by Ian Morson
‘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 yunwas 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.’
As the old lady rambled on, I had noticed that the boy had moved from his window, where I had first seen him, to the edge of the courtyard where we sat. He was hiding behind one of the doorframes to my right. Madam Gao was not able to see him, but he could see her, and hear what she said. His shoulders had slumped when she described him to us, and his fists had clenched. I could see there was no love lost between them, the tough-minded old woman and the skinny youth.
When she had finished her scalding diatribe about both Wenbo and Jianxu, I asked if we could speak with Wenbo now. She contorted her face into some sort of grin.
‘Of course you can, Mr Investigator.’ She turned her head slightly in the boy’s direction, revealing that she had been aware of his presence all along. ‘You can come out now, Wenbo. Stop skulking, and show yourself.’
The ‘boy’, who must have been twenty at least judging by the growth on his chin, shambled over. His head was bowed, and when he did look up, I saw the spark of fear in his eyes. He was scared of us – more than he needed to be, and more than he had been last time we saw him. I wondered why.
‘You don’t need to be afraid, Wenbo. We are just filling in some of the past in order to be sure of what happened to your father.’
‘It wasn’t Jianxu that did it.’
Wenbo’s face was red and all screwed up. His hands were in tight fists. I stood squarely on to him, facing up his anger.
‘Then who was it, Wenbo? Who was it?’
His face returned to its normal colour, and he lowered his gaze again. The rage was momentarily over.
‘I don’t know.’ He stuck an accusing finger out at Gao. ‘But she didn’t want to go through with the marriage to my father. Ask herwho did it.’
The old lady was imperturbable.
‘He isn’t right in the head. He’s weak-kneed for the girl, and can’t accept she was responsible.’
Wenbo growled, and would have launched himself at his never-to-be mother-in-law had I not grabbed his arm. Lin, who had observed all this silently, coughed quietly.
‘I would like you to show me the kitchens where the broth was prepared, Madam Gao.’
The old woman looked puzzled, but eventually shrugged her shoulders, and eased gingerly up from her chair.
‘Come this way. You will not see much. The kitchen has been used and cleaned many times over since Geng’s death.’
She turned and hobbled towards the kitchen door, the only entrance on that side of the courtyard. I followed, my hand still holding Wenbo’s arm firmly. I was curious to know what Lin hoped to learn from examining the kitchen. Whatever it was, the boy would be useful to question also. He was supposed to have been around when the fatal brew was concocted. Inside the kitchen, a large open hearth stood at the back of the room. A fire burned, as it probably did constantly, and a pot of water boiled above it on a hook. The room was very hot. Utensils and cooking pots were lined up on racks, and sacks of provisions lay stacked along one wall. I imagined it was the most normal of kitchens, the only oddity being the presence of the two bodyguards. There was no servant bustling around as there would have been in any other merchant’s kitchen. Madam Gao noticed me looking around.
‘All the servants are gone. I dismissed the last one yesterday. We cannot afford their wages.’ She sighed dramatically. ‘I had expected that the girl could carry out their tasks. But now she is in prison, there will have to be some changes made. Especially when . . .’
She paused, but we all knew what she had been going to say. She meant that they would have to replace Jianxu as a general-purpose skivvy after she had been executed. Wenbo looked pale, casting his gaze nervously around. I had let go of his arm, and he looked as though he was seeking a means of escape. But the only doors in the kitchen were ones at either end leading into the two wings, and the one where we had just come in. He would find it hard to get free of me.
Lin asked Gao where she had been on the fateful day.
‘I was in my bed through there.’
She pointed to the door at one end of the kitchen.
‘The girl and I occupied that wing of the house, and the Gengs the other.’<
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This time she pointed to the door at the other end of the room.
‘The house was built for a large family, and Geng’s had been such. But over the last few years, his brothers died, leaving him the sole occupier of the place.’ She shivered theatrically. ‘It’s too big and draughty to my mind. But its size had its uses. Until we were married I insisted on separate quarters.’
Lin nodded his understanding.
‘I see. So you were in that wing of the house, and Geng senior in the opposite one on the day of his murder?’
He pointed once again at the two interior doors.
‘Yes. He was going through his bills, I believe. You can see his office if you wish.’
Lin, who perhaps had expected Wenbo to object to Gao offering him free run of the side of the house that was his, was surprised when the boy said nothing. He was merely sullen and uncooperative. Lin had his next question for the boy, however.
‘And where were you, Wenbo, when Jianxu was in here cooking the broth?’
The boy’s mouth opened and closed without a sound issuing as he tried to order his thoughts. Finally, he had a statement to make.
‘I was in and out of the kitchen, I suppose. Father was busy with his accounts, and I knew he would spend hours trying to make them balance. But they never would, and he got angry, so I kept out of his way.’
‘Did you see Jianxu leave the kitchen at any time?’
I saw where Lin was going with this. He wanted to know if anyone else had had a chance to put the poison into the broth. Wenbo frowned in concentration, and Gao interrupted.
‘I saw a beggar. Tell him about the beggar.’
Wenbo seemed to wince at the old lady’s prompting, but began to explain slowly.
‘Yes. Some beggar came to the street door, and Jianxu wanted to give him some alms. She asked me to keep stirring the broth, but I got bored. There was no one in the kitchen then.’
‘And then she came back and carried on with her cooking?’
‘Er, yes. I don’t know what happened after that because I went to tell father that Jianxu had let a beggar in, and should I kick him out.’
Lin paused, holding his hand in the air to stop Wenbo’s story.
‘The beggar came in the house?’
‘Well, in the kitchen. Jianxu was going to give him something to eat, I think. I said she shouldn’t, and I was going to tell my father. She came into the courtyard and told me . . .’ He blushed, poking with a toe at the kitchen floor. I prompted him.
‘She told you not to be so stupid.’
‘Yes, but she didn’t mean it. We are going to be married when she is freed.’
Madam Gao sneered, and Wenbo was about to retort, when Lin lifted his hand again. I would give anything to be able to stop an argument like Lin could with his calm and authority. He spoke quietly, but tellingly.
‘One more thing, Wenbo. Did you see your father in the kitchen at any time after this?’
Wenbo shook his head.
‘No, I told you. He was immersed in his accounts and bills. He didn’t emerge from his room until . . . Well, I heard his cries of agony, and I went in to him. I ran off to fetch Jianxu. I didn’t know what to do. But by the time we both got back to his office, he was dead.’
SIXTEEN
Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.
‘Did you notice that whenever the old lady talked of Jianxu, she referred to her merely as “the girl?”’
We were walking back through the bustling centre of town, where the streets were full of traders. A cry of warning came from behind us and Lin pulled me to one side. We pressed up against the wall of a food shop whilst a large sedan chair passed us carried by two sweating Chinee slaves. I glimpsed the white, oval face of a pretty girl peering through the side window. I flashed a smile through my red beard and the face disappeared. But not before I saw a look of curiosity pass over the deadpan visage, followed by a smile. Then the sedan was gone. Lin gave me one of his looks.
‘Forget her. In such an opulent conveyance, the chances are she is the courtesan of some wealthy man. Besides, she will not be to your taste.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Because I know what you have told me about courtesans in your world. How the pleasures of the flesh are all they cater for. In this world, the courtesan is trained in music, painting, calligraphy and poetry. An admirer could expect to pass months in leisurely mutual seduction, when he would not even expect to touch her body. He would shower her with gifts, hold parties and admire her skills at calligraphy while his lust would be brought to such a pitch, he could barely control it. But control it he must until the moment arrived when he was allowed to slake his desires.’ He looked disapprovingly at me. ‘You would die of boredom before a day was passed in this way.’
I sighed, putting the white-faced vision out of my mind.
‘You are right, Chu-Tsai. I have still to come to terms with your people’s pace of doing things. It would seem that Chinee lust is to be long drawn out too. And the answer to your original question is, yes, I noticed how Madam Gao spoke of Jianxu as though she was simply a possession – a servant without a name. And strangely enough she spoke of her son in the same terms too. She never gave him a name. It was as though he almost didn’t exist.’
‘I remember Gurbesu said the same of Jianxu. The son was her husband, yet she never referred to him by his name. It was Cangbi, by the way. It is recorded in the documents attached to the case. Perhaps we are seeing more than there is to see. It may be his illness and death were too much for both women to bear, and that is why they cannot speak his name.’
We had just entered the square where the theatre and temple stood side by side, and we stopped for a moment looking at the scene. I shook my head.
‘No. I got the impression that Cangbi was merely a nuisance and yet a means to an end. A nuisance for his mother, who saw him as a heavy weight around her neck. And a means to an end for both women. A way of tying Jianxu closer to here for Gao, and a way of gaining access to the family’s wealth for Jianxu herself. He had no other value in himself as a person for them.’
Lin seemed a little shocked by my assessment.
‘That would make them both very hard and manipulative people. I can believe that of Madam Gao. But surely Jianxu – at twenty – has more sentiment in her soul.’
I patted Lin’s arm.
‘You are an incurable romantic, Chu-Tsai. Don’t forget Gurbesu was worried that she appeared a little cold and unemotional when she was interviewed. Maybe we should both speak to Jianxu and make our own minds up.’
Lin agreed.
‘Yes, there is the matter of the kitchen, and the sequence of events leading up to Geng eating the soup. It doesn’t quite all fit together yet.’
I could see he was pondering some small factual detail as he was fond of doing, but I was vexed about the sudden appearance of a new suspect.
‘And now there is the matter of the unidentified beggar, who was perhaps left alone in the kitchen. He could have spiked the soup too.’
‘Who do you think he might have been? A business rival of Geng’s?’
‘Or one of the old lady’s debtors. We need to find out who he was.’
‘And talking of debtors, we need to find out the whereabouts of the doctor.’
Lin’s reference to the elusive Doctor Sun reminded me what Tadeusz had told me that morning. He reckoned he had heard a rumour about the doctor being in one of the villages up in the hills where the Hwang-Ho River came from. He assured me he could track him down if he could borrow my horse. Our party was getting smaller by the day with Alberoni gone – God knew where – and now Pyka seeking to go. I hoped the latter would not be going on such a wild goose chase as the priest and his search for Prester John.
I missed Father Alberoni, and yearned to ask him if he knew what had really happened with my father’s death. I had harboured the thought that my mother had killed her husband for so long, it was difficult
to discard it. But Lin’s talk of Jianxu and emotions had made me think again. My mother – Rosamund – had been a passionate woman, and I could imagine her stabbing Agostino in a rage. But I could not now square the idea of a poisoning with her impetuous nature. Minor tampering with emetics certainly, but not deliberate murder. Poisoning required cold calculation and patience – qualities my mother lacked to any degree. But if my mother hadn’t poisoned my father, who had? I suddenly realized Lin had touched my arm. Dragging myself back to the present, I raised a questioning eyebrow. He whispered in my ear.
‘Don’t look now, but the prefect is coming this way. He was in the Temple of the Earth-Goddess, and as soon as he saw us turned in our direction.’
I could guess why Li Wen-Tao had been in the temple, and imagined that his purse would be all the heavier for speaking with the old priestess there. Our little scam must be proving very lucrative. I leaned down to whisper back to Lin, he being shorter than me.
‘Let me speak alone with him.’
Lin nodded.
‘Gladly. He makes me feel uneasy every time he looks at me.’
Without a look back across the square, Lin turned and went, leaving me to deal with the prefect. He huffed and puffed towards me, having to catch his breath before he could speak. Casting a meaningful glance at the retreating back of Lin Chu-Tsai, he finally found his voice.
‘I am glad to see Master Lin depart – we have some private business to transact, you and I. Besides, there are bad rumours circulating about him in the town.’
I was surprised. Who could know anything about Lin other than that he was a high official at Kubilai’s court? That was self-evident from his bearing and his robes.
‘What sort of rumours?’
Li pulled a face, expressing disgust at what he was about to say, though I could see he was relishing passing on the rumour.
‘It is said he is a sodomite and dallies with one of the actors in the theatrical troupe. Of course I can believe it of their sort. Most actors are nothing more than thieves and prostitutes. But it ill becomes an official of the Khan’s court to be so inclined.’
