Peter May - The Fourth Sacrifice

‘You’ll get all wet,’ she protested.

‘Tough.’ And he leaned in to her and dropped his head to kiss the softness of her neck. She felt a wave of pleasure and desire weaken her knees, and smelled the heady scent of his patchouli lacing the perfume of her bath gel. She took his face in both her hands, feeling the scratch of his whiskers, and raised it to meet hers. They kissed. A long, passionate kiss, and she felt his erection press against her belly. And suddenly she thought of Li, stooping as he bent to kiss her. The touch of his lips. Her sudden fear, and flight from the apartment. She broke away from Michael, breathing hard, and her smile was a little strained. ‘Better hurry if I’m going to beat that clock,’ she said.

*

The Ya Mei Wei restaurant was tucked away down the unpromising Dong Wang hutong off Kuan Street, opposite the AVICS space technology building. As Margaret stepped from the taxi she had to dodge a phalanx of cyclists without lights, jostling for space in the strip of road left to them by manic night drivers freed from the constraints of daytime and rush-hour traffic. With bicycle bells still ringing in her ears she made it to the sidewalk and peered down the dark, misty hutong . ‘We’re eating down there?’ she asked. And when Michael just nodded, she said, ‘This isn’t another place like the one you took me to in Xi’an?’

‘No,’ he said confidently. ‘It’s nothing like that.’

Fifty yards down, crumbling brick walls rising above them on either side, two forlorn red lanterns hung outside a maroon-painted wooden doorway that was firmly shut. Michael rapped on the door.

‘This is it?’ Margaret said.

Michael smiled. ‘You should never judge a book by its cover.’

A handsome woman of about forty, wearing a pink silk suit, opened the door. Her face lit up in a smile when she saw Michael and she stretched out her hand to shake his. ‘Mr Zimmerman,’ she said. ‘I am so pleased to see you again.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘You are a little late.’

Michael raised his hands in abject apology. ‘I am so sorry, Zhao Yi. Are we too late?’

‘Of course not,’ Zhao Yi said, her smile broadening. ‘Never too late for good friend.’

Michael made the introductions and Zhao Yi ushered them inside. The contrast with the hutong outside could not have been more startling. This was another world. The centrepiece was a reproduction of a traditional Beijing-style courtyard with sloping green tile roofs and a tiny bridge over a small stream. Along one side, doors led off to a huge dining lounge. Along the other, more doors led off a narrow corridor to private rooms behind screen windows. Zhao Yi led them across the courtyard and into their own private room where a table was set for two, candles burning, soft classical Chinese music playing from discreetly hidden speakers. It seemed they had the whole restaurant to themselves. It was nearly ten o’clock, long past Beijing evening meal time.

Immediately several girls in matching silk buzzed around them like bees, bringing hot and cold starter dishes to the centre of the table. ‘Just help yourself,’ Michael said. ‘As little or as much as you want. They’re only appetisers.’ He nodded towards the stainless-steel pots that stood beside each place on circular racks above big purple candles. ‘Have you had Mongolian hotpot before?’ She shook her head. ‘It’s a real treat here.’ He said to Zhao Yi, ‘We’ll have a bottle of that Rioja you have. The ’93.’

She nodded and melted away, leaving Michael and Margaret to pick at the selection of starters: spicy lamb, roasted peanuts in chilli, fish in sweet and sour sauce. The wine came and Michael raised his glass to touch Margaret’s. The light from the candles flickered and refracted red in the wine, and danced in Michael’s eyes. ‘To us,’ he said.

‘To us.’ And Margaret found that irritating sense of guilt returning. She took a big swallow of wine and determined not to let Li ruin her evening in the way he had spoiled her day.

Michael said, ‘There’s one thing puzzling me.’ He paused. ‘No, two actually.’ He thought for a moment. ‘This Birdie character … If there were six Red Guards, and only three murders, how is he the last surviving member?’

Margaret laughed. ‘That’s your training, isn’t it? You don’t miss thing. Every tiny detail’s important.’

‘I told you. Archaeology is just like police work. A slow, painstaking process of digging into the past, uncovering and recreating an event, or a place.’

‘You should have been a Chinese policeman. They like their detail, too.’ She took a sip of her wine. ‘I was just talking shorthand, Michael. He’s not the last surviving member. There’s another one. A woman, but she’s blind. The third one was killed at Tiananmen Square.’ She took some more fish. ‘This stuff’s fantastic.’ She washed it down with more wine and said, ‘So what was the other thing?’

Michael put both elbows on the table and leaned towards her, maintaining a very steady eye contact. ‘If it’s over between you and Detective Li, why is he jealous of me?’

Margaret wished with all her heart that Michael had not raised the spectre of Li again. It was hard enough for her to keep him from her thoughts without Michael constantly reminding her. She sighed. Honesty was the best policy. ‘The reason we broke up was because his bosses told him our relationship was …’ she searched for the right words, ‘… inappropriate for a high-ranking Chinese police officer.’

‘You or his career, in other words.’ She nodded. ‘And he chose his career.’

Margaret felt a stab of annoyance. ‘It’s not that simple, Michael.’

He held up his hands. ‘I’m sorry. Things never are.’

‘I guess,’ said Margaret, ‘he’s just finding it very hard to live with his decision.’

‘And what about you?’

‘It was hard, I’ll admit. It wasn’t what I wanted. But it’s history now. I’m only looking forward.’

He smiled at her fondly and reached out to squeeze her hand. ‘I’m glad,’ he said.

The girls came then and lit the paraffin candles, and filled the pots above them with boiling spicy stock that bubbled and steamed at the table. Plates of raw meat — marinated lamb, wafer-thin sliced pork, strips of beef, marinated prawns still in their shells — were placed before them along with plates piled high with crispy lettuce. They cooked everything themselves, a piece at a time, in the boiling stock, and then dipped it in hot soy dips before letting the flavours explode in their mouths.

‘This is wonderful ,’ Margaret said. ‘I’ve never tasted meat or prawns so tender.’ And she copied Michael, cooking the lettuce in the stock as well. It cleansed the palate between meat or fish.

They finished the wine and Michael ordered another bottle. Margaret felt warm, and sensuous and sated, and Michael was making her laugh a lot with a story about a misunderstanding of French farce proportions during a dig in Egypt. Then, after a while, she realised she had got a little drunk, and that Michael had stopped talking and was leaning his chin on his hands and gazing at her across the table.

‘I know it’s too soon to tell you I love you,’ he said suddenly. ‘But I don’t care.’

And just as suddenly, Margaret felt very sober and her heart was pounding. ‘What?’

He produced a small red jewellery box from his pocket and opened it to reveal a rose-gold ring set with a diamond solitaire. ‘If someone had asked me a week ago I’d have told them I never expected to marry. But I hadn’t met you then.’ He paused and she saw that his eyes were moist. ‘That’s why I wanted to know about Detective Li. I’m crazy about you, Margaret. I want you to marry me.’