The Fourth Sacrifice (3 page)

The Ambassador himself met her at the door, accompanied by his wife, an attractive, statuesque woman in her middle-fifties. Margaret hadn’t met her before, and the Ambassador made the introductions.

‘Oh, yes,’ his wife said, regarding Margaret with curiosity. ‘You’re the rice lady. I’ve heard so much about you.’

Sensing Margaret’s embarrassment, and perhaps knowing something of her unpredictability, the Ambassador ushered her quickly inside to the cool of a dark marble-floored hallway. At the far end, a green-carpeted staircase curled up to the second floor where the Ambassador’s family had their private apartments. Off to the left was a cloakroom and a guest bedroom. Through a square arch to the right, came the sound of voices lubricated by alcohol, early inhibitions already washed away. Margaret had not come early.

From the cloakroom, she saw the Ambassador having a quick word with his wife. Perhaps he was telling her that for a diplomat’s wife she had just been very undiplomatic. Whatever he said, she did not seem impressed and strode away into the main lounge to rejoin her guests. He, however, remained unflappable, and took Margaret by the arm and steered her across thick-piled Chinese rugs through a passage towards a long lounge crowded with people. They passed a square room on their right, opulent classical Chinese furniture facing in to an ornately carved low table inlaid with mother of pearl. ‘Our little reception room, specially for the Chinese,’ he said. ‘They do like us to make a little fuss. Makes ’em feel like
honoured
guests.’

The lounge was a subtly lit oblong space with full-length windows down one side, sofas and armchairs neatly arranged in ordered groups. White walls were hung with pastel-coloured silk and paper collages, different coloured discs representing ancient seals dangling from each like pendulums. The Ambassador followed Margaret’s eyes to the pictures. ‘Produced on paper handmade by master papermakers in Annhui Province. The works of Robert Rauschenberg.’ He smiled his regret. ‘Just on loan, sadly. Like most of the pieces in the house. Part of the State Department’s Art in Embassies Program. Great idea. Just a pity we’ve got to give ’em back.’ He signalled a waiter with a drinks tray. ‘What’ll you have?’

‘Vodka tonic with ice and lemon,’ she told the waiter. He nodded and melted away.

Meantime, the Ambassador had contrived some hidden signal, and Sophie emerged smiling from the crowd. ‘Hi, glad you could make it.’

‘I’ll leave Sophie to introduce you to folk,’ the Ambassador said. ‘Got to keep mixing.’ And with a smile and a wave he was gone. Margaret was relieved. There was something about him that always made her slightly uncomfortable – her sense that somehow he felt uncomfortable with her.

‘You hungry?’ Sophie asked, steering her towards the top of the room and through another square arch to a dining room which made a T with the lounge. Beneath a regimented array of photographs of vases and artefacts, a very long table groaned with salads and cold meats, and hot trays with bubbling Chinese dishes. Everything looked delicious, but Margaret had little appetite.

‘Maybe later,’ she said, looking around for the waiter and her drink. A group of guests had spilled out through open French windows on to the terrace where the quintet was playing. ‘Who is everyone?’ She was beginning to wonder why she had come. There was no one here who looked remotely as interesting as Sophie’s description of Michael Zimmerman, and she wasn’t really in the mood for making small talk.

‘Oh, there’s some senior members of the production team, representatives of the companies who’re sponsoring the series. That bunch of Chinese over there …’ she nodded towards a group of men standing uncomfortably in suits and holding glasses of wine like they didn’t know what to do with them, ‘… they represent the various government departments that have facilitated the shoot.’

‘Excuse me, I think this is yours.’

Margaret turned to find a young man in a dark suit holding her vodka tonic. ‘Oh, thanks,’ she said, taking it from him.

‘My pleasure,’ he said and leaned across her to Sophie. ‘Sophie, I think the Ambassador’s looking for you.’

Sophie jumped. ‘Oh. Is he?’ She raised her eyebrows to Margaret in apology. ‘Be right back.’ And she hurried off.

Margaret took a long pull at her vodka and was slightly disconcerted to find that the young man was still there.

‘Don’t you just hate these things?’ he said, tugging uncomfortably at his collar.

‘Sure,’ said Margaret, a little surprised. ‘But in my case it’s self-inflicted. At least you’re getting paid to be here.’

He gave her a very odd look. ‘I’m sorry?’

A sudden cloud of apprehension descended on her. She waved her glass at him. ‘Well, aren’t you … ? Didn’t you … ?’ She didn’t have the courage to finish, and he laughed suddenly.

‘You thought I was the waiter?’ And his face lit up with amusement, dark warm eyes twinkling at her.

‘Oh, my God.’ Margaret couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘I am so sorry.’ But when she did sneak a glance, it was clear he had not taken offence.

‘I’m afraid I’m a self-inflicted guest, just like you.’ He had dimples either side of a wide smile, strong eyebrows below shiny auburn hair swept back from his temples. He was older than Margaret had first supposed, she saw now. Mid, perhaps even late, thirties. There was just the hint of grey streaked through his hair. ‘The waiter was looking for you down the other end of the room. He said you were with Sophie, so I took the drink off him and figured if I could find Sophie I’d find you. And I did.’

Margaret was still overcome with the embarrassment of her
faux pas
. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again, at a loss for anything else to say.

‘Don’t be. It’s my own fault really. I was so keen to meet the woman who wanted to …’ he paused for effect, ‘… run the rule over my ass, that I completely forgot to introduce myself.’

Margaret felt her face flush with embarrassment.

He held out his hand. ‘Michael Zimmerman.’

It was one of those few times in her life when Margaret was at a complete loss for words. She shook his hand, feeling like a total idiot. How could he possibly know about her conversation with Sophie? How could she possibly mistake him for a waiter? She didn’t know which was more embarrassing. And those smiling eyes of his continued to hold her relentlessly in their gaze. She might have sunk without trace, but recovered just in time. ‘Actually, the only way I’d measure anything of yours would be on an autopsy table.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘Sophie told me. We both deal in death, you and I.’

‘Do we?’

‘You cut them up, I dig them up.’

Margaret fixed him with a steely glare. ‘And I’ve been
set
up, haven’t I? Sophie hadn’t even appeared when I ordered my drink. Who is she anyway, your little sister?’

‘Close,’ Michael said. ‘She went to school with my little sister. Had a crush on me since she was three and I was fifteen.’ He lifted a glass of red wine from the table and took a sip. ‘She thought you needed cheering up.’

‘Oh, did she?’ Margaret wasn’t sure she liked being an object of pity.

‘Hey, don’t be hard on her. She’s a good kid. Smart, too.’ He took another sip of wine. ‘She just couldn’t believe you didn’t know who I was.’

‘And neither, presumably, could you. Must be a bit of a blow to the celebrity ego to find that not everyone in the world knows who you are.’

‘Hey …’ Michael grinned. ‘Now don’t start getting chippy on me. I said I would only participate in this childish prank if you turned out to be drop-dead gorgeous.’

In spite of herself, Margaret couldn’t resist a smile. ‘Oh, did you?’

‘So I watched for you coming in, and …’

‘And … ?’

‘Well, I just figured anybody that ugly sure as hell needs cheering up.’

Margaret laughed, and was surprised to find herself attracted to him. Which was disturbing. Was she really drawn to the same stereotypical male that appealed to the readership of
Cosmopolitan
? The thought filled her with horror. But then, she consoled herself, the readership of
Cosmopolitan
had never met him in the flesh. It wasn’t the image she found attractive, but the man. And she had no preconceived perception of him as a media personality. She’d thought he was a waiter, for God’s sake! Anyway, it was a long time since she had indulged in a little harmless flirting. ‘I should have realised,’ she said. ‘A real waiter would have had more class.’

‘I’m sure he would,’ Michael said. ‘It’s what my critics accuse me of. A lack of class. You know, the kind of snobbish élitism that would normally consign a documentary on archaeology to some obscure cable channel watched by a handful of people.’

‘Ouch,’ said Margaret. ‘Did I touch a nasty contusion just beneath the skin?’

‘No,’ Michael grinned. ‘A great big open wound. I just got mauled by the TV critic of the
New York Times
, who thinks I reduce history to the level of soap opera.’

‘And do you?’

‘Well, yes, actually I probably do,’ Michael nodded. ‘But, you know, what that guy missed is that good soap opera is just good storytelling, and history is bursting with good stories to be told. I mean, you’re a forensic pathologist, right?’ Margaret nodded. ‘So nobody knows better than you. Every crime has its story, motivated by any number of things – greed, lust, jealousy … And it’s your job to peel away the layers that obscure that story, to piece together, bit by bit, the trail of evidence that will lead eventually to the truth.’

Margaret laughed. ‘You make it sound almost exciting. I can assure you, most of the time it’s pretty dull.’

He had become quite intense, focused, as if holding something in his mind’s eye that required absolute concentration to describe. ‘Of course it is. It’s a painful, painstaking process that requires endless patience and a clear vision of where it’s leading. But the truth is never dull – that extraordinary mix of human passion and frailty, maybe darkness, that leads to the commission of the crime. Do you see what I mean?’

Margaret shook her head. She had no idea where he was leading her. ‘I’m afraid not.’

‘It’s what
I
do,’ he said. ‘The same thing as you. It’s what archaeology is all about. Peeling back the layers – usually of time – to uncover the evidence, all the little clues left us by history, that will lead eventually to the truth. And how extraordinary that truth can be. How compelling and emotive, and filled with the same human passion and frailty and darkness that motivates the crimes that you investigate. Why shouldn’t I bring those stories to people? They’re good stories. A good story is always worth telling. And if you tell it well you’ll get an audience.’ He stopped suddenly, as if surprised by his own outburst and uncertain as to where it had led him.

Margaret shrugged. ‘So … the TV critic of the
New York Times
can stick it up his ass?’

There was just a moment before Michael burst out laughing, an uninhibited, infectious laugh. ‘Now why didn’t I think of that? I could have saved myself a lot of hot air.’

But in that ‘hot air’, Margaret had caught, perhaps, a glimpse of what it was that had made him so successful on the small screen: the passion and personality that compelled you to listen, to hear his story, an intensity that in life, she thought, could become wearing. Although in Michael’s case, she considered, his sense of humour might just be a mitigating factor. That, and a great ass.

He drained his glass and lifted another, nodding towards the terrace. ‘You want to step outside? It’s getting a bit airless in here.’

They followed the dark marble tiles out from the dining room through the French windows on to the terrace. It was immediately cooler, a light breeze stirring the hanging fronds of the willow that in daytime would provide much needed shade from the sun.

‘Two moons out tonight,’ Michael said, and Margaret immediately looked up, but could see nothing through the dark haze of pollution and cloud. He smiled at her consternation and nodded towards the quintet playing intently, lost in their own world, at the far side of the terrace. He leaned towards her, confidentially. ‘The two guitar-like instruments with the circular sound boxes – they’re called
ruans
, or sometimes “moon guitars”. You can see why.’ And Margaret could, particularly out here on the terrace, the pale wood of the perfectly round sound boxes flashing in the reflected light of discreet overhead lamps, for all the world like two moons dancing in time to the music. She liked the analogy. There was something pleasing about it. She finished her vodka.

‘Shall I get you another?’ Michael asked.

‘No. It would only encourage me to get drunk.’ She paused selfconsciously, then added quickly, ‘And, besides, the waiters in here aren’t up to much.’

He smiled, but had sensed in her the melancholy she had immediately tried to disguise. He said, ‘You’ve had a rough few months.’

She flashed him a look, more defensive than hostile. ‘And you’d know all about that.’

He shrugged. ‘No. All I really know is that you’re the lady who put out those scare stories on the Net about genetically contaminated rice.’

‘They weren’t scare stories,’ she almost snapped.

‘Hey,’ he said, and raised his palms protectively. ‘I don’t know about you, but I figure that claims that half the population of the world is at risk are pretty scary.’

She relented a little and forced a half-hearted smile. ‘We feared the worst. You should just be glad it didn’t turn out that way in the end. But don’t underestimate it. OK, so the virus wasn’t there in all the rice, and thank God a lot of people turned out to have a natural immunity, but there are still millions of people at risk.’

‘I read they think there’s a cure just around the corner.’

‘Well, let’s hope they’re right.’

There was an awkward pause. Then Michael said, ‘So, I suppose it’s you to blame for us having to eat all these goddamn noodles. Boy, that must have made you popular with the Chinese.’

She grinned sheepishly. ‘Another few weeks and the first new crop’ll be in. They just went back to the old, natural seed. And they can harvest three crops a year, so they’ll get their precious rice back soon enough.’