"The Vietnamese security people were convinced of it," Phosy said. "The Vietnamese girl on their bodyguard unit had quite a reputation for…lady to lady…you know. Someone had seen her together with Dew earlier that evening. When they found Dew's body in the sauna, they were sure it was their girl who'd killed her."
"Which explains why they were so keen to cover it up," Siri nodded. "Now I see. And Dew's inclinations would also explain the relationship with her husband. Her parents had wanted her to get married and have children to continue the family lineage. It's really important for some people. They knew they'd be raising the children by themselves. It's all about face. Oh, I don't doubt they thought being married and having children might shake those silly gay ideas out of their daughter but it didn't work. I feel sorry for Comrade Chanti. He was duped all the way along the line. Can't say I blame him for shopping around for a new wife."
"Do you think Dew and Jim were actually…?"
"I doubt it. It was more likely that Jim, the medic, found out about Dew's leanings and decided she could take advantage of the situation. Dew's husband was Neung's boss. It was as good a start as any. The first nail in Neung's coffin. She had a narrow avenue of time to work in. She found out Neung's wife was away for the weekend and he'd be stuck babysitting. He wouldn't be able to run around building up alibis. It wouldn't surprise me if Jim hadn't built up a list of other potential victims, all of whom could be tied to Neung."
"But Kiang had to be at the top of the list."
"She'd certainly have to be one of her victims. I imagine Jim met Kiang at the bookshop and became friendly with her. She would have talked about fencing, perhaps suggesting that any man who fenced would be impressed with a woman who knew the fundamentals. Something like that. She offered to teach Kiang and said she'd be in touch when she was free. That way she could bring Kiang into play at any time. "Hello, Kiang, I'm free this evening. Would you like a lesson?" We'll never know for certain how it all came together, but there had to be a lot of planning involved."
"And all for revenge. And she didn't even have the opportunity to sit back and gloat. You'd think a murderer would want to observe. To see whether their plans worked out."
"Well, I…"
"What is it?"
"I mean, I read your report. It was very thorough, very well done."
"But?"
"My conclusion wasn't exactly the same as yours."
"About what?"
"It's really a very small thing."
"About what?"
"Your opinion was that Jim had committed suicide."
"She ran a sword into herself. That's not suicide?"
"It's only suicide if she dies as a result. I believe she didn't intend to kill herself."
"Dr Siri, you're a real pain in the backside, you know that? How do you impale yourself on a lump of metal and not…? OK, go on. This better be good."
"All right. I'll do my best. Yes, she impaled herself with an epee. But she did so very carefully. Look at the other victims. Epee straight through the heart. Jim knew her heart was on the wrong side. She must have done. If she wanted to do away with herself she could have run the epee straight through her right breast. But she went to great pains — pains against which she took a large slug of morphine — to insert the specially sharpened sword in such a way that it looked as if it had been aimed at her heart. She'd studied medicine. She knew where her lungs were. The blade passed in front of her lung and out the side. The marks on the wooden upright suggested she'd steered the blade by pushing herself against the sword. It was like a very large-scale injection. It looked awful and probably hurt like hell despite the elixir, but it wasn't life-threatening if she got to hospital in time.
"Her mistake was the Z cut in her thigh. On the others she'd used a knife, made the cut after death. But for her own murder she had no time to conceal a second weapon. So she had to write with the tip of the epee. Don't forget she'd sharpened it to a fine point. It had no edge. She'd been wary of slashing a lung so she'd smoothed down the blade. Cutting into her thigh would have been like slicing across an orange with a needle. It would have been very messy and bloody. I imagine the morphine had started to work and she didn't notice how deep she'd made the cut. She certainly didn't notice how much blood she was losing until it was too late. She was intent on getting the blade inside her. My guess is that she envisaged a complete recovery and the opportunity to give evidence against the man who'd rejected her. She wanted to drain every last drop of revenge out of it. I think her own death came as a terrible disappointment to her."
Phosy downed his drink but didn't reach to refill the glass.
"I hear they're looking for labourers at the salt farm," he said.
"I heard it plays havoc with the complexion. Do you have a point to make?"
"Not really. Just that I should be looking for a new line of work. I complete what I believe is my finest investigation, I free an innocent man and I get a rare handshake from the minister of justice, but you still manage to trump me with a hidden ending."
"Hardly worth giving up a career for. It's all academic anyway. No murderer to build a case against. No witnesses. And without corroboration this is all conjecture. In fact, I'm surprised you were able to present enough hard evidence to convince Judge Haeng to drop charges against Neung. Haeng isn't known as a man in possession of an instinct."
"Ah, but you see? We did have hard evidence. Evidence that put Jim at the scene of the first crime."
"There was no — "
"I admit I had to break into your morgue to requisition some property you'd stolen."
"The epees?"
"Correct."
"And what possible…? Oh, Phosy. The fingerprints."
"Can't argue with modern science."
Siri laughed.
"The prints I couldn't identify on the first epee belonged to Jim, didn't they?" Siri said. "Of course. I didn't check those prints against those of the other victims. Eureka!"
Siri raised his glass and howled like the ghost of his dead dog. Two Thumbs and most of the drinkers turned their attention to the old man with a cancellation scar across his forehead.
"Good luck," Siri shouted.
"Good luck," everyone repeated.
"So finally it worked," Siri laughed. "Only a hundred years since the invention of fingerprinting and Laos uses it to solve a case. Who knows? In under ten years we'll be comparing blood samples. The heated rush of technology."
"What are you two so excited about?" came Daeng's voice from the plank walkway leading from the market. She and Dtui, with Malee at her hip, ducked beneath the few erect umbrellas, took off their sandals and sat with Phosy and Siri on the grass mat.
"Science has triumphed over superstition once more, madam," Siri told her.
He took one of the plastic bags from his wife and removed the boiled duck eggs to the plate in front of him. Daeng upturned a second bag of lethally spicy papaya salad into another. Two Thumbs had no food so patrons were encouraged to step into the market and buy their own. He was, however, extremely generous with plates and cutlery.
"Eating, then?" Two Thumbs called. Such was the colour and depth of his repartee. Phosy took three eggs and presented them as an offering to the proprietor. Daeng and Dtui clinked together their empty glasses, a signal for Siri to do something about it. He set to his task.
"When we planned this we actually had something a little bit more extravagant in mind," Dtui said as Siri poured the tea-coloured Thai brew into their glasses.
"You mean like brunch at the Bangkok Oriental?" Daeng asked.
"More like a nice restaurant with tables," Dtui lamented.
Siri handed the ladies their filled glasses.
"You said we could choose," he reminded her.