The Hua Shan Hospital Murders

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Angel Michael waited outside the apartment block – one of the old Soviet-styled horrors. He didn’t follow Lily and the baby into the place for fear that the building warden would note his presence. Instead, he stood on the sidewalk and mixed with a crowd of Shanghanese commenting on a game of Go being played by two elderly gentlemen in Mao jackets. The crowd clearly favoured the man using the black stones, but Angel Michael quickly saw that the elderly man using the white stones was a much better player. Every feint white made, attracted black’s eye. Whole sections of the board began to close off to black without him even knowing it as he concentrated on one of the many diversions black set up.

Angel Michael understood the value of a diversion. He was planning one of his own at that very moment. The level of security at the Hua Shan Hospital was very high. He’d gotten the cage and the RDX to the courtyard outside the window of the operating room but he needed time in the surgery itself to set the detonator. He needed a distraction – and a cover – and he thought he knew the key to both: Xiao Ming.

Lily came out of the building and headed in the direction of the Hua Shan Hospital. Shortly thereafter, Lily’s mother came out of the building wheeling her granddaughter as if she were a tiny queen. Matthew remembered the chess games with the man he called his father. He remembered how even a queen can be a diversion. He remembered that bad chess players watched the queen. Good ones knew that although the queen had mobility and power, she was not the point of the game. The almost immobile king was. The baby Xiao Ming was only the queen. The Hua Shan Hospital abortion surgery was the king. Direct their eyes toward the queen long enough and their king would be vulnerable.

Matthew followed the queen and her grand dame down the road. He kept his distance and they led him to their oh-so-logical end. The queen, of course, goes to the palace – the Shanghai Children’s Palace. Matthew paid his admission, avoided the drama club kids, and followed the queen. Xiao Ming and her grandmother were met at a side door that opened to a surprisingly Western-style plastic playground. The place was a daycare of some sort. By the way the two were greeted they were clearly regulars. Lily’s mom took her leave of Xiao Ming with a big kiss. The child smiled.

Once Lily’s mother was gone, Matthew took a small digital camera from his pocket, zoomed in, and took a shot of Xiao Ming. Then another. Then a third.

A daycare worker came up to him. “She’s a lovely girl.”

“Yeah, we’re crazy about her.”

“We haven’t seen . . .”

“No. I’m usually at work by now. I’m with Special Investigations.”

“A police officer?”

He smiled and took one last photo of his queenly diversion then asked when Xiao Ming’s grandmother usually returned to pick up the child.

“Usually around three.” Then confidentially the woman added, “I think she plays Mah Jong, I hope you won’t arrest her.” She laughed.

Angel Michael joined in her laughter then told the woman that he’d be back to pick up Xiao Ming today. “We’ll give the old lady a break. Give her time to win back her losses.” She laughed at that too. He went to leave. The woman called after him, “Don’t you want to take a picture of me?”

He paused then smiled. He pressed the flash button but not the “capture” button. The woman smiled. Matthew didn’t.

As he left the Children’s Palace, Matthew pocketed the digital camera and put on a pair of sunglasses. It was going to be a hot day and it would get hotter – much hotter, Angel Michael thought. He took in the landmarks. Fine. Not far from the Hua Shan Hospital or the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Almost halfway between the fighting parents. Good.

He began to think about the courtyard of the Hua Shan Hospital – and the things he’d stowed there.

Copies of Angel Michael’s picture were being rushed around the city. Every hotel, every restaurant, every flophouse was scoured. Just before two o’clock in the afternoon a weary cop approached the front desk of the Shanghai Metron Hotel. Angel Michael spotted him the moment he entered the lobby. Cops walk as if they are important – weary, hard-working, but righteously important. When the man drew out the photo, Angel Michael guessed that they had found the cage maker. He knew he should have ended that one’s earthly woes. But it didn’t matter now. He checked his watch. Four hours and twelve minutes and the sixth operating theatre at the Hua Shan Hospital would deliver his final message – which he still needed to move into place.

In fact, the presence of the cop played right into his hands. He ducked out of the lobby and ran up to the second floor. From there he took an elevator to his room. He grabbed the few things that he needed then flipped open his computer screen and downloaded his favourite digital picture of Xiao Ming. He hit F2 and the pre-designed program began to roll. Matthew left the room with a backpack over his shoulder and headed down the service elevator. Even as he made his way out the back entrance of the building, the hotel manager was opening his room and letting in the cop.

Forty minutes later, Fong stood in Angel Michael’s room but his eyes were not searching the place for clues. They were glued to the computer screen where an image of Xiao Ming trapped in a cage was turning round and round and round while a message scrolled across the bottom: “I am in the light – and your daughter is with me there.”