Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

want you to go to the European embassies tomorrow and hunt us out a fencer.”
    “The embassies?” Sihot said with a look of distress on his face.
    “Don’t worry, Sergeant Sihot,” Daeng smiled. “They’ll all have someone to interpret.”
    “And, Inspector Phosy,” Civilai said with the early signs of a slur. “I’m sure you’ve thought of this already, but I think now would be as good a time as any to get to know the three girls more intimately. Talk to their families and friends. Trace their movements since they returned from – ”
    “As you say, Comrade,” Phosy growled, “we’re already on it.”
    “Excellent,” Civilai beamed.
    “And I think the fencing coach theory as a starting point is a very solid one,” Siri decided. “In fact it’s the only theory we have.”
    With a few more comments and suggestions which led nowhere, the meeting broke up, and then into small fragments. Phosy and Sihot went over their notes at the noodle table. Daeng invited Dtui and Malee to the upstairs junk room to engage in a little ‘girl stuff’. Siri and Civilai took their drinks and two chairs and the remainder of the bottle out to the front of the shop where they sat beneath the narrow green awning. It had been raining so long the air was wet; not moist but sodden like a slop rag. A person might have expected the rain to wash away the mugginess, to rinse the humidity clean out of the air, but it didn’t go away. It loitered under cover, inside houses, beneath temple eaves. It sapped your energy and made you want to go outside and stand in the rain.
    The road sloped away from the shop, more from subsidence than design. It was perhaps the only reason why they hadn’t been flooded like most of the other businesses. The river was higher than anyone remembered seeing it in April but it was the incessant rain that filled the unguttered streets, not the loping Mekhong. That beast wouldn’t flood for another four or five months.
    “Too wet for our little Indian friend,” said Civilai, noticing that Rajid’s umbrella stood unoccupied.
    “We haven’t seen him since my attempted man-to-man,” Siri replied. “If he has any sense he’ll be under cover somewhere with a bottle of Johnny Walker and three sao rumwong dancers to keep him warm.”
    “If he had any sense he wouldn’t be who he is.”
    “Granted.”
    “How’s his dad, Bhiku?”
    “Still churning out curry. Still without a hundred kip to his name.”
    “See what I mean?” said Civilai. “No matter how bad things get, there’s always somebody worse off than you.”
    “And life is so hard on an old politburo member, isn’t it, brother? How was dinner with the president by the way?”
    “Nice young fellow. I don’t get to see him as much as I used to.”
    “Did you give him your ‘I don’t know who the real enemies are any more’ speech?” said Siri.
    “For some reason he tends to steer our conversations around to food and literature. He did hint that he thought the revolution had come five years too soon.”
    “Huh, he really thinks five more years would have made us better prepared?”
    “No, his point was that in five years time people like Dr Siri and me wouldn’t be around to complain about everything.”
    “He mentioned me? I’m touched. Did he have too much to drink and drop any top secret information? Plans to invade China? Racing tips?”
    “In fact, he asked me a favour. That was the subterfuge behind the candlelit dinner. He wants me to go to Kampuchea.”
    “Permanently?”
    “Four or five days. They’re on some public relations kick. Having a reception of some kind.”
    “Really? I haven’t been there since the forties. It was still Cambodia in those days. Boua and I had just been recruited by the French to set up a youth camp in the south. They sent us to Phnom Penh for orientation. One of the prettiest cities in Asia. Marvellous time. I’ll never forget it. Me and Boua walking hand-in-hand along the Boulevard Noradom.”
    “A story I’m sure Madame Daeng would love to hear.”
    “No secrets between us, old brother. Although it might be true there are times I paint the truth with slightly less bushy brushes than it warrants. You know? I can’t say I’ve heard much news from our southern neighbours since the Reds took over.”
    “Nobody has. Not even the president really knows what they’re doing. He was there on an official visit not so long ago, but they didn’t let him out of his box. This