The Last Six Million Seconds

by John Burdett

  If glory could last for ever

  Then the waters of Han would flow northward.

  Chan looked at Cuthbert.

  “It’s from one of my translations of Li Po, ‘The River Song.’ It was on that marble table near her swimming pool. She knew I would be the one to find it. I think she meant that her brilliant day was over; she was bowing out. She’d had enough of all of us.”

  Chan waited for the diplomat to recover. “And that tape recording?”

  “Of that memorable night when you smoked opium with her? She’d hidden it in her bedroom. I removed it before calling the police. It was classified information after all.”

  Chan kept quiet. There was never anything to say in reply to a true confession. He moved nervously around the book-filled shelves, spoke in an unnaturally light tone. “D’you know, I’ve always wanted a library like this? To have so many books, all in order on beautiful oak shelves. To be able to come in and handle them. To have the space to enjoy them. And the learning, of course. You read wenyen-classical Chinese. I don’t. That’s ironic.”

  Cuthbert loosened a shirt button, then, seeming to make a decision, removed his jacket and threw it on the sofa. He had finished his second glass of brandy and showed no sign of drunkenness. Chan finished his.

  Cuthbert poured two more. “You envy me, I envy you.”

  “You’re mocking me.”

  “Not at all. I envy you all the things you don’t have to think about. It must be marvelous, hunting down some half-witted murderer, preparing the evidence for court, potting him. You have a ninety percent success rate. Most people conclude you’re brilliant. I would conclude you’re underusing your gifts.”

  Chan looked at the Englishman standing by the window. “You know what’s the weirdest thing of all about your culture? A morbid addiction to guilt. My ex-wife is English. She experienced no guilt herself, of course, but she could inflict it from a distance. You people can impose guilt on anything. If I listened to you, I could end up feeling guilty about solving so many crimes.”

  Cuthbert smiled thinly. “I was merely explaining why you should not envy me. In your profession you are given soluble problems, like a crossword. Take the Mincer Murders. To you it was simply a case of identifying the victims and the perpetrators.”

  “And to you?”

  The diplomat seemed on the point of saying something, then stopped. He started again. “You conclude the investigation, and what was the case really all about? Answer: The general and his cronies who will be running this colony in a few weeks’ time are criminals who have made stupendous fortunes out of the export of heroin and arms and are now in the process of collecting uranium for weapons of mass destruction.”

  “Truth can hurt. But it’s still the truth.”

  “So you go to the media, tell the world. Six million people in Hong Kong who have been hoping for the best now know that they can expect the worst. The half who have other countries to go to flood the streets to the airport. The other three million riot. It becomes clear that Great Britain cannot contain the situation. So the People’s Liberation Army comes in early to keep the peace. Don’t you see? Xian cannot lose now. He’s holding all the cards. There never was a case to solve. It’s a power game we cannot win.”

  Chan felt that Cuthbert was invoking a deeper level of responsibilty and wisdom than he was accustomed to work on. He found himself preoccupied by a different problem.

  “You think he’ll kill me?”

  Cuthbert shrugged. “It depends. Two days ago you demonstrated to his satisfaction that the 14K and Sun Yee On triad societies made a fool of him and chopped up two of his most senior cadres. I went to the length of recommending the assassination of Clare Coletti and her friends in the hope of keeping the thing secret. Of course I was aware of the futility, but one has to try. I heard today that the news has been leaked to Xian. I would guess that he won’t get around to thinking about you until he’s attended to what he will consider the more pressing aspects of the matter.”

  “You hate Xian?”

  Cuthbert poured the brandy and shook his head. “I would like to, but it’s difficult to hate a primal force. To hate Xian would be like hating typhoons or volcanic activity. He’s simply a fact of life. A fact of life, moreover, that the Western democracies prefer not to think about. Their awakening from deep liberal sleep is going to be interesting.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Cuthbert handed him a glass. Chan lit a Benson. “Oh, I think you do. You must have noticed how the West is complacently convinced that human evolution will eventually produce worldwide democracy, a mirror of itself, in other words. They have no idea. Modern China is hardly twenty years old, if you count the Cultural Revolution as the moment when the old China was destroyed forever. That was also the moment when they destroyed old Peking-because it was beautiful. As a policeman you must know what animal finds beauty intolerable: the human mutant. The Beast. If the West had any sense, it would shiver in fear.”

  “I would like to understand you.” Cuthbert looked at Chan in surprise. Spoken in Cantonese, the sentence indicated respect and genuine interest.

  “You would? It’s not difficult. Just assume the West is one hundred and eighty degrees wrong in its assumptions. Suppose China is not the past but the future. Suppose that over the border they murder their female babies for a reason, oh, not a thought-out reason but a collective psychological reaction to a situation humanity was never designed to endure. See?”

  “Too many people?”

  “One point six billion at the last count. Have you any idea of the sheer administrative will required to feed such numbers? You’ve been to Beijing; you know that you need a measure of ruthlessness just to get on or off a bus. And by the year 2000 eighty percent of them will be male. Young and male.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that freedom, democracy, liberalism, these are quaint nineteenth-century concepts that have passed their sell-by date. In the very near future all such luxuries will be swept away by monsters who have been spawned by monsters to govern monsters. What will be required will be an extreme of callousness that will make the West faint. And there’s not a force on earth that will be able to contain the problem in China. I’m saying, my friend, that Xian is not a mere thug or warlord. He’s a visionary. He is the future.”

  “And this is why he needs an atom bomb? Because there are too many people?”

  Cuthbert shrugged. “I doubt that he’s bothered to think it through. It’s a fact, though, if lebensraum is what you’re after, nothing clears a space like nuclear radiation.”

  “I still don’t understand. This monster, this beast who destroyed the woman you loved, you’ve spent much of your career doing as he tells you?”

  Cuthbert fumbled with his cigarette case. His speech was becoming slurred. “I lick his arse.” He raised the unlit cigarette in one hand and moved his weight with a slight lurch from one foot to another. The black bow tie still lay across his dress shirt; he stared at Chan. His eyes were windows to incredulity. “I lick his arse.”

  56

  Chan’s second rehabilitation came in the form of a circular issued by Commissioner Tsui: In the Emily Ping investigation there had been serious contamination of evidence. It was now clear that Chief Inspector Chan’s fingerprints had not, after all, been lifted from the belt that had been found around her neck.

  To give his colleagues time to absorb the latest change in his fortunes, Chan took a day off. He was rereading 1984 when Aston called. One of the people who worked in the building where the vat had first been found had telephoned to report suspicious circumstances. When asked what exactly he found suspicious, the caller had replied, “I’m not too clear,” and hung up. Determined to cover his back, Chan telephoned Riley and Cuthbert and arranged to meet them at the warehouse with Aston.

  They were waiting for him on the ground floor and followed him into the lift. The police barriers were still in place, although some
one had painted a red star over the “Royal” in “Royal Hong Kong Police Force.” Heavy sweetness penetrated the corridor as they approached the wide industrial door, from behind which something droned. When Chan pushed the door open, the odor worsened and the drone increased to a thunder of buzzing. He was gagging as he switched on the light.

  He turned on a heel and with an open hand thrust Aston’s face back against the door. At the same time he pulled at Riley’s shirtsleeve. Aston had started a high-pitched scream.

  “Better get the boy out of here, sir. I said better get the boy out of here, sir.” When Riley’s eyes started to roll, Chan slapped him across the face. The chief superintendent shook himself like a dog; blood trickled from a nostril. In a sudden lunge Riley put a long arm around Aston.

  “Come on, Dick, I never could take the really rough stuff either. Let’s get out of here.” He maneuvered Aston out of the warehouse and toward the lift lobby while the young inspector started into another scream.

  Turning back, Chan exchanged a glance with Cuthbert.

  Cuthbert’s eyes ran the length of the warehouse. “Told you.”

  Saliver Kan’s head and torso emerged in a black halo of flies from the nearest mincer while mince from the lower part of his body oozed into a steel tray. He had bitten through most of his tongue, which hung from his mouth by a thread. Extreme pain had wrenched his jaw to one side and twisted it. Next to him Joker Liu sprouted at an angle from the second machine. To the right of Saliver Kan identical mincers held what remained of High-Rise Lam, Four-Finger Bosco and Fat Boy Wong-all members of the Sun Yee On Triad Society. Nor had the 14K been spared. Chan recognized foot soldiers and more senior officers as he walked slowly, hounded by flies, down a gallery of agony. With military precision the mincers had been placed in a perfect diagonal from one corner of the warehouse to the other.

  Terminal suffering expressed itself differently on every face. Pausing before each image of death, he counted thirty-one members of the 14K and twelve members of the Sun Yee On, each with a mincer to himself. Metal trays had been placed under every outlet and were overflowing with rust-colored and black larvae that covered most of the floor. The ceiling was black and moving.

  At the end of the row the only nontriad was silently laughing. With no nerves in his legs, Wheelchair Lee must have serenely bled until he expired. Lee would have known the price to be paid for taunting Genghis Khan. Perhaps he had even volunteered to be at the mincing of the 14K; death would have been a small price to pay for a ringside seat. It must have been eerie, even for hardened killers of the PLA, to watch a man laugh while a machine ate his legs. In a corner by a pillar Chan saw an empty wheelchair.

  He rejoined Cuthbert, who ground his teeth. “Impressive,” he said eventually, covering his mouth and speaking through his hand, “if one considers the logistics.”

  Outside, Riley walked Aston up and down and talked into his ear. “Chelsea won three nil that time, but it was many years ago. I was a kid and Jimmy Greaves was playing.”

  “He’s a manager now,” Aston said. When he turned, Chan saw his struggle with horror.

  “How many were there?”

  “Forty-four,” Chan said.

  Aston doubled over in a cough, then straightened up. “Forty-four. The number for death twice. Would be, wouldn’t it?”

  “One might have wished for greater subtlety,” Cuthbert said.

  Aston brushed at the front of his shirt and tried to function while his teeth chattered. “Shall I call a van, start taking video shots, sketch the positions, get some blokes to interview the occupants on other floors of the building?”

  Chan’s face was free of his usual twitch. He turned to Cuthbert. “You’d better ask the political adviser that question. Shall we investigate this crime, Mr. Cuthbert?” Cuthbert hesitated. “Or would you like to tell us who did it so we can save time?”

  Aston’s eyes widened. Cuthbert grunted. “It’s classified.” They watched him back away from them while they stared.

  “Just a minute.” Riley crossed the lobby. His tall body hung over Cuthbert. “What d’you mean, ‘it’s classified’?” Cuthbert tried to slide away. Riley put out a hand. “I said, what d’you mean, ‘it’s classified’?”

  Chan watched the two Englishmen struggle in a subdued standup wrestling movement. Riley held the other’s sleeve and would not let go. Finally Cuthbert pulled himself away, tearing his jacket. He strode to the lift and pressed the button. Turning to face them, he seemed to want to explain, apologize even, to the three policemen, who were glaring at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when the lift came. “It really is classified.” He entered the lift and spoke as the doors closed. “You’re not to speak of this to any member of the press. That’s official.” His eyes pleaded with Chan’s. “It’s China.”

  57

  Jonathan Wong received a telephone call in his office in Central. When the caller was sure he was speaking to the dispatcher of the photographs, each of which consisted of a close-up of a mincer with human contents, Danny Chow’s voice tightened. “What do you want?”

  “I represent a client who wants to do business, Mr. Chow,” Wong replied, reaching for a cigarette.

  “Some client.”

  “I think both sides have made their points. Respect has been generated. Now’s the time to deal, don’t you think?”

  The voice from New York sighed. “You could put it that way. What does he want?”

  Wong lit his cigarette. “The commodity you procured for my client sometime ago was unfortunately never delivered. He would like to order some more. Enough for operational purposes this time. And at a more realistic price.”

  “Do we get to keep our couriers?”

  “I think we can reach an understanding about that.”

  Chow sighed again. “We can probably deal. Give me two days.”

  “Certainly,” Jonathan said, and replaced the receiver.

  58

  They came for Chan at lunchtime. Two tall Chinese with thick Shanghainese accents walked into Mongkok Police Station and up the stairs to his office. Neither would give his name or state his business at reception; no one had the courage to stop them, however. Chan did not resist and was not surprised to see Cuthbert in the back of the black Mercedes waiting in the car park behind the police station. He and Cuthbert found nothing to say to each other. Chan remembered a small room, an old man and black-and-white photographs hanging from a string that depicted people being taken to their executions.

  At the top of the Bank of China a feast was in progress. Chan sat next to Cuthbert at a huge circular table. Xian sat directly opposite Chan. The detective had never seen any of the other sixteen men who sat around picking and sucking loudly at the crabs that ended every now and then with a soft thuck in a pile of shells in the middle. Chan saw that they were all about the same age as Xian. Apart from the general himself, who was wearing a black mandarin robe, the guests were in off-the-peg two-piece suits, black, gray or navy blue. None wore a necktie.

  After the crab a very old man served choi sam, abalone, steamed rice, crispy duck. The lunch finished with soup and then sliced oranges. Chan and Cuthbert ate nothing.

  The old man came around again with balloon-shaped brandy glasses, which he filled from a bottle labeled “VSO Cognac.”

  Xian raised his glass, said something loudly in Mandarin to which all the other old men assented.

  “I give you human suffering,” Cuthbert translated.

  Everyone drank except Chan and Cuthbert. Xian put down his glass, stared at Chan. Whenever he spoke, Cuthbert translated.

  “I see our chief inspector from Hong Kong doesn’t like my toast.”

  There were murmurs from around the table. Xian held up one hand. The murmurs ceased. “It’s all right, I understand. It’s not a jolly sort of toast of the kind the British and Americans like. But that’s because they are hypocrites. Open your eyes. It’s never been clearer that the happiness of the few depends on the mis
ery of the billions. This is the capitalist system that has been forced upon us. You who have one foot in the West should be pleased with our new enlightenment.”

  He paused for a moment in thought. His eyes rested on Chan. “In my youth, when I was only a little younger than you, I believed passionately in Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought. So did General Wen, General Chen Yu, General Wu, General Guo, General Pu Xinyu, General Zuo, General Lao, General Tang, General Zhang, General Wang, General Li, General Yao, General Pan, General Ge, General Yu Wei.” As Xian went around the table, each of the old men nodded. “We all did. In 1952 I had the honor of attending a report given by the great Zhou Enlai in the Cherishing Humanity Hall in Zhongnanhai in Beijing. I listened attentively while he spoke for seven hours. Of course I understood nothing, but how could a man who spoke for seven hours be wrong? How could Mao be wrong? How could Lenin and Marx be wrong? So for forty years we watched China grow poorer from being right, while the West grew richer from being wrong. When the Soviet Union finally disappeared, we all wondered what we had done with our lives. Worst of all, we wondered what we had done to China. How did it come about that the West was right after all? Political power came out of a gun, Mao said. Well, in China we had plenty of guns but not much power. So we started selling our guns, the other generals and I. Overnight things started to change. People we’d never met before from countries we’d never heard of came to see us, asking to buy our guns. America sells arms too. More than we do. More than anyone. The British and the French too. We had started to do things right. But it wasn’t enough. Our guns are too old-fashioned, too inefficient to compare with American and British weapons.

  “We sat down to lunch one day, the other generals and I, to work out what it was that was still missing. Being Chinese, we looked to history. Where had the British money come from to enable them to build the biggest empire in the world, to build their factories, their warships, their airplanes? Where had American money come from? Westerners work no harder than Chinese, but they make a thousand times more money, because of the start they have on us. What did it consist of, this start? It took us a whole lunchtime to work it out. Slaves and narcotics. After the slaves and narcotics phase of capitalism, who knows, we might even have democracy in China. But we’re a long way behind, and we have to start in the way approved by history. Aren’t you pleased we’ve taken the path to freedom?”