‘So?’
‘So the American Embassy have requested that one of their people carry out the autopsy. Or at least assist on it.’
‘Well, the answer’s no,’ Li snapped. ‘This is an ongoing murder inquiry. I’m not going to have some goddamned American pathologist who knows nothing of the background to the other murders coming in and fucking up our corpse.’
Qian braced himself. ‘I don’t know that it matters much what we think, Chief. Apparently the Ministry has already agreed. It’s been authorised at the highest level, and the autopsy’s been postponed till eleven.’
‘The hell it has!’ Li snatched the phone and started punching in numbers.
‘Chief…’ There was something in Qian’s tone that cut through Li’s anger.
‘What is it, Qian?’
‘There have been other developments. Putting off the autopsy for a couple of hours might not be such a bad idea.’
Li slowly replaced the receiver. ‘Tell me.’
‘There was a break-in last night at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Lynn Pan’s office was ransacked.’
IV
The head of security met them in the lobby. He was agitated, an ex-cop who saw the break-in on his turf as a potential one-way ticket to unemployment. He was a tall man, nearly Li’s height, and wore a grey uniform with clusters of stars and stripes that meant nothing at all. They just looked impressive. It was still early, and staff and students were only now beginning to show up for the day. He steered Li and Wu along a corridor to his office on the ground floor. ‘Look guys,’ he said, appealing to the old boys’ network, ‘I’d really appreciate it if we can keep this low profile.’
‘A woman has been murdered,’ Li said sharply. ‘It’s hard to lower a profile like that. What happened here?’
The security man shrugged his eyebrows. ‘That’s just it. I’ve no idea. None of the alarms was tripped. I can’t find signs of forced entry anywhere.’
Wu was chewing manically, and swinging the left leg of his shades around the little finger of his right hand. ‘So how do you know there’s been a break-in?’
‘Because somebody jemmied their way into Lynn Pan’s offices and cleaned out the lot. Computers, files, just about everything that wasn’t nailed down. A real pro job.’
‘Not an inside one?’ Li said.
The security man pulled a face. ‘I don’t think so. If they had keys to turn off alarms and get in and out the building, wouldn’t they have had keys for her offices, too?’
Wu said, ‘If they were smart enough to break in without leaving a trace, why would they have to force an internal door?’
‘Because once you’re in, you don’t have to worry about setting off alarms,’ the security man said. ‘You’ve done the smart bit. You’re not going to be able to hide the fact that you’ve ransacked a whole department, so why worry about breaking down a door?’
Li wasn’t convinced either way. ‘Let’s take a look.’
Some of Pan’s staff and students were gathered in the corridor outside the department. Most of them had just heard the news of her death and were still in shock. Their babble of hushed chatter died away as Li, Wu and the security man stepped out of the elevator. Li said to the security man, ‘I don’t want anybody touching anything until forensics have been over the place.’
He recognised some of the faces in the corridor. Lynn Pan’s assistant, an older woman, who had brought them all tea the previous day and escorted them to the computer room. The student who had briefed them on the ‘crime’ for the MERMER test. He nodded acknowledgement as he passed them and the security man showed the detectives the double doors that had been forced at the end of the corridor. The wood was splintered and broken around the lock. Crude but effective. Beyond the doors, the reception room where Li had sat with Commissioner Zhu and Deputy Minister Wei and the others appeared to have been left undisturbed. Li glanced from the window and saw the minaret-like TV tower catching the light, sharp against the blue of the sky. He could scarcely believe it had been only yesterday afternoon he had stood at that very window looking out at the tower. Then, Lynn Pan had still been very much alive, a beautiful, vibrant living being, demonstrating her extraordinary expertise. Why would anyone want to kill her?
A short corridor led off to the computer room where the MERMER demonstration had been carried out, Lynn Pan’s office through the wall from it, a couple of lecture rooms, another office occupied by Pan’s assistant, and a small staff room.
The computer room had been cleared, apart from the two tables on which the computer equipment had stood, and a couple of office chairs on wheels. The cables remained, but all the equipment was gone. They moved through to Pan’s private office, and Li recognised her scent lingering there still.
Li said to the security man, ‘Get Pan’s assistant in here.’ And as an afterthought, ‘I met her yesterday, but I can’t remember her name.’
‘Professor Hu,’ the security man said.
While they waited for her, Li wandered around the office. The desk top was completely cleared. The drawers had been opened and emptied. There was a lacquered wooden cupboard against the back wall, and a filing cabinet next to it. The doors of the cupboard stood ajar, and it, too, was empty. There were pot plants on almost every available surface. One, which had perhaps stood upon the desk, lay smashed and broken on the floor, earth spilling across worn carpet tiles. Framed certificates hung on the walls, a testament to Pan’s educational history and professional qualifications. There was a photograph of her, along with another woman, taken at a graduation ceremony. They both wore mortar boards and black and crimson gowns, clutching their certificates and smiling for the camera. It had clearly been taken several years earlier. Pan was younger-looking, long straight hair hanging down over her shoulders. Her smile had been just as radiant then. In another photograph she was pictured with a young, dark-haired American male. Li read the handwritten caption on it. With Dr. Lawrence Farwell, June 1999. She had cut her hair short by then. It suited her.
‘She was a pretty beautiful woman, huh?’ Wu said, peering at the photograph.
‘Yes, she was,’ Li said. Her eyes burned out of the picture at him, smiling, giving, reaching out, and he remembered the strange emotion which had clouded them in those last moments he had seen her alive. What he had taken as an appeal for help. If only he had answered that appeal. If only he had held back, spoken to her before he left. If only.
The security man returned with Professor Hu. She had shoulder-length wavy hair shot through with streaks of grey. She was around five-five, tall for a Chinese woman, and painfully thin. She wore a grey business suit with a white blouse and a red scarf tied at her neck like a slash of blood. Li found it disturbing. Her eyes were red and swollen. She had obviously been doing a lot of crying.
‘Professor Hu,’ Li said, ‘I’m sorry to meet you again in these circumstances. I want to catch the people who did this. I want to catch the person who killed Miss Pan. And I’m going to need your help.’
‘I don’t see…’
He put a finger to his lips to silence her. ‘You know this place better than any of us, Professor. I want you to walk us through it, room by room, and tell us what’s missing.’
She nodded her willingness, and he gave her a pair of latex gloves to slip on, so that she could open filing cabinets and drawers and cupboards without disturbing evidence. Although Li did not expect forensics to find anything. This was a highly professional job. The security man had been right in that, at least.
It took them less than fifteen minutes to go through the department. Every drawer and cupboard that was opened told the same depressing story. Empty. Empty. Empty. Every scrap of stationery, every file, the contents of every drawer. Even the bins were empty. Wu said, ‘Looks like they didn’t know what they were after, so they just took the lot.’