The Firemaker (The China Thrillers 1)

by Peter May

  But they were all over now, those little mind games and fantasies. What possible future could there have been in any of it? A few stolen nights of passion, a release of sexual frustrations. And then goodbye. She had no future in China. He had no future outside it. So what was the point? All this angst over a relationship that neither existed now nor ever could.

  She picked up a pebble and lobbed it into the centre of the pond, sending frogs diving from leafy platforms into stagnant water. All that had happened was that she had made a mess of things. She had come to China to escape. But she had been totally unprepared for the demands it would make of her and hadn’t had the will to bridge the gap. She had met a man she found attractive, but it was the wrong place and the wrong time. And, in any case, she wasn’t ready for another relationship. It was the advice she would have given her sister or her best friend. Don’t go rushing into another relationship. You’d only be compensating. Give yourself a break from men for a while. Get out and enjoy life again. She smiled ruefully. How often it was that the advice you gave to others was the advice you would find hardest to follow yourself. Easy to give. Hard to take. She stood up. Just don’t think about it, she told herself. Take a taxi to the airport in the morning and get on the plane. Once you’re in the air you can start thinking about the rest of your life. Just don’t look back. At least, not until you’re far enough away to get a perspective on it. Like the rice paddies she had seen as her plane came into land, reflecting sunlight, she remembered, in a fractured mosaic like the pieces of a shattered mirror. How different from the view she had of them from here – green shoots poking through muddy water. Everything in life, it seemed, was about perspective. And she wondered what kind of perspective she would ever have on Michael.

  But she felt better already for the perspective Yuanmingyuan had given her of the events of the last few days. Slowly she got to her feet. The secret was simply not to think about it. The most daunting thing ahead of her, she assured herself, was the cycle ride back to the Friendship Hotel.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I

  Thursday Afternoon

  She concentrated on the pumping of her legs, on watching the cyclists who whizzed by her on either side with curious passing glances, on the motorists who seemed intent on tipping her on to the tarmac or bursting her eardrums with their horns. And she absorbed the sights and sounds of this strange city like scenes in a movie shot from a passing car. With a pang of regret, Margaret realised she would miss Beijing. It was a place, she felt, that would have got under her skin had she spent any length of time here. It was so alive. Don’t even think about it! The words came into her head like a reprimand from a higher authority. But it was, she knew, her own counsel. And she took it.

  She approached the hotel from the north, passing the Friendship Palace and its shady gardens where birds sang in cages, and wheeled her bicycle into the carpark, hot and uncomfortable in the scorching afternoon. A car horn sounded, but she paid it no attention. Motorists used their horns incessantly. It sounded again. Two short, insistent blasts and a longer one. She turned as a dark blue Beijing Jeep pulled in behind her and drew alongside. Her stomach flipped over as she recognised Li behind the wheel. The driver’s window wound down and he switched off the engine. He looked at her apprehensively. His battered face didn’t seem as bruised as it had earlier. ‘I tried to get you at the university,’ he said. ‘They told me you’d quit.’

  She nodded confirmation. ‘My flight’s at nine thirty tomorrow morning.’

  He thought she seemed cold and distant. He wanted to ask why she had quit, why she was leaving, but he didn’t have the courage. ‘I just wanted to check with you,’ he said. ‘About the AIDS test.’

  Her disappointment manifested itself as anger. ‘Actually, I’m not interested. I’m no longer involved in your investigation, and I couldn’t care less if Chao tested positive or not.’

  Li responded in kind, hurt by her tone. ‘And I couldn’t tell you, even if I wanted to … since you never requested the test.’

  ‘What?’ She glared at him, full of indignation.

  ‘According to Professor Xie.’

  ‘Well, that’s ridiculous. I spoke to him last night, on the way back here to change.’

  ‘And asked him to test a sample of Chao’s blood for AIDS?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘He says you didn’t.’

  ‘Then he’s a damn liar!’

  ‘You want to tell him that?’

  ‘Try stopping me.’ She kicked down her bike stand, slipped the lock through the back wheel and rounded the Jeep to the passenger side. As she slipped into the seat she slammed the door shut and glared at Li. ‘And you believe him, do you?’

  ‘No,’ he said simply.

  She stared at him for some moments. ‘What’s going on, Li Yan?’

  ‘Someone doesn’t want us testing Chao Heng for AIDS.’

  ‘Professor Xie?’ Margaret was incredulous.

  ‘Only on instruction from someone else.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  But … why?’

  ‘I don’t know that either.’

  She shook her head. ‘This is absurd. You’re the police. How can anyone stop you having a simple blood test done?’

  ‘By destroying the body and all the blood and tissue samples.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘This morning. They incinerated everything.’

  Margaret simply couldn’t believe it. ‘That’s not possible. I mean, in most US states all toxicology specimens are held frozen for one year. Five in homicide cases.’

  ‘It’s not common practice to destroy evidence in China either,’ Li said. ‘In this case, it seems, authorisation to destroy the remains came as the result of an “administrative error”.’ It had taken him all morning to track that one down. They had even shown him the form. A clerk had typed in the wrong name, they said.

  She shook her head. ‘And you believe that?’

  ‘No.’ He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, keeping his anger in check. ‘Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to cover their tracks. But there is one loose end.’ He paused. ‘You.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You requested the AIDS test from Professor Xie last night – long before he received instructions to destroy the body and the samples.’

  ‘But if he’s denying that …’

  ‘That’s why I’d like a sworn statement from you before you leave. I know it’s only your word against his …’

  ‘But it’s not,’ Margaret said. ‘There was a witness.’

  Li frowned. ‘Who?’

  ‘Lily Peng. She insisted on coming in with me when I went to talk to Professor Xie.’

  Li processed his thoughts rapidly. ‘Well, there’s no way he can get around that one, is there?’ He ran it through again in his mind. ‘And that means I can use you and Lily to frighten him. Sometimes when rats are scared they squeal. Do you still want to go and see him?’

  Margaret hesitated. It would be too easy to say yes, to get involved again, let all that emotion back in when she’d just spent the last three hours building resolute defences against it. ‘I don’t think the university would approve,’ she said feebly.

  ‘This has nothing to do with the university. You’re a material witness.’

  ‘So … I don’t have any choice. Is that what you’re telling me?’

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you.’

  ‘Then I don’t have any choice, do I?’ There was just the hint of a smile about her eyes.

  He grinned. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t.’

  It took less than fifteen minutes to drive to the Centre of Material Evidence Determination. For the first five neither of them spoke.

  Margaret was having immediate regrets. She knew perfectly well that she could have refused to get involved, and Li would not have forced her. She had been foolish. What could possibly come of this but trouble and heartache? Nothing had c
hanged. She was still leaving on the nine thirty flight in the morning. She would never see Li again. She would never return to China. What did she care about the murder of Chao Heng and some drug dealer and an unemployed labourer from Shanghai? What did it matter to her that someone was trying to block Li’s investigation? Who cared?

  Li said, ‘We’ve identified the killer from that thumbprint.’

  And she knew that she cared. She couldn’t have said why, only that she did. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘A Triad hit-man, like my uncle suggested right at the outset. DNA on the blood inside the glove matches the DNA in the saliva on the cigarette ends. So there’s no doubt. He’s called Johnny Ren. And he walked into the headquarters of Section One this morning and stole my fob watch from my desk drawer.’

  Margaret looked at him in astonishment. ‘How … ? Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why.’ Li was clearly agitated by it. ‘He’s been following us – you and me. Following our progress. He nearly killed me last night. And today he delivered a message. That he can do what he damn well likes and we can’t do anything about it.’

  ‘You think that’s why he took your watch? To make a statement?’

  Li shrugged. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe he’s just a mad bastard. But if he thinks we won’t get him, he’s wrong. By tomorrow morning his face will be as famous in China as Mao Zedong’s.’

  They sat in silence for a moment, Margaret thinking quickly. ‘But he couldn’t have been responsible for blocking the AIDS test. Could he?’

  Li shook his head. ‘No. That must either have been his employer or another employee.’

  ‘Someone with a lot of clout, anyway,’ Margaret said. ‘To subvert a pathologist and contrive to have the medical evidence destroyed.’

  Li nodded solemnly, then turned to look at her. They had stopped at traffic lights. ‘I am beginning to have a bad feeling about it,’ he said. ‘It is starting to look like your idea that Chao was burned to try to hide something might be closer to the truth after all. They just misjudged how much damage would be done by the fire.’

  When they arrived at the Centre Professor Xie was in mid-autopsy. He looked up as the doors swung open, and Margaret saw colour rise on his face behind the mask. There was something close to panic in his eyes. But he remained outwardly cool, slipping off the mask and turning to his assistants, asking them to leave for a few minutes. Li waited until the door had closed behind them. ‘Do you still maintain, Professor, that Dr Campbell did not ask you last night to arrange for a sample of Chao Heng’s blood to be AIDS-tested?’

  The professor smiled nervously and glanced at Margaret. ‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Dr Campbell did ask. But, you know, my English is not, perhaps, what it might be …’

  ‘We never had any trouble with your English through three autopsies, Professor,’ Margaret said. ‘And I didn’t have the impression last night that you in any way misunderstood my request. I’m sure Constable Lily Peng will bear me out.’

  The colour drained from the professor’s face. Li said, ‘You are in deep trouble, Professor Xie. Attempting to destroy or cover up evidence would make you an accessory to murder.’

  The professor held himself very stiffly, and he spoke softly, rapidly, in Chinese. ‘I am not involved in this, Deputy Section Chief Li. I do what I am told. No more, no less. I have no idea what is going on. But if you try to implicate me, then I can assure you, you are the one who will be in trouble.’ Margaret watched his scalpel hand tremble as he spoke.

  ‘Are you threatening me, Professor?’ Li’s voice was level and steady.

  ‘No. I am telling you how things are. And they are things over which neither of us has any control.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Li said, and he turned abruptly and headed for the door, catching Margaret by surprise. She had no idea what had been said, but the tone was unmistakably hostile. Her brow furrowed in a question to Professor Xie that was formulated entirely in body language. After all, they had performed three autopsies together. There had been an element of bonding in that. The professor responded with an almost imperceptible shrug that carried the hint of an apology. Margaret sighed and followed Li out. She caught him up as he stepped from the cool of the building into the blaze of mid-afternoon sunshine.

  ‘What was all that about?’ she asked.

  ‘He was warning me off.’

  ‘What, you mean threatening you?’

  ‘No.’ Li smiled grimly. ‘Warning me.’

  Margaret shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. I mean, can’t you just arrest him for obstructing a police investigation?’

  ‘We have no such law.’

  ‘So, what happens if someone refuses to co-operate with the police?’

  Li smiled with genuine amusement at her naïveté. ‘No one refuses to co-operate with the police in China.’

  Margaret took a moment to fully absorb his meaning. ‘But isn’t that what Professor Xie just did?’ she asked.

  Li’s smile faded. ‘No. He didn’t refuse to co-operate. He just lied.’

  *

  ‘Where is she now?’ Chen stood behind his desk, eyes blazing with anger as he gathered papers together and slipped them into a briefcase.

  ‘In my office.’

  ‘You’re a fool, Li,’ Chen raged. ‘I told you she was to play no further part in this investigation.’

  ‘She’s a witness. I’m taking her statement.’

  ‘Proving what? That Professor Xie’s English is less than perfect? For God’s sake, Li, what possible reason could the professor have for deliberately destroying evidence or failing to carry out blood tests?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Well, there you are, then.’

  ‘He was ordered to.’

  Chen’s laugh was hollow and without humour. ‘Oh, what’s this? A conspiracy theory now? Dr Campbell is turning out to be the biggest mistake I ever made.’ He rounded the desk and unhooked his jacket from a peg on the back of the door.

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with Dr Campbell.’

  ‘You’re right. It hasn’t. This is an investigation by Section One of the Criminal Investigation Department of Beijing Municipal Police.’ He pulled his jacket on angrily.

  ‘The point is, someone tried to stop us doing tests on Chao’s blood, Chief.’

  ‘Well, if that’s true, they succeeded, didn’t they?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Look, I’ve got a meeting at the Procurator General’s office. I’m going to be late.’ He paused at the door and cast Li a withering look. ‘Perhaps you’d like me to pass on your conspiracy theory to Deputy Procurator General Zeng, since you and he seem very tight on this case.’

  Li followed him out into the corridor, ignoring the barb. ‘Chief, I think the key to this whole case is in what those blood tests would have shown up.’

  ‘Then find another key. There’s always a back door.’ Chen checked his watch again without breaking his stride. ‘And, for heaven’s sake, lose the American. I hear she’s quit her job at the university.’

  ‘She’s booked a flight home tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Good. Make sure she’s on it.’

  Li stopped and watched Chen all the way to the end of the corridor, then turned into the detectives’ room, ignoring the curious glances of his colleagues and passing straight through into his own office. He slammed the door behind him. Margaret was sitting at his desk, tipping the chair slowly backwards and forwards.

  ‘It’s strange to think he was in here,’ she said. She lifted a copy of Johnny Ren’s photograph from the desk. ‘I take it this is him?’ Li nodded. ‘He doesn’t look at all like I imagined him.’

  ‘How did you think he’d look?’

  ‘Not Chinese. I don’t know why. I knew he would have to be, but it’s not the picture I had in my head.’ She examined the photograph again. ‘He’s got evil eyes, hasn’t he? There’s no light in them. They’re quite dead.’ She looked up. ‘What did Chen say?’

  ‘He’s not buying int
o a conspiracy.’

  ‘Are you surprised?’

  ‘Not really. He thinks Professor Xie’s story sounds quite plausible.’

  ‘So where does that leave us?’

  ‘It leaves me trying to catch Johnny Ren. And it leaves you catching a plane home in the morning.’ He glanced at her, then quickly averted his eyes, suddenly self-conscious. He wandered to the window, hands pushed in pockets, and there was a silence between them that lingered interminably.

  Finally she said, ‘Of course, there could be another way of getting access to Chao’s medical history.’

  He turned, frowning. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, presumably he had a doctor. I mean, where else would he get all those prescription drugs?’

  Li shook his head in disbelief. It was so obvious, why had it taken both of them until now to think of it? And then he smiled to himself.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.

  ‘Old Chen,’ he said. ‘He is a prickly old bastard, but he’s not stupid. I told him I thought the key to Chao’s murder was in his blood. He said,’ – and Li was careful to recall the exact words – “then find another key. There’s always a back door.”’

  ‘As long as you let me help to unlock it.’ Margaret raised an appealing eyebrow.

  ‘You’ve got a plane to catch.’

  ‘A lot can happen in …’ She checked her watch. ‘… seventeen and a half hours.’

  II

  Li turned the Jeep down Beijingzhan Street, and ahead of them rose the twin towers of Beijing railway station, where Old Yifu would arrive back from Sichuan some time that evening. Li had taken a circuitous route to Chongwenmen to avoid the traffic that had ground to its habitual afternoon standstill on the second ring road. He had finally summoned up the courage to ask Margaret what had happened to make her quit the university. And she had told him: about missing her lecture, about the attitude of Jiang and his staff, about her row with Bob. Now he shook his head and said, ‘I am so sorry, Margaret.’