Peter May - The Fourth Sacrifice

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‘He hanged himself, boss. Sometime during the night.’ Li turned to find Wu at his shoulder.

‘How the hell did he get the rope!’ Li’s shock was turning to anger.

Wu said, ‘Seems he used it to hold up his pants. He wore his tunic out, so no one saw it.’ He paused and added significantly. ‘And no one checked.’

Anger was now turning to despair. Li let his head drop and squeezed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He released a long, slow exhalation of frustration and looked at Birdie again. Grotesque though his features were, contorted by strangulation, there was a strange peace in his eyes. He had escaped. After thirty-three years he was finally free of his guilt. Free, like the birds he had loved all his life.

‘He left a confession, boss.’ Wu was watching him carefully.

Li turned to him, frowning. ‘A confession?’

Wu nodded. ‘The chief’s got it.’

*

Chen handed him the two flimsy sheets of paper, characters scrawled across them in a clumsy, childish hand. He said grimly, ‘There’s going to be hell to pay for this, Li Yan. The Ministry does not like prisoners killing themselves in police custody. There will be an investigation.’

Li nodded. He scanned Birdie’s confession with a sinking heart.

‘At least,’ Chen said, ‘we have his confession. The case has been cracked, so the political pressure will relax. You have no idea just how much pressure I’ve been protecting you people from.’

Li could imagine only too well. He shook his head. ‘It is just a pity the “confession” does not stand up.’

Chen glared at him. ‘What do you mean?’

Li waved the sheets of paper dismissively. ‘All he’s done, Chief, is repeat, almost word for word, the accusations that Sang levelled at him yesterday. Go and listen to the tape. He’s just told us what we wanted to hear. It’s like the kind of self-criticism they would have made him write in the Cultural Revolution. Confess, confess, confess. That’s all they ever wanted. Whatever “crimes” they dreamed up, that’s what they wanted you to confess to. And that’s what he’s done. Confession is the path of least resistance — even when you didn’t do it.’

Chen glared at him angrily. ‘Rubbish!’ he said. ‘He gave us a false alibi, he had the perfect motive, and we found the murder weapon in his apartment.’

‘Motive isn’t proof of guilt, Chief. You know that. He was confused about where he was last Monday night, that’s all. And the murder weapon was planted in his apartment.’

‘What proof do you have of that?’

Li pointed a finger at his face. ‘What do you think this is?’

‘You got a bloody nose when you interrupted a burglar at Ge Yan’s apartment. What does that prove?’

For a moment Li was stumped. Of course, he knew he had no proof that the sword had been planted in Birdie’s bedroom, no matter how certain he was of it. ‘There are a dozen other inconsistencies, chief. The nickname, the wine-’

Chen cut him off. ‘I don’t want to hear it, Li. And I don’t want you repeating it.’

‘But, Chief-’

Chen’s voice was low and threatening. ‘As far as I am concerned, Deputy Section Chief, we have proven beyond doubt that Yuan Tao murdered the victims known as Monkey, Zero and Pigsy. It was an act of revenge for their victimisation of his father during the Cultural Revolution. We now have a confession from an individual who believed he was next on the list, that he murdered Yuan before Yuan could murder him. His confession is given credence by the fact that the murder weapon was found in his apartment. End of story. End of case.’ He paused for a long time. ‘Do you understand me?’

The two men glared at each other for several more long moments. Li was seething. He wanted to throw Birdie’s confession in Chen’s face and tell him what he could do with it. But the longer he restrained the urge, the more he realised just how futile a gesture it would be.

In the end, all he said was, ‘Yes, Chief.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

I

Margaret stretched lazily on the bed, luxuriating in a sense of freedom. However painful it had been to make her decision, having made it she felt released from an enormous burden. She had lain for a long time in Michael’s arms last night, simply curled into him for comfort, childlike and secure, and then they had made love and she had slept like a baby until becoming aware of him leaving shortly after six.

‘Where are you going?’ she had asked.

But he had simply smiled and kissed her forehead. ‘Sunday is not a day of rest in China. And there is no rest for the wicked. I’m required on location. I’ll see you later.’

Now she rolled over and looked at the time. She had promised to take Xinxin to the park. A tiny stab of pain, an echo from another life, came to her with the recollection. She regretted having made the promise. She had done so before confronting Li with her revelations about Michael and her decision to go home. Now all she wanted was a clean break. It could only be painful taking that one step back, even if it was for just an hour or so. But she had promised, and she could not let the little girl down. Too many people had done that already.

She showered and washed her hair, and as she blow-dried it, looking in the mirror, she thought she looked older, pinched, a little haggard. She had lost weight and could see the faint outline of her ribcage. She enjoyed being slim, but skinny was unattractive. She had seen women in their thirties, desperate to stay attractive, dieting to the point where they aged themselves prematurely. A little flesh on the bone kept you looking younger. All she wanted to do now was get home, and a little comfort eating would do her no harm at all.

As she went through the clothes in her wardrobe, she realised she would have to pack sometime today. But she didn’t linger over the contents of the rack. There were clothes hanging there that carried too many memories. Clothes she had chosen to wear for Li on certain occasions. Clothes that would always make her think of him. Clothes that she would give to the Salvation Army back home. She pulled on a pair of jeans and tucked a fresh tee shirt into them, then rummaged through the shoes at the bottom of the wardrobe, looking for a pair of trainers. She picked out a white pair with pale pink piping, and froze as she saw a scattering of blue-black powder on the wooden base beneath them. For almost a full half-minute she remained motionless, the trainers in her hand, looking at the powder. She could hear her blood pulsing in her ears. Slowly she reached in and took a pinch of it between her fingers and looked at it closely. The texture and colour were the same as the sample Li had shown her. She turned over her trainers and saw the blue dust compacted in their treads. Without being aware of it, her breathing had turned rapid and shallow. She was trying to remember when she had last worn these trainers, where she could possibly have picked up this strange powdery residue. She retraced her life over the previous few days, and realised with a sudden shock that she had not worn these shoes since the day she had visited the Terracotta Warriors with Michael. Down there in the pits, with the dust and rubble of centuries, the smashed pottery of the warriors had deposited their crumbling ceramic dust, a fired clay that had turned blue-black in the searing heat of the kilns. And she had tramped it into the treads of her shoes.

But it made no sense. What possible connection could there be between the underground chambers in Xi’an where two-thousand-year-old ceramic warriors stood guard over their emperor, and a series of murders in Beijing? A series of murders which, to all intents and purposes, had already been solved.

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