The Lake Ching Murders - A Mystery of Fire and Ice (18 page)

As she allowed herself to be helped into the helicopter it occurred to her that having come all this way, maybe she should see her son, Chen. Then she dismissed the thought as bourgeois and sentimental. They’d been apart all these years. Why bother seeing him face to face now? She barked an order and the pilot engaged the engine. The rotors began to howl. She put her head back against the plush seat and closed her eyes. The islanders would do as she suggested. They were people of the land, just as she was.

* * *

Jiajia put down the minister’s copy of
The Art of War.
He had just finished the brief chapter on spies. For a moment he looked at the cover of the book — so fancy, so decorated — so unlike war. He shook his head and strode out of his mud hut — at one time their home, his and Chu Shi’s. He reconsidered Sun Tzu’s advice as he walked quickly up the steep path to the graveyard. It seemed to him that Sun Tzu’s instruction on the waging of war was flawed. It assumed a dispassion, a cold logic. He crested the final rise and stepped into the graveyard. He stood over Chu Shi’s grave for a long time then he hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it right at her heart.

Jiajia kicked at the grave’s night soil–clotted earth then began to tear at the dirt with his fingers. As he did, he planned. Not as
The Art of War
had suggested. But then again, Sun Tzu was waging a military campaign. Not seeking revenge.

Jiajia flung aside clods of the thick dirt until he unearthed the edge of the crimson burial shroud. He leaned back his head and howled Chu Shi’s name.

Revenge was not dispassionate. It was not cold and logical. It was human — and hot.

The next day Iman ordered the islanders to put down their weapons. A dead girl. A pregnant dead girl was dug up and transported to the mainland where her body was hacked to pieces in a secret foreign ritual.

So went the story.

Dr. Roung knew better. He didn’t know what had changed the islanders’ minds to allow it, but he knew that Chu Shi must have been exhumed so that an autopsy could be done. Probably in Xian. He assumed that the foreigners insistence on the exhumation and autopsy had something to do with their business deal. But again he didn’t know what. And he said nothing. Did nothing. Just sat in the darkness of his Ching room wondering over and over again why the ceremonial wine had been shipped from Beijing. That night he awoke in a cold sweat, his mind crawling with fear. Fear that he knew the answer to the question. It was just past 6 a.m. He went out into the freezing darkness.

That was just before the frigid dawn of December 22. Seventeen foreigners had less than a week to live.

Half an hour after Fong’s return from the island funeral, the hollow sound of his banging on Dr. Roung’s workshop door echoed through Ching’s soft spring night. Fong’s shouts went unanswered. Finally an old woman came around the corner of the building.

“Gone, flat-head.”

“What?”

“He’s gone.” The old woman cocked her head to the side and stared at Fong’s mouth. “Where’d you get your teeth?”

“Where did Dr. Roung go?”

“To Xian. Where else?”

Where else indeed. The island and Xian. Always the island and Xian. And finally the link between the two — four stones stacked neatly in a tower behind a dead girl’s headstone — to mark time.

Fong turned on his heel and headed back to the Jeep. Over his shoulder he heard the old woman shout, “You really ought to complain. Those teeth look awful.”

When he got into the car, Chen asked him, “Did she say something about teeth?”

“No,” Fong said harder than he should have. Then he spat out, “Have you found out if there was an exhumation order executed on the island?”

“Yes, there was.” Chen referred to his notes. “It was done December 21. How did you know . . .?”

“Seven days before the murders on the boat.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was there an autopsy performed?”

“Yes, the same day.”

“Where? Don’t answer that — Xian? Right?” Chen nodded. Fong cursed under his breath. “I want the autopsy report sent to Grandpa.”

“They won’t send it.”

“What?”

“I’ve already asked for it. They said it’s confidential.”

Fong knew the word
confidential
in China’s bureaucratese meant “volatile.” “Will they let him see it if we go to them?”

“Yes, they’re okay with that.”

“Fine.”

“How did you know there’d been an . . .?”

Fong thought back to the grave on the island. The soil was still unpacked. The fecal material resisting decomposition, as it always did when disturbed . . . He shrugged. Why not tell Chen? Because admitting a knowledge of night soil would allow access to his past. And he wasn’t prepared to discuss his personal history with anyone.

Chen reached in his pocket and pulled out a fax. “This arrived for you while you were on the island.”

Fong spread it out against the dash:

HEY HO SHORT STUFF. BIG COOKINGS HERE IN XIAN. WHAT GUESS FOUND I? NO GUESS? TWO BAD. DNA PATENT FOUND I. DNA PATENT GIVEN TO DEAD AMERICAN LAWYER, DECEMBER 25TH - THINK NOT CLOSE TO PARTY TIME? - DO I? I DO. DO. DO. DO YOU?

Fong shivered.

They were nearing the edge.

He brushed some liquid from his chin. It was deep red. Somehow he’d cut himself and was bleeding. He looked at the red smear on the back of his hand. Blood without. Blood within. This all has to do with blood.

“Fax Lily. Tell her we’ve got to know exactly what the DNA patent was for.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And get Grandpa ready.”

“For what?”

“Our trip to Xian. He needs an outing.”

The alarm sounded loudly at the nurse’s station. She’d been in Inspector Wang’s room only moments before. Maybe he’d accidently rolled over on the button.

Maybe he was finally dying.

The thickness was lining his mouth and had gotten up into his nasal passages. It was now extending down into his lungs, covering every inch — every tiny sack that could bring him air.

He struggled and thrashed as best he could. He grabbed the button and pressed with all his might. Then he stopped. Stopped fighting. Stopped fighting what he thought was the end. Images floated up at him. Sharpedged crime scene lights threw everything into high relief. The pop of a sulphur match and the delicious flavour of cigarette smoke. Then a face close to his. Zhong Fong. He’d never had a son. Never married.
Lived his whole life as an unbeliever. But here on the very brink of his time, just before he leapt from this earthly plane, he sent out a blessing. A final gift to Zhong Fong. Not as tactile as the telegram he’d arranged to get through despite all regulations against outside contact with the traitor. But more important. Or at least that’s what the specialist thought — as his last act upon the Earth.

The white-clad nurse leaned in close to the old man’s mouth. He was trying to speak. His lips forming soundless words. She read his lips as she had so many times before. But what she read made no sense. “Bless you.” His lips formed a name she’d never heard before. “Make me proud. You are my pride. Deduce that it was me . . .”

The nurse recalled this man asking for communications experts a few months back. Just after he’d returned from Xian. Then documents from Shanghai. All quite a fuss. For what? She knew he’d been to Xian because he’d brought her back a small kneeling figure of an archer. He’d flirted in his wordless way. But despite all the time she’d nursed him, she didn’t know much about him. In fact, she had no idea who this man was. Only that he was important enough to have a private room in a politburo hospital. That he had three serious gunshot wounds when he first arrived. Two in his back and one that had pierced his voice box. And the doctors were administering a treatment to him she’d never seen before.

But all that didn’t matter now because he was quickly growing cold. If she’d known any Shakespeare, she might have quoted
Measure for Measure:
“This sensible warm motion” was quickly becoming “a kneaded clod.”

But she didn’t know any Shakespeare. Why should she?

Then again, those lines wouldn’t fit a man — not dead — but put into a kind of suspended animation. Something new. Another way to cheat time. And all, of course, done without the knowledge of either Inspector Wang Jun or his doting nurse.

Well before the Jeep reached Xian, Fong sensed the approach of the desert. A dry stillness seemed to suck at the air. Something from before time. Then the first structures of the ancient Qin capital, China’s very first, materialized on the horizon. Shortly after, the wind picked up and fine grains of desert sand began to pelt their vehicle — grains of sand all the way from the mythologized Silk Road — the first conduit between East and West. Xian in its day had been the Middle Kingdom’s port of entry. Camels crossing the torturous Silk Road brought the West to China 2,500 years ago.

Soon the Jeep entered the crumbling outer ring of the Old City. This was not the tourist Xian; this was the Chinese Xian. The Muslim quarter with its souk tents and dusted colours came first. It was bigger than Fong had expected. A small Tibetan sector abutted the Muslim quarter. The people there seemed sullen and angry. As the Jeep made its way toward the centre of the old place, it passed through many different communities. The faces in this city were composites. Clues. Hints of Mongol, Manchu, Turk, Afghan, Tibetan in the faces, but all Chinese now. Oh yes, they were all Chinese now. The great ocean China salts every river.

The desert dust was blowing hard as Chen parked the Jeep outside the Xian central police station. Fong helped the coroner out of the car as Lily approached them. The wind-blown sand got into the old man’s lungs and he let out a hacking cough that ended with him doubled over in pain. Lily was clearly shocked by his appearance. He looked awful.

The ride, like most such endeavours in the Middle Kingdom, was much more exhausting than expected. Twice they had to stop and let the old man out. Both times Fong walked at his side as Grandpa moved slowly along the road’s edge, like an old dog looking for the scent he needed to defecate. At the end of the second stop the coroner hooked his arm through Fong’s and allowed himself to be led back to the car. The man’s touch had startled Fong.

“I’ve got our meetings set up, Fong. The news guys are expecting us later this afternoon. The vice cops are ready for us now,” said Lily.

“Good,” said Fong.

As they entered the police station he whispered, “Have you found anything more on that DNA patent?”

“Not yet. It’s hard to get any exact information. But I’m still trying.”

The vice cops were cordial enough and offered to pick up Sun Li Cha, the Mistress of Cervical Arts, for them. Fong declined the offer. “Just tell us where we can find her.”

The possibility of seeing Sun Li Cha seemed to cheer up the coroner. “An unexpected benefit,” Fong thought.

The police began listing places to check.

Fong cut them off, “Does she have a home address?”

“Yeah,” said the youngest vice cop, “but we’ve never found her there.”

“Where does her mother live?” asked Lily.

Fong saw a flash of anger cross the officer’s face. Perhaps the man didn’t like being questioned by a woman or maybe he found it offensive to bring the mother into this. Xian was getting to be a big city; he’d have to learn that mothers are often the best way to daughters. Change is hard on us all.

Pockets of new wealth were in evidence throughout Xian. Although not pristine, the city was clearly maintained in such a way that Western tourists would find it acceptable.

Shanghai too Western? Chungking too crowded? Beijing too political? Don’t worry, there’s always Xian, real old Chinese. Foreigners certainly bought the pitch. They jammed the narrow streets. They were everywhere.

Sitting in the Jeep and waiting for Chen to return from his errand, Fong found himself put off. An old reaction. For years Chinese citizens had been fed a steady diet of hatred for the Westerners who had bled their country dry. It is hard to get over one’s racial training. “We’re all raised as racists,” he said aloud.

“Even from you, Fong, that has to qualify as an unusual statement,” croaked the coroner from the back seat of the car.

“Think about it,” Fong replied. “You’re born into a family. I sure was.” He noticed Lily cock her head in interest at that. He pressed on: “The first training you get is that your family is better than the one next door. Then you get that your street is better than the one behind you. Then your village is better than the village to the north.”

The coroner folded his arms across his chest, leaned against the door and closed his eyes. Fong continued, “Naturally enough, if all those things are true, your country has to be better than all other countries . . . and your race better than any other.”

The coroner began to snore.

Lily spoke softly, “So, Fong, does that make us all bad?”

Fong heard the concern in her voice buried beneath the veneer of a casual question. “No. Having racist feelings and behaving as a racist are two completely different things. It takes an effort to overcome the training of your youth. Often the initial biases are overturned, but sometimes they linger despite our best efforts to erase them.”

Fong looked in the rear-view mirror. The coroner had a gentle smile on his grizzled face. He began snoring louder.

In the other side of the mirror, Lily looked pensive.

“Lily?”

“Fong, we were all trained to hate Caucasians. There are still times when I can’t believe how ugly they are.” She stopped as if she were entering territory that was too complicated — perhaps too dangerous.

“You have a question, Lily?”

“I do.”

“Ask.”

“The white woman.” Fong instantly knew that she was talking about Amanda Pitman, the wife of the New Orleans police officer who had been found chopped into small pieces in an alley off Julu Lu almost five years earlier. He’d spent four days — and nights — with her.

“What about her, Lily?”

Lily allowed her tongue to trace the front of her teeth. Despite the new thinking in China and Lily’s almost constant exposure to Western media, she didn’t know how to broach issues of male sexuality. Especially with Fong.

“What about her, Lily?” Fong repeated. His voice carried a definite edge.

She let out a deep breath then said in English, “No gain without a penny for a pound, right Fong?”

Fong had no idea what she was trying to say but decided to nod.

“You won’t hate me in the morning?” she asked in English.

Fong was quite lost. Which morning? What had she done to be hated? He looked at her. She looked so earnest that he shook his head.

“You’re sure?”

He shrugged.

“Okay. Good. Okay.” She took a deep breath and switched back to Mandarin. “Did you sleep with the big white woman?”

Fong was shocked.

“Don’t look at me like that, Fong. You told me it was all right for me to ask. So I asked.”

Fong took his eyes from the mirror and looked out the front window. Chen was returning to the Jeep with a bag of steamed buns and about a dozen cheap Triad medallions dangling from his wrist. The timing of the gods was merciful for once. But as Chen approached the car, Lily hissed, “Was she good? Do you like big tits? What did she smell like?”

Chen opened the door and got in. “Sorry I was so long, the crowd was . . .”

“Just get in, will you!” Fong ordered angrily.

Chen didn’t know what to say, so he apologized again.

“Don’t apologize, fire plug. Your absence provoked a fascinating conversation,” said the coroner with a big smile on his craggy face. “What kind of cop are you, Fong, to take snoring for sleeping? Hey, how about one of those buns back here.”

Fong looked in the rear-view mirror. The coroner was laughing. Lily was not.

Then the coroner coughed — and coughed and coughed. Rattles deep inside him began to sound. A knell that everyone in the Jeep heard.

Twenty minutes later, Chen pulled the car out of traffic, headed down a side street and stopped in front of a modern building.

“Her mother lives in a government office block?”

“No, sir, this is where the autopsy was done on the island girl who was disinterred. I thought Grandpa wanted . . .”

“Grandpa wants to see Sun Li Cha, that’s what . . .” but the old man didn’t get another word out as he saw the scowl on Fong’s face. “Actually, a lively bit of scientific bibble babble beats meeting a mistress of the ancient arts any old day,” he said, stepping out of the car.

As Fong walked with him toward the building he noted the greyness that seemed to be growing around the man’s eyes. “Do you want me to stay with you, Grandpa?”

“No.” The older man unhooked his arm from Fong’s and climbed the steps to the building slowly but with a fierce determination. He stumbled and righted himself. He swore loudly — that gave Fong hope.

When Fong got back into the car he was smiling. “What did that old coot say?” asked Lily.

“Nothing much.”

“So why are you smiling?”

“He’s angry. As long as he’s angry he’ll be fine. Once he gets sentimental I’ll begin to worry.”

“Does his family know he’s here?”

Fong almost responded, “He has a family?” then realized that saying it aloud would admit how little he knew about the old man. So he said nothing.

* * *

At first Sun Li Cha’s mother wasn’t particularly happy to see them, but she warmed up quickly. There was something of the old coquette about her. Fong had seen it many times before. Older people were ignored in the New China. A burden. Now, all of a sudden, she was wanted. People cared about what she thought. Were willing to listen to her stories.

Both Fong and Chen sat patiently as she claimed ownership of a very exciting, although totally implausible, personal history. It was Lily who finally brought matters to a head.

“Do you think we’re idiots, old lady?”

“No, I don’t, dearie. I think you’re cops.” She laughed so hard at her own cleverness that she snorted like a pig.

“Just tell us where your daughter is!” Lily demanded.

Fong could have killed Lily. All this patient waiting and smiling was meant to build up credit with the old lady so she’d do just that.

“How should I know? Young people have no respect anymore. Like you,” she barked at Lily. “Sun Li doesn’t tell me anything. Do you tell your mother where you’re going, girl?” Before Lily could defend herself the crone continued, “Or that you sleep with these two men. Oh, I see the way they look at you. I’m not new to the Earth you know.”

“Does your daughter have a boyfriend?” asked Fong gently, before Lily could tear a strip off the lady’s old carcass.

“No.”

“Come, Grandma, a girl as beautiful as Sun Li must have men around her all the time,” said Chen gently.

The old woman softened. Fong looked to Chen who just smiled.

“Only beautiful mothers give birth to beautiful daughters,” Chen added. Lily almost puked down the front of her dress.

The old charlatan reached over and touched Chen’s arm. “True. Beauty begets beauty. Very true.” She patted his arm twice more and then said, “Your mother must have been a real dog. Bow-wow wow-wow. Know what I mean?”

Fong was about to leap to Chen’s defence when the younger man held up a hand. “What you say may be true, but I haven’t seen my mother for many, many years. Perhaps she has become, like you, beautiful in her old age.” He smiled.

She smiled back.

Then she said, “You could try the Humming Way bar in the Sheraton. Sometimes she’s there.” Then sadness crossed her face and she said, “She’s an entertainer, you know.”

The Humming Way bar at the Sheraton was dark and stank of cigars and expensive perfume. When Fong’s eyes adjusted to the murk he saw many foreigners with Chinese women. The women were all overly made up and wore tight-fitting clothing.

“Westerners didn’t understand us at all,” Fong thought. These girls were openly disdainful of the men. Yes, their hands rested with seeming ease on the Westerners, but their body language spoke openly of their aversion. Why couldn’t Westerners see that?

It was Lily who picked Sun Li out from the others. “There,” she said pointing at a back booth where a tall Han Chinese woman laughed loudly at something the Western man at her side had said. She touched his hand with her elegant fingers, but her body canted away. A second Westerner returned to the table, balancing three martinis. A small cheroot dangled from the side of his mouth.

“Chen, guard the entrance.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lily, you take the door to the woman’s toilet.”

“Why?”

“This isn’t a forensic lab, Lily,” he snapped. “Just do as I tell you.” Lily, surprised by his tone, didn’t question him further.

Fong turned from Lily and surveyed the bar closely. He would be more careful with this interrogation than he’d been with Hesheng’s. The image of the terrified islander’s face came to him. He breathed it away.

Once Lily and Chen were in position, Fong strolled over to the booth. Sun Li Cha’s right hand was beneath the table on the thigh of the young Westerner on her right. Her other hand held a half-emptied martini glass. The older man on her left had an arm around her shoulder, his stubby fingers dangling close to the top of her low-cut silk blouse.

Her laughter stopped when she saw Fong.

“What’s wrong, honey? Who’s this?” the older of the two men said in English.