The Killing Room (The China Thrillers 3)

by Peter May

  They sat on stools at a long, polished bar. An old-fashioned golfer in plus-fours and cloth cap peered at them through round spectacles with real lenses. He was all of three feet high, brightly coloured paint on glazed china. Margaret could imagine executives of Jardine, Matheson gathering here at the day’s end seventy years before to quaff their gins and tonic and discuss the day’s dealings. Although the bar was empty, their ghosts still haunted it. A young waitress in a qipao took their order.

  Margaret had a long draught of her vodka tonic and felt the alcohol hit her bloodstream almost immediately. She closed her eyes and let the feeling relax her. Geller watched her with interest over the rim of his beer glass. He said, ‘Dead fodder for medical students. That’s all they were, huh?’

  She opened her eyes slowly and looked at him. ‘You expect me to comment on that?’

  ‘You don’t have to. It’s all bullshit.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Aw, come on. Eighteen young women, most of them under thirty … ? I don’t think so. Life expectancy here is seventy plus, and there’s a hell of a lot more men than women. If they’d all died of natural causes, the law of averages would make most of them over fifty, and a majority of them male.’

  Margaret made no comment. But she couldn’t argue with the logic. ‘And if someone had been conducting research on, say, declining fertility in young women across a twenty-year age range … ?’

  ‘Were they?’

  ‘I have no idea. I’m just making an argument.’

  ‘It would still be bullshit.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because eighteen young women, all dead from natural causes and conveniently available for illicit medical research, still goes against the law of averages.’ He took another sip of his beer. ‘By the way, has anyone told you you’re very attractive for someone who cuts up people for a living.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve often been told how attractive I am by men who want to get into my pants. But a blow-by-blow account of how I dissect the male organ during autopsy is usually enough to put them off.’

  Geller grinned, ‘I love it when a woman talks surgery.’

  And, to her surprise, she found herself laughing. She looked at him a little more appraisingly and noticed there was no ring on the left hand. ‘Did anyone ever tell you you’re not bad-looking for someone who hacks people to pieces in print?’

  ‘Once,’ he said. ‘My editor. Sadly he was a guy. My kind of luck.’

  ‘You never married, then?’

  ‘Thought about it once. For a whole five seconds.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Or was it as long as that?’ He finished his beer. ‘You want another of those?’

  She nodded. He ordered another round and she said, ‘So who do you work for out here?’

  He smiled. ‘Remember I told you about the Whore of the Orient? Well, I am that whore. I’ll do it for anyone who pays me.’

  ‘And who pays you?’

  ‘Newsweek, sometimes. Time, A couple of wire services, some of the big papers back home when their regular correspondents go off on a rest cure to a massage parlour in Thailand.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a living.’

  ‘How long have you been in Shanghai?’

  ‘Too long.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re a fund of information, aren’t you?’

  ‘I try not to be. Listen, I’m the hack here, I thought I was the one supposed to be asking the questions.’

  Their drinks arrived and Margaret lifted her glass. ‘The best way to avoid answering questions is to ask them.’ She took a long draught, then checked her watch. ‘Oh, my God! Is that the time? They’ll be waiting for me in the lobby.’ She took another hurried drink and put her glass back on the bar. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Geller, I’m going to have to love you and leave you.’

  He shrugged ruefully. ‘I’ll settle for that – with or without the leaving bit.’ She grinned and slipped off the stool. ‘So where are you off to?’ he asked.

  ‘A banquet. Hosted by some policy adviser to the Mayor.’

  If she thought he’d be impressed she was wrong. ‘Ahh,’ he said seriously. Director Hu. The Director is not a very nice man.’

  IV

  Mei-Ling eased the Santana through the crowds of people, cars and bicycles that choked Yunnan Nan Road. Two elderly women in the light blue uniform of traffic wardens were waving their arms at the junction, and blowing their whistles like demented birds. The Santana passed under a traditional Chinese gate and into a neon wonderland. Red lanterns and yellow banners were strung overhead. Every shop front and restaurant was lit in this narrow street, each fleck of coloured light coruscating in the rain. Steam rose from open windows where great racks of dumplings cooked over boiling water, smoke issuing from open barbecues, spicy skewers of lamb and chicken hissing and spitting their fat on the coals. A group of drunken young women with painted faces, staggering precariously on very high heels, banged on the hood of the car and leered in the window at Li. Margaret sat in the back, feeling remote and isolated from Li who sat up front next to Mei-Ling. There had been very little said since they left the hotel.

  When Mei-Ling drew the Volkswagen into a tiny car park next to the twelve-storey Xiaoshaoxing Hotel, they made a dash through the rain to the front entrance. The elevator to the eighth floor slid silently up one of two glass tubes built on to the side of the building. From here they had an ascending view of the chaotic jumbled sprawl of rooftops and balconies below, washing hanging out across the street on long poles, wetter than when it had been put out.

  They followed a waitress along quiet, panelled corridors, turning left and then right, past several private banqueting rooms. Director Hu and his guests awaited them in a large room at the end. They were standing in groups around a very large circular table, smoking and chatting animatedly, classical Chinese music playing quietly from large speakers in each corner. Li introduced Margaret to the Director. His eyes were on a level with hers and they ran up and down her appraisingly. His handshake, she thought, was limp and slightly damp. He had a wide smile, revealing unusually even and white teeth. He wore an immaculately cut designer suit, and she caught the briefest whiff of Paco Rabanne. She looked at his smooth, round face and thought that the aftershave was more for effect than any practical purpose. She resisted a sudden absurd urge to run her hands over his head to see if his closely cropped grey hair was as velvety to the touch as it looked:

  ‘Dr Campbell,’ he said, ‘I have heard very much about you. It is an honour to meet you.’ He turned and introduced her to his other guests – the Commissioner of Police and Section Chief Huang whom she had already met; the Procurator General, still in his uniform; another of the Mayor’s advisers, a square-set and unsmiling man; a personal friend, Mr Cui Feng, and his wife; and a couple of aides, younger men who nodded and smiled and ushered everyone to their seats. Li was placed on one side of the Director, Margaret on the other.

  Tall waitresses in elegant pink qipaos filled their small toasting glasses with red wine. Nearly everyone was drinking beer, except for the Director who sipped at a glass of bright red watermelon juice. The ritual of toasting began with the Director, and was followed around the table by his guests. Each time a toast was drunk, there was a chorus of ‘gan bei’, and the toasting glasses were emptied and then immediately refilled. Plate after plate of food arrived and was placed on the revolving Lazy Susan in order to allow everyone to help themselves.

  The Commissioner of Police sat on Margaret’s right. ‘You like Hormez?’ he asked.

  Margaret replayed the question in her head, but could make no sense of it. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said, pronouncing her words very carefully. The wine, after the vodka, was beginning to have an effect. And now she took a long pull at her beer.

  The Procurator General, round spectacles perched on an unusually long nose, leaned over. ‘We have great love of detective fiction in China,’ he said. ‘Many police officers write detective stories.’


  Director Hu laughed. He said, ‘I believe in Beijing they have courses at the Public Security University in the History of Western Detective Fiction.’

  Margaret had not heard this before. ‘Really?’ It was one of those strange Chinese curiosities she continually stumbled across.

  ‘Many police officers take this course,’ the Commissioner said. ‘They are very inspired by Hormez.’

  Margaret glanced towards Li for help, but he was engaged in polite conversation with Mrs Cui. She became aware of Mei-Ling smiling at her discomfort from across the table. ‘And who exactly is this … Hormez?’

  The Commissioner looked at her in astonishment. ‘You don’t know Hormez? Ohhh … he ve-very farmers in China. Sherlock Hormez.’

  And suddenly it dawned on her. ‘Holmes! You mean Sherlock Holmes!’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Commissioner. ‘Hormez. You know Hormez?’

  Margaret had to confess that she had not actually read any of the Conan Doyle books. But when she was younger, she said, she had seen a number of the old black and white movies with Basil Rathbone. Everyone else looked puzzled.

  Someone was turning the Lazy Susan, and a plate piled high with prawn crackers stopped in front of her. Margaret looked in horror at the small black scorpions crawling over the crackers before she realised that they weren’t actually moving.

  ‘Deep fried whole scorpion,’ Mei-Ling said from across the table, and Margaret saw that it was Mei-Ling who had stopped the dish in front of her. ‘They are a great delicacy.’

  Other conversations around the table tailed off, and smiling faces turned in Margaret’s direction. Western sensitivity to Chinese ‘delicacies’ was well known, and everyone was anxious to see Margaret’s reaction. The Commissioner took one in his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth, crunching enthusiastically. ‘Scorpion valued for medical reason,’ he said. ‘You try one.’

  Margaret’s jaw set. The Chinese could be so goddamned superior at times like this, and she felt as if she were representing the whole of Western culture here. She forced herself to smile, lifted one of the brittle black insects with her chopsticks and with a great effort of will put it in her mouth. As she crunched on its bitterness it was all she could do to stop herself from gagging.

  ‘Bravo,’ Director Hu said and clapped his hands. ‘I can never bring myself to eat the bloody things. They are disgu-usting.’

  Margaret took a long draught of beer to try to wash the taste away, and a waitress immediately refilled her glass. To her relief, the focus shifted away from her again as conversations restarted around the table. The alcohol and the fatigue were beginning to make her feel quite heady. After all, she had barely slept in more than twenty hours. She had noticed earlier that Mei-Ling’s boss, Section Chief Huang, was distracted and dour, and she saw now that he only picked at his food, troubled somehow, and taking no part in the social intercourse. She watched him for a moment or two. He was a good-looking man, but careworn somehow, as if carrying a heavy burden through life. She could not recall having seen him smile once.

  She was wondering why he was here at all when a waitress came in and whispered something in his ear. He paled slightly and stood up immediately. He spoke rapidly to Director Hu in Chinese. The Director nodded gravely and said something back, and Huang turned with a curt nod and hurried out. The Commissioner whispered to Margaret, ‘I am afraid the wife of the Section Chief is very unwell.’

  ‘I wonder, what is your view on our one-child policy, Doctor?’ Margaret realised the question was being addressed to her, and turned to find Cui Feng, the Director’s personal friend, smiling at her across the table.

  ‘I think it is draconian and barbaric,’ she said bluntly.

  Mr Cui was unruffled. He nodded. ‘I agree. But a necessary evil.’

  ‘I’m not sure that evil is ever necessary.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Mr Cui said, ‘evil is the only option, and it is necessary to choose whichever is the least unpalatable. Without a policy to reduce the birth rate we would be unable to feed our population and many millions of people would die.’ He ran a hand thoughtfully over his smooth chin. He was taller than his friend, the Director, with a head of thick, black hair and a very gentle demeanour, like a doctor with a kindly bedside manner. ‘You know, in Shandong Province alone, the population would now have reached nearly one hundred and fifty million. But because of our birth control policy, the population is only ninety million. We have cut the birthrate by more than half since nineteen seventy, and cut the rate of infant mortality to thirty-four per thousand – which is far less than the world average of fifty.’

  The Procurator General said with a mischief-making smile, ‘Mr Cui has a vested interest here, Doctor. Five years ago he opened a number of joint-venture clinics in Shanghai and persuaded the government to give him the contract to carry out all the abortions in the city.’

  And Margaret thought how being a personal friend of the Mayor’s policy adviser would not have hindered that process, though she didn’t say so.

  ‘Three hundred thousand of them a year,’ the Director said. ‘Which was placing a heavy demand on limited government resources.’

  ‘Three hundred thousand abortions!’ Margaret said, incredulously. ‘A year?’

  ‘In Shanghai alone,’ Mr Cui said.

  ‘Then your policy is failing,’ Margaret retorted. She felt an anger building in her, and ignored the warning looks from Li.

  ‘How so?’ asked Director Hu coldly.

  ‘It is one thing to persuade people to have only one child. It is another to force them to have abortions.’ She recalled with horror and regret the emotional blackmail that had forced her to abort her own unborn child. It’ll ruin both our lives, David had said, and she had lived with the pain and the guilt ever since. She said, ‘You are simply substituting the death of people by starvation with the murder of children in the womb. I can accept abortion when the life of the mother is in danger, but not as a matter of convenience.’

  ‘It is not convenience,’ Mei-Ling said. Her tone was as aggressive as Margaret’s. ‘These women have had babies. They made a mistake getting pregnant again, or were greedy, and it is their duty to have the children aborted.’

  Margaret glanced at Li, but his face was impassive.

  Mr Cui said, more softly, ‘Family planning in China has not only reduced the birth rate, Doctor, it has increased living standards, and life expectancy is now more than seventy years.’

  ‘Well, of course, as someone who’s profiting from other people’s misery, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’ It was out before Margaret could stop herself. She felt her face flush red as she realised the bluntness of what she had said.

  There was a moment’s shocked silence around the table. Only Mr Cui remained, apparently, unperturbed. He retained his soft bedside manner. ‘Of course we are in business to make money,’ he said. ‘As are doctors and hospitals in the United States. But we also offer advice and counselling. These women would have had their abortions in state hospitals where the procedure would have been performed on a production line basis. We, at least, try to make the process more human.’

  Margaret confined herself to a quick nod, not trusting herself to open her mouth again.

  But if Mr Cui had remained understanding, Director Hu was not so forgiving. He said pointedly, ‘It seems, Dr Campbell, that developments regarding the bodies at Pudong are unlikely now to require your extended attention.’

  ‘And why is that?’ she asked levelly.

  ‘You were at the press conference, I believe,’ said the Director.

  ‘In my experience,’ Margaret said, ‘there is often a big gap between the truth and what the press is told.’

  The Director leaned forward and placed his chin very carefully on his interlocked fists. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘The body I examined tonight, albeit briefly, was not that of a corpse subjected to student practice or medical research.’

  Director Hu tensed visibly. Much as he would
doubtless have liked to put Margaret on the first plane back to the States, he was a prisoner of his own high-profile decision to bring her in. ‘Then how did she die?’ he asked.

  ‘I should be able to tell you that after the autopsy.’ She was aware of the looks that flashed quickly between the Director, the Commissioner and the Procurator General. If they had harboured hopes of this thing going away quickly and easily, this ill-mannered American was clearly intent on dashing them. What had started out, perhaps, as a celebration banquet, had very quickly turned sour. And it did not last much longer.

  Half-hearted toasts were drunk, glasses raised in thanks to the host, and then Director Hu stood up, signalling that the meal was over. His guests immediately stood also, and began making their farewells. Margaret stood isolated near the door and watched as the Director took Li to one side. Mei-Ling approached her, a smile playing mischievously about her lips. ‘Well done,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘You have just made an enemy of the second most powerful man in Shanghai.’

  Li was cursing himself for having trusted Margaret in this situation. He had smelled the vodka on her breath when they picked her up at the hotel. He had watched her empty all the toasting glasses, and consume several beers. Alcohol always lowered her already limited levels of self-restraint.

  He felt the grip of the Director’s short, thick fingers on his arm as he steered him away from the table. ‘That Meiguoren …’ he almost spat out the Chinese word for American, ‘… had better not embarrass us, Li.’

  Li said, ‘You told me you wanted the truth, Director Hu. I believe she will give us that.’

  Director Hu glared at Li, no doubt regretting the haste in appointing him and his agreeing to the involvement of the American. ‘A word of advice, Deputy Section Chief. Marry a dog, stay with a dog; marry a rooster, stay with a rooster. You should choose your friends carefully.’