The Merry Misogynist

made that beauty competitions were one more vestige of the decadent society the Party was trying to sweep out. The shows insulted women. They were cattle markets. They were demeaning. And so, all beauty pageants were banned immediately.
    Ngam had reached her peak at sixteen. Few winners of the Miss Sangkhan crown had been older than seventeen. She was aging rapidly, and there was no indication that the Pathet Lao would change its mind. The world of Mongaew and her family had come crashing down. But there was hope that their daughter’s beauty might still rescue them from poverty. In desperation, Mongaew started taking her girl to night-time wedding receptions in the district. Some evenings they’d walk for two hours to the house of the happy couple. Mongaew had decided that if Ngam was not to be the star she deserved to be, at least she would be married to a local man with influence. Perhaps the son of a cadre.
    And one night, her revised prayer was answered. The man from Vientiane was so dashing. He was supervising a road project, staying with the headman, well mannered with a wonderful sense of humour. He was groomed and polite, and he had a truck, of all things. Mongaew fell in love with him at first sight. And, it was evident to everybody in attendance that night that the visitor had an eye for Ngam. Things seemed to happen so fast from there on. It was like a fairy tale played at three times its normal speed: an engagement, love letters from the capital, a brief return visit, a reception and, in the blink of an eye, their daughter was gone. All Mongaew had to do now was sit and wait for the cheques to arrive. But all she got was a coroner from Mahosot and news that her precious daughter was dead.
    As Siri rode along the dirt highway, he couldn’t get the thought of the charming stranger out of his head. Phan, the nickname of a hundred thousand: Sisouphan, Thongphan, Bouaphan, Houmphan, all whittled down to Phan. No address, no family name, no photographs. He came. He saw. He destroyed. Already Siri had the antagonist taped to the dartboard of his mind. At last, somebody to blame. Someone to hate. A small lead in the case. A family to claim a lost body. A very successful day, but not a happy one.
 
    “You’re late,” Daeng told the cinnamon-coated man who’d arrived at her shop after dark. There was a bright flash from the vegetation across the street. They both looked up in time to see a man with an old-fashioned camera turn and run down the riverbank.
    “I think someone just took a candid photograph of us,” said Daeng.
    “ Pasason Lao newspaper doing a photographic feature on celebrity couples in Vientiane, I wouldn’t wonder.” Siri smiled.
    “You’re sure it wasn’t the Department of Housing?”
    “No, they’re such nice people. Why would they go to so much trouble?” They walked hand in hand into the closed shop. “What time is it?”
    “Nine.”
    “Too late for a palace hunt?”
    “It’s up to you. You look exhausted.”
    “You can’t see how I look. I have a two-centimetre-thick layer of grime on me. A quick bath and I’ll be fine. I could use some excitement.”
    “Have you eaten?”
    “I wouldn’t say no to a number two. I hope you sold enough noodles this week to pay for the cost of today’s petrol.”
    “Can’t you claim it on your expense account?”
    “I’m a coroner playing policeman. Who’s going to pay for that? Phosy was uncontactable in the north, so I took it upon myself. Nobody rewards individual initiative in this regime.”
    “Don’t worry, my love. I’ll support your intrigues even if I have to resort to selling my body.” She kissed his dusty cheek. “As long as you tell me exactly what happened today, in gory detail.”
    “Accompany me to the bath, Madame Daeng, and I’ll disclose everything.”
 
    The map was beautifully illustrated like a wayward doodle, but its intricacy made it hard to follow. The river was easy enough to identify as it was a long chain of tiny smiling fishes. The outline of Nam Poo Fountain was the easternmost point. The Kokpho turn-off, which ultimately led to the airport, was marked with an aeroplane. Daeng drove them about four hundred metres beyond the intersection and parked. There were still patches of forest on this stretch of the river, and it felt so remote it seemed impossible that there was a city just half a kilometre away.
    “All right,” Siri said, holding his torch up to the map. “There’s something