Peter May - Chinese Whispers

‘But you don’t expect a match?’

‘No.’

Dai sat in silence for some time. At length he said, ‘The parcel with the ears had no stamp or postmark?’

‘It was hand-delivered.’

‘So whoever left it in your post-box had access to the Ministry compound.’

‘A cop,’ Li said flatly.

Dai nodded. But it was not a nod of agreement. Only an acknowledgement. ‘I am puzzled,’ he said.

‘Why? What’s puzzling you?’

‘If this police officer had knowledge of the previous murders, and wished you to believe that Miss Pan died by the same hand, why would he leave his saliva on the cigar? For he would know, surely, that when you tested the DNA it would not match.’ He looked Li in the eye. ‘That was careless of him, don’t you think?’

Li drove north on the East Third Ring Road. It was dark now and the tail lights of the traffic stretched ahead of him into a hazy distance. The city basked in its own light, buildings illuminated against the black of the night sky, a million windows lit like stars in a firmament. When he went to see Dai he had been certain that he was looking for two killers. Both of them somewhere out there. One of them tangible. Li had seen him, been mocked by him, without ever knowing who he was. The other a phantom, an idea born of an unexpected DNA result and a host of inconsistencies. A policeman, someone he knew. One of his team. But, as usual, Dai had made him question everything. In my day we had no DNA testing , he had said. It is possible to pick up a sesame seed but lose sight of a watermelon . But when it came to Pan’s murder, no matter how much he wanted not to believe it, he could not question Margaret’s logic in pointing the finger of accusation at a cop. It was the only explanation that brought consistency to inconsistency. And if it was true, then he was even further from solving this puzzle than he had thought.

And yet, Dai had sown a seed of doubt somewhere in the back of his mind, and it had taken root there and was growing. For an experienced cop to have left DNA traces that would blow apart his subterfuge, seemed unthinkable. But, then again, to make a mistake in the heat of the moment, while committing the presumably unaccustomed act of murder, was not. And, still, the biggest question of all was, why?

Li felt his eyes closing as confusion and uncertainty washed over him in a wave of fatigue, and the vehicle in front — a taxi — seemed suddenly no more than inches away. He jammed on his brakes, and the car behind blared its horn. He swerved, almost losing control, then pulled himself back on track, tiredness swept away by a moment of fear and the heart it had left pounding fiercely in his chest. This was crazy!

He had arranged to meet Margaret outside the Harts’ apartment block on the edge of the Central Business District. She would take a taxi back from the pathology lab, she had told him. On the way she would drop off Li Jon to spend the night at Mei Yuan’s tiny siheyuan home on the shores of Qianhai Lake.

A dinner party, an evening of social chit-chat, was the last thing Li felt like. All he wanted to do was sleep, to close his stinging eyes, rest his aching head on a pillow and drift off into some dreamworld where whatever happened, he was always assured of waking up. But it was too late to back out now. And what was it the Americans said: a change is as good as a rest?

He turned off the ring road at Jinsong Bridge and swept from the exit ramp on to Lianguang Road. The Music Home apartments were a blaze of lights, green glass and grey cladding. The shopping mall on the ground floor of the main block was still doing business. Li parked in the street and found Margaret waiting for him outside the entrance lobby. He raised his eyebrows in an unasked question and she nodded. ‘They match,’ she said. ‘We’ll get the DNA results tomorrow. But, really, we don’t need them.’ There was nothing more to be said. She took his arm and they went through glass doors into a huge lobby with inlaid floors and an arched gold ceiling. A security man at the desk asked politely if he could help. They told him who they were and he telephoned the Harts’ apartment before letting them through to the gardens.

‘Jesus,’ Margaret said. ‘Lyang said this was Bill’s one concession to western comfort, but this isn’t comfort, it’s goddamned opulence.’

Contained within the complex of apartment blocks, and the two landmark towers with their grand piano lids, was nine thousand square metres of landscaped garden on the theme of the four seasons. There was a beach around a kidney-shaped pool, paths and walkways through clusters of trees representing everything from summer through fall to winter and spring. There was a stream spanned by tiny bridges at several points along its length, and a garden cafeteria. On the east side, a sports complex contained an indoor swimming pool with tennis courts above it. At each end, ramps led down to an underground carpark beneath the gardens. Now, however, as the cold November winds blew down from the north, heralding the arrival of winter, the gardens were sad and empty.

Li felt uncomfortable here. As if he had stepped through the looking glass into another world on the far side. This was not the Beijing he knew. There was nothing Chinese about any of it. This, and places like it, were built for the business community, the three hundred thousand foreigners at the heart of the city’s new commercial engine, and the Chinese nouveau riche who bought up all the new apartments and rented for profits of thirty and forty per cent. It was a bubble, double-glazed and insulated from the real world that he knew outside. A world where Chinese people worked hard, died hard and earned little, living and dying in tiny apartments with communal toilets and inadequate heating. A world where prostitutes were being murdered by a maniac living out some twisted fantasy.

They made their way through the gardens to the far side and into the tower on the north-west corner. An elevator sped them soundlessly up to the twenty-third floor and they stepped out into a carpeted hallway. Lyang was waiting for them at the far end, at the open door of the Harts’ apartment.

‘Hey, guys. Welcome to our humble home.’ She grinned and kissed them both on each cheek. In the entrance hall, slippers awaited them on a mat, and they kicked off their shoes to slip them on. The floors were dark polished mahogany. A staircase led off to an upper floor, and they walked through lush Chinese rugs into an open living room whose balcony gave on to a stunning view across the city and the gardens below. Concealed lighting along the perimeter of the ceiling was augmented by Chinese lanterns. Antique cabinets, and bookcases groaning with collectors’ items, lined walls that were hung with original scroll paintings by famous Chinese artists. Through open sliding doors leading off an open-plan dining room, they could see into a fitted kitchen which issued smells that were, finally, stimulating Li’s digestive juices. There was a cinema ratio plasma TV screen on one wall, and beside a state of the art stereo system playing muted jazz, Bill Hart was pouring cocktails at a drinks cabinet.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘No arguments. You guys have got to taste my patent Beijing margaritas with crushed ice.’

‘No arguments from me,’ Margaret said.

He kissed her on both cheeks and handed her a drink and then shook Li’s hand. ‘Good to see you, Li Yan. You look whacked.’

‘You’re looking pretty good yourself,’ Li said wryly, and accepted his drink from the American.

Margaret waved a hand around the room. ‘Obviously, I’m in the wrong business. Witchcraft clearly pays better than medicine.’