Chinese Whispers (The China Thrillers 6) Page 6

  Margaret eyed the father of her child as he approached her across the broad curve of pavement, his shadow falling away to his right. He looked good in his long coat, tall and broad-shouldered, his black hair cropped in its distinctive flat-top crew cut. His pants were still sharply creased, although a little crinkled around the knee, and his white shirt was tucked tightly in at his impossibly narrow waist. Clothes hung beautifully on the Chinese frame, and Margaret marvelled at how she was still attracted to Li, even after all this time. Her stomach did a little flip, and she remembered how their passion had been frustrated by the call on his cellphone in the early hours of that morning. And she saw a weariness in his face that she recognised as owing more to what the call had led him to confront than to the simple interruption of his sleep.

  He smiled and stooped to kiss her, and ran a hand through the black hair beginning to grow more thickly now on his son’s head. ‘Been waiting long?’

  ‘Just arrived.’

  ‘They’re probably already here then. We’d better go in.’

  He wasn’t volunteering anything about his call-out this morning, and she knew better than to ask.

  The restaurant was drum-shaped, like its taller neighbour, the Central Conservatory. It had dining halls on three floors, with private rooms around the outside on the second and third. A pretty waitress in a red jacket and skirt led them up a circular staircase and around a pillared corridor which skirted the second-floor dining room. The American and his wife were waiting for them in a private room about two-thirds of the way around. They stood up from a table with a large pot sunk into its centre, over a concealed gas ring. Steam rose from bubbling stock. The room was ablaze with sunlight, and Li and Margaret were dazzled by it, entering from the dark inner hall.

  The polygrapher was tall and slim, a man in his forties with a head of thick, greying hair. He wore a baggy brown suit and checked shirt, with a tie loose at the neck. ‘Yeh, blinding isn’t it?’ He grinned at them as they shaded their eyes. ‘But, then, I always figure I look better when you can’t see me.’ He shook Li’s hand warmly. ‘Good to see you again, Li Yan. You haven’t met Chi Lyang, have you?’

  ‘No.’ Li shook hands with a slight, but attractive-looking Chinese woman in her mid-thirties. Her long black hair was drawn back in a ponytail. She wore jeans and sneakers and a white blouse. ‘Ni hau,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘Hi.’

  The American turned to Margaret, extending his hand. ‘And you must be Margaret. My name’s Bill Hart. I have heard so much about you, Margaret.’

  ‘All of it bad, no doubt.’

  He shrugged a shoulder. ‘Pretty much. But I figure, hell, with a reputation like that, you gotta be worth meeting.’

  Margaret raised an eyebrow. ‘I hope I won’t disappoint you, then.’

  He grinned. ‘Don’t you dare.’ And he turned to his wife. ‘This is Chi Lyang.’

  Margaret shook hands with her. ‘Don’t believe everything you hear about me,’ she said. ‘Since I became a mother I’ve retired from hostilities.’

  Lyang smiled, dark eyes sparkling. ‘Well, since I became a wife, I’ve had to retire from the police. But I still like to indulge in a bit of hostility now and then.’

  ‘And, boy, can she be hostile,’ Hart said.

  ‘We should get on just fine, then,’ Margaret said.

  Lyang cupped her hand under a sleepy Li Jon’s chin and he squinted at her in the bright sunlight. ‘He’s beautiful,’ she said.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me bringing him. I couldn’t find anyone to look after him at short notice.’

  ‘If I’d known I’d have brought Ling with me. She’s fifteen months.’

  ‘It’s Li Jon’s first birthday next month.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have no shortage of things to talk about,’ Hart said. He rattled off some Chinese at a waitress and she disappeared, returning quickly with a highchair for Li Jon.

  They settled themselves around the table, and the redjacketed serving girls brought in a large tray with plates bearing a variety of raw sliced mushrooms and placed it on a side table. Hart ordered beer, and another waitress brought a large, cooked black chicken in stock and tipped it carefully into the bubbling liquid in the centre of the table.

  ‘You ever had black chicken before?’ Hart asked Margaret. She shook her head. ‘Just tastes like chicken, except it’s black,’ he said.

  Lyang said, ‘In traditional Chinese medicine, black chicken is used to treat female diseases.’

  ‘And since I don’t have any female diseases, obviously it works,’ Hart said.

  Margaret smiled. ‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘Sounds appetising.’

  Li said to Lyang, ‘You speak exceptionally good English.’

  She inclined her head a little in acknowledgement. ‘I was a translator at the Ministry of State Security. Russian and English. That was before I moved over to Public Security.’

  ‘And if she hadn’t become a cop, I’d never have met her,’ Hart said.

  ‘And if we’d never met, I’d still have been a cop,’ she replied. There was no hint of rancour in her tone, but Margaret sensed some underlying tension. She knew only too well that the authorities would not allow a serving police officer to marry a foreign national. If you wanted to marry, you had to quit the force. She glanced at Li, but he was avoiding her eye.

  ‘We met at a conference in Boston,’ Hart said. ‘Lyang was trained in polygraphy at the University of Public Security here in Beijing. She was on an exchange trip to see how the Americans do it.’

  ‘And no doubt we Americans do it better,’ Margaret said. ‘We always do everything better, don’t we?’

  Hart smiled indulgently at her sarcasm. ‘We do it differently. And we’ve had a lot more experience. The Chinese began using the polygraph just ten years ago, and it has only been employed in around eight thousand cases since then. Compare that to the States where we’ve been using lie detection for more than seventy years, and almost every government employee has to submit to a polygraph test to get his job. I think we know a little more about it.’

  Margaret shrugged. ‘What’s to know? It’s just a bunch of wires and sensors that read heart-rate, breathing, perspiration. The operator is the lie detector, not the machine. It’s all psychology. Smoke and mirrors.’

  Hart laughed infectiously. ‘You’re right, of course, Margaret. Which is why experience counts for so much.’

  ‘Then how come you manage to get it wrong so often?’

  ‘Margaret…’ Li said, a hint of warning in his voice.

  But Hart was unruffled. ‘Relax, Li Yan, I’m enjoying this. It’s good to do battle with someone who can make a good argument.’ He turned back to Margaret. ‘Actually, we have a pretty high success rate. Ninety per cent or higher.’

  But Margaret was unimpressed. ‘Not according to the OTA. You know what that is?’

  ‘Sure. The Office of Technology Assessment. It’s an arm of the US federal government that analyses and evaluates current technology.’

  ‘Whose evaluation of the success rate of the polygraph is as low as fifty per cent. Hell, I can guess and be right half the time.’

  Lyang was grinning. ‘Still enjoying the argument, Bill?’

  But Margaret wasn’t finished. ‘I read somewhere that between one and four million private citizens in the US submit to a polygraph every year. Even assuming you did have a ninety per cent success rate, that’s a heck of a lot of people to be wrong about. People who might lose or fail to gain employment, people stigmatised as liars because of inaccurate polygraph tests. It’s not science, Bill, it’s voodoo.’

  Hart’s grin never faltered as he eyed Margaret with something approaching admiration. ‘Jesus, Margaret, they were right about you. I’d love to get you in the chair and wire you up. Pin you down on my territory.’

  ‘Okay,’ Margaret said, to everyone’s surprise.

  ‘What, you mean you’d let me give you a polygraph test?’

  ‘If you le
t me give you an autopsy.’ The others roared with laughter. And Margaret broke into a smile for the first time. ‘I reckon I’d find out a lot more about you in an hour and a half than you’d ever find out about me.’

  Hart nodded, still smiling, acknowledging defeat. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I give in. Let’s eat.’

  And the waitresses brought the mushrooms to the table and started cooking them in the stock with the chicken. Lyang showed Margaret how to mix up her own dip from three dishes of sesame paste, chilli and garlic, and dip the cooked pieces of mushroom in the mix before eating. Margaret was surprised at just how delicious the mushrooms were, each with its own distinctive flavour and texture. A waitress broke up the chicken in the pot and served portions of it into each of their individual bowls. It melted in the mouth.

  ‘Actually,’ Hart said, washing down mushroom with beer, ‘I’m not in favour of using the polygraph on employees or job applicants. I regard it only as a useful tool in criminal interrogation. It is at its most effective when the suspect believes the machine will catch him in a lie. You’d be amazed at how often they just confess.’ He spooned some of the stock into his bowl and drank it like soup. ‘You know, the Chinese invented a pretty good method of lie detection about three thousand years ago.’

  Li looked up surprised. ‘We did?’

  ‘Sure we did,’ Lyang said. ‘Works on the principle that if you are telling a lie you produce less saliva. So the ancient Chinese gave the suspect a mouthful of rice to chew, then told him to spit it out. If he was afraid of the test, because he was lying, he would suffer from dry mouth and the rice would stick to his tongue and the roof of his mouth. An innocent person, on the other hand, would be able to spit it out clean.’

  Hart said, ‘But the Indians had an even better one. They would put lampblack on the tail of a donkey and lead it into a dark room. Suspects were ordered to go into the room and pull the donkey’s tail. They were told that it was a magic donkey and would be able to tell if the suspect was being truthful or not. When the suspects came out of the room their hands were examined. If they didn’t have any lampblack on them they hadn’t pulled the donkey’s tail. Why? Obviously because they were scared of being found out. Guilty as charged.’

  ‘Almost as scientific as the polygraph,’ Margaret said.

  ‘Well, if it’s science that impresses you,’ Lyang said, ‘it’s a pity you won’t be at the MERMER demonstration this afternoon.’

  Margaret looked at Li. ‘And why am I not invited?’

  Li said, ‘Because it’s a demonstration for top Ministry of Public Security people, Margaret. The deputy minister himself is going to be there.’

  ‘We’re trying to secure funding for further research,’ Hart explained.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not invited either,’ Lyang said. ‘Husbands don’t like their wives seeing them caught in a lie.’

  Hart held his hands up. ‘I am taking no part in this demonstration. I just set it up for Lynn.’

  ‘Who’s Lynn?’ Li asked.

  ‘Professor Lynn Pan. She’s an American Chinese. She was a pupil of the system’s inventor, Doctor Lawrence Farwell, back in the States. She came to live and work in China last year, sponsored by the Chinese Academy to develop a Chinese version of MERMER.’

  ‘What exactly is Mermer?’ Margaret asked, intrigued.

  ‘It’s an acronym,’ Lyang said. ‘It stands for Memory and Encoding Related Multifaceted Electroencephalographic Responses.’

  ‘Sorry I asked,’ Margaret said. ‘What does it mean?’

  Hart said, ‘Electroencephalography is a non-invasive means of measuring electrical brain activity.’

  Lyang waved her hand dismissively. She turned to Margaret. ‘He’s a scientist, he doesn’t know anything about language. In layman’s terms, they put sensors on your scalp and use a computer to measure your brain’s electrical responses to certain stimuli. Might be something as simple as a photograph of your child. You recognise it, so your brain makes an entirely involuntary electrical response. Proof that you know this child. They show you a picture of someone else’s child, you have no response. You don’t know the kid.’

  Hart said, ‘It can be used to discover guilty knowledge in the brain of a criminal. They’ve done extensive testing in the States, using FBI and CIA personnel.’ He smiled. ‘Since you’re so interested in percentages, Margaret, you’ll be pleased to know it has proved one hundred per cent successful in all tests to date.’

  ‘Sounds like it could put you guys out of business.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt it,’ Hart said. ‘MERMER has very specific and narrow applications. It requires a lot of expensive equipment and meticulous preparation.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Speaking of which, we don’t want to be late.’ He signalled the waitress for the check and a gaggle of girls rushed to get their jackets from the stand.

  As they rose from the table, Lyang said, ‘Are you busy this afternoon, Margaret?’

  Margaret laughed. ‘Lyang, these days I’m never busy.’

  Lyang said, ‘I’m going for a foot massage later. Why don’t you join me?’

  ‘A foot massage?’ Margaret was incredulous. She had seen the signs for foot massage springing up all over the city. It was the latest fashion. But it seemed a little decadent.

  ‘It’s the most wonderful way of relaxing I know,’ Lyang said.

  ‘It’s not so easy to relax with an eleven-month-old baby demanding your attention twenty-four hours a day.’

  ‘That’s what’s so good about the place I use,’ Lyang said. ‘They have a crèche. You can forget baby for an hour and a half.’ She smiled. ‘Go on, treat yourself.’

  ‘On you go,’ Li said. ‘And when you learn how it’s done you can practise on me.’

  Margaret gave him a look.

  As a waitress handed Li his coat, Qian’s book slipped from the pocket and fell to the floor.

  Lyang stooped to pick it up and raised an eyebrow as she read the title. ‘The Murders of Jack the Ripper.’

  Hart laughed. ‘What’s this? Becoming a student of unsolved murders, Li?’

  Li smiled reluctantly. ‘I hope not,’ he said.

  But Margaret was looking at him curiously. ‘Jack the Ripper?’

  Li sighed. There was no avoiding an explanation. ‘I take it you know who he is?’

  ‘Of course. The Ripper murders were probably the first documented case of serial killings anywhere in the world.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m no expert on the subject, but there can’t be many people who haven’t heard the name Jack the Ripper. He’s kind of like the bogey man.’

  Li nodded solemnly and turned to Hart. ‘There’s been a spate of particularly gruesome murders in the city during the last few weeks.’ He glanced at Margaret. ‘We think the killer’s copycatting the Ripper murders.’

  Margaret found her interest engaged. ‘Who in Beijing would know enough of that kind of detail to be able to replicate them?’

  Li held up the book. ‘Someone who’s read this.’

  Margaret took the book and looked at the Chinese characters with frustration. She said, ‘I wish I’d taken the trouble to learn to read Chinese.’

  ‘It’s only a translation,’ Li said. ‘You could probably get the English original on the internet.’

  ‘Professional interest aroused?’ Hart asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Margaret said. ‘Wouldn’t you have liked to wire up some of the suspects and bamboozle them with your parlour tricks?’

  He grinned. ‘Well, if you’d done the autopsies, Margaret, I’m sure you’d have provided me with ample ammunition to extract a confession.’ He turned to Li. ‘Maybe you should get Margaret working on this one, Li Yan.’

  ‘I’ve retired,’ Margaret said simply, and she lifted Li Jon from his chair and turned out of their private room into the gloom of the inner restaurant.

  Chapter Three

  I

  The Chinese Academy of Sciences was in a six-storey grey-tile building off Sanlihi Lu, facing
west towards Yuyuantan Park, and flanked by the Ministry of Finance and the Chinese Institute of Seismology. Hart drew his car up on to the sidewalk and parked facing steps leading up to glass doors. A hanging white banner announced in bold characters that this was the Presidium of Chinese Scholars. A Chinese flag whipped and snapped in the wind and cast its shadow on the green-tile roof above the main entrance.

  On the fifth floor, five of the most senior officers in the Ministry of Public Security sat around a large reception room, drinking green tea and smoking. Vertical blinds shielded the room from the sun as it swung westwards. One wall was taken up by a mural depicting a tranquil scene from an ancient Chinese garden. Everyone, with the exception of Li, was in uniform and he realised immediately that he was in breach of etiquette.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it. Good luck,’ Hart said, and he ducked out the door. What had been an animated conversation fell away into silence as the occupants of the room regarded the newcomer. Procurator General Meng Yongli sat stiffly, with his hat on the chair beside him. ‘Punctual as always, Li,’ he said, his tone rigid with disapproval.

  ‘You might have taken the time to change into your uniform, Section Chief.’ This from the Deputy Minister of Public Security, Wei Peng. He was a small, squat man with the demeanour of a frog, and he enjoyed exercising his power. ‘We are here representing the Ministry today.’

  ‘Give the man a break.’ Beijing’s Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cao Xu, was so relaxed he was almost liquid. His hat had been tossed on the low table in front of him, and he was slouched in his seat, with one leg up over the arm of it. He was a man who, at one time, had been destined for the top. A predecessor of Li’s in the hotseat at Section One, he had looked set for the Commissioner’s job when a past indiscretion had caught up with him and he was promoted sideways to deputy. His progress on the career ladder was at an end and so he had no need to toady to his superiors. It made him something of a loose cannon. He took a long pull at his cigarette. ‘After all, the Section Chief is up to his eyes in murder, isn’t that right, Chief?’