Peter May - The Fourth Sacrifice

He cleared his throat and spat unselfconsciously on the floor of the classroom. ‘But I could get us jobs, too,’ he said. ‘And in ’79 they put me in charge. The difference was, I wanted to run it as an enterprise, with control over finance and personnel. Proper contracts, proper structure of management and pay. Made seventy-six thousand yuan in the first year. Within four years we were a properly registered construction company with a workforce of more than two thousand, fixed assets of three million, and liquid assets of more than seven.’ He sat back grinning, pleased with his own success, proud to brag of it and bask in the sunshine of their admiration. ‘I count my cash in dollars now. Deng Xiaoping said, “To be rich is glorious.” Welcome to fucking Gloryville, PRC.’

He snorted noisily and spat on the floor again. He leaned forward and jabbed a finger at Li. ‘So where are they now, these fucking Red Guards? Well, let me tell you. Nowhere. Bunch of no-use dead-heads!’

‘Do you know how many were in the Revolt-to-the-End Brigade?’ Li asked.

‘Sure,’ said Chang. ‘The leader lived in my street. An ugly big bastard called Ge Yan. He was a moron. Thick as pig shit. Always at the bottom of the class, always getting disciplined by the teachers. But as soon as their backs were turned, he was beating shit out the other kids. He might have been the school bully, but he never laid a finger on me. I’d have cracked his fucking skull if he had. And he knew it.’ He paused. ‘What was it you asked? Oh, yeah, how many? There were six of them.’ He stroked his chin trying to remember. ‘There was Birdie …’

‘Birdie?’ Li asked.

‘Yeah, that’s what they called Ge Yan.’ He scratched his head again, frowning, as if trying to sort out some conflict in his memory. ‘Funny thing. A big, hard bastard like him. He loved his birds. He had dozens of them, all sorts of colours. He hung them in cages in his yard. I was in there once, saw him with them. You never saw hands that could punch your lights out handle anything so gently as he handled those birds. Like they were the most delicate things in the world. Breathe on them and you’d break them. Only he loved them. Spent all his spare time in his yard or down the bird market.’

‘Do you remember who else?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Chang lit another cigarette. ‘There was Monkey, and Zero, and Pauper … She was the only girl among them. But you wouldn’t have known it to look at her. Ugly bitch. Then there was Tortoise, and … oh, yeah, Pigsy. How could I forget big fat Pigsy?’

‘And Yuan Tao?’

Chang looked at Li and Zhao as if they were mad. ‘Yuan Tao? You’re kidding. He was a nice guy, bit bookish, you know? Bit of a swot. He’d never have been involved with those guys. They were creeps and wasters. The ones with the chips on their shoulders were the worst. Took all their inadequacies out on anyone smarter. Like it was your fault they were born stupid.’

‘Yue Shi wasn’t stupid,’ Zhao said.

‘No, but he was sleekit, you know? A creep. One thing to your face, another behind your back.’

‘How did Yuan Tao get the nickname Digger?’ Li asked.

Again, Chang cast him a withering look. ‘Where do you guys get your info? Yuan was never called Digger. His nickname was Cat. You know, short for Scaredy Cat.’

Li frowned. ‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Sure I’m sure.’

‘Why’d they call him Scaredy Cat?’ Zhao asked.

‘Because the other kids were always picking on him, you know? Making a fool of him, kicking the shit out of him behind the bike sheds. And he never fought back, never once. I felt sorry for him, but if he wasn’t going to be big enough to stand up for himself I wasn’t going to do it for him.’

‘So how come everyone picked on him?’ Li wanted to know. ‘Just because he was clever?’

‘Naw,’ Chang said. ‘There were other clever kids no one never went near. But when your old man’s a teacher at the school …’ Chang shrugged. ‘What can I tell you?’

Li sat for a moment in stunned silence. ‘His father was a teacher here?’

‘Sure,’ Chang said. ‘Old man Yuan. He was our English teacher.’

*

The detectives’ office was busy when Li and Zhao got back, a cocktail of voices and telephones and shuffling paperwork. In spite of all the windows lying open, the air was thick with cigarette smoke.

‘Qian,’ Li shouted as he went straight through to his office.

Qian appeared at his door. ‘Yes, boss?’

‘Imperative you track down as many of the classmates as you can. Turns out our first three victims were members of a Red Guard faction called the Revolt-to-the-End Brigade. There’s another three. Concentrate on them.’ He consulted his notes. ‘A guy called Ge Yan, nicknamed Birdie. A bird fancier. Apparently he was always hanging around a local bird market when he was a kid. A girl they called Pauper, but nobody seems to be able to remember her real name. And another guy named …’ He searched through his notebook. ‘Gau Huan. They called him Tortoise, apparently because he was so slow.’ He tapped his head. ‘Up here. Suspicion he might have been retarded in some way.’

Almost without pausing for breath he called, ‘Wu!’ And Wu appeared beside Qian. Li didn’t even look up. ‘Yuan Tao’s father taught English at the No. 29 Middle School. According to our information he died in ’67. But we still don’t know what happened to his mother. I think it’s pretty damned important that we find her. And any other relatives still living. That gets priority, OK?’

‘Right, boss.’

Li looked up and Wu and Qian still lingered hesitantly in the doorway. ‘Well?’

They exchanged glances, and Qian said, ‘The Chief wants to see you, boss. The minute you came in, he said.’

And his tone brought memories of Xinxin flooding back. ‘Oh, shit,’ Li said. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

Chen’s office was a shambles. His blotter and all his paperwork had been removed from the desk and piled along the windowsill. Xinxin’s jigsaw puzzle, half-finished, was spread across the desktop. Her books lay opened on the floor, and all the chairs had been drawn together in the middle of the room, and an array of soft toys — a panda, a rabbit, a tiger, a lion — arranged side by side.

As Li entered, Xinxin was sitting on Chen’s knee, and he was reading to her from a big picture book. He looked up and glared at Li over Xinxin’s head. He closed the book, handing it to Xinxin, and lifting her down on to the floor. ‘I need to talk to your Uncle Yan now, little one,’ he said.

Xinxin pulled a face and she, in turn, glared at Li. ‘He’s always spoiling things,’ she said.

‘You go next door and ask Uncle Qian to finish the story for you,’ Chen persisted gently.

Xinxin’s face lit up. ‘Oh, yeah. Uncle Qian. He’s brilliant.’ And she headed off down the corridor clutching her book, without so much as a second glance at Li.

‘I’ve often heard people speak of the Little Emperor syndrome,’ Chen said. ‘All these only children spoiled by over-doting parents. And here I am participating in it. Shut the door.’

Li closed the door behind him and moved the lion to get a seat. ‘Where did all this stuff come from?’ he asked.

‘Uncle Qian,’ Chen said with a tone, ‘took her down to the market stalls on Ritan Lu, where they sell all those soft toys. The guys had a whip round, and that’s the result.’ He nodded towards the collection of furry animals. ‘You were a hell of a long time, Li.’

Li nodded. ‘But I think we made a breakthrough, chief.’ And he told him about the Revolt-to-the-End Brigade and Yuan’s father, and the fact that whoever had killed Yuan Tao had got the nickname wrong.