The Killing Room (8 page)

Jiang laughed. ‘They didn’t provide the TV! That’s mine.’

‘So you watch TV all night?’ Mei-Ling said.

‘Until about twelve. Then, usually, I sleep for a few hours.’ He glanced from one to the other, absorbing their disapproval. ‘Hey, I said they paid better than the hospital, but not enough to stay awake all night. I’ve got to work all day, too, you know.’

‘So you didn’t notice anything unusual in the last week?’

‘No, I didn’t. And if I had, I’d have told your people when I got here. Look …’ he was anxious to justify himself, ‘… usually I get here about seven, do a tour of the site, then lock the gate. I do another check around before the lights go off at ten. Then the only light out there is from the streetlights way over on the far side – and most of that’s still in shadow because of the wall.’

‘What about the workers’ huts over there?’ Li asked.

‘What about them?’

‘That’s their accommodation during construction, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, but there’s nobody living there yet. Won’t be until they start the construction proper and take on crew. Then there won’t be any need for me.’

Mei-Ling perched on the edge of the table and looked at the magazines Jiang had been reading. ‘
Human Pathology
,’ she read out in English and looked at the student. ‘Where did you get these?’

‘Subscription,’ he said. ‘It’s an American journal. They send it every month.’ And then, again, defensively, ‘I’m interested. It’s my subject.’

Li said, ‘Interested enough to go abducting young women and practising your technique on them?’

Jiang grinned. ‘Hey, now you’re joking, right?’ But Li didn’t smile and Jiang’s grin faded. ‘I didn’t kill anybody. The only people I’ve ever cut up were on the practice slab at the university.’ He paused and leaned forward confidentially. ‘One of your guys told me they’d been hacked to pieces – the bodies out there. Is that right?’

Li thought the boy’s relish was unhealthy. ‘You shouldn’t go listening to gossip,’ he said. ‘Or repeating it.’

Mei-Ling took out a business card, scored her name off it and wrote in another. She handed it to Jiang. ‘Go to 803 Zhongshan Beiyi Road first thing tomorrow morning and ask for Detective Dai. He’ll take your statement.’

‘I’ve got classes tomorrow,’ the student protested.

‘Be there,’ Mei-Ling said, and she stood up to open the door.

Li said, ‘One last thing. Where do you live, Jiang?’

‘I got a place up near Jiangwan Stadium.’

‘No, I mean where’s your home? Where do you come from?’

‘Yanqing, in Hebei Province.’

‘That’s just north of Beijing, isn’t it?’

The boy nodded, and as they turned to go, added, ‘Listen, if your people need any help, the pathologists or anyone … If they’re looking for assistants or anything, you know, I’m happy to volunteer my services. It’d be good experience.’

‘We’ll keep that in mind,’ Li said.

As they crossed the site towards the main gate, Mei-Ling said, ‘That boy’s really creepy!’ But Li was lost in thought. She glanced at him. ‘You all right?’

He said, ‘This kid lives with his grandparents, who can’t afford to send him to university. So he has to take on all these part-time jobs and work the holidays. But he can afford a colour TV set. And that was good quality gear he was wearing. Expensive gloves lying on the table. And it must be pretty costly to subscribe to an American medical journal and have it sent to China every month.’

‘What are you saying?’ Mei-Ling asked.

‘I’m saying here’s a kid who has the requisite skills to do what was done to those women. He had the opportunity to dispose of their bodies right here on the site where he’s working as night watchman. And he seems very affluent for a student who’s having to work his way through medical school.’

‘You don’t think
he
did it, do you?’ Mei-Ling was shocked. ‘I mean, I know he’s weird, but usually I have an instinct about these things, and right now it isn’t telling me this is our killer.’

‘Neither is mine,’ Li confessed, and he knew it would have been just too easy. ‘But if someone broke into the site, dug a hole and buried eighteen bodies in it, why didn’t he see them? Why didn’t he hear them? And why would someone dump the bodies some place there was a night watchman?’ He lit a cigarette. ‘I know it’s early in the investigation, but I think our medical student’s got to be the first name on the suspect list.’

‘Maybe,’ Mei-Ling said. ‘Anyway, we’ll have a better idea just what we’re looking for once we’ve got the autopsy reports.’

‘That might be a few days,’ Li said.

Mei-Ling was surprised. ‘Why? Dr Lan can start tomorrow.’

Li said, ‘I’m bringing in another pathologist to do the autopsies.’

She was taken aback, and stopped suddenly, feet squelching in the mud. ‘Does Dr Lan know?’

Li shook his head. ‘No. And he probably won’t be very pleased.’

‘No, he won’t,’ Mei-Ling said. ‘Talk about losing face …’ She paused. ‘Who is it? Someone from Beijing?’

‘An American,’ Li said. He took in her expression. ‘Oh, I know. I got the same speech from Huang. How the Chinese don’t need the Americans to show them how to do anything.’

Mei-Ling shrugged. ‘Jiang Zemin said we must learn from foreign experts.’

Li looked to see if she was sending him up, but she appeared perfectly serious. ‘I’ve worked with her before,’ he said, ‘and she’s
very
experienced.’

Mei-Ling started for the gates again and said, a little too casually, ‘She?’

‘Margaret Campbell,’ Li said. ‘She’s been lecturing at the Public Security University in Beijing.’

Mei-Ling nodded but said nothing, and they continued picking their way through the mud.

They passed the lights, and the polythene flapping in the wind. Li caught sight of the face of one of the forensics people working in the mud. A young man, his face almost blue with the cold, pinched and distressed. He would never have envisaged this when making his career choice. And Li had a sudden sense of the futility of all their jobs, working as they did on the edge of sanity, picking their way through the dark side of the human psyche, and all the horrors that lay therein.

Mei-Ling suddenly lost her footing in the quagmire and, with a cry, almost fell. Li caught her arm and held her firmly until she regained her balance. She laughed, embarrassed, clutching his jacket, and he felt the swelling of her breast against the back of his hand.

‘Careful,’ Li said, suddenly self-conscious. ‘You almost dropped your half of the sky. Just as well there was a man around to catch you.’

‘Oh, you men are so versatile,’ Mei-Ling said, smiling. ‘You can hold up your half of the sky and pick up women at the same time.’ She steadied herself and checked her watch. ‘Nearly eight. You won’t have eaten.’

‘Not since this morning.’

‘Me neither. If you’re hungry, I know a place that serves till late.’

‘I’m starving,’ Li said.

She smiled, her dark eyes gleaming. ‘Good. Let’s go.’

II

Margaret had heard the news the previous night about the discovery of a mass grave on a building site in Shanghai. She had seen the pictures on CNN, and watched with interest and a slightly remote sense of horror. She did not make any connection with Li, there was no reason why she should. But it had aroused her professional interest. Since the first pictures had come through, the Chinese authorities had imposed a media black-out, much to the annoyance of the news networks. But this morning, statements issued by the New York bank involved were generating plenty of copy, and one of the associates had got an exclusive interview with the CEO who had taken the mud bath with the bodies. There was no accurate information about how many corpses had been recovered from the site, but the CEO’s description of his experience had been fairly lurid – arms, legs, torsos, heads. Margaret felt a pang of regret that she was not involved.

She lay in bed watching the re-runs of the story on breakfast news. Whatever her mother might think, it was her job, and she missed doing it. She missed China. She missed Li. And still she had not summoned the courage to go to her apartment in Lincoln Park. It was symbolic, somehow, of another life, another Margaret Campbell, someone else whom she used to be and didn’t wish to revisit. But she couldn’t just leave the place to gather dust, junk mail accumulating with the neighbours, pot plants dead in the kitchen sink. If her encounter with David the other night had taught her anything, it was that there was no refuge in the past. Whatever direction she chose to take, she had to move on.

She found herself looking at a photograph on screen of a young woman with short cut fair hair. For a disconcerting moment, the face seemed uncannily familiar, before she realised with a start that she was looking at herself. She sat bolt upright, heart pounding. It was her all right. A few years younger, though. A stock photograph taken at the time she assisted on the autopsies at Waco. The TV announcer was saying, ‘…
American pathologist, Margaret Campbell. The authorities in Shanghai have, this morning, taken the unusual step of issuing a Press Release announcing the invitation. Dr Campbell, who has worked previously with police in the Chinese capital of Beijing, grabbed headlines worldwide eighteen months ago when she issued a warning on the Internet about genetically contaminated rice. Latest reports from Shanghai, where it is now nine in the evening, suggest that the body count has risen to eighteen
.’ The report switched from news to weather, and Margaret sat very still on the bed, her heart pounding. She was confused, disorientated. From somewhere in the house came the distant ringing of a telephone. Why would the authorities in Shanghai ask for her help? She didn’t know anyone there.

Then she was struck by a thought. E-mail. In the last few months, she had introduced Li to the delights of e-mail as a fast and direct means of communication. He had written to her almost every day since she left to go to her father’s funeral. She leapt out of bed and quickly crossed the room to the dresser where she had set up her iBook laptop computer. She wakened it out of sleep mode and went on-line. Her e-mail software scanned her electronic mailbox before downloading ‘one of one’, and a soft female voice told her she had mail. She double-clicked on an e-mail titled
Autopsies
. It was from Li.

There was a knock at her bedroom door and her mother entered in her housecoat. ‘Margaret, did you know you’re on television? Diane just phoned to say she’d seen your picture.’

Margaret was scanning Li’s e-mail with increasing excitement and waved her mother to be quiet. But her mother was not to be put off. She advanced into the room.

‘For God’s sake what are you doing, Margaret? Why are they running your picture on television?’ Margaret wheeled around and her mother frowned at her. ‘For Heaven’s sake cover yourself up.’

Margaret realised she was stark naked, and was immediately embarrassed in front of her mother. She snatched her robe and pulled it on. ‘I’m going back to China,’ she said.

‘Did I ever think you were going to do anything else?’

‘Frankly, Mom, I don’t care what you thought. I hadn’t made any decisions about my future. Until now. They want me to do the autopsies on those bodies they found in Shanghai.’

Her mother’s mouth curled in distaste. ‘I’ll never understand you, Margaret. I never have.’

‘And you never will.’ Margaret paused. ‘Mom … I don’t want to fight with you.’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ her mother said coldly. ‘I wouldn’t give you the pleasure.’ She turned to go, but stopped at the door. ‘And when is it you intend leaving? Just so I can be sure the maid has your laundry ready.’

‘This afternoon,’ Margaret said, and she thought she detected a reaction, like a stoic response to a slap when you don’t want to show how much it has hurt. And she wondered what her mother had expected, why she had talked David into trying to persuade her to stay. Surely she hadn’t thought some kind of reconciliation was possible after all these years of dislocation? And yet, she saw the hurt in her mother’s eyes, and for a moment had an urge to cross the bedroom and throw her arms around her and just hold her, as if that could somehow wipe away all the cruel words, the barbs and the battles. But she didn’t do anything, and her mother turned and walked out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Margaret turned back to the computer and re-read Li’s e-mail, more slowly this time. He signed off, as he always did, with three simple words.
I love you
.

III

Mei-Ling steered Li through the crowds that thronged the narrow streets leading to the heart of the Chinese old town, streets that were alive with traders selling all manner of cooked and cold foods from barrows and braziers, street vendors trading in everything from chopsticks to walking sticks, silks to silverware. Shiny wet cobbled streets ran off to left and right, lit by neon strips and long slabs of bright yellow light flooding out from dozens of shop fronts. Banners and lanterns waved in the breeze. They passed a window where two women in white coats and chef’s hats were making dumplings, folding tasty nuts of spiced minced meat into rolled-out circles of dough for steaming. A crowd was gathered to watch them, hungry eyes following every move.

‘This was all slum land until just a few years ago,’ Mei-Ling said. ‘They’ve spent a fortune restoring it.’ A narrow tunnel ran off an alleyway, and beyond it Li saw the lights of a Buddhist temple, incense burning at the altar, saffron-robed monks moving about in the dull light of an interior room.

The street opened out into a packed square, the four-storeyed Green Wave restaurant dominating the far side and looming over the five-sided Huxinting teahouse which sat in the middle of a rectangular lake, bounded on one side by the walls of the ancient Yu gardens. Every sweep of curling eave was outlined in yellow neon against a black night sky. The teahouse was packed, hundreds of faces crammed together in lit windows, sipping tea and smoking and watching the crowds outside. A zigzagging bridge crossed the water to its main entrance. ‘The bridge of nine turnings,’ Mei-Ling said. ‘To keep out the evil spirits. Apparently they can’t turn corners.’ She laughed, and Li was affected by her enthusiasm.