by Peter May
Margaret laughed. ‘You make it sound almost exciting. I can assure you, most of the time it’s pretty dull.’
He had become quite intense, focused, as if holding something in his mind’s eye that required absolute concentration to describe. ‘Of course it is. It’s a painful, painstaking process that requires endless patience and a clear vision of where it’s leading. But the truth is never dull — that extraordinary mix of human passion and frailty, maybe darkness, that leads to the commission of the crime. Do you see what I mean?’
Margaret shook her head. She had no idea where he was leading her. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘It’s what I do,’ he said. ‘The same thing as you. It’s what archaeology is all about. Peeling back the layers — usually of time — to uncover the evidence, all the little clues left us by history, that will lead eventually to the truth. And how extraordinary that truth can be. How compelling and emotive, and filled with the same human passion and frailty and darkness that motivates the crimes that you investigate. Why shouldn’t I bring those stories to people? They’re good stories. A good story is always worth telling. And if you tell it well you’ll get an audience.’ He stopped suddenly, as if surprised by his own outburst and uncertain as to where it had led him.
Margaret shrugged. ‘So … the TV critic of the New York Times can stick it up his ass?’
There was just a moment before Michael burst out laughing, an uninhibited, infectious laugh. ‘Now why didn’t I think of that? I could have saved myself a lot of hot air.’
But in that ‘hot air’, Margaret had caught, perhaps, a glimpse of what it was that had made him so successful on the small screen: the passion and personality that compelled you to listen, to hear his story, an intensity that in life, she thought, could become wearing. Although in Michael’s case, she considered, his sense of humour might just be a mitigating factor. That, and a great ass.
He drained his glass and lifted another, nodding towards the terrace. ‘You want to step outside? It’s getting a bit airless in here.’
They followed the dark marble tiles out from the dining room through the French windows on to the terrace. It was immediately cooler, a light breeze stirring the hanging fronds of the willow that in daytime would provide much needed shade from the sun.
‘Two moons out tonight,’ Michael said, and Margaret immediately looked up, but could see nothing through the dark haze of pollution and cloud. He smiled at her consternation and nodded towards the quintet playing intently, lost in their own world, at the far side of the terrace. He leaned towards her, confidentially. ‘The two guitar-like instruments with the circular sound boxes — they’re called ruans, or sometimes “moon guitars”. You can see why.’ And Margaret could, particularly out here on the terrace, the pale wood of the perfectly round sound boxes flashing in the reflected light of discreet overhead lamps, for all the world like two moons dancing in time to the music. She liked the analogy. There was something pleasing about it. She finished her vodka.
‘Shall I get you another?’ Michael asked.
‘No. It would only encourage me to get drunk.’ She paused selfconsciously, then added quickly, ‘And, besides, the waiters in here aren’t up to much.’
He smiled, but had sensed in her the melancholy she had immediately tried to disguise. He said, ‘You’ve had a rough few months.’
She flashed him a look, more defensive than hostile. ‘And you’d know all about that.’
He shrugged. ‘No. All I really know is that you’re the lady who put out those scare stories on the Net about genetically contaminated rice.’
‘They weren’t scare stories,’ she almost snapped.
‘Hey,’ he said, and raised his palms protectively. ‘I don’t know about you, but I figure that claims that half the population of the world is at risk are pretty scary.’
She relented a little and forced a half-hearted smile. ‘We feared the worst. You should just be glad it didn’t turn out that way in the end. But don’t underestimate it. OK, so the virus wasn’t there in all the rice, and thank God a lot of people turned out to have a natural immunity, but there are still millions of people at risk.’
‘I read they think there’s a cure just around the corner.’
‘Well, let’s hope they’re right.’
There was an awkward pause. Then Michael said, ‘So, I suppose it’s you to blame for us having to eat all these goddamn noodles. Boy, that must have made you popular with the Chinese.’
She grinned sheepishly. ‘Another few weeks and the first new crop’ll be in. They just went back to the old, natural seed. And they can harvest three crops a year, so they’ll get their precious rice back soon enough.’
They stood in silence then, listening to the strange cadences of the traditional Chinese music, the wail of the two-stringed erh hu violin, the haunting breath of the purple bamboo flute, the two moons dancing, and the twang of the dulcimer. Margaret had no idea what to say. She had just dismissed the last three months of her life in a sentence, and made light of it, as if none of it had ever really mattered. She was aware of Michael’s sheer physicality as he stood silently at her shoulder. How was it possible, she wondered, that she could be attracted to this man when her relationship with Li had left her so raw? The thought scared her a little. And she remembered what it was most people usually forgot — that there was no such thing as harmless flirting.
‘I’d better go,’ she said.
‘You’ve only just arrived.’
‘Yeah, but it’s your party. I don’t want to monopolise you.’
‘You can monopolise me any time.’
She glanced at him, looking for the smile, but he wasn’t smiling, and she felt a flutter of fear in her breast, like a butterfly trapped just beneath the skin. But, then, suddenly she felt him relax again.
‘Look, why don’t you come out to location tomorrow? We’re setting up some dramatic recreations at the Ming Tombs. It’s only an hour out of Beijing.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t,’ she said. ‘I have a flight to catch in the morning.’
He frowned. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Home,’ she said simply.
He seemed confused. ‘Home being where?’
‘Chicago.’
‘When’ll you be back?’
‘Never,’ she said, and the finality of the word struck her like a blow, bringing her to her senses. ‘I really do have to go.’
‘Hi, how are you two getting on?’ They both turned at the sound of Sophie’s voice as she stepped on to the terrace.
‘You didn’t tell me she was leaving tomorrow,’ Michael said, almost a hint of accusation in his voice. He turned to Margaret. ‘And we haven’t even been properly introduced.’
‘Probably better that way,’ Margaret said. ‘If you never say hello, you never have to say goodbye.’ She turned to Sophie. ‘Thanks for the invite. I’ve enjoyed it. But I still have my packing to do.’ She forced a smile and nodded, and pushed off through the dining room, bumping shoulders with guests down the length of the long lounge. She retrieved her things from the cloakroom and hurried through the big red doors and down the steps into the cool evening.
In the street she stopped for a breath. The sound of the music had receded to a distant tinkle. She put a hand on the wall to steady herself. It had been her first encounter with real life, with normality, for far too long. And it had been much too heady. Like the first draw on a cigarette after years of abstinence. She would have to break herself in more gently.
III
He heard Margaret calling for help. Long, insistent cries. But he couldn’t see her — only a flickering glimmer of light somewhere beyond this darkness that enveloped him like a web, entrapping him in its blind, sticky mesh. But the plaintiveness of her voice was gut-wrenching, and he knew he could not reach her, could not help. He sat bolt upright, suddenly awake, lathered in sweat, entangled in the bed sheet. And the long, single ring of the telephone in the living room pierced his consci
ousness. He leaped quickly out of bed and was halfway down the hall, intent on reaching the phone so it wouldn’t waken his uncle, before he remembered that Yifu was dead. And the memory came like a blow in the solar plexus, painful, sickening. He almost cried out from the pain. He clattered breathlessly into the living room, and in the darkness knocked over the tiny telephone table. The phone rattled away across the linoleum, the receiver tumbling from its cradle. He could hear a strange and disembodied voice in the dark. ‘Wei … wei …’ Scrambling naked across the floor, struggling to see in the reflected glow of the streetlight outside, he finally found the receiver. ‘Li Yan.’
‘Deputy Section Chief, this is the duty officer at Beixinqiao Santiao. There’s been another murder.’
Li had retrieved the rest of the phone by now and turned on a lamp beside the sofa. He sat down and glanced at his watch. It was 4 a.m. ‘Another beheading?’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘Where?’
‘An apartment on the fourth floor at No. 7 Tuan Jie Hu Dongli in Chaoyang District.’
‘Who’s out there?’
‘Detective Qian left a few minutes ago. Do you want me to send a car?’
‘No, it’ll be as quick by bike. I’m on my way.’
Li hung up and sat for a moment, heart pounding, breathing hard. Another murder. He felt sick. Then he wondered if he would ever get used to his uncle not being there. That quiet voice so full of calm and reason, a wisdom and intelligence that Li knew he could never aspire to. He rubbed his face vigorously to try to banish the final vestiges of sleep, and the cloud of depression that hung over him whenever he thought about Yifu. He wished he believed in ghosts. He wished that Yifu would come back and haunt him, not just be there in his mind, in his memories. And yet he knew that a part of his uncle lived on in him. He still had a responsibility to him, and a hell of a lot to live up to. It had never been easy to walk in the footsteps of one of the most revered police officers in Beijing while he was alive. It was even harder now that he was gone.
Li went back to his bedroom and pulled on his jeans, a pair of trainers and a white tee shirt. He took his black leather jacket from the wardrobe and checked that he had cigarettes and his maroon Public Security ID wallet. He lit a cigarette and screwed up his face at the foul taste of it. He paused for a moment, then on an impulse he went into his uncle’s bedroom. He’d left it just as the old man kept it when he was alive. Personal things laid out neatly on the dresser, pictures on the wall; a photograph of Yifu as a young police officer setting off for Tibet in 1950; a picture of Yifu and his wife — the aunt Li had never met; a photograph of Yifu at his retirement banquet, his round face beaming broadly below a mop of curling black hair, a glaze over his normally bright eyes — he had drunk far too much beer. Li smiled and touched the picture, as if in touching the image of his uncle he could somehow reach him again in some other life. But it was just glass beneath his fingers, cold and lifeless. He turned quickly and switched out the light, and hurried from the apartment.
The night-shift security guard nodded as Li wheeled his bike out into Zhengyi Road and headed north up to East Chang’an Avenue. There was very little traffic about at this time, the odd private car, the occasional convoy of great rumbling trucks hauling coal south from the pits north of the city. There were virtually no other cyclists, and Li had the cycle lane to himself. He pedalled hard through the dappled light of streetlamps shining through the trees. Most of the neon and coloured arc lights that illuminated so many of the new buildings at night were turned off at this time. It was the darkest hour of the night. And Li fought to keep the darkest thoughts from his mind.
This was the fourth beheading in what were, as far as anyone knew, the first ever serial killings in Beijing. Four murders in as many weeks. Bloody, execution-style killings, each following the same bizarre ritual, chilling in their cold, calculated and entirely premeditated nature. He tried to shut out of his mind the scene that he knew would confront him. He had seen many murder victims in his time, and victims of all manner of accidental death, but never had he seen so much blood. It was hard to believe the body held so much. And when it was such a vibrant, freshly oxygenated red, the effect was shocking.
Li passed under the flyover of the second ring road and continued east, past the CITIC building and the China World Trade Centre, before turning north again on the third ring road. In a couple of hours, the city would be waking, bleary-eyed cyclists jamming the cycle lanes heading for work. The traffic would start to build, so that by eight almost all the main arteries would have ground to a halt, and row upon row of frustrated motorists would peep their horns and rev their engines, belching filthy, unregulated fumes into the already toxic atmosphere. Cycling in Beijing had long since ceased to be a pleasure.
But as yet the third ring road was still deserted, not a single vehicle or cyclist along its length as far as Li could see. He could almost believe he was alone in the city. Until he turned east into Tuan Jie Hu Dongli and saw, about two hundred yards along this normally secluded, tree-lined street, a crowd of several hundred people gathered around a phalanx of police and forensic vehicles drawn into the sidewalk at Building No. 7. These were people from up and down the street, woken from their sleep by the sirens of police and ambulance. Hastily dressed figures, some still in slippers, pressed around the official vehicles, puffy faces below tousled hair straining for a sight of what was going on. Several dozen uniformed officers assigned to crowd control were already erecting temporary barriers. More people were emerging all the time from tenement closes. Li had to force his way through to the barriers, and a po-faced young uniformed officer would not let him through until he had flashed his Ministry ID. Another officer, this time one Li recognised, stood sentry by the entrance to the close.
‘Where’s Detective Qian?’ Li asked.
The officer jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Up the stairs. Fourth floor.’
The walls of the close were scarred and dirty. They had probably never been painted since the apartments were first built in the seventies. There was a damp, airless smell in the stairwell, a faint whiff of urine. Rusted old bicycles jostled for space on each landing, doors to apartments shuttered behind steel grilles. Li climbed the stairs two at a time. A number of uniformed officers stood smoking on the fourth landing, a couple of forensics men, wearing tell-tale white gloves, leaned on the rail and watched him come up. Bright light spilled out from the apartment.
Li nodded grimly and squeezed in the door, past a tiny kitchen on his left, a toilet on the right. There were a couple of flimsy flip-flop sandals by a cabinet just past the kitchen door — a change of footwear for the interior in more fastidious times. Beyond was a narrow room with built-in cupboards at the far end, and a table littered with the detritus of everyday life: newspapers, cigarettes, an overflowing ashtray, dirty dinner plates waiting to be cleared away. To the left, interior windows gave on to a bedroom filled with light from the streetlamps outside. To the right, a tiny living room with a sofa and TV, and a screen door opening on to a glassed balcony. There was a smell of stale cigarettes and cooking, and the merest hint of something strangely sharp, almost sweet, that Li could not identify.
The body was in the living room. Li smelled the blood before he saw the crouched shape of the fallen decapitated figure, the head two feet further away, lying on its side, eyes staring back towards him. The flash of the police photographer’s camera unexpectedly burned the image into Li’s brain, the great pool of red made more vivid in the sudden blinding light.
Detective Qian’s gaunt face swam into view. He nodded grimly. ‘Just the same as the others, boss.’
Qian was nearly ten years older than Li, considerably more experienced. But he didn’t have Li’s flair or imagination, which is why Li, at the age of thirty-three, had been promoted ahead of him. But Qian had had no ill feelings. He knew what his limitations were, and he was a good judge of others’ abilities. He was absolutely dependable, and Li leaned on him heavily. Besid
es which, he was as straight as they come. There was no side to Qian. What you saw was what you got, and Li knew there was never any danger of their misunderstanding each other.
‘When the photographer’s finished let’s clear this place,’ Li said. ‘There’s too many people in here.’
‘Sure. I think he’s just about done. The doc’s looking at the body now.’ Qian immediately started moving people out.
Dr Wang Xing, the duty pathologist from the Centre of Criminal Technological Determination in Pao Jü Hutong, was crouched over the body. He had an unlit cigarette clamped between pursed lips and blood on his white gloves. He stood up and slowly peeled them off, stepping carefully over an area of floor where the linoleum had been pulled back and floorboards lifted. Avoiding the great pool of blood that had drained into the hole, and the characteristic spatter patterns left by the jets of blood that had shot from the carotid arteries, he picked his way out into the hall. The cigarette had stuck to his lips and he peeled it carefully away and grinned. ‘“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you” …’
‘Rudyard Kipling,’ Li said.
‘Ah,’ said Pathologist Wang. ‘A man of letters.’
‘My uncle had a book of his poetry.’
‘Well, of course … He would, wouldn’t he?’ The pathologist dropped his soiled gloves into a plastic bag and almost sang, ‘You’re going to have to catch this guy, Li. Or it’ll be your head.’ He pulled a lighter from his pocket.
‘Don’t light that in here,’ Li said. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any need to ask you about the cause of death?’
Pathologist Wang shrugged and put his lighter away. ‘Well, it’s pretty obvious that someone cut his head off. Not quite as cleanly as the previous victims — but it might just be that his blade’s starting to get a little blunt.’ Li ignored the jibe. ‘From the amount of blood I think you could safely say that his heart was still beating when the blow came. So, yes, I’d happily put money on decapitation being the cause of death.’