The Second Biggest Nothing

by Colin Cotterill

  Also by Colin Cotterill

  The Coroner’s Lunch

  Thirty-Three Teeth

  Disco for the Departed

  Anarchy and Old Dogs

  Curse of the Pogo Stick

  The Merry Misogynist

  Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

  Slash and Burn

  The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die

  Six and a Half Deadly Sins

  I Shot the Buddha

  The Rat Catchers’ Olympics

  Don’t Eat Me

  Copyright © 2019 by Colin Cotterill

  Published by

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cotterill, Colin, author.

  The second biggest nothing / Colin Cotterill.

  Series: A Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery; 14

  ISBN 978-1-64129-061-6

  eISBN 978-1-64129-062-3

  1. Paiboun, Siri, Doctor (Fictitious character)—Fiction.

  2. Coroners--Fiction. 3. Laos—Fiction. I. Title

  PR6053.O778 S43 2019 823’.914—dc23 2018057751

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  With my endless thanks to Tim, Martin, Bertil, Ernest CB, Howard, Mac, Dr. Leila, David, Kate, Bob, Shelly, Lizzie, Rachel, Ulli, Geoffrey, Magnus, Dad, Dr. Margot, Juliet, Cara, Shona, Scott, Pary and my wife and best friend, Kyoko.

  In loving memory of Saigna.

  Chapter One

  A City of Two Tails

  Dr. Siri was standing in front of Daeng’s noodle shop when she pulled up on the bicycle. It was a clammy day, but his wife rarely raised a sweat even under a midday sun. She leaned the bike against the last sandalwood tree on that stretch of the road and patted Ugly the dog. Siri shrugged.

  “So?” he said.

  “So what?”

  “What did she say?”

  Daeng pecked him on the cheek and walked past him into the dark shop house. He trotted behind.

  “She said I have the body and constitution of a sixty-nine-year-old.”

  “You are sixty-nine.”

  “Then I have nothing to be disappointed or smug about, do I? I’m fit and healthy. I’m a nice, average Lao lady with supposed arthritis. She did, however, mention that most people my age in this country are dead. I think that’s a positive, don’t you?”

  “But what about . . . ? You know?”

  “She didn’t say anything,” said Daeng.

  “She what?”

  “Didn’t mention it at all. She obviously didn’t notice it.”

  “What kind of a doctor doesn’t notice that one of her patients has a tail?”

  “I’ve told you, Siri. You and I are the only people who see it.”

  “What about the shamans in Udon?”

  “They didn’t see it, Siri. They visualized it. Not the same thing.”

  “It’s a physical thing, Daeng. You know it is. I can feel it.”

  “I know. And I like it when you do.”

  “But now Dr. Porn would have us believe that it doesn’t exist, which means I must be senile,” said Siri.

  “It means we’re both senile.”

  “Then, by the same account, if you don’t have a tail, then obviously my disappearances are a figment of my imagination.”

  “Not at all,” said his wife dusting the stools to prepare for the evening noodle rush. “All it tells us is that nobody else notices you’re gone.”

  “I’ve disappeared in public before,” said Siri with more than a touch of indignation. “Haven’t I disappeared in the market? At a musical recital? In a crowded—”

  “Look, my love,” she said, taking his hand, “there is no doubt that you disappear. There is no doubt you cross over to the other side and learn things there and return and tell me of your adventures. There is no doubt you are possessed by a thousand-year-old Hmong shaman and communicate through an ornery transvestite spirit medium. There is no doubt that you see the souls of the dead just as there is no doubt that I have a tail that I received from a witch in return for a cure for my arthritis. But, for whatever reason, nobody else bears witness to our little peculiarities. And perhaps it’s just as well. The politburo would probably have us burned at the stake for occult practices if anyone reported us. Even Buddhism makes them queasy. Imagine what they’d do if Dr. Porn wrote in her official report, ‘. . . and, by the way, Madam Daeng appears to have grown a tail since her last checkup.’”

  “You’re right,” said Siri.

  “I’m always right,” said Daeng. She squeezed his hand and smiled and returned to the chore of readying her restaurant. She was startled by the sound of hammering from the back room.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Nyot, the doorman,” said Siri.

  “He’s still here?” asked Daeng. “How long does it take to put in a door?”

  Mr. Nyot, the carpenter, was busy hanging. Following the previous monsoons, the door had changed shape and would no longer close. Daeng was not afraid of intruders. Ever since it was installed when the shop house was rebuilt, that door had never been locked. Nobody could remember where the key was. There were no security issues in Vientiane. The Party wouldn’t allow such a thing. All the burglars were safely behind bars on the detention islands. The ill-fitting door banged in the wind and Mr. Nyot had promised them a nice new door at a special price. But it was also a special door. Daeng went to inspect the work.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the missing rectangle of wood at the base.

  “It’s a dog entrance,” said Nyot.

  “It’s a hole,” said Daeng.

  “Right now it may look like a hole,” said Nyot, “but over there I have a flap with hinges that I will attach shortly.”

  “That’s not what I ordered,” said Daeng.

  “Maybe not. But this door is five-thousand kip cheaper than the next in the range. And I did notice that you have a dog outside that seems unable to enter the building.”

  “That dog has never entered a building,” said Daeng. “Not because it’s unable to but because it has some canine dread of being inside.”

  “Well, when it gets over its fear this will be the perfect door for it.”

  She couldn’t be bothered to argue and the saved five-thousand kip would come in handy even though it was a tiny sum. But she was sure that when the wind blew from then on, the dog flap would bang through the night and the hinges would creak and they would miss their old one. She was very pessimistic when it came to doors.

  Siri laughed at their exchange as he wiped the tabletops with a dishcloth and thought back to his last contact with Auntie Bpoo, his unhelpful, unpleasant spirit guide. It had been a while. She had him on some kind of training program. He’d passed “taking control of his own destiny” and “awareness,” and he was ready for the next test but for some reason she’d gone mute. He attempted to evoke her often, but the channel was off air. Often, he wished his life could have been, not normal exactly, but more under his own control. Daeng was saying something behind him.

  “What was that?” Siri asked.

  “I said the ribbon was a nice touch,” said Daeng.

  “What ribbon’s that?”

  “You didn’t decorate the dog?”

  “Not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

  “The ribbon, Siri. You didn’t see him out there? Ugly has a rather swe
et pink bow on his tail.”

  “Nothing to do with me,” he said walking to the street.

  Ugly was under the tree guarding the bicycle. Sure enough, he was wearing a ribbon with a silk flower, and from the rear he looked like a mangy birthday present.

  Siri laughed. “This looks like the work of a certain Down syndrome comedian I know,” he said.

  “Can’t blame Geung and his bride this time,” said Daeng. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re doing all the noodle work here. He and Tukta won’t be back from their honeymoon for another week. And Ugly was not so beautifully kitted out when I left this morning. Don’t take it off. He looks adorable.”

  Siri was bent double inspecting the dog’s rear end. There was more of a sausage than an actual tail so it was surprising the decorator had found enough length to tie on the bow and that Ugly would allow it.

  “It appears to have a message attached,” Siri said. “There’s a small capsule hanging from it. Lucky he didn’t need to go to the bathroom before you noticed it.”

  “A message?” She smiled. “How thrilling.”

  Never one to pass up a mystery, Daeng joined her husband on the uneven pavement. Ugly seemed reluctant to give up his treasure. He growled deep in his throat.

  “Come on, you ungrateful mongrel,” said Siri. “Who do you think pays for your meals and applies ointment to all your sores and apologizes to the neighbors for your indiscriminate peeing?”

  It was a compelling argument and one that Ugly obviously had no counter for. He held up his haunches for his master to remove the capsule. It was a silver cylinder about the size of a cigarette. Its two halves could be pulled apart. Siri had seen its kind before but he couldn’t remember where. Inside was a tight roll of paper, which he unfurled.

  “Unquestionably a treasure map,” said Daeng.

  “Only words, I’m afraid,” said Siri. “And handwritten.”

  Still pretending that his eyesight was as good as it had always been, he held out the slip at arm’s length and squinted at the tiny writing. He would blame that arm for its shortness rather than admit to any deficiency in his eyesight. The note was just within range.

  “It’s in English,” he said.

  “What a shame,” said Daeng.

  He read it aloud with what he considered to be an English accent.

  “My dear Dr. Siri Paiboun, it has been a while. By now I’m sure you have either forgotten my promise of revenge or have dismissed it as an idle threat. But if you had known me at all, you would have realized that my desire to destroy you and your loved ones is a fire that has burned in my heart without end. After such a long search I have found you and I am near you. I have already deleted one of your darlings. Before I leave I will have ruined the life you have established just as you did mine. I have two more weeks. That should be more than sufficient.”

  It would be several hours before Siri and Daeng could fully appreciate the seriousness of their note because neither of them understood English. They knew French and could read the characters and they could guess here and there at meanings. But the languages were too far apart to cause either of them to panic. That would come later.

  Chapter Two

  The Glory of Totalitarianism

  At the end of 1980, Vientiane was a city still waiting for something to happen. It had waited through the droughts and floods, through the flawed policies, the failed cooperatives, the mass exodus of the Hmong and lowland Lao and, more recently, ethnic Chinese business holders across the Mekong. It had waited for inspiration, for good news, for a break. It had been waiting for five years but still nothing of any note had happened. So, what better way to celebrate five years of Communist rule than by inviting a large number of foreign journalists to observe the results of all those things that hadn’t happened? There were those who argued that nothing was a good thing. For thirty years the Lao had been waging a war against their brothers and against the foreign powers that put them in uniforms. Wasn’t nothing better than that?

  It was what they called “a cocktail reception” even though none of the glasses being carried around on silver trays contained anything more exotic than weak whisky sodas and room temperature white wine. The hostesses who carried the trays wore thick makeup, military uniforms and uncomfortable boots. They smiled in a way that suggested they were under orders to do so. They did not enter into conversation with the already soused foreign journalists because they could not. They were from villages in distant provinces and even fluency in the Lao language was beyond their linguistic ability. And they had been warned by their superiors about these men from the decadent West and the shady East who bit the heads off babies and had sexual organs the size of ripe papayas. The girls trembled at every flirtatious glance, each beckoning whistle.

  In its day, the nightclub of the Anou Hotel had been a gloomy cavern of nefarious goings on. When first the French, and then the American soldier boys played there, it was a mysterious grotto, so dark you couldn’t see the age of your dance partner, so heavy with marijuana smoke you couldn’t smell the fluids that had soaked into the carpets the night before. But on this evening, this glorious evening that marked the fifth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, the lights were all on, and there were no secrets. The gaps in the parquet tiles on the dance floor had been filled with cement and painted brown. The table vinyl curled up at the edges, and the light-blue paint peeled from the beams.

  But, as Comrade Civilai said, perhaps this was the symbolism the Party wanted to pass along to the world. The decadent past had fallen into ruination. The last altars to the gods of depravity were crumbling and turning to dust.

  “Or,” Civilai added, “perhaps there was no other venue with a functioning sound system and a full bar.”

  Since he left the politburo he’d not been sure of the motives behind Party policy. Perhaps he never had.

  Intimacy was obviously another government plot to endear itself to the outside world. There really wasn’t a great deal of space in the Anou. Sixty-four foreign journalists—all male—were shoulder to shoulder with Russian interpreters, most of the resident diplomatic community, selected aid workers and donors and the UN, even though nobody was ever really sure what the latter did to earn their living in Laos. All of the ministries were represented, each minister and vice minister with his own aide to help carry him back to the Zil limo at the end of the night.

  Comrade Civilai—wearing cool, avant garde sunglasses—was there because of his distinguished service to the cause of communism in Laos and his apparent undying loyalty to the politburo. Chief Inspector Phosy was there because, despite several attempts to oust him by those who had become accustomed to graft and corruption, he was still the head of the police force. His wife, Nurse Dtui was there because it was a perfect opportunity to practice the foreign languages she’d taught herself with little or no benefit thus far. And Dr. Siri and Daeng were there because it was walking distance from their restaurant and a nice evening. They hadn’t been invited, but no scruffy sentry with an unloaded AK-47 was going to turn away such a distinguished white-haired couple.

  This small group of friends and allies sat at a table near the exit. They’d tired of attempting to snare any of the reluctant hostesses and instead had relieved the open bar of a half bottle of Hundred Pipers. With it they toasted anything that came to mind: to the miracle that they were all still alive, to Geung and Tukta on their honeymoon at a small vegetable cooperative outside Vang Vieng, to the peaceful, almost ghostly quiet streets of Vientiane, to the dizzying figure of 15 percent Lao literacy announced that afternoon, and, finally, to friendship. The bottle was approaching empty. Civilai had made more than his usual number of bladder runs to the bathroom because he’d hit a bad patch of stomach troubles following experiments with Lao snails in fermented morning glory sauce. The comrade was a pioneer in the kitchen and pioneers stepped on their own rabbit
traps from time to time.

  “What I don’t understand . . .” said Siri.

  “There must be such a lot,” said Civilai, returning from the crowded toilet.

  “I’m serious about treating this condition of yours,” said Siri.

  “I’m not letting you and your rubber glove anywhere near my condition, thank you, Doctor,” said Civilai.

  “Then, what I don’t understand,” Siri tried again, “is the significance of five years. Nine I can appreciate. Always been a lucky number. And ten has some decimal roundness to it. But five?”

  “Well, young brother, it’s quite simple,” said Civilai. “The government is celebrating five years because, despite all its mismanagement and false hopes and poor judgment, it’s still here. They never expected to make it this far.”

  “Who’s going to kick them out?” said Daeng.

  “Exactly,” said Civilai. “That’s the glory of totalitarianism. You can screw up for five years and admit you have no idea what you’re doing and you wake up the next morning and you’re still in power. You can experiment all over again.”

  “If you weren’t suffering from dementia I’d arrest you for treasonous rhetoric,” said Phosy.

  “Look around, young chief inspector,” said the old politburo man. “Point me out one minister or vice minister here who isn’t demented. All those grenades exploding too close to their brains.”

  “Uncle Civilai, you seem particularly nasty tonight,” said Nurse Dtui. “Is it the snails?”

  They charged their glasses and toasted to the snails.

  “In a way, yes,” said Civilai. “I’ll tell you, sweet Dtui. Today, with no warning, no request, no discussion, I received a copy of the speech they expect me to give to all these pliable journalists at the end of the week.”

  “You could always say ‘no,’” said Siri.

  “And then what? They’d give the same script to some other doddery old fool to read the lies.”

  “So what are you planning to do?” Daeng asked.