Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

didn’t make any attempt to fit it. But there it was, voila, la nouvelle Vientiane, renamed to accommodate the French inability to pronounce the original name: Viang Chan.
    And now, that same Vientiane which had once been consumed by jungle was being washed away by unseasonal and unceasing rains. Like ice-cubes in a sink, the buildings seemed to be melting away, first their mustard colours, then their shapes. The streets of brown mud melded into the shop fronts and invaded front yards. The heavy hibiscus bushes sagged and spread and blended together like slowly collapsing jellies. And, in their still-religious hearts, the Vientonians, who had prayed for rain for most of the previous year, were beginning to pray for it to stop.
    Sunday was the day that Daeng shut her noodle shop and she and Siri would spend all their time together. Since the early rains had begun to thunder down on the city, just negotiating the motorcycle around town had become an adventure. There were potholes so deep it was believed they tunnelled all the way through to Melbourne, Australia. There were stretches of mud so slick it was like riding on hair oil, spots where you couldn’t tell the road from the river. It made the city they lived in a wonderfully unpredictable place. On this particular Sunday their plan had been to have no plan. They might just slither around town or chance the northern road to Thangon and enjoy a fish lunch by the ferry crossing. Or they might hit a submerged rock and spend the day in a motorcycle repair shop. It didn’t matter either way as long as they were together.
    But Inspector Phosy had other plans for them. They were eating their pre-Sunday adventure breakfast behind the loosely pulled together shutters when they heard a thump against the metal.
    “We’re closed,” Daeng called.
    “Siri, it’s me,” came Phosy’s voice.
    The doctor thought he heard the splash of disappointment dropping into his belly. “We’re shut anyway,” he said. Then, under his breath he whispered to Daeng, “A million kip says it’s gripe.”
    “Don’t,” Daeng said. “He’s just a concerned father.”
    “He’s a…Ah! Phosy. Come in. Had breakfast yet?”
    Daeng was already dishing out an extra bowl. Phosy had squeezed in between the shutters but paused there and gazed back towards the river bank.
    “Did you know Crazy Rajid is camped opposite your shop?” he asked.
    “Yes,” Siri nodded. “He’s been there on and off for a month.”
    “We’re assuming he’s watching out for Siri,” Daeng added. “Of course, it’s hard to tell for certain.” She put the bowl of rice porridge on the table and poured a glass of fresh orange juice from the jug. “We’re guessing he thinks he owes us a debt of gratitude.”
    “For saving his life? Well, he should,” Phosy said coldly. “I can’t think of anyone else who’d go to so much trouble to help a fool.”
    Rajid was certainly crazy – mad as a lark – but he was no fool. He had migrated to the region from India with his father, mother and three siblings: The ship they travelled in went down in a heavy sea and only Rajid and his father, Bhiku, had been spared. The disaster had turned the young man’s mind and he never again spoke to his father. The old man, who worked as an underpaid cook at the Happy Dine Indian restaurant, was still of the opinion that his son had been struck mute. But Siri and Phosy had heard Rajid speak, and the young man wrote weird but wonderful prose in Hindi. No, there was a good deal going on in the Indian mind, not a fool at all. But, seeing Rajid camped out in the pouring rain beneath a beach umbrella night after night, a person would have to believe there were power lines down somewhere between his brain and his common sense.
    Phosy paused and watched the Indian playing with a toad. To the policeman’s mind, the two creatures were equally mindless. He shook his head and came to sit at the table. Once there, he said nothing and tucked into the meal as if he had a reservation. Daeng smiled at Siri.
    “What brings you out on a drizzly Sunday morning, Inspector?” she asked.
    “Bad news,” Phosy said. “As if we haven’t had enough. We’ve found another one.”
    “Another what?” Siri asked.
    “Another dead girl.”
    “Lord help us,” said Daeng.
    “Fully clothed, this time,” Phosy said between spoonfuls. “Wearing a tracksuit. We found her in a school classroom. But it was a sword. Just the same as the girl