The Firemaker (The China Thrillers 1) Read online

  He crossed the room to the mini hi-fi stack and saw that the forensics boys had forgotten to switch it off.

  ‘Do you want to put on the track that was playing?’

  He shrugged and whizzed through the tracks to number nine and pressed Play. As the soprano’s voice soared through the apartment, Margaret wandered to the bookcase and ran her fingers along a line of books with familiar titles. Plant DNA Infectious Agents, Risk Assessment in Genetic Engineering, Plant Virology. Titles that had lined Michael’s bookshelves at home. The same titles that had seemed so alien to Li just twenty-four hours before. She slipped her hands into the neatly tailored pockets of her dress and moved out on to the balcony. She looked at the empty beer bottle, the pack of cigarettes, and wondered what he had lit them with. Then remembered the Zippo lighter among his effects. And something began happening in her mind, something spontaneous, a sequence of electrical sparks making connections that would never have occurred consciously. All that data that the brain holds in limbo, accessed by some pre-programmed instinct. She could taste the jian bing, the salty sweetness of the hoi sin, the burn of the chilli, the sharpness of the spring onion. And she saw Mei Yuan’s round, smiling face. She wheeled round to see where Li was. But he had left the room. She hurried into the hall and called his name. ‘In here,’ he said, and she went into the kitchen.

  ‘Mei Yuan’s riddle,’ she said.

  He looked at her blankly. ‘What about it?’

  She shook her head in frustration. ‘It’s just a thought process. Bear with me.’ She fought for the words. ‘The man with the two sticks. If he was going to burn the books, he would do it for a reason, right?’

  ‘To destroy them.’

  ‘Exactly. So the keeper of the books couldn’t access them. He would have no way of knowing what was in them.’

  Li shrugged. ‘So?’

  ‘So why set Chao Heng on fire?’

  ‘To make it look like suicide.’

  ‘No. That’s incidental. I did an autopsy once on the burned body of a woman pulled from a car wreck. Turned out she had a bullet in her. And that’s what killed her. The guy who’d shot her put her in the car, set it on fire and ran it off the road. He was trying to hide the fact that he’d shot her. He thought maybe the evidence would be destroyed in the fire.’ She ran her hands back through her hair. ‘You see what I’m saying?’

  Li thought about it. ‘You think the killer was trying to destroy evidence?’ He paused. ‘Evidence of what? Chao hadn’t been shot, or stabbed, or had his neck broken. He had a bump on his head and sedative in his blood. If the object of the exercise was to try and hide that by burning him, it wasn’t very successful, was it?’

  Margaret’s mind was racing. But it was racing in circles. ‘No,’ she had to concede. ‘No, it wasn’t.’ She felt as if she had held something precious and elusive in her grasp for just a moment, and then lost it again. And now it was like some half-remembered face that lurks in the memory somewhere just beyond recall. ‘Hell, I don’t know,’ she said, deflated. ‘There’s something there. Why don’t you take me on a guided tour of this place? In fact, why don’t we retrace events, just as you think they happened?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For another perspective. Something you’ve already seen that I might see differently. Something you might see differently second time around.’

  He was not convinced, but he shrugged and said, ‘Okay.’

  So they put on Samson and Delilah again and went on to the balcony. Margaret sat in Chao’s seat, from where she had a view of the compound below. She had been tossing and turning in her hotel bed trying to sleep when Chao had been sitting here, she realised. It had all been less than forty-eight hours ago. He had still been alive when she arrived in China.

  ‘He would have seen the lights of the car coming in,’ Li said. ‘The elevator was off, so he would have gone downstairs to let his visitor in.’

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  They crossed the living room and Li put the CD on pause.

  ‘We’ll be back up in a few minutes,’ he told the officer in the hall.

  They went into the stairwell and down five flights. The gate at the foot of the stairs was locked. ‘Don’t you have the key?’ Margaret asked, irritated.

  ‘No. The killer must have taken it to unlock the gate on the way out with Chao.’

  ‘And locked it behind him?’ It seemed unlikely, somehow.

  ‘Perhaps. It was locked when we got here yesterday. But it could have been locked by one of the other residents if they found it open in the morning.’

  They craned to see round the wall of the lift shaft, but it effectively blocked off their view of the lobby and the main door. ‘So Chao wouldn’t have seen his visitor until he was right at the gate,’ Margaret said. ‘Wouldn’t have seen him crossing the lobby and got alarmed when it wasn’t who he was expecting.’

  ‘Hold on. I think I might have made a mistake there,’ Li said suddenly. ‘I assumed that Chao was expecting someone else and that his killer was unknown to him. But if it was someone he already knew, a new supplier maybe, or someone he believed might provide him with young boys, there would be no reason for the killer to tip his hand at that stage.’

  ‘And if Chao knew him he would probably have invited him up,’ Margaret said.

  ‘So he didn’t have to be forced up the stairs at gunpoint.’ Li began to think there might be virtue in this exercise after all. How often had his uncle told him that the answer almost always lay in the detail.

  They went back up the stairs and into the apartment, stopping by the bloodstain on the hall carpet. ‘The killer wasn’t going to hang around making polite conversation,’ Margaret said. ‘It looks like he hit him on the head as soon as they got in. The size of the contusion and fracture would be consistent with your idea that he might have used the barrel of his gun. And he would have injected him with the ketamine straight away. He couldn’t know just how hard he had hit Chao, or how long he would be unconscious. He would have pulled off his left shoe, stripped back the sock and followed Chao’s well-worn needle path into the bloodstream. So either he knew him well, or had been very thorough in his research. He pulled the sock back up and replaced the shoe. Then what?’

  ‘He waited,’ Li said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He would have some time to kill before dawn. Safer to wait here than in the park.’

  ‘Okay. But he needed to be in the park with Chao by sun-up.’

  ‘Is it not true that the darkest hour is just before the dawn?’ Li asked.

  ‘I guess it is,’ Margaret conceded. ‘And I’ve had plenty of opportunity to put it to the test the last couple of nights.’ She thought for a moment. ‘So he left, with Chao, some time between three and four a.m. In time to get him into the park under cover of darkness and be there when it opened. How did he get him down the stairs?’

  ‘Probably over his shoulder.’

  ‘Down five flights? This guy must have been pretty fit. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. He could have spent up to two hours in the apartment, right? Would he not have left some trace? Had a coffee, gone for a pee, smoked a cigarette?’

  Li shrugged. ‘My guess is he would wear gloves. He wouldn’t have a coffee or a cigarette, because he’s a professional. If he had a pee, it’s long gone.’

  ‘I’d still like to look around,’ Margaret said.

  They spent nearly fifteen minutes going through the apartment room by room, finding nothing, before finally entering the bathroom. It was as dirty as Li remembered it. The creams and ointments in half-squeezed tubes, the bloodstained safety razor, the spattered mirror above the sink. The used towels still lay over the side of the bath, but were dry now. Margaret opened the bathroom cabinet. ‘Jesus,’ she said, and lifted out the plastic tubs and bottles of pills. She looked at Li. ‘Do you know what this stuff is?’

  He shook his head. ‘The man was sick.’

  ‘He sure was.’ She rattled a bottle at hi
m. ‘Epivir. Or 3TC as it’s known. A reverse transcriptase inhibitor. You know what that is?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Reverse transcriptase is an enzyme that helps replicate DNA.’ She shook one of the plastic tubs and the pills inside rattled like dried beans. ‘Crixivan. A protease inhibitor, another enzyme involved in replication.’ She picked up another bottle. ‘And AZT. Well, there’s hardly anyone in the West who hasn’t heard of that.’

  He was still in the dark.

  ‘Taken simultaneously, these three comprise the triple drug therapy that’s now being used to combat HIV. They act to prevent the virus from replicating.’ She paused. ‘Looks like our friend Mr Chao had AIDS.’

  The elevator man watched them with the same intense curiosity on the way down as he had on the way up. He was irritated by the fact that they were speaking English and he had no idea what they were saying.

  In his mind, Li was warming to Margaret’s idea that Chao had been burned to try to hide something. ‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘that Chao could have been set on fire to try and disguise the fact that he had AIDS?’

  Margaret didn’t. She used the same reasoning Li had earlier to dismiss her initial idea. ‘If he was, they didn’t do a very good job. He’d need to have been really fried for us not to be able to get blood or tissue samples to test for it. Anyway, you never routinely test for AIDS during autopsy, not without a reason. And they left his medicines in the bathroom cabinet. Bit of a giveaway. But more than any of that, why would they? Why would anyone have any interest in trying to hide the fact that Chao Heng had AIDS?’

  He couldn’t think of one. He replayed what she had just said and frowned. ‘Why do you say “they”, when we are pretty sure the killer was acting alone?’

  ‘Because he was a hired gun, right? I mean, we’ve agreed on that, haven’t we? So he had nothing personal against any of his victims. It was someone else who wanted them dead. “They.” It would help a lot if we knew why.’

  It was one of the fundamental differences, Li thought, between the American approach and the Chinese approach. The Americans placed more stress on motive. The Chinese preferred to build the evidence, piece by tiny piece, until the accumulation of it was overwhelmingly conclusive. The ‘why’ was not the key to the answer, but the answer itself. Perhaps by working together they could combine the virtues of both systems.

  They criss-crossed the lobby, re-examined the lamp over the door, and retraced the killer’s footsteps to his car, where Li’s Jeep was now parked. Looking up, Margaret could see that the trees along the farther edge of the sidewalk would have blotted out the light from the streetlamps, and with the lamp over the door out of action, the killer would have been able to carry Chao across the fifteen feet to his vehicle in deep shadow. ‘Can we go to the park?’ she asked. ‘Follow this guy’s spoor all the way to where he set poor old Chao on fire?’

  ‘Are you beginning to have sympathy for Chao Heng?’ he asked, surprised.

  Margaret shrugged her shoulders. ‘He probably wasn’t a very nice man, Li Yan. But he was dying of AIDS, and someone burned him alive. Maybe that was a little more than he deserved.’ She paused. ‘Are you going to take me to the park?’

  ‘Okay.’ He got into the Jeep in time to hear his call sign on the police radio. He checked in, and as Margaret climbed into the passenger side was frowning at the message he was receiving in response.

  ‘We’ve got to go back to headquarters,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The Chief wants to see me. Urgently.’

  ‘What for?’

  He frowned. ‘I don’t know. They wouldn’t say.’

  V

  The atmosphere on the top floor of Section One was thick with tension and cigarette smoke. Margaret had noticed Lily’s driver, Shimei, sitting in the BMW in the street outside. Lily was ensconced in a corner of the detectives’ room waiting for her, something smug in her smile.

  Li hadn’t even noticed her. He was more aware of the atmosphere when he stepped into the detectives’ office. It was uneasy, and anxious, and filled with expectation. Detectives lifted grim expressions from their desks to greet him. ‘What the hell’s up?’ he said

  Wu said, ‘The Needle and some fancy lawyer are with the Chief.’ He allowed a moment for this to sink in. ‘Chief wants to see you straight away.’

  Li was impassive. He nodded and went out into the corridor and straight down to Chen’s office. Margaret looked to Lily for illumination. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Deputy Section Chief Li in bi-ig trouble,’ she said happily. ‘I come pick you up. Been waiting very long time.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you can just wait a little longer,’ Margaret snapped at her.

  The Needle and his lawyer sat in soft seats by the window. The lawyer was young, perhaps thirty, one of the new breed of legal eagles cashing in on recent changes in the justice system allowing accused persons legal representation at an earlier stage in proceedings. He was confident and cocky, wearing a sharp suit and an expensive haircut. The Needle eyed Li with a slow-burning hatred. Chen sat behind his desk, his face grey and severe.

  Li gave The Needle and his lawyer a friendly nod. ‘You wanted to see me, Chief?’

  ‘Serious allegations, Li, have been made against you by this gentleman and his legal representative,’ Chen said gravely. He did not invite Li to sit.

  Li raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘What allegations are those?’

  The lawyer said, ‘That you coerced my client into accompanying you to the Beijing Workers’ Stadium. That you put a single round in the barrel of a revolver, placed that revolver against my client’s head and repeatedly pulled the trigger until he told you what you wanted to know.’

  Li laughed. ‘You’re kidding me. A revolver?’ He looked at Chen. ‘You know we haven’t used revolvers since the year dot, Chief. We use semi-automatic pistols that are only issued to officers on your specific authority.’ Chen visibly relaxed. ‘And what possible information could I coerce from him that as a concerned citizen he wouldn’t be perfectly willing to volunteer?’

  ‘You bastard!’ The Needle hissed, and his lawyer placed a restraining hand on his arm.

  ‘You did go to the Workers’ Stadium, though?’ Chen asked.

  ‘Sure. But there was nothing coercive about it. I went to the Hard Rock Café and asked him if I could have a word. Must have been two hundred witnesses in the place saw him walk out with me of his own free will. We went to the stadium for some privacy, because he wasn’t too keen on being seen in public talking to a cop.’ He turned towards The Needle. ‘Something about street cred, you said, wasn’t it?’

  The Needle glared back at him. His lawyer said, ‘There was a witness.’

  Li frowned. ‘A witness?’ Then, ‘Oh, you mean “observer”. Dr Campbell is an American pathologist helping us with a case.’

  ‘Where is she, Li?’ Chen demanded.

  ‘In the office.’ For the first time, he seemed uneasy. A close inspection of his veneer of confidence might have shown hairline cracks. Chen picked up the phone and asked for Margaret to be brought in. They waited in tense silence. There was a knock at the door and Margaret made a tentative entrance. She saw The Needle and immediately felt sick.

  Chen said, ‘Does everyone here speak English?’ The Needle’s lawyer nodded. Chen turned to Margaret. ‘I am very sorry, Dr Campbell, to drag you into this. But these gentlemen here have made a very serious allegation about the conduct of Deputy Section Chief Li. You might be in a position to help us clarify the matter.’

  Margaret felt the colour rising on her face. She glanced at Li. But he was steadfastly avoiding her eye. ‘Of course,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know this gentleman?’ Chen said, indicating The Needle.

  ‘Sure. Deputy Section Chief Li spoke to him this morning.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘We met him at the Hard Rock Café and …’ Her hesitation was almost imperceptible, but she felt as if it lasted minutes. ‘… drove to some stadium or
other.’ She glanced again at Li, but his face was giving nothing away.

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘We went inside.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I don’t know. They were speaking in Chinese. I didn’t know what they were saying.’ Until now everything she had said was true.

  Chen took a deep breath. ‘It is alleged that Li put a revolver, armed with a single bullet, to this man’s head and repeatedly pulled the trigger. Is this the case?’

  Again, her hesitation seemed to last a lifetime. ‘Not that I saw,’ she said finally. After all, it was partially true. She had turned away, hadn’t she?

  There was a long silence. Margaret could hear distant voices on another floor, a far-off rumble of traffic and horns from Dongzhimennei Street. The Needle glanced at his lawyer. His English had not been up to the exchange. But his lawyer sat stiffly, lips tightly pursed. Chen leaned across the desk towards The Needle and said, ‘Get the fuck out of here before I charge you with making false allegations against the police.’

  Li was shocked. In all the years he had known Chen, he had never before heard him swear. As his lawyer pulled him to his feet, The Needle turned his hate-filled eyes on Margaret before being drawn reluctantly towards the door. The two men left the room.

  There was another long silence. Chen looked at Li dangerously, and in Chinese said, ‘What’s going on, Li?’

  Li shrugged. ‘Beats me, Chief.’

  ‘It’s not how we conduct our business.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Chen turned to Margaret, and in English said, ‘Thank you, Dr Campbell. You have been very helpful.’

  And again to Li, in Chinese, ‘Do it again and I’ll have you drummed out of the force.’

  In the corridor, Margaret said to Li, ‘I want to talk to you.’