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of cattle. It was rather sad that his last memory on earth might have been how to encourage bulls to increase their semen count. But he was old and he’d endured a full life. He hadn’t been able to summon the energy to pull himself out of a pleasant dream and back into that never-ending conference. Who could blame him? Siri was sorely tempted to write ‘He just died’ on the death certificate but he knew that wouldn’t satisfy anyone. He’d invited Haeng and a couple of the other seniors to observe the autopsy, and, as he expected, they’d declined.
    Siri was surrounded by five-litre cans of exotic fruits from China, crates of vegetables, stacks of packs of processed meat, sacks of rice, large bottles of soft drink syrup, tins of sardines and pilchards and a whole wall of goods labelled in Russian that could have been anything. There was enough to feed a medium-sized town for a year. And tucked at the back of the potatoes were several pallets of Vietnamese 33 beer in dusty bottles. In the arsenal of most coroners is a piece of equipment known as a skull chisel. It’s primarily used to separate the calvarium from the lower skull but it has a useful secondary purpose in that it opens beer bottles very well. Siri looked at his watch, popped a 33, and made himself comfortable on the rice sacks.
    From somewhere beyond the formality of the Party gathering, the mystical sounds of a geng pipe drifted across the plain. He’d heard it before on the grounds of Mahosot before leaving Vientiane. He let the music seep into the pores of his skin and smiled at familiar phrases and intimate passages. It was a magical, heavenly refrain that felt out of place in such a godless spot.
    The decision to hold the national conference in the old city of Xiang Khouang had been pure showmanship. After a prolonged period of Royalist-American bombing, the only structures still standing were one house, a broken hospital wing, and a twenty-foot Buddha with half a head and shrapnel wounds. There was nowhere to eat or sleep or even to hold a conference in the devastated place. But the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party had a point to make regardless of the inconvenience to the participants. The stage and a thousand chairs and countless tarpaulins had been trucked down from Phonsavan, the new provincial capital. And there in the centre of the main street they gave their speeches and clapped and let the defeated enemy know who was in charge. All around them in the pockmarked landscape, several thousand tons of unexploded ordnance lay hidden beneath the dried mud. Leisurely strolling during the breaks was strongly discouraged. For the same reason there were no sightseeing tours arranged to the Plain of Jars. Instead, each participant had been given a colour postcard of a buffalo beside an ancient four-foot pot in his orientation folder.
    At the end of each day, the delegates had been bused back to Phonsavan to eat and sleep in preparation for the next day’s ordeal. And it was in a dining hall storeroom that Siri now sat. An hour and two more beers after his arrival he’d hidden the empty bottles behind a stack of mandarin oranges and gone to the door with his bag. Judge Haeng and two officials were seated at a table in the dining room.
    “It’s done,” Siri said and he laid the death certificate in front of the judge. It read ‘cardiac arrest’.
    “See, Siri?” Haeng said. “See? That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
    “Judge Haeng,” Siri nodded, “you’re right again. Oh, by the way, I redressed him for collection.”
    Siri was sure the officials would order one or two labourers to remove the cadaver. Nobody would think to check under the shirt. Comrade Singsai would return to his family with his body and his dignity intact.
    “Oh, Siri,” Haeng called after him as he headed out into the evening chill. “Get to bed. We’re off early in the morning.”
    Siri’s response wasn’t audible, which was perhaps just as well.

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