Colin Cotterill - Slash and Burn

“I…? You saw me…?”

“Only joking, sweetheart. I didn’t see any such thing. No idea what you were doing. It was all rather dull, really. You were in there for half an hour.”

“You didn’t go and take a look through the window?”

“You can’t be serious. You expect me to tramp through a turnip plot in my eighty-thousand- kip cocktail shoes? Be real, Dr. Siri.”

“Bpoo. I don’t remember any of it. Do you think there was some supernatural connection?”

“You’re the shaman. Not me.”

“You have contact with the spirit world.”

“They only call me when your phone’s off the hook.”

“Come on. I’m serious. What do you think happened last night? Something drew me to that room.”

“Rooms are just slabs of concrete and plaster and tacky fauxwood paneling. They have no particular life or afterlife of their own. If you were summoned it would have been by a spirit. A particularly pushy one.”

“The major’s?”

“Well, no offence to the departed, but I didn’t get the impression he had a particularly awesome aura. No, it would have been somebody else.”

“How can I find out?”

“The spirit wanted you there for a reason. Something happened in that room, something significant. I would begin my investigation there.”

“You think the room’s haunted.”

Bpoo laughed.

“Ghosts have much better things to do than haunt, Siri.”

“Like what?”

“Like going into the trainee nurses’ shower room and watching them undress. Spirits are perverts just like the rest of us. If it makes you feel better, you weren’t the only one with an interest in that room last night.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d seen somebody else go in that room earlier. But he used the door.”

“Who?”

Siri returned to his room with the guard chuckling a few meters behind him. The doctor shone his flashlight on the bed to be sure it was Madame Daeng sleeping there then climbed beneath the covers.

“Is that perfume I smell?” she asked.

“Yes. I was in Bpoo’s room.”

“It’s nice. I’ll have to ask her where she got it.”

“Daeng.”

“Yes, my husband?”

“I think Judge Haeng might have killed Major Potter.”

“That’s just wishful thinking.”

He breathed heavily.

“I’m not so sure. Bpoo saw him go into Potter’s room earlier that night.”

It transpired that very few of the team members had managed a particularly restful night of sleep. For want of something to do, most had arrived in dribs and drabs long before the morning meal was served. They all went first to the large picture windows and looked out at a view that ended four meters beyond. A murky sky pressed down on the Friendship Hotel. A pocket of gloom was closing in on them. For those privy to the fact that the major’s death was not a suicide, the feeling permeated that an unidentifiable danger was squeezing them into a corner. The smoggy mist and a lack of oxygen gave the place the feel of an Andean mountain village. Breath was no longer taken for granted. Even those with no hereditary respiratory problems were wheezing. Headaches abounded. At breakfast there were baggy eyes and long canine yawns and heads nodding over empty place mats.

Siri and Daeng arrived just as the sausages and spicy salad left the kitchen on large trays. Before the couple could take a seat, Second Secretary Gordon called Siri over to his table where Dr. Yamaguchi and Auntie Bpoo were already seated. Siri had naturally told his wife about the autopsy but the Americans weren’t to know that and they did have an agreement to keep a lid on the findings. So Daeng sat with Mr. Geung who was deep in some impossible conversation with John Johnson.

“The embassy documents have arrived,” said Gordon.

“Already?” said Siri. “How’s that possible?”

“Army convoy in transit to Phu Bia. They traveled overnight. Dropped off the documents at the local battalion. Their courier brought them up early today. And, four armed guards arrived this morning at the behest of your judge.”

The thought of more weapons around in the hands of bush soldiers hardly put Siri’s mind at ease. But the arrival of the files was a positive and they needed an excuse for Yamaguchi and Gordon to stay at the hotel that day to go through the documents. As everything was in English, Siri and Phosy wouldn’t be much help. But they came up with a plan that would pass the inspection of Judge Haeng. The Americans would claim to be putting together the paperwork to ship Major Potter’s body back to the US. For this purpose they could commandeer Nurse Dtui for her Lao translation skills of medical terms. In actual fact, Dtui would be summarizing the findings from the files to pass on to Siri and the others when they returned.

Most of the remaining team members shared Commander Lit’s theory that the bombing of the post office was a cowardly act of terrorism, and the shooting of the senator was most likely an accident. And well, yes, he was only a senator. Potter had killed himself. So only the morgue team and those present at the autopsy were aware of the actual danger. The decision was taken, therefore, that everyone else should go to visit the site of the stones at the bend in the river-an excursion of sorts. Missing were the same characters who’d opted for room service breakfast and, as Judge Haeng was amongst the absentees, the atmosphere was more relaxed than normal. There was an unreal party mood, a general buzz of excitement as they closed in on the missing airman. The fashion statement of the day was made by Auntie Bpoo in combat boots, flak jacket and cherry red hotpants. To the con tractor’s displeasure, they only needed the one truck to go to the site. The truck dropped off the stream team one kilometer further along the potholed road than usual. With their maps and compasses, the aerial photographs, improvised face masks and plenty of water, they headed off into the smoky jungle.

They reached the stream a lot sooner than they’d expected. They’d only been trekking for half an hour and the sudden giggly sound of the icy water tickling the rocks surprised all of them. But the map indicated just the one stream and it was a good sized watercourse. The photograph Rhyme had taken gave them only a rough estimate of the distance of the stone message from Ban Hoong. They were approximately in the right place but didn’t know whether to head south or north. They decided to head upstream for an hour. If they found nothing they’d turn around and follow the stream all the way to the village. Siri noticed Bpoo nod so he felt confident they’d made the correct call. Only twenty minutes south they came to a bend in the river and a broad sandbank which disappeared into the mist.

“This looks promising,” said Rhyme, running to the head of the convoy. “Now all we need is … aha!” He was the first to spot the blurry dark gray boulders at the far side of the clearing and he jogged across to them. The team followed. Rhyme already had two of his cameras primed. He flipped open the dust caps and began to snap away at the rocks. The word BOWRY was spelled out neatly in boulders approximately the size of bicycle wheels.

“The pilot couldn’t have been hurt at all,” Civilai told his friends proudly. “Some of those boulders must weigh a hundred kilograms. They would have taken some shifting.”

“I’d need a dozen elephants and a long chain,” said Siri. “And I haven’t just fallen out of a helicopter.”

The source of the large stones was at the river’s edge where they’d been smoothed by the constant passage of water and coated with a black moss. They’d been rolled across the clearing to a point where they contrasted with the white sand and on a clear day would have been easily visible from the air. It must have taken considerable effort.