The Merry Misogynist

like this. You wait till you’re in a city where there are options.”
    “He could be out hunting, though,” Daeng said.
    “Good point,” Phosy said. “In which case he’ll be back soon. It’ll be getting dark. On the other hand, he could be dead.”
    They all turned to look at him.
    “Why?” Daeng asked.
    “Assume Comrade Buaphan has set up his next victim. He was here two weeks ago working it all out, laying the foundations. All he needs to do is drive to the next victim’s village. But, as usual, there’s one person in the way. He tried again to get the driver kicked off the project but failed. He’s the only one who can verify when Buaphan took the truck. He’s the only witness. There’s conflict between them and Buaphan knows the driver would gladly give evidence against him if news of the murders got out. He’s a liability, so the comrade makes him disappear. He goes off in the truck, kills his next victim, and at the end of the mission he puts in a report that the driver ran off. Nobody could question it. It’s a logical next step. He might have even done away with other project drivers. We could check with – ”
    He was interrupted by a woman’s scream. It was the type of scream used in the mountains to alert rather than to alarm. They rushed out of the hut. The ailing sun had bled the sky crimson and in its glow they could see the jeep in the clearing and the man’s wife standing beside it. She was pointing to the top of the track where three undernourished children stood beside the road like marker stakes.
    “Who are they?” Phosy asked.
    “Our kids,” the man answered proudly. The children were jumping up and down and pointing and beckoning for the policemen to come down.
    “It looks like they’ve found something,” said Daeng.
    “And if it isn’t the body of the driver I’ll eat the truck, starting at the wheels,” Phosy told her.
    They walked down the hill and across the clearing. They arrived at the top of the road where the children stood. In front of them some of the thick wayside plants had been flattened, leaving a narrow cave of leaves.
    “Bom was taking a pee,” said the oldest boy. He was about ten. “She found it.”
    Bom was half his age. She waved, at Daeng and smiled. Phosy decided that if she’d found a body she was being very relaxed about it. He pushed his way into the bushes before Madame Daeng could take the lead. Only four metres in, he found a mound of branches. He knelt and cleared them carefully. Daeng and the two officers had followed him in and were staring over his shoulders. Even before all the leaves had been removed it was evident what had been hidden there.
    Daeng put her hands to her mouth and gasped, “Oh shit. Oh shit.” She turned and pushed her way out of the vegetation past the young policemen.
    “Isn’t that the doctor’s Triumph?” said one of them.
    The bike lay on its side beneath the broken branches. Its left-side mirror was smashed.
    “Yes, it is,” Phosy replied, running his finger over a dark stain on the saddle.
    “That’s not gasoline, is it, sir?”
    “No, boy. It’s blood.”
 
    The happy couple drove towards the honeymoon supper. It was ten p.m., and the interminable wedding ceremony was over. They’d made an awful to-do of it. They’d had the villagers march along the track to the school carrying Phan on one litter and the bride on the other. There was nothing traditional about it. It was some ridiculous idea of the headman. There were lanterns along the route and people singing and ramwong dancing. The school had been done up like the damned presidential palace. Phan could think of better ways for the idiots to waste the little money they had. Visions of the feast kept haunting him: farmers who had nothing else to look forward to fattening up their favourite pigs for strangers to eat, sacrificing their hens’ precious eggs. Out comes Mother’s best phasin wrapped in tissue paper. Father gets his hair washed in rice water and has a shave for the first time in his worthless life. Teenaged girls experiment with cheap Chinese make-up that turns them into whorish circus performers. Granny, bent double from a lifetime of bowing to the rice stalks, finds a few dance moves to entertain the crowd. And, oh yes, the booze. The deeper you ventured into the countryside, the more reliant the peasants were on rice whisky for a good time. Heaven forbid the thought they might just possibly be able to have fun without