by Peter May
Li saw her properly for the first time — her pale, freckled skin, the slightly full lips, her well-defined brows, the ice-chip blue eyes — and his heart flipped over. All he wanted to do was take her face in his hands and kiss her. But he did not move. She turned to find him looking at her, and she had an overwhelming desire to slap his face as hard as she could. But instead, she moved to the adjoining table to look at the items that had been removed from the body, and the photographs taken at the crime scene.
Li, and Doctor Wang, and a very pale-looking Sophie gathered around. Margaret glanced at Sophie and saw that her hands were trembling. At least she had stuck it out. Not many people made it through their first autopsy without throwing up. Then she turned her attention to the photographs.
‘What’s this hole in the floor?’ she asked Li, picking up a print that clearly showed where the floorboards had been lifted.
‘We don’t know,’ Li said. ‘The linoleum had been pulled back and the boards removed. Most of the blood drained into the hole and dripped through the ceiling of the apartment below.’
‘Were the boards nailed down or loose?’
‘They had been nailed down at one time, but it appears that the nails had been removed some time ago. The boards must have fitted very loosely. They would have creaked or rattled underfoot.’
‘Some kind of hiding place?’
‘Possibly.’
Margaret examined the picture some more. ‘Had the linoleum been lifted, or was it torn?’
‘It appeared to have been torn.’
She nodded thoughtfully and dropped the picture back on the table. ‘Pathologist Wang says the other victims had red wine in their stomachs.’
This was a sudden leap that left Li more than a little puzzled. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I don’t see the connection.’
‘Of course not,’ she responded curtly, and clearly had no intention of explaining. ‘So we can assume that the killer was known to them. They’re having a drink with him.’
‘Yes, we have already made that assumption.’ Li’s response came with a tone. But she appeared not to notice.
‘And he endeavoured to disguise the fact that he was drugging them by dropping the Roofies in red wine,’ she said pensively. ‘So why did he hand Yuan Tao a bright blue vodka? And why, as you asked yourself, did Yuan drink it?’
‘Coercion,’ said Li. ‘You suggested as much.’
‘Yes,’ said Margaret, ‘but it’s a change of pattern. Serial killers are usually very predictable. Once they have established a pattern, they normally stick to it. Religiously.’
She began scrutinising the other photographs taken at the death scene: the body taken from several different angles, the main pool of blood draining into the space left by the removal of the floorboards; the arterial blood spatter patterns from the two carotid arteries from which blood had spurted at approximately two and ten o’clock directions from the neck, travelling between one and two metres from the body. It was a bloody event. The main pool had formed once the body had collapsed and blood continued to drain from the carotids. Margaret became very interested in a less dramatic scatter of blood, following a line at right angles to the body on its right side. She put the photograph down and gazed at the white-tiled wall in front of her. ‘So our killer was left-handed,’ she said finally.
‘How can you possibly know that?’ It was the first time that Sophie had spoken and everyone looked up at her in surprise. She became suddenly self-conscious. ‘I mean, everything I’ve read says it’s almost impossible to tell the handedness of a killer in a blade attack.’ She felt she had to explain.
‘True,’ Margaret said. ‘But I’m not looking at the angle of a blade entering a body here. I’m looking at the cast-off pattern left by the sword. Look, see …’ She pointed out the line of tiny blood droplets that she had been studying. ‘When the blade goes through the neck in a downward slicing motion, it collects a certain amount of blood en route. And as the swordsman follows through with the downward arc of his sword, a certain amount of blood is cast off by the momentum. That’s what this line of droplets is here, on the right side of the body.’
‘How does that tell you the handedness of the killer?’ Sophie had forgotten, for the moment, about her squeamishness.
‘You ever heard of Tameshi Giri?’ She looked around the blank faces. No one had. ‘It’s a Japanese martial art,’ she explained. ‘The art of cutting things with swords. Its exponents practise on tightly bound bundles of straw. I believe it might even be Chinese in origin.’ Li and Wang still looked blank. Margaret smiled. ‘I did an autopsy on an assisted Hara Kiri suicide, where once the victim had disembowelled himself, his Tameshi Giri assistant beheaded him.’
‘Eugh!’ Sophie shivered. ‘You mean people actually choose to die by having their heads cut off?’
Margaret nodded. ‘It saves you from too much suffering once you’ve slit your belly open. It’s not exactly common, but there have been several cases. I had to make a small study of them for mine.’ She turned to Li. ‘The cutter stands behind the victim and to his left if he is right-handed. And on the right if he is left-handed.’ She passed him the photograph. ‘As you can see, the cast-off pattern is on Yuan Tao’s right. So his killer was left-handed.’
Li looked at the picture for a long time. ‘Are you saying this killer is some kind of Tameshi Giri expert?’
‘No. I’d say he wasn’t a novice. He certainly knows how to handle a sword. But the cut is not very clean. There was a marked abrasion at the entry edge, and quite a large, irregular flap of skin at the exit edge. So he wasn’t an expert.’
‘Pathologist Wang thought perhaps the blade was getting blunt,’ Li said drily, and Margaret smiled at the pathologist’s implied criticism of the investigation.
‘All the more reason to think this was no expert,’ she said. ‘An expert would keep his blade well honed.’
‘The first three … mm … victims were much more cleanly cut,’ Wang offered.
‘Were they?’ Margaret frowned, computing several possibilities in her mind. At length she asked, ‘Are the photographs from the other crime scenes available?’ Wang nodded and sent one of his assistants to get them. ‘I’d also like copies of the autopsy reports on the other victims. Translated, please. And access to all the other evidence.’
Li bridled. ‘This is a Chinese police investigation,’ he said.
‘Of an American citizen,’ Margaret fired back. ‘And we don’t have two years to wait for a result.’
‘Two years?’ Sophie said. ‘What do you mean?’
Margaret turned a syrupy smile on her. ‘Deputy Section Chief Li once told me that it took him two years to clear up a murder here. Par for the course for the Chinese police, I think.’
‘That was one case,’ Li retorted, barely containing his fury. ‘And at least we broke it. If it had been in America, it would still be languishing in an unsolved cases file.’
The assistant returned with three large brown envelopes, and Margaret held them for a moment. ‘And am I allowed to look?’ she asked Li pointedly. He kept his lips pressed together in a grim line and nodded curtly. She smiled sweetly. ‘Thank you.’ And she spread the photographs from each envelope out on the table. Immediately she gasped with frustration. ‘I thought you said this was a serial killer?’
‘It’s what we believe,’ Li said more confidently than he felt.
‘Well, victim number three’s been moved from the murder scene. There’s not nearly enough blood here.’
‘We are aware of that.’ There were echoes in this for Li of that morning’s meeting. Fresh eyes casting a sceptical look at the evidence.
‘Another break in the pattern,’ Margaret said. And she started examining the blood spatter patterns in the photographs of the first two murders. ‘And yet another.’ She dropped the photographs back on the table. ‘Victims one and two were killed by a right-handed bladesman. You can see for yourself. The cast-off patterns are on the left side o
f the bodies.’
Li examined the photographs. ‘Well, there’s no way of making that comparison with victim number three. And, anyway, it’s perfectly possible that the killer is equally good with left or right hand.’ He was getting defensive now.
But Margaret was dismissive. ‘Unlikely.’ She picked up and began studying the photographs of the bound wrists of each of the victims in the order of their killing. ‘Pass me the silk cord we took from the decedent,’ she asked Sophie.
Sophie blanched at the prospect, and very gingerly lifted the cord between thumb and forefinger and passed it across the table. Margaret took it and looked at it very closely.
Li said, ‘We have already established that the cord used to bind the first three victims was all cut from the same length. I am sure we will find the same with that one.’
Margaret shrugged, clearly unconvinced. ‘Then why’, she asked, ‘when he was tying the wrists of Yuan Tao, did he use a different knot than the one used on the other three?’
Li frowned and took the cord, looking at the knot closely, then examining the photographs. ‘They all look the same to me,’ he said.
‘They all look like reef knots,’ Margaret said. ‘But the first three were tied by a right-handed person. Right over left and under, left over right and under. The fourth is exactly the reverse. Tied by a left-hander.’ Li looked at her, trying to absorb the implications. ‘The point is,’ Margaret went on, ‘Yuan Tao was clearly killed by someone else. It’s a copycat murder.’
CHAPTER THREE
I
The warmth of the sunshine seemed somehow surprising after the chill of the autopsy room. Margaret fished in her purse for her sunglasses and put them on. Li followed her out on to the step and lit a cigarette. They had left Sophie in the office phoning her boss to arrange protocol clearance for the handing over of autopsy reports and photographic evidence. They stood for some minutes in silence. On the games court, beyond the fence, students were still playing volleyball, their catcalls and laughter echoing back off the walls of the Evidence Centre. Somehow the simple pleasure they took in their game made the contrast with the act of dissecting the dead all the more bleak.
Finally Li said, ‘It cannot be a copycat murder.’
She shrugged her indifference. ‘The evidence speaks for itself. You can think what you like.’
‘It is impossible,’ said Li. ‘This is not America. Accounts of crimes are not splashed all over the newspapers or on television. The details of these crimes can be known only by the killer himself, and by my investigating team.’
‘Then maybe you should have a look at your investigating team.’
Her flippancy angered him, but she clearly was not in a mood to be reasoned with. He bit back a retort.
After a moment she turned and looked at him levelly. ‘Are we finished?’ She paused and added, ‘Professionally speaking.’
‘I guess so.’
‘Good,’ she said, and hit him as hard as she could across the side of his face with her open palm.
He was shocked. He had been taking a draw of his cigarette, and it was knocked from his mouth by the force of the blow. His face stung from the slap, and his eyes blurred as they filled involuntarily with tears. He blinked at her furiously. ‘What was that for?’
‘What do you think?’ And he wondered why he had even asked. ‘Why, Li Yan?’ she said. ‘Why?’ He couldn’t meet her eye. ‘Ten weeks. You never once tried to get in touch, never once tried to see me. You’ve avoided every attempt I’ve made to see you.’ She fought to hold back the tears and control her voice.
At the sound of raised voices, the driver of her embassy car, parked no more than ten feet away, turned to look out the rear windscreen. Li turned his back to the car and kept his voice down. ‘They told me that under no circumstances was I to see you, or contact you.’
She looked at him in disbelief. ‘So you’re happy to let them, whoever they are, tell you who you can and cannot see?’
‘I’m an employee of the state, Margaret. It is a privileged and trusted position that cannot be compromised by a relationship with a foreigner.’
‘Oh, I see. So your job’s more important than the woman you love, or the woman I thought you loved. Good thing I found out you didn’t. Otherwise I might have made a fool of myself by doing something stupid like falling in love with you.’ She turned away in disgust.
He got angry in his own defence. ‘You have no idea, have you?’ He found his breath coming in short bursts. ‘With my uncle dead, my job is the only life I have. And if I go against my superiors I will lose that job. And what would I do then? An ex-cop! Sell CD roms to tourists in the street? Get myself a market stall and pass off junk with phoney designer labels as genuine? If I want to be with you, Margaret, I have no future in China. We would have to go to the United States. And what future would I have there?’ He tugged her arm and pulled her round to face him. ‘You tell me.’ His eyes appealed to her desperately for understanding.
But she could not think of anything to say. She tried to imagine how it would be to leave everything in the States behind — her home, her family, her job — to come and live in China. But no picture of it would come to her mind.
‘This is my home,’ he said. ‘This is who I am. And no matter how painful it has been for me to accept it, I know there is no future for you and me.’
She saw the pain in his eyes and knew that it was real. But it did nothing to diminish her own. She said, ‘I was right, then. I gave up on you, Li Yan. Finally. I was supposed to catch a plane home this morning. Then they asked me to do the autopsy.’
‘And now you have done it,’ he said, ‘there is no reason for you to stay. This is a Chinese police investigation. There is no point in either of us putting ourselves through more pain.’
And it was as simple as that, she thought. Get on a plane, fly away and don’t look back. She had come here in the first place to escape the failures of her personal life back home. She would be returning home to escape the failures of her personal life here. Everything she touched, it seemed, turned to dust. Including Li. She reached out and ran her fingers lightly over his cheek where the imprint of her hand was raised and red.
‘I’m sorry I hit you,’ she said.
He reached up and put his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. He had an overpowering desire to bend his head and kiss her. But he didn’t.
She slowly withdrew her hand. For a moment she had thought he was going to kiss her. She had wanted him to, with all her heart. And when he didn’t she had felt a terrible aching emptiness with the realisation that there was no way back, and no way forward.
‘Well, that’s that fixed.’ Sophie pushed through the swing doors and down the steps. ‘It’s been agreed that translation of the autopsy reports and copies of the photographic evidence in all four murders will be delivered to the embassy as soon as possible.’ She stopped, realising immediately that she had walked in on something, and saw the unmistakable shape of a raised handprint on Li’s face. ‘I’ll wait in the car,’ she said hastily, and turned towards the limousine.
‘It’s all right. We’ve finished,’ Margaret said, suddenly businesslike, and she brushed past Li and followed Sophie to the car.
‘Jesus,’ Sophie said, as they slipped into the back seat. ‘You hit him!’ And then she saw the tears rolling slowly down Margaret’s cheek, and she quickly turned to face forward. ‘Sorry.’
Li watched the car pull away from the kerb, and felt as if some invisible umbilical cord was dragging the inside out of him as it went.
II
They drove in silence for nearly fifteen minutes before Sophie sneaked a look at Margaret. The tears had either dried up or been brushed away. They had both been staring out of their respective windows at the traffic on the second ring road, tower blocks rising up all around them and casting lengthening shadows from west to east. ‘That was my first autopsy,’ Sophie said.
‘I’d never have guessed.’ Margaret kept
her eyes fixed on the traffic.
Sophie smiled and blushed. ‘That obvious?’
Margaret relented and drew her a wan smile. ‘I’ve seen worse. At least we weren’t forced to inspect the contents of your stomach as well.’ Sophie grinned, and Margaret added, ‘But you’d better get used to it. It certainly won’t be your last.’
‘How do you ever get used to something like that?’ Sophie asked. ‘I mean, you must be affected by it. Surely. All these poor, dead people laid out like … like meat. Like they never had a life.’
‘You should try dealing with the living,’ Margaret said. ‘Personally I find it’s a lot less stressful working with the dead. They have no expectation that you’re going to make them better.’
And she wondered if that’s what was wrong with her. That she could be so at home with the dead: breadloafing their organs, dissecting their brains, examining the contents of their intestines, all with a detached expertise and self-confidence. And yet when it came to the living she was ill at ease, protective, defensive, aggressive. It had always been easy to blame her failed relationships on someone else. It had always been clear to her that she was not at fault. But what if she was? After all, wasn’t she the misfit, the one happier to spend time with corpses? Had all those years spent dissecting the dead stolen away her ability to relate to the living? The thought left her feeling empty and depressed. Because what lay ahead on her return to the States but more years spent in autopsy rooms? An endless conveyer belt of tragedy. A bleak, white-tiled future with nothing more to stimulate her senses than the touch of refrigerated flesh.
Sophie’s mobile phone rang, a silly electronic melody that Margaret took a moment or two to identify as ‘Scotland the Brave’. Sophie fumbled to find it in her purse.
‘Sophie Daum,’ she answered, when finally she got it to her ear. ‘Oh, hi, Jonathan. Sure. We’re just on the way back to her hotel now.’ She glanced at Margaret. ‘Well, I guess … Sure. OK, see you.’ She switched off and leaned forward to the driver. ‘Change of plan. We’re going straight to the embassy.’ She turned to Margaret. ‘The Ambassador wants to see you.’