The Firemaker (The China Thrillers 1)

by Peter May

  Li parked and locked his bike and entered the block where he lived with his uncle – superior apartments, behind high Ministry walls, reserved for top Ministry officials and senior police officers. It was late and the elevator was turned off for the night. Li unlocked the stair gate and climbed the two flights to their apartment. There was still a singing in his ears from the music in the club and his hearing felt woolly and dull, but even as he opened the door, he could hear the deep rumble of Old Yifu’s snoring coming from the further bedroom. He went first into the kitchen, where he took a bottle of chilled water from the refrigerator and drank deeply, washing away the bad taste of cigarettes and beer, and then into his bedroom, where he sat on the bed for fifteen minutes or more, thinking, about the day that had just passed, about the day that lay ahead. He was tired, but not remotely sleepy. There was an ache at the back of his head, and acid burned his stomach.

  He tipped forward and slid open the top drawer of a dark-wood utility dresser. Under an assortment of clean underwear, he found the collection of leather strapping he was looking for and pulled it out. He had never worn it beyond the first time he had tried it on. He had adjusted the buckles then so that it still fitted neatly to his shoulder, soft tan leather straps holding the holster firmly in place. It had been a gift from his lecturer in Chicago, a full-time cop, part-time lecturer, who had taken a shine to him and arranged for him to sit in the back of a squad car over several night shifts. It had been an extraordinary experience, frightening, sometimes bloody, often intimidating. It had opened his eyes to a crime culture and the means of combating it that was unknown in China. These cops were as hard and ruthless as the petty criminals, muggers and pimps, junkies and prostitutes they had to deal with. It was a world, Li reflected now, almost shocked by the thought, with which Margaret must be only too familiar. He wondered how it was possible to endure prolonged exposure to it without suffering lasting damage. He saw the soft, freckled skin of her forearm, the unfettered breasts pushing against the thin cotton of her tee-shirt, a recurring vision that somehow emphasised her soft, vulnerable femininity. How long could that survive in the dark, creepy-crawly world she inhabited beneath the rock of civilised Chicago society? How long before the shell she would make to protect herself from it enveloped her completely, making her, like the cops he had shared the night shift with, cynical and hard beyond redemption?

  Quietly he slipped down the hall and carefully opened the door to Old Yifu’s bedroom. The snoring rumbled on, undisturbed. It would take something approaching ten on the Richter scale to waken his uncle once asleep. Li looked at his face, lying at a slight angle on the pillow, mouth open, and felt a wave of love and affection for him. Those bushy eyebrows were still pushed up quizzically on his forehead. For all his experience of life, of tragedy and struggle, there was still an innocence about him, emphasised somehow by the repose of sleep. His face was remarkably unlined, almost childlike. And for a moment, Li had second thoughts. Then he steeled himself. Uncle Yifu would never know, and what he did not know could not hurt him. He crouched down and opened the bottom drawer of the dresser. At the right hand side, at the back, was the shoe box Old Yifu had kept there for years. Li lifted it out and took off the lid. Inside, on a bed of carefully arranged tissue, lay his old service revolver from Tibet and a box of cartridges. Somehow he had succeeded in hanging on to them over the years, and kept them now as a souvenir. He had only ever fired the revolver in practice, he told Li once, and had never ever pointed it at another human being. Whatever else he might have inherited from his uncle, Li knew that he did not possess his even temperament, his sense of compassion. There was anger and a latent violence in Li, which he strove always to control. But tomorrow, he knew, he was going to ease back a little on that control and take a short cut of which neither his uncle, nor the authorities, would approve.

  He lifted the revolver out of its box and slipped it into the holster. It fitted like a glove, almost as if the two had been designed one for the other. He counted out six rounds and dropped them in his pocket. Quietly, he replaced the lid of the box and returned it to its place at the back of the drawer and slid the drawer shut. As he stood up, his uncle turned over, and the snoring stopped. Li held his breath. But a deep grunt signalled its restart, and Old Yifu rumbled on in blissful ignorance of his nephew’s presence. Li drifted silently out of the room, gently closing the door behind him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I

  Wednesday Morning

  At first it was just a distant glow. But as he drew nearer, he saw that the glow was flickering, flames licking upward in the dark. He continued to close in, peering through the heat, focusing on the dark mass at its centre. Suddenly a hand reached out towards him, shrivelled by the heat, claw-like and blackened, and the face moved out of the flames, mouth open in a silent scream, melting eyes appealing for help. And he realised, in a moment of supreme horror, that he was looking at himself.

  He sat up with a start, blinking in the darkness, sweat gathered across his forehead, glistening on his chest, a trickle of it turning cold as it ran down to his belly. He was breathing hard. A red digital display on his bedside table showed 2 a.m. He lay back on the pillow and tried to excise the image from his mind. Reaching out like he was asking for help, the baby-sitter had said. But what strange distortions of his subconscious had turned the burning figure of his dream into himself? He forced himself to breathe more slowly and gradually felt the pace of his heart slow, too. He closed his eyes and consciously wiped his mind clean.

  Li barely slept the rest of the night, drifting through a dreamlike semiconsciousness until his alarm went off at five, and he rose almost with a sense of relief. The sky was light, but the sun had not yet penetrated the early morning mist, and so it was grey and deliciously fresh as he cycled east then north through the city into Dongcheng District. It was too early for Mei Yuan, who was not at her usual corner at Dongzhimennei, and so he had no breakfast.

  The first interviewees of the day were already gathering in the street outside the headquarters of Section One as officers on night shift drifted off to get something to eat before going home to bed, just as their families were getting out of theirs.

  ‘Hey, Li Yan, you’re looking very smart today,’ an officer greeted him in the corridor. ‘Going for an interview?’

  Li was wearing a dark blue cotton suit, trousers gathered in fashionable pleats at the waist, a fresh white shirt open at the neck, and a pair of polished black shoes. He grinned. ‘Just dressing up for the job.’

  ‘Pity the Chief never thought of that,’ the officer said, safe in the knowledge that Section Chief Chen had not yet arrived for work. Chen always wore a pair of baggy grey pants, shiny at the seat, a blue or light grey shirt, and a cream-coloured polyester jerkin that had seen better days. He had been described by one of his bosses early in his career as a sartorial disaster. But it had done him no harm whatsoever.

  In his office, Li brewed himself a jar of green tea and sat at his desk to begin sifting through the files that had gathered on it during the night. The piles of transcriptions under the window had grown, and a selection had been pulled out by the lead detectives in each murder for his attention. He lit a cigarette and began the weary process of wading through the statements and testimony of drug dealers and small-time crooks, building workers from all over China, early morning habitués of Ritan Park. By seven o’clock he was on his third jar of green tea, his fifth cigarette, and was none the wiser. The air in his office was thick with smoke, the temperature rising as the sun sneaked in his window at an angle to lay long slabs of pale yellow light across the floor. The day shift detectives next door already had the business of the day well in hand. The third one to knock on his door with some fresh piece of information, and a comment on his suit, got his head bitten off, and Li had not been disturbed for the past half-hour. He liked this time in the early morning, to think, and consider, and sometimes reconsider his thoughts of the previous day. A fresh day often gave distance
and perspective to events.

  At seven he phoned the Centre of Material Evidence Determination to be told that his test results would be some hours yet.

  At seven fifteen there was another knock at his door. Li raised his head, ready to bark at whoever had the audacity to disturb his thinking time. But he closed his mouth again before speaking when he saw that it was Section Chief Chen, carrying with him his habitual cloud of gloom. ‘Morning, Li Yan.’ He stopped as he took in Li’s suit and frowned. ‘You haven’t got an interview for another job already, have you?’

  ‘No, Chief. Just thought I’d better tidy up my act, given my new position.’

  Chen grunted, unimpressed. ‘Anything overnight?’ he asked.

  Li shook his head. ‘Nobody knows anything. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as we get those results back from forensics.’ Chen opened the door to go out. Li said, ‘Oh, by the way …’ Chen waited. ‘I’ve reconsidered the university’s offer to lend us the American pathologist.’ He tried to make it sound as casual as possible.

  ‘Oh, have you?’ Chen said. He looked at Li thoughtfully. ‘Have you been talking to Old Yifu about it, by any chance?’

  ‘I … might have mentioned it.’

  ‘Hmm-hmm. And he thought it was a good idea, did he?’

  ‘He, ah … he did think her experience could be valuable.’

  ‘Ye-es. It’s a pity you’re more inclined to listen to your uncle’s advice than mine.’

  Li was indignant. ‘If it had been your advice, Chief, I wouldn’t have ignored it.’

  Chen grunted. He had allowed Li to have his way yesterday only to have that decision thrown back at him today by Old Yifu. It rankled. ‘First we tell her we want her, then we tell her we don’t. Then we tell her we’ve changed our minds and want her after all. She may very well not want to do it now.’

  ‘We can live in hope,’ Li muttered under his breath.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I said we can only hope she will,’ Li said.

  Chen grunted again and started out the door. Then stopped. He turned back. ‘Almost forgot. Deputy Procurator General Zeng wants to see you.’

  ‘Me?’ Li was taken aback.

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I’ve absolutely no idea. But when a high-ranking procurator says jump, you jump. Nine o’clock, at the Municipal Procuratorate.’ And he was gone. But the door opened a second later and he poked his head back in. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you already knew – all togged up like that.’ He shut the door again.

  Li sat wondering what a Deputy Procurator General could possibly want with him. Procurators were among the most powerful people in Chinese law enforcement. It was the People’s Procuratorate who issued warrants for arrest at the request of the police. The Procuratorate also reviewed evidence collected by police and determined whether there was sufficient merit in pursuing a case through the courts. They would then fulfil the role of prosecutors. In particularly sensitive cases, regarding matters of state, corruption, fraud or police malpractice, the People’s Procuratorate was empowered to pursue its own investigations. It was sufficiently unusual for a detective to be summoned to the presence of a Deputy Procurator General, outside the specifics of a case in hand, for Li to feel faintly uneasy about it.

  *

  Two uniformed officers, gun belts strapped around khaki-green shirts, stood to attention in the shade of large umbrellas on either side of the main entrance to the Municipal People’s Procuratorate. Li parked his Jeep in the street and walked in through the gates with a sense of trepidation.

  The Procuratorate was housed in a modern three-storey building backing on to the High Court, not far from the Municipal Police Headquarters in the old legation quarter. Windows up and down and along the length of the grey-brick building stood open, like so many mouths gasping for air. A detachment of the Armed Police responsible for guarding public buildings was exercising in a compound in front of a huge mural depicting a traditional scene of ancient rural China. Li walked briskly past in the rising heat of the morning and went inside, where he was asked to wait.

  Although his appointment was at nine, it was nearly twenty past before a secretary came to fetch him, leading him upstairs and along corridors, through an outer office and eventually knocking on the imposing door of the office of Deputy Procurator General Zeng. ‘Come,’ Zeng called, and the secretary opened the door for Li to enter. Zeng rose from his desk, a tall, thin man with steel-grey hair swept straight back from a long face punctuated by round spectacles in metal frames. He was in shirtsleeves, with a jacket draped over the back of his seat. He held out a hand. ‘Congratulations on your promotion, Deputy Section Chief Li.’

  Li shook his hand. ‘I am honoured to meet you, Deputy Procurator General Zeng.’

  The formalities over, Zeng waved at a chair. ‘Have a seat, Li.’ He wandered round the desk and perched on a corner of it, one foot still on the floor. Li sat uncomfortably in a deep leather chair. A fan swinging lazily overhead blew hot air from one part of the office to another. ‘Second day on the job, hmm?’ Li nodded. ‘An eventful first day.’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Three murders in one night. More like New York than Beijing.’ Li was uncertain how he was expected to respond, so he said nothing. Zeng stood up and walked to the window, lowering Venetian blinds to stop the sun from streaming in. ‘That’s better. Can’t stand to have it too bright in here. Autumn’s a better season in Beijing, don’t you think? Not so hot, and the light has a softer quality about it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re from Sichuan.’ Again, Li was unsure if this was a statement or a question. ‘A lovely province. Can’t stand the food, though. Too hot for my taste. What do you say?’

  This was a good question. Li hadn’t a clue. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Wouldn’t know what?’

  ‘About your taste, Deputy Procurator General.’

  ‘No, I meant your taste, Li. Do you like all that spicy food?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘Well, I suppose you grew up with it. Must be tough.’

  Again, Li was lost. Zeng seemed to switch subject without any obvious rationale. It was almost as if he were trying to trip Li up. ‘What must be tough?’

  ‘Following in the footsteps of someone as famous in the police department as your uncle was. Lot to live up to. Given you problems, has it?’ He watched Li carefully.

  ‘No, it hasn’t. Following in my uncle’s footsteps has been an honour and a privilege.’ Li was deeply ill at ease. What was this all about?

  Zeng moved back to his chair, leaning on one elbow and regarding Li speculatively. ‘Can’t say I approve particularly of using an American pathologist to perform autopsies on Beijing murder victims. Apart from anything else, she’s not going to be around when we’re prosecuting the case in court.’

  So that’s what this was about. It occurred to Li briefly to wonder how Zeng already knew that the Chao Heng case was a murder and not a suicide, but then it wasn’t exactly a secret, and he was a Deputy Procurator General. ‘Her expertise was invaluable in determining that what appeared to be a suicide was, in fact, murder. And since Professor Xie was the lead pathologist, he will be available to give evidence when, hopefully, we bring the case to court.’ He saw that Zeng was about to pass some further comment, and added quickly, ‘Of course, her offer of assistance was entirely unofficial, a personal favour to Section Chief Chen.’

  ‘Yes, so I understand. I also understand that the Public Security University offered her services for the rest of the investigation – and that you turned them down.’

  He was up to date, Li thought. ‘That’s correct,’ he said.

  ‘Good. I don’t think it would have been politic to have some American thinking they can show us how it’s done.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’ Li was starting to find his feet. ‘Because I cha
nged my mind this morning and took them up on the offer after all.’

  Zeng’s face darkened. ‘Why?’

  ‘After discussing it with my uncle … I realised that to turn down the chance of such expert assistance simply because she was an American would have been small-minded and petty. At least, that was my uncle’s view. But if you disagree …’

  ‘Good God, who am I to take issue with your uncle?’ Zeng was visibly annoyed. It was clearly on his mind to go further, but he thought better of it. He cast a more appraising look in Li’s direction. ‘I think, perhaps, I can see now why you haven’t found it such a problem following in your uncle’s footsteps.’

  ‘They are big footsteps, Deputy Procurator General. I still have some way to go before I can fill them.’

  Zeng rocked gently back and forth in his chair and stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up, without offering one to Li. Suddenly he leaned forward, elbows on the desk, a decision having been made. ‘I’d like a daily written report from you on this case. Chao Heng was a very senior scientist and government adviser. We take his murder very seriously. I want you to write up the report yourself, every night, so that it is on my desk first thing every morning. Is that clear?’ Li nodded. ‘That’ll be all.’ Zeng drew a file towards him and opened it. Li realised he had just been dismissed.

  II

  It was as well, Bob thought, that this was a very long corridor. Otherwise, he was sure, Margaret would simply turn around when she reached the end of it and stride back along its length. She seemed to need to burn up her anger in long, quick strides, and he was having trouble keeping up with her.

  ‘First they say they want my help. Then Mr Smartass Deputy Section Chief Li decides I’m superfluous to requirements. “Superfluous”, no less!’

  ‘I’m sure that’s probably lost – or gained – something in the translation, Margaret. Li wouldn’t mean it like that.’