Colin Cotterill - Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

"We need to find a fencing expert," Daeng decided.

"Apart from our assassin I doubt you'd find anyone in the country who could tell you which end to hold," Civilai suggested.

"That doesn't include the embassies," she told him. "I bet we'd find someone there with fencing experience. Someone who wasn't thrown out of fencing class after two weeks."

She smiled at her husband.

"Good point," Phosy decided. "Sihot, I want you to go to the European embassies tomorrow and hunt us out a fencer."

"The embassies?" Sihot said with a look of distress on his face.

"Don't worry, Sergeant Sihot," Daeng smiled. "They'll all have someone to interpret."

"And, Inspector Phosy," Civilai said with the early signs of a slur. "I'm sure you've thought of this already, but I think now would be as good a time as any to get to know the three girls more intimately. Talk to their families and friends. Trace their movements since they returned from — "

"As you say, Comrade," Phosy growled, "we're already on it."

"Excellent," Civilai beamed.

"And I think the fencing coach theory as a starting point is a very solid one," Siri decided. "In fact it's the only theory we have."

With a few more comments and suggestions which led nowhere, the meeting broke up, and then into small fragments. Phosy and Sihot went over their notes at the noodle table. Daeng invited Dtui and Malee to the upstairs junk room to engage in a little 'girl stuff'. Siri and Civilai took their drinks and two chairs and the remainder of the bottle out to the front of the shop where they sat beneath the narrow green awning. It had been raining so long the air was wet; not moist but sodden like a slop rag. A person might have expected the rain to wash away the mugginess, to rinse the humidity clean out of the air, but it didn't go away. It loitered under cover, inside houses, beneath temple eaves. It sapped your energy and made you want to go outside and stand in the rain.

The road sloped away from the shop, more from subsidence than design. It was perhaps the only reason why they hadn't been flooded like most of the other businesses. The river was higher than anyone remembered seeing it in April but it was the incessant rain that filled the unguttered streets, not the loping Mekhong. That beast wouldn't flood for another four or five months.

"Too wet for our little Indian friend," said Civilai, noticing that Rajid's umbrella stood unoccupied.

"We haven't seen him since my attempted man-to-man," Siri replied. "If he has any sense he'll be under cover somewhere with a bottle of Johnny Walker and three sao rumwong dancers to keep him warm."

"If he had any sense he wouldn't be who he is."

"Granted."

"How's his dad, Bhiku?"

"Still churning out curry. Still without a hundred kip to his name."

"See what I mean?" said Civilai. "No matter how bad things get, there's always somebody worse off than you."

"And life is so hard on an old politburo member, isn't it, brother? How was dinner with the president by the way?"

"Nice young fellow. I don't get to see him as much as I used to."

"Did you give him your 'I don't know who the real enemies are any more' speech?" said Siri.

"For some reason he tends to steer our conversations around to food and literature. He did hint that he thought the revolution had come five years too soon."

"Huh, he really thinks five more years would have made us better prepared?"

"No, his point was that in five years time people like Dr Siri and me wouldn't be around to complain about everything."

"He mentioned me? I'm touched. Did he have too much to drink and drop any top secret information? Plans to invade China? Racing tips?"

"In fact, he asked me a favour. That was the subterfuge behind the candlelit dinner. He wants me to go to Kampuchea."

"Permanently?"

"Four or five days. They're on some public relations kick. Having a reception of some kind."

"Really? I haven't been there since the forties. It was still Cambodia in those days. Boua and I had just been recruited by the French to set up a youth camp in the south. They sent us to Phnom Penh for orientation. One of the prettiest cities in Asia. Marvellous time. I'll never forget it. Me and Boua walking hand-in-hand along the Boulevard Noradom."

"A story I'm sure Madame Daeng would love to hear."

"No secrets between us, old brother. Although it might be true there are times I paint the truth with slightly less bushy brushes than it warrants. You know? I can't say I've heard much news from our southern neighbours since the Reds took over."

"Nobody has. Not even the president really knows what they're doing. He was there on an official visit not so long ago, but they didn't let him out of his box. This trip would be a chance to chat socially with the people in charge, visit some of the collectives, you know the thing."

"And you said yes?"

"Of course I did. Free trip overseas, all expenses paid, luxury accommodation, the best food and wine in Indochina. Who wouldn't?"

"But — and there's no offence intended here — why you?"

"Because I'm witty and charming…"

"I know. I know. But this sounds like something the PM or one of the politburo boys would jump at."

"I did ask that, trying very hard not to make myself sound unworthy, and he suggested there might be just a tad of political tension between the Khmer Rouge and Hanoi. Since I dropped off the edge of the Central Committee, they stopped showing me the high-end communiques. I have no more idea what's going on over there than you do. But I do know the KR haven't been sucking up to their old colleagues the way Hanoi would have liked. I imagine we're under pressure from Vietnam not to send a top-level delegation. I'm the B team."

"They will brief you on all this before they put you on the plane?"

"No doubt they'll brief both of us."

"Us being…?"

"He asked me to nominate a travelling companion. I nominated you."

"You what? Are you mad? No, of course you are. And he agreed?"

"Without hesitation."

"Just how many bottles did you two get through?"?

Malee slept on the cot in the spare room while her mother and Daeng unpacked books from hemp gunny sacks.

"Are you sure you're supposed to have these?" Dtui asked.

"Absolutely not," Daeng replied with gay candour.

"Then you might get in trouble."

"I'm sure there's a hit squad at the Ministry of Culture loading their weapons as we speak."

"What are you going to do with them all?"

"Make shelves."

"Madame Daeng, you really can't be planning to put them on display?"

"Siri's afraid they'll get rain-damaged in the attic. Some of them are quite valuable. The doctor believes there'll come a day when the paranoia dies down and owning foreign language books won't guarantee you a four-year trip to a seminar camp. Oh, don't look so worried. We aren't planning to put them down in the shop. This door's usually kept locked. Siri can come here after work and sit on the cot and indulge himself in one of his many vices in peace."

"Where did they all come from?"

"It's a long story."

"I'm not really in a hurry to go home."

Daeng smiled drily and filed that comment under D in her mind. "They're from a temple," she said.

"A French temple?"

"No. A good old-fashioned Lao temple that just happened to have a French language library. Some of the oldest were donated by missionaries many years ago. The novices studying at the temple were taught general subjects through the medium of French. The brighter ones were allowed to borrow books from the library. Siri went to that temple school before they accepted him into the southern lycee."

"Really? It must be ancient."

"I'll tell him you said so." Waking briefly, Malee gurgled and smiled before closing her eyes again. "I see she has her mother's sense of humour."