Peter May - The Killing Room

Li leaned forward and switched on his desk lamp. ‘What do you want?’

Dai stepped forward and dropped a large manila envelope triumphantly on Li’s desk. ‘Got an ID on that girl’s teeth, Chief. Straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.’ And he laughed at his own wit. Li quickly opened the envelope, slid out the large sheet of x-ray and found a report clipped to it in English. Dai said, ‘Sino-Canadian joint venture dental clinic at the World Medical Centre downtown. They did the gold foil work about eighteen months ago. Had her records on file. A twenty-two-year-old called Chai Rui, but she liked to be called Cherry . They even had that noted on her file.’

Li scanned the address. ‘Xujiahui,’ he said. ‘Where’s that?’

‘Big new futuristic development down the south-west of the city, Chief. Fancy apartment blocks and upscale shopping centres. Not a cheap place to live.’ He paused. ‘Just a spit away from the Medical University. I don’t know if that’s significant.’ Li glanced up at him. ‘Anyway, I had a long chat with the dental assistant. A young guy. He remembered her well. Said she was a real looker, flirted with him apparently. Boasted that she was a hostess at the Black Rain Club.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘It’s off Huaihai Road, up in the old French Concession. Little more than a high-class brothel and strip joint.’

Li frowned. ‘So why haven’t you closed it down?’

Dai shrugged. ‘They say it’s owned by the Taiwanese Mafia. These guys have bought up a lot of property in this town. Got a lot of influence here.’

Li shook his head. It seemed incredible to him that people like that should be allowed to operate anywhere in China. It would not happen in Beijing.

‘Anyway,’ Dai continued, ‘she paid cash. No problem. And work like that didn’t come cheap.’

Li felt his spirits lifting. It was another step forward. Another victim identified. ‘You passed this on to Deputy Section Chief Nien?’

Dai shook his head. ‘I would have. But I don’t know where she is, Chief. Doesn’t seem to be in the building.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘So, anyway, now do you want the bad news?’

Li felt his newly uplifted spirits sink again. ‘What is it?’

‘Jiang’s family up in Yanqing confirm what he told you, Chief. He didn’t go into Beijing once when he was home for the holidays last Spring Festival. They say he never goes into the city.’ Again he paused. ‘But he did lie about one thing.’ Li waited patiently. ‘He didn’t see any friends when he was up there. He doesn’t have any.’ Dai grinned.

Li slipped the x-ray back into the envelope. In a way the news about Jiang was no more than he expected. He was more interested in the identification of the Beijing girl. ‘That’s good work, Detective,’ he said. ‘I take it there have been no developments in tracking down this Zhang girl that Jiang said he bought the bracelet for?’

‘Not that I’ve heard, Chief. Qiu’s been working on that.’ He headed for the door.

Li said, ‘Hang on a moment …’ He thought for a bit and then said, ‘You got the photograph and description of that bracelet?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘I know this is a pain in the ass, Dai, but how would you like to check it out with the families of all the missing girls we’ve pulled from the file so far?’ Dai groaned. ‘And if you can’t find a match in the first twelve months, go back another twelve.’

Dai stood glaring at him. ‘This is my reward for tracking down the owner of those teeth? Hey, Chief, you really know how to build team spirit.’ And he closed the door none too gently behind him.

Li stood up and lifted his jacket from the coat stand. Then he remembered that he had arranged to meet Margaret at the Peace Hotel at eight. He checked his watch. It was after seven already. He picked up the phone and asked the operator to get him the reception desk at the Peace Hotel and left a message for Margaret that he would be late.

*

The shrill whistles of the traffic wardens cut above the roar of the traffic in Huaihai Road, but no one paid them any attention. The street was choked with cars and trolley buses and cyclists jostling for space in the blaze of lights from shop fronts and neon hoardings. The reflections they cast in the rain were like daubs of wet paint. Cyclists peered out from beneath the hoods of dripping capes, cursing the spray thrown up from the road. The sidewalks were jammed with coloured umbrellas bumping and squeaking against each other like balloons above the heads of desperate citizens in search of a night life.

As Li’s taxi fought to reach the kerb, an irate cyclist banged on the roof with his fist, and the driver leapt from his cab to grab the other man in the rain, threatening him with physical abuse if he laid another finger on his vehicle. They jostled and shouted and pushed, and people gathered on the pavement to watch, traffic grinding to a standstill, other cyclists trying now to separate the two. Li sighed and dropped a note on the driver’s seat and slipped out on to the sidewalk. A young girl in a red qipao beneath a red and gold-braided jacket, stood under a canvas awning outside one of Shanghai’s two Beijing Duck restaurants, trying to attract customers. But all she was attracting were the leering taunts of a drunken old man who kept trying to paw her. Li grabbed him and pulled him away from her. He turned angrily, taking a wild swing at his assailant, but Li caught his fist and showed him his ID. ‘Go home,’ he said firmly and pushed him away. The girl flicked him a frightened look, unsure whether to be grateful or afraid. Li pulled the collar of his leather jacket up against the rain, and hurried on down the street, checking the numbers.

A young man clutched at his arm as he passed. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What’s the hurry? Where are you from?’

Li glared at him. ‘Beijing.’

The young man grinned. ‘I know a good Beijing bar in Shanghai,’ he said. ‘Plenty of girls who like Beijing men. You wanna massage?’

Li was shocked. Was this what China was becoming? Was this the future? He thrust his Ministry badge in the young man’s face and said, ‘You want to come with me to police headquarters and discuss the sentence for pimping?’

The young man shrank away immediately, his face a picture of fear. ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he said. ‘I made a mistake.’ And he disappeared into the crowds as quickly as he had appeared. Li felt the rain trickling down the back of his neck.

The entrance to the Black Rain Club was in a lane that ran north off Huaihai Road. A black canopy over the entrance dripped rainwater on to a red carpet. Glass doors were set in a polished brass frame, and a burly attendant wearing a dinner suit and bow-tie stood in the doorway. He looked Li up and down. ‘You a member?’

‘No.’

‘Piss off, then.’ Li felt his hackles rising. He opened his ID for the third time in as many minutes. But the man wasn’t impressed. He took a moment to scrutinise it and said, ‘From out of town, huh? So I guess you don’t know any better. We got protection here.’

‘Not from me,’ Li said.

‘Like I told you,’ the man said, ‘piss off.’ And he reached out to grab Li’s arm to turn him away. But Li had seized the hand before it even reached him, finding the nerve in the fleshy part between the thumb and forefinger, and pressing hard. The pain, he knew, was disabling. The big man gasped and immediately dropped to his knees, unable to offer resistance or even try to pull his hand from Li’s grip. Li turned him around and banged his face up against the glass of the door. He could hear the squeak of greasy flesh on shiny glass, and through the door he could see a staircase winding up to a first-floor landing. The banister was polished brass on wrought iron. The stairs were carpeted in thick-piled red wool. At intervals on the staircase, beautiful girls stood glittering in slinky evening dresses, sipping champagne and chattering like birds on mobile phones. There was a constant traffic on the stairs of what Li presumed to be ‘members’, dressed in designer suits and button-down shirts. They all turned now to look down at the fracas in the doorway.