The Killing Room (13 page)

Tall waitresses in elegant pink
qipaos
filled their small toasting glasses with red wine. Nearly everyone was drinking beer, except for the Director who sipped at a glass of bright red watermelon juice. The ritual of toasting began with the Director, and was followed around the table by his guests. Each time a toast was drunk, there was a chorus of ‘
gan bei
’, and the toasting glasses were emptied and then immediately refilled. Plate after plate of food arrived and was placed on the revolving Lazy Susan in order to allow everyone to help themselves.

The Commissioner of Police sat on Margaret’s right. ‘You like Hormez?’ he asked.

Margaret replayed the question in her head, but could make no sense of it. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said, pronouncing her words very carefully. The wine, after the vodka, was beginning to have an effect. And now she took a long pull at her beer.

The Procurator General, round spectacles perched on an unusually long nose, leaned over. ‘We have great love of detective fiction in China,’ he said. ‘Many police officers write detective stories.’

Director Hu laughed. He said, ‘I believe in Beijing they have courses at the Public Security University in the History of Western Detective Fiction.’

Margaret had not heard this before. ‘Really?’ It was one of those strange Chinese curiosities she continually stumbled across.

‘Many police officers take this course,’ the Commissioner said. ‘They are very inspired by Hormez.’

Margaret glanced towards Li for help, but he was engaged in polite conversation with Mrs Cui. She became aware of Mei-Ling smiling at her discomfort from across the table. ‘And who exactly is this … Hormez?’

The Commissioner looked at her in astonishment. ‘You don’t know Hormez? Ohhh … he ve-very farmers in China. Sherlock Hormez.’

And suddenly it dawned on her. ‘Holmes! You mean Sherlock Holmes!’

‘Yes,’ said the Commissioner. ‘Hormez. You know Hormez?’

Margaret had to confess that she had not actually read any of the Conan Doyle books. But when she was younger, she said, she had seen a number of the old black and white movies with Basil Rathbone. Everyone else looked puzzled.

Someone was turning the Lazy Susan, and a plate piled high with prawn crackers stopped in front of her. Margaret looked in horror at the small black scorpions crawling over the crackers before she realised that they weren’t actually moving.

‘Deep fried whole scorpion,’ Mei-Ling said from across the table, and Margaret saw that it was Mei-Ling who had stopped the dish in front of her. ‘They are a great delicacy.’

Other conversations around the table tailed off, and smiling faces turned in Margaret’s direction. Western sensitivity to Chinese ‘delicacies’ was well known, and everyone was anxious to see Margaret’s reaction. The Commissioner took one in his chopsticks and popped it into his mouth, crunching enthusiastically. ‘Scorpion valued for medical reason,’ he said. ‘You try one.’

Margaret’s jaw set. The Chinese could be so goddamned superior at times like this, and she felt as if she were representing the whole of Western culture here. She forced herself to smile, lifted one of the brittle black insects with her chopsticks and with a great effort of will put it in her mouth. As she crunched on its bitterness it was all she could do to stop herself from gagging.

‘Bravo,’ Director Hu said and clapped his hands. ‘I can never bring myself to eat the bloody things. They are disgu-usting.’

Margaret took a long draught of beer to try to wash the taste away, and a waitress immediately refilled her glass. To her relief, the focus shifted away from her again as conversations restarted around the table. The alcohol and the fatigue were beginning to make her feel quite heady. After all, she had barely slept in more than twenty hours. She had noticed earlier that Mei-Ling’s boss, Section Chief Huang, was distracted and dour, and she saw now that he only picked at his food, troubled somehow, and taking no part in the social intercourse. She watched him for a moment or two. He was a good-looking man, but careworn somehow, as if carrying a heavy burden through life. She could not recall having seen him smile once.

She was wondering why he was here at all when a waitress came in and whispered something in his ear. He paled slightly and stood up immediately. He spoke rapidly to Director Hu in Chinese. The Director nodded gravely and said something back, and Huang turned with a curt nod and hurried out. The Commissioner whispered to Margaret, ‘I am afraid the wife of the Section Chief is very unwell.’

‘I wonder, what is your view on our one-child policy, Doctor?’ Margaret realised the question was being addressed to her, and turned to find Cui Feng, the Director’s personal friend, smiling at her across the table.

‘I think it is draconian and barbaric,’ she said bluntly.

Mr Cui was unruffled. He nodded. ‘I agree. But a necessary evil.’

‘I’m not sure that evil is ever necessary.’

‘Sometimes,’ Mr Cui said, ‘evil is the only option, and it is necessary to choose whichever is the least unpalatable. Without a policy to reduce the birth rate we would be unable to feed our population and many millions of people would die.’ He ran a hand thoughtfully over his smooth chin. He was taller than his friend, the Director, with a head of thick, black hair and a very gentle demeanour, like a doctor with a kindly bedside manner. ‘You know, in Shandong Province alone, the population would now have reached nearly one hundred and fifty million. But because of our birth control policy, the population is only ninety million. We have cut the birthrate by more than half since nineteen seventy, and cut the rate of infant mortality to thirty-four per thousand – which is far less than the world average of fifty.’

The Procurator General said with a mischief-making smile, ‘Mr Cui has a vested interest here, Doctor. Five years ago he opened a number of joint-venture clinics in Shanghai and persuaded the government to give him the contract to carry out all the abortions in the city.’

And Margaret thought how being a personal friend of the Mayor’s policy adviser would not have hindered that process, though she didn’t say so.

‘Three hundred thousand of them a year,’ the Director said. ‘Which was placing a heavy demand on limited government resources.’

‘Three hundred thousand
abortions
!’ Margaret said, incredulously. ‘A
year
?’

‘In Shanghai alone,’ Mr Cui said.

‘Then your policy is failing,’ Margaret retorted. She felt an anger building in her, and ignored the warning looks from Li.

‘How so?’ asked Director Hu coldly.

‘It is one thing to
persuade
people to have only one child. It is another to
force
them to have abortions.’ She recalled with horror and regret the emotional blackmail that had forced her to abort her own unborn child.
It’ll ruin both our lives
, David had said, and she had lived with the pain and the guilt ever since. She said, ‘You are simply substituting the death of people by starvation with the murder of children in the womb. I can accept abortion when the life of the mother is in danger, but not as a matter of convenience.’

‘It is not convenience,’ Mei-Ling said. Her tone was as aggressive as Margaret’s. ‘These women have
had
babies. They made a mistake getting pregnant again, or were greedy, and it is their duty to have the children aborted.’

Margaret glanced at Li, but his face was impassive.

Mr Cui said, more softly, ‘Family planning in China has not only reduced the birth rate, Doctor, it has increased living standards, and life expectancy is now more than seventy years.’

‘Well, of course, as someone who’s profiting from other people’s misery, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’ It was out before Margaret could stop herself. She felt her face flush red as she realised the bluntness of what she had said.

There was a moment’s shocked silence around the table. Only Mr Cui remained, apparently, unperturbed. He retained his soft bedside manner. ‘Of course we are in business to make money,’ he said. ‘As are doctors and hospitals in the United States. But we also offer advice and counselling. These women would have had their abortions in state hospitals where the procedure would have been performed on a production line basis. We, at least, try to make the process more human.’

Margaret confined herself to a quick nod, not trusting herself to open her mouth again.

But if Mr Cui had remained understanding, Director Hu was not so forgiving. He said pointedly, ‘It seems, Dr Campbell, that developments regarding the bodies at Pudong are unlikely now to require your extended attention.’

‘And why is that?’ she asked levelly.

‘You were at the press conference, I believe,’ said the Director.

‘In my experience,’ Margaret said, ‘there is often a big gap between the truth and what the press is told.’

The Director leaned forward and placed his chin very carefully on his interlocked fists. ‘Meaning?’

‘The body I examined tonight, albeit briefly, was not that of a corpse subjected to student practice or medical research.’

Director Hu tensed visibly. Much as he would doubtless have liked to put Margaret on the first plane back to the States, he was a prisoner of his own high-profile decision to bring her in. ‘Then how did she die?’ he asked.

‘I should be able to tell you that after the autopsy.’ She was aware of the looks that flashed quickly between the Director, the Commissioner and the Procurator General. If they had harboured hopes of this thing going away quickly and easily, this ill-mannered American was clearly intent on dashing them. What had started out, perhaps, as a celebration banquet, had very quickly turned sour. And it did not last much longer.

Half-hearted toasts were drunk, glasses raised in thanks to the host, and then Director Hu stood up, signalling that the meal was over. His guests immediately stood also, and began making their farewells. Margaret stood isolated near the door and watched as the Director took Li to one side. Mei-Ling approached her, a smile playing mischievously about her lips. ‘Well done,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘You have just made an enemy of the second most powerful man in Shanghai.’

Li was cursing himself for having trusted Margaret in this situation. He had smelled the vodka on her breath when they picked her up at the hotel. He had watched her empty all the toasting glasses, and consume several beers. Alcohol always lowered her already limited levels of self-restraint.

He felt the grip of the Director’s short, thick fingers on his arm as he steered him away from the table. ‘That
Meiguoren
 …’ he almost spat out the Chinese word for American, ‘… had better not embarrass us, Li.’

Li said, ‘You told me you wanted the truth, Director Hu. I believe she will give us that.’

Director Hu glared at Li, no doubt regretting the haste in appointing him and his agreeing to the involvement of the American. ‘A word of advice, Deputy Section Chief. Marry a dog, stay with a dog; marry a rooster, stay with a rooster. You should choose your friends carefully.’

*

As their taxi drew away from the kerb, Margaret caught a fleeting glimpse, like a smear on the window, of Mei-Ling’s unhappiness. Li had turned down her offer of a lift back to the hotel and told her he and Margaret would take a taxi. And so Mei-Ling had been left standing on the sidewalk in the rain with the Procurator General and the Commissioner of Police. The Director’s entourage had already departed. But it was of small comfort to Margaret. She could almost reach out and touch Li’s anger. It seemed that working together always brought them into conflict.

As soon as they were on their own in the back of the taxi, Li said, ‘What the hell were you playing at?’

Margaret immediately felt her hackles rise. ‘I was expressing my mind. Where I come from that’s not a crime.’

‘Well, where I come from, it is extremely bad manners to show disrespect to your host and his guests by being rude to them. But then, I should have known – Americans are not renowned for their sensitivity.’

‘And the Chinese are famous for their intolerance towards other people’s ideas. But I suppose that’s what comes of running a one-party state. The powers that be aren’t used to being questioned. And they don’t like it when they are.’ The irony of their fight was not lost on Margaret. Thirty-six hours earlier she had been defending China to David in Chicago.

Li held up his hand and through gritted teeth said, ‘Do not start, Margaret. Please do not start.’

She sat back and folded her arms across her chest, clenching her jaws to fight back the impulse to give voice to all the thoughts going through her head. They sat in silence for several minutes as their car left behind the lights of Yunnan Nan Road, and headed east towards the river.

Finally Li said, ‘And your performance at the mortuary this afternoon is going to make things very difficult as far as working with Dr Lan is concerned. You know how important
mianzi
is to the Chinese. Mei-Ling says he was acutely embarrassed.’

‘Oh, does she? And what else does Mei-Ling say?’

‘She thinks maybe you are not the right person to work on such a highly sensitive case.’

‘Oh, and what about
your
loss of face? After all, you’re the one who brought me in.’

‘You are the one who is causing me to lose face,’ Li said angrily.

‘And that’s what all this is about, isn’t it?’ Margaret snapped back. ‘Face! Everybody’s face, or the loss of it. It’s all you goddamn people seem to care about.’ And she wondered what on earth had possessed her to come back ‘And, of course, you and Mei-Ling will have discussed all this during your intimate little rides to and from your hotel this evening. Did she come in and hold your hand while you changed?’

Li sighed theatrically and turned to stare out of the window. ‘Do not be so ridiculous!’

‘Oh, so I’m ridiculous now. Not only am I an embarrassment who causes you to lose face, but I’m ridiculous as well. And I suppose it would be equally ridiculous of me to imagine that there might be anything going on between you and Mei-Ling.’