The Lake Ching murders

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Fong insisted that they drive back to Ching immediately. Lily and Chen protested, but Fong was adamant that the work could only be completed near the lake. He refused to specify what work. Chen drove; Lily sat beside him. The coroner sat in the back. He hadn’t spoken since his announcement about the cultured typhoid on the steps of the Xian morgue. No one spoke much.

Fong closed his eyes. His thoughts bounded from image to image as the Jeep bounced along the pitted road. He didn’t open his eyes until they stopped in front of the abandoned factory. It was already dark.

When they entered, Fong saw a large stack of boxes by the door.

“More projectors, sir. I thought they might help,” said Chen.

Fong nodded. They couldn’t hurt.

After a quick meal, Fong sat by himself beneath the bare bulb that illuminated his wide, flat-topped desk. Lily sat in the far corner, a book on American patent law on her lap. The book looked like it weighed in excess of forty pounds. The coroner dozed in his chair. Chen was spending the night at home with his “sad” wife.

Memories of his office on the Bund in Shanghai flooded through Fong as he slowly cleared his desktop. He took out the box of chalk Chen had brought him shortly after he arrived in Ching. That seemed a long time ago.

He selected a piece of chalk. This was his own private ritual. Something he didn’t share – not even with Fu Tsong. She would have laughed at him. He couldn’t have borne that.

He rolled the piece of chalk in his fingers.

A piece of chalk was the only gift he’d ever gotten from his grandmother. She claimed his father had been able to draw with “stupid things like this.” Landscapes. Gossamer impressions of things he’d never seen. Fong couldn’t draw a straight line – with a piece of chalk or without it. But he could think very well with a piece of chalk in his hand.

He turned on the projectors. Images of the death rooms surrounded him. After a moment he flicked them off and stared at the bare desktop as if its ancient wood grain would spur him to thought. Then he drew a large circle at the top. In the circle he wrote the words DNA PATENT WANTED. In smaller letters beneath that he wrote From the Islanders. Then in bold letters he wrote WHAT KIND OF DNA?

It all started there somehow.

At the bottom he drew another circle and was about to write in it but changed his mind and drew a circle two-thirds of the way down. In this circle he wrote the words SEVENTEEN DEAD FOREIGNERS ON A BOAT.

“They were not the end, just a means to an end,” he said aloud. Lily glanced in his direction then returned to her tome. “And Hesheng – the man whose name means ‘in this year of peace’ – was murdered because he might lead us to that end.”

He drew a line from the DNA PATENT WANTED From the Islanders circle to the SEVENTEEN DEAD FOREIGNERS ON A BOAT circle and then continued the line down to the circle at the bottom.

The empty circle at the bottom. There was always an empty circle to be filled at the bottom.

Then he drew two parallel lines from top to bottom on either side of the page. Fire and ice. “Where do parallel lines meet?” he muttered. “Never,” he said aloud. Then he rethought that. No. No law defies death – or endless life. “Hesheng – in this year of peace,” he whispered. Then he smiled, looked at the piece of chalk, almost said thank you aloud, and set to work.

An hour later he had almost filled the desktop with circled words and connective lines. A maze of interlocking events finally began to yield up their pattern – evidently parallel lines do meet.

At the very bottom of the diagram in the empty circle he wrote in heavy letters HOW DID THE GIRL GET TYPHOID?

Then he recircled it three times.

“Why all the lines, Fong?”

He hadn’t heard Lily approach. In fact, he didn’t realize that she had put a hand on his shoulder. Then he did and felt awkward but pleased. She sensed his discomfort and removed her hand. “Why does the girl who died from typhoid get so many circles, Fong?”

“She might be the link back to the rogue in Beijing, Lily.”

“That’s what they want you to find for them, isn’t it, Fong?”

“Yeah. They sure as hell didn’t bring me back from west of the Wall to find out who committed these murders. They really couldn’t care less who slaughtered those men. All they want to know is who their opposition is – the name of the rogue in their midst.”

“That phone number in Beijing?”

He nodded, but there were still big pieces missing, pieces that fit in smoothly. Pieces that joined it all together. He stared at the diagram. A phrase popped into his head. Aloud he said, “And they fish in all weather.”

“Who does?”

“And one of them helped the whore Sun Li Cha to safety.” Suddenly he was in motion. As if the building had tilted and he was loping down a slope. He would have been surprised to know that the piece of chalk in his hand was spinning rapidly between his fingers.

“Drawing pictures, Fong?” The coroner had been stirred to waking by Fong’s pacing, but his words were slow and his cough a hoarse rattle.

Fong looked down at the tabletop. It was as if he’d never seen the diagram before.

The coroner coughed again. Another rattle. Fong looked at him and his heart sank. “I owe him so much and I’ve given him so little,” he thought. “A parting gift’s the least I can do for this man whom I’ve known so long but know so little.”

“I need the two of you to go to Beijing,” Fong said quietly.

“Why?” Lily demanded.

“To find out whose phone number that is in the phone log from the China news agency office. Right?” The coroner’s words were slurred.

“Wrong, Grandpa. That number’ll be no more than a place to begin. I can’t imagine anyone would be stupid enough to use their own phone.”

“But you want to pursue it anyway?” asked Lily with more than a hint of suspicion.

In English he answered, “Think of it as a free trip to Beijing, Lily.” He allowed her to see that he was asking for a favour and nodded toward the old man. “Don’t ask any more questions – please?”

Lily nodded and replied sadly, “Okey-dokey. Next time Hong Kong, okay?”

Fong was surprised that the coroner didn’t complain about their use of English. He had gotten to his feet, which seemed to shuffle although he didn’t move. “Where’ll you go, Fong?”

“Fishing.” Before they could question him he added, “Then back to Xian, Grandpa.”

“But we just got back from there.”

Fong moved to the old man. “True, but there are connectives between that island and Xian which I think I missed. And I think I know what they are.”

The coroner looked at Fong for a long time. “You mean who they are, don’t you, Fong?” Then he reached out and touched Fong’s face.

Fong felt a pang of sadness. The old man was being sentimental. “I do, Grandpa.”

“Be careful, Fong.”

“You fly safe, Grandpa.”

“China is beautiful from the air,” said the coroner and returned to his chair. He sat erect but his eyelids were shut, heavy with fatigue.

Fong watched him for a moment. Was he asleep or had he just closed his eyes for a second? Or was he floating?