The Fourth Sacrifice (The China Thrillers 2)

by Peter May

  Li lit a cigarette as Margaret took a breather. He stared hard at the ground for a moment, gnawing reflectively on the inside of his cheek. Then he looked at her very directly. ‘How come Zimmerman knew how Professor Yue was murdered?’

  Margaret frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, how did he know the professor had been decapitated? Stuff like that doesn’t make it into the papers here. Very few people know the details of how any of these people were murdered.’

  Margaret raised her hands to the heavens in frustration. ‘How the hell do I know? He knows lots of people at the university.’ She stopped, steadied herself, took a deep breath. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You’re jealous and angry and hurt, and here’s a heaven-sent opportunity to get right back at me.’

  Li took a long pull at his cigarette, his face impassive. ‘I don’t know what you think I have to be jealous of,’ he said evenly. ‘But even if I did, I’m smart enough not to let my personal feelings cloud my professional judgement.’ He paused for effect. ‘Unlike someone else I could mention.’ She glared at him, seething inside, but knew that his position was unassailable. He pushed home his advantage. ‘So why don’t we just go and ask Mr Zimmerman all those questions that neither of us has the answers to?’

  IV

  A large brush in a clenched fist daubed red paint over the two characters representing Ding Ling, and as the camera pulled back, a young peasant appeared on the screen, clutching his pot of paint and scrambling down the ladders that leaned up against the huge stele. Chuck ruffled his white hair excitedly, never taking his eyes off the monitor. ‘Of course, we covered the stone in clear plastic,’ he said, as if anyone might believe the vandalism was real.

  Margaret looked out from the open door of the truck and saw, at the far side of the stele pavilion, the camera and camera operator on a cherry picker at the end of a huge crane. The crane swung back from the pavilion and started slowly delivering the camera towards the ground. She glanced back at the screen and saw the shot pan away from the pavilion to the steps leading down to the square. Michael was already descending the stairway. He looked straight into the lens as it moved down with him.

  ‘Already they had smashed the stone bridge leading to the square. Then they vandalised the proud stone tablet that had stood sentinel over the imperial burial chambers for centuries. And as the peasants gathered in the square were whipped up to a frenzy by the Red Guards, they were about to deliver the most devastating blow of all. An act that would haunt the young Red Guard leader for the rest of her life, as night after night the Emperor and his Empresses returned in her dreams to try to kill her with a sword.’

  The camera stopped moving, and Michael walked out of shot. ‘Cut,’ Chuck shouted into his walkie-talkie. ‘Brilliant!’ He turned to Li and Margaret. ‘When we pick up the reverse of that we’ll be following him down into the square. Of course, by then, there’ll be about fifteen hundred extras there baying for blood.’

  ‘What happened?’ Li asked. ‘I mean, in reality.’

  ‘Didn’t they teach you in school?’ Margaret said. ‘Surprise, surprise. I don’t suppose the Cultural Revolution was on the curriculum.’

  Li said, ‘When I was as school, the Cultural Revolution was the curriculum.’

  There was a moment of stand-off between them, and Chuck leaped in quickly. ‘They smashed up the skeletons of the Emperor and the two Empresses,’ he said and nervously lit a cigarette.

  ‘Then they made a big bonfire,’ said Margaret, never taking her eyes off Li, ‘of all the royal remains.’

  Chuck said, ‘Then it started to rain and everything got washed away in the mud. Lost for ever.’ He sighed. ‘We’re going to have to simulate that rain later today. Not the best of weather for it.’ He nodded towards the door and the palest of clear blue skies outside. The mountains beyond shimmered in the heat.

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ Li said to Margaret. ‘And I know the Cultural Revolution wasn’t on the curriculum at your school.’

  ‘Michael told me,’ she said. ‘He knows more about it than most Chinese.’

  Li bristled.

  Chuck was uneasy with the tension between the visitors to his control truck. ‘Listen, you guys,’ he said. ‘You want to talk to Mike, I can give you about twenty minutes while we’re setting up the next shot.’

  *

  To Li’s annoyance, Michael stooped to give Margaret a quick kiss before reaching out his arm to shake Li’s hand. Li felt his face colour. Margaret, too, was embarrassed by this show of affection in front of Li. Only Michael seemed oblivious. And, again, as he had been at Beijing West Railway Station, Li was aware of something curiously familiar about Michael, something he couldn’t quite identify.

  ‘Hey, guys,’ Michael said. ‘Great you could make it. I didn’t think you were going to manage out, Margaret.’ He seemed genuinely pleased to see them.

  ‘No, neither did I,’ she said self-consciously.

  Michael caught her look and paused. ‘Something wrong?’ He glanced from one to the other.

  ‘Why don’t we take a walk,’ Li said, and the three of them headed away around the curve of the wall in the dappled shade of the spruce trees that climbed all around them. The sound of crew shouting to each other as they set up the next shot, and ADs marshalling the hundreds of extras waiting patiently in the square below, faded into the distance. Instead, the sound of birdsong and small creatures scuttling through the undergrowth came into earshot, and beyond there was a strange silence hanging in the haze that shimmered across the valley in the lee of Dayu Hill.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ Michael asked Margaret.

  She raised her hands in her own defence. ‘I’m sorry, Michael,’ she said. ‘This is not my idea.’

  Li flicked her a look of annoyance. Then he turned to Michael. ‘We understand that you were acquainted with a Mr Yuan Tao who worked in the visa department of the United States Embassy, as well as a Professor Yue Shi of the archaeology department at Beijing University.’

  Margaret saw the skin darken behind the tan on Michael’s face, and then felt the full force of hurt and accusation in his eyes as he looked at her, like a dog whose trusted master has just kicked it. He turned back to Li. ‘That’s correct,’ he said. ‘In fact I knew Professor Yue quite well. Though Mr Yuan barely at all.’

  Li said, ‘Well enough to advise him on where to purchase a reproduction sword.’

  ‘Only because he asked. Which is the one time I ever had any contact with him. Someone at the embassy recommended me to him. So he sought me out, and I pointed him in the direction of a dealer in the Underground City. But that was months ago. I haven’t even seen him since.’

  ‘So you have no idea if he was successful in finding the sword he was looking for?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘But you are aware that his is one of the murders we are investigating?’

  He sighed. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  This time Michael looked at Margaret again. ‘Sophie told me,’ he said.

  ‘And Sophie is … ?’ Li asked.

  Margaret said, ‘Sophie Daum. She’s the assistant RSO at the embassy. You met her this morning.’

  ‘Oh. Yes,’ Li said.

  The walkie-talkie on Michael’s belt crackled. A voice said, ‘Michael, are you there?’

  Michael raised it to his face. ‘Yeah, Dave.’

  ‘That’s your make-up call.’

  ‘OK. Be there in a minute.’ He clipped it back on his belt. ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ Li said. But he took his time in asking. ‘Are you aware how Professor Yue was murdered?’

  ‘Yes,’ Michael said. His expression now was resentful, and he was volunteering no more than he was asked.

  Li remained impassive. ‘Well, would you like to tell me?’

&nbs
p; ‘He was decapitated.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘Jesus,’ Michael said, his exasperation finally getting the better of him. ‘Everyone in the department knew what had happened to him. Apparently the place was crawling with cops for days. It was common knowledge.’ He paused and looked at Margaret. ‘Besides, I saw the photographs.’

  Li was startled. ‘What photographs?’ And Margaret blushed to the roots of her hair.

  ‘The photographs that Margaret took to Xi’an with her.’

  Li turned an icy stare on Margaret, and clenched his jaw. She couldn’t meet his eye. He said to Michael, ‘Can you tell me where you were and what you were doing the night Yuan Tao was murdered?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Li––’ Margaret wheeled on him, patience at breaking point.

  But Michael interrupted, ‘Why don’t you ask Margaret?’ he said.

  Margaret was momentarily perplexed, and then with a huge sense of relief, realisation dawned. ‘The pre-production party at the Ambassador’s residence,’ she said.

  ‘As I recall you left about ten,’ Michael said. ‘The party went on until about eleven thirty, and then a bunch of us went on to the Mexican Wave bar in Dongdaqiao Lu. It must have been about two when we left.’ He turned his focus briefly on Li. ‘Frankly, I resent these questions, Detective.’ Then he turned back to Margaret. ‘And I’m disappointed that you should even think that I could have any connection with this.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Margaret said flatly. She turned to Li. ‘I think we should go.’

  Michael’s walkie-talkie crackled again. ‘Michael?’ The voice was insistent.

  ‘On my way,’ he said, and with a curt nod he headed back along the top of the wall.

  Li and Margaret stood for a long time saying nothing, before finally Margaret turned away to lean on the crenellation and stare out bleakly over the sun-scorched valley.

  ‘You let him see confidential photographic evidence?’ Li’s voice was very level, but there was no mistaking the anger in it.

  She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. She was in the wrong and knew it. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Li said. ‘You just happened to show him the photographs by accident?’

  ‘Actually, yes.’ She spun to face him. ‘I’d been going through all the evidence in my hotel room. The stuff was spread all over the bed. You might remember, I phoned you. You more or less told me to fuck off.’ Li did remember. He had spent several hours regretting it afterwards. She said. ‘Michael came to fetch me. We were going to dinner. I’d dropped some stuff on the floor and he helped me pick it up. That’s when he saw the photograph. And he was pretty shaken up by it.’

  ‘Not enough to spoil your night out, though.’

  It took a great effort of will to stop herself from slapping him again. ‘You bastard,’ she said. ‘All that stuff about not letting personal matters cloud professional judgement? Crap. You kicked me off like an old goddamn shoe. OK, I’ve had to accept that. But you can’t stand to see me with anyone else, can you?’ She glared at him. ‘Well, congratulations. You’ve probably just ruined my relationship with Michael. And for what? To confirm what we both always knew. That he has absolutely no involvement in this whatsoever.’ And she turned on her heel and marched angrily away.

  He stood for a moment, reeling from the force of her tirade. Of course, he knew she was right. Zimmerman’s connection to the killings was tenuous at best. And Li wondered exactly why he had wanted to come out here and press those questions about Yuan and Professor Yue. Was he really letting jealousy cloud his judgement?

  Margaret was halfway across the square, pushing her way through the mass of extras, before he caught up with her. He fell into step beside her, and they crossed the little stone bridge that the Red Guards had smashed thirty-four years earlier.

  ‘So what now?’ he said.

  It was a long time before she responded. Finally she said, ‘I think it’s probably about time we talked to those people with a motive for wanting to kill Yuan Tao.’

  ‘And who would that be?’

  She stopped, and he was a couple of paces past her before he realised it, and could turn back. ‘Who do you think?’ she asked contemptuously.

  She clearly was not going to share her thoughts with him, and he realised that he had not given it any serious consideration. The discovery of the diary, tracing the vendor of the weapon, the connection with Zimmerman, had all distracted him from focusing on the question that the diary itself had thrown into sharp focus by revealing Yuan as the killer of the other three. Who had a motive for killing Yuan? And even as the thought formed, the answer seemed obvious. ‘The remaining members of the Revolt-to-the-End Brigade.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Margaret. ‘You have just won a sunshine holiday for two in Florida.’ And she marched off down the paved and cobbled walkway.

  Li hurried after her. ‘But how would they have known about the other three being murdered?’

  Margaret breathed her exasperation. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t give me that stuff about murders not appearing in the papers. You and I both know just how efficient the Chinese grapevine is. There’s no way those three didn’t know about their old Red Guard pals getting whacked. And it wouldn’t take too much intelligence to work out who was next.’

  V

  Margaret sat staring at the computer screen, aware of the eyes that flickered in her direction in constant curiosity. Most of the girls in the computer room had probably never seen a yangguizi this close up before. And here was a particularly good example of the species. Fair, curling hair, startling blue eyes, pale freckled skin. There was a strange hush in the room, broken only by the soft chatter of keyboards and the occasional giggle.

  Li was upstairs somewhere taking a meeting of his detectives. Full co-operation, it seemed, stopped short of admitting her to the holy sanctum of the inner circle. But since virtually none of the detectives spoke any English, Margaret was not inclined to push the point. She had asked instead for the use of a computer with access to the Internet.

  Li’s attitude towards her since their return from Ding Ling had been cool and formal. But there had been the faintest tinge of a smile in his expression when he took her to the computer room and asked one of the girls to vacate a computer for her use. It had not taken her long to find out why. Every pull-down menu was in Chinese, an incomprehensible collection of character pictograms that left her struggling to find her way about a computer screen that was otherwise very familiar. Finally she had found the Internet Explorer icon, clicked on it with her mouse, and found herself dumped on to the home page of an equally impenetrable Chinese server. She clicked on the Stop symbol to prevent the computer downloading more Chinese, and typed in www.altavista.com, and was quickly transported to the comfortingly familiar territory of the main page of the Alta Vista search engine. She typed in tameshi giri. Less than half a minute later, the search for references on the Internet to Tameshi Giri threw up more than twenty thousand Web pages, links to the first ten of which came up on the screen.

  She shook her head. It would take her hours to sift through. She thought for a moment, and then clicked in the New Search box and typed in Yuan Tao. Her request was fired off across the ether, through a mind-boggling inter-connection of telephone lines and computers around the world, returning a few seconds later with a response. To her astonishment and dismay there were links to nearly one hundred and sixty thousand Web pages. She scanned the first ten which came up on the screen. The yuan and tao all seemed to be reversed. There was a link to a place called Tao Yuan in Taiwan, another to a Web page at an American university, several more to pages on an ancient Chinese poet called Tao Yuan-ming. But, then, at the head of the list, the best and only exact match for her query: Yuan Tao. It was a link through to a news-sheet on Japanese martial sword arts.

  ‘Yes!’ she said out loud, as her mood swung immediately from despair to elation. And she was aware of half a dozen heads
turning towards her. She smiled, embarrassed, around the quizzical and astonished faces, then turned her concentration quickly back to the screen. She clicked on the link, and her computer whirred and chattered as it downloaded the contents of the North California Review of Japanese Sword Arts. Somewhere in here was a reference to Yuan Tao. She scrolled down the pages, through adverts for genuine Japanese cutting swords, an account of a Tameshi Giri competition in Kyoto, Japan, during Shogatsu in 1997, the list of winners at the 34th Annual Vancouver Kendo Taikai … Margaret stopped scrolling and backed up. There it was. Yuan Tao. Joint second place in the category Forty-one Years and Over. At the foot of the list were brief biographies of the winners.

  Yuan Tao, according to his notes, had joined a San Francisco-based Kendo club affiliated to the Pacific North West Kendo Federation in 1995, later switching membership to a club in Washington DC. He had taken part in several competitions, achieving extraordinary results in a very short period. One judge at a competition had described him as ‘the most focused competitor I have seen in a very long time’.

  Margaret sat back and wondered what Yuan had been focused on. Had it been his role as executioner of the Red Guards who had driven his father to a premature death? And what images had he held in his mind as he practised his Tameshi Giri on those rolled up bundles of straw? She shook her head in wonder at the extraordinary lengths he had gone to in order to exact revenge for his father’s murder – for that’s clearly how he saw it. He had planned it coldly, meticulously, practising the means of execution until he had achieved a high degree of expertise, changing the course of his life, following a new career plan that would bring him back, in anonymity, to the Old Country and his old home town. Revenge, she had always heard it said, was a dish best served cold. Yuan Tao had placed his carefully in the freezer and brought it halfway around the world to dish it out with chilling effect.

  But that revenge had been cut suddenly, and unexpectedly, short. Someone had done to Yuan as he had been intent on doing to others. Someone who knew in exact detail how Yuan had dispatched his first three victims. Could it really have been one of the remaining three Red Guards? Certainly, they would have had the motive. But how could any of them possibly have known the details of Yuan’s modus operandi well enough to have replicated the murders so precisely? She had glibly thrown at Li the idea of Yuan being murdered by one of his intended victims, but wondered now just how well it would stand up to detailed scrutiny.