Peter May - The Killing Room

‘Lecturing mostly. At the University of Public Security. It’s where they train their cops. Kind of like the Chinese equivalent of West Point.’

‘Does it pay well?’

‘Nope. The money’s lousy. But they give me an apartment I can just about swing a cat in, and as much rice as I can eat. So you can see why I was tempted to stay on.’

He chuckled. ‘So why do you?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ve got my reasons.’

‘Which you don’t want to share with me.’

‘Not particularly.’

‘Jeez, Mags,’ he leaned across the table and put his hand over hers, ‘what the hell are you thinking? You had a great job here. You could have ended up Medical Examiner in a few years.’

She said very quietly, ‘Don’t do that, David.’

He withdrew his hand like he’d had an electric shock. ‘I’m sorry.’

She shook her head. ‘I mean, don’t call me Mags . It’s what Michael called me.’

‘Oh, shit, I’m sorry, Margaret. I never thought …’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ She wasn’t going to remind him that this is where she’d met Michael, that it was David who’d introduced them. A fact that had clearly not loomed large in his recollection, along with the termination of her pregnancy.

‘But, hey, you know, the question’s still relevant. I mean, why China? It’s a communist state for Christ’s sake.’

‘Oh, right.’ Margaret felt her hackles rise. ‘And you want to turn it overnight into a democracy? Like Russia?’

‘Hey, come on, Margaret, I’m just saying …’

‘Saying what? That you want to see people dying in the streets of cold and hunger, watch organised crime take the money out of honest people’s pockets, see a breakdown of government, a descent into civil war?’

‘Of course not!’ David was annoyed now. ‘I wouldn’t wish Russia on anyone, even the Russians. It’s this country, the USA, that sets the standard. People here have got rights.’

‘Yeah, the right to get shot because their democratically elected government isn’t strong enough to stand up to the vested interests of the gun lobby. The right to justice if they can afford to pay for a sharp lawyer.’

David looked at her, uncomprehending. ‘Jeez, Margaret. What have they done to you over there?’

‘Nothing, David. Not a thing. I’ve just got a perspective now on the world that I never had before. I mean, what do you know about China? Have you ever been there?’

‘No, but-’

‘No, but what? That doesn’t make any difference? Is that what you were going to say?’

‘I was going to say,’ David said levelly, ‘that I read the papers and I watch the news. I know all about their record on human rights, what they do to dissidents. Like the clampdown on that religious sect … what is it? … Falun Gong .’

‘Oh, right,’ Margaret said. ‘ Falun Gong . They’re the ones whose leader claims to be an alien … someone from outer space. That sounds like someone worth following.’

‘That’s not the point. The point is that people should be allowed to follow whatever religion they want.’

‘Like here.’

‘Like here.’ He nodded, satisfied that he’d finally made his point.

‘Like the Branch Davidians?’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Margaret!’

But she wasn’t going to be deflected. ‘You remember the Branch Davidians, don’t you? They’re the ones the FBI massacred down at Waco. Women and children burned alive. I mean, I should know, I assisted on a fair number of the autopsies.’

David breathed his irritation. ‘That’s not a fair comparison.’

‘That’s just the trouble.’ Margaret slapped the table, and heads turned in their direction. ‘Comparisons never are. The Chinese have no history of democracy in five thousand years of civilisation. So how can you compare it to the United States? And whatever hell that society’s been through in the last hundred years, it is changing, David. Slowly but surely. And regardless of what people here might like to think, the man in the street doesn’t harbour dreams of democracy. He doesn’t even think about politics. He thinks about how much he earns, about putting a roof over his head, about feeding his family, educating his kids. And you know what? Right now he’s better off than he’s ever been at any time in history.’

David looked at her in astonishment for several moments. Eventually he said, ‘I suppose there are lots of ways you can be brainwashed without even knowing it.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about your … Chinaman .’

It wasn’t just the word, or even the fact that he had used it at all, but the way he said it, that started alarm bells ringing in her head. It was a very accurate parody of her mother’s use of the derogatory term. ‘What do you know about my “Chinaman”?’

But it wasn’t a question he was going to answer. He was intent on pressing home what he saw as his advantage. ‘That’s the real reason you never came back, isn’t it? The same reason you can sit there and bad-mouth your own country.’

‘I love my country,’ Margaret said fiercely. ‘Whatever I think or feel about China won’t ever change that.’ She paused to control herself. ‘But you didn’t answer my question.’

‘What question?’ He had realised his gaffe now and was being evasive.

‘She told you, didn’t she?’

‘Who?’

‘My mother. That’s why you were at the house this afternoon. I bet you’d made reservations for this place long before you even asked me to dinner.’ He blushed and she knew she’d hit the mark. ‘So what did she want you to do? Try and persuade me to stay? I mean, why would she even care?’

‘This has got nothing to do with your mother, Margaret. I care. I always have. You know that. You were the one. You were always the one.’

Margaret shook her head in disbelief. ‘David …’ She let out a sigh of exasperation. ‘You and I never had a future. Not then, not now.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘I won’t be a pawn in my mother’s little game of matchmaking. And in case you didn’t know, it’s not you she’s impressed by, it’s your family’s money.’ She remembered how impressed her mother had been by David. He’d gone to the University of Chicago because his parents could afford it. Margaret had only been there because she’d won a scholarship. After a moment she added, ‘And if you want to know the truth about my “Chinaman” … I’m head over heels in love with him.’

The waitress brought two wooden platters of neatly sliced pieces of raw bream, bass, salmon and tuna beautifully displayed with squid rolls, thread-cut daikon radish and a single quail’s egg. The sushi rice came in separate bowls. Margaret and David sat in silence surveying the food for half a minute, maybe more, before Margaret stood up and lifted her purse. ‘I think I should go,’ she said. ‘You can pick up the check if you like.’

He smiled sadly. ‘I didn’t even make you laugh.’

‘I think maybe I’ve forgotten how.’

And she turned and pushed off through the tables.

The airplane turned low beneath the clouds, wheeling over the slow-moving flow of the Yangtse River delta, dragon-tongues of water that had travelled four thousand miles from the high mountains of Tibet, snaking out into the slow grey swell of the East China Sea. Li turned from the window and closed his eyes as the plane began its descent into Hongqiao Airport. But the same images remained, projected on to the back of his retina by his mind’s eye. Dreadful images of a poor dead girl, clinically dissected and then brutally butchered.