Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

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 épée. But she did so very carefully. Look at the other victims. Épée 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 épée 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 épée. 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 épées?”
    “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 épée 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.