“Councilor, everybody knows there are many kinds of killers. But let’s put aside the kind who doesn’t set out intending to kilclass="underline" normal people who lose their grip on reason in a fight, or find their woman in bed with another man. Those are the people who would never murder if they were in their right mind.” He finished picking up his equipment. “Let’s turn our thoughts to the true murderers, the monsters.
“There are groups within this group. Some act out of a kind of lustiness, and they are as insatiable as sharks. In general they kill women and children, and they don’t tend to be happy only killing. First they profane and destroy; later they massacre. Then there are the violent ones: men capable of taking a life at the tiniest provocation, like tigers who seem quite calm but then devour a person just for pulling out a whisker. Next are the visionaries: made fanatical by ideals or by their involvement in sects, they carry out the most execrable savageries; they are like fighting dogs. But the fourth group is the strangest: they take pleasure from killing. And they can’t be likened to any animal; the evil that dwells in them is infinitely worse. Now, tell me, which group would you put that woman in? The lusty one? The violent one? The visionary one? Or perhaps the pleasure one?”
Kan looked sidelong at Cí.
“Cí, Cí, Cí…I don’t doubt your abilities when it comes to bones, weapons, or worms. For all I know, you could write books, give lectures,” he roared. “But for all your wisdom, you’ve neglected to mention one important group, more bloodthirsty than most, shrewd, calculating: the snakes. A snake is capable of waiting coiled up until just the right moment, hypnotizing the victim before unleashing the deadly poison. This kind of killer is motivated by the venom of revenge, a hate so strong it corrupts the very heart. And, I swear to you, Blue Iris is just such a person.”
“And she hypnotizes her victims?” blurted Cí. “With her blind eyes?”
“There is no one blinder than the person who does not want to see.” Kan punched the table. “You’re so wrapped up in your absurd techniques, you’ve forgotten common sense altogether! I’ve already said she uses accomplices.”
Cí had already decided not to mention that he’d seen Kan conversing with the Jin ambassador. He knew an argument with Kan would get him nowhere.
“OK, you could well be right. So who helped her with the killings? Her husband?”
Kan looked toward the door, on the other side of which the inspector would be waiting. “Let’s go outside,” he said.
Cí put away his equipment and followed. He felt less and less trust in Kan. Why hadn’t he mentioned the rings? Why had he not reacted when Cí identified the corpse as the bronze maker—especially considering Kan was quite possibly the last person to have spoken to the man before he died?
“Forget about Blue Iris’s husband.” He frowned. “I’ve known him a long time, and he’s a good man. A Mongol with a face like a dog but an upright man. His one mistake was marrying that harpy. I think we’d do better to consider him her servant. She brought him from the North to be with her.”
Cí scratched his head. A new suspect.
“OK, but then why haven’t you had him arrested?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I’m convinced there are various accomplices. One person wouldn’t be able to commit such atrocious crimes.”
Cí was fed up with all the mystery; it seemed like everyone except him knew what was going on. If Kan’s idea was correct, why wasn’t he going after the Mongol? Or if that was already under way, wasn’t Cí’s own part in the investigation pure absurdity? It had to be a lie cooked up by Kan, he thought.
One thing still didn’t fit: the perfume. Doubtless Kan, with his wide-ranging power, could have taken some and used it to implicate Blue Iris. But Cí failed to see how, if the perfume was exclusively for use by the emperor’s women, Blue Iris might also have some.
This last part he communicated to Kan.
“Didn’t she tell you?” said Kan in surprise. “Blue Iris was a nüshi. She was the emperor’s favorite.”
A nüshi. So that was how Blue Iris had become an intermediary between the nobles and the “flowers”; like a high priestess of pleasure, she knew better than any the art of courtship.
“The emperor likes to treat his guests well, so whenever he can he invites Blue Iris. She’s pure fire, that woman. Despite her age, she’d swallow you up in a second, no question.”
In spite of her blindness, Kan explained, word of her beauty had spread far and wide during the previous emperor’s reign. He had ordered that she join his harem and that her family be compensated.
“She was very young then, and she cast a spell on the emperor. Ningzong’s father no longer had eyes for any of his other concubines. He obsessed over Blue Iris, and he took pleasure in her to the point of exhaustion. When he became ill, he appointed her Imperial nüshi. He was old, and he suffered from numerous ailments, but she saw to it that he lay with concubines frequently—if anything more often than before—and that he had the queen once a month. She was in charge of leading them to the royal bedchamber, placing the ritual silver ring on their right hand, undressing them, spraying Essence of Jade on them, and then witnessing the act itself.” Kan seemed to be conjuring the scene in his mind. “Though blind, they said she enjoyed being there.”
Blue Iris had given up her position when Ningzong came to power, and she went on to run her inherited business with a fist of iron. The man she married, according to Kan, had also been bewitched.
“She’s got something she can turn on to drive men wild. You never know, she might even decide to cast a spell on you!”
Cí considered Kan’s words. He had no time for ideas of witchcraft, but it was true that he couldn’t get Blue Iris out of his mind. There was something about her; he felt his thoughts begin to get tangled as he pictured her…He shook his head to clear his mind.
“And the bronze maker?” asked Cí.
“He seemed nervous when we said good-bye,” said Kan. “I asked him about the new alloy he was working on, the one he kept going on about. You obviously noticed he was a show-off, but I had no idea someone would want to kill him.”
“Not Blue Iris?”
“That’s for you to work out.”
29
You never know, she might even decide to cast a spell on you!
These words played on Cí’s mind as he tried to concentrate on the job at hand. But he kept picturing Blue Iris’s delicate features, hearing her sonorous voice, and, above all, feeling those gray eyes on him.
Maybe his fascination had something to do with how capable Blue Iris was in spite of her disability, or how well she hid what were essentially scars, or how cool she’d been with Kan…He had to focus on the murder cases. And the fact Gray Fox would be back any day now. The potential implications of his return immediately concentrated Cí’s mind.
He decided to split the investigation into parts. He needed to address the remaining questions about the earlier murders, and he had to advance his investigation of the bronze maker’s murder by visiting his workshop and the location where the corpse had been found.
First he would try for some answers about the earlier murders. He had the portrait of the younger corpse to use, but he could hardly take that around Lin’an. Where could those tiny, poppy-seed scars on his face have come from? They didn’t look to him anything like the marks from an illness, so the only other thing he could think of was that they were scars from an accident. But what kind of accident? Surely, whatever the cause, the scars were a testament to pain. And if the man had been in pain, there was a good chance he would have gone to a pharmacy or a hospital.