Curse of the Pogo Stick (6 page)

Although not, as they say, in the flesh, the old lady was back. She sat in a most unladylike pose, with her
phasin
skirt above her knees, her arms folded across her chest, and her head nodding from side to side. Her mouth was a clot of unspat betel nut. She was with Siri often these days. She neither spoke nor gestured nor came nor went. She was there and then she wasn’t; The monk at Hay Sok Temple had suggested she could have been Siri’s mother – or could still be. Tenses were annoyingly unhelpful when it came to the afterlife. As Siri had been separated from his parents at an early age, there was no way to tell one way or the other, and she certainly wasn’t giving anything away.

He fluttered his fingers at her. “Goodnight, Ma,” he said, and closed his eyes.

Dtui sat in the cutting room with nothing to do but admire the smiles of the seven happy nurses and the scowl of the one malcontent in the Mahosot photographs. The auditors in the office had been buoyed by the news that Dr Siri wouldn’t be back for another few days. They’d been warned of his reputation and doubted he would welcome their intrusion. It was hard to believe the little morgue had enough paperwork to keep them engrossed but Dtui noted that their snouts were still dipped into the filing cabinets. Mr Geung was using a long-handled broom to sweep away the ceiling cobwebs and the spiders seemed to appreciate his lack of coordination.

“I doubt those spiders have recovered from the laugh you gave them yesterday, brother Geung,” Dtui said.

“A…a morgue c…can’t be too clean,” he told her, quoting Dr Siri.

“You’re sweeping all the paint off the walls.”

Geung, with his very personal sense of humour, found that comment hilarious. He almost choked behind his surgical mask. Dtui heard a loud cough from the office that presumably suggested that menial staff shouldn’t be having fun on the job. Geung leaned against the table while his friend slapped him between the shoulder blades. When his voice returned, he said, “I know who sh…she is.”

He was looking at the photographs.

“Yes, you do. They’re our new nurses,” Dtui reminded him.

“No.” He picked up the photo of the nurses walking across the hospital compound. He pointed – not to the girls but to the patients who sat watching them pass. In particular he singled out one old lady in pyjamas sitting in a wheelchair.

“You know her, do you, pal?” Dtui took a closer look: thin as a noodle strand, white haired, certainly ill.

“No, Dtui. I don’t kn…know her. I just kn…know who she is. And you know t…too.”

“Do I?” She looked again. “Give me a clue.”

“On the the wall of the Bureau de P…Poste.”

“The wall of the…? Oh, you aren’t thinking it’s – what’s her face?”

“The Lizard.”

“No way!”

Dtui looked again, shaking her head. The Lizard? Her wanted poster had been on the wall of the post office for several months as a result of the last case Dtui, her husband, Phosy, and Dr Siri had worked on together. According to Security, not only had the Lizard been involved in the last coup attempt, she’d been wanted for ongoing acts of terrorism against the Republic since it came into being. Customers at the Bureau de Poste probably believed the old lady’s photo had been attached to the wanted poster as some kind of joke. How could such a sweet old thing be wanted for crimes against the state? But there was nothing funny about the Lizard. She had a chip on her shoulder against the communists and now it seemed that grudge had extended to revenge. But this couldn’t be…

Dtui brought over a petri dish and looked through it at the old lady in the wheelchair. Old women tended to look a lot alike to Dtui but there was something about the expression in the woman’s eyes that made Dtui think Geung had a point. And as that thought took root in her head, a second idea occurred to her. If she was after revenge, what if Siri wasn’t the intended victim? Dtui and Phosy had played a key part in putting down the coup. What if the lizard lady knew Siri was away, or didn’t care? The ends of Dtui’s fingers tingled and a shudder ran down her spine. She looked once more at the old girl in the wheelchair. Geung was right. This was the woman who glared from the shadows of the post office wall.

Their evening meeting couldn’t come soon enough.

SHOTS FROM THE GRASSY KNOLL

“B
ecause they’re basically heathens,” spat Judge Haeng.

Their journey had been painfully slow and the judge’s lack of sleep made him more opinionated than ever. The convoy was negotiating one obstacle after another: a river with no bridge, a temporarily filled bomb crater that had reopened, a tree the breadth of a man’s height sprawling across the road. They were currently on a track that clung along the edge of a steep incline. The valley below dropped drastically to their left. Luang Prabang seemed half a planet away. As there was no pocket chess or solitaire to while away the nonmoving hours, Siri had removed the plugs from his ears and was having sport with his judge. The driver and the bodyguard were both listening so Haeng was obliged to fight every point.

“Simplicity doesn’t necessarily mean barbarianism,” Siri countered.

“Simplicity, Siri? They allow their youth to fornicate before marriage. That isn’t simplicity. The Hmong are completely without morals.”

“I think you’ll find they have some of the strongest morality taboos of all the ethnic groups.”

“Premarital sex not being among them?”

“I suppose it depends on whether you classify sex as a sin. There are worse things. I’ve heard some of our public officials take nightclub singers from such places as the Anou Hotel and have their way with them for money. Is that morality, Judge?”

Siri enjoyed the blush on the young man’s cheeks. He knew the Anou was one of the judge’s favourite fishing holes.

“Unsubstantiated rumours, Siri…about whoever it is. I’m surprised at you, taking notice of market tittle-tattle.” Siri smiled but held back. “And besides, we’re discussing hill tribes. I’m trying to explain how some savage races still have a way to go, not only educationally, but morally and socially.”

“Really? I’ve heard the Hmong social order is the most disciplined and traditionally ordered of all the minorities. A Hmong’s family is his life.”

“Not much of a life to give, is it?”

“Now, now, Judge Haeng. If I didn’t know you better I’d say you were talking like a bigot.”

Haeng laughed. “Doctor, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Some of my closest friends are from the backwoods. You do realize how much effort the Party directs at fringe groups?”

“By fringe, I take it you mean the forty per cent of our citizens who aren’t native Lao?”

“Exactly. I take it you’ve read the new draft constitution?”

“I was waiting for the movie version. But I take it you’ve had a hand in writing it.”

“More like an entire arm, Siri. I’m particularly proud of the passage that reads, “Our pluri-ethnic people will have to intensify their patriotism, become closely knit, eradicate all prejudice and discrimination inherited from the former society, be mutually supportive, and help the disabled so that all efforts may be devoted to the construction of our beloved country.””

“Hmm, you’re right. That wasn’t at all racist.”

“Did it occur to you we have ethnic schools in every province?”

“Where you teach…?”

“Standards, Siri. We teach standards and discipline and Lao language and history.”

“In schools two weeks’ walk from a village, in classrooms where few people speak a familiar language.”

“Of course not every child is able to attend. We have to select the brighter children.”

“Like Hitler.”

Judge Haeng’s acne flared like neon from the frustration of teaching new tricks to an old dog. Siri was calmly peeling a mandarin. A silver pheasant flapped in front of the slow-moving vehicle. The driver and Siri smiled at the omen. Haeng didn’t notice.

“We need to educate them, Siri. Do you know?”

“Know what, Judge?”

“Know what their religion is?”

“Judaism?”

“Shamanism, Siri. They believe in spirits. They have witch doctors dealing with medical matters.”

There came a distant rumble as if the earth had a stomach complaint. The dry lotus garland that hung from the rear-view mirror began to swing wildly. Haeng seemed oblivious to it.

“They hold seances and exorcisms – ”

“Judge Haeng?”

“ – and devil worship. What kind of children…?”

The world seemed to fall on them at that moment. The entire cliff came crashing down in front of the Land Rover Rocks and earth smashed the windscreen and dented the hood. Siri turned his head in time to see the jeep far back on the road disappear as another wall of rocks and uprooted trees landed between them. He believed it was only a matter of time before a boulder – a big lump of rock with his name engraved on one side – came crashing onto the roof, leaving him and his boss a dimension short, flat and lifeless as roti. He even looked up defiantly at the cars overhead light. But the end didn’t come. Only a peculiar silence he felt obliged to break.

“Well,” he said, “that’s livened up an otherwise dull day.” He promised himself he’d never shout at a Party conference again. He wondered how much more hopeless the situation could become, but he didn’t have long to wait for an answer. The first bullet hit a tyre and their vehicle sank toward the north-east. The bodyguard began to fumble at his holster. The second bullet grazed the roof. “Oh, my God,” Haeng screamed. “It’s an ambush.” Siri finished peeling his orange and handed a slice to the panicking judge. He knew from experience that all the squealing in the world wouldn’t help them now. Bullets whistled in their direction from the steep grassy incline above them. The driver ducked into the space beneath his steering wheel and hugged the foot pedals. The bodyguard finally had his shaking pistol in his hand. His first shot narrowly missed Haeng and smashed the rear window.

Haeng screamed, “We’re surrounded.” He fell across the guard and grabbed for the far door handle. “Siri, for heaven’s sake. Do something.”

Siri ate the orange slice and wondered. In the brief few seconds since the ambush had begun, he’d already come to a conclusion. If the attackers really wanted them dead, the passengers would have been knocking on the gates of Nirvana after the first volley. Over twenty shots had been fired and only the first had made contact. If this wasn’t an attack by some blind bandit gang, the ambushers had a plan for them.

“I suggest you relax,” Siri shouted above the gunfire.

“Idiot!” shouted Haeng. It was his last word. He was able to wrestle open the door and, in throwing himself out, he managed to drag the bodyguard with him. Both men tumbled onto the dust and scrambled on all fours into the vegetation below. Within a second they were out of sight. Siri felt a sharp prick at the back of his neck. He turned to see a figure, the head wrapped in a sarong with just a narrow slit for the eyes. They were beautiful eyes. The assailant held up a thin stiletto as if to show Siri what had done the damage. Before he passed out, Siri offered the young lady the remnants of his orange.

“Look! You can’t just play policeman,” Phosy told the three amateur sleuths sitting around the table at the back of Madame Daeng’s shop. Moths and flying beetles strove to avoid collisions as they circled the hanging lightbulb above their heads. “Let the professionals handle this, wont you?”

A burst of laughter would have been less bruising to his professional pride than the ironic raised eyebrows and pursed lips that met his comment.

“What?” he asked. “We have good people.”

“And you are one of them,” Civilai assured him. “But until your return this afternoon, it appears that the charge sheet had sat in an in-tray on somebody’s desk.”

“We’re understaffed.”

“And will continue to be,” Civilai added. “And meanwhile, your pregnant wife is in extreme danger.”

Dtui remained diplomatically silent. Phosy looked around at the unlikely detectives. He’d tried and failed to deter them from irresponsible acts in the past and he had to admit, as a team, they were far more effective than the converted foot soldiers he was training at police headquarters.

“Well, I suppose attack is the best form of defence,” he conceded. The group cheered. Dtui gave his cheek a friendly sniff and refilled the glasses.

“Good,” Madame Daeng said. “So, let’s get down to it. Comrade Civilai, what other insights did your contacts come up with?”

“The military believe the hand grenade in the stomach of the corpse was one commonly used by the Royal Thai Army. As most of the aggression against us is launched from that side of the border, I suppose that’s only to be expected. As we only identified the Lizard from the photograph this afternoon we haven’t had time to contact the department at the Security Division responsible for her case file.”

“I can do that,” Phosy told them.

“And we’re certain this is the Lizard in the photograph?” Daeng asked.

“Well, she does look like most other skinny old ladies,” Phosy said. “But I’d go along with Mr Geung on this one. Siri and I are the only two who met her in person so she is aware we can identify her. The only thing in our favour is she doesn’t know we’ve connected her to the bombing attempt. That gives us the edge.”

“I showed the photo around at the hospital today,” Dtui told them. “None of the other patients in the picture could recall seeing her before or after that afternoon. They say she wheeled herself there and joined them at about twelve. She acted senile. Didn’t get into a conversation with anyone.”

Phosy took a swig of the Thai rum generously donated by Civilai for the occasion. “All right then,” the policeman said. “So we know she was there at lunchtime. We also know the autopsy was delayed till five. So do we assume she was sitting there all afternoon in her wheelchair? Wouldn’t some of the hospital staff have approached her to find out if she was all right?”

“Good point,” Dtui said. “I’ll ask around tomorrow. I imagine she would have been safe there until they called the other patients back into the ward. After that she would have been a bit conspicuous.”