Peter May - The Fourth Sacrifice

And he also knew now who had killed Zero and Monkey and Pigsy. And why.

He swivelled his chair and sat for a long time staring out of the window at a grey sky shot with streaks of pink. Li felt inestimably sad. How empty Yuan Tao’s life must have been for it to have been consumed so quickly by hate and revenge. A failed marriage. No children. An undistinguished academic career that was going nowhere. How often, Li wondered, had he regretted leaving his home country, destined always to be a stranger in a strange land? What guilt must he have felt, on reading his mother’s diary, to realise that what he had escaped had cost his father’s life? That while he was safe on the far-off campus of an American university, his father had been persecuted and hounded to his death by Yuan’s own classmates. And so hate had filled his emotional void. And revenge had given his life a purpose.

And for five years he had planned his revenge. Engineered his return to Beijing, and methodically set about the execution of his father’s tormentors, in a ritual that closely replicated the manner of his father’s final humiliation.

Although the diary in no way provided conclusive evidence, it made perfect sense. Li had no doubts. But it still left one deeply puzzling question unanswered. Who killed Yuan? And why?

There was a knock at the door and Qian poked his head in. He seemed surprised to see Li. ‘Someone said you were in.’ This, as if he hadn’t believed it. ‘You’re early today, boss.’ And then he noticed the fog of cigarette smoke that filled the room, and the deep lines etched under Li’s eyes. He frowned. ‘Have you been here all night?’

Li nodded and slipped the diary into its plastic bag and held it out to Qian. ‘Get this checked for fingerprints, Qian. Then get copies made for everyone on the team.’

Qian took it and looked at it with curiosity. ‘What is it, boss?’

‘A motive for murder.’

Yang Shouqian lived in a crumbling apartment block just south of Guang’anmen Railway Station. He was, Li reckoned, somewhere in his middle fifties, with thinning hair and a long, lugubrious face. His wife was a short, round-faced woman with a pleasant smile who invited Li into their kitchen. They were just having breakfast, she said, before Yang went to work at the nearby Ministry of Hydroelectricity. She was steaming some lotus paste and red bean buns. Would Li like some? Li accepted the offer and sat with them at their table, trains rattling past every few minutes on the southbound line, which they overlooked from the rear of the apartment. He was grateful for the hot green tea and the sweet buns, and felt the fatigue of a night without sleep sweep over him. The burden of his news weighed heavily.

Yang looked at him curiously. ‘My wife says you have word of my Cousin Tao.’

Li nodded. ‘Have you seen him in the last few months?’

Yang was astonished. ‘Seen him? You mean he is in Beijing?’

‘For about six months.’

Yang’s initial delight turned quickly to confusion, and then to hurt. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have not seen him. He has not been in touch.’ His wife put a concerned hand over his.

She looked at Li, sensing immediately that something was wrong. Why else would he be here? ‘What has happened?’ she asked.

‘I’m afraid he has been murdered,’ Li said.

Yang went quite pale, and his wife squeezed his hand. ‘I don’t understand,’ Yang said. ‘Murdered? Here in Beijing?’ It seemed extraordinary to him that such a thing was possible. ‘Who by?’

‘We do not know,’ Li said. ‘Was he in touch with you at all? At any time over the last few years?’

Yang shook his head. ‘Never. I have never heard from him in all this time. He was a spotty teenager when I last saw him, shortly before he left for America.’

‘But you wrote to him ?’

Yang looked up quickly, surprised. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Because I have the letter you sent him in 1995.’

‘I didn’t know you’d written to Cousin Tao, Shouqian,’ his wife said.

He nodded. ‘You remember, when I sent him the diary?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She looked at Li and shook her head sadly. ‘Such a tragedy.’

‘You read it?’ Li asked.

‘Not all of it. Shouqian showed me it before he sent it.’

Li said, ‘You told him that you were keeping the letter Tao’s mother had written to your mother.’ He paused. ‘Why?’

‘Because, as you say, it was written to my mother,’ Yang said. ‘It belonged to her, and therefore to me, not Cousin Tao.’ He examined his nails for a moment in studied silence. ‘Besides,’ he said eventually, ‘it was probably better that he never saw it.’

‘Why?’

‘On top of the diary …’ He shrugged. ‘It would have been too much.’

Li said, ‘May I see it?’

Yang darted him a quick look, and Li saw something that was almost like shame in his eyes. He nodded and got up and crossed to a dresser against the far wall. He opened a drawer and began searching through a bundle of papers.

‘Did you know any of the Red Guards who hounded Tao’s father?’ Li asked.

Yang shook his head. ‘No. They were all younger than me, and we went to different schools.’

Li said, ‘In the last month three of them have been murdered.’

Yang’s wife gasped. Yang turned to look at Li, and the shame Li had seen in his eyes had turned to something else that he could not quite identify. ‘Dear God,’ Yang said. ‘Tao killed them, didn’t he?’ And Li knew that it was fear in his eyes.

‘I think it is very possible,’ Li said.

Yang’s wife was quickly on her feet, and she held his arm as he staggered momentarily before steadying himself. He moved back to the table, clutching an old yellowed envelope in his hand and sat down heavily. ‘Because I sent him the diary,’ he said, his fear realised and turning quickly to guilt. ‘I might as well have killed them myself.’ And he was struck by an even more horrifying thought and looked up at Li. ‘Is that why Cousin Tao was murdered?’

Li shrugged hopelessly. ‘I don’t know.’

Yang’s head dropped. ‘I should never have sent it to him. But after all these years I thought he had a right to know. I never for a moment thought …’ He broke off, his voice choked with emotion.

His wife hugged him and said, ‘How could you possibly have known, Shouqian?’

‘Is that the letter?’ Li asked and held out his hand.

Yang nodded and handed it to him. The envelope was unstamped. There was no address, just the name of Yang’s mother in clear, bold characters. Li slipped the letter out from inside. The paper was thin and close to tearing at the fold. Li opened it carefully. It was dated July 1970.

My dearest sister, Xi-wen,

I have received word today that my son, Tao, has graduated in the subject of political science at the University of Berkeley in California and is to stay on for another two years to complete his doctorate. I am so pleased for him. His success is assured and he will have no need ever to return here. In a sense it is all I have lived for since the death of my beloved husband. But it is still hard to think of him living somewhere on the other side of the world, watching the same sun rise and set, the same moon as I see on a clear night in Beijing, and not be able to speak or touch. I still remember the feel of him curled up inside me. But he is as removed from me now as my husband.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution seems to be entering a new phase of madness, with faction fighting faction. I am still disgraced because of our father’s history and my education and I have not been allowed to work at the kindergarten for nearly two years now. I am so weary of it all and wonder where it will end.