The Coroner's Lunch

by Colin Cotterill

  “You? Dr. Siri?” She lit up like a brand-new traffic light. She was so pleased to see him, she used the illegal royal “you,” and bowed her head in a very polite nop.

  “Now, Mrs. Lah, didn’t they teach you anything at your political seminars? You don’t want to let our chicken counter see you do that.”

  “Ah, Doctor. That little twerp doesn’t scare me. Where’ve you been?”

  “Khamuan.”

  “I made your sandwich every day last week.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot to cancel. I’ll pay you for them.”

  “Not to worry. I ate them myself. I was just worried you wouldn’t be coming back. It’s lovely to see you.”

  She fixed him a very special baguette and gave him the opportunity to look at her. She was a fine-looking woman. He couldn’t imagine why old men would chase new-hatched chicks when there were pretty hens in the yard. Something in him stirred, and he wondered what it would be like to be with her. He hadn’t been with a woman since he lost Boua.

  “How’s your husband?”

  She didn’t look up, but he noticed her blush. “Oh, he’s fine. At least he doesn’t give me so much trouble any more.”

  “I see.”

  “Just have to dust the urn now and then.”

  Siri smiled, climbed back on the bike, and ferried his lunch down to the river. She stood, watching him go.

  Civilai was sitting alone on the log. Crazy Rajid was lying naked on the bank a few meters from him.

  “Am I disturbing anything?”

  “No, you’re right on time. I was just starting to get envious.”

  “He certainly has something to be envious of. Nothing compared to me, of course.” He sat down beside his friend.

  “Really? I assumed it must have dropped off from lack of use by now.”

  “No, still there. I felt a little bit of activity just now, to tell the truth.”

  “Not one of the bodies? Don’t tell me you’ve stooped so low.”

  “You know Mrs. Lah? The one who makes my sandwiches?”

  “Her on the corner? She’s old enough to be your…daughter. Nice pair of hooters, though. I’d give her a run around the paddock.”

  “Dream on, you old fogy.”

  “How was Khamuan?”

  “Interesting. Cut up two bodies that died of unknown causes, got malaria, and became fluent in Hmong.”

  “Of course you did. Let’s hear it then.”

  “You don’t speak Hmong.”

  “Probably more than you. If you want to talk about chasing girls round paddocks, I’ve done a few laps with those lasses. Come on.”

  Siri opened his mouth to speak but nothing came to his mind. He thought of a simple Lao sentence but he couldn’t even translate that. The language he’d been speaking naturally a day before had vanished.

  “That’s odd. I’ve forgotten it.”

  “Ah, yes. Languages are like that. Here one minute, gone the next. I was fluent in Japanese last Thursday.”

  “No. I really could speak it.” Civilai grinned and chewed on his roll, and Siri knew it would be useless to argue the point.

  “Do you know what the army is doing up there?”

  “Crop replacement, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Replacing trees with fresh air. The province will be a parade ground if nobody stops them. Is there anything you can do about it?”

  “Who do you suggest we send in to stop them? Prince Boun Oum on his elephant? No. The generals fought for the revolution for decades. This is the little pat on the back they’re giving themselves.”

  “I must have missed that page in the manifesto. I thought corruption was the reason for the fight, not the reward. How much is the military giving you lot for forestry rights?”

  “Is this what you called me here urgently to badger me about?”

  “No. Well, partly. But I was wondering how diplomatic relations are going with Vietnam.”

  “Fine.”

  “Good.”

  “Except there aren’t any.”

  “What happened?”

  “Hanoi recalled the ambassador and most of the diplomats. All their aid projects are on hold. We brought back our fellow from Hanoi to show them we could be every bit as tough as they could. Now, nobody’s talking.”

  “Damn. Not all over this torture accusation?”

  “They aren’t satisfied. You didn’t come up with anything to suggest we didn’t work their men over?”

  While Crazy Rajid waded into the water and started swimming across to Thailand, Siri went over the details of the case. He told of the visit to Nam Ngum even though he was sure his older brother had seen the district chief’s report already. But then he added something he was sure Civilai wouldn’t have read.

  “Somebody tried to kill me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The day we got back from the reservoir. Nguyen Hong and I decided there were still too many questions unanswered.” He produced the two deformed shells from his pocket. “I got home late. I bent down at the front door, and these came flying into the wood over my shoulder.”

  Civilai took them from him. “Siri. You…you don’t think this has to do with the Vietnamese?”

  “It was a bit of a coincidence otherwise.”

  “But why? Did you find something that could incriminate anyone?”

  “No. But I bet you the rest of your roll, somebody thought we did.”

  “Whew.”

  “My problem is, I don’t know which side it was.”

  “Oh, come on. You don’t think our people would try to do away with you.”

  Siri laughed. “You’re quite naïve for a genius, aren’t you, brother? Of course they would. If I had evidence we had ‘interrogated’ those boys, we’d have a lot more than just diplomatic détente; there’d be a damned war.”

  “All right. For the first time in fifty years, you have my undivided attention. What do you want me to do?”

  “Do you know what that Vietnamese delegation came here for?”

  “No.”

  “Civilai?”

  “No, really, I don’t.”

  “Can you find out?”

  “I can try.”

  “Good. I’ll go through Nguyen Hong’s report and see if I can contact him in Hanoi somehow. We still have a lot of unfinished business.”

  “Have you told your judge all this?”

  “No. You know, I’m starting to think what a coincidence it was that the Justice Department would send me away in the middle of this investigation.”

  “You have to start trusting people. You need allies.”

  “You’re them, Comrade.”

  “Oh, the pressure.”

  “Do the words ‘Black Boar’ mean anything to you?”

  “Not apart from the obvious.”

  “Can you ask around? Something to do with the delegation. Perhaps the war. Vietnam.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “From…I’m afraid I can’t disclose my sources.”

  “Anything else?”

  “There was something, but I can’t rem—oh, right. You speak French pretty well, don’t you?”

  “Like Napoleon.”

  “Dead?”

  “Elegantly. Don’t tell me your French went the way of your Hmong.”

  “Shut up. What does precipitation mean?”

  “Well, it could be when you separate a solid from a solution in chemistry.”

  “Or?”

  “Falling from a height.”

  “Falling from a height? Of course. Of course! They weren’t water-skiing at all. Felicitations, mon brave empereur.” He kissed Civilai on both cheeks and saluted him.

  The Hairdresser’s Bruise

  Siri got back from lunch at 1:30. His arrival coincided with several unheard-of examples of Lao punctuality.

  As Dtui reached the door of the morgue from one direction, three monks with cloths around their noses, carrying a rolled coconut mat, arrived
from the other. Geung walked out of the office at exactly the same time. He was in a terrible state.

  “Doctor S…S…S…” He was too flustered to get beyond that. Siri massaged his shoulders and focused him on his breathing while Dtui ushered the monks into the examination room.

  “Mr. Geung. What’s wrong?”

  “Your o…o…office is…is broken.” He grabbed Siri’s hand and led him to the office door. Sure enough, the room had been turned over pretty thoroughly. Dtui, from a very polite distance, was seeing off the monks.

  “Dtui. Could you come here, please?”

  She stood between the two men and looked at the mess. “Ooh.”

  “This happened in the last three hours. How’s the examination room?”

  “Normal, and the storeroom.”

  “So, they were obviously after something in here.”

  “Oh, no. My comics!”

  “Listen, Dtui, Geung, this isn’t a joke. This is all part of the danger I told you about before I left. This is why we all have to be very careful from now on. Do you both understand?”

  “I understand. I understand,” Geung said, very seriously.

  Dtui nodded her head. “Yes, Doctor.”

  “That’s good. I’m afraid the only officer I trust is away right now, but we’ll have to tell the police about this. Before we do, I want us to go in there and get an idea what’s missing, if anything. We’ll try not to disturb too much.”

  Only one thing was gone: Dtui’s notebooks had been taken from her desk. All the notes, from every autopsy they’d done together, were missing. While they searched through the debris, Siri told them everything he knew about the Vietnam case, including the attempt on his life.

  They came to the same conclusion, that whoever had ransacked the office had been looking for Nguyen Hong’s report.

  “Dtui, hiding it was inspired thinking. Well done.”

  “W…well done, Dtui,” added Geung.

  “Give me a raise.”

  “From now on, you two have nothing to do with the Vietnam case at all. I’ll take the file home and go through it. Wait, what about the photos? Did they get the autopsy photos?”

  Dtui looked skyward. “No, they didn’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Well, because they’re in Sayabouri.”

  “Sayabouri? What are they doing in Sayabouri?”

  “Well, you remember how it was Sister Bounlan’s wedding and we used the end of one film and the beginning of the next for the ceremony?”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “She sent them all home to her family. They were in the same packet. Someone was leaving for Sayabouri and she wanted them to take the pictures. She came and picked it up from my desk when I was out. She didn’t have time to check.”

  “I can imagine how much granny enjoyed that.”

  “She didn’t. They were all as sick as dogs. They put the packet in the post the next day. Should be here by now.”

  “You see? Even when you mess up, it’s perfect.”

  “It is?”

  “Certainly. If our visitors here wanted the notes so badly, I’m quite sure they’d have loved those pictures too. Maybe the pictures can tell us what these people are so afraid of us finding out.

  “Mr. Geung?”

  “Yes, Doc…tor Comrade?”

  “Dtui and I will get ready to look at our new guest. Would you be so kind as to go and tell Mr. Ketkaew and the hospital administrators about what happened here?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  Siri and his team were in the examination room. Two uniformed officers were sifting through the wreckage in his office. They worked with the unrequested and unwantedly loud assistance of Mr. Ketkaew. The officers had white hospital masks to keep out the smell from the next room. Ketkaew had a small bottle of smelling balm he snorted every few seconds. He was feeling bad; a major crime had taken place barely ten meters from where he sat working.

  Neither team felt obliged to interfere with the other. When the police were finished, they left without saying goodbye.

  “You don’t suppose they’re reading my fan magazines in there, do you?”

  “Dtui, will you please concentrate?”

  “Sorry.” Mr. Geung giggled as he weighed the heart on the butcher scales suspended from the ceiling.

  “Right. What unusual signs have we seen so far?”

  Dtui closed her notebook and answered from memory. “One. There’s only one deep slash on each wrist.”

  “And that’s odd because…?”

  “Because wrist-slashers usually take two or three attempts to build up the courage to cut deep enough.”

  “Good. Two?”

  “Two. Hypostasis on the back of the victim suggests she was in a supine position after she died.”

  “So?”

  “So, she couldn’t have arranged herself leaning forward, with her arms in a bowl of water, without help.”

  “Three?”

  “Three. Face pale, body dark blue.”

  “Indication of…?”

  “Of asphyxia.”

  “Wonderful. I think I’ll retire.”

  “Before you go, tell me just how sure we are that she didn’t kill herself.”

  “I’d say we’re 92 percent sure. But just in case we need a few more percentage points, let’s take a little look in here.” He’d peeled back the epidermis from the neck and was cutting down through the muscle. He held open the folds and showed Dtui the larynx.

  “Hmm. Hemorrhage.”

  “And up here, my dear assistant, we have some hidden signs. Bruises that had vanished from her skin are still lurking beneath.” Discoloration of the tissue structures showed distinctive prints of what could very likely have been hands. “Conclusion?”

  “The poor bitch got herself strangled.”

  “Ha.” Mr. Geung snorted. “Poor bitch.”

  “That’s enough, you two. Show some respect for the dead.”

  “What do we do now?”

  “We write this all up so clearly that even a judge can understand it. Then we keep our mouths tightly shut, and wait for Inspector Phosy to come back tomorrow. Dtui, dearest, we’ll need a third copy of this, for security. Can you get one more layer of carbon through that typewriter?”

  “The words might be a bit flatter, but I think so.”

  “Good. We’ll put this nice lady back together and send her to Mrs. Nan, the embalmer. I’ll start clearing up the office. We have a guest this evening.”

  At 6:15, Siri was alone at his desk. He’d stopped earlier at the little room they called a library and taken out the Vietnamese file. It was in his shoulder bag now, on top of the old green cabinet. As the sky darkened, he felt suddenly vulnerable again. He had the walk home ahead of him, and he’d be carrying evidence someone was willing to kill for.

  Before vegetable-and-fruit duty, Geung had ridden over to the market and bought the biggest padlock they had, and two sets of hasps. The salesman told Geung people had stopped buying them, but those people obviously weren’t getting shot at.

  His reverie was disturbed by the flap of rubber sandals on the concrete step. The pregnant sister entered nervously. Siri rose to escort her in.

  “Thank you for coming. Your husband didn’t come with you?”

  “He’s playing cards.” Siri wondered about his priorities. “And he ain’t my husband.”

  “Is this his?” Siri pointed to her round belly. It poked out like a knot in the bark of a tall young tree. She nodded without enthusiasm.

  “Sit down, will you? Drink?”

  “No.”

  Siri pulled his chair around to her side of the desk and spoke quietly. “When we were talking this afternoon, what made you say Mai didn’t kill herself?”

  “Because she…she didn’t care.”

  “About what?”

  “About anything. Nothing worried her. It was all a big game.”

  “What was?”

  “Life, w
ork, love. Everything.”

  “Did she come to Vientiane for love?”

  “She come looking for it.”

  “You don’t think she might have followed someone down here? Someone she was having an affair with in Sam Neua, for example?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. We talked about everything. She come to Vientiane ’cause I was here. She come to find herself a rich husband. She was pretty enough.” Her eyes had reddened and Siri could see the ceiling lightbulb reflect in the tears waiting there. “She wasn’t short of fans. It was one of them set her up in the room. She wasn’t whoring, don’t get me wrong. It was all strict romance.”

  “Do you know who he was?”

  “The room? Just one of the horny bastards that was after her.”

  “Did she talk about him?”

  “She talked about all of them.”

  “Was there someone special? An older man? Someone important.”

  “There was some ancient old codger…no offense. He was chasing after her.”

  “Did you ever meet him?”

  “No. My man doesn’t let me go out. This is different tonight, ’cause this is a hospital. I told him I was having the baby checked out. He dropped me off. But with Mai, I only ever got to talk with her when she come over to see me. I didn’t meet any of her fellows.”

  “Does your man know you’re taking her back to Sam Neua?”

  “No.”

  “You coming back?”

  She smiled. “You know a lot, don’t you? No, I ain’t coming back. He ain’t what I’d want for my baby’s father.”

  “That’s very brave of you.”

  “It’s in the blood. We was both really stubborn, me and Mai. You’ve looked already, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. I’ve looked.”

  “She didn’t, did she?”

  “No.”

  She sighed with relief, and the sigh unlocked tears. They rolled down her cheeks, and sobs heaved in her chest. Siri ripped some tissue from the roll on his desk, and she blew her nose.

  “Thank you. What happened?” she asked.

  “Someone strangled her. Then they set it up to look like suicide.”

  “I knew she wouldn’t.” She seemed somehow relieved. It was as if she could cope with the idea that her sister had been murdered far better than if she’d killed herself.