The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot

Colin Cotterill

also by colin cotterill

The Coroner’s Lunch

Thirty-Three Teeth

Disco for the Departed

Anarchy and Old Dogs

Curse of the Pogo Stick

The Merry Misogynist

Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

Slash and Burn

The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die

Six and a Half Deadly Sins

I Shot the Buddha

The Rat Catchers’ Olympics

Don’t Eat Me

The Second Biggest Nothing

Published by

Soho Press, Inc.

227 W 17th Street

New York, NY 10011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cotterill, Colin, author.

Title: The delightful life of a suicide pilot / Colin Cotterill.

ISBN 978-1-64129-177-4

eISBN 978-1-64129-178-1

Subjects: 1. Paiboun, Siri, Doctor (Fictitious

character)—Fiction. 2. World War, 1939-1945--Southeast Asia--Fiction. 3. Laos—Fiction. 4. Thailand--Fiction.

Classification: LCC PR6053.O778 D45 2020

823'.914—dc23 2019051328

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For her invaluable contribution to the research behind this last book in the Dr. Siri series, I should like to thank my wife and best friend, Kyoko, who also cooks a jolly good quiche. For their last-minute reading of the rough manuscript, my thanks to Kirk, Robert, Lizzie, David, Rachel, Kate, Bob, Leila, and Steve. Thanks, too, to Margaret and Charlie whose contributions have made this a better book. If you want to delve more deeply into the world of yokai, please visit the amazing yokai.com website. And for their belief in Dr. Siri over the years and their boundless enthusiasm, I should like to dedicate this book to the lovely people at Soho Press to thank them for making me feel special. Sayonara.

Chapter One

Every Body Has a Story to Tell

There was a myth. Not a ghostly urban legend that might cause little children to wet their beds, but a disturbing notion nevertheless. It was likely begat from the mischievous storytelling of a doctor not unlike Siri Paiboun, the ex-national coroner of the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos, who was known to smudge the lines between fact and fiction. The myth went something like this: after you’re dead, your hair and nails will mysteriously continue to grow. Any qualified physician would snigger at such a thought. But no matter how unlikely the possibility, there were those who swore to have witnessed such a phenomenon. And all those doubting so-called “experts” needed to do was to take the key from beneath the welcome mat at the Mahosot Hospital morgue in Vientiane, let themselves into the cutting room, and slide out the only occupied freezer tray. And once they pulled back the sheet they would see for themselves. Comrade Thinh still sported a fine head of hair that was just a little too long to be called respectable. His nostril hair, on the other hand, had sprouted remarkably since his arrival on the slab. It was currently a good six centimeters long. Mr. Geung, the lab assistant, had already combed it into a neat mustache and was certain that before too long, there would be enough for a goatee.