Slash and Burn (13 page)

“Madam, judging from the evidence in front of us, I’d say this would have occurred whether we were here or not. And it didn’t even have to have happened here. This was a tragedy begging to be let out of the bag.”

“Again, you’re right. But if you hadn’t volunteered yourself, volunteered us all, we’d be at home now beside the Mekhong eating noodles in relative peace. We wouldn’t be in this room with this particular body, about to be embroiled in an international scandal. This would be someone else’s problem. Someone in good health capable of handling it. But, oh, no. One last adventure before I retire, you say. What can go wrong? you say. Everything’s perfectly safe, you say. And look at us now. Five weeks ago we were perfectly content and now we’re up to our necks in dung.”

“Come on, Daeng. Be fair. What could I have done to avoid it?”

“What could you have done?”

“Yes.”

“Torn up the note.”

“I think we need to wake up Inspector Phosy,” Siri said. “I’ll stay with the major. And perhaps you could ask the manager to rouse Second Secretary Gordon and Dr. Yamaguchi.”

“Right.”

And she was gone.

Siri walked around, being careful not to disturb anything. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the room was full of inquisitive people. Once that happened it would be too late to spot any of those anomalies that make a difference to an inquiry. The room was very much like his own in the far wing. There was a strong scent of alcohol with a trace of vomit but there was no evidence that the major had thrown up. At the small carved dressing table he saw the lipstick and an indelible felt-tip pen. The bed was unmade but tidy as if someone had lain there but not slept. An empty whiskey bottle lay on its side on the floor. There was no cap. Beneath the bed was a crate with eight more unopened bottles and four empty slots. Not bad, Siri thought, after only three nights. On the table beside the bed was an open thermos of cold coffee and a used cup.

He only had time for a cursory look into the bathroom. The alcohol and vomit smells were much stronger in there. There was a small pile of clothing below the shower head and what might have been a short rug. They looked as if they’d been doused with water. He heard voices outside the door. He turned around and a shudder ran along his spine. The sight of the dimly lit room gave him a profound attack of déjà vu. He didn’t know when or how, but he’d been in this room before—after dark.

Inspector Phosy had barred all but Second Secretary Gordon, Dr. Yamaguchi and Peach, who was needed for her linguistic skills, from entering the room. Peach had taken one look at the corpse and run into the bathroom to throw up. They often forgot how young she was. But she composed herself and, by keeping her gaze fixed out of the window, assured everyone she’d be able to translate. Judge Haeng, who was technically everybody’s boss, had barged his way into the room past one of the two old guards they’d posted there. He’d insisted on conducting a search of the major’s bags and drawers and even lifted the mattress to see if there was anything concealed beneath. Once satisfied—exactly of what they weren’t sure—he’d retired and left them to it. Senator Vogal had made a brief appearance in the doorway, paled visibly and quickly taken Mack Gordon off for a briefing.

Siri and Yamaguchi had unfastened the major from the door handle, a feat made easier by a slip knot device tied into the rope. This should have been the major’s escape route; a tug on the loose end and the noose gives way. But, on this occasion, the old soldier hadn’t been fast enough. They enlisted the aid of Phosy to lift him onto the bed. He was as heavy as a jeep. As the erection had failed to go away, they covered the body in a sheet for Peach’s benefit. All the indicators pointed to death by hanging. There was a clear ligature impression between the chin and the larynx. The face was pale and the eyes protruding. Saliva had dried around the mouth. As for the erotic element to the death, both Siri and the American had seen such a thing before. Siri had witnessed it only once; the death of a deviant neighbour in his Paris apartment. A middle-aged man, dressed in pajamas, had hanged himself from a coat rack in a closet. The rail had given way and he had fallen to the floor, waking everybody up. Yamaguchi, it turned out, had seen post mortem autoerotic accidents on numerous occasions, making them sound as common a pastime in Hawaii as Frisbee. Siri decided Western perverts had too much time on their hands. Although he was convinced that the major had accidentally killed himself, there seemed to be something troubling the American. Yamaguchi retreated to his room to look through a reference book he’d brought along for a little light reading.

Breakfast was laid out on the tables as usual but after the events of the morning few people had an appetite. Sergeant Johnson and Gordon went into town on Toua’s ponies to phone the consulate and inform them of events. Judge Haeng, not about to trust his fate to a wild beast, had them send back one of the trucks so he could be driven comfortably into town to pass on the disturbing news to the ministry. At the Friendship, word had spread rapidly and the buzz around the hotel was that this tragedy would surely mark the end of the mission. They knew that as soon as the smoke cleared they’d be on their way back to Vientiane. Only Auntie Bpoo saw the major’s demise as “a heroic way for a pervert to go.” Other opinion ranged from disgust to pity. Civilai arrived late for breakfast, weighed down with a thunderous hangover and oblivious.

“He what?” he said, after receiving a rushed description of the death.

“I doubt he intended to kill himself,” said Siri. “He was involved in a session of autoeroticism.” (He’d resorted to French as there was no Lao equivalent for such a concept.) “You do know what that is, I assume?”

“Of course I do,” Civilai replied. “It’s when you make love to your car. I’m quite fond of my Citroën.”

“Civilai!” said Daeng.

“Sorry. Bad time for a joke. Bad joke for the time.”

“Tact has never been your forte,” said Siri.

“But I very much doubt the major was capable of anything erotic last night,” Civilai said. “Sex, even with oneself, is an act of passion. I’m scouring my memory here but I seem to recall it comes at a time of heightened awareness. You become stimulated to the point when you need release. When I saw him he was dead to the world, snoring like a wild boar.”

“When you saw him where?”

“In his room. I went there last night.”

“You told us you’d forgotten,” said Daeng.

“I had to say that. I could hardly announce that the head of the mission was so drunk he couldn’t unlace his own boots. That he’d thrown up all over the floor.”

“You cleaned him up?”

“And took his boots off.”

“How did you get in the room?” Siri asked.

“The door wasn’t locked. I knocked and tried the handle.”

“Are you sure he was drunk and not ill?”

“Come on, Siri. I know what drunk looks like. He smelled like a whiskey distillery. He looked a lot like you the night Madame Daeng accepted your proposal of marriage.”

“That bad?”

“He was slurring so much his tongue kept flopping out of his mouth.”

“But it was only, what, seven o’clock when you went to his room,” Daeng reminded him. “Seven thirty at the latest. How does a man with Potter’s drinking track record manage to get that sloshed in such a hurry?”

“I’ve never tried it myself,” Civilai told her, “but I imagine knocking back a bottle of eighty-proof Scotch whiskey in an hour might just do it. The empty bottle was in his hand.”

Siri nodded. “What exactly did you do when you found him?”

Civilai broke the end off a baguette and dipped it in a very cold and runny egg yolk before filling his mouth with it. Siri and Daeng waited patiently until Civilai had washed the mouthful down with coffee.

“He was on the bed on his front, face to his left,” Civilai began. “He had the empty bottle in one hand and was reaching for his boot laces with the other. I went over to help him take the boots off and I noticed he had whiskey and sick all down his shirt. Once I’d pulled off his boots I took off his shirt. No mean feat, I can tell you. He’d very obligingly thrown up on the bedside rug rather than the bed cover so I took the rug and the shirt and threw them in the shower, added a little disinfectant from under the sink, and let the water run on them. I may be a kind Samaritan to drunks but I stop short at scrubbing their clothes.”

“And you left him there on the bed?” Siri asked.

“It was cold in the room. Both the windows were wide open. So I pulled the quilt over him. He was already snoring by then. I turned out the light, flicked the lock catch on the inside and shut the door. As I say, I can’t imagine him coming out of a session like that and feeling amorous.”

“Me neither,” Siri agreed. “Unless he took some stimulant when he came round. Something got him excited. He was sexually aroused when we found him.”

“Perhaps Americans recover faster than us,” Civilai suggested. “Out of it one minute. Into it the next.”

“It’s all wrong somehow, my brother. None of it makes sense.”

The senator had been consulting with Dr. Yamaguchi and Rhyme the journalist, and Secretary Gordon. Their thoughts were being passed on by Peach to General Suvan. Suddenly the group separated and Vogal banged a spoon on the table top to get everyone’s attention. Silence took a while.

“My colleagues, brothers and sisters,” he began. Peach stood and took great delight in providing a simultaneous translation. It obviously threw the senator out of sync to have someone speaking at the same time as him but, to his credit, he persevered.

“I would like, personally, to express my regrets over the events of last night,” he said. “This is an embarrassment for my fellow countrymen which I sincerely hope you will not take as an insult. Major Harold Potter was a great soldier and patriot. Like many of us who suffer personal traumas in the field of battle, he carried around his own personal devils. The major’s devils defeated him. As soon as we can, we will return the body to his loved ones. But I’m certain that Major Potter would have wanted this mission to succeed. He was a fighter who never gave up in the face of adversity. I know his spirit is looking down at us now and urging us to honor his memory by returning, not empty-handed, but with news of the downed pilot. On behalf of the United States senate I urge you to continue the search. Forge ahead, my Lao friends.”

He acknowledged some unheard applause, performed another silly-looking
nop
, sat down and started eating. The Lao picked at their food.

“Another one who’s accountable to Wall Street,” said Civilai. “The sponsors of today’s event are on his back to come up with results. A little thing like the death of a great soldier and patriot won’t stop him. I bet he’s got a speech worked out for each of us, just in case.”

“B … but we still get the per diem,” said Mr. Geung.

“That’s the spirit, Geung,” Daeng laughed. “As long as we get our cut it doesn’t matter how many fall around us. It’s just a job.”

Breakfast was subdued. Nobody knew where to go or what to do so they all sat and muttered. It was a little after eight when they heard the return of first the truck and then the ponies. Gordon gathered the Americans around him at the rear of the dining room. Judge Haeng forced the Lao team out to the veranda where the fog still clung to the eaves and concealed the hotel fence. Siri’s cough was constant now as his lungs attempted to filter oxygen from the smoke. The judge glared at him as if this were another deliberate Siri plot to disrupt the meeting.

“Comrades,” said Haeng. “I have spoken by telephone to the minister. Like me, he believes we have been afforded a great opportunity. He has instructed us to go on with the mission. He and I both agree that the suicide of the queer major gives us tremendous political leverage. If we also come up with the pilot’s bones, we’ll be firmly in the driving seat. A good socialist—”

Madame Daeng’s hand shot into the air.

“Judge!” she called.

“Yes, Madame Daeng?” he said, annoyed to have been interrupted mid-motto. If the general hadn’t been sitting beside him he would probably have ignored her.

“Can I just confirm that you and the minister are still attached to the Ministry of Justice?”

“What kind of ridiculous question is that? Of course we are.”

“Well, I don’t get it, Judge. The concept of justice, fair play and all that. Letting a man die with dignity.”

“A dignified man does not dress up as a girl and garrotte himself. This is an opportunity.”

“It’s blackmail.”

The judge turned to Siri.

“Can’t you control your woman?”

Siri laughed.

“This is control, Judge,” he said. “You should see her when I let her off the leash. You’d really walk with a limp then.”

The laughter was a lot warmer than the morning. Even the general managed a chuckle. Judge Haeng was aware that they were making fun of him. His anger made his acne blink like party lights.

“I want all of you on the trucks in twenty minutes,” he barked. “Except you, Siri.”

“Oh, good grief. Why not me?”

“The minister wants an autopsy.”

Siri scrunched up his nose.

“What? Here?” he asked.

“Unless you’d care to carry the corpse back to Vientiane on your shoulder. Of course.”

“And what would we be doing it for?”

“So nobody suspects foul play, of course.”

Siri couldn’t use the excuse of not having equipment as everyone knew he carried his portable morgue around in a PVC carrier bag.

“Dr. Yamaguchi’s probably better at all this than me,” he said.

“Good. Because he’ll be assisting you.”

“Damn. Then I’ll need my morgue team; Mr. Geung and Nurse Dtui.”

“They’re wanted for digging.”

“Then I’m not doing it!”

“Sulking again, Siri?”

“No team, no job.”

“Siri! You….”

What was he going to do? Fire him?

14

SOME WORDS JUST DIDN’T NEED TRANSLATING

The autopsy was conducted in the old warehouse once used to store stacks of opium. There was still a vague scent of addiction there. The concrete godown had a corrugated roof and was open to the plain on one side. To the rear was a sink and a concrete tub full of old water. They’d lugged a large rectangular table to the center and covered it in plastic. Despite a lot of prodding and coaxing, Ugly insisted on lying beneath it, perhaps to catch scraps. As they didn’t bring scrubs, Siri and his team were wearing black plastic garbage bags slit down the back with head and arm holes cut out of them. They’d opted to spare Peach the unpleasantness of watching. She’d protested halfheartedly but seemed relieved to hand the translation duties over to Dtui. At least the nurse was in familiar territory. She may not have known the correct English for a polite dinner party but she could certainly describe the dissection of an inflamed bladder without blinking. There were two others in attendance. Secretary Gordon was there as an observer for legal purposes. And Auntie Bpoo had reminded the judge she was on holiday and had no intention of going out in the truck. She had to keep Siri in her sights.

“Is the major’s family OK with this?” Dr. Yamaguchi asked nobody in particular.

“He didn’t have anyone close,” Gordon told him. He looked up to see whether they were speaking slowly enough for Dtui to keep up. She smiled and raised her thumb. “He had a couple of kids with one of his wives,” he continued, “but they don’t keep in touch. The army was really the only family he had.”

They watched Mr. Geung removing the too-small underwear from the big major, respectfully flipping him this way and that as if he weighed nothing at all.

“Your man knows what he’s doing,” said Yamaguchi to Siri.

Dtui didn’t bother to translate.

“He’s number one on our team,” she said. “I’m number two.”

Yamaguchi laughed. He had an easy humor and a dazzling smile. If only they could turn his volume down.

“Nice of you to let Dr. Siri come along,” he said.

Siri was too nervous to notice they were talking about him. He’d never performed an autopsy in front of an expert before. He was the first to admit there were large gaps in his proficiency. He was a surgeon by choice and a coroner because nobody else wanted the job. He told Yamaguchi he could step in with comments whenever he wanted, and began with the external examination. He made observations about the general condition of the body, the ravages of alcoholism, odd bruising here and there, and, last but most certainly not least, attention turned to the penis—modest but at attention. Siri had noted the pathologist’s questioning look in that direction when they’d first encountered the body. As the American had experience in dealing with autoerotic accidents, Siri asked whether this was a normal phenomenon.

“I have seen postmortem erections,” Yamaguchi said. He spoke slowly and Dtui enjoyed translating for him. “But only on two occasions were they the result of sexual stimulation,” he continued. “At one time we were called to a house where a rather large man had died while making love to his very slight wife. She hadn’t the strength to remove him and he was still erect so it was rather like uncoupling a train carriage.”

Auntie Bpoo, sitting on a recliner with her back to the autopsy, was able to help with the imagery whenever Dtui got lost.

“The other occasion was an autoerotic incident not unlike this,” Yamaguchi continued. “The only difference was that the cord had broken and the victim fell onto his face. So you would notice that in both cases the victims were face down. The erection was maintained because the blood followed the rules of gravity and then congealed. I was confused when I saw the major this morning because he’d died suspended in a sitting position. The blood should have drained away from his organ, not into it. I needed to check with my manual as to whether this was physically likely but the situation wasn’t covered. I’d need to consult with a urologist to be certain but I really don’t see how this was possible.”

Siri knew the Americans would very much like to learn that the death of their major was not the result of perversion. He respected Yamaguchi for his experience but he didn’t know the man personally. Siri lived in a world where doctors were constantly encouraged by the authorities to see things that did not exist or to overlook things that might be an embarrassment to the Party. He saw no reason why the imperialist West should be any different.

“So you’re saying you don’t think he died in the position we found him?” Dtui asked.

“I’m always learning new things,” Yamaguchi told her. “There will always be mysteries and anomalies.”

It was a diplomatic answer, given that this wasn’t his autopsy. But the response gave Siri more fodder for thought. He’d also been confused by one or two things. He lifted the major’s chins to get a better look at the ligature marks. The band of bruising formed an attractive macramé necklace high on his throat. The hands were clenched and there were no fingernail marks around the wound which might indicate the victim had fought to free himself. Mr. Geung and Yamaguchi helped him roll the body onto its stomach. There was surprisingly little hypostasis on the back of the thighs, perhaps because the major was suspended when he died. Or so it had appeared. So far, everything had been predictable. That was until Siri traced the ligature marks to the back of the neck. He leaned to one side to follow the bruising then stood back. Yamaguchi, seeing the look of surprise on Siri’s face, stepped up to the table. He tilted his head to one side, looked up at Siri and shook his head.

“What? What is it?” Dtui asked.

“Come and have a look,” Siri told her.

Dtui focused all her skills of observation on the bruising but nothing came to her.

“Think of where he was found,” Siri said.

“He was behind the door hanging by the neck from the doorknob,” said Dtui, “so he … he was hanging. That’s it. If he died from hanging the bruise would climb up like an inverse Y,” she said.

“Whereas?”

“Whereas this goes flat around his neck like a necklace. But that means….”

“It means Yamaguchi was right. Major Potter didn’t die in this position and he didn’t die from the hanging. I’d say he was strangled, probably while he was lying on his stomach under the quilt. That’s why there are no fingernail marks as he tried to loosen the garrotte.”

Yamaguchi was explaining exactly the same hypothesis to Secretary Gordon who looked every bit as surprised as Dtui.

“What about the erotic … bit?” Dtui asked.

“The erection? I don’t know. He’d had a lot to drink so it might have even been the result of a full bladder. If he was face down it’s more likely that it occurred on the bed in his sleep.”

“So someone must have set this whole thing up.”

“It’s the only logical explanation. Drugged him, I wouldn’t wonder.”

“Why?”

“The first thought that comes to me is that if the US embassy believed their representative had died in extremely embarrassing circumstances they’d want it covered up. The Americans would be on the defensive and our people would be in a very strong negotiating position. If it was straightforward murder, we’d get the blame and the old brown sandal would be on the other foot.”

“Doc? The explosive.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“If he’d been blown up by his own dynamite they’d blame his drinking habit. It wouldn’t be quite as embarrassing as this but bad enough. Drunk in charge of explosives.”

“Someone wanted him dead and embarrassed. The first attempt didn’t work so he or she resorted to this.”

They looked up to see Yamaguchi and Gordon staring at them across the body. Dtui and Siri stared back. There was a long silence.

“What do we do?” Dtui asked.

“We either keep our suspicions to ourselves and mobilize our morgue squad to come up with a concrete plan,” said Siri, “or we share our suspicions now with the Americans.”

“Perhaps they haven’t worked it out.”

“Look at them, Dtui. How many years of education do you suppose they have between them? They’ve got it, all right, and if I was one of them I’d be certain
we
did it. Holding back makes us look more guilty.”

“It does all point to us,” Dtui agreed.

Ignoring the corpse, Siri, Dtui, Mr. Geung, Auntie Bpoo, Yamaguchi and Gordon sat on fold-up chairs overlooking the plain and went through the case step by step. Of course the Americans had come to the same conclusions. Together, they made two rather quick decisions. Firstly, not to perform a full autopsy on the major. He’d been victimized enough. His name was tainted and somehow they’d have to find a way to clear it. They decided to wrap the body, find a cool spot for it and hope that the smog cleared soon so they could send him home.

Secondly, and this was risky, they agreed not to tell anyone other than Inspector Phosy about their findings. They didn’t want to alert the killer that they’d seen through the deception. Siri would secretly tell Civilai and Daeng but that subclause didn’t need to be included in the oral contract. Someone had gone to a good deal of trouble to kill the major. It was somebody who would not draw attention by being seen around the hotel. As they were surrounded by exploding countryside, the only access was through the front of the Friendship and past the dining room. So the perpetrator was either one of the staff or a member of the teams. They drew up a list of suspects. The hotel had a permanent staff of four, including the manager and his wife, plus three day workers who walked up from the town to prepare the meals for the guests. The two old guards could barely lift their muskets but nobody was being left off the list. Not even the truck porters who were supposed to have gone home before dark. Any one of them could have hidden in the grounds. The major weighed over a hundred kilos and his body was dragged from the bed to the door and lifted off the ground. The murderer was either somebody extremely strong or this had been a team effort. If the latter was true, nobody could be excluded.

Siri drew up a mental list of anyone in the Lao team he couldn’t personally guarantee with total certainty. He came up with four. Reluctantly he had Commander Lit in fourth place. Siri had known him briefly and believed him to be hard working and intelligent. But he was a loyal cadre of the security division and a very serious party member who would not question Politburo orders. Auntie Bpoo would have been delighted to hear that he had her at number three on his list. He knew nothing about her background, especially why it was she spoke fluent English. At number two was Cousin Vinai who had come on the mission under false pretences. And in the top spot was Judge Haeng. Siri knew, of course, that the judge wouldn’t have the spunk to commit the crime himself but he would certainly have been able to recruit a killer. Haeng was a devious character with a number of agendas and he’d been acting suspiciously since they arrived. He’d insisted on searching the major’s room that morning and not told anyone why. There was also the added bonus that Siri just plain didn’t like him.

There was something about the sophistication of the crime that suggested this wasn’t some local killer with a grudge against Americans. Sinister groundwork had been laid and they agreed that motives beyond the political should be investigated. In order to do so, they needed to fill in some of the gaps that existed in their information about the mission. There were still questions as to what possessed the missing pilot to go to pieces on the night he disappeared, and then the matter of Potter’s comment to Civilai that this MIA venture wasn’t as clear-cut as it seemed. Secretary Gordon took one of the ponies back into Phonsavan. He had a close friend at the embassy who could copy the documentation they had concerning the mission. He promised they’d find a way of getting the information up-country if it was humanly possible.

The depleted MIA teams had already left for the crash site. General Suvan slept in his room and was hopefully not dead. Senator Vogal was going through papers on the veranda with Ethel Chin. The hotel staff members were attending to their duties. Dtui decided it would be a useful ploy for her to stroll into the kitchen and engage them in idle girl talk. There was a lot to be learned from gossip. Her departure and the mysterious absence of Auntie Bpoo left Siri and Yamaguchi with no means of communication other than the experience that comes from a joint hundred years of medicine. Bpoo never seemed to be around when there was physical labour to be done. Geung helped them carry the body to the rear of the complex where they laid it in a huge cluster-bomb casing lined with straw and natural tobacco leaves. The other half of the casing completed the sarcophagus. They cleaned up their impromptu morgue and shook hands.

Siri, Ugly and Mr. Geung took advantage of Auntie Bpoo’s disappearance and walked unchaperoned to Phonsavan. The sooty air had become even more solid. The exercise didn’t help Siri’s breathing but there was no available transportation. Geung wasn’t suited to the cold. His nose and eyes had been running from the moment he’d arrived. They were a sorry-looking pair. They passed the airfield, currently the second largest in Laos. Until two days before it had been home to a large fleet of Russian Antonovs and Migs. The logic of this placement was brought into question for three months every year when the fires began and the site was cleared.

The new town of Phonsavan was a ramshackle place of hurriedly erected wooden shops and slow-moving building sites where more permanent structures were being assembled, it seemed, one brick a day. Once the decision was made to abandon the old ruined town of Xiang Khouang and move the capital to the village of Phonsavan, a wait-and-see attitude had pervaded. Would people come to live here or would they, through nostalgia, return to what had once been a beautiful town? The reconstruction had begun in 1973 and was progressing apparently without planning. It was as if anyone turning up with a wheelbarrow of wood and roof tiles could erect himself a hut anywhere he fancied. There was variety but not colour. Like Vientiane, the dust had turned everything into a sepia photograph. It coated the walls and the strays who slept on the unpaved streets and powdered what humble plants grew in the gardens. Even the ramshackle market lacked the gay colours of blood and fruit and vegetables that should have been the art and craft of a village center. A modest collection of rare animals hung by their necks like criminals.