The Fourth Sacrifice tct-2

by Peter May

  One by one, Mr Qi matched up sections of the blade to the other three neck specimens. The first three sections overlapped at either the left or right margins. The fourth was about an inch away, nearer the handle end. Mr Qi marked each match with a different coloured pen.

  With practised expertise, Yuan Tao had hit the sweet spot of his blade with unnerving accuracy. His own killer had not achieved the same degree of precision. But beyond any shadow of a doubt, this was the murder weapon. Li stared at the red, yellow, green and blue markings on its blade with a brooding intensity.

  Sang was gleeful. ‘Still think Birdie isn’t our man, boss?’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I

  Up here felt like that magical world beyond the clouds. Nothing down there could touch you. You could see it all, but were above it all. On the steps up, Margaret had passed the last straggling tourists on the way down as the light began to fade in Jingshan Park. Now she sat all alone on the warm marble steps of the pavilion on the top of Prospect Hill, with Beijing spread out at her feet, the vast empty spaces of the Gobi Desert stretching away to the north, the huge crimson orb of the sun sinking slowly beyond the purple mountains in the west. The scent of pine rose on the warm air with the evensong of birds before sleep.

  Three months ago, Li had brought her here for the first time. It was a place, he had said, that he liked to come and think. Where he could be alone in a city of eleven million people and yet still be at its very heart.

  She had come here to think now, to try to put her life into some kind of perspective, and make definitive decisions about her future. Less than a week ago she thought she had done just that. But the world had turned, and events since had changed her thinking and her life, possibly for ever. She had met Michael. Earnest, sensitive, intelligent Michael who had asked her to marry him. If he was here now, he would no doubt tell her how this very hill upon which she sat was artificially created with the earth dug out of the vast moat surrounding the Forbidden City below. She smiled at the thought, and then wondered what it was that she really felt about him.

  It was not, she knew, the fiery and intense passion she had felt for Li. That had been born out of extraordinary circumstances: fear, hate, love, a cauldron of passions that had forged an extraordinary relationship. But it was Li himself who had extinguished its flame. Snuffed it out between finger and thumb, burning himself in the process, the pain of it a constant reminder of his own regret.

  Michael was so different. For a start they spoke the same language, shared the same culture. There were no cross-cultural misunderstandings, no political gulfs to be bridged, no requirement to defend or criticise one country over another, capitalism over communism.

  Margaret knew that however much she had grown to love this country and these people, her future could not be here. She could only go home. But home was just a word for a place where everything was familiar and you could be comfortable with the people you loved. And in reality she had no home. Home was a distant memory of a happy childhood, or of the years spent sharing the same space and bed with a man who was now dead. She was thirty-one years old. In ten years she would be into her forties. Forty-year-old Margaret Campbell, fifty-year-old Margaret Campbell. It all seemed too close and too real. Life could just pass you by.

  Down there, in the world below the clouds, Li was confronting a shell of a man with the murder weapon that had been used to take the lives of four men. Other people were going about their everyday lives, returning home after work, preparing evening meals, making love, giving birth, growing old, dying. Red taillights stretched off into the distance like visible time. Sometimes it crawled by. Other times it whizzed past. Either way, the journey always ended too soon.

  She felt the hopelessness of her life well up inside her.

  As the sun slipped lower behind the mountains, it washed the city red, and she looked up, suddenly startled by a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder. Great crimson-edged purple clouds were rolling across the plains from the east. She smelled rain in the breath of it that reached her ahead of the storm, and she knew it was time to go.

  II

  The sword lay on the table between Li and Sang on one side, and Birdie on the other. He gazed at it uncomprehendingly.

  ‘It’s not mine,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, we know whose it is,’ Sang told him. ‘What we want to know is what it was doing in your apartment.’

  Birdie shook his head. ‘No, not in my apartment.’

  ‘It was in your wardrobe. We went to your apartment this afternoon and found it there.’

  Birdie dragged his eyes away from the blade and looked up at Li, and for a moment Li was shocked by the appeal he saw in them, as if somehow Birdie recognised in him the doubt, and the possibility of an ally. ‘No,’ Birdie said. And, very directly to Li, ‘I want to go home, please. My birds need to be fed. There is no one to feed my birds.’

  And Li saw again the apartment filled with chattering birds in myriad cages, the stink of their shit, the sacks of seed that stood in the corner of the living room. He wondered what would happen to them if they detained Birdie further, if they sent him to Section Seven to be grilled by the professional inquisitors. Perhaps he should detail a couple of officers to clear the apartment and take all the birds down to the market at Guanyuan.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible,’ he told Birdie.

  Sang was determined not to be sidetracked. He stood up and lifted the sword. ‘This is the weapon that Cat used to chop off the heads of Monkey and Zero and Pigsy. And then you used it to chop off the head of Cat.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘What’s the point in denying it, Birdie? We know it’s true. We know you went to his apartment and found this under the floorboards. We know that you drugged him and tied him up and then cut his head off. We know you did it because you hid the sword in your own bedroom. Why don’t you confess? Get it off your chest. We know you feel guilty about Teacher Yuan. You’ve carried that guilt with you for thirty-three years. You don’t want to have the guilt of Cat on your head for the rest of your life, do you? You want a clear conscience. It’s so much easier when you don’t have all that weight of guilt to carry around. And maybe you could tell the judge it was self-defence. After all, we know Yuan was going to kill you.’ He lay the sword back on the table and leaned across so that his face was inches from Birdie’s. He almost whispered, ‘Confess, Birdie. Just tell us all about it. You know you’ll feel better.’

  Birdie’s tears came again. But they were silent this time. He gazed off into the middle distance, right through and beyond Sang, to some half-remembered past. It’s party policy to be lenient with those who confess their crimes, and severe with those who refuse, they had said to him, and when he refused to confess, kicked and punched and beat him until he was almost senseless. Do you really think all we know how to do is feed our faces? Speak up! ‘The revolutionary masses express their devotion to Chairman Mao in every imaginable way because of their profound feelings for their leader,’ he said to Sang, and the rookie detective looked back at him with astonishment.

  ‘What are you talking about, Birdie?’

  ‘You are treacherous and slippery, like the prick of an oily dog,’ Birdie shouted, and both Li and Sang were startled. And then he covered his face with his hands and began sobbing, and rocking backwards and forwards as he had done earlier.

  Li stood up and drew Sang back from the table. ‘Enough, son,’ he said. He was not sure why, but he felt profoundly sad looking down on the weeping shambles of what had once been a man. He represented a whole generation who had lost their youth, in some cases their lives, in twelve, turbulent, horror-filled years of insanity. In Birdie’s case, he had lost his soul and was consumed by emptiness. He was both perpetrator and victim.

  *

  Xinxin sat on Li’s desk in the ring of light cast by the anglepoise lamp and sifted through the pieces of her jigsaw. In her left hand she clutched a half-empty carton of orange juice. The detectives ha
d spoiled her, feeding her all sorts of sweet things and soft drinks, playing cards and helping her with her jigsaw. Now, as most of them drifted home in the early evening darkness, Li stood at the window and was only waiting for Margaret to return, so that they could take Xinxin back to Mei Yuan’s. He had no idea where she had gone. She had been silent and subdued for most of the day after their visit to Beijing university. He knew she had lost interest in the case. And after they had confirmed the sword as the murder weapon she had told him she had things to do, but would be back later.

  He didn’t understand why, but somehow Xinxin had briefly built a bridge between them, a bridge that neither of them had had the chance to cross before he had smashed it down again by taking her to the university. He cursed the jealousy that had motivated his attempts to try to discredit Zimmerman. He had tried to justify it to himself as police procedure. But he knew that was just self-delusion. It was as if, in denying her to himself, he was determined to ensure than no other man could have her either. It was neither right nor fair. Was he really so weak? No wonder she had looked at him with such hatred this morning.

  His mind wandered back to the pathetic figure of Birdie being led off to a holding cell in the basement. Li still found it impossible to believe that Birdie had possessed either the presence of mind or the intelligence to track Yuan down to his rented apartment, that he had been able replicate so closely the modus operandi of the previous murders, that he could so successfully have made it appear that Yuan was the fourth victim. And there were all the unanswered questions and inconsistencies: the bright blue vodka, the bottles of red wine, the blue-black ceramic dust, the wrong nickname.

  And yet he had both motive and opportunity and, most damning of all, the murder weapon had been found in his apartment. Either, Li thought, Birdie was fooling them all with a stunningly convincing performance, or the real killer had planted the sword in his apartment. But that thought, too, was inconceivable. For the killer to do that, he would have had to have known that Birdie was the prime suspect. And outside of Section One no one knew that.

  Lightning flickered briefly in the sky, followed by the distant rumble of thunder, and he turned to find Margaret standing silhouetted in the doorway watching him. Xinxin, engrossed in her jigsaw, had not seen her yet. For a moment, they stood looking at each other across the darkened room, and he sensed something painful in the silence that lay between them like an unbridgeable chasm. Then Xinxin saw her, screeched her delight and scrambled off the desk to rush to give her a hug. Margaret felt the warmth of her little body, the tremble of her excitement, and felt a pang of regret at the decision she had taken just an hour before. Xinxin jabbered at her incoherently.

  Margaret looked to Li. ‘What’s she saying?’

  ‘She wants you to help her finish the jigsaw.’

  ‘Sure,’ Margaret said and glanced at her watch. ‘As long as it doesn’t take too long.’

  It took less than ten minutes to finish the jigsaw, and Xinxin was led, protesting, down to the Jeep, until Li told her they were going to Mei Yuan’s, and then all was sweetness and light again.

  The night had turned sticky hot as the clouds rolled in from the east, heavy and dark and prescient with rain. Traffic had thinned in the aftermath of rush hour, and taxis and private cars buzzed in and around lumbering buses and trolleys, like insects driven mad in anticipation of the coming storm. People everywhere knew that rain was on its way. Canopies and umbrellas were raised over smoking stoves and sidewalk braziers, and marketeers drew awnings over goods laid out on open stalls. Normally dilatory cyclists pedalled hard to get home before the heavens opened.

  When Mei Yuan opened her door to them she lifted Xinxin into her arms and carried her to the table.

  ‘This evening,’ she told Li and Margaret, ‘you will stay to eat. Xinxin and I cannot manage all the dumplings ourselves. So I will fry those that are left.’

  As she busied herself at her tiny stove, Li and Margaret sat at the table, with Xinxin reading her story books to Margaret for the umpteenth time. Li stole a glance at her and saw that she was not really listening. Not just because she could not understand, but because she was miles away. There was a great distance in her eyes, and her spirit was subdued. But, still, she managed to smile for Xinxin and hide from the child whatever it was that disturbed her. She caught Li looking at her and her eyes flickered quickly away, back to the book, almost as if afraid that by meeting his eye he would be able to read her thoughts.

  Mei Yuan served up the spicy dumplings, fried brown and sticky, and they shared a bowl of chilli soy to dip. The taste and texture of them took Margaret back to the eating place that Michael had taken her to in the Muslim quarter in Xi’an, and she was reminded again of the things she had decided on Prospect Hill.

  Mei Yuan was aware of the atmosphere, although she did not understand it. She did her best to try to change the mood. ‘So,’ she said brightly to Margaret. ‘I have given much thought to your riddle today, but I still have no answer.’ She looked at Li. ‘What about you, Li Yan?’

  Li shook himself free from his thoughts and looked up. He had forgotten all about the riddle, and was about to say so when the answer came to him, quite out of the blue. He smiled and shook his head. ‘I think I know,’ he said. ‘But only a stranger to Beijing could pose such a riddle.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Margaret asked defensively.

  ‘You wanted to know how I could walk from Xidamochang Street to Beijing Railway Station during National Day without being seen,’ he said. ‘And the answer you are looking for is that I went down into the Underground City and followed the tunnels to the station.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  Li looked at Mei Yuan. ‘Do you want to tell her?’

  Mei Yuan put a consoling hand over Margaret’s and smiled. ‘The tunnels do not lead to Beijing Railway Station,’ she said.

  ‘But I saw a sign,’ Margaret protested. ‘It said To the Station.’

  ‘That’s the old Beijing Railway Station,’ Li said. ‘It used to be on the south-east corner of Tiananmen Square at Qianmen before they built the new station a couple of miles further east.’

  Margaret made a token protest. ‘OK, so they moved the station. How am I supposed to know that?’

  Li shrugged. ‘Like I said, only a stranger to Beijing could pose such a riddle.’

  In the difficult silence that followed, Mei Yuan asked if they wanted beer. But Margaret shook her head. It was time, she said, for her to go. Li said he would run her to her hotel. They all stood up. Xinxin’s upturned face looked from one to the other, perplexed by the sudden abandonment of the dumplings. ‘What is it?’ she said.

  ‘Margaret has to go,’ Li told her.

  Xinxin was crestfallen. ‘Will I see her tomorrow?’

  Li asked Margaret, and for a long time Margaret seemed lost in tormented thought before suddenly making a decision. ‘Tell her,’ she said, ‘that I will come tomorrow morning and take her to the playpark beyond the bridge. To say goodbye.’

  ‘To say goodbye?’ Mei Yuan asked, taken aback.

  Margaret looked at Li. ‘I am leaving on Monday,’ she said.

  *

  Outside, beyond the trees, a slight breeze ruffled the dark surface of Qianhai Lake, and the first fat drops of rain splashed on to the hood of Li’s Jeep, making craters in the dust. Li caught Margaret’s arm as she started for the passenger side. ‘Why are you leaving so soon? The investigation is not yet over.’

  This time she met his eyes with a steady gaze. ‘It is for me.’ she said. And the drops of rain, more frequent now, felt cool on the hot skin of her face. ‘Everything’s over, Li Yan. You, me, China.’

  ‘And Zimmerman?’

  But she wasn’t angry with him any more. She smiled sadly. ‘Michael has asked me to marry him.’ And she saw the disbelief and pain in his eyes. ‘I told him no. But the offer’s still open. And I’m going to go home and think about it. Very seriously. Away from you. Away from him
. Away from here. For ever.’

  A flash of lightning and a crack of thunder immediately overhead, was a prelude to the heavens opening. Rain fell in sheets, and in a matter of seconds they were soaked through. But neither of them moved. He saw the outline of her breasts, wet cotton clinging to their contours. Her hair was stuck in wet curls to her face, a face pale and freckled and lovely. He could not be certain whether it was tears he saw spilling from her blue eyes, or just the rain. Her face shone wet and sad in the sheet lightning that lit up the sky. He knew this was the end. There was no way forward, no way back. She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him softly on the lips. He felt her fingers lightly trace the line of his jaw. And then she was off, running down the hutong into the night, swallowed by the dark and the rain. He knew he would never see her again, and that all those moments they had shared, the fear and the passion, their one physical consummation in an abandoned sleeper in northern China, would be lost for ever, like tears in rain.

  *

  From the bar of the Ritan Hotel, Michael saw Margaret step from a taxi, and he hurried across the vast expanse of shiny marbled foyer to intercept her at the door. She took one look at him and burst into tears, to his confusion and distress. He took her in his arms. She was wet and dishevelled, mascara tracks on her cheeks. ‘For God’s sake, Margaret, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she mumbled into his chest. ‘Nothing’s wrong, Michael. Just hold me.’

  III

  Margaret had her back to him. He saw Michael approach her. There was something in his hand, but he could not quite see what it was. Then she turned as he raised his arm, and the blade of a dagger glinted in the light as it arced through the air towards her. Li called out, but his voice would not sound. He tried to move, but his hands were bound behind his back, and he became aware for the first time of a white placard hanging round his neck. He could read his own name on it, and realised it was upside down. Now he looked up and saw that it was not a dagger, but a sword, and it was not Michael who held it, but Margaret. She had the strangest smile on her face as she brought the blade slicing down on him.