‘I am looking for Dr Siri,’ he said, in French.
She shook her hands as if to wave off this foreign attack and hurried away. But then, her steps slowed. She seemed to have gleaned something from the question. She turned.
‘Dr Siri?’ she said.
He nodded.
‘La morgue,’ she said.
It took Barnard only five minutes to find the small building, its impressive French name plate with La Morgue written in comic green and red letters over the door. He reached into his bag and took hold of the tyre iron. It should take him far less time to beat the information he needed out of the staff there.
The preliminary heats of the boat races started early. Two boats would start together to the sound of a pistol shot. They travelled five hundred metres to a point where the judges sat on a tin barge anchored midstream. For the finals the teams were dressed in gaudy almost-matching uniforms and an array of straw hats. As the Peace Hotel blocked the view from the administration buildings, the governor and all his guests invited themselves to Siri’s balcony. The only good news was that they arrived with several crates of beer. The close proximity to Thailand meant the governor had a healthy supply of exotic foods and drinks on hand. The size of his gut suggested the Singha Beer importation was not a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence. The man had no shame. He stood at the railing with his bottle in his hand saluting the peasants below like some red-nosed Mussolini. A month earlier he’d announced to these same peasants that the boat race festival would be dry this year. Due to the rice harvest disaster, no rice had been diverted for the production of whisky. Anyone caught moonshining would be arrested. Yet, to the trained eye, it was clear the boat crews and their cheerleaders were ‘on’ something.
The guests had brought along a few dozen stackable chairs but Siri and Madame Peung had grabbed two of the comfortable deckchairs and were deep in conversation, ignoring the races below. His wife, Madame Daeng, hovering a few metres away, squeezed the paper cup that contained her beer until a little tsunami of foam splashed over the rim. The previous evening, with her husband locked in conversation with the witch at the dinner table, she’d been forced to listen to the other Siri amusing his hand-picked guests with bawdy stories. The thought of it brought about another involuntary squeeze of the cup. Another spill.
‘Steady, old girl,’ came the overly familiar voice of the governor from behind her. ‘That stuff doesn’t come cheap, you know?’
‘Sometimes I don’t know my own strength,’ she told him without looking around.
‘So, are you going to tell me, or not?’ he asked.
She turned towards his ruddy face.
‘What do you need to know, Comrade Governor?’
‘What this top secret mission of yours is all about. I’d ask your husband but I can never tear him away from his girlfriend.’
‘There is no mission,’ she said angrily. ‘We’re all just here to enjoy the races.’
‘Bull. There’s more to it than that. A week away from race day and I’m requested … no, I’m bloody ordered to give up my two best rooms to important people from Vientiane. I even have to give up another room to a moron. None of you seem to be reaching into your pockets as far as I see. Where am I supposed to get the budget to cover the lost tourist revenue, eh?’
She eyed the distance to the railing and wondered whether he weighed as much as he appeared to.
‘And after all this generosity,’ he went on, ‘I’m not even let in on the secret. Clandestine flights upriver. Special transportation requests. Hushed Vietnamese conversations late at night. And now I’m told to expect a unit of army engineers that I’m supposed to feed and billet somewhere. Again, I ask, where’s the bloody money coming from?’
She turned square on and pulled back her shoulders.
‘You have resources, you slimy man.’
‘What did you …?’
‘Illegal smuggling, for one. A thriving import business no doubt paid for from illegal logging. Perhaps the odd gem. I’ve seen all those crates in the chicken shed. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve been trafficking girls over the border to brothels on the other side. That would be your style. But, we’ll get you. When my report goes in you’ll-’
‘Listen, you …’
‘Yes, I know what you’d like to say but, how sad, you can’t say it because you don’t know just how VIP we are, do you? You’ll just have to suck up to me for another day or two. And that includes making sure I have enough to drink.’ She was about to turn away but had an afterthought. ‘And this is a “love me, love my dog and my Down Syndrome friend” deal. If I hear of you kicking either of them, I promise you there will be a full-scale enquiry into where all this booze came from. You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?’
She smiled at him. His mouth was ajar enough to see the brown roots of his teeth. He most certainly was not used to being spoken to in such a manner. She could see the rage in him. He wanted to kill her. That was a particularly common male way of solving a problem. But she knew she held the bloody plums in her hand.
‘Were they women’s voices?’ she asked.
‘What?’ He wiped the drool from his lips.
‘The hushed Vietnamese voices. Were they female?’
‘I don’t … Yes. One was, I suppose.’
‘Good boy,’ she said, and turned her back on him. ‘You can leave me alone now.’
She marched across the balcony on heavy legs to where her husband was sitting. She could see him transfixed by the face of the beautiful witch, adoring her words. It was disgusting.
‘Excuse me, dear Madame Peung,’ she said in Vietnamese. ‘I am in need of a husband.’
She hooked a finger into the neck of Siri’s collarless shirt and yanked. He laughed, apologized to Madame Peung and took Daeng’s hand as they walked across the crowded balcony. Their room was filled with even more strangers so they kept going out the door and down the staircase.
‘What’s so urgent?’ Siri laughed.
She didn’t speak until they reached the landing one flight down.
‘Siri,’ she said, stepping up to his face. ‘Do you trust me?’
‘Absolutely not. You’d kill me as soon as-’
‘Siri. Stop it. I’m not joking. Do you trust my judgement?’
‘Of course.’
‘Will you listen to me without saying, “But, Daeng!”?’
He laughed again.
‘I swear,’ he said.
‘That woman.’
‘Madame Peung?’
‘She’s up to something.’
Siri was nodding.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Daeng.
‘What did I do?’
‘That sympathetic counsellor nod. You do it when you’re talking to idiots.’
‘I do not, and you’re not, so why …? All right. What makes you think she’s up to something?’
‘You said you trust me.’
‘And I do.’
‘Then, if I say she’s up to no good — as a loving husband you would simply tell me you believe me and be in my corner.’
Siri reached for her hand but she pulled it away. He smiled.
‘Daeng,’ he said. ‘I’m seventy-four. I have all the woman I need in you. It’s sweet. In fact it’s very flattering, but surely we’re both a bit over the hill for jealousy. There’s noth-’
‘You ass!’ she said, and started down the stairs, passing Ugly on his way up.
‘But Daeng? Daeng?’ he called. She didn’t stop. He considered going after her but he wasn’t certain what rules they were playing under here in the wilds. Even though there hadn’t been any punches thrown, this probably counted as a fight. It was their first. He sat on the step. As the staircase was open, Ugly didn’t consider it part of the building. He sat beside his master.
‘I take full responsibility,’ Siri said to the dog. ‘In fact, if there were a flower stand and a retailer of chocolates, I would spend the last of my wages on them. It always worked with my first wife. Jealousy is a fleeting emotion. Of course, all she’s seen here is me with a very attractive other woman whom I suppose you could say I pursued. Engaged her in lengthy conversations. And that, my dear Ugly, is why Daeng was angry. But anger is just one more incarnation of love. She loves me and that makes me happy. I shall repair the damage. But not yet. I’m too close to answers to give up on my witch.’