The Interior - Страница 68

"How long have they been dead?" Hulan asked.

"That's my inspector!" Fong announced cheerfully to the room. "We have a case of autoerotic death, and she wants to know how long they've been dead!"

Some of the others in the room, who were dusting for fingerprints, looking through luggage, and picking through the trash receptacle, chortled. Hulan was not amused.

Fong rocked back on his haunches. "Two hours at most."

"How were they discovered?"

"The maid came in. Imagine what she thought!" Pong grinned again, then finally turned serious. "Last year I went to an international symposium on forensic medicine in Stockholm. They had a panel on autoerotic death. I went-curious. I had never seen a case myself, but I'd read about it in foreign literature."

He pointed at the bodies and assumed a scholarly tone. "You see how it works, don't you? With every one of his thrusts, her ropes are pulled tighter. Every time he pulls back, his ropes are pulled tighter. The lack of air is supposed to heighten sexual pleasure. People die like this all the time in the West," he said more in wonder than disapproval.

Neither Hulan nor David enlightened Pong about his misconception.

"But you see the problem, don't you, Inspector?"

Hulan stared at the bodies. The faces were purple. Pinpricks of broken blood vessels dotted the whites of their eyes, their faces and necks. Hulan shook her head.

Pong glanced over at David. "But you do."

"I think so," David said. "I understand the anatomy of what's happened here, but who tied the knots?"

"Precisely!"

Hulan, blaming her queasiness on her pregnancy, looked numbly at the two men, while David wondered where her mind was. She was usually so far ahead of him in these matters.

"Pretend you're going to have this kind of sex," David said. "You want to heighten your experience of orgasm. You cut off your partner's blood supply. Maybe she cuts off yours. Maybe you rig something that will help both of you. But look, Hulan, look at how they're bound. Once she's tied, she can't tie him and there's no way he could do that to himself. It's murder made to look like a sexual mistake."

"I agree," Pong said. "But when I get them back to the lab, I will test for semen just to make sure. I will send you the report…"

These words jolted Hulan. Pong didn't know about her problems. Either that or he knew but chose not to mention them, which was completely out of character. When things were bad, her colleagues enjoyed making furtive asides just loud enough so that she could hear them. But this morning no one had stopped her or even questioned her about the story that was on the television and in the newspaper. This could only mean that Zai or someone higher wanted her to see this.

"One last question, Pathologist Pong. Has the team found a satchel or any papers?"

"Passports and the like. It's a very clean room except for this." With that, Hulan pulled on David's sleeve. Without good-byes they left the room, picked up a pale Henry Knight in the hall, rode the elevator down, and walked back into the brutal heat without one person stopping them or making a single comment.

"Did the same person kill all of these people?" David asked when they got back in the car.

"I think the better question is, are we supposed to think so?" Hulan replied. "Are we supposed to take that scene at face value-a mistake of sexual deviance? Or are we intended to recognize it as a cleverly staged murder?"

The car pulled onto the toll road. The traffic cleared immediately, and Lo was able to drive at a steady, though still restrained, pace.

"I assumed murder," David said, "because it was so obvious, so dramatic. He wanted to flaunt what he was able to do."

"Jesus Christ!" Henry exploded. "What's wrong with you people? What we saw in there… God, it was horrific!"

"Is it the same person?" David repeated, totally ignoring Henry's outburst.

"If you look at the modus operand!, it could be. Suffocation has been the key. Miaoshan-hung from a rope. Pearl and Guy-also hung by a rope."

"But Keith and Xiao Yang were different," David said.

"Yes, theirs were more physical deaths-hitting someone with a car, throwing someone from a roof. To me, those murders imply a person with a desire for a physical act, while the suffocation and ropes suggest a tighter mind, someone who wants to be hands-on during the project, someone who wants to feel and watch the breath stop. So to my mind, this could be one person who's acquired a taste for murder and is embellishing the methods by which he kills, or it could be two or more people. We just don't know yet."

The car slowed as it got off the toll road. The airport wasn't set up for private planes. There was no VIP lounge or even a private airfield. Instead, those few people who flew into China on private or government jets used a side entrance-the same one used by maintenance-to reach the tarmac. Up ahead they could see the guardhouse that protected that entrance and the two People's Liberation Army soldiers in their summer greens with machine guns draped over their shoulders flanking it. Lo asked, "What do you want me to say?"

Hulan looked over at Henry. "You know what to do," she said.

Henry shrank into his seat.

"You want to help Sun?" David asked. "The only way we're going to do that is if we get on your plane."

Henry nodded, resigned. It was one thing to talk bravely about saving an old friend, David thought sympathetically. It was another to risk arrest in China.

The car moved forward. When they reached the gate, Henry pushed a button and his window glided down. The guard approached, surly and stiff, but before he could speak, Henry snapped his fingers and said loudly, "Come over here, boy."

The guard glanced over the roof of the car at his companion. What impertinence was this? his look seemed to say.

"Don't dawdle!" Henry blasted. He hit the side of the car with his fist. "Come here!" The guard swaggered over. Henry pointed right at the guard's chest, an insult of the highest order. "You! See that plane over there?" Henry dragged his finger away from the guard to the direction of his plane. "That's my baby. Let me pass!"

The guard bent down to see who else was in the car. Henry pressed a button and the tinted window rolled up. The guard banged on the window and started yelling. Lo kept his eyes forward. David and Hulan pretended they didn't hear a thing. After a moment Henry cracked the window an inch or so.

"Get out of the car," the guard said in Mandarin. To emphasize his point, he tapped the muzzle of his machine gun on the glass.

"No speakee Chinese!" Henry yapped. David groaned. "Now look, buddy," Henry went on. Somewhere along the way he seemed to have added a broad Southern accent. "I'm a personal friend of President Jiang Zemin. Jiang Zemin! Get it?" Henry snapped his fingers in the guard's face, each time rapping out, "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!"

The guard, flummoxed by this spectacle, motioned to the other guard. The gate rose, and Lo stepped on the gas.

Henry sank back into the leather seat. "You wanted bluster. I blustered."

"You did a good job," Hulan said.

"I acted like a total asshole and thoroughly insulted your countrymen."

"It worked," she replied.

The car stopped next to the plane. The pilot and copilot stood at the bottom of the stairs, sweating in the sun. "We're ready to go, sir," the pilot said.

"Just get us out of here as soon as you can," Henry said, and with that they boarded the plane.

22

AS THE PILOT STARTED THE ENGINES, HENRY QUICKLY checked to see if the fax had come through. It hadn't. They belted in, the plane taxied out to the runway, and after a short, though agonizing wait, they were given permission to take off. When the plane reached cruising altitude, Henry unbuckled his seat belt and said ironically, "I haven't had this much excitement since the war. And I want you to know right now, I'm not enjoying it any better."

David smiled. It took a special person to deal with this kind of danger with humor. He looked over to see if Hulan had had the same reaction, but she'd fallen asleep. He knew that sleep was a way to escape tough circumstances, but he'd been in life-threatening situations with Hulan before and he'd never seen her shut down like this. He reached over and touched her cheek. It was burning hot.

"Hulan? Honey? Are you okay?"

Her eyes blinked open. She straightened in the seat and smoothed her hair. "I must have dozed off."

"You're burning up," David said.

Hulan shook her head. "Of course. It's about forty degrees centigrade and ninety-nine percent humidity."

Outside, David thought. In the jet it was a comfortable seventy-two.

"If I could have a little water," she continued, "I'm sure I'll be fine. I'm probably just dehydrated."

Henry got up and pulled a bottle of Evian out of the refrigerator. Hulan unscrewed the top and drank straight from the bottle. She looked over at David and said in a voice that made it clear she wanted no argument, "Really, I'm fine."

What could he do but take her word for it? David glanced over at Henry, who only shrugged. His look seemed to say there wasn't much you could do if a woman wasn't going to be square with you.

"Mr. Knight," Hulan said, "you're going to a lot of trouble for Sun. Are you ready to tell us why?"