by Peter May
‘I think it is very possible,’ Li said.
Yang’s wife was quickly on her feet, and she held his arm as he staggered momentarily before steadying himself. He moved back to the table, clutching an old yellowed envelope in his hand and sat down heavily. ‘Because I sent him the diary,’ he said, his fear realised and turning quickly to guilt. ‘I might as well have killed them myself.’ And he was struck by an even more horrifying thought and looked up at Li. ‘Is that why Cousin Tao was murdered?’
Li shrugged hopelessly. ‘I don’t know.’
Yang’s head dropped. ‘I should never have sent it to him. But after all these years I thought he had a right to know. I never for a moment thought …’ He broke off, his voice choked with emotion.
His wife hugged him and said, ‘How could you possibly have known, Shouqian?’
‘Is that the letter?’ Li asked and held out his hand.
Yang nodded and handed it to him. The envelope was unstamped. There was no address, just the name of Yang’s mother in clear, bold characters. Li slipped the letter out from inside. The paper was thin and close to tearing at the fold. Li opened it carefully. It was dated July 1970.
My dearest sister, Xi-wen,
I have received word today that my son, Tao, has graduated in the subject of political science at the University of Berkeley in California and is to stay on for another two years to complete his doctorate. I am so pleased for him. His success is assured and he will have no need ever to return here. In a sense it is all I have lived for since the death of my beloved husband. But it is still hard to think of him living somewhere on the other side of the world, watching the same sun rise and set, the same moon as I see on a clear night in Beijing, and not be able to speak or touch. I still remember the feel of him curled up inside me. But he is as removed from me now as my husband.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution seems to be entering a new phase of madness, with faction fighting faction. I am still disgraced because of our father’s history and my education and I have not been allowed to work at the kindergarten for nearly two years now. I am so weary of it all and wonder where it will end.
I have spent long hours going through the scraps of our lives before it all began. There is not much of it that has survived. A few photographs, some treasured letters that my husband and I exchanged in the months before we were married, a letter from Tao that, miraculously, reached us not long after he arrived in the United States. And this. It is the diary I kept for Tao after he left. It was meant to be a record for him of the things he missed and could catch up on when he returned.
I could not bring myself to continue with it after his father died. But I would like him to have it. He should know what happened to his family. I entrust it to you, because I know that you will keep it safe and see that Tao gets it when future circumstances allow.
Please tell him I love him. I am sorry for the trouble.
Your loving sister,
Ping Zhen.
Li looked up and found Yang watching him, that sense of shame returned to his eyes. ‘It was a crime back then,’ Yang said. ‘Chairman Mao described it as “alienating oneself from the people”.’ A tiny explosion of air escaped from his pursed lips. ‘Quite a euphemism. In reality what it meant was that we were not allowed a private room at the crematorium, we could not wear mourning armbands, or play funeral music. The whole family was made to feel the shame.’ And Li saw that he still felt it, even after all these years.
‘What happened?’ Li asked.
Yang shook his head. He could barely bring himself to recall the horror of it. ‘She threw herself out of the window and was impaled on the railings below. No one would go near her. Apparently she took hours to die.’ He met Li’s eye. ‘Tao never knew.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
I
Margaret’s ambivalence was more emotional than consciously thought out. And it wasn’t so much ambivalence as a sense of pleasure edged with guilt. But it was a serrated edge that made its presence felt disproportionate to its size. The net effect had been to cloud her pleasures of the night before with embarrassment the morning after.
She was annoyed, because she still felt warm and satisfied by a sexual encounter that had been all she could have hoped for. Michael had been a caring and sensitive lover, and she had surrendered herself completely to his ministrations. They had lain for a long time afterwards in each other’s arms and talked. About themselves, about their lives, although Margaret had still avoided the subject of the other Michael in her past. But he had not pressed her, and she had felt comfortable and relaxed with him, until she drifted off to sleep, aware as she did so of the myriad tiny kisses with which he was peppering her face and neck and breasts.
The difference a few short hours can make. Awakened from a deep sleep by their early alarm, she had been awkward and embarrassed with him. It was extraordinary how the day could cast such a different light upon events. Michael, on the other hand, had been attentive and affectionate, and if he was aware of her awkwardness, gave no sign of it.
Now, as their plane circled to land at Beijing Capital Airport after the seventy-minute flight, the embarrassment was passing, and in its place Margaret felt a growing apprehension. For thirty-six hours she had escaped from her life, had been able to pretend she was another person in another place. Now reality was racing up to meet her at several hundred miles an hour. She heard the squeal of tyres and the heavy jolt and swing of their China Northern aircraft as it touched down clumsily on the tarmac. Thoughts of Li, of the four murders and the continuing investigation, flooded back, and she wondered if she could achieve a less bumpy landing in life.
All hopes of a smooth transition, however, were quickly swept away as Margaret and Michael passed into the arrivals hall and saw Sophie’s anxious face scanning the crowds. Instinctively, Margaret withdrew her hand from Michael’s, like a schoolgirl caught in an indiscretion. Michael smiled. ‘Ashamed to be seen with me?’
Margaret was annoyed with herself. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘What self-respecting girl wouldn’t be?’
Sophie caught sight of them and pushed her way through the crowds. Her face was flushed. ‘I’ve got a car waiting for you,’ she said to Margaret. She flicked a look at Michael. ‘There have been developments.’ And she steered Margaret a discreet distance away and lowered her voice. ‘Your friend Deputy Section Chief Li now seems to think that Yuan Tao committed the first three murders.’
‘What?’ Margaret was caught completely off balance. And as she recovered a little, she said, ‘I suppose they think he cut his own head off.’
‘I doubt it very much,’ Sophie said with a tone. ‘The point is, an American citizen now stands accused of the murder of three Chinese nationals.’
‘He must be shaking in his grave,’ Margaret said. ‘What do you want me to do about it?’
‘The Chinese police have set up a briefing meeting at Municipal Headquarters in …’ she checked her watch, … forty-five minutes. We can’t afford to hang around.’
‘You can give me one minute,’ Margaret said, and she headed back towards Michael.
He was engaged in conversation on his mobile phone and looking at his watch. ‘Yeah, OK, Charles, I should be on location by ten thirty at the latest …’ He saw Margaret approaching. ‘Hang on,’ he said and put his hand over the receiver.
‘Michael, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go straight to a police briefing. I won’t be able to make it out to location after all.’
He shrugged and smiled ruefully. ‘Can’t be helped, I suppose.’ He paused. ‘What’s happened?’
Margaret gasped her frustration. ‘Apparently they seem to think that victim number four killed the other three.’ He frowned. She laughed. ‘Don’t even think about it. Will you give me a call?’
‘Tonight,’ he said, and to her surprise he lowered his head and gave her a long, soft kiss. ‘We must do that again sometime,’ he said ambiguously.
She nodded, aware of Sophie’s
eyes watching them from somewhere behind her. ‘Soon.’
*
In the car, Margaret found Sophie looking at her curiously. She turned to meet her gaze.
Sophie said, ‘So you slept with him.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘None of your business,’ Margaret said.
Sophie shook her head ruefully. ‘You lucky bitch. You know you’ll be the envy of half the women in America? And to think I introduced you.’
‘Well, you were right about one thing,’ Margaret said.
‘What’s that?’
She grinned. ‘He has got a great ass.’
II
Commissioner Hu Yisheng rose to shake Margaret’s hand across his desk. The divisional head of CID was dressed formally in a dark green jacket with two gold stripes on the sleeves above gold cuff buttons, and a pale green shirt with dark blue tie. The Ministry of Public Security police badge at the top of his left sleeve seemed disproportionately large, as did his head on a small body. But he was a handsome man for his age, she thought, with his dark-streaked grey hair swept back from a smooth, unlined forehead. His smile, however, was strained as he waved Margaret to a chair.
‘I would like to offer, Dr Campbell, my sincere thanks for your most excellent work on behalf of the Chinese people,’ he said stiffly.
Margaret was about to tell him the only reason she was here was because of her loyalty to the American people. But Sophie, sensing an imminent breach of etiquette, said quickly, ‘Dr Campbell is more than happy to help, Commissioner.’ Margaret could almost see the Commissioner wondering why she had not been able to say so for herself.
Jonathan Dakers was already there, as was Section Chief Chen Anming. There was a distinct chill in the air as he and Margaret were reacquainted. It was Chen, she recalled, who had first involved her in a Chinese police investigation back in June. He had asked her to perform an autopsy. A perfect example of the Chinese phenomenon of guanxi in action. He had presented her with a lavish gift while a pupil on a course in criminal investigation in Chicago, where she had been lecturing the previous year. A favour was owed, and he had called it in. But as that investigation had escalated beyond anything either of them could have imagined, she knew he had begun to regret involving her. Now it was clear from his manner that he did not want her anywhere near this new investigation. But the decision had not been his to make. She wondered if it was Chen who had ordered Li to stay away from her.
Sophie sat between Margaret and Chen, as if aware of the tension between them, and chatted animatedly to the Section Chief while Dakers made desultory conversation with Commissioner Hu. Margaret sat like a lemon, wondering what she was doing here and how long she was going to give it before making an exit. But she was spared from having to take that decision by the arrival of Li.
He knocked and entered, a little flustered she thought. He was in uniform, as she had seen him the very first time they met. Pale green short-sleeved shirt over dark green trousers. His epaulettes bore the three gold stripes and three stars of a Class Three Senior Supervisor. His gold-braided cap sat square on his head, its peak casting his eyes in deep shadow. Seeing him like that made something in her stomach flip over, and her guilt returned to haunt her. He saluted the Commissioner, apologised for being late, removed his hat and drew in a chair. He opened the briefcase he had been carrying and took out some papers.
‘Well,’ Hu said, ‘now that we are all here, why don’t you brief us, Deputy Section Chief?’
Li cleared his throat awkwardly and glanced at Margaret. There was something utterly sad and disconcerting in his eyes. She wondered if she was imagining it, but she also felt she saw betrayal there. As if he knew that only a few hours ago she had been lying in another man’s arms, sexually sated, all memories of Li wiped from her mind. And suddenly she felt utterly exposed, as if she was sitting there naked, on view to everyone in the room. She felt herself blush.
Li said, ‘Following up on our investigations, I last night discovered a diary hidden under the floor of Yuan Tao’s embassy apartment. The diary was that of Yuan’s mother, and covered the period from May of 1966, when he left for the United States, until the death of his father in June of 1967.’ He broke off to hand around several photocopied sheets. ‘These are photocopies of the relevant passages from it. They detail the harassment of Yuan’s parents by a group of his former classmates who comprised the six Red Guard members of the so-called Revolt-to-the-End Brigade. They were part of the then Red-Red-Red Faction which existed during the Cultural Revolution.’ He paused and looked around. ‘I should make it clear now that the first three victims were all members of the Revolt-to-the-End Brigade.’
This was news to Margaret, Sophie and Dakers, and the significance of it was not lost on them. ‘We are having a translation made of the diary in its entirety,’ Li said. And Margaret listened in fascinated and horrified silence as he then outlined the nature of the harassment as described in it, culminating in the final humiliation of Yuan’s father in front of a jeering crowd at the No. 29 Middle School, and his death just a few hours later.
Li concluded, ‘The sign hung around his father’s neck, his name written upside down in red and scored through; the kneeling position and the blows to the back of his neck inflicted with a cane; even the enforced drinking of the ink — all of these can be seen as a template for the modus operandi used in the killings. For ink, read red wine. The administering of the drug flunitrazepam, through the medium of the wine, made it easy to place the victim in a kneeling position. The blow to the back of the neck, only this time with a sword, brought death through decapitation. All three victims had their names written upside down in red ink on white card hung around their necks.
‘Remember, also, that decapitation was an ancient form of capital punishment in China. The killer almost certainly saw himself as an executioner, performing just retribution for crimes committed.’
Margaret said, ‘But if you’re right, then this wasn’t justice. It was revenge.’
Li inclined his head slightly, indicating agreement. ‘True,’ he said. ‘But what is capital punishment but society’s collective revenge on those who commit crimes against it? And history is littered with individuals who have taken matters into their own hands when they feel that society has let them down.’
Margaret wondered if these were the thoughts of Uncle Yifu, carefully collected, and polished and preserved by his nephew to be trotted out on appropriate occasions. She said, ‘It’s an interesting theory, Deputy Section Chief. But aren’t you rather flying in the face of conventional methods of Chinese police investigation?’ She felt ice forming in sheets around her. ‘I understood that only after the painstaking collection of evidence would you even start to form a picture of the crime and who had committed it. I mean, what evidence do you have that puts Yuan Tao at any of the other crime scenes?’
Li was unfazed. ‘The particles of dark blue dust found in Yuan’s apartment are an exact match for the particles found on the body of Yue Shi.’
‘Are you suggesting Yue Shi was murdered in Yuan’s apartment?’
‘No.’
‘Then there is no direct connection.’
‘The wine, then,’ Li said evenly. He was determined not to be rattled by her. ‘The red wine found in Yuan’s apartment was the same as the wine the other three had been drinking before being murdered.’
‘But that still doesn’t place Yuan at any of the other crime scenes, does it?’
‘No,’ Li conceded.
‘And we know that Yuan was killed with the same weapon.’
‘Are you suggesting,’ asked Li with the hint of a sneer in his voice, ‘that Yuan cut his own head off?’
Margaret laughed. ‘Actually, I thought maybe that’s what you were suggesting. Although I think he might have had trouble disposing of the murder weapon afterwards, don’t you?’ But her amusement was not shared by anyone else in the room.
Li said, ‘You suggested yourself that he might have been mu
rdered by someone who was a witness to the other killings.’
Margaret shook her head. ‘That was before we had a motive. A witness would have had to be an accomplice. If, as you suggest, Yuan had gone on a spree of revenge killings, an accomplice would have had to share his sense of revenge. What other motive could he have had? And, then, what would have been his motive for murdering Yuan?’
‘This is all very interesting, Margaret,’ Dakers broke in. ‘But we’re not here to start picking over the evidence. This is a briefing meeting.’
‘What?’ Margaret almost snapped at him. ‘So we’re supposed to just sit here and accept what we’re told without question?’
‘Of course not,’ Dakers said smoothly. ‘We very much want to participate in the scrutiny of the evidence. Which is why we have asked our friends in the Ministry of Public Security if they would allow you the privilege of participating full time in the investigation — at least until Yuan Tao’s involvement in it has been cleared up to everyone’s satisfaction.’ He had stopped addressing himself to Margaret and had turned towards Commissioner Hu. ‘I know that the American Ambassador has already broached this subject at a higher level.’
The colour rose slightly on the Commissioner’s cheeks as he interlaced his hands on the desk in front of him. Margaret noticed that his knuckles were white. He did not like anyone going over his head. ‘I understand this to be so,’ he said. ‘I spoke to the Minister myself less than thirty minutes ago. Your Ambassador has already been informed of his decision to grant your request.’
For once, Margaret was speechless. She glanced at Li and saw that he was staring, stony-faced at the floor.
*
A burned-out sun in a pale sky reflected white off the dusty compound outside the redbrick building that housed CID headquarters. Margaret struggled to keep up with Li as he strode across the compound to where he had parked his Jeep in the shade of a line of trees.