Private Beijing

Chapter 8

Distance conceals many flaws, and down here among the wide highways that cut through the urban sprawl, you could see that Beijing wasn’t so different from any other city. Beneath the glare of the shimmering lights were the signs of poverty, particularly once we’d left the heart of the city with its new neighborhoods and gleaming towers of apartments and offices. Out here to the north-east of the center were old buildings showing signs of neglect. Simple homes from a time before the phenomenal growth China had experienced in recent decades.

Zhang Daiyu steered her dark blue Haval H6 SUV through the streets of Beijing like she knew them well. She’d served in the people’s police force for twelve years before Shang Li recruited her to join Private, but if she’d ever declared to him her reasons for leaving a highly respected position on the force, Shang Li had never shared them with me.

She came off the 2nd Ring Road onto North Linyin Street and we headed up a wide, deserted street lined with supermarkets and apartment blocks. The shops were all shuttered and shared the same air of pervasive neglect as the apartment buildings.

“How’s Su Yun?” I asked.

“She’s taken the news as expected,” Zhang Daiyu replied as we stopped at a set of traffic lights. We were in the only vehicle on the road. “Badly. Like me, she refuses to believe he’s dead.”

“Do we have someone with them?” I asked.

“I put a six-operative team on Li’s family so there’s someone with them at all times.”

Zhang Daiyu was good. Effective even in the face of personal loss. Years of experience had taught me how to compartmentalize and the importance of maintaining detachment in such situations. She clearly had the same ability.

The lights changed and we started moving again. Another hundred yards along Linyin Street and Zhang Daiyu turned right onto Xinkai Street, which was flanked by apartment blocks that looked as though they dated from the 1980s.

“It’s over there,” she said, pointing to a cluster of four blocks around a square set back from the road.

She turned off and followed an access road that took as around the square. The open area was a couple of hundred yards wide and weeds grew there. There were even graffiti tags daubed here and there, something I hadn’t seen much of in the heart of the city. There were a few vehicles parked to the sides of the road, all old and decrepit, and the four twenty-story blocks were covered with faded and flaking gray paint. This was the kind of neighborhood where hope was strangled by impoverished reality. I’d seen places like this all over the world.

Zhang Daiyu parked outside the third block along and we got out and headed toward the building. It was a warm night, humid and close, and the sheer number of open windows suggested the apartments were stifling. There were only a couple of lights on and the whole square was deathly silent, making our footsteps sound like cannon blasts in the stillness.

“The apartment is on the eighth floor,” she said as she pulled open the front door.

I followed her into a lobby that smelt of bleach. A blemished painted metallic cat — the ubiquitous Japanese maneki-neko, popular throughout Asia — waved one paw from a spot atop a long row of mailboxes. It was a symbol of good fortune. As we walked to the elevator I hoped some of it would rub off on us.

“I checked the apartment address against the civic and criminal registers,” Zhang Daiyu said as the creaking elevator rose. “It is supposed to be unoccupied, which is itself unusual. Empty properties are reassigned quickly in Beijing.”

The doors opened and we stepped into a dim corridor lit by a couple of bare bulbs. The walls and floor were concrete. The ceiling had been painted a cream color, now gray with years of ground-in dirt.

“This one.” Zhang Daiyu stopped at the fifth door along from the elevator.

She knocked and rang the bell. There was no answer, so she tried again. Still nothing. She produced a set of lock-picking tools and set to work.

A few moments later, the lock clicked. Zhang Daiyu checked the coast was clear before pushing the door open. I followed her inside and we crept along a short pitch-black corridor. My senses were alert for sounds and movement, but I could hear only the hum of a distant fan.

Zhang Daiyu pushed open the door at the end of the corridor and suddenly there was a blinding light and the sound of someone shouting. When my eyes adjusted to the dazzle from a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, I saw a short overweight woman in her fifties, wearing a nightdress, urging us to stay back. Despite her appearance, I took her very seriously because of the razor-sharp meat cleaver she brandished at us.

Zhang Daiyu spoke to her quickly in Mandarin. Whatever she said calmed the woman. She still eyed me with suspicion but lowered the cleaver while Zhang Daiyu kept talking.

The woman responded to whatever had been said and then shook her head. Her words sounded different to Zhang Daiyu’s.

“What language is she speaking?” I asked.

“It’s Beijing dialect, local to the city. She says her name is Meihui,” Zhang Daiyu revealed. “She claims to be a spiritual adviser. A wise woman. She says she’s never heard of David Zhou.”

“Show her a picture,” I suggested.

Zhang Daiyu nodded and produced her phone. She flipped to a press photograph of Zhou and showed it to Meihui. The older woman shook her head.

“You sure this is the right address?” I asked.

Zhang Daiyu nodded.

“Shang Li runs a tight ship. He certainly doesn’t have amateurs working for us,” I responded. “If the case files say they trailed David Zhou to this apartment, then I believe them.” I fixed Meihui with a stare. “Which means she’s lying.”