The Woman Who Wouldn't Die

by Colin Cotterill

  One result of the recent agreement of friendship and cooperation signed with Hanoi was that the Vietnamese were reluctantly obliged to be friendly and cooperative. This extended to a relationship between law enforcers in both countries. The fax he held in his hand was a perfect example of ‘minimum cooperation’:

  Madame Saigna Peung, a Lao citizen, was in possession of a multiple laissez-passer to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In the past twelve months she has made eight visits. Her papers were cleared each time at Hanoi International Airport. Before this last trip the average time of her stay was three days. Her last recorded visit was in July 1978 and she was in the country for eighteen days.

  Madame Saigna Peung had dealings with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam trade office and was involved in importing goods to Vietnam. There is no record of appointments after the third day of this most recent trip. No more information is available.

  Signed, Dac Kien. Hanoi Police and International Cooperation and Friendship Representative.

  ‘No more information is being released, more like it,’ thought Phosy as he walked up the hill to Madame Peung’s luxury house with a view. And what was she doing there for such a long time on this last trip? He doubted she wouldn’t have been followed at least some of that time. It was the socialist way. Surely she hadn’t just disappeared. Phosy had said his hellos in the village, told them he’d be interviewing them individually later, but declined company to visit the house. His first action was to sit in the wooden recliner on the veranda looking down at the village and across the fields to the mountains of Ban Elee. Marx had said, ‘The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.’ Phosy felt the rich on his back as he sat there in front of the big house. What happened to the even distribution of wealth they’d crooned about at the seminars?

  But this was not his concern today. He stood and asked the building what had happened on those two weird nights of August. There was no evidence of a break-in at the front door. In fact, you’d probably have needed an armoured car to get through it as the iron latch on the inside had apparently been welded together by a team of swarthy blacksmiths. The rear door had the same impressive apparatus. The windows were all barred. The widow was clearly afraid of losing her money. But there was no evidence anywhere of a forced break-in. He thought about the live-in girl. Whether she might have opened the door for her boyfriend and made up the whole story about being asleep when it happened. On his way to Ban Elee, Phosy had stopped off at the district administration office. He knew a young girl with no travel papers wouldn’t be very far from her residence. In fact she was still registered in her grandmother’s house and hadn’t applied for transit papers. The house was only four kilometres away. He would visit her next.

  But, for now, he sat in the main bedroom where a killing had purportedly taken place there on the double bed. The mattress was uncovered now and a bloodstain had taken a huge bite out of it around the area of the pillow. This meant that the victim was either asleep or calmly lying back in her bed when she was shot. So it was unlikely she’d opened the door to her killer, and more likely that the door was unlocked or the killer was in there with her.

  The distance from the door to the bed was only four metres, yet there was no bullet embedded in the wooden wall behind the bed. Again it was conceivable the bullet bounced around inside the skull and did indeed go to the pyre with the victim but so much blood suggested an exit wound. There should have been a bullet.

  Finally, back on the porch. Here it was that the drugged robber had supposedly dragged the widow to the front steps and, in front of the entire village, shot her for the second time. ‘The bullet went into the wooden post,’ they’d said. The village headman had retrieved a .45 bullet and given it to the policeman as a souvenir. Phosy found the hole. It was a teak post so the bullet hadn’t sunk deeply into it. It would have been retrievable with a penknife. But there was something far more telling than the bullet: the hole itself. He turned back towards the house but something odd on the wooden step caught his attention. It was a second hole, easily missed, neat, the same size as the one in the post. And, after a few minutes of gouging with his penknife, it was here that Phosy found a second bullet. It was a .45.

  A picture was forming in Phosy’s mind. A scenario so bizarre no fiction writer would insult his readers by offering it up as a plausible plot. To make it credible, there had to be more, much more, going on here in Ban Elee than a meeting with the supernatural. Madame Daeng’s instincts had been fired by accounts of events that appeared to be impossible. Now, Phosy was charged with the task of proving that the impossible wasn’t so hard after all. Down in the village, his questions were simple. Did Madame Peung shop at the market? No, not since her husband died. She’d become something of a recluse. She sent her live-in girl. Did anybody else have cause to go to the house? No. Apart from the fact that she suddenly had a Vietnamese accent, did you notice any changes between Madame Peung and Madame Keui? Perhaps she’d put on a little weight. Oh, and she’d started using more make-up. She’d always liked to slap on the colour but she’d never used that much before.

  Phosy was on his way to meet the live-in girl but he was quite sure he knew what had transpired there in Ban Elee. The only thing he lacked was a motive.

  13

  Frenchy’s Elbow

  It was nine thirty a.m. when Barnard arrived at the small outpost they laughingly called a town, Pak Lai. There were thousands of people. In a civilized country that would have worked to his advantage. He could blend in, vanish in the crowd. But this was the opposite. As soon as he’d stepped from the forest, they’d seen him. They were pointing. Calling him over. He was a good thirty centimetres taller than any of them. He ignored them as best he could.

  ‘Hey, Soviet,’ they cried. The latest salute to invaders.

  He made out not to hear. They smiled and pushed sweets into his hand and coconuts with straws sticking out of them. He brushed them off. So much for his discreet arrival. He made for the old French administration building at the far side of the green and walked confidently through the main door as if he belonged there. The place was deserted. He walked upstairs and into an office full of well-worn French desks and Russian typewriters. Framed photographs of nondescript Asians hung in a line across the back wall. He took a wooden chair and placed it at a window from which he might best view the festivities. He took the binoculars from his satchel. They’d belonged to the guide who now lay battered in a shallow grave beside the porter. The spoils of war.

  His heart was palpitating. His breath, irregular. He could feel every scuffled step his body took at the end of its journey. But there was time. He scanned the childish revellers. He’d see her soon enough. Before he set light to the restaurant, he’d found a photograph of the shrivelled hag standing with a scarred old man and a moron. There was enough of her recognizable behind that cruel disguise. The young beauty. The innocent with child. The first love. It was all in there. And no matter how desperately she shrouded herself in wrinkles and flab, he knew that his heart would pick her out of the crowd.

  ‘What do we do if she comes back again?’ Civilai asked.

  ‘Who?’ said Siri.

  ‘Madame Peung.’

  The longboat was making good speed against the flow of the river. On some stretches it felt as if they were merely riding the eddies. The boat was doing most of the work. Siri breathed in the sweet scent of the American Metal-Filing trees along the bank. He stared at his beautiful wife two seats ahead rowing with the grace of a swan ballerina. He doubted swan ballerinas could row but he liked his simile. She was singing the rowing song she’d learned just ten minutes earlier and making up verses when called upon.

  ‘Why should she come back?’ Siri asked.

  ‘She did it once before.’

  ‘Water’s a tough one, Civilai. Not even Houdini could beat the water torture.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that was only in the movie, Siri.’

  ‘Either way, spirits don�
��t …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s why the Frenchmen have been stuck in hell. They are down there. They’re trapped under water. Their souls have no way to go wherever French souls go to. There are six French bodies down there at Frenchy’s Elbow. That confirms it.’

  ‘Good, but if she does?’

  ‘Madame Peung?’

  ‘If she comes back?’

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘King Kong.’

  ‘That’s a point?’

  ‘We saw it. Remember?’

  As Siri and Civilai were movie junkies it was only natural that many of their conversations turned to the cinema.

  ‘How could I forget? What’s her name? Fay something.’

  ‘But they captured this giant gorilla, took it to New York and made a fortune from public performances.’

  ‘And Madame Peung is our Kong?’

  ‘Shot through the head, twice, drowned in the Mekhong. She’s star material. We could take her to Bangkok and guillotine her on national television. Next night there she is, good as new.’

  Madame Daeng’s shoulders were rocking with laughter. Civilai was about to continue with the image when, without a word of instruction, all the rowers put up their oars. The fat man looked around and nodded at Siri.

  ‘About a kilometre,’ he said. ‘Less overland. Better we pull in here. You can walk over the crest. There’s a spot up there you can look down at Frenchy’s Elbow without being seen.’

  All the crew members wanted to go and have a look, of course. But the headman selected two, as well as himself, to accompany the Vientiane people. These guides led them through the thick undergrowth as if they’d spent much of their time escorting tourists to the Elbow. Civilai said he expected to find a souvenir shop set up on the ridge. But what they did get was a spectacular eyrie looking directly down at the bend in the river. The Lao cruiser had moored on exactly the same sandbank that the minister’s helicopter had first landed on. The equipment was laid out methodically along the shore. Some of the men were setting up an elaborate winch-and-pulley system using two huge old teak trees as anchors. The bulldozer was lined up between them. All in all, it looked like a very competent operation.

  Like synchronized swimmers, three divers emerged from the water with heavy oxygen tanks strapped to their backs. All three held up their thumbs to the officer on the bank. He, in turn, put up his own thumb and gestured for the men to leave the river. The other engineers helped them remove their tanks and they all retreated to behind the tree line. There followed half a dozen muted explosions that belched silt and rocks from the river. Even at such a high elevation, Siri and the team were showered with pebbles and mud. The explosions echoed around the rock faces, the sound getting louder as it travelled, taking on the form of an angry voice, not just to Siri, but to all of them.

  One diver went back into the water, swam to the deepest point and dived to the depths. Then, an amazing thing happened. Fish – tens, then hundreds, then thousands – floated to the surface. Stunned by the blasts. Drowned by the air, and carried away on the current. It was remarkable how many fish had made Frenchy’s Elbow their home. One of the guides got to his feet and hurried back through the jungle to his boat.

  ‘Looks like they have a net on board,’ said Daeng.

  Her plan B had been to avoid putting the Uphill Rowing Club in harm’s way. They all doubted the Vietnamese would accompany the treasure to the border. After it had been transferred to the elephants the convoy would be at its most vulnerable. They would return to Pak Lai and drum up a village militia to intercept it.

  Meanwhile, the show continued. The explosions had been the highlight. For the next hour it was a slow, laborious process of diving and winching. And there at the officer’s side the whole time, yelling instructions, pointing this way and that, was Madame Peung’s brother.

  ‘He seems to have found his voice,’ said Siri.

  ‘Yet another miracle,’ said Civilai.

  ‘It’s him,’ said Daeng. ‘This is his party. He’s the boss.’

  And right away Siri remembered the moment on the helicopter that had almost escaped him. The nudge. The brother had nudged Madame Peung. It wasn’t her who recognized the spot on the river. It was him. He was the one who knew the terrain. Madame Peung had just been along for the ride. And no longer of use, there was no doubt in Siri’s mind that Tang had lured the woman to the back of the cruiser and dispatched her unseen into the river.

  ‘He’d planned this all along,’ said Daeng. ‘It’s been made to look like a series of unrelated, spontaneous events. The resurrection. The approach by the minister’s wife. The location of the body. But it’s all been laid out. This is the penultimate scene.’

  ‘And here we are with balcony seats to the grand finale,’ said Civilai.

  ‘If that’s so, you’ll have to agree it’s brilliant,’ said Siri. ‘Although I don’t see how it could be possible.’

  ‘It’s booooring,’ said Geung.

  ‘Patience,’ said Civilai. ‘They’re Vietnamese. Eventually we’ll have something to cry over or laugh at.’

  And, as he spoke, something did happen. Cables heading in three directions rose from the water, leading to two winches attached to the trees on the east side and to the tail end of the bulldozer which acted as a counterpoint, pulling southwards from further down the bank. All three were coordinated with whistles. The long ratchet handles clicked a few centimetres at a time and the bulldozer tugged to the whistle. Nothing else appeared to be happening but there was a confident air amongst the soldiers. It was half an hour before the first glimpse of the hull appeared above the surface. It was upside down.

  ‘My word, they’ve done it,’ said Civilai.

  After another twenty minutes of patient winching, half the boat was on the steep bank and a gap had opened up above the gunwales. The years had been kind to the heavy metal craft. Being submerged in mud had preserved it admirably.

  ‘I bet some French naval museum would pay a lot of money for that,’ said Civilai.

  ‘They’re going d … down,’ said Geung.

  With miners’ lamps attached to their helmets, two of the engineers crawled on to the space between the bank and the deck of the upside-down craft.

  ‘Where would you store cargo in something like that?’ Daeng asked.

  ‘The hold is buried in the deck at the forward end,’ said Civilai. ‘There should be a couple of metal doors leading down to it. That isn’t where those boys are going. They’re heading into the cabin.’

  ‘That’s where they were,’ said Siri.

  The others looked at him.

  ‘That’s where the Frenchmen were,’ he said. ‘They’re free now.’

  They watched as the engineers passed large cotton sacks to the men inside. One by one the bags re-emerged, not full, but with sufficient bulk to suggest each contained the remains of a crew member. Obviously the Vietnamese were not as squeamish at touching the remains of the dead as the Lao. There were six bodies, all told.

  All this time the bulldozer and the other equipment were being reloaded on to the cruiser until only the cables that stayed the boat remained. The bodies were carried to the Lao boat and laid side by side at the stern. The skipper cast off and the boat headed back downstream.

  ‘Did anybody notice anything peculiar about that?’ Civilai asked.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Siri.

  ‘They came to recover bodies,’ said Daeng. ‘They salvaged the boat. They went inside. They brought out the dead. They took them back. Everything was exactly according to plan. They’ve done what the minister asked them to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if they came looking for you, Siri, to make an identification.’

  ‘And once more we are dumbfounded by a mystery that is not at all mysterious,’ said Civilai.

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Siri. ‘All it means is that the engineers were only told to recover the boat and bring out the bodies. That they weren’t a party to the secre
t of what could be found in the hold. It’s a legitimate rescue mission.’

  ‘So why didn’t anyone notice that Madame Peung was missing?’ asked Civilai.

  ‘Ah, brother,’ said Daeng. ‘Nobody notices old women. And nobody misses them when they’re gone.’

  Civilai looked at her querulously.

  ‘But it looks like somebody else is missing in action,’ said Siri.

  He pointed to a lone figure on the rocks below the karst. It was Tang, the non-brother, non-assistant of Madame Peung. He was adjusting scuba equipment.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Civilai. ‘They were taking orders from him. He’d have to be in some position of authority for a uniformed officer to kowtow to him. And they’ve left him equipment.’

  ‘What is that over there behind him?’ Daeng asked.

  ‘It looks like a parachute,’ said Civilai.

  ‘No,’ said Siri. ‘It’s a dinghy. They come with a foot pump. We used to use them on late-night river forays during the wars. That’s how he’ll be getting his booty back downriver. This really is a one-man show.’

  Tang put on his breathing mask and dropped into the water. He carried a small underwater acetylene torch and a pack. He swam alongside the cruiser to a point that was still submerged and down he went. He was under water for a long time. They supposed that the fastening on the hold was rusted and difficult to open. He re-emerged without his blow torch but with a wooden casket about the size of a radio. It was floating on a life vest.

  ‘Every eventuality,’ said Phosy. ‘What a planner.’

  The casket was heavy after all those years in the water. He lugged it out of the river and on to the sandbank. He seemed to pause then, probably deciding whether to open it, but there were obviously more down below.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be afraid of being seen, does he?’ said Daeng.