Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

apparently not loving, relative of Dew. He wrote;
    No idea why they bothered. They couldn’t stand each other from day one. Definitely an arranged marriage. Parents wanted their kids to appear normal, I suppose. Put pressure on them to produce grandkids. Maintain the family name. Not sure how they ever got around to that. Wouldn’t be surprised if the boy was a fairy. Lot of them around these days …
    So, Chanti; resentful at being forced into an arranged marriage, then deserted. Left with the responsibility of paying for the children’s upkeep. No mother around. The marriage obviously a façade. But how would that play out in a mass-murder scenario? Why would he need to frame Neung? Siri always encouraged Phosy to paint elaborate hypotheses. The accusation was only the view of an old soldier but how about this? Possible homosexual connection? Chanti meets Neung at the government bookshop and flirts with him? Neung mocks him and…Phosy always had a problem hypothesising himself into homosexual relationships. He was old school. He had a hard time imagining that such tendencies were possible. They certainly weren’t natural. But, in this permissive age, even such an unpleasant concept had to be kept in consideration.
    Who else did he have? He looked at the fringe players; Neung’s wife and his father, the bookshop clerk, other members of the security detail, other readers at the bookshop. He had to admit, with such a clear-cut suspect it wasn’t going to be easy to find anyone better. So he focused on Siri’s list. He began with the question, Did Kiang see her affair with Neung the same way he did? He drove to Kiang’s house to talk to her mother. The woman was cheerful and open but she denied that she had ever heard the name Neung. She assured Phosy that if her daughter had been involved in any relationship, she would have been the first to know.
    Kiang’s younger brother Ming was at home and Phosy found an excuse to talk to the boy alone. Once they were out of earshot of his mother, the brother admitted his sister was involved with a man. She’d sworn the boy to secrecy but even so, this confidence hadn’t allowed him access to details. The brother didn’t know the man’s name or anything about him. All he did know was that the lover was very much like her old boyfriend, Soop. It was as if the dead soldier had come back from heaven to be with her, she’d said. Kiang had never been happier. The boy didn’t know why his sister would want to keep the relationship a secret from their mother. Phosy did. He was certain the old lady wouldn’t have taken too kindly to her daughter flirting with a married man. Everything fitted. Kiang did have a crush on Neung. His version of events was accurate.
    Phosy mentioned another name, Comrade Chanti. The Electricite du Lao chief had denied knowing Kiang but he’d given them all the feeling he was lying. And, sure enough, he was. The brother recognised the name. Before his sister left for Bulgaria, Chanti had called several times at the house. Not quite the coincidence it sounded with so few educated women available to the large pool of unattached men. There had been a number of suitors, none of whom Kiang showed any interest in. Chanti had been very persistent in courting Kiang. But, although the mother had liked him initially, she’d made the astounding discovery that the blackguard was married and had two children. She’d sent him packing with a few choice words and they’d never seen him again. One homosexuality theory out the window. One suspect struck off the list, one more climbing the charts. Things were looking promising.
    Phosy drove to Lycee Vientiane where he eventually found teacher Oum sneaking a cigarette behind the science building. She told him, although it was far from a hundred per cent accurate, that the test she’d administered on the stomach contents from victim number three, Jim, suggested traces of morphine elixir. It was quite possible she had taken, or been administered a large dose of the drug. This put paid to Phosy’s theory of Security Chief Phoumi using the morphine to deaden the pain of an old injury. It also opened the possibility that Jim had been drugged. Neither Phosy nor Oum had medical training and they didn’t know what effect a large dose of morphine might have on coordination or mental capacity. They needed Dr Siri to answer that one and he was off having fun overseas.
    Phosy had reached the item on Siri’s list which