‘Is it really possible to kill yourself by hanging when your feet can still touch the ground? He is practically kneeling.’
I nodded my head.
‘I have heard that it is so. If you are determined to die and can tie a noose that will not slacken when you black out, then it is perfectly feasible. What we need to ask ourselves is whether this boy had that determination. He would only need enough desire to do it to carry him off into unconsciousness. After that, his own weight would ensure there was no return.’
Lin suddenly tipped his head to one side.
‘Listen. Can you hear something?’
I cocked my head, and concentrated on the sounds coming from the cell block. Li made as if to speak, but I held my hand up. There was no sound of birds in this desolate spot, but then I heard it. A soft mewling sound like the faint squeak of newborn kittens, followed by a scratching. I stepped out of the cell, trying to follow the sound. I realized it came from the cell next to Wenbo’s. As I stepped up to the door, the sound ceased, as though the kitten was aware of danger and was holding its breath. Silently, I tipped my thumb at the door, and raised an eyebrow, questioning what might be in there. Li hissed under his breath.
‘It’s the doctor. I had forgotten about him.’
Lin emerged from the death cell and offered a suggestion.
‘Then I propose that you open the door and see if he is alive or dead too.’
At the wave of Li’s pudgy hand, the gaoler rushed forward and thrust a key in the lock of the door. As he turned it, we all heard a scuttling sound like rats skittering through old straw to find a dark corner to hide in. The gaoler swung the door inwards, and poked his lamp into the darkness. A creature cowering in the farthest corner held up a claw of a hand over his face against the unwelcome intrusion.
‘Aiii, don’t kill me, demon.’
Something had terrified Doctor Sun out of his wits.
Gurbesu had risen early that morning, aroused by the fuss caused by the arrival of Taitemir’s messenger. She knew Lin and I would go straight to our interrogation of Geng Wenbo afterwards, and was glad of the time alone that our tasks gave her. She wanted to talk some more to Jianxu about her life, having the, in my opinion, forlorn hope that she could bring the young woman out of herself. It irritated Gurbesu more than a little that Jianxu had been no more than a slave all her life. First her father had sold her into slavery, and then she bowed down to her husband, and then when he died to her mother-in-law. I thought she was mad to try and change one girl who merely stood as an example of the fate of most women in Cathay. It would be like trying to push back the acqua alta in Venice with a broom. Raging high tides came and inundated the city whether we Venetians liked it or not. It was a force of nature. And so were the Three Duties and the Four Virtues in Cathay.
Gurbesu had dressed and sat combing her shiny black locks, while pondering how she would approach her task. Finally, she could put it off no longer. She got up and walked out into the central courtyard of their lodgings. Predictably, Jianxu was already awake and dressed. But, surprisingly, she wasn’t bustling about carrying out tasks as Gurbesu had imagined she might. The young woman sat on a stone bench in the middle of the yard, apparently contemplating the outside world as it passed the open doors of the house. A fruit-seller hurried by with a bucket full of prickly oval fruit clutched in each hand. Then a sedan chair went by, its two bearers transporting a pretty white-faced woman somewhere. Gurbesu could see a look of strain and tiredness on the woman’s face as she glanced into the courtyard. She was probably returning to her lodgings after a night entertaining a rich Chinee client. Gurbesu heard a sigh, only after a moment realizing it was not the white-faced entertainer, but Jianxu who had made the sound. Jianxu turned to her, and spoke sadly.
‘We are all slaves to men, are we not?’
Her attractive oval face and almond eyes had for the first time some animation in them. Gurbesu even thought she saw a small tear running down her peach-like cheek. She smiled in relief. Perhaps the girl was not as cowed as she had imagined.
Sun refused to come out of the corner of his cell where he had first cowered when I entered. So I sat on the floor next to him. Lin circumspectly retired from the cell, so as not to cause the doctor any more anxiety. He hustled the prefect away, too. For a long time, Sun and I sat side by side in silence, staring out of the open door. Finally he plucked up the courage to speak.
‘Will you close the door, demon? I will feel safer.’
I rose and pushed the door closed, glancing through the grille at a quizzical Lin, who stood patiently outside. I shook my head gently and he nodded in understanding. Lin was the most patient man I had ever encountered. He would wait all day if necessary to see what troubled Doctor Sun. As the sun reached the highest point in the sky, a few rays filtered through the grille of the door, chasing away some of the gloom of the cell. This is what Jianxu would have experienced every day for weeks, perhaps imagining that that particular day’s sun would be the last she would see. The doctor began to weep.
‘I heard the Devil last night. It took Wenbo, and I was afraid it would come for me next. And I have sins on my soul.’
I did not tell him that Wenbo had killed himself. I was far more interested in his sins. Without Wenbo’s own confession, I would need a statement from Sun, if Lin and I were to overturn the verdict on Jianxu.
‘Tell me the sins that burden you.’
A random ray of sunlight cut across his face, illuminating his fearful, staring eyes.
‘I planned with Old Geng to murder Madam Gao. And I would have done it, too.’
His words jolted through me as if I had been standing on the deck of a ship struck by lightning. I recalled the old woman saying she had been rescued by Geng from an attacker. Was this the incident that Sun was referring to? But if it was, why did he say that Geng was in on the plot?
‘You mean you planned it, and Geng stopped you?’
Sun suddenly became agitated, beating the packed earth floor of the cell. I saw Lin’s face appear briefly at the grille then disappear once he assured himself I was safe. Sun was adamant.
‘No, no, no. Old Geng and I both owed Gao a great deal of money. It was his suggestion that we sneak round to her house together. He said we were going to catch her on her own, and do away with the old bitch. But just as we were about to rush into her office, Geng said he had heard the girl – Jianxu – and he would check on her first. I entered Gao’s inner office on my own and grabbed her by the neck. She was screeching like some old cat but I just kept squeezing. The next thing I knew, Geng was in the room acting like some avenging angel. He pulled me off her and hit me in the stomach. I realized I had been betrayed – that Geng had planned it this way from the start – and I ran out of her house. After that, I knew I couldn’t show my face in Pianfu again and began to practice in the hill villages.’
All the facts were beginning to fit together nicely now, but I still needed something more.
‘But you did come back. You sold Old Geng’s son aconite in order that he might kill his father.’
Sun nodded.
‘The boy knew what I had tried to do to Madam Gao. The old bitch must have told him or the girl, I am not sure. One day, in the village where you found me, I got a message. It simply said, “I know about you and Gao. If you would like to revenge yourself, come to the Geng household in disguise. Bring poison. If you don’t come, remember that I know how to find you.”’
He stared at me with horror in his eyes.
‘Save me from the Devil. Don’t leave me in the dark on my own.’