Eliot Pattison - Mandarin Gate

“You mean just before she was murdered?”

“No. Many weeks ago. Two or three months. Then last month he came for her. All the way up the stairs, gasping for breath when he reached the top.”

“To go with her to the convent.”

“No. That was later. He came because of his dead son.”

Shan looked up in surprise. “The son of the gang chief died?”

The nun nodded. “A driving accident. He wanted her to prepare the body in the old way.”

“The Jade Crows had threatened her with knives and she still went?”

“Of course she did. It was for the dead boy. His father was a different man, very shaken. Afterwards all those raids stopped.”

Shan considered her words. “So she followed him home that once,” he said, “and he followed her again later to the convent where they both died.”

The nun shook her head. “You misunderstand. She did not go to the convent for Lung, or Lung for her. They went because of Jamyang. Jamyang told her a demon had crawled out of the earth and had to be destroyed.”

Halfway down the worn stone steps, Shan slipped into the steep field of rock outcroppings that flanked the stairs. Using the cover of the rocks, he moved slowly back up the slope, hoping not to attract attention. He could not be certain that Chenmo had deliberately directed him toward the little meditation shelter above the compound, and was even less certain when he reached it.

The hut was empty, devoid of furnishings other than two straw-stuffed pallets, two worn cushions, a low stool, and a bucket. On the wall was a ten-year-old tourist calendar with a glossy photo of Mount Kalais, the most sacred of pilgrimage peaks. He stood in the doorway of the decrepit, windblown structure, finding himself again looking toward the higher slopes, realizing that he would never be able to concentrate on the murders while Lokesh remained missing.

A gust of wind rattled the door on its wooden pintles, then whipped at a line of prayer flags tied to a nail on the corner of the building. Most of the line had blown away. Only half a dozen flags remained, suspended for the moment by the wind. Four of the flags were on faded cotton, but the last two were of a brilliant red material, breaking the traditional pattern of colors. They were not of the same fabric as the other flags.

Shan grabbed the line and pulled in the red flags. They bore the customary mani mantra, the invocation of the compassionate Buddha, inscribed in Tibetan. But on the reverse the mantra had been written out in English, with what looked like a ballpoint pen. Om mani padme hum, the letters said. The cloth was nylon, its edges hemmed with narrow strips of medical tape. Someone had cut pieces from a windbreaker or a tent to make prayer flags.

With a new determination he stepped into the hut and began systematically searching it, lifting the pallets and the small bags of yak-hair felt stuffed with fleece that served as cushions. Under one pallet was a tattered pair of leather sandals and a comb, under the other ten pages of Tibetan scripture. He looked back at the first pallet. A comb. Nuns kept their hair close-cropped, if not shorn altogether. He held the small black comb to his nose. It had a strangely cloying scent to it, too vague to be identified. Taking the cushions outside, he unfolded the flaps of cloth covering the stuffing. The first held only the familiar washed wool used in such cushions. The second held wool as well, but at the bottom there was something more, something that sent up an odor of citrus and coconut. He pulled out handfuls of wool, then a long silky skein which he carried into the sunlight. It was dark hair, brunet hair, more than eighteen inches long.

“I thought I could hide it,” Chenmo confessed, standing at the corner of the hut.

“You sent me up here to find it,” Shan replied.

“I thought you would just find the prayer flags. I didn’t know what to do with them. A strong wind blew most of the line away. The mountain god could have taken them then if he wanted to, but he left them. It is not for me to destroy them.”

“But you thought I would,” Shan replied. He unconsciously lifted the hair to his nose, then felt a flush of embarrassment and quickly lowered it. “Do the others below know?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t tell them.”

“It’s obvious to Public Security that the foreigners were friends of the abbess, that they worked with her at the ruins. There aren’t many places foreigners could stay without attracting undue attention. Eventually they will realize that the hermitage must have been their operating base.”

“But it wasn’t. Rutger and Cora understood the risk that would bring to us. They had a camp higher up, just came here sometimes to join the prayers and speak with the nuns.”

“Then why didn’t she go to the camp to hide?”

“She didn’t think it was safe for some reason. She was terrified.”

“Because she was there, at the ruins that day.”

Chenmo nodded. “She knew, she saw the killer. I am sure of it. But she wouldn’t say anything about what happened. She just kept saying that she had to leave, that it had all been a huge mistake.”

“What was a mistake?” Shan pressed. “You mean the ones who died at the convent made a mistake?”

Chenmo shrugged.

“How did you find her after the murders?”

“She knew I often wander on the slopes, looking for herbs, cleaning old pilgrim paths. When she found me the day after the killings she was like some wild animal, nearly out of her mind, covered with brambles, dried blood on her hands. She could barely speak.”

“She speaks Tibetan?”

“Not much. She had a little dictionary but she lost it. Rutger spoke it. He usually translated into English for her. She speaks some Chinese, as I do. But when she found me she was too terrified for words. After dark I brought her here. She cried all night. I held her and she cried, until no more tears could come. The next day we spoke and she made me understand she wanted some scissors. After I understood what she intended I got her the right clothes, taught her some of the mantras we say.”

“You can’t leave the hair here,” Shan said. “It has the scent of a foreigner.”

Chenmo eyed Shan uneasily. “It is of her body. It must be kept safe.”

Shan stared at the woman in confusion a moment, then recalled that Chenmo had been raised among nomads, whose lives were ruled as much by superstition as their religion. Many of them believed that harm could be afflicted on someone by inflicting it on something that had been removed from their body like hair or fingernails.

“Wrap it in a scrap of leather,” he suggested, “then bury it under a rock on the high slope. With those two prayer flags.”

“She has to have her prayers. More than ever now.”

“Then we must move them away from here. I will help do it if you take me to the foreigner’s camp.”

Chenmo frowned, then looked back at the red nylon flags and nodded.

The foreigners had been shrewd in their selection of a campsite. Chenmo led him for nearly an hour up the rugged slope, stopping only briefly at a high, open ledge for Shan to build a small cairn to cover the hair and affix the flags to the top stone. When she finally stopped by a high outcropping Shan thought she was only resting. Then he saw how she studied the wall of stone. She located a narrow gap and disappeared into its shadows.

The blue nylon tent had seen long use in mountain winds. The equipment around it was that of seasoned trekkers. The campsite looked untouched, as if the two foreigners had just left for a short climb on the rocks above.

Shan bent at the entrance to the tent, pulled down the zipper that secured the covering fly, and stepped inside. On one side two down sleeping bags lay open on foam pads, one with a blanket on top. A nylon stuff sack contained women’s clothes, another those of a man. A large backpack held climbing harnesses, pitons, and carabiners. On the other side lay five small, sturdy aluminum cases. He turned to Chenmo, who lingered uneasily at the entrance. “There should be two backpacks. Surely she must have come back.”