The Killing Room (The China Thrillers 3)

by Peter May

  *

  As their taxi drew away from the kerb, Margaret caught a fleeting glimpse, like a smear on the window, of Mei-Ling’s unhappiness. Li had turned down her offer of a lift back to the hotel and told her he and Margaret would take a taxi. And so Mei-Ling had been left standing on the sidewalk in the rain with the Procurator General and the Commissioner of Police. The Director’s entourage had already departed. But it was of small comfort to Margaret. She could almost reach out and touch Li’s anger. It seemed that working together always brought them into conflict.

  As soon as they were on their own in the back of the taxi, Li said, ‘What the hell were you playing at?’

  Margaret immediately felt her hackles rise. ‘I was expressing my mind. Where I come from that’s not a crime.’

  ‘Well, where I come from, it is extremely bad manners to show disrespect to your host and his guests by being rude to them. But then, I should have known – Americans are not renowned for their sensitivity.’

  ‘And the Chinese are famous for their intolerance towards other people’s ideas. But I suppose that’s what comes of running a one-party state. The powers that be aren’t used to being questioned. And they don’t like it when they are.’ The irony of their fight was not lost on Margaret. Thirty-six hours earlier she had been defending China to David in Chicago.

  Li held up his hand and through gritted teeth said, ‘Do not start, Margaret. Please do not start.’

  She sat back and folded her arms across her chest, clenching her jaws to fight back the impulse to give voice to all the thoughts going through her head. They sat in silence for several minutes as their car left behind the lights of Yunnan Nan Road, and headed east towards the river.

  Finally Li said, ‘And your performance at the mortuary this afternoon is going to make things very difficult as far as working with Dr Lan is concerned. You know how important mianzi is to the Chinese. Mei-Ling says he was acutely embarrassed.’

  ‘Oh, does she? And what else does Mei-Ling say?’

  ‘She thinks maybe you are not the right person to work on such a highly sensitive case.’

  ‘Oh, and what about your loss of face? After all, you’re the one who brought me in.’

  ‘You are the one who is causing me to lose face,’ Li said angrily.

  ‘And that’s what all this is about, isn’t it?’ Margaret snapped back. ‘Face! Everybody’s face, or the loss of it. It’s all you goddamn people seem to care about.’ And she wondered what on earth had possessed her to come back ‘And, of course, you and Mei-Ling will have discussed all this during your intimate little rides to and from your hotel this evening. Did she come in and hold your hand while you changed?’

  Li sighed theatrically and turned to stare out of the window. ‘Do not be so ridiculous!’

  ‘Oh, so I’m ridiculous now. Not only am I an embarrassment who causes you to lose face, but I’m ridiculous as well. And I suppose it would be equally ridiculous of me to imagine that there might be anything going on between you and Mei-Ling.’

  ‘What?’ Li looked at her incredulously. ‘That is not even worthy of a response.’ And part of him was gripped by an acute sense of guilt at the feelings that Mei-Ling had aroused in him the night before. He looked quickly away again.

  ‘You mean you’re not even going to deny it? Two attractive people thrown together on a stressful job in a strange city? It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.’

  ‘You are being unreasonable and paranoid,’ he said.

  ‘So the count’s up to four, now. Not only am I embarrassing and ridiculous, but I’m also unreasonable and paranoid. I don’t know why the hell you ever wanted me to work on this case.’

  He turned angrily on her, ‘Neither do I.’

  It was like a slap full in the face. Margaret felt it stinging. Li knew he had gone too far, but it was too late to take anything back. Light from a shop front caught her hair as they passed it, and he wanted to reach out and touch it. He remembered how they had been together, remembered the first time they had made love in a cold railway carriage in the north. Her arrogance had always infuriated him, and her vulnerability always drawn him. Each emotion fought with the other in him now as he sat there in the taxi beside her. But he could not bring himself to bridge the gap of their argument, to hold out the olive branch that would lead to reconciliation and the feel of her skin on his in a warm bed in the Peace Hotel.

  Margaret had gone cold inside. She was determined not to cry, determined not to show him how much he had hurt her. All she had wanted from the moment she arrived was to hold him, and have him hold her. To make love and lie in his arms and forget, at least for a time, all the things that stood in the way of their relationship.

  The taxi pulled up outside the Peace Hotel, and a bellboy in red uniform and carrying a black umbrella, stepped out of the shelter of the canopy to open her door. She swung her legs out, then turned back towards Li. She said quietly, ‘I wish I’d never come back.’

  And she hurried through revolving doors to ride in solitude to her room on the sixth floor and cry herself to sleep on a big, cold empty bed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I

  The body is apparently that of an adult Asian woman that has been mutilated. The head and extremities have been amputated and the body has been incised along its chest and abdomen.

  Margaret spoke clearly for the microphone. Experience had taught her that the Chinese who transliterated the tape would be easily confused by any lapse by her into slang or dialect. The vocabulary was arcane and difficult enough.

  The body lay on the cold stainless steel of the autopsy table, its amputated pieces assembled in a grotesque parody of the complete human form they had once comprised. The head lay at an odd angle, black holes where the eyes should have been gazing into nothing. One foot was missing. Deterioration was more advanced in some pieces than in others. Parts of the dismembered limbs had become purple-black and slimy, and blisters filled with decompositional juices were forming on the skin. The sweet smell of rotting human flesh filled the room, like luncheon meat that has been left in the refrigerator and discovered two weeks too late.

  The body is nude, unembalmed, and is cold to the touch. Rigor mortis is not appreciated. The body is in an early to moderate stage of decomposition characterised by areas of red and green-black discoloration of the abdomen and legs, drying of the face and digits, and patchy drying of the body surfaces. There are also discernible areas of adipocere.

  ‘What is that?’ Li asked, and Margaret glanced up at him through the plastic of her goggles.

  She enjoyed the anonymity of the pathologist during autopsy. She could hide beneath the shower cap, behind the goggles and surgeon’s mask. She could conceal her vulnerability under the surgeon’s pyjamas, plastic apron and long-sleeved gown. Barely any part of her was exposed to scrutiny. Gloves, steel mesh, latex and waterproof sleeves cloaked every inch of exposed flesh. Even her shoes were shrouded in plastic.

  Today she felt particularly exposed to scrutiny. She knew that Li was watching her closely wondering if, perhaps, their relationship had reached its end. Mei-Ling, too, was carefully examining her every move. Perhaps she was also wondering about the state of Margaret’s relations with Li, and what might have passed between them last night. And, of course, Dr Lan was waiting for the first slip, the first wrong move, the first ambiguity, to justify his previous findings. The autopsy assistants were courteous and professional, but they were Lan’s men and made that clear to Margaret by their exaggerated deference to her Chinese counterpart. At the back of the room a green-uniformed forensics expert stood watching with interest. He was a young man, with round, gold-rimmed spectacles. Unusually for a Chinese there was stubble on his jaw. He could have done with a shave. Margaret felt the heat building beneath all her layers, and glanced up at the closed-circuit TV camera on the wall. Somewhere, she knew, in another room, other eyes were also watching.

  ‘Adipocere …’ she said, but paused and glance
d at Dr Lan. ‘Perhaps you would like to explain to the Deputy Section Chief, Doctor.’ She could not tell what his expression was beneath his mask. He nodded curtly.

  ‘Adipocere,’ he said, ‘is a white-tan waxy deposit, especially over the face, breasts and buttocks. It is formed by conversion of the oily fats in the body fat to solid fats during slow decomposition, suggesting that a body has been dead for at least three months. In addition, in this case, there are patchy white dry spots which would suggest direct exposure to cold air, probably in a freezer.’

  Margaret nodded, raising an eyebrow in approval, and then turned her attentions to an examination of the head.

  The head has been separated from the neck at the third cervical vertebra. It is normocephalic. The hair is partially sloughing, but the remaining hair is coarse, straight, black, and measures fourteen inches on the top of the head. The skin is dry and there is adipocere over the face. The eyes are not identified, and there is brown, waxy and pasty material in the orbits.

  She worked the mouth open with her fingers.

  The lips are dry, darkened, but apparently free of trauma. The oral mucous membranes are sloughing, but also free of trauma. The teeth are natural and in fair repair, except for the identification of shallow grooves on the occlusal surfaces of the incisors.

  Margaret examined the neck and moved down to the chest where an entry wound extending in a ‘Y’ shape from each shoulder, meeting at the breastbone and carrying straight down to the pubic bone, had been roughly sutured with a coarse, black, braided waxed twine.

  Dr Lan said, ‘The same twine appears to have been used to suture the wounds in all the victims.’ Margaret nodded.

  There is mottled drying of the skin of the chest and abdomen, patchy areas of mould, freezer burn and adipocere.

  She leaned over to examine the wound more closely.

  There is also a faint yellow-brown discoloration of the skin of the chest and abdomen.

  The colour rose high on Dr Lan’s face, and he also leaned over to make a closer examination of the wound. Margaret said, ‘Were you aware of this during the other two autopsies?’

  Lan shook his head. ‘The bodies were still quite muddy. It is possible I overlooked it.’

  ‘Is it significant?’ Li asked.

  ‘We’ll discuss that later,’ Margaret said coldly, and returned her attentions to the torso. She was afraid to speak directly to Li in case the emotion was apparent in her voice. She had slept for only a couple of hours before her body clock had wakened her, and she had lain for the rest of the night thinking about Mei-Ling, and about Li, and about their argument. Was it really just her paranoia and insecurity that made her distrust Mei-Ling? She had determined that today she was going to be only what she was good at – a professional pathologist.

  The breasts are those of an adult female and are free of masses or trauma. The abdomen likewise bears the sutured incision but is otherwise free of trauma.

  She pressed the flat of her hands on the soft, giving abdomen and then felt around with her fingers.

  The abdomen is flat and on palpation appears to be missing organs. The external genitalia are those of an adult female and are free of trauma. The anus is patulous and atraumatic.

  She moved on to the severed limbs, examining them for signs of trauma, other than amputation. But when she couldn’t find any, she turned the body to examine the buttocks and the spine, and then moved back to where the head had been severed, for further external examination of the wound.

  The amputation edge of the head is sharp, bloodless, and passes through the third cervical vertebra. The bone bears several deep sharp tool marks, with the appearance of having been chopped. There is a small amount of clotted blood adherent to the surface, but the tissues are otherwise pale and bloodless. The amputation wounds of the upper extremities are similar to the head amputation wound. They are cleanly cut, bloodless and pale. There are no saw marks and they, likewise, have the appearance of having been chopped at the level of the upper third of the humerus. The leg amputation edges at mid-femur have the same appearance.

  ‘Is that important?’ Li asked. ‘The lack of blood at the amputation edges?’

  Mei-Ling said, ‘All it means is that they were not hacked to death. They were chopped up afterwards.’

  Margaret glanced at her and wondered why she was surprised. After all, Mei-Ling must have attended many autopsies. Why shouldn’t she understand the significance of the bloodless wounds? Mei-Ling shifted self-consciously under her piercing gaze and said, ‘We had a murderer here in the nineties who liked to hack up his victims.’

  Margaret nodded, and then said, ‘Before going internal, perhaps we should take her fingerprints. It’s unlikely that any of these women have criminal records, but it is a possibility. And since identification is paramount here …’

  Lan looked at her, surprised. ‘But that is not possible.’

  ‘Why?’

  Lan lifted the fingers of the right hand. ‘The degree of decay, Dr Campbell. It would be impossible to take clean prints.’

  Carefully, Margaret took the hand from him and examined it minutely, noting for the record an area of callus between the top knuckle and the tip of the third finger. Then she started easing the wrinkled skin away from the rotting flesh of the fingers. ‘The process of degloving has already begun,’ she said. ‘All we have to do is help it on its way.’ And slowly, delicately, she eased the skin of the whole hand free from the decaying muscle and tissue inside. The fingernails came away also, so that she was left holding what looked much like a very thin, discoloured latex glove with neatly trimmed fingernails. It hung limp in her hand. Everyone around the table watched with fascinated horror a technique which was new to them. ‘If someone would bring an inkpad and card …’ Margaret left the request hanging.

  Lan nodded towards the uniformed forensics man, who hurried out and returned a few moments later with an inkpad and several fingerprint cards. The young man looked perplexed when Margaret handed him a pair of latex gloves and asked him to put them on. Again he looked to Dr Lan for guidance and again was given the nod. He pulled on the gloves and Margaret said, ‘Now slip your right hand inside the degloved skin.’

  There was something close to panic in his eyes now, and Margaret saw perspiration beading across his forehead. He hesitated, but a sharp word in Chinese from Lan prompted him to do as he was told, and he carefully slipped on the skin of the dead woman’s hand like another layer of glove. ‘Now,’ Margaret said, ‘take a set of fingerprints as if they were your own.’

  The tension in the young man was apparent as one by one he rolled the ‘gloved’ fingers of his right hand across the inkpad, and then repeated the process on the white card, creating a perfect set of the dead woman’s prints.

  Apart from a faint humming of the lights, there was complete silence in the room and Margaret said, ‘After we have finished here, and before we carry out any further autopsies, we should examine the hands of all the victims for signs of trauma or other evidence, and then repeat this process. It will speed up any possible identification.’

  Lan looked at her, and she saw in his eyes for the first time, a glimmer of respect. He nodded his solemn agreement. ‘I agree, Doctor,’ he said.

  Margaret’s standing in the room had suddenly risen, and she returned to the body of the poor woman on the table to begin the internal examination.

  There is a twenty-three inch ‘Y’-shaped sutured incision of midline anterior torso, running from each shoulder to the breastbone and down to the symphysis pubis.

  She turned to Lan. ‘In my experience, Doctor, Chinese pathologists normally employ a single post-mortem incision running in a straight line from the laryngeal cartilage to the pubic bone. Similar to the practice of pathologists in Europe.’

  Lan nodded. ‘That is correct.’

  ‘The “Y” incision is peculiarly American. The cut that I would make during autopsy.’

  Lan nodded again, but added, ‘I have made a “Y”
cut myself on occasion. But I agree, in China it is the exception rather than the rule.’

  Margaret carefully began unpicking the suture to ease open the chest cavity.

  Upon removal of the suture, the edges of the incision are seen to be oily with decompositional change, but are otherwise erythematous, and there are multiple areas of clotted blood on the incision’s edges.

  She glanced up at Lan, and again the colour rose on his face. The exchange of looks was brief and wordless, but Li did not miss it. He decided to save any questions for later.

  There are several areas of black gritty material in areas of haemorrhage of the incision edges of the abdominal wall. The sternum has been cut vertically and bears no sternotomy wires. The heart, lungs, kidneys, liver and pancreas are absent.

  ‘What are sternotomy wires?’ Li asked.

  Again, before Margaret could answer, Mei-Ling said, ‘They are loops of wire that are used to close the sternum after open chest surgery.’

  Margaret inclined her head slightly. ‘You know your surgery, Miss Nien.’ And Mei-Ling blushed.

  Margaret returned to a systematic examination of the internal organ systems, working her way through the remains of the pericardial sac and the various arteries and pulmonary vessels left by the removal of the heart. Suddenly she stopped as she uncovered the ends of what looked like two very small sutures of blue-coloured thread. She examined them for a moment, a frown of puzzlement on her face, and glanced at Dr Lan. His dark eyes gave no clue as to his thoughts.

  The major pulmonary vessels each bear a knot of suture, appearing to be a monofilament polypropylene, approximately half an inch in length.

  She detailed the missing lungs and sectioned the neck before moving down to the stomach and intestine, noting the absence of the liver, gallbladder and pancreas, finding nothing abnormal until she began pawing her way through the retroperitoneal fat to make sure that the kidneys really were absent. There she found further suture knots on the renal arteries, and for a moment lost her scalpel as it slipped through fingers made greasy by the fat.