The Merry Misogynist dsp-6

by Colin Cotterill

  He nodded at householders, deliberately stopping to chat and state his business. In a hamlet this size, that news would find its way around before the evening meal. After twenty minutes of casual, hands-in-pockets strolling, he'd already come to the edge of the village. There was nothing but a dirt trail leading off into the woods up ahead. He sat beside a urine green pond where a lanky crane stood on one leg, staring back at him. A toad stirred in the grass at his feet. He eased his foot under its belly and volleyed it out into the water.

  As all patient hunters learn, sitting quietly for long enough will invariably draw prey. Phan hadn't been at his post for more than ten minutes before he heard the voices of young children approaching along the dirt track. Through the reeds he could make out a dozen or so shirts of various degrees of whiteness. The children disappeared into the long shadow of the mountain, then re-emerged, laughing and frolicking into the last of the sunlight. And with them was the perfect woman. She held books: probably a young teacher returning from school with her flock. She was slim but had full breasts. Her buttocks were shapely enough to cause her phasin skirt to bunch a little below the belt. There was nothing worse than a woman with no arse. But her face, oh, her face was perfection, no sun damage or moles or acne scars or hairy sideburns. She would do very nicely. So soon after his last honeymoon but still he had no intention of letting up. He was insatiable.

  One of the children saw him sitting by himself by the pond and nudged her playmate. Soon, all eyes were on him, the young teacher's included. Strangers were a rarity, and well-groomed, presentable strangers might have dropped to earth from another planet. The children stopped and stared at him and were admonished by their teacher.

  "Some manners, children. This isn't the zoo," she said.

  She nodded an apology to the stranger and shepherded everyone along. She would look back, he knew. How she did so would tell him whether she was married or single. A married woman would be flush with the confidence that comes from having snared a husband and consumed him. Once penetrated, a woman became a slut, soiled, easy pickings. A wife's whoring nature would inspire her to turn back with a brazen, inviting smile.

  He waited. At the very last minute she turned. It was a brief, almost accidental look. Her face flushed crimson with embarrassment when she saw him looking back at her. She quickened her pace and was eaten up by the vegetation that bordered the track. But it was enough. She was his.

  Insatiable and irresistible.

  When Dr Siri arrived at Mahosot Hospital at 8:15 there was a dog asleep in his parking spot. It had to be his spot, today of all days. There was just the one place shaded by a bashful-desire tree for the hottest part of the day and he'd put his territorial marker on it in the shape of an unarmed claymore mine with his initials on it. There were twenty other empty spaces to sleep but the dog appeared to have the same criteria as the doctor. Siri beeped his horn. Nothing. He edged forward. No movement. He was considering whether to just drive on over the animal when the dog looked up. His eyes were hepatitis yellow with no visible irises.

  "Saloop?"

  When he was still alive, Saloop had been Siri's dog. Or perhaps it would be fairer to say that Siri had been Saloop's man. The dog had adopted Siri, saved his life once, and become a fixture in the yard of the bungalow at That Luang. Then one day he'd been murdered by the neighbour in cold blood — brained with a garden shovel.

  The doctor was surprised but not shocked to see him. He'd seen worse. He had an uncomfortable relationship with the spirit world. Through no fault of his own, Siri hosted the soul of Yeh Ming, a thousand-year-old Hmong shaman. It appeared the spirit had come to rest in him following negotiations with Siri's father. He'd been too little to remember anything about it. His father had not bothered to-stick around in Siri's childhood memories. For as long as he could remember, Siri had been visited in his dreams by the ghosts of departed patients. Over the past two years, those spirits had begun to slip out of his unconscious and haunt him in his waking hours. He didn't allow them to frighten him.

  Siri was certain that if he were more intelligent or a better detective, he'd be able to interpret what he was being shown. He often arrived at the eureka moment long after the fact, when the mysteries had been solved by more conventional, mundane methods. His forehead was permanently bruised and disfigured from his constant slapping at it when he realized what the spirits had been trying to tell him. Perhaps it was due to his inadequacies as a host that he had only confided his infirmity to three people: his lab nurse, Dtui; his best friend, Civilai; and his wife, Madame Daeng. They'd taken it quite well, considering. Inspector Phosy of the Central Intelligence Unit had arrived by means of a policeman's instinct at the conclusion that Siri wasn't all there. But he was not averse to a good ghost story either.

  Siri had learned to observe rationally. There were times when he braved nightmares like a confident swimmer, knowing he'd end up on the bank unscathed. There were malignant ghosts like the Phibob of the forest who hounded Yeh Ming's spirit. They constantly hummed around him like vindictive wasps, waiting for a moment of weakness when they could sting. Had it not been for a sacred amulet at his neck, Siri would certainly not have made it to his second marriage. But the vast majority of spirits were harmless.

  Siri sat on the saddle of his Triumph and shook his head as Saloop rose creakily on his dead legs. The scientist in Siri wondered what had happened to his inner cynic. He'd mocked his way through a temple education, raised a philosophical finger to the Virgin Mary while studying in Paris, and made fun of the shamans and fortune-tellers upon his return to Asia. Perhaps this was their revenge: bringing him eyeball to eyeball with a dead dog inquiring after his health.

  "How are you, boy?" he asked.

  Saloop had, not surprisingly, lost his big-smiling, waggy-tailed savoir faire since he'd passed away. He scratched halfheartedly and drooled green bile. He stepped across the loose bricks and into the vegetable garden, where he started to dig. Siri decided that a filmmaker might have had trouble representing the scene. Saloop was undoubtedly digging deep into the earth but the actual dirt wasn't moving. There was no hole, yet the dog was in it. He emerged with a bone in his mouth and took one step towards Siri.

  A bicycle bell sounded behind the doctor and he turned to see Dr Mut, the urologist, attempting to reach his parking spot. When Siri turned back, the dog, the bone, and the non-hole were gone.

  By the time Siri entered the morgue, Nurse Dtui and Mr Geung, the lab assistant, were already at work. Siri heard their voices in the cutting room so he threw his shoulder bag on his desk and went to join them. They were standing on either side of a body. He knew it must have arrived that morning while he was convening with the dog. He'd been there till eight the previous evening, and as it was an offence to die outside office hours in Vientiane, this body wouldn't have been allowed in the morgue until eight that morning. The tobacco leaves in which it had been wrapped were on the floor beneath the table.

  "Hello, my staff," Siri said with a smile.

  "G…goo…good morning, Comrade Doctor," said Geung. No matter how many times he'd attempted it, Geung had never once managed to get out the greeting in one breath. Down's syndrome was a bugger.

  "Mr Geung, what have you done with your hair?" Siri asked. "You look like a — "

  "Like Elvis?" Dtui interrupted. Already a well-rounded girl, she was now twice her normal size, swollen with her first child. She was a country lass, born in the troubled north-east, and she'd never crossed an ocean. But she had spent a good many years with her nose buried in Thai pop magazines so she knew the world — or at least the important parts of it. Siri was a movie buff so he knew of Elvis from Jailhouse Rock and G.I. Blues.

  "I was about to say a mountain goat," he confessed. "What have you done to him?"

  "It's a fra…a fra…What is it, Dtui?" Geung asked.

  "A fringe, babe," she reminded him. "It's our new look. I was getting sick of staring at his greasy centre parting, so we've had a bit of a makeove
r. I came in early and gave him a shampoo and a snip. I think he looks very handsome."

  "I…I'm gorgeous," Geung told Siri.

  "Irresistible. Let's just hope no female goats pass by the morgue," said Siri. "Right, who do we have here?" He took a step back and noted for the first time just how beautiful the naked corpse was. Although tastes differed, few would doubt that she had the proportions most girls dreamed of. She was around seventeen with perfect bone structure and very little excess fat. But there was something inexplicable about the condition of the body.

  "Name unknown," Dtui told him.

  "Who brought her in?" he asked.

  "A headman and local Central Committee man from Vang Vieng. They said the body was found yesterday morning. They seemed in a hurry to get her here. Drove overnight."

  "What were the circumstances?"

  "They wouldn't tell me. They looked a bit shell-shocked when I asked. The cadre gave me a sealed envelope for you. It's on your desk. Obviously something a lady shouldn't know."

  "I'll get ready and take a look at the note. Where are her clothes?"

  "This is the way she arrived. They wrapped her in tobacco leaves for the journey to keep the smell down."

  The warning signals sounded for Siri immediately. A naked girl found dead suggested a rape. That would be reason enough for men from the country not to discuss it with a young nurse. But after reading the note he understood there was another disturbing element to the death. A local hunter camped out in the woods had heard the sound of a truck late at night. At first light he'd gone to investigate and found the victim. She was tied to a tree with ribbon. She'd been seated with her arms and legs around the trunk. There was far more to this than merely an assault. When Siri returned to the cutting room, Dtui and Geung were wearing their aprons and masks. The temperamental air conditioner on the far wall grumbled. Siri handed Dtui the note. There were no secrets in the Mahosot morgue. He could see she was disturbed by what she read.

  "I don't think I'm looking forward to this," she confessed.

  But for her unplanned pregnancy by Inspector Phosy, Nurse Dtui would have been in the Eastern Bloc by now, studying to take over Siri's job. So, as was his habit, Siri called on her to make the initial appraisal of the body.

  "Would that it were mine," she began.

  Geung threw her oft-quoted words back to her. "Men like f-f-fat women," he said.

  "Can we get on with it?" Siri said impatiently, but he knew her remark had been made to disguise her discomfort.

  "Sorry, Doc."

  Siri pulled up a stool and sat with his arms folded. "All right. What do you see?" he asked.

  "She must have been found pretty soon after she was killed judging by the lack of insect or animal damage to the corpse." Dtui stepped up to the table and touched the victim's neck. "The cause of death was strangulation."

  "How can you tell?" Siri asked.

  "Bruising of the strap muscles." She prodded at the neck. "Probable fracture of the hyoid."

  "I agree," Siri nodded. "The perpetrator?"

  "Man. Big hands. The thumbprint's twice the size of mine."

  "Any defensive wounds?"

  "Not really. But look, she doesn't have much in the way of fingernails. They're trimmed down to nothing. If she tried to pull him off she wouldn't have left any scratches on her own neck. Don't see any other bruising apart from the big hand print on her neck."

  "I agree," said Mr Geung, sweeping the hair out of his eyes.

  Siri smiled. "Thank you, Dr Geung." Geung's laughter helped to lighten the darkening mood in the room.

  Dtui pulled back the girl's thick hair and inspected her scalp. "No head wounds, small mole just below her hairline above the ear." She worked her way down the body. "One of her fingers is broken," Dtui continued, "but there's no bruising so it looks like it happened post-mortem. She might have been damaged in transit." She leaned over the dark untrimmed mound of hair at the girl's pubis and put her hands together in apology before probing. "No outward signs of bleeding or bruising at the vagina, thank heaven."

  She walked to the bottom of the table and looked at the girl's feet. "This is the thing that gets me," she said. "Look at her pale skin. It's beautiful. No sun damage, no blemishes. It's so white, nearly opaque; it's almost as if she had a vitamin deficiency. She's like an advertisement for Camay soap. But then we come down to these creatures."

  The girl's feet and ankles were dark and rough. It was as if she were wearing grubby brown socks. The skin was sun rusted but her toenails were bleached almost pink and the soles of her feet were puckered and soft as tofu. Siri left his perch to take a look.

  "You're right," he said. "That is most odd."

  "Any idea what could have caused it?" Dtui asked.

  "Not a clue. See anything else?"

  "Well' — Dtui returned to the girl's hands — 'it isn't as spectacular as the feet but look at this."

  She lifted one of the girl's arms. The back of the hand was as pristine as the rest of her, but the palm was a mass of calluses and blisters. The skin was as tough as pomelo rind.

  "That's odd too," Siri agreed. "So far, this young lady is a compendium of contradictions. Do you see anything out of place when you compare the body with the cadre's report?"

  Dtui looked at the paper again but nothing leaped out at her.

  "No, I don't," she confessed.

  "The ribbon?" Siri prompted.

  "No, I…wait!" She lifted the hand one more time and was obviously annoyed with herself having missed it. "No welts on her wrists," she said.

  "And that tells us…?"

  "That she was tied up when she was unconscious, or after she'd lost the will to fight."

  "Or?"

  "Or he tied her up after he'd killed her."

  "I think it's time to see whether she has any deeper secrets to tell us."

  The autopsy proceeded as usual although Siri was loath to defile such a beautiful young lady with his scalpel. She had been in very good health. Siri envisioned a diet with little sugar or starch and a healthy supply of fruit. Photos of her lungs and liver might have graced a Department of Health THIS COULD BE YOU poster.

  Up to this point it had been a strangulation case, no less horrific for its simplicity but not a difficult diagnosis. Yet murders by strangulation were almost unheard of in Laos. The ability to kill a person with bare hands was rare. Many believed if a person was holding a body when the life drained from it, that person was likely to provide a conduit for the spirit of the corpse and be haunted for eternity. For that reason, few Lao were prepared to handle the dead. Siri and his team were extraordinary in many respects. To physically squeeze the life out of another human being, the killer would have to be a peculiar type of monster. Yet even this far into the autopsy, Siri had still to learn just how evil the girl's murderer was.

  They had suspected sexual assault of some kind but the absence of blood around the mons had made a closer inspection a lesser priority. They didn't have the facility to test for semen other than the senses of the eye and nose but Siri was obliged to take samples. It was obvious as soon as he began the examination of her vagina that the opening and surrounding flesh must have been thoroughly cleaned. He looked up at Dtui, who involuntarily took a step backward. There was evidence of severe trauma deep in the vaginal passage, evidence that the membrane of the hymen had been newly ruptured, and then -

  Siri heard a gasp emerge from his own lips. He looked up to see Dtui cover her mouth and run from the room. Mr Geung had held his ground but his eyes were full of tears. Both he and Siri stood looking in disbelief. Buried deep inside the girl was a black stone pestle. It must have been inserted while she was still alive. The silence in the morgue was broken by Geung, who was sobbing uncontrollably. "This is v…v…very bad."

  "Yes, Geung. It is very bad indeed."

  Siri's own emotions did not show in his light green eyes or in his voice. But inside himself he felt a terrible rage that wrung his stomach muscles. He immedia
tely promised himself that he would not leave the earth until the perpetrator of this heinous crime had been dealt with in equal measure. This death was not the result of an inevitable act of war; it was not the destruction of an enemy. It was the cruel and sadistic defilement of a beautiful young woman for reasons that a soldier or a nurse or a reluctant coroner could never begin to understand.

  When Dtui returned to the table her angry eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks damp. She had nothing to say. She put on an unsoiled mask and stepped up to the table. Siri had removed the pestle and placed it on a stainless steel tray.

  "We'll need to take a look at the stomach contents," Siri told her. "The girl must have been drugged in some way. There were no contusions or abrasions on the thighs or labia so I don't think she put up a fight. She was either unconscious or paralyzed and unable to resist. Given the nature of the crime, I'd — "

  Dtui threw the scalpel to the floor.

  "How can you be so calm?" she shouted at the top of her voice.

  Geung jumped with shock. Dtui rushed to Siri and pushed at his chest. "Feel something, why don't you? Stop looking at her as…" A sob caught in her throat. "As if she's meat."

  Tears overwhelmed her. Siri put his hand out to her but Geung stepped in between them and reached for his friend. She slapped at him but he fought his way inside her flailing arms, put his strong arms around her, and hugged her to him until she no longer had the will to fight. Together they rode out her sobs.

  2

  BO BEN NYANG

  Despite the heat, Saturday lunch was alfresco on a log beside the languid Mekhong. Comrade Civilai had brought baguettes he'd baked himself. Since his retirement, Civilai had spent much of his free time in the kitchen. As an ex-politburo member he'd been allowed to keep his ranch-style home in the old American compound at kilometre 6 and the gas oven it contained. Civilai had taken to baking like a pig takes to slops. His expanding waist size was testament to his experimentation in the kitchen. Whereas the populace often arrived at an empty market of a morning, there was no shortage of ingredients available for the senior Party members. Even Civilai's large bald head seemed to be putting on weight. He was the first to admit that his baguettes were modest compared to those of old Auntie Lah behind the mosque but he was getting there, and Siri was his official taster.