Deadly injustice

FIFTEEN

It was not long before the prefect reacted to the murder in the theatre in the most severe of ways. On the following day, large notices appeared in all public places. They were written in Chinee, of course, but Lin translated for me. We were standing outside the theatre, and the notice had been pasted on one of the columns that formed the entrance archway. The troupe’s barker and moneyman was staring disconsolately at the notice. It read: All citizens not engaged in the pursuits proper to them, and who in this city shall practice and sing musical entertainments, or teach and perform tsa-chu dramas, or bring together crowds for the purpose of lewd entertainments

SHALL BE PROHIBITED, and All animal trainers, snake-charmers, puppeteers, performers of sleight-of-hand, players of cymbals and drums, and those who deceive men and gather crowds for the purpose of practising quack-

salving, will be prohibited and those who disobey WILL BE SEVERELY PUNISHED.

The barker turned to us with a glum expression on his face.

‘Well, that is a pretty comprehensive coverage. We will not be able to do anything here now. Nu will be turning in his grave. If he was in one, which he isn’t yet. But you know what I mean. We have hardly been able to make ends meet for months now. He was always begging and borrowing to keep us going. And this new play of Guan’s was our big chance.’ He pulled a face worthy of the best actor on the stage behind him. ‘We’ve had it now. Might as well move on.’

He trudged through the archway towards the stage to tell his comrades the bad news. Lin looked at me with a small smile playing on his lips.

‘It’s an ill wind…’

‘What do you mean?’

‘At least Guan’s play won’t be performed next week. It gives us some more time to find the truth.’

‘That’s true. But what about Tien-jan? Won’t you miss him?’

Lin’s face was stony.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Nick.’

I let the matter drop. I had my own reasons for keeping young Mister Natural Elegance around for a while longer, but I couldn’t tell Lin why. I had hoped he would want to prevent him from leaving so soon himself, but apparently not. We walked away from the square, and towards the Geng household. We had questions to ask.

I took more notice of Geng’s house this time, hoping it would give me some clues to what had happened there. It had obviously once stood on the edge of town. The red tile roof with its curved gables gave the impression of a substantial residence belonging to a rich merchant. The aspect of the windows along the frontage spoke of a property that once looked out over open land towards the river. Now all the occupants could see from them were other, smaller buildings. The city had encroached on the house and swallowed it. It was barely possible now to appreciate the symmetry of its frontage. Stepping through the doorway from the road, Lin and I found ourselves in a central courtyard, surrounded by buildings. Once again, I could tell that the house was somewhat down at heel. Wall timbers were splitting and some roof tiles were loose. Two broken red tiles lay on the packed earth of the courtyard, and probably had lain there since they had fallen from above weeks earlier. The whole house was unusually quiet, with not even any smoke coming from the rear of the building where the kitchen stood. I could tell it was the kitchen, because it was built slightly apart from the other ranges. Fire was a constant hazard to timber-framed houses. There was no evidence even of the servant who had been present last time. A couple of chickens pecked desultorily at the barren earth of the courtyard.

We hovered in the centre of the yard for a moment, before Lin whispered in my ear.

‘Do you think they’ve all fled?’

I grinned.

‘No, I don’t think so. I just caught a glimpse of a youth peering round the edge of an upstairs window behind you. I will rouse them.’

I pulled my short Tartar sword from its sheath, and took a swing at one of the chickens. There was a squawk from the chicken, which flew up in a blur of feathers. And a responding squawk from a human.

‘That is my best layer, I am glad your prowess with a sword is so poor.’

The old lady emerged from the kitchen door, tottering on her tiny feet. I sheathed my sword.

‘I aimed to miss, or the bird would have been running around headless by now. Which is not a criticism I can make of you, Madam Gao.’

She narrowed her dark, little eyes, making the wrinkles on the lined face even deeper and more numerous.

‘How do you mean?’

Whether she really didn’t understand my Western analogy, or was just maintaining her appearance of being a rather stupid, old lady, I wasn’t sure. But one thing she had done was give the game away about her ability to understand my Mongol. When we had first interviewed her, I had stumbled through a three-way conversation using Lin as my interpreter. The crafty old bird had used a feigned ignorance of Mongol as a way of avoiding my more searching questions. Now I knew that, I explained my meaning directly.

‘You told us you were poor, and needed to marry Geng in order to survive. But the truth is it was you who loaned Old Geng money. Money he desperately needed to keep his business afloat.’

As I spoke, I took a couple of steps towards where she stood. Suddenly, two very large, very hairy men emerged from the kitchen and placed themselves either side of the old lady. They only had sticks in their fists, but they were such large and hairy fists and such heavy sticks, that I did not think for one moment of drawing my sword again. From behind me Lin piped up in his thin but authoritative voice.

‘There is no need for violence here, Madam Gao. We are the defenders of the law, and to threaten us would be a crime carrying a severe penalty.’

The old lady bowed low, her head tilting to one side, until we could see the bald patch atop her head. When she straightened up, she showed a mouth with more gaps than teeth in it.

‘I am sorry. My… nephews — ’ she gestured at the two hairy monsters — ‘are a little overzealous at times. I asked them to stay with me, as I am fearful for my life.’

She sighed theatrically, in a way I could now recognize as a pantomime k’o. Lin would have been pleased that my knowledge of Chinee drama was expanding. Madam Gao continued.

‘The times have been so strange of late. What with the poisoning of Geng that could have so nearly been mine. And the attack that I suffered a few weeks ago.’

‘Attack?’

Lin was interested now, and pressed her to explain. She sat down wearily on a bamboo chair set in the shade and waved a hand. The two hairy bodyguards disappeared, though I could still feel their presence like a cold wind blowing from the north down the back of my neck. I squatted down on an upturned bucket, but Lin remained standing in that peculiarly still way of his. His question remained hanging in the air, and, once settled, the old lady answered it.

‘It was a few weeks before Geng’s death. I was still in my own house, living with the girl, of course.’

I decided to interrupt, because I realized the old woman had avoided answering my earlier question about her wealth, and wanted to disconcert her a little.

‘Was this before or after your son died?’

The old lady’s face hardened, and the lines round her mouth stood out. It was not the reaction I would have imagined a loving mother to have had to my brutal question. She had an answer nevertheless, even though it was brief.

‘Afterwards.’

‘You see, I have concerns about your son.’

Her eyes were like daggers stabbing into me.

‘How so? His death has nothing to do with what happened to me, or to Geng’s death. He was a sickly child, and he grew up to be a sickly man. The girl married him at my behest, but he did not live long enough to give her a child. That is all there is to say about the matter.’

I noticed that, finally, a single tear squeezed out of her eye and ran down her wrinkled cheek. I suspected it was manufactured. I held up a hand and signalled for her to go on. She brushed the tear from her face.

‘I was explaining about the attack. I suppose, thinking about it, I should have reported the man. It was someone who owed me money, and he said he had come to negotiate a deal. The next thing I knew, quite out of the blue, he leaped at me and tried to strangle me. I was lucky that Old Geng was due to visit me and was a little early. He came into the room and saw what the man was doing. He grabbed him and pulled him off me. There was a scuffle and my attacker fled. Geng was too old to give chase, and anyway, I needed his attention.’ She stared Lin in the eye, pointedly avoiding looking at me. ‘That was why I agreed to marry him — and that was when my fortunes changed. Geng had saved my life, and I was indebted to him. He said he had been looking for a wife, and now he had found one. It was my fate to obey him, and at his insistence I got rid of my own house and moved in here.’ She waved a weary hand at the ramshackle range of buildings. ‘I think my yun was waning from that point on.’

At last I had the answer to my question about why a rich old woman should marry a poor man who owed her money. I knew a little bit about Chinee belief in fate and luck. So I knew Madam Gao had not been happy to accept Geng’s marriage offer, but had felt bound to do so. Her luck had taken a nosedive from that point. She looked tired, but Lin wanted more.

‘And was it your idea that Jianxu should marry Wenbo?’

‘No, that was Old Geng. He has been looking for a wife for his son for a long time. You can see for yourself how weak the boy is. His father thought my obligation to him would stretch to the girl. And indeed, I saw no reason why she shouldn’t have married Wenbo. It was she who objected. She has always been a wayward child, never doing as she was told. You would have thought she owed me nothing the way she behaved.’

As the old lady rambled on, I had noticed that the boy had moved from his window, where I had first seen him, to the edge of the courtyard where we sat. He was hiding behind one of the doorframes to my right. Madam Gao was not able to see him, but he could see her, and hear what she said. His shoulders had slumped when she described him to us, and his fists had clenched. I could see there was no love lost between them, the tough-minded old woman and the skinny youth.

When she had finished her scalding diatribe about both Wenbo and Jianxu, I asked if we could speak with Wenbo now. She contorted her face into some sort of grin.

‘Of course you can, Mr Investigator.’ She turned her head slightly in the boy’s direction, revealing that she had been aware of his presence all along. ‘You can come out now, Wenbo. Stop skulking, and show yourself.’

The ‘boy’, who must have been twenty at least judging by the growth on his chin, shambled over. His head was bowed, and when he did look up, I saw the spark of fear in his eyes. He was scared of us — more than he needed to be, and more than he had been last time we saw him. I wondered why.

‘You don’t need to be afraid, Wenbo. We are just filling in some of the past in order to be sure of what happened to your father.’

‘It wasn’t Jianxu that did it.’

Wenbo’s face was red and all screwed up. His hands were in tight fists. I stood squarely on to him, facing up his anger.

‘Then who was it, Wenbo? Who was it?’

His face returned to its normal colour, and he lowered his gaze again. The rage was momentarily over.

‘I don’t know.’ He stuck an accusing finger out at Gao. ‘But she didn’t want to go through with the marriage to my father. Ask her who did it.’

The old lady was imperturbable.

‘He isn’t right in the head. He’s weak-kneed for the girl, and can’t accept she was responsible.’

Wenbo growled, and would have launched himself at his never-to-be mother-in-law had I not grabbed his arm. Lin, who had observed all this silently, coughed quietly.

‘I would like you to show me the kitchens where the broth was prepared, Madam Gao.’

The old woman looked puzzled, but eventually shrugged her shoulders, and eased gingerly up from her chair.

‘Come this way. You will not see much. The kitchen has been used and cleaned many times over since Geng’s death.’

She turned and hobbled towards the kitchen door, the only entrance on that side of the courtyard. I followed, my hand still holding Wenbo’s arm firmly. I was curious to know what Lin hoped to learn from examining the kitchen. Whatever it was, the boy would be useful to question also. He was supposed to have been around when the fatal brew was concocted. Inside the kitchen, a large open hearth stood at the back of the room. A fire burned, as it probably did constantly, and a pot of water boiled above it on a hook. The room was very hot. Utensils and cooking pots were lined up on racks, and sacks of provisions lay stacked along one wall. I imagined it was the most normal of kitchens, the only oddity being the presence of the two bodyguards. There was no servant bustling around as there would have been in any other merchant’s kitchen. Madam Gao noticed me looking around.

‘All the servants are gone. I dismissed the last one yesterday. We cannot afford their wages.’ She sighed dramatically. ‘I had expected that the girl could carry out their tasks. But now she is in prison, there will have to be some changes made. Especially when…’

She paused, but we all knew what she had been going to say. She meant that they would have to replace Jianxu as a general-purpose skivvy after she had been executed. Wenbo looked pale, casting his gaze nervously around. I had let go of his arm, and he looked as though he was seeking a means of escape. But the only doors in the kitchen were ones at either end leading into the two wings, and the one where we had just come in. He would find it hard to get free of me.

Lin asked Gao where she had been on the fateful day.

‘I was in my bed through there.’

She pointed to the door at one end of the kitchen.

‘The girl and I occupied that wing of the house, and the Gengs the other.’

This time she pointed to the door at the other end of the room.

‘The house was built for a large family, and Geng’s had been such. But over the last few years, his brothers died, leaving him the sole occupier of the place.’ She shivered theatrically. ‘It’s too big and draughty to my mind. But its size had its uses. Until we were married I insisted on separate quarters.’

Lin nodded his understanding.

‘I see. So you were in that wing of the house, and Geng senior in the opposite one on the day of his murder?’

He pointed once again at the two interior doors.

‘Yes. He was going through his bills, I believe. You can see his office if you wish.’

Lin, who perhaps had expected Wenbo to object to Gao offering him free run of the side of the house that was his, was surprised when the boy said nothing. He was merely sullen and uncooperative. Lin had his next question for the boy, however.

‘And where were you, Wenbo, when Jianxu was in here cooking the broth?’

The boy’s mouth opened and closed without a sound issuing as he tried to order his thoughts. Finally, he had a statement to make.

‘I was in and out of the kitchen, I suppose. Father was busy with his accounts, and I knew he would spend hours trying to make them balance. But they never would, and he got angry, so I kept out of his way.’

‘Did you see Jianxu leave the kitchen at any time?’

I saw where Lin was going with this. He wanted to know if anyone else had had a chance to put the poison into the broth. Wenbo frowned in concentration, and Gao interrupted.

‘I saw a beggar. Tell him about the beggar.’

Wenbo seemed to wince at the old lady’s prompting, but began to explain slowly.

‘Yes. Some beggar came to the street door, and Jianxu wanted to give him some alms. She asked me to keep stirring the broth, but I got bored. There was no one in the kitchen then.’

‘And then she came back and carried on with her cooking?’

‘Er, yes. I don’t know what happened after that because I went to tell father that Jianxu had let a beggar in, and should I kick him out.’

Lin paused, holding his hand in the air to stop Wenbo’s story.

‘The beggar came in the house?’

‘Well, in the kitchen. Jianxu was going to give him something to eat, I think. I said she shouldn’t, and I was going to tell my father. She came into the courtyard and told me…’ He blushed, poking with a toe at the kitchen floor. I prompted him.

‘She told you not to be so stupid.’

‘Yes, but she didn’t mean it. We are going to be married when she is freed.’

Madam Gao sneered, and Wenbo was about to retort, when Lin lifted his hand again. I would give anything to be able to stop an argument like Lin could with his calm and authority. He spoke quietly, but tellingly.

‘One more thing, Wenbo. Did you see your father in the kitchen at any time after this?’

Wenbo shook his head.

‘No, I told you. He was immersed in his accounts and bills. He didn’t emerge from his room until… Well, I heard his cries of agony, and I went in to him. I ran off to fetch Jianxu. I didn’t know what to do. But by the time we both got back to his office, he was dead.’