Dragon Bones (Red Princess 3)

“I appreciate that,” David said, “but why not pull the questionable pieces from the auction until they can be properly authenticated?”

“It’s too late for that.”

“I could get an interlocutory injunction.”

Fitzwilliams’s supercilious smile told David just how complicit the director had been in Lily’s illicit activities. The man practically gloated as he said, “It’s Saturday afternoon. By the time you get one, the auction will be over.”

Which would mean David would have to retrieve the pieces from their new owners. It would be a difficult, time-consuming, but not insurmountable job.

In the most civilized and pleasant manner, Fitzwilliams gave David the catalog for tonight’s auction, then very definitely gave him the boot. David stopped for lunch, then went to the tailor to pick up his suit. Once back in his room he turned on the TV to a BBC news broadcast and began leafing through the Cosgrove’s catalog Fine Chinese Ceramics, Works of Art, and Jade Carvings. On nearly every page was a spectacular four-color photo of a sculpture, ceramic, or bronze accompanied by a description written in the most academic verbiage that incorporated dimensions, stylistic components, historical information, and from which collection the piece was being sold.

Interspersed among the big color layouts were pages with simpler descriptions of pieces along with prices that Cosgrove’s estimated they would sell for. These would have to be the artworks for which Lily had not provided photographs. As David read the descriptions, he saw that most of them—including the jade—had come from Cathay Antiquities. If these had truly been in Cathay’s possession here in Hong Kong, photographs could have been taken in time to be featured in the catalog. Three ruyis—none with a photograph—were also listed. The description of one of them sounded like Dr. Ma’s missing artifact—a fungus with a long shaft. It had also come from Cathay Antiquities.

David closed the catalog and stared out across the harbor. Hulan often said if you knew the victim, then you’d know the killer, but variations of that axiom were true for almost any crime. Know the source of narcotics and the way in which they are moved to find the traffickers. But, unlike drugs, Chinese antiquities presented spoils that were very narrow in scope, with an even more limited supply of end users willing to spend half a million U.S. dollars on a Chinese plate, and an almost minute pool of thieves who could pull off the initial theft, smuggling, and getting the pieces to a final buyer. Although he still had no hard evidence, Lily was the only person at Site 518 with the three essential ingredients to make the scheme work: opportunity, a method or methods for moving the contraband, and a distribution source.

David turned away from the view as the voice of the BBC anchor filtered into his consciousness. Flooding on the Yangzi below the Three Gorges had resulted in 780 deaths in the last two days. The rising river and turbulent waters had caused traffic on the river to stop. Sixty thousand tourists—including fifteen thousand foreigners—on 350 boats had been off-loaded either above or below the Three Gorges Dam site. Seventeen hundred vehicles had been mobilized to evacuate tourists and residents alike, although many roads were closed.

David had watched the river rise dramatically in Bashan, had encountered the disgruntled tourists at the visitors’ center, and had seen the boats bunched on either side of the dam site. Below the dam where the river had breached its banks, he’d seen dead animals floating in sodden fields, people waiting on their roofs for rescue, and water spread all the way to the horizon, but he hadn’t registered just how bad the situation was, which became apparent as the report continued.

All schools below the dam site had been closed and production at sixteen hundred factories temporarily suspended. Telephone lines were down in many places. There’d been periodic power outages, and the government was recommending that people boil their water. More than five hundred dikes along the middle and lower reaches of the river had minor ruptures, and close to a million people had been mobilized to make repairs. In Hunan Province below the dam site, the Minzu Yuan dike was in danger of total failure. Preparations were being made to move three-quarters of a million people.

The anchor turned the report over to a weather analyst, who said that the monsoon system was moving east, where it would meet a typhoon brewing in the Pacific. Torrential rains were expected over the next few days, and the river would continue to rise as the runoff collected and continued its eastward push. A high death toll was anticipated in the provinces below the Three Gorges. Meanwhile, Hong Kong residents should prepare for typhoon conditions.

“WAS I INTIMATE WITH LILY? JESUS!”

“Mr. Miller, after what you’ve just told me, I see even more of a connection between the three of you. Brian worked for you, but in a sense he also cheated you. Lily brought to your attention objects that you could buy legally, but at the same time she denied you many things that you would have liked to have added to your collection. They’re both dead….”

“But the link isn’t me. The link is what they were smuggling.”

“Perhaps, but I hope you see how that still brings me back to you. You’re the only major collector who’s on the scene and has a vested interest in Brian’s and Lily’s activities. So I’ll ask you again, how close was your relationship with Lily?”

“As I told you before, I liked her a lot. We did business together. We often dined together. And, yes, we slept together on occasion. But it wasn’t personal, if you know what I mean.”

“How is sleeping together not personal?”

Stuart tilted his head down and looked up at her in a manner that could almost be considered coy. “I can see that you’re what we might call a woman of a certain age. Haven’t you had the occasion to have sex with someone just because it was convenient or the moment was right or a situation presented itself or you just wanted to have a little fun with no strings attached?”

“Which one was it with you and Lily?”

“For her or for me?”

“Let’s start with you.”

“It usually happened up at Bashan. So I guess you could say it was convenient, but it was also fun and there were no strings attached. Lily was good company. She loved to tell stories, and it was wonderful to watch how she embellished and elaborated on the truth. Did she tell you the one about the pornography that decorates the walls of the guesthouse?”

Hulan nodded.

“A total fabrication, but those stories were part of what made her such a great salesperson. Her fanciful tales of hidden treasures and concubine ghosts gave romance to material objects. It was malarkey, but entertaining malarkey. Without being too crude, it was that aspect of her that made her amusing in bed. I hope I’m not embarrassing you.”

“And for Lily? How did she see view your relationship?”

“Business, pure and simple. She and her company made a considerable amount of money off of me.”

“You said earlier that you like to be hands-on.”

He nodded cautiously as he followed her abrupt segue.

“Would you say you’re hands-on enough to have cut off Lily’s feet?”