Love Songs From a Shallow Grave by Colin Cotterill

and Sihot sat at the kitchen table with their notepads and it was agreed the security personnel would come to be interviewed one by one. As had been hastily arranged, Comrade Viset, a Vietnamese-speaking Lao attached to military intelligence, was to act as translator. As the first two interviewees were Phoumi and Dung, an atmosphere of belligerence and non-cooperation was established early on.
    Siri was not privy to the events in the front kitchen. He had been encouraged by Phosy to ‘float around’ and pick up information outside. The unguarded sauna structure was his first stop. Somebody had replaced the burnt-out bulb, probably the investigators. He turned on the light and sat on the lower bench. As he studied the simple packing-case structure he became more and more convinced that neither of the weapons, the knife nor the épée, could have been concealed. For confirmation, he prodded and poked every wooden slat, every roof tile, every floorboard. It was what it appeared to be, a wooden box with a gas tank and a pile of stones. No secret compartments. No trickery. But, just as the burning light in the carport had worried him two days earlier, the light inside the sauna now gave him the same troubled feeling. The light had been switched on and had burnt out. It seemed very likely that once he had done the job, the killer had turned on both lights to…what? To attract attention? Had he wanted the body to be found quickly?
    Siri went outside and located the Vietnamese sentry he’d spoken to on Saturday. He was standing towards the rear of the interview queue and Siri pulled him to one side. The doctor had a theory and he was about to test it with a blatant lie.
    “We have a problem,” Siri said to the young man after a few niceties. “I believe you know what that problem is.”
    The soldier looked at Siri and hesitated before he spoke.
    “I don’t understand, sir.”
    “You told me you’d stood behind your major and seen the state of the girl inside.”
    “So?”
    “There was no light inside. From a metre beyond the doorway you couldn’t have seen anything but her feet. Everything was in shadow. No windows.”
    “I saw her.”
    “I believe you did, but not then. Once he’d witnessed what was inside that room, the major closed the door and came looking for the head of security. He left you there and told you not to let anyone in the sauna.”
    “That’s right, he did.”
    “And everyone left, apart from you.”
    “What are you trying to say?”
    “That you were curious, so you went in and took a peek for yourself.”
    “That’s a lie. No, sir. I would never do that.”
    “Is that so?”
    “It is.”
    “Then, you see that up there?” Siri pointed to a box attached to one of the posts that carried the power cables.
    “Yes.”
    “You know what that is?”
    “It’s a junction box.” The soldier was sweating.
    “Is it? You forget where you are. You’ve heard of the CIA, I assume?”
    “Of course.”
    “Then you know what they’re capable of. They’re fanatical about surveillance. Every house in this compound has a camera and microphone trained on it. You see that lump at the bottom?”
    “It…it’s a nut.”
    “Of course it’s supposed to look like a nut. It’s a closed-circuit camera lens. The images are all fed back to a central console behind the scout hut. You’re a TV star, my boy.”
    Siri was holding his poker hand – six high – and he was calling. There followed a tense moment of silence.
    “I just wanted a quick look,” the soldier confessed. Siri sighed but kept quiet. “I wanted to…you know? I was curious. I didn’t…I didn’t do anything.”
    “But you removed the towel from her lap.”
    “I just slid it down a little bit, that’s all. And it slipped between her legs. I was about to put it back but I heard you all coming along the street. I barely made it out in time.”
    “It was on her lap when you went in?”
    “Yeah, covering her…you know.”
    “Yes, I