Cambodian Book of the Dead Read Online Free Page A

whether you will be recalled to Germany or whether I will make further payments so that you may make additional enquiries.”
    Mrs Müller-Overbeck had smelled of money and avarice, but not of coffee. It looked as if Maier would become the babysitter to Hamburg’s rich heirs. There had been moments when he had wished the Wall back. In his thoughts he had cursed Sundermann, his boss.
    â€œMr Maier, my expectations are very high and if I get the impression that you are unable or unwilling to fulfil them, then I will mention your agency to my friend, Dr Roth, who sits on the city council.”
    His eyes tuned to truthful and trustworthy, Maier had nodded in agreement, and had let Mrs Müller-Overbeck work on him, her scrawny, pale and lonely hands covered in blue varicose veins, fragile as thin glass, held together by gold, coming up and down in front of him to emphasise the message.
    â€œIf my son is involved in any illegal or dangerous business over there, then please have his business uncovered in such a way that he is immediately deported back to Germany.”
    â€œMrs Müller-Overbeck, that kind of action can be very dangerous in Cambodia.”
    The coffee queen had reacted with irritation. “That’s why I am not sending a relative. That’s why you are going. I expect results, solutions, not doubts. I want to see my son where he belongs.”
    â€œI can’t force your son to come back home.”
    â€œTell him he is disinherited if he won’t budge. No, do not tell him anything. Just report to me. And please be discreet. Rolf is my only son. You never know, in these countries, so far away…”
    Maier had only then realised that Mrs Müller-Overbeck was crying. The tears would surely turn to ice in seconds. She’d patted her sunken cheeks with a silk handkerchief.
    â€œPreliminary investigations have told us that your son is a business partner in a small dive shop in a beach resort. He appears to be reasonably successful at what he is doing.”
    Mrs Müller-Overbeck had abandoned all efforts to save her face and blurted in despair and with considerable impatience, “I could have told you that myself. I want to know with what kind of people he is doing business with, whether he has a woman, what kind of friends he has. I want to know everything about his life over there. I want to know why he is there and not here. And then I want him back.”
    â€œYou don’t need a private detective to find that out. Why don’t you just fly over there and visit him?”
    â€œDon’t be impertinent. You are being well paid, so ask your questions in Asia, not here. Goodbye, Maier. Please remember every now and then that your agency’s licences are granted by the city of Hamburg. That will keep you up to speed.”
    Â 
    â€œThis is co-pilot Andropov speaking. Please return your seats to upright position. We are about to land at Phnom Penh International Airport. The temperature in Phnom Penh is thirty-three degrees, local time is 6.30. We hope you enjoyed flying Cambodian Air Travel. Look forward to welcoming you on our flights again soon. On behalf of captain and the crew, have a pleasant stay in Cambodia. Hope to see you ’gain soon.”
    The old good-bye rap by the deputy captain was barely understandable. The stewardess passed his row, wearing her most professional smile. There was no way to get through now. Maier sighed inwardly and turned to the window.
    Cambodia was down there, a small, insignificant country, in which the history of the twentieth century had played out as if trapped in the laboratory of a demented professor.
    French colony, independence in 1953, a few years of happily corrupt growth and peace under King Sihanouk, followed by five years of war with CIA coups, Kissinger realpolitik, US bombs, a few hundred thousand dead and millions of refugees – the most intense bombing campaign in the history of conflict was the