“No, Doctor,” said Far. “Would you like to cut him open now? I have an old plastic table cloth we could put down.”

“No need,” said Siri.

“Was he poisoned?” she asked.

“No, Granny Far,” said Siri. “He wasn’t poisoned. He was haunted to death.”

“Oh, I say,” said the old woman, and she held her palm to her chest. Siri was certain she had some good luck talisman hanging there. He had one too. It could often mean the difference between life and death. He instinctively reached for his own stone amulet beneath his shirt.

“Is there anything we can do?” Daeng asked.

“On the way in I couldn’t help noticing the pile of furniture in the yard,” said Siri.

“It’s all the old stuff,” said Far, “and wood from the old trees out back. I loaded it there this afternoon.”

“So I take it your temple no longer provides a service?”

“All the monks have gone, bar one,” said Far. “And his only functions seem to be grumbling and insulting anyone who wastes his time with dead loved ones.”

“So you’d sooner do it here?” said Daeng.

“It’s been the family home since the last century,” said Far.

They wrapped the corpse in the old plastic tablecloth and carried it to the familial pyre, where they sat the nephew on a chunky Chinese chair. They knew they were supposed to inform the authorities and stand back and watch the cogs turn slowly, but there wouldn’t have been much of the nephew left by the time they’d got his file up to date. There’d be the issue of lighting a fire without village headman permission, but Far said she could handle that.

“Doctor, could you say a few words?” said Granny Far, still attempting to ignite her candle with a cigarette lighter.

“What kind of words?” said Siri.

“I don’t know. Something fitting.”

“I don’t know anything religious.”

“That’s fine.”

“How’s your French?” he asked.

“Non-existent, Doctor.”

“Then here goes,” said Siri.

“J’avais auparavant,

Vaincu de la jeunesse,

Autres dames aimé,

Ma faute je confesse.”

“That’s lovely,” said Granny Far. “What does it mean?”

“It is my desire that your nephew finds a comfortable place in nirvana,” said Siri.

She offered him a silver belt for his trouble but he refused.

Back at the restaurant they locked up and retired for the night. They lay on the mattress in the familiar spoon position. Daeng caressed her husband’s neck as they watched the moon rise through the open window.

“You’ve heard of that type of thing before?” Daeng asked.

“A lot,” said Siri. “But since the beginning of the exodus—thousands of young men fleeing to the West—it seems to happen unsettlingly often. It’s almost an epidemic. We hear about it in letters to relatives all the time. But I’ve never witnessed it first hand before.”

“But what causes it?”