by Peter May
In spite of herself, in spite of her situation and her fear and her anger, Margaret had been drawn into Michael’s story. ‘What was the pact?’ she asked.
Michael knew now that he had her back again. ‘They agreed that whichever of them outlived the others, would reveal the existence of the warriors before he died, so that they could be returned to the nation and their rightful place in the fourth chamber that they had been taken from.
‘In 1998, Hu Bo, who by then was the last surviving member, was diagnosed with cancer. He had only weeks to live, and he confided the secret of the fourth chamber to his protégé here at the university.’
‘Professor Yue,’ Margaret said. Michael nodded. She said, ‘Don’t tell me, I can guess the rest. He got greedy, right? I mean, down here there’s all these Terracotta Warriors that no one else knows about. If he can get them out of the country, boy, is he going to make a lot of money. How much would just one of these fetch in the West?’
Michael spread his hands. ‘They’re priceless, Margaret. We’re talking millions. For the lot, tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions. And not too many to flood the market and bring down the price. There are dozens of tycoons out there, men who have everything, men who will pay extraordinary amounts just to know that they have a genuine Terracotta Warrior standing in their library or in their study.’
‘And so all that stuff about the wonders of history and the science of archaeology goes out the window because you see the chance to make a fast buck.’ Margaret had moved now, out from the safety of her towering warriors. She remembered the night she had first met Michael at the ambassador’s residence. The truth is never dull, he had told her. That extraordinary mix of human passion and frailty, maybe darkness, that leads to the commission of the crime. No, she thought now, it wasn’t dull. Just sordid.
Michael seemed shocked by the sudden contempt in her voice. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t like that. Yue Shi had no way to get them out of the country. When he confided in me I knew I was uniquely placed to do it. I’d organised exhibitions before, my high media profile gave me a lot of clout. But, I mean, it’s not as if we were stealing them. No one knew about them anyway. And they’d be just as safe, if not safer, in the hands of private collectors. And the things I could do with the money, Margaret. The projects I could fund without having to go cap in hand to universities and charitable organisations and broadcasters back home. There are excavations all around the world that are just waiting for funding.’
‘How noble,’ Margaret said. ‘And this money, these excavations … they’re worth killing for, are they? Worth the lives of men?’
Michael shook his head and moved towards her, appealing for her understanding. ‘For God’s sake, Margaret, that’s really not how it was.’
‘Don’t come near me!’ she shouted. And he stopped in his tracks, startled by the fear in her voice and the hate in her eyes. He had lost her again.
He sighed. ‘We’d installed a video security system,’ he said, almost hopelessly. ‘So that none of us who knew what was down here could cheat the others.’
‘Whatever happened to honour among thieves?’
He shook his head, ignoring her barb. ‘I got a phone call from the lab assistant upstairs. He and the professor had been organising the removal of the warriors, one by one, to a workshop we were renting in Haidan. He was in a hell of a state. Professor Yue had been murdered down here in the underground chamber. The whole thing was on tape. I hurried over and we found the body lying there, decapitated.’ He looked down at the huge pool of dried, crusted blood. ‘We knew we had to move it or risk the warriors being discovered. We wrapped him in blankets and polythene sheets and took the body to his apartment. It was a bloody affair. I’ve never seen so much blood.’ He blanched at the thought, remembering the detached head, the strange form of the headless body. ‘And then I looked at the tape and recognised Yuan Tao straight away. God knows why the professor brought him down here. Maybe he was trying to buy him off, buy his life back. Who knows? The thing was, Yuan had seen the warriors. He knew they were here. We were no longer safe.’
‘So you used the tape to replicate his murder of Professor Yue, to try to make it look as if they had both been killed by the same person.’
Michael nodded grimly. ‘We didn’t know about the other murders until we confronted him at the apartment at Tuan Jie Hu Dongli. That’s when we discovered that he’d already killed two other people.’
Margaret shook her head in disbelief. She had thought that she knew Michael. Never in her worst nightmare could she have dreamed him capable of this. ‘And you had no qualms about any of it?’
‘Of course I had qualms,’ he protested. ‘But you’ve got to understand, we had no choice. The smuggling of artefacts out of China is a capital offence. If the authorities caught us we would be executed. And we weren’t about to start having a whole lot of sympathy for Yuan Tao. After all, he was a murderer. He’d just killed three people. When the cops eventually caught up with him, it’d be a bullet in the head in a football stadium somewhere.’
His logic was impeccable, but Margaret still found it impossible to empathise. She sublimated her fear beneath a strange professional detachment. ‘How did you know that the fourth victim should be numbered with a three?’
He shook his head. ‘We almost didn’t. But in the apartment, along with the sword, we also found three lengths of silk cord, and three placards already numbered – one, two, three. We realised that he must have been counting down from six.’
‘And the drugs?’
‘They were there under the floorboards with the rest of the stash.’
‘And how did you force him to take them?’
Michael shrugged. ‘It was strange. I think he realised that there was not going to be any way out for him, and he almost seemed happy, as if we were relieving him of the responsibility of having to kill again. He suggested the vodka. He said the drug was more effective with alcohol.’
‘And it didn’t strike you as odd that it turned bright blue?’
Michael frowned at her. ‘How did you know that?’
‘It’s my job, Michael,’ Margaret said contemptuously. ‘Didn’t you think anyone would notice when they cut him open? Did you think he had duped his victims with a bright blue drink?’ She almost laughed. ‘He was leaving a message for us. A clue. And we had no idea.’ She thought for a moment. ‘And the nickname. Where did that come from?’
Michael looked perplexed. ‘We’d seen the nickname around Yue’s neck, and figured we should put one on Yuan’s.’
‘And you believed him when he told you it was Digger?’
‘We had no reason not to.’
Margaret shook her head in frustration. ‘We’ve been so fucking blind!’ she gasped. What was it Li was forever quoting his Uncle Yifu as saying? The answer is always in the detail. ‘Digger,’ she said. ‘That’s you. The archaeologist. Another clue we were too damned stupid to see.’ She looked at him. ‘So who was it who did the dirty deed? Who was it who actually brought the sword down on that man’s neck and cut his head off?’
‘It wasn’t me, Margaret. I could never have brought myself to do something like that.’
‘No,’ Margaret said. ‘You’d take the money, but you wouldn’t spill the blood.’ She paused, her thoughts racing, then turned on him. ‘And how did the murder weapon find its way into Birdie’s apartment?’
He shuffled awkwardly and scuffed his foot on the floor. ‘One way or another you kept me pretty well apprised of developments.’ He shrugged but wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘Jesus, Margaret, you told me yourself he was the number one suspect.’ He paused. ‘And his address was right there among the stuff we took from Yuan’s apartment …’
He glanced up to see the pain in her eyes. She turned away, tears filling them. Her disillusion was complete. She had trusted him totally. Just as she had trusted the other Michael in her life. And they had both betrayed her. She had never felt so ut
terly empty before. If she was to die now, then at least it would be an escape from her own extraordinary stupidity.
*
Li walked quickly, half running, through the shaded paths of the university campus. It was deserted in the afternoon heat, the first withered leaves beginning to drift from the trees on the edge of a warm autumn breeze. The guard at the gate had remembered Margaret arriving. But that had been this morning, and he had not seen her since, he said.
Li had first tried the archaeology department, but the pavilion was locked and deserted. Now he was following Margaret’s footsteps of several hours earlier, in search of the Arts building.
The afternoon sun slanted across the courtyard in front of the greybrick block, shadows lengthening as the sun slipped progressively lower in the sky. One half of the door stood ajar, and as Li climbed the steps, a young man emerged and almost bumped into him. It was Wang Jiahong, the surly lab assistant who had brought them here yesterday. He was startled, and his face coloured beneath his shock of black hair. He ran the back of a dirty hand across his forehead to wipe away a fine film of perspiration. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked. His voice carried more confidence than his frightened rabbit eyes.
‘The American lady I was with yesterday,’ Li said. ‘Have you seen her?’
Wang shook his head. ‘Here?’ he asked.
‘No, in fucking Shanghai!’ Li barked. ‘Of course, here!’
‘No,’ Wang said. And there was more than a hint of truculence in his tone.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. There’s nobody here but me. And I’ve been around all day. I’m just about to lock up. You can look around if you want.’
Li glanced at his watch. If she had been here at all, she must be long gone by now. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s all right.’
Wang stood watching Li out of sight as he retraced his steps towards the west gate. The reflections of weeping willows shimmered on Lake Nameless as the breeze ruffled the surface of the water. A bird swooped low across it, calling as it went, before veering off and rising skyward beyond the treetops. Li felt curiously deflated, and apprehensive. Where had Margaret gone? She had been on campus, certainly, but perhaps she had left by another gate. He took a small notebook from his back pocket, checked a telephone number and then unclipped the mobile from his belt. He dialled Mei Yuan’s neighbour and asked her to check if the yangguizi had come back yet. After a long wait Mei Yuan came to the phone to say that there was no sign of Margaret. Li sighed and made his way back to the west gate. He asked the guard again if he was certain that he had not seen Margaret leave. If she had left, the guard assured him, it must have been by one of the other gates.
Li was about to turn away in search of his Jeep when he caught sight of a familiar vehicle parked across the road, a vehicle he had seen just two days ago parked outside CID headquarters downtown. The red shi character on the registration plate filled him with a sudden sense of dread. And he knew that Margaret must still be here, and that her life was in grave danger.
By the time he reached the Arts building again he was breathless and sweating. The door was still ajar. Wang had not locked it as he said he was going to. Li made his way cautiously inside, down the darkened corridor to where light still fell out across the floor from the open door to the conservation lab. As he moved towards it, he heard a rustle of clothes and a shadow filled the light that came from the doorway. He had no time to move before Wang was upon him, pushing him back against the wall. A pain like a vice encircled his bruised ribs and he gasped, momentarily disabled. Wang sensed the moment, and took off like a sprinter from the blocks, his sneakers squeaking on the tiled floor as he hurtled down the corridor and turned out of the door. For a moment, as Li caught his breath, he contemplated going after him. Then he saw, through the open door, Margaret’s purse lying on the workbench in the conservation lab.
*
Margaret’s face was streaked with tears. ‘All those lies,’ she said. ‘All those lines you fed me. And I swallowed them all. What a fool I’ve been!’ She heard her own voice echoing back at her through the mist, like a voice of reprimand. And she began to feel her control dissolving.
He took her by the shoulders and shook her. She was beyond resistance. Almost beyond caring any more what happened to her. ‘It’s not true,’ he said. ‘I meant every word. Margaret, you must believe me. I love you. I want you to marry me.’
She broke free and looked at him with disgust. ‘Don’t insult me, Michael. Don’t make me a bigger fool than I already am.’
His despair was patent. ‘Margaret, none of this has to end badly. It really doesn’t. Nearly half the warriors are already on their way out of the country. We could be rich, you and I. Beyond our wildest dreams.’
She almost spat in his face. ‘You make me sick, you know that? You proved to me that I didn’t know you at all. And you really don’t know me any better, do you?’ He stepped towards her and she backed off. ‘I told you, stay away from me!’
‘What do you think I’m going to do, kill you?’
‘No. No doubt it’ll be one of your friends who’ll do that.’ Her tone was acid and filled with contempt.
He shook his head in despair. ‘I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.’ He held out his hand to her. ‘Come with me now. We’ll get on a plane and just go. I don’t care about the rest of these.’ He waved his hand towards the warriors. ‘Only about you.’
‘Is that right?’ she said, and she retreated further, backing into the ranks of Qin’s underground warriors. She reached out and pushed with all her strength at the heavily armoured figure of a general. The ancient warrior tipped forward on his base, overbalancing and crashing to the ground at Michael’s feet.
Michael winced, almost as if in pain. ‘Jesus, Margaret! What are you doing? These things are priceless!’
‘I thought you didn’t care.’ And she pushed again with all her might, and a standing archer followed the fate of his general, great shards of splintering pottery scattering across the floor.
Michael tried to grab her, but she retreated further among the silent figures. ‘Don’t, Margaret. Please. These things have survived more than two thousand years. They are part of an historical record of the achievements of mankind. Don’t harm them.’
And in his sincerity, she saw again that part of him which had first drawn her to him. But she knew it had been corrupted by greed and murder, by that human passion and frailty and darkness that he had talked about the night they had met. His sin had been weakness. And the flaw ran too deep. Redemption was impossible.
‘I’ll abandon the filming. We’ll go to America. When we get there I’ll tell the world about what happened here, about the warriors of the fourth chamber. It doesn’t matter if they’re in a museum or some rich man’s study. But we must preserve them. At all costs.’ He looked in abject dismay at the shattered pieces of the two warriors lying all around him.
‘Very touching.’ The voice came out of the mist and startled them both. Michael spun around as Sophie emerged from the shadows of the tunnel holding a gun. Her face was pale and grim.
‘How long have you been there?’ Michael asked quickly.
‘Long enough,’ said Sophie. ‘Wang called me right after he called you. So I’ve been treated to the greater part of your little performance.’ She turned towards Margaret with a superior smile that carried with it more than a hint of bitterness. ‘Good, isn’t he?’ Margaret stared back at her filled with conflicting emotions of fear and dismay. ‘Only, he’s not good at all,’ Sophie said. ‘He got me involved in this. It was he who came running to me for help. I’d have done anything for him, and he knew it.’ She laughed at her own stupidity.
‘You killed Yuan,’ Margaret realised.
Sophie flashed her a look. ‘Not bad for someone who looks like they ought to be in the second grade.’ Her smile was sour. ‘Ironic really. I even took part in the same Tameshi Giri competition as him in California one tim
e. He didn’t remember me, of course. I wasn’t in the same class as him. But I still managed to cut his head off. I did all Michael’s dirty work. Even planted the sword for him.’ She paused. ‘You think you’re the fool? Well, I’m the biggest fool of all. Because I thought I could make him love me the way I’ve always loved him. I even introduced him to you, so that when I suggested to Dakers that you do the autopsy, we could still keep track of things.’ She swung her gun in Michael’s direction and raised it at arm’s length. ‘Only the stupid bastard went and fell in love with you. And now he wants you to take his hand and skip the country, leaving me to face all the shit.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘Well, no fucking way!’ And she fired a single shot that struck him in the throat.
The sound of it crashed deafeningly around Hu Bo’s secret fourth chamber as Michael toppled backwards, sending several of his beloved warriors tumbling to the ground with him. Margaret screamed, and her hand shot to her mouth in horror as she saw the blood bubble around Michael’s lips, gurgling from his throat where the bullet had severed one of his carotid arteries and smashed through his windpipe. His eyes flickered in panic as the life ebbed from him, his hand clutching hopelessly at his shattered throat. His mouth opened, as if he would speak, but no sound came out of it.
Margaret saw Sophie’s shooting arm swing towards her, and caught the light glinting on the tears in her eyes. It was almost certainly those tears, blurring vision, that caused Sophie’s first shot to miss. The head of the warrior next to Margaret shattered, and razor-sharp needles of it slashed her cheek. She turned and fled towards the dark interior of the chamber, toppling pottery figures as she went. Another shot sounded, and Margaret heard a warrior explode into the ceramic dust of two millennia somewhere off to her left. Then she slipped on the slimy surface of the floor and crashed down heavily on her elbow. She gasped in pain, and turned to see Sophie looming over her.
Then suddenly, bizarrely, there came the electronic trill of a telephone ringing. There was a moment of confusion in Sophie’s face as she turned. Li was about ten feet away. In his right hand he held the sword that Professor Chang had been restoring. His left hand was fumbling to switch off the mobile phone on his belt. But it was all too late. Sophie’s face lit up in a savage smile. She fired, and Li spun away to his left, tumbling among the debris of the warriors.