The Fourth Sacrifice (41 page)

CHAPTER TEN

I

He left Xinxin waiting in the Jeep. And then the Chinese security guard in the gatehouse took great delight in exercising his authority over Li by keeping him waiting until Sophie arrived. Officially this was American soil, and Li had no jurisdiction here. It was not often that an ordinary Chinese could thumb his nose at his superiors with impunity.

Sophie shook Li’s hand warmly. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘We met the other day downtown, at CID HQ.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Li said, and he was aware of her inspecting him with interest. No doubt she knew that he and Margaret had been lovers. Probably the entire embassy knew.

She led him around the side of the Chancery building, and they headed towards the canteen. ‘Have you been here long?’ he asked.

‘Not long. Just about a month.’

‘How’s your Mandarin?’ he asked in Mandarin.

She smiled. ‘I’m Vietnamese. But I don’t speak that very well either.’

Li looked at her appraisingly. ‘How long have you been in America?’

‘Born and bred,’ she said. ‘You don’t think I’d make Assistant RSO at a foreign embassy if I wasn’t, do you?’

He smiled. ‘I guess not.’

Dakers was waiting for them at a table in the canteen. It was crowded with embassy staff tucking into breakfast of waffles and pancakes drowned in syrup and washing it all down with strong black coffee. He stood up and shook Li’s hand firmly. ‘Mr Li,’ he said. ‘Good to see you again. Wanna coffee?’ Li shook his head. ‘Take a seat. What can I do for you?’

Li said carefully, ‘I wanted your permission to ask a few of your embassy people about the whereabouts of Michael Zimmerman last Monday night.’

Sophie’s face flushed and she said, ‘Why do you want to know that?’

Li smiled and waved a hand dismissively. ‘Nothing sinister. It’s routine stuff. We’re just establishing where anyone who knew Yuan Tao was on the night he was murdered.’

‘It’s hardly routine for a Deputy Section Chief to come calling,’ Dakers said shrewdly.

Li grinned. ‘I was hardly going to send a junior officer to speak to the Regional Security Officer of the American Embassy.’

Dakers nodded, satisfied. ‘Fair enough.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I guess I have no objection. What about you, Sophie?’

She shrugged. ‘None at all. Only you don’t need to go any further than present company. I can tell you exactly where Michael was on Monday night – at least, up until about two.’

‘You were at the party, then?’ Li asked.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘It was me that introduced him to Dr Campbell that night.’ Li flicked her a look and wondered if she knew what she was saying, if she was deliberately rubbing salt in the wound. If she was, there was nothing in her expression to give her away.

‘And after the party … ?’

‘There were about a dozen of us went on to the Mexican Wave bar.’ She turned to Dakers. ‘You know the place, Jon … where the Hash House Harriers meet up.’

Dakers nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘And Zimmerman left at two?’

‘No, I left at two. I have no idea when he left.’

II

There was a spring in Margaret’s step as she strolled past the surly security guards at the gate of the hotel and turned down Ritan Lu past the rows of fur traders. They looked no happier than usual. Business was not any better.

Michael had gone early, before six, to get out to location, and left his smell and his warmth in the bed with her. She had lain for a long time luxuriating in it, wondering what it was she really felt for him. She found him addictive, wanted to be with him all the time. Early signs of the first flush of infatuation. He was attractive, intelligent, a wonderfully sensitive lover. He had talent, as an archaeologist, as a communicator. She remembered the night at the Sanwei tearoom when he had joined the band to play tenor sax. Talent like that was unusual. And sexy. It was only her lingering feelings for Li that still clouded how she felt about Michael. The further removed she became from Li, she was certain, the clearer her feelings for Michael would become. She needed a complete break from him.

The blast of a car horn startled her as she stepped from the sidewalk to cross the street without looking. She turned and saw Li’s Jeep pulled up in front of her, Li grinning at her from the driver’s seat, Xinxin waving frantically at her from the back. He leaned over and pushed the passenger door open.

She stomped around the bonnet and climbed in with a bad grace. ‘What are you trying to do, kill me?’

‘Actually,’ Li said, ‘I was trying to avoid putting a dent in the fender.’

She made a face at him and felt Xinxin tugging at her from behind, repeating the same phrase again and again. She turned and Xinxin planted a big kiss on her lips and then giggled hysterically. Margaret laughed. ‘What’s she saying?’

‘Hello, Auntie Margaret,’ Li said with a smirk.

‘Oh, my God,’ Margaret groaned. ‘That makes me sound like someone’s ancient maiden aunt.’

‘She was very disappointed you weren’t still there when she woke up this morning.’

Margaret’s smile faded. ‘Well, I hope you told her not to expect me to be around for much longer. She’s lost too many people already to have her expectations built up about anyone else.’ Xinxin bounced around in the back, between the two front seats, waggling her bunches from side to side.

Li pulled out into the traffic again, ignoring a flurry of horns, and said, ‘I’m going up to the archaeology department at the university. I thought you might want to come.’

Margaret looked at him suspiciously. ‘What are we going there for?’

‘I just wanted to ask them about Zimmerman.’

Margaret exploded. ‘For Christ’s sake, Li Yan, can’t you just let it go?’ Xinxin was startled by the sudden angry words.

Li said calmly, ‘Zimmerman said he heard about what happened to Professor Yue from other people in the faculty. I just want to check on how many people knew what. I already checked his alibi for Monday night. He went on to the Mexican Wave after the Ambassador’s reception, just like he said.’

‘You are such a complete bastard,’ she said. ‘This is absolutely not fair. Michael has done nothing wrong. Everyone loves him. You talk to anyone who knows him. No one’s got a bad word to say about him. They’ll all tell you he’s really good guy. You can’t hound him like this just because you’re jealous.’

‘I am not jealous,’ Li said evenly.

‘Like hell!’

‘Uncle Li, why is Auntie Mar-ga-ret angry?’ Xinxin asked timidly from the back.

‘She’s not angry with us, darling, it’s to do with work,’ Li told her.

‘What are you saying to her?’ Margaret asked suspiciously.

‘I’m just telling her not to worry about you shouting at me. And that Americans are always bad-tempered.’

‘Jesus!’ Margaret hissed.

‘The point is,’ Li said, ‘I’m just tying up loose ends. We follow one line of inquiry until we reach a dead end. Then we move on.’ But he was not at all certain that he would be pursuing this particular line of inquiry if it was not for Margaret’s relationship with Zimmerman. ‘If you don’t want to go, that’s fine. I’ll drop you off at the embassy.’

‘Oh, no you won’t. I’m going with you, even if it’s just to make sure you don’t go getting Michael into any more trouble.’

She felt Xinxin tugging at her sleeve. She turned and found herself looking straight into Xinxin’s earnest little face as the child spoke directly to her with unusual timidity.

Li said, ‘She’s asking if you’ve finished being angry now.’

Margaret pursed her lips in a moment of annoyance, and then found herself forced to smile by the wide-eyed innocent appeal that wrinkled Xinxin’s forehead. She sighed. ‘Tell her, yes. Tell her that I was never angry with her in the first place. And tell her that the next time her uncle starts letting his personal feelings cloud his personal judgement, I’ll slap his goddamn face for him again.’

Li spoke to Xinxin who nodded her head in satisfaction.

‘What did you say to her?’ Margaret demanded to know. She was frustrated at always being at the mercy of someone else’s interpretation.

‘That you were very sorry, and wouldn’t speak to her Uncle Yan like that again,’ he said. Margaret narrowed her eyes at him and he grinned. ‘Only kidding.’

They drove north through Chaoyangmen and Dongcheng District, heading for the third ring road. Li and Margaret sat in silence while Xinxin sang popular kindergarten songs to her panda in the back.

‘What did you mean the other night when you talked about “the Little Emperor syndrome”?’ Margaret asked suddenly.

Li smiled sadly. ‘It is what we call the social consequence of the One-Child Policy.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Chinese society used to be built around the idea of family and community, the individual putting his responsibility for others first. Now, with most families having only one child, the child is spoiled and pampered and thinks only of itself. They become Little Emperors. The future of China will be in the hands of selfish, self-seeking individuals. Just like in America.’

‘Maybe, then, you’ll join the rest of us in the twenty-first century,’ Margaret said.

‘And replace five thousand years of culture and history with the hotdog and the hamburger?’

Margaret was sick of hearing about China’s culture and history. Even Michael was full of it. ‘Well, maybe it’s about time you started looking to the future instead of always living in the past,’ she snapped. ‘Maybe that’s why America ended up the most powerful country in the world. We weren’t shackled by five thousand years of tradition. We just looked straight ahead and made it up as we went along.’

‘And when you run out of ideas,’ Li said, ‘you’ll have no history to draw on. No lessons you can take from the past.’

Margaret said, ‘My old history professor always said the only thing you learn from history is that you never learn from history.’

‘But he would be an American.’

Margaret looked at him triumphantly. ‘Actually, he was Chinese.’

Li flicked her a look. ‘Chinese-
American
. Yes?’

She glared at him. ‘You’ve always got to have the last word, don’t you?’

He shrugged. ‘I usually do.’

*

The west gate of Beijing University was a traditional Chinese gate, with sweeping tiled roofs raised on beautifully painted crossbreams and supported on rust-red pillars. Li parked his Jeep in the shade of the trees that lined the street outside, and showed his Public Security pass to the guard on the gate who waved them through, past stone lions that stood sentinel left and right. Little Xinxin trotted at Margaret’s side, clutching her hand as if she were in fear of her life. The campus within sat in the cloistered seclusion of landscaped gardens and tranquil lakes behind high grey walls, a million miles, it seemed, from the frantic activity and roar of the city they’d left behind.

Students and lecturers strolled or cycled along leafy paths that meandered through the lush gardens, ancient bridges sweeping over green waterways lined with flowers and dotted with lilies. On rocky outcrops, almost obscured by trees, tiny pavilions provided seats in the shade for undergraduates poring over textbooks or reading newspapers, or just sitting smoking and quietly reflecting on life. University departments were housed in large white pavilions with maroon windows and towering columns below elegantly curling roofs.

Margaret was entranced. ‘What a wonderful place to come and study,’ she said. ‘It’s so peaceful. So … Chinese.’

‘Actually,’ Li said, ‘it’s so … American.’

She frowned at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘This place used to be the site of the American Methodist Yengching University. Beijing University didn’t move here till 1952. All these “wonderful” halls and pavilions were built by the Methodists, designed by an American architect in the Chinese style. In those days, maybe, the Americans still thought there was something they could learn from us.’

The archaeology department stood in a long, two-storey pavilion beyond fresh-cut lawns, lush and verdant from frequent watering. The ground floor had been converted into the Arthur M. Sackler museum of art and archaeology. Administration and lecture rooms were on the floor above. Li took them in through the main door, and they were confronted, across shining marble floors, by two life-sized replicas of Terracotta Warriors standing guard at the far entrance. Margaret was momentarily startled by them, and was transported immediately back to the pit at Xi’an where she had so carefully scraped away the earth to reveal a ceramic face that no one had cast eyes on for more than two thousand years. A bald and wizened caretaker with a speckled face told them they would have to go in by the side entrance and up the stairs to find the head of department.

‘Professor Chang’s not here right now,’ an officious young man in white shirt and dark trousers told them offhandedly in the office. He had a shock of thick hair, dirt under his fingernails, and seemed more interested in the contents of the filing cabinet than in the three visitors.

‘Would you like to tell me where he is?’ Li asked.

‘Not particularly. I’m busy right now.’ The young man was clearly irritated by the interruption.

Li produced his Public Security wallet and held it out at arm’s length. ‘What’s your name?’

The young man turned and saw the ID and his face immediately darkened. His frightened rabbit’s eyes flickered up to Li. ‘I’m sorry, detective, I …’

‘What’s your name?’ Li repeated firmly.

‘Wang Jiahong.’

‘What do you do here?’

‘I’m a lab assistant over in the Art building.’

‘Do you normally speak to visitors like that?’

‘No, detective.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. So maybe now you’ll tell me where I can find Professor Chang.’

‘He’s in the conservation lab.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘In the Art building. All the labs are over there.’ He tried to make up for his earlier gaffe. ‘I’ll take you if you like.’

The Art building, opposite the College of Life Sciences, was older and less glamorous, dusty grey brick and ill-painted windows. Dozens of student bicycles stood in the square outside. Inside it was drab and dingy, and Margaret smelled the perfume of stale urine wafting from open toilet doors. A room full of students at the end of the corridor was listening intently to a lady lecturer.