Colin Cotterill - The Woman Who Wouldn't die

But, for now, he sat in the main bedroom where a killing had purportedly taken place there on the double bed. The mattress was uncovered now and a bloodstain had taken a huge bite out of it around the area of the pillow. This meant that the victim was either asleep or calmly lying back in her bed when she was shot. So it was unlikely she’d opened the door to her killer, and more likely that the door was unlocked or the killer was in there with her.

The distance from the door to the bed was only four metres, yet there was no bullet embedded in the wooden wall behind the bed. Again it was conceivable the bullet bounced around inside the skull and did indeed go to the pyre with the victim but so much blood suggested an exit wound. There should have been a bullet.

Finally, back on the porch. Here it was that the drugged robber had supposedly dragged the widow to the front steps and, in front of the entire village, shot her for the second time. ‘The bullet went into the wooden post,’ they’d said. The village headman had retrieved a.45 bullet and given it to the policeman as a souvenir. Phosy found the hole. It was a teak post so the bullet hadn’t sunk deeply into it. It would have been retrievable with a penknife. But there was something far more telling than the bullet: the hole itself. He turned back towards the house but something odd on the wooden step caught his attention. It was a second hole, easily missed, neat, the same size as the one in the post. And, after a few minutes of gouging with his penknife, it was here that Phosy found a second bullet. It was a.45.

A picture was forming in Phosy’s mind. A scenario so bizarre no fiction writer would insult his readers by offering it up as a plausible plot. To make it credible, there had to be more, much more, going on here in Ban Elee than a meeting with the supernatural. Madame Daeng’s instincts had been fired by accounts of events that appeared to be impossible. Now, Phosy was charged with the task of proving that the impossible wasn’t so hard after all. Down in the village, his questions were simple. Did Madame Peung shop at the market? No, not since her husband died. She’d become something of a recluse. She sent her live-in girl. Did anybody else have cause to go to the house? No. Apart from the fact that she suddenly had a Vietnamese accent, did you notice any changes between Madame Peung and Madame Keui? Perhaps she’d put on a little weight. Oh, and she’d started using more make-up. She’d always liked to slap on the colour but she’d never used that much before.

Phosy was on his way to meet the live-in girl but he was quite sure he knew what had transpired there in Ban Elee. The only thing he lacked was a motive.

It was nine thirty a.m. when Barnard arrived at the small outpost they laughingly called a town, Pak Lai. There were thousands of people. In a civilized country that would have worked to his advantage. He could blend in, vanish in the crowd. But this was the opposite. As soon as he’d stepped from the forest, they’d seen him. They were pointing. Calling him over. He was a good thirty centimetres taller than any of them. He ignored them as best he could.

‘Hey, Soviet,’ they cried. The latest salute to invaders.

He made out not to hear. They smiled and pushed sweets into his hand and coconuts with straws sticking out of them. He brushed them off. So much for his discreet arrival. He made for the old French administration building at the far side of the green and walked confidently through the main door as if he belonged there. The place was deserted. He walked upstairs and into an office full of well-worn French desks and Russian typewriters. Framed photographs of nondescript Asians hung in a line across the back wall. He took a wooden chair and placed it at a window from which he might best view the festivities. He took the binoculars from his satchel. They’d belonged to the guide who now lay battered in a shallow grave beside the porter. The spoils of war.

His heart was palpitating. His breath, irregular. He could feel every scuffled step his body took at the end of its journey. But there was time. He scanned the childish revellers. He’d see her soon enough. Before he set light to the restaurant, he’d found a photograph of the shrivelled hag standing with a scarred old man and a moron. There was enough of her recognizable behind that cruel disguise. The young beauty. The innocent with child. The first love. It was all in there. And no matter how desperately she shrouded herself in wrinkles and flab, he knew that his heart would pick her out of the crowd.

‘What do we do if she comes back again?’ Civilai asked.

‘Who?’ said Siri.

‘Madame Peung.’

The longboat was making good speed against the flow of the river. On some stretches it felt as if they were merely riding the eddies. The boat was doing most of the work. Siri breathed in the sweet scent of the American Metal-Filing trees along the bank. He stared at his beautiful wife two seats ahead rowing with the grace of a swan ballerina. He doubted swan ballerinas could row but he liked his simile. She was singing the rowing song she’d learned just ten minutes earlier and making up verses when called upon.

‘Why should she come back?’ Siri asked.

‘She did it once before.’

‘Water’s a tough one, Civilai. Not even Houdini could beat the water torture.’

‘I think you’ll find that was only in the movie, Siri.’

‘Either way, spirits don’t …’

‘What?’

‘That’s why the Frenchmen have been stuck in hell. They are down there. They’re trapped under water. Their souls have no way to go wherever French souls go to. There are six French bodies down there at Frenchy’s Elbow. That confirms it.’

‘Good, but if she does?’

‘Madame Peung?’

‘If she comes back?’

‘What’s your point?’

‘ King Kong .’

‘That’s a point?’

‘We saw it. Remember?’

As Siri and Civilai were movie junkies it was only natural that many of their conversations turned to the cinema.

‘How could I forget? What’s her name? Fay something.’

‘But they captured this giant gorilla, took it to New York and made a fortune from public performances.’

‘And Madame Peung is our Kong?’

‘Shot through the head, twice, drowned in the Mekhong. She’s star material. We could take her to Bangkok and guillotine her on national television. Next night there she is, good as new.’

Madame Daeng’s shoulders were rocking with laughter. Civilai was about to continue with the image when, without a word of instruction, all the rowers put up their oars. The fat man looked around and nodded at Siri.

‘About a kilometre,’ he said. ‘Less overland. Better we pull in here. You can walk over the crest. There’s a spot up there you can look down at Frenchy’s Elbow without being seen.’

All the crew members wanted to go and have a look, of course. But the headman selected two, as well as himself, to accompany the Vientiane people. These guides led them through the thick undergrowth as if they’d spent much of their time escorting tourists to the Elbow. Civilai said he expected to find a souvenir shop set up on the ridge. But what they did get was a spectacular eyrie looking directly down at the bend in the river. The Lao cruiser had moored on exactly the same sandbank that the minister’s helicopter had first landed on. The equipment was laid out methodically along the shore. Some of the men were setting up an elaborate winch-and-pulley system using two huge old teak trees as anchors. The bulldozer was lined up between them. All in all, it looked like a very competent operation.

Like synchronized swimmers, three divers emerged from the water with heavy oxygen tanks strapped to their backs. All three held up their thumbs to the officer on the bank. He, in turn, put up his own thumb and gestured for the men to leave the river. The other engineers helped them remove their tanks and they all retreated to behind the tree line. There followed half a dozen muted explosions that belched silt and rocks from the river. Even at such a high elevation, Siri and the team were showered with pebbles and mud. The explosions echoed around the rock faces, the sound getting louder as it travelled, taking on the form of an angry voice, not just to Siri, but to all of them.