Don't Eat Me

by Colin Cotterill

  “Director Maysuk told him of a controversy at the airport. A shipment of animals scheduled to be dispatched to Europe had been bumped from its cargo flight for a more important shipment. There would be no space available for a week. The animals had not been fed and nobody was prepared to accept responsibility for them. So the crate had sat there under a tarpaulin, the animals, in this case wild civets, slowly starving to death. That was when Phosy hatched his evil plan. He knew that the animals would strip Miss Vatsana’s body of its flesh and internal organs, thus removing any evidence that would lead to her identification. I will not speculate as to whether Comrade Phosy had been aware that Miss Vatsana was not in fact dead when they put her in the crate, but the evidence suggests that she was eaten alive.”

  The onlookers let out a gasp. The video operator looked up from his viewfinder and sneered. Phosy, who was no great fan of American culture, could think of nothing better to say than, “Wow.” Were he sitting in the audience he would be rooting for the prosecutor. Even though there was no truth in the judge’s allegation of Phosy’s involvement, the possibility was high that his anonymous skeleton now had a name and an identity. And he was equally certain that the judge had been responsible for her death. Yet there was much more to it than Haeng merely covering up a crime of his own. This had been part of a vast, carefully planned and orchestrated scheme to incriminate Phosy and his friends. Instinctively, Phosy knew the worst was yet to come. As he was not able to cross-examine, he started to argue his case in his mind and work out how the magician Haeng had accomplished his tricks. The little man was still in stride.

  “On the morning of the twenty-second,” he said, “three days after the murder, Comrade Phosy put in a request for a vehicle to go to the airport. He asked for a car rather than a readily available jeep. As usual, he refused to have a driver. On his requisition form, which I have here, he claimed to be meeting the Cambodian chief of police. There was, in fact, no flight from Phnom Penh, and the Cambodians have yet to nominate a chief of police as they are still under an interim Vietnamese administration. The requisition was merely an excuse to go to the airport, where he drove to the shed and loaded Miss Vatsana’s skeleton—picked clean now apart from tendon and sinew—into the trunk of his car.”

  “Witnesses?” said the same general who’d spoken earlier.

  Phosy had had dealings with the military. Most were convivial and mutually beneficial. The soldiers were the only tribunal members even remotely likely to be open-minded at this hearing.

  “There was nobody there,” said the judge. “Director Maysuk had ordered all the airport ground crew to attend an impromptu political seminar. This left Comrade Phosy free to destroy the surviving civets and burn the crate to remove any trace evidence. When the crew returned, they found the ashes of the crate.”

  Phosy willed the general to object, to say that without witnesses, this account was merely conjecture. But the soldier kept quiet and Haeng charged ahead uninterrupted.

  “I too was at the airport on the morning of the twenty-second to meet a dignitary from Hanoi. I’d seen the official police vehicle and noticed that Comrade Phosy was driving. We exchanged eye contact. He looked extremely guilty.”

  “Objection,” said Phosy to himself.

  “On later reflection, it may have been that chance meeting which led to Phosy’s outrageous plan to incriminate me,” said Haeng. “Once the body had been discovered on the twenty-third, Comrade Phosy abandoned all his official duties and took the unprecedented step of investigating the case personally, despite having a team of qualified detectives at his disposal. Do not forget that my department had been conducting an investigation for a number of years on the conduct of this man who had, somehow, elevated himself to the position of chief inspector. It’s conceivable he found out about our work. If so, he had even more reason to silence me and my team. We decided to follow up on the case of the skeleton ourselves.”

  He had the committee and the onlookers at his feet. They listened silently, rapt.

  “In the beginning,” he said, “we didn’t know the identity of the skeleton. But we heard from one of Miss Vatsana’s neighbors, one who had given us witness testimony earlier, that the young woman hadn’t been seen for several days. We immediately considered whether the skeleton discovered at the Anusawari Arch might be that of Miss Vatsana. We too believed that only an official vehicle would have been able to deposit the body during the curfew. But, whereas the chief inspector dismissed out of hand that a police automobile might have been involved, we included all government department vehicles in our inquiry.

  “At that time, I had in my department a Vietnamese pathologist who had trained in evidence collection in the Soviet Union.”

  “Convenient,” muttered Phosy.

  “I took him to the police vehicle compound and, on a hunch, I had him look at the vehicle used by Comrade Phosy the previous morning at the airport. It had been cleaned quite meticulously but in the trunk my expert found a tiny sliver of bone and a human hair. We collected those and a hair from the skeleton at the morgue and another from the shower recess at Miss Vatsana’s house, and with the use of microscopic analysis the expert proved beyond a doubt that they belonged to the same person.”

  “Is your Vietnamese expert here to give evidence?” asked the minister.

  “He is,” said the judge, pointing to the third row of the gallery where a nondescript, grey-haired man nodded drowsily. His official interpreter seated beside him translated Haeng’s words and the expert waved, which seemed an inappropriate gesture at such a gathering.

  “We will hear from him later should the need arise,” said Haeng. “I do have a copy of his detailed report here in File C.”

  Phosy was wondering whether the witnesses would ever be heard.

  “That brings us to why Comrade Phosy would wait until that night to leave the skeleton at the arch,” said the judge, “but as our esteemed committee will only convene for half-days, that question and its answer will have to wait until tomorrow.”

  He may have bowed respectfully to the gathering at that point and there may have been a ripple of applause from the onlookers. But Phosy stood and looked toward the minister who ignored him. The vice minister began to thank the committee and announce the time for the next day’s proceedings and the audience started to leave.

  “When do I speak?” Phosy shouted above the throng. His guards were already stepping forward to move him back to the cell. The vice minister ignored him too. Before the guards were on him, Phosy put two fingers in his mouth and shrilled out a whistle that could shatter glass. The room quieted.

  “When do I speak?” he said again.

  “You’ll have your chance when all the charges have been put on record,” said the vice minister.

  “Will I at least get a copy of today’s evidence?”

  The vice minister looked toward the judge who was already exiting through the far door. The minister had also left in a hurry to get his lunch.

  “I don’t have the authority to permit that,” said the vice minister.

  Then, to Phosy’s surprise, the chattier of the two generals took a step back into the room and said, “Give him access.”

  “I can’t . . .” the vice minister began.

  “I said give him a copy,” said the general. “This isn’t North Korea. He has a right.”

  There was no leeway for negotiation. The vice minister nodded and raised his eyebrows to one of Haeng’s assistants. The general gave Phosy a fleeting glance as he left the room. The two guards grabbed Phosy by the armpits and marched him out. It was perhaps just as well the court hadn’t given him time to speak because he didn’t know what the hell he could have said. “It’s all a lie” isn’t likely to sway a jury. The only truth of the hearing was that he had, in fact, driven to the airport on the morning of the 22nd. He’d gone in response to a memo from the ministry telling him to meet
his counterpart from Cambodia. The origin of that memo was now pretty damned obvious, and they would have trashed all the screwed-up messages from his litter basket long ago. His word against Haeng’s.

  His cell now had a straw mat and a bucket. He felt like he’d been upgraded to business class. But he didn’t mind concrete. It was good for his crooked disc. He lay down on the floor to rest his aches and woke up three hours later. The notes from the morning session and a Xerox of the evidence were wedged between the bars of his door. He doubted Judge Haeng had been consulted on that. The judge would have preferred Phosy to remain shackled and blindfolded. Phosy wondered whether the general could be an ally. He needed one.

  He sat on the mat and went through the documents. The supposed witness statements from the neighbors were all matter-of-fact, probably written by some clerk in Haeng’s office. They spoke of seeing Phosy riding his lilac Vespa to and from the house at Nong Tewada and of hearing the couple fighting often. There was no mention of how they had been able to identify Phosy. The Xeroxes of the photographs were confusing. They showed a young, pretty, dark-haired girl beside a casual-looking Phosy, sharing a secret? Telling a joke? Looking into each other’s eyes. He had no recollection of the meeting. But there was no end of weddings and birthdays at which to get drunk and laugh with strangers. In one of the photos there was someone to the other side of him cut off at the shoulder. He recognized the flab under the arm. It was his wife. They’d taken candid shots of him at some social event and cropped them to delete Nurse Dtui. Clever.

  The photos depressed him. He looked again at the pretty girl he’d only known as a skeleton. What had she done to deserve such cruelty? She’d been lied to and manipulated and thrown alive into a crate of wild animals. Her last memory of her life had been the horror of realizing it was soon to end. Nobody deserved such a fate. Nobody could forgive a man who would do such a thing.

  He ran his index finger over the image of Dtui’s arm. It hurt not knowing where she was, what discomfort and sadness she must be feeling. And where was their daughter? Haeng’s plan was working. Phosy had been isolated from his loved ones and his closest supporters. He had no way of knowing whether they were dead or alive. Haeng had purged the police Phosy trusted and replaced them with men who hated him. Siri, Daeng and Civilai were in camps from which many did not return. In a perverted way, he admired the judge for the thoroughness of his attack. Civilai had been right. It was a mistake to underestimate your enemies. Phosy had seen the little judge as nothing more than incompetent and corrupt. He’d never considered him capable of a master battle plan. Phosy was already defeated without firing a single shot in retaliation. Brilliant.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Skin Only

  On the second day of the tribunal there were two more surprises awaiting Phosy. Firstly, the sympathetic general was no longer on the committee. They said it was due to illness, but Phosy had a feeling Judge Haeng had objected to his being a thinker. He had been replaced by an elder-statesman type in a crumpled uniform, a man Phosy had once ridiculed. It was true that a man’s past sins eventually catch up with him.

  Secondly, he recognized men in the audience whom he’d spoken to during his inquiries about the judge. Sitting in a row behind Haeng’s table were the judge’s old Zil driver, the night watchman at the Zil parking lot, the guard Sihot had spoken to at the salt farm, and one Westerner who seemed very uncomfortable being in an exclusively Asian room. Phosy had never seen him before. But he had seen Comrade Vilai, the owner of the animal compound, who should have been securely locked away but now sat one row behind the committee grinning at Phosy.

  The vice minister stood and re-introduced everyone for the benefit of the transcript. He surprised Phosy by asking him if he had anything to say. Phosy stood.

  “There are no laws that I can refer to,” he began, “and, so far, we haven’t signed any international agreements on human rights, so I know the committee isn’t answerable for what’s happening here. But there are inalienable rights that every man and woman should be granted. I have not been allowed to answer my case. I have been deprived contact with my wife and child and medical care for the beating I received after my arrest. I am underfed and—”

  “Very well,” said the minister, “if all you can do is use your time to complain we should press on with the tribunal. We have a lot to get through.”

  Phosy sat and raised his hands to the heavens.

  “That’s correct,” said the vice minister. “Judge Haeng, could you continue with the charges?”

  The judge rose and took center stage with even more bounce in his step. “The next charge is that of false accusation and slander,” he said. “I have placed this item before that of a second murder charge because it allows us to see chronologically the events that transpired up to and including September first. It will also serve to demonstrate how the accused’s mind was working over that period. We have already shown his lust for power by illegally ousting his predecessor and stepping into the role himself. Almost immediately after his appointment he set up his first death squad on the Lao/Thai border to distribute his own version of justice. We shall be presenting that evidence at a later stage, but it does illustrate the temperament of a man who considers himself above the law. It also explains why he set out to falsify a case against the man who posed the greatest challenge to his aspirations—myself.”

  Phosy snorted and was met with sneers from the committee.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Mucous.”

  “Once Comrade Phosy attained the position of chief inspector he had access to certain confidential files,” continued the judge without missing a beat. “He learned about me and my team’s investigation into his activities. I should at this stage like to enter into evidence two cassette tape recordings. The first was made at my office a few weeks after his appointment as chief inspector. If I may I would like to play you a short extract.”

  One of the assistants pressed play on a recorder before realizing it wasn’t plugged in. The young woman hurried to the wall socket and righted her mistake. She pressed play once more and turned up the volume. The recording was surprisingly clear. Phosy heard the voice of the judge followed by his own voice:

  “I may remind you that I am a judge and the director of public prosecution, which means I am your superior.”

  “Yet I was recruited and promoted by the Ministry of Interior, which puts us on different tracks. You aren’t my boss, and if I have my way you won’t be anybody’s boss by the end of the week.”

  Phosy thought back to the day in his office when the judge admitted to his crime. He’d been carrying a copy of the manifesto, or at least a hollow version of it. They’d considered it another of the judge’s quirks but, in fact, the cunning little bastard had recorded the meeting, selected that one passage from the tape. That same tape had once contained enough of a confession that would have ended this farce once and for all.

  “Can we hear all of it?” he shouted.

  “Phosy, you’ve been warned about speaking out of turn,” said the vice minister.

  “The tape will be admitted as evidence,” said Haeng. “Everyone on the committee is welcome to listen to the entire recording.”

  “Yeah, I bet,” said Phosy to himself.

  The assistant took out the cassette and inserted another.

  “And just in case that first recording failed to make Comrade Phosy’s intentions perfectly clear,” said the judge, “I have a second tape recorded just two days ago.”

  He pressed play.

  “Haeng, you do realize that once I get out of here, the first thing I’ll do is cut off your feet and shove them down your throat?”

  “Hardly the words of a responsible police inspector,” said Haeng. He went once more to his table and took another file.

  “I have here Comrade Phosy’s report of my supposed involvement in the death of his lover, Miss Vatsana,” he sai
d. “As is his style, it is a slapdash, badly written account with no corroborating evidence whatsoever. It was a rather pathetic attempt to besmirch my name. It clearly shows how Comrade Phosy set about framing me for the murder of his whore lover. I have highlighted one or two points.”

  He read from the report:

  “Although I have yet to find witnesses to this effect, it is my belief that the judge used the excuse of going to the airport to meet a foreign expert in order to collect the body and hide it in the trunk of his vehicle.

  “You will notice the remarkable similarities between the accusations against me and the events that actually took place. I have to admit Comrade Phosy is a very clever man. But the cleverest men are the most dangerous. The report continues:

  “The judge removed the key from the Zil key ring so his driver would not discover the body. That night, the judge feigned drunkenness in order to hijack his own vehicle and take the skeleton to the Anusawari Arch.”

  “Why I should choose to put a skeleton in a public place is not explained although I am convinced he heard about my attendance at the Soviet compound and decided that would be a perfect opportunity to connect me to the skeleton. After this meaningless charade, I supposedly drove my limousine back to the Zil parking lot and presumably walked home three kilometers to my house without being seen.”

  The judge performed a staged face to face with each member of the committee and smiled at the audience.

  “Really?” he said. “Honorable gentlemen, you all know me and of my unerring devotion both to the Party and to the process of the law. I’m certain you would not expect me to dignify such a wishy-washy accusation with an argument. But, for my own peace of mind I should like to call on witnesses to describe my actions on the night of the twenty-second and twenty-third of August.”