The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill

and a person developed a sense of what to expect from different types of shakes: sincerity, impatience, weakness. Siri wondered what he’d just given away.
    He thought about the policeman. “Away for training in Viengsai” meant re-education. All of the students at the Police Academy and their superiors had been invited to the north for training when the Pathet Lao took control, partly to establish where their loyalties lay. If Phosy had only just returned, he’d been in the camp for a year. Siri wondered how that would affect a man. So far, he’d laughed at all Haeng’s jokes and agreed with everything he said. It was starting to annoy Siri. Haeng coughed.
    “I wanted to have you both here to talk about the bodies that were retrieved from Nam Ngum,” Haeng started.
    “Bodies?”
    “Yes, Doctor. There were two.”
    “Nobody told me that. Why did we only get one at the morgue?”
    “All in good time, Siri. Phosy, did you get the copy of Siri’s report that I sent to your department?”
    “Yes, Comrade Judge. It’s right here. It was very thoughtful of you to send it.”
    “It was no more than the courtesy we expect between different arms of the legal mechanism. If I’d got it earlier, so would you have.” He glared at Siri who smiled, undamaged.
    “Excellent, sir.” Siri was beginning to wonder how long it would be before the policeman walked over and polished Haeng’s fly buttons.
    “Where’s the other one?” Siri asked.
    “At the Vietnamese Embassy.”
    “I didn’t know they had a freezer there.”
    “They don’t. I believe they have him on ice.”
    “What for?”
    “Until their own coroner can get here.”
    “Their own…they don’t trust me?”
    “It isn’t a question of trust, Siri. If they find the same evidence of torture on their man as you did on yours, this could become a very embarrassing international incident.”
    “What makes him ‘their man’?”
    “This.” Haeng held out a small folder, expecting Siri to come and get it. Instead, the puppy-dog detective leaped to his feet and handed the file to Siri. He remained standing at Siri’s shoulder and was first to comment when the photos of the corpse came into view.
    “Traditional Vietnamese tattoos. Very distinctive.”
    “Yes, very distinctive indeed,” Siri agreed. He was quite surprised at just how clear they were. “At what point was he rerouted to the Vietnamese Embassy?”
    “Someone at the dam recognized the tattoos. They called the embassy, who sent one of their advisers.” There was no shortage of Vietnamese “advisers” around the capital. Cynics—and Siri was one of the founding fathers of cynicism—suggested that there was so much advice from Hanoi being passed around, it wouldn’t be long before the official language changed to Vietnamese. “You can imagine how delicate the matter is,” Haeng droned on. “A Vietnamese national being interrogated and tortured in Laos. The cabinet discussed it yesterday. We’re going to request that you be allowed to observe their autopsy and compare notes.”
    “Request? Why request? This is Laos. Shouldn’t we be insisting?”
    “It isn’t as easy as that.”
    “It should be. We aren’t her next province yet, you know.”
    “Siri, if you’re going to spend time with the Vietnamese, I suggest you watch your mouth. They aren’t quite as understanding as we are.”
    The meeting went on longer than usual, as Haeng felt obliged to outline all the cases that he and Siri had “cooperated” on. But as long as the doctor kept his mouth shut, it was comparatively painless. Things seemed to be winding down—Siri looking toward the door and escape—when Haeng coughed again.
    “I’ve been thinking, Doctor. Now that the work of your department is being recognized by the police, I believe it’s time for you to get rid of the moron.”
    Siri shuddered. “The moron? Oh, I don’t know. I know he has his off-days, but I don’t think that’s enough reason to kick