Dr Siri Paiboun 01; The Coroner’s Lunch

ascertain the cause of death. Until they get an official appraisal, they can’t begin to know if it’s natural or whether a crime has been committed.”

Siri still hadn’t sat. He stood waiting for Haeng to look at him, but the judge was reading a report, or pretending to. “That’s all. See my clerk for the details.”

“Are you telling me to drop the Vietnam case and run off to the south?”

“Case? Case? Case?” Siri wondered whether the record had stuck. “Siri, you’re a coroner, and not a very good one at that. You’re sent bodies. You examine them. You send me the results of your findings.

“Coroners don’t have cases. Judges have cases. Police have cases. You, Siri, have dead bodies. You have two such bodies waiting for you in Khamuan. I’m getting a little tired of you putting yourself above your station. Don’t start getting too big for your…old brown sandals.” He half smiled at his own cleverness, but still hadn’t looked Siri in the eye. “Now get out.”

Siri stood a while and collected his thoughts. He turned and walked to the door. Judge Haeng listened for the sound of it opening and closing, but instead he heard the click of the lock. Something dropped suddenly in his chest. He glanced up to find Siri looking back over his shoulder at him.

“What are…?”

Siri walked back to the desk, rounded it, and sat on the corner a few centimetres from Haeng’s shirtsleeve. The young judge was looking confused, somehow vulnerable. Siri grabbed the annoyingly tapping pencil from his hand and pointed it at him.

“Listen, son. I know you have to seem to be what you are. I know you’re probably nervous, lost from time to time. I understand how overwhelming all this must be for you. But I don’t intend to put up with your insecurity any more.”

“How dare – ”

“Don’t. Don’t say anything that might make me state my opinions as to your qualifications to be doing this job.” The judge squirmed slightly in his chair. He seemed sulkier, younger, with every word Siri quietly spoke.

“Even though I happen to know you got this position because of your relatives – ”

“I – ”

“ – you undoubtedly have skills, otherwise they wouldn’t have taken the chance with you. You wouldn’t have survived the USSR.”

“I – ”

“But I’m doing a very difficult job too. I’m doing it reluctantly, and I’m doing it poorly because I don’t have the right facilities or resources or experience. You, boy, aren’t making it any easier for me.

“Whether you or I like it or not, I’m the head coroner. From now on, I shall handle the ‘cases’ that come through my office as I see fit. I shall follow up on them whenever I deem it necessary, and I shall send you reports that state my opinions when I’m ready to. Once they’re signed, there will be no amendments made to suit your statistics. Close your mouth, for goodness sake.”

Haeng put his lips together. They appeared to be quivering.

“If my talking honestly like this offends you, I’m very sorry. I apologise to your mother, who probably loves you in spite of everything. I apologise to her for the fact that I have to remind you to be respectful to your elders.

“If I’ve succeeded only in driving the thought of revenge into your head, let me remind you that I’m seventy- two years old. I’m twenty-two years beyond the national life expectancy. I’ve exceeded. I’m on overtime. In my natural life, I’ve already experienced any form of punishment you could come up with. Basically, there’s nothing you can do to me to fill me with even a smidgen of dread.

“I’d be delighted if you fired me, absolutely ecstatic. Sending me north for re-education would be heaven. I’d be packed before you could shake a pencil. It wouldn’t even be much of a loss to end up in front of a firing squad. Now, I imagine that puts you in a difficult situation, because I no longer intend to take your rudeness.

“Here’s what I’m going to do. Tomorrow, the Vietnamese coroner and myself are going to Nam Ngum Reservoir. We’ll spend a night there, maybe two. I’ll come back here and run tests in my morgue, and consult with Dr Nguyen Hong. Then, when I’m certain I can’t do anything else in Vientiane, I may very well consider a trip to Khamuan.

“By that time, you will have arranged travel papers for me, and negotiated a flight south on one of the military transports. I’m too old to drive down there on roads full of holes. I’ll also need a small per diem in case of eventualities. You’ll have reminded the military that there’s only one coroner and he has a very full caseload. As far as I know, the Justice Department isn’t subordinate to the military in peacetime. We’re doing them a favour.

He stood and handed the pencil back to Haeng. “I’m leaving now. Naturally, I won’t tell anyone we’ve had this little talk. Whether you discuss it is up to you. In the future, you’ll treat me with civility, and I shall offer you my experience and co-operation to help turn you, bit by bit, into the type of judge you should be.”

Haeng had stared into his powerful green eyes the whole time, hypnotised. Siri nodded, turned, walked to the door and polished one sandal on the back of his trousers before leaving the eerily silent room.

? The Coroner’s Lunch ?

8

A Little Fishing Trip

“Well, I must say this is a lot more civilised than the bus.”

Siri and Nguyen Hong sat in the back seat of the black limousine looking at the driver’s thick neck crammed into a tight Vietnamese military uniform. Nguyen Hong was wearing something that fit him better for the trip.

“The ambassador wouldn’t dream of letting me travel anywhere on public transport. He says there are bandits everywhere.”

“And he thinks we’d be safer in a big expensive car?”

“There is an escort.” They looked out through Siri’s window at the short but jolly armed escort on his post office motorcycle. A hunting rifle was slung over his shoulder. An ambush would wipe the lot of them out in seconds. “I don’t think your ambassador gets out much.”

“Siri, I’ve been reading up on the resilience of the sphincter.” Siri chuckled. “And they say the Vietnamese aren’t a cultured race.”

“You know we were wondering whether the bowels could have filled with reservoir water naturally over two weeks?” Both bodies had what they considered to be an abnormally large quantity of water in them. “Given the minimal fish and algae damage to the internal organs, the books say the muscle contraction would have made the bowels relatively watertight. There shouldn’t have been that much water inside.”

“Come on, Hong. Don’t we have enough mysteries already? Perhaps they were thirsty and drank a lot of lake water before they were killed.”

“None of that water had passed through the kidneys.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“Have you ever been water-skiing, Siri?”

“Oh. All the time. I often hook up the line behind the yacht when I’m on a cruise.”

Nguyen Hong laughed. The driver looked at Siri in the rear-view mirror and despised him for his wealth.

“Don’t tell me you have?” Siri asked.

“I had a privileged youth, before I saw the light.”

“Goodness. So what’s it like?”

“Water-skiing? Invigorating.”

“And there’s a connection between that and the sphincters of Tran and Tran?”

“I’m not sure. There may be. You see, I wasn’t the world’s best water-skier. I spent more time falling down than skiing. And there’s no better way to give yourself an enema than to…”

“I get the point. So, do we assume the Trans were merrily water-skiing on Nam Ngum Reservoir?”

“Hardly. But if they’d been dragged behind a boat…”

“The effect would have been the same. Very clever. And that could have been part of the torture. God, I hope the torturers got something out of them. They certainly put a lot of effort into getting them to talk. You think they