The Fourth Sacrifice

I

The warmth of the sunshine seemed somehow surprising after the chill of the autopsy room. Margaret fished in her purse for her sunglasses and put them on. Li followed her out on to the step and lit a cigarette. They had left Sophie in the office phoning her boss to arrange protocol clearance for the handing over of autopsy reports and photographic evidence. They stood for some minutes in silence. On the games court, beyond the fence, students were still playing volleyball, their catcalls and laughter echoing back off the walls of the Evidence Centre. Somehow the simple pleasure they took in their game made the contrast with the act of dissecting the dead all the more bleak.

Finally Li said, ‘It cannot be a copycat murder.’

She shrugged her indifference. ‘The evidence speaks for itself. You can think what you like.’

‘It is impossible,’ said Li. ‘This is not America. Accounts of crimes are not splashed all over the newspapers or on television. The details of these crimes can be known only by the killer himself, and by my investigating team.’

‘Then maybe you should have a look at your investigating team.’

Her flippancy angered him, but she clearly was not in a mood to be reasoned with. He bit back a retort.

After a moment she turned and looked at him levelly. ‘Are we finished?’ She paused and added, ‘Professionally speaking.’

‘I guess so.’

‘Good,’ she said, and hit him as hard as she could across the side of his face with her open palm.

He was shocked. He had been taking a draw of his cigarette, and it was knocked from his mouth by the force of the blow. His face stung from the slap, and his eyes blurred as they filled involuntarily with tears. He blinked at her furiously. ‘What was that for?’

‘What do you think?’ And he wondered why he had even asked. ‘Why, Li Yan?’ she said. ‘Why?’ He couldn’t meet her eye. ‘Ten weeks. You never once tried to get in touch, never once tried to see me. You’ve avoided every attempt I’ve made to see you.’ She fought to hold back the tears and control her voice.

At the sound of raised voices, the driver of her embassy car, parked no more than ten feet away, turned to look out the rear windscreen. Li turned his back to the car and kept his voice down. ‘They told me that under no circumstances was I to see you, or contact you.’

She looked at him in disbelief. ‘So you’re happy to let them, whoever they are, tell you who you can and cannot see?’

‘I’m an employee of the state, Margaret. It is a privileged and trusted position that cannot be compromised by a relationship with a foreigner.’

‘Oh, I see. So your job’s more important than the woman you love, or the woman I thought you loved. Good thing I found out you didn’t. Otherwise I might have made a fool of myself by doing something stupid like falling in love with you.’ She turned away in disgust.

He got angry in his own defence. ‘You have no idea, have you?’ He found his breath coming in short bursts. ‘With my uncle dead, my job is the only life I have. And if I go against my superiors I will lose that job. And what would I do then? An ex-cop! Sell CD roms to tourists in the street? Get myself a market stall and pass off junk with phoney designer labels as genuine? If I want to be with you, Margaret, I have no future in China. We would have to go to the United States. And what future would I have there?’ He tugged her arm and pulled her round to face him. ‘You tell me.’ His eyes appealed to her desperately for understanding.

But she could not think of anything to say. She tried to imagine how it would be to leave everything in the States behind — her home, her family, her job — to come and live in China. But no picture of it would come to her mind.

‘This is my home,’ he said. ‘This is who I am. And no matter how painful it has been for me to accept it, I know there is no future for you and me.’

She saw the pain in his eyes and knew that it was real. But it did nothing to diminish her own. She said, ‘I was right, then. I gave up on you, Li Yan. Finally. I was supposed to catch a plane home this morning. Then they asked me to do the autopsy.’

‘And now you have done it,’ he said, ‘there is no reason for you to stay. This is a Chinese police investigation. There is no point in either of us putting ourselves through more pain.’

And it was as simple as that, she thought. Get on a plane, fly away and don’t look back. She had come here in the first place to escape the failures of her personal life back home. She would be returning home to escape the failures of her personal life here. Everything she touched, it seemed, turned to dust. Including Li. She reached out and ran her fingers lightly over his cheek where the imprint of her hand was raised and red.

‘I’m sorry I hit you,’ she said.

He reached up and put his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. He had an overpowering desire to bend his head and kiss her. But he didn’t.

She slowly withdrew her hand. For a moment she had thought he was going to kiss her. She had wanted him to, with all her heart. And when he didn’t she had felt a terrible aching emptiness with the realisation that there was no way back, and no way forward.

‘Well, that’s that fixed.’ Sophie pushed through the swing doors and down the steps. ‘It’s been agreed that translation of the autopsy reports and copies of the photographic evidence in all four murders will be delivered to the embassy as soon as possible.’ She stopped, realising immediately that she had walked in on something, and saw the unmistakable shape of a raised handprint on Li’s face. ‘I’ll wait in the car,’ she said hastily, and turned towards the limousine.

‘It’s all right. We’ve finished,’ Margaret said, suddenly businesslike, and she brushed past Li and followed Sophie to the car.

‘Jesus,’ Sophie said, as they slipped into the back seat. ‘You hit him!’ And then she saw the tears rolling slowly down Margaret’s cheek, and she quickly turned to face forward. ‘Sorry.’

Li watched the car pull away from the kerb, and felt as if some invisible umbilical cord was dragging the inside out of him as it went.

II

They drove in silence for nearly fifteen minutes before Sophie sneaked a look at Margaret. The tears had either dried up or been brushed away. They had both been staring out of their respective windows at the traffic on the second ring road, tower blocks rising up all around them and casting lengthening shadows from west to east. ‘That was my first autopsy,’ Sophie said.

‘I’d never have guessed.’ Margaret kept her eyes fixed on the traffic.

Sophie smiled and blushed. ‘That obvious?’

Margaret relented and drew her a wan smile. ‘I’ve seen worse. At least we weren’t forced to inspect the contents of your stomach as well.’ Sophie grinned, and Margaret added, ‘But you’d better get used to it. It certainly won’t be your last.’

‘How do you ever get used to something like that?’ Sophie asked. ‘I mean, you must be affected by it. Surely. All these poor, dead people laid out like … like meat. Like they never had a life.’

‘You should try dealing with the living,’ Margaret said. ‘Personally I find it’s a lot less stressful working with the dead. They have no expectation that you’re going to make them better.’

And she wondered if that’s what was wrong with her. That she could be so at home with the dead: breadloafing their organs, dissecting their brains, examining the contents of their intestines, all with a detached expertise and self-confidence. And yet when it came to the living she was ill at ease, protective, defensive, aggressive. It had always been easy to blame her failed relationships on someone else. It had always been clear to her that she was not at fault. But what if she was? After all, wasn’t she the misfit, the one happier to spend time with corpses? Had all those years spent dissecting the dead stolen away her ability to relate to the living? The thought left her feeling empty and depressed. Because what lay ahead on her return to the States but more years spent in autopsy rooms? An endless conveyer belt of tragedy. A bleak, white-tiled future with nothing more to stimulate her senses than the touch of refrigerated flesh.

Sophie’s mobile phone rang, a silly electronic melody that Margaret took a moment or two to identify as ‘Scotland the Brave’. Sophie fumbled to find it in her purse.

‘Sophie Daum,’ she answered, when finally she got it to her ear. ‘Oh, hi, Jonathan. Sure. We’re just on the way back to her hotel now.’ She glanced at Margaret. ‘Well, I guess … Sure. OK, see you.’ She switched off and leaned forward to the driver. ‘Change of plan. We’re going straight to the embassy.’ She turned to Margaret. ‘The Ambassador wants to see you.’

‘Well, fuck the Ambassador,’ Margaret said, and Sophie’s eyes widened with shock. Margaret told the driver, ‘Go to the Ritan Hotel.’ Then to Sophie, ‘First thing I’m going to do is take a shower. Strange as it may seem, I prefer the scent of Fabergé to formaldehyde. Then I’m going to change into some fresh clothes. And if he still wants to talk, then I will see the Ambassador.’

The driver glanced back at Sophie for clarification. She hesitated a moment, then nodded. ‘I’m going to get bawled out for this,’ she told Margaret.

‘Well, bawl right back. It’s not your fault if this cranky pathologist won’t do what she’s told.’ She grinned. ‘Tell them I was scared I’d get blood on the Ambassador’s nice new carpet.’

Their car cruised past the Moskva restaurant on the south-west corner of Ritan Park, a stone’s throw away from the Ambassador’s residence, past the rows of traders in Ritan Lu and the dull gaze of the furriers squatting beside the pelts that hung on long rails opposite Margaret’s hotel. Their enthusiasm had waned in almost direct correlation to the decline of the Russian economy and a drastic drop in business. Long gone were the days when Russian traders would measure the furs they bought by how many they could squeeze into a baggage car on the night train to Moscow. Even the Russian mafia, dealing exclusively in dollars, was feeling the pinch.

Margaret stepped out of the car at the door of the hotel and leaned back in to Sophie. ‘Come for me in an hour.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Say five thirty.’ Sophie nodded, but did not look happy.

In her room, Margaret stripped off her clothes and dumped them in a laundry bag for collection by room service. The shower felt good. Hot and stimulating. She tipped her head back, eyes closed, and let the water hit her face, pouring down between her breasts in a small stream cascading from the end of her chin. She tried to banish from her mind all thoughts of the autopsy, of her last encounter with Li. The two seemed inextricably linked, a single unhappy experience. She knew, of course, that she would have to wait for the results from toxicology on the samples she had prepared before she could write her autopsy report. Twenty-four hours, forty-eight at the most, and then she could go. No looking back. The trouble was she didn’t want to look forward either.

She stepped on to the bathmat and dried herself vigorously with a big soft towel, before collecting her wet hair in a hand towel and wrapping it around her head. From the wardrobe she took the black silk dressing gown embroidered with gold and red dragons that she had bought on an idle afternoon in Silk Street. It felt wonderful as she wrapped it around her nakedness, sheer and sensuous on her skin. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, the skin of her face fresh and pink. But she was shocked by how tired and lined her eyes were, shadowed, and sunk back in her skull. And, unaccountably, they were filled suddenly by tears that ran hot and salty on her cheeks. She looked quickly away from her reflection. There was little less edifying, she thought, than the sight of one’s own self-pity.

She was startled by a knock at the door, and she quickly wiped away the tears. ‘Just a minute,’ she called, and she took a couple of deep breaths.

A bellboy stood in the corridor holding an expansive bouquet of flowers. He thrust them at her. ‘For you, lady,’ he said, and hurried away before she could even think about a tip.

She carried the flowers back into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind her. She had always been scornful of those women who were suckers for flowers. Men knew exactly how to use a bouquet, or a single rose, to manipulate them. And, as far as Margaret was concerned, no one was going to manipulate her. Still, she felt an unexpected rush of pleasure. They were beautiful, a host of wonderful scents mingled in a dazzle of colour. She laid them carefully on the bed and saw the card tucked into the wrapping. For a moment she hesitated. She was not sure she wanted to know who it was from, or what it said. But curiosity quickly got the better of her and she ripped open the envelope and pulled out a small, simple card with a floral design on the front. She opened it up and, inside, in a hand she did not recognise, were the words, ‘Glad you’re still around. Pick you up at eight.’ It was signed simply, ‘Michael’.

She felt the blood physically drain from her face, and for a moment felt dizzy, and had to put a hand on the wall to steady herself. Michael was dead. How could he possibly— She stopped herself, mid-thought. Of course it wasn’t him. Her mind raced for a few seconds before she realised. Michael Zimmerman. He was the only other Michael she knew, and certainly the only Michael she knew in China. She had forgotten about his very existence. She smiled, but it was a grim smile, because she was reminded that the man she had married and lived with for seven years could still reach out and touch her, even from the grave, even now. She shivered at the thought, and then just as quickly pushed him from her mind.

Michael Zimmerman. She remembered his smiling eyes, and how she had been attracted to him. Was that only last night? Already it seemed like a lifetime ago. Pick you up at eight. She felt a tiny thrill of pleasure like the faintest glimmer of light in a very dark place.

‘The Ambassador was furious,’ Sophie said. She seemed very agitated.

Margaret was unimpressed. ‘Was he?’ She slipped into the back seat beside her, and the limo purred quietly out into the street.

‘He couldn’t wait. He had some engagement he couldn’t get out of.’

‘That’s a pity,’ Margaret said. ‘So why are we still going to the embassy?’

‘To see Stan and Jonathan.’ Sophie flicked her a look. ‘Jonathan gave me a hell of a dressing down for not bringing you straight back.’

‘Jesus!’ Margaret felt her hackles rising. ‘Who the hell do these people think they are? I don’t work for the US government. I’m doing them a favour, for Chrissake. We may be in the People’s Republic, but I am a citizen of the United States, a free person, and I will do what the hell I like.’ She breathed hard for a few moments, then took a long, deep breath and let the tension slip away as she exhaled.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, then Margaret said, ‘So how come Michael Zimmerman knew I was still in Beijing?’

Sophie was caught off guard. ‘What?’

‘He sent me a bunch of flowers and a card saying he’s going to pick me up at eight tonight.’

‘Lucky you.’ There was just a hint of pique in Sophie’s voice. ‘He called before lunch. I guess I must have mentioned you’d postponed your departure to do this autopsy.’

‘And just happened to mention where I was staying, too?’

She shrugged. ‘He asked.’ She paused. ‘So where’s he taking you?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

They were kept waiting for ten minutes in the security foyer of the Chancery, under the implacable gaze of the marine behind the window. Then a harsh electronic buzz and the dull click of a lock announced the arrival of the First Secretary. He was brusque and businesslike and came through the door without so much as an acknowledgement. ‘Follow me,’ he said, and hurried out and down the steps. Margaret and Sophie exchanged looks and went after him.

‘Want to tell me where we’re going, Stan?’ Margaret asked as they walked round the side of the building. The late evening sun washed yellow across the compound.

‘To get a bite to eat. I don’t know about you, but it’s more than five hours since I ate, and I’m hungry.’

‘Well, you know, that’s funny,’ but Margaret wasn’t smiling. ‘I haven’t eaten either. Not since before I did the autopsy. You remember? The autopsy I did as a favour for you guys? By the way, thanks for the acknowledgement. It’s nice to know how much your country appreciates you.’

Stan stopped in his tracks, looked skyward for a moment, then turned, pursing his lips. ‘You are a real pain in the ass, Margaret, you know that?’

‘You bet,’ she said, and Stan found himself smiling, albeit reluctantly. Margaret added, ‘After two hours hacking about a dead body, a girl’s entitled to a shower, Stan.’

‘OK.’ He raised his hands in self-defence. ‘Point taken. And the Ambassador appreciates your efforts, Margaret. He really does. But we need to talk. This whole thing’s in danger of turning nasty. Political.’

He turned and they carried on past a long blue canopy set among a grove of trees. Embassy staff sat at tables chatting animatedly, taking their evening meals al fresco. Immediately opposite, was the canteen — a long, single-storey building. Stan headed for the door.

‘Political in what way?’ Margaret wanted to know.

‘You’ll see when you look at Yuan Tao’s file,’ Stan said, and they followed him inside, past long rows of bookshelves, to a large white board with an extensive menu scrawled up in blue felt pen. There was a clatter of crockery from the kitchens behind it. ‘Turns out the guy was born here. Didn’t go to the States till he was seventeen, just before the Cultural Revolution. Never came back. Eventually applied for and got US citizenship.’ He lifted a piece of paper and a pencil from a table in front of the menu board and thrust it at her. ‘Here. You write the number of dishes you want, the number of the dish — they’re up on the board — and the price.’ He rapidly filled out his own slip. ‘And don’t forget to put your name on it.’

Margaret glanced across at an opening leading to the bar. ‘I’d much rather have a drink,’ she said.

Stan followed her eyes and smiled. ‘Sorry, Margaret. It’s only open Friday afternoons for an extended happy hour. You can get a soft drink from the cold cabinet.’

Margaret sighed and scrutinised the board and chose sweet and sour pork, boiled rice and a Coca-Cola. ‘So he was born here,’ she said. ‘How does that make it political?’

‘There are folk back home who would like to think that the Chinese are capable of storing up their revenge for as long as it takes.’

‘Revenge for what?’

‘Someone like Yuan Tao might have been seen as having jumped ship,’ Stan said, ‘and then betrayed his country by going native in the States.’

Margaret was incredulous. ‘So they wait thirty-odd years for him to come back and then bump him off? You don’t really believe that, do you?’

‘Not for a minute.’ Stan shook his head. ‘But you’ve got to remember, Margaret, the right wing back in the States has been scratching about looking for another bogeyman ever since the Soviet Union turned turtle. And China’s it. The press is full of anti-China propaganda. Some of it’s pretty gross. But some of it’s pretty subtle, too. Sometimes it’s all in the tone. And then they make movies like Seven Years in Tibet or Red Corner which get the folks back home all in a rage about Chinese injustice. I mean, Red Corner’s an entertaining story if you like that kind of thing, but its portrayal of the Chinese justice system was just ludicrous. Laughable. Except that the Chinese authorities weren’t laughing. They banned it, and then got accused of censorship.’

Margaret followed him to a desk where a woman sat at a cash register. ‘I didn’t know you were such a champion of the Chinese, Stan.’

‘I’m not,’ he snapped. ‘But people back home who don’t know anything about this country should keep their ignorance to themselves. All it does is make our job more difficult.’

He passed in his order, paid for it and collected a bottle of water from the cold cabinet before heading for a table where Jon Dakers was waiting for them. Margaret realised she was expected to pay for herself. She took a few yuan from her purse, grabbed a Coke and joined them. Sophie sat down beside Dakers and folded her hands on the glass top that covered a garish floral print tablecloth. She hadn’t ordered anything to eat. Dakers had already eaten. He grunted some kind of acknowledgement across the table to Margaret and passed her a buff-coloured folder. ‘The Yuan Tao file,’ he said. ‘Sophie tells us you don’t believe he was murdered by the same person who killed the other three.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But you think it’s a copycat job?’

‘That’s how it looks.’

Stan and Dakers exchanged glances. Dakers said, ‘So what about this cop who’s leading the investigation?’

‘What about him?’ Margaret looked suspiciously at Stan.

‘You trust him?’ Dakers asked.

‘Trust doesn’t enter into it. He’s a good cop. As straight as they come.’

They all sat back as a Chinese waitress came to the table with their orders. Margaret flipped open Yuan Tao’s file and glanced down the photocopied pages. A few dates and paragraphs, reports and statistics. A man’s life in black and white. As easy to scrumple up and throw in the trash as it had been to cut off his head. She wondered if he had gone to the same middle school as the other victims but couldn’t immediately see where to find it.

‘The thing is, Margaret,’ Stan leaned in confidentially when the waitress had gone, ‘this is already making headlines back home. Chinese-American murdered on return to ancestral homeland. You know the kind of thing. But a lot more lurid. The anti-China brigade are jumping on it, rubbing their hands with glee. And with the Chinese President due to visit Washington next month we’d like this cleared up as soon as possible.’

‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with me.’

Dakers said, ‘We want you to stick with the investigation.’

Margaret laughed. ‘When I finish my autopsy report, I’m out of here. Why don’t you investigate it yourself, Jon? You used to be a cop.’

‘The Chinese wouldn’t contemplate taking an American cop on board. Even an ex-cop like me. You’re an expert in a specific field, one they acknowledge we know more about. That’s quite different. And besides, you’ve worked with them before.’

Margaret shook her head. ‘I figure you’ll find that after what happened last time, they wouldn’t consider involving me again.’

‘I reckon you could be wrong there, Margaret,’ Stan said.

Margaret shook her head, smiling at his ignorance. ‘What makes you think that, Stan?’

‘Because we already asked them,’ said Dakers.

III

It was dusk outside Li’s top-floor office window. Streetlights had gone on all over the city. People were eating at streetside stalls, or were hurrying home to cook meals for themselves. The barber shops were doing brisk business. Traffic had ground to a standstill on the ring roads and on the tree-lined avenues and boulevards, and arc lights had snapped on high above those construction sites where work would go on all night, bare-chested workers scrambling over bamboo scaffolding twenty storeys up.

The trees in Beixinqiao Santiao below cast deep shadows and darkened the street. The staff of the All China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese opposite had all gone home. Police vehicles, some blue-and-whites, some unmarked, were parked bumper to bumper on the sidewalk. Officers going off duty greeted officers coming on for the night shift.

Li stood at the window, smoking, engulfed by a deep inertia. He heard a couple of kids laughing as they kicked a ball along the street. Other people had real lives out there. Hopes, aspirations, a future. Life went on. There was a purpose to it. He wondered if he had just lost all purpose to his. For as long as Margaret had existed in his mind, just as he remembered her before they were parted, he could not really believe that he would never see her again. Somewhere deep inside him was buried a small seed of hope. Now that he had confronted her, felt her anger and hurt, and told her they had no future, that seed had withered and died. It was finally over.

There was a knock at the door and Qian appeared with a folder in his hand, fluorescent light flooding in from the detectives’ office outside. ‘You not want a light on in here, boss?’ he said. ‘Can’t see a thing.’

Li shook his head. ‘I like it that way.’

Qian shrugged. ‘That’s the file on Yuan Tao in from the American embassy.’

‘Leave it on my desk.’

Qian dropped the file on the desk and went out.

Li ran his fingers lightly down his cheek, still tender where Margaret had slapped him with such force. When he had arrived back at Section One, the detectives had all looked at him very oddly. But no one had said anything. As he had gone into his office he had been aware of some stifled laughter, and each time he emerged the room had fallen silent. Finally he had demanded to know what was going on. There had been a moment’s embarrassed silence before Wu said, ‘The boys were just speculating, boss, about your new technique for collecting handprints from crime scenes.’ There was laughter around the detectives’ room. Li had frowned at first, not understanding. Wu went on, ‘So, you just press your face against the print and lift it off — is that how it works?’

Li had put his hand immediately to his face and felt the weals that ran diagonally across it, left by Margaret’s fingers. His embarrassment was acute, but he daren’t show it or he would lose face. He must wear his slap like a trophy. After all, it was not so uncommon in China for men to be assaulted by women. A large percentage of the ‘domestics’ that the police were called out to involved husbands being battered by their wives. Li had grinned ruefully and said, ‘Come here, Wu, and I’ll show you how it’s done.’ He held his hand out, palm open, towards the detective.

Wu had backed off, grinning like an idiot. ‘Hey, boss, if you hit me half as hard as she hit you I’ll not get up again.’

‘Damn right you won’t,’ Li said, to roars of laughter.

Later, in the washroom, he had examined his face in the mirror, shocked to see how clearly the shape of her hand was left on his cheek, red and raised. And as he touched it again now, it made a kind of connection between them, like touching her.

He finished his cigarette and flicked it out of the open window, watching a shower of orange sparks fly up from it briefly as it hit the ground below. He turned and looked at the file Qian had left on his desk. Here was an enigma. All the evidence pointed to Yuan being the fourth victim of the same serial killer. And yet Margaret had concluded that it was a copycat killing, that Yuan had been murdered by someone else. How could he doubt her assessment? She was a practised professional with enormous experience. But still he knew that no one other than his own detectives and the killer himself could possibly know enough to duplicate all the tiny details.

He had made a preliminary report on the findings of the autopsy to a packed meeting of the detectives working on the case. A number had been dismissive of Margaret’s conclusions. Left-handed, right-handed, they said, was a minor detail. As was the change from wine to vodka as a carrier for the flunitrazepam. Li pointed out that the severing of the head had also been less cleanly performed. Sang had suggested that perhaps the killer had deliberately made changes to his modus operandi in order to confuse the investigation, and a switch from right hand to left would explain why the cut had been less clean. No one believed these details to be of much importance compared to the number of identical features. But Li knew that Margaret believed them to be important, and his uncle had always said that the answer invariably lay in the detail.

Now he sat down at his desk and switched on an anglepoise lamp which spilled light across its surface. He looked at the buff folder in front of him. A man’s life lay within. Perhaps, also, a reason for his death. He opened it. Inside were duplicates of official documents: medical reports; education history in the United States; Yuan’s own curriculum vitae; his application for citizenship; an official report collated by some government agency on his political background; the assessment of his oral examination on application to join the State Department; the results of the State Department’s own security checks and medical examination. Li shuffled back and forwards through the documents, piecing together Yuan’s history.

Yuan Tao was born in 1949, the year of the birth of the People’s Republic. The year of the Ox. The same year as all the other victims. They were, all of them, children of the Revolution, progeny of the Liberation.

He had left China at the age of seventeen, in May of 1966, just under a month before the start of the Cultural Revolution, whose beginning was marked, in most people’s minds, by the suspension of classes at schools and universities across the country on 13 June. He had got out just in time, granted an exit visa to go to Egypt to study physics at the University of Cairo. But that had been a subterfuge, for he had spent less than a month in Cairo before flying on to the United States, where he had been accepted on a degree course to study political science. His sponsor was an uncle who had fled from China to San Francisco in 1948. Yuan had spent the summer working in his uncle’s restaurant in the city’s Chinatown to help pay his tuition fees when he started at the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall.

These had been turbulent years at Berkeley, with student civil rights demonstrations, and protests over the Vietnam War. Li shuffled in vain through the papers in the file searching for the report the FBI would surely have compiled on Yuan Tao at that time. He had known, of course, it would not be there. Just as there was no report of the CIA’s certain attempt to recruit him.

Yuan completed his doctorate in political science in 1972, but stayed on for another two years to finish a post-doctorate thesis. In 1974 he applied for and was offered the post of assistant professor of political science at Berkeley and immediately applied for his Green Card. His application was successful, allowing him to accept the position.

Yuan rented an apartment in Oakland, right across the bay from San Francisco, and close to the university. In 1978 he was promoted to associate professor, and the following year applied for and was granted naturalisation. Then, as an American citizen, he had married another Chinese-American in 1979. But the marriage had lasted less than two years, and was childless. Two years later, in 1983, he had become a full professor, and over the following years had proceeded to slip quietly into early middle-age in the cloistered backwaters of Californian academia.

Then, in 1995, at the age of forty-six, and completely out of the blue, he had applied for a job in the State Department. Certainly, they would have been pleased to receive him, an ethnic Chinese professor of political science, a naturalised American citizen who spoke fluent Mandarin. And Yuan Tao’s life had taken a totally different turn.

He had moved to Washington in the following year. But the papers provided by the Americans gave no clue as to what work he had been involved in there. Then in 1999, he had astonished his employers by applying for a posting to the US Embassy in Beijing when a lowly vacancy had arisen on the visa line. Several internal memos expressed consternation, and a letter had been sent to him suggesting that his abilities would be better employed elsewhere. There was no record of his response, and his application had duly been granted, with reluctance.

Yuan Tao had finally arrived back in China six months ago to take up his job in the visa department at the Bruce Compound at the top of Silk Street.

Li lit a cigarette and watched the blue smoke curl lazily through the light of his desk lamp. A series of facts. A chronology. None of which told him the first thing about the man. Who was he really? What were his hopes and fears? Who did he love, who did he hate, and who hated him? Why had he never returned to his homeland in the early years after the Cultural Revolution when it would have been safe for him to do so? And then why, after thirty-four years, had he suddenly decided to come back after all?

Li’s thoughts turned to the apartment at No. 7 Tuan Jie Hu Dongli. Why had Yuan wanted to rent when the embassy provided accommodation? And what had he hidden under the floorboards there that only his killer could have taken? The answers, Li was sure, would not be found in his file.

He wondered how Yuan had felt, returning to the country of his birth thirty-four years after he left it. What incredible changes there had been in that time. China must have been unrecognisable to him, a foreign country. Had he sought to make any contact with relatives? For surely there would be some, somewhere. Li flipped through the pages, coming to the only reference he could find to Yuan’s parents. His father had been a teacher, and died, apparently, in 1967. His mother had worked with pre-school children in kindergarten, but there was no record of what had become of her. And then there must have been old school friends. In six months he must have made contact with someone.

It was in Yuan’s own résumé that Li finally found what he was looking for. A list of his academic qualifications. He ran his finger down a reverse chronology, stopping finally at the second-last entry, and all the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Yuan Tao had graduated from the No. 29 Middle School in Qianmen in May of 1966.

Li sat staring blankly at the sheets in front of him for several minutes. The murder victims had all attended the same school.

The revelation cast for the first time, in his mind, a shadow of doubt over Margaret’s conclusions at the autopsy. For it inextricably linked all four. They had all been doped with the same drug, all had their hands tied behind their backs with the same silk cord. They had all had placards placed around their necks, their nicknames written upside down and crossed through. The placards had been numbered in sequential descending order from six. They had all been beheaded — the first three with a bronze sword — and Li had no doubt that forensic results would confirm this to be the case with the fourth.

And yet … the nagging doubts still would not go away. Small doubts they might be, but Li could not shake them off. Why would Yuan drink the blue vodka? Why did his killer stand on his right to deliver the fatal blow, when he had stood on the left of at least two of the others? Why had he tied his wrists with a knot which was exactly the reverse of the knots he had used to tie the other three?

There were other questions, too. Why had victim number three been moved from the scene of his execution? It must have been terribly risky, not to mention messy. And why, given the amount of blood that would have been shed, had they been unable to find the place where he had been murdered?

It was, he thought, like one of Mei Yuan’s riddles. He wished the solution could be just as simple. It made him think again of the riddle she had set him that morning, about the thirty-yuan hotel room. But he could not get his mind even to begin addressing the problem of the missing yuan. He had a bigger riddle of his own to solve first. And if he immersed himself in it deeply enough perhaps he might finally be able to put Margaret out of his mind.

He leaned back and blew a jet of smoke at the ceiling as the door opened and Chen came in. He was silhouetted against the lights of the detectives’ room, and his face was above the ring of light shed by Li’s desk lamp, so that Li could not immediately see his expression. Chen closed the door and Li saw that he was wearing a suit. And a tie. It was unheard of for Chen. He was renowned as a casual, even sloppy dresser who would usually shuffle to and from work in baggy pants, an open-necked shirt and an old zip-front jacket. He stepped towards the desk and Li caught sight of the grim set of his mouth.

‘You missed the briefing,’ Li said.

‘I was at the Ministry.’ Which explained the suit. Chen pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Got a cigarette?’

Li tossed him one and Chen lit it, inhaling deeply, and then exhaling slowly, allowing his eyes to close. He loosened his tie at the neck. ‘I feel so damned uncomfortable in this stuff. How are you supposed to do your job properly if you’re not comfortable?’ Li knew he wasn’t expected to respond. He waited apprehensively for Chen to continue. But Chen was in no hurry. He took several further pulls at his cigarette before turning to meet Li’s eye.

‘We’ve been asked to keep the Americans fully apprised of any developments in this case. Access to everything.’ He paused, then, ‘They have requested and it has been agreed — above my head I might say — that our point of contact with them be Dr Campbell.’

Li was stunned, as if he had just had his face slapped for a second time. ‘I thought she was going back to the States?’ His voice seemed small and very distant.

‘Apparently they have prevailed upon her to stay.’ He hesitated. ‘I know this is tough for you, Li—’

‘Tough?’ Li was scathing. ‘In one ear the Commissioner tells me to steer clear of her. In the other you’re telling me I’ve got to co-operate with her.’

Chen was annoyed by his tone. He leaned forward and snapped, ‘Then you’re just going to have to learn how to separate your personal from your professional life.’ He stopped and peered strangely at Li. ‘What’s that on your face?’

Li said, ‘The slap you’ve just delivered.’

Li weaved his way through the night traffic in a daze. His uncle’s bicycle, like every other on the streets, had no lights and no reflectors. He relied on motorists seeing him. But right now he didn’t care much. If it had been painful seeing Margaret today, how much more so it would be tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. He felt as if he had been cast into limbo in which there could be only pain, and the knowledge that there was no foreseeable end to it. How could she have agreed to do it? Wouldn’t it be just as painful for her? Or maybe she saw it as some way of gaining revenge, turning the knife in his own, self-inflicted, wound.

At the Chaoyangmen Bridge he turned west, passing a Kentucky Fried Chicken joint on his left before turning south again. He parked up at the corner of Dong’anmen Street and joined the crowds of people thronging the night market. Food stalls stretched off as far as the eye could see. For a handful of yuan, you could eat almost anything deep fried on a stick. There were grubs the size of human thumbs, whole scorpions, tiny birds complete with heads, all stuck on skewers and ready to be plunged into great woks of boiling oil. But Li was not much interested in the exotic. He bought shredded potato deep-fried in egg and wrapped in brown paper. He ate one and bought another, and washed it down with a can of Coke and wandered through the animated groups of family and friends crushing the length of the street like animals at a feeding frenzy.

He had tried not to think about her, but even here she came back to haunt him. He had brought her here the night she told him about her husband and how he died. Everywhere in Beijing that they had been she lingered, wraithlike, in his memory.

Li finished his Coke and became aware of a small, raggedy man of indeterminate years following him, to his left and slightly behind. His eyes were firmly fixed on Li’s empty can. Li turned, and was about to hand it to him when an old woman with tightly bound white hair and a single stump of a tooth grabbed it and made off. The raggedy man howled with dismay and chased after her, hurling imprecations at her back. So many cans returned for recycling earned so many fen. The street scavengers were fighting over them now.

Li retrieved his uncle’s bicycle and headed south again. There was beer in the refrigerator back at the apartment, and all he wanted to do now was get drunk. His wheels slithered and slid where reconstruction and rain had turned Wangfujing Street into a quagmire. Mud spattered over his trousers and shoes.

From East Chang’an Avenue he could see the floodlights of Tiananmen Square, where workers had already begun preparing the massive floral displays for National Day in just twelve days’ time. But all he wanted to do was escape from lights and people. The dark of Zhengyi Road came as a relief. The first leaves, he noticed, had started to drop from the trees. But autumn had not yet properly begun. These were just harbingers of its inevitable arrival.

The security guard nodded as he entered the gates of the compound, and parked and locked Old Yifu’s bicycle. His legs felt leaden as he dragged himself up the two flights of stairs. And then, as he slipped the key in the lock, he froze, and suddenly all tiredness and self-pity were banished. All his senses were on full alert. The door to the apartment was not locked. He always locked it. He hesitated for several seconds before slowly pushing it open. There was a shrill call, and the sound of footsteps, and a small girl appeared in the hallway, black hair tied back in bunches. She stopped dead when she saw Li. And then a pretty young woman in her late twenties appeared and the child immediately clung to her leg, burying her face to hide it from Li.

Li was stunned. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘That’s a fine welcome after three years,’ the young woman said. ‘Didn’t you get my letter?’

Li hadn’t checked his mail in days. He looked at the pile of it on the table, and saw the envelope with the Sichuan postmark. He looked back at the young woman and the child.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Life hasn’t been that organised.’ He hesitated only for a moment before stepping towards her and taking her in his arms, almost completely enveloping her slight form. She clung tightly to him, and the child tightened her grip on her leg. ‘Why have you come?’ Li asked.

‘We need to talk,’ she said.

IV

It was dark outside, and Margaret was making progress on her second vodka tonic in the bar of the Ritan Hotel when Michael appeared. She had almost forgotten about him, so focused was she on the spectre of Li, and the prospect of his returning to haunt her on a daily basis until this crime was solved. Of course, she realised, he would probably feel that he was the one being haunted. She had contemplated refusal to co-operate with the embassy. She could have insisted that she wanted nothing further to do with the investigation and got the next plane back to the States, as originally planned. They had no means of forcing her to stay on. But she hadn’t. And she wondered whether it was simply that she was more afraid of what the future held for her back home, than of the barren status quo here in China. It was easier to do nothing and drift with the tide, than to fight against it. Better the devil you knew.

‘I’ll have what the lady’s having.’ Michael’s voice startled her out of her reverie. The barman moved away to prepare another vodka, and Michael perched on a bar stool beside her. ‘Can I get you another?’

‘You’ve heard then?’

‘Heard what?’

‘Three vodkas and I’m anybody’s.’

‘And one more for the lady,’ he called after the barman.

She smiled. ‘Of course, it’s not true.’

‘Oh.’ He feigned disappointment.

‘It takes at least four.’ She looked at her watch. ‘You’re early.’

‘I never keep a lady waiting,’ he said.

‘Never?’

He shrugged. ‘Well, of course, that all depends on the circumstances. There are certain things you wouldn’t want to rush.’

‘I agree.’ She drained her glass. Then, ‘It’s a long time since anyone gave me flowers.’

‘Did you like them?’

‘They were beautiful. I’m just not sure what they signified. Men always have such ulterior motives.’

‘And, of course, women never do.’

‘Of course they do. But women are more subtle. Flowers are a bit … how can I put it? … in your face.’

He thought for a moment. ‘Let’s just say they were an expression of my pleasure at hearing you were staying on — at least for another couple of days. I was just getting to know you the other night when you did your disappearing act. Like Cinderella.’

‘And you wondered if I’d turned into a pumpkin?’

He laughed. ‘That was her carriage, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m not very up on my fairy tales.’ Their drinks arrived and they raised and touched glasses. ‘Cheers,’ she said. Then, ‘Oh, I know, she shed a glass slipper on the way out. That was it, wasn’t it? Then he went round trying it on all the women.’ She pulled a face. ‘I reckon he was a foot fetishist. I mean, how come he didn’t recognise her face?’ She took another gulp of vodka. ‘It’s like Lois Lane and Superman. He puts on a suit and a pair of glasses and she doesn’t know who he is. I mean, it’s ridiculous.’ She caught his expression and stopped, and laughed. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just so refreshing to be able to sit here and talk absolute crap. And be understood, and not have to worry about giving offence, or losing face, or breaching protocol … I’ve had nearly three months of it. You have no idea.’

He smiled. ‘Oh, I think I do,’ he said. ‘I love China and the Chinese dearly. But after six months here I just can’t wait to get home, see a movie, have a hot dog, take in a baseball game. And, yeah, talk crap and have people know what I’m talking about.’

‘Oh, my Ga-ad,’ a voice drawled excitedly. Michael and Margaret turned to find Dot McKinlay and a group of her Travelling Grannies arriving at the bar. Her face was flushed with excitement. She put her hand on Michael’s arm, almost unable to speak. ‘Do y’awl know who you are?’

Michael smiled. ‘Well, I did the last time I looked.’

Dot turned to Margaret. ‘It’s Michael Zimmerman. He’s on TV.’

‘Actually, he’s not,’ Margaret said, and Dot’s face fell. Michael looked puzzled.

‘What d’yawl mean?’ Dot said.

Margaret shook her head seriously. ‘Michael Zimmerman’s his twin brother. Well, actually, sister. But that was before she had her sex change. Or should I say “he”? Anyway Daniel and Michela — that’s what she called herself before she became Michael — they don’t get along. And Daniel doesn’t really like being mistaken for her — him.’ She finished her drink and took Michael’s arm. ‘Anyway, we were just going.’

Michael let himself be led away from the bar. He smiled and nodded at Dot’s Travelling Grannies, who looked at him as if he had two heads. They were almost at the door before Dot recovered herself and called after Margaret, ‘I thought y’awl were leaving today, Miss.’ There was the hint of accusation in this.

‘Had to stay on unexpectedly,’ Margaret called back. ‘To meet a man who’d lost his head.’

They made it through the front door and down the steps before their pent-up laughter exploded into the floodlit forecourt.

‘Jesus,’ Michael said. ‘So now I’m a sex-change twin!’

‘It’s OK,’ Margaret said, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. ‘It doesn’t show.’ Which sent them into a fresh fit of giggles. With the vodka, and the endorphins, Margaret hadn’t felt this good in a long time.

‘Do y’awl know who you are?’ Michael mimicked.

‘Oh, my God,’ said Margaret. ‘We’re being watched.’

And Michael turned to see Dot McKinlay’s Travelling Grannies glaring at them from the window of the bar. He took Margaret’s arm and hurried her out of the gate, past the brown-uniformed guards who were watching them suspiciously. A taxi driver looked hopefully in their direction, and on a wave from Michael jumped in and started up his car.

‘Have you eaten?’ Michael asked.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘In return for my doing an autopsy for them, the embassy treated me to a slap-up meal. In the canteen. Which I had to pay for myself.’

‘Wow. These guys really know how to show a girl a good time.’

‘Don’t they just.’

He paused for a moment. ‘So how long are you staying on?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Could be a day, could be a week, could be a month.’ And she saw that this pleased him. ‘So where are you taking me?’

He opened the door of the taxi. ‘Somewhere a little special,’ he said, and he slid into the back seat beside her, then leaned forward to speak to the driver in what sounded to Margaret like fluent Chinese.

As he sat back she looked at him with admiration. ‘Your Chinese is fantastic,’ she said.

‘Not really.’ He shook his head solemnly. ‘Actually the driver speaks English. I briefed him before I came in to look like he knew what I was talking about.’

She was taken aback. ‘You’re kidding!’

He turned to her, straight-faced. ‘Yeah, I’m kidding.’ And then he grinned. ‘When I decided to specialise in the archaeological history of China at Washington University in St Louis, I figured I should really learn the language, too. There were more than twenty-five students when I started the class. At the end of the first year there were seven left — and I was the only non-ethnic Chinese among them.’

‘Everyone says it’s an incredibly hard language,’ she said.

He shrugged. ‘On paper it’s quite easy. The grammar couldn’t be simpler. Basically it’s all present tense. I go there today, I go there yesterday, I go there tomorrow. The problem begins when you start trying to speak it.’

‘It’s all in the tones.’

‘Yeah. You can apply four different tones to the same word and it’ll mean four different things. I used to practise a lot with this girl whose spoken Chinese wasn’t really very good. But she was a real doll, so I figured it was worth the sacrifice. Anyway, one day she says to me, “Do you want to have sex?” And I can’t believe my good luck. But there’s something about the way she says it that doesn’t quite convince me that’s what she means. That and the fact that she’s peeling an orange at the time.’ Margaret laughed. ‘So I ask her to repeat what she’d said. And she says it again. “Do you want to have sex?” To be honest, all I really wanted to say was “yes”. But I asked her to write it down instead. Sadly, there’s no ambiguity in written Chinese.’ He smiled to himself.

‘Well?’ Margaret asked impatiently. ‘What did she write?’

Michael shook his head ruefully. ‘Turned out she was asking me if I was religious. It was a big disappointment.’

‘So you never did have sex with her?’

He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it? And I never betray a girl’s confidence.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

Their taxi cruised west past the Gate of Heavenly Peace. The portrait of Mao Zedong gazed down on Tiananmen Square where once hundreds of thousands of Red Guards had hailed him as the red, red sun in their hearts. Now the square was filled with tourists, and men working under floodlights to erect massive floral sculptures and a giant mirror ball in time for National Day.

As Michael stared out at the square, Margaret sneaked a look at him. He was dressed casually, in jeans, tan leather boots, and a black open waistcoat over a white shirt that he hadn’t tucked in. He was lightly tanned, with a fine clear skin. He had big, strong hands, pale skin beneath immaculate fingernails, and a strong, well-defined jawline. Their car was not big, and his thigh was pressed against hers. She could feel the warmth of his leg, and the firmness of the muscle. He gave off a very distinctive scent that she could not quite place. It had a bitter-sweet, slightly musky, high-pitched note.

‘What’s your aftershave?’ she asked.

He dragged himself back from some distant thought and frowned. ‘I don’t use aftershave.’ Then he realised. ‘Oh, you mean the patchouli?’ He grinned. ‘I hate the smell of aftershave. It’s kind of overpowering first thing in the morning. I just smear the tiniest amount of patchouli oil on to my neck, below the Adam’s apple. I think there’s something fresh about it. He paused. ‘Don’t you like it?’

‘No, I do,’ she said. ‘It’s unusual, that’s all.’

‘I hope you like jazz,’ he said suddenly.

‘Jazz?’

‘That’s where we’re going. To hear the best jazzband this side of the Great Wall.’

And she felt a tiny stab of disappointment.

Their taxi dropped them in the forecourt of the Minzu Fandian on Fuxingmennei Avenue. But this was not their destination, and they left the lights of the hotel behind them and went down through the underpass. At the other side of the avenue, steps led them up into the deep shadow of trees separating the bike lane from the sidewalk. Margaret began to feel uneasy. Old men sat about on walls playing chess while women stood gossiping in groups, their children laughing and shouting, kicking a ball up and down the grass. The narrowest of hutongs led off into a maze of walled courtyards. She had been here before, she realised.

The Sanwei bookstore stood on the corner, its lights spilling out into the dark of the street. They could hear the sound of jazz music drifting lightly on the warm evening air. As they stepped inside, a young girl came forward to sell them entrance tickets for thirty yuan each. Down a couple of steps, staff milled around narrow aisles between shelves of books and magazines. ‘Don’t be fooled by the bookshop,’ Michael said. ‘There’s the most wonderful tearoom upstairs.’

‘I know,’ she said, and he stopped on the bottom step, taken aback.

‘You’ve been here before?’

She nodded. ‘But not on a jazz night.’ And she remembered the stillness of the tearoom: lacquered tables and chairs grouped silently on a tiled floor; vases and sculptures displayed on shelves and cabinets; traditional and modern scrolls hanging on the walls; screens along the window wall dividing it into discreet individual areas, in one of which she had sat with Li on a night when the place was otherwise deserted, on a night when she had opened her heart to him for the very first time.

‘Are you OK?’ Michael was concerned.

She almost told him she didn’t want to go up, but in the end didn’t have the heart. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. He lingered a moment, still concerned, then took her hand and led her up the stairs.

The band was taking a break as Michael and Margaret got to the top of the steps, and the audience in the packed tearoom was still applauding their last number. A bespectacled young man sitting at a table, took their tickets.

‘Hello, Mr Zimmerman,’ he said in a slow, concentrated English. ‘How are you tonight?’

‘I’m good, Swanney. How are things at work?’

‘We are ve-ery busy just now, Mr Zimmerman.’

Michael introduced Swanney to Margaret, who shook his hand. ‘Swanney is a doctor at the infectious diseases hospital,’ Michael said, and Margaret had the immediate urge to go and wash the hand he had shaken. ‘He works here on jazz nights, partly because he likes jazz, but mostly because it gives him the chance to practise his English.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Margaret said. She looked around. The tearoom was crowded, a mix of Chinese and European faces. It was mostly a young crowd, with the exception of a single elderly man wearing jeans, a tee shirt and baseball cap. He was working hard at charming his way into the pants of a Chinese girl who was young enough to be his granddaughter. She looked exceedingly bored. It was a very different atmosphere from the still and solitary one Margaret had experienced here with Li on an emotionally charged night. Raised voices and laughter, people gathered round tables in animated groups, drinking tea and beer.

And yet there was something odd, something missing. And then she knew what it was. She said to Michael, ‘No one’s smoking.’

He grinned. ‘I know. A jazz club without cigarette smoke. Doesn’t seem right, does it? The lady who owns the place is a bit eccentric.’ He nodded down a colonnaded corridor to a door at the end. ‘She practically lives in there. Hardly ever shows her face. Hates smoking, so she made jazz nights a smoke-free zone.’ He steered her towards what appeared to be the only free table in the place. ‘Reserved,’ he said. ‘Wanted to be sure we’d get a seat.’

A girl of about twenty, wearing a white apron, and a big smile on an open, pretty face, materialised out of the crowd. ‘Hello again, Mr Zimmerman,’ she said, gazing at him with unabashed adoration.

‘Hi, Plum,’ he said, returning her smile. ‘Plum, this is Margaret. She’s a doctor.’

Plum turned to Margaret, her smile just as wide and disarming. ‘Hello, Miss Margaret,’ she said, extending her hand. ‘I’m ve-ery pleased to meet you. I am study English at Beijing University. What would you like to drink?’

They ordered beer, and Margaret looked around the young, animated faces and froze, suddenly, as she turned and met the eye of a tall Chinese man pushing past their table. It was Li. She felt the blood colour her cheeks as he stopped, unable to avoid the fact that they had seen each other. And then her eyes flickered past him to an attractive young Chinese woman at his side, and she immediately felt sick. It was as if he had returned her slap ten times over. So this was why they had no future, she thought bitterly. There was already someone else. She wanted to stand up and hit him again. Only harder this time, with a clenched fist, so that it would really hurt. But she remained frozen in her chair. ‘Well,’ she said, barely able to control her voice. ‘This is a surprise.’

Initially it was his embarrassment that left Li at a loss for words, and then his eyes flickered towards Michael, and it was anger that flushed his cheeks. He looked back at Margaret. So this was why she had decided to stay on. It hadn’t taken her long to get over her heartbreak.

‘Isn’t it?’ is all he could bring himself to say.

Michael jumped immediately to his feet and extended a hand. ‘Hi. I’m Michael Zimmerman.’

Politeness forced Li to take his hand. ‘Li Yan,’ he said curtly.

Margaret stood up slowly and turned her gaze on the woman with Li. ‘And this is?’ she asked pointedly. She wasn’t going to let him away without having to make an introduction.

Li looked at Margaret steadily for a moment, and the directness of his gaze disconcerted her. ‘This is Xiao Ling,’ he said. ‘My sister.’

Another slap in the face, this time one of rebuke. Margaret didn’t know which was the dominant emotion, embarrassment or relief. But whatever else, she felt very foolish. She tried a smile and shook Xiao Ling’s hand. ‘I’m pleased to meet you,’ she said.

Xiao Ling nodded politely, her eyes meeting Margaret’s for only a moment before flickering downward.

‘Hi,’ Michael said, shaking her hand also. ‘Won’t you join us?’

Margaret threw him a horrified glance. But Li coldly dismissed the invitation. ‘We were just leaving,’ he said. ‘We made a mistake. This is not usually a jazz night.’

‘No,’ Michael said. ‘It’s a one-off tonight. A special event.’

Li nodded, and ushered Xiao Ling past him. ‘Enjoy it,’ he said, and they left.

Margaret and Michael sat down. ‘Wow!’ Michael said. ‘I feel like I just spent the last few minutes in the freezer.’ He examined his fingers. ‘I’m not sure I didn’t get frostbitten.’

Margaret smiled reluctantly. ‘I’m sorry, Michael.’

‘Who was that guy? Or shouldn’t I ask?’

‘No, you can ask,’ Margaret said. ‘He’s just about the most stubborn, difficult and downright discourteous man I think I’ve ever met.’

‘Right.’ Michael nodded sagely. ‘So you and he were an item.’

She flicked him a quick look. ‘That obvious, was it?’

He smiled. ‘It was the stamp on your foreheads that said “ex-lovers” that really gave you away.’ She grinned ruefully. ‘Who is he?’ he asked.

‘Li Yan is Deputy Section Chief of Section One of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Beijing Municipal Police.’

‘A cop?’ Michael was clearly astonished.

‘Unfortunately, in my line of work, it’s very difficult to avoid them.’

He shook his head in amazement. ‘What’s Section One?’

‘Oh, it’s kind of like a serious crime squad. They handle all the big robberies and murders.’

Then the penny dropped for Michael. ‘So he was the one you were working with during that rice thing?’ She nodded. ‘And now? This autopsy you did for the embassy? He involved in that, too?’

‘Unfortunately,’ Margaret said. And she added, with feeling, ‘It’s just a pity he wasn’t the one on the table.’

‘Ouch,’ Michael said. ‘Wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of your scalpel.’

She smiled. ‘Some people have accused me of having a sharper tongue.’

‘Wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of that either.’

She gave him a sheepish grin.

Plum arrived with their beers. Michael took a long pull at his and eyed Margaret thoughtfully. ‘So what is it you’re working on, a murder? Or is that a state secret?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Margaret said. She took a swallow of beer. ‘Just a guy at the embassy, a Chinese-American, got his head lopped off by some serial killer. Or, at least, that’s what the Chinese think.’

Michael made a face. ‘Decapitated? That sounds pretty unpleasant. An ancient Chinese form of execution.’

She looked at him, interested. ‘Is it?’

‘For thousands of years,’ said Michael. ‘Until quite recently, in fact. And, you know, when they buried their emperors in these huge underground tombs, it was quite common for dozens of the imperial concubines and members of the entourage to be entombed with them. Some of them were buried alive. The lucky ones were executed first. There are plenty of examples of headless skeletons found in tombs that have been excavated.’

Margaret shuddered. ‘Wouldn’t make working for the emperor the most attractive career.’

Michael shrugged and said, ‘It was the price they paid for incredible privilege while he was alive.’ He took another draught of his beer. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you don’t think the Chinese-American guy was killed by this serial killer?’

She shrugged vaguely, her mind still very much on Li. ‘Not really. Too many inconsistencies.’

‘So who do you think did it?’

‘Haven’t a clue. And neither do the Chinese. And by the time they find out, if they ever do, I’ll probably be drawing my pension.’ She looked up from her beer and smiled, shaking her head. ‘But it’s pretty boring stuff, really. Not nearly as interesting as it sounds.’ She sipped her beer. ‘So how was your day, darling?’ She made a determined effort to tear her thoughts away from Li.

‘Pretty dull, really,’ he said.

‘I thought you started filming today.’

‘We did. But it wasn’t anything very exciting. We’re still setting things up. But the sun came out, so we did some aerial shots from a helicopter of the tomb at Ding Ling.’

She burst out laughing. ‘Ding-a-ling?’ she asked incredulously.

‘No.’ He smiled at her silliness. ‘Ding Ling. It’s the site of the tomb of Zhu Yijun, thirteenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Wanli. It is built into Dayu Hill in the cradle of the Heavenly Longevity Hills, just an hour out of the city. And it looked fabulous today. The first sunshine in ages. We couldn’t believe it. So we got the chopper up there fast, and came in very low over the mountains, so that as we traversed the final peak, the tomb opened out below us in all its glory. With the autumn colours, and the light, we got some great pics.’

Margaret said, ‘I don’t mean to be a killjoy, but pretty pictures aren’t going to sustain a whole series, surely? And, well, to be honest I can’t say I’d be riveted by the prospect of looking at a lot of tombs.’

Michael smiled indulgently at her ignorance. ‘That’s not what the series is about,’ he said. ‘History is about people, Margaret. And this series is about an amazing person called Hu Bo.’ He stopped himself. ‘But you don’t really want to know about this.’

She laughed. ‘No, I’m sorry. I do. Honestly. Go on.’

He shrugged, a little embarrassed. ‘Hu was a pioneer of archaeology in twentieth-century China.’

‘On second thoughts …’

Michael grinned. ‘OK, I know. That might not sound very interesting in itself. But when you look at his life and what he achieved — in the face of incredible odds, against a backdrop of war and revolution, and political madness — it’s an incredible story. A story that started when he was just ten years old, and his father sold him to an entourage of foreign explorers. A story that ended with a final act of will — the publication of the true story of the excavation at Ding Ling, which he and a handful of colleagues had kept safe from the destructive forces of the Cultural Revolution at considerable cost to themselves.’

Margaret said, ‘Sounds to me like the voice-over for the start of a TV series about a Chinese archaeologist.’

He chuckled. ‘Not far off it. I haven’t actually written it yet. It’ll be better when I do.’ His eyes smiled and twinkled at her. ‘Would it make you watch?’

She sucked in a breath through her teeth. ‘Well … I’m hard to please, Michael. It might make me give it a minute or two.’

He leaned forward. His enthusiasm was infectious. ‘If you give me a minute, I’ll give you an hour. And if you give me an hour, you’ll watch the whole series. I promise you.’

In spite of an in-built resistance to the idea that anything about archaeology or archaeologists might be of the slightest interest to her, Margaret was intrigued. Although she wasn’t sure whether it was the story, or the storyteller, that aroused her interest.

He took her hand in his, quite unselfconsciously. ‘Come out to location tomorrow. Please. We’re staging a recreation of the moment when Hu Bo and his ragtag team of archaeologists and amateur enthusiasts open the emperor’s tomb, almost exactly four hundred years after it was first sealed. They don’t know what to expect. There are stories of poisonous gases, of mechanical crossbows primed to release poison-tipped arrows if the gates of the underground chamber are opened. As they pull away the first few bricks they are literally terrified …’ He paused and waited.

‘So what happened?’ she asked impatiently.

He grinned and sat back. ‘You see. Got you already.’ She laughed. ‘If you want to know, come out tomorrow. I’ll have a production car pick you up.’

‘Well …’ she said, almost coyly. ‘I’ll think about it.’

The jazz band began assembling again at the far end of the tearoom, to Margaret’s disappointment. Once the music began, conversation would become impossible, and she had been enjoying the conversation. She liked Michael. He was easy company, and he was entertaining. Then she clouded as thoughts of Li again forced their way into her consciousness. And she wondered if she would ever get over him.

Michael turned his chair towards the band and said to Margaret, ‘These guys are a bit special. They’re only in town for a couple of nights, that’s why they’re on tonight instead of the weekend. The sax player is up there with the best anywhere in the world.’

Margaret cast her eyes over the band. The keyboard player was an American — he was speaking Chinese but she could still hear the American accent. The drummer, sax player and double-bassist, were Chinese. The keyboard player reintroduced the band in Chinese and English, and then counted them into a medium-paced piece, dominated by an endlessly repeating cycle on the keyboard, with diversions and interjections by the sax. They were undoubtedly good, but Margaret’s emotions were not really engaged. She saw that Michael was listening intently. Clearly this was an area where their interests diverged.

She let her attention wander around the rest of the tearoom. The old guy with the baseball cap still wasn’t getting past first base with the young Chinese girl. Near the front an intense-looking young man sat with eyes fixed on the band, his head moving rhythmically up and down in time with the music. He was transfixed. His pretty girlfriend, ignored by her lover, was keeping herself awake by idly creating the most wonderful origami creatures from a single square of handkerchief. Margaret watched, intrigued, as the girl conjured up a peacock with fan tail and cocked head, an intricate and elaborate arrangement of folds in the handkerchief. When she had finished she nudged her boyfriend in search of his approval. He glanced briefly at her creation, nodded and half-smiled, then refocused his attention on the music. The girl shrugged and with a single flick undid all her work and started again on something else.

The band finished their number to enthusiastic applause. The keyboard player spoke for a moment or two in Chinese, and Margaret became aware of heads starting to turn in their direction. Michael was blushing. Then the keyboard player switched to English. ‘And for those of you who don’t speak Chinese,’ he said, ‘we have with us tonight a certain Mr Michael Zimmerman.’ He waved a hand in Michael’s direction and more heads turned and there was a scattering of applause. ‘Now, if you know him at all, most of you have probably seen him on TV fronting those popular historical documentaries. But not many of you will know that Michael’s real talent is the alto sax.’

Michael half-turned towards her. ‘This is embarrassing.’

‘I didn’t know you played,’ Margaret said, suddenly intrigued by this new and unexpected dimension. And then she realised that, in truth, she didn’t know anything about him at all.

‘So, Michael, how about you come up and play a number with us? Big hand for Michael Zimmerman, everyone.’

The eyes of the entire tearoom were on their table. ‘Jesus,’ Michael whispered under his breath, but made no move to get up.

‘Go on,’ Margaret said, nudging him. And she stood up and started clapping. ‘I want to hear you play.’

He was trapped. He shook his head, got up reluctantly and made his way forward to join the band. Margaret watched, glowing with a strange and unaccountable pride. She was with him, and she was aware of people looking at her and wondering who she was. Michael fixed his own mouthpiece to an alto sax that the Chinese sax player took out of a case on the floor behind them.

They had a brief discussion, then the drummer counted them into a slow, dreamy piece, just made for a treacly sax solo. The electric piano reverberated around a simple circular melody, the bass player slipping fingers up and down his fretless board, bending and pulling the strings through the cycle. Michael stood with eyes closed, swaying slightly, letting the music wash over him, before lifting the sax to his mouth and breathing velvet and silk into a creamy solo that swooped and fell and growled around the room.

Margaret felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck, and across her scalp, and goosebumps raised themselves on her thighs. She had never had much time for music, but occasionally something would move her. And she was moved now. There was a deep, penetrating sexuality in this music, in part spawned by the fact that this was the man she was with, but also because this was talent, raw and real and just a touch away. She watched his intensity, fingers sliding over the keys of his sax in a blur, as his solo soared towards it climax, like a woman towards orgasm. And as he finished, and stepped back, sweat running in rivulets down his face, everyone in the room burst into spontaneous applause. Even the origami girl had abandoned her handkerchief and was clapping her hands with unanticipated enthusiasm.

Margaret’s hands were stinging as Michael made his way back to their table to join her. He sat down, mopping the perspiration from his face with the handkerchief the origami girl had offered him on the way past. To the intense annoyance of her boyfriend she was still watching him, a sexual, predatory look in her eyes. Margaret was aware of it, too.

‘Sorry about that,’ Michael said, and he seemed genuinely embarrassed.

‘And I suppose you always carry your mouthpiece with you,’ she said. ‘Just in case.’

He grinned. ‘Always.’

And Margaret decided there and then that she would, after all, take up his offer to go out on location tomorrow.

V

Mei Yuan was sitting on the settee, her arm around Xinxin, a big picture book open in front of them. Xinxin was so engrossed she could hardly tear her eyes away to glance at her mother and uncle coming in.

Mei Yuan did not possess a telephone, but during her illness Li had got to know a neighbour who was willing to pass on phone messages. And so Mei Yuan had come straight away when he called, arriving by bicycle twenty-five breathless minutes later, her face glowing. She had brought a large bundle of colourful picture books for young children, prompting Li to wonder where on earth she had managed to find them. But he did not ask. She was delighted to babysit. She loved children, she said. Her only remaining close family were a cousin and her husband, and their ‘baby’ was nearly thirty. So it was very rare for her to have the opportunity to be with young children.

Xinxin was still uncertain of her big, strange uncle. She eyed him cautiously with dark, wary eyes. She had not seen him since she was two years old and had no recollection of him at all. But she had taken a shine to Mei Yuan immediately. Li and Xiao Ling had been shooed out the door and told not to worry. Xinxin was in good hands, and they were not to feel they had to hurry back. Mei Yuan understood their need to talk, and if they were late back, then she would just sleep over on the settee. So she was surprised when they returned so early, gone little more than an hour, and sensed a chill in the air they brought in with them.

Xinxin was unhappy about her leaving so soon, and was close to tears before Mei Yuan assured her she would come to see her again, and that in the meantime she would leave the books for Xinxin to look at.

As she left she said quietly to Li, ‘Anytime you need me.’ He squeezed her hand and nodded his silent gratitude. And when she was gone he sat gloomily in the sitting room listening to Xiao Ling in Yifu’s old room trying to persuade Xinxin that it was time for her to go to sleep. At first he heard Xinxin complain that she wasn’t sleepy, and then Xiao Ling talked for a long time in low, hypnotic tones, and then there was silence. But it was, perhaps, another ten minutes before Xiao Ling came through. She had removed her cardigan, and he noticed for the first time how much the swelling in her womb was already showing. She looked tired and strained, and Li saw that his little sister was beginning to age.

She was no longer the fresh-faced young girl he remembered from trips home to Sichuan when he was still at university. It brought back a recollection of the time he had returned to discover that she was engaged to a young man he had not even met, a young man who, he was dismayed to discover, he could not bring himself to like. Xiao Xu owned a small farm near the town of Zigong in Sichuan Province, where he and Xiao Ling and Xinxin lived with his parents. In the new China, his privately owned farm had flourished and he was, comparatively speaking, well off. They had just built themselves a new house. Li had never been there. He had never been asked. But neither had he any inclination to go. As far as he was concerned, Xiao Xu was a brutish peasant and not good enough for his sister. Not that he had ever treated her badly — Li would have beaten him to a pulp if he had — but Li had never sensed in him any real affection or respect for his sister. She had been a pretty girl, and come with a respectable dowry, but Li believed that Xiao Xu had simply been in the market for a wife to bear his child, and that his sister had been in the wrong place at the right time. She had deserved so much better. And now this.

‘Do you want tea?’ she asked. And he nodded. He would have preferred beer, but needed to keep his head clear. She went into the kitchen to boil some water. All that she had told him was that she had not yet decided if she was going to have the baby or not. She was only sixteen weeks pregnant and could still decide up to twenty-eight weeks if she wanted an abortion. Under China’s One-Child Policy, the penalties, both psychological and financial, of going ahead with the birth when she already had a perfectly healthy little girl, could be severe. Loss of free education for Xinxin and her unborn brother or sister, loss of free medical care for the whole family, loss of housing benefit and other tax breaks, even a hefty fine. The psychological pressures that could be brought to bear by the village committee and Party cadres had, in some cases, driven mothers to take their own lives. But at the same time Li abhorred the idea of abortion, of taking the life of her unborn child. It was a dreadful dichotomy, a dark place into which it would have been better she had never ventured.

It was almost the first question he had asked her. ‘Why?’ And she had been dismissive. It had happened, she said, and that was that. But he knew she had wanted this baby. He knew that she had been dissatisfied with her little girl. She wanted a boy, like every other mother in China.

His decision to take her to the Sanwei tearoom, somewhere quiet where they could talk uninterrupted, had been a disaster. Jazz nights were normally a weekend phenomenon. He thought of Margaret, and his surprise at meeting her there, of his anger and jealousy at finding her in the company of a good-looking American. He had no right, he knew, to be jealous, but he touched his cheek where it tingled still from her slap, and he wondered if her righteous indignation of that afternoon had owed more to guilt than to anger.

Xiao Ling brought the tea through on a tray, and laid out teapot and cups on the coffee table in front of the settee. She poured hot water on to the green leaves in the cups and put their lids on to let the leaves rehydrate and infuse the water with their leafy bitter flavour. Then she perched on the edge of the settee next to Li and waited in tense silence.

‘So what did Uncle Yifu say to you?’ Li asked, finally, and she immediately tensed further.

Yifu, at the request of their father, had travelled to Zigong by train to talk to Xiao Ling about her pregnancy and had been killed on the night of his return to Beijing.

She clasped her hands together, wringing her fingers as she spoke. ‘After all the pressure everyone had been putting me under,’ she said, ‘old Yifu sat me down and took my hand and told me my destiny was my own to decide.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘He made no judgements or accusations. He took me through all the options and all the consequences. He asked me to tell him why I wanted a boy. He made no comment upon my reply, but he made me think about it and give expression to my feelings. Nobody else cared what I thought, not Xiao Xu, not his parents nor our father, nor anyone. They just wanted me to do what I was told. Uncle Yifu wanted me to do what I thought was right.’ She turned to Li as the tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. ‘He was such a lovely old man, Li Yan. Such a good man. We talked for hours and I wanted him to stay for a few days. But he said he had to go.’ She bit her lip. ‘If only I’d insisted, if I’d made him stay, he’d still be alive today.’ And the guilt that she had been holding in for who knew how long, rose in great sobs that tore at her chest, and she wept unreservedly. ‘I feel so responsible.’

Li put an arm around her and pulled her to him. She felt so small and fragile, he was afraid to squeeze her too hard in case she broke. ‘You share no blame for his death,’ he almost whispered. His voice was hoarse with emotion. ‘If there is someone to blame then it is me. He would not have been killed if it were not for me.’

But this seemed only to distress Xiao Ling even further. ‘I don’t know why you ever wanted to be a policeman anyway,’ she sobbed, and he felt her accusation in it.

‘Because I wanted to be like him,’ he said, desperate for her understanding. ‘Because I believed in the same things he did — in fairness and justice, and the right of people to live in security without fear for their lives or possessions.’

And she turned her tear-stained face to his. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know you loved him, too.’

They sat for a long time then, just holding each other, until their tears had all been spilled. Finally Xiao Ling wiped her face dry with a handkerchief and sat forward to sip her tea. It was only lukewarm by now. Li no longer felt like drinking his, and he went to the refrigerator and opened a bottle of beer. He stood in the doorway watching her, then took a long pull from the neck of his bottle. The ice-cold beer took the heat out of the burning in his throat. Then he asked the question he had been putting off all night. ‘Why are you here, Xiao Ling?’

She avoided his eye. ‘There is a clinic in Beijing where I can go to have what they call an ultra-sound scan.’ Her voice was husky.

He frowned. ‘What’s that?’ Such things were beyond his experience, and he was apprehensive.

‘It’s where they can get a picture on a television screen of your baby in the womb. They do it with sound, somehow … high frequency sound waves. I’ve been reading up about it.’

‘What is the point of that?’

She hesitated. ‘Sometimes they can tell the sex of the baby.’ And he knew immediately what was in her head, and he felt sick to his stomach. ‘And if they can’t,’ she said, ‘then they can take fluid from the womb and know for sure.’

He stood, motionless, looking at her for a long time. He felt a vein pulsing in his temple. ‘And if it’s another girl?’ He waited for her reply, but she said nothing, and steadfastly refused to meet his eye. So he said it for her. ‘You’re going to have her aborted, aren’t you?’ Somehow it seemed even worse when the ‘it’ had become ‘her’.

Xiao Ling seemed to be examining her fingernails with great interest. ‘If they have to do the fluid test it’ll take about four weeks for the results. I would still only be twenty weeks gone.’

He took a long draught from his bottle and controlled the urge to shout at her. In any case, what gave him the right to judge her? He wondered what Yifu would have said or done, then realised he had no idea. And it came home to him just how different he was in so many ways from the uncle whose standards he had been trying to live up to all these years. Perhaps they were always going to be too high for him. Always just out of reach.

‘This clinic,’ he said at length. ‘It is private?’ She nodded. ‘Expensive?’ She nodded again. ‘How can you afford it?’

‘Xiao Xu has been doing well these last few years. I have saved some money.’

‘And Xiao Xu approves of this?’

There was a long silence before finally she said, ‘Xiao Xu doesn’t know. He thinks only that we have come to visit you.’

Li was shocked. ‘But it’s his child, too. Doesn’t he have a right to a say in what happens to it?’

Xiao Ling met his eyes for the first time and he saw, to his dismay, something like hate in hers. ‘He wants me to get rid of it whether it’s a girl or a boy.’ There was venom in her voice. ‘They got to him. I don’t know what they said, I don’t know what they threatened to do, but suddenly he didn’t want it any more. It was my fault, my problem, and as far as he was concerned it was up to me to get rid of it.’

Suddenly he understood the crushing loneliness she must feel. The whole world against her. Urging a single course of action. And she, driven by some instinct, or by the dreadful weight of five thousand years of tradition, just wanted a baby boy. A desire that, had she lived in almost any other place on earth, would have been the simplest desire in the world to fulfil.

‘If this … scan … tells you the sex of your baby …’ His mouth was dry, and the question would barely form in it. ‘What will you do if it is a boy?’

This time she returned his gaze, steady and sure. ‘If it’s a boy I will have it, and give Xinxin up for adoption.’