intention of being there six years to be trained as a doctor. Apparently didn't pass her second-year exams and was sent home. Still a medic."

"But a German-speaking medic with two years of medical training," said Civilai.

"More like one, comrade," Sihot corrected him. "First year was mostly language training. Came back in March this year. Was assigned to Settha Hospital, basic nursing duties plus translating for the East German personnel. Three half-days out at K6 looking after the minor ailments of the domestic staff."

"And how did she get that posting?" Siri asked.

Sihot flipped over two of his note sheets like a shell-game hustler looking for the pea. He found the answer under the third sheet.

"Here," he said. "Jim was a Vietnamese speaker. Father Lao. Mother Vietnamese. The old medic broke her leg and they needed someone to fill in for her. With all the Vietnamese out at K6 these days she was the obvious choice."

"So she was a second woman who could communicate with the bodyguards," Phosy reminded them.

"Specifically Major Dung," said Siri who had selected his favourite suspect. "Single woman. Not bad looking. Lao. Just his type."

"And a fencer, to boot," said Phosy.

Somebody let forth a long whistle.

"You don't say?" said Siri.

"And a very good one by all accounts," Sihot went on. "So good, in fact, she won a couple of local competitions in Germany. There was talk of her going on to bigger tournaments."

"All right," said Daeng. She stood up and refilled everyone's after-supper teacups. "We're getting close. We have two fencers and three women in Europe. We have almost enough connections. There's only one that doesn't fit. Any more news about Kiang?"

"Right. That's where the connection gets disconnected," said Sihot. "Kiang was something of a non-sporting type. She didn't take any physical education classes in Bulgaria at all. No self-defence. Nothing."

"That surprises me," said Civilai, "considering the number of life-threatening situations librarians find themselves in. (Daeng crinkled her brow but he pretended not to see.) I mean, overdue book, customer reaches for a machete in her handbag, quick karate chop to the solar plexus, thwack, down goes the rule-breaker, money retrieved. One more victory for Library Woman. Potential rendezvous with Socialist Man. I think I need a drink."

"We get the point, old brother," said Siri. "She does run against the rhythm. Three fencers and the case would be solved. Midnight duels. To the victor, the spoils."

Everyone looked at the two old men as if they were speaking a foreign language. They occasionally forgot where they were and brought one too many European delicacy to the noodle table.

"Odd, though," Dtui said, back at the noodles of the matter. "Two fit girls, both fencers, and one dorky but good-looking librarian." Malee munched obliviously on her mother's nipple and had nothing to add.

"And even more curious, that the only victim wearing sports clothes, heading off to exercise on a Saturday night, was the librarian," Siri pointed out.

"Is there anything to tie them together socially?" Daeng asked. "Any possibility they met up somewhere? Some orientation before they headed off to Eastern Europe?"

Sihot reshuffled his pages.

"Unlikely," he said. "They all left at different times."

Daeng persevered, "Some Eastern European reunion club when they got back? Communist college alumni association? Debriefing seminar?"

"Daeng, my old friend," Civilai chuckled. "Do you honestly believe we're that organised? We can barely keep track of who's off where. It's every ministry for himself. When their people come back they want them out in the field as quickly as possible, frustrated and frustrating because there are no words to describe all the bewildering concepts they've learned in all those exotic languages that they really didn't quite understand themselves. It's chaos. Life back here is far too complicated to sit down and draw up a programme for an 'I survived the Soviet Bloc Club'. And don't forget you need signatures and stamps from seven thousand middle-ranking bureaucrats just to get permission for a meeting with your own relatives to discuss who gets to use the bathroom first in the morning."

Daeng laughed.

"So, we'll forget the possibility they met up socially?" she asked.

"We should technically have a permit to be sitting here," he replied. "Did I mention I needed a drink?"

Siri slipped his arm around his friend's shoulder.

"You can all see why he was such a hit up at the parliament building, can't you?" he said. "A born diplomat. I'm surprised they found such a sweet man expendable."

"All right," said Phosy. "We have more important things to discuss, if you don't mind." He ran his finger over the victim map and allowed it to spiral to a central point. He picked up the crayon and wrote a 'Z' at the centroid of the triangle. "What if the perpetrator is a sword coach? He takes students, advanced and beginner. He offers classes, seduces his students and then impales them through the heart. Victim one is at intermediate level. Victim two is a beginner. Perhaps she was stimulated by watching competitions in Bulgaria but was too embarrassed to take classes there. But victim three is a champion and he gets into the type of fight he hadn't expected. She matches him. He thinks he's killed her but he doesn't know about her weird heart and she's still kicking. The shock gets to him, or maybe he's injured, so he stops his killing spree."

There was a moment of quiet as they all digested this possibility. At last, Siri spoke up.

"Brilliant," he said.

"It makes sense to me," Civilai agreed.

Phosy allowed himself a modest smile.

"And how would anyone go about finding themselves a fencing coach in Laos?" Dtui asked. "We don't actually have notice boards or newspaper advertisements. This isn't Thailand, you know."

"Word of mouth," he said, staring blackly back at her.

"Well, so far we haven't found any connection between the three women," Dtui continued. "Whose mouth did this magic word come from?"

"You begin with a theory and you work back from there," Phosy said, calmly.

"Oh, thanks for the lesson in police procedure," Dtui mocked.

The generals had been watching the exchange like the front row at the French Open. The couple felt the silence and looked down at the table with embarrassment.

"I could use a drink," Civilai said.

Daeng raised the teapot.

"I was thinking more of sugar-cane juice, Madame Daeng. The fermented kind." Civilai had successfully distracted everyone's attention by playing the rather rude guest. Civilai was, luckily for them, Civilai. Daeng laughed and went to the rear of the kitchen where she produced a bottle of Thai rum from a cupboard. Both Siri and Civilai watched with amazement as she walked back to the table.

"Have you found a cure for rheumatism?" Civilai asked. "You're trotting around like a young calf."

"It comes and goes," she said, returning to the table with the bottle.

"As do hangovers," said Sihot.

Siri said nothing. He knew that rheumatoid arthritis didn't come and go at all, especially not at his wife's advanced stage. Just that afternoon she'd been limping painfully, never complaining but certainly in discomfort. Now, here she was being brave so as not to embarrass her guests. She was some woman. The rum helped gather together the loose ends of the atmosphere and for reasons he couldn't work out, the kick of the alcohol reminded Sri about old Mrs Bountien's blood analysis findings.

"There are those of us at Mahosot," he began, "who believe she merely matches the colour, like on a paint chart; dark red, light red. But it was her considered opinion that the blood on the sauna towel belonged to Dew. She said there was only the one blood type."

"So, your modesty theory still holds," Civilai said. "She was covered with a towel out of propriety."

"It's the only possibility that makes sense," Siri continued. "Which would suggest the killer had some fondness for his victim. At least he showed some respect to the body. They appreciate that."

"Who do?" Sihot asked.

"The bodies," said Dtui. Sihot was about to inquire further but Siri had the floor.

"Then, next on my list is fingerprints…"

He was interrupted by hoots of derision. Thus far, he had failed to convince anyone of his qualifications to extract or compare fingerprints. Despite the fact that the western world had been using the system for hundreds of years, communist Laos was not yet ready for such an innovation. Siri remained firm that he would have the last laugh in this matter. He ignored the laughter and forged ahead.

"I have compared the prints I found on the first and third epees," he said, "with those of the victims. Although it's extremely difficult to tell (another hoot)…to tell without projecting the prints on some sort of screen — "

"…or buying a decent pair of glasses," Civilai laughed.

"…or comparing them under a microscope," Siri continued. "Sadly, Mrs Bountien did not allow me to use hers and the only other one I know of is at Dong Dok college, locked up. But, from the evidence of my naked eye I am convinced that the print on blade one does not belong to the victim, whereas the two prints I found on sword three, did."

Everybody applauded.

"And this tells us…?" Phosy asked.

"I'm not sure (he rode out the final jeers), apart from the fact that the print on sword one is likely that of the perpetrator."

"Who we don't have with us to compare it with," Dtui nodded.

"But we will. Trust me. Then you'll all thank me for having concrete evidence. And while I have the floor, the epees themselves are interesting. They aren't all the same."

Sihot found an empty page in his notepad and prepared to take notes.

"The first two," Siri said, "were very similar. About ninety centimetres long with a traditional triangular shaft. But somebody had gone to the trouble to hone the angles of the triangle into three very dangerous, almost razor-sharp rims. The third was quite unusual in that the blade was almost round. The angles had been filed smooth. It was more like the shaft of an arrow. You could hardly inflict damage with it. But the tip had been sharpened to a point like a needle. Just touching it would be sufficient to draw blood."

"So, do you suppose they're different types of blades for different competitions?" Phosy asked.

"It's possible, I suppose. I don't know enough about the sport. It's likely the killer collected whatever type of weapon he could find wherever he happened to be, and brought them back to Laos. But there was something about all three of them that looked…I don't know, as if they'd been re-engineered. As if they were designed for a specific purpose."

"We need to find a fencing expert," Daeng decided.

"Apart from our assassin I doubt you'd find anyone in the country who could tell you which end to hold," Civilai suggested.

"That doesn't include the embassies," she told him. "I bet we'd find someone there with fencing experience. Someone who wasn't thrown out of fencing class after two weeks."

She smiled at her husband.

"Good point," Phosy decided. "Sihot, I want you to go to the European embassies tomorrow and hunt us out a fencer."

"The embassies?" Sihot said with a look of distress on his face.

"Don't worry, Sergeant Sihot," Daeng smiled. "They'll all have someone to interpret."

"And, Inspector Phosy," Civilai said with the early signs of a slur. "I'm sure you've thought of this already, but I think now would be as good a time as any to get to know the three girls more intimately. Talk to their families and friends. Trace their movements since they returned from — "

"As you say, Comrade," Phosy growled, "we're already on it."

"Excellent," Civilai beamed.

"And I think the fencing coach theory as a starting point is a very solid one," Siri decided. "In fact it's the only theory we have."

With a few more comments and suggestions which led nowhere, the meeting broke up, and then into small fragments. Phosy and Sihot went over their notes at the noodle table. Daeng invited Dtui and Malee to the upstairs junk room to engage in a little 'girl stuff'. Siri and Civilai took their drinks and two chairs and the remainder of the bottle out to the front of the shop where they sat beneath the narrow green awning. It had been raining so long the air was wet; not moist but sodden like a slop rag. A person might have expected the rain to wash away the mugginess, to rinse the humidity clean out of the air, but it didn't go away. It loitered under cover, inside houses, beneath temple eaves. It sapped your energy and made you want to go outside and stand in the rain.

The road sloped away from the shop, more from subsidence than design. It was perhaps the only reason why they hadn't been flooded like most of the other businesses. The river was higher than anyone remembered seeing it in April but it was the incessant rain that filled the unguttered streets, not the loping Mekhong. That beast wouldn't flood for another four or five months.

"Too wet for our little Indian friend," said Civilai, noticing that Rajid's umbrella stood unoccupied.

"We haven't seen him since my attempted man-to-man," Siri replied. "If he has any sense he'll be under cover somewhere with a bottle of Johnny Walker and three sao rumwong dancers to keep him warm."

"If he had any sense he wouldn't be who he is."

"Granted."

"How's his dad, Bhiku?"

"Still churning out curry. Still without a hundred kip to his name."

"See what I mean?" said Civilai. "No matter how bad things get, there's always somebody worse off than you."

"And life is so hard on an old politburo member, isn't it, brother? How was dinner with the president by the way?"

"Nice young fellow. I don't get to see him as much as I used to."

"Did you give him your 'I don't know who the real enemies are any more' speech?" said Siri.

"For some reason he tends to steer our conversations around to food and literature. He did hint that he thought the revolution had come five years too soon."

"Huh, he really thinks five more years would have made us better prepared?"

"No, his point was that in five years time people like Dr Siri and me wouldn't be around to complain about everything."

"He mentioned me? I'm touched. Did he have too much to drink and drop any top secret information? Plans to invade China? Racing tips?"

"In fact, he asked me a favour. That was the subterfuge behind the candlelit dinner. He wants me to go to Kampuchea."

"Permanently?"

"Four or five days. They're on some public relations kick. Having a reception of some kind."

"Really? I haven't been there since the forties. It was still Cambodia in those days. Boua and I had just been recruited by the French to set up a youth camp in the south. They sent us to Phnom Penh for orientation. One of the prettiest cities in Asia. Marvellous time. I'll never forget it. Me and Boua walking hand-in-hand along the Boulevard Noradom."

"A story I'm sure Madame Daeng would love to hear."

"No secrets between us, old brother. Although it might be true there are times I paint the truth with slightly less bushy brushes than it warrants. You know? I can't say I've heard much news from our southern neighbours since the Reds took over."

"Nobody has. Not even the president really knows what they're doing. He was there on an official visit not so long ago, but they didn't let him out of his box. This trip would be a chance to chat socially with the people in charge, visit some of the collectives, you know the thing."

"And you said yes?"

"Of course I did. Free trip overseas, all expenses paid, luxury accommodation, the best food and wine in Indochina. Who wouldn't?"

"But — and there's no offence intended here — why you?"

"Because I'm witty and charming…"

"I know. I know. But this sounds like something the PM or one of the politburo boys would jump at."

"I did ask that, trying very hard not to make myself sound unworthy, and he suggested there might be just a tad of political tension between the Khmer Rouge and Hanoi. Since I dropped off the edge of the Central Committee, they stopped showing me the high-end communiques. I have no more idea what's going on over there than you do. But I do know the KR haven't been sucking up to their old colleagues the way Hanoi would have liked. I imagine we're under pressure from Vietnam not to send a top-level delegation. I'm the B team."

"They will brief you on all this before they put you on the plane?"

"No doubt they'll brief both of us."

"Us being…?"

"He asked me to nominate a travelling companion. I nominated you."

"You what? Are you mad? No, of course you are. And he agreed?"

"Without hesitation."

"Just how many bottles did you two get through?"?

Malee slept on the cot in the spare room while her mother and Daeng unpacked books from hemp gunny sacks.

"Are you sure you're supposed to have these?" Dtui asked.

"Absolutely not," Daeng replied with gay candour.

"Then you might get in trouble."

"I'm sure there's a hit squad at the Ministry of Culture loading their weapons as we speak."

"What are you going to do with them all?"

"Make shelves."

"Madame Daeng, you really can't be planning to put them on display?"

"Siri's afraid they'll get rain-damaged in the attic. Some of them are quite valuable. The doctor believes there'll come a day when the paranoia dies down and owning foreign language books won't guarantee you a four-year trip to a seminar camp. Oh, don't look so worried. We aren't planning to put them down in the shop. This door's usually kept locked. Siri can come here after work and sit on the cot and indulge himself in one of his many vices in peace."

"Where did they all come from?"

"It's a long story."

"I'm not really in a hurry to go home."

Daeng smiled drily and filed that comment under D in her mind. "They're from a temple," she said.

"A French temple?"

"No. A good old-fashioned Lao temple that just happened to have a French language library. Some of the oldest were donated by missionaries many years ago. The novices studying at the temple were taught general subjects through the medium of French. The brighter ones were allowed to borrow books from the library. Siri went to that temple school before they accepted him into the southern lycee."

"Really? It must be ancient."

"I'll tell him you said so." Waking briefly, Malee gurgled and smiled before closing her eyes again. "I see she has her mother's sense of humour."

"She's already a lot funnier than me, Madame Daeng."

And, with perfect comic timing, Malee let out a little fart in her sleep. The two women broke up like giggly schoolgirls.

"See what I mean?" said Dtui. "OK, tell me about the books from the temple."

"All right. In a nutshell, Siri was a very keen student. He'd been sponsored by a wealthy French spinster who paid for his further study in Paris. Once he arrived, he discovered they didn't accept his lycee qualifications from Laos so they made him repeat high school there before he could go on to study medicine. Not difficult for Siri but a terrible waste of time. In the interim, his benefactor passed away so Siri was forced to work for a few years to save up the money for his studies. He went to university, married his lovely Boua, graduated and spent some time as an intern. None of which is relevant to the books other than to show you that it was a very long time before he could return to Laos.

"He and Boua were working in the south and Siri returned to his temple school library often. The collection had expanded significantly since he'd been away. He borrowed books and taught the odd classes to the novices. The monks liked him. Respected him for what he'd achieved. The revolution came and was won and the monks in Savanaketh were worried. They loved their books and, although not with the rabid fervour of Marxist regimes in other parts of the world, the Pathet Lao were symbolically destroying foreign-language books in Vientiane and Luang Prabang. So the southern monks closed the library and hid the books. They were afraid the stash would be discovered some day and that they'd be punished.

"Last week, a rice truck arrived from the south. It stopped just there outside the shop. It was piled high with rice sacks. I tried to explain to the driver and his assistant that I hadn't ordered any rice. In fact mine is a noodle shop and I don't even sell the stuff. But they said Dr Siri had ordered it himself 'for a special project'. When he came home for lunch and saw our new wall of rice sacks he was as bemused as me. He opened one. It was padded with hay and inside that were these. The whole library. The monks had decided to make Siri the custodian."

"Ignoring the fact they could get him and you arrested."

"I suppose they trusted his resourcefulness."

"And his master plan is to build shelves?"

Daeng laughed. "Well, they do say if you want to hide something you should make it so obvious nobody notices it. He's been as happy as a whistling duck since they arrived. His precious Voltaire has been lurking in the bottom of his cloth bag for a fortnight."

"Can you read them?"

"My French was barely good enough to convince the colonists I wasn't a threat…appropriate for my lowly standing in society. "Oui, Monsieur. Non, Madame." Poor enough that they'd happily leave top-secret information lying open on the desks I swept around. But not good enough for Voltaire. There is a small set of French primers I've been working through. I'm not sure why. I'm not expecting the French to invade us again any time soon."

They worked silently for a few minutes removing the books from their sacks, unwrapping the hay, sniffing the old bindings. Daeng was about to set off along a subtle chain of questions to discover the reason for the unpleasantness in her friend's marriage. But Dtui saved her the trouble.

"Phosy has another woman," she said, not looking up from the books.

Daeng coughed her surprise.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said. She expected Dtui to put up a fight but the nurse merely pursed her lips and her eyes swelled with tears. "Dtui?" Daeng slid across the wooden floorboards to sit beside her friend. Malee stirred and twisted before settling down. "Dtui?"

"I'm sorry," Dtui smiled. "I promised I wouldn't cry when this happened."

"What? What's happened?"

"Like I said. I'm in the wife bank. Safe. He's free to go off and make deposits in other accounts."

"You didn't just make that up on the spur of the moment."

"My ma used to say it all the time."

"That was your ma, and those were different times."

"Men haven't become different creatures."

"That's true, but I still don't believe it."

"It's a fact."

"You have proof?"

"I don't need any, auntie. A wife knows. I see all the signs. It was my own fault. He didn't tell me…hasn't ever told me he loves me. In fact, dumb old me, he'd come right out with it, hadn't he? Said he didn't love me but he'd do the right thing. Said he liked me. Liked me and respected me. And what does desperate fat Dtui do?"

"I don't — "

"She says, 'Oh, OK. Like is good. I'll take that. I have all the love we'll ever need. Maybe, with a little patience, your like will grow a few more leaves over the years, a blossom or two. That's plenty. Once Malee came along I thought she'd bind us together but she didn't. Even the like's started to wilt."

"Dtui, you can't — "

"First he became this super-vigilant father: "Don't talk to her like that. Don't give her too much of this." Then he started with the one-word answers to long questions, the grunts, the late nights, the working weekends."

"I — "

"The, 'I'm really tired, I can't."

"Perfume? Lipstick stains?" asked Madame Daeng.

"Who can afford perfume and lipstick in this day and age? And you don't need forensic evidence, Madame Daeng. You know when your man's drifting away."?

Later that night, once Siri had slammed the door of Civilai's cream Citroen, reminded him to turn on the headlights, and sent him floating off home, he showered, cleaned his teeth and joined Daeng in their room. She was sitting on the foot of the bed brushing her hair without a recognisable aim or outcome.

"How did it go?" he asked.

Daeng was silent. "The talk?" he reminded her.

She turned her head towards him and stared into his river-frog green eyes.

"He's having an affair, Siri."

Siri laughed.

"He is not," he said.

"Either that or he's having a mental breakdown, because only a man out of his mind would exhibit all the signs of having an affair if he wasn't actually having one."

"Daeng, you were supposed to put her mind at ease. Not join her."

"I'm not sure any more."

"Why not? You know Phosy. He's married to Dtui and to his job. How on earth is he going to find any extramarital time between those two?"

"You have to ask him, Siri."

"Ask him if he's fooling around?"

"Ask him straight out. You'd recognise if he was lying."

"It's ridiculous."

"Please."

He sighed. "All right."

She sniffed at the fine hair on his cheek.

"Thank you," she said. "It's the penalty you pay for having a perfect partner who causes you no strife. You have to do all your suffering through other people's relationships."

"I suppose."

"Any gossip from increasingly cantankerous Civilai?"

"Ah, right."

"What is it?"

"I might be popping over to Cambodia for a day or two."