The Firemaker (27 page)

‘I’ve no idea. His bathroom cabinet was full of medicines.’ He turned into Zhengyi Road and parked in the street outside the police apartments. ‘I’ll be five minutes,’ he said.

She watched him go, noticing for the first time how narrow his hips were in contrast to his broad shoulders, the pleasing square set of his head. She knew he was fit from the way he moved, muscles toned and taut. A man’s body was usually the last thing she found attractive. Normally it was the eyes that would first appeal. Windows on the soul. You could tell so much about someone’s personality from the eyes; their humour, warmth, or the lack of either. She liked a man to be cerebral, to have a sense of humour. Masculinity was important, but ‘macho’ was a turn-off. Li was moody and defensive and prickly, but there was something in his eyes that told her she would like him if only she could get near him. There was no doubting his masculinity, but he had a sensitive – perhaps over-sensitive – quality, betrayed by the ease with which he blushed. No doubt it embarrassed him, but she found it endearing. His guilt, when she had caught him looking at her reflection in the mirror, had been amusing. But for a long moment it had been more, a strange feeling of desire flipping over in her stomach. That feeling returned now, and she felt herself grow hot and flushed. She drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. This was not going to happen. She had not escaped from Chicago, from the person she had been, the life she had left in ruins, just to fall for some damned Chinese policeman with a chip on his shoulder and a severe case of xenophobia.

She forced herself to focus on the murders, recreating in her mind the picture of Chao’s apartment that Li had painted for her. If Chao was the key to the three murders, then there must be clues in his life and lifestyle, in his work, his apartment. But her thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the driver’s door. Li was wearing a fresh white short-sleeved shirt open at the neck, and neatly pressed black trousers over gleaming brown shoes. ‘Very smart,’ she said. ‘Who does your ironing for you? Your uncle?’

‘I do it myself,’ he said, and blushed, covering his embarrassment by making a meal of pulling on his seat belt and starting the engine. Margaret looked at him with mixed feelings. In the last couple of hours he had taken her through the entire emotional spectrum, from anger verging on hatred to stirrings of lust and affection. He was an infuriating man.

IV

The headquarters of Section One were still besieged by people who had been summoned to make statements. The offices and hallways of the building were baking in the afternoon heat. Corridors were lined with people on chairs, or squatting with their backs to the wall. Cigarette smoke hung heavy in the still air, in long horizontal strands, like mist. Officers and interviewees alike were crotchety and tired. Even the cheap standard-issue stationery slipped into typewriters by secretaries had gone limp. The temperature rose as Li and Margaret climbed the stairs to the top floor, and by the time they had reached the detectives’ office Li’s shirt was sticking to him in a tapering line down his back, turned sheer by perspiration. Margaret could see clearly the sculptured lines of muscle interwoven across his shoulders and upper back. She knew the names of every one, memorised during hours spent studying for anatomy exams:
trapezius, hood,
latissimus dorsi
,
erector spinae
. She knew the way they were layered and overlapped, and what they looked like beneath the skin. She had never regarded them as anything other than anatomical. Until now. There was something animal, sexual and attractive, about the way they pressed against the wet, semi-transparent cotton of Li’s shirt. She cursed herself under her breath. What in God’s name was happening to her? She forced her eyes away.

Li’s heart sank as he turned into the detectives’ room and saw heads lift and faces light in expectation. The door to his office stood ajar, and beyond it the room seemed to glow, as if filled with sunlight, and yet his windows, he knew, faced north-east and only caught the sun obliquely in the early morning. Necks craned to catch his expression as he pushed the door open. His office was unrecognisable. All the furniture had been moved. A large fish tank filled with golden carp stood on a table in one corner. Flowers bloomed in pots all along the windowsill. A small tree in a porcelain pot spread large fleshy leaves into the office from another corner. His desk now faced the door, side-on to the window on its left. The filing cabinet that had stood behind the door had been moved to the far corner. The floor was covered with paint-spattered blankets, and a painter in overalls stood on a stepladder spreading bright yellow paint over cream walls that had gone grey with age and smoke. The previously jammed window stood wide open – no doubt, Li thought furiously, to let the paint fumes escape.

The
feng shui
man from the previous day was sitting cross-legged again among the files on Li’s desk, examining a large sheet of paper held open in front of him. He looked up at Li and smiled. ‘
Much
better. You like it?’ He held out the sheet of paper. ‘My plan. Ve-ery good
feng shui
.’ He smiled at the walls. ‘Yellow. The colour of the sun. The colour of life. This will uplift your spirit and stimulate your
ch’i
. You feel good, you work better.’ He grinned, revealing his bad teeth. ‘Your men are very good. They move furniture ve-ery quickly.’

Li was incredulous. ‘You used my detectives to move the furniture?’ Behind him, he heard the unrestrained mirth of his detectives. He looked at the fish tank, and the array of plants. ‘Who’s paying for all this?’

‘Your uncle tells me, spare no expense. I think he is very fond of you.’

Li grew hot with anger. He looked at the painter, who was listening in with interest. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Out.’

‘But I haven’t finished yet,’ the painter protested.

‘I don’t care. Get your blankets off my floor, take your paint and your ladders, and go. This is a working office, and I am in the middle of a murder investigation.’

‘But once it’s dried, I’ll never be able to match the joins.’ The painter saw Li’s eyes widen with fury. ‘Okay, okay. I’m out of here.’ He scrambled down the ladder and began clearing his stuff.

Li took the old man by the arm and invited him to get down off his desk. ‘Tell my uncle thank you very much,’ he said, struggling to keep his anger under control. ‘But I have to work now, so you’ll have to go.’

‘I’ll send the painter back on the weekend,’ said the
feng shui
man.

Li drew breath sharply and clenched his fists at his side. ‘Just go.’

‘Okay,’ the
feng shui
man said. He looked around the office, and nodded, satisfied. ‘You feel mu-uch better now.’

And the crowd of detectives at the door parted, like the Red Sea, to let him through. Margaret stood smiling just inside the office. She might not have understood a single word, but she knew exactly what had transpired. The painter rattled his ladders, lifted his paint pot, and hurried out after the
feng shui
man. Li glared at the faces gathered round the door. ‘What are you lot looking at?’

Wu said, ‘Nothing, boss.’ He cast an appraising eye around the room, nodding his approval. ‘Bi-ig improvement.’ There was a splutter of laughter among the others.

‘Get out,’ Li said, shaking his head and restraining a smile, able finally, if reluctantly, to see a funny side to it. He called after them, ‘And if I get any more crap from you guys, I’m going to give that
feng shui
man every one of your addresses.’ He pushed the door shut.

Margaret said, ‘It
is
much better like this. Or, at least, it would have been if you’d let him finish painting the walls.’

‘Don’t
you
start.’ He looked at the piles of transcripts under the window. They seemed to have doubled in size since the morning. His desk was covered again with folders and papers. ‘Would you look at this stuff. I’m going to go blind with paperwork before we’re through with this investigation.’ There was a knock at the door. ‘What!’ he shouted.

Qian poked his head in apologetically. ‘Sorry, boss. Thought you’d like to see the preliminary reports from forensics. They came in by fax about an hour ago.’

Li grabbed the sheets and ran his eyes over the fax-fuzzy rows of tiny Chinese characters that delivered verdicts on the DNA tests and the spectral analysis of the blood from Chao’s apartment. He looked up at Margaret. ‘It
was
Chao’s blood on the carpet. And as near as they can determine, it was spilled some time Monday night into Tuesday morning.’

‘Which bears out your theory,’ she said.

He nodded, and paused to re-examine the fax. Then he met her eye, and there was a muted excitement in his voice. ‘The DNA from saliva traces on all three cigarette ends matches.’

‘Jesus,’ Margaret said. ‘So they
were
all murdered by the same guy.’

*

She sat at his desk, swivelling the chair slowly from side to side. The detectives’ office outside was empty. They were all in the meeting room with Li, reviewing progress. She looked at the ragged line on the wall where the fresh yellow paint stopped and the old paint began, and she smiled. His Uncle Yifu was certainly nothing if not persistent. She wondered if he had any idea how much it embarrassed Li, and from all that she knew of him concluded that he probably did. Her eyes fell on the faxes that still lay on Li’s desk, and she marvelled at how it was possible for people to read these strange and complex pictograms. She had read somewhere that although different languages were spoken throughout China, the written language, the characters, remained the same. They just had different words for the same pictures. Of course, standard Beijing Mandarin was now taught in all the schools.

From somewhere deep in the building she could hear the distant sounds of phones ringing, voices raised, the chatter of keyboards. She closed her eyes and started tumbling backward through a dark abyss.

She opened her eyes immediately, or so she thought. She had not realised how tired she was. Her brain was still not keyed to Beijing time. She looked at her watch and realised with a shock that she had just lost twenty minutes. She blinked and tried to make her mind focus on something. The cigarette ends. There was a pack of cigarettes lying on the desk. She picked it up and took one out. The tobacco had a strong, bitter, toasty smell. It made her think of coffee stewing on a hot plate. She examined the pale pattern on the cork-coloured tip, the brand name red on white just above it. A single cigarette end at each crime scene. Smoked by the same man. What was it that was so wrong about that? She knew, of course. No professional would be so careless. And yet they were professional killings. And then suddenly she had a revelation, and sat forward in the chair, heart pounding. It had only been obscure because it was so obvious.

The sound of voices came through from the outer office as the detectives returned from their meeting. Li appeared in the doorway.

‘I’ve just had a revelation,’ she said.

‘You hungry?’ he asked, as if he hadn’t heard

She hadn’t thought about it, but now that she did she realised that her stomach was growling. ‘Sure. Listen, this is important.’

‘Good. I haven’t eaten all day. We’ll get something at the stall on the corner, and then I’m going to the Ministry of Agriculture. If you want to come …’

‘Try keeping me away.’ She stood up. ‘Li Yan … Are you going to hear me out or what?’

He held the door open for her. ‘Tell me on the way.’ But, as he turned, the chain on his fob watch caught on the handle and broke. ‘Damn!’

She looked at the chain. ‘It’s just a broken link. It’s fixable.’

‘Later.’ He slipped it off his belt and dropped it into the top drawer of his desk. He saw she was wearing a wristwatch and tapped his own wrist. ‘You can keep me right.’

By the time they were out in the corridor she was having trouble keeping up with him. He seemed infused with a fresh energy and new determination. ‘I just put a stop to wasting any further time on trying to make some futile drugs connection. At least it’ll cut down on the paperwork.’

‘Li Yan … The cigarette ends …’

‘What about them?’

They were on the stairs now. ‘I think I know why he left one at each crime scene.’

Li stopped. ‘Why?’

‘Because he
wanted
you to find them. He
wanted
you to make the connection.’

‘Why?’ Li asked again.

‘I don’t know. If we knew that we wouldn’t be here. But it makes a hell of a lot more sense than believing that someone so careful and meticulous in every other respect would be so careless in that one.’

Li stood and thought about it. He was on the step below her, and she became aware that her eyes and his were on a level. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring off into the middle distance, lost in contemplation. It gave her an opportunity to look at him close up. The features she had first taken as ugly she saw now as strong. A forceful nose, a well-defined mouth, prominent brows, beautiful, almond-shaped eyes, a brown so deep and warm it was hard to distinguish the iris from the pupil. He had a strong jaw, dimpled at the chin, and his flat-top crew cut emphasised the squareness of his head. His skin was the colour of pale teak, and was remarkably unlined, except for the traces of laughter around his eyes and mouth.

He became aware of her looking at him, and for a moment they stood staring into each other’s eyes. And then he was overcome by embarrassment.

‘It’s an interesting thought,’ he said, almost dismissively. ‘But it doesn’t take us any further.’ He turned and resumed his progress down the stairs.

She chased after him. ‘Yes it does. If he wanted you to make the connection, it means he had a motive for doing so.’

‘Of course,’ Li said. ‘But it doesn’t help us know what that motive is. We need more information.’

Margaret tutted her irritation. ‘Well, thanks for the thought, Margaret, it was really helpful.’

Her sarcastic edge and serrated tongue were becoming familiar to him. He decided to play dumb. ‘It was,’ he said, as if blissfully unaware of her tone. He smiled to himself as he heard her gasp of exasperation. Perhaps he was finally beginning to get her measure.