The Fourth Sacrifice tct-2

by Peter May

  Michael shook his head. ‘Not really. After all, are there any really happy endings in life? There may be heart-warming tales en route, but the journey always ends in death, doesn’t it? No one should know that better than you.’

  Margaret thought of her poor dead husband, of the murder victims whose photographs she held in her hotel room, of the conveyer belt of corpses that had passed through her autopsy suite. He was right. She herself, Michael, Li, all of them would end up on a cold slab somewhere, sometime. It was a depressing thought. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘But none of us would ever embark on the journey if we thought too much about where it was going to end.’

  Michael smiled. ‘Which is why people invented gods. To give meaning to their lives, and the hope that death was not the end.’

  ‘So you’re an atheist?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head.

  ‘You believe in God, then?’

  ‘I don’t know what I believe in. The indomitable spirit of man, perhaps. Of his will to survive, his ability to create, of his propensity to destroy. I believe in history, and that in history we all live on in some small way.’ He chuckled. ‘Anyway, this is all getting a bit serious.’

  ‘So what was the worse still to come,’ she asked, ‘for poor old Hu Bo?’

  Michael smiled and shook his head sadly. ‘Poor old Hu Bo,’ he said. ‘When they were finally allowed to restart work on the tomb, a very important member of the government, and his wife and son, came to visit. It just happened that while they were there, Hu and some others were spraying the place with a mixture of formalin and alcohol to prevent further mildew. The man’s wife started choking and crying, and the boy complained that Hu had tried to poison him.

  ‘Within a week, Hu was accused of releasing toxic gases, of being the recipient of undeserved privileges. They had also discovered that as a boy he had been in the Youth League of the Kuomintang, Chiang Kai-Shek’s party. Poor old Hu was sent to the countryside for re-education.’

  ‘Didn’t have much luck, did he?’ Margaret said. ‘And what happened to the tomb?’

  ‘It was turned into the museum that you see today. Except that what you see today is minus what was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Michael, what next?’ Margaret was incredulous.

  ‘The museum was stormed by Red Guards,’ Michael said. ‘They dragged the remains of the emperor and his empresses out into the square in front of the stele pavilion and smashed them to pieces, then made a huge pile of everything they could get their hands on and set it on fire. The contents of the tomb represented the Four Olds, you see — everything that the regime was trying to wipe out. We’re filming a re-creation of that scene tomorrow. You should come out and see it.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ Margaret said, and she realised he was still holding her hand.

  ‘Everything would have been destroyed,’ Michael said, ‘if it hadn’t been for the courage of the museum’s caretaker. Li Yajuan was just a housewife. She had four children at home. But she defied the Red Guards and refused to give up any of the other relics. They beat her and kicked her until she bled, and finally she locked herself away in the warehouse with the relics, day and night for nearly three years.’ Margaret was shocked to see his eyes filling up. ‘She was a real heroine, Margaret. She had extraordinary courage.’ He paused. ‘It’s people like her that I believe in. That’s the spirit that I was talking about. Just an ordinary housewife. But her life had meaning, and she has her place in history. She died in 1985, anonymous and unsung. She should have been declared a Hero of the People.’

  Margaret was uncertain whether it was the story he had told, or the effect it had had on him, but she too found herself deeply moved. She squeezed his hand. He blinked back his tears and smiled, embarrassed. ‘Stupid!’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’ He took a gulp of Coke. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  They left the Muslim Quarter through an elaborate gate over the entrance to the main hutong, and turned east to the bell tower, and then south down Nan Dajie to where a Kentucky Fried Chicken joint had insinuated itself between a supermarket and a department store. Michael put a strong arm round Margaret’s shoulders and drew her close to him. But they walked in silence. All the shops were still open, and the streets were full of families and young lovers, and teenagers of both sexes on the prowl for partners. The Colonel smiled past them as they entered the fried chicken shop, and Michael bought them a couple of ice creams to cool their still burning mouths. They sat at a table by the window. On the other side of it life streamed past in a never-ending blur.

  ‘How the hell did you ever get into all this?’ Margaret asked. ‘I mean, television.’

  He shrugged. ‘Pure accident. It’s certainly not what I set out to do in life.’ He toyed with his plastic spoon, pushing the tasteless pink ice cream around in its carton. ‘I did a video project at university. A friend showed it to someone on a small cable network which had a few bucks to make a documentary on a local archaeological landmark. They asked me to do it.’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t ask me why, but it got really good figures, and the cable company sold it on all over the States. They got more money, we made a couple more shows, then I got asked to do a series for the Discovery Channel. That was it. Someone did a piece on me in Cosmopolitan, a picture spread. Suddenly archaeology was sexy. Ratings went through the roof and I got offered a deal by NBC. The rest is history.’ He examined her face for a moment or two. ‘Now you know nearly everything about me, and I know virtually nothing about you.’

  She smiled. ‘I wouldn’t want to disillusion you.’

  ‘You mean you don’t want to tell me.’

  She cocked her head. ‘It amounts to the same thing.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Margaret.’

  ‘Maybe not. But that’s how it is.’

  He pursed his lips. ‘Sometimes animals curl up to protect themselves when they’ve been hurt. Is that what you’re doing?’

  ‘What if I am?’ she said defiantly. ‘I’m not like you, Michael. You’re open and honest and … I don’t know, just you. Like you’ve never been hurt. Like you’ve no reason not to trust people. Me? Every time I open up someone puts the knife in. And turns it. You’re like the big friendly dog that comes running up to a stranger looking to get its ears tickled. I’m the dog that cowers in the corner if someone looks at it the wrong way.’

  ‘Or growls if anyone gets too close.’

  She smiled reluctantly. ‘You got it.’

  ‘So if I get any closer, do you think the dog’ll bite?’

  She met his gaze. ‘I’m not sure if the dog knows that yet, Michael.’

  ‘So … approach with caution.’

  She nodded. ‘That would be the sensible course.’

  He scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘You know, usually I’m pretty good with dogs. Never been bitten yet.’

  She grinned. ‘There’s always a first time.’

  *

  A profusion of white and pastel green and pink flags hung down from the atrium-style glass roof seven floors above the sprawling marble foyer of the Ana Chengbao Hotel. A scattering of guests looked down from the Wisteria bar on the second floor, their desultory conversation a distant whisper. Margaret glanced at the full-size bronze reproductions of two Terracotta Warriors just inside the sliding doors, and remembered the sense of wonder she had experienced in the burial chambers earlier that day as she had slowly brushed away the dust of history to reveal the features of an ancient general. Had it really only been that morning? Already it seemed like a faraway, magical memory.

  Michael steered her past the lifelike statues of a Silk Road trader and his Bactrian camel to the elevator, and they rode up to the top floor. From the open corridor, they could see down through the flags to the white marble below, the bronze warriors reduced to tiny, insignificant figures. At the far end they reached her room first and stopped at the door. They had said virtually nothing on the long walk down Nan Dajie, under the south gate
and out to the vast circle that led them round to the hotel. Now the easy conversation of earlier seemed to have dried up. This was good night, awkward and stilted, nothing resolved. Let’s just wait and see, he had said earlier, still affected by the photograph of his friend’s headless body.

  ‘Well,’ Margaret said. ‘I guess it’s an early start tomorrow.’

  He nodded. ‘Got to be at the airport for seven.’

  ‘I hope I don’t sleep in.’ But she thought it was highly unlikely that she would sleep at all.

  ‘Better set your alarm.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m hopeless with these things. They never go off at the right time.’

  ‘I’d better do it for you, then,’ he said. And he stood expectantly, and she realised he was waiting for her to open her door.

  Her mouth was dry as they walked into her hotel room. The curtains were still open on French windows leading to the balcony. Below, they could see the yellow tracery of the city wall and the floodlit south gate, the reflected lights of Xi’an casting a soft glow around the room. Margaret went to switch on the light, but Michael put a hand out to stop her, and his hand held hers. ‘I want you, Margaret.’ His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.

  The wave of desire that washed over her almost made her buckle at the knees. ‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll bite?’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I figure your bark’s much worse.’ And he kissed her. Slowly at first, gently. Then, as she responded, their passion and hunger took control, and their mouths and bodies pressed hard together. To her sudden surprise she found her feet swept away from under her, and he had her in his arms, carrying her across the room to the bed as if she were no more than a rag doll. No man had ever carried her like that before, and she felt as if all control had been taken from her. But, still, she felt completely safe.

  He laid her on the bed and kissed her again and stripped off his shirt. She saw light reflecting on the curve of his pectoral muscles, the concave arch of his belly as he slipped out of his trousers. Then she felt his breath on her face, his hands on her breasts, and she fought to rid herself of her blouse and her jeans in her haste to feel his flesh on hers, warm and firm and smooth. And finally they were naked and he was poised over her, his face looking down into hers, a light in his eyes. She reached up and grabbed his buttocks and pulled him towards her. His mouth fell on hers again and then she felt his lips warm and wet on her neck, on her breast, sucking, biting, teasing the nipple. And the breath escaped from her in a long sigh as she felt him slip inside her and all memories and thoughts of Li were finally banished.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I

  Li took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and wandered through a cloud of depression, bare-footed, to dropped himself into an armchair in the living room. His shirt was unbuttoned and hanging loose over his jeans. He swung one leg up over the arm of the chair and took a slug at the bottle. It tasted cold and sharp. A drip of condensation fell from the bottle and landed on the flat, hard muscle of his bare stomach, making him wince. The light from the streetlamp outside cast the long shadow of the window frame across the room. He had no desire to turn on the light, to see Xinxin’s little jacket hanging on the chair opposite, to be reminded that Mei Yuan’s generosity could only be a temporary solution.

  He lit a cigarette, letting his head fall back, and blew smoke at the ceiling. None of your fucking business, Margaret had told him. And she was right. It wasn’t. He had no right to be jealous, no right to be hurt, no right to hurt her. So why had he treated her that way on the phone? She had clearly been thinking about the investigation, about the myriad conflicting evidence, and had called him, excited by a fresh thought. A valid thought. If Yuan Tao’s murderer was indeed a copycat, it was entirely possible that he had been there at the previous three murders, and therefore knew exactly how to make the fourth one look the same. It was an intriguing thought but, if anything, muddied the waters even further. Who was the other murderer? There was no clear motive in any of it. The first three victims had been members of the same Red Guard faction, but Yuan had not even been in the country then, nor for thirty years afterwards.

  Li was still not convinced that Yuan’s was a copycat murder. One of his team — it was Sang, he recalled — had suggested that the murderer had deliberately adopted a left-handed stance and tied the knot differently in order to confuse the investigation. It was entirely feasible, even if Margaret thought it unlikely.

  His mind drifted back to Margaret. He drained his bottle and went to fetch another. Why had he been so short with her when he had wanted so much to say, Margaret, I was wrong, forgive me, we can still find a way? Why, instead, had he deliberately taunted her, provoking her angry response? None of your fucking business! And the sound of the phone slamming in his ear. He slumped again in the chair and lit another cigarette. Was this his destiny? To be alone and in the dark, smoking and drinking and regretting the might-have-beens? He saw his life stretching ahead of him, an endless repetitive cycle of working days and lonely nights. He thought of his uncle and how he had used his work to fill the void left by the death of his wife. But for Li there had never been anything but work. There had been no one in his life who’d left a void to fill. Until now.

  He shook his head and sat up. This was ridiculous! Morbid and self-pitying. He tried to clear his thoughts, and Mei Yuan’s riddle found its way into them. What was it again? Three men had paid thirty yuan for the room. But it only cost twenty-five, and when the bell-boy went to return the five they had overpaid, he pocketed two and only gave them back one each. So effectively they had paid nine yuan each, which was twenty-seven, and the bell-boy had pocketed two. Which was twenty-nine. So where had the other one gone?

  Li frowned and scratched his head, then tipped it back to drain his bottle. What was it Mei Yuan had said to him that afternoon? The answer is staring you in the face, if only you will stop believing what I tell you. What had she told him? That they had given ten each and each got one back, which meant they had paid nine each. Which was twenty-seven. Li turned it around for a moment and then suddenly he saw it. Of course! How stupid of him! They didn’t get one back each from thirty, they got one back each from twenty-eight because the bell-boy had taken two. So among them they had paid twenty-five, plus the three yuan that had been returned to them. Which was twenty-eight. Plus the two the bell-boy had pocketed. Which was thirty. Mei Yuan was right. He had made the mistake of taking her suggested calculation at face value. And, of course, it was nonsense. So nothing else made sense.

  The thought stopped him in his tracks. He sat frozen for several moments. Wasn’t that exactly what was happening with the Yuan Tao murders? All the evidence was suggesting things to them that didn’t add up. They were making assumptions that they couldn’t reconcile. Perhaps the assumptions were wrong. Any of them, all of them. Li cursed himself. He had even recalled to himself the previous day his uncle’s own philosophy. Assume nothing. Let the evidence lead you to the conclusion, do not jump to it yourself. And yet he had continued, for another day, to do exactly that.

  He stood up, agitated now, and lit another cigarette and moved out into the glassed-in balcony. Outside the occasional yellowing leaf drifted to the sidewalk below. Stupid! His head had been so full of Margaret and Xiao Ling and Xinxin, he had not concentrated his mind properly at all. What other evidence was there? What had they been overlooking in their attempt to make the big evidence fit the picture they had formed for themselves? Something small, something insignificant. What?

  He searched his mind, gathering together all the details, big and small, sifting them, rearranging them. The placards, the nicknames, the numbers, the bronze weapon, the silk cord. What else? Yuan Tao’s illegally rented apartment. What was it for? He walked himself through the apartment again in his mind, as he had done physically the night they found Yuan Tao. He saw the head and the body, the pool of blood draining into the hole in the floor. He paused. The hole in
the floor. Boards that had been lifted. A secret cache. Hiding what? Then suddenly he remembered Margaret’s question at the autopsy. Had the linoleum been lifted, or was it torn? It appeared to have been torn, he had told her. Why had she asked? He thought about it. If you had hidden something under the floorboards, you would be very careful with the linoleum that covered them. A tear would draw attention. So it wasn’t Yuan Tao that had opened up his hiding place. It was someone else. Someone who had searched his apartment and didn’t care if they tore the linoleum. Someone who knew he had an apartment.

  What had they been looking for? And had they found it there, under the floorboards?

  Li paused to think again, rewinding his thoughts. If his murderer knew he had an illegally rented apartment, then he would also know that he had an embassy apartment. Had that been searched, too? Li drew on his cigarette and thought back to the embassy apartment in the diplomatic compound behind the Friendship Store. He and Wu had covered it pretty thoroughly. Forensics had been over it from top to bottom. There were no obvious signs of a search. Li tried to picture the floor, pull it back from somewhere in his memory. He saw a standard, grey linoleum floor covering. He was pretty certain that’s what it had been. And he would have noticed if it had been torn. But there was something else in his memory. Something vague and elusive, just beyond his reach. Something about the apartment.

  In his mind’s eye he retraced the steps Wu and he had made through it. The living room with all its personal bric-a-brac, the photographs of Yuan’s parents, the books … The toilet, the shelf above the washbasin crammed with toothpaste, shaving foam, a couple of bars of soap … And suddenly Li knew what it was. The shaving foam and soap had been hypo-allergenic. Unscented. There had been no aftershave or deodorant. And yet, Li recalled, there had been a faint, distant smell of some exotic scent, like an aftershave, lingering on the air. It had only registered at all because it was unfamiliar to him. So the scent could not have been Wu’s or belonged to Forensics. Or to Yuan Tao.