Colin Cotterill - Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

Siri tapped on Civilai's door at eighteen thirty Mexico City time. Civilai's voice carried dully from the bathroom.

"Come in if you're carrying food."

Siri walked into the room. From the crumpled sheet and deformedly dented pillow, it appeared his friend hadn't slept any better than he had. He walked to the window. The view was similar to that from his own. Grounds that had once been landscaped were now jungle. A giant lucky hair tree craved attention not two metres from the glass. The city wasn't visible. Civilai walked from the bathroom wearing only shorts. He looked like a medical school skeleton with a paunch.

"I bet with a couple of chopsticks we could get a decent tune out of those ribs, brother," Siri laughed.

Civilai ignored the taunt.

"Did you get your early-morning call?" he asked.

"I thought it was my imagination. It was a gunshot, wasn't it?"

"Pretty close too, by the sounds of it. Perhaps they were killing something for breakfast."

"Good. I prefer my breakfast dead. I'm starving. Do you suppose the restaurant's open?"

"It's on the itinerary." Civilai picked up the single sheet of paper they'd given him in Vientiane. "'Seven a.m. morning meal at House Number Two.'"

"Good, hurry up and put on a shirt so we don't frighten anyone."?

Breakfast in the spacious dining room was uncomplicated but tasty. Other delegates sat at other tables minding their own business with great deliberation. The only noise was coming from the three Chinese tables whose breakfast banter bounced around the dusty restaurant like early morning ping-pong balls. Mr Chenda, their guide, joined the Lao at their table but refused food. He had a copy of their itinerary and he proceeded to read through it, expanding politically in one or another direction from notes he'd made on the sheet.

"Before lunch," he said, staring towards the door, "you will have the opportunity to visit your embassy. There, your ambassador will brief you on your country's relationship with Democratic Kampuchea and the ongoing role we expect the People's Democratic Republic of Laos to play in our development. You will sample a lunchtime meal of fresh food supplied directly from one of our cooperatives and then you will join representatives from other legations to visit our model collective in District Seventeen. You will return in time to change, whence you are invited to attend our grand May Day reception where you will have the great honour of meeting our respected and glorious leaders.."

"Including number one brother?" Civilai dared ask, not really expecting a response. But the guide became enlivened at the mention of the great leader.

"Brother Number One will most certainly be in attendance," he beamed. "Our leader is excited at the prospect of exchanging views with our respected allies."

"Does Big Brother have a name?" Siri asked. He noticed indications of a short circuit deep in the guide's brain. His face shut down for a few seconds then rebooted.

"Tomorrow you will have the opportunity to visit a truly spectacular irrigation project where you will see what our peasants have been able to achieve, working hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder…"

"…heel to toe, thumb to nose," Siri mumbled. He was becoming frustrated by the boy's inability to answer questions.

"What?" The guide seemed angry.

"Nothing. Go on."

"As I was saying. The irrigation project is an example of what it's possible to achieve with nothing more than a love of Angkar, determination and hard work."

"And Chinese funding," Civilai added.

"They don't believe in money," Siri reminded him. "Isn't that right, little comrade? You see? I was paying attention. But I didn't catch Big Brother's name. What was it again?"

The guide put both his palms on the table and pushed himself stiffly to a standing position. He still hadn't looked either of the old Lao directly in the eye, but he glared menacingly at the condiment tray.

"You must be ready to leave from reception in ten minutes," he told the fish sauce.?

Considering the fact that Siri's old map showed Hotel le Phnom to be no more than five city blocks from the embassy section of Boulevard Manivon, the limousine drive was curiously circuitous. As they pulled out of the hotel grounds, the first landmark his map said they'd pass was the Catholic cathedral. He'd visited it with his wife. It was gone. All that remained was a pile of rubble. They proceeded past the railway station which stood like a deserted castle and cut through a number of streets, none of which had signs. At every corner stood a sentry in black pyjamas with an AK47. They were men and women, old and very young, but all of them slouched and glared at the passing car. The limousine swung around the gangly Olympic stadium, one more example of the royal family's nouveaux Khmer architecture of the sixties, and headed along an empty Sivutha Boulevard. Its old sandalwood trees pointed their dead or dying fingers as they passed. The streets and buildings they saw were all immaculately clean, windows smiled reflections of the early sun. The journey might have given a guest the feeling the roads had been closed off for their safety, the people told to remain in their homes, but Siri had goose pimples as he looked out of the window. Something was wrong here.

They eventually entered the diplomatic section of Boulevard Manivon from the south. The entire road had been partitioned off with a heavily guarded barrier blocking the entrance.

"We provide maximum security for our foreign representatives," the guide told them.

"Who from?" Siri asked.

"I'm sorry?" Every time the doctor interrupted, the guide became more impatient.

"Who are you protecting them from? Didn't you say you were at peace?"

"We are, indeed, a peace-loving nation, and the population has joined hands with us to form a unified democratic state. But there will always be insurgents out to embarrass us. We have enemies jealous of our successes. We need to remain vigilant."

The limousine drove into the newly created compound and pulled up in front of an old sand-coloured colonial house. It was surrounded by a white wall like a temple. For the first time that day they saw people walking along footpaths, sitting on benches, locked in conversation. All of them foreigners. But Siri noticed the others; the silent, unmoving ones. They stood in strategic positions in their black pyjamas watching, minding. They reminded him of the ghosts who hung around temple fairs. They never joined in, were never seen, were not really there.

Both Siri and Civilai knew the Lao ambassador, Kavinh. They had fought campaigns together. He was only slightly taller than Siri and he too had been a fearless warrior. Yet they noticed immediately, as he walked along the path to greet them, that time had sandpapered the ambassador down to a spindle of the man they remembered. He had no spring in his step, no truth in his smile. Beside him was his own black-suited minder, a short-haired peasant with a sun-blistered face.

"Comrades," said Ambassador Kavinh. "It's been a long time." They shook his unsteady hand and reminded each other of when and where they'd last met. But he was less than enthusiastic, not at all warm. He didn't introduce the man at his side. He turned and led them back inside. Siri caught Civilai's eye. Nothing was relaxed here. Nothing natural.

There followed a two-hour briefing, not from the ambassador or his diplomatic aides, but from the Khmer minder. He read from a prepared sheet. His Lao was heavily accented, comical at some points. But the old men found it prudent not to make comment. They sat on a circle of chairs in the front room of the embassy with their guide, the ambassador, two Lao aides and two more Khmer. Time became a heavy log towed by an ancient elephant. Siri could do no more than merely will it all to end. He took advantage of the opportunity by going over the case of the three epees in his mind. He had time to look at the circumstances through the eyes of each of the victims. And it was from the perspective of one of them that a completely different picture presented itself. He played a new hypothesis through to its gory conclusion and all the parts fitted. Only one question remained to be answered and, by the time they announced lunch, he was just a breath away from solving the mystery.