The Coroner's Lunch

by Colin Cotterill

  But things didn’t go as smoothly as the comrade had hoped. The pill bottle wasn’t in her bag, and Khen didn’t want to attract attention to it by going back a second time. Kham had to hope things would work out in the course of events. But he hadn’t taken Siri’s skill into account. He’d assumed the reluctant coroner was untrained and incompetent, but that was no longer true. If he’d noticed the doctor’s determination, he might not have underestimated him so badly.

  He knew. Somehow the little coroner knew, and Kham was afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep him quiet. There was little choice. He ordered Khen Nahlee to kill him before the findings became public.

  The comrade had always been a staunch believer in Fate. He began projects only on auspicious dates and consulted the stars. It was Fate that he’d been given the cyanide, and it was Fate that she’d taken it so soon. Up to that point, fortune had been on his side. The assassin had never known failure; so when his bullets flew over Siri’s head that night, it was the first indication that Fate had gone against him. Siri had been given a second chance. Kham looked for another way.

  He had Khen Nahlee set up a suicide. One murder of an insignificant girl and it could be all over. It was no scandal for a powerful man to be adored by his mistress. It would be no surprise that she’d killed her rival and taken her own life. The police were satisfied. He gave a tearful statement to the Press. It was all over.

  Then Siri came back and screwed it all up again. There really was only one way to challenge Fate. All the logic on the earth dictated that Siri couldn’t escape a second assassination attempt. Nothing human could keep him alive.

  But now the senior comrade sat in mid-afternoon in his empty house, drunk. He’d walked out of the Assembly in the middle of the ceremony for heroes of the revolution, ignored all questions. He’d shooed away the driver and driven the limousine home himself. He’d gone four nights without sleep; the journey home had been a blur.

  He could compete with men. He’d shown that time and time again. But here he was up against something far beyond anything he’d ever known. His enemy was spiritual. Mrs. Nitnoy wasn’t going to let him forget what he’d done to her. She was in his nightmares, and she was at Siri’s back, protecting him. Something told him he would probably never spend a restful night again, and he couldn’t bear the thought of that.

  He turned the radio up to its loudest and tuned it to Thailand. An expert in genealogy was discussing the reasons why Lao communists were so physically unattractive. He listened to find out why he was ugly, and when the music rose at the end of the program, he shot himself in the head.

  Thrice Dead

  Khen Nahlee hadn’t failed. Not yet. Although his nemesis was blessed with astoundingly good fortune, it didn’t necessarily mean he’d failed. The boss had told him to go back north. Give it up. But his mission was unfinished. Not failed: just delayed.

  He sat in the bare room meticulously oiling his pistol and cleaning the silencer. He went through the plan in his mind. This was the evening of the That Luang Festival. The hospital would maintain a skeleton staff, if they could persuade anyone at all to stay on. The nurses would be made up like porcelain dolls with blood-red lipstick. They’d be parading themselves in front of the boys at the fair. Perhaps he’d go and help himself to one when it was all over.

  The Security Section had withdrawn its guards, so Siri should be alone. No luck, no coincidences, could possibly keep him alive a third time.

  On his old motorcycle heading down the hill from the Great Stupa, he seemed to be fighting against the current. There were no left and right lanes to the crowds on their way to the festival. They traveled on foot, on bicycles, pushing motorcycles, in one huge colorful herd. He put his scarf around his face and leaned on his horn all the way down to the arch. People laughed and called out names to the strange man who was going the wrong way.

  The ride was slow until he reached Lan Xang Avenue, where the police had kept a lane free for Party members returning from the remembrance ceremony. Once he was away from the main roads, he saw no one. He parked his bike near the Department of Education and walked down to the concrete gate posts of Mahosot. There wasn’t even a guard on duty.

  The sun had recently set and many of the buildings were in darkness. There were distant strip lights in the public ward, and a single bulb glowed in the nurses’ quarters. He entered the building that housed the private rooms and kicked off his shoes inside the door. There was a long corridor running down the center, with rooms on either side. The hallway itself was dark. The only lights shone through the glass windows above two of the doors. The other rooms all appeared empty.

  Room 2E was halfway down. He stopped outside the door and listened. There was no sound. He turned the knob gently and the door opened without a squeak. He peeked inside. Siri lay on the bed, asleep beneath a white sheet. The oxygen mask was over his mouth. The light came from a bedside lamp that was covered with a red cloth.

  Khen Nahlee looked back along the deserted corridor before stepping inside the room. He closed the door behind him. He took the gun from the holster inside the top of his track suit and screwed on the silencer. But on a night like this he could have used a cannon, and there would have been nobody to hear.

  He stepped to the end of the bed, aimed at the coroner’s heart, and fired. Six times he fired. Professional. No conversations. No confessions or last-minute explanations. Once the chamber was empty, he sighed with relief. At last the man’s luck had run out.

  He waited for the pleasing sight of blood slowly seeping through the white sheet, but it didn’t come. Immediately, he knew that something had gone wrong. He stepped forward, grabbed the bottom corner of the sheet, and yanked it from the bed.

  Three pillows—one assassinated—lay along the center of the mattress. At their summit, beneath the oxygen mask, was a mask of a different kind. As a special tribute to the new regime, they were selling papier-mâché masks of the prime minister at the That Luang festival. With a few white chicken feathers added here and there, it bore a remarkable resemblance to Dr. Siri.

  Khen Nahlee’s stomach turned. He reached into his pocket for another clip, but he instinctively knew there’d be no time to use it. The door crashed open, and Phosy and two other burly police officers charged into the room with their pistols drawn. They were expecting a fight, but they didn’t get one. Khen Nahlee dropped his gun, looked up at the ceiling, and laughed. It was a humorless, defeated laugh.

  They handcuffed him, searched his pockets, and told him to keep his mouth shut unless he was asked a question. As the Constitution had been abolished, there were no rights to be read. That was just as well, as they didn’t intend to give him any.

  Phosy put his nose close to the prisoner’s. “I’ve been looking for you. You know that, don’t you? I suppose I must have had too much respect for you. If I’d known you were this hopeless at your job, I would have found you a lot sooner.” Khen Nahlee glared blankly at Phosy’s forehead. He wasn’t one to be riled easily. “How about going to say hello to Dr. Siri before we take you to your new home?”

  They led him to another room along the corridor where another Dr. Siri, surrounded by an odd collection of visitors, lay propped up on his pillow, smiling. The police stood Khen Nahlee at the end of the bed. He looked at Siri and shook his head slowly.

  “Well, Mr. Ketkaew. Nice to see you again. You’re such a disappointment. I was hoping to get rid of Miss Vong on you. Now I’m stuck with her.” Khen Nahlee smiled. “Oh, but your name probably isn’t Ketkaew, is it? I have to hand it to you: you do play the fool very well. You were a most convincing chicken counter. I’m sorry I spoiled everything for you, but you were up against forces that are not of this earth. Don’t berate yourself.”

  Khen Nahlee had nothing to say. He had no questions, and he no longer needed to act. He looked around at the assembly; Dtui, Mr. Geung, Judge Haeng, Civilai, Dr. Pornsawan, and Mai’s sister. How had he fallen to such an army of misfits? He turned to Phosy and gesture
d that he wanted to go.

  “I wouldn’t be in a hurry to go where you’re going,” Phosy told him.

  Two more officers came in from outside. They gathered around Khen Nahlee and marched him out to the van. His future promised to be very short.

  The Dead Coroner’s Lunch

  A week had passed since Siri’s third coming. Civilai was starting to believe his friend really was immortal. So, as Siri didn’t want to be deprived of the pleasure, he announced that lunch this Friday would be a wake. He would supplement their usual fare with a bottle of sparkling wine. As a special treat, he also invited Inspector Phosy to join them. There were still one or two things that weren’t completely clear about last week’s incredible events.

  Civilai and Phosy were on time. They’d canceled their appointments for the afternoon and were settling down around the log for a long and leisurely lunch. Civilai was struggling with a corkscrew.

  “You don’t want to wait for the deceased?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “Then I’d better help you.” He took the bottle and started to open it.

  “So, Phosy, Siri had no idea what you were actually doing here?”

  “He knew I was with the police. He didn’t have a clue I was investigating Kham and his gang. I knew he’d just done the autopsy on Mrs. Nitnoy, so I hoped I could get some information from him over a few drinks. That’s why the judge introduced me as the police liaison with the coroner’s office. It didn’t occur to me I’d get so lucky.”

  “Why did you wait so long before using the evidence?”

  “Well, firstly, none of it was conclusive. Secondly, I really wanted to get my hands on Khen Nahlee. I’d been chasing him around for years. But he changed identity and looks so often, I was always too slow. I was sure if his boss killed his wife, he’d get his henchman in to help clean up. I just needed time to find out who he was. He had me fooled for a long time.” He poured wine into the four glasses. “Who’s the fourth?”

  “You’ll see. When did you start to suspect it was Ketkaew?”

  “Well, things didn’t come together until Siri told me they’d sent Teacher Oum from the Lycée to Viengsai.”

  “Damn. I was supposed to follow up on that.”

  “Never mind. I did. The transfer paper was signed by Comrade Kham’s office, but then again, most of them are. The initial report was sent in by Ketkaew. That was the first connection I found linking the two of them. It wasn’t particularly significant. He sent in reports about everyone for the silliest reasons. He was still acting the fool, so I didn’t suspect him for a second.

  “But then I found a second connection in a roundabout way. I had file photos of Mrs. Nitnoy. These were some old Press pictures, and it occurred to me she wasn’t the best-groomed woman in the country.”

  “That’s very polite of you. I’ve heard her compared to the arse end of a long-haired goat.” They toasted with the sparkling wine. It was a rare treat.

  “Well, whatever end of the goat she was, I didn’t see her being the type of woman who frequented a beauty salon.”

  “God, no.”

  “But that’s what the report on the murder said. I chased down the officer who wrote it. He said a witness had told him she went to Mai’s salon once a week.”

  “She should get a posthumous refund.”

  “I checked at the salon, and it wasn’t true. They’d never seen her there. Now, you realize that chasing down a rumor in this town is like grabbing a wet lizard by the tail. The officer got it from one of Mai’s neighbors, and she got it from one of Mai’s boyfriends. It struck me as peculiar that he should choose to share that information with a complete stranger, and I became very interested in that particular boyfriend.

  “Fortunately, in a dormitory full of single women, there are a lot of accidental-on-purpose sightings of other girls’ late-night visitors. I got the girls in a huddle and tried to put together a profile of the fellow I was looking for. One of the others came up with a gem of information. She happened to be going to Mahosot regularly for treatment of a certain condition she didn’t want to elaborate on.

  “She said that if this was the man the others were referring to, she’d seen him around the hospital a couple of times. He didn’t look like a doctor; he certainly didn’t come across as a patient either. ‘Something official,’ she called him. I told her where I was staying and how to get in touch with me if she ran into him again. In fact, I gave them all my address.”

  “I bet you did.”

  “Well, it was the night Siri got blown up. I went back to my place and found a note from the neighbor. She’d been to the hospital that day and seen our fellow again. She asked one of the nurses about him and was told he worked behind the morgue and was some sort of government spy.

  “This really sparked my interest. Siri had told me about his chicken counter, but I’d never met him. I didn’t know what he looked like. I thought I might just break into his office, see if he had some old ID or photos lying around, and take them to show the neighbors.

  “But when I got to the hospital, there was one hell of a commotion going on. Half the night staff was out with old buckets and bedpans, trying to put out a fire in the kitchen. I helped them for an hour until it was under control. That’s when I learned that the kitchen was directly under the library. I knew that wasn’t a coincidence.

  “So I went around to the khon khouay office behind the morgue. It wasn’t the most secure building I’ve ever seen: bamboo and banana leaf. It was too easy to get into. I wasn’t surprised not to find anything incriminating there. But I just had a feeling something was out of place. I sat at the desk and looked around at the layout of the room.

  “Then it occurred to me. There were windows front and back, but the desk wasn’t in front of either of them. There wasn’t a fan, so why didn’t he sit where he could get some natural breeze? The desk was squashed up against one wall. I tried to move it, but one leg was stuck. That’s when I saw the wire taped to the back leg. It came straight out of the ground. There was only a four-inch section visible, and at the top was a connector, the type you’d put an extension cord into.”

  “He was bugging the morgue.”

  “He obviously took the main equipment home with him, but I dug up what was there. The wire went underground all the way to the drain outlet behind the morgue.”

  “So he knew everything that went on in there.”

  “All the autopsy dictations, the conversations of the morgue assistants. I knew I had him, but I didn’t know where he lived. The only place I could get him was right there. So I woke up a couple of my men and we set up a surveillance. I got the judge out of bed for a warrant and had the place sprung like a rat trap for when he turned up. But the creep didn’t come. All day we waited, not daring to go take a piss or get something to eat, in case we missed him. But there was no sign of him.”

  Civilai noticed they’d finished their wine. He picked up the two other glasses and handed one to the policeman.

  “It’s going flat.” He raised his glass. “Good luck.”

  “Good luck.”

  “So, how did you find him?”

  “In the end he found us. We’d been watching the office, day and night. I was afraid if he showed up we’d all be asleep. We split into two shifts, and I joined the first rest team to get a little shut-eye. I contacted Judge Haeng to let him know what was happening, and that’s when I first found out about the Security Section scandal and the arrest of Major Ngakum, and, to my utter shock, of Siri’s house being blown up.

  “When I’d last seen the little fellow, he was on his way into the house. God only knows how he escaped the blast. My first reaction was to go and see him. But then I got to thinking about things. Like Siri, I’d assumed the attempt on his life was in connection with the Vietnamese case. I’d never known Khen Nahlee to miss a target.

  “But by Tuesday, Siri had shared all his Vietnamese information with so many people that it didn’t make sense for them to single
him out any more. There was only one case where Siri was sitting on evidence. Khen Nahlee had no idea who I was or that I was connected to that case. I’d been very discreet. As far as he was concerned, Siri was the only one who could put together a case against Kham. So I had to assume the impossible had happened. The professional assassin had failed, not once but twice.

  “I’d been tracking him so long, seen the aftermath of his capabilities so many times, I had started to think like him. I knew how those two failures must have hurt his pride. I was surer than anything else in my life that he’d try again.”

  “And the night of the That Luang Festival was the perfect time.”

  “The Security Section guard had been recalled and there weren’t a lot of people around. I smuggled my men in—one by one, in case he was watching—and the rest you know.”

  “The fly dropped neatly into the web. Where is he now?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say. But with Kham no longer at his back, and Khen Nahlee out of action, it won’t be hard to dismantle the death squad. I guess that’s a bad sign.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been so efficient, I’ve done myself out of a job. I’m unemployed.”

  “Nonsense. Consider yourself rehired. I’ve got a hundred jobs for a fellow of your cunning. Let’s finish this up and hide the bottle before our body gets here. We’ll pretend it was stolen.”

  They’d just removed the last of the evidence when Siri and another man they didn’t recognize crossed the road. The doctor was carrying a plastic bag that clinked as he walked.

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

  “Surely it’s evening already.”

  “Sorry I’m late. There was more muck to wash off him than I expected.” The apparent stranger stood beside him in a long-sleeved pink shirt, permanent-press slacks, and almost-new running shoes. His hair was washed, cut, and parted. His dark chocolate face was the only familiar thing about him.