Colin Cotterill - Anarchy and the Old Dogs

“No luck?”

“The fellow there looked at the envelope and the postmark and told me, quite logically, that it could have been brought in by anyone. Some two hundred people a day come in with letters. They pay their money, get their stamps, he cancels them, and throws the letters into a big sack. The sorter goes through them, puts them in smaller sacks, and puts them on the bus.”

“Didn’t he recall a customer who came in every fortnight with a letter to Vientiane?”

“Siri, there wasn’t even a surname on it. It was a letter to a PO box. What could possibly jog his memory? I prodded him so hard he lost his temper with me and threatened to call the police.”

“Huh, no danger there. But I’m glad you’ve built up a good relationship with the mail service.”

“Siri, I-”

Daeng interrupted them with two more bowls of noodles. The old warriors were as stuffed as steamed rice sausages but these dishes exuded a scent so erotic it would have seduced a palace eunuch. Daeng winked and they dipped their spoons into the broth. A whole new taste, a whole new love affair.

After several minutes of blissful slurping, Siri managed a sentence. “Show me the envelope,” he said.

Civilai handed over the letter and watched as his friend studied it.

“I know. You’re going to dust it and fingerprint everyone in the province.”

“No, genius. And don’t mock. I’m having a remarkably successful run with my Inspector Maigret franchise. What mon copain would do is narrow things down by trying to find out where one could obtain an envelope such as this.” He turned it over and noticed something for the first time. “Well now look at this, older brother.”

“What?”

“In the corner here. It looks like a little cross in pencil. Someone’s apparently tried to rub it out but they didn’t erase it completely. What do you suppose this means?”

“In the West it’s the symbol for a kiss. I don’t suppose the Devil’s Vagina might have been secretly flirting with the dentist’s wife? An affair behind his back?”

“Mйnage а trois d’espionnage? More likely, the shop that sells them uses the cross when they’re counting them out, marking every ten or so. What do you think?”

“I think you’re clutching at straws.”

“But it isn’t impossible.”

“It once rained tadpoles in Luang Prabang.”

“All right. So that gives us one more lead to pursue. There can’t be that many places selling envelopes in Pakse. Then there’s the Devil’s Vagina himself.”

“Or herself.”

“Exactly. It is rather ambiguous. I think it’s worth asking around. See if the name elicits any reaction.”

“Reaction other than taunts and ridicule?”

“Your reticence suggests you’d prefer me to handle the vaginal probing.”

“Not at all. I’ll have a stab at it. You can do the envelopes.”

“We can get Daeng on to it, too.”

“Siri, I don’t think…” But Siri had already called over his old comrade, leaving Civilai shaking his head and mouthing some unheard warning. Daeng sat with them, wiping her hands with a cloth.

“You two aren’t leaving here until every last spoonful of that is inside you,” she said.

“Fear not,” Siri told her. He took her hand. “We will have completely licked the pattern from the bowls by the time we exit. But, in the meantime, we have a little mystery we would like to get you involved in.”

“Ooh, how exciting. I love a challenge.”

“I know you do. My cousin and I are in search of a devil’s vagina.”

Daeng roared with laughter. The late diners looked over at her and smiled.

“Well, I’ve had some requests in my time,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “Most men your age are looking for something a bit softer, farm lasses straight off the bus, for example.”

“I don’t think it’s an actual female organ,” Siri said. “More likely a person’s nickname or the name of a place. You ever heard of it?”

She laughed again. It made her face glow like a teenager’s. “The name of a place? No. I’m sure I’d remember it if I’d met someone who was born in the Devil’s Vagina.” The thought set her off into another laughing fit and she dragged Siri and Civilai into it with her.

“Don’t worry, boys,” she said when the mirth had subsided. “I’ll ask around.”

Siri caught a worried glance from Civilai. He leaned closer to Daeng.

“Just be careful who you ask,” he said.

She didn’t need clarification. She seemed to read enough from his tone to realize she was getting into something sticky.

“Siri, my love, you’ll never change, will you? Always the clashing hero off on some quest to save mankind. But you’d better put some of that hero time aside for me while you’re here. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

Further up beyond the ferry ramp, a man stood in the doorway of a soon-to-be-demolished French villa. His eyes were trained on the two old men sitting at the noodle stall. He didn’t need to use his binoculars because his eyesight was keen. His military training had given him the expertise and the patience to fulfill his mission. There was no hurry.

“How’s she feeling?” Civilai asked. He was in a wicker chair by the window of his room. Siri had stopped off at the long distance phone booth at the Bureau de Poste on his way back. He sat on the bed and sighed.

“I don’t know. She has a knack of always sounding cheerful, even when the weight of the world is on her shoulders.”

“Do you suppose she’s angry that we weren’t there for it?”

“No. The one thing you can be sure of with Dtui is that she doesn’t hold a grudge. She knows why we’re here. If it weren’t for the cremation she’d probably have jumped on a bus and joined us already.”

“How did it go?”

“All right, she said. Nice ceremony. The monks got sloshed afterward. She wonders whether they aren’t just Royalists hiding out in saffron till the heat’s off. But they knew the chants so nobody complained. A lot of her ma’s friends were there, hospital people. Phosy was with her.”

“Any news from him?”

“Nothing about the dentist’s wife. A dead end, he says. He managed to get the blood sample to someone at the Swedish forestry project. They promised to take it down to Bangkok next trip and get it looked at. Otherwise Dtui and Phosy are just sitting around, waiting for orders from us. Dtui did say Judge Haeng was asking why I was still in Pakse.”

“Why? Well, it’s obvious. Complications with the case.”

“That’s what I told her to say. The possibility of other homicides by domestic appliance. I hinted at an assassination attempt with a vacuum cleaner. I might have to conjure up something more credible if we stay here much longer.”

“We’ve barely started.”

“Done nothing at all, as far as I can see.”

Their time in Pakse had yielded nothing. The envelope search took longer than Siri had expected. He soon learned that all the shops in Pakse sold pretty much the same things, contraband from either Thailand or Vietnam. There were few stores that didn’t sell envelopes. But none of the owners recognized the brand or style. The only thing he learned from his search was that the sender probably hadn’t bought his envelopes in Pakse. It was frustrating. It always seemed much more straightforward in detective novels.

Civilai’s pursuit of the Devil’s Vagina had apparently gone no better. As it turned out, his initial fear of being recognized had been grossly overestimated. Without his large black-framed glasses there was little to connect him with the grinning statesman in the grainy photographs in Pasason Lao. In fact, it was soon apparent that people in the south didn’t read. He didn’t once see a coffee-shop patron poring over the week’s news or a young office girl hurrying to finish a romance novel on her lunch break. To Pakse, Civilai was just a peculiar old man dressed like a farmer on holiday.