Peter May - The Fourth Sacrifice

He took her hand in his, quite unselfconsciously. ‘Come out to location tomorrow. Please. We’re staging a recreation of the moment when Hu Bo and his ragtag team of archaeologists and amateur enthusiasts open the emperor’s tomb, almost exactly four hundred years after it was first sealed. They don’t know what to expect. There are stories of poisonous gases, of mechanical crossbows primed to release poison-tipped arrows if the gates of the underground chamber are opened. As they pull away the first few bricks they are literally terrified …’ He paused and waited.

‘So what happened?’ she asked impatiently.

He grinned and sat back. ‘You see. Got you already.’ She laughed. ‘If you want to know, come out tomorrow. I’ll have a production car pick you up.’

‘Well …’ she said, almost coyly. ‘I’ll think about it.’

The jazz band began assembling again at the far end of the tearoom, to Margaret’s disappointment. Once the music began, conversation would become impossible, and she had been enjoying the conversation. She liked Michael. He was easy company, and he was entertaining. Then she clouded as thoughts of Li again forced their way into her consciousness. And she wondered if she would ever get over him.

Michael turned his chair towards the band and said to Margaret, ‘These guys are a bit special. They’re only in town for a couple of nights, that’s why they’re on tonight instead of the weekend. The sax player is up there with the best anywhere in the world.’

Margaret cast her eyes over the band. The keyboard player was an American — he was speaking Chinese but she could still hear the American accent. The drummer, sax player and double-bassist, were Chinese. The keyboard player reintroduced the band in Chinese and English, and then counted them into a medium-paced piece, dominated by an endlessly repeating cycle on the keyboard, with diversions and interjections by the sax. They were undoubtedly good, but Margaret’s emotions were not really engaged. She saw that Michael was listening intently. Clearly this was an area where their interests diverged.

She let her attention wander around the rest of the tearoom. The old guy with the baseball cap still wasn’t getting past first base with the young Chinese girl. Near the front an intense-looking young man sat with eyes fixed on the band, his head moving rhythmically up and down in time with the music. He was transfixed. His pretty girlfriend, ignored by her lover, was keeping herself awake by idly creating the most wonderful origami creatures from a single square of handkerchief. Margaret watched, intrigued, as the girl conjured up a peacock with fan tail and cocked head, an intricate and elaborate arrangement of folds in the handkerchief. When she had finished she nudged her boyfriend in search of his approval. He glanced briefly at her creation, nodded and half-smiled, then refocused his attention on the music. The girl shrugged and with a single flick undid all her work and started again on something else.

The band finished their number to enthusiastic applause. The keyboard player spoke for a moment or two in Chinese, and Margaret became aware of heads starting to turn in their direction. Michael was blushing. Then the keyboard player switched to English. ‘And for those of you who don’t speak Chinese,’ he said, ‘we have with us tonight a certain Mr Michael Zimmerman.’ He waved a hand in Michael’s direction and more heads turned and there was a scattering of applause. ‘Now, if you know him at all, most of you have probably seen him on TV fronting those popular historical documentaries. But not many of you will know that Michael’s real talent is the alto sax.’

Michael half-turned towards her. ‘This is embarrassing.’

‘I didn’t know you played,’ Margaret said, suddenly intrigued by this new and unexpected dimension. And then she realised that, in truth, she didn’t know anything about him at all.

‘So, Michael, how about you come up and play a number with us? Big hand for Michael Zimmerman, everyone.’

The eyes of the entire tearoom were on their table. ‘Jesus,’ Michael whispered under his breath, but made no move to get up.

‘Go on,’ Margaret said, nudging him. And she stood up and started clapping. ‘I want to hear you play.’

He was trapped. He shook his head, got up reluctantly and made his way forward to join the band. Margaret watched, glowing with a strange and unaccountable pride. She was with him, and she was aware of people looking at her and wondering who she was. Michael fixed his own mouthpiece to an alto sax that the Chinese sax player took out of a case on the floor behind them.

They had a brief discussion, then the drummer counted them into a slow, dreamy piece, just made for a treacly sax solo. The electric piano reverberated around a simple circular melody, the bass player slipping fingers up and down his fretless board, bending and pulling the strings through the cycle. Michael stood with eyes closed, swaying slightly, letting the music wash over him, before lifting the sax to his mouth and breathing velvet and silk into a creamy solo that swooped and fell and growled around the room.

Margaret felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck, and across her scalp, and goosebumps raised themselves on her thighs. She had never had much time for music, but occasionally something would move her. And she was moved now. There was a deep, penetrating sexuality in this music, in part spawned by the fact that this was the man she was with, but also because this was talent, raw and real and just a touch away. She watched his intensity, fingers sliding over the keys of his sax in a blur, as his solo soared towards it climax, like a woman towards orgasm. And as he finished, and stepped back, sweat running in rivulets down his face, everyone in the room burst into spontaneous applause. Even the origami girl had abandoned her handkerchief and was clapping her hands with unanticipated enthusiasm.

Margaret’s hands were stinging as Michael made his way back to their table to join her. He sat down, mopping the perspiration from his face with the handkerchief the origami girl had offered him on the way past. To the intense annoyance of her boyfriend she was still watching him, a sexual, predatory look in her eyes. Margaret was aware of it, too.

‘Sorry about that,’ Michael said, and he seemed genuinely embarrassed.

‘And I suppose you always carry your mouthpiece with you,’ she said. ‘Just in case.’

He grinned. ‘Always.’

And Margaret decided there and then that she would, after all, take up his offer to go out on location tomorrow.

Mei Yuan was sitting on the settee, her arm around Xinxin, a big picture book open in front of them. Xinxin was so engrossed she could hardly tear her eyes away to glance at her mother and uncle coming in.

Mei Yuan did not possess a telephone, but during her illness Li had got to know a neighbour who was willing to pass on phone messages. And so Mei Yuan had come straight away when he called, arriving by bicycle twenty-five breathless minutes later, her face glowing. She had brought a large bundle of colourful picture books for young children, prompting Li to wonder where on earth she had managed to find them. But he did not ask. She was delighted to babysit. She loved children, she said. Her only remaining close family were a cousin and her husband, and their ‘baby’ was nearly thirty. So it was very rare for her to have the opportunity to be with young children.

Xinxin was still uncertain of her big, strange uncle. She eyed him cautiously with dark, wary eyes. She had not seen him since she was two years old and had no recollection of him at all. But she had taken a shine to Mei Yuan immediately. Li and Xiao Ling had been shooed out the door and told not to worry. Xinxin was in good hands, and they were not to feel they had to hurry back. Mei Yuan understood their need to talk, and if they were late back, then she would just sleep over on the settee. So she was surprised when they returned so early, gone little more than an hour, and sensed a chill in the air they brought in with them.