Love Songs from a Shallow Grave dp-7

by Colin Cotterill

  "My name is Siri Paiboun," the fake monk read aloud. "I am an agent for the Vietnamese Liberation Army. I am Lao but I went to school in Hanoi where I was trained in espionage by the Vietnamese secret service. My cover is that I am a Lao medical doctor on a state mission. My objective for coming to Democratic Kamphuchea in May 1978 was to collect data for my comrades in Hanoi and to commit acts of sabotage against my enemies, the Khmer. I am ashamed of my actions and accept the punishment of death."

  The heavy monk twirled the paper around on the writing arm and put one more blunt pencil on top of it. The poor man must have really been under pressure from somewhere to get my signature before he ripped off my head. But I was getting bored with all those pencils.

  "We find some interesting reading material in your hotel room," he said. "This is enough evidence of your treachery. So we borrow your documents. Your travel paper do not have your signature. If it do, we can sign your name our self. We want only your signature, now. Simple. Not to eat the pencil or the paper. If you do this again I will cut off your nose here and now. You understand?"

  I nodded.

  "If I open the cuff, you will sign?"

  I nodded again and remained passive as the man reached over and slipped the hex key into the manacle slot. I was tired; physically tired and tired of all this. Tired of suffering and tired of the performance of these ignorant men…and tired of living. Yes, I was finally tired of the effort of staying alive. But I had one last burst of energy to share. I'd been a wrestler and boxer at university, the lightest weight class but I pack a good right. I just needed a clear target. Once my hand was free, I reached for the pencil but my unsteady fingers sent it tumbling to the floor. The heavy monk glared at me.

  "Sorry," I said. When the man leaned down to pick it up I sent a mighty haymaker into that chubby cheek of his. Oh, it was a delight. There was a crack and a streak of pain shot down my arm. But I felt the cheekbone snap beneath my knuckle and the heavy monk fell across the floor like a collapsing stack of firewood. The man was stunned at first, not knowing where he was, then he looked up and focused on me. There was hatred in him. It shrouded him like a cloud of soot. He staggered to his feet and rammed into me, sending wild punches to my face and body. I had just the one arm free to fend off the blows and put in some more of my own. But I had no strength. If the smiley man hadn't pulled the heavy monk off, there was little doubt I would have been beaten to death. The boy guards carried what was left of my resolve back to the classroom and dumped me here by the blackboard.

  And here I lay, too tender to move. I doubt the little guard creatures understood why my blood-bloated lips were smiling. It was because I had just seen the light. At last I understood. I'd been waiting for the phibob, baffled as to why they hadn't come for me. But it's obvious, isn't it? What worse could they do to me? Even if they gave me their best shot, they couldn't top any of this. You know it all, don't you, my spirits? Yes, that's right. Nod those heads. You know it all. I've had time to regret that I am still alive. But I want to go with a flourish. One last heroic act I'll be joining you, I know I shall, but not just yet.

  13

  DON'T GO

  There would perhaps come a day when the information on a sheet of paper on one desk would automatically be drawn like a lonesome thumb to information on a sheet of paper on a desk not two metres away. It would set off an alarm to say, "Has anybody seen this?" But at Vientiane police headquarters, three days had passed and nobody had noticed a very significant connection. Sergeant Sihot had been focusing on K6 and the Vietnamese security people and the odd coincidence of victim three's parents having worked at the murder scene of victim one. He'd been attempting to trace the couple through the lists of refugees their spies had sent from the Thai camps. He'd re-interviewed Miht, the groundsman, who admitted he vaguely recalled the couple but that he couldn't be expected to remember everyone as the staff changed so often. Like Civilai, Sihot had a feeling the man was holding something back.

  After a long search, Sihot finally found someone with fencing experience. A young attache at the East German embassy called Hans had learned to fence in Gymnasium. He'd just arrived from Berlin. Through a translator, Sihot learned that the epees used in the three murders were far from normal and were totally unsuitable for competition. Fencing, the young man said, was a test of footwork and accuracy. Scoring was done electronically so there was no need for sharp edges or pointed tips on the weapons. The swords Sihot showed him had certainly been doctored to inflict the most damage.

  Finally, Sihot had talked once more to Comrade Chanti at Electricite du Lao and asked why he'd failed to mention the fact he was working on a rewiring project at K6. The engineer had simply put Sihot in his place by saying, "You didn't ask." He had been very cool about the whole affair and told Sihot he was busy and, "would that be all?"

  The list of Electricite du Lao employees involved in the project sat on the front right-hand corner of Sihot's desk held down by half a cluster-bomb casing. The third name on that list was Somdy Borachit.

  Inspector Phosy had been focusing on the returnees who'd subscribed to magazines at the government bookshop. He was attempting to trace the names on the list. As they hadn't been obliged to provide their addresses, it was a laborious process. He had been sidetracked at one stage after interviewing one bookshop customer: a member of the Women's Association recently returned from Moscow. She had, she said, filed an official complaint against the bookshop clerk for making 'improper advances' towards her. Phosy's enquiries led to the discovery that the poor man had merely asked her if she'd be interested to attend a cultural event with him. That was as far as the advance went and Phosy hadn't seen anything improper about it. Unattached single man approaches unattractive single woman with hopes of romance. A flirtation. He wondered whether the complaint would have been made at all if the clerk had been better looking. He let it pass.

  Phosy had been receiving responses too from his Eastern European contacts. The Czech embassy had discovered that Dung, the Vietnamese major, had taken a course in fencing in Prague as part of the physical education component of his course. In fact, his Czech instructor had given him an A and commented that the Vietnamese was a natural swordsman. The major had lied at the interview. As a result, his name was moved to the top of the list of suspects. Over the years, Phosy had come to believe that when all the arrows pointed to one person, that was invariably your man.

  To Phosy's surprise, word came back from East Germany via the embassy's diplomatic pouch with regard to the third victim, Jim. Early reports were that she had been a friendly but studious woman who had impressed all her lecturers. She was the perfect student, doing extra research outside the curriculum, not wasting her time with nightlife or parties. Some of her classmates recalled that there had been a man interested in her but nobody remembers seeing him. They only knew from Jim that he was a student on a government scholarship. Jim had once commented with a smile how flattering it had been to have such an attractive man throwing pebbles at a girl's window.

  As they'd approached the first round of pre-medical examinations, Jim's comments had begun to sound more desperate. On one occasion, she'd told a classmate, "I'm starting to get a little impatient. He doesn't take no for an answer." Some of the Lao had jokingly suggested she invite her 'boyfriend' to one of the weekend balls and she'd become very agitated. "Really, there's no relationship here. Just an annoyance." Then, even nearer to the exams a classmate had found Jim walking around outside at midnight in the snow. She'd been crying. She'd said, "He really won't leave me alone. He won't let me study."

  The classmate had suggested she tell the student representative but Jim had refused. The Lao student said she became concerned for Jim's well-being after that night but Jim wouldn't let her get close. And it was around then that Jim's future came tumbling down. She failed her exams, but more than that it was as if she'd become an entirely different person. One girl commented, "She'd lost all her warmth. She didn't speak. Didn't answer any questi
ons. Something terrible had happened to her. We thought it must have been him, whoever he was. We didn't know what he'd done to her but she was clearly terrified of him."

  Phosy had gone through the translation two or three times, astonished at what a transformation had come over the woman. Something had happened in Berlin to change a bright, straight-A student with a brilliant future into a frightened failure. In Phosy's mind the killer had taken on a new, more sinister guise. What happened in Berlin might have been unrelated to the K6 murders but he didn't believe so. He immediately demanded a list of all foreign students studying in East Germany in 1977.

  Apart from confirmation that victim two, Kiang, had taken no physical education classes and that victim one, Dew, had at one stage been selected to compete in a regional fencing tournament in a very small town in Bulgaria, no other information had arrived to bring him closer to his killer. His desk was a monument of paperwork; his own notes, interview transcripts, and telexes. But, on the front left-hand corner was the list of subscribers at the government bookshop. It was on the top of a pile, weighted down with a tiny plaster cast of Malee's left foot age one month. Eleventh down that list was the name Somdy Borachit.?

  "Sh…sh…she didn't come back today."

  "Who's that, Geung?"

  Dtui was sitting on a stool facing the freezer controls with the Russian-Lao dictionary open on her lap. Mr Geung was using a long-handled broom to sweep cobwebs from the ceiling.

  "The Down's Syndrome. She didn't come b…back."

  "Must have been a mirage, hon."

  "No…no…no. What's a marge?"

  "A mirage is something you think you see but it isn't really there."

  "I saw her."

  "Ah, but did you? What if you wanted to see her so much that you made her up?"

  "Eh?"

  "You made magic and she came."

  "I…I…I can't make magic."

  "If you want something badly enough, you can."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. Look at Malee. I really wanted Malee in my life and there she was."

  "No. You had s…sex and you made a baby."

  "OK, right. That helped too. But it all started with a dream. And then I wished."

  "I wouldn't w…w…wish for a Down's Syndrome to come."

  "Why not?"

  He put on a deep voice.

  "That lot are f…feeble minded."

  "Yeah? Who said that?"

  "Judge Haeng."

  "Oh, yeah? Is that the same Judge Haeng who had you sent way up north?"

  "Yes."

  "And you found your way back to the morgue all by yourself?"

  "Yes."

  "Then, you tell me which one of you is feeble minded. Look, Geung, you've been giving this woman a hard time since she started here. And, as far as I can see, she hasn't done anything wrong. I'll tell you how to look at this. There are times when you feel…out of it, right? When people make you feel like an outsider."

  "Yes. Lots."

  "But you have me and Dr Siri, and Civilai and now you have Malee. And we all make you feel better at those times. Right?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, maybe, this woman, if she exists, maybe she feels like you do sometimes. But she hasn't got a morgue full of family to make her feel better. People who love her. Maybe she'd appreciate just a friendly 'hello' sometimes and she wouldn't feel like an outsider."

  "Just a hello."

  "That's all. Then she'll start to feel like you do."

  "That's all?"

  "Right. But I still don't believe there is a Down's Syndrome girl. Nobody else has seen her. I think she's a joke you're playing on us."

  "No. Sh…sh…she's real. Her name's Tukta."?

  On the eve of Siri's departure for Phnom Penh via Peking, he had a bit of trouble getting home from the morgue. As was often the way, he'd sat around for most of the day fine-tuning his report on the epee murders, scratching about for something to keep himself busy, a case, a phone call, a body, a visit, some splattering of bureaucratic foolishness for him to complain about. But there had been nothing until four in the afternoon. Then everything happened. At one stage, Mr Geung came running into the office and spent several minutes catching his breath, attempting to filter out a word or two. Siri had rubbed his friend's shoulders and calmed him down, and finally he was able to say…

  "She…she's back."

  "Who's that, Geung?"

  "The Down's Syndrome. Sh…she…she's a part-time staff in the can…the can…in the canteen."

  He'd left again, this time realising by himself that he hadn't brought back the coffee he'd been sent for. Siri wondered whether the excitement was hostile territorialism or passion. He suspected the former. In fact, it occurred to him that even though he'd been acquainted with Geung for two years, he knew very little of the psychology that made him who he was. Did he have the same emotions as others? How many of his feelings were instincts? Where did his heart settle along the parameters between human and beast? Siri was disappointed that he could work alongside a man and not understand him. Perhaps his library could shed some light on what went on in Mr Geung's mind.

  It occurred to Siri that he himself had recently emerged from a long hibernation of ignorance. Suddenly he'd become aware of the deep feelings of those around him. He'd always focused on physical well-being and danced lightly around emotions. He wondered whether this awakening might be just one more stop on his journey through the senses. Was the spirit world leading him on a guided tour through the various rooms of the other world, or had he arrived at the garden of love all by himself like some long-haired hippy ganja smoker? Was he closer to heaven? After all the years of war and killing he'd suffered, with his heart as heavy as mud, was this the natural conclusion? After so many years of hate, there could only be -

  Hospital director Suk had interrupted his transcendental train of thought. Siri caught him out of the corner of his eye striding past the office door towards the cutting room. He had a tall foreigner beside him. Siri counted on his fingers, one…two…three…

  "Siri, come here!" the director yelled.

  Siri smiled, and put on his white coat. It always seemed easier to lie in a white coat for some reason. He strolled casually into the cutting room with his hands in his pockets.

  "Siri, can you explain this?" said Suk, pointing at the single strip light overhead and the two vacant fittings. Dtui came out of the storeroom and looked at the doctor, hoping he had an excuse at hand.

  "Can you, Comrade?" Siri asked.

  "Can I what?" Suk replied.

  "Can you explain why those Chinese engineers came to take away our perfectly good lights?"

  Dtui smiled and returned to the stores. All was in order.

  "Chinese? What Chinese?" Suk asked.

  "How should I know?" Siri replied. "They had a work order written in Chinese and the interpreter said something about the wattage of the lamps being inappropriate for the size of the room. She said you'd sent them."

  Director Suk spent several minutes in stunted dialogue with the Russian engineer who was clearly upset. Siri stood there, indignant, with his arms folded. He knew the hospital administration had no idea who was donating what and which experts were due when. He was sure this small matter would be lost in the war of dominance between the superpowers. Suk and the Russian walked out of the morgue without another word to Siri.

  The doctor thought that incident would be the grand total of excitement for the day. Geung returned again without the coffee and too grumpy to talk to anyone. Dtui left at five to pick up Malee from the creche. Siri did his rounds, closing the louvres in the cutting room and checking the water level in the ornamental flood overflow pond which now sported two attractive lotus flowers. He stacked the papers on his desk and began to write a list of duties to keep his morgue team occupied for the next four days. Halfway through the list he looked up and saw his angel mother in the doorway. He smiled, as was his habit. She chewed betel and frowned, as was hers.
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  "Hello, darling," he said. "Enough rain for you these days?" He wondered whether spirits felt rain. Did it just pass through them? He'd never seen one with an umbrella. He knew that, apart from mermaids, folk from the beyond couldn't travel on water. That probably explained why so many royalists had crossed the Mekhong, leaving their evil spirits behind on the Lao bank. Beginning a new life on the Thai side. Not realising there was an entire army of equally evil spirits waiting for them over there. Siri's mother didn't reply. She had never spoken. She was a vision without a soundtrack. Siri had become used to his one-sided conversations. He was concentrating on his list.

  6. Make inventory of all the body parts we have in formaldehyde in the storeroom.

  7. Write justification as to why they're there.

  8. If you can't think of any, dig a hole behind the morgue and bury them deep away from dogs (with a few kind words of spiritual praise to the body parts).

  9…

  "Don't go, Siri."

  "What?" Siri looked up, expecting to find a visitor in the doorway but there was nobody there but his mother. The voice had been clear. A woman's voice. An old woman, crackly but clear and loud. He stared at the old lady who sat cross-legged staring back at him, chewing her betel.

  "Did you speak?" he asked.

  If only she could. It was his dream to talk with them. Enough of these guessing games. Had she spoken? Had the words, 'Don't go, Siri' come from her?

  "Don't go where, mother?" he asked.

  But she sat and chewed and into her body stepped a large chocolate-skinned man in a nightshirt. He didn't seem aware of the mess he'd made of Siri's mother.

  "Good evening, Dr Siri," said Bhiku. "I hope you are talking to yourself because, as you clearly see, I am not your mother."

  Mr David Bhiku, the father of crazy Rajid, weighed some 100 kilograms. With his chocolaty gleam and gum-bubble of a nose it was evident he could never be a relative of the doctor, mother or otherwise. Siri rose from his seat to greet his friend but old habits died hard and the Indian buried his head deep into Siri's gut and pressed his palms together in greeting.