medicine.’
Eleanor was finding the atmosphere disturbing. The innuendos frightened her. There was a kind of understanding between the two of them which neither wanted to admit – with strange Western and Oriental medical connotations.
‘How do you know what point he was missing?’
‘We received, very recently, written evidence. He was, shall I say, playing with ideas about the deaths throughout the world. Groping and not understanding, searching for anything that might help and therefore getting nowhere. But …’ he stopped speaking.
‘I don’t follow you,’ she said. ‘What do you mean by “very recently written evidence”?’
‘He seemed fascinated by certain aspects of acupuncture and …’
She cut in quickly, saying, ‘I asked you what you meant by “recently written evidence”. Why can’t you answer my questions?’
My cheeks must look red, she thought, for they burned.
‘Answer your questions?’ he said solemnly, making her feel that he was laughing at her. ‘There are other matters I want to discuss with you.’
She wondered how much they were both trying to hide secrets from each other. She longed to find out more and not remain in this absurd field of secrecy, both trying to outwit the other. Maybe she was taking it all too seriously, she suddenly thought. Yet she must find out more about Dorman. Her head ached with the tension created by Ah-Ming. She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and felt better.
‘So let me clear this matter of Professor Dorman,’ Ah-Ming was saying. ‘We have received some valuable information concerning the late Professor’s ideas. Especially those of our’ – he paused for effect – ‘complicated laws of the pulse.’
‘You mean he sent them to you, his ideas, by post?’
‘You could say that,’ he smiled thinly. ‘What concerns us is that he felt that the manner in which we use the pulse for diagnosis had certain positive possibilities. You and I might smile at such naive statements. But leading from that, we discovered that he moved on from such amusingly simple statements, to you, and how much he had heard about your work. The way you are so successful in combining Oriental and Western medicine.’
‘He wasn’t quite right there, was he? I mean, I use far more of the former than the latter.’
‘Nonetheless, he was anxious to meet you because of other developments he was told about.’
‘And what were they?’
‘Certain similarities were coming to light from information via computers: similarities in terms of the troublesome deaths. In other words, he had been told that alternative medicine might be playing a role of some sort in these deaths.’
He stared at Eleanor, waiting for a reaction, but she hoped she showed no response. Instead, she stared back at him and in her mind’s eye she could see her husband behind the eyes of this man Was he working with them? Had Carry Tiger to Mountain really changed? This same idea that she had had a short while ago came crashing back into her thoughts.If it had, it would account for everything that had been happening to her in the last few days.
She suddenly wanted to have Mike by her side. Then she heard Ah-Ming saying, ‘Have you been discussing with Dr Clifford the Oriental method of the pulse?’ She looked at him. Had he read her thoughts?
‘No, I haven’t,’ she replied abruptly. ‘Though of course we talked about the therapy. He does not have any time for it. He doesn’t know Yin from Yang, let alone the laws of energy and the elements. His approach to this problem is entirely Western, clinical; trying to discover, for example, if there is a common link in the health of the victims before their death. You know, I’m sure, that he is involved with research at the University of Sussex.’
She felt a degree of relief, for her words seemed to please him as he replied with, ‘Yes, we do know all about his work at Sussex University. But we now have this written evidence that Dorman
Eleanor was finding the atmosphere disturbing. The innuendos frightened her. There was a kind of understanding between the two of them which neither wanted to admit – with strange Western and Oriental medical connotations.
‘How do you know what point he was missing?’
‘We received, very recently, written evidence. He was, shall I say, playing with ideas about the deaths throughout the world. Groping and not understanding, searching for anything that might help and therefore getting nowhere. But …’ he stopped speaking.
‘I don’t follow you,’ she said. ‘What do you mean by “very recently written evidence”?’
‘He seemed fascinated by certain aspects of acupuncture and …’
She cut in quickly, saying, ‘I asked you what you meant by “recently written evidence”. Why can’t you answer my questions?’
My cheeks must look red, she thought, for they burned.
‘Answer your questions?’ he said solemnly, making her feel that he was laughing at her. ‘There are other matters I want to discuss with you.’
She wondered how much they were both trying to hide secrets from each other. She longed to find out more and not remain in this absurd field of secrecy, both trying to outwit the other. Maybe she was taking it all too seriously, she suddenly thought. Yet she must find out more about Dorman. Her head ached with the tension created by Ah-Ming. She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and felt better.
‘So let me clear this matter of Professor Dorman,’ Ah-Ming was saying. ‘We have received some valuable information concerning the late Professor’s ideas. Especially those of our’ – he paused for effect – ‘complicated laws of the pulse.’
‘You mean he sent them to you, his ideas, by post?’
‘You could say that,’ he smiled thinly. ‘What concerns us is that he felt that the manner in which we use the pulse for diagnosis had certain positive possibilities. You and I might smile at such naive statements. But leading from that, we discovered that he moved on from such amusingly simple statements, to you, and how much he had heard about your work. The way you are so successful in combining Oriental and Western medicine.’
‘He wasn’t quite right there, was he? I mean, I use far more of the former than the latter.’
‘Nonetheless, he was anxious to meet you because of other developments he was told about.’
‘And what were they?’
‘Certain similarities were coming to light from information via computers: similarities in terms of the troublesome deaths. In other words, he had been told that alternative medicine might be playing a role of some sort in these deaths.’
He stared at Eleanor, waiting for a reaction, but she hoped she showed no response. Instead, she stared back at him and in her mind’s eye she could see her husband behind the eyes of this man Was he working with them? Had Carry Tiger to Mountain really changed? This same idea that she had had a short while ago came crashing back into her thoughts.If it had, it would account for everything that had been happening to her in the last few days.
She suddenly wanted to have Mike by her side. Then she heard Ah-Ming saying, ‘Have you been discussing with Dr Clifford the Oriental method of the pulse?’ She looked at him. Had he read her thoughts?
‘No, I haven’t,’ she replied abruptly. ‘Though of course we talked about the therapy. He does not have any time for it. He doesn’t know Yin from Yang, let alone the laws of energy and the elements. His approach to this problem is entirely Western, clinical; trying to discover, for example, if there is a common link in the health of the victims before their death. You know, I’m sure, that he is involved with research at the University of Sussex.’
She felt a degree of relief, for her words seemed to please him as he replied with, ‘Yes, we do know all about his work at Sussex University. But we now have this written evidence that Dorman
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