Free The Dragon and the Needle by Hugh Franks

He smiled and said, ‘Well, prudent. He’s certainly standing out like a sore thumb to me.’
    Her emotions were mixed: she felt relieved to know Mike was with her, yet uncertain where it would lead, or how much she should tell him. ‘Let’s sit at the table in here, shall we?’ she said.
    They sat down and he asked, ‘Are you going to tell me what’s happened to you in the past few days? What’s really happened.’
    ‘What’s really happened.’ She repeated his words, thinking of her meeting with Dr Ah-Ming. How could Mike possibly understand? She said, ‘I’m not really sure. I’m feeling verypressurised.’ She looked at Mike and smiled. ‘And I always tell my patients it’s important to keep life well balanced.’
    ‘That’s a good point,’ Mike agreed, ‘but I still feel that you are …’ he searched for the right words, ‘holding something back.’
    She frowned, watching his face carefully, but it was expressionless as she replied, ‘Well, maybe you’re seeing things that don’t exist. You’ve had a lot on your plate too. Milk and sugar?’
    ‘Only milk. Thanks. So will you tell me?’
    She glanced at him and smiled, but it was a nervous smile, unnatural. Could she really trust him? Was her affection for him becoming too strong, too quickly?
    As she poured out the milk she said, ‘I received a strange note from the Ministry of Health. It was odd, it worries me.’
    She watched his reaction carefully, but he gave nothing away.
    ‘It wasn’t signed, but it was on Ministry of Health notepaper. It was very strange.’ She paused. ‘I suppose I’ve had so much opposition to my kind of work, to my medical practice. It might have been sent by one of those people.’
    ‘What did it say?’
    She hesitated a moment, smiled gently as she said, ‘Words and letters don’t talk …’
    ‘What did it contain?’
    ‘I want to forget it. It was probably written by a crank who despises acupuncture.’
    ‘It doesn’t worry you that much, then?’
    ‘Worry?’ There was a note of impatience in her voice. ‘I’ve told you it worries me! It threatened me. It suggested that I should reconsider the pattern of my life and work.’
    Mike looked anxious. She liked the expression. He was genuine.
    ‘That’s terrible,’ Mike said. ‘But as you say, it was probably written by a crank. Has it happened before?
    ‘Not so much over here, but in the States, yes. When I came here I thought it would be different.’
    ‘Different?’
    ‘Yes. Added to which, there are many men who are anti-feminist.’
    ‘Not in this day and age, and certainly not in our profession.’
    ‘Perhaps not,’ she replied, trusting him more and more. Why not get to the point quickly? Before he could reply she continued suddenly, ‘Have you taken over the work that Professor Dorman was doing?’
    The directness of the question threw Mike for a second; he nodded his head.
    Again she got in the first words. ‘Then wouldn’t it be a good idea to tell me what is going on?’
    Mike remained silent, looking at her, thinking how closely he could become involved with her – perhaps too close. He wanted to find out from her more, much more about her skills in Oriental medicine, about what was worrying her. He drank a large mouthful of coffee and said, ‘Shall I begin at the beginning?’
    ‘Yes, begin at the beginning.’
    ‘And then,’ he smiled, ‘then you must begin at your beginning!’
    ‘Fair enough,’ she smiled back.

    Less than a mile or so away, Ah-Ming was seated behind the desk of his office in London’s Chinatown. Opposite, facing him, sat two Chinese men, both colleagues, both doctors. Ah-Ming had called them in at short notice. They had expected praise, as a direct result of the death of John Selwyn; they quickly sensed that was not going to happen. The cell leader was angry, a very angry man. The tense atmosphere suited his mood, for although his meeting with the American doctor Eleanor Johnson, alias Shousan,