The Fourth Sacrifice tct-2

by Peter May

  ‘Do you want to tell me about the nickname?’ Margaret’s voice broke into his thoughts, and he immediately detected the hint of accusation in it.

  ‘You’ll read all about it in the statements we took at the school,’ he said. And, in a voice laden with meaning, added, ‘When you were in Xi’an.’

  He heard her sigh, but kept his eyes on the traffic ahead. ‘I’ll probably get around to reading them sometime,’ she said in that acid tone that was so familiar to him. ‘Maybe next year, or the year after. But right now it might save time if you just told me.’

  He shrugged. ‘Like Pauper said, Yuan’s nickname was Cat, not Digger.’

  ‘And anyone who knew him at school would know that?’

  He nodded. ‘Which kind of punches a hole in your theory about his killer being one of the remaining Red Guards.’ He turned to look at her, but she was frowning into the middle distance, lost in thought.

  ‘It’s looking less and less likely anyway,’ she said. ‘One of them’s dead, the other’s blind. That just leaves Birdie. And he would know Yuan’s nickname. Unless …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Unless he deliberately used another name to confuse the police.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Li said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You would have to be pretty smart to think of something like that. From all accounts Birdie would have trouble getting his IQ up to room temperature.’

  ‘So why are we going to see him?’ But before he could respond, she answered for herself. ‘No, don’t tell me, I know. “Because Chinese police work requires meticulous attention to detail.”’ She sighed again and looked at the traffic ahead of them. It was at a standstill. ‘Chinese police work also requires great patience,’ she said. ‘Since it takes so goddamn long just to get from A to B.’

  But Li’s patience had already run out. He opened the window and slapped a flashing red light on the roof, flicked on his siren and squeezed across the line of on-coming traffic into a narrow lane. He pulled the Jeep in beside a railing and jumped out. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll walk the rest. It’s not far.’

  A hundred yards down, the lane was crowded with people buying tropical fish from roadside vendors. Jars of exotic marine life were piled on stalls and carts, plastic trays filled with terrapins and tortoises laid out along the sidewalk. An old lady was selling goldfish in water-filled plastic bags hung from the handlebars of her bicycle. They passed a long, corrugated shed stacked from floor to ceiling with tanks full of brilliantly coloured fish fighting for space in green, bubbling water. Margaret had never seen so many fish. There was an ocean’s worth. Whole shops were devoted to selling accessories — tanks, stands, lighting, feed. The shed and stalls and shops were jammed with customers. Feng shui was back in fashion. Fish were in. Business was good.

  They turned west, leaving the fish market behind, past demolition work behind high hordings, then south again at Chegongzhuang Subway Station. On South Xizhimen Street, on the sidewalk beyond the tree-lined cycle lane, they saw the first clutches of old men gathered around their birdcages. Bicycles parked by the hundred lined the sidewalk on either side of the entrance to the market. Men with birds of prey tethered to the handlebars of their bicycles showed off new, brilliantly coloured purchases in bamboo cages. Budgerigars, canaries, hawks, parakeets. The collective sound of ten thousand birds drowned out even the roar of traffic on the second ring road.

  Li and Margaret turned under a red banner into a covered courtyard stacked high with thousands of cages filled with the most extraordinary dazzle of coloured birds. Yellow, green, vermilion, black with yellow flashes. Old men and young boys bargained noisily with loquacious venders selling everything from kittens and hamsters to grasshoppers caged in tiny bamboo mesh balls. A bald man in a blue shirt and grey waistcoat stood behind a counter laden with a hundred different tobaccos, fine-rolled, rough shredded, black, yellow, green. Great bundles of whole dried leaf hung from the wall behind him between racks of rough carved wooden pipes with curling stems. Margaret was wide-eyed. As with so many things in China, she had never seen anything like it before.

  Li stopped at an antiques stall sandwiched between rows of hanging cages and had to raise his voice almost to a shout to ask an old woman where they could find Birdie. She pointed towards a stall at the bottom of the row but said, ‘You won’t find him there now. Only in the mornings. At this time of day he’ll be in Purple Bamboo Park.’

  *

  It took them another half-hour to get to Purple Bamboo Park through late afternoon traffic that was gathering itself for the rush hour frenzy. Margaret recognised the entrance to the park, with its tiers of curling bamboo roofs, topiary elephants and incongruous European mannequins standing amidst a profusion of flowers. She had passed it daily, on the cycle from the Friendship Hotel to the People’s University of Public Security when she first arrived in Beijing.

  At the gate Li spoke to the ticket collector who knew Birdie well. He came every day, she said. Bicycles were not normally allowed in the park, but his tricycle was a carrier for the birdcages that he piled upon it, one tied to the other, or hung from the handlebars. The birds were his constant and only companions, so they let him in with his tricycle, and he wheeled it to a cool bamboo pavilion east of the lake where he practised wu shu.

  Li and Margaret walked in silence through the gloomy green shade of the early evening, through thick groves of the purple bamboo that gave the park its name. Beyond the weeping willows at the far side of the lake the sky glowed pink as the day slipped slowly towards night. They turned off the main thoroughfare and followed a narrow path that curved up under leaning pine trees to an open pavilion overlooking a brackish brown pond. A dozen cages filled with chattering, singing birds, hung from a bamboo roof supported on stout, lacquered posts. Beneath it, a man in black pyjamas and canvas slippers brought his silver sword arcing through the gloom to pierce and slash the thick, warm evening air in the ancient Chinese sword art of wu shu. He was tall and gaunt, with thin wisps of fine dark hair, and a straggling beard that clung precariously to his sunken cheeks and swept to a point at the end of his chin.

  Li and Margaret stopped for a moment, as yet unseen by the man in the pavilion, and watched as he took his sword through all its motions with a bold confidence that belied his appearance. Margaret flicked a glance at Li. Here was an echo of his Uncle Yifu, who had been practising sword strokes in Jade Lake Park when Li had first taken her to meet him. Li’s face, however, gave nothing away.

  The birds had betrayed their presence to their master, chatter increasing at the approach of strangers, and the swordsman stopped in mid-stroke and glanced towards them. He seemed alarmed, and Margaret saw fear in his black eyes. And although he relaxed a little as they approached the pavilion and he saw Li’s uniform, gone was all the poise and confidence he had shown in his handling of the ornamental sword.

  Li held up his Public Security ID. ‘Police,’ he said. ‘You speak English?’ Birdie shook his head. ‘You know why we’re here?’ Birdie shook his head again. Li took the sword from him and examined it. It was a cheap, lightweight effort that concertinaed for ease of carrying. ‘You seem pretty good with this thing. You get a lot of practice?’

  Birdie nodded. ‘Every day,’ he said. ‘It helps me relax.’

  ‘Just for the record, do you want to tell me your full name?’

  ‘Ge Yan,’ Birdie said. ‘But no one calls me that.’

  ‘What do you know about what happened to Monkey and Zero and Pigsy?’

  The colour drained from Birdie’s face and he sat down on the narrow bench that ran between the lacquered posts.

  ‘I don’t suppose he speaks English?’ Margaret interrupted impatiently.

  Li flicked her a look. ‘I’m afraid not.’ And with a tone, ‘What a pity you don’t speak Chinese.’

  She deserved that, she realised, and backed off to the edge of the pavilion to watch from a distance. Birdie cast a nervous eye in her direc
tion.

  ‘Never mind her,’ Li said. ‘Answer the question.’

  Birdie’s eyes darted back towards Li. ‘They were murdered,’ he said, almost in a whisper, as if afraid to say it out loud.

  ‘Do you know who by?’

  He shook his head. ‘But we are next.’

  ‘Who are next?’

  ‘Me and Pauper.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Pauper said that someone is trying to kill us all. All of us who were in the Revolt-to-the-End Brigade.’

  ‘And why would someone want to do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Li paused to think for a moment. He was still holding Birdie’s sword. He retracted the blade and threw it to him. ‘Here.’ Birdie caught it adeptly with his left hand. Li glanced at Margaret. She had not missed the significance. ‘Left-handed,’ Li said.

  Birdie shrugged. ‘So what?’

  ‘No reason.’ Li lit a cigarette and watched the blue smoke curl slowly up in the still evening air. The light was beginning to fade.

  ‘What has he told you?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘The same as Pauper. He knew about the murders and figured they were next.’

  ‘Does he know about Yuan Tao?’

  ‘I haven’t asked him yet?’

  Birdie seemed alarmed by this exchange in English. ‘What are you saying?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘We were talking about an old schoolfriend of yours. Yuan Tao.’

  Birdie’s eyes opened wide. ‘Cat?’

  ‘We found him dead in an apartment on the east side of the city. Murdered just like the others.’

  For a moment Birdie just stared at him, and then unexpectedly his eyes filled and big teardrops spilled from them and rolled down his cheeks. Li was stunned by his reaction. Margaret moved towards them. ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘I just told him about Yuan.’

  Birdie put a hand to his mouth to try to stifle his sobs. He drew in a breath in a series of small gasps and then issued a deep, animal moan, and the tears streamed down his face to gather among the whiskers of his beard. He looked up at Li with pain and hopelessness in his eyes. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry.’

  Li stood stock still. ‘Did you kill him, Birdie?’

  Birdie shook his head, and when he found the breath to speak again, said, ‘No. I did not kill him. But we took his life away all those years ago. Back in the Cultural Revolution.’ A string of sobs pummelled his chest. ‘When we killed his father. In the school yard, with his mother watching.’ His eyes appealed pathetically for an understanding he knew would not come, his upturned face glistening with tears. ‘We did not mean to. We were just children.’ He broke down again, and held his face in his hands, weeping like the child he had once been. Li and Margaret waited in silence for his sobs to subside. There was something faintly shocking in watching a grown man cry so freely.

  Finally, he regained some measure of control. ‘I have spent my life regretting the things we did then,’ he said. ‘China had gone mad, and we were carried along by the insanity. And now China has healed itself, but you cannot bring back the lives that were taken, or take away the pain from the wounds that will not heal.’ He wiped the tears from his face with the palms of his hands. ‘It has left me with a nervous condition now. I cannot work, except with my birds.’ He gazed up at his beloved birds singing in their cages. ‘They have no past, no future. They know nothing of my guilt. They make no judgements. I am free only with them. I have been free only ever with them.’ And after a moment, ‘Poor Cat,’ he said.

  ‘Cats and birds don’t really mix, do they?’ Li said, unmoved by Birdie’s display of remorse. His reading of the diary was still too vivid in his memory.

  Birdie looked at him, confused. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was Cat who murdered the others. Revenge for the killing of his father. You and Pauper were almost certainly next on his list.’

  ‘You still think I killed him?’ Birdie looked at him in disbelief.

  ‘Kill or be killed.’

  Birdie shook his head. ‘I didn’t even know it was him. And even if I had, how could I have taken his life again?’ He ran his hands through his thinning hair in abject despair. ‘I only wish I had come higher on his list. At least, then, I would not have had to live with the guilt any more.’

  ‘Where were you on Monday night?’ Li asked.

  Birdie looked at him, and there was a mix of panic and fear in his eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Monday? At home maybe.’

  ‘And you live on your own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So there wouldn’t be anyone to back that up?’

  Birdie was becoming increasingly agitated. ‘No. Yes. The girl in the lift. She must have seen me coming in.’

  ‘At what time would that be?’

  ‘I don’t know … Perhaps about seven.’

  ‘And when does the lift girl finish for the night.’

  ‘Ten usually.’

  ‘So, if you’d gone out after ten no one would know.’

  ‘I didn’t go out after ten!’ Birdie’s protestation was shrill and fearful.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘He doesn’t have an alibi for Monday night,’ Li said.

  ‘Wait a minute!’ Birdie’s eyes had suddenly lit up. ‘Monday night. Monday night,’ he said excitedly, and a residue of sobs momentarily robbed him of his ability to speak. ‘Monday night I was playing checkers on the wall down at Xidan with my friend Moon. Usually we play Tuesday, but he had something else on and we played Monday instead. We sat and talked and smoked till maybe about twelve, when we finished playing. And then I went to his place for a beer before I came home.’

  ‘And he’ll confirm that if we ask him?’ Li felt unaccountably disappointed. However pathetic Birdie might have become, it did not alter the dreadful things he had done, and Li had found himself wanting it to be Birdie who had taken the life of his old classmate.

  Birdie said. ‘Old Moon, he’ll remember for sure.’ And then his excitement subsided, and he stared dejectedly again at the cobbled floor of the pavilion. ‘Poor Cat,’ he said.

  III

  It was dark as they drove east on West Chang’an Avenue. Up ahead the lights erected in Tiananmen Square for National Day reflected hazy colour in the misty night air. A long line of red taillights snaked off into the distance. Li and Margaret had not spoken much since they left the park. He had asked her where she wanted to go, and she had said back to her hotel. And then they’d lapsed into silence.

  Suddenly she said, ‘So what do you suppose it was that Yuan Tao had hidden under the floorboards in that apartment?’

  He glanced at her, surprised that her mind was still turning around the investigation. ‘The sword, I guess,’ he said. ‘It is not the sort of thing he would have wanted to carry in and out of the foreign residents’ compound.’

  Margaret fell again into silence. In spite of her question, she was rapidly losing interest in the investigation. As they passed Tiananmen Square her thoughts turned to Michael. She wanted to find him and tell him she was sorry. To try to make him believe that it had not been her idea to question him over his knowledge of the murder victims, or his whereabouts on the night of Yuan’s death. She tried to analyse the feelings that had swept over her in the moments after they discovered that Michael had recommended Yuan Tao to the dealer at the Underground City. Shock. And, momentarily, fear. Why had she been afraid? Surely she could not, in her wildest dreams, have imagined that Michael was in any way involved in these murders? And yet that is what Li had thought — or wanted to think. Or wanted her to think. He had leaped so eagerly on her revelation that Michael had known Professor Yue. She knew it was only his jealousy, but still she had felt relief when Michael had reminded her that the night of Yuan’s murder was the night she had met him at the Ambassador’s residence. It was impossible for him to have been involved.

  She remembered the
hurt in his eyes when he realised why Li and Margaret had driven out to the Ming Tombs that morning, and she felt sick. A traitor.

  Li sneaked a look at Margaret. But she seemed preoccupied. A long way away. And he was overcome by a sudden depression. He had loved her so much, it had been painful to be with her. And then it had been painful to be without her. And now he was condemned to some state of limbo where he could neither possess her nor escape her. It was as if, somehow, she had died but her body kept coming back to haunt him. And this spectre that was his constant companion, cast a deep shadow over his memories of how good they had once been together, how sweet it had once felt.

  His thoughts were interrupted by his call sign on the police radio. He unhooked the receiver and responded. A radio operator’s voice from Section One crackled across the airwaves, and Margaret heard Li’s voice flare briefly in annoyance, and then subside to a reluctant acceptance of the response that followed. He rehooked the receiver and drove on in silence. But she could see the tension in his grip on the steering wheel.

  ‘Bad news?’ she asked at length.

  He glanced at her and hesitated for a long moment before deciding that it didn’t really matter whether he told her or not. ‘You met my sister the other night,’ he said. ‘At the Sanwei tearoom.’ She nodded. ‘You remember I told you before that she was pregnant?’ She nodded again, and he told her how Xiao Ling had abandoned Xinxin at his apartment and gone south to have the baby at the home of a friend, and how Xinxin’s father didn’t want to know about any of it.