"Let's see it," said Siri.
Koomki stood and walked to Haeng's desk. He carried a large grey envelope.
"My colleagues and I performed five days of surveillance on both unit 22B742 and the commercial property on Fa Ngum Street owned by the doctor's wife, Madame Daeng."
"Good grief," said Siri, slumping back in the chair. "We have foreigners stealing great chunks of our ancient temple at Wat Poo because the government can't spring for a couple of guards to look after it, and here we have three grade-two public officials spending a week watching a noodle shop? Surely our nation has better ways to harness your rapacious enthusiasm?"
"Firstly, I am a grade-three official," said Koomki. "And secondly, on the contrary, I consider the honesty and transparency of the actions of our high-ranking officials to be a priority in these troubled times."
"Really? Then let's bring in an opposition party," Siri hissed. "That'll straighten all of us out."
"Siri," Judge Haeng interrupted, "can we just see what evidence the comrade has, please?"
"Judge, surely you can't — ?"
"Siri! Thank you."
Siri held up his hands in submission, and the small man sneered. He produced a wad of documents from the envelope and fanned them back and forth.
"Your Honour, here — "
"You aren't in court, Comrade," Haeng said. "'Judge' will be sufficient."
"Yes, Comrade." Koomki nodded. "Here we have five days of surveillance records. They clearly show that Dr Siri was not at unit 22B742 for that period but was unlawfully residing at his wife's shop."
"For the entire time?" Haeng asked.
"What?"
"Was Dr Siri at his wife's establishment for the entire period of the surveillance?"
"Yes, well, no. There were some gaps."
"How many?"
"Three. Either we saw him leave but not arrive, or vice versa."
"Three out of five?" The judge raised his eyebrows. "Not a very impressive statistic."
Siri looked up in surprise.
"He probably slipped in through the back," Koomki said with confidence.
"I'm a judge, Comrade. I don't deal with probabilities, only evidence."
Siri turned to Phat, who was buried in his work.
"Do you have proof that it was actually Dr Siri your man saw at the noodle shop?" Haeng asked.
"Yes, Judge. We have a photograph of him sneaking in at night. Our camera has a gadget that records the date and time."
"Which is adjustable?"
"Yes, Judge."
"Meaning you can change the time and date at will."
Siri leaned forward to make sure the judge hadn't been replaced while nobody was looking.
"Well, technically." Koomki was getting flustered. "But of course we wouldn't falsify evidence."
"Of course not. Show me the picture."
Koomki handed him a large coloured zoom shot. In it, a short brown-faced man in goggles and a backward-facing baseball cap was being allowed entrance to the shop by Madame Daeng. Not even Siri could recognize himself.
"And who is this man?" Haeng asked.
"Why, it's Dr Siri."
"All I see is a dark-skinned person with glasses."
"They're goggles, Judge. He'd just arrived on his motorcycle."
"Which doesn't appear in the photograph. Nor does the street address of the shop." Haeng was at his most belligerent, and Siri had a sudden urge to lean over the desk and kiss him on the nose.
"The fact remains — " Koomki attempted.
"The fact remains," Haeng interrupted, "that you haven't a shred of evidence that would stand up in any court in the land. I'm offended that you even brought this matter before me. Where was your man stationed at unit 22B…whatever?"
"The tree opposite," called the man in question.
"Then, Dr Siri, can you give me a good reason why this man might not have seen you leave or arrive at your house?"
Siri took the judge's lead.
"Certainly." He thought for a moment. Haeng tapped his half pencil on the desk: "I park my motorcycle in the unfinished project behind my house and leave and enter through the hole in the back fence. That way I don't wake up the children when I arrive late."
"There you have it," said Haeng.
"That doesn't make any sense," said Koomki.
Judge Haeng stood and put one knuckle on the desk. "What doesn't make any sense," he said, "is you petty bureaucrats with your silly rules wasting the time of hardworking forty-year members of the Communist Party. I've humoured you, looked at your evidence, and it is ridiculous. I'd like you to go back to your department and re-evaluate your roles in our society. Remember…"
"Motto time," thought Siri.
"…the washerwoman takes her laundry to the line and shakes out the creases before hanging out the clothes. Does she look around for those shaken-out creases when she's finished? No. A good Party member understands that not everything has an explanation and knows when to give up. I would like you to deliberate on that thought on your way out, Comrades. Good afternoon."
The laughter was raucous enough for the nurse to come in from the next ward and tell them not to get Comrade Rajid too excited. He was still weak, she told them, but she couldn't help noticing a broad smile on his face. Two of the three beds in the dingy Mahosot ward were unoccupied. The third was surrounded by people on plastic stools. There was Mr Tickoo, whose sleeping bag was rolled up beneath his son's bed, then Siri, Dtui, with Malee at her breast; Civilai, Geung, and Phosy. They'd just heard Siri's rendition of the previous day's meeting at Justice.
"See?" said Dtui. "Judge Haeng's secretly liked you all along."
"I was beginning to think so," Siri agreed. "He let me thank him a few times, accepted my gratitude humbly, then limped out leaning on his cane. But it was soon explained to me what was going on. You'll recall, I'd enlisted the aid of the Vietnamese adviser to help me overcome Housing. It turned out he had access to information that not many others knew. It transpires, for example, that Judge Haeng as a government employee has housing allocated to him. But recently, the honourable judge completed the building of a very fine two-storey villa on the way to Dong Dok Institute. It was rumoured that a certain young lady chanteuse at the Anou Hotel is currently residing in his official residence in town. Comrade Phat, as an adviser, merely pointed out to Haeng what an unfortunate precedent it would set to allow Housing to successfully evict the lodgers at my bungalow and sully my name. Haeng obviously agreed."
They laughed again.
"Darn it," said Civilai. "And here I was thinking the tin man had found his heart."
"And here I am thinking it's time to shake out the creases from Rajid's sheets and let him get some rest," Dtui announced with a laugh. She stood with her baby and let everyone have a little hand squeeze and cheek sniff of Malee before stepping out. Geung followed her. Mr Tickoo stacked the stools and bowed a goodbye to his son's guests.
Phosy cornered Siri and Civilai and told them he wanted a word with them. They went to the canteen and ordered three glasses of Mahosot coffee, a gooey brew rumoured to have polished off a number of patients who might have pulled through otherwise. They sat by an open window where the scent from the hairy jasmine bushes overwhelmed the general antiseptic atmosphere of the hospital. A fan above their heads kept off the evening mosquitoes.
"All right, boys. Here's the latest," Phosy said. "First, we've had no luck at all with the ministries, the Central Committee, or any of the aid programmes. No projects planned or executed in or around Vang Vieng on the dates our villain was there."
"Damn," said Siri.
"Doctor, as soon as I got your information yesterday, I contacted the police station in Pakse. It's one of the few places you can get a phone call through to these days. They're a bit behind in submitting their case ledgers. They still had the last two years' books down there. I thought it might take a few days for them to go through them, but one of the officers remembered a complaint filed by the parents of a missing girl. It rang a bell with the sergeant when I mentioned the logging concession incident."