The Golden Library, page 14
‘Happy you brought me along?’
She was about to reply when her phone went. ‘I told you they would be quick to trace the vehicle,’ she said contentedly.
‘I get it. Chinese police are the most efficient in the world.’
But her look of satisfaction turned to a scowl as she listened to the call. ‘Shit,’ she muttered, putting the phone away.
‘What?’
‘The van’s owner is a Mr Wen Yongjian, in the city of Baoji. He reported it stolen that morning.’
‘Then all we have to go on for now is Dan Chen’s note,’ Ben said. ‘Come on, we’ve seen enough here. Let’s head back to the village and talk about it along the way.’
‘All right,’ she said as they walked. ‘So what can we surmise from all this?’
‘A lot of contradictions,’ Ben said. ‘Dan’s note describes these people as his friends, but then they turn up to the rendezvous wearing ski masks and they snatch his girlfriend using force. Meanwhile, they’ve got to be the sloppiest kidnappers of all time, making all kinds of elementary mistakes that no pro would dream of making, but when it comes to cutting people’s organs out they’re as clean and precise as a top-class surgeon. Then there’s something else in that note doesn’t ring true to me either, the more I think about it. Dan told Lara in his note that this was “all for the best possible cause”. What could he have meant by that?’
‘You could be reading too much into it,’ she replied. ‘To a lot of people, the best possible cause is the one that makes them richest.’
‘But no money changed hands,’ Ben said. ‘Before they grabbed her, Lara was about to turn and walk away after she delivered the package, just like the note told her to. Not your typical kind of criminal deal, then, with no payment involved.’
‘Maybe there was money inside the package,’ Detective Lin said. ‘Rolled up in the tube. Some kind of payoff.’
‘And then they decided to take her, too?’
‘It’s clear she was deceived into thinking they’d let her go. But maybe she was part of the deal, without realising it.’
Ben was unsure. ‘You think this humble government employee, who people call sweet and gentle, would really do that to his own girlfriend? Apart from anything else, he must have known her disappearance would cause a stir.’
She shrugged. ‘Who knows what people are capable of?’
They explored a few more tentative ideas as they walked back to the village, but still nothing was making sense and by the time they got to the house they had both fallen into silence. Ben wanted to light a cigarette, but what she’d said about them smelling like shit put him off the idea. It was deep in the night and they were both tired and worn out from trying to figure out unanswerable questions.
By now most of the police cars and uniformed cops had left, just a few stragglers hanging around. Crime scene tape had been stretched across the doorway of the cottage, with police warning signs to keep out. Ben blipped the locks of the Steiner Mercedes, and she did the same with her grey saloon.
‘Well, I suppose I have to thank you again for your help tonight,’ she said. ‘Perhaps tomorrow we might learn more from the evidence we found.’
‘Will you call me?’ he asked.
‘I’ll think about it.’
He supposed that would have to be good enough. ‘Maybe I’ll see you around, then. Good night, Shi Yun. Get some rest.’
She smiled. ‘Good night, Benedict.’
Detective Shi Yun Lin watched his taillights shrink away into the night. Wondering about him, she couldn’t help but find the man intriguing. As she stood there deep in thought, her second-in-command came over to ask if she needed anything more from him. ‘No, Sergeant Honglei, you can go home now. I’m about to head back myself.’
With a last glance in the direction Ben Hope had disappeared, she climbed into her car and drove pensively to her apartment in Xi’an. Nobody was waiting there for her, except for her Siamese cat. Shi Yun took a long hot shower, trying to wash away the haunting memory of the dead woman’s blood. Then she got into bed with the cat curled up near her feet, and lay awake for a long time thinking about what to do about Ben Hope. He’d found the note from Dan Chen when the police had completely missed it. And he was excellent at interpreting clues. From what he’d said about his background, he had far more experience at solving this kind of case than she did. What if she couldn’t solve it on her own?
She was still working those thoughts over in her head when she rose at six after far too little sleep, ate a rushed breakfast on the hoof, fed the cat and headed off for an early start at the police headquarters. After submitting the new pieces of evidence from last night’s investigations, she’d been at her desk barely three minutes when an email pinged up on her screen from one of her fellow detectives, telling her a piece of interesting news about the first murder victim, Dan Chen.
Shi Yun was digesting that information and wondering what it could signify, if anything, when her phone rang.
The moment that call was over, she dialled Ben Hope’s number.
Chapter 20
As he drove back through the night towards Xi’an and their hotel, Ben debated with himself whether or not to tell his two companions the news of Olivia’s death. It was more than just the knowledge of what Stefan’s reaction would be that made him wonder if it was such a good idea. Ben’s warning to Detective Lin hadn’t been all bluff to persuade her. He was all too aware of the opening of the political floodgates that this development would be liable to kick off, once wind of it reached home.
And yet, how could he keep it a secret? The only thing more unthinkable than telling them would be not telling them. Deciding that he had no option, Ben lit another Gauloise and resigned himself to doing the necessary.
It was after four by the time he got back to the hotel. He parked the car and let himself quietly back into the suite, half hoping that his roommates would be still sleeping, so he might be able to delay the inevitable while he grabbed a couple of hours of badly needed sleep for himself. No such luck: Stefan and Sammy had been wide awake for some time, deeply worried about where he’d slipped off to and bursting with questions. Sammy was predictably unhappy about Ben’s unauthorised use of the car, while Stefan was upset that Ben had gone off on his own and excluded him. He seemed to have forgotten that he’d been comatose at the time.
Ben cut them short with a stern look. ‘Shut up and sit down, the two of you. Stefan, you might need to open another bottle of that Chinese rotgut. I’ve got some news you’re not going to like.’
And then he broke it to them. He’d expected it to be a bad moment. It was worse. He thought that Stefan’s outburst of disbelief and denial was going to wake up the whole hotel. Ben was glad he’d taken the guy’s phone, because it would have been difficult to prevent him from using it to call home immediately without resorting to force. Sammy slumped on a sofa, beyond depression, and reached for the Baijiu.
‘What the hell are we going to do now?’ Stefan asked numbly, after the first wave of shock and emotion had subsided. He looked like a grey ghost.
‘We’re going to stick to our plan,’ Ben told him. ‘We’re going to figure this out. But we need the space to do it without the world breathing down our necks.’
‘That’s insane. How can I keep this from Ruth, and my parents? And what about Olivia’s family? Don’t they need to know?’
‘Telling them won’t bring her back any time soon,’ Ben said. ‘But one thing it will do is to change their lives for ever. They’ll be crushed. Do you want to drop that hammer on them, or do them the kindness of a few days’ reprieve?’
‘We can’t keep this a secret,’ Sammy protested, waving the bottle at him. ‘It’s immoral.’
‘It’s what the police want to do,’ Ben replied. ‘And for once in my life I have to agree with them.’ He turned back to Stefan. ‘We make the wrong move now, we’ll never catch the people who took your sister. It’s a bullet to the head. Do you understand?’
‘She’s dead anyway,’ Stefan muttered. ‘I know it.’
Ben stared at him. ‘Do you? Really?’
‘Tell me you don’t!’ Stefan replied, his voice rising suddenly to a shout.
‘I’ll know she’s dead when I see her dead,’ Ben said. ‘Not before.’
Stefan slammed his fist into the arm of his chair, so hard that the wood cracked and a flash of pain contorted his face. ‘That’s so easy for you to say!’ he yelled. ‘It’s not your sister that’s gone missing!’ Even as the words came out, his eyes filled with horror to hear himself saying them.
Ben made no reply for a second or two. Then he grabbed Stefan by the neck, propelled him backwards out of his chair and drove him hard against the wall behind it, pinning him there helpless and gasping. Ben’s face was three inches from his. He spoke without emotion, in a voice as hard as blued steel.
‘Now you listen to me like you’ve never listened to anyone in your life before. You think I don’t know what you’re going through at this moment? You’re wrong. I know what it feels like, and believe me, I spent a long time feeling exactly like you are. When Ruth disappeared from our lives the way she did, it was like getting your guts ripped out. But I never gave up on her, Stefan. Never. Not for years, not even when there seemed like no hope we’d ever find her. Not even after the stress and the grief of losing her made both our parents die of a broken heart. I always believed, against all the odds. And now you’re going to find it within yourself to believe, too.’
Ben let him go. Stefan slumped down the wall and fell in a heap on the floor. ‘I’m not you, Ben,’ he groaned, tears in his eyes. ‘I don’t have your strength.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ Ben said. ‘In which case, then maybe you’re not the guy I thought Ruth had chosen to spend the rest of her life with. That would be disappointing.’ He took Stefan’s phone from his pocket and chucked it down on the floor next to him. ‘It’s your choice, Stefan. You want to make that call, go for it. But it’ll be on you. Now I’m tired and I’m going to bed for a while. If I wake up and find out you just went ahead and killed our best chance of finding Lara, then I’ll be on the first plane home to France.’
With nothing more to say and feeling suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue, Ben walked into his bedroom, locked the door behind him, kicked off his shoes and dived into the bed. It was soft and comfortable. Within instants of his head hitting the pillow he was swimming, but even as he let the warm waters of sleep start to envelop him, he was being jerked awake again by the indelible vision of Olivia Keller’s slaughtered carcass lying pale and empty on the blood-spattered floor and he couldn’t keep out the thoughts that flooded into his head. It was all fine to tell Stefan they were going to stick to their plan, but if Shi Yun Lin decided she wasn’t going to let Ben in on her case, those promises were little more than fighting talk. And then maybe he might as well be on the next flight to France anyway.
But he needn’t have worried about her. Because by seven that morning, when he’d given up trying to get any proper sleep and was sitting in the suite’s little kitchen area revitalising himself with as much hot, strong black coffee as he could get down him, his phone rang.
She was calling from the road, with a lot of vehicle and traffic noise in the background. Her voice was brisk and businesslike, and she didn’t waste time getting straight to the point. ‘I just got two new pieces of information this morning. The first is that a police patrol came across the stolen van less than an hour ago. It was hidden under a section of flyover bridge in an industrial area to the east of the city. I’m on my way there now.’
‘The kidnappers probably used the flyover as a cover from overhead surveillance cameras while they switched their victim into another vehicle.’ It was an old trick. ‘I’m guessing there was nobody inside.’
‘It was empty, except for a packet of those same black plastic cable ties one of the officers found under the front passenger seat. It must have fallen under there while they were driving. Someone left some cigarettes behind, too. The same Shuangxi brand that you and I found at the cherry blossom grove.’
Ben nodded. It was always welcome when the bad guys went around scattering breadcrumb trails of evidence for you to pick up on. This wasn’t much, but it was a start. ‘What’s the other thing?’
‘I’ll tell you in the car,’ she replied. ‘I’m en route to your hotel now, to pick you up and take you to see the van.’
‘Does this mean we’re working together now?’
‘I’ve been thinking about it, and I decided maybe you were right when you said it could be to both our advantages. You might be able to spot something I can’t.’
‘I’m honoured.’
‘But don’t tell the chief, okay? This is a serious breach of protocol. If my superiors find out, I’ll be handing out parking tickets for the rest of my career.’
‘Not a word. I promise.’
‘Good. Or I might have to shoot you,’ she said. It was hard to tell if she was being playful. ‘I’m ten minutes from your hotel. Get ready to leave.’
‘I’m coming too,’ said Stefan when Ben told him where he was going.
‘And me,’ Sammy chimed in.
There was no stopping them, and so it was a gang of three that was waiting outside the hotel exactly ten minutes later when Detective Lin’s dark grey plain saloon pulled into the car park. ‘Great,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘The whole contingent. All right, get in.’
The morning traffic in Xi’an wasn’t as crazy as that of Beijing, but it wasn’t far off it, and she handled the car with skill as hazards flew at them from all directions at once with no regard for the rules of the road. It was probably the only time the Chinese citizenry got to flout the regulations a little, and they all seemed to want to make the most of it.
‘So now you’re going to tell us the second thing you learned this morning,’ Ben reminded her.
‘I don’t know if it means anything for us,’ she said. ‘But it got me wondering. It turns out from the records of Shaanxi Lintong Kangfu Hospital that a couple of days before he went missing, Dan Chen was treated there for a minor concussion he’d sustained in that earthquake we had.’
‘I didn’t know there’d been one,’ Ben said.
‘We get them from time to time. This was only a smallish tremor, but it was enough to cause some structural damage to buildings. Dan Chen was at work the night it struck, overseeing an important cultural conservation project with his team at the Museum of Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses.’
‘As in, the terracotta army?’
She cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘You know about it?’
‘As much as the next person,’ he replied. ‘I’m no archaeologist, but who hasn’t heard of that one?’
‘You amaze me,’ she said dryly. ‘I thought I would have to explain. This was to be a very important event, the most extensive exhibition of the terracotta warriors outside China since their discovery in 1974. Dan Chen and his team had the task of giving the artefacts a last check to ensure they were in a condition to travel, before they were loaded into their transportation crates and put on a cargo aircraft bound for London.’
‘Big responsibility.’
‘He was very serious about this work, by all accounts. Anyhow, when the earthquake happened without warning he was alone in a room with a collection of exhibits. Thankfully the damage to the pieces was only slight, but the tremor took out the power and Chen was trapped inside the room for several minutes before his colleagues got him out and they evacuated the building. One of them, a woman called Mei Pinyin, drove him to Shaanxi Lintong Kangfu Hospital to be checked for concussion, but they sent him home with just a few stitches for a cut. Afterwards the transportation of the exhibits was delayed for a few days, and then by the time they called Dan Chen in to resume his work, he’d disappeared and was found dead shortly after.’
‘Okay,’ Ben said. ‘And why does this matter?’
‘Here’s the interesting part,’ she said. ‘In the meantime, the team who were given the job of clearing up the debris and moving the statues safely out of the damaged building to a new warehouse location have found that one of them was broken open in the earthquake. It turns out to have been hollow inside. Apparently they’re all like that, because of how they were made.’
‘One of the statues Dan Chen was left alone with?’ Ben asked, hunting for where this was going.
‘For five or ten minutes at least. The cavity inside the warrior’s body looks as if something could have been concealed there, which it’s possible he could have discovered by chance when it broke open.’
‘Are you saying he took it? Whatever “it” was?’
‘We don’t know that,’ she replied. ‘But I also have a report from Mei Pinyin, his colleague who drove him to the hospital. She’s on record as stating to the police that she thought he was acting very oddly. And when she took him back to his apartment, she was certain he was trying to hide something from her. An object of some kind, though she didn’t get a proper look at it. But his behaviour seemed suspicious.’
‘And if these suspicions proved correct, you think maybe this “something” was the item he gave Lara to pass on?’
‘If so, it would be a very serious offence. He’d have been certain to lose his job, and perhaps face an additional prison term. Whatever this thing was, it would have had to be highly valuable to justify taking such a risk.’
‘It’s still hypothetical,’ Ben said.
‘I’m not sure. Remember the description that Mr Chung gave us? He said it looked like a tube, about this long.’ She took her hands off the wheel to hold them eight inches apart. The car swerved slightly off line in the fast-moving pack of traffic and a horn wailed past, inches away.
‘Steady,’ Ben said.
Unfazed, Shi Yun replied, ‘I got a number for the team member who discovered the damaged warrior, and called him to ask if something that size would fit into the hollow space. He said in his estimation it would, easily.’
