The Speaker of Mandarin by Ruth Rendell Page A

invitation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Having actually been on the boat at the time of Wong's fatal accident, should he not go and inform them of this fact? Rather glumly he thought about it. With his lack of Chinese and their undoubted lack of English? With Mr Sung as his interpreter? And what help could he be? He had been asleep at the time.
    No, he wouldn't go. Such an action would smack of 'putting himself forward', of showing off his greater sophistication and that of the nation he came from. Besides, he could do nothing, tell them nothing, beyond revealing himself as possibly the least effective witness on the boat.
    It rained all day. But twenty-four hours later, when he was starting to think his flight would be cancelled because of the bad weather, the sky cleared, the sun came back and the looped mountains stood out so sharply against the translucent blue that it seemed one could pick out every tree on their slopes. Mr Sung escorted him to the airport in a taxi.
    'I like to say,' said Mr Sung, 'the very great pleasure it
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    has been to me to be your guide and I wish you good journey and pleasant stay in Guangzhou.'
    This, Wexford knew, was what the Chinese called Canton, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that in trying to pronounce Guangzhou, Canton was the best those European merchants who had come there had been able to do.
    'You will please convey best wishes to your friends and relations in UK and say they are welcome to China. All friends are welcome to China.'
    The aircraft had no air conditioning. Once they were airborne steam poured across the non-pressurized interior and the passengers fanned themselves with fans painted with the Kweilin mountains which the stewardess pro- vided. Wexford was the only European on board. He knew that the stewardess walking up and down the aisle with fans and sweets on a tray was a young girl in her early twenties but for a moment he had seen her as an old woman with bound feet. Would he see her in Canton? In Hong Kong? Would he- like Maugham's man with the Achinese - would he see her in England?
    At Canton he was met by his new guide, Lo Nan Chiao. Mr Lo shook hands and said he was welcome to Guangzhou and if he was agreeable, while his luggage went on to the hotel, they would proceed straight to Martyrs' Mausoleum.
    The old woman with the bound feet was there waiting for him. He closed his eyes and opened them and she had changed back into the uniformed attendant. She emerged from the doors of the Sun Yat-sen Monument and came across the bridge from Sha Mian to meet him. By that time he would have been convinced of his own madness if Mr Lo hadn't gone up to speak to her, remarking afterwards to Wexford that she was an acquaintance of his mother's.
    Wexford sweated. She wasn't always an acquaintance of Mr Lo's mother. It was even hotter here and the humidity was intense. When he tried to make tea he found the water in his thermos flask was only lukewarm and repeated re
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    quests to the hotel staff failed to produce boiling water. But at dinner he discovered a new brand of Lao Shan, the coldest and best mineral water he had so far tasted, and he bought a dozen bottles to the amazement of the waitress to whom such extravagance perhaps represented a week's wages. The food was good too and the coffee was drinkable.
    He dozed in his bedroom and this time it might have been a dream and not a vision he had. He never knew. But he took the traditional action honoured in ghost stories. He threw something. Almost anywhere else in the world a holy book would have been provided in an hotel bedroom, the Bible or the Koran or the Gita, but here he had to make do with Masterpieces of the Supernatural. The old woman disappeared. Wexford felt worn out. He was sure he wouldn't sleep and he prepared for another white night, only to fall into a heavy dreamless slumber he didn't come out of until six when the phone rang.
    'Good morning. Time to get up,' said a chirpy voice,