The Dragon and the Needle

by Hugh Franks

  ‘But Western medicine has proved there are severe limitations to the therapy and …’

  ‘Proved!’ Eleanor exclaimed. ‘What is proof? And why do we in the West always need facts? And if you want proof, see my patients!’

  ‘All right, Eleanor. But if Oriental medicine can cure,’ he paused, smiled, and said, ‘perhaps it can kill as well!’

  Smiling back at him she replied calmly, ‘And so can the surgeon’s knife.’

  ‘Touché,’ he said. ‘I think we’re getting to know each other much better,’ he smiled. ‘Eleanor, perhaps together, maybe, we can succeed in finding the answers.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, we must! We’ll meet again soon.’

  As Mike was leaving her flat, he understood why Stuart Dorman wanted her help. She was a very remarkable woman. He opened the front door and they stood closely together. Wearing no make-up, she looked beautiful, he thought. They kissed, and as he moved slowly away, he took her hands in his, saying, ‘I’m determined to look after you – whatever happens. You know that, don’t you, Eleanor?’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, I believe you.’

  After she had closed the front door, she went to the window that looked out onto Brook Street. Could Mike really look after her? How could he cope with the strength and subtlety of China? Ah-Ming had told her that her husband was alive in China. She couldn’t believe that … yet perhaps it was true. There was so much doubt and confusion in her mind. How could Chen have let her believe he was dead? Could she ever love him again?

  Her thoughts were interrupted as she saw Mike climb into a waiting car. As it drove to the junction of New Bond Street she imagined she saw his face through the car window, looking towards her flat. Now there was this man, this strong man in her life too. She felt determined to help him solve this terrible problem of ENDS.

  As Eleanor made her way back to her consulting room in Harley Street, the taxi driver spoke to her about the bad standard of driving, the continuing delays, the pollution. She nodded agreement when he caught her eye in the rear-view mirror, but her mind was occupied in trying to make some sort of order out of the meeting with Mike, and the options now open to her with Ah-Ming. For the present she could not desert her patients, though she did have a contact, another woman acupuncturist called Margaret Wormald, who she could rely upon if the need arose. She remembered one particular patient she was due to see again soon, a young woman suffering from acute gastritis, turning to chronic. She had applied the needles at the point of Chengman, slanting them one to two taun deep. It had brought about almost immediate relief. Had it lasted? she wondered. It should have succeeded – it always had – so why should she have any doubts?

  The voice of the driver cut into her thoughts. ‘Here we are, lady.’

  She paid off the taxi driver and went into the wide, large, Edwardian-style hall, typical of Harley Street.

  The hall porter, a kind genial man, said to her, ‘Good morning, Dr Johnson. There’s an Oriental gentleman waiting to see you in the general waiting room. He’s been there some time.’

  She felt uneasy, knowing that it must be Ah-Ming. Should she ignore him and go straight to her office? Why wasn’t he waiting there in any case? Her mind was made up for her when Ah-Ming appeared at the waiting room doorway. Eleanor thanked the porter and walked towards the smiling Ah-Ming, looking searchingly at his face, trying to see behind the relaxed smile, finding it impossible to assess his reason for coming. It was disturbing that he should be visiting her so soon. A feeling of panic was rising in her. There was no indication in his manner of the reason for this visit. As his smile vanished from his face she could see behind his eyes only an inhuman emptiness.

  He said, ‘I thought it better for us to meet here first and then go up together.’

  She could see other people in the waiting room. At least Ah-Ming had met her at the doorway. She fought back her sense of panic. Then she said to Ah-Ming, ‘I’m going to be very busy for the next few hours. It would have been better to have arranged an appointment with me.’

  He answered with a shrug of his shoulders and added quietly, ‘When the forces of good rise one foot, the forces of evil rise ten feet.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Evil often triumphs over good, and that must be stopped quickly.’

  She began to feel uncomfortable and sensed that not only the hall porter, but also those in the waiting room were staring at them both. It would be better to go up; they could talk in the privacy of the lift.

  In the lift, Ah-Ming came quickly to the point. ‘If your secretary asks you about me, you will of course say that I advise you from time to time on Oriental medicine. For the moment, you should know that we are aware of your contacts with Dr Clifford, who has taken over the work of Professor Dorman.’

  She listened to the words with a beating heart, whilst he saw the frown of anxiety on her face.

  He carried on talking, quickly, quietly, as she glanced at the light above her in the lift, showing the floors they were approaching; there were three more to go.

  ‘Do not look so worried and concerned,’ he said. ‘You must have known we keep the closest watch on you.’

  She tried not to show her feelings. She was being dragged into a world of political involvement that was totally alien to her work, her life and her nature.

  She said, looking straight at him, ‘I suppose I did know that would happen.’

  His next words made her impatient, and more anxious than ever. ‘I thought you would know.’ He paused. ‘After all, Professor Dorman was most interested in you.’

  Her impatience grew. What did he really know about Dorman? The lift had nearly reached her floor.

  ‘Do you know why he was murdered?’ she asked.

  ‘No more than the London police appear to know.’

  As the lift stopped at her floor she said, ‘We must not talk about these things until we’re in my office.’

  He nodded agreement. Eleanor felt the same fear of being pushed into a world that was not of her own choosing.

  Her secretary rose quickly to greet her and said, ‘This must be the gentleman who called me from the hall porter. He said he would wait downstairs for you, Doctor.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Have you rearranged my appointments for this morning?’

  Yes.’

  ‘That’s good, thank you. There’s nothing urgent?’

  ‘No, Doctor.’

  But now alone in her office with Ah-Ming, she needed to clear her mind as much as possible. He sat down opposite her, quickly, but she lowered herself slowly into her chair, all the while looking straight into his eyes.

  Ah-Ming spoke first. ‘You asked me if I knew why Professor Dorman was murdered. Are you suggesting I was involved? If so, why should I be associated with such barbarian methods of killing?’

  He scrutinised her face. The look took her back to her days in China. It was the same look given frequently by the Chinese interrogators, as if they were able to read the mind by staring through its windows, the eyes. But what mattered to her now was the immediate future. There was no question in her mind of being able to run away. Could he see that thought? Could he interpret her mind? The very thought tormented her, and grew worse as he continued staring at her.

  Then he said, with a thin smile, ‘We know that Dr Clifford and Professor Dorman worked closely together and were very active colleagues in their search for the causes of the so-called mystery deaths.’

  She felt a stab of fear at his last two words. She could not keep back a slight quiver in her voice as she said, ‘What do you really know about Professor Dorman?’ She swallowed, hard.

  ‘That perhaps he was beginning to get too close to the causes. When men like that get to know too much …’

  ‘Men like that! He was a brilliant medical …’

  ‘Medical!’ Ah-Ming interrupted with emphasis, ‘Medical! Yes, he was a brilliant medical man.’

  Ah-Ming’s expression at that moment looked cruel. It was not misse
d by Eleanor. Was it possible, she thought, that Carry Tiger to Mountain was now under the control of this type of man? If so, where did her husband fit into it all? Was he alive? That perhaps was the main reason for her readiness to become part of it all. But did she have any choice? It was bewildering enough to understand the enigma of China, let alone being involved on the high level she felt she was being forced to. Here was this man, obviously working for the largest and arguably the most important nation on earth … what was his real part in it all?

  ‘If he was a brilliant medical man, why the sarcasm in your voice?’ Eleanor asked.

  Ah-Ming smiled at her, saying, again with an ironic tone, ‘I repeat, Dorman was a fine medical man.’ He paused. ‘So fine that he completely missed the point about the efficacy of Oriental medicine.’

  Eleanor was finding the atmosphere disturbing. The innuendos frightened her. There was a kind of understanding between the two of them which neither wanted to admit – with strange Western and Oriental medical connotations.

  ‘How do you know what point he was missing?’

  ‘We received, very recently, written evidence. He was, shall I say, playing with ideas about the deaths throughout the world. Groping and not understanding, searching for anything that might help and therefore getting nowhere. But …’ he stopped speaking.

  ‘I don’t follow you,’ she said. ‘What do you mean by “very recently written evidence”?’

  ‘He seemed fascinated by certain aspects of acupuncture and …’

  She cut in quickly, saying, ‘I asked you what you meant by “recently written evidence”. Why can’t you answer my questions?’

  My cheeks must look red, she thought, for they burned.

  ‘Answer your questions?’ he said solemnly, making her feel that he was laughing at her. ‘There are other matters I want to discuss with you.’

  She wondered how much they were both trying to hide secrets from each other. She longed to find out more and not remain in this absurd field of secrecy, both trying to outwit the other. Maybe she was taking it all too seriously, she suddenly thought. Yet she must find out more about Dorman. Her head ached with the tension created by Ah-Ming. She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and felt better.

  ‘So let me clear this matter of Professor Dorman,’ Ah-Ming was saying. ‘We have received some valuable information concerning the late Professor’s ideas. Especially those of our’ – he paused for effect – ‘complicated laws of the pulse.’

  ‘You mean he sent them to you, his ideas, by post?’

  ‘You could say that,’ he smiled thinly. ‘What concerns us is that he felt that the manner in which we use the pulse for diagnosis had certain positive possibilities. You and I might smile at such naive statements. But leading from that, we discovered that he moved on from such amusingly simple statements, to you, and how much he had heard about your work. The way you are so successful in combining Oriental and Western medicine.’

  ‘He wasn’t quite right there, was he? I mean, I use far more of the former than the latter.’

  ‘Nonetheless, he was anxious to meet you because of other developments he was told about.’

  ‘And what were they?’

  ‘Certain similarities were coming to light from information via computers: similarities in terms of the troublesome deaths. In other words, he had been told that alternative medicine might be playing a role of some sort in these deaths.’

  He stared at Eleanor, waiting for a reaction, but she hoped she showed no response. Instead, she stared back at him and in her mind’s eye she could see her husband behind the eyes of this man Was he working with them? Had Carry Tiger to Mountain really changed? This same idea that she had had a short while ago came crashing back into her thoughts. If it had, it would account for everything that had been happening to her in the last few days.

  She suddenly wanted to have Mike by her side. Then she heard Ah-Ming saying, ‘Have you been discussing with Dr Clifford the Oriental method of the pulse?’ She looked at him. Had he read her thoughts?

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ she replied abruptly. ‘Though of course we talked about the therapy. He does not have any time for it. He doesn’t know Yin from Yang, let alone the laws of energy and the elements. His approach to this problem is entirely Western, clinical; trying to discover, for example, if there is a common link in the health of the victims before their death. You know, I’m sure, that he is involved with research at the University of Sussex.’

  She felt a degree of relief, for her words seemed to please him as he replied with, ‘Yes, we do know all about his work at Sussex University. But we now have this written evidence that Dorman had spoken to Clifford about you … I think you might like to know what Clifford said to Dorman?’ This time he did not finish the sentence with a smile.

  ‘Why not?’ Eleanor replied, concealing another stab of fear. But she managed to hide it with a smile.

  It seemed to neutralise any suspicions Ah-Ming had about her, for he suddenly changed his manner to that of wanting to confide in her.

  He leant forward slightly in his chair and said, ‘Before I tell you that, understand that you are becoming involved in a matter of deep concern to China. My country has embarked upon a course of action that will determine the future of mankind. You have to think back to the training period you underwent in Beijing. You have to think of your husband’s work. Above all, of his work for China, and Oriental medicine. You comprehend my meaning?’ He lifted his voice then, saying, ‘Because nothing and indeed no one will be allowed to stand in our way!’

  His words, though frightening to her, made her understand his strength and commitment. He had confirmed that China had embarked upon a new way, changing the meaning of Carry Tiger to Mountain. She felt sick and angry. Who was this man? What made him think he had so much power over her? Was Chen really alive? She had to find out!

  He was now talking about Mike Clifford, and his words drew her mind quickly back to the present. ‘Dr Clifford has no belief in Oriental medicine, and according to the report of Dorman, the young doctor considers it all a therapy of quackery.’

  Eleanor stared into the level eyes of Ah-Ming – hard, unforgiving eyes – as he continued, ‘And that is the way he must go on thinking. Do I make myself clear?’

  There was only one course for her to adopt at this critical moment: compliance. She nodded and said, ‘Yes, I see, I do understand you fully.’

  With that he rose and quickly left her consulting room, stopping briefly to admire some large wall illustrations of the points of acupuncture, then turning towards her, bowing slightly. His final words were, ‘We will need your cooperation and expect it.’

  ‘When he had gone, she placed her elbows on the desk, putting her head in her hands with a feeling of deep dismay. She had finally been ordered into a life not of her own choosing. Yet now, before her, lay the prospect of taking sides. The choice had to be hers alone: them or us? But who are they or we?

  Eleanor tried to compose herself. She did not know what plans to make. Her patients must come first – but could they? She felt more and more confused.

  Julie was concerned by Eleanor’s pale and anxious face when she entered her office, but she made no comment about it, instead remarking casually, ‘You’ve had an unusual start to your day, Doctor, perhaps it would be a good idea to take the whole day off.’

  Eleanor knew that Julie was worried about her, and agreed that the suggestion of a day off was a good one. She wanted to get back to her flat, then perhaps call Mike, but she quickly rejected the idea of seeing him. She was not ready for that … what was she ready for? Perhaps this was the moment to leave her patients in the care of Margaret Wormald, a brilliant acupuncturist. Perhaps she should take a sabbatical, concentrate totally on the death syndrome? But what could she do? She was certain of one thing, she no longer had a clear path to follow. Her life was no longer her own.

  There was one place she always visited in moments of crisis, or those of needing a deci
sion. It was the Hotung Gallery at the British Museum. The visual impact of Oriental antiquities never failed to stir her innermost being. She remembered that it was the first place she went to after leasing her Harley Street consulting rooms. For her it symbolised the immensity of Oriental civilisations, with their long history, their philosophies – the Tao and its cyclical nature. And upstairs, on the first floor of the museum, the Chinese sections that showed the cyclical patterns of thousands of years ago with the two poles setting the limits of the cyclical changes, the Yin and the Yang.

  Before leaving her office, she telephoned Margaret Wormald who had agreed to take over Eleanor’s patients if the need arose. Margaret asked no questions, and said she thought that a break would be good for Eleanor. The last time they had met, Margaret had remarked that Eleanor was becoming a workaholic, which was very bad for her balance.

  Eleanor left her office with a sense of relief. She recalled the flexibility of China’s ways and philosophies. She had learned about these from her husband, and later in China. ‘The Yang having reached its climax, retreats in favour of the Yin; the Yin having reached its climax, retreats in favour of the Yang.’ This was the basic philosophy of Carry Tiger to Mountain as she understood it. But it could mean and be applied to so many different things. There could be a period of tough yet peaceful coexistence, she thought. But did her fears about the new China include an evil aspect, not one of peace, but one that could kill and destroy? She needed time, time to find out, to understand … but how long had she got? And what did they really want of her?

  The Minister of Health had arrived at his office later than usual. He was dreading going to the House of Commons the following day. A question had been tabled a week or so ago by a back-bencher for Question Time in the House. ‘Is the Minister of Health aware,’ he was to be asked, for he had seen the questions written out for him and underlined in places by his Private Secretary, ‘that a British journalist in Beijing has written an article stating that it is time for the British Minister of Health to stop denigrating the Chinese leaders, accusing them of uncooperative actions: that the Minister could be better employed seeking, perhaps, their cooperation in the terrible problem of ENDS?’ The question went on to demand of the Minister an answer on what exactly he was doing.