Peter May - The Fourth Sacrifice

His mind wandered back to the pathetic figure of Birdie being led off to a holding cell in the basement. Li still found it impossible to believe that Birdie had possessed either the presence of mind or the intelligence to track Yuan down to his rented apartment, that he had been able replicate so closely the modus operandi of the previous murders, that he could so successfully have made it appear that Yuan was the fourth victim. And there were all the unanswered questions and inconsistencies: the bright blue vodka, the bottles of red wine, the blue-black ceramic dust, the wrong nickname.

And yet he had both motive and opportunity and, most damning of all, the murder weapon had been found in his apartment. Either, Li thought, Birdie was fooling them all with a stunningly convincing performance, or the real killer had planted the sword in his apartment. But that thought, too, was inconceivable. For the killer to do that, he would have had to have known that Birdie was the prime suspect. And outside of Section One no one knew that.

Lightning flickered briefly in the sky, followed by the distant rumble of thunder, and he turned to find Margaret standing silhouetted in the doorway watching him. Xinxin, engrossed in her jigsaw, had not seen her yet. For a moment, they stood looking at each other across the darkened room, and he sensed something painful in the silence that lay between them like an unbridgeable chasm. Then Xinxin saw her, screeched her delight and scrambled off the desk to rush to give her a hug. Margaret felt the warmth of her little body, the tremble of her excitement, and felt a pang of regret at the decision she had taken just an hour before. Xinxin jabbered at her incoherently.

Margaret looked to Li. ‘What’s she saying?’

‘She wants you to help her finish the jigsaw.’

‘Sure,’ Margaret said and glanced at her watch. ‘As long as it doesn’t take too long.’

It took less than ten minutes to finish the jigsaw, and Xinxin was led, protesting, down to the Jeep, until Li told her they were going to Mei Yuan’s, and then all was sweetness and light again.

The night had turned sticky hot as the clouds rolled in from the east, heavy and dark and prescient with rain. Traffic had thinned in the aftermath of rush hour, and taxis and private cars buzzed in and around lumbering buses and trolleys, like insects driven mad in anticipation of the coming storm. People everywhere knew that rain was on its way. Canopies and umbrellas were raised over smoking stoves and sidewalk braziers, and marketeers drew awnings over goods laid out on open stalls. Normally dilatory cyclists pedalled hard to get home before the heavens opened.

When Mei Yuan opened her door to them she lifted Xinxin into her arms and carried her to the table.

‘This evening,’ she told Li and Margaret, ‘you will stay to eat. Xinxin and I cannot manage all the dumplings ourselves. So I will fry those that are left.’

As she busied herself at her tiny stove, Li and Margaret sat at the table, with Xinxin reading her story books to Margaret for the umpteenth time. Li stole a glance at her and saw that she was not really listening. Not just because she could not understand, but because she was miles away. There was a great distance in her eyes, and her spirit was subdued. But, still, she managed to smile for Xinxin and hide from the child whatever it was that disturbed her. She caught Li looking at her and her eyes flickered quickly away, back to the book, almost as if afraid that by meeting his eye he would be able to read her thoughts.

Mei Yuan served up the spicy dumplings, fried brown and sticky, and they shared a bowl of chilli soy to dip. The taste and texture of them took Margaret back to the eating place that Michael had taken her to in the Muslim quarter in Xi’an, and she was reminded again of the things she had decided on Prospect Hill.

Mei Yuan was aware of the atmosphere, although she did not understand it. She did her best to try to change the mood. ‘So,’ she said brightly to Margaret. ‘I have given much thought to your riddle today, but I still have no answer.’ She looked at Li. ‘What about you, Li Yan?’

Li shook himself free from his thoughts and looked up. He had forgotten all about the riddle, and was about to say so when the answer came to him, quite out of the blue. He smiled and shook his head. ‘I think I know,’ he said. ‘But only a stranger to Beijing could pose such a riddle.’

‘What do you mean?’ Margaret asked defensively.

‘You wanted to know how I could walk from Xidamochang Street to Beijing Railway Station during National Day without being seen,’ he said. ‘And the answer you are looking for is that I went down into the Underground City and followed the tunnels to the station.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

Li looked at Mei Yuan. ‘Do you want to tell her?’

Mei Yuan put a consoling hand over Margaret’s and smiled. ‘The tunnels do not lead to Beijing Railway Station,’ she said.

‘But I saw a sign,’ Margaret protested. ‘It said To the Station .’

‘That’s the old Beijing Railway Station,’ Li said. ‘It used to be on the south-east corner of Tiananmen Square at Qianmen before they built the new station a couple of miles further east.’

Margaret made a token protest. ‘OK, so they moved the station. How am I supposed to know that?’

Li shrugged. ‘Like I said, only a stranger to Beijing could pose such a riddle.’

In the difficult silence that followed, Mei Yuan asked if they wanted beer. But Margaret shook her head. It was time, she said, for her to go. Li said he would run her to her hotel. They all stood up. Xinxin’s upturned face looked from one to the other, perplexed by the sudden abandonment of the dumplings. ‘What is it?’ she said.

‘Margaret has to go,’ Li told her.

Xinxin was crestfallen. ‘Will I see her tomorrow?’

Li asked Margaret, and for a long time Margaret seemed lost in tormented thought before suddenly making a decision. ‘Tell her,’ she said, ‘that I will come tomorrow morning and take her to the playpark beyond the bridge. To say goodbye.’

‘To say goodbye?’ Mei Yuan asked, taken aback.

Margaret looked at Li. ‘I am leaving on Monday,’ she said.

*

Outside, beyond the trees, a slight breeze ruffled the dark surface of Qianhai Lake, and the first fat drops of rain splashed on to the hood of Li’s Jeep, making craters in the dust. Li caught Margaret’s arm as she started for the passenger side. ‘Why are you leaving so soon? The investigation is not yet over.’

This time she met his eyes with a steady gaze. ‘It is for me.’ she said. And the drops of rain, more frequent now, felt cool on the hot skin of her face. ‘Everything’s over, Li Yan. You, me, China.’

‘And Zimmerman?’

But she wasn’t angry with him any more. She smiled sadly. ‘Michael has asked me to marry him.’ And she saw the disbelief and pain in his eyes. ‘I told him no. But the offer’s still open. And I’m going to go home and think about it. Very seriously. Away from you. Away from him. Away from here. For ever.’

A flash of lightning and a crack of thunder immediately overhead, was a prelude to the heavens opening. Rain fell in sheets, and in a matter of seconds they were soaked through. But neither of them moved. He saw the outline of her breasts, wet cotton clinging to their contours. Her hair was stuck in wet curls to her face, a face pale and freckled and lovely. He could not be certain whether it was tears he saw spilling from her blue eyes, or just the rain. Her face shone wet and sad in the sheet lightning that lit up the sky. He knew this was the end. There was no way forward, no way back. She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him softly on the lips. He felt her fingers lightly trace the line of his jaw. And then she was off, running down the hutong into the night, swallowed by the dark and the rain. He knew he would never see her again, and that all those moments they had shared, the fear and the passion, their one physical consummation in an abandoned sleeper in northern China, would be lost for ever, like tears in rain.