The Merry Misogynist

compartment.
    “Any idea if there’s a map in h…? Ah, yes.”
    “Want me to stop?”
    “No, keep going. I’ll manage.”
    Phosy unfolded the map and quickly homed in on the location where they’d just found the bones. He then traced his finger along the highway until he found the village he was looking for.
    “Damn! It all fits,” he said. Tham turned to him again and plummeted into a deep pothole. “Don’t feel obliged to look at me, Tham. You concentrate on the road and I’ll work the map.”
    “OK.”
    “The wedding was held at Paknyun. It’s forty kilometres from the intersection. Given the state of the road, he was probably able to drive there in a couple of hours. It’s just far enough away to be under the jurisdiction of another police force. So if the parents did make a complaint about a missing daughter, the news probably wouldn’t make it to our Sergeant Oudi. He’s very smart, our strangler. He’s got it all worked out. Tham, I want you to stop at the next village on the main road and wait for the bus going back out to Bolikham.”
    “That’ll take me away from Vientiane,” Tham said.
    “That’s right. Any problem with that?”
    “I promised my wife I’d pick up some big head catfish on the way home.”
    “Right. And I promised the parents of a beautiful girl in Ban Xon that I’d catch the maniac who killed their daughter. See any difference in priority there?”
    “Yes, sir. Sorry.”
    “You’ll stay on the bus till you get to Paknyun. I need all the information I can get from the people who attended the wedding. Don’t tell them we might have found the missing daughter. It’s possible we won’t be able to identify these bones. I don’t want to upset them unduly.”
    “But you think it’s her?”
    “Yes, Tham. I do.”
 
    When the police jeep pulled up outside Daeng’s noodle shop, it was already three p.m., and Madame Daeng was sitting outside on a rattan chair. She was dressed in her thick gabardine workers’ trousers, a loose-fitting blue shirt, and boots. Since her move to Vientiane she’d worn her hair short and wild. Now she’d greased it back, and at first glance Phosy thought she was a man. He jumped from the jeep and looked behind Daeng to see a CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE sign on the shop shutter.
    “Madame Daeng, what’s so urgent?”
    “What on earth kept you, Phosy? I’ve been waiting for hours.” She threw a pack into the back of the jeep.
    “I just got back,” he said, eyeing the bag. “I dropped some bones off at the morgue. I didn’t get the message till I met the clerk.”
    “Are you alone?”
    “I dropped Tham off at a bus stop. Why?”
    “I think you’re going to need to pick up one or two officers on the way.”
    “On the way where?”
    “To the Thon River.” She walked past him and climbed up to the passenger seat.
    “What are you talking about? I’ve just driven all the way from Pakxan. What’s at the Thon River?”
    “Your murderer, Inspector. Siri left already. He has a three-hour start on us.”
    “What’s all this ‘us’? If you’re serious about the murderer being at Thon, I’m certainly not going to take an elderly lady with me. It would be more than my job’s worth.”
    “Well, Phosy, that would be a terrible shame, because then you wouldn’t get to hear about it. Dr Siri will be massacred, the killer will claim his next victim, and you will have – dare I say it – egg on your face.”
    “Madame Daeng, listen! Withholding evidence is a serious offence. It’s not a game.”
    “I’m not withholding anything. I’m just planning to tell you on the journey.”
    Phosy slapped the fender of the jeep and hurt his hand.
    “You aren’t going to bully me into this. Besides, you can’t go to the Thon River. You don’t have a laissez-passer to leave Vientiane Prefecture.”
    “But you have one. Nobody’s going to notice a frail old lady. I’ll scrunch down on the floor under a blanket. They won’t search your vehicle. You’re a policeman. Now come on. It’s getting late.”
    “Madame Daeng, I – ”
    “You’re wasting valuable time.”
    Phosy was still fuming as they neared the intersection at Sangkam. The road was in an awful state. Daeng sat beside him on the passenger seat and the two young officers he’d requisitioned from HQ sat in the back. She’d told him the entire story as Siri had told it to her, and he didn’t like it one tiny bit.
    “How could you let Siri go after him?”