“Your best guess, Grandpa?” Fong asked.
The coroner waggled his head back and forth a few times. “It’s an agricultural area, there’s always the possibility of adding that government insecticide crap to their drinks.”
Swallowing the tasteless insecticide was the most common means of suicide in rural China. But it was a woman’s death choice. Fong thought it more likely that the eel farming in the area provided better opportunities for toxins. There was always the possibility of local concoctions. Poisoning had a long history in China.
Poison in drinks had a particularly long history.
“Perhaps that explains why there were no half-empty glasses found anywhere on the boat,” suggested Fong with a wry smile.
Lily, Chen and the coroner reached for the photos and scanned them quickly. Not a single glass appeared in any of the shots. Lily looked up at Fong. “You noticed that.”
“Crime sites consist of what is there and what isn’t, Lily.”
“Very good, Fong.”
“Thanks, Grandpa. What’s next?”
“The cut marks are interesting if your delectations move in that direction. The Japanese were gutted in a mockery of that thing they do over there whenever someone burps after dinner or some such silliness.”
“Hari Kari,” said Lily.
“Yeah, whatever they call it. The men who did this knew how to butcher things. It’s like the Japanese were ‘dressed’ for an exhibit or something.”
Fong was sure to let his breath out slowly. His pulse was racing. The mongoose was in furious motion.
“What do you make of the way the Koreans were shot?” asked Chen.
Fong looked at the young man.
“Again, you’re too young to know about this kind of thing. At the end of the war before our glorious liberation,” his sarcasm was so thick that the air in the room seemed to hover for a moment, “Korean gangs made major inroads in our cities. They spread terror by shooting people beneath the armpits and then hanging them from beams. It takes a long time to die that way. Shooting someone from right to left pretty much guarantees that the bullet will stay in the body, but it will not kill immediately. Just pain. Lots of pain.”
“Koreans are good at that.” The flat statement from Chen surprised everyone. Fong added it to his mental “Chen file.”
Fong nodded for the coroner to continue. “The knives were sharp but beyond that I haven’t got a thing to go on. But these . . . ,” he tossed out several close-up photographs of the faceless Chinese men, “are interesting. Take a look at the top of the cut mark. The guy who ordered these pictures really knew what he was doing. See the angle he’s guiding us to look at?”
As the others looked, Fong considered grandpa’s last remark: “. . . he’s guiding us to look at.” Could it be that the specialist knew that they, or someone like them, would come to investigate further than he’d been allowed to? Is it possible that he arrested those three men knowing full well that they weren’t the real criminals? Were they left by him as possible clues for investigators like us to follow? Was the specialist actually, somehow or other, still guiding this investigation from wherever he was?
Fong returned his attention to the coroner as the old man said, “The stroke was definitely from top to bottom as indicated by the bevel at the forehead and the overlap on the chin.” He felt his own chin and pulled on the single long whisker there. “And it was done with one stroke.” A dark look passed his features. Perhaps an undigested piece of beef. “So what we’re looking for,” he concluded, “is an incredibly sharp weapon that’s wider than the widest of these faces.”
“A kind of axe?” Lily asked.
“None that I’ve ever seen.”
“How about a long knife or machete?”
“No, it would leave a slant from whichever side it was used. This was used straight up and down.”
“Like a hoe?” Chen asked.
“Some hoe,” the coroner chuckled mirthlessly.
“Let’s not dismiss that,” said Fong.
“Fine,” said the coroner. Chen made a note on his pad. Lily glanced at Fong, but Fong looked away. He stood and stared out the filthy slanted windows, his back to the table. When he sensed that all their eyes were on him he spoke. “What do you know about chi, Grandpa?”
“The black mania? Chinese madness?” the old man was clearly offended. “Western nonsense.”
“Perhaps.” He turned toward them and spoke slowly, knowing the danger of the territory that he was entering. “In May of 1920, huge posters appeared everywhere in Beijing . . .”
“Kill the foreigners, throw them in the sea, China for the Chinese,” said the coroner wearily. “We all know the story.”
“Do we really, Grandpa? Thousands of foreigners were killed in two days. Heads were switched on white men’s bodies and Chinese collaborators were hog-tied and bled to death. Sound familiar?”
“Fairy tales, Fong,” grunted the coroner.
“I was born in the Old City, Grandpa. These were the stories of my youth. Perhaps elaborated. Perhaps. But my grandmother witnessed the event. She was amazed by the bravery of the revolutionists. The complete disregard for their own safety. She called it, ‘So un-Chinese.’” An image of his grandmother yelling at him to get over his typhoid and stop embarrassing the family welled up within him. He shrugged it off. “And she wasn’t one to be easily impressed.” Lily looked at him strangely. This was new information. But he avoided her eyes and went on, “She brought back one of the red kerchiefs they wore. It had the word Fu emblazoned on the front.”
“Happiness,” Lily said in English as she turned away in disgust.
“Did they succeed, sir?” asked Chen.
“No. Their ferocity grew beyond their understanding. They leapt from tall buildings, frothed from their mouths uttering incomprehensible omens of doom and prophecies of the future. One leader, in his ecstacy, sliced his daughter into pieces and threw the bits to his followers. They were so taken by their furor that bullets only slowed them. Death was their companion.”
Lines from Measure for Measure leapt into his head:
If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug her in mine arms.
Fu Tsong loved those lines. An awful thought flitted through Fong’s consciousness.
No one spoke. They could hear the hum of the building’s air intake system.
Finally Fong broke the silence. “You three can take a look at the recreation now. But be forewarned. The model’s potent.” Fong returned to his notes. “Lily, you take the film in the camera, try to get an analysis of the dirt from the runway and I want you to find out more about American patent law. If you need to get information in English, Lily, show me your translations before you send them off. Captain Chen, take the specs on that hoe thing and find out whatever you can on those old cartridges and the gun that might have fired them. Then locate the ship owner and try to figure out where the crew was during all of this. Maybe the owner supplied girls as well. Grandpa, find what you can about those ligature marks on the arms. Let’s see if we can narrow down the type of wire they used, if nothing else. Then get me as much data on the knife wounds as you can. As well, you can interview the restaurant owner who supplied the food.” Fong glanced down at a picture of the brown blotch on the rug near the bar room door. “Ask him about alcohol on board. While you’re with him, maybe he can address your complaints about the local cuisine. Let’s start with that.”
Chen got to his feet, but the other two didn’t move. Fong knew perfectly well what Lily and Grandpa were waiting for. At last he spoke. “I’m going to begin with the local Triad. I want to ask them about the burn marks.”
“The what?”
“The burn marks.” He paused for a second then continued, “After all the killing was done, the boat was torched. It was only the shoal and the ice that kept it afloat for a few days.” He tossed close-ups of the hull’s scorch marks on the table.
“Why, Fon
g?” asked the coroner.
Fong chose his words carefully. “When I look at that model and the photos I’m struck by many things, but the one impression that is strongest for me is that the entire crime site looks carefully planned. As if it’s an exhibit. I think it was done as a warning. I don’t think there’s any doubt that it was meant to be seen.”
“The positions of the victims, you mean?” asked Chen.
“That and the way they were killed. The whole thing looks like a bizarre object lesson.”
“That goes with the Triad motto on the overhead mirror,” said Lily.
“So, some hoodlums play show and tell. So what? What does that have to do with burn marks?” pressed the coroner.
“Maybe nothing,” replied Fong, “but why go to all that trouble to create an object lesson — then try to sink it?”
No one had an answer for that.
Fong walked toward the rusting barrels at the far end of the factory. He felt wobbly, as if something terrible was just around the corner — just far enough back in the shadows that its true form remained secret — for now, at least.
Without looking back he said, “I think its time I met with the local gangsters, Captain Chen.”
“You mean the Triads, sir?”
“Yes, the Triads,” Fong said; but what he thought was, “Even Chen realizes that there are many kinds of gangsters in this part of the Middle Kingdom.”
“Why didn’t the specialist just arrest some token Triad guys? The Triad leaders wouldn’t have cared,” said Lily.
“That’s another good question, Lily,” Fong said; but to himself he added, “That was the question.” Then he tried to put Lily’s question together with “Why design an object lesson and then try to burn it down?” And couldn’t.
CHAPTER TEN
SMOTHER, MURDER, PATENTS
Inspector Wang couldn’t tell if he was awake or dreaming. He was seeing himself from above. He looked like a silkworm chrysalis in its hanging cocoon — fighting, battling, tearing — to get out. He took a deep breath. Silken threads filled his mouth and lungs. His screams were muffled by the wadding.
A light glared. He was suddenly on the bed looking toward the ceiling. Through the gossamer he saw a figure in white. A woman. A girl. She reached out and somehow touched his forehead through the material. Her hand felt cool. Lovely.
The syringe stung as it entered his arm. Then relief. As if the cocoon had been slashed apart, ripped open. And air entered him. He tried to say thank you, but nothing came out.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “I can read your lips. Remember?”
He nodded.
“Use the button at your side next time. They’re putting you under again. If you need my help, you’ll have to use the call button. I can’t know you’re in trouble unless you buzz me. Understood?”
She wrapped his fingers around the shaft of the call button.
Don’t let go of my hand, he wanted to say. But all he did was look up at her.
She was a nurse, a different one. He didn’t recall being brought to the hospital this time. He’d lost track of the days. All he knew was that he was being put into some kind of time suspension again, that a vain battle against his passing was being fought. But despite these efforts, he was dying and he knew it. And his only hope for life was the plan that he’d set in motion in far-off Lake Ching. A plan that, because he was given so little time at the lake itself, needed a very talented investigator to complete.
Fong got out of the Jeep, more than a little startled where Chen had driven him. They were several kilometres into the countryside. The lake was well to their east. The road was crowded as they approached what looked like an animal theme park.
“The head of the Triad is going to meet me at a zoo?” he demanded.
“The leader, the Shan Chu, won’t be there.”
“I know that, Chen. Who is it, the Hung Kwan?”
“No. The White Paper Fan and the Incense Master.”
The Incense Master (Heung Chu) was in charge of ritual indoctrination and the White Paper Fan (Pak Tsz Sin) was the financial officer of the Triad. They were third and sixth respectively in the hierarchy of Triad command. Not bad, Fong thought.
“I asked them for higher up, but . . .”
“But we take what we can get when it comes to local Triads, huh, Chen?”
“At least they didn’t send the Grass Sandal.”
The Grass Sandal (Cho Hai) was the Triad’s mouthpiece. Fong had found in the past that the hardest thing about dealing with a Triad Cho Hai was stopping himself from knocking out the man’s teeth. Dental work was not Fong’s favourite topic, so he dropped the thought. “How deeply set is this Triad, Chen?”
“Deep. They were early in leaving the Kuomintang and aligning themselves with the People’s Liberation Army.”
“They could smell the winds that long ago?” Fong thought. He reminded himself to keep his cool with these men. He needed information, not more enemies. A man needed allies to survive in China.
Chen showed his ID, and he and Fong walked past a large line of Chinese men and women waiting to pay and enter the grounds. Naturally, many grumbled at Fong and Chen’s obvious queue-jumping, but few made noises loud enough to attract attention. Clearly, Chen and Fong were police officers — most Chinese citizens knew better than to make trouble for themselves with the local authorities.
The grounds were crowded but well laid out. No small cages here. Open pens, large grass-covered knolls surrounded by moats to keep the animals from the spectators. A welcome relief from the claustrophobic horror of old-style zoos.
Fong put his hands in his pockets and drank it all in. So many people. So much chatter. Families. Then he noticed that something was missing.
“How far are we from Xian?”
“A forty-five-minute drive, maybe less.”
Fong turned a full circle then asked, “Where are the tourists? There’s not a single white face in the entire crowd.”
Chen hung his head a little and said, more to his chest than to Fong, “This isn’t really a zoo, sir. It’s not on any tourist map. I doubt that they’d allow tourists in.”
That surprised Fong. He looked anew at his surroundings. At the edge of some of the containment areas, Chinese men and women held fishing rods with food at the end of the line. He watched as animals approached and grabbed the dangling treats. Apples for apes and monkeys. Chunks of meat for tigers and lions. Slabs of fish for bears.
Well, that was new to Fong. “What? They pay extra for the right to feed the animals or something?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I still don’t get it, Chen. What could the Triads want with a place like this?”
“Well, sir, it’s not so much the animals here, but rather the ones over there that are the Triad’s business concern.”
Chen was pointing to a large windowless building set back behind the containment areas. As they walked toward it, the crowds thickened and a kind of expectancy filled the air. It reminded Fong of the feeling he had at the one hanging he’d been forced to witness. He and his team had tracked down a pedophile who had fled Shanghai to a small town north of the Pudong. The man had made the mistake of trying to kidnap a young Australian boy from his parents. As a crime against foreigners, it had fallen into Fong’s jurisdiction. The man was clumsy. A fool. He left a wide, easy path to follow. Fong had made the arrest himself. The man was hiding beneath his mother’s bed. Fong had no doubt that the man was a danger to children. He also had no doubt that the man had the mental capacity of a ten year old and should have been put in an institution, not jail. Fong was forced to testify. At the trial, it quickly came out that the man had also sodomized several local children. The crowd outside the court was apoplectic with anger. The judge brought down his verdict without bothering to take a recess.
The hanging took place that afternoon. As the arresting officer, he’d been forced to walk the man to the scaffold. The man cried and peed his pants. He grabbe
d onto Fong’s arm and begged to be allowed to go home. He promised to be good. That he knew he was a bad boy. That he was sorry. That he was frightened of all the people around him and he didn’t know what was happening to him. When they put the noose around his neck, the crowd cheered. The man smiled as if he were being feted. Then a gunshot rang out. Everyone ducked. The boy slumped, held up by the noose around his neck.
The boy’s mother stepped forward and surrendered her firearm. How had she managed to get a gun?
No one spoke. She walked away. Fong often wondered what had happened to her. Surely the only crime she had committed was saving the State the need to hang her son. But she had shot her son. She had shot her son — he would never forget her face.
Well, the expectancy in the crowd around this big building was the same as it had been at the hanging that day. Chen led Fong to the entrance and past the ticket taker. Fong was surprised by the price of admission to the building. It was twenty times greater than the cost of getting into the park itself.
Once inside, Fong followed Chen up a wide set of steep concrete steps. They climbed up and up and up and then followed a widening concrete tunnel to the bright light beyond.
Before them was a completely round space with seating on the second and third levels. The hard benches on the second level were completely packed. Fong guessed that there had to be more than a thousand people, almost all men. The comfortable upholstered chairs on the third level were two-thirds full. On the ground, there was an open concrete circle with a large drain in the centre. Around the outside of the concrete floor were barred cages.
Fong looked to Chen, who shrugged a particularly enigmatic shrug. “It’s very popular, sir.”
Fong was prevented from asking, “What’s very popular?” by a cheer that erupted from the stands. A goat had been released from one of the cages. It let out an angry grunt as it raced into the centre of the ring. Even from a distance, Fong could see its nostrils flaring and hear its little sharp hooves clatter across the hard concrete.
Then another cage opened on the far side.
The Lake Ching Murders - A Mystery of Fire and Ice Page 10