Li took over. He said, ‘I want the swimming pool and Sui’s home treated as potential crime scenes. We won’t know the cause of death for certain until we have the autopsy report, so unless or until we have reason to believe otherwise we’ll treat it as suspicious.’
He flipped through the folder in front of him. ‘You all have the report on the accident which killed three members of the sprint relay team last month.’ There had been no reason then for anyone to think it was anything other than an accident. Three young men travelling too fast in a car late at night, losing control on black ice and wrapping their vehicle around a lamppost. Li said, ‘And the cyclist who was killed in a freak accident in a private pool.’ They all shuffled their papers to bring that report to the top. ‘Three witnesses saw him slip on the diving board and crack his skull as he fell in. Dead by the time they got him out.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We have no autopsy reports. No bodies. But in light of last night’s fatalities, we have no choice but to go back over all these deaths in the minutest detail. I have no idea what we’re looking for, or even if there is anything to be found, but I doubt if there’s anyone in this room who would think the deaths of six athletes in little over four weeks worthy of anything other than our undivided attention.’
There was nobody in the room who did.
‘So let’s kick it around,’ Li said. ‘Anyone got any thoughts?’
Wu had the report on the cyclist open in front of him. ‘These three witnesses,’ he said. ‘They all have addresses in Taiwan. Are they still going to be around for further questioning?’
‘Why don’t you make it your personal responsibility to find out?’ Li said. Wu pulled a face, and there was a sprinkling of laughter around the table. ‘Talk to the attending officers. Get them to go over it all again, in the smallest detail. There might be stuff that never made it into the report.’ He turned to the detective next to him. ‘And Qian, why don’t you talk to the officers who attended the car crash? Same thing.’ Qian was about ten years older than Li. He would never be management material, but he was steady and reliable and Li had a lot of time for him.
‘Sure, chief.’
‘Shouldn’t we talk to the relatives, too?’ This came from Zhao, the youngest detective in the section, a sharp and intelligent investigator destined, in Li’s view, to be a future deputy chief. But the arrival of Sun had somewhat eclipsed him, and he had spent the last few months sulking in the shadows.
‘Absolutely,’ Li said, ‘and the coaches, and other athletes, as many friends as we can track down. We need to look at financial records, any remaining personal belongings…’ He glanced around the table. ‘I’m sure that Deputy Tao will be able to organise you all to ensure you make the best use of your time.’
There were several stifled sniggers. Tao was fond of charts and worksheets and rotas.
‘What about drugs?’ asked Sang. He was another of the section’s younger detectives. In his early thirties, Sang had distinguished himself, while still downtown, during an investigation into a particularly bloody serial killing, and had transferred to Section One soon after.
‘What about drugs?’ Li asked.
‘Well,’ Sang said. ‘If we’re looking for a motive…’
‘We’re not looking for a motive, Detective,’ Tao cut him off sharply, and the earlier tension immediately returned to the room. ‘We’re looking for evidence. As much as we can accumulate. No matter how painful, or how slow. Only then will we see the bigger picture. There are no shortcuts.’
It was the old argument, the traditional Chinese approach to criminal investigation. Accumulate enough evidence and you will solve the crime. Unlike the approach of criminal investigators in the West, motive was regarded as being of secondary importance, something which would become self-apparent when enough evidence had been gathered.
Li said, ‘Deputy Tao clearly thinks you’ve been reading too many American detective novels, Sang.’ Which provoked some laughter and softened the tension. ‘But I agree with him. It’s too early to be looking at motive. We don’t even know if there has been a crime.’
As the meeting broke up and Li gathered together his papers, he became aware of Tao hanging back to speak to him, and he sighed inwardly. Tao kept his peace until they were on their own. Then he closed the door so that they would not be overheard, and crossed the room to drop his copy of Wu’s report on the death of Jia Jing in front of Li. ‘Why was I not consulted about this?’
‘You weren’t here last night, Tao.’
‘And this morning? Before the meeting? Did it not occur to you, Section Chief, that I should have been briefed before the detectives? Have you any idea how it feels to be told by a junior officer that an autopsy has been cancelled when you know nothing about it?’
‘I’m sorry, Tao, if you feel slighted. Protocol has its time and its place. Unfortunately, this morning there was no time.’ Li picked up his folder to go, but Tao was not finished. He stood his ground.
‘I want to put on record my strongest objections to the fact that this report has been doctored.’ He tapped his forefinger on the file as he spoke.
Li was losing patience. Tao’s pedantry was tiresome at the best of times. But in this instance, he was also touching a raw nerve. ‘Are you objecting to the doctoring of the report or the fact that you weren’t consulted about it?’ They each knew it was the latter.
‘Both,’ Tao said defiantly. ‘As far as I am aware it is not the practice of this section to file inaccurate reports.’
‘You’re right,’ Li said. ‘It’s not. But for reasons I am not prepared to discuss, this case is an exception. And if you have a problem with that then I suggest you take it up with the Minister.’
Tao frowned. ‘The Minister?’
‘Of Public Security,’ Li said wearily. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m sure he’ll be at his desk by now if you want to give him a call and express your disapproval in person.’
Tao drew his lips into a thin, tight line. ‘And is the Minister also responsible for re-assigning the autopsy on Sui Mingshan?’
‘I’ve already told you the reason for that.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Tao said. ‘Doctor Campbell is the “best available”. You seem to be of the opinion, Section Chief, that anything American is better than everything Chinese.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps you should have stayed there.’
Li glared back at him. ‘Your trouble, Tao, is that you spent too long under the British in Hong Kong learning how to be arrogant and superior. Perhaps you should have stayed there.’
He brushed past his deputy, but paused at the door long enough to tell him, ‘By the way, I’m taking personal charge of this investigation, and I’ll expect officers released from other duties as and when I require them.’
He went out leaving Tao silently fuming in the cold, empty meeting room.
III
Li and Wu arrived at Pao Jü Hutong as the autopsy was nearing its completion. Jia Jing lay on the stainless steel autopsy table, his chest cavity cut open and prised wide like a carcass in a butcher’s shop. Li had downloaded essential information on Jia Jing from the Internet. He was five feet, eight inches tall, and weighed three hundred and thirty-three pounds. Three threes. These should have been lucky numbers, but somewhere it had all gone wrong for Jia. He held the current Chinese weightlifting record with an extraordinary squat lift of one thousand and eight pounds.
His heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, had already been removed. Extraneous body fluids trickled along the side channels, dripping into the drain below. The body was fresh, so the smell was not overpowering, and the temperature in the autopsy room was so low their breath condensed through their masks and clouded around their faces. Chill white light reflecting harshly off scrubbed white tiles made it seem even colder.