Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

secret then. They tried to get the Lao staff to sample it but nobody was game. It seemed like a silly idea if you ask me. I can’t imagine what a Lao girl was doing in there in the middle of the night.”
    “Do you know if anyone else has used it since the Americans left?”
    “I can’t remember seeing anyone over here at all. They didn’t put any of their people in these houses by the external wall. They were afraid it’d be too easy to lob a hand grenade over. Not safe, they said. So they let all these places turn to jungle. As far as I know, none of the new regime people had any idea what it was. Just thought it was a box, probably.”
    “Is there any way in and out of the compound apart from through the main gate?”
    “There used to be, brother. Just before the Americans left there were more holes than a mesh stocking. The staff used them to smuggle out equipment and furniture; parting gifts from the Americans before they were kicked out. But when the Pathet Lao boys moved in they patched up most of them.”
    “Most of them?”
    “The old hands know of one or two places you could still get under the wall.”
    “So it would be possible for someone without a pass to get into the compound.”
    “Technically. You’d have to be careful to avoid the security patrols. Trigger-happy bunch. They’d probably shoot you before they asked who you were.”

5
HALF A DOZEN MEN IN SEARCH OF A SMELL
    T he interviews hadn’t taken as long as Sihot and Phosy had imagined. The answers had all been so pat it was as if everyone had memorised them from an official circular.
    “I barely knew the girl.”
    “Didn’t talk to her.”
    “I have no idea about her personal life.”
    “She seemed like a good soldier”
    Phosy had noticed the bandage on Security Chief Phoumi’s wrist and enquired about it. He was told it was a torn ligament from a motorcycle accident. The rest of his answers were brief and unhelpful. Only Major Dung, in that cocky style of his, had strayed from the script. Even the interpreter was annoyed by his responses to the questions.
    “Do you have any knowledge of the victim having an extra-marital affair?”
    “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Dung had said with a grin. “She put out enough signals.”
    “Meaning?”
    “A lot of your Lao girls in uniform start to think like men. They like to put themselves around. Gather feathers for their caps.”
    “Are you saying this from personal experience?”
    “I might have taken her up on it if I were younger…less fastidious.”
    “She approached you?”
    Dung grinned and raised his eyebrow for the nth time. Phosy wanted to reach over and knock that eyebrow clean off his face.
    “She made it quite obvious she wanted me, yes.”
∗
    The Intelligence Department jeep drove into the Electricite du Lao compound on Samsenthai and, after a brief chat with the guard at the gate, pulled up in front of the office of the chief engineer. As they drove, Siri had passed on his findings from K6 and listened intently to the results of the interviews. Before they climbed down into the deep puddles, he asked, “Did you find out why our playboy major sent soldiers over to Sixth Street in the first place?”
    “He said he got a call from the wife of one of the residents complaining about a strange smell,” Sihot told him.
    “Did he say who?”
    “Said she didn’t leave her name.”
    “Convenient. So he sent half a dozen men in search of a smell?”
    “Does seem a bit much, doesn’t it, Doctor.”
    “And another thing. If you’re called to a murder scene, your first reaction would be to go inside the room and confirm that the girl is, in fact, dead. According to the guard, Dung just took a look from the doorway, shut the door, and went in search of his boss.”
    “It’s possible the Vietnamese wasn’t authorised to make that determination,” Phosy suggested. “There might be some protocol involved.”
    “Be worth checking on that, though,” Siri nodded. “Then there was the peculiar incident of dragging me out of a perfectly good film and getting me to examine the body. And, once I’d confirmed she was dead, they decided they could handle the case and they couldn’t wait to get rid of me. It could have been just them covering their rear ends when it came to filing the report. Or, there might be something more sinister going on.”
    “I wasn’t much taken with the security chief myself,” said Sihot. “Now, there was a man with a secret if ever