Chapter 1 Deputy Section Chief Li." The defense lawyer spoke slowly, as if considering every syllable. "There is no doubt that if one compares these shoe prints with the photographs of the footprints taken at the scene of the murder, one would be led to the conclusion that they were made by the same pair of shoes." Photographs of the footprints and the corresponding shoe prints were laid out on the table in front of him. Li Yan nodded cautiously, uncertain where this was leading, aware of the judge watching him closely from the bench opposite, a wily, white-haired veteran languishing thoughtfully in his winter blue uniform beneath the red, blue, and gold crest of the Ministry of Public Security. The scribble of the clerk's pen was clearly audible in the silence of the packed courtroom. "Which would further lead one to the conclusion that the owner of these shoes was, at the very least, present at the crime scene--particularly in light of the prosecution's claim that traces of the victim's blood were also found on the shoes." The lawyer looked up from his table and fixed Li with a cold stare. He was a young man, in his early thirties, about the same age as Li, one of a new breed of lawyers feeding off the recent raft of legislation regulating the burgeoning Chinese justice system. He was sleek, well-groomed, prosperous. A dark Armani suit, a crisp white, button-down designer shirt and silk tie. And he was brimming with a self-confidence that made Li uneasy. "Would you agree?" Li nodded. "I'm sorry, did you speak?" "No, I nodded my agreement." Irritation in Li's voice. "Then please speak up, Deputy Section Chief, so that the clerk can note your comments for the record." The Armani suit's tone was condescending, providing the court with the erroneous impression that the police officer in the witness stand was a rank novice. Li bristled. This was a cut-and-dried case. The defendant had come in from the countryside claiming to be looking for work in Beijing. He had broken into a home in the northeast of the city, and when the occupant, an elderly widow, had startled him, had stabbed her to death. There had been copious amounts of blood. The next day the warden at a workers' hostel had called the local public security bureau to report that one of his residents had returned in the middle of the night covered in what looked like blood. By the time the police got there, the defendant had somehow managed to dispose of his bloodstained clothes and showered himself clean. No murder weapon was recovered, but a pair of his shoes matched prints left in blood at the scene, and forensics found traces of the victim's blood in the treads. Li wondered why this supercilious defense lawyer seemed so confident. He didn't have to wait long to find out. "You would further agree, then, that the owner of these shoes was most probably the perpetrator of the crime." "I would." Li spoke clearly, so that there could be no ambiguity. "So what leads you to believe that my client was the perpetrator?" Li frowned. "They're his shoes." "Are they?" "They were found in his room at the hostel. Forensic examination found traces of the victim's blood in the treads, and footwear impressions taken from them provided an exact match with the prints found at the scene." "So where are they?" The lawyer's eyes held Li in their unwavering gaze. For the first time Li's own confidence began to falter. "Where are what?" "The shoes." This delivered with an affected weariness. "You can't claim to have found a pair of shoes in my client's room tying him to a crime scene and then fail to produce them as evidence." Li felt a hot flush rising on his cheeks. He glanced toward the procurator's table, but the prosecutor's eyes were firmly fixed on papers in front of him. "After forensics had finished with them, they were logged and tagged and--" "I ask again," the lawyer interrupted, raising his voice, a voice of reason asking a not unreasonable question. "Where are they?" "They were sent down to the procurator's office as exhibits for the court." "Then why are they not here for us all to see?" Li glanced at the procurator again, only this time it was anger that colored his face. Clearly the prosecution's failure to produce the shoes had been well aired before Li had even been called to give evidence. He was being made to look like an idiot. "Why don't you ask the procurator?" His voice was taut with tension. "I already did. He says that his office never received them from your office." A hubbub of excited speculation buzzed around the public benches. The clerk issued a curt warning for members of the public to remain silent or be expelled from the court. Li knew perfectly well that the shoes, along with all the other evidence, had been dispatched to the procurator's office. But he also knew that there was nothing he could say or do here in the witness box that could prove it. He felt every eye in the court upon him. "Surely, Deputy Section Chief, it must be obvious even to you, that without the shoes my client has no case to answer?" Li closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Through glass doors, past a row of potted plants, Li started angrily down the steps toward the car park. The procurator chased after him, clutching a thick folder of documents. Above them rose the five stories of Central Beijing Middle Court. To their left, armed officers guarded the vehicle entrance to the holding cells, and a red Chinese flag hung limp in the winter sun over the Ministry of Public Security's crest of justice. Justice! Li thought not. He pulled on a greatcoat over his green uniform and hauled a peaked cap down over his flattop crew cut. His breath billowed before him like dragon fire in the cold morning air. "I'm telling you, we never got them." The procurator was a short, spindly man with thinning hair and thick glasses. His uniform was too large for him. "Bullshit!" Li wheeled around on the steps and the procurator came to an abrupt halt on the step above. Li still towered over him. "You would never have brought the case to court if we hadn't provided the evidence." "Paper evidence. That's all you sent me. I assumed the shoes had been lodged in the evidence depository." "They were. Which makes them your responsibility, not ours." Li raised his arms with his voice, and people flooding out of the court behind them stopped to listen. "In the name of the sky, Zhang! My people work their butts off to bring criminals to justice . . ." He was distracted momentarily by the sight of the Armani suit and his exultant client passing them on the steps. He had a powerful urge to take his fist and smash their gloating faces to a pulp. But he turned instead to vent his anger on the procurator. "And you fucking people go losing the evidence and let killers walk free. Expect an official complaint." He clamped a cigarette in his mouth and headed off down the steps. Procurator Zhang was fuming and only too aware of curious faces watching him. Policemen did not speak to procurators like that. Certainly not in public. It was a humiliating loss of face. "I'm the one who'll be making the complaint, Deputy Section Chief," Zhang shouted lamely at Li's back. "To the commissioner. You needn't think you can live in the protective shadow of your uncle forever." Li stopped and turned, fixing him with a silent stare filled with such intensity that Zhang could not maintain eye contact. He knew he had gone too far and ran back up the steps into the safety of the courthouse. Li stared after him for a few moments, then hurried through the parked vehicles to the street, still fighting his anger. A group of people standing at the notice board where the week's trials were posted in advance turned to watch as he strode past. But he didn't notice them. Neither did he see the vendor at the corner of the street offering him fruit from under a green and yellow striped awning. Nor did he smell the smoke rising from lamb skewers cooking on open coals in the narrow confines of Xidamochang Street. He turned toward the roar of traffic on East Qianmen Avenue, ignoring the honk of a car's horn sounding behind him. Only when its engine revved and the horn sounded again did he half turn. An unmarked Beijing Police jeep drew alongside him. Detective Wu leaned over to push open the passenger door. Li was not pleased to see him. "What d'you want, Wu?" Wu raised his hands in mock defense. "Hey, boss, I've been waiting for you for over an hour." Li hesitated briefly before slipping into the passenger seat. "What for?" Wu grinned, jaws grinding on a piece of leathery gum that had long since lost its flavor. He pushed his sunglasses up on his forehead. He was the bearer of interesting news, and he wanted to make the most of it. "Remember that case during Spring Festival? The dismembered girl? We found her bits in a shallow grave out near the Summer Palace?" "Yeah, I remember the case. We never got anyone for it." Li paused. "What about it?" "They found a whole lot more just like her down in Shanghai. Some kind of mass grave. Maybe as many as twenty. Same MO." "Twenty!" Li was shocked. Wu shrugged. "They don't know for sure yet, but there are lots of bits. And they want you down there. Fast." Li was taken aback. "Me? Why?" Wu grinned. "'Cause you're such a fucking superstar, boss." But his smile froze quickly in the chill of Li's glare. "They think there could be a link to the murder here in Beijing. And there's big pressure to get a result fast on this one." "Why's that?" Li had already forgotten his courtroom debacle. Wu lit a cigarette. "Seems there was this big ceremony down there this morning. Concrete getting poured into the foundations of a big joint-venture bank they're building across the river in Pudong. Anyway, the CEO of this New York bank comes to do the ceremonial bit on the building site. All the top brass are there. Place is bristling with American press and TV. Only it's pissing from the heavens. The building site turns into a swamp, and the platform they built for the VIPs tips this American exec right into the hole they're going to fill with concrete. And he finds himself floundering around in the mud with bits of bodies coming out of the walls, like they just dug up some old burial site. Only the bodies aren't so old." Li whistled softly. He could imagine the media feeding frenzy. The Chinese press would print only what they were told to, but there would be no restraining the Western media. "TV cameras?" "Beaming right out of there, live on satellite." Wu was enjoying himself. "Apparently the powers that be are in a real state. Bodies in the bank vault are not good for business, and the Americans are talking about pulling out of the whole deal." "I'm sure the victims will be sorry to hear that." Wu smirked. He reached over to the rear seat and heaved a fat folder into Li's lap. "That's the file on the girl we found in Beijing. You can refamiliarize yourself with it on the flight down there." He checked his watch. "You've got just about enough time to pack an overnight bag." Li sat on the edge of the bed. Watery sunlight slanted in from the street through the last dead leaves clinging to the trees in Zhengyi Road. A kindly face smiled down at him from the wall, a tumble of curly black hair, streaked with silver, swept back from a remarkably unlined face. He had lived with his uncle Yifu for more than ten years on the second floor of this police apartment block in the ministry compound. Li still missed him. Missed his mischief and his wisdom, the imparted experience of a lifetime, the constant prompting to think laterally, outside of the box. The devil might be in the details, he had often told him, but therein also lies the truth. Li still ached when he remembered how the old man had died. Woke frequently in the night with the bloody image skewered into his consciousness. This had once been Yifu's room, and now it was Xinxin's. And she loved to hear the stories about the old man on the wall. Li wandered back to his own room. He was destined, it seemed, to be forever haunted by Yifu. With every failure, his uncle was cast up to him as an example he should have followed. Every success was attributed to the old man's influence. Those who were jealous of his status put it down to his uncle's connections. And those senior officers who had worked with his uncle made it clear that his footsteps were much too big for Li ever to fill. And through every investigation he felt the old man's presence at his shoulder, his voice whispering softly in his ear. No use in worrying about the might-have-beens, Li Yan. It is a good thing to have a broken mirror reshaped. Where the tiller is tireless, the earth is fertile. He'd have given anything to hear that voice again for real. He stripped out of his uniform and pulled on a pair of jeans, a white T-shirt, and his favorite old brown leather jacket, before stuffing some clothes into a holdall. One of Xinxin's books lying on the chest of drawers made him pause. He would need to make arrangements for the child's care while he was gone. And there was no Margaret to step into the breach. He sat for a moment lost in thought, then reached over and lifted Margaret's hairbrush from the bedside table and teased out some of the hair trapped in its teeth. It was extra fine and golden in the pale sunlight. He put it to his nose and smelled her perfume, experiencing a moment of acute desire, and then emptiness. He ran his hand lightly across the unmade bed where they had so often made love and realized that he missed her more than he knew. Copyright (c) 2000 by Peter May. All rights reserved. Excerpted from The Killing Room by Peter May All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.