David Rotenberg - The Lake Ching murders

That was just before the frigid dawn of December 22. Seventeen foreigners had less than a week to live.

Half an hour after Fong’s return from the island funeral, the hollow sound of his banging on Dr. Roung’s workshop door echoed through Ching’s soft spring night. Fong’s shouts went unanswered. Finally an old woman came around the corner of the building.

“Gone, flat-head.”

“What?”

“He’s gone.” The old woman cocked her head to the side and stared at Fong’s mouth. “Where’d you get your teeth?”

“Where did Dr. Roung go?”

“To Xian. Where else?”

Where else indeed. The island and Xian. Always the island and Xian. And finally the link between the two – four stones stacked neatly in a tower behind a dead girl’s headstone – to mark time.

Fong turned on his heel and headed back to the Jeep. Over his shoulder he heard the old woman shout, “You really ought to complain. Those teeth look awful.”

When he got into the car, Chen asked him, “Did she say something about teeth?”

“No,” Fong said harder than he should have. Then he spat out, “Have you found out if there was an exhumation order executed on the island?”

“Yes, there was.” Chen referred to his notes. “It was done December 21. How did you know . . .?”

“Seven days before the murders on the boat.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was there an autopsy performed?”

“Yes, the same day.”

“Where? Don’t answer that – Xian? Right?” Chen nodded. Fong cursed under his breath. “I want the autopsy report sent to Grandpa.”

“They won’t send it.”

“What?”

“I’ve already asked for it. They said it’s confidential.”

Fong knew the word confidential in China’s bureaucratese meant “volatile.” “Will they let him see it if we go to them?”

“Yes, they’re okay with that.”

“Fine.”

“How did you know there’d been an . . .?”

Fong thought back to the grave on the island. The soil was still unpacked. The fecal material resisting decomposition, as it always did when disturbed . . . He shrugged. Why not tell Chen? Because admitting a knowledge of night soil would allow access to his past. And he wasn’t prepared to discuss his personal history with anyone.

Chen reached in his pocket and pulled out a fax. “This arrived for you while you were on the island.”

Fong spread it out against the dash:

HEY HO SHORT STUFF. BIG COOKINGS HERE IN XIAN. WHAT GUESS FOUND I? NO GUESS? TWO BAD. DNA PATENT FOUND I. DNA PATENT GIVEN TO DEAD AMERICAN LAWYER, DECEMBER 25TH – THINK NOT CLOSE TO PARTY TIME? – DO I? I DO. DO. DO. DO YOU?

Fong shivered.

They were nearing the edge.

He brushed some liquid from his chin. It was deep red. Somehow he’d cut himself and was bleeding. He looked at the red smear on the back of his hand. Blood without. Blood within. This all has to do with blood.

“Fax Lily. Tell her we’ve got to know exactly what the DNA patent was for.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And get Grandpa ready.”

“For what?”

“Our trip to Xian. He needs an outing.”

The alarm sounded loudly at the nurse’s station. She’d been in Inspector Wang’s room only moments before. Maybe he’d accidently rolled over on the button.

Maybe he was finally dying.

The thickness was lining his mouth and had gotten up into his nasal passages. It was now extending down into his lungs, covering every inch – every tiny sack that could bring him air.

He struggled and thrashed as best he could. He grabbed the button and pressed with all his might. Then he stopped. Stopped fighting. Stopped fighting what he thought was the end. Images floated up at him. Sharpedged crime scene lights threw everything into high relief. The pop of a sulphur match and the delicious flavour of cigarette smoke. Then a face close to his. Zhong Fong. He’d never had a son. Never married. Lived his whole life as an unbeliever. But here on the very brink of his time, just before he leapt from this earthly plane, he sent out a blessing. A final gift to Zhong Fong. Not as tactile as the telegram he’d arranged to get through despite all regulations against outside contact with the traitor. But more important. Or at least that’s what the specialist thought – as his last act upon the Earth.

The white-clad nurse leaned in close to the old man’s mouth. He was trying to speak. His lips forming soundless words. She read his lips as she had so many times before. But what she read made no sense. “Bless you.” His lips formed a name she’d never heard before. “Make me proud. You are my pride. Deduce that it was me . . .”

The nurse recalled this man asking for communications experts a few months back. Just after he’d returned from Xian. Then documents from Shanghai. All quite a fuss. For what? She knew he’d been to Xian because he’d brought her back a small kneeling figure of an archer. He’d flirted in his wordless way. But despite all the time she’d nursed him, she didn’t know much about him. In fact, she had no idea who this man was. Only that he was important enough to have a private room in a politburo hospital. That he had three serious gunshot wounds when he first arrived. Two in his back and one that had pierced his voice box. And the doctors were administering a treatment to him she’d never seen before.

But all that didn’t matter now because he was quickly growing cold. If she’d known any Shakespeare, she might have quoted Measure for Measure: “This sensible warm motion” was quickly becoming “a kneaded clod.”

But she didn’t know any Shakespeare. Why should she?

Then again, those lines wouldn’t fit a man – not dead – but put into a kind of suspended animation. Something new. Another way to cheat time. And all, of course, done without the knowledge of either Inspector Wang Jun or his doting nurse.

Well before the Jeep reached Xian, Fong sensed the approach of the desert. A dry stillness seemed to suck at the air. Something from before time. Then the first structures of the ancient Qin capital, China’s very first, materialized on the horizon. Shortly after, the wind picked up and fine grains of desert sand began to pelt their vehicle – grains of sand all the way from the mythologized Silk Road – the first conduit between East and West. Xian in its day had been the Middle Kingdom’s port of entry. Camels crossing the torturous Silk Road brought the West to China 2,500 years ago.

Soon the Jeep entered the crumbling outer ring of the Old City. This was not the tourist Xian; this was the Chinese Xian. The Muslim quarter with its souk tents and dusted colours came first. It was bigger than Fong had expected. A small Tibetan sector abutted the Muslim quarter. The people there seemed sullen and angry. As the Jeep made its way toward the centre of the old place, it passed through many different communities. The faces in this city were composites. Clues. Hints of Mongol, Manchu, Turk, Afghan, Tibetan in the faces, but all Chinese now. Oh yes, they were all Chinese now. The great ocean China salts every river.

The desert dust was blowing hard as Chen parked the Jeep outside the Xian central police station. Fong helped the coroner out of the car as Lily approached them. The wind-blown sand got into the old man’s lungs and he let out a hacking cough that ended with him doubled over in pain. Lily was clearly shocked by his appearance. He looked awful.

The ride, like most such endeavours in the Middle Kingdom, was much more exhausting than expected. Twice they had to stop and let the old man out. Both times Fong walked at his side as Grandpa moved slowly along the road’s edge, like an old dog looking for the scent he needed to defecate. At the end of the second stop the coroner hooked his arm through Fong’s and allowed himself to be led back to the car. The man’s touch had startled Fong.