Colin Cotterill - Curse of the Pogo Stick

As she certainly wasn’t in Xiang Khouang during that period and as she had very good reason not to go near the Bureau de Poste, the Lizard had to have intercepted the parcel in the mail room on the day she planned to blow up the coroner. As his name was marked on the package as sender, she had to know the doctor wouldn’t be there. She probably took the parcel hoping she’d be able to do some more damage with it. She had carefully removed the wrapping and interfered with the contents. At the Lycйe Vientiane, Teacher Oum was currently experimenting with Dr. Siri’s famous color tests to determine what poison was used. She’d told them she’d get back to them in the morning.

The clerk had no recollection of the parcel either disappearing or reappearing, although she remembered penciling in the morgue building number when it first arrived. She admitted she had spent most of her day out of the office but as the Lizard’s photograph had been posted all around the hospital, it would have to be assumed the woman had used an accomplice to return Dr. Siri’s package to the unattended parcels pile.

Phosy, Dtui, Madame Daeng, and Civilai sat in silence around the slightly warped table. Although there was nothing more they could have done, they all, unreasonably felt responsible for the auditors’ deaths. Mr. Geung was taking it worse than any of the others and hadn’t spoken since the bodies were discovered. They knew they should have been more careful. They should have warned the clerk to look out for strange packages. But a parcel from Dr. Siri himself? How could any of them have suspected…?

“So, to sum up,” Civilai said, “we’re no better off than we were last meeting and we’re two auditors short. We don’t know anything new apart from the fact that the Lizard may or may not have an accomplice-more than likely an entire underground cell.”

“And we have no better idea of how we can find her,” Dtui added, just to make them even more dispirited. For a while, the only sound in the small noodle shop came from the ceiling lizards slurping up parked moths and the ice in the bucket shifting as it melted. They all jumped and their hearts skipped a beat when a woman’s loud voice burst upon their meditation.

“Excuse me!”

The metal shop-front shutters pulled together like a huge concertina but tonight they were open a foot to let in some air. A well-dressed woman in a traditional Lao costume was peering in through the gap. One of the armed policemen had accompanied her to the door. They all laughed to mask their embarrassment. What kind of investigation team were they to be frightened to death by an old lady?

“Sorry, love,” Daeng shouted. “We’re closed.”

“Er, at the hospital they told me I might be able to find Nurse Dtui here,” the woman’s large voice belted forth.

Although this was certainly not the Lizard, there was a pervading atmosphere of nervous tension among the group. Any stranger presented a potential threat.

“Who shall I say is looking for her?” Phosy asked.

“She doesn’t know me,” the woman yelled, “but my name’s Bounlan. My cousin’s just getting over hepatitis at Mahosot.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Thank you. It’s just… well, I saw the poster there in the ward.”

“Have you seen her? The woman?” Phosy stood and walked over to the door. The visitor was in her sixties and wearing too much makeup. He wondered whether she was a traditional singer on her way to work.

“No,” she said. “Well, not recently anyway.” She lowered her voice at last. “But I know who she is.”

It was normal for Hmong men to take their meal around the main hearth and the women to eat together at a smaller grate. But here in the main house, Siri, the seven women he’d flashed at earlier, and one man of about Siri’s own age sat together in one friendly circle cross-legged on a straw mat. The pigs had been banished to the yard but a white dog paraded around the perimeter of the circle and was rewarded with tidbits. The animal wouldn’t have been so lucky at any other village Siri had been to. Everyone in the house had plugs of folded mint leaves protruding from their nostrils. The body of the old lady continued to hang from the main pillar. Before the meal the girls had treated her with some sweet ointment that had temporarily hidden the stink, but it wasn’t long before the rotting organs overpowered the scent and all the guests were forced to plug their noses.

Siri had more questions than a new history examination paper but it was impolite to jump straight into them before the time was right. He hoped that moment would come soon because curiosity was killing him. The old man opposite was presumably the village elder. The concept of headman and leader and supervisor and such had been imposed on the hill tribes by the colonists. Left to their own devices, each household and family group would look after itself without need of a figurehead. The host had a face as leathery as a monkey’s palm, spiky white hair, and a wispy mustache. He moved with difficulty, a condition Siri assessed to be due to some form of lumbago. But there was nothing wrong with his humor, and when the women had led Siri down to the house, he’d gushed over the old doctor as if the two celestial brothers had floated down on their cloud for tea. But there had been no actual conversation.

Siri had been given a cup of some herbal concoction and the old man and the seven women had set about preparing the feast. The sun was rolling over a far hill when it was finally time to eat. They lit several more candles around the corpse and set two oil lamps as the centerpieces for their dinner. Since they’d met, they’d all referred to Siri by the name of his resident spirit, Yeh Ming.

“Yeh Ming,” the old man said. “We are honored to have you here at our meal. Eat as much as you are able. We have rice whisky to make you as drunk as you could ever hope to be. We have more food than you could eat in two more lifetimes. And, as you see, we have many beautiful girls who…”

Siri interrupted him before he could say anything embarrassing.

“Can I have your name, brother?”

“I am Long,” said the elder.

He then pointed his finger at each lady in turn around the mat. The youngest was Yer. Ber was round and jolly and reminded Siri of Dtui. Bao was by far the prettiest. Chia was perhaps the oldest and had a wicked leer that Siri endeavored to avoid. Phia was a smaller version of Ber but just as round. Dia was rather manly and Nhia seemed to belong exclusively to Elder Long. She leaned against him as he ate and topped up his bowl long before it was empty. Yer, Ber, Bao, Chia, Phia, Dia, and Nhia: Siri hadn’t a chance in hell of remembering them all.

“Where are the other villagers?” Siri asked.

“What you see is what there is,” Long told him.

“The men? The children?”

“All gone.”

All this was said good-naturedly as if there were nothing mournful in their departure. It left Siri uncertain as to their fate.

“Even my dear wife, Zhong, has gone,” Long smiled, pointing to the central pillar.

“When did she pass away?”

“Just two days ago.”

“Is it normal to hang her there like that?”

“It’s not unknown,” Long told him. “If we had more space we might have laid her on a platform. But as we all sleep here together in the one house now it seemed more practical to hang her up. She always said she wanted to be close to the central beam when she went. As you know, Yeh Ming, the floor is the earth, the rafters represent heaven, so the pillar is the journey the ancestors take from life to death. This gives her a leg up, so to speak. We’ll bury her tomorrow.”