The Lake Ching murders

CHAPTER NINE

The building in which the meeting was taking place was new but the ideas were as old as the organization itself. The youngest of the men in the room claimed direct ancestry with one of the five original monks who were supposed to have begun the Triad societies back in the days of the first Manchu incursions. No one questioned his claim since this young man was now at the pinnacle of his power. It was a new time indeed that one so young could climb so high. All the way to Shan Chu.

The eldest man in the room had been a small boy when the group took the bold step of separating from the coastal head office. That move and the subsequent deal with Mao’s men had secured the group’s present power. And its present power was substantial, as evidenced by the brisk sales of franchises throughout the Xian region.

“This Detective Zhong?” the young leader ordered a response.

A heavy-set man rose, bowed, then laid out Zhong Fong’s history in full. Quick rise through the ranks to head of Special Investigations in Shanghai, his fall from grace, his years in Ti Lan Chou prison, his internal exile then his recent resurrection.

The young leader, the Shan Chu, turned away from the others at the table and stared out the window. He didn’t fear the present circumstances – the matter of the deaths on that boat – the mess. But he knew that at times of turmoil gain can be realized. He was trying to figure out what benefit could be wrought from the murders of seventeen foreigners. What new foothold of commerce could be purchased from this interesting situation.

“Did we supply the girls?” he asked.

“Naturally, from Xian,” came back the simple reply.

“And their transportation to the ship?”

“We pulled in a favour from a bus driver. But he broke down along the way. The girls never got to the boat.”

That surprised him. “None of the girls got to the boat?”

“Not unless they got there on their own.”

“Is that possible?”

“I guess. Whores can be quite resourceful.” The man laughed. The young leader didn’t, so the rest of the room decided that the jest was in bad taste.

After allowing the man to sit for a moment of embarrassment, the young Shan Chu said, “Get me the calling cards of the girls – of all the girls.” He turned to the rest of the table and smiled. “It is a rare opportunity for a Triad to help the police in their investigations, don’t you think, gentlemen? We must grasp such opportunities to be good citizens of the New China.” He laughed and the rest of the table followed suit. Evidently this gibe was not in bad taste.

Fong set tasks for Lily and the coroner that brought them into town. He returned with Chen to the warehouse.

Chen had secured an oval meeting table, chairs and Japanese-style futons for them. He’d also found the large, flat-topped desk and chalk that Fong had requested.

Fong nodded.

“The transparencies will be ready shortly, sir.”

Fong nodded again, still unsure what a transparency was. “What about the model of the boat?”

It’s been ready for some time. We just have to pick it up.”

Chen drove him to an old-style workshop just outside the city limits. From the twin front doors it might well have been a stable at one time. When Fong knocked at the door, the sound echoed.

After a few moments the door was opened by a tall, elegant, aesthetic-looking man who was about ten years older than Fong. The man wore army-issue wirerimmed glasses. His eyes were oddly pale; his fingers long. His nails were buffed, yet his palms were deeply calloused. His handshake was firm.

“Welcome, Detective Zhong.” His voice was light, breathy. His clothing appeared to be standard issue but made of extremely fine fabrics. He took off his clunky metal-rimmed glasses and cleaned them with an expensive linen handkerchief. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Fong glanced up into the man’s face. He found no trace there of anything but a carefully kept mask. The man stepped aside. Fong entered the surprisingly generous space. Before he took two steps, the man quickly crossed behind him and closed the door, leaving Captain Chen outside in the cold. Fong turned. As explanation, the man said, “At a recreation, the recreationist is king. Besides, talent has its privileges – even in our China.” His eyes twinkled.

Fong nodded slowly, unsure that he wanted to agree with anything someone who called himself a recreationist said.

The man walked past Fong to one of the two large tables that occupied the centre of the space. On the first table a partially completed terra-cotta figure of an archer lay on its side. Scattered around it were hundreds of terra-cotta shards, few larger than an inch across. On the other large table sat an object some four feet by three feet covered in a grey canvas shroud. Pinned on boards on three sides of the object were duplicates of the crime scene photos.

The man walked past Fong, knelt and plucked a stone from a pile on the floor. He allowed the rock to roll in his palm for a moment, then placed it on top of a slender column of free-standing stones. It was like a stalagmite growing from the hard earthen floor. There were two other columns of stones nearer the wall, each a miracle of balance; each rock fitted perfectly to the one above and below. Before Fong could ask, the man spoke. “The stones are a way of marking time, Detective Zhong. Time. One stone for each . . .” His voice trailed off before he completed the thought. He got to his feet, pulling down his jacket over a shiny black vest bearing an English tag – “100% Thinsulate” – thinsu-what? Fong had been on the other side of the Wall for a long time.

Fong’s eyes returned to the terra-cotta figure on the table.

“Have you seen the terra-cotta warriors at Xian?” the man asked as a thin smile creased his lips.

“The Qin Dynasty soldiers?” Fong blurted out, stunned to think that the thing on the table was one of the famous statues.

“Yes,” the man widened his grey eyes, “the very ones.”

“No. I’ve never been to this part of the Middle Kingdom before.”

“That’s a shame.” The man turned from Fong and, without further explanation, walked to the canvas-covered object on the other table.

Fong didn’t follow him and snapped, “Why?”

“Why what, Detective Zhong?” the man replied.

“Why is it a shame?” he asked feeling silly – no – totally off-balance with this man. Shit, he didn’t even know the man’s name.

The man’s smile was surprisingly sad this time. He was about to say something then stopped himself. When he spoke, his smile was gleeful again. “Because I have been in charge of that excavation from its onset in 1976 just after the silly old farmer stumbled into the first tomb. The heavy roof beams had fallen. Perhaps they had been burned by the rebels or perhaps the wrath of the gods brought them down.” He paused. Fong waited. “At any rate, the beams had crashed down on the figures shattering them to bits. I often think that leading the reconstruction of those thousands of clay warriors in the first pit was my greatest accomplishment. I think of it as a recreation of what was.”

“That strikes me as a reasonable thought,” Fong said, carefully keeping any trace of awe out of his voice.

The man’s pale eyes twinkled again.

Fong didn’t quite know what to make of that.

“Have you ever seen a recreation, Detective Zhong?”

“I’ve been to Grandview Gardens . . .” Fong was stopped by the man’s high-pitched giggle. He laughed like an old woman. It hurt. “I guess you’ve never been to . . .”

“To the slut fest by the sea? Oh, I’ve been. It just goes to prove the depth of humour inherent in the Chinese character, wouldn’t you agree, Detective Zhong?”

“I guess,” Fong said slowly. Although he agreed with the man’s assessment both of the place and the Chinese character, he felt that he’d been bludgeoned into the accord.

“Don’t guess, Detective Zhong. There’s nothing to guess about. Grandview Gardens is a mockery of life. What I do makes time stand still. I enhance life.” He indicated the canvas-shrouded structure on the table. He put his hand on the canvas. “The real is not always more terrifying than the artificial. Your wife was an actress, wasn’t she?” Fong nodded slowly, uncomfortable that this man knew anything of his past. “Surely the husband of the great Fu Tsong knows that artifice in the hands of a true artist enriches the experience of life. It doesn’t imitate it.”

Fong nodded. With this he was willing to agree, without being pushed.

“Fine,” the man said then pulled the canvas aside.

There sitting on the table was a beautifully constructed wood reproduction of the boat. Fong looked at the man.

“You are impressed, Detective Zhong?”

Fong nodded, “I am . . . I don’t know your name.”

“Forgive my impoliteness. Dr. Roung,” he said, “I am an archeologist by training, hence my title: Doctor.”

Fong put a hand on the model. “The recreation is even more impressive when you open it up, Detective.” He reached forward and removed an upper section of the wall to reveal the death room of the two Americans.

Fong peered in. “Where are the photographs of this room?” The man pointed to the board on one side. Fong quickly spotted the ones of the dead Americans. He allowed his eyes to travel from the photo to the model. Even the looks on the dead men’s faces matched. He leaned down and looked up into the tiny mirror. The Triad warning was there. Fong looked to his right.

The man was smiling.

Fong removed the opposite wall section to reveal the bar room with the swinging man. Dr. Roung offered the pictures, but Fong ignored him. He lifted out the room itself to reveal the video room beneath. Even the cut lines on the beams were present. He replaced the upper room.

“There are no nails or screws,” Fong said.

“There is no need when everything fits one piece into the next.”

Fong ran his fingers along the edges. Smooth, perfect. Then he lifted off the room with the Americans to reveal the room with the runway. It too was perfect down to the curtains and mudstains on the runway. The five miniature Japanese men sat in their brutal death positions, cameras and glasses in place. Fong assumed that should he open their pants that reality would have been reproduced as well. His eyes scanned the room. So much detail. So much accuracy. So terrifying. He looked at the man. His eyes twinkled. “I hope you find it adequate for your purposes, Detective.”

“It’s more than adequate.”

“It’s a piece of art,” Dr. Roung said.

Fong nodded.

The older man smiled, clearly pleased.

Fong crossed to the door and called for Chen. They carried the model back to the Jeep and then Fong returned to the workshop. The archeologist was at the table with the terra-cotta warrior. He turned. “Something else, Detective?”

“No, nothing.” Then he added for no particular reason, “For now.”

The man’s smile vanished.

Fong was surprised yet again.

Back at the factory Fong stood staring at the model. He once more marvelled at its construction, its precision, its ability to freeze a moment in time.

His thoughts were interrupted by the return of the coroner who announced to the world, “The food in this place stinks.”

Lily followed him into the space. “The forensic facilities aren’t much better than the food.”

Fong covered the model with the canvas and moved toward the table. “Now that we‘ve established those two important facts, perhaps we’re ready to have our first meeting.”

“What did he make of the model?”

The politico weighed his words carefully, “I wasn’t inside, sir, but I’m sure he was impressed, although he kept his mouth shut when he left.”

The head of internal security for the People’s Republic of China allowed himself ten seconds of silence then said, “Good,” and snapped off the speaker phone on his desk.

Each investigator had become familiar with the photographs and the physical evidence. Each had prepared a first report. Now they gathered around the oval table.

Fong caught Lily staring at him. He wasn’t surprised. He’d taken a good look at himself. The skin of his face was worn and greying and the veins on his chin and left cheek had shattered into thousands of spiky red lines. His smile was a little crooked. Then there were his new teeth. Well, two teeth actually. The politico’s dentist hadn’t bothered to build up individual teeth, but rather had just put an enamel layer over both his upper and lower sets so that it looked like he had only two very wide teeth. “Government toothes very p’actic’l, short stuff, but hide you us,” Lily had commented.

He’d filed down the enamel layers so that he could talk more like himself. He’d even considered trying to etch in individual tooth lines, but had given up when he poked a hole in the bottom set.

He’d just have to get used to being “but hide you us.” He’d also have to try and figure out what “but hide you us” meant. Lily’s English came from so many different media sources that the exact meaning of the phrase could be hard to determine. He could have just asked her, of course, but he was worried about her response. He wasn’t prepared to be old in her eyes.

Fong called their meeting to order. He stood at the head of the table. Lily and Chen had large jelly jars filled with steaming tea in front of them. The coroner sat to one side, dyspeptic and farting loudly.

It didn’t feel like any meeting Fong had ever attended. Why should it? Fong was now a convicted felon. He hadn’t even seen these people for five years. Then, of course, there was Chen. Who was he? Whom did he report to?

For his part, Chen felt out of place. The two new people totally ignored him and when they did take note of him they always spoke Shanghanese. On occasion they referred to him as “Shrug and Knock the Second.” They never explained the reference. Although he could understand their Shanghanese dialect, he was often lost with the complex slang. But he didn’t need to understand every word they said to know that they thought him nothing more than a local party hack. It angered him. It was wrong and it was stupid. If nothing else, he knew his way around this part of the Shanxi and he could be of real use to the investigation.

Fong turned to the coroner. He looked ancient – more ancient. Even five years ago he’d looked like he’d been recently exhumed. Now he smelled like it too.

Lily looked older too. She must be thirty-four by now, Fong thought. She still dressed exquisitely and entirely Western. She’d have to be accompanied out on the streets here. It wasn’t Huai Hai Road out the door. He watched her sip her tea. Her slender lips poised to accept the heat. Her deep, liquid eyes, eternally sad, now seemed at least a little bit at rest. His eyes drank her in – the arch of her hand, the curve of her fingers, the length of her neck. Then she smiled. “Talk time, short stuff.”

“No fair. I don’t understand English,” barked the old coroner. “You drag me all the way out to the very centre of nowhere and then talk that jibberish. It hurts the ears. Besides I don’t believe it’s really a language at all. When none of the black-haired people are around I’m sure that they speak Mandarin like everyone else. This English is just a big scam. It’s their version of a joke. Not funny. Stupid.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” said Fong in the Common Speech. “Let’s get started. I hope that by the end of the meeting we’ll know where to begin with this . . . thing.”

“Show us the model,” said Lily.

“Later. Last,” Fong replied.

“Why not now?” asked the coroner.

“Because I said so,” replied Fong. Reasserting his authority wasn’t going to be simple. Then he caught Lily’s eye. She approved. “Let’s start with the victims. That would be you, Captain Chen.” Fong was careful to use his full title.

Chen was anxious to make a good impression on these Shanghanese. He opened his book and readied his notes. “I was assigned to updating and collating material on the victims. I’m going to do this by country.” He looked up for confirmation. None was forthcoming so he put his head back down and read from his notes. “The Americans were both lawyers for a big firm in California. They were corporate litigators. Both specialized in something called patent law. I’ve got calls in to try to explain that to me.”

“Well done, fire plug, solid investigative work that,” snarked the coroner.

“It’s all I could find on short notice,” Chen snapped back. The air momentarily crackled with anger. Then Chen backed off. “I’ll find more in the morning, Grandpa.”

The coroner stared hard at Chen for what he considered an uncalled-for familiarity. Then he reminded himself that this was the country. “Grandpa?” he grunted.

Chen was about to apologize when Fong broke in. “Better than old fart! Any guesses what brought them over here?”

Shoulders were raised, heads shook, the usual blank looks that a Chinese person gives when asked about a foreigner’s behaviour or motives. They were baffling – beyond rational comprehension – completely inscrutable.

“Let’s move on. What about the Japanese?” asked Fong.

“Scientists,” said Chen, happy to get back to his notes. “I’ve just begun to piece together what kind of scientists they are – were. One was the head of the biology department at a major university in Tokyo. Another worked as a researcher for an industrial conglomerate.”

“What did he research, Chen?” Lily asked in her beautiful Shanghanese.

Chen had trouble with the Shanghanese idiom for a second then got it. “Genealogy. He researches genealogy.”

“Genealogy needs researching?” asked the coroner, hawking to get some unruly phlegm up his throat.

“Evidently, Grandpa.”

“I’m not your grandpa, Captain Chen,” the coroner said simply.

“There’s always something to be thankful for, huh?” said Fong. “What about the other Japanese?”

“Microbiologist, geneticist and computer analyst,” Chen said, flipping through his notes.

“Anything else on the Japanese?”

“Yeah, like where were they during the rape of Nanjing?” asked the coroner.

“They’re old enough to have been there. All of them,” said Chen.

“Then maybe they got what they deserved,” said the coroner bluntly. Fong looked at the old man. He’d known him for years, but really didn’t know much about him. Was it possible that he had lost people in the slaughters at Nanjing? Possible. Fong looked back at Chen. “The Koreans?”

“Industrialists. All three. They own scientific laboratories all over the stupid peninsula.” Chen looked up quickly to see if anyone was offended by his comment. No one was. “Government-backed corporations of some sort,” he added.

Fong noted the flare of anger when Chen spoke of Koreans. Interesting. He filed it away and asked, “And what about the dead Taiwanese?” This time it was he who was careful to hide the edge in his voice.

“A little of each. Some in banking, some in industry, some in science. One a lawyer.”

“I didn’t know that Taiwan had laws,” said Lily. They laughed. But none of them found it very funny.

Fong asked, “Which one was hung from the rafters?”

“The lawyer.” Lily, the coroner and Chen had spoken in unison.

“So, just looking at victims, what does this add up to?” asked Fong. He waited for a moment but no one spoke. “All right. How about something simpler: Why were those men on that boat?”

“They were celebrating.”

“I agree, Lily, but celebrating what? What had they accomplished that merited the reward of a celebration?”

This was greeted by a silence. Finally Chen spoke, “I don’t know, sir, but I’ve found something that I think might be important.” They all looked at him. “I think there was a Chinese man who’s not accounted for.”

“Maybe he was tossed overboard?” said the coroner and spat again.

“Maybe he wasn’t, Grandpa.” Chen’s voice was hard. Fong hadn’t expected this in the young man. He was evidently tenacious once he got his teeth into something. Like a short stumpy rat, Fong thought. Fong liked that but warned himself to hold off any judgement of the young officer until he knew more about him.

“What’s on your mind, Captain Chen?” asked Fong.

“The Taiwanese all stayed in Xian in one of the big tourist hotels. There were seven Chinese bodies found on the ship. They had reservations for eight rooms.”

“An extra room for the whores?” suggested Lily.

“Two of them bunking together for unnatural purposes?” asked the coroner as sweetly as a child asking for a second rice cookie.

“All indications from the boat suggest heterosexual dalliance. Besides that would have made for the use of six hotel rooms not eight,” said Lily, matching his smile with an innocent one of her own. “Having trouble with addition these days, Grandpa?”

“Grandpa from you too?”

“Seems to fit, Grandpa,” said Fong.

“Fine. I accept. I also vote for the room of whores that Lily is suggesting.”

“The hotel bill may have been picked up by the Taipei government, but I doubt that even those pimps would pay for an extra room for the girls.” Fong turned away from them. He shivered as the mongoose circled the base of his spine. Tiny claws tore the ground with anticipation. Fong’s teeth clacked. They did that now when he got excited. He looked up and they were all looking at him.

“Sharing time, short stuff?”

Before the coroner could complain again about the use of English in the Middle Kingdom, Fong replied in English, “Not yet – tall glass of water.” Lily’s confusion pleased him. Then in Shanghanese he quickly said, “You’re up, Lily.”

Lily hesitated then laid her notes on the table in front of her. She liked the spotlight. “The boat was filled with clues, but some of the investigation at the crime site is debatable. Whoever this specialist was, he knew his stuff, but the locals are amateurs.” Before Chen could defend himself she added, “It’s probably not Chen’s fault, but soldiers are soldiers and cops are cops.” She looked at Fong, a churlish smile on her face. In English she said, “East is East. No?”

Fong had no idea what she was trying to say. So he responded in Shanghanese, “I’m sure you’re right.” Then to the men’s querying looks, he simply shrugged his shoulders. A gesture a Chinese man uses in circumstances varying from learning that his wife has given birth to quintuplets to being told that the bus he is waiting for is going to be late.

The other men shrugged back at him. It was used for that too.

Lily didn’t shrug. She threw an evidence bag with two spent cartridges on the table. It landed with a thunk. Then she splayed seven photographs of the large bar indicating exactly where the cartridges had been found. Chen picked up the evidence bag and turned it slowly in the light.

“Give that to your grandpa. You’re way too young to identify those.”

Chen handed the bag to the coroner who held it at a distance from himself to get a good look. Fong marvelled that the man’s vanity still prevented him from wearing glasses. Fong wondered when vanity finally left a man alone. Gave him some peace. Then he realized that when vanity left, so did a part of life – a part he wasn’t ready to let go of just yet.

“These belong in a museum,” the coroner said. “I’m surprised they actually fired. Doesn’t gunpowder deteriorate or something?”

“It does, Grandpa,” said Lily.

“So, how did they fire?” asked the coroner.

“They’re new,” said Lily.

“What? He just said they were ancient, Lily,” Fong said.

“They were. And Grandpa is right that gunpowder deteriorates. These were the original shells – probably from the 1860s or 1870s. I’ll have to check that. But they’ve been recharged with modern powder, although no doubt fired from the original weapon. If you look at the markings on the shells, I think they were made in Japan, Tokugawa era or some such.”

“Why? Why bother? Weapons aren’t that hard to get. Why bother filling old gun shells with new powder? Why would Triads bother with that?” asked Chen.

Fong was happy when the coroner jumped in, “More important, why leave them there to be found?” His old face was a mask of confusion. “There were at least five gunshots fired in that bar room. But the specialist only found these two shells. Why? And look where the shells were.” He shuffled through the photographs and found the wide-angle shot of the room with the two shells circled on the floor. “Right in the middle of the room. Why would they end up there? It doesn’t make sense.”

Fong felt their eyes move toward him. He kept his face as neutral as he could but his mind was racing. The bar room. The faceless Chinese men. Each countenance one large dark mouth, screaming. Gunshots. Knife wounds. A man hog-tied and allowed to bleed to death from the wounds on his face – one awful red cry.

“Good questions,” said Lily. “Here are some more mysteries to ponder. The splatter patterns on the walls of the bar indicate that some of the other shots were from modern weapons. The distance between the deceased and the marks on the mirrors indicate that a high-powered, definitely modern, handgun was used. Without the real bodies, we’ll never be able to know exactly what kind of weapon it was. Apparently the lake is filled with eels. By the time they’ll be able to retrieve the bodies there won’t be enough left to bury, let alone autopsy. But the issue remains. The splatter marks indicate that there was at least one high-powered weapon on the boat. Why bother using an antique when you have a modern gun?” Without waiting for discussion, she reached into the box with the evidence bags at her side. She tossed the bag with the Triad medallion on the broken chain onto the table. “Typical ‘14K’ stuff. I’ll check, but my guess is that it’s pretty low in the hierarchy. A foot soldier would be my guess. Then there are these.” She tossed out the four photos of the amulet on its chain. “A lot of pictures for. . .” Lily never completed her thought.

“Film’s cheap. He took a lot of pictures of all the Triad markings,” said the coroner.

“Next,” said Fong, not wanting to deal with Triads just yet.

Lily pulled out the Hong Kong video and tossed it onto the table. “Standard issue pornography – of the hetero variety. I guess we could track down where in Hong Kong it was made but I doubt that there’s anything to it.” She looked at her male company. “Just guys having their boyish fun.”

The men averted their eyes as if looking at the black rectangle implicated them somehow in the event.

Lily held the plastic bag with the set of Parisian glasses taken from the Japanese man. “I have no idea why the specialist insisted that they be itemized. There are no doubt prints on them but whose is beyond our ability to determine. Same for the CD from the runway room.” She tossed it onto the table.

Fong picked it up. It was American. He wasn’t much on Western music but Fu Tsong had insisted that he listen to all sorts of things that her lover, the Canadian director Geoffrey Hyland, had given her. He allowed the thought to dissipate into the thinness of the air. It’d been a long time since that jealousy had haunted his thoughts. He looked at the CD and forced himself to remember his English sounds. Somehow they were easier when he spoke than when he read. Counting Crows. He wondered if that was the name of the artist or if it was a group. Surely “Counting” was an odd first name. His English didn’t extend to bird nomenclature. He had no idea what “recovering the satellites,” which was written in odd print on the cover, meant. He turned the casing over and read the names of the songs. His eyes landed on title after title: “Angels of the Silences,” “Daylight Fading,” “Children in Bloom,” “Millers Angels,” “A Long December.”

The shiver again – the mongoose was running.

Fong understood synchronicity. He understood it in his bones. And he didn’t believe totally in human will. At times he knew that accidents were caused by nature. That two things in one place often meant something. He would totally deny that he was superstitious – but serendipity was a way of conveying meaning. Angels, silences, children, bloom and December – clues as far as Fong was concerned.

He put the CD back on the table. “What does it say?” asked Chen.

“Nothing important,” Fong answered.

The coroner laughed deep in his throat. All eyes swung to him. “I just love the way he lies, don’t you?” he said. “What does it say, Fong?”

Fong translated every word on the CD. “Satisfied, or would you like me to translate the liner notes, too?”

“No, I think that’s enough, Fong.” But the coroner was smiling as if he’d been lied to.

“Who cares?” demanded Lily. “Some girl took off her clothes while that stuff played. What’s the difference what the songs were?” Her vehemence ended the discussion. She tossed a bag of dirt on the table. “That was found on the runway. Again I’m not sure why the specialist thought it was important.” The bag was handed around. Fong made a point of hardly looking at the thing and handed it on to Chen.

“What else do you have, Lily?” asked Fong, making sure that he didn’t look back at the bag in Chen’s hands.

“A stack of clothes that I’ve only begun to catalogue. Seventeen wallets. All of which identify who these guys were but little else. Drivers’ licences, picture IDs, pictures of grandkids.”

“No visas or passports?” asked Fong.

A silence descended on the room. Everyone knew what the question meant. If these men entered China without visas or passports, then they were government guests and this whole thing was even bigger than it already was.

“I’ve asked Chen to check their hotel in Xian. It’s possible that the men left those kind of documents with the front desk, I guess,” said Lily.

Fong wanted to leave this behind for a while. There was more than enough fear to go around without the possibility of government involvement. Although they all knew that was silly. There was government involvement in everything that was important in the Middle Kingdom. It was just a matter of how much involvement . . . and who in the government.

“What else have you got, Lily?”

“Just a roll of film from one of the Japanese men’s cameras. The other camera had no film in it.”

“So what’s on the film, Lily?”

She switched to English despite the obvious anger of the coroner. “I don’t know, Fong. No black room here, safe.”

Quickly, he responded in Shanghanese, “There is nothing secret here, Lily. Why do you think they put us up in this abandoned factory? It’s got to be bugged. Just get the pictures developed. There’s nothing else we can do.” He turned to the men. “Lily was concerned that she couldn’t find a secure darkroom to develop the film.”

“No, sir. Miss Lily was concerned that I am untrustworthy,” Chen stated.

The tension in the room mounted exponentially. Fong got to his feet. “That’s enough, Captain Chen. Lily was wrong. It was nothing more than a mistake for her to use English. Apologize, Lily.”

Lily glared at him.

“I said apologize, Lily.”

After a moment of resistance, Lily bowed her head slightly. A gesture so old that Fong sensed the Earth growing beneath her feet, her legs up to the knees in dung-filled water, a peasant’s hat on her head. Fong was always astounded how vibrantly alive the old ways were even in the likes of modern women like Lily. “For this insult I ask your forgiveness, Captain Chen.”

Chen waited for a beat then snapped his head down then back up quickly. The tension was gone. Through the ritual, forgiveness had been found. Through the old ways.

“Can I see the shots of the Japanese again?” Fong asked.

Lily pushed twenty-odd photographs across the table to him. He sorted them quickly.

“What, Fong?” Lily asked, but Fong wasn’t answering questions. He was staring at the wide-angle photo of the runway and its six chairs. Five of the six were occupied by the dead Japanese men, but the sixth sat empty at the head of the runway – the best view. “If this had been a banquet,” Fong thought, “the head of the fish would have pointed in that direction – the place of honour. An empty chair. An extra room at the hotel in Xian. One and the same?” Fong rifled through the photos again. The man with the ill-fitting expensive glasses was to the right of the empty seat. The men with cameras were both to the left. “From the missing piece, deduce the whole,” he told himself. He allowed words into his mouth, “Cameras, empty seat, glasses. Glasses, empty seat, cameras.” Seeing. All about seeing. Yeah, but seeing what?

Fong looked up. They were all watching him closely. Fine. But he was leading this meeting. He signalled to the coroner that it was his turn.

“Why don’t you call me grandpa, Fong, everyone else seems to think it fits.”

“Fine, Grandpa, your turn.”

The coroner started by lamenting the nature of the search and then tossed the specialist’s request for a toxicology scan on the table. “A wee bit late for that now. There was no doubt alcohol on board. Maybe opium or hashish. Whatever it was it. . .it had to be pretty potent to subdue that many men. Seventeen men are a lot of men to execute. The others would have to have been either restrained or drugged while the murderers got on with their butchering.”

“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, Fong?” 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.