Page 34 (1/2)

He was smooth, this one

“But nothing,” she said abruptly “You’re dismissed”

She’d wanted to ask hi today? If so, as he wearing those particular clothes? What kind of a mathematician was he? Did he teach? Where? And as he really doing here? Had he been invited? By whom? Had he heard of the All-Patriotic Society? But her desire to have Michael Quon out of her sight had outweighed her desire for answers

Dr Strong was next His sunburn hadn’t i He rambled on about his ith oracle bones and their ie He talked about how throughout history the Chinese people had had a love of numbers: the Nine Provinces, the Five Punishh he was eighty-seven years old, he got along ith the younger generation Brian had been a particular favorite They’d carried on an e- admitted, but he wasn’t so old that he couldn’t learn how to do e-mail! Could Hulan see that correspondence? What a hilarious idea! His coe, and all of the old e-?

Yes, he knew Lily, although he preferred talking with Catherine (He was old, he confessed again, but he wasn’t so old that he couldn’t appreciate a beautiful woman when he saw one!) His room was in the same courtyard as Lily’s He’d heard noises, but he always heard noises in this place In fact, he could say that he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since he’d arrived this June But then, he was an old iven to insomnia no matter where he was

The rain had gotten much worse, and the road to Site 518 far more treacherous than it had been yesterday As a result, David’s driver concentrated on keeping the car on the slippery track and out of the largest erous conditions He was totally wrapped up in the events of thisout each piece His first concern, of course, was Hulan Just when things were beginning to go well, the universe revealed itself to her as cruel and capricious yet again He was very worried about how she would handle this, and the fact that she was shutting hiation bothered him deeply Then there was the murder itself As it alith death, it came as a total shock What had been done to Lily Sinclair made him sick Obviously he didn’t know her well, but from what he had seen she had been s and too beautiful to be taken so soon and so viciously

His mind spun back to Hulan She didn’t want him with her, and she didn’t want to share her earliest suspicions with hiation of the thefts, but because he was a former prosecutor, it was David’s nature to look for patterns and make links Whether or not Hulan liked it, he was already for his own ideas about Lily’s murder, how it could be related to Brian’s, and how both of them could be connected to the thefts from Site 518

The car bumped into the caht the river’s level had risen to within a few feet of the lowest tents, and so them up the slope David didn’t see Dr Ma down there, so he trudged up the hill until he found the director squatting under a canopy brushing at a shard The archaeologist, aware of David’s presence, didn’t look up “We work on a schedule out here,” Ma remarked “I’m not a chauffeur, and I can’t wait around for VIPers, no matter who they are”

“Lily’s dead”

Ma lifted his head, but his face was impossible to read He set down his brush and stood

“What happened?” Ma asked

“She was murdered”

“How?”

“I think you’d better take that up with Inspector Liu She’ll be co later”

Ma nodded thoughtfully, then: “And you’re here because—”