‘I was covered in his blood but once the adrenalin wore off I couldn’t get my legs to walk or my hands to stop shaking. I was crying, of course. I felt nothing in my heart but tears came to my eyes every time I killed a man. I never learned how to stop them. I’m not heartless, you see. Some subconscious part of me wanted to grieve for all the victims. When, at last, I had my limbs under control, I took the knife to the river and threw it as far as I could. I stripped off my bloody clothes and I bathed. That combination, naked and victorious, was just too seductive. The celebrants had left inner tubes and paddles on the bank so I went upstream on one. I felt I could paddle all the way to China. I went until I really had no more breath in me and that was when the calm draped itself around me. I threw away the paddle just as the moonlight illuminated the river. I lay back on the tube and let old Mother Khong take me where she wanted.’
Mr Geung was looking away.
‘You. You must not. Not …’ he began.
‘Be stark naked in public?’ Daeng asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I probably won’t do it again,’ she said. ‘It was a one-off.’
‘Well, I’m sorry I missed it,’ said Civilai. ‘I was embroiled in a serious game of rummy with the abbot. If I’d known …’
Siri leaned across and flicked his friend’s lobeless left ear with his finger.
‘Ouch,’ said Civilai. ‘So tell me. I consider myself something of an authority on the region, but I fail to see what difference the London document made to events in Dien Bien Phu?’
‘As long as there was a possibility of Allied airstrikes,’ said Daeng, ‘the Viet Minh was reluctant to place field guns in strategic positions for fear they’d be wiped out by an air attack. With that threat in mind, the Vietnamese had to keep their objectives modest; just to hold the French. It would have been a long campaign with a lot of casualties on both sides, but with no resolution. But once they knew there would be no additional support, that the French had to go it alone, it gave the Viet Minh the green light to go on the attack. They went all out for victory. The leaking of that document lost the French their war.’
16
Nurse Dtui had an hour before her Intermediate Russian class. An hour seemed barely enough time to thank someone for two lives. Barely enough time to explain how everything from that moment in the morgue had been a gift. How long would it take to say that every second until those two lives met a more natural end would be dedicated to that good Samaritan?
But what a revelation it had been. Not until her conversation with Dr Siri the previous evening had the possibility crossed her mind. Of all the men in Vientiane, he would have been the least likely. She’d never heard him speak and, although Inspector Phosy and the others claimed to have heard him utter a few words on one occasion, she doubted he had the ability to conduct a conversation. But Dr Siri was adamant. On the day he deposited Ugly the dog at the Happy Dine Restaurant, he’d taken Crazy Rajid to one side and entrusted him with a task. The Indian was a young man who spent his life wandering the streets of Vientiane. He walked endless circles around the Nam Poo fountain and slept beneath the stars.
Siri had told him, ‘If you see a tall Westerner, an old man with a star over his right eye — don’t let him out of your sight. Don’t let him see you but don’t lose him. He’s up to no good and you could be the only person around to stop him doing harm.’
When he had spoken those words, the doctor hadn’t been certain the young man had heard him. Nor had he realized how true the prophesy would be. At some point, Crazy Rajid had found the Frenchman, probably too late to prevent the fire. He’d followed him to the morgue. He’d heard the threat and he had acted. The young man was no mute. His was a psychological silence caused by a family disaster. Inside his troubled head was a poet, a linguist, a mathematician, and a hero. The gun? Perhaps a result of his fascination with fireworks. A Chinese cracker or two? Again, who would know? But Siri had been certain of one thing. It was Crazy Rajid who’d saved the lives of Dtui and her daughter.
The nurse parked her bicycle in front of the Happy Dine Indian Restaurant and removed Malee from the sizeable shopping basket. The restaurant owner was gushingly polite until he realized she wasn’t there to eat. But the restaurant was empty so he had no excuse not to point her to the kitchen. Mr Bhiku, large and shirtless, sat on an upturned bucket reading an ancient copy of Bangkok World. When he saw Dtui he dropped the paper and crumpled into a deep nop. He was a man who considered himself to be every other man’s inferior. Dtui returned the nop and pulled the old chef to his feet. Malee reached out to him and he wrapped his dark fat fingers around her light, tiny ones. His smile lit up her face.
‘Hello, Mr B,’ said Dtui. ‘I’m looking for Jogendranath.’ Crazy Rajid’s actual name.
‘Oh, goodness. What has he done now?’ asked Mr Bhiku.
‘Well, I believe he might have saved the life of me and my daughter here.’
Mr B’s face gave off a glow like a two-bar electric heater.
‘If that is so, I would be most delighted,’ he said. ‘Most delighted indeed.’
‘Have you seen him lately?’ she asked.
‘Sadly, not for four days. He was given to sleeping here in my open-air kitchen but I have seen neither hide nor hair of him since Sunday.’
Crazy Rajid’s walkabouts were legendary so this was not a matter of concern to either of them.
‘When he gets back, could you tell him that Malee and I would really like to see him.’
‘I most certainly will,’ he said. ‘And how is your handsome and hardworking police husband?’
‘He’s fine. He’s off training the untrainable in the north-east. Should be back in a day or two.’
‘Give him my regards.’
It wasn’t until she was almost back at the nursing school that a thought entered Dtui’s head. One that she couldn’t shake away. Nobody had seen Crazy Rajid since Sunday. Sunday was probably the day that Herve Barnard had crossed into Thailand in order to enter Sanyaburi from the rear.
Could Rajid really have followed the Frenchman across the border? And if so, what chance of survival would a mentally disturbed Indian have on the Thai side?
Siri and Daeng were actually living in Siri’s allotted house at That Luang. Daeng’s restaurant was a shell but it was a tough shell and somehow the block had held up. There was no roof, of course, and they had no money to begin refurbishing, but there was promise. Of Siri’s splendid library there was no trace. In Phnom Penh, he had shed tears at the sight of all the tomes from the national library ruined by rain and smoke. But that had been a premeditated act by the Khmer Rouge. The books had been the enemy. His own library was an innocent bystander shot with a stray bullet. It wasn’t the same. His books died loved. There would be more.
The house refugees had started to filter back. Pao and Lia were already in their room. Comrade Noo, the Thai forest monk, had reclaimed his wooden cot on the back balcony. With the position of Head of Housing Allocation currently unfilled, and the file of Dr Siri temporarily sequestered by the police investing Comrade Koomki’s death, there was every hope that the Siri residence would soon dance to the tune of companionship once again. But, this night, it was just Siri and Daeng sitting alone on the front step.
‘So?’ said Daeng.
‘So what?’ said Siri.
‘Why haven’t you said anything about my book?’
‘I said it was good.’
‘You said it was good that I’d finished it. I’m still waiting for the review.’
Siri looked at the stars that dotted the tarpaulin of night above his head.