Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel (2 page)

A distant humming interrupted his thoughts and he looked up to see the wallowing shape of the ferry as it approached the terminal. Fifteen minutes later Chen stepped off at the opposite dock and into the labyrinth of streets that constituted Zhen Shu Island.

This was a rough area, and Chen walked warily, but no one bothered him. He supposed that he was anonymous enough: a middle-aged man wearing unfashionable indigo clothes. But occasionally he would see someone start and shy away, and realize that he, or at least the aura of his profession, had been recognized. No one liked policemen, and cops who were in league with Hell were doubly unwelcome. So Chen walked unmolested through the narrow streets of Zhen Shu until he found himself standing in front of Su Lo Ling's Funeral Parlor.

Unlike the neighboring shops, the funeral parlor was a magnificent building. A black faux-marble facade boasted gilded columns on either side of the door, and red lanterns hung from the gable in a gaudy, tasteless display. This was hardly inappropriate, Chen reflected, given the number of citizens who met their end in a similar manner. A narrow alleyway ran along one side, leading further into the maze of Zhen Shu. The sign on the door proclaimed that the funeral parlor was closed. Undeterred, Chen kept his finger on the bell until blinds twitched from the shops on either side. Over the insistent jangling of the doorbell, he could hear footsteps hastening down the hall. The door was flung open to reveal a short, stout gentleman in a long, red robe.

"What do you want? This is a place of rest, not some kind of—oh." His eyes widened. Chen never knew how people could tell; it must be something behind his eyes, some inner darkness that revealed his close association with the worlds beyond the world. When younger he had spent hours peering into the mirror, trying to detect what it was that made people so afraid, but even to himself his round, ordinary face seemed as bland and inexpressive as the moon. Perhaps this very impassiveness was what unnerved others.

"I'm sorry," the stout man said in more conciliatory tones. "I didn't realize."

Chen displayed his badge. "Franchise Police Department. Precinct Thirteen. Detective Inspector Chen. Do you mind if I come in? I'd like to ask you a few questions."

With many protestations of the honor done to the establishment, the stout man ushered Chen inside. The interior of the funeral parlor was as ostentatious as the facade. Chen was shown into a long, mirrored room with a scarlet rug. Carp floated in a wall-length tank at the far end of the room, their reflections drifting to infinity in the multiple mirrors. The stout man clapped his hands, twice, summoning a small, wan maid.

"Tea?" whispered the maid.

"Thanks. What sort do you have?"

The maid closed her eyes for a moment and recited:

"Jade Dragon Oolong; Peach and Ginseng; Gunpowder Black. . ." She rattled through a list of some fifteen teas before Chen could stop her. Evidently the funeral parlor was not short of funds.

"I'll have any of the oolongs. Thank you."

"Now, Detective Inspector." The stout owner of the funeral parlor settled himself into a nearby armchair. "I am Su Lo Ling, the proprietor of this establishment. What can we do to help?"

"I understand you handled the funeral arrangements for a ceremony a week ago, for a girl named Pearl Tang. The daughter of someone who needs no introduction from me."

"Indeed, indeed. So very sad. Such a young woman. Anorexia is a most tragic condition. It just goes to show," and here Mr Ling shook his head philosophically, "that not even the materially blessed among us may attain true happiness."

"How very wise. Forgive me for asking such a delicate question, but were there any—irregularities—with the funeral?"

"None whatsoever. You must understand, Detective Inspector, that we are a very old firm. The Lings have been in the funeral business since the seventeenth century, in what was then Peking, before I moved the business here. Our connections with the relevant authorities are ancient. There have never been any difficulties with the paperwork." A small pause. "Might I ask why you pose such a question?"

"Your establishment does indeed possess a most honorable reputation," Chen said. "However, I fear that an irregularity—doubtless nothing to do with the manner in which Pearl's funeral was handled—has nonetheless occurred."

"Oh?" There was the faintest flicker of unease in Ling's face, which Chen noted.

"You see, it appears that the young lady in question did not in fact reach the Celestial Shores. A ghost-photograph of her has been taken, revealing her current whereabouts to be somewhere in the port area of Hell."

Ling's mouth sagged open in shock.

"In
Hell?
But the payments were made, the sacrifices impeccably ordered. . .I don't understand."

"Neither does her mother."

"The poor woman must be distraught."

"She is naturally concerned that the spirit of her only child is not now reclining among the peach orchards of Heaven, but currently appears to be wandering around a region best described as dodgy," Chen said.

"I'll show you the paperwork. I'll go and get it now."

Together, Ling and Chen pored over the documents. To Chen's experienced eyes, everything seemed to be in order: the immigration visa with the Celestial authorities, the docking fees of the ghost-boat, the license of passage across the Sea of Night. He felt sure that the explanation for Pearl's manifestation in the infernal realms could be traced back to Ling, but the parlor owner's round face was a paradigm of bland concern.

"Well," Chen said at last. "This is indeed a tragedy, but I can see nothing here that is at all irregular. I realize that you operate a policy of strict confidentiality, but if you should happen to hear anything—"

"Your august ears will be the first to know," Ling assured him, and with innumerable expressions of mutual gratitude, Chen departed.

He returned to the precinct, intending to make some additions to his report, but on arrival he was summoned to the office of the precinct captain. Sung eyed him warily as he stepped through the door. Captain Su Sung looked more like one of Genghis Khan's descendants than ever, Chen reflected. Sung's family was Uighur, from the far west of China, and he was known to be proud of the fact. A subtle man, Chen reflected, a man who looked like everyone's notion of a barbarian and capitalized upon it to hide a quick intelligence.

"Afternoon, Detective Inspector," Sung said now, with civility.

"Good afternoon, sir," Chen said with equal politeness.

"H'suen Tang's wife has been to see you." It was a statement rather than a question.

"That's right. This morning. Her daughter's gone missing."

"And her daughter's already dead, right?"

"That's correct, sir."

Captain Sung sighed. "All right, Detective. I leave all this supernatural business to you, as you know, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. But I've had an e-mail from the governor's office this afternoon. The governor's a friend of the Tangs, it seems, and apparently Mrs Tang hasn't been—well, quite right in the head since her daughter died. In fact, she's evidently been behaving strangely for months, and Tang's naturally concerned. The last thing he wants is a scandal."

Su Sung sat back in his chair and contemplated his subordinate through half-closed lids. The air conditioning was still down, and the captain's office was as hot as an oven. A thin thread of sweat trickled down the back of Chen's neck.

"Scandal?" Chen said with careful neutrality. "Perhaps you might elaborate?"

"Do enough work to keep Mrs Tang happy, but don't start shit-stirring. The last thing anyone wants is for the press to get hold of the fact that H'suen Tang's fourteen-year-old daughter was working as a cut-price whore."

"I'll be discreet," Chen said. Unexpectedly, Sung smiled, which transformed his heavy features into something resembling menace.

"Make sure you are," the captain said.

Chen went back to his desk, pretending not to notice that his colleagues hastily drew coats and papers aside as he passed by. He sat down, reached for the little phial containing the flatscreen, then poured its contents carefully over the desk panel. The thin nanofilm of the flatscreen oozed across the panel like watery slime, and Chen wondered again whether he'd done the right thing in choosing this particular color scheme. When the new technology had been introduced, most of Chen's colleagues had selected lucky red as their flatscreen color, but Chen had chosen green, feeling in the back of his mind that the less resemblance the thing bore to blood, the better. Now, he watched suspiciously as the flatscreen settled into its panel and its programs started to run. He did not trust all this new biotech, no matter how much the media raved about it. What was wrong with good, old-fashioned electronics, and a nice colored box like a large, boiled sweet that you could turn on and off with your finger? As for the technology that lay behind it—using actual human beings as interface nexi for this new equipment, let alone subjecting them to supposedly benign viruses—it all sounded deeply unnatural to Chen. Then again, the nexi volunteered, and they were certainly rumored to be well paid. Well, that was progress for you. Chen heaved a sigh of relief as the data scrolled across the screen; at least he'd done it properly this time and the screen hadn't ended up oozing onto the floor.

Moving the pen with care across the surface of the screen, Chen called up a list of the city's death records over the course of the last month. Pearl Tang's name was among them, and so were the names of a number of young girls. Chen frowned, and scrolled through the records of the spring, summoning up coroners' reports and trying to discern patterns. Anorexia was reported in a number of cases, but then, this was hardly unusual. If he really wanted a lead (which given the captain's warnings, Chen was not sure that he did), it would make sense to call up the Celestial records as well.

Sighing, Chen scribbled a note on a piece of red paper and took out his cigarette lighter. At least this was technology that he could understand. He folded the note into an intricate octagon, muttered a brief prayer, and set the note alight. Then he waited as it crumbled into fragrant ash and dispersed into whatever airs existed between Heaven and the world of Earth. Time for another cup of tea, Chen decided, and made his way as unobtrusively as possible to the vending machine.

When he returned, the requested data was already scrolling down the screen: some conscientious Celestial clerk in the Immigration Office, Chen supposed. He was rather hazy about the
modus operandi
of communications between the other realms and the world of the living; once upon a time, the mandates of the gods would have been made known through signs in the heavens or from the lips of prophets, but now that the People's Republic of China was a modern twenty-first-century state, who knew how deities and demons alike managed the interfaces? One thing was certain, however: this new method of bio-communication was a lot faster than the old system. In the old days—that is, up until a year ago—he would have had to wait over an hour before the required data was transmitted. Now, it had come through in minutes.

Sipping his tea, Chen began cross-referencing the names of the girls who had died against the names of those spirits who had actually arrived in Heaven. The Celestial Immigration Department was a body of legendary pedantry and thoroughness, and Chen was sure that no one would have slipped through the net. Yet at least five of the names on the deceased list were not matched by corresponding records in Immigration. This might mean, of course, only that the spirits had been destined for Hell, not Heaven; getting hold of Hell's records would take longer, and would also mean calling in several favors. Chen glanced at the clock. It was already close to seven, long after the end of his shift. If he could get hold of his contacts this evening, he thought, pressure might be brought to bear. . . He was about to pick up his jacket and leave the precinct house when the large and tremulous face of Sergeant Ma manifested like an apparition over the partition of the cubicle.

"Detective Inspector?"

"Yes?"

"There's a phone call for you. From H'suen Tang. He says it's urgent."

Chen was suddenly aware of a cold constriction in his chest, as though his lungs had begun to crystallize. He said, "Okay. Thanks for telling me. Put him through."

At the other end of the line, H'suen Tang's voice sounded tinny and distant, as though he were speaking from the bottom of a well. The industrialist said without preamble, "Chen, isn't it? My wife came to see you this morning. Your name and number were written in her diary." He paused, expectantly, but Chen said nothing, deeming it better to await developments. Besides, he resented the industrialist's preemptory tone, and he'd long since ceased to be impressed by the power wielded by other human beings. In terms of the larger metaphysical picture, Tang was a very small fish indeed. But Tang's next words surprised him. The industrialist said, "Look, I need your help. I think something's happened to my wife."

"What do you mean?"

"I think you'd better come over and see for yourself." Tang sounded both afraid and irritable, as if annoyed by the unfamiliar phenomenon of his own fear. Calmly, Chen took the details of the address and hung up. He considered calling a taxi, but the traffic situation in Singapore Three was so dire at rush hour that it was quicker to go by tram. Chen left the precinct house at a brisk trot and headed for the nearest stop, where he found a disconsolate queue of people waiting for the next available tram. It was, if such a thing were possible, even more humid than the afternoon. Chen mopped his brow with a tissue, but was instantly moist once more. He thought with longing of his home: the houseboat swaying gently in the currents of the harbor, and the breezes from the South China Sea like the breath of water dragons, spice-laden and cool. He closed his eyes and pictured Inari as she pottered about the houseboat: watering plants; humming to herself beneath her breath as she selected ingredients for the hot dishes she loved to make, as close an approximation as she could to the meals of her native home. Chen hoped he wouldn't be home too late, and wondered with unease precisely what Tang had meant by "something."