Peter May - Chinese Whispers

‘Such a fucking waste!’ he said eventually and Qian looked at him carefully.

‘She made an impression on you, then, Chief?’

‘She was beautiful, Qian. I don’t just mean physically. She had something about her. Something inside. It just radiated from her.’ He found Qian looking at him quizzically and he smiled wryly. ‘Sure, if I hadn’t already found the woman I want to spend my life with, I could have fallen for her. Big time.’ And then he saw her blood-splashed profile and the wound where her ear had been removed, and frustration and anger rose in him like bile. You have an enemy, Li Yan , Lao Dai had told him, and Li knew that he was right. That somehow, for some reason, all this was about him. He thumped his fist on the table and both their beers jumped. Heads turned towards them. ‘I’m going to put a stop to it, Qian. I’m not going to let him do this again.’

Qian nodded reassuringly. ‘We’ll get him, Chief.’

‘What I can’t figure,’ Li said, ‘is how the hell he got her to go up there in the first place. In the dark, after it was closed. I mean, he could never have forced her to do it.’

Qian said, ‘Suppose he arranged to meet her there. Suppose she went there before it closed, and then hid up at the top when the lights went out and the guards locked up. He could easily have climbed over the railing when they’d gone.’

‘But why? Why would she meet someone in those circumstances?’

Qian shrugged. ‘Fear, maybe.’

‘Of what? Not of him. She wouldn’t have gone there if she’d thought there was anything to fear from him.’ But he couldn’t rid himself of that look in her eyes the last time he had seen her. He had not understood, then, what it really was. But now he wondered if perhaps she had been afraid, and he had failed to recognise it. But afraid of what?

Qian said, ‘He took an enormous risk killing her in the early evening rather than the early hours of the morning. I know it wasn’t exactly in full view, but there were security people around. And a goddamned TV station across the road!’ He took another mouthful of beer. ‘And, of course, it’s something else he did differently this time. I mean, what’s weird is why he would set out to copy Jack the Ripper and then not.’

Li said, ‘Chinese cops have the idea that serial killers never change their MO, probably because we don’t get that many here.’ He shook his head. ‘But it’s a mistake. When I was in the States I read up on some of the most famous serial killers from around the world, and a lot of them changed lots of things from murder to murder. From gun to knife, from knife to rope, from rope to hammer. From men to women, or the other way round. And for all sorts of reasons. Some quite deliberately to mislead the police, others just on a whim. Some because it was their MO to change their MO. A serial killer can’t be relied on to stick to the script.’ And he realised with a shock, that’s exactly what he’d been doing — relying on the Beijing Ripper to be faithful to the original. But it wasn’t a script. It was history. And you can’t rewrite history. So why had the killer done just that?

His cellphone began playing Beethoven in his pocket. He took it out and flipped it open. ‘ Wei? ’

‘It’s me, I’m home. How did it go?’ Margaret sounded weary.

‘Not good,’ Li said. ‘He’s broken his pattern.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘You remember at lunch today, Bill Hart talked about Lynn Pan, the Chinese-American who’s running the MERMER program?’

‘Sure.’

‘That’s who the victim was.’

There was a moment’s silent incredulity at the other end of the line, then, ‘Jesus Christ,’ Margaret whispered. ‘You met her this afternoon.’

‘Yeah.’ Li felt a fleeting pang of guilt at the feelings Pan had aroused in him.

‘That must have been tough.’

‘It was.’

There was a long silence, and then, ‘Is that music I hear?’

‘I’m in a bar with Qian, up in Sanlitun.’

‘Is there a connection?’

‘No, we’re having a drink.’

Another silence. Then, ‘I had a great time tonight, too,’ she said with a tone. ‘With your friends from the Ministry. They spoke Chinese all night and left me to my own devices, smiling like an idiot every time one of them looked at me. I’ve got cramp in my cheek muscles.’ In the background Li heard the baby start to cry. Margaret said, ‘When will you be home?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then.’ And she hung up.

Li felt rebuked, and resented it. He flipped the phone shut and stuffed it in his pocket. He finished his beer and stood up. ‘We’d better go.’

And the barman breathed a sigh of relief as the two cops slipped out into the street. The cold air brought the blood rushing immediately to their cheeks and burned their lungs. Qian said, ‘I didn’t know she was American.’

It took Li a moment to realise what he meant. ‘Your English has improved,’ he said.

Qian shrugged. ‘I’ve been taking lessons.’

Li was taken aback and looked at his number two in surprise. ‘Why?’

‘Seems like English is the language you need to get on these days. The language of the future.’

Li blew a puff of air through his lips. ‘Who knows what we’ll all be speaking in a hundred years.’

‘You and I will be speaking Chinese with our ancestors.’

‘You know what I mean.’ Li managed a tired smile. ‘And you never can tell. If the economy continues growing at the present rate maybe the rest of the world will be speaking Chinese by then.’

They dashed across the road between cars, and when they got into the Jeep Li said, ‘So, anyway, what difference does it make?’ Qian looked at him quizzically. ‘Her being American.’

Qian started the engine. ‘There’s no way we’ll be able to keep it out of the papers, Chief.’

Her body was slim and firm and beautiful. His hands slipped over the softness of her curves, tracing the line of her hips, gliding across her belly and up to the swelling of her breasts. The nipples pressed hard into his palms. He felt her legs wrap themselves around him, crossing in the small of his back as he slid inside her. Her hair smelled of peaches. ‘Help me,’ she whispered, and he heard her say, ‘I love you.’

‘I love you, too,’ he said.

‘Help me,’ she said again.

But he was lost inside her, drifting on a wave of lust, thrusting against it.

‘Help me.’ It was louder, now, more insistent. Another wave crashed over him. ‘Help me!’ she screamed, and he opened his eyes. Her smile had slipped from her face. There were black holes where her ears and eyes should have been, and blood ran across her face like vivid red slashes. He screamed and reared up and something struck him hard on the back of his head.

‘Chief, are you okay?’

It was Wu, his face a mask of concern. The desk lamp was lying on the floor, the bulb shattered into a thousand pieces. The first yellow sunlight was slanting in the window.

Li blinked and couldn’t figure it out. ‘What …?’

Wu stooped to pick up the lamp. ‘You must have had a nightmare, Chief. The whole section heard you screaming. You sure you’re okay?’

‘I was asleep?’ Li could hardly believe it.

‘You dropped off about two, Chief. No one had the heart to wake you.’

‘Shit.’ Li stood up unsteadily and tried to straighten out the creases in his uniform. He was shaken by his dream. It had left him wrestling with feelings of guilt and horror. He looked at Wu and realised he must have been there all night, too. ‘What about you guys?’

‘Oh, we all got a few hours at one time or another,’ Wu said. There was a bedroom on each floor of the section, three beds to a room. Officers detained beyond their shift could always snatch some sleep if things got bad.