Peter May - The Firemaker

‘Not yet.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means, hmmm.’ Old Yifu took another of Li’s Soldiers. ‘Perhaps these cigarette ends do indicate a connection. But if you focus too much on that, you may miss other links.’

Li told him about the drugs connection and his intention to ‘have a chat’ tomorrow with The Needle.

‘Hmmm.’

‘What this time?’

‘The drugs connection links only the body in the park and the stabbing, correct?’

‘Correct. But there may well be a drugs connection with the itinerant.’

‘But you don’t know that.’

‘Not yet, no.’ Li was becoming exasperated. ‘But we’re interviewing every itinerant who has registered in Beijing in the last six weeks. We’re pulling in every two- jiao drug dealer and junkie. If there’s a link, we’ll find it.’

‘Of course you will.’ Old Yifu took Li’s Bishop. ‘And if there isn’t, you won’t. And you’ll be six months down the line and no further on.’

‘So what are you saying? That it’s a waste of time interviewing these people?’

‘Oh no, you must. There is no substitute for diligence in police work. “Where the tiller is tireless, the land is fertile.”’

Li was tiring of his uncle’s wisdom. He took a Horse with a Bishop, and banged the wooden disk down on the stone table, the first piece he had taken. ‘ Jiang! ’ he said, having put his uncle’s King in check.

‘The thing is,’ said old Yifu, quite unperturbed, ‘as the famous American inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, once said, “Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration”. All the perspiration in the world will get you nowhere without that one spark of inspiration.’ He blocked the check with his Guide and watched as Li manoeuvred his Horse, then slid his Cannon across the board. ‘ Jiang si le! ’

Li stared at his King in disbelief. There was nowhere it could go. It was indeed checkmate. He sat back and folded his arms. Of course, he hadn’t been concentrating. ‘So where do I look for this inspiration?’ he asked.

‘From within,’ Old Yifu said. ‘From what you know.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Tell me again about the way Chao Heng’s killer went about his business. In the apartment, and in the park.’

Li went through it all, replaying his thoughts, all the tiny clues, the moments of discovery and illumination. The CD still paused in the player. The blood on the carpet. His vision of the killer carrying the body downstairs and out into the darkness created by the removal of the lamp. The daring murder in broad daylight, Li’s vision of the killer walking nonchalantly from the park even as the blazing body of his victim was being discovered.

‘And what does this tell us about the killer?’ his uncle said. Li shrugged. ‘It tells us that he is a clever man who planned and executed this murder with a professional precision. In the normal course of events, you would never have discovered that his victim had not committed suicide. He could not have known that a visiting American pathologist, expert in the post-mortem examinations of burn victims, would be invited to perform the autopsy. For all our growing expertise in China, we still have a long way to go. Not many of our pathologists would have identified the fracture of the skull as anything other than a heat fracture. Very few of our pathologists have the experience of drugs that would have led them to guess at the use of a sedative — this… ketamine — on top of a heroin habit.’ He stopped, mobile eyebrows pushed high on his forehead, looking for an acknowledgment from Li.

‘You’re saying the killer was a professional?’ Professional killers in China were a very rare breed of animal. ‘In Beijing?’

‘Oh, he would have come from Hong Kong probably. “One country, two systems.”’ His smile reflected a certain irony. ‘Some Triad hit-man.’ Old Yifu jabbed a finger in Li’s direction. ‘These other two killings. No clues left at the scene. One is killed by a single thrust of a knife up through the ribcage and into the heart. The other by a clean break of the neck. These were no casual killings, Li Yan.’

Li’s breathing had become shallow. More rapid. He fought to make sense of it. ‘If they were professional killings, then that establishes a link beyond the cigarette ends.’ He shook his head, still perplexed. ‘But why? Why would someone employ a hit-man to kill a retired adviser in agriculture, a nobody drug dealer, and an unemployed labourer from Shanghai?’

‘Okay.’ Old Yifu waggled a finger at him. ‘Now you are asking the right question. The big question. But before you know the answer to that, there are many smaller questions to be answered. And this brings you back to the cigarette ends. Because without them you would never have made any connection. But then, why would a professional be so careless in this, when he had been so careful in everything else? This is not right. This is something to focus on.’

Li knew that all of this had been somewhere in his head, but it had taken his uncle, with a disinterested perspective, to crystallise it for him. He gazed thoughtfully at the chessboard, a battlefield, the scene of his ignominious defeat. Old Yifu was right. It was all about focus. His uncle started gathering the pieces and placing them in their box.

‘So,’ he said, ‘this American pathologist. She will continue to help?’

‘No!’ Li realised immediately he had been too quick, too definitive, in his response.

Old Yifu missed nothing. ‘She does not want to help?’

‘No… Yes… I don’t know. Professor Jiang at the university offered to make her available.’

‘And you said…?’

Li looked at his hands. ‘I said I didn’t need her.’

‘Then you are a fool.’

Li flared angrily. ‘We do not need some American showing us how it should be done!’

‘No. But you need an edge. You always need an edge. And the experience that this American has will give you an edge.’ Old Yifu slipped the box of pieces and his chessboard into his satchel and stood up stiffly. ‘Time to eat.’

All of Ma Yongli’s knives — for paring, scraping, chopping, slicing — were laid out on the stainless-steel worktop, reflecting in its shiny surface. One by one he ran them through the sharpener, three, four, five times, until they offered little or no resistance and their blades gleamed, sharp as razors. He glanced at the figure of his friend sitting on the worktop opposite, legs dangling. ‘Cheer up, Big Li. It might never happen.’

‘It’ll happen,’ Li said disconsolately. ‘Unless I die between now and tomorrow morning.’

‘Sounds like a good excuse for going out and drinking ourselves to death, then. At least we’ll die happy.’ Yongli paused and scratched his head, then smiled wickedly. ‘Mind you — happy? It’d be a first for you.’

Li made a face at him. He had arrived at the end of Yongli’s shift. Dinners at the hotel had been cooked, served and eaten. The duty chef, who would provide for the few patrons who made use of the twenty-four-hour café in the small hours, was out back smoking a cigarette. The kitchens were otherwise deserted and in darkness, lit only where Yongli was sharpening his knives.

‘So let me take a guess,’ Yongli said. ‘Would your mood have anything to do with your Uncle Yifu?’

‘Do I need to answer that?’

‘For God’s sake, man, get yourself out of there. Get a woman, get a life! Old Yifu’s a lovely old guy, but you can’t spend the rest of your days living with your uncle.’ This was not what Li needed to hear. ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t got you tucked up in bed by now.’

‘I should be,’ Li said grimly.