The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot by Colin Cotterill

Author:Colin Cotterill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2020-03-16T20:40:53+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

An Adorable Alcoholic

“So it would appear I’m right again,” said Daeng.

“You’re always right, my love,” said Siri. “But . . . he describes everything in such detail, even the mundane stuff. I mean, why would he bother to write about trivial things? If he was a carrot peeler, as you said, surely he’d write a diary full of excitement and intrigue to counteract his dull life. But we have a hundred and sixty pages of philosophical insights and fables and descriptions of all the beauties of Mother Nature. There isn’t one death. There are no villains. Even the alcoholic was adorable.”

Siri, Daeng, and the girls were fishing. Or, rather, they were sitting on a wooden dock dangling their lines in the water for the amusement of the fish.

“Except for the last untorn pages,” said Daeng. “It seems Toshi’s colleagues are starting to get on his nerves.”

“But that’s where it all ends,” said Siri. “We don’t have those missing pages so we’ll never know what happened before his promise to ‘rise.’”

“Talking about rising, shouldn’t we be taking off soon?”

“We can’t leave, Daeng. There are so many unanswered questions. What about that loose sheet and the treasure? We still don’t know who sent us the diary.”

“I was afraid you’d say that. What’s your plan?”

“Kyoko is—”

“You mention her a lot.”

“She’s been very helpful. She said she—”

“Attractive, is she?”

“She’s gorgeous.”

“Hence the risky rowing trips to Thailand.”

Siri loved it. Daeng never failed to be jealous when other women made appearances in his life. If he was feeling braver he’d say something like, “In Japan, young women are attracted to older men, sexually.” But he invariably came off worse as a result of making such comments so instead he said, “She told me she’d discuss matters with her sensei in Bangkok and see if I can get access to any other documents. Problem is, all the war records are in the hands of the Americans now and they’ve barely made a dent in translating everything.”

“Young, is she?”

“What?”

“Keiko.”

“Kyoko? I don’t know, mid-twenties? But she was asking if we had any US contacts who could get us access to the data bank of records in Washington. She thinks it’s the best way to find out what actually happened to Toshi after China and, for that matter, whether he really existed. If he could make up the Lao half there’s no reason why he couldn’t make up the Japanese half, too, including his name. So I was wondering whether we could get in touch with Cindy.”

“Cindy?”

“Yes, remember? She was at the embassy in Vientiane, then moved to Phnom Penh.”

“Cindy the beautiful blond second secretary?”

“That’s the one.”

“It appears you have a stable, Siri Paiboun.”

“She was able to get us access to documents in a hurry and she was really helpful in the dog tail case last year. And she did tell us she’d be delighted to work with us again.”

“I do recall.”

Against all the odds one of the girls caught a fish. It appeared to be elderly. She pulled

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