Colin Cotterill - The Coroner's lunch

Just as Dtui and Geung were leaving for the hospital gardens to do their hour of vegetable tending, the clerk from the director’s office came rushing in to tell them that Comrade Kham would be arriving at Wattay Airport at six and they were to wait. Siri told his co-workers he’d stay behind himself and that they should go.

He sat at his desk looking through Dtui’s notes. She wrote so small, he considered using the microscope to read them. Instead, he spent the next hour pumping his reading spectacles back and forth in front of his eyes trying to focus on the words. This ultimately gave him a headache and he ended up writing the second half of his report from memory.

It was nine before Senior Comrade Kham turned up, and there was whisky on his breath. His mouth was the only indication of sadness on his face, and it seemed to Siri he was straining to keep a smile inverted.

“I’m so sorry about your loss, Comrade.”

“Where is she?”

“In the freezer.” Siri stood and gestured for the man to follow him to the examination room.

“Where are you going?”

“I thought you’d want to see the body.”

“Heavens no. She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Absolutely.”

Kham walked past him and sat at Siri’s desk, which forced Siri to sit at Dtui’s. The Party man thumbed idly through the papers in front of him. “Have you…er, cut her open?”

“Mm-hm.”

“I’m sorry. You could have made better use of your time. I know what it was that killed her.”

“You do? Well, thank God for that. I have no idea.”

“I’ve been warning the silly woman for years it’d kill her. But I suppose if you’re addicted, you don’t listen to common sense, eh, Siri?”

“What exactly was she addicted to?” He hadn’t found any puncture marks on her arms and her liver was pretty as a picture.

“ Lahp .”

“ Lahp ? Damn.” It should have been so obvious, it was embarrassing. As a doctor in the jungle, he’d seen countless deaths as a result of lahp or pa daek or any of a number of other raw meat or fish concoctions the farmers ate with reckless abandon.

Raw flesh works as a healthful meal only if it’s fresh. Bacteria get into it very fast, and the parasites work their way around the body. If you’re lucky you may just end up with abscesses, cramps, and chronic diarrhea for the rest of your life.

But there is a strain of more adventurous parasite that lays eggs in the anterior chamber of the eye. From there it either migrates through the retina, or burrows its way into the brain. One minute you’re feeling fine and showing no symptoms; the next, you’re on a table at the morgue. Siri noticed the comrade was still talking.

“…eating pork lahp since she was a girl. Loved the stuff. It gave her no end of trouble with her guts, but she swore the body eventually built up an immunity to the germs. I detest the stuff, but she couldn’t get enough. All our friends could tell you.

“I stopped off at the police department on my way here and told them all about it. There won’t be anyone filing an unnatural death certificate for this case.”

Siri was still shaking his head. “It was silly of me not to think of it. I didn’t imagine a woman like Mrs. Nitnoy eating raw pork.”

“Why not? She was just a country girl. You could dress her up but you’d never get the stink of buffalo out of her skin.” Siri couldn’t really understand why Kham was talking about his wife like this. In generosity he put it down to shock.

“Well, in that case, I’ll just do one or two last checks, finish the report, and-”

“Oh, I think you can probably finish the report without disturbing her again. We want to get her cremated as soon as possible. Her family and friends are anxious to give her the last rites. They’re waiting for her at the temple.”

“But I need to…”

“Siri, my old friend.” Kham stood and came over to sit on Dtui’s desk, looking down at the doctor. “As a medical man, you’re a scientist. But even a man of science needs to show sensitivity to culture and religion. Don’t you see?”

This was good, coming from a member of the committee that had removed Buddhism as a state religion and banned the giving of alms to monks.

“I-”

“She’s suffered enough indignities for one day. Let her rest in peace, eh?”

“Comrade Kham, I didn’t write the law. I can’t issue a death certificate until I’ve confirmed it was parasites that finished her off.”

Kham stood and smiled warmly. “I understand that. Of course I do. What kind of a politburo member would I be if I attempted to ignore the regulations?” He walked to the doorway and stood in the frame. “That’s why I’ve decided to have her own surgeon sign the certificate.”

“What?”

“I’m so sorry you were troubled today, Comrade Siri. But as there is no suggestion of foul play, there really was no need for an autopsy. I must say, for a man who hates his job so much, you do it quite meticulously. I’m very impressed.”

He walked out and left Siri sitting alone at Dtui’s desk turning things over in his mind. Kham had known there was to be an autopsy. He’d given the go-ahead over the phone. Now he was saying there was no need. Siri had wasted three hours looking for a cause of death. That time could have been cut in half if he’d known what he was looking for.

He gazed over at his own desk. There was something out of place there. But before he could organize that thought, he was disturbed by a commotion outside. He took one more quick look at his desk before walking out to see what was happening.

He encountered a group of men who were wheeling a hospital trolley that carried a basic but oversized wooden coffin. Kham walked behind them in the shadows.

“You’re taking her right this minute?”

The men pushed the coffin past him and into the examination room. Kham followed as far as the alcove. It was dark there.

“The family are all waiting.”

Siri looked at the tall man and was overwhelmingly conscious of a dark image some three meters behind him. For some unknown reason it filled him with dread. It wasn’t clear, and there wasn’t enough light to distinguish features, but its shape reminded him exactly-exactly of Mrs. Nitnoy.

He recalled the longboat man he’d seen in the semiconsciousness of morning. That had been frightening enough. But then he had had sleep as an excuse. Here he was wide awake. This was no dream. He was seeing the outline of a woman who lay dead in the freezer in the far room. She was standing, shaking. She tensed. She readied herself and charged at the comrade’s back with all the ferocity of a bull intent on goring him.

She ran at him with her full force, and if she’d been real she would certainly have knocked him off his feet. For a brief second the light from the examination room caught her face. Siri had no doubt it was her, nor did he doubt her look of pure hate. But when her body met her husband’s, she vanished.

Comrade Kham shuddered.

“How do you stand this building? The drafts give me goose bumps.” He turned to the space behind him at which Siri was still staring. “That the freezer in there?”

Siri’s old heart was galloping. He couldn’t speak. The best he could manage was to stumble past Kham into the examination room where the pallbearers were waiting patiently. He went to the freezer and with an unsteady hand pulled down the lever that unfastened the door. It opened slowly.

She was still there, still just as dead as she’d been at lunchtime. Siri hadn’t really believed he’d find her there. He reached into the freezer and trembled as he pulled back the pale blue sheet that covered the head. The face lay slack across the skull. It didn’t wink or give any signs it had been out haunting.