The Killing Room

by Peter May

  “We get a taxi back to my car,” Huang said through clenched teeth, and he pulled up his collar against the rain. “And I don’t give a shit what Director Hu says. You report to me. Understood?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I

  The briefing meeting lasted less than half an hour. Before it, Li had had a fifteen minute meeting with Huang and the Shanghai Deputy Commissioner of Police, finalising details of Margaret’s inclusion in the investigating team. He had then requested the use of a computer with Internet access and filed a lengthy e-mail to an aol.com address.

  There were nearly twenty detectives in the meeting room, ranged around a group of tables pushed together to make a large rectangle. Most of the officers were smoking, and their smoke filled the room like fog. Mei-Ling glanced curiously at Li and Huang as they made their entrance. She had not been made privy to their discussions with the Deputy Commissioner. But she showed no surprise when Huang announced that he was putting Li in charge of the investigation, in collaboration with his deputy. All eyes around the table flickered towards Li, eyes that harboured both interest and hostility. There was no love lost between Shanghai and Beijing.

  The briefing consisted of an update on what little they already knew. Statements were quickly accumulating, taken from everybody who had been at the ceremony at Lujiazui that morning. One of the detectives had discovered that there was a night watchman at the site. They had made every attempt to locate him during the day, without success, but he was due back on-site at seven. A number of detectives consulted their watches and realised it was already past that. Mei-Ling brought the meeting up to date on the body count, and Dr. Lan’s initial thoughts. The fact that partial autopsies had already been carried out on the victims created quite a stir around the table. But there were no constructive suggestions.

  Li then took control. He looked at the rows of guarded eyes looking back at him. He fumbled in his pockets. “Anyone got a cigarette? I seem to have run out.” Several of the officers nearest him immediately held out packs. “Okay,” he said. “So now we know who the brown-noses are.” There was a big laugh around the table, except from those holding out the packs. Li grinned. “Only kidding, guys.” And he took a cigarette from the nearest pack, and everyone was aware of an immediate easing of the tension in the room. He lit up and leaned forward on his elbows. “If I was a betting man,” he said, “which of course I’m not, because it’s illegal . . .” which got another laugh, “I’d put my money on finding most of our victims in the missing persons files. So it would probably be a good start if we got hold of those files and extracted details on all women between the ages of, say, fifteen and forty. We’re not going to know who killed them, or why, until we know who they are. So our priority should be trying to identify them as quickly as possible. And here’s a thought . . .” You could have heard a pin drop in the silence. “We found eighteen bodies in a mass grave today. But there could be other graves, other bodies. And there might be other women going about their everyday lives as we sit here, who’re going to end up in one of those graves. So we owe it as much to the living, as to the dead, to get this guy as quickly as we can.”

  When the meeting broke up, Huang hurried out without even looking at Li. Mei-Ling approached him. “Well done,” she said. “That could have been nasty.” He grinned and took out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. She smiled. “I thought you’d run out.”

  “They were in an inside pocket.” As an afterthought he held out the pack towards her. “I’m sorry, do you smoke?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve seen first hand what it does to the lungs.” She paused. “So what now?”

  “I’d like to go back to the site. See if that night watchman’s shown up yet.”

  When they arrived back at Lujiazui, the officer on duty at the gate told them that the night watchman had turned up about half an hour earlier and was ensconced in his hut on the far side of the site.

  Pathologists and forensics experts still sweated in white plastic suits beneath the floodlights and the polythene sheeting in their gruesome search for any remaining body parts. Digging in the wet, nearly liquid, mud was close to impossible. For several minutes Li stopped and watched their thankless labours, aware of the presence of Mei-Ling’s burning, unasked questions at his side. In the car, she had resisted the temptation to ask about the meeting with Director Hu, and afterwards with the Deputy Commissioner. But now she was barely able to contain her curiosity. He turned and caught her watching him. Rain glistened on her face in the light of the flood lamps and he thought how attractive she was. “I guess it wasn’t Huang’s idea to put you in charge of the investigation,” she said finally. It didn’t sound like a question to Li.

  “I think Huang would have been happier to bury me in the mud with the CEO of the New York bank,” he said.

  Mei-Ling shrugged. “Like I said, don’t take it personally. Huang has problems right now.”

  “Yeah, like an extreme loss of face.” Li was treading carefully. He had no idea how loyal, or otherwise, Mei-Ling might be to her boss. “It must be pretty humiliating to have the Mayor’s policy adviser appoint a junior officer over your head.”

  Mei-Ling chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. “But I doubt if losing face means much next to losing the person you love,” she said.

  Li frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that his wife’s terminally ill. And from the sound of it, I don’t think she has long to live. So don’t flatter yourself, you probably don’t come very high on his list of priorities at the moment.”

  Li lit a cigarette and drew on it thoughtfully. It certainly explained, if not exactly justifying, the man’s lack of courtesy. “Let’s go talk to the night watchman,” he said.

  They picked their way through the mud and puddles to a small blue-painted wooden hut at the rear of the site. A light blazed at the window, and through it they could see a young man leaning back in an old wooden armchair, feet up on the table, nursing a jar of cold green tea and watching a small portable television. He stood up as soon as they came in, apparently excited by their visit. He drew up two stools for them to sit on, but Li declined the offer. “I don’t mind answering anything you want to ask,” the watchman said. “I told the cops I spoke to when I arrived everything I know, but I want to help any way I can. You want some tea?”

  Li shook his head and drew on his cigarette. “You worked here long?”

  “Only for a couple of months, since they started delivering materials to the site.” The young man waved a finger at Li’s cigarette. “Those things’ll kill you, you know. You ever seen the inside of a smoker’s lungs?”

  Li glanced at Mei-Ling, the echo of her earlier words resonating silently between them. Then he took a good look at the night watchman. He figured the boy was no more than twenty-one or twenty-two. He wore jeans and good boots, and a warm winter coat over a heavy jumper. A pair of thermal gloves lay on the table beside a pile of magazines. There was no heating in the hut.

  “And you have seen the inside of a smoker’s lungs?” Mei-Ling asked.

  “Sure,” the young man said. “They’re all black and full of holes and kind of slimy and pickled-looking. Put me off smoking for life.”

  “And how would you get to look at the inside of someone’s lungs?” Li said.

  “Easy. You always section the lungs when you do an autopsy.” He grinned at their consternation. “Hey,” he said, “night watchman on a building site is not my idea of a career plan.”

  Li said, “And what is your career plan?”

  “Surgery. Or pathology. I haven’t quite decided yet. But probably pathology. That way I get trained in forensics, too, and get to work with you guys on cases like this. Spooky stuff, huh?”

  Li and Mei-Ling exchanged glances. “Are you saying you’re a doctor?” Li asked.

  “Medical student,” the young man said. “At Shanghai Medical University, out in Xuhui District.” He put out his hand to shake theirs. “Jiang Baofu,” he sai
d. “I heard what had happened earlier today. The university was buzzing with it. I couldn’t wait to get back here tonight. But they won’t let me see anything.” He seemed disappointed. “You know, I nearly stayed on this morning to watch the ceremony. But we had practical surgery today, and I never miss that.”

  “So this is just part-time?” Li said.

  “Sure,” said Jiang. “I’m not like some of those rich kids at the university. My parents died when I was just young. I live with my grandparents back home, and no way can they afford to put me through med school. I work nights and holidays, anything I can get. Usually at one of the hospitals, but this paid better.” He waved his hand vaguely at the window. “Not that anyone’s going to steal anything here. But the Americans are fussy about security. That’s why the money’s so good.”

  Mei-Ling said, “Clearly, then, they didn’t get their money’s worth when the night watchman didn’t even notice someone digging a hole big enough to dump eighteen bodies in.”

  The medical student looked hurt. “Hey, how am I supposed to keep an eye on the whole place? It’s pitch black out there after ten at night. They don’t even give me a flashlight.”

  “But whoever buried those bodies must have had light to work by. You’d have seen that surely?” Mei-Ling’s directness impressed Li.

  “Not if I was sleeping.” Jiang was getting defensive now.

  “But weren’t you supposed to be on watch?” Mei-Ling wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “I mean, isn’t that what a night watchman’s supposed to do? Watch?”

  “Maybe he was too busy watching TV,” Li said. He glanced at the set, which was tuned in to the Hong Kong music channel, “V.” “How come they don’t give you a flashlight but they provide you with a television set?”

  Jiang laughed. “They didn’t provide the TV! That’s mine.”

  “So you watch TV all night?” Mei-Ling said.

  “Until about twelve. Then, usually, I sleep for a few hours.” He glanced from one to the other, absorbing their disapproval. “Hey, I said they paid better than the hospital, but not enough to stay awake all night. I’ve got to work all day, too, you know.”

  “So you didn’t notice anything unusual in the last week?”

  “No, I didn’t. And if I had, I’d have told your people when I got here. Look . . .” he was anxious to justify himself, “usually I get here about seven, do a tour of the site, then lock the gate. I do another check around before the lights go off at ten. Then the only light out there is from the streetlights way over on the far side—and most of that’s still in shadow because of the wall.”

  “What about the workers’ huts over there?” Li asked.

  “What about them?”

  “That’s their accommodation during construction, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but there’s nobody living there yet. Won’t be until they start the construction proper and take on crew. Then there won’t be any need for me.”

  Mei-Ling perched on the edge of the table and looked at the magazines Jiang had been reading. “Human Pathology,” she read out in English and looked at the student. “Where did you get these?”

  “Subscription,” he said. “It’s an American journal. They send it every month.” And then, again, defensively, “I’m interested. It’s my subject.”

  Li said, “Interested enough to go abducting young women and practising your technique on them?”

  Jiang grinned. “Hey, now you’re joking, right?” But Li didn’t smile and Jiang’s grin faded. “I didn’t kill anybody. The only people I’ve ever cut up were on the practice slab at the university.” He paused and leaned forward confidentially. “One of your guys told me they’d been hacked to pieces—the bodies out there. Is that right?”

  Li thought the boy’s relish was unhealthy. “You shouldn’t go listening to gossip,” he said. “Or repeating it.”

  Mei-Ling took out a business card, scored her name off it and wrote in another. She handed it to Jiang. “Go to 803 Zhongshan Beiyi Road first thing tomorrow morning and ask for Detective Dai. He’ll take your statement.”

  “I’ve got classes tomorrow,” the student protested.

  “Be there,” Mei-Ling said, and she stood up to open the door.

  Li said, “One last thing. Where do you live, Jiang?”

  “I got a place up near Jiangwan Stadium.”

  “No, I mean where’s your home? Where do you come from?”

  “Yanqing, in Hebei Province.”

  “That’s just north of Beijing, isn’t it?”

  The boy nodded, and as they turned to go, added, “Listen, if your people need any help, the pathologists or anyone . . . If they’re looking for assistants or anything, you know, I’m happy to volunteer my services. It’d be good experience.”

  “We’ll keep that in mind,” Li said.

  As they crossed the site towards the main gate, Mei-Ling said, “That boy’s really creepy!” But Li was lost in thought. She glanced at him. “You all right?”

  He said, “This kid lives with his grandparents, who can’t afford to send him to university. So he has to take on all these part-time jobs and work the holidays. But he can afford a colour TV set. And that was good quality gear he was wearing. Expensive gloves lying on the table. And it must be pretty costly to subscribe to an American medical journal and have it sent to China every month.”

  “What are you saying?” Mei-Ling asked.

  “I’m saying here’s a kid who has the requisite skills to do what was done to those women. He had the opportunity to dispose of their bodies right here on the site where he’s working as night watchman. And he seems very affluent for a student who’s having to work his way through medical school.”

  “You don’t think he did it, do you?” Mei-Ling was shocked. “I mean, I know he’s weird, but usually I have an instinct about these things, and right now it isn’t telling me this is our killer.”

  “Neither is mine,” Li confessed, and he knew it would have been just too easy. “But if someone broke into the site, dug a hole and buried eighteen bodies in it, why didn’t he see them? Why didn’t he hear them? And why would someone dump the bodies some place there was a night watchman?” He lit a cigarette. “I know it’s early in the investigation, but I think our medical student’s got to be the first name on the suspect list.”

  “Maybe,” Mei-Ling said. “Anyway, we’ll have a better idea just what we’re looking for once we’ve got the autopsy reports.”

  “That might be a few days,” Li said.

  Mei-Ling was surprised. “Why? Dr. Lan can start tomorrow.”

  Li said, “I’m bringing in another pathologist to do the autopsies.”

  She was taken aback, and stopped suddenly, feet squelching in the mud. “Does Dr. Lan know?”

  Li shook his head. “No. And he probably won’t be very pleased.”

  “No, he won’t,” Mei-Ling said. “Talk about losing face . . .” She paused. “Who is it? Someone from Beijing?”

  “An American,” Li said. He took in her expression. “Oh, I know. I got the same speech from Huang. How the Chinese don’t need the Americans to show them how to do anything.”

  Mei-Ling shrugged. “Jiang Zemin said we must learn from foreign experts.”

  Li looked to see if she was sending him up, but she appeared perfectly serious. “I’ve worked with her before,” he said, “and she’s very experienced.”

  Mei-Ling started for the gates again and said, a little too casually, “She?”

  “Margaret Campbell,” Li said. “She’s been lecturing at the Public Security University in Beijing.”

  Mei-Ling nodded but said nothing, and they continued picking their way through the mud.

  They passed the lights, and the polythene flapping in the wind. Li caught sight of the face of one of the forensics people working in the mud. A young man, his face almost blue with the cold, pinched and distressed. He would never have envisaged this when making his career choice. And Li had a sudden
sense of the futility of all their jobs, working as they did on the edge of sanity, picking their way through the dark side of the human psyche, and all the horrors that lay therein.

  Mei-Ling suddenly lost her footing in the quagmire and, with a cry, almost fell. Li caught her arm and held her firmly until she regained her balance. She laughed, embarrassed, clutching his jacket, and he felt the swelling of her breast against the back of his hand.

  “Careful,” Li said, suddenly self-conscious. “You almost dropped your half of the sky. Just as well there was a man around to catch you.”

  “Oh, you men are so versatile,” Mei-Ling said, smiling. “You can hold up your half of the sky and pick up women at the same time.” She steadied herself and checked her watch. “Nearly eight. You won’t have eaten.”

  “Not since this morning.”

  “Me neither. If you’re hungry, I know a place that serves till late.”

  “I’m starving,” Li said.

  She smiled, her dark eyes gleaming. “Good. Let’s go.”

  II

  Margaret had heard the news the previous night about the discovery of a mass grave on a building site in Shanghai. She had seen the pictures on CNN, and watched with interest and a slightly remote sense of horror. She did not make any connection with Li, there was no reason why she should. But it had aroused her professional interest. Since the first pictures had come through, the Chinese authorities had imposed a media black-out, much to the annoyance of the news networks. But this morning, statements issued by the New York bank involved were generating plenty of copy, and one of the associates had got an exclusive interview with the CEO who had taken the mud bath with the bodies. There was no accurate information about how many corpses had been recovered from the site, but the CEO’s description of his experience had been fairly lurid—arms, legs, torsos, heads. Margaret felt a pang of regret that she was not involved.

  She lay in bed watching the re-runs of the story on breakfast news. Whatever her mother might think, it was her job, and she missed doing it. She missed China. She missed Li. And still she had not summoned the courage to go to her apartment in Lincoln Park. It was symbolic, somehow, of another life, another Margaret Campbell, someone else whom she used to be and didn’t wish to revisit. But she couldn’t just leave the place to gather dust, junk mail accumulating with the neighbours, pot plants dead in the kitchen sink. If her encounter with David the other night had taught her anything, it was that there was no refuge in the past. Whatever direction she chose to take, she had to move on.