Colin Cotterill - The Coroner's lunch

“I’m sleeping. What time is it?”

“Three. I just got back.”

She sighed again, this time with pleasure. “Go away.”

Siri lay back spellbound, like an audience listening to a radio melodrama.

“Nah, don’t be like that. I’ve got something for you.”

Siri heard her pull back the net and pad barefoot across the floor toward the door. “Does it have four wheels?” she giggled.

“Better than that. Don’t be cruel. Let me in. I’m dying for you.”

“What could be better than a car?”

“Didn’t you ask me to bring you something from Viengsai?”

She squealed. “Rubies? You didn’t! Did you bring me rubies?”

There was the sound of a latch hurriedly shifting. As the door opened, a dim light bathed her. She stood naked in the doorway, magnificently unashamed. The suitor remained hidden in the hall. She giggled again and reached out to him. But the strong left hand of a man grasped her wrist and yanked her outside. The door closed behind her, and darkness returned.

Siri, still breathing heavily, still shaking, scrambled from his bed and hurried to the door. He could hear the muffled sound of a woman choking beyond it. He found the handle and pulled it, but the door wouldn’t open. It was held fast by a large steel padlock.

At six, Siri woke confused. He lay still for some time before a crustiness at his groin brought all the memories of the night back to him. Slightly ashamed, he went down to the bathroom and sluiced himself with cool water. It was fifty-six years since such a thing had last happened to him, and he didn’t feel any less guilty this time.

“Good morning, Siri.” Professor Mon was the director of the Lycee Vientiane. He was also Teacher Oum’s father. He was standing uneasily in the vestibule. He didn’t want to go into the morgue examination room, so Siri came out to meet him.

“Mon, how are you doing?” They shook hands.

“Fairly well, I suppose. I have a letter here addressed to you and Oum.” He handed a grey envelope to Siri. The stamp was from the U.S.S.R. “I think it’s about the chemicals you asked for.”

“It’s unopened.”

“There’s no one to open it.”

“Oum?”

“You obviously haven’t heard. They picked her up just after you left. They took her for re-education up in Viengsai.”

“Teacher Oum? What the hell for?”

“They said she’d picked up some radical ideas in Australia. They said her attitude was detrimental to the struggle against individualist thinking.”

“That’s ridiculous. What about the baby?”

“Her mother and I.”

“Look, Mon. This is absurd. I’ll talk to some people. I mean, she’s virtually my assistant. She’s the only chemist I’ve got access to. I’m sure for that reason alone….”

“If you could. We are quite anxious.”

“Don’t worry, friend. We’ll get her back.”

When Mon had left, Siri stood in the vestibule fitting one more piece into his scenario jigsaw. Not a coincidence, this. Not at all. It was so frustrating not being able to contact Nguyen Hong.

An unfortunate old gentleman chose that morning to pass away in the hospital operating room, and was sent to the morgue for an immediate autopsy. Siri was asked to confirm that there’d been no malpractice. It was ten, and he had to meet Civilai at twelve. He didn’t like to leave a job in the middle, but this job was going to take a long time. So they made preliminary notes and put the body in the freezer until after lunch. Suk, the director, was furious, but Siri didn’t care much.

He was seated on the log by the river some ten minutes before Civilai arrived.

“Where’s our other member?” Civilai asked.

“I think he must have drowned the other day.”

“Or the fascists got him. I bet they can’t make him talk. Can you believe those Thai tin soldiers? They take over the country by force, then issue a statement that we’re an unlawful governing power. What balls they have!”

“What have you got for me?”

“Oh, sit down, Civilai. Relax. How are you, Civilai ?” his brother prompted.

“Civilai.”

“All right. I suppose your life is in danger,” Civilai conceded. “You’d be proud of me. I’ve been a good spy. But I’ve had to share this with a few people to get the information.”

“That’s not a problem. I think it’s time to share what we’ve got with everyone you trust. The more people who know…”

“…the less likely you are to get your brain splattered all over your front door.”

“They’ve sent Teacher Oum to Viengsai.”

“The chemist girl? H’mm.”

“Somebody’s covering up.”

“I’ll see if I can find out who gave that order.”

Siri pulled four sheets of paper from his pocket and unfolded them. Neither man had thought about eating his lunch. “I’ve been putting all the bits and pieces together. I’ve come up with a hypothesis.”

Civilai looked at the untidy notes. “Brother, I’d have to be an Egyptologist to understand that garbled mess. Let’s start off with what I’ve found out and see how it fits your theory.

“The Vietnamese delegation was here at the invitation of the Security Section chief. They were coming to identify a suspected traitor. It was all supposed to be very hush-hush. One of your Vietnamese had been involved in a covert operation in the south. There was an ambush and all the Vietnamese were killed, except for him. He’d been shot up pretty badly and everyone assumed he was dead.”

“That’s Hok, the last fellow we found at the dam. He had a hole in him as wide as the Pha Ban cave.”

“Well, he must have done a very good job of playing possum, because when the Hmong commanders came down to inspect the damage, they had no idea he could see them. According to your Hok, there was an elderly man there in plain clothes, acting as a sort of adviser. But Hok had seen him once, about two weeks before, in an LPRA uniform.”

“Hok had a hell of a wound. How sure could he have been that it was the same man?”

“He was positive. He’d seen him around at the Operations Headquarters up at the border. They’d spoken a couple of times. He was there the day they planned the mission that turned into a disaster. The VC found the aftermath of that massacre, and Hok, who was barely alive. They flew him back to Hanoi.

“As soon as he recovered enough to be angry, he was telling everyone about the adviser. He must have convinced people in high places, because they took our ambassador to see him. He contacted us, and we invited Hok to come over and help us identify the man.”

“Couldn’t they just send pictures?”

“What pictures? The regimental yearbook? How many pictures have you had taken over the last twenty years, Siri?Anti-government rebels don’t pose in uniform as evidence for possible treason hearings.”

“All right, all right. So, as soon as Hok was well enough to travel, they sent him here.”

“With a Vietnamese colonel and a driver. They had top-level clearance.”

“Well, that makes it even less likely we’d torture them, doesn’t it?”

“Not necessarily. A Lao officer advising the Hmong! That doesn’t look good for us. The Vietnamese were already suspicious before this happened. And there was all the secrecy on this side. Not many knew about it, only the Security Section, a few top Party people, not including me, the prime minister, the president. The idea was not to alert the guy we were on to him.”

“So, he’s still out there somewhere, and now there’s no one to identify him. Did we get any information at all?”

“His rank. He was a major.”

“Can’t we find out which of our majors were hanging around at the Operations Center when Hok was there?”