“Are you going to eat that, Uncle?” asked Beer, looking at Siri’s plate. Siri slid it across the table. He noticed that Beer didn’t contribute much to the thought process, but he did spare kitchen workers a lot of washing up.

“Oh,” said Kyoko, “and I looked briefly through the Japanese occupation documents you gave me.”

“You’ve been busy,” said Siri.

“I’m caught up in your puzzle. I didn’t have time to read it all, but I was able to pick at the troop movements in and out of Thakhek. That included the names of the first battalion to arrive there in 1941. I don’t read Lao very well but there are enough similarities to Thai for me to make out the names in Toshi’s unit in his diary. Even allowing for misreading and poor translation on my part, I think I can say with some certainty that there were no military personnel based in Thakhek with the names listed by Hiro.”

“Not one?” said Siri.

“Not even Hiro himself.”

“You’re telling me he was never there?”

“According to the official lists.”

“Damn.”

Chapter Thirteen

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.”