Phosy looked at the piles of paperwork on his desk, the charts, the pages of hypotheses, the interview transcripts. Until this moment they'd been shards of pottery that didn't fit together into any sensible shape. There was always one piece too many or one too few. But now, as he reread the last entry of an unfortunate woman's diary, all those fragments clicked into place and formed a most beautiful solution. The case of the three epees was solved.
18
When the unscheduled China Airlines flight touched down at Wattay Airport at two in the afternoon, the pilot was surprised to see a crowd of people waiting beneath a colourful copse of umbrellas in front of the dismal little terminal. If he'd known them, he would have recognised Dtui and Malee, Mr Geung and Mr Bhiku, Mrs Nong and Madame Daeng. But he didn't, so he was only left to wonder how news of the flight had made it around Vientiane so quickly.
It was a Lao whisper which, unlike a Chinese whisper, becomes more coherent as it's passed on. Somebody from Agriculture went home for lunch at K6 and was out feeding the chickens and mentioned to the neighbour that she had to hurry out to Wattay to receive a parcel from Peking. The neighbour was a secretary at Foreign Affairs. She knew that there weren't any flights scheduled from Peking and guessed it might have been the representatives returning from Phnom Penh. She was a friend of Mrs Nong, Civilai's wife who had recently returned from a stay at her sister's. The secretary rode her bicycle to Civilai's house and told Nong that her husband might be arriving on a flight sometime after lunch.
Mrs Nong finished unpacking her suitcase, inspected a spotlessly clean kitchen, and walked along the street to Comrade Sithi's house. The maid knew her well and let her use the telephone. Mrs Nong called the Mahosot Hospital and had the clerk pass on word to Dtui that her boss could be arriving on an early-afternoon flight from Peking. The message Dtui received said, "Siri arriving 2 a.m. Wattay." And so it continued. It had been almost a week since the two old fellows had left on their Kampuchean junket. That wasn't such a rare thing in the region. Flights were unpredictable and communication was poor. But it didn't stop friends and family from feeling anxious.
So there they stood in the rain. None of them was really sure why they'd come. Siri and Civilai had flown back and forth, hither and thither countless times without so much as a crow on a fence post to see them off or welcome them back. But as they gathered, the welcoming committee agreed there was something different this time. None of them could explain what it was but they had all felt the same energy that inspired the decision to make the arduous journey through the mud to the airport.
The Shaanxi Y-8 touched down at exactly two a.m. It skimmed along the runway like a flat stone across a pond, then turned abruptly and taxied towards the terminal. Everyone watched as a portly middle-aged man in a plastic jacket, shorts and bare feet wheeled the portable steps to the plane. In an instant, the passengers began to disembark. A flock of Chinese somebodies alighted first and were met on the tarmac by ministry people with umbrellas. Then came Lao and Chinese in dribs and drabs. Then a pilot with a small suitcase. And only then, once those waiting had all but given up, Civilai poked his head from the aeroplane doorway and walked down the steps.
It took him thirty seconds or so to reach the terminal but, for the entire time, all eyes remained trained on the exit of the plane. Even when Civilai stood directly in front of them, dripping, he still didn't have the reception committee's full attention. Madame Daeng hadn't looked at him at all.
"Welcome home," said Mr Bhiku.
"Forget somebody, uncle?" Dtui asked.
"What?" Civilai replied without looking surprised at the question. "Oh, Siri? There was a slight hold-up. Diplomatic thing. He'll be catching a later flight. Decent of you all to come out to meet me on a day like this, though."
His words were a little too rehearsed. His smile too politician. His overacting seemed to chill the crowd more than the rain. It was as if he'd spent his entire time on the flight composing a light greeting.
"They didn't come to meet you," said Mrs Nong, stepping forward to brush raindrops from his shoulders. "I was the only one daft enough to come to welcome you back. This lot's all here for the doctor. Now they'll have to make the trip again tomorrow."
There was an awkward moment of silence.
"No, Madame," said Bhiku at last, "I am equally as joyful to greet elder statesman Civilai." He handed over the lotus he'd been holding and somehow the evil spell that hung around them was blown away. They smiled and patted Civilai on the shoulder. They all milled around him and spoke at the same time but, as they walked to the taxi rank, first Dtui, then Daeng looked back at the plane.?
It was late afternoon and Civilai and Nong were sitting at their kitchen table sampling the sugared dumplings he'd been given before leaving Peking. Nong had described her sister's attempts to grow straw mushrooms in her backyard. How the place smelt like a stable the whole time she was there and only two collar-stud-sized mushrooms to show for all that manure. Civilai had talked about their arrival in Peking and the food and their act for the hidden camera. He was delighted to see that his apology and promise to be a better husband had brought his wife home to him, but neither of them had been able to speak about the subject that smouldered in the background. Until suddenly there was no choice.
"Anybody home?" came the unmistakable voice of Madame Daeng. Neither of them was surprised by this visit. In fact they'd expected it earlier. Daeng's gauzy figure stood outside the mosquito-wire door.
"How did you get out here?" Nong asked.
"Siri's Triumph," she replied, kicking off her shoes and pushing past the flimsy door. "The idiots made me leave it at the gate. That one walked me over here in the rain."
She indicated the armed guard standing at the front fence. He nodded to Civilai and went on his way.
"They always get super vigilant after a bombing or a murder," said Nong. She accepted Daeng's bag of longan with a nod of thanks. "I suppose that's always the way, isn't it? Putting the lid on the basket after the snake's out."
"Have you talked about it yet?" Daeng asked. There was obviously no space for preliminaries.
"Not yet," said Civilai.
"Then, where should we sit?"
They opted for the outside lounge suite with a view of the gnomes and the two-foot windmill. A plastic sunroof overhead showed the faint outlines of flattened leaves. Rain clung to low clouds. Daeng refused both small talk and a drink. Her determined eyes bore into Civilai's like steel drill-bits.
"I'm not supposed to — " he began.
"I don't care," she said.
"I know."
He leaned forward and rested his skinny elbows on his skinny knees. He began his story with their visit to the Lao embassy in Phnom Penh. That was the last time he'd seen Siri. He reached the May Day reception without interruption. He hesitated then, not for effect, but more like a visitor at the Devil's front door. Daeng egged him on with her eyes.
"It was obvious the guide knew something," he continued. "And I pushed him as far as I could to get it out of him. But all he'd tell me was that there'd been an incident. He led me down to the reception. I thought I might get some information there. The Lao ambassador was in the room but the minders were shepherding the crowd. They were deciding who should stand where, who should talk to who. I had my Lao-speaking guide all to myself and he'd obviously been told to stick to me. I was introduced to a couple of bigwig Khmer but I couldn't tell you who they were. They were as focused on not answering questions as the guide was on not translating them. They paraded us all through to the dining room and sat me at a table with people I didn't know, and, for the most part, couldn't communicate with. I doubt they could even — "