Colin Cotterill - The Merry Misogynist

"The ribbon?" Siri prompted.

"No, I…wait!" She lifted the hand one more time and was obviously annoyed with herself having missed it. "No welts on her wrists," she said.

"And that tells us…?"

"That she was tied up when she was unconscious, or after she'd lost the will to fight."

"Or?"

"Or he tied her up after he'd killed her."

"I think it's time to see whether she has any deeper secrets to tell us."

The autopsy proceeded as usual although Siri was loath to defile such a beautiful young lady with his scalpel. She had been in very good health. Siri envisioned a diet with little sugar or starch and a healthy supply of fruit. Photos of her lungs and liver might have graced a Department of Health THIS COULD BE YOU poster.

Up to this point it had been a strangulation case, no less horrific for its simplicity but not a difficult diagnosis. Yet murders by strangulation were almost unheard of in Laos. The ability to kill a person with bare hands was rare. Many believed if a person was holding a body when the life drained from it, that person was likely to provide a conduit for the spirit of the corpse and be haunted for eternity. For that reason, few Lao were prepared to handle the dead. Siri and his team were extraordinary in many respects. To physically squeeze the life out of another human being, the killer would have to be a peculiar type of monster. Yet even this far into the autopsy, Siri had still to learn just how evil the girl's murderer was.

They had suspected sexual assault of some kind but the absence of blood around the mons had made a closer inspection a lesser priority. They didn't have the facility to test for semen other than the senses of the eye and nose but Siri was obliged to take samples. It was obvious as soon as he began the examination of her vagina that the opening and surrounding flesh must have been thoroughly cleaned. He looked up at Dtui, who involuntarily took a step backward. There was evidence of severe trauma deep in the vaginal passage, evidence that the membrane of the hymen had been newly ruptured, and then -

Siri heard a gasp emerge from his own lips. He looked up to see Dtui cover her mouth and run from the room. Mr Geung had held his ground but his eyes were full of tears. Both he and Siri stood looking in disbelief. Buried deep inside the girl was a black stone pestle. It must have been inserted while she was still alive. The silence in the morgue was broken by Geung, who was sobbing uncontrollably. "This is v…v…very bad."

"Yes, Geung. It is very bad indeed."

Siri's own emotions did not show in his light green eyes or in his voice. But inside himself he felt a terrible rage that wrung his stomach muscles. He immediately promised himself that he would not leave the earth until the perpetrator of this heinous crime had been dealt with in equal measure. This death was not the result of an inevitable act of war; it was not the destruction of an enemy. It was the cruel and sadistic defilement of a beautiful young woman for reasons that a soldier or a nurse or a reluctant coroner could never begin to understand.

When Dtui returned to the table her angry eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks damp. She had nothing to say. She put on an unsoiled mask and stepped up to the table. Siri had removed the pestle and placed it on a stainless steel tray.

"We'll need to take a look at the stomach contents," Siri told her. "The girl must have been drugged in some way. There were no contusions or abrasions on the thighs or labia so I don't think she put up a fight. She was either unconscious or paralyzed and unable to resist. Given the nature of the crime, I'd — "

Dtui threw the scalpel to the floor.

"How can you be so calm?" she shouted at the top of her voice.

Geung jumped with shock. Dtui rushed to Siri and pushed at his chest. "Feel something, why don't you? Stop looking at her as…" A sob caught in her throat. "As if she's meat."

Tears overwhelmed her. Siri put his hand out to her but Geung stepped in between them and reached for his friend. She slapped at him but he fought his way inside her flailing arms, put his strong arms around her, and hugged her to him until she no longer had the will to fight. Together they rode out her sobs.

Despite the heat, Saturday lunch was alfresco on a log beside the languid Mekhong. Comrade Civilai had brought baguettes he'd baked himself. Since his retirement, Civilai had spent much of his free time in the kitchen. As an ex-politburo member he'd been allowed to keep his ranch-style home in the old American compound at kilometre 6 and the gas oven it contained. Civilai had taken to baking like a pig takes to slops. His expanding waist size was testament to his experimentation in the kitchen. Whereas the populace often arrived at an empty market of a morning, there was no shortage of ingredients available for the senior Party members. Even Civilai's large bald head seemed to be putting on weight. He was the first to admit that his baguettes were modest compared to those of old Auntie Lah behind the mosque but he was getting there, and Siri was his official taster.

"How is it?" Civilai asked, watching his best friend chew on the crusty shell.

"It tastes less like tree bark than usual," Siri admitted.

Siri had considered cancelling his luncheon date. That morning's autopsy still haunted him. His anger hadn't subsided but he'd long since learned to keep his feelings to himself unless sharing them would help with a case in some way. He could fool most people most of the time, but he knew bluffing astute Civilai would be another matter. And perhaps it would be useful to get his friend's thoughts on what had transpired in Vang Vieng the previous day.

"Come on, little brother," Civilai pleaded. "I've used her exact recipe. I bribed her with a half bottle of rum to get it."

"And it's a commendable effort. But you need more than a recipe. You need all those elements that can't be accounted for: the patina of the kiln, the sweat of the workers, the experience. A real baguette is a time capsule of every little stage that's gone into the making of it."

"So you don't like it?"

"I didn't say that. It's pleasant."

"You're a tough audience, Siri. I should know better than to ask on one of your bad days."

"What makes you think I'm having a bad day?"

"Your face is as long as that thing."

He raised his chin towards the Mekhong. The river was almost humble in March, like a large dirty puddle doing its best to fill its banks. Once again, the dry-season gardeners had planted their vegetables along its shores and marked off their allotments with string and slips of paper with their names or marks on them. That was the limit of the security system. They figured that if someone was so hungry they were forced to steal a head of lettuce, then they deserved to have it.

"Got anything to drink in that bag?" Siri asked.

"From your tone, I'm assuming you wouldn't settle for chrysanthemum juice?"

"Something with a bite."

Civilai fumbled deep in his old green kit bag and emerged with a flask. He unscrewed the cap, took a whiff, and handed it to Siri.

"It'll probably go down better if you don't ask me what it is," he said.

Siri took a swig and felt a handful of burning tacks embed themselves in his liver.

"Ouch! Holy Father of the Lord Buddha," he said.

"Potent, isn't it?"

"We used something like this to strip paint off tanks."

"Give it back then."

"Not on your life." Siri took another swig.

They sat for a while, willing the flies to leave them alone, admiring the industry of a river rat ferrying mushrooms to and from her hole.

"How's Dtui?" Civilai asked, allowing Siri his own sweet time to tell what was troubling him.