Peter May - The Killing Room

‘We’ll keep that in mind,’ Li said.

As they crossed the site towards the main gate, Mei-Ling said, ‘That boy’s really creepy!’ But Li was lost in thought. She glanced at him. ‘You all right?’

He said, ‘This kid lives with his grandparents, who can’t afford to send him to university. So he has to take on all these part-time jobs and work the holidays. But he can afford a colour TV set. And that was good quality gear he was wearing. Expensive gloves lying on the table. And it must be pretty costly to subscribe to an American medical journal and have it sent to China every month.’

‘What are you saying?’ Mei-Ling asked.

‘I’m saying here’s a kid who has the requisite skills to do what was done to those women. He had the opportunity to dispose of their bodies right here on the site where he’s working as night watchman. And he seems very affluent for a student who’s having to work his way through medical school.’

‘You don’t think he did it, do you?’ Mei-Ling was shocked. ‘I mean, I know he’s weird, but usually I have an instinct about these things, and right now it isn’t telling me this is our killer.’

‘Neither is mine,’ Li confessed, and he knew it would have been just too easy. ‘But if someone broke into the site, dug a hole and buried eighteen bodies in it, why didn’t he see them? Why didn’t he hear them? And why would someone dump the bodies some place there was a night watchman?’ He lit a cigarette. ‘I know it’s early in the investigation, but I think our medical student’s got to be the first name on the suspect list.’

‘Maybe,’ Mei-Ling said. ‘Anyway, we’ll have a better idea just what we’re looking for once we’ve got the autopsy reports.’

‘That might be a few days,’ Li said.

Mei-Ling was surprised. ‘Why? Dr Lan can start tomorrow.’

Li said, ‘I’m bringing in another pathologist to do the autopsies.’

She was taken aback, and stopped suddenly, feet squelching in the mud. ‘Does Dr Lan know?’

Li shook his head. ‘No. And he probably won’t be very pleased.’

‘No, he won’t,’ Mei-Ling said. ‘Talk about losing face …’ She paused. ‘Who is it? Someone from Beijing?’

‘An American,’ Li said. He took in her expression. ‘Oh, I know. I got the same speech from Huang. How the Chinese don’t need the Americans to show them how to do anything.’

Mei-Ling shrugged. ‘Jiang Zemin said we must learn from foreign experts.’

Li looked to see if she was sending him up, but she appeared perfectly serious. ‘I’ve worked with her before,’ he said, ‘and she’s very experienced.’

Mei-Ling started for the gates again and said, a little too casually, ‘She?’

‘Margaret Campbell,’ Li said. ‘She’s been lecturing at the Public Security University in Beijing.’

Mei-Ling nodded but said nothing, and they continued picking their way through the mud.

They passed the lights, and the polythene flapping in the wind. Li caught sight of the face of one of the forensics people working in the mud. A young man, his face almost blue with the cold, pinched and distressed. He would never have envisaged this when making his career choice. And Li had a sudden sense of the futility of all their jobs, working as they did on the edge of sanity, picking their way through the dark side of the human psyche, and all the horrors that lay therein.

Mei-Ling suddenly lost her footing in the quagmire and, with a cry, almost fell. Li caught her arm and held her firmly until she regained her balance. She laughed, embarrassed, clutching his jacket, and he felt the swelling of her breast against the back of his hand.

‘Careful,’ Li said, suddenly self-conscious. ‘You almost dropped your half of the sky. Just as well there was a man around to catch you.’

‘Oh, you men are so versatile,’ Mei-Ling said, smiling. ‘You can hold up your half of the sky and pick up women at the same time.’ She steadied herself and checked her watch. ‘Nearly eight. You won’t have eaten.’

‘Not since this morning.’

‘Me neither. If you’re hungry, I know a place that serves till late.’

‘I’m starving,’ Li said.

She smiled, her dark eyes gleaming. ‘Good. Let’s go.’

Margaret had heard the news the previous night about the discovery of a mass grave on a building site in Shanghai. She had seen the pictures on CNN, and watched with interest and a slightly remote sense of horror. She did not make any connection with Li, there was no reason why she should. But it had aroused her professional interest. Since the first pictures had come through, the Chinese authorities had imposed a media black-out, much to the annoyance of the news networks. But this morning, statements issued by the New York bank involved were generating plenty of copy, and one of the associates had got an exclusive interview with the CEO who had taken the mud bath with the bodies. There was no accurate information about how many corpses had been recovered from the site, but the CEO’s description of his experience had been fairly lurid — arms, legs, torsos, heads. Margaret felt a pang of regret that she was not involved.

She lay in bed watching the re-runs of the story on breakfast news. Whatever her mother might think, it was her job, and she missed doing it. She missed China. She missed Li. And still she had not summoned the courage to go to her apartment in Lincoln Park. It was symbolic, somehow, of another life, another Margaret Campbell, someone else whom she used to be and didn’t wish to revisit. But she couldn’t just leave the place to gather dust, junk mail accumulating with the neighbours, pot plants dead in the kitchen sink. If her encounter with David the other night had taught her anything, it was that there was no refuge in the past. Whatever direction she chose to take, she had to move on.

She found herself looking at a photograph on screen of a young woman with short cut fair hair. For a disconcerting moment, the face seemed uncannily familiar, before she realised with a start that she was looking at herself. She sat bolt upright, heart pounding. It was her all right. A few years younger, though. A stock photograph taken at the time she assisted on the autopsies at Waco. The TV announcer was saying, ‘… American pathologist, Margaret Campbell. The authorities in Shanghai have, this morning, taken the unusual step of issuing a Press Release announcing the invitation. Dr Campbell, who has worked previously with police in the Chinese capital of Beijing, grabbed headlines worldwide eighteen months ago when she issued a warning on the Internet about genetically contaminated rice. Latest reports from Shanghai, where it is now nine in the evening, suggest that the body count has risen to eighteen .’ The report switched from news to weather, and Margaret sat very still on the bed, her heart pounding. She was confused, disorientated. From somewhere in the house came the distant ringing of a telephone. Why would the authorities in Shanghai ask for her help? She didn’t know anyone there.

Then she was struck by a thought. E-mail. In the last few months, she had introduced Li to the delights of e-mail as a fast and direct means of communication. He had written to her almost every day since she left to go to her father’s funeral. She leapt out of bed and quickly crossed the room to the dresser where she had set up her iBook laptop computer. She wakened it out of sleep mode and went on-line. Her e-mail software scanned her electronic mailbox before downloading ‘one of one’, and a soft female voice told her she had mail. She double-clicked on an e-mail titled Autopsies . It was from Li.

There was a knock at her bedroom door and her mother entered in her housecoat. ‘Margaret, did you know you’re on television? Diane just phoned to say she’d seen your picture.’