The Rat Catchers' Olympics

by Colin Cotterill

  Also by Colin Cotterill

  The Coroner’s Lunch

  Thirty-Three Teeth

  Disco for the Departed

  Anarchy and Old Dogs

  Curse of the Pogo Stick

  The Merry Misogynist

  Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

  Slash and Burn

  The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die

  Six and a Half Deadly Sins

  I Shot the Buddha

  Copyright © 2017 by Colin Cotterill

  Published by

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cotterill, Colin, author

  The rat catchers' olympics/Colin Cotterill.

  ISBN 978-1-61695-825-1

  eISBN 978-1-61695-826-8

  1. Paiboun, Siri, Doctor (Fictitious character)—Fiction.

  2. Coroners—Fiction. 3. Laos—Fiction.

  4. Olympic Games (22nd : 1980: Moscow, Russia)—Fiction. 5. Murder--Investigation—Fiction. I. Title

  PR6053.O778 R38 2017 823'.914--dc23 2016057429

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is in memory of Grant Evans, who wasn’t that fond of my books but whose taste was otherwise

  impeccable, whose knowledge was boundless and whose nature was gracious.

  With my warmest thanks to Micky M, Martin W,

  Martin S.F. Ulli, Magnus, Regina, Michael B,

  Daniel and Judy K, Sittixai, Simon C, K, Shelly, Randy, Peter J. Masha, Dr. Leila, David, Lizzie, Rachel, Paul, Dad, Bambina, Bob, Kate, Roman and Elmar.

  Dtui was feeling for a pulse.

  “He’s alive,” she said. “He’s alive.”

  Chapter One

  March 1980 – The Bald Eagles Have Landed

  There were occasional relaxed periods of what the Lao called sabai. The weather was comfortable, the markets had fresh food and the children played in the road with no danger of being hit by vehicles. Nothing moved fast enough to cause injuries. Everything seemed to be so peaceful and casual you’d forget there was another layer—the echelon of the impossible. You didn’t experience it until you attempted to rock the boat. It might take you so long to obtain a laissez passer to visit an ailing aunt in another province that she’d have gone up in smoke long before you arrived. Your name on a housing list was more prone to retreat than to advance as the names of those of influence were slotted in above you. And a stay in a hospital was as likely to kill you as to cure you.

  Then there was one more stratum that was unfathomable. It was so dark and sinister you’d never make any sense of it. There needed to be nothing more than the perception of antisocialist activity. It was a nether world where neighbors disappeared, where trusted members of the Party were ousted as traitors, where the paranoid ruled. Comrade Noo the Thai forest monk had been enticed into that twilight zone from which few returned. He’d vanished for two weeks. Not the supernatural vanishing that had recently hounded Dr. Siri Paiboun—more a bureaucratic disappearance, like a file or a record lost in the system. A misplaced person for whom nobody was accountable.

  Most agreed that Thai Comrade Noo was primarily a conservationist, a man who would bury himself up to his neck to stop a bulldozer destroying national parkland. Others saw him as a journalist reporting on the abuse of monks in a socialist state. The Lao authorities might have seen him merely as an illegal immigrant or a troublemaker or a religious zealot. You’d never know because the administrative line was ignorance.

  “No. Never heard of him.”

  And it made no difference what he’d actually done because he was perceived to be an enemy of the state so even the story of his life was irrelevant. The Party had its bloodhounds. It was their duty to drag in trophies to justify their existence. Noo had headed off on his bicycle one day only to be kidnapped by some military thugs. There was no announcement, no trial, no trace of him. They’d gobbled him up as they did anyone who dared defy the overlords. But mysteriously they’d spat him out. None of his friends and supporters who’d gathered around him in that small concrete room knew why he’d been released. It was unprecedented. He’d quite obviously been beaten and had horrific injuries from being thrown from a truck. But he was still unconscious so the details of his detention remained wrapped inside him. For three days he’d teetered on the edge, bones not setting, wounds not healing, deep in a coma. But if he were to die, Comrade Noo would not have been forgotten like the many before him. He was admired and loved and it could only have been the will of his supporters that kept him alive.

  Nurse Dtui was there with him. She was the one who’d found his pulse that night he was thrown from a truck in front of Madam Daeng’s noodle shop. Mr. Geung was there. His physical and mental strengths often overshadowed his Down syndrome limitations. He was the one who’d carried the broken body of the monk to the upstairs mattress. His partner, Tukta was there, she too a member of the secret club of those with Down syndrome. She was the one who’d ridden the noodle shop bicycle to Mahosot Hospital and returned with dressings and ointments and morphine although nobody knew how she had achieved this feat without money. She refused to say.

  Nurse Dtui had done her best but she wasn’t a doctor. There were forty qualified doctors at Mahosot, none of whom she trusted. The one she really needed was Dr. Siri himself, the country’s last coroner.

  “So, where is he?” asked Gongjai, the reformed prostitute.

  “Still in Thailand, as far as we know,” said old Inthanet, the puppet master.

  “He’d know what to do if he was here,” said Gongjai.

  There followed a silence as dense as river clay.

  “Dtui kn-kn-knows what to do,” said Mr. Geung.

  “I know,” said Gongjai. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”

  “It’s all right,” said Dtui. “I wish he was here, too.”

  They were assembled in the front bedroom of Siri’s government-allocated house just a short walk from the That Luang monument. It was a building that housed far too many characters to commit them all to memory. Even the doctor lost count and muddled the names. The inhabitants had been collected from the uncharitable streets and ideological gutters of the city. They were characters who didn’t fit the system. There was Crazy Rajhid, the homeless Indian who’d spoken only three times in the past four years. There was Inthanet’s portly fiancée, Jit, who had fled to the city to escape a farming cooperative that was starving her family. There were the young, the elderly, the brilliant and the insane. Joining them in the circle around the patient this evening were two monks who’d turned up one day without explaining how they’d heard of Comrade Noo’s plight.

  Nurse Dtui’s little daughter, Malee, was asleep in a hand-made cradle. Her father, Phosy, often attended these candle-lit vigils, but tonight he was off investigating a case. The senior police inspector found himself working odd hours.

  Also missing from the group was Siri’s best friend, Comrade Civilai, the ex-politburo member. He’d taken it upon himself to drive his old Citroën to Wattay Airport to meet every flight from Bangkok on the off-chance Dr. Siri and his wife, Madam Daeng, might alight from one of the Lao Aviation DC3s. As a retired senior Party member, Civilai had been allowed to stand on the tarmac beside the ground controller, whose signals were generally ignored by the Russian pilots.

  The March nights were balmy, still carrying the weight of the hot season days but fresh and breathable. On this particular evening Civilai sweated as he wa
tched the 3:40 p.m. scheduled flight arrive from Don Muang. It was after eight. The porter wheeled the steps to the exit, climbed to the top and banged on the door. He then ran back down the steps and dragged the stair unit away from the fuselage so the stewardess could open the door. Civilai was ever bemused by the inefficiencies he saw around him every day.

  A number of elderly, dark-suited men were first down. They were met by small delegations that whisked them off to waiting Zil limousines. They were followed by foreign-looking gentlemen in unfashionable clothes, men Civilai took to be Eastern European “experts.” Technically, an expert was somebody who knew more than the Lao, which, Civilai conceded, included most of the civilized world. He watched the Soviets and East Germans and Poles, a smattering of Cubans and one or two Vietnamese advisers walk across the tarmac to the dilapidated terminal. They’d been shopping in Bangkok and proudly carried their duty-free goods for all to see. Even inside Laos these were good shopping days for the few people with money to spend. The Thai borders were currently open, the markets were full, consumer goods were available. But the locals knew this cross-border romance would not last for long so they had to stock up while they could.

  Just as Civilai was about to head back into the terminal the last passengers stepped out of the aircraft. They were an odd-looking couple. They stood at the top of the steps and waved royally at nobody in particular. They blew kisses willy-nilly. They were dressed like golfers in loud slacks and even noisier polo shirts. But the oddest thing about them was the fact they were as hairless as boiled eggs. Dr. Siri’s thick white mane and bushy eyebrows were gone. Madam Daeng was equally naked above the neck. Both seemed unconcerned about their looks. When they saw Civilai their smiles beamed.

  Civilai approached them at a seventy-five-year-old trot and they descended with an equally mature enthusiasm. They hugged and kissed messily.

  “Bonsoir, mon copain,” said Siri.

  “I told him you’d be here to meet us,” said Daeng.

  “I never doubted it,” said Siri.

  “You both look even more bizarre than I remember you,” said Civilai, breaking free from the embrace.

  “And why not?” said Siri. “We have avoided a firing squad by a nipple and a half. We are back in our beloved Laos.”

  “And we bring souvenirs,” said Daeng, handing him a bar of chocolate.

  “How’s Noo?” Siri asked.

  “No better than I told you in our last phone call,” said Civilai. “But still alive. I was worried when I didn’t hear from you again.”

  “We got a little tied up,” said Siri. “In fact the Thais placed a sort of discreet bounty on our heads. They didn’t exactly put wanted posters up in post offices or in the newspapers but they did alert the scouts and the military checkpoints. Of course the land crossings were on alert.”

  “Flying was the safest way to get here,” said Daeng.

  “Does one no longer need passports for international air travel?” Civilai asked.

  “That’s a long story that needs a drink to be told properly,” said Daeng.

  “But it’s true, we’re lacking certain documents so it would be better if we didn’t attempt to clear immigration,” said Siri.

  “Our passports are not exactly our own,” said Daeng.

  They were walking away from the terminal in the direction of the VIP gate. A security guard in a uniform that was too small for him called out, “Hey, Comrade. This way.” He pointed toward the terminal. Civilai ignored him. Two porters were wheeling the baggage on a trolley whose wheels were diametrically opposed. It would be several days before the passengers could claim their bags.

  “I hope you don’t have any checked luggage,” said Civilai.

  The old couple patted their shoulder bags and smiled. At the VIP gate they didn’t even bother to speak to the guard. Civilai glared disdainfully and the sentry opened the door a crack. Arrogance was a badge of authority in Laos.

  In five minutes they were in the car and headed for That Luang. Civilai produced a bottle of Chardonnay and a corkscrew from the glove box.

  “Well, it appears the borders are open again,” said Daeng.

  “We old politicians get first crack at the imports,” said Civilai. “It was a present from the Thai coup leader’s family cellars to our politburo. Wine isn’t to the old boys’ taste so they gave me a crate of the stuff. I’m afraid it isn’t chilled.”

  They toasted their return.

  “And I believe I’ve earned a story,” said Civilai.

  “Too right,” said Siri. “And it all began, as you know, with us paddling across the river in a PVC rowing boat. So we didn’t exactly clear Thai immigration on the way in. We did a little bit of business in Udon.”

  “Funny business,” said Daeng.

  “I’m telling the story,” said Siri.

  “Sorry, darling.”

  “Daeng had always wanted to visit Bangkok,” Siri continued.

  “It had been a dream of mine since I was a little girl,” said Daeng. “But our budget was a little low.”

  “In fact we didn’t have any money,” said Siri.

  “So my husband had the idea to impersonate the Supreme Patriarch of Laos and go to Bangkok on an official state visit.”

  Civilai inadvertently veered to the wrong side of the road in surprise. It didn’t matter because his was the only vehicle at the time.

  “You didn’t!” he said.

  “Yes, we did,” said Daeng. “They were expecting the actual Supreme Patriarch and we sort of stepped in on his behalf. We knew he wouldn’t be turning up. I was Siri’s personal secretary-nun. Hence the haircut.”

  “They bought that?” said Civilai.

  “It’s amazing what you can get away with if you slot into people’s expectations,” said Siri.

  “So I got my sightseeing tour,” said Daeng. “And we were put up at the Dusit Thani and given the best treatment.”

  “And chocolate,” said Siri.

  Coming from anyone else, Civilai would have labeled such a claim ridiculous. But this was Siri and Daeng and they didn’t follow any human rules.

  “Wait,” said Civilai, “this didn’t have any bearing on Noo’s unexpected release from custody by any chance?”

  “Hard to say,” said Daeng.

  “We’d like to think so,” said Siri. “We did ask a favor from the junta’s own prime minister.”

  “You met the prime minister?” said Civilai, swerving again.

  “Of course,” said Siri. “I was the Supreme Patriarch. He wanted me to defect and make public my anti-socialist feelings. As you know, the Thai military are a little threatened by the thought of communism.”

  “You are insane, the pair of you,” said Civilai, but he couldn’t hold back his delight.

  “Merci,” said Siri.

  “Didn’t they even check your ID?”

  “When Margaret Thatcher steps down from a jet do you see anyone rush up to check her passport?” said Siri.

  “Surely someone would have noticed your face didn’t match.”

  “Civilai, if you donned saffron robes and glasses they’d have given you the same reception. Most men over seventy look alike.”

  “You could have been killed if they caught you out.”

  “What a lovely way to go,” said Daeng.

  “We didn’t get out a minute too soon,” said Siri. “That phone call to you was our last official act. We were due to keep an appointment with the Thai Supreme Patriarch and he’d met our guy a few times. So we had to flee the scene. We borrowed clothes from a golfing Japanese couple in the suite below ours without their knowledge, evaded the security detail watching us and blended into Bangkok street life.”

  “We discovered Khao San,” said Daeng. “Even the oddest-looking backpacker fits in there. We found a kindly but dishonest Chinese gentl
eman who was able to provide us Lao passports in twenty-four hours. He charged an absolute fortune.”

  “Which we didn’t have,” said Siri.

  “So we broke into his office late that night and stole our passports and enough money for the flight,” said Daeng. “He wasn’t likely to complain to the police.”

  “And here we are,” said Siri.

  “Bravo,” said Civilai.

  Comrade Noo looked awful but Siri’s prognosis was positive.

  “Everything seems to be in working order,” he said. “I couldn’t have done anything Dtui didn’t.”

  The household clapped.

  “So why doesn’t he wake up?” asked young Mee.

  The girl lived there with her mother and younger brother and several other squatters. It was hard to keep count. Siri and Daeng had turned their government allotted residence into something of a hostel for the homeless and helpless. It was a functioning commune embedded deep in a non-functioning communist state. Siri and Daeng themselves lived above their noodle shop.

  “It’s called a trauma,” said Siri. “Sometimes, something so horrible happens that your mind can’t take it anymore. It shuts up shop and puts a ‘closed’ sign in the window. Comrade Noo is in there and his parts are recovering very slowly but his mind isn’t ready to come out. I can’t imagine what they did to him but he needs time every bit as much as he needs medicine.”

  Over some eleven bottles of Lao rice whisky and endless plates of pork lahp and spicy salad, the residents listened to Siri and Daeng’s amazing adventures in Thailand. All the couple left out were tales of possession and séances and running battles with malevolent spirits, even though they were true. Just as there were bureaucratic layers of impossibility, so there were supernatural dimensions that rational educated people in the West would never believe to exist.

  The average Lao, brought up in a small community, had no doubts that there were spirits. They sought advice from them. They asked for forgiveness. Even the business people in the capital erected spirit houses to placate the ghosts. Many claimed to have seen the phantoms but few would have had the type of relationship Dr. Siri had developed. Despite his scientific training, Siri had been forced to concede that there were spirits. He would have preferred it to be otherwise but he was undeniably possessed by a thousand-year-old shaman by the name of Yeh Ming. The old Hmong had never made direct contact with Siri but had been a magnet for a menagerie of ghosts that had passed in and out of the doctor’s life. This science-versus-supernatural dichotomy had fascinated and confounded him in equal measure.