Antonio Garrido - The Corpse Reader

He called Bo and told him the plan.

Cí took the disfigured corpse’s hand from the conservation chamber and was pleased to see how well the ice had worked. The corrosion, like hundreds of tiny perforations covering the fingers, the palm, and the back of the hand, struck him as being similar to the holes of a tea strainer. He’d made a list of the jobs someone might have to handle the kind of acid that could make those marks—a silk cleaner, a chef, a housepainter, a chemist—but he hoped a pharmacist would be able to help him whittle it down.

They went to the Great Pharmacy first. There was a crowd at the entrance, and Bo sent his men ahead to clear a path. When Cí finally reached the main counter and took out the severed hand, he was mobbed again. Bo’s men dragged the spectators away, and Cí placed the hand in front of the pharmacists, who were trembling as if they feared their own hands might be chopped off.

“I only need you to have a look and tell me if you’ve prescribed anything for anyone with a condition like this.”

After examining the hand, the pharmacists didn’t think there was anything remarkable about the slight corrosion. Cí demanded to speak to the head pharmacist. A tubby, distracted-looking man in a red gown and cap appeared and, having looked at the hand, agreed with his staff.

“No one would come asking for treatment for such a petty thing.”

Cí clenched his fists. These men didn’t seem to be trying very hard.

“How can you be so sure?”

The manager held out his own hands.

“Because I have the same corrosion. It’s from working with salt. Sailors, miners, fish or meat salters, anyone who works with salt day after day will end up with these same marks on their hands. I handle salt every day to conserve compresses. It’s nothing serious. I’m not sure this poor person actually needed his hand cut off,” he joked.

But Cí wasn’t laughing. He thanked the man for his help, put the hand back in the conservation chamber, and quickly left the Great Pharmacy.

One door opened and another shut. Discarding the idea of the marks being the result of acid eliminated several jobs, but there were as many, if not more, that had to do with handling salt. A quarter of Lin’an’s population must have been in some way involved in fishing, and although only a fraction of those would go out to sea to fish, there were all the workers in the salting warehouses. Cí thought that could be at least 50,000 people…His hopes now rested on one last detail: the small flame tattoo by the thumb. Bo said he’d do what he could to try and identify it. He gave the conservation chamber to Bo’s men with instructions to change the ice once they’d got it back to the palace.

Cí hoped his visit to the bronze maker’s workshop would turn up some useful evidence. He and Bo made their way to the docklands on the south side of the city. But when they reached the address, Cí was shocked to find that, where yesterday had stood the most important bronze workshop in the whole city, there were now only its burned remains. Embers were still glowing among the scorched beams, burned wood, melted metal, and piles of rubble. Fire had reduced the workshop to nothing but a smoking, desolated strip, just as it had done with his family’s home.

He made his way directly to the crowd nosing through the wreckage. Maybe someone could tell him something. A number of them spoke of a voracious fire in the early hours, others of the loud noises when the workshop fell. Everyone lamented how slow the firefighters had been to arrive; several adjacent workshops had also been damaged.

Then a beggar boy came over and said he had some firsthand information, but it would cost 10,000 qián . The boy was nothing but skin and bones, so Cí added a bowl of boiled rice from a nearby seller to the sum. Between mouthfuls, the boy said there had been some noises before the fires had started, but in fact that was all he knew. Disappointed, Cí got up to leave, but the boy grabbed his arm.

“But I do know someone who saw everything.”

One of his fellow beggars, he said, always slept under one of the workshop awnings.

“He’s a cripple, which means he never goes very far from where he always begs. When I got here this morning I found him over there, like a rat hiding in its nest. He looked like he’d seen the God of Death himself. He was saying he had to get away. If they found him, he said, they’d kill him.”

Cí’s eyes grew wide.

“Who?”

“No idea. But he was terrified, I know that much. As soon as the sun came up and people started arriving, he disappeared into the crowd. He even left his things,” said the boy, pointing to a begging bowl and a ceramic jar. “But I bet I can find him.”

Cí searched the boy’s face—in vain—for the slightest trace of truthfulness.

“Fine, take me to him.”

“But sir, I’m very sick. And if I’m helping you, I won’t be able to beg…”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand, no, five thousand qián !”

Cí didn’t feel he had much of a choice, but when he asked Bo for the additional money, Bo insisted it was a bad idea.

“He’ll just vanish,” hissed Bo. “He’ll take the money and you’ll never see him again.”

“Just give it to me!” He knew Kan had given instructions for any costs to be covered. Bo shook his head in disapproval but eventually handed over the money.

The boy’s eyes lit up as Cí began counting out the money. He stopped at 500 qián.

“You get the rest when your friend shows up. He’ll get a reward, too.”

The boy got up to go.

“One last thing: If you decide to disappear, I swear I’ll find you, and it won’t be pretty. There are plenty of other beggars I could give his money to, and I’m sure they’d be only too happy to help locate you— and beat you to death.”

Taking with him a note of Cí’s name and how to find him, the boy headed off into the streets.

Cí had a look around the wreckage. He was surprised to come across not a single bronze object, nor any solder remains, but it had likely all been taken by looters already. Before leaving, Cí asked Bo to find out details about anyone who had been employed at the workshop in recent months, and to have any remains other than bricks and beams gathered and brought to the palace.

“I don’t care how damaged they are. And make sure each piece is labeled with exactly where on the premises it was found.”

“I’m not sure how much Kan will appreciate your turning the palace into a trash can.”

“Just see that it’s done,” said Cí.

When he got back to the palace, Cí was pleased to find that the same sentry who had found the bronze maker’s corpse was guarding the spot. The guard, who resembled a granite mountain, confirmed that, yes, this was where he had found the corpse, at the foot of the wall, and it had been headless and naked. Cí examined the dried blood on the stones and then sketched the scene, and the trail of blood, with charcoal. He asked the sentry if he always stayed in the same place during a shift.

“When the gong sounds, we all count out three hundred paces to the west of our positions, come back, do another three hundred paces east, and then return to our position until the next gong.”

He asked the guard if, the reception and all the guests aside, there had been anything, anything at all, during last night’s watch that had struck him as out of the ordinary.