The Killing Room by Peter May Page B

English, Dear passenger , thank you for using our taxi . Please come again .
    It was all in stark contrast to the tense silence that had filled the car on the twenty-minute drive from 803. Li had made several attempts to engage Huang in conversation only to be rewarded with grudging, monosyllabic responses and the odd grunt. He was no nearer now to discovering why the Mayor’s policy adviser wanted to see them than when they had left.
    He followed Huang up the steps, past armed guards and through glass doors into an expansive lobby. A group of around a dozen men in suits and wearing heavy dark coats was advancing towards them. At the head of the group was a man Li recognised. He had seen him on television and in newspaper photographs, a short, bull-headed man with close-cropped steel grey hair. There was a sense of power and energy in every confident step he took. A taller, slightly older man in the uniform of a Procurator General, was stooping to speak quietly in his ear as they approached. Neither missed a stride, and as the group reached Li and Huang the short man said, ‘You’re late, Huang.’
    ‘My apologies, Director Hu. We were held up in traffic.’ Li had to admire the way Huang could lie to one of the most powerful men in Shanghai without batting an eyelid.
    ‘Well, I can’t wait. I have another engagement. You’ll have to come with us.’ And he sailed past them and out on to the steps. The Procurator General flicked his head to indicate Li and Huang should follow, and they fell in with the rest of the entourage.
    As they descended the steps, a line of official cars drew in at the sidewalk, headed by a black stretch limo flanked by two police cars. And as Director Hu slipped into the limo, the rest of the group divided as if in well-rehearsed syncopation and jumped into the other vehicles. Li and Huang found themselves ushered into the Director’s car by the Procurator General, who got in after them. The line of cars pulled away accompanied by the sound of police sirens, muffled by the soundproofing in the limo. Li barely had time to draw breath, and realise that he was sitting facing Director Hu, before the chief adviser to the head of the Shanghai government reached out his hand. ‘Deputy Section Chief Li Yan,’ he said, ‘it is a privilege to meet you.’ Li shook his hand and reminded himself that this man was the confidant and adviser to a possible future leader of China. The immediate predecessors of his boss as Mayor of Shanghai were now the country’s President and Premier respectively.
    ‘I am honoured that you should even know who I am, Director Hu,’ Li said, and he remembered the Chinese proverb, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down .
    ‘You cast a large shadow, Detective Li. Big enough, perhaps, to eclipse that of your uncle.’
    ‘I have always lived in my uncle’s shadow, Director Hu. I expect always to do so.’
    The adviser nodded, satisfied. Modesty was a virtue. He waved a hand in the direction of the taller man beside him. ‘This is Procurator General Yue.’ The Procurator General inclined his head in a curt, cold nod. ‘You have visited the site where the bodies were found?’
    ‘I have seen the bodies, or the bits of them that have been recovered.’
    ‘And what are your thoughts?’
    Li hesitated. He felt as if he were being tested somehow. ‘It is too early to reach any conclusions, Director Hu.’
    The adviser nodded again, apparently satisfied by this response. ‘A single word is worth a thousand pieces of gold,’ he said. He glanced momentarily at Huang who sat mute diagonally opposite, a black hole of disapproval in the corner of the car. ‘This … incident …’ the adviser was picking his words very carefully, ‘… is not only a severe embarrassment to our country, Li, captured as it was on live television across the world, but it could also seriously damage Shanghai’s inward investment – the lifeblood of this city.’ Li wondered if anyone