I saw the pattens on the threshold of the kitchen. They had been placed with such exact precision that it had to have been Jianxu’s work. I looked cautiously round the door, but couldn’t see her. The kitchen was cold and silent, the pots left dirty, and several utensils were scattered over the table. It would not have been so when Jianxu was working there. I saw a smear of cold, grey ash had drifted across the floor. In it were the imprints of a woman’s feet clad in socks. I followed the grey marks on the floor towards Madam Gao’s quarters.
She sneaked up the staircase, keeping to the edge to prevent any step creaking and giving her away. If she alerted the old woman to her presence, she feared for her safety. But she had the poker and the element of surprise. She saw that the door to Gao’s bedroom had been slid open, but the room was still in darkness. Gao must have risen, but had not yet opened the shutters to let the daylight in. As she got closer, Jianxu could see strips of sunlight cutting across the room. The shutters were old and warped, and didn’t fit tightly any more. A huddled figure in a blue silk gown sat on a low stool, her head bowed. Her grey hair hung over her face and she seemed oblivious to the intruder. It appeared Madam Gao was examining her bent, bound feet that often still gave her pain in the mornings. Jianxu knew she could hardly bear to put her weight on them until she had rubbed and pummelled them into some sort of feeling.
Jianxu couldn’t believe how easy it was to get right up behind her without Gao knowing. The old lady was even muttering to herself, unaware of someone else being in her room. Jianxu had feared this woman all her life and had been afraid Gao might kill her. Now she gripped the poker firmly, and swung it up into the air. But before she brought it down in its murderous arc, Jianxu could not resist a cry of triumph.
‘I killed them all one by one. Now only you stand in my way, you bitch.’
As she brought the heavy iron poker down towards Madam Gao’s delicate skull, Jianxu was astonished to see the old lady rise into the air, and fly across the room, landing with her legs akimbo on feet that were no longer painful and tiny but a man’s firm feet. A burst of applause came from the doorway behind her. She spun round the see the red-haired barbarian filling the opening. He was clapping his big, coarse hands like he was watching a play.
I applauded the actor’s skill that had saved his life.
‘Well done, Natural Elegance. Your role as Empress Tu prepared you well for the part as Madam Gao. The somersault was a little flashy, though, don’t you think?’
The young and limber actor Tien-jan Hsiu, nephew of Lin Chu-Tsai, executed a bow, and pulled the grey wig off his head. He grinned youthfully at me through the heavy make-up.
‘Forgive my little theatrical flourish. But you didn’t tell me that I was to be brained with a poker when I agreed to substitute myself for the old lady.’
‘Yes, well, I had planned to be here sooner, but Jianxu slipped away without my being aware.’
I turned to look at the still stunned young girl.
‘What was that you were saying about killing them all? Can I take that as a confession?’
Jianxu’s otherwise pretty face twisted into a snarling mask in a transformation that Tien-jan would have envied. She took a step towards me, and raised the poker above her head. I put my arm up to protect myself from the blow, but it never came. Tien-jan had stepped smartly up behind her, and grabbed the weapon at the top of its arc. Yanking it backwards, he pulled Jianxu off her feet and on to her behind, removing the poker from her grip in the process. He looked astonished at his own skill.
‘Heavens! I thought that only worked as a move onstage.’
‘I am glad you can perform your part so well, young man.’
I bent down to lift Jianxu back to her feet. But she shook off my grip and got up by herself. By the time she was standing, her face had once again shaped itself into an impassive mask. And her eyes were dead orbs in the middle of an oval void. She had retreated into herself once again.
Tadeusz, who, under my instruction, had taken Madam Gao back to her own house for safety’s sake, was nearly bowled over by the old lady. She either imagined he was a burglar – forgetting why she had been removed from the Geng household in the middle of the night by him – or that he was Jianxu come home. The old lady was ignorant of the girl’s misdeeds and probably wanted to chastise her for not returning to the fold immediately she was released. If so, it was the first time Tadeusz had been taken for a twenty-year-old woman. He managed to save the tray of tea he had brought her and calm her down. He even agreed to massage her mutilated feet for her.
Jianxu remained impassive and acquiescent even when she was returned to the cell she had, until recently, occupied for so long. The same cell through the grille of which she had seduced Wenbo into putting a cord round his neck, and then had pulled it hard until she had strangled him. She sat impassively on her pallet while I extracted a confession from her as required by Chinee law. There was no need for the bastinado this time.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The confession of Jianxu
I killed Old Geng by poisoning him with aconite. I knew Geng Wenbo was infatuated with me, and I convinced him that I had to get rid of Madam Gao because she had treated me cruelly. He thought he was buying the poison from Doctor Sun for that purpose. But while he was distracted, I took the broth with the aconite in it to Old Geng instead. The boy was distraught and wanted to confess, but I couldn’t let him or he would implicate me too. I promised him the comforts of my body if he kept our secret. He was too distracted by the thought of what I promised to do anything other than what I told him to do. When the red-hair arrived, I thought I would be freed, as my yun cycle had changed. And I believed that I had convinced the barbarian of my innocence. When his interfering ways seemed to be getting close to the truth, I seduced Wenbo into doing what he originally intended; to confessing to the murder of Old Geng. He actually believed that, if I were freed, I would save him as he appeared to have saved me.
I confess to the murder of Geng Wenbo. It was too much of a risk to let him live. I came to the prison in the night, and convinced him that he must seem to have tried to kill himself. When he took his belt cord and put it round his neck, I reached through the bars and strangled him. I had the idea of stealing the prison keys and unlocking the doctor’s cell that night. If I had done so, then Sun would have been seen as the murderer of Wenbo. But the gaoler must have heard Wenbo’s death throes and woken up. I had to leave quickly. However, I came back the next night and unlocked the door of Sun’s cell. His disappearance would then have been linked with the murder of Madam Gao that I planned to carry out the same night. But the fool was too scared to leave his cell, muttering about the Devil being abroad. So I had to take a stick and beat him to death in his cell, and drag the body down the unlucky road to where I could bury it. You will find it close to the bare tree. He deserved to die, as he had also helped me kill my husband Cangbi with cinnabar under the pretext of curing him and conferring immortality upon him.
TWENTY-NINE
Behind an able man there are always other able men.
‘She killed her husband too?’