John Burdett - The Last Six Million Seconds

Cuthbert threw the gun onto the carpet. “You really are the most unbelievable pain in the arse. And for a homicide detective, pretty damned ignorant about firearms. No ammunition has been available for the Civil War LeMat in over fifty years.”

“I’m sorry,” Chan said in Cantonese. “Your erudition is truly masterful. I am overwhelmed.” In English he added: “Even if you didn’t kill her, you framed me.” He was still twitching.

“True.”

“Why?”

Cuthbert spoke in a clipped, bitter voice. “Because I was allowed to. London changed its mind-after a lot of coaxing, I might add. I had to use the governor to go over Henderson’s head to the minister. Henderson’s hopping mad. But I was right, damn it. There was no reason at all not to delay the case until after June; I was simply keeping you out of the way until then. Of course this was before you found that American lesbian and her friends. The cat’s out of the bag now. We can leave you to Xian. If we move fast, we can reinstate you prior to your assassination.”

Still in shock, Chan tried to concentrate. Bitter recrimination was not the reaction one normally expected from a murder suspect. Not in Mongkok anyway. “Who’s Henderson?”

Cuthbert sat back on the sofa, pinched the bridge of his nose. “A fat, androgynous glutton who runs Britain.”

“And you had me framed to get me off the case?”

“I have the authorization from the minister.”

“But I was kept on the case?”

“Thank Commissioner Ronald Tsui for that. I underestimated him. Quite the paper warrior.”

Chan remembered the way Tsui had not looked at him when they accused him of murdering Emily.

“Tsui knew I was innocent? He knew you set me up?” He could not suppress a note of hope. How very Chinese, to want to set the record straight with Authority as one was dragged before the firing squad.

“He knew nothing, but I think he guessed.”

“Ah, yes. Only the white mandarins would have shared the stratagem.” He endured Cuthbert’s stare. “I’m going to stand up now.” An odd thing to say; he found it difficult to believe that Cuthbert did not have some other weapon concealed, ready to attack.

“You may as well. I suppose we have things to discuss.”

Chan stood. When Cuthbert failed to produce an antique gun from his jacket, Chan flapped his arms nervously. Never burgle an Englishman; he may come home and want to talk. But Cuthbert seemed lost in thought.

“You faked the fingerprint evidence on Emily’s belt? It’s professional curiosity that makes me ask.”

The diplomat seemed to relax. He sat back a little on the sofa, sighed.

“MI6 are still capable of certain elementary tasks, not that one would trust them with something important. You’ve no idea how proud they are that they managed to break into Arsenal Street forensic laboratory without getting caught.” Cuthbert scowled. “For the best description of the English psyche, look to Lewis Carroll.”

Warily Chan moved around the room. He glanced back at the lectern.

“You didn’t kill her? You knew I was coming? And you wrote her name at the top of that poem?”

The diplomat stared at him. “Christ.” He shook his head. “I need a drink. Try not to think about anything while I’m gone. I’ve noticed it’s when you think that things most often take a turn for the worse.”

Cuthbert returned with a bottle of brandy and two balloon-shaped brandy glasses, which he placed on a coffee table near to the chesterfield. He poured until the glasses were about one-third full. Without waiting for Chan, he took two quick swallows. Chan saw that he had finished half the glass. Cuthbert took the silver cigarette case out of his jacket, threw a cigarette to Chan and lit one for himself, at the same time sitting down on the sofa. After an inhalation he swallowed the rest of the brandy and poured another glass.

“Drink,” Cuthbert said. “It may stop you thinking.”

Chan shrugged and picked up the glass. The Englishman had a point. Chan watched him swallow more brandy. He took a sip himself.

“Nice cognac.”

Cuthbert shook his head, apparently in disbelief. “D’you know that’s the only small talk I’ve ever heard from you? It takes a burglary, I suppose.”

“Nice cigarette.”

“Don’t, it’s painful.”

Chan reached out to touch a book titled A Photographer in Old Peking. With Cuthbert watching he pulled it from the shelf and flicked through it. To Chinese eyes, even a non-Communist, the pictures reflected a period of shame. Caucasian predators had flooded the Middle Kingdom. The worst sold opium and ruthlessly exploited the people; the best found it all very quaint. To understand someone like Cuthbert, one had to look with Western eyes. With the distance of time and the skillful positioning of the camera lens there was a haunting beauty in The Opium Smoker and His Son, The Jujube Seller, The Altar of Heaven by Moonlight. It was long before the Cultural Revolution; the old walls were there, still intact, and of course the gates that foreigners like Cuthbert lamented so deeply since Mao destroyed them: Hsi An Men, Ti An Men, Tung An Men and Hou Men. Chan closed the book.

“In your youth you had already decided to come East. You envisaged the life of a scholar-diplomat, with large old-fashioned Chinesestyle house, servants, Chinese mistress, occasional opium smoking with gentlemen with long white beards-that sort of thing?”

“Perhaps.”

“And perhaps Emily was part of this dream? True, you were over forty by then, and in Hong Kong, not China, but you had position, privilege and money. You could build your dream. It’s what people do when they get money.” Chan walked up to the diplomat. “She loved you like a Chinese.” He hissed. “Fierce and true.”

Cuthbert winced. “At first, yes.”

“Until you sucked her into your game. You knew what Xian would do with her-”

“Damn and fuck Xian!” Chan stepped back when Cuthbert stood up and strode to the window. He turned to Chan. “He destroyed her. As he will destroy everything.” Chan saw the upper lip tremble, before he brought it under control. Cuthbert placed both hands on the lectern and looked down at the poem. He spoke slowly, enunciating every syllable.

“There must have been a dozen times over the past ten years during her insane tantrums when I wished to God she would do herself in. Then when she did”-he paused and swallowed-“I realized that I had loved her. Last night I was drunk as usual, and I saw her soul, so different to her personality. It was like the woman in that poem… unspeakably lonely, very female, very Chinese.”

The Englishman breathed deeply. “God knows why I left it lying around for you to find. Some sort of awful melodramatic reflex on my part, I suppose. I must have wanted your interrogation.” He took out the silver cigarette case, lit another cigarette, inhaled deeply. “She telephoned me just before, as she had on her previous suicide attempts. Unfortunately I wasn’t in. She left a message on my answering machine. She was dead by the time I arrived. Women handle guilt badly. To their credit, I suppose.” He shuffled among his papers on the lectern. “Or am I doing her an injustice? Here, you were supposed to find this as well.”

His hand shook slightly as he handed Chan a piece of red paper. Two lines were written in green felt tip:

If glory could last for ever

Then the waters of Han would flow northward.

Chan looked at Cuthbert.

“It’s from one of my translations of Li Po, ‘The River Song.’ It was on that marble table near her swimming pool. She knew I would be the one to find it. I think she meant that her brilliant day was over; she was bowing out. She’d had enough of all of us.”