The Woman Who Wouldn't die dsp-9

by Colin Cotterill

  ‘Are you sure he didn’t just miss?’ Dtui asked.

  ‘I saw the bullet hole where it went in her head,’ said the skinny girl. ‘Blood trickling down.’

  ‘We all did,’ said the headman.

  ‘How did the widow react when she was shot this second time?’ Phosy asked. Baby Malee had done a complete lap of laps and was happy to suck her thumb against her father’s chest.

  ‘She just rubbed her temples like she had a migraine or something,’ said the skinny girl. ‘She went to have a lie down. When we saw her next day there were no wounds. It was a miracle.’

  ‘It didn’t actually bring us closer to her,’ said the lei-threader, ‘but getting killed twice left her with this … this gift. She stands there in the middle of the village and starts telling us about dead relatives who want to get in touch with us.’

  ‘Claims she saw my wife who still hadn’t forgiven me for a little purported rendezvous I had with a ladyboy down in the capital when I was a lad,’ said the headman. ‘Complete rubbish, of course. But she yells it out to everyone.’

  ‘But she knew stuff only our dead kin could know,’ said the skinny girl.

  ‘We couldn’t shut her up,’ said the headman. ‘She went on about a lot of personal things and said if we wanted to talk to our relatives we could go up to the house. I didn’t talk to my wife that much when she was alive so I wasn’t about to go up there and talk to her spirit. I don’t know anyone who’d be brave enough to go up there talking to ghosts. Not that I was afraid, of course. Just not interested.’

  ‘I went up there,’ said the skinny girl.

  They looked at her with shocked expressions.

  ‘You never did?’ said the headman.

  ‘Yeah, I did. I wanted to know about my dad.’

  ‘And could she tell you anything?’ asked Phosy.

  ‘A lot. She really could talk to ghosts. I guess that’s what she was doing for the strangers too.’

  ‘Strangers?’

  ‘We started to get visitors,’ said the headman. ‘They’d get off the bus or walk in or arrive on motorcycles, like you. They’d stay for an hour or so then leave. But they wouldn’t tell us what they’d been doing.’

  ‘Was there anybody with her up in the house?’ Dtui asked, remembering the note on the back of Madame Daeng’s photos about the mute brother.

  ‘I don’t recall seeing anyone,’ said the headman. ‘But then again, the live-in girl was long gone before the second killing and none of us went up there. There could have been someone. Could have been a whole coven of witches for all we know.’

  ‘I never saw nobody when I went up there,’ said the skinny girl.

  ‘Were there any major differences between Madame Peung and your Madame Keui?’ Dtui asked.

  ‘The voice was the same, but there was the accent,’ said the old lady. ‘You can’t hide a Vietnamese accent. The district shaman said it was very likely she picked it up in limbo. Lot of Vietnamese stuck in limbo, he says.’

  ‘Did your shaman have any other comments?’ asked Dtui.

  ‘He did mention that we might have been the victims of mass hysteria,’ said the lei-threader. ‘That we’d all inhaled some natural gas escaping from the earth or listened to some demon music and … imagined the first murder.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It was her,’ said the old lady. ‘No question. The live-in girl had spent all that time in the house with her. She was in no doubt. It was the same woman.’

  ‘And where’s the live-in girl now?’ asked Phosy.

  ‘Long gone,’ said the skinny girl. ‘Probably still running if I know her.’

  On the journey back to Vientiane Dtui and Phosy had gone over the story looking for logical, non-supernatural explanations for what had happened. In his pocket, Phosy had the bullet the headman had gouged out of the front post. That was real enough. Their suggestions were even more far-fetched than the events themselves. But, short of the entire village stringing them along in an elaborate joke, there was no explanation. It jarred every joint, nipped at every nerve in his policeman’s body, but Phosy was forced to agree with the remote likelihood that Madame Keui was indeed a born-again medium. It was not an admission he’d be sharing with anyone at police headquarters. And, besides, there were still a number of smaller questions pending that begged an explanation. He often found that pulling on a loose end unravelled the whole story. But, for the meanwhile, the note Dtui and Phosy would be sending upriver with the next boat would be to the effect that, although their investigation had discovered layer upon layer of mystery, they had uncovered no obvious deceit. As far as they could tell, and as bizarre as it sounded, Madame Peung, aka Madame Keui, was everything she claimed to be. As it turned out, it was a note that would never be sent.

  The Vespa pulled up in front of the police dormitory where a small throng of uniformed policemen stood. Upon seeing Phosy they hurried over to him. They were supposed to salute a senior officer, even if he was wearing Bermuda shorts and a nylon jacket. They’d had training courses on police etiquette. But this was often forgotten, especially during moments of urgency.

  ‘Brother,’ said Sergeant Sihot. He was solid as a tank and permanently dishevelled. ‘There’s been a crime committed. Two, if you count them separately.’

  ‘Sihot, can you not call me brother in front of the men?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The training?’

  ‘Oh, right. But, someone’s torched Madame Daeng’s noodle shop.’

  ‘What?’ shouted Phosy and Dtui at the same time. They were too shocked to dismount.

  ‘It and the buildings either side of it are gutted.’

  ‘What makes you think it was torched?’ Phosy asked.

  ‘Strong stink of petrol in the upstairs rooms,’ said Sihot. ‘And, look, Brother Phosy, I … I don’t suppose you know where Dr Siri and Madame Daeng are right now, do you?’

  ‘They’re off in Pak Lai,’ said Dtui.

  ‘Oh, well. That’s a relief.’

  He turned to smile at his men. They all seemed suddenly delighted that Daeng’s shop had been burned to the ground.

  ‘How could that be a relief?’ Phosy asked.

  ‘Because there’s a body in there.’

  8

  1910

  It wouldn’t officially go on record as Nurse Dtui’s first solo autopsy. Judge Haeng had reluctantly given the go-ahead but there would be no permission slip with his signature on it. If anything went wrong he would know nothing about it. That was good enough for Phosy.

  After an idle month, the morgue smelled … well, like a morgue. Opening the doors and windows did nothing to remove the musty stench. Turning on the light in the late evening succeeded only in filling the place with flying beetles the size of pecan nuts and a cloud of mosquitoes. Only the corpse would escape this onslaught as it had no blood to suck. It had arrived in a large tote bag and been poured on to the cutting room table with the sound of mah-jong tiles. The bones were black. The few that had still been connected at the site were now separated. It was more a puzzle than an autopsy.

  ‘What do you need to know?’ Dtui asked. She wore a fresh, green operating theatre robe that reached her feet. Four hundred of them were stacked in the corner, donations from the Soviet Union. There were a matching number of masks and twice as many little rubber boots but she hadn’t bothered with them.

  ‘Who he or she is,’ said Phosy.

  Dtui leaned over the pile of bones and poked around with a pencil.

  ‘Oh, well. We’re in luck,’ she said. ‘Look at this.’

  Phosy leaned in to look.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s his name card. It miraculously survived the fire.’

  ‘All right. Then just tell me whatever you can.’

  ‘That’s more like it.’

  While she was shuffling the parts around she came across the pelvis.

  ‘I’m quite good at the easy parts,’ she said. ‘And th
is is one pelvis that was never designed to give birth. And this little fellow over here is probably an eye ridge. All of which tells me our friend here, is … or was, male.’

  One femur was intact. She measured it. She hmmed.

  ‘I was about to suggest it was a child,’ she said. ‘He’s short. But there’s a lot of wear and tear on these joints. And look, the sternum end of the clavicle is fused. So our man here was over thirty. There’s a lot of pitting on the rib so he might even have been over forty. So it’s a short, middle-aged man.’

  ‘Good job, Dr Dtui,’ said Phosy. ‘Anything else?’

  She liked that title. With a broad smile on her face she swatted a menagerie of flying beasts away from the standard lamp and swung its arm over the bone pile. She picked out fragments of the skull and started to put them together. It was particularly difficult. But after ten minutes of shuffling she looked at her husband.

  ‘I don’t think he was killed by the fire,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘Well, to be certain we’d have to look at his lungs. As his lungs are deep-fried and indistinguishable from his kneecaps, we’ll never know. But I’m prepared to stake my reputation on it. And don’t say I don’t have one.’

  ‘OK, let’s hear it.’

  ‘If he died in the fire I can’t think of any reason why anyone would wait until the charred building was cool enough to clamber up to the second floor with no wooden staircase and beat the living daylights out of a corpse.’

  ‘He’s been hit?’

  ‘Blunt object. Half a dozen times. Maybe more.’

  One problem with communication between Vientiane and Sanyaburi was the absence of a telephone line. Phosy had tried to link through military channels only to discover there were no army units stationed there. It would have been easier to call Thailand on the solitary Lao overseas telephone line and ask someone to run a message across the border. His last hope had been a channel directly to the helicopter which had transported the Minister of Agriculture to Pak Lai but the crew had closed down the equipment for the night. Few boats plied that section of the river after dark as there were still bandits about. So it wouldn’t be until the next morning that a message could be sent to Dr Siri and Madame Daeng telling them that their home and all their possessions were gone.

  After the autopsy, Phosy had combed through the skeleton of the shop and found nothing of importance. He’d watched them spoon the remains of the victim into the large bag. At the back of his mind was Dr Siri’s story about the midget from Housing and the late-night raid. The man had probably lost his job as a result of Siri’s complaint. If the body were his it would look very bad for the doctor, especially as there was no way of estimating the time of death. One more thing the inspector had noticed before heading for home was a car parked some fifty metres away on the river bank. Obviously somebody of influence had got wind of the fire and come to observe. The sleek government ZiL limousine sat in the shadows like the devil’s own hearse. Nobody got out to discuss matters and Phosy wasn’t about to tap on the window and say hello. It was best left alone. It was late and nothing else could be done. Perhaps, by morning, some loved ones would have reported the disappearance of a completely different short, middle-aged man.

  How far could they have gone? he wondered. Not for the first time. Herve Barnard sat in the driver’s seat of the black ZiL. Its windows were so darkly tinted he could barely see the statuette on the bonnet. But the point was that nobody could see in. It was a politburo car he’d stolen directly from the parking lot behind the parliament building. The ZiLs the Russians sent to their Third World comrades were a far cry from those that travelled in their own lanes in downtown Moscow. These shoddy rip-off versions leaked petrol and were incredibly easy to break into and hot-wire. The Lao, not realizing this, had felt it safe to leave a fleet of them unguarded behind a bamboo gate.

  Barnard had been given little choice. He’d needed to be at the scene of the fire to identify the old whore from her recent photograph. He’d needed to be here to follow her and to kill her. But there were few Westerners in Vientiane and his presence amongst the gawking crowd would have stood out. Hence the car. He’d watched the flames. They were a spectacular sight. Fire had a hunger for old buildings. Most of the properties along the river were closed but a group of onlookers had appeared from nowhere and stood and watched. They’d oohed when a window popped and ahhed with every falling rafter. He’d expected a human chain with buckets. The river was just across from the fire. But, no. They stood. And they watched until the last flaming moth flew off to the heavens and there was only smoke. And not until then did the insignificant policemen arrive. And then the more important ones. And then the boss, resplendent in Bermuda shorts and sandshoes, came to conduct an unimpressive investigation in the dark with failing torches. But where, oh where, were the owners?

  Barnard had arrived at eight for his appointment with the little man at the address he’d been given. There were no lights on in the shop or upstairs. No sound. No passers-by. There was a note pinned to the metal grate. He couldn’t read it but he assumed it to say the owner was out. Barnard didn’t know where she’d gone or for how long but he had only three more days before he was out of medication. He’d had to expedite matters. The fire would bring her back in a hurry. If not this evening, then the next day. She’d travel home to mourn for her little shop and he’d have her.

  He couldn’t stay at the Lane Xang now, of course. He’d drawn attention to himself by handing out his room number at the market. He doubted this God-awful place would have an efficient police force but, even if it did, he’d done enough to cover his tracks. They’d find the body in the burned-out building. The comrade’s little wife or his little mother would report him missing and, assuming they could count, the police would put two and two together. The dead man had an ongoing feud with the couple. Barnard didn’t know why and didn’t care. The little comrade had burned down the shop in revenge and was trapped by his own fire. Or, with a bit of luck, they’d suspect the shop owners of murdering him. Even more reason for them to return to clear their names. In a civilized country they would perform a post-mortem investigation and make the gruesome discovery of his death. But a country ruled by a university dropout half-breed was hardly likely to know what a pathologist was. He felt the odds had finally swung in his favour.

  The flight following the course of the Mekhong was a hairy one. The young pilot lacked the confidence you’d like to sense in someone controlling, what Civilai often called, a heavy metal coffin with an egg whisk on the top. The boy pilot had been set the challenge of navigating the river as low and as slowly as possible. Somebody had been attempting to talk to him on the radio but he’d ripped off his headphones as the tension dug in. No longer connected by microphone, the mechanic was yelling at the top of his voice, pointing this way and that. The Mi-2 helicopter was cleverly designed so as not to be able to look downward without balancing on its nose in mid-air. The mute brother clung to the back of the seat, his knuckles as white as the bones they contained. But Madame Peung rode the air currents like a girl at the funfair. She whooped and laughed and would, no doubt, describe her flight as exhilarating.

  Siri was too preoccupied to be nervous. Not for the first time in the past three years, as Yeh Ming, the one-thousand-and-two-year-old shaman, slowly moved into Siri’s life, the doctor was pondering yet another dream mystery. They’d been there again, the naked Frenchmen. Not a pretty sight. They were huddled together for warmth, staring directly into the lens of the dream camera, yelling their tetes off, shouting directly at Siri. It was as if they knew he was there watching but they couldn’t understand why he wasn’t taking notice of them. Why he wasn’t acting on what they were telling him. But for Siri it was exactly like watching a television with the sound off. He could hear nothing. He saw the Frenchmen break out of their penguin huddle in order to use their hands, because what true Frenchman could make himself understood without hand gestures? This was even more co
nfusing. Six mimes all backwardwalking and imaginary-wall-feeling and banana-unpeeling. Siri had no idea where to look. But the bitter cold proved too much for them. Their joints froze. They turned frosty white. They crumbled to the ground like crushed ice and were blown away. Siri felt somehow responsible. He found himself looking at a snow storm. Waiting. He was contemplating what he’d have to do to change the channel when he was suddenly aware of the shape of a figure walking through the blizzard in his direction. It was a man’s outline trudging slowly through the snow. As he walked closer, Siri could see a long white gown edged in gold. A white suit beneath. But who …?

  The man stood directly in front of the lens, his face filling the screen. Siri recognized him, an acquaintance who had become significant in Siri’s personal Otherworld. During his cynical years, Siri had always mocked the fact that mediums throughout Asia had a hierarchy of spirits. Shamans might dress like a king or a royal consort and messages to the beyond would begin through the ear of the departed aristocracy. He’d always considered that to be somewhat classist. But, of late, he’d come to realize there was some logic in it. The kings and princes always surrounded themselves with the most powerful shamans. Thus they had a direct line to the beyond. It was only natural that the royal courts would have a thriving afterlife community. In death as in life, the royals would rule the roost.

  The recently departed king’s face hogged the screen. He spoke. Siri heard nothing. But this was not the usual contact where the spirits came into the doctor’s world through his head and spoke using his voice. This was more a portal that he was being invited to step into. He had no idea how. He wanted to get closer but this was a dream. There was no actual television. No sofa. No living room. The king raised his voice. There was something. It was faint, like listening to the neighbour through a drinking glass pushed up against the wall. He couldn’t make out words but there were sounds. This was a breakthrough. But the king soon became frustrated as he realized his words were not passing over. He stepped back and considered the situation. He then held up one finger. Then nine, one, and then he formed a zero with his index finger and thumb. 1910. It was a year. Siri committed it to memory. Before the king turned back into the blizzard, there may have been a roll of the eyes, a dip of the head. The gestures a schoolmaster might make in the presence of a remedial pupil.