“Is it a degrading castration of one’s own racial identity?” the physician continued. “Frankly, yes. I never like doing it.”
“But you do it anyway?” Aston said.
“I charge double for my time.” He laughed. “Anyway, the issue is quickly becoming academic. It’s like the fad among African Americans in the late fifties to try to have the kinks removed from their hair. That sort of genuflection to the master white race has gone out of style over here too, where even maids and chauffeurs know that the future belongs to Asia. I wasn’t expecting the reverse effect to begin for at least another decade, though. So far there’s only been one example. That’s why I knew exactly who you were talking about when you telephoned.”
At a nod from Chan Aston took out Moira’s photograph of her daughter, Clare, passed it over Yu’s desk.
“Yes, that’s her. Before, of course.”
“D’you have an after shot? If you do, we’d really appreciate an opportunity to copy it.”
Yu shook his head. “Alas, no. I practically begged her and offered to cut my fee, but she refused. It wasn’t a bad job either. To be honest, I was going to create quite a stir in the journals, but without the pix there’s no impact-not at my end of the profession.”
Chan nodded. It was an answer he’d expected. “You only took care of the eye shape. What about the eye color and the hair?”
“Eye color is the easiest to change. Tinted contact lenses. For hair she already had a wig. Short, straight, black, thick and Asian.” Yu grinned.
Aston took out the picture of the Eurasian reaching up to the strip light. Yu studied it.
“Definitely. Can I have a copy?”
That afternoon from home, after a shower, Chan telephoned Emily at all her numbers. Nobody, not even a servant or secretary, responded at any of them. When he was about to leave for work, his own telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.
“I love you. My prince, my benefactor.”
“What’s happened?”
“You did it to make me happy, didn’t you?”
“You’re crazy.”
“You offered me money, imagine! I’ll pay
“Get to the point, I’m in a hurry.”
Wheelchair Lee’s excitement sprang out of the telephone like a demon. “I will, I will. Oh, this is big, big, big. Big enough to hurt the 14K very badly. Just don’t ask me to keep quiet. It’ll take me a couple of days. I’ll have someone tell you where to meet me. We have to be careful so as not to spoil the party. Watch this space.”
Lee hung up.
From the police station Chan telephoned Emily again at home and at her office. Chan supposed she’d given instructions not to be disturbed, a Hong Kong princess withdrawing behind a curtain of cash now that the thrill had faded. Anger accumulated through the day and by early evening was burning a hole in his stomach. By nighttime he had decided to take a taxi up to the Peak again. He promised himself one full-blooded slap across her face. Some satisfactions were worth a career.
45
A top vans and cars parked aslant, magic lanterns spilled indigo light, beckoning to a police Halloween. Walkie- talkies crackled; stern male voices speaking in English and Cantonese cut across the night’s cicada static. Chan had the taxi drop him a hundred yards down the hill; he walked cautiously, like a fox crossing ice. Closer, halogen lamps burned caves of light out of the tropical darkness. An ambulance waited in the drive, its back doors open, disclosing stark white sheets and crimson blankets stacked neatly at the feet of stretchers. In the intensity of one of the floodlights a tall figure turned, one hand covering its eyes; under the hand’s shadow Chan made out an almost featureless face the color and texture of potato, a mouth waiting for a cue. Under the mouth the body wore the full dress uniform of a chief superintendent of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. The mouth sagged with relief when Chan emerged from the night.
“Incredibly fast response, even for you,” Riley said. “Just this minute left a message at Mongkok. Tried to get you at home too. How on earth did you get here so fast?”
“Taxi,” Chan said. “What happened?”
“Unclear as yet. Damned tricky one, though. The publicity’s going to be as bad as if the governor died. They’re draining the pool. I called you just in case there’s a connection to your mincer case. I’d heard that you intended to question her.”
At back around the swimming pool more halogen lamps bored into the water, bounced brittle light off the tiled surround and painted white masks over serious English and Chinese faces. From somewhere a sucking sound accompanied the descending water level that fell perhaps an inch every thirty seconds. No one had thought it worth trying to save the naked woman in the center; she remained anchored, apparently by her neck, while her body and legs swooped toward the surface in a perfect frozen dive. Everyone in the business saw there was no life in it to save. Yellow fluid dribbled slightly from the gaping mouth; intelligence had forsaken those eyes hours ago.
When the water level sunk to waist-height, Emily turned to face him. Two U-shaped scars under her breasts revealed a secret vulnerability. Chan regretted his curses.
“For now we’d better treat it as suspect homicide?” Riley said, coming up behind him, his voice rising into a question.
“Of course.” Out of the corner of his eye Chan saw the Chinese technicians dusting the Italian marble table with meticulous Oriental care. Sweaty hands on smooth surfaces made the most beautiful prints:
When the water was at knee height, Chan jumped in, knelt to examine the chain that held her. It was padlocked through a thick patent leather belt that was buckled around her neck. An extra hole had been bored in the leather. At the other end the chain was padlocked to a cast-iron grille at the bottom of the deep end. Her hands were handcuffed behind her back. Just under her thighs on the tile surface of the pool lay three keys. First impressions were finely balanced: A suicide dressed up as murder? Murder masquerading as suicide? Or merely an elaborate suicide with an element of self-mockery: The belt around her throat was Chanel; the two padlocks were solid brass and glinted gold in the water. Chan borrowed paper and pencil from a detective constable. With Riley hovering over his shoulder he sketched the swimming pool, the position of the body.
“Of course, unless it’s related to the Mincer Murders, it’s out of our area. We’ll have to give it to Central.”
Chan stepped back, sketched the position of the house in relation to the pool. “In the morning. Until then it’s ours. And if it is related, I don’t want to come in cold on another detective’s screwup.”
“Quite.”
Chan looked at Riley. “Best not touch anything, sir. I wouldn’t want you to become part of the chain of evidence. Have you touched anything?”
The question had the desired effect. Riley retreated to the collection of vehicles on the other side of the house. Chan followed him. In one of the police vans he found a video recorder which he took to the pool at the back. Everyone moved out of the way when he started to shoot. It was an automatic reflex: Overall shot of area; relationship of pool to house; film closely around the perimeter; zoom in on body; pause over cigarette butts, if any, broken fencing, if any, bushes. From the corner of his eye he saw that the technicians had finished dusting the marble table. He panned slowly from pool to table:
There was no point videoing the inside of the house. Three officers had reported that there were no signs of disturbance. Pausing over her with the camera still whirring as she lay, now faceup on the bottom of the pool, Chan acknowledged a failure of professional objectivity. Through the lens he saw a fine, strong spirit, lost in a cloud.
