‘You sent photos?’ Siri asked.
‘I thought it might help,’ she smiled.
‘I’d sent them to the Vietnamese Intelligence Unit with my request to speak to the Hanoi cops,’ Phosy continued. ‘When I received their official response, there had been no mention of the photographs. I assumed nobody had recognized them. But then I was cornered one night by a shadowy character who’d been watching too many spy movies.’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ said Civilai.
‘To cut a long story short, he had a gun and I beat him up.’
‘My brave policeman husband,’ said Dtui.
‘I don’t like guns,’ he said. ‘So I had this fellow at police HQ and he insisted on making a phone call to his Vietnamese buddies. I reminded him whose country he was in and how unlikely it was he’d ever see his homeland or his family again.’
‘You bully,’ said Civilai.
‘He was an arrogant little runt,’ said Phosy, by way of explanation. ‘But once he believed I was out of control he became very chatty. It turned out that he was a minor official at the Vietnamese Intelligence Unit. They’d sent him to extract the location of the character in the photograph from me. They must have thought I’d see the gun and blurt out where he was. They had every reason not to do all this through official channels, you see. Although it took me a while to get the whole story out of him. Your widow’s supposed brother, Tang, had been an agent at the Vietnamese Intelligence Unit. A very senior agent, in fact, and, by all accounts, a genius. He went AWOL. Hadn’t reported for duty for six months. Nobody knew where he was. His superiors were anxious to trace him. He’d been the head of Data Analysis. Name of Tang Cam. Before his disappearance he’d been working on French and American aerial photographs of the Mekhong River. But he had maximum security clearance to all the top secret files both in Vientiane and Hanoi.’
‘I’m certain they’d have files on all of us tucked away in Hanoi,’ said Civilai.
‘Together with witness reports and family history and psychological examinations,’ said Daeng. ‘I was one of their agents towards the end. They’d know more about me than I do. And with the recent agreement they’d have a share of all the files on our side too. They’d know about the minister’s background and his brother.’
‘All the things Madame Peung plucked out of the air,’ said Civilai.
‘I … I have a fffile?’ said Geung.
‘You’re technically a government worker, Geung,’ said Civilai. ‘They’d know everything about you.’
‘That’s … rude,’ said Geung.
Siri had remained quiet throughout this exchange. He was a stubborn man but he never ignored the facts. And they were stacking up against Madame Peung.
‘And the woman?’ he asked.
‘He wasn’t so certain about her,’ said Phosy. ‘But some of the operatives suggested there were similarities to a female officer who had once been Tang Cam’s mistress. Her name was Nguyen Hong Be. Vietnamese father; Lao mother. She had retired from the propaganda division after reaching the rank of colonel. But she’d spent most of her career directing entertainments for troops. They staged dramas for the villagers. She was—’
‘An actress,’ said Siri.
Madame Daeng squeezed his hand.
‘A very competent one too,’ said Phosy. ‘If things had been different she might have become famous. But the wars and …’
‘No, wait,’ said Civilai. ‘This is ridiculous. They find a Lao businesswoman and he gets this actress to impersonate her? Who’s going to be stupid enough to fall for that?’
‘No. I think it was the other way round,’ said Phosy. ‘Tang Cam had the actress already. All they had to do was wait until a Lao of similar appearance turned up. She didn’t have to be rich at all, or a businesswoman. A government official would have worked just as well. A visitor. A maid. Anyone single or widowed. Tang Cam would have access to the files to know who was unattached. Who lived in a remote area. All the spirit mumbo-jumbo would play into the hands of we ignorant Lao country folk.’
‘Am I the only one who doesn’t see the point of all this?’ said Nurse Dtui.
‘It’s complicated,’ Phosy told her.
‘Could I try to explain it?’ asked Daeng.
‘Be my guest.’
‘This is how I see it,’ she began. ‘A senior official at the Vietnamese Intelligence Unit with an interest in Lao history hears the legend of the French pillaging the treasure from the Royal Palace in 1910. He has an ancient mandarin concept of what treasure is: riches beyond dreams. He studies the French and American aerial photographs of the Mekhong and he sees it: the shape of the gunship that went down. With instruments he can measure it categorically to prove that it can only be that boat. There he is, a senior clerk earning twenty dollars a month and he knows his future would be assured by salvaging that vessel. But how? There are no Vietnamese projects in Sanyaburi. He doesn’t have clearance to travel in Laos. But he is a clever man and he comes up with a complicated but brilliant plan. He contacts his old lover who’s living in a dingy one-bedroom retiree’s apartment in Hanoi and together they hatch a plan. If it all works out they won’t need to recruit any other people. All the work will be done for them.’
Ugly growled and licked his balls.
They all laughed.
Daeng continued.
‘Somehow, they drug and kidnap Madame Peung and set up a hospital room to keep her in,’ Daeng continued. ‘She believes she’s had an aneurysm. Tang Cam is her doctor, Hong Be, her nurse. I would imagine they used a combination of drugs and hypnosis to learn about her village and the people who lived there – a way to recognize them. Under hypnosis it’s difficult to extract secrets but remarkably easy to draw out gossip and anecdotes. They would have kept her half-in, half-out of consciousness, Colonel Hong Be, her best friend, joking with her, learning her mannerisms and speech patterns.’
‘Does any of this have a factual base?’ Civilai asked.
‘None,’ said Phosy, ‘but circumstantially I’d say we’re heading in the right direction. We found the booking on Lao Aviation. Madame Peung was in a seat beside someone called Nguyen Be, a Vietnamese nursing sister whose paperwork said she was headed to hospital forty-nine. They’d never heard of her.’
‘Then, lead on, madam,’ said Civilai.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if one other seat on that flight was occupied by our friend Tang Cam,’ said Daeng. ‘The Vietnamese secret service produce their own passports.’
‘I’m seeing the how,’ said Dtui, ‘but I’m still missing the why.’
‘The why is that the Vietnamese secret service knew all about the Minister of Agriculture and his relationship with his nutty wife,’ said Daeng. ‘The upper class Vietnamese community in Laos is very close. They would have known she was concerned about her brother-in-law and was looking for a medium. If they could convince her that the brother was in a boat, submerged in the Mekhong, he would have the resources to dig it out. And because it was a spiritual matter, he wouldn’t have told too many people. But they had to establish Madame Peung’s reputation in a hurry. News of a reincarnation would spread like a forest fire. The fact that the widow had been reborn with the gift of finding the dead was exactly what the minister’s wife was looking for.
‘And with all that success, the minister’s wife hears of the witch in Ban Elee and seeks her out,’ said Daeng. ‘And the actress uses the knowledge accumulated by Tang Cam to convince her to dig up the river. She was a very convincing liar.’
She looked into her husband’s green eyes.
‘So how … how did they achieve this miracle?’ Siri asked.
‘Well, from the fragmented parts, I’ve put together a scenario. If I’m correct the whole thing was a remarkable example of sleight of hand. You see? Madame Peung was already dead when she arrived back in the village. Her body was in the trunk on the back of the truck. The driver, Tang Cam, had been forced to stop at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Vie
ntiane. The officer there noted it down in his ledger. It appears it’s easier to travel in this country if you’re dead. I have no idea when they killed the poor woman. She was listed under cargo. Hong Be used Madame Peung’s laissez-passer. Tang Cam must have used whatever ID was in the truck they stole and played mute.
‘While the maid was in the village getting the petrol, the Vietnamese set up the killing in the widow’s room using blood from one of the piglets. Hong Be waited in the room and Tang drove the truck down and parked it in the forest off the main road. When it was dark he came back. The first of the two shots was not into the widow’s head but into the veranda post outside. I saw gunpowder burns on the wood which indicated that it was fired at point-blank range. That first shot would have woken the live-in girl. If she’d come to investigate straight away she would have caught Tang Cam firing the second shot into Madame Peung’s head. But it didn’t matter that she took her time. Tang and Hong Be had fled to the truck by the time the villagers came to investigate.
‘I’m guessing that Tang Cam and Hong Be camped rough in the truck for three days to let the natural process of the cremation and the investigation run its course. When the widow was good and burned, Madame Peung, aka Madame Keui, aka Hong Be, made her astounding reappearance. This was where the acting experience kicked in. She had the mannerisms and the voice down. The right make-up and a knowledge of everyone in the village. Who would ever doubt that this was Madame Peung reincarnated?
‘The second shooting had already been set up. One of the languages Tang Cam spoke was Hmong. His Lao wasn’t fluent but it was easy enough to convince the villagers he was an addict from one of the district’s Hmong communities. He did the crazed assassin thing in front of the villagers and ran up to the house to have a second shot at the widow. Once the villagers had built up the courage to follow, he dragged Hong Be out to the veranda, and pretended to fire at her head. The gun he used wasn’t loaded and the bullet was already embedded in the post. He knew he couldn’t use a blank because at point-blank range the wadding would be as lethal as a real bullet. So, he had two weapons. The sound they all heard was Tang Cam firing a second gun into the porch steps unseen from behind his legs.’
‘What about the wound?’ Dtui asked.
‘There would have been some paint or something on the barrel of the unloaded gun to leave the trace of a wound when it was pulled away. That pretty much convinced everyone that Madame Peung had joined the ranks of the living dead. Evidence and twenty witnesses. The live-in girl had run off and nobody was bold enough to visit the house, leaving Tang Cam free to move in. Word spread and the visitors started appearing. I located some of the families who went to consult with Madame Peung,’ said Phosy. ‘There’s a police registry of people who have reported family members missing in action. By working down that list it wasn’t long before I came across families who had contacted Madam Peung. They had all received anonymous notes telling them the story of the medium in Ban Elee and that she had been visited by their deceased relatives. She knew where the bodies were buried. In fact these were ex-servicemen whose remains had been discovered by local headmen in remote provinces. The details were on a government list that had not yet been released to the relatives. The VIU would have had access to that list. Madame Peung directed the relatives to the grave sites just as she directed the minister to his brother.’
‘And, the engineers being Vietnamese …?’ Siri asked.
‘I asked my new friend from Vietnamese Intelligence,’ said Phosy. ‘That unit had orders to be in Vientiane. Nobody seemed to know the origin of those orders. So it looks like Tang Cam had worked some more magic there too. The VIU had the power to relocate Vietnamese personnel. When the minister returned to the city he was looking for a unit of army engineers. It just so happened that this group was sitting around doing nothing. So they were immediately dispatched west. No time was lost at all.’
‘My word,’ said Civilai. ‘Incredible. And it worked.’
‘It would have if he hadn’t been so blindly led by his lust for wealth,’ said Daeng. ‘What kind of a man can convince his mistress to join in such a venture then toss her off the back of a boat without any conscience? She’d served her purpose and he didn’t need her to share in the spoils. Two dead women and nothing to show for it. With a mind like that he could have done some good in the world. Brilliance is wasted on men.’
Nobody disagreed. They hated the pair for killing the old widow but, deep down, there wasn’t one of them who didn’t have a touch of admiration for them. It was an incredible achievement that so nearly paid off. Tang Cam could hardly have figured the malevolent spirits into his plans. It was something they didn’t teach at spy school.
A loud cheer echoed down from the Russian Club. It could only mean one thing. Siri and his friends scurried back up the bank and entered the restaurant from the rear. A few dozen people were sitting at their table but it didn’t take much to shoo them off. Siri played the ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ card. More full bottles had appeared at its centre since their departure, along with various food plates. The Russian Club always did a remarkable job of turning empty markets into tasty food. But there was some commotion near the kitchen and none of the other guests seemed in the mood to eat. As they couldn’t see over the sea of heads, Siri and his team sat and tucked into the food. It was a feast that wouldn’t have been out of place in a good hotel in Bangkok. They were on the third course when the noisy commotion finally reached their table.
Auntie Bpoo burst from the crowd like a brassy lion through a paper-covered hoop. She wore a silver cocktail dress with a train, shoes that Imelda Marcus would have died for and a gold scarf that covered her bald head. Mr Geung stood for her. She caressed his cheek and dropped on to his seat. She looked around at the guests and sighed. Nobody knew what to say.
‘So, you all came, then,’ said Bpoo.
‘We’re all naturally attracted to death,’ said Siri by way of an ice-breaker. His relationship with the transvestite had never been that relaxed or natural. She’d saved his life perhaps but she hadn’t made it easy to thank her.
‘So, this is it,’ said Dtui.
‘Looks like it,’ said Auntie Bpoo.
‘I’ll miss you,’ said Dtui.
‘We all wwwill,’ said Geung.
‘We all will,’ said Tukda, who had taken to repeating her fiancé’s words.
‘What about you, Siri?’ Bpoo asked. ‘Will you miss me?’
‘I’ll miss beating my head against your front door,’ said Siri.
‘You don’t know where I live,’ she reminded him.
‘I was speaking metaphorically.’
‘Now, sweetheart. You know I’m too dense for metaphors.’
She called over a waitress and said something into her ear. The tones around them had become more hushed since Bpoo’s arrival. It was possible to talk now without yelling. The waitress returned a few minutes later with a bottle of champagne and a dozen fresh glasses. Bpoo popped the cork and poured.
‘Are you sure you should be drinking while you’re transcending?’ Civilai asked her.
‘What can they do to me?’ Bpoo laughed. ‘Revoke my dying licence?’
‘How long have you got?’ Daeng asked.
Bpoo looked up at the large clock over the kitchen hatch.
‘Half an hour,’ she said.
‘Are you afraid?’ Dtui asked her.
‘No more than I was about being born,’ Bpoo replied. ‘It’s all part of the natural equation. Ashes to ashes. It’s just that when you leave, you have some say in your wardrobe.’
‘You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was some elaborate hoax to confirm how popular you are,’ said Siri.
‘There,’ said Bpoo.
She stood and raised her drink.
‘That’s the cynicism I’ve been waiting for,’ she continued. ‘Let’s all drink to that. The elaborate hoax.’
They all downed their champagne. Even Geung and Tukda, who usually d
idn’t, but thought, under these circumstances, they should.
‘Ahh,’ said Bpoo, smacking her lips. ‘Seven thousand kip a bubble but worth every pop.’
‘Did you win the Thai lottery?’ Dtui asked.
‘Yes,’ Bpoo replied matter-of-factly. ‘Three times, in fact. You’d be surprised how many trips I had to make to Udon Thani before I could find the winning tickets.’
They all glared at her.
‘You really …?’ said Dtui.
‘Of course,’ said Bpoo. ‘I see the future. How else do you think I could have funded all this debauchery? The Thai lottery sellers have their tickets laid out so, if you have a little good luck, you can select the winning numbers. A platoon of uniformed soldiers doesn’t come cheap, you know?’
‘I thought you weren’t allowed to use your gift for personal gain,’ said Siri.
‘I didn’t,’ Bpoo smiled. ‘This is all for you lot. It’s a thank you for not being cruel to me. You see gathered around you all the people I met in my life who treated me fairly – showed me some kindness. It wasn’t a common occurrence, let me tell you. But I don’t forget integrity. This is my present to them – to you.’
She walked around the table doing one unsteady pirouette as she went. It allowed everyone the first sight of the porthole at the back of her dress exactly the size of her naked buttocks. Mr Geung covered Tukda’s eyes with a napkin as she passed. Nobody else appeared to be shocked. This was Auntie Bpoo who flashed habitually. Anything less would have been a disappointment. She stood behind Dr Siri and put her hands on his shoulders.
‘And, for you, doctor,’ she said. ‘I have an even bigger surprise.’
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never been kind to you.’
‘No. You never talked down to me, either. Never treated me like an idiot. Admittedly you were never that polite but you inadvertently showed kindness from time to time. And, to be honest, there’s nobody else I can give this gift to. It wouldn’t fit anybody else.’
‘It’s pyjamas,’ guessed Mr Geung.
‘It’s pyjamas,’ said Tukda.
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