Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

seated on a wooden bench. At first glance, she appeared to be skewered to the back rest by a thin metal pole that entered her body through the left breast. A trail of blood snaked down her lap to the floor.
    “Do we know who she is?” Phoumi asked Dung.
    “Yes, sir. Her name is Dew. She was one of the Lao counterparts on the bodyguard detail. New girl. She went off shift at seven yesterday evening. Didn’t report in for duty this morning. And – ”
    The major gestured that he’d like to talk privately.
    “Excuse us, Doctor,” Phoumi said, and walked towards the house where he huddled with the Vietnamese. He’d taken the torch with him so all Siri could see by the natural light through the door was a bloodied towel, crumpled on the floor at the girl’s feet. Instinctively, he knew it was important in some way. The two men returned and Phoumi handed Siri the torch.
    “All right, Doctor?” was all he said.
    Siri was fluent in Vietnamese and he was used to the brusqueness of the language, but he was struck by how unemotional these men had been.
    “Yes?” Siri said.
    “Perhaps it would be appropriate if you inspected the body. Just to be sure, you know?”
    “To be sure she’s dead, you mean?” Siri smiled. “She’s got a metal spike through her heart. I think you can be quite sure she won’t recover.”
    “Then, time of death, physical evidence, anything you can come up with will be useful.”
    Siri  shrugged  and  walked  carefully  into  the  room.
    Although he’d suspected as much, it was obvious that this was a sauna, albeit a small, hand-made variety. He’d sampled one himself during a medical seminar in Vladivostok. In a Russian winter the sauna had been a godsend, but, in tropical Laos where a five-minute stroll on a humid afternoon would flush out even the most stubborn germs, it seemed rather ludicrous. An old Chinese gas heater stood in the middle of the floor surrounded by a tall embankment of large round stones. A bowl of dry herbs and flowers sat beside it on the wooden planks. Siri presumed it had once contained water or oil but, if so, the liquid had evaporated away. Moisture and pungent scents still clung to the ceiling and the walls.
    There were two benches – one low, upon which the body now sat, and one opposite about fifty centimetres higher. Siri placed the torch on the floor and knelt in front of the victim. He put his hands together in apology before beginning his examination. The weapon, which from outside had appeared to be a metal spike, was in fact a sword, to be more exact, it was an épée. Siri knew it well. His high school in Paris had provided after-hours classes in swordsmanship. It was a course the doctor had failed – twice. He hadn’t been able to come to grips with all that delicate prancing and twiddling when the underlying principle must surely have been to kill the opponent or be killed. Despite the fact that he’d continuously overpowered his sparring partners, he’d ultimately been expelled from the class. The instructors had cited his two-handed running charge and his cry of “Die, you bastard,” as reason enough to deny him a passing grade.
    Yes, the weapon here with its broad-bulbed hand guard was certainly an épée. He couldn’t recall having seen one in Laos before. It entered the woman’s chest between the fourth and fifth ribs. It had most certainly punctured her heart. The trail of blood had drained from the wound, down her stomach, across her thigh and into a large puddle on the wooden floorboards at her feet. He felt her joints. Rigor mortis begins to show after two hours and peaks at twelve. Judging from the stiffness, it was Siri’s educated guess that the poor woman had died somewhere between ten a.m. and two a.m. As he seldom carried his rectal thermometer to the cinema, that was as close as he could get for now.
    He reached behind her and confirmed that the sword had been thrust with such force that it had impaled her against the wooden bench. The serene expression on her face and her relaxed sitting position told Siri that she was either looking forward to the experience of dying, or that the attack had come as a complete surprise. There were no indications she’d been shocked to see the weapon, or made any effort to save herself. Her eyes were closed and there was a curl at the corner of her mouth that could once have been a smile. He was about to turn away when he noticed a fresh scar on the inside of her right