“He was very high-profile in Hanoi and he liked to get away and relax when he had a chance. He had a soft spot for our very own Vang Vieng; peaceful, beautiful scenery and nobody knew him there. He’d fly the family helicopter down. He had a hidden chalet in the hills. He liked nothing more than to hike up to the karsts with a few bottles of very expensive wine in his pack, sit on a ledge, and watch the river. Simple pleasures. In the early days he’d take his wife. I’m told she is a sow of a woman as well as the daughter of a Vietnamese politburo man. She soon tired of those hikes and he soon tired of asking her. He took himself a younger girl to be his minor wife and she was in better shape. Didn’t mind the trekking. They’d sit on the ledge and drink to Mother Nature . . .”

“. . . and probably play a few rounds of paper, scissors, stone,” said Dtui.

“I tell you, Madam Daeng and I never tire of that,” said Siri.

“Thinh could have had his choice of beautiful, loose women to be his mistress,” said Phosy. “But he was apparently a glutton for punishment, and he selected a plain, opinionated girl who was the daughter of a Viet Minh war hero. I hear she has the temper of a rabid Chihuahua. She’s claiming that the major wife was with him on his last trip to Vang Vieng and that she pushed him off a ledge when he was drunk. The wife laughed off that allegation and countered that it must have been the mistress who accompanied Thinh to the mountain and killed him.”

“Why do we think either of them had to be there?”

“A goat herder saw this Vietnamese man hiking there last weekend. He was with a woman. Too far away to identify her.”

“And what’s to be gained by killing him?”

“The first wife stands to inherit a hell of a lot,” said Phosy. “If she’s convicted of murder, the money will go to the minor wife. And the concubine’s father happens to be on the board of directors of the drilling company. He’ll no doubt be pushing for an inquiry.”

“Any children?”

“No.”

“Other siblings?”

“Apparently not.”