by Vaseem Khan
“And so you see, I thought that because of your position, you would have a justification to look through medical records… quietly.”
“But what would I be looking for so… quietly?”
“Well, if this woman were a murderer, then we’d need to think about poison. That would be the logical method.”
Ladarat nodded, then stopped to think about that. “It would?”
The detective nodded. “Poison is often a woman’s method. It is a known fact.”
Ladarat wasn’t so sure about that. That was a rather sexist thing to say, wasn’t it? But presumably Khun Wiriya knew what he was talking about. Still, shouldn’t she question everything? That’s what a real detective would do. So she wrote very carefully: “Woman = Poison?” And underlined the question mark.
“So,” Wiriya continued, “we need to look for evidence of poison. Blood tests, and… so forth.”
Ladarat was intensely curious about what the “and so forth” consisted of. Yet she began to see what the detective had in mind. “So you want me to see if there were any lab tests that were ordered.”
Wiriya nodded, relieved.
Then Ladarat had another thought. “But if this was only last night, it might still be possible to run new tests on a blood sample.” She’d heard of the coroner’s office doing such things for suspicious deaths.
“Well, it’s not so simple, unfortunately. The body has been taken for cremation already.”
“Already? But he only died last night. And wouldn’t she need a marriage certificate to be able to obtain the body?”
Ladarat knew that the marriage certificate would be essential in order for this woman to claim the body and receive a death certificate. She’d been involved in a terrible situation last year when a woman wanted to bring her husband’s body back to Vietnam to be buried at their home near My Tho. But the poor woman didn’t have a marriage certificate, so she couldn’t prove that they were married. Eventually the hospital monks had to intervene.
Now Wiriya looked grim. He smacked his solid hand down on the desk in front of him and looked at her with a new respect.
“I knew I was missing something. I knew something was wrong. She had the marriage certificate with her last night.” He paused. “You see?”
She didn’t. But then she did. Very clearly.
If your husband died suddenly, would you have the presence of mind to find your marriage certificate and take it with you? You would not. You would panic. You would call your family. You would do any one of a number of logical and illogical things. But you would not think to take your marriage certificate to the hospital with your newly deceased husband.
“So that means that the hospital has a copy,” she pointed out. “We’d need to keep a copy of the marriage certificate for our records.”
Wiriya was nodding enthusiastically now. “So at least we’ll be able to get her name. That’s good. That’s very good.” He smacked his palm on the desk again, for emphasis, but more gently this time. And he was smiling.
“Well,” he said finally. “This is progress. Perhaps it will be nothing, but maybe…”
He left the sentence unfinished, but Ladarat knew what he was thinking. Maybe, just maybe, they were on the trail of a murderer. They knew that she was out there somewhere, but she didn’t know that she was being pursued. That thought gave Ladarat energy and a sense of excitement she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
Being an ethicist was important work, of course. And satisfying. But it wasn’t… exciting.
“So you’ll do it?”
Ladarat started to say that of course she’d do it. But she hesitated. She was the ethicist, after all. And here she was offering to look through a patient’s records. Was that… ethical? She thought so, but…
“Yes, I’ll do it.”
“Good. And in the meantime, I will ask around… quietly. Perhaps there have been other suspicious deaths…”
They stood up to say their good-byes, and she thought Wiriya might have lingered just a little longer in her door than was absolutely necessary. But if she had to be completely honest with herself, she didn’t mind. She wasn’t sure whether that was because he was such good company, or whether it was simply the excitement of the investigation. Whatever the reason, she found that she was a little sad to see the door of her little office close behind him.
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Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
A TRIP TO SEE A DIAMOND
POPPY’S BAR & RESTAURANT
ARTHUR ROAD JAIL
IRFAN MAKES A DELIVERY
THE SCENE OF THE CRIME
THE RAREST PIGEON IN THE WORLD
THE MISSING HEAD
A DISCONSOLATE ELEPHANT
GAREWAL HITS THE HEADLINES
A RETURN VISIT TO THE JAIL
THE DIVINE SOUL EMPORIUM
THE GRAND TRUNK CIRCUS
TWO STRANGERS IN THE RESTAURANT
A SLEEPLESS NIGHT FOR POPPY AND CHOPRA
INSPECTOR CHOPRA PERFORMS THE HIGH WIRE ACT
SEARCHING FOR IRFAN
LEOPOLD CAFÉ
THE CULPRITS ARE UNMASKED
THE ELEPHANT CATCHER
THE KING’S RANSOM
THE SLUM AT THE END OF THE WORLD
THE BBC REVEALED
THE GREAT ESCAPE
A SHOWDOWN IN MUMBAI HARBOUR
A CELEBRATION AT POPPY’S
BULBUL KANODIA COMES CLEAN
A PRIVATE AUDIENCE FOR GANESHA
GLOSSARY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BY VASEEM KHAN
A PREVIEW OF MURDER AT THE HOUSE OF ROOSTER HAPPINESS
NEWSLETTERS
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2016 by Vaseem Khan
Excerpt from Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness copyright © 2016 by David Casarett
Cover design by Anna Woodbine
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: August 2016
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ISBN 978-0-316-38683-8
E3-20160630-JV-PC
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