‘I’m certain they’d have files on all of us tucked away in Hanoi,’ said Civilai.
‘Together with witness reports and family history and psychological examinations,’ said Daeng. ‘I was one of their agents towards the end. They’d know more about me than I do. And with the recent agreement they’d have a share of all the files on our side too. They’d know about the minister’s background and his brother.’
‘All the things Madame Peung plucked out of the air,’ said Civilai.
‘I … I have a fffile?’ said Geung.
‘You’re technically a government worker, Geung,’ said Civilai. ‘They’d know everything about you.’
‘That’s … rude,’ said Geung.
Siri had remained quiet throughout this exchange. He was a stubborn man but he never ignored the facts. And they were stacking up against Madame Peung.
‘And the woman?’ he asked.
‘He wasn’t so certain about her,’ said Phosy. ‘But some of the operatives suggested there were similarities to a female officer who had once been Tang Cam’s mistress. Her name was Nguyen Hong Be. Vietnamese father; Lao mother. She had retired from the propaganda division after reaching the rank of colonel. But she’d spent most of her career directing entertainments for troops. They staged dramas for the villagers. She was-’
‘An actress,’ said Siri.
Madame Daeng squeezed his hand.
‘A very competent one too,’ said Phosy. ‘If things had been different she might have become famous. But the wars and …’
‘No, wait,’ said Civilai. ‘This is ridiculous. They find a Lao businesswoman and he gets this actress to impersonate her? Who’s going to be stupid enough to fall for that?’
‘No. I think it was the other way round,’ said Phosy. ‘Tang Cam had the actress already. All they had to do was wait until a Lao of similar appearance turned up. She didn’t have to be rich at all, or a businesswoman. A government official would have worked just as well. A visitor. A maid. Anyone single or widowed. Tang Cam would have access to the files to know who was unattached. Who lived in a remote area. All the spirit mumbo-jumbo would play into the hands of we ignorant Lao country folk.’
‘Am I the only one who doesn’t see the point of all this?’ said Nurse Dtui.
‘It’s complicated,’ Phosy told her.
‘Could I try to explain it?’ asked Daeng.
‘Be my guest.’
‘This is how I see it,’ she began. ‘A senior official at the Vietnamese Intelligence Unit with an interest in Lao history hears the legend of the French pillaging the treasure from the Royal Palace in 1910. He has an ancient mandarin concept of what treasure is: riches beyond dreams. He studies the French and American aerial photographs of the Mekhong and he sees it: the shape of the gunship that went down. With instruments he can measure it categorically to prove that it can only be that boat. There he is, a senior clerk earning twenty dollars a month and he knows his future would be assured by salvaging that vessel. But how? There are no Vietnamese projects in Sanyaburi. He doesn’t have clearance to travel in Laos. But he is a clever man and he comes up with a complicated but brilliant plan. He contacts his old lover who’s living in a dingy one-bedroom retiree’s apartment in Hanoi and together they hatch a plan. If it all works out they won’t need to recruit any other people. All the work will be done for them.’
Ugly growled and licked his balls.
They all laughed.
Daeng continued.
‘Somehow, they drug and kidnap Madame Peung and set up a hospital room to keep her in,’ Daeng continued. ‘She believes she’s had an aneurysm. Tang Cam is her doctor, Hong Be, her nurse. I would imagine they used a combination of drugs and hypnosis to learn about her village and the people who lived there — a way to recognize them. Under hypnosis it’s difficult to extract secrets but remarkably easy to draw out gossip and anecdotes. They would have kept her half-in, half-out of consciousness, Colonel Hong Be, her best friend, joking with her, learning her mannerisms and speech patterns.’
‘Does any of this have a factual base?’ Civilai asked.
‘None,’ said Phosy, ‘but circumstantially I’d say we’re heading in the right direction. We found the booking on Lao Aviation. Madame Peung was in a seat beside someone called Nguyen Be, a Vietnamese nursing sister whose paperwork said she was headed to hospital forty-nine. They’d never heard of her.’
‘Then, lead on, madam,’ said Civilai.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if one other seat on that flight was occupied by our friend Tang Cam,’ said Daeng. ‘The Vietnamese secret service produce their own passports.’
‘I’m seeing the how,’ said Dtui, ‘but I’m still missing the why.’
‘The why is that the Vietnamese secret service knew all about the Minister of Agriculture and his relationship with his nutty wife,’ said Daeng. ‘The upper class Vietnamese community in Laos is very close. They would have known she was concerned about her brother-in-law and was looking for a medium. If they could convince her that the brother was in a boat, submerged in the Mekhong, he would have the resources to dig it out. And because it was a spiritual matter, he wouldn’t have told too many people. But they had to establish Madame Peung’s reputation in a hurry. News of a reincarnation would spread like a forest fire. The fact that the widow had been reborn with the gift of finding the dead was exactly what the minister’s wife was looking for.
‘And with all that success, the minister’s wife hears of the witch in Ban Elee and seeks her out,’ said Daeng. ‘And the actress uses the knowledge accumulated by Tang Cam to convince her to dig up the river. She was a very convincing liar.’
She looked into her husband’s green eyes.
‘So how … how did they achieve this miracle?’ Siri asked.
‘Well, from the fragmented parts, I’ve put together a scenario. If I’m correct the whole thing was a remarkable example of sleight of hand. You see? Madame Peung was already dead when she arrived back in the village. Her body was in the trunk on the back of the truck. The driver, Tang Cam, had been forced to stop at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Vientiane. The officer there noted it down in his ledger. It appears it’s easier to travel in this country if you’re dead. I have no idea when they killed the poor woman. She was listed under cargo. Hong Be used Madame Peung’s laissez-passer. Tang Cam must have used whatever ID was in the truck they stole and played mute.
‘While the maid was in the village getting the petrol, the Vietnamese set up the killing in the widow’s room using blood from one of the piglets. Hong Be waited in the room and Tang drove the truck down and parked it in the forest off the main road. When it was dark he came back. The first of the two shots was not into the widow’s head but into the veranda post outside. I saw gunpowder burns on the wood which indicated that it was fired at point-blank range. That first shot would have woken the live-in girl. If she’d come to investigate straight away she would have caught Tang Cam firing the second shot into Madame Peung’s head. But it didn’t matter that she took her time. Tang and Hong Be had fled to the truck by the time the villagers came to investigate.
‘I’m guessing that Tang Cam and Hong Be camped rough in the truck for three days to let the natural process of the cremation and the investigation run its course. When the widow was good and burned, Madame Peung, aka Madame Keui, aka Hong Be, made her astounding reappearance. This was where the acting experience kicked in. She had the mannerisms and the voice down. The right make-up and a knowledge of everyone in the village. Who would ever doubt that this was Madame Peung reincarnated?
‘The second shooting had already been set up. One of the languages Tang Cam spoke was Hmong. His Lao wasn’t fluent but it was easy enough to convince the villagers he was an addict from one of the district’s Hmong communities. He did the crazed assassin thing in front of the villagers and ran up to the house to have a second shot at the widow. Once the villagers had built up the courage to follow, he dragged Hong Be out to the veranda, and pretended to fire at her head. The gun he used wasn’t loaded and the bullet was already embedded in the post. He knew he couldn’t use a blank because at point-blank range the wadding would be as lethal as a real bullet. So, he had two weapons. The sound they all heard was Tang Cam firing a second gun into the porch steps unseen from behind his legs.’