by Peter May
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.
‘You knew about this, didn’t you?’ she said.
‘Would it matter if I did?’ he said without turning. ‘The decision was not mine to take. And if it had, you know what it would have been.’ He opened the driver’s door and threw his briefcase inside.
‘Well, of course,’ she said. ‘God forbid that you should need help. Or even ask for it if you did.’
Li turned on her, his face pale with anger. His eyes were shaded by the peak of his cap and she could not see them. ‘I do not,’ he said, ‘appreciate having my inquiry called into question in front of my section chief and the divisional head of CID.’
‘Ah!’ Margaret threw her hands in the air. ‘Of course. Mianzi. That’s what all this is about, isn’t? Face. Or rather your loss of it in front of your boss. To hell with the evidence, let’s not lose face! That it? How very Chinese of you.’
His fury was palpable, but he controlled his voice, albeit with difficulty. ‘This is about the evidence,’ he said. ‘The most important piece of evidence we’ve come up with, and you just … dismiss it.’ He waved his hand dismissively towards the trees.
‘I didn’t dismiss anything.’
‘Well, you made it perfectly clear that you don’t believe Yuan Tao was responsible for the other murders.’
‘Of course he is,’ Margaret said. ‘The diary provides us with the perfect motive. It’s obvious he did it.’ Li was stunned to silence. And she was on a roll. ‘He had both motive and opportunity. And the wine and the blue dust provide us with good circumstantial evidence. But the point I was making is that we don’t have a single scrap of evidence actually tying him to any one of the crime scenes. And we need that.’
‘We?’ he asked.
‘Well, whether we like it or not, it looks like you’re stuck with me and I’m stuck with you until we put this one to bed.’ She stumbled momentarily over her unfortunate choice of metaphor, then added quickly, ‘So the sooner we find out whodunnit, the sooner we’ll be out of each other’s hair.’
‘And the sooner you can get back to your archaeologist.’ It was out before he could stop himself. He could have bitten his tongue off.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘so that’s what all the hostility’s about. My relationship with Michael.’
He became immediately defensive. ‘Why should I care about your relationship with “Michael”? After all, it’s strictly platonic. That’s what you said, isn’t it?’
Margaret struck back. ‘And what was it you said? Platonic is how you describe your relationship with someone just before you sleep with them?’
He flinched, as he had done when she slapped him in the face after the autopsy. But this was no slap in the face. It was a knife in the heart, and she immediately regretted it. But there was nothing she could say now that would undo the damage. They stood glaring at each other in a tense silence until she could no longer bear to meet his eye and looked away towards the towering municipal police headquarters at the far side of the compound.
‘It’s a pity the AFIS didn’t come up with a match for the fingerprint found at number two,’ she said for something to say.
Li forced his mind back through the red mist of pain that filled it and tried to focus on what she had just said. ‘What?’
‘Your Automated Fingerprint Identification System. If it had matched that bloody fingerprint to Yuan, it would have placed him at one of the crime scenes.’
The red mist cleared as Li remembered the bloody fingerprint found on the edge of the desk in Bai Qiyu’s office. He had forgotten all about it. Margaret clearly had not. But he did not understand her question. ‘Why would the AFIS come up with a match for Yuan Tao when his fingerprints haven’t been entered into it?’
‘What?’ Margaret was shocked. ‘You mean you don’t enter the prints of victims as well as criminals? That’s standard practice in the States.’
In other circumstances Li might have been defensive. But his mind was racing. He said, ‘The system’s new. It’s not fully operational yet.’
‘So no one’s crosschecked to see if there’s a match?’ He shook his head. She said, ‘Well, don’t you think someone should?’
‘Hey, good to see you guys are getting right into it.’ They turned to find Dakers and Sophie approaching across the compound. Beyond them, Li saw Chen getting into an unmarked Section One saloon car.
Dakers was all smiles and bonhomie. He addressed himself to Li. ‘Just been going over the ground rules in there. I think we’re gonna get along just fine. Anything you need, anything we can help you with, you just ask.’ Li nodded curtly. Dakers touched Margaret’s arm. ‘Talk later,’ he told her.
He and Sophie were about to turn away when Li said, ‘Were any of your people in Yuan’s embassy apartment before our forensics people got access?’
Dakers turned back. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I checked it out myself.’ He grinned. ‘Just in case there was another body in there we didn’t know about.’ None of the others smiled.
‘Nobody else?’ Li asked.
Dakers shook his head, a little puzzled now. ‘Nope. Just me.’ He paused. ‘Am I missing something here?’
‘No,’ Li said. And then, unexpectedly, ‘Have you always had a beard?’
Dakers’ hand went instinctively to his fine-cropped whiskers and he ran it through the bristles, surprised by the question. ‘Sure have,’ he said. ‘Always had a heavy growth. Had to start shaving when I was fifteen. Brought me up in a nasty rash. So I couldn’t wait to grow a beard. Soon as I finished school.’ He paused again. ‘Sure I’m not missing something?’
Li managed a smile of what he hoped was reassurance. ‘Just curious.’ But he was thinking that men who don’t shave don’t use aftershave. So it wasn’t Dakers who had left his scent in Yuan’s apartment.
Dakers gave him an odd look. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘See ya.’ And he and Sophie went off towards the embassy limo, parked in the shade with its large red shi character prominent on the registration plate.
‘What was all that about?’ Margaret asked. She watched carefully for his response. Li never asked questions for no reason. But he just shrugged. ‘Nothing.’ He reached into the Jeep for the police radio. ‘I’d better get Yuan’s prints entered into the AFIS.’
She watched him as he spoke rapidly in Chinese into the radio handset and a strange metallic voice crackled back at him. She wanted to touch him and tell him she was sorry. Not that she had slept with Michael, but that she had told him – or as good as told him. It was cruel and unfair, and the colour that had risen high on his cheekbones was still there. But she knew it was not something she could discuss with him. To admit his hurt would be to lose face. And that was something he would never do. He finished his call and turned to her. ‘It seems Detective Wu was one step ahead of us. He’s already asked for the prints to be crosschecked.’
‘Well, at least one of your team’s on the ball,’ Margaret said.
He ignored her barb. ‘But the result may be superfluous,’ he said. ‘It looks like we might have found the dealer who sold him the sword.’
III
Li’s Jeep nosed its way along the narrow hutong of Xidamochang Jie running east off Qianmen. It was crowded along its length by pedestrians and cyclists, traders with barrows, lorries, boys delivering coal briquettes. Small restaurants spilled tables and chairs out into the street where men sat barbecuing meat and chicken over hot coals, the smell of it hanging in smoke that obscured the narrow strip of blue sky overhead. Women sat in groups on tiny stools, preparing dumplings or just chatting. Through an open doorway, Margaret saw a man stretched out on a plastic-covered divan, hands tu
cked behind his head, fast asleep. In another, a woman stood chopping vegetables on a wooden board with a huge cleaver. ‘Where on earth are we going?’ she asked Li.
‘The Underground City.’
She frowned. ‘What’s that?’
‘In the sixties,’ he said, ‘when Mao fell out with Stalin, he thought the Russians were going to drop atomic bombs on Beijing. So he encouraged the population to dig tunnels and shelters under the city. Over ten years, working in their spare time, and with whatever tools they had, the people dug hundreds of kilometres of tunnels and dozens of shelters. Below us right here, there are about thirty-two kilometres of tunnels running in all directions.’ He snorted. ‘But it’s just as well the Russians didn’t bomb us. The tunnels aren’t nearly deep enough. They would have been worse than useless.’
‘So why’s it called the Underground City?’
‘Because the Chinese people are very practical.’ Li swerved to avoid a boy on a bicycle who careered out of a side street without looking. He blasted his horn. ‘Since they had dug out all that space down there, they thought they might as well make use of it. So now there are shops and warehouses, even a one-hundred-bed hotel. The views are not very good, but it is cheap, and at least you get away from the traffic.’ He blasted his horn again, this time at a delivery truck blocking the way. As he edged past it he said, ‘The dealer in reproduction artefacts that we want to speak to has a shop down there.’
A column of primary school children wearing royal-blue trousers and tunics with white shirts and red scarfs marched in ragged single file towards them. They shouted and waved, smiling at Margaret when they saw her in the Jeep. ‘Hello,’ they shouted. ‘Pleased to see you.’
She waved back. ‘An incredible number of these kids speak English,’ she said. ‘It was the same in Xi’an.’ She had mentioned Xi’an without thinking and wished immediately that she hadn’t.
But Li appeared unconcerned. ‘Children are being taught to speak English in all the schools,’ he said. ‘All over China. Soon they will speak three languages. The local dialect, which is the one they grow up with, then Mandarin, then English.’
They pulled up outside a white-tile building with a passageway leading through to a school yard from which children were wandering in and out. At the west side of the building, adjoining an old single-storey block, stood a dusty doorway built in the traditional style, with pillars and crossbeams supporting a sloping green tiled roof. An ornately painted fascia was almost obscured by grime. Dozens of bicycles were parked against the wall on either side of it.
‘This is it?’ Margaret said as they climbed out of the Jeep. ‘The entrance to the Underground City?’
Li shrugged. ‘One of them. My uncle once told me there are about ninety entrances to this particular complex, some of them in shops, others in people’s homes. They say there are many tunnels and entrances the authorities do not even know about.’
As they approached the entrance, Detective Sang stepped out to meet them. He rattled off something quickly in Chinese to Li, and then turned politely to Margaret. ‘This way, please. You follow me.’
In a plain room with scarred, green-painted walls, a young man looked up briefly from his paper as Li, Sang and Margaret passed through from the street. There was nothing unusual about the sight of foreigners here. Up to five hundred of them a day paid to see the Underground City. A staircase with red handrails and paint peeling from the walls led down into the tunnel complex below. The smell of damp, fetid air rose to greet them, and Margaret felt the cold, clammy touch of it on her skin and in her clothes. The tunnels were arched and stippled with white plaster stained by dirt and damp. Fluorescent tubes hung at intervals from a single electric cable running the length of the ceiling. On a concrete ledge, the tools and paraphernalia of the workers who had dug the tunnels were laid out like exhibits in a museum: a broken-handled pickaxe, a knife with a wooden handle, a shovel, three tin mugs, a lunch box. They took a right turn, and in the distance, through several arched supports, they saw an illuminated red map of the tunnel complex beneath a green sign that read ‘beijing air raidshel ter’. An incongruous group of Scandinavian tourists sat on hard seats listening to a lecture on the history of the complex given by a bored-looking Chinese guide.
Sang led them through the group and they turned left along a stretch of tunnel where the supports had been painted a fresh, bright red, and the walls were covered with hand-painted murals. Inset, below two spotlights, was a white bust of Mao Zedong set against a red background. Almost within touching distance, ironically, stood a Buddhist shrine. Marble statues of women riding lions lined the final stretch of tunnel leading to a huge, brightly lit emporium of tourist junk: everything from jade Buddhas and silk dressing gowns to scroll paintings and imitation Ming vases. Attendants raised hopeful eyes as they entered, and then lost interest immediately they saw Li’s uniform. Red lanterns hung from a high arched roof above fluorescently lit glass display cabinets and rack upon rack of silkware.
The visitors passed a tunnel that led off into a dark, misty gloom, and Margaret shivered as she felt the cold breath of it billowing into the comparative warmth of the shop. She saw a sign with an arrow. In both Chinese and English it said, To the Station. But she had no desire to venture into the dark abandoned network of tunnels that ran on deep into the icy bowels of the city, and was relieved when Sang led them through a doorway into a long, narrow shop displaying all manner of reproduction artefacts in tiered glass cabinets. This was, she thought, an extraordinary place. Unless you had prior knowledge, you would have no inkling of its existence from the streets above.
A small, shiny, round-faced man with his hair scraped across his bald head from a parting above his ear, came forward to meet them. There was an exchange of Chinese, then Li turned to Margaret. ‘Mr Ling tells us he speaks English.’
‘Just little, just little,’ Mr Ling said, beaming at Margaret. ‘No get much practice.’ He shrugged his shoulders in theatrical apology.
Li said, ‘You told Detective Sang that you sold a bronze reproduction sword about three months ago to a man asking for a very specific kind of weapon.’
‘Sure,’ said Mr Ling. ‘Usually we sell sword for ceremonial purpose, or maybe for wu shu. But this man, he want real bronze sword, like real artefact. Of course, I have no sword like this. But I tell him I can arrange have one made for him. Only, it ve-ery expensive, and it take time.’
‘Did you ask him what he wanted the sword for?’ Margaret asked.
‘Sure, I ask,’ said Mr Ling. ‘He say sword for exhibition.’
‘And he gave you exact measurements?’ Li said.
‘Sure. I don’t remember exactly now, but Mistah Mao in Xi’an, he will still have mould.’
‘Mr Mao?’ Li asked.
‘Mistah Mao Ming Fu of the Xi’an Craft Artistic Products Factory. He ve-ery clever man. He restore bronze chariot found with Terracotta Warrior.’
Li turned to Margaret and with a slight tone said, ‘Of course, you will have seen the bronze chariots at Xi’an.’
‘Of course,’ Margaret said. She addressed herself to Mr Ling. ‘What kind of measurements did he ask for?’
‘Oh, you know. Length. I think one metre maybe for sword. Maybe little less. And he want handle some certain length. And wood. He want wood handle. And he want the weight just so.’ He moved his hands up and down as if weighing an invisible sword. ‘And, you know, this sword he want in style of Warring States period. Mistah Mao make ve-ery good job. He charge only one thousand yuan. Ve-ery good price.’ He grinned. ‘So I make a little on top.’
Li took a photograph of Yuan out of his breast pocket. ‘Is this him?’
Mr Ling put on a pair of spectacles and peered at it. ‘Sure, that him.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘You know, not every day someone order sword like that. But I also remember this man for two other reason.’
‘Oh?’ Li tucked the photograph back in his pocket. ‘What were they?’
Mr Ling sai
d, ‘He Chinese man. OK. He have Beijing accent. OK. But he don’t act like Chinese man. I don’t know how describe. But he just not like Chinese man.’
‘And the other reason?’ Margaret asked.
Mr Ling’s face lit up. ‘Oh yeah. He recommend to me by my good friend. Ve-ery famous American archaeologist. Mistah Zimmerman.’
*
Sang stood at a discreet distance pretending not to listen, but heads in the street were turning, and a group of small children stood by the entrance to the schoolyard staring with gaping mouths as the yangguizi shouted at the policeman.
‘It’s just ridiculous.’ Margaret’s voice rose to a shrill pitch. ‘How can you possibly figure Michael has anything to do with this?’
‘Who said I did?’ Li’s calm was all the more infuriating. He walked off towards the Jeep, and Margaret followed like a dog snapping at his heels.
‘Why else would you want to question him?’
‘To eliminate him from our inquiry, of course.’ He reached the driver’s door and turned back. ‘I mean, you must admit,’ he said, ‘it’s a very strange coincidence that he just happened to know the victim. And not only did he know him, but he recommended a place where he could buy a sword, which in all probability will turn out to be the murder weapon.’
‘It might be a coincidence,’ Margaret came back at him. ‘But there’s nothing strange about it. Yuan worked at the embassy. Michael spent a lot of time there in the last six months. It’s a small community. I mean, there’s nothing more sinister about that than Michael knowing the professor of archaeology at Beijing University.’
Li frowned at her. ‘Yue Shi? Zimmerman knew Professor Yue?’
Margaret could have kicked herself. All she had succeeded in doing was giving him more ammunition. ‘Well, of course,’ she said defensively. ‘He’s an archaeologist. China’s his speciality. Yue Shi was a protégé of the archaeologist Hu Bo – the guy Michael’s making his documentary about. I happen to know that he was deeply shocked by the professor’s murder. It’s not every day someone you know gets their head cut off.’