Snake Agent Page 5

  “So,” said Chen mildly. “Mind telling me what your interest is in this?”

  “Sure. But outside.”

  Chen accompanied the demon to the door and they stepped out under the thunderous sky. A great anvil head of cloud was building up in the direction of the port. Chen could smell rain on the wind.

  “Look,” Zhu Irzh said. “I told you, I’m with Vice.”

  “I know your bureaucracy doesn’t work in quite the same way as ours,” Chen said. “But I’m not sure I see quite why the Vice Division is interested in missing souls.”

  “Vice is interested in all sorts of things—in the promotion of prostitution, for example, throughout both Hell and your world. As such, we tend to take a dim view of efforts to curb the trade, but we’re also law abiding. You know how bureaucratic Hell is … We have a strict policy of enforcement of taxation, and we’re compelled to go after individuals who try to get round those restrictions.” Zhu Irzh took a final drag on his cigarette, which flared into a thin column of ash. The demon tossed it into the gutter, where it lay, hissing.

  “So you encourage the trade as long as it pays?” Chen said.

  “As long as the profits go directly into the Imperial coffers, we’re happy. But you know, Detective Inspector, that Hell is hardly a united place. And there’s always someone who thinks they can beat the system—that’s the nature of Hell, after all.”

  “Tang being one of them?” Chen was fishing for answers.

  “The human is a very small part of a very large puzzle,” the demon said. “It seems the enterprising Mr Tang has been supplying the souls of the virtuous to Hell.”

  “Kidnapping? You mean the ghost-trade?”

  “Effectively, yes. In fact, there’s evidence that he’s been helping them along with a judiciously administered poison, one that mimics the effects of anorexia. It must be something pretty subtle, or your coroners would probably have detected it. And once they’ve died, the spirits of a number of nicely brought up young ladies—” here the demon gave a sidelong, ambivalent smile “—rather than stepping out onto the insipidly pastel shores of their Heavenly abode, have been turning up in Hell’s more select establishments of pleasure. I’m sure you know the type I mean.”

  Chen grimaced. “I’ve been in a demon lounge before. Purely in a professional capacity, of course.”

  “Of course. In that case, I’m sure you can imagine the popularity of such rarefied spirits among the rather more, ah, jaded members of the cognoscenti. Normally, this would be amusing—however, the girls aren’t licensed; the Imperial Civil Service has to pay a hefty fine if Heaven gets wind of the matter, and the owners of these emporiums aren’t paying tax. So it’s got to stop.”

  “There,” said Chen, “we are in agreement, though I imagine for entirely different reasons. So who’s the girl?” He nodded in the direction of the funeral parlor.

  “Her name’s Rainy Jhun. She’s apparently one of the virtuous souls we’ve just been discussing, though it seems her virtue lay in the fact that she was never properly allowed to exercise her talent for corruption until liberated by death. She’s Tang’s accomplice in Hell. The girls’ bodies were brought here, to a supposedly high-class and respectable funeral parlor, where Su Lo Ling falsified the visa documents so that virtuous girls bound for the Celestial Shores would end up—elsewhere. Mainly working as ghosts in Miu’s brothel, of which the parlor is a counterpart. Human customers would come here to visit the ghost-girls under the guise of enquiring at the funeral parlor; people from Hell would come directly.”

  “So who sent the ghost-photograph of Pearl to her mother?”

  “That’s an interesting question. I don’t know. Some rival operative, maybe. As I said, Hell’s a jealous place.” The demon yawned, displaying sharp, gilded teeth. “Sorry about assaulting you, by the way. I mistook you for one of Ling’s clients; I was hoping for information. My department’s billing yours for the damage to my coat.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Chen said absently.

  The demon’s golden eyes evinced a spark of curiosity. “That’s quite some rosary you’ve got there. Mind my asking where you got it?”

  Chen smiled. “No one you’ve ever met.”

  Zhu Irzh appeared mildly hurt. “I suppose you think I’m not good enough to associate with the Immortals? Well, I’ve met quite a few in my time, and not all of them have been unimpressed.” He added mournfully, “No one understands how difficult it is to be a denizen of Hell. Yin and yang, you know. Darkness and light. Without us, nothing else could exist, and we still get all the flak.”

  “Don’t think me unsympathetic,” Chen said. “But shouldn’t you be getting back there?”

  “I suppose I should,” Zhu Irzh said, gazing up at the stormy heavens. “It’s interesting, to visit your world.” His shoulders rippled like a cat’s. “But I don’t like rain, I must admit. Not your sort of rain. I don’t like getting wet.”

  Chen looked at him. The golden eyes were wide and candid, filled with an almost innocent evil. Suddenly, Zhu Irzh reminded Chen of Inari, and it wasn’t a comparison he wanted to entertain.

  “Your prisoner’s waiting,” he told the demon. “And so is mine.”

  Returning to the funeral parlor, he accompanied Ma and Tang to the patrol car.

  “I’m saying nothing,” Tang muttered, handcuffed to the sergeant, whose expression was betraying the view that he would as soon be attached to a cobra. “I want my lawyer.”

  “So do I,” Chen said grimly. “You can call him as soon as we get back to the station.”

  They drove to the ferry in silence, until Ma said, with the air of one who does not really want to know the answer to his question, “Where did that—that person go?”

  “Seneschal Zhu Irzh? Back to Hell, I hope. I suggested we liaise over the prosecution details. Told him to e-mail me.”

  “Will he come back?” Ma asked.

  “I doubt it,” Chen said. “Once he’s taken his prisoner home, there’s little reason to return. Humans deal with humans, but Hell takes care of its own … There have been very few cross-prosecutions­. Of course, once our Mr Tang departs this life, he might find that he has a few remaining repercussions to deal with.” Chen gave a wintry smile. The prisoner scowled.

  “I’ve never seen a demon before,” Ma said tentatively, as though even the mere mention of the subject might conjure something up.

  “Haven’t you?” Chen said absently.

  “I thought—I thought they’d be really horrible,” Ma mused. “I didn’t expect them to look so human.”

  “They vary. And it depends where they are—spending time in another world can change you. Some are quite inhuman; some of them look almost like us. Looks aren’t everything, Ma. The most innocent facade can conceal evil, and vice versa.”

  “Evil,” Ma echoed, and shuddered. “I don’t know how you can associate with such vile creatures.”

  “Not all demons want to cause suffering and pain,” Chen said, trying to keep his annoyance at Ma’s prejudice out of his voice. “They have the same needs and desires, the same capacity to love—” Aware that he was on the verge of saying too much, he broke off abruptly and stared out of the window in the direction of the port. Where was Inari now? he wondered anxiously. Sitting in the houseboat with her elbows on the windowsill, watching the storm in safety? Or out on the rain-washed streets risking discovery from every person she passed? He didn’t want to keep her cooped up inside, and yet … He remembered the stories that his grandmother used to tell when he was still a boy, tales of her own mother in Hunan Province.

  His great-grandmother had been the concubine of a wealthy man; her feet bound so that she could only totter a few steps without pain. For the rest of the time she lay in an upstairs room, gazing out over the garden as the seasons passed: snow drifting down from the eaves, turning into cherry blossoms as spring came round again, the petals bearing fruit like drops of blood among the dark branches, then the light deepening as t
he year turned and the leaves reddened and fell … Chen, that concubine’s great-grandson, did not want such a life for his own wife, for Inari. Foot binding was a thing of the past, except perhaps among the fetish fashionistas of Beijing where it enjoyed occasional limited revivals, but there were other restrictions upon Inari that might prove equally as constraining. But Chen had risked a great deal to save Inari from the wishes of other people and he wanted her to become whatever she most desired; he wanted her to be free. It was still a matter of miracle that Inari had chosen to stay with him rather than seek her fortunes in the world; the safety that he could provide for her was limited at best, Chen thought, and there were others who could offer her a far greater degree of protection than he could. Yet despite the difficulties that his marriage had brought, both for himself and for Inari, Chen could not find it in his heart to regret it. He blinked, overcome with sudden emotion, and chided himself: What would Ma think, to see his sinister superior gulping like a frog?

  The ferry wallowed into shore and the patrol car drove off, heading for the station. Tang was placed in custody and his lawyer summoned, but the interrogation proved brief. Tang refused to say a word: sitting mute and contemptuous while Chen alternatively cajoled, threatened, and applied the iron bar of logic. Recognizing intransigence when he saw it, Chen gave up and allowed the lawyer to set bail.

  “Thinks his money can get him out of it,” he said to Captain Sung, outside the interrogation room.

  “He might be right,” Sung said gloomily. “He’s an influential man. I’ve already had the governor shouting down the phone at me. We might have to let this one go.”

  Chen felt outrage building in his chest like unruly ch’i, and forced it down. “We may be talking about several counts of murder,” he said, as mildly as he could. “And this is with regard to the living, remember—it isn’t a case that involves the dead alone.”

  “I know, I know. I’ll do my best, Chen. But you’re as much of a realist as I am. Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “I never do,” said Chen.

  It was late afternoon. The air conditioning had failed again, after a few erratic attempts at functioning, and the station house was becoming oppressively hot. Chen excused himself from duty and walked the few blocks to the temple of Kuan Yin. Being in his patron goddess’ bad books had lessened the feeling of serenity and security that he had always associated with the temple, but the events of the last year had not entirely dissipated it. He stepped through the iron doors of the temple into the quiet courtyard, and took a deep breath of fragrant air.

  The rest of the temple’s regulars were presumably either at work or asleep in the heat of the day. Chen walked across to the small shrine and opened the door. Inside, it was dark and quiet. The goddess stood at the end of the room: a tall column of jade, so flawlessly green that she might have been carved from a wave of the sea. As Chen approached her, the statue rippled and moved.

  “Wei Chen,” the goddess said, in a voice that was as cool and remote as ocean.

  “You’re still speaking to me then?” Chen said diffidently.

  Kuan Yin’s face flowed with a lambent reproach. “It is you who have ceased to speak to me,” she said. “You think I am not listening, when it is really you who refuse to hear.”

  “When I—” Chen paused for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “When I rescued Inari from Hell, and took responsibility for her, you told me that I had committed a grave sin in bringing a demon into this world. And you told me, too, that I would have to do penance for seven years, and that I could no longer count on your support, even though I am your sworn follower and servant.”

  “That is true. But do you think that I do not know how hard it is? Humankind calls me the compassionate and the merciful because I hear each and every cry of suffering in this world. Do you think I do not hear you, too, or Inari as she prays every night for me to release you from your penance, so that you may no longer walk unprotected and in danger?”

  “I didn’t know she did that,” Chen whispered.

  “The act of such prayer means that you both reflect upon what you have done, and the consequences of your actions. It is not a punishment. It is a reminder. I have not sentenced you to anything, Chen. You have sentenced yourself.”

  Chen bowed his head for a moment. “I know.”

  “Did you come here to ask for my help?”

  Chen smiled ruefully. “Would I get it?”

  “Heaven is good at listening, Wei Chen, but not so good when it comes to acting. That is why we need people like you to do our work in the world. Any help I could give you is already to be found in your own soul.” The goddess’ features seemed to swim in the lamplight; her eyes were as golden as the evening sun, or a demon’s own. He had not expected any answers, but at least she had condescended to notice him. Chen bowed again, and walked out into the heat of the day.

  INTERLUDE

  Hell

  Even for hell, the day was uncomfortably hot, and the mansion of Tsin Tsi—the First Lord of Banking of the Ministry of Wealth—was stuffy. Seneschal Zhu Irzh was relieved when the First Lord suggested that they discuss matters in the gardens. Having requested permission to do so, he took off his long coat and tucked it over one arm. He was pleased to see that the coat’s burn mark was almost invisible: Ren Ji might be a terrible shrew, but she could certainly sew. He followed Tsin Tsi out into the garden and down to the shade of the willow trees, which trailed their long, black fronds in the oily waters of the pond.

  “Fish,” the First Lord said, with gloomy enthusiasm. “Do you like fish, Seneschal Zhu?”

  “As food? Or decoration?”

  “Either. My carp are purely ornamental, of course. The souls of rich American businessmen, transmuted. It’s a painful process, I understand, but they could do worse than end up in my carp pond, given the lives that some of them have led.” The First Lord of Banking rearranged his heavy, brocaded robes with a flick of his tail.

  “I imagine such rarities must be expensive,” Zhu said.

  “Horribly so. But I like them and my first wife likes them, and I like to indulge her. Are you married, Seneschal?”

  “Not yet.”

  “A young man like you? You can’t be more than a few hundred years old, surely … I’m surprised. But perhaps you haven’t met the right girl yet.”

  “I’m still thinking about it,” Zhu Irzh said, trying not to wince. His mother had been particularly acerbic on the subject during his last visit to the parental home, but he wasn’t going to marry Xu Yu Li and that was that, however influential her father was in the Ministry of Epidemics. There were plenty of other possibilities, but none seemed satisfactory somehow. Faces swam smiling through his mind. Ren Ji would drive him mad in no time, whereas Sha Xei, despite being marvelous in bed, didn’t have a thought in either of her beautiful heads. His family expected him to marry for money; his friends expected him to play around as heartlessly as they, but Zhu Irzh harbored unsettling ideas about love. He sometimes awoke in a chilly sweat, wondering whether he was cursed with morals. Imperial Majesty alone knew where such principles had come from; few of demonkind seemed so afflicted. He might even have to take a cure, but he wasn’t sure if his health insurance would cover it … Zhu Irzh gave a martyred sigh.

  “Seneschal? I asked you a question.” The First Lord of Banking was staring at him with a gaze the color of old blood.

  “What? Forgive me, Lord. Just wanted to give a considered reply,” Zhu Irzh said hastily, adding: “Your decision on the matter would be most wise.” He wondered frantically what the question had been, but Tsin Tsi appeared pleased with his reply.

  The First Lord of Banking leaned on the ornamental bridge that crossed the pond, and fed the carp, forming pellets of flesh between his claws and dropping them into the green water. The carp rose slowly upwards: the empty bags of their mouths opened and closed, engulfing the tidbits and rippling the waters of the pond. Zhu Irzh found it too warm, despite the cool breath of a
ir which rose from the carp pond.

  The First Lord said, “I’m sure you’re wondering why I contacted your department today, and asked for you. You see, I’ve called you here on a matter of some delicacy.”

  “My Lord?”

  “This case you’ve been investigating. The brothel.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “There is a small matter relating to it which requires—a certain degree of style, shall we say, an element of personal attention which I am reluctant to entrust to anyone less experienced.”

  “I’m flattered by your confidence in me, My Lord,” Zhu Irzh said cautiously. “Might I be trusted to know what the matter entails?”

  Tsin Tsi absently gnawed a long and ornamental fingernail, stopping himself with an effort. “I need you to find a young lady. One of the souls snatched from her rightful place on the voyage to Heaven. I have had word from her.”

  Zhu Irzh frowned. “A human soul had the temerity to contact you, Lord?”

  “Indeed.” The First Lord of Banking permitted himself a thin smile. “A very enterprising young lady, is Miss Pearl Tang.”

  Forgetting himself, Zhu Irzh stared at him. “Pearl Tang contacted you?”

  “I can see that I will have to explain myself,” the First Lord said, rather acidly. “You were brought into this case by your superiors, Zhu Irzh, purely on the basis of the brothel’s unpaid taxes on a spot of ghost-trading. You thought, no doubt, that this was all that this case involved. However, this recent episode of commerce in the souls of the virtuous is not a simple matter of profit. There is more to it than meets the eye. You will recall that Pearl’s father was a formidable financier. How do you think that came about?”

  “You are the Lord of the Ministry of Wealth,” Zhu Irzh said. “I would therefore imagine that you had something to do with it.”

  “Precisely. I set Tang up, Seneschal. I made him the man he is today. In return, he promised me certain services—never mind what those might be—and until recently, he performed to the most exacting standards. However, it is always tempting for those of us who enjoy the delights of power to overstretch personnel. In retrospect, I may have asked rather too much of Tang. I’ve noticed a decline in his services over the last year or so, and a corresponding decrease in his willingness to do as I ask. That suggests to me that Mr Tang has gone forth and found himself another patron, and his dabbling in the ghost-trade seems to be related to that, though I don’t yet know how. When she found herself here, Pearl Tang’s spirit contacted me, secretly and at considerable risk to herself. In her message, she wrote that the ghost-trading was part of a plot of her father’s, against me”—here Zhu Irzh looked suitably shocked, and the First Lord continued—“and she also told me to ‘beware the Ministry.’”