The Fourth Sacrifice (7 page)

‘What age was he?’ The same detective from HQ again.

‘Fifty-two – just a few months older than the others.’

The detective turned to Li. ‘What about the latest victim? What age was he?’

‘Date of birth on his passport was March 1949, which makes him fifty-one. I’m sorry, detective, I don’t know your name.’

‘Sang,’ the detective said. ‘Sang Chunlin.’

‘OK, Sang,’ Li said, ‘it’s a thought worth holding on to. But let’s look at the fourth victim first.’ And he glanced around all the expectant faces. ‘Yuan Tao,’ he said, ‘was a Chinese-American working in the visa department of the US Embassy.’ And he took them through the murder scene, step by step, as he and Qian had done in reality five hours earlier. He told them that Yuan had been illegally renting the apartment at No. 7 Tuan Jie Hu Dongli where the body was found, but not necessarily living there, at least not full time. ‘Apparently,’ Li said, ‘the US Embassy had no idea. They had provided him with accommodation in an embassy compound behind the Friendship Store.’ He paused. ‘They have kindly allowed our forensics people access to the apartment.’ There was just the hint of a tone in this. ‘They have also promised us full access to their file on him – just as soon as Washington can find it and fax it to us.’ There were a few laughs around the table. ‘So until we get that, and until we have the results of the autopsy later this morning, there’s not a lot more I can tell you at this stage.’

He got up and opened a window behind him before lighting another cigarette. The room was almost blue with smoke and his eyes were starting to sting. ‘So what do we know?’ He looked around the assembled faces. ‘We know the killer used a bronze-bladed weapon of some sort – probably a sword. We know that the victims probably knew him. They were drinking wine with him, and as far as they knew had no reason to be on their guard. After all, he managed to spike all their drinks. He knew them well enough to know their nicknames.

‘Red ink on white card – an ancient Chinese symbol for the end of a relationship. I think that underlines the fact that he was well known to his victims. All the names written upside down and scored through – well, we all know the significance of that image. And the numbering of the victims. Starting with six and counting down. Which would lead us to believe that there are another two victims out there somewhere.’

It was a sobering thought, and helped refocus minds around the table.

‘I keep coming back to this age thing.’ It was Sang again.

‘Go on,’ Li said.

Sang scratched his head. He was a good-looking young man, probably not yet thirty, and almost the only detective around the table not smoking. ‘Well, if they’re all the same age, and this guy knows all their nicknames, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that at some time they’d all been in the same organisation, or institution, or work unit together?’

‘The first three were at the same school,’ Zhao said, and reduced the room to a stunned silence. He blushed fiercely as all eyes turned on him.

‘What?’ Li asked. His voice was steady and very level.

Zhao said, ‘I figured you usually get your nickname at school. So I spent yesterday checking it out.’

‘Why the hell did no one think of this before?’ Chen thundered.

It was a reasonable question. But Li had no answer to it.

‘It’s more than thirty years since any of them were at school,’ Zhao said, almost apologetically. ‘I guess that’s why it wasn’t the first thing we were looking at.’

‘And you didn’t think to share your thoughts with us before now?’ Chen asked pointedly.

‘I only got confirmation this morning, chief,’ Zhao said.

‘In the name of the sky, Zhao,’ Li said, ‘this is a team effort. We share information, we share thoughts, we talk to one another. That’s why we have these meetings.’ But how could he blame Zhao when he was the only one who had had the thought?

The detectives from Headquarters sat silent, happy that they shared no responsibility here. Sang, however, was riffling through his file.

‘What school was it?’ he asked. ‘I can’t find it here.’

‘It’s not in there,’ Zhao said. He cleared his throat, embarrassed. ‘It took me some time to track it down. It was the No. 29 Middle School at Qianmen.’

There was a brief hiatus, and they could hear the scratch of Sang’s pencil in his notebook. Then Li moved away from the window. ‘Right,’ he said decisively. He sat down and pulled his notebook towards him, taking notes as he spoke. ‘We’ll divide up into four groups of five. Group leaders will be Wu, Qian, Zhao, and – Sang.’ Sang positively glowed. ‘I want each group to review the evidence from all four murders and bring their thoughts back to this table. Additionally, each group will take responsibility for specific areas of the investigation. Zhao, we need to talk to the victims’ old teachers. Qian, we need to interview fellow pupils, all their old classmates. It may be that somewhere among them are the next two victims. And we want to get to them before the killer.’

Sang interrupted. ‘Aren’t we jumping the gun a bit here, boss? I mean, OK, so the first three went to the same school. But obviously the American didn’t.’

‘Fair point,’ Li said. ‘But the fact that the others did is too big a coincidence not to be significant. And it’s the first chink of light we’ve had in this case. There’s every possibility it could illuminate a great deal more.’ He paused. ‘Sang, I want your group to try to identify the weapon used. And Wu, I want your people to look at all the forensic evidence again. There’s got to be something we’re missing. We’ll meet again when we’ve got more information on Yuan Tao.’

The meeting broke up amid a hubbub of speculation on new developments, and as a pink-faced Zhao got to his feet, Li caught his eye and nodded. ‘Well done,’ he said. Zhao blushed more deeply.

Clouds of cigarette smoke wafted out into the corridor with the detectives.

Chen wandered round the table to where Li was collecting his papers. ‘I’m glad you finally seem to have learned the importance of working as a team, Deputy Section Chief Li,’ he said with a tone.

‘Just when they’re talking about introducing the concept of one-officer cases, too.’ Li’s tone echoed that of his boss, to Chen’s annoyance.

‘You know I don’t agree with that,’ he said.

‘Which is just about the only thing you and my uncle would have agreed on.’

‘But you don’t?’

‘I think the old way has its virtues, Chief. But we’re living in a changing world.’ Li glanced at his watch. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. The autopsy starts at ten.’

‘I’m afraid it doesn’t,’ Chen said, stopping Li in his tracks. ‘That’s why the Deputy Minister of Public Security was on the phone. The autopsy’s been delayed until this afternoon. And the Commissioner wants to see you at headquarters right away.’

II

The first blink of sunshine for days dappled the sidewalk beneath the locust trees in Dong Jiaominxiang Lane. The haze of pollution, as it sometimes did, had lifted inexplicably and the sky was breaking up. The city’s spirits seemed raised by it. Even the normally dour bicycle repairmen opposite the rear entrance to the municipal police headquarters were chatting enthusiastically, hawking and spitting in the gutter with renewed vigour. Li cycled past the Supreme Court on his right and turned left into the compound behind police headquarters. He alone, it seemed, was not uplifted by the autumn sunshine that still fell warm on the skin. As he passed an armed police officer standing to attention, and free-wheeled under the arch through open gates, he recalled his first encounter here with Margaret. Her official car in collision with his bicycle … his grazed arm … her insolence …

His smile at the memory was glazed over with melancholy.

He parked and locked his bicycle and walked apprehensively into the redbrick building that housed the headquarters of the criminal investigation department. He had stopped off at his apartment on the way to change into his uniform – dark green trousers, neatly pressed, pale green short-sleeve shirt with epaulettes and Public Security arm badge, dark green peaked cap with its red piping and loop of gold braid. He removed his hat as he stepped inside, ran his hand back across the dark stubble of his flat-top crewcut and took a deep breath.

The divisional head of the CID, Commissioner Hu Yisheng, was standing by the window when Li entered his office. The blinds were lowered, and the slats adjusted to allow thin lines of sunlight to zigzag across the contours of his desk. They fell in bright burned-out bands across the red of the Chinese flag that hung behind it. Li stood stiffly to attention as the Commissioner turned a steely gaze in his direction. He was a handsome man, somewhere in his early sixties, with a full head of iron-grey hair. He held Li in his gaze for what seemed an interminably long time. At first Li felt just uncomfortable, and then he began physically to wilt. It was worse, somehow, than any reprimand that words could have delivered.

Finally the Commissioner said, ‘I was sorry to hear about your uncle.’ And his words carried with them the weight of an accusation, as if Li had been personally responsible. His uncle was still casting a shadow over him, even from the grave. The Commissioner walked round behind his desk and sat down, leaving Li standing. ‘He wouldn’t have been very proud of the way you’re conducting this investigation, would he?’

‘I think he would have offered me good advice, Commissioner Hu,’ Li said.

Hu bridled at the implication. ‘Well, I’ll give you my advice, Li,’ he said. ‘You’d better break this case. And quickly. And let’s stick to conventional Chinese police methods, shall we? “Where the tiller is tireless, the earth is fertile,” your uncle used to say.’

‘Yes, he did, Commissioner,’ Li said. ‘But he also used to say, “The ox is slow, but the earth is patient.”’

Hu frowned. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’

‘Oh, I think my uncle meant that if you use an ox to plough a field you must expect it to take a long time.’

The Commissioner glared at him. ‘You’ve always been an advocate of assigning cases to individual officers, haven’t you?’

‘As the crime rate rises we have to find more efficient ways of fighting it,’ Li said.

‘Well, I’m not going to get into that argument here,’ the Commissioner responded tetchily. ‘Decisions on that will be taken well above our heads.’ He paused. ‘Like the decision to let the Americans carry out the autopsy on the latest victim.’

‘What?’ Li was stunned.

‘It has been agreed to let one of their pathologists assist. Which means, in practice, that they will conduct it.’

‘But that’s ridiculous, Commissioner,’ Li said. ‘Their pathologist hasn’t been involved in any of the previous autopsies. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘You want to tell that to the Minister?’

Li pressed his lips firmly together and refrained from responding.

Hu put his elbows on the desk in front of him and placed his palms together, regarding Li speculatively. ‘So,’ he said. ‘I understand you have taken on board your section chief’s admonitions regarding the American, Margaret Campbell?’

Li nodded grimly. ‘I have.’

‘Good.’ Hu sat back and took a deep breath. ‘Because she will be conducting the autopsy.’

Li looked at him in disbelief.

*

He emerged into the glare of the compound in a trance. He took off his hat, turning his face up to the sky, and let the warm sunshine cascade over him like rain. He closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind of its confusion, hoping beyond hope that when he opened them again the world might have turned in a different direction and all his troubles would be washed away. But he knew it would not be so. He had tried so hard to banish her from his thoughts, from his very soul. How could he face her again now? What could she believe but that he had somehow betrayed her? And in a way, he knew, he had.

He opened his eyes and they fell upon the place he had parked his bicycle. It was not there. He frowned, momentarily confused, and glanced along the row of bicycles parked up against the redbrick building. His was not among them. He glanced in the direction of the armed officer at the gate who was staring steadfastly into the street. Then he looked again for his bicycle. He must have put it somewhere else, or someone had moved it. The parked bicycles stretched all the way round the building to a long line beneath a row of trees. His bicycle was not anywhere to be seen. He could not believe this was happening, and he approached the armed officer angrily.

‘I parked my bicycle just there,’ he said, and he pointed along the inside wall. ‘Just there. Half an hour ago. You saw me come in.’

The officer shrugged. ‘People come and go all the time. I don’t remember.’

‘You don’t remember me parking my bike there, and someone else taking it?’ Li snapped.

‘No, I don’t,’ the officer snapped back. ‘I’m not a parking attendant.’

Li cursed. It was unbelievable. Someone had had the audacity to steal his bicycle from inside the municipal police compound. And who would think to question someone taking a bicycle from outside CID headquarters? He shook his head and could not resist the tiniest of ironic smiles at the barefaced cheek. There was not even any point in reporting it. Bike theft in Beijing was endemic. And with twenty million bicycles out there, he knew he would never see his again.

He pulled his hat firmly down on his head and walked the three hundred yards around the corner to his apartment block in Zhengyi Road. He picked up his mail and climbed the stairs to the second floor two at a time, and stormed into the apartment, throwing his mail on the table and his hat across the room into an armchair. ‘Fuck!’ he shouted at the walls, and the release of tension made him feel a little better. He went into the bedroom and stripped off his uniform and caught sight of himself in the mirror. He was tall. A little over six feet, with a good frame and a lean, fit body. He looked at his face and tried to see himself as Margaret would see him a few hours from now. He looked into his own eyes and saw nothing there but guilt. He didn’t want to see her. He didn’t want to see the accusation he knew would be there in her eyes. The anger, the hurt. He had thought he had put the worst of that behind him. And now fate had conspired to contrive this unhappy reunion.