Colin Cotterill - The Coroner's lunch

The findings for Hok were similar to those of the second Tran, but for two major discrepancies. Although there were signs of shock, there was also a huge wound, apparently from a gun fired at close range. It entered his chest a few centimeters from his heart, and exited by the shoulderblade. Nguyen shook his head.

“This really makes no sense. This wound alone should have killed him.”

“You don’t think it did?”

“Well, it couldn’t have. Look.”

Siri leaned over the wound and saw what had confused his colleague. The point of entry was still open and angry. But there were clear indications of scabbing around the exit wound. There was no doubt that Hok’s bullet wound was an old one, one that was still healing when he died.

“What’s he doing running around with delegations with a big hole in his chest? He should have been recuperating somewhere.”

“Question one,” said Siri. “And then there’s question two. Explain this to me.” He held up the rubber-coated electric wire that he’d just unwound from Hok’s ankle. “It just gets more and more weird.”

“You mean, if they had this stuff, why didn’t they use it to tie down all three?”

“There’s enough on this fellow for a whole regiment. Do you suppose it all means something?”

“That we’re being left clues?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then, no offense, but I fear they’ve badly overestimated us. I don’t have any idea what it all means. Do you?”

“Not yet. But I will. When we’re finished here, I think we should go have another chat with Mr. Dun.”

Dun was sitting happily on the veranda of his packing-case bungalow, smoking and drinking his earnings. The thought of offering the doctors anything didn’t enter his mind.

“It was a bomb.”

“What kind of bomb?”

“The type the shithead Americans used to blow us all to nirvana and back. There was three of ’em down there, half-buried in the muck. They had writing on ’em.”

“Do you know what language it was?”

Dun laughed at the idea that he might have ever been blessed with the ability to read. “No. But I tell you what. There was a Chinese flag on one of ’em.”

“It isn’t my job, I tell you. I don’t have to do this. I’m putting in an official complaint to the embassy. This won’t be the end of it.”

Siri wondered whether there’d be an end to the complaining. The Vietnamese driver hadn’t stopped since they left Nam Ngum. Siri had to put up with the brunt of it because he was sitting beside him in the front of the limousine. “It isn’t…natural.”

“I know. Watch that bicycle, will you?”

The trunk of the car might just have been large enough, had it not been for the spare tire and the eight liter cans of petrol. The armed guard had positively refused to have him on the motorcycle pillion. So there really had been no choice.

Mr. Hok, wrapped tightly in canvas but still dripping, leaned stiffly against the back seat beside Dr. Nguyen. Even with the air conditioner full on, the smell was quite overpowering. The driver had half a roll of toilet paper stuffed up his nostrils. Siri turned to Nguyen Hong.

“Do you speak French?”

“Some. It’s a bit rusty.”

“Driver, do you?”

“Ha. Where do you think I would have earned the privilege of a French education? I’m a pauper. I’m a man of the earth. The soul of the new regime.”

“Good.” Siri switched to French. “Any theories yet, doctor?”

“Hundreds, but not a one that makes any sense. You?”

“Let’s try this. Tran and Hok were here on a mission that was so urgent Hok didn’t even wait for his bullet wound to heal. Let’s assume it was something damaging to us, and we picked up the delegation before it could reach its destination. They were brought out here to the islands with all the other criminals, tortured until they talked, then dumped in the lake and weighted down with old Chinese ordnance.

“But our people wanted your people to know we’d caught them, so they used dissolving string. They knew we’d then go looking for the third man and discover the Chinese shell casing which, given the chilly relationship between you folks and Beijing, would only serve to rile you even more. How’s that?”

“Sounds like a perfect incentive for an international incident. Probably enough to make us break off relations,” Dr. Nguyen opined.

“It’s exactly the kind of thing our respective hot-headed politburos would latch on to.”

“You don’t sound very convinced.”

“I just feel, I don’t know…I feel that if something’s so clear-cut that I can work it out, there obviously wasn’t that much effort spent on trying to cover it up. Maybe they didn’t expect us to figure out this much. If it had been left up to the police, they’d have put in a report that would have gone straight to the committee. If it hadn’t been for the news getting to your embassy, the Vietnamese wouldn’t have heard anything about the incident. It would have been covered up and denied.

“It was either an amazing coincidence that someone identified the tattoos, or it was set up step by step. There just happened to be a military person on hand who just happened to recognize the tattoos? I can’t believe our side would go to so much trouble to break off ties with Vietnam.”

“What do you think we should do?” Dr. Nguyen asked.

“Look, I have to go south for a couple of days. Do you think you could stretch out your official autopsy till I get back?”

“I don’t write very fast.”

“Good. I’d feel better if we didn’t start another war until we knew exactly what was happening,” Siri said.

“I agree.”

They took Hok directly to the morgue, where Siri introduced him and Nguyen Hong to the team. He explained that while he was away in the south, Dr. Hong would be doing tests on Hok and using the office. As Nguyen Hong didn’t speak Lao, and apparently Dtui and Geung didn’t speak anything else, it wasn’t likely to be a chatty few days. But Siri had a feeling they’d all get along nicely.

With the unknowing assistance of Mr. Ketkaew, they put together a bamboo platform on short legs from what was left over from the khon khouay office construction materials. By placing it carefully around Tran, they were able to slide Hok into the freezer above him as if he were lying on a very shallow bunk bed.

Siri went to clear a space at his desk for Nguyen Hong and found a large sealed envelope with his name on it propped up against the plastic-skull pencil holder. He assumed it was from Haeng, so he decided not to open it. Now that he was enjoying his work, he didn’t really want to be sacked. What he’d said to the judge was all bluff.

But after the Vietnamese doctor left, and Dtui and Geung were out tending their hospital papaya and mango trees, he could put it off no longer. He sat and slit open the plain brown envelope. Inside was a typed note, and it was indeed from the Justice Department. He wondered whether the committee would let him retire peacefully or if he’d be punished again.

He looked down at the signature and was pleased to see the name of Manivone the clerk. She explained that Siri had a seat on the early flight to Khamuan from Wattay Airport at six the following morning. The words “if convenient” were added, probably at Haeng’s insistence, as a postscript. He would be met in Khamuan by a Captain Kumsing. Fishing in the envelope, Siri found his travel papers and three thousand kip in large notes.

A satisfied smile spread across his face like lard on a hot wok. He stood at his desk and did a little jig around the chair.

“What’s her name, then?”

Siri looked up to see Inspector Phosy leaning against the doorframe grinning.