Peter May - Chinese Whispers

Jiang seemed taken aback that Hart was asking him. He shrugged and said awkwardly, ‘They’re trying to cover something up.’

‘They’re a liar,’ Hart said. ‘And that’s just the way I call it.’ He folded his hands in front of him on the desk and gave Jiang a moment or two to think about it. Then he said, ‘Now what I’m going to do, Jiang, is I want to see what your body looks like normally on the chart. So I want you to choose a number between one and seven.’

Jiang gave a strained chuckle. ‘Not between one and ten.’

‘No. Between one and seven.’ Pause. ‘What’s your number?’

‘Five.’

‘Okay. Now what I’ll do is I’ll go through all the numbers between one and seven. Each time I ask did you choose that number, the only answer I want is, no. Even when I ask you the number five. That way I have a number of truthful responses, and I have one deceptive response. It gives me a chance to adjust the instruments for your body.’

Lyang was smiling. ‘Believe that, you’ll believe anything,’ she whispered. But everyone else in the room was mesmerised by the proceedings on the other side of the mirror.

Hart set the polygraph going, needles scraping back and forth across the paper that scrolled by beneath them, and took Jiang through all the numbers in a random sequence. When he had finished, he switched off the polygraph and tore off the chart. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘It always amazes me. It does.’ He pushed the chart across the desk towards Jiang. ‘It don’t take no expert. See this green line?’ Jiang followed Hart’s finger and nodded. ‘See how it changes? See the highest point on the chart? See what’s below it?’ Li had to admit, Hart was a real showman. Like a magician on a stage.

Jiang craned to see what was written there. ‘It’s the number five,’ he said.

Hart smiled at him. ‘So now we know what you know. And you know why the pens reacted so strong. So if I see that when I ask the real questions, we’ll be able to get right to the bottom of it.’

Jiang slumped back in his seat, his face a mask of misery. He was beaten, even before he took the test. And he was beaten, because he believed he would be.

Hart reset the polygraph. ‘Okay, we’ll go straight to the questions one time.’

He got Jiang to sit facing forward, eyes closed, feet flat on the floor, and pumped up the air in his cuff, and then he ran through the questions, just as he had during the pre-test. ‘Did you put your penis in Shimei’s vagina?’

They did it another two times, the order of the questions changing on each run-through.

When they’d finished the third set, ‘That’s us,’ Hart said. Jiang glanced at him apprehensively, but Hart was giving nothing away. He stepped out from behind the desk to unhook Jiang from the polygraph, then he collected the charts and said, ‘I‘ll be back in a couple of minutes.’ He went out and left Jiang alone. Jiang sat staring into space for a long time, before dropping his face into his hands to stifle his sobs.

The door opened in the observation room and Hart came in. He seemed surprised to see Li. ‘Li Yan? What are you doing here?’

Li stood to shake Hart’s hand. ‘I stopped by to talk to you about Lynn Pan.’

Hart’s face clouded. ‘I feel like it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t recommended her for the post … Jesus!’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling and took a deep breath, trying to control his emotions. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just so hard to believe she’s gone.’ He looked at Li. ‘Did you …? Were you called to the crime scene?’ Li nodded. ‘Shit. That must have been tough.’

It was what Margaret had said. And Li wondered if it was really any harder dealing with a murder when it was someone you knew. Of course, you brought a lot of emotional baggage to that circumstance. But he had always found it hard to see the living person in the dead one. It wasn’t dealing with the dead that was difficult, it was the loss of the living. In this case, he had hardly known Lynn Pan. And yet the sense of her loss had been powerful. Perhaps because she had been so brim full of life.

Li shrugged. ‘Sure. It was hard.’ He paused. ‘I don’t suppose you would have the first idea why anyone would want to kill her?’

Hart shook his head. ‘It’s inconceivable to me,’ he said.

‘Or why anyone would want to steal her computers, all her files?’

Hart said, ‘I heard there’d been a break-in up there. It’s all gone?’

‘Everything.’

‘Jees …’ He held up his hands. ‘I can’t help you. I wish to God I could.’

Li said, ‘I might as well tell you, because you’ll probably hear it anyway …’ He glanced at Lyang. ‘Apparently she thought she was going to meet me last night at the Millennium Monument.’

Hart’s consternation was plain on his face. ‘Why would she think that?’

‘Because someone phoned up after we’d left yesterday afternoon, saying they were me, and arranging a clandestine meeting?’

‘Why? What for?’ It was Lyang this time.

‘I don’t know.’

Hart said, ‘Man, that’s spooky.’

‘What about her private life?’ Li said. ‘What do you know about that?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘She came round for dinner a couple of times,’ Lyang said.

‘Yeah, but all we ever talked about were people we knew back in the States. Work. You know, stuff we had in common.’

‘And we never got an invite back to her place.’

‘The thing is,’ Hart said, ‘her private life was just that. Private, wasn’t it, Lyang? You know, for such an outgoing girl, she really was a very private person. You got so far with her, and then zap. Down came some kind of shutter. So far and no further. I don’t know anything about her relationships, what she did in her spare time. Hell, I don’t even know if she lived on her own. It’s hard to know if there was anything much at all outside of her work.’ He sighed and then glanced through the two-way mirror. ‘How’s our boy doing?’

‘Feeling pretty sorry for himself,’ said the female interrogator.

Hart glanced at his watch. ‘He’s had long enough to stew. Time to go get a confession.’ He looked at Li. ‘Unless there’s anything else you want to ask.’

Li said, ‘I can’t think of anything right now.’

‘We’ll be seeing you tonight, anyway,’ Lyang said. ‘You and Margaret are still coming to dinner, aren’t you?’

Li had forgotten all about it. ‘Sure,’ he said.

Hart squeezed his arm. ‘Catch you later.’ And he went out still clutching his charts. He hadn’t looked at them once.

Li was anxious to be away, but he also wanted to see how Hart’s interview with Jiang would turn out. ‘Will this take long?’ he asked Lyang.

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

So he sat down again and watched as Hart entered the interview room on the other side of the two-way mirror. Jiang sat upright, almost startled, and you could see his tension in the rigid way he held himself. Hart sat down facing Jiang and put the charts on his knee. He still wasn’t consulting them. ‘On these tests, Jiang,’ he said, those hypnotic tones again, ‘I can make one of three decisions. I can say a person’s telling the truth. I can say a test’s inconclusive, that I just don’t know. Or I can say a person’s not telling the truth.’

Jiang drew in a deep breath, very focused on Hart and what he was saying. He kept nodding, as if he could gain approval by agreeing.

‘Now here’s the thing,’ Hart said. ‘We’re not dealing with a criminal case here. You’re just an ordinary guy, working hard to raise his family, making his contribution to society. Now, some of the criminals I deal with, that they bring down here from the cells uptown, they don’t contribute to anything. They’re just kind of leeches on society.’ He leaned forward, creating a sense of confidentiality between them. ‘When I look at the charts, and from talking with you here today, I know you’re no criminal, that’s for darn sure. In fact, I’m inclined to think you’re kind of a nice guy. And life’s dealt you a pretty bum hand.’