Dragon Bones (Red Princess 3)

“No, same direction,” Fong corrected himself.

“A current?”

“Waves of a current, exactly. Chuan. It is the character for river.”

“No, it isn’t,” Hulan objected. “The strokes should be straighter.”

Fong poked an elbow into David’s side. “As a child, our inspector spent too many years abroad. This is why she knows only the polite customs of our country. She asks you to dinner, she puts you in the seat of honor at the north side of the table. But you ask her about our culture and she is as stupid as a water buffalo. I can say this because I’ve known the inspector for many years.”

Hulan gave the pathologist a disapproving grimace.

“Three lines all waving in a current,” Fong continued, giving an indebted nod to David. “This is the ancient character for river. We are in the province of four rivers, no? Sichuan means ‘Four Rivers.’”

“Thank you for the education, Pathologist Fong,” Hulan said tartly. “I shall report your helpful attitude to the vice minister.”

“Hao, hao, good, good,” Fong replied, absolutely unabashed. “Because this is not the only mark I have seen like this. Your other foreigner, the one named Brian McCarthy, had this same chuan.”

“Are you sure? His face was a mess, and you said yourself that his flesh was torn on river rocks.”

Hulan usually did such a good job of hiding her feelings from her colleagues, but Fong’s information was putting chinks in her wall. Once again, David felt deep pain—for himself, for his wife, and for all of the tragedies that had brought them to this room.

“Yes, I have spent more time with your other foreigner,” Fong continued in the most cheerful tones, “looking at the wounds you speak of for research before he goes back to his homeland. He is in such bad shape, I thought, Who would know what I do to his body now? It is good for our country to study the effects of the river, and here is an opportunity to study them. Perhaps I will write a paper and send it abroad.”

“You’re telling me that you know for certain that Brian McCarthy was killed by the same person who killed Lily Sinclair?” Hulan queried. “You have hard proof?”

“Hard proof? Ha! How can I possibly have that after the journey he took? I only know that when he was branded the burning went past his flesh and into the bone, and that this woman here has the same brand on her forehead. It’s up to you, Inspector, to determine if the same person did it!” Fong rubbed his hands together and looked about. “Investigator Lo promised that if I came down here I would be given a tour of the Three Gorges. I have always wanted to see our special heritage.”

BEFORE THEY LEFT, FONG GAVE HULAN A MANILA ENVELOPE, which she took without opening. Then, while David dropped his satchel in their room, Hulan exchanged a few words with Su Zhangqing and Ge Fei, the policemen who’d interrogated the employees. By the time David returned, the young men had given her their notes and a synopsis of what they’d ascertained.

“You worked hard today,” she commended them.

The young men beamed. It wasn’t every day that someone from the Ministry of Public Security praised them, but their pleasure turned out to be short-lived.

“I hope you’ll go home and have a good meal, but then I’d like you to come back—”

“To interview the night staff,” Su, the bright one, guessed.

“It’s a much smaller group,” she explained, “but it may take longer. They were here last night. If you find an eyewitness or suspect that someone knows more than he’s telling, please find me. I’ll be out of the hotel for an hour or so, but I’ll be back.”

She and David left the officers and went to the dining room. The scholars were grouped together at their customary table, though neither Angela nor Catherine was with them. Hulan ordered a simple meal, telling the waitress to hurry. The food came and they began to eat.

“Do you think you’ll find anything pertinent?” David asked, pointing with his chopsticks to the stack of employee interviews that lay atop the manila envelope next to Hulan’s plate.

“I’ll take a look later. You never know.”

“And Lo’s files?”

“I haven’t opened them either,” she said, “but they can wait. I don’t think there’ll be any surprises.”

After dinner, they swung by their room one more time, then stopped at the front desk to speak with the night clerk, who reported that he’d seen Miss Sinclair leave the hotel around 11:30 last night. He also remembered that Miss Miller had gone down to the dock to have dinner with her father. Later she’d come back to the hotel to pick up a few things and had gone out again a few minutes after Miss Sinclair left the hotel.

“Did Miss Sinclair say where she was going?” Hulan asked.

“No, but she went for a walk almost every night after the temperature cooled,” the night clerk said. “She didn’t care if it was raining. I think she liked it. Sometimes she would stay out until one or two in the morning.”

Hulan made a few more inquiries. The clerk hadn’t left his post all night. He hadn’t seen any other foreigners leave or enter the hotel. He hadn’t heard or seen anything that struck him as suspicious. Since this was his primary job—watching over the foreigners and reporting their behavior to the Public Security Bureau—he wanted to emphasize that she could trust his account.

It would be about a twenty-minute walk to the All-Patriotic Society meeting. David and Hulan put on borrowed plastic jackets, accepted a flashlight and a couple of umbrellas from the night clerk, then stepped outside. It was still light, and families who’d finished their dinners sat in front of their homes under the eaves enjoying the relative coolness of the early evening drizzle. But despite the peaceful domesticity about him, David walked with the same sense of foreboding that he’d felt going into Lily’s room this morning. This wasn’t a good idea. Hulan wouldn’t handle the meeting well, and he wasn’t sure he was up to dealing with the consequences.