and she’d shaken her head. She hadn’t regained consciousness. The nurse gave me an odd look, as if wondering why I was connected to all these unfortunate people.
Afternoon was waning, and people were beginning to leave. I couldn’t shake Lydia’s strained warning out of my head. What had she meant by telling me to stay away from William Acton? The way she’d lowered her voice as though afraid of being overheard made me wonder what she was worried about. She’d mentioned luck as well, which reminded me of the salesman. When people talked about being lucky, perhaps they simply wanted to feel powerful, as though they could manipulate fate. Like the gamblers who were obsessed with lucky numbers, or bought lottery tickets according to the number of colored scales on fish. It all seemed like a bad idea to me.
Turning a corner, I recognized the spot outside the cafeteria where I’d last spoken to Pei Ling. If I kept following this walkway down the hill, I’d pass the place where she’d had that disastrous fall. Here. She’d fallen from the stairs and landed quite a distance from the bottom. The sturdy handrail on each side of the narrow stairway reminded me of Shin’s observation. If she’d stumbled, it was odd that she hadn’t managed to break her fall. She might well have been pushed.
I glanced up, alerted by a sudden movement. A dark head had poked over the top of the stairs, but the late afternoon sun was in my eyes. There was a flash of white uniform, and for an instant, I thought it might be Shin, come to find me with his long stride. But whoever it was disappeared. Time to get going. The shaded walkways were empty as I cut round the side of the hospital. Passing the familiar door to the pathology storeroom, I paused. What if the finger from the salesman was still there, and the one that Ren had handed me was a doppelgänger, born like a worm, from the dark earth he’d dug it out of? It was such a disturbing thought that I felt I must see for myself. I tried the handle. Unexpectedly, it turned.
Inside, all was much as Shin and I had left it. I dragged the step stool over to the specimen shelf. Reaching up, past a kidney, then the jar with the two-headed rat. I peered behind. Nothing. The space where the small bottle had stood, containing a dried and blackened finger, was empty. So it hadn’t multiplied itself like a nightmare. Thank goodness. I was about to step down when the door opened.
* * *
It was Y. K. Wong. I should have known it would be him. He was like a bad dream, appearing everywhere I went. Pulse thudding, I held my breath as he shut the door behind him, very deliberately.
“Looking for something?” he asked. “Like a finger?”
“There aren’t any fingers on this shelf,” I said defiantly.
“I know. I had a look the other day.” He circled closer and I eyed him nervously from my perch. “Does Shin know about your job at the May Flower?”
So he’d recognized me at the hospital the other day, despite my attempts to hide my face. I felt absurdly vulnerable standing on the step stool, like a victim for a hanging.
“Let’s start again,” he said. Forced smile. The glimpse of a sharp canine tooth. “You lied to me about that finger. Were you one of Chan Yew Cheung’s girls from the dance hall?”
“No—I picked it up by accident.”
He gave me a disbelieving look. Another step, closing in. “Then what about Pei Ling? I heard you asking about her. Did she give you anything?”
What had Pei Ling said? That the salesman had a friend she didn’t like at the hospital; who she was afraid would get his hands on her package. The lists, I thought. Those lists of doctors and patients and sums of money written in another hand. I was still standing on that ridiculous step stool and it occurred to me that if he shoved me backward, I’d crack my head open. Like Pei Ling falling off the stairs.
Half turning, I reached behind. My hand scrabbled over the glass jars. I hurled the jar with the two-headed rat at Y. K. Wong. It smashed open against his arm in a spray of foul liquid. A cry of disgust as he doubled over. Then I was leaping, the biggest jump of my life, trying to get past him, but he