The Fourth Sacrifice (42 page)

Wang Jiahong opened a nondescript door and led them into the conservation lab and then backed out, leaving them in the company of Professor Chang. It was a big cluttered room with old bookcases and wooden cabinets around the walls, and a huge wooden workbench that stood in the middle of the floor. The table was strewn with bits and pieces of pottery, a vast array of carelessly discarded tools and cleaning materials, and several weapons – two daggers, and a bronze sword held firmly in the jaws of a clamp. The floor was littered with wood shavings and dust and shards of broken pottery. The green-painted walls were scarred and stuck with posters and charts and ancient memos that went back fifty years. Daylight squeezed in through slatted blinds.

Professor Chang was working on the bronze sword, patiently removing layers of verdigris that had accumulated over centuries. He wore a dirty white apron and rubber gloves, and waved his hand vaguely around the room.

‘Sorry for the mess,’ he said in English when Li had made the introductions. He peered at Margaret over half-moon spectacles. ‘We’ve been restoring the ancient treasures of China in here for decades. I guess it just never seemed all that important to clean up behind us.’

Xinxin went exploring. Li said, ‘Do you have many staff in the department?’

‘Two hundred students, sixty-seven teachers, twelve professors and nineteen associate professors,’ Professor Chang said.

‘And how many of them would have known the circumstances of Professor Yue’s death?’

The Professor scraped away at the verdigris with a focused concentration. ‘Oh, probably all of them,’ he said.

From the corner of his eye, Li caught Margaret’s head swinging in his direction. He could almost hear her saying,
Satisfied?
He said, ‘I understood only a few senior members of the department were privy to those details.’

Chang glanced up at him. ‘Well, they were. But you know what people are like. It was a scandal, a gruesome tale. People feed off stuff like that. Archaeologists are no different. It was round the whole department in a matter of hours. Probably the whole of the university.’

Li picked up and examined one of the daggers, still avoiding Margaret’s eye. ‘Do you know the American archaeologist, Michael Zimmerman?’ he asked.

Professor Chang laid down his tools and removed his half-moons. ‘What’s
he
got to do with this?’

‘Nothing,’ Li said. ‘I just wondered if you knew him.’

‘Oh, yes, I know him,’ said the professor. He took the dagger from Li and laid it back on the table. ‘He came here when he was researching the background for his documentary on Hu Bo. Professor Yue had been a protégé of Hu’s. Yue and Zimmerman became very friendly.’ There was something in his tone that gave Li cause for thought.

‘You sound as if you don’t approve.’

‘I don’t like Michael Zimmerman,’ Professor Chang said bluntly, and Margaret felt the colour rising on her cheeks, stinging as if from a slap.

Li glanced at her. ‘Why’s that?’

‘Because under all that superficial charm, Deputy Section Chief, he’s a driven man. I don’t know what it is that drives him. Ambition. Greed. But he uses people, manipulates them for his own ends.’

‘Is that what he did to Professor Yue?’

‘I don’t know.’ The professor thought about it for a moment. ‘But Yue seemed to fall under his spell. They became very close. Too close. I didn’t like it. I didn’t think it was healthy.’

*

The sidewalks in Haidian Road were piled high with multicoloured boxes filled with computers and printers, scanners and modems, monitors and hard drives. Every shop blazed out names like IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Pentium. This was the silicon sales valley of Beijing, awash with computing power: microchips, software, every peripheral imaginable. Unlike the Russian fur trade, business was good. People jammed the stores, and traffic had ground to a halt.

They had left the university in silence and were now gridlocked in the Haidian Road log jam.

Li glanced across at Margaret. The colour was still high on her cheeks and she was sitting staring straight ahead. In the back, Xinxin was mercifully engaged in a complex game of make-believe with her panda.

Finally, Li said, ‘I thought no one had a bad word to say about him. They’ll all tell you he’s a really good guy, you said.’

Margaret’s words came back to haunt her. She turned and looked at Li with something close to loathing in her eyes. ‘One person’s opinion, that’s all.’ She would never admit to Li how shocked she had been to hear it. Professor Chang had not been describing the Michael she knew. It was as if he had been talking about someone else. But it had hurt.

‘Everyone loves him, that’s what you said. Talk to anyone who knows him. Well, we did.’

She shook her head. ‘You’re pathetic, you know that? What did you go to the university for? To find out if people there knew the details of Professor Yue’s death. And what did you find out? That they all knew. So, naturally, Michael would have heard, too. But does that satisfy you? Oh, no. Someone doesn’t like him. So fucking what? The only thing we’ve learned here today is that you’re a sad, jealous fool.’

Xinxin had abandoned her panda and was staring at Margaret in wide-eyed alarm. ‘Fuck,’ she said, aping Margaret. ‘Fuck, fuck!’

Li glared at Margaret. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You’ve just taught my niece her first English word.’

The police radio crackled and Li heard his call sign. He unhooked the receiver angrily.

She turned and stared out the window at nothing, biting back the tears. She was determined not to spill them. At least, not in front of Li. It was incomprehensible to her that someone could think so badly of Michael. Was she blind? Were all his other friends and colleagues blind, too? Of course not. It was just the view of one twisted individual, she told herself. Who knew what history there was to it? She heard Li finish his call.

‘That was Detective Sang,’ he said quietly, and she turned to look at him defiantly. ‘Apparently Birdie’s alibi doesn’t hold up. He wasn’t playing checkers at Xidan the night Yuan was killed. We’re asking the procurator’s office to issue a warrant for his arrest.’

III

Birdie was lost without the creatures which had given him his nickname. He looked naked and vulnerable without his birds around him. It was hard to define, but the man who sat before them was like a human shell, empty and vacant. Almost, Li thought, like a man who had lost his soul. He sat on the edge of his chair, shoulders slumped, hands lying limp together in his lap, staring back at them from behind dark, frightened eyes. His face was streaked by the tears he had spilled when they refused to let him bring his birds. His blue Mao suit was crumpled and dirty, and hung loosely on his gaunt frame. The room was warm and airless, a place devoid of human comfort; naked cream walls scarred and chipped, and scored with the names and thoughts of the thousands of people, both innocent and guilty, who had faced interrogation here during many long hours. Sunlight slanted in through a slit of a window high up on the back wall, slashing the side wall with burned-out yellow. Cigarette smoke, in slowly evolving strands, was suspended in its light. The cassette recorder on the table hummed and whirred in the still of the room. From outside they could hear the distant rumble of traffic from Dongzhimennei Street and, closer, the incongruously innocent sounds of children playing in the
hutong
.

A trickle of sweat ran down Detective Sang’s forehead. He leaned forward, strained and intense. He had been very anxious to participate with Li in the interrogation, and Li had allowed him to take the lead while he tried to remain detached and objective. Sang was neither. He was blunt and aggressive, and frustrated by Birdie’s apparent confusion over where he had, in fact, been on Monday night. Birdie was certain, he said, that he had been playing checkers with Moon, but if Moon said he wasn’t, then he must have been doing something else. He just couldn’t think what it was. Usually he spent nights alone at home. Sometimes he would watch television, although he could not remember what programmes he might have watched on Monday night. But usually he went to bed early, when his birds tucked their heads under their wings. He had an early start, he said. He always went to the park before going to the bird market.

‘OK,’ said Sang eventually. ‘So you agree – you don’t have an alibi?’

Birdie shook his head despondently. ‘But I don’t need an alibi. I haven’t done anything.’

‘Are you saying you didn’t know anything about the murders?’

‘No. I told you. Me and Pauper talked about them.’

‘So you admit you knew that three of the former members of the Revolt-to-the-End Brigade had been murdered?’

‘I told you we had heard.’

‘And had you heard how they were murdered?’

Birdie winced. ‘We heard they were … executed.’

‘What do you mean by “executed”?’

‘That …’ he shifted uncomfortably, ‘that their heads had been cut off.’

‘Who told you that?’ Li asked.

Birdie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. People just knew.’

‘What people?’ Sang pressed him.

‘A woman at Zero’s factory.’

‘That’s Bai Qiyu?’

‘Yes.’

‘What woman?’

‘I don’t know. I think maybe she was the one who found him. Pauper could tell you. She knew more about it than me. She talks to people, she hears things.’

‘So you and Pauper figured that someone was going around killing the members of the Revolt-to-the-End Brigade, and that sooner or later you were going to be next?’

‘That’s what Pauper thought.’

‘Did Pauper always do your thinking for you?’ Sang sat back. ‘Was it Pauper’s idea to kill Yuan Tao before he killed you?’

Birdie was rocking slowly backwards and forwards in his chair. His hands were no longer limp in his lap. They were clasped and wringing one another. ‘We didn’t kill Cat!’ He almost shouted it in tearful defiance. ‘We didn’t know he was in Beijing. We never even thought of him.’

‘There’s no point in lying to us, Birdie,’ Sang said reasonably. ‘We’ll find out the truth in the end.’ But Birdie just stared back at him. ‘How did you find out Cat was back? Did someone see him by chance? Or maybe he contacted you. He must have made arrangements to meet his other victims. Is that what happened? Did he come to the bird market and arrange to meet you somewhere?’

‘No!’

‘What did he say? That he wanted to talk about what happened back in the sixties? That it was too late now for recriminations, but that he wanted to know why? That he wanted to understand? Is that what he said to the others, do you think? Is that why they agreed to meet him? Because they felt guilty? Even after thirty years?’

‘I don’t know,’ Birdie protested. ‘How would I know what he said to them?’

But Sang was on a roll. This was his chance to impress Li, and he was taking it. ‘You must have been scared, Birdie. You must have known he was going to kill you, too.’

‘No!’

‘What did you do? Follow him? That how you found out about the apartment in Tuan Jie Hu Dongli?’

‘What apartment?’

‘I guess you must have gone there that night and waited for him. How did you know to look under the floorboards?’ But Sang wasn’t interested in waiting for Birdie’s spluttered protests of ignorance. He pressed on. ‘You must have been struck by the irony of it when you found the sword there. The chance to kill him with his own weapon, the same way he killed the others, the same way he intended to kill you.’

‘No … no … !’ But Birdie’s denials were feeble now, his eyes filling again with tears.

‘What else did you find under the floorboards? A killing list, maybe. Silk cord to bind his wrists, the same silk cord he meant to use on you? What did he say when you confronted him? Did he admit it?’ Sang leaned forward again, speaking almost softly now. ‘Why did you kill him, Birdie? You could just have gone to the police. What happened? Was it anger? Did he spit in your face? Or was it guilt? The only way you could lay the ghost of the past? That dreadful day in the spring of ’67, remember it? When you humiliated and beat and hounded Cat’s father to his death in the schoolyard in front of everyone, in front of his wife? An old man with a heart condition. You must have felt very proud of yourself.’

Birdie had stopped wringing his hands now. They hung loosely at his sides as he rocked to and fro, and sob after sob ruptured his breathing until Li thought he was going to choke. He stared at his inquisitors unseeingly, and tears ran in rivers of regret down his face.

‘Is that why you had to kill Cat, too? Is that why you forced to him to his knees and raised that sword above his head and cut it off with a single stroke?’

Birdie howled like an animal, a deep throaty howl that rose from his diaphragm and sent a shiver through each of the detectives. ‘I didn’t mean to,’ he shouted. And Li and Sang exchanged glances.

‘Didn’t mean to what?’ Li asked.

‘Kill Teacher Yuan.’ Birdie clawed at his face with his fingers, trying to wipe away the tears. ‘I never meant to do it. Please, please, please, I didn’t mean to.’

‘It’s Cat we’re talking about now, Birdie,’ Li said softly. He waited for a moment. ‘How did you know exactly what it was he had done to the other three?’

But Birdie was shaking his head from side to side, still rocking backwards and forwards. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ he kept repeating.

‘The placard around his neck. How did you know to do that? The name upside down and scored through.’

Birdie stopped rocking and stared at Li through his tears. ‘It’s Teacher Yuan you’re talking about. That’s what we did to him in the Cultural Revolution.’ He suddenly banged his fist on the table in frustration. ‘How many times do I have to pay for that?’ he shouted. ‘How many deaths can you die in one lifetime? We were just children. We didn’t know what we were doing. Only what Chairman Mao told us. He was the red, red sun in our hearts.’

No, Li thought. He was the blood-red hate in your souls.

*

They climbed the stairs to the top floor in silence. Sang glanced apprehensively at Li several times. ‘You don’t look too pleased, boss,’ he said. ‘For a man who’s just cracked a case.’