Peter May - The Fourth Sacrifice

He opened his eyes and found four victims staring up at him from his desk, almost accusingly. Why had he not found their killer?

A secretary from downstairs knocked on his door and came in with a large brown envelope. ‘That’s the translations of the autopsy reports you requested,’ she said. ‘And copy prints of the crime scene pics.’ She set it down on his desk.

‘Don’t put it there,’ he barked uncharacteristically, and she jumped. ‘They’re for Dr Margaret Campbell at the American Embassy. Get them sent over straight away by dispatch rider.’

‘Yes,’ she said timidly, her face flushing. And she backed out as Zhao came in.

‘What is it, Zhao?’ Li was terse and impatient.

Zhao said, ‘I’ve only been able to track down one teacher who was at No. 29 Middle School back in the early sixties, boss. He’s nearly eighty.’

‘What about the others?’

Zhao shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Some of them are probably dead by now. A lot of the school records were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, so getting information of any kind hasn’t been easy. It’s the same thing trying to get anything on Yuan’s family.’

‘What about Qian? Is he making any progress?’

Zhao said, ‘He’s having the same problem, boss. We’re having to go by word of mouth. But he’s got the names of some of the victims’ classmates, so it should only be a matter of time before we manage to track down the rest.’

‘Time,’ Li said, ‘is something we don’t necessarily have a lot of, Zhao. The timescale between each of these killings is anywhere between three and fifteen days. And if there are another two victims out there, then we want to find them before the killer does.’

‘You want me to set up interviews?’

Li thought for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But let’s do them at the school. Tomorrow morning. Ask the headmaster to give us a couple of rooms. I’d like to get a feel for the place.’

Wu’s voice called from the detectives’ office. ‘Boss? You got a moment?’

Zhao stepped aside as Li went to the door. ‘What is it, Wu?’

Wu was at his desk, holding his hand over the telephone receiver. ‘That’s the forensics boys out at Yuan Tao’s embassy apartment. There’s some stuff they think you should have a look at.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You want to go?’

Li nodded. ‘You’d better sign out a car.’

Wu said into the telephone, ‘We’ll be right there.’

Li went back to his desk. At least something was moving.

Qian came in, almost at his back. He had a sheet of paper in his hand, and his eyes were alive with anticipation. ‘Just in, boss. Fax from the Evidence Determination Centre. The result of those tests that Dr Campbell suggested we do on the signature of the murder weapon …’

Li snatched the sheet and ran his eyes over the tightly printed characters of the report. He felt the skin tighten across his scalp.

*

The diplomatic compound where Yuan Tao had been allocated an apartment was set just behind the Friendship Store on Jianguomenwei Avenue. Wu parked their dark blue Beijing Jeep in the cycle lane at the front, and he and Li got out on to the sidewalk and looked up at the relatively new apartments. A long-haired beggar with no legs sat on the pavement, leaning against the wall of the compound. A straggling beard grew on his dark, gaunt face and he looked up at them appealingly and rattled a tin cup he held in his hand. Beside him, his tricycle had been fitted with an elaborate mechanism that allowed him to drive the wheels by hand-turning a crank handle. His skin was streaked and dirty, his clothes and hair matted. His face was a mask of disappointment when he saw that they, too, were Chinese.

A few yards further along, propped against a tree, a blind woman with a withered hand called out to them for money. There were others spread out along the length of the sidewalk. Li felt sick to see poor souls like this on the streets.

Wu looked at them with undisguised disgust. ‘What are they doing here?’ he asked, looking along the sidewalk. ‘There must be half a dozen of them.’

Li took out a ten-yuan note and stuffed it in the cup of the beggar with no legs. ‘Foreigners,’ he said, nodding towards the diplomatic compound. ‘Embassy staff and tourists. The guilt of the “haves” when faced with the “have-nots”. It’s fertile ground.’

Wu looked in horror at the note Li had given the beggar. ‘In the name of the sky, boss, what did you do that for?’

‘Because life has no guarantees, Wu,’ he said. ‘One day that could be me. Or you. And that’s not guilt. Just fear.’ He headed off towards the entrance to the compound.

At the gate a po-faced guard of the armed police stood sentinel. ‘Who are you looking for?’ he asked unceremoniously.

‘CID. Section One,’ Wu said, and pushed his ID in the guard’s face.

‘You know this guy?’ Li showed him the picture of Yuan Tao that had come with his file.

‘Sure,’ the guard said, and he pulled a gob of phlegm into his mouth and spat it out. ‘Yuan Tao. Second floor. He’s the guy that got himself murdered.’ He jerked his head towards the building. ‘Some of your people are in there just now.’ A grey forensics van was parked in the forecourt.

‘How well did you know him?’ Wu asked.

‘As well as I know any of them,’ the guard said. ‘Which is not at all. They don’t like us very much.’

‘Why’s that?’ Li asked.

‘They think we’re spying on them.’

‘And are you?’

The guard flicked a look at Li to see if he was joking and decided he wasn’t. ‘We’re told to keep an eye on who goes in and out. If they get Chinese visitors they got to come down and pick them up here at the gate. And they got to see them out again when they leave.’

‘And they don’t like that?’ Wu said.

‘No, they do not.’

‘But you knew Yuan Tao by sight?’ Li asked.

‘Sure. He was unusual. He was Chinese.’

‘And was there anything else you thought was unusual about him? Anything that made him stand out from the others?’

The guard shook his head slowly. ‘Nope. Can’t say there was.’ He hesitated. ‘If anything, I’d say I saw him less than the rest. Don’t remember him ever having any visitors.’

‘Ever?’ Wu was astonished.

‘Not that I can remember. Course, you’d have to ask the guys on the other shifts.’

‘Would you know,’ Li asked ‘if he didn’t stay in his apartment for a night, or even two?’

‘Not necessarily. He might already be in when you came on shift. And he might not.’

‘You don’t keep records?’

‘Nope.’

Li produced photographs of the other victims. ‘Ever seen any of these guys?’

The guard took a long look, then shook his head. ‘Nope.’

They climbed the stairs to the apartment on the second floor and found the door lying open. The place was tiny: one central room for living, eating and cooking, a stove and a sink set on a worktop over cheap units against the far wall. Through a half-glazed door was a tiny toilet with a shower that drained into an outlet set into the concrete floor. The bedroom was just large enough for a bed, a bedside cabinet and a single, mirrored wardrobe. Apart from the fact that it was smaller, the contrast with the apartment Yuan Tao had rented in Tuan Jie Hu Dongli was stark. Books were stuffed into sagging bookshelves, and piled up on the linoleum beneath the window. Piles of Chinese newspapers were stacked under a gateleg table folded against one wall. There was food decaying on dirty plates on the table, and dirty dishes were soaking in the sink. There was a smell of body odour and cooking and old clothes, a faint, distant hint of some exotic scent that seemed vaguely familiar. The kitchen cupboards were groaning with tinned and packet food. Dirty washing was spilling out of a laundry basket in the bedroom, washing hanging up to dry on a line in the toilet. Unlike the apartment at Tuan Jie Hu Dongli, Yuan Tao had lived here. He had left his smell, his personality and all his traces in this place, and perhaps, too, a clue as to why someone should want to kill him.