‘How are you today, Mr Li?’
‘Very well, Mrs Ma.’
She handed him his usual People’s Daily and Beijing Youth Daily, folded one inside the other, in return for a few coins.
‘You’re up early today.’
He smiled. ‘I haven’t been to bed yet.’
‘Ahhh,’ she said sagely. ‘Of course. Another murder.’
He looked at her in astonishment. ‘How do you know that?’
She nodded towards the bundle in his hand. ‘It’s in the paper.’
Li frowned. ‘It can’t be.’ He looked at the People’s Daily. The front page was covered in the usual CCP propaganda Illiteracy rate among adult people slashed. And, Yangtze water cleanup ensured. There was a story about massive new investment in the western provinces, and a photograph of the executive deputy secretary of Tibet answering questions at a press conference. His heart skipped a beat as he saw a photograph of himself receiving his award from the Minister of Public Security. He would not have expected the public organ of the Party to have carried anything on the murders. The Beijing Youth Daily was another matter. Independent of the Party, and increasingly bold in its coverage of Chinese internal affairs, it had begun to garner a reputation for running high-risk stories. But even so, Li could not imagine the paper carrying a crime story about which no details had yet been released. Particularly since the latest murder had only been committed the night before. He unfolded its front page and felt as if he had been slapped. Beijing Ripper Claims Victim No. 5. The headline ran almost the full length of the left side of the front page in bold red characters. Two strips of sub-heading matched it, side by side, white characters on a red background. Body discovered at Millennium Monument, throat cut, ears removed. And, Four previous victims in Jianguomen found with body parts missing. Above the story itself, was a photograph of Li pictured at the award ceremony the previous evening. The caption read, Award-winning Beijing cop, Li Yan, leads investigation.
‘It would make you frightened to go out at night,’ the news vendor said. ‘He must be insane, this Beijing Ripper, cutting open these poor women and taking out their insides.’ Her words dragged Li’s eyes from the paper to her face. She must have read the story from start to finish. As, in all probability, would most of the city’s population in the hours ahead. It was going to spread panic, and it would certainly be picked up by the foreign media. The political implications were unthinkable. How in the name of the sky, he wondered, had they got hold of this kind of detail?
* * *
Margaret was feeding Li Jon in the living room when he got in. She was still in her dressing gown, face smudged and bleary from sleep — or the lack of it. He threw the Beijing Youth Daily on to the coffee table in front of her. ‘Look!’ he said.
She glanced at the paper. ‘I see a photograph of you,’ she said. ‘Is that what I’m supposed to be looking at? Maybe I should cut it out and keep it by the bedside, that way I’d probably see more of you than I do at the moment.’
But Li was in no mood for her sarcasm, and in his agitation, he had forgotten that she would not be able to read the headline. ‘Beijing Ripper Claims Victim No. 5.’ He read it for her.
She shrugged. ‘So? It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘That’s not the point!’ His voice was strained by exasperation and anger. ‘No one outside of the investigation knows the kind of detail they’ve printed in there.’
‘So someone leaked it.’
Li shook his head. ‘It doesn’t happen in China.’
‘It does now.’ Margaret pushed up an eyebrow. ‘Welcome to the rest of the world.’ She removed the teat from Li Jon’s mouth and wiped his lips. ‘Good morning, by the way.’
Li threw his hands up in frustration. ‘They’re going to blame me for this, Margaret.’ He cursed under his breath. ‘I’m going for a shower.’ And he stormed off to the bathroom.
Margaret called after him. ‘Your son says good morning, too.’
The slamming of the bathroom door came back in response. After a moment she heard the sound of the shower running, and the shower door banged shut. The phone rang. Usually she did not answer it, because the calls were invariably for Li and the callers spoke only Chinese. But he was in the shower, and in spite of her resentment at being abandoned to play the role of the little wife and doting mother, she did understand the pressure he was under. She lifted the receiver. ‘Wei?’ A female voice spoke to her in Chinese. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ Margaret said. ‘Please hold.’
She hefted Li Jon in her left arm, and took the phone through to the bathroom. Li’s uniform and underwear lay crumpled on the floor where he had dropped them. She opened the shower door and immediately felt the hot spray and steam on her face. She saw the shape of Li lathering his head with soap somewhere in the midst of it all and thrust the phone towards him. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘A call for you.’
He fumbled to turn off the water, stinging shampoo running into his eyes as he reached for the phone. ‘Shit, Margaret, could it not have waited?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, and she slammed the door shut behind her.
Li winced, and stood dripping in the cubicle, clutching the phone to his wet head. The cold of the apartment was already making itself felt as the water cooled, and he started to shiver.
‘Wei?’
It was the secretary from the Commissioner’s office at police headquarters. The Commissioner wanted to see him without delay. Li closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself. The storm was about to break. And it was going to break right over his head.
By the time he was dressed and ready to go, Margaret had steamed some lotus paste buns and made green tea. He appeared in the kitchen doorway looking harassed, wearing his long, heavy coat. But he had changed into freshly pressed slacks and a white shirt. Margaret thought he looked stunning, and she always loved the smell of him when he came out of the shower. But he never seemed to be around long enough these days for her to enjoy him.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘Commissioner Zhu is going to cut me up into little pieces and feed me to the fish.’
‘Then you should have some breakfast before you go. To fatten you up for the fish.’
‘No time. I’ll call later.’ And he was gone.
She shouted after him, ‘Are you remembering we’re going out for dinner tonight?’ But the door was already closing behind him. She shut her eyes to try to calm herself, and to prepare herself for the emptiness of the day ahead — before remembering that Li’s father had said he would drop by in the afternoon to see his grandson. Perhaps, she reflected, the day would have been better left empty. She felt her blood pressure start to rise once more.
The phone rang again, startling her this time. She swithered about whether to answer it, but if it was important there was still time to call down to Li from the balcony. And, besides, what else did she have to do with her time? She picked up the receiver. ‘Wei?’
A man’s voice spoke in a clipped American accent. ‘May I speak with Doctor Campbell?’
It seemed so odd to have someone addressing her as Doctor Campbell, not only in her own language, but in a comfortingly East-coast American accent. ‘This is she,’ she replied.
II
Police Headquarters was a short walk from Li’s apartment. The main entrance was two streets down on Qianmen Dong Da Jie, along from the EMS Central Post Office, but Li always entered from Jiaominxiang Lane. The old, arched entrance to the rear compound, opposite the Supreme Court, had been demolished to make way for a new building, clad in marble and designed along classical European lines to blend in with the redbrick one-time CID headquarters on the east side, and the former Citibank on the west. The old Citibank building was now a police museum, and beyond it the new entrance was watched over by two armed PLA guards flanking the gate.