A Deadly Injustice (21 page)

‘I have found him. The doctor. He was practising in the village in the hills just as I had been told. But when I eventually got there, he had been called to some remote farm. He is not due back for a couple of days, so I thought I would return. The village is less than a day away, and I reckon it would be better for you to be there when he returns, Nick. If he proved reluctant to talk, I could do nothing. And by the time I came back for you, he might have been scared off. This way, you can be in the village with me before he even returns.'

‘How do you know he is our man? Sun is a common name, I believe.'

Tadeusz laughed, and the flame-scorched side of his face turned even redder.

‘When I enquired about a doctor, the elders of the village suggested I might like to go and find one elsewhere. They hinted that he was not the best physician in the world, or why would he be hiding away in their poor village. He was all they could afford, but I surely could find better. No, it's our man, I am sure.'

‘Good. Then we will set off first thing in the morning.'

I looked enquiringly over at Lin, who inclined his head slightly. It was time to confront Tadeusz.

‘But before we do, there is something else you need to tell us about.'

Tadeusz looked ingenuously from me to Lin.

‘What is that, Nick?'

Lin whisked the incriminating note from his sleeve, and Pyka's face fell.

‘There is no point in asking where you got that, is there?'

Lin looked stern.

‘I know it was wrong of me to go through your possessions, Tadeusz. But you have to admit, we deserve an explanation.'

Pyka looked nervously across the courtyard. He didn't want everyone to see his humiliation, least of all Gurbesu whom he worshipped from afar.

‘Can we go somewhere more private?'

Lin waved an elegant hand towards his own rooms. Tadeusz went ahead, and we followed, probably as heavy-hearted as he was. Betrayal is bitter, but especially so when it involves one of your closest and trusted friends. Once we were in Lin's room, Po Ku was sent on an errand to get him out of the way. All three of us remained standing, as the tension was palpable. No one seemed ready to speak first, so I took a deep breath.

‘Why, Tadeusz?'

He looked a little defiant at first.

‘I suppose it's no good denying it.'

In reply, Lin just waved the letter from Ko.

‘No, I suppose not.'

Suddenly, it was as if the inflated bladder I had seen Chinee officials kicking about for fun had burst, and Tadeusz's shoulders slumped.

‘God, I am sorry, Chu-Tsai. I felt terrible enough reporting to Ko about your meeting with the young actor, but spreading those rumours made me feel worse. Believe me, I did not suggest anything improper took place between you and Tien-jan Hsiu. I was just under orders to report on anyone you and Nick met. When I got that –' he gestured at the letter still in Lin's accusing hand – ‘I was disgusted, but there was nothing I could do but obey Ko.'

‘Why?'

It was Lin's turn to ask, and Pyka looked crestfallen.

‘Because he has promised me information in return.'

I looked at Lin, who returned my puzzled gaze.

‘What information could make you betray your friends?'

The silversmith gulped, and a tear formed in the corner of his eye coursing down his unscarred cheek.

‘Information about my family.'

I felt a shock run through my spine. Tadeusz had been captured by the Mongols more than twenty-five years ago, when they devastated his home town of Breslau. He had always told us that his wife and children had died in the attack. Was he now suggesting that Ko Su-Tsung had news of them? It was impossible. Or was it? Ko, as master of the Censorate, a department that spied on all the officials who worked for Kubilai, had unprecedented access to records and files to do with the running of the empire. Could he have found something out? I put an arm on Tadeusz's shoulder.

‘Do you really think he knows what happened to them?'

He sighed deeply.

‘I don't think so, but I couldn't just ignore it, could I? What if they were still alive?'

My heart went out to this man I had just recently almost written off as a traitor. As a man myself who had lost one he loved in Venice, I could understand his dilemma. I personally thought Ko was playing him, and had no real information to sell, but I would stand by him.

‘Tadeusz, you should have come to us as soon as Ko approached you. We are your friends and we would have helped.'

He stared me in the face for the first time since he had been accused.

‘I know that now. But I was fearful of losing everything all over again.'

Lin, who was usually embarrassed by shows of affection, touched Tadeusz briefly on the arm.

‘You won't lose anything, least of all our friendship. I will help you find this information about your family, if it exists. And in the meantime, you will continue reporting to Ko.'

Tadeusz looked aghast.

‘You want me to continue spying on you?'

Lin smiled that little secret smile of his.

‘No, but you will send letters back to Ko, misleading him about our investigation to such an extent he will be humiliated on our triumphant return to Tatu.'

I clapped a relieved Tadeusz on the back, and roared with laughter at Lin's clever stratagem.

‘Now, let's have some supper together. I have a play script to show you all.'

The meal was a restrained affair, especially as Lin and I had agreed we would say nothing to anyone else about Tadeusz's misdemeanour. Po Ku, who served us, was indifferent to the atmosphere anyway. But I think Gurbesu suspected something was wrong. Tadeusz was more subdued than normal, and only replied tersely to her when she asked for news about the errant doctor. She cast a glance at me, so I shook my head slightly and she got the hint. She stopped pressing him.

Once Po Ku had cleared the remains of our meal, I produced the linen-wrapped parcel. Handing it over to Lin, I invited him to read it.

‘This is what we have been looking for. The text of the play with Nu's hints hidden in it.'

Eagerly, Lin unwrapped it, revealing a stained and well-thumbed set of sheets stitched together along the top edge. He began to leaf through the pages, muttering the lines to himself under his breath. Impatient to learn what secrets the play script held, I began to form a question. But before it could emerge from my lips, Lin held up his hand. I quelled my bubbling curiosity, and Tadeusz, Gurbesu and I sat in silence while Lin scanned the script. Only when he had turned the last page did he comment.

‘I now can guess what Nu saw, or thought he saw.' He waved the script in the air. ‘This is a fair copy of the original text – or as close as any copy ever is – and in it are Nu's amendments. See, he has scribbled one in on this page and scored the original out.'

I looked closely, and could see where a change had been made, though I did not understand the words.

‘What does it say?'

‘It should read, “Who could have guessed behind that smile a dagger lay; or that my eyes beheld my own lonely gravesite.” But he changed the end of the lines to read, “Or that my eyes beheld the person who sold the poison.”'

I leaned forward excitedly.

‘Nu did see something at Geng's house. What else did you find?'

‘Well, I remembered a line about monkshood, and I thought it was relevant to our case. But it was just coincidence. The line really does read, “Get your monkshood, your mountain fennel.” But Nu has drawn a circle round the symbol for monkshood all the same, giving it emphasis. However there can be no doubt about this other textual change.'

Lin flicked through the sheets until he found what he was looking for. He took a deep breath and declaimed the proper lines.

‘“Keep the memory safely locked in your head; never hesitate, never wonder am I right?” But now it reads, “Keep the memory safely locked in your head; the boy ensured that he was dead.”

For me, that was the final clincher. Ho had told me via the priestess that he had stolen this script from Geng's house. The only person who could have therefore taken it from the storeroom of plays at the theatre in order to suppress the clear hints in the text, and who had therefore probably been at the play to witness the new lines, was Old Geng's son.

Wenbo had to be the killer.

TWENTY

If you don't want others to know what you have done, it's better not to have done it anyway
.

T
he following morning Tadeusz and I rode out of Pianfu for the nameless village in the hills where the good Doctor Sun was skulking. It was barely light, with the autumn sun just creeping across the sweep of the flat plain to our right. The air was crisp and cold, presaging a hard winter to come. Already heavy, dark clouds hung over the mountains ahead of us. It could mean snow was on the way. I shivered, eager to finish this mess of a murder case and be gone before we were trapped by snowdrifts. I had experienced that once in the land of Rus, where the very breath from your body would freeze and turn to icicles as it escaped your lips. I did not want that sort of experience again.

My companion was understandably tense, and maintained a silence as we rode along. He was no doubt thinking of Lin's proposal that he should continue to report to Ko, but send him misleading information. He was still scared about losing his family for a second time, I could tell. But his course was now set. As was ours today. We had debated the way ahead last night, and it had resulted in Tadeusz and me rising early to be on our way. The decision not to arrest Wenbo first had taken some time.

‘Wenbo can be taken tomorrow morning. There is no point rushing over to the Geng property now. It is very late, and he and the old lady will be safely in their beds.'

Lin was certain that nothing needed to be done precipitately. And I agreed, especially as our evidence was flimsy at present. It was based on the changes in a playscript made by a dead man. Actors had bad reputations generally, and it would take nothing at all for Li Wen-Tao to undermine our case in such circumstances. No actual link had been established between Old Geng's death, and the murder of P'ing-Yang Nu. Li could argue that internal rivalry might have been the cause of the actor's death. It was only the fact that the playscript had been found at Geng's house that made the link. And the only person who could establish that was the man who had found it there. I voiced my concerns over the thief, Ho.

‘It is quite possible that Ho will not even bear witness to the book being at Geng's house. It fell into his hands by theft, after all.'

Lin pulled a face.

‘And even if he did speak up, Li could silence him with a threat to imprison him. Li still does not want his original verdict overturned.'

I reassured him on that matter, though.

‘Don't worry about Li. I have made . . . erm . . . arrangements which will prevent the prefect from crossing us.'

Lin looked questioningly into my eyes, not sure what I was referring to. I waved a dismissive hand.

‘You don't want to know. Let us just say it came at a cost.'

While Lin tried to digest my enigmatic pronunciations, Tadeusz intervened in the debate.

‘What about the doctor? Is it possible he could give us the evidence we need? If we can verify that the poison that killed Old Geng came from him, and that he sold it to Wenbo, then we are home and dry.'

‘
If
he sold it to the boy. We don't yet know that, and we don't know if this beggar that was present had anything to do with the killing. Let's not forget him.'

Gurbesu, who had been silent throughout the debate, laid out our approach for us.

‘Forget about taking Wenbo for the moment. He is going nowhere, because he is infatuated with Jianxu. I could tell that from what she said when I spoke to her. She made a joke of it, because she has no interest in him. She sees him as a boy, though he is the same age as she is. Go and apprehend the doctor, and see what emerges from that.'

That had been our decision.

As we plunged into the rocky defile that was the entrance to the village where we hoped to find Sun, Tadeusz leaned across in the saddle. He took my arm, a look of deep pain on his ruined face.

‘You don't think my wife or children are still alive, do you, Nick?'

I looked him in the eyes, and told him what I thought, not what he wanted to hear. I was no good at platitudes, anyway.

‘Truthfully? No. You know more than anyone in the West how savage the Mongols were twenty or thirty years ago. We even called them Tartars, as though they were demons out of Hell. And their reputation was well earned. They would wipe out a whole village, even a whole town to make a point to the rest of us. We learned that resistance was futile, because it only brought bloody revenge. Of course, Kubilai has changed all that, adopting some of the ways of the cultured Chinee that Lin is so proud of. But make no mistake. In their soul, the Mongols are still nomadic warriors, whose only way to grow and progress is by conquest. It is something the Song emperor will find out soon enough.'

I was referring, of course, to the ongoing war Kubilai waged with the remnants of the Chinee empire that he had taken by force in the north. The Song people were stubbornly holding out in the city of Siang-Yang-Fu that sat on the banks of a tributary of the great Yang-tse river. The river was the final barrier between Kubilai and the decadent empire in the south. And the doorway to the Song was the besieged city. It had held out so far. But one day it would fall, and the inhabitants would regret their intransigence. I turned in my saddle to face Tadeusz.