Peter May - The Fourth Sacrifice

He got angry in his own defence. ‘You have no idea, have you?’ He found his breath coming in short bursts. ‘With my uncle dead, my job is the only life I have. And if I go against my superiors I will lose that job. And what would I do then? An ex-cop! Sell CD roms to tourists in the street? Get myself a market stall and pass off junk with phoney designer labels as genuine? If I want to be with you, Margaret, I have no future in China. We would have to go to the United States. And what future would I have there?’ He tugged her arm and pulled her round to face him. ‘You tell me.’ His eyes appealed to her desperately for understanding.

But she could not think of anything to say. She tried to imagine how it would be to leave everything in the States behind — her home, her family, her job — to come and live in China. But no picture of it would come to her mind.

‘This is my home,’ he said. ‘This is who I am. And no matter how painful it has been for me to accept it, I know there is no future for you and me.’

She saw the pain in his eyes and knew that it was real. But it did nothing to diminish her own. She said, ‘I was right, then. I gave up on you, Li Yan. Finally. I was supposed to catch a plane home this morning. Then they asked me to do the autopsy.’

‘And now you have done it,’ he said, ‘there is no reason for you to stay. This is a Chinese police investigation. There is no point in either of us putting ourselves through more pain.’

And it was as simple as that, she thought. Get on a plane, fly away and don’t look back. She had come here in the first place to escape the failures of her personal life back home. She would be returning home to escape the failures of her personal life here. Everything she touched, it seemed, turned to dust. Including Li. She reached out and ran her fingers lightly over his cheek where the imprint of her hand was raised and red.

‘I’m sorry I hit you,’ she said.

He reached up and put his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. He had an overpowering desire to bend his head and kiss her. But he didn’t.

She slowly withdrew her hand. For a moment she had thought he was going to kiss her. She had wanted him to, with all her heart. And when he didn’t she had felt a terrible aching emptiness with the realisation that there was no way back, and no way forward.

‘Well, that’s that fixed.’ Sophie pushed through the swing doors and down the steps. ‘It’s been agreed that translation of the autopsy reports and copies of the photographic evidence in all four murders will be delivered to the embassy as soon as possible.’ She stopped, realising immediately that she had walked in on something, and saw the unmistakable shape of a raised handprint on Li’s face. ‘I’ll wait in the car,’ she said hastily, and turned towards the limousine.

‘It’s all right. We’ve finished,’ Margaret said, suddenly businesslike, and she brushed past Li and followed Sophie to the car.

‘Jesus,’ Sophie said, as they slipped into the back seat. ‘You hit him!’ And then she saw the tears rolling slowly down Margaret’s cheek, and she quickly turned to face forward. ‘Sorry.’

Li watched the car pull away from the kerb, and felt as if some invisible umbilical cord was dragging the inside out of him as it went.

They drove in silence for nearly fifteen minutes before Sophie sneaked a look at Margaret. The tears had either dried up or been brushed away. They had both been staring out of their respective windows at the traffic on the second ring road, tower blocks rising up all around them and casting lengthening shadows from west to east. ‘That was my first autopsy,’ Sophie said.

‘I’d never have guessed.’ Margaret kept her eyes fixed on the traffic.

Sophie smiled and blushed. ‘That obvious?’

Margaret relented and drew her a wan smile. ‘I’ve seen worse. At least we weren’t forced to inspect the contents of your stomach as well.’ Sophie grinned, and Margaret added, ‘But you’d better get used to it. It certainly won’t be your last.’

‘How do you ever get used to something like that?’ Sophie asked. ‘I mean, you must be affected by it. Surely. All these poor, dead people laid out like … like meat. Like they never had a life.’

‘You should try dealing with the living,’ Margaret said. ‘Personally I find it’s a lot less stressful working with the dead. They have no expectation that you’re going to make them better.’

And she wondered if that’s what was wrong with her. That she could be so at home with the dead: breadloafing their organs, dissecting their brains, examining the contents of their intestines, all with a detached expertise and self-confidence. And yet when it came to the living she was ill at ease, protective, defensive, aggressive. It had always been easy to blame her failed relationships on someone else. It had always been clear to her that she was not at fault. But what if she was? After all, wasn’t she the misfit, the one happier to spend time with corpses? Had all those years spent dissecting the dead stolen away her ability to relate to the living? The thought left her feeling empty and depressed. Because what lay ahead on her return to the States but more years spent in autopsy rooms? An endless conveyer belt of tragedy. A bleak, white-tiled future with nothing more to stimulate her senses than the touch of refrigerated flesh.

Sophie’s mobile phone rang, a silly electronic melody that Margaret took a moment or two to identify as ‘Scotland the Brave’. Sophie fumbled to find it in her purse.

‘Sophie Daum,’ she answered, when finally she got it to her ear. ‘Oh, hi, Jonathan. Sure. We’re just on the way back to her hotel now.’ She glanced at Margaret. ‘Well, I guess … Sure. OK, see you.’ She switched off and leaned forward to the driver. ‘Change of plan. We’re going straight to the embassy.’ She turned to Margaret. ‘The Ambassador wants to see you.’

‘Well, fuck the Ambassador,’ Margaret said, and Sophie’s eyes widened with shock. Margaret told the driver, ‘Go to the Ritan Hotel.’ Then to Sophie, ‘First thing I’m going to do is take a shower. Strange as it may seem, I prefer the scent of Fabergé to formaldehyde. Then I’m going to change into some fresh clothes. And if he still wants to talk, then I will see the Ambassador.’

The driver glanced back at Sophie for clarification. She hesitated a moment, then nodded. ‘I’m going to get bawled out for this,’ she told Margaret.

‘Well, bawl right back. It’s not your fault if this cranky pathologist won’t do what she’s told.’ She grinned. ‘Tell them I was scared I’d get blood on the Ambassador’s nice new carpet.’

Their car cruised past the Moskva restaurant on the south-west corner of Ritan Park, a stone’s throw away from the Ambassador’s residence, past the rows of traders in Ritan Lu and the dull gaze of the furriers squatting beside the pelts that hung on long rails opposite Margaret’s hotel. Their enthusiasm had waned in almost direct correlation to the decline of the Russian economy and a drastic drop in business. Long gone were the days when Russian traders would measure the furs they bought by how many they could squeeze into a baggage car on the night train to Moscow. Even the Russian mafia, dealing exclusively in dollars, was feeling the pinch.

Margaret stepped out of the car at the door of the hotel and leaned back in to Sophie. ‘Come for me in an hour.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Say five thirty.’ Sophie nodded, but did not look happy.

In her room, Margaret stripped off her clothes and dumped them in a laundry bag for collection by room service. The shower felt good. Hot and stimulating. She tipped her head back, eyes closed, and let the water hit her face, pouring down between her breasts in a small stream cascading from the end of her chin. She tried to banish from her mind all thoughts of the autopsy, of her last encounter with Li. The two seemed inextricably linked, a single unhappy experience. She knew, of course, that she would have to wait for the results from toxicology on the samples she had prepared before she could write her autopsy report. Twenty-four hours, forty-eight at the most, and then she could go. No looking back. The trouble was she didn’t want to look forward either.