The Fourth Sacrifice (The China Thrillers 2)

by Peter May

  The other detectives, listening intently to Sang, looked quickly to see Margaret’s reaction.

  She shrugged. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘It simply means that the killer had access to the same murder weapon used in the first three murders.’ The detectives turned to catch’s Li’s reaction. But he was impassive. She added, ‘Is that all you have to tell me? Is that the sum total of your investigations over twenty-four hours?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Li looked more composed than he felt. She had been unfazed by the revelation about the murder weapon, and her calmly suggested explanation was so simple he wondered why he had not thought of it himself. But he knew the answer to that almost immediately. He had found it virtually impossible to believe that Yuan Tao had been murdered by a copycat, and in admitting that to himself now, realised he had been making a basic mistake for which his uncle would have derided him. He had made an assumption, and was trying to make the evidence fit the assumption. Assume nothing, his uncle used to tell him. Let the evidence lead to you the conclusion, do not jump to it yourself.

  Margaret glanced at her watch with ill-concealed irritation. ‘Well?’ she asked.

  And Li told her about the blue-black powder found in Yuan Tao’s apartment and the forensic confirmation, received less than an hour ago, that it matched similar coloured powder found on the trousers and in the treads of the shoes worn by Professor Yue. This caught her interest and she leaned forward. ‘And this powder is what, exactly?’

  He pushed a small sample in a clear plastic evidence bag across the table. ‘Particles of fired clay. A kind of ceramic dust. You’ll find a more detailed breakdown among the documents we’ve provided.’

  She frowned, examining the dark blue dust in the bag and thinking for a moment. Then, ‘What else?’ she asked.

  Li said, ‘We found three bottles of vintage Californian wine in Yuan Tao’s apartment. Tests carried out this afternoon show that it is almost certainly the same wine that our first three victims had been drinking. The stuff that their killer spiked with the flunitrazepam.’

  Margaret’s interest was well and truly ignited now. She forgot about the time. ‘Three bottles?’

  Li nodded.

  She scratched her chin thoughtfully. ‘So … one for each of the remaining victims.’

  ‘We already have four victims,’ Li said. ‘And the countdown began at six.’

  ‘Humour me,’ Margaret said. ‘Assume that Yuan Tao was never on the hit list––’

  Li interrupted. ‘You still think he was killed by someone else?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m sure of it. I can’t tell you by who, or why, but the evidence seems quite clear to me. And if you rule him out, then there are still three victims out there, not two. And that’s why there were three bottles of wine.’

  ‘But why was the wine in Yuan Tao’s apartment?’ Everyone was startled by Sang’s sudden intervention. He seemed taken aback himself, and became immediately self-conscious. The other detectives asked him what he had asked. Still blushing, he told them.

  Margaret smiled. ‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘But that question is still relevant whether or not you believe that he was one of the original intended victims.’ She turned back to Li. ‘Was there anything else in the apartment?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing relevant. Books, clothes, personal possessions.’

  ‘And this apartment that he rented privately – have you any idea why?’

  Again, Li shook his head. ‘Detective Qian tracked down the owner. We interviewed him this afternoon. He claimed he had no idea that Yuan worked at the embassy – he was Chinese, had a Beijing accent. The owner says Yuan told him that he was lecturing at the university and only required the apartment for a few months. He was prepared to pay well over the going rate, so the owner didn’t ask too many questions.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘Yes,’ Li nodded. ‘He’s in breach of several public security regulations, but nothing more than that.’

  ‘Which brings us back to the question of why Yuan Tao felt the need to rent another apartment. Was he keeping a mistress?’

  ‘No.’ Li had no doubts. ‘There are no female traces in either apartment. But, in any case, Yuan Tao was not the type.’ He lit a cigarette, and wondered what it was he had gleaned about this man that made him so sure he had not been having an affair, or entertaining prostitutes. Instinct, he decided. ‘If I was to make a guess, I would say he rented the apartment so that he could come and go without being seen or questioned. Or perhaps receive visitors he didn’t want the authorities to know about.’

  ‘And he couldn’t do that at his embassy accommodation?’

  ‘There is a twenty-four-hour guard on the gate to the compound.’

  Margaret nodded thoughtfully. ‘So why would he want to come and go without being seen or questioned, or have secret visitors?’

  Li blew a jet of smoke at the overhead fan. ‘If we knew that, we probably wouldn’t be sitting here.’

  Margaret suddenly stiffened and checked the time. ‘Oh, my God, I’m going to be late!’ She stood up quickly and lifted her bag on to the desk. ‘Is it possible for you to call me a taxi?’

  Li and the other detectives were taken by surprise. They had anticipated that their meeting would go on for some time yet. ‘Where are you going?’ Li asked.

  ‘Beijing West Railway Station,’ she said. ‘My train leaves at ten to seven.’

  Li looked at his watch. It was a quarter to six. He shook his head. ‘You’ll never make it. Not at this time of night. The traffic will be at a standstill. It’ll take at least an hour and a half.’

  ‘But the station’s not that far,’ she protested. ‘I could walk it in twenty minutes from my hotel. We got the train to Datong from there.’

  ‘No,’ Li shook his head. ‘That’s Beijing Railway Station. Beijing West Railway Station is way on the other side of town.’

  ‘Shit!’ Margaret cursed.

  Li stood up and gathered his papers together. The other detectives took their cue from him. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked, trying to sound as if he was indifferent to the answer.

  ‘Xi’an,’ she said. ‘To see the Terracotta Warriors.’

  Li looked at her in astonishment. ‘On your own?’

  ‘No.’ She hesitated for just a moment. ‘Michael Zimmerman’s taking me.’

  Li felt the colour rise on his cheeks, and he heard Sang translating for the others. He turned to them. ‘That’s all,’ he said curtly. Disappointed, they lifted their papers, nodded politely to Margaret and went out. Still feigning indifference, he said, ‘Michael Zimmerman … That’s the man you were with at the Sanwei tearoom last night?’

  In spite of her anxiety about her train, Margaret had derived some small pleasure from seeing the colour rising on Li’s face at the mention of Michael’s name. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Are you going to call me a taxi or not?’

  But he was in no hurry. ‘Who is he, exactly?’

  ‘I don’t really figure that’s any of your business, exactly,’ she responded tartly.

  He shrugged. ‘Well, if I’m going to stick a flashing light on the roof of a police Jeep and get you to the station in time for your train, I think I have the right to expect a civil answer to a civil question.’

  She smiled ruefully. He had trapped her. And if she wanted to catch her train … ‘He’s a TV archaeologist,’ she said.

  ‘A what?’ He had no idea what she meant.

  ‘He makes documentaries for television about archaeology,’ she spelled it out for him. ‘China is his speciality. He’s very popular in the States.’

  ‘And why is he taking you to Xi’an?’

  ‘Now that,’ she said, ‘is not a civil question. So do I get my ride or not?’

  *

  Dusk fell over the city like a grey powder slowly blotting out the light. For a time, as their Jeep careered in and out of cycle lanes, siren wailing, red light flashing, the sun had sent long shadows to
meet them and blinded them through the windscreen. Now it was gone, and the red streaks in the sky were fading through blue into black. There were times when Li, squeezing between buses and taxis, had turned the three lanes of the westbound carriageway of the third ring road into four. Margaret watched his concentration as he leaned frequently on the horn to supplement the siren, muttering to himself in between drags on his cigarette, almost as if she wasn’t there. He had not spoken to her since they left Section One. And her naked fear had banished all thoughts of conversation as he drove, like a man possessed, through the evening rush hour.

  He checked his watch and appeared to relax a little. He glanced across at her for the first time. ‘We might just make it,’ he said.

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said, a hint of acid in her tone. ‘I’d hate to think I’d aged ten years in vain.’

  ‘And I would hate to think,’ he said, looking straight ahead again, ‘that a mere murder investigation would get in the way of your love life.’

  ‘You know what your trouble is?’ she said, controlling the urge to tell him exactly where he could go. ‘Your grasp of English is far too good. Your uncle taught you well, but he should have told you that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.’

  ‘Who said I was being witty?’

  ‘Well, certainly not me!’ She glared at him, then relaxed. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘since you are clearly so anxious to know, the relationship between Michael and me is strictly platonic. You know what platonic is, don’t you?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s the word people always use to describe their relationship with someone just before they sleep with them.’ But he wasn’t smiling. His mouth was set in a grim line as he swung the Jeep off the ring road on to the flyover leading to the Tianningsi Bridge.

  Margaret was stung. Not so much by the barb in Li’s words, but by the truth of them. And she wondered just why she had agreed to go to Xi’an with Michael, and knew at once that it wasn’t to fulfil a life’s ambition to see the Terracotta Warriors. She felt a churning in her stomach, and that fear that fluttered so elusively in her breast. What in God’s name was she doing? She stole a glance at Li. She had stopped seeing him as Chinese again. Just as Li Yan. And she had seen the warmth and sparkle return to his eyes as they had fenced verbally at Section One, and again in the Jeep. She knew, without daring to let the thought crystallise in her mind, that she still loved him. But what point was there in it? It was as foolish and impossible as a teenager falling for a rock star. Li had made it clear. They had no future.

  His focus appeared to be entirely on the traffic as he weaved between vehicles along Lianhuachidong Road. Suddenly he leaned forward and pointed out to their left. ‘Beijing West Railway Station,’ he said.

  Margaret looked out, and in the fading light saw a vast structure rising out of sweeping flyovers to east and west, outlined in neon and dazzling in the glare of coloured arc lights. Huge towers rose in ascending symmetry to a colossal centrepiece of three roofs, one atop the other, curling eaves raised on towering columns. ‘Jesus,’ she whispered breathlessly. ‘It’s vast!’ It was bigger than most airports she had been in.

  ‘Biggest railway station in the world,’ Li said. And he swung off the road on to a ramp that swept them up and round to a multi-lane highway running parallel with a main concourse thick with arriving and departing passengers. He drew the Jeep into the kerb, jumped on to the concourse and lifted Margaret’s bag out for her as the siren wound down and tailed off to a throaty splutter.

  Margaret grasped her bag and looked up in awe at the station looming over her. ‘My God,’ she said. ‘How will I ever find Michael?’

  But to Li’s disappointment he saw an anxious-faced Michael pushing through the crowds towards them. ‘I think he’s found you,’ he said.

  Michael arrived breathless and flushed and immediately took Margaret’s bag. ‘Thank Heaven, Margaret. I thought for a while there you weren’t going to make it.’

  ‘With my own personal police escort, there was never any danger,’ Margaret said, glancing at Li.

  Michael looked at him and nodded. He held out his hand. ‘We meet again, Mr Li.’

  Li was taken aback that Michael remembered his name and wondered if he had been a subject of discussion between Michael and Margaret. ‘Mr Zimmerman,’ he said politely. Their hands clasped firmly. Perhaps a little too firmly, and the air between them stiffened with an electric tension. And Li became aware, vaguely, almost sub-consciously, of something familiar about this man. He searched his face for some sign, some clue, but the familiarity, strangely, seemed somehow not quite physical.

  The moment passed, as quickly as it had come, and they let go each other’s hands. Michael checked his watch and said to Margaret, ‘We’ll have to hurry.’ And to Li, ‘Thanks for getting her here on time.’

  Li resisted a powerful urge to punch him and turned instead to Margaret. ‘Enjoy your trip.’ His words seemed stiff and formal.

  She nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and then she and Michael were off, hurrying through the crowds towards the main entrance. Li stood for a moment, watching them, and a cloud of depression, as dense as the darkness that had fallen, enveloped him.

  *

  The interior concourse of Beijing West Railway Station was daunting, cavernous and crowded with people responding to a bewildering array of electronic information displayed from gantries on all sides. Above the hubbub of thousands of passengers rose the soft voice of a female announcer, hypnotically repeating the arrival and departure times of trains in Chinese and English. A huge, gaping hole fed escalators up and down to lower levels. Along either side, between banks of ticket desks, shops sold everything from pomegranates to pop sox. You could buy what Margaret thought were polystyrene containers of noodles smothered in spicy sauces from an array of fast-food joints. The polystyrene, Michael assured her, was not polystyrene, but compressed straw. Biodegradable. China’s contribution to world ecology.

  A broad corridor shimmered off into the multicoloured neon distance, feeding left and right into huge waiting rooms for the various platforms. Giant multiscreen television displays were playing environmental awareness ads in between pop videos. Michael took Margaret’s hand and led her quickly through the crowds, past the escalators, turning left towards the entrance to the No. 1 Soft Seat Waiting Room.

  At the door, a young girl in green uniform and a peaked cap several sizes too large, checked their passports and tickets before granting them access to the rarefied atmosphere and spacious luxury of the soft sleeper waiting room where only the privileged and wealthy were allowed. Comfortable green leather seats were ranged around coffee tables beneath a copper-coloured mural depicting scenes from Chinese history. Margaret caught a whiff of burning incense as they passed the toilets, before being whisked to the far end of the waiting room. There a ticket attendant clipped the tickets that Michael presented, and they were waved through. They ran along a corridor, past hard-class waiting rooms, before turning left down a steep flight of steps leading to platform six.

  ‘Wait!’ Margaret said suddenly. ‘Your luggage!’

  Michael smiled. ‘It’s already on board.’

  As soon as she reached the platform, Margaret recognised the smell of coal smoke funnelling back from the impatiently chuffing steam engine that stood somewhere up ahead in the blackness. Michael hurried her along the platform to coach number seven where they climbed up into a long, narrow corridor. Patterned nets hung on the windows, and blue floral curtains were draped on either side. A red carpet with a gold patterned border led them up to their compartment. It was a far cry, Margaret thought, from her only other experience of travelling by train in China. Then, she had been in hard class, in cold uncomfortable compartments where people spat on the floor and crowded together on butt-numbing hard seats.

  ‘Here we are,’ Michael said, and waved her into their compartment. Here there was more netting and blue curtain, lace covers on the four berths, and antimacassars on the seat backs.


  ‘Oh,’ Margaret said, surprised. ‘We’re sharing.’

  Michael shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m sorry, the production office wasn’t able to get you another compartment at this short notice.’

  Margaret laughed. ‘I don’t mean you and I,’ she said. ‘I mean with someone else.’

  Michael looked at the bunks and smiled. ‘Well, actually, no,’ he said. ‘I’ve bought all four berths, so we’ve got it to ourselves.’

  It was then that she noticed the ice bucket on the table, the gold-wrapped neck of a champagne bottle jutting from it, and a large wicker hamper on the top berth.

  Michael slid the door shut. ‘It’s a fourteen-hour journey,’ he said. ‘So I thought a little good food, washed down with some fine champagne, might help pass the time.’

  IV

  By the time Li returned the Jeep to Section One and cycled home on his uncle’s old bike, his depression about Margaret had turned to apprehension about having to face his sister. If the scan had been successful, then she would know the sex of her unborn child and her decision would have been made. If the scan had been ambiguous in any way, then they would have had to draw fluid from her womb, and a decision would be delayed for four weeks. It was not in Li’s nature to procrastinate, but right now he was praying to his ancestors that the scan had been inconclusive. Much could change in four weeks.

  He parked his bicycle in the compound, beneath a corrugated plastic roof, and wearily climbed the two flights to his apartment. He had seen the lights in the windows from the street below, so he knew that Xiao Ling and Xinxin were home. They had probably been back for hours.

  Li thought about the sleepy little five-year-old who had kissed him before he left that morning, cuddly, affectionate, pretty – a sweet-tempered little girl, bright and full of life. How could his sister even contemplate having her adopted? She had tried, desperately, to justify it to him. There were thousands of childless Western couples, she said, who were just desperate to adopt little Chinese girls. Xinxin would have a much better life than Xiao Ling could ever give her. Li had shaken his head in despair. He could only assume that Xiao Ling had succumbed to some kind of hormonal insanity that was robbing her of her senses.