A Deadly Injustice (16 page)

Lin, his face just a little paler than usual, pointed a long-nailed finger at the dead man's belly.

‘See how the cut is from left to right.'

I nodded, following the line of the incision made in Nu's flesh. It cut through the necks of two dragons tattooed on his torso, removing the beasts' heads from their bodies. The man's guts, pushed rudely back into his belly by an attendant, still poked out. It was as though the dragons themselves had been gutted. But I could see what Lin meant.

‘Assuming the killer was right-handed, a cut from left to right suggests he did it from behind. He surprised the actor, and killed him without getting too much blood on himself.'

‘The alternative is a bold, left-handed murderer . . . now covered in blood and guts.'

Lin's morgue humour was grimly amusing. But I was in no mood to laugh. If I had taken Lin seriously, and gone to the theatre sooner instead of being drawn by the lure of money, P'ing-Yang Nu might not now be dead. And we might have been closer to unmasking a killer. On the other hand, if I had been earlier, I might now be lying on a slab alongside P'ing-Yang Nu. Gutted like a fish. Lin divined my thoughts.

‘We could still discover something about what was in Nu's mind.'

‘How?'

‘We must search for his version of the play script. If he wrote down the amendments he made, we could learn from them. I can only remember a few of the lines we heard on the night.'

Lin was correct, and knew I should have searched for the script as soon as I had arranged for the body to be moved.

‘I will go back immediately and see if I can find it.'

Tien-jan was finally at the theatre when I got back, wiping make-up from his face. I asked him if he had been busy, and he said he had had lots to do.

‘What do you want now, investigator? To accuse me of the murder of Nu?'

I grinned at the slim youth, who had once fooled me into thinking he was a girl.

‘You know I wouldn't do that. No, I am on another mission. Do you know where Nu would have kept any written copies of the plays you perform? I am particularly interested in the one you put on recently.'

‘Not Guan's new play?'

I shook my head.

‘No. Though I would love to know what slant Guan has taken on the case of Jianxu. It may affect the outcome of the investigation.'

Natural Elegance put on his best enigmatic look.

‘I cannot tell you that. The script is a closely guarded secret. Even those of us in the play only know our own lines, and none of us knows the ending yet. I think it is still unwritten, actually.'

‘And the other play? Is the script for that a secret too?'

‘Three Princes at Tiger Palace?' Tien-jan laughed a sweet, tinkling laugh. ‘It is so old everyone knows the words by heart. Though, now you come to mention it, poor Nu did make some amendments this time.' He paused. ‘I sound like an old script myself – “Now you come to mention it . . .” There is so much formulaic dialogue in the old plays. Nu liked to change it a bit, so it was no surprise to us when he issued sheets out to each of us at the rehearsal. Though, as we blocked in the moves, I did think some of the dialogue a little irregular and inconsistent. It didn't fit somehow.'

He was rambling about theatre matters that had me quite confused. Rehearsals? And what was blocking in the moves? I tried to bring him back to the point of my inquiries.

‘But Nu would have had a fair copy of the whole piece?'

The boy sighed and nodded.

‘Yes, the full script. Follow me, and I will show you where he keeps . . . kept . . . all the scripts.'

He took me to a room backstage that had pigeonholes along one wall. Every slot was stuffed tight with paper documents. Tien-jan began to rummage through them, at first casually, then gradually moving from slot to slot more urgently. It came as no surprise to me when he said that he couldn't find the amended script to ‘Three Princes at Tiger Palace' anywhere.

FIFTEEN

A closed mind is like a closed book, just a block of wood
.

I
t was not long before the prefect reacted to the murder in the theatre in the most severe of ways. On the following day, large notices appeared in all public places. They were written in Chinee, of course, but Lin translated for me. We were standing outside the theatre, and the notice had been pasted on one of the columns that formed the entrance archway. The troupe's barker and moneyman was staring disconsolately at the notice. It read:

SHALL BE PROHIBITED,
and

WILL BE SEVERELY PUNISHED.

The barker turned to us with a glum expression on his face.

‘Well, that is a pretty comprehensive coverage. We will not be able to do anything here now. Nu will be turning in his grave. If he was in one, which he isn't yet. But you know what I mean. We have hardly been able to make ends meet for months now. He was always begging and borrowing to keep us going. And this new play of Guan's was our big chance.' He pulled a face worthy of the best actor on the stage behind him. ‘We've had it now. Might as well move on.'

He trudged through the archway towards the stage to tell his comrades the bad news. Lin looked at me with a small smile playing on his lips.

‘It's an ill wind . . .'

‘What do you mean?'

‘At least Guan's play won't be performed next week. It gives us some more time to find the truth.'

‘That's true. But what about Tien-jan? Won't you miss him?'

Lin's face was stony.

‘I don't know what you mean, Nick.'

I let the matter drop. I had my own reasons for keeping young Mister Natural Elegance around for a while longer, but I couldn't tell Lin why. I had hoped he would want to prevent him from leaving so soon himself, but apparently not. We walked away from the square, and towards the Geng household. We had questions to ask.

I took more notice of Geng's house this time, hoping it would give me some clues to what had happened there. It had obviously once stood on the edge of town. The red tile roof with its curved gables gave the impression of a substantial residence belonging to a rich merchant. The aspect of the windows along the frontage spoke of a property that once looked out over open land towards the river. Now all the occupants could see from them were other, smaller buildings. The city had encroached on the house and swallowed it. It was barely possible now to appreciate the symmetry of its frontage. Stepping through the doorway from the road, Lin and I found ourselves in a central courtyard, surrounded by buildings. Once again, I could tell that the house was somewhat down at heel. Wall timbers were splitting and some roof tiles were loose. Two broken red tiles lay on the packed earth of the courtyard, and probably had lain there since they had fallen from above weeks earlier. The whole house was unusually quiet, with not even any smoke coming from the rear of the building where the kitchen stood. I could tell it was the kitchen, because it was built slightly apart from the other ranges. Fire was a constant hazard to timber-framed houses. There was no evidence even of the servant who had been present last time. A couple of chickens pecked desultorily at the barren earth of the courtyard.

We hovered in the centre of the yard for a moment, before Lin whispered in my ear.

‘Do you think they've all fled?'

I grinned.

‘No, I don't think so. I just caught a glimpse of a youth peering round the edge of an upstairs window behind you. I will rouse them.'

I pulled my short Tartar sword from its sheath, and took a swing at one of the chickens. There was a squawk from the chicken, which flew up in a blur of feathers. And a responding squawk from a human.

‘That is my best layer, I am glad your prowess with a sword is so poor.'

The old lady emerged from the kitchen door, tottering on her tiny feet. I sheathed my sword.

‘I aimed to miss, or the bird would have been running around headless by now. Which is not a criticism I can make of you, Madam Gao.'

She narrowed her dark, little eyes, making the wrinkles on the lined face even deeper and more numerous.

‘How do you mean?'

Whether she really didn't understand my Western analogy, or was just maintaining her appearance of being a rather stupid, old lady, I wasn't sure. But one thing she had done was give the game away about her ability to understand my Mongol. When we had first interviewed her, I had stumbled through a three-way conversation using Lin as my interpreter. The crafty old bird had used a feigned ignorance of Mongol as a way of avoiding my more searching questions. Now I knew that, I explained my meaning directly.

‘You told us you were poor, and needed to marry Geng in order to survive. But the truth is it was you who loaned Old Geng money. Money he desperately needed to keep his business afloat.'

As I spoke, I took a couple of steps towards where she stood. Suddenly, two very large, very hairy men emerged from the kitchen and placed themselves either side of the old lady. They only had sticks in their fists, but they were such large and hairy fists and such heavy sticks, that I did not think for one moment of drawing my sword again. From behind me Lin piped up in his thin but authoritative voice.

‘There is no need for violence here, Madam Gao. We are the defenders of the law, and to threaten us would be a crime carrying a severe penalty.'

The old lady bowed low, her head tilting to one side, until we could see the bald patch atop her head. When she straightened up, she showed a mouth with more gaps than teeth in it.

‘I am sorry. My . . . nephews –' she gestured at the two hairy monsters – ‘are a little overzealous at times. I asked them to stay with me, as I am fearful for my life.'

She sighed theatrically, in a way I could now recognize as a pantomime
k'o
. Lin would have been pleased that my knowledge of Chinee drama was expanding. Madam Gao continued.

‘The times have been so strange of late. What with the poisoning of Geng that could have so nearly been mine. And the attack that I suffered a few weeks ago.'

‘Attack?'

Lin was interested now, and pressed her to explain. She sat down wearily on a bamboo chair set in the shade and waved a hand. The two hairy bodyguards disappeared, though I could still feel their presence like a cold wind blowing from the north down the back of my neck. I squatted down on an upturned bucket, but Lin remained standing in that peculiarly still way of his. His question remained hanging in the air, and, once settled, the old lady answered it.

‘It was a few weeks before Geng's death. I was still in my own house, living with the girl, of course.'

I decided to interrupt, because I realized the old woman had avoided answering my earlier question about her wealth, and wanted to disconcert her a little.

‘Was this before or after your son died?'

The old lady's face hardened, and the lines round her mouth stood out. It was not the reaction I would have imagined a loving mother to have had to my brutal question. She had an answer nevertheless, even though it was brief.

‘Afterwards.'

‘You see, I have concerns about your son.'

Her eyes were like daggers stabbing into me.

‘How so? His death has nothing to do with what happened to me, or to Geng's death. He was a sickly child, and he grew up to be a sickly man. The girl married him at my behest, but he did not live long enough to give her a child. That is all there is to say about the matter.'

I noticed that, finally, a single tear squeezed out of her eye and ran down her wrinkled cheek. I suspected it was manufactured. I held up a hand and signalled for her to go on. She brushed the tear from her face.

‘I was explaining about the attack. I suppose, thinking about it, I should have reported the man. It was someone who owed me money, and he said he had come to negotiate a deal. The next thing I knew, quite out of the blue, he leaped at me and tried to strangle me. I was lucky that Old Geng was due to visit me and was a little early. He came into the room and saw what the man was doing. He grabbed him and pulled him off me. There was a scuffle and my attacker fled. Geng was too old to give chase, and anyway, I needed his attention.' She stared Lin in the eye, pointedly avoiding looking at me. ‘That was why I agreed to marry him – and that was when my fortunes changed. Geng had saved my life, and I was indebted to him. He said he had been looking for a wife, and now he had found one. It was my fate to obey him, and at his insistence I got rid of my own house and moved in here.' She waved a weary hand at the ramshackle range of buildings. ‘I think my
yun
was waning from that point on.'

At last I had the answer to my question about why a rich old woman should marry a poor man who owed her money. I knew a little bit about Chinee belief in fate and luck. So I knew Madam Gao had not been happy to accept Geng's marriage offer, but had felt bound to do so. Her luck had taken a nosedive from that point. She looked tired, but Lin wanted more.

‘And was it your idea that Jianxu should marry Wenbo?'

‘No, that was Old Geng. He has been looking for a wife for his son for a long time. You can see for yourself how weak the boy is. His father thought my obligation to him would stretch to the girl. And indeed, I saw no reason why she shouldn't have married Wenbo. It was she who objected. She has always been a wayward child, never doing as she was told. You would have thought she owed me nothing the way she behaved.'