Private Beijing

Chapter 9

I took a step toward Meihui, my hands held in the air, my smile unwavering, indicating I meant her no harm. She backed away and raised the meat cleaver menacingly, while rattling off some angry words.

“She says she will call the police,” Zhang Daiyu translated.

I lowered my hands and took a long look around the apartment. “Tell her we would welcome the police.”

Zhang Daiyu frowned but relayed my words.

Meihui’s eyes narrowed and I could tell she was trying to decide whether I was bluffing.

“Okay, Mr. American. I will call them,” she said, surprising me by breaking into English.

She moved toward an ancient pushbutton phone mounted on the wall beside the equally ancient refrigerator. The kitchen and living room were a tiny combined open-plan space, and Meihui had filled them with the accumulated clutter of decades. The kitchen was packed with pots and pans, and produce burst out of the old, dilapidated cabinets. The furniture in the living room was from the eighties. There was a straight-backed armchair next to a more comfortable-looking easy chair that both faced an outdated television. A deep-pile rug separated the two seats. There was a smell of incense and sweet spices about the place.

Meihui watched me walk further into the apartment so I could see into the bedroom, which was overwhelmed by clothes and clutter. I glanced through another doorway into the bathroom. Meihui frowned and spoke rapidly to Zhang Daiyu.

“She says she doesn’t want the police coming here and asking questions about her business.”

“I didn’t think she would,” I replied. “Spiritual counselor, right? Wise woman? What is it you really do here?”

While the West had come to rely on digital surveillance, many countries in Asia and Africa still did things the old-fashioned way and maintained extensive human-intelligence networks. A spiritual counsellor would be a valuable tool in the collection of intelligence. People would confide in a simple old lady who was only trying to help. Of course, I couldn’t prove she was anything more than someone trying to serve her community, but experience had taught me to recognize when someone wasn’t being honest, and Meihui was giving all the signs.

“Why did David Zhou come here?” I asked her.

“I don’t know this man,” she replied.

“Come on. We both know that isn’t true,” I countered.

“You have no power here, Mr. American. You both need to leave.”

I shrugged and surveyed the apartment again. “A wise woman needs to be good at reading people. A detective needs to be able to read people and places. You’re lying, that much is clear.”

She muttered something. I didn’t need a translation to recognize a curse.

“Go!” she said.

Sometimes it’s the simple things that give people away. In this case it was two bowls and four chopsticks drying beside the sink, the indentation of a man’s shoe on the thick rug, and the raised toilet seat in the bathroom.

“Where is he?” I asked, and immediately heard movement coming from the bedroom.

I ran through the doorway and Meihui started shouting. There were more noises, this time clearly coming from inside the closet. I crossed the cramped, cluttered room and pulled open the sliding door to reveal nothing but clothes hanging from a rail. I brushed them out of the way and banged on the back of the closet, discovering it was hollow.

I searched around for a catch or button but couldn’t find anything. Brute force would have to do. I barged the rear panel with my shoulder while Zhang Daiyu restrained an angry and animated Meihui. To my surprise, the rear panel rotated around a central pivot to reveal a hidden room behind complete with windows and a fire escape. I stumbled into the secret room, which contained a single bunk and some magazines and books, and burst through the fire door at the back.

Zhang Daiyu shouted something after me and followed as I rushed onto an exterior platform that linked all the apartments on this floor. There were metal fire stairs at either end. When I leant over the safety rail at one end of the platform, I saw David Zhou racing down the steps closest to me.

“Take the elevator,” I told Zhang Daiyu, who nodded and retraced her steps as I started running.

By the time I reached the stairs, Zhou must have had a three-story lead. He wore the same dark tailored suit I’d seen in the video, and his formal shoes clattered on the metal steps, waking some of the neighbors as he raced down toward the street. Lights flickered on in apartments around us and a few faces appeared in nearby windows. A couple of people had phones to their ears and I had little doubt they were calling the police.

I sprinted down the stairs, taking them two or three at a time. I’d gained on Zhou, so that by the time he reached the street I was only a floor above. As he cleared the fire escape, I vaulted the rail and leapt through the air to land bodily on the man. He grunted as the wind was knocked from him, but the moment we hit the deck he lashed out with a flurry of punches that startled me. He kneed me in the ribs and I rolled clear, smarting from his blows. He got to his feet, haring away from me along the path beside the building. I got up and gave chase.

I’d underestimated the guy. This was no out-of-shape business executive.

I closed the gap and shoulder-barged him in the back, knocking him off balance. He stumbled a couple of steps, but before he could fall, Zhang Daiyu rounded the corner and delivered a knockout punch that floored him. David Zhou landed flat on his back, out cold.

“Let’s get him in here,” I said, grabbing him and starting to haul him toward Zhang Daiyu’s SUV

But we were too late.

The square was filled with the sound of sirens, and then came flashing lights as the first of a trio of police vehicles screeched to a halt.

Zhang Daiyu raised her hands and I followed her lead. As the first officers leapt out and sprinted toward us, I turned to her and asked, “Are we in trouble?”

“Probably,” she replied with a wry smile. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

I looked at the stern-faced officers, who were now yelling commands at us, and hoped she was right.