It was dark down here, he saw. All but two of the large candles had expired. Still, it was lovely by candlelight. The walls were lined with large and small jars of formalin holding organs, bits of tissue, and carefully excised body parts. There was a central drain in the floor leading to a holding tank below. The tank emptied into a macerator, the same kind used on larger fishing boats to grind fish guts into thin gruel before the bloody soup was finally pumped overboard into the harbor.
In the center of his busy autopsy suite sat a brand new table. It was the very latest thing in morgue decor. It had two tiers. The top slab, where Margie was now, was simply a perforated metal sheet. The perforations allowed flowing water and bodily fluids to seep through to the lower tier. This level was also metal and served as a catch basin. A pump ensured a continuous flow of water over the lower tier, keeping it clean.
This one’s name was Marge Goodwin. Stupid-sounding name, he felt, even for an unattractive and overweight American. She was the wife of a corrupt corporate executive near the top echelons at the Bank of China. General Moon had demanded one million dollars for the dear wife’s safe return. The deadline had expired. No word from the disobedient banker. It was assumed he had gone to the police. Pointless, since the new chief, like many others in the new Hong Kong, was in Moon’s pocket.
Alas, Moon had decreed death for Marge Goodwin.
The general, through his aide, Major Tang, had forwarded this late-breaking information to his most prized assassin earlier in the evening. It arrived via an encoded message. It was usually a simple transposition code, based on the fact that it was the third day of the week and that the date was the fifteenth of the sixth month. It was also, as always, hand-delivered by an anonymous fisherman on an anonymous sampan.
There were thousands of such nondescript men and women living on sampans in the harbor, large numbers of them on the general’s secret payroll in one capacity or another. In a recent move to solidify his position in Hong Kong, Moon had decided to equip this army of coolies with automatic weapons and grenade launchers. Concealed, but, still, they were a formidable secret militia.
Decoding Moon’s unusually lengthy message in his small study, Hu had further learned that he was to have a new and most exciting assignment. In Paris, yet. Très chic, n’est-ce pas? He was so thrilled, he noted the news in one of his black leather notebooks. He wrote much of this diary in haiku form, the poetry being one of the extremely few things Japonais that Hu had cause to admire.
Hu was expected at the Golden Dragon tonight at precisely nine o’clock. A quiet dinner with the general’s aide-de-camp, Major Tony Tang. Tang, whose westernized first name and chic appearance made him a glamorous society figure in Hong Kong, would provide his itinerary. Efficient preparations had already been made on his behalf by the general’s secretarial staff.
According to the general’s message, he was prebooked, first class, on the British Airways flight to Paris next morning. There was a deluxe suite waiting for him at the George V hotel. The loveliest flowers in that hotel, he thought. Brilliantly arranged. He’d have to find out who did them. Buy the boy a drink and then, who knew?
But he had to tidy up his nest before he left, of course. Hu Xu had been only too happy to learn he was to put the distasteful victim out of her misery. As was his habit, he just took his own sweet time doing it.
He’d been her host for just forty-eight deliriously happy hours. She was almost complete. A few finishing touches here and there tonight and, voilà, pop her in the oven! My, but wasn’t she the noisy one? He had grown tired of all the fretful blather. He had ceased to be interested in the sound of her. Pausing on the bottom rung, and looking coyly over his shoulder at Marge, he finished his work tune with a dramatic tremolo flourish.
I say, my darling, you look wonderful to-ni-i-ght…
She screamed. Who wouldn’t? A seventy-year-old grandmother who sounded exactly like Eric Clapton? It was enough to drive anyone in their right mind stark raving mad.
First things first, he thought, stepping off the bottom rung and turning toward her. Yes, he was running a little late. But if there was one thing he’d learned at the University of Tempe medical center, it was that it pays to be methodical and organized. A place for everything, and everything in its place.
He plucked the oversize green hospital scrub suit and disposable plastic apron from the hook on the wall beside the table and put them both on. On his hands he snapped thin latex gloves. Over his lovely shoes, little paper booties. He stood for a moment and regarded the woman, shaking his head from side to side as she fussed. Oh, my, what a fuss it was. She’d seen the old woman’s eyes and known at once that it was not her savior who stood gazing longingly at her now. No. In her pale blue eyes, realization bloomed in the widened irises.
“Upsy-daisy, my dear,” he said, sliding a hand under Marge to lift her torso. With the other hand, he inserted a black rubber block under the middle of her upper back. This raised the throat and tilted the head back.
He whipped the delicate knife back and forth, scraping the edge against the whetstone.
Oh, yes, my dear. That tongue will have to come out, I’m afraid.
Shhhh, he said, and raised the scalpel.
Chapter Thirteen
Gloucestershire
SUTHERLAND SPED ALONG THE TAPLOW COMMON ROAD, slowed imperceptibly at the turning, and whipped through the main gates. After a moment’s study of the National Trust signs, they were motoring at a snail’s pace along the broad curving drive leading to Brixden House.
The drive wound its way through hundreds of acres of formal gardens and parklands, dotted here and there with classical statuary, some of it quite voluptuous, and the occasional temple or folly beyond the odd pond. Dappled June sunlight on the lawns, lakes, and beds made the thing picturesque in the extreme.
It was all a bit much for Congreve’s tastes, but then, he was prepared not to like it. The Brixden Set, as they were called, had quite a reputation. Séances. Masked balls. Orgies. He inclined his head and looked at Sutherland, who seemed quite keen on this visit. Orgies, indeed.
“We might need to stop once or twice for petrol before we reach the house,” he observed, tamping down his fresh bowl of tobacco.
“Impressive,” Sutherland agreed.
“Built originally by the second duke of Buckingham,” Congreve said, suppressing a disapproving sigh. “A scoundrel and rake if ever there was one. Dodged a bullet in a duel with one of his mistress’s husbands, then died shortly thereafter after having caught cold pursuing his second great love after women, foxhunting. He seems to have set the tone.”
But the peach orchards they now drove through and the gardens spoke to Congreve of another age, dotted as they were by extensive greenhouses with walls of nectarines, mind-bending displays of orchids and bromeliads, rare fuchsias and almost extinct varieties of cyclamen, rare Lorraine-series begonias, and benches draped with thick strappy-leaved clivia and yellow Vico. When finally he spied a bed of his beloved dahlias, he found himself softening a bit toward Brixden House, if not its owner.
Anyone who shared his love of dahlias couldn’t be all bad.
The house itself was imposing when they finally caught sight of it. It was in the classic Italian style, and even Ambrose had to concede it was lovely. Built originally in the mid–seventeenth century as a hunting lodge, and rebuilt many times, the present Edwardian country house stood on great chalk cliffs with views of the rolling green Berkshire countryside. The main house overlooked an idyllic bend in the Thames while a large guesthouse in the Tudor manner, Spring Cottage it was called, sat right on the riverbank.