INCARNATION (27 page)

There was a shout from the bus. The passengers had started to climb on board. Five o’clock wasn’t far off.

David handed the letter over.

‘It is important,’ he said. ‘For somebody important.’

‘Ah make no promises, but Ah’ll do ma best.’

David watched him go, and for some reason he believed him.

London

H
e walked back through discontented streets, lulled by the sound of so many human voices in a stir. London pleased and tormented him. It had such a range of vices to offer the lonely and the unsure, and sometimes the thought that so much was available here worked in his veins like a drug. He’d tried almost everything at one time or another, from sex to gambling to mind-altering substances. Tonight he wanted something more, something out of the ordinary.

He headed down to Chinatown, round Gerrard Street. The restaurants were still clattering and chattering away, each one filled with its gaggle of tourists and a sprinkling of London Chinese. He was not known here, and he enjoyed just walking about, catching snatches of rapidly spoken Mandarin or Cantonese, half-pretending to himself he was back in Shanghai or Peking.

He cut off down a back lane, and from it to another, until he was deep inside a little maze running between back doors and kitchen windows. Huge bins stood everywhere, waiting to be filled and picked up later in the morning by trucks. A grey cat scampered away, surprised with its head inside a rubbish bin.

The door was on his right, where he remembered it: a black door without number or name. He rang a bell up high by the lintel and waited. Minutes passed. He knew they had a camera, very well concealed. They were checking him, then the alley.

A man’s voice came from a hidden grille.

‘
Shei
?’

He gave his name.

‘Wait there.’

Another minute.

The door opened and a small Chinese woman dressed in black beamed at him.

‘
Fah-la Shiansheng, ni hai huozhe
?'

He laughed and bent to kiss her on both cheeks.

‘Yes, still alive. Has it been that long?’

‘Not so long. But when you not get in touch, old friends ...'

‘I’m sorry, I’ve been terribly busy.’

‘No excuse. Come inside, can’t leave door open.’

He followed along a short corridor, then up a steep flight of steps. It was so familiar, he could have taken every step blindfolded. If he remembered rightly, that’s what they had done to him the first time. Later, they’d discovered who he was, and that he’d let them stay in business. From then on he could have entered almost any room on the premises. He paid well, too, better than most of their clients. It guaranteed him the best of everything. After all, as he often said, what was the point of coming to a place like this if you couldn’t have the best?

‘Is anyone else using the place tonight?’ he asked. He knew there were others, of course. But it was polite to ask.

‘You not worry, Mista Fah-la. All taken care of. You got place to you self.’

He knew what that meant. Whoever else was here would be hurried along. There was time. There were enough rooms.

‘Have you anything special for me, Zhou Furen?’ Her mouth opened, exposing rows of diamond-capped teeth. She’d make an expensive corpse, thought Farrar. Or a toothless one.

‘She come yesterday, Mista Fah-la. You never see one so beautiful. Take you breath away.’ 

‘You always say that, Madame Zhou.’ She looked at him quickly, almost sternly. 

‘No,’ she said, and her voice was no longer bantering. ‘This one make you want to live for ever. Or maybe die.’

‘What age?’

‘Not so old. Sixteen, maybe. Little breasts like small
minzu gua
.’ 

‘Still a virgin?’

‘Of course. We make sure of that.’ 

‘And properly trained?’

‘As much as you could wish, Fah-la Shiansheng.’ Her girls were trained from about the age of eight in music, poetry, the I Ching, deportment, conversation, and other elementary arts. At the age of sixteen, the most attractive were taken to the house in Guangzhou for four months, during which time they were introduced to a wide range of sexual and sensory experiences. They learned every possible way to pleasure a man short of intercourse - for it was vital that they remain virgins until they met their first clients - and how to receive pleasure in the same way.

‘Then let me see her. I warn you, I’m very tense tonight. My mind is wandering. My thoughts are in China. I can’t rest. I need something to restore my serenity. Do you understand? I won’t have her if she isn’t as you say. I’ll settle for something else. Don’t promise me perfection if you can’t provide it.’

She smiled.

‘Believe me,’ she said. She spoke in Chinese now, knowing he would follow suit, knowing it would be easier for the girl, who spoke no English. ‘Believe me.’

He followed her down a corridor to more stairs, and climbed with her to the next floor. He’d been here before, perhaps nineteen times in his life. It wasn’t very often when you came to think about it. But that did not matter. The Hui Hou did not much like their clients to come more often than that. A single day in one of their lotus houses was meant to resonate in a man’s memory for months, even years afterwards. If all a man wanted was simple satiation of the flesh, he would generally be directed to one of their blue houses, the well-known
hong fangzi
. These latter were brothels of good quality, no more. For many men, they were all that was required. The girls were attractive and well looked after, the surroundings comfortable.

The lotus houses, on the other hand, were not brothels. There were seven of them, one each in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, London, Cairo, New York, and Los Angeles. Clients were known to fly thousands of miles to their nearest house. Entry was by invitation only. The lotus houses appeared in no handbooks or directories. The cost alone meant that they were open to only a very small elite. But not even money could guarantee entry. Large numbers of extremely wealthy men had been turned down. One or two had tried to use muscle to get in: each had been found strangled the next morning. The Hui Hou brooked no form of defiance.

Anthony Farrar had always paid in coin and in kind. His protection had saved the London house from discovery and closure many times. And more than once he’d alerted the Hui Hou to threats to their trade routes. Getting the girls out of China was their biggest headache.

Coming to the second floor always took his breath away. It was not just that it was luxurious. He could have found that in any top-grade hotel. But this was harmonious. The rooms and their contents had been laid out according to the rules of Feng Shui, with one aim in mind: to produce inner peace, harmony, and refinement of the senses.

Madame Zhou showed him to a small antechamber. ‘Wait here,’ she said. 'I have to make the rooms ready. Master Lu will be with you presently.’

She went out, bowing low, as she had been trained to do sixty years ago. He was left behind in silence. With a deep sigh, he sat down on a low lacquered stool. Alone, he felt the pressure fall on him like an axe. He slumped on the stool, head in hands, sunk in a confusion of dark thoughts. The meeting with Royle had depressed him. He knew David Laing in many ways better than he knew Elizabeth. David was the smartest field agent ever to set foot in western China. He was dangerous, and he could turn the Karakhoto scheme upside down if he was allowed to.

He felt drained. It was at such times that he came here, in search of replenishment. But tonight, for the first time, he could not be sure of being brought back to life. He was too grey, too tired, under too much pressure.

The room had eight walls, a perfect octagon. It had been painted black and furnished with the utmost simplicity. He got up and went to the wall behind him. It opened to reveal a small wardrobe. He removed his clothes and folded them carefully on boards from which they would later be taken to be cleaned and pressed.

From a board at the top he took down a silk robe, an antique from the middle Ching Dynasty, black silk embroidered in black. The same motif was repeated in various sizes across front and back: the circle of yin and yang, male and female, day and night. He tied the slender waist-cord and returned to the seat.

Facing him was a long calligraphic scroll, white paper painted with jet-black letters, the brushmarks bold and precise. The quotation was from the "Analects": "The Master spoke of the Shao music. It was, he said, perfectly beautiful in form and perfectly good in its influence".

He sat and meditated on the words. All the time, his thoughts came back to the girl. Would she truly take his breath away? he wondered.

The door opened without a sound, and the Master Lu entered. He knelt in one corner and unwrapped the ch ‘in, a long, zither-like instrument in whose art he was a master. Anthony observed him closely. In all the years he had been coming here, the Master seemed never to have changed. They had never addressed a single word to one another, though Farrar had numerous questions he wanted to put to him. It was reputed that, within the narrow circle of scholar-musicians who played the ch’in, Master Lu was undisputedly supreme. Farrar had also heard it rumoured that the salary he received from the Hui Hou was several times that of a well-known film star who had been turned down more than once for entry to the lotus house in Los Angeles.

It was well known that the Hui Hou treated their servants well. In return they demanded nothing less than absolute devotion, absolute loyalty. While they lived, they and their families received all they needed, according to their status. If they broke their vows of allegiance, the penalty was swift and condign. The Hui Hou made grim use of the ancient punishment known as
mie jiuzu
: not only would the traitor be painfully killed, but his family to the ninth degree, and his friends, his teachers, his students, his pets.

Of the thirteen living masters of the ch ‘in, seven lived in the lotus houses of the Hui Hou. They seldom played anywhere else, unless one of the ruling circle asked them to perform for them, or for a specially invited guest.

Without preamble, Master Lu began to play in the pitch of the Ming Dynasty. Farrar sat still, blotting out from his mind everything but the gentle, dulcimer-like tones of the instrument. He lost track of time. In the lotus houses of the Hui Hou, time was of no importance.

Cadogan Place, London

‘W
hat a surprise. And what has wafted you so fragrantly to my door, Laurence?’

‘You might let me in, Lizzie. I’ve walked bloody miles to get here.’

‘Weren’t there any taxis?’

‘At this time of night?’

She peered out into the dark street.

‘Where’s Anthony?’

He looked surprised.

‘I thought he was here with you. He’s been gone long enough.’

‘I thought he was out boozing with you. Oh, come on in, for God’s sake.’

They went to the living room. A cigarette still burned on a marble ashtray set on an enormous coffee table in the shape of an upturned hand. Near it stood an almost-empty glass and, on top of the Chinese drinks cabinet, an odd-looking bottle.

‘What the hell’s that?’ asked Laurence, nodding in the direction of the bottle.

‘Marc de Bourgogne, of course. Freddie brings it back with him. You know Freddie, don’t you, dear?’

He flung himself down on a sofa. Over the years he’d only been here before with Farrar, and found it odd to be in the room with his sister. Freddie Poole was an old friend of their father’s, a doddering old roue who kept a crumbling house in Burgundy, complete with a French mistress of about the same age. She wore amazingly scarlet lipstick and tight skirts, and it was said she’d been a chanteuse in Paris before the War.

‘I most certainly do. He’s a bloody fool. And you’re a bloody fool to drink that stuff. It must be a hundred and twenty per cent at least.’

‘That’s why I drink it. Do you have any idea how pure this is?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Like a virgin’s inner tubing.’ She sat down in a Mackintosh chair opposite him. It was her favourite chair. It wasn’t just an original. It was the original.

‘Not something you’d know much about.’ He paused. Sometimes banter like this could go on for hours. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I did see Anthony tonight. We had dinner at the East China.’

‘Yes, I rather thought that was it. And how did you boys get on? You weren’t nasty to one another, were you?’

‘Not in the least. Why would you think that? Fact is, we got on awfully well. Anthony was in good form. Pity they won’t let women into the club: you’d have enjoyed the meal.’

‘I doubt it. And, speaking of Anthony, where the hell is the bastard?’

‘Not sure, really. I rather thought he’d headed on home. He’ll be back soon, I imagine.’

‘Probably gone off to some whorehouse. He does that from time to time, you know. You do know that, don’t you?’

The Marc de Bourgogne had trickled down all her little red lanes a bit too fast.

‘Lizzie, I’d rather not know about Anthony’s peccadilloes.’

‘Don’t see why not, he’s got enough of them. He’ll pick up a peccadillo at the least opportunity. He hasn’t fucked me in days, but he’s happy enough to put his pecker in a pickled peccadillo.’

She stepped to the table and picked up her glass.

‘For God’s sake, Lizzie, put down the bloody glass. If anyone’s pickled round here, you are. I want to have a proper conversation with you. There are some serious things we have to talk about.’

‘Really?’ Her hand hovered near the glass, then drifted away, and she resumed her seat. The tall back made her appear regal, or so she thought.

He told her about his conversation with Anthony, how he had been urged to put her back on the board and give her some real work to do. Laurence was not altogether a fool. He knew his sister had abilities that were seriously under-used, and he knew that, if she made a fuss about it, she was legally entitled to use her seat on the board. Royle International was still a family firm, and it was Laurence’s intention that it stay that way.