Eliot Pattison - Mandarin Gate

Shan let the weight of his words sink in as he led Meng to the little chapel where the farmers had stored tools. “For some reason he suspects the message from the abbess, so he comes from the rear, for the advantage of surprise.” Shan stepped inside and showed Meng the brush hook he had found earlier. “He has no weapon but he knows of the heavy blades stored here. Lung was at the front, at ease, having a cigarette, considering his best angle for his target when the man comes in the front gate. On her own the abbess never would want to kill the man, just confront him, shame him. But Jamyang was certain he had caused a killing that day. He knew the leader of the Jade Crows carried a gun, and had told him who had killed his son. Jamyang used the abbess because he knew her message would bring the monk, and used Lung because he knew Lung would kill the man who killed his son.” It was the final agony Jamyang had suffered. The lama had been certain he had arranged a killing. He was convinced the killing was necessary, but also convinced he had to take his own life for doing so.

“So the killer has to be careful, ready for anything. He picks up the brush hook and steals along the far wall, using the cover of the buildings. The abbess has her back to him as she works on the prayer wheel, with the German helping her.” They walked in silence along the path Shan indicated, to the place by the corner of the front structure where the pool of Lung’s blood had been found. “He nearly takes Lung’s head off with his first blow. Then he takes Lung’s gun.”

“Why the front gate?” Meng asked “Why would Lung assume the man was coming in the front gate?”

Shan hesitated. It was point he had overlooked. “Because he didn’t expect the bicycle, or a man arriving on foot.”

“You mean he expected someone with a vehicle,” Meng concluded. “A monk who had access to a vehicle. How many monks in the monastery can even drive?”

“Probably only a handful,” Shan admitted. “Maybe just one or two.”

Meng set the pace now, back toward the prayer wheel. “He kills Lung, leaves the body to collect later and goes to the abbess. Just a terrible accident for Rutger to be there.”

“No. Rutger knew. The abbess invited him. Jamyang told Lung and the abbess because he needed both. The abbess would guarantee the monk would arrive, because no one turns down an abbess. And once there, Lung would exact his revenge. But Jamyang didn’t gauge the depth of the abbess’s anger. She had her own weapon in mind. She had become a believer in what the foreigners were doing, had grasped how painful it would be for the government’s covert plan to be exposed publicly. So she invited Rutger and his camera. Rutger would not have appreciated the risk. A photographer tends to think of his camera as a shield.

“The abbess and Rutger were together. Rutger was probably taking photos of her as she restored the wheel. The killer walked right up to them, immobilized Rutger with a quick shot, then shot the abbess an instant later. When he saw Rutger was not dead he dragged him to the chorten and finished him with the hook then took off his face so he could not be identified.”

“And the girl was here the whole time,” Meng ventured.

Shan nodded. “Always near Rutger. She was sketching the interior of one of the chapels in the back. She appeared in time to see the killer finishing his work.”

As they continued walking they fell into a heavy silence, as if feeling the presence of the killer.

Meng stopped and put her hand on the crumbling stucco of a chapel. “They say these old ruins are filled with ghosts,” she said quietly.

Shan hesitated, then realized they were standing exactly where they had first met. “People lived here for centuries,” he said, remembering his reply. “Lived and died.”

“It wouldn’t have been such a bad life,” Meng said after a moment, an odd longing in her voice. “Like a big reverent family. I had uncles who always went to the temple,” she added after a moment.

He said nothing.

“I’ve been thinking, Shan,” she said abruptly with an awkward glance. “I could get a job as a constable. Lower pay but I would stay in the county. No reassignments a thousand miles away.”

He knew how difficult it was for her to have said the words. It had been why she had brought him here. He offered a small, tight smile. “There’s still a murderer to catch.”

He wasn’t sure if Meng had heard. With a finger she traced the dim shape of the eye painted beside the door. “I remember being told by a teacher once about how the eye of the Chairman was always on us. But we knew he was dead. It scared us. This was different, I think.”

“This is different,” he replied.

When she looked up, her expression had become somber. “Is that why I feel we need to be outside if we’re going to talk more about killers?”

Shan stared at her, confused, as she stepped away. Then he realized she meant outside the convent, outside the sacred ground.

Five minutes later she unfolded a map on the hood of her car.

“The mystery of the murders is really just the mystery of Jamyang,” she said. “I have been thinking about that, about how he got here. He was seen on the Lhasa highway. He was going to Drepung, by Lhasa. Hundreds of monks. Thousands of tourists. A likely place for a graduate of the Peace Institute. But after he saw his aunt he hated himself, hated what he had been turned into.”

She ran her fingers along the map to the east and north. “Maybe he was trying to find a way to go home, back to the mountains of his youth. To do penance.”

“He was doing his penance here,” Shan suggested.

“A route home would take him through Lhadrung. There are buses that run to Baiyun once a week. He could have ridden there and started walking.”

Shan bent over the map beside her. “He couldn’t risk being stopped by police. The constant convoys and patrols would have driven him up into the hills,” he added. It was the likely explanation for Jamyang’s arrival on the upper slopes. “He was broken. He just wanted a place to crawl into and hide, where he could begin to heal, to construct a new life, the one his uncle had intended for him. He would never have known about another Institute graduate being assigned to a mission in the valley.”

“Of course not. Every assignment would be secret, the agents unknown to one another. But we don’t know for certain there was another agent here.”

She was trying so hard not to understand. He gazed at her a moment, then pointed to the map. “And what direction did Liang come from?” he asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s always the most obvious things that are overlooked in an investigation. You need to find out when Liang arrived at your district headquarters.”

“Right after the murders were reported of course.”

“No, Meng. He was at the murder scene with the first party of police to arrive. You and I saw him. He was already in the district. His role as some larger-than-life investigator is a cover.”

“Nonsense. Liang is just the son of a bitch thug he appears to be.”

“Check it. You’re going to find he arrived a day or two after Jamyang used a computer in Baiyun to access the Institute’s database. It would have been a week before the murders.”

Meng went very still.

“He only cares about the murders because his agent is connected to them, and they set into motion events that could threaten that agent’s mission. What sent him running to this valley was that threat, not the murders. He’s not interested in finding a killer, he is interested in finding the American woman, he’s interested in me, and anyone interfering with the mission. You said it yourself. These agents can take years to prepare. The investment in such an agent is huge. Nothing can be allowed to interfere. Liang is a handler, a field troubleshooter for the Institute. No doubt he was once a special investigator for the Bureau. But like he told us, he was promoted. He knew how to go through the motions, knew he had to react when the bodies were stolen. It was perfect pretense for him because he also had to make sure no one else investigated thoroughly.