The Firemaker

I

Thursday Morning

She was aware of something warm lying across her, like an electric blanket, only it seemed to have no weight. The air was hot and she could hardly breathe. She tried to open her eyes, and light and pain seared through her brain like a white-hot poker. She screwed them shut with a gasp. And then slowly, very slowly, eased them open again, bit by painful bit, until the world came to her in a blur. Her pupils were still dilated and the images were burned out and lacking definition. She struggled against the pain in her head to bring them into focus, and as her pupils shrank belatedly from the light she saw that her ‘electric blanket’ was a slab of sunlight slanting through the window and falling across the bed, burning her white, naked skin. Her mind was working as slowly as her eyes, and it was several moments before the realisation that she was wearing no clothes had its full impact. She sat up, heart pounding, and pain shot through her temple like a slamming blow from an iron. She pressed fingertips to her head and closed her eyes, pushing hard against the pain. Slowly she opened them again and looked around. She had no idea where she was, or who had undressed her, or where her clothes were.

There were framed photographs on the wall above the dresser. A young man and woman in Mao pyjamas and blue peaked caps grinning at the camera. A family group, including a young boy of about twelve and a girl a little younger. There was something elusively familiar about the boy. Another couple. No, the same couple as in the other photograph, only older. The woman was looking at the man and smiling at him with great fondness. He was grinning at the camera. He wore a green police uniform, and Margaret knew at once it was Old Yifu. Immediately above it was an old-fashioned portrait photograph of the woman. His wife, Margaret assumed. There was the gentlest of smiles on her lips, and her eyes were dark and serene, and there was something beautiful in her plainness that came from somewhere within. Old Yifu’s words came back to her. We had so little time together afterwards. A depression came over Margaret like a cloud. Why did people have to die?

So she was in Uncle Yifu’s room. What had happened last night? She remembered being at the Xanadu. Champagne and laughter. But not much else. Oh God, she thought. It was like being a student again. Only she was ten years older, and ten years less able to handle it. She saw her clothes neatly folded on a chair and got unsteadily to her feet to cross the room and ease herself slowly back into them. From somewhere in the apartment, she heard the sounds of someone moving around. The clatter of a kettle on a stove, the rattle of crockery. She moved out into the hall and saw an open door to a small bathroom. She went in and saw herself in the mirror and wished she hadn’t. She had a complexion like putty. Lukewarm water chugged and spluttered from the cold tap as she splashed it on her face to try to bring the blood to the surface and some colour to her cheeks. She swilled some around her mouth to take away the bad taste and stop her tongue sticking to the roof of it.

She wandered blearily into the kitchen and found Li making tea. She was shocked by his appearance. If anything, he looked worse than she did. Dry blood scabbed the splits on his lip and cheek and brow. The witch-hazel had brought the swelling down, and the bruising was turning yellow already. It would be gone in a day or two, but right now it was the wrong shade for a face with all other colour washed out of it. He looked at her sheepishly. ‘Tea?’

She nodded, and wished she hadn’t as the pain pounded her temples. ‘What…’ She hesitated, almost afraid to ask. ‘What happened last night?’

‘We all had too much to drink.’

‘I think I’ve figured that one out already. What else?’

He shrugged. ‘You thought it would be a good idea to sing some karaoke.’

She was horrified. ‘You’re kidding me! I didn’t… I mean, I didn’t actually get up and sing?’

‘No. Lotus sang and you got a bit emotional.’ She closed her eyes in shame and disbelief. He said, ‘So we came back here.’

‘We? Who’s we?’

‘The four of us. Ma Yongli thought some black coffee might make you feel better. Unfortunately, it seemed to have the opposite effect.’

‘Oh my God. I wasn’t sick?’ He nodded, and she wanted to curl up and die of embarrassment. ‘I am so sorry.’

He smiled. ‘It’s all right. Lotus looked after you.’

‘Is she still here?’

‘No. They left after about an hour.’ He handed her a cup of green tea. She sipped the hot, aromatic brew and felt a little better.

She was frightened to meet his eye as she asked, ‘Did we…? Did I…?’ And she gave up trying to be delicate. ‘Who undressed me?’

‘Lotus put you to bed before she left.’

Margaret felt an enormous sense of relief. Not because nothing had happened between them. But because it would have been wasted on her if it had. Through her embarrassment and her hangover she still felt the same about him as she had last night. She wanted him to hold her in his arms now, for comfort, for reassurance. But in the cold light of day they were both awkward and uncertain how to express themselves. They had, as yet, none of the easy familiarity of people who have shared a great intimacy, who have admitted not just to themselves but to each other exactly how they feel. She took another sip of her tea and looked around the kitchen, searching for something. He held up her purse. ‘Looking for this?’

‘Yes.’ She opened it and found a pack of Advil and washed two down with her tea. In fifteen or twenty minutes she might begin to feel a little more human again. She looked at her watch. ‘Jesus Christ! Is that the time?’ It was nine thirty. ‘I’ve got class at nine!’

‘You had class at nine,’ Li corrected her. ‘D’you want me to get you a taxi?’

He watched the taxi pull out into the street below and still felt the burning on his cheek where she had quickly kissed him goodbye. He wondered when he would see her again, if he would see her again. He would be in trouble, he knew, for bringing her back here. The duty policeman would have made his report first thing this morning. But he couldn’t have left her at the hotel in that state, and he still had a niggling worry about her safety. If the man who attacked him last night had been following them, he would know where she was staying. There was a great deal he probably knew, about both of them. Li looked up and down the street. There were a number of cars parked at an angle on the sidewalk immediately below, under the shade of the trees. Several dozen uniformed officers were emerging from the academy across the road, traffic cops stopping vehicles to let them cross. Women pushing prams strolled along the strip of parkland that divided the street down its centre. Old men sat on benches gazing into space and puffing on cigarettes. He wondered if there were hidden eyes watching him from somewhere out there right now. It was a disconcerting thought.

The rain of the previous night had washed some of the dust and humidity out of the atmosphere, and the air was fresher as he followed his habitual route to work, cycling north along Chaoyangmen Nanxiaojie Street. Overhead the sky was blue, instead of a burned-out grey, and the sun was hot on his skin. He was still preoccupied with thoughts of Margaret. Had she been disappointed that nothing had happened between them last night? He had thought she seemed relieved. It was strange, he reflected, how she seemed always on the verge of intimacy, as though they had once known each other well, like old lovers. She seemed often about to touch him, or kiss him, but held back at the last as if realising that she didn’t, after all, know him. Or perhaps it was simply that the habit of casual intimacy, born of years living with the man she had married, was hard to break, and that, really, it had nothing to do with Li at all.

At the corner of Dongzhimennei he waved at Mei Yuan as he passed, and called out, ‘Sorry, I have no time this morning.’ She stood up to wave him over, a sense of urgency in her signalling. But he was already out into the stream of traffic crossing the main road. ‘Later,’ he shouted back at her.

The corridors of Section One were still crowded with citizens awaiting interrogation about the itinerant from Shanghai, or about what they had seen or not seen in Ritan Park two mornings previously. The detectives’ room was empty except for Detective Qian, who was still writing up his report on events in the park the night before. He seemed agitated and tipped his head towards Li’s office. ‘Chief’s waiting for you in there.’

Li braced himself and strode confidently through the door. ‘Morning, Chief. Big breakthrough last night.’

Chen was sitting at Li’s desk flicking idly through a number of reports awaiting Li’s attention. He looked up and said, grimly, ‘Is that in your personal or your professional life?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, come off it, Li!’ Chen slammed the flat of his hand down on the desk. ‘We both know that Dr Campbell stayed at your apartment last night. What in God’s name did you think you were playing at?’

‘She’d had too much to drink, Chief. She wasn’t feeling well, so I let her stay over. There wasn’t any more to it than that. She slept in Old Yifu’s room.’

‘Damn you, Li. She’s a foreigner. You are an official of the state!’

‘My relationship with Dr Campbell is strictly work, Chief,’ Li protested.

‘Then it’s time you stopped taking your work home.’ Chen stood up in a temper. ‘Have you any idea the repercussions this could have? I’ve already had a call from the university and they are considering sending Dr Campbell home forthwith. I feel entirely responsible. After all, it was me who asked for her help in the first place. And it’s you I blame, not her. You’re the one who should have known better.’

Li’s head dropped, his resistance wilting. ‘I’m sorry, Chief. I thought I was doing the right thing. Especially after the attack on me last night. I thought there was a possibility she could be in danger.’

But Chen’s anger did not abate. ‘We’ll come to last night in a moment,’ he snapped. ‘The fact is, Li, I’m going to have to consider taking disciplinary action against you. Particularly since this comes right on the heels of an official complaint against you yesterday.’

‘If you’re talking about The Needle…’

‘Don’t insult me by denying it,’ Chen warned. ‘And as for last night, had you followed proper procedure you would never have been attacked in the first place, and you would not have exposed Dr Campbell to the danger that you did.’ He turned towards the window, waving his hands in exasperation. ‘For God’s sake, Li, you’ve not even been in this job three days. I thought you understood. We work as a team here. Your job is to lead that team. It is not a licence for you to go off on some individual crusade, firing off like a loose cannon, like some… American cop. And if you can’t understand that, I’ll personally see to it that you spend the rest of your career directing traffic on Tiananmen Square.’ He glared at Li. ‘Well?’

‘Chief?’

‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Chief.’

Chen took a deep breath and let a little of the tension seep out of him. He sat down again in Li’s chair. ‘Notwithstanding anything I’ve said, that was a damn smart piece of work yesterday. The glove and the key, and the thumbprint.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t take much credit for that, Chief,’ Li said. ‘It was Dr Campbell’s idea.’ Chen flicked him a look. ‘She also had the idea that Chao might have had AIDS — because of the drugs found in his apartment. We ordered further blood tests yesterday to confirm. Results should be available later today.’

‘Dr Campbell seems to have been very busy,’ Chen said with an edge to his voice, and added, ‘She also seems to have been very right.’ He sighed and lifted a folder from the desk and held it out to Li. ‘This came in by fax from the Hong Kong police about ten minutes ago.’

Li opened the folder and found himself staring at a black-and-white image of the man who had done so much damage to his face the night before. He felt a chill run through him.

II

Margaret stepped from the taxi outside the university administration block. She had long since stopped hurrying. There was little point. The lecture she should have taken was due to have finished more than an hour ago. She had taken the taxi from Li’s back to her hotel, showered and changed, and collected some notes before getting another taxi to the university. Her hair was just about dry, and she was wearing more make-up than usual to mask the ravages of the night before. Her head still hurt, and her stomach was distinctly wobbly. As she ran up the marble steps inside, she heard the clip, clip of footsteps descending. She looked up to see Lily Peng.

‘Hi,’ Margaret said, a little breathless. ‘You don’t know where Bob is…?’ But Lily failed even to meet her eye as she went past. She disappeared through the doors without a word. Margaret was taken aback. Even when being short with you, the Chinese were usually courteous.

She carried on up, and along the corridor to the office she had returned yesterday to Professors Tian, Bai and Dr Mu. Only Dr Mu was there. ‘Hi,’ Margaret said again. ‘Do you know where Bob is?’ Dr Mu looked at her as if she had two heads. Of course, Margaret remembered, she didn’t speak English. ‘B-o-b,’ she said again, slowly, with emphasis on both ‘b’s. It sounded ridiculous. ‘Forget it.’ She headed on down the corridor towards Professor Jiang’s office. She was about to knock on the door of the outer office when it opened and Veronica very nearly walked into her. ‘Oh, hi,’ Margaret said. ‘I’m looking for Bob.’

Veronica regarded her very coldly and said, ‘He taking lecture.’ And then she brushed past without another word.

Margaret was starting to get a bad feeling about this. The pain in her head was making it feel heavy, and the weight of it was beginning to make her neck ache. She sighed and went back downstairs and across campus to the lecture rooms. She found Bob tidying up his notes after class. He glanced up as she came in, then turned back to his notes. ‘I’m surprised you bothered turning up at all,’ he said, and looked pointedly at his watch. ‘I mean, you’re only two hours late for your lecture.’

‘Shit, I’m sorry, Bob. I slept in.’

‘Was that “I” singular or “we” plural?’

Margaret flushed. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Well, I’m assuming you didn’t go back to your hotel to sleep in after spending the night at Detective Li’s apartment. I mean, would it be fair to say that you both slept in? Together? At his place?’

Margaret’s initial embarrassment was turning very quickly to anger. How in God’s name did he know where she’d spent the night? ‘I think it would be fair to say that’s none of your business,’ she said.

He dropped his notes on the desk with a bang and turned to face her, eyes livid. ‘Well, I think it would be very unfair to say that. Considering I had to take your class at the last minute, and then spend the next half-hour in Professor Jiang’s office trying to make excuses for you.’

‘What — everyone knows where I spent the night?’

‘Yes. They do.’

‘How?’ She was incredulous.

‘Lily Peng.’

‘What? You mean that little bitch was spying on us?’

‘Don’t blame Lily,’ Bob said abruptly. ‘She’s only doing her job.’

‘Jesus Christ, what is it, a crime to spend the night at someone’s apartment in this country?’

‘Well, actually, yes it is,’ Bob said, knocking all the wind from her sails. ‘Everywhere you go in China, every time you change your address, it is a legal requirement to report to Public Security. For legal purposes, checking into a hotel is regarded as the same thing. You didn’t stay at your hotel last night. Technically you broke the law. Lily reported your whereabouts to Public Security, they reported to your danwei here at the university. Professor Jiang and everyone else in this department feels dishonoured by your conduct. They consider your behaviour to have been outrageous, and I agree.’

‘Fuck!’ Margaret stood with her hands on her hips, staring up at the ceiling in disbelief. ‘This is unreal.’

‘No,’ Bob said angrily. ‘This is China. And it’s very real. I thought you’d read your briefing material from the OICJ.’

She couldn’t meet his eye. ‘I said I’d got it. I didn’t say I’d read it.’ She heard his gasp of frustration. ‘Look, I’m sorry, okay? I only came here to teach a few classes and get away from a lot of shit back home. I didn’t know I was going to have to take Big Brother along for the ride.’

‘It’s not Big Brother who keeps an eye on you here,’ Bob snapped. ‘It’s everyone. Your neighbour, your bellhop, the elevator man. The street committee, the census cop, the work unit. It’s a self-policing society. Of course, you’d know all that if…’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ she cut in. ‘If I’d read my briefing material.’

‘Well, I’m glad you can treat it so lightly. I can assure you the OICJ will not. They have spent a great many years building good relations here in China, and you could have ruined that in one night.’

‘One night of passion, right?’ she said bitterly. ‘I mean, that’s what you all think, isn’t it? Well, it might interest you to know that it wasn’t like that. Nothing happened. I slept in one room, he slept in another.’

‘I couldn’t care less,’ Bob said. ‘And if you think that’s the issue here, then you’re missing the point.’

‘And just what is the point, Bob?’ She was keeping her short temper on a tight leash.

‘The point is you are a guest who has abused the hospitality of your hosts.’ He stabbed his finger at her across the lecture room. ‘You’ve shown not the slightest interest in this country or its culture since you got here. I’d thought that helping out with Detective Li’s investigation would be a good bridge-builder. It’s been a goddamn disaster.’

He was clearly unaware of just how much she had contributed to that investigation. She wondered if it would make any difference if he knew, but concluded that in his present frame of mind it probably wouldn’t.

‘I suggest,’ he continued, ‘that for the next five weeks you stay well away from Deputy Section Chief Li and his investigation. And you’d also be well advised to stay out of Professor Jiang’s way. It was all I could do to dissuade him from putting you on the first plane home.’

‘Oh, was it?’ said Margaret. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what. You needn’t have bothered. I’ll be booking a seat on it myself.’ She tossed her notes in his direction and they fluttered gently down through the still air. ‘I quit.’

III

Further details had come in from Hong Kong. The man who had repeatedly driven his fist into Li’s face in the dark and wet the night before, the man whose face now stared up at him from the fax on his desk, was known as Johnny Ren. He had a long record of juvenile offences from the age of twelve, ranging from theft to rape and assault. A nice kid, Li thought. He was now thirty and hadn’t been arrested for more than eight years. The Hong Kong police, however, did not believe he had suddenly seen the error of his ways. Their information suggested he had been taken under the wing of a Triad gang operating out of Kowloon, and they suspected his involvement in at least half a dozen gang killings in the early nineties. Intelligence from underworld sources led them to believe that he was now operating as a freelance ‘mechanic’, or hit-man. But they had no evidence to back this up. His legitimate income came from a chain of restaurants in which he was a partner. He lived well, had an expensive apartment near the racecourse on Hong Kong Island, and kept a boat at the marina. He drove a Mercedes Sports and owned a Toyota Landcruiser. He wore Versace suits and smoked American cigarettes. Li didn’t need to be told which brand. Someone in the Hong Kong police had done their homework on Johnny Ren. But he wasn’t home right now, and nobody had seen him for several weeks.

There was a knock at Li’s door, and Qian looked in. ‘Everyone’s here, boss.’

‘Did you get all that stuff copied?’

‘Yeah. It’s being handed out in the meeting room now.’

‘Good. Be right there.’ Li gathered his papers and stood up. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing deeply, and saw Johnny Ren’s face as it had been last night in the park. It was burned into his brain. A face contorted by anger and intent, leaning over him, only inches away, the smell of his rank smoker’s breath in Li’s nostrils. Whatever cool, professional control Johnny Ren had learned over the years had eluded him in the park. He had been going to kill Li. He had been going to drive his fist into the detective’s face again and again until the bone splintered and gave way and the soft brain behind it turned to mush. Li had seen it in his eyes. Johnny Ren had made a mistake and Li was going to die for it.

Li opened his eyes and realised he had broken out in a sweat. He had never encountered such brutal and unfettered evil, and he wanted to catch it and stamp it out of existence. He turned towards the door and saw Yongli hurrying into the detectives’ office. There was a strange, forlorn look about his friend, almost haunted. Li was surprised to see him. He had never come to the office before. Li went through. ‘Hey, pal, what are you doing here?’ He saw now that Yongli’s face was a dreadful pasty colour, and there were deep, dark rings below his eyes.

‘I need your help, Big Li.’ He sounded pathetic. Like a small boy who knows that the favour he’s about to ask of a parent will be denied.

‘What is it? Are you in some kind of trouble?’ Li had never seen Yongli like this before.

‘It’s Lotus.’

And Li’s heart sank. He should have guessed. Yongli, he knew, could cope with just about anything life threw at him. But Lotus… ‘What’s she done?’

‘She’s been arrested.’

Qian appeared at the door, a little breathless. He made a face and nodded down the corridor. ‘The Chief’s decided to sit in on this one, boss. I think he’s getting a bit impatient.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Li said. He turned to Yongli. ‘Listen, it’ll have to wait. I’ve got a meeting.’

But Yongli behaved as if he hadn’t heard. He said, ‘When we left your apartment this morning we went back to the Xanadu. The cops raided the place just before five. Some kind of vice sweep. We all got taken downtown.’

‘Ma Yongli, I don’t have time just now.’ Li started for the door and Yongli followed him.

‘They found drugs in her bag. Heroin. She says she has no idea how it got there.’

‘They always do,’ Li said, losing patience. It bore out all his worst fears about Lotus. He turned down the corridor, Yongli trailing in his wake.

‘I believe her, Li Yan. She’s not into drugs. Never has been. But they’ve arrested her. She could get sent down for years. Hell, they shoot people for less!’

Li stopped outside the door of the meeting room and turned on his friend. ‘Look, I told you she was trouble. Right from the start. I mean, what do you expect me to do? I’ve got a triple murder on my hands, a room full of detectives waiting on me. And you want me to drop everything and bale out some whore with a bagful of smack?’ He regretted it as soon as it was out of his mouth.

Colour rose on Yongli’s pale cheeks and his eyes turned cold. ‘Whatever you think of Lotus, it’s me who’s asking for help. I thought we were friends, Li Yan. Or was that just some silly delusion I had?’

‘Look, don’t do this to me,’ Li pleaded. ‘You know as well as I do that she’ll have been pulled in by another section. I wouldn’t have any influence…’

‘So you won’t do anything?’

The door of the meeting room opened and Chen stood there looking at them. ‘Deputy Section Chief Li,’ he said very deliberately. ‘I have a meeting in thirty minutes.’

‘On my way in, Chief,’ Li said. ‘Two seconds.’

‘Will that be earth seconds?’ Chen asked, and he let the door swing shut without waiting for an answer.

Li drew a deep breath and turned back to Yongli. ‘Look, I’ll see what I can do, okay?’

Yongli looked at him sceptically. ‘Yeah, well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? Anything to get me off your back.’

‘Aw, come on,’ Li snapped. ‘Give me a break. I said I’d do what I could.’

There was contempt mixed with the hurt now in Yongli’s eyes. ‘I won’t be holding my breath.’ He turned and walked briskly away down the corridor. Li felt like a complete shit. He screwed up his eyes and exhaled through his teeth. Yongli deserved better than that. And he thought about how good Lotus had been last night with Margaret. He would make some enquiries. First chance he got. He wheeled around and walked into the meeting room.

A dozen detectives and Section Chief Chen sat around the table waiting for him. A veil of smoke hung over the group like a cloud, reflecting Chen’s mood. ‘Sorry to keep you,’ Li said. He sat down and lit up. ‘You’ve all got copies of the stuff from Hong Kong.’ He pulled out the facsimile image of Johnny Ren. ‘Take a good look at this face,’ he said. ‘He’s our killer. I expect to have full forensic confirmation by lunch-time. But I have no doubts that he is our man. He’s very good, and he’s very dangerous. And he’s still here in Beijing. Or, at least, he was last night.’ He rubbed his bruising ruefully. ‘I want this face on the front page of every newspaper in China by tomorrow morning. I want it on every news bulletin on every TV station. I want his face faxed to every police station, railway station, border post. This man is armed and dangerous. I want us to brief the armed police, the border police, the transport police, and the army. I don’t want him to be able to move from A to B without someone recognising him. I want us to check every hotel and hostel and guest-house in the city. He’s got to be sleeping somewhere. Someone’s seen him. Someone knows where he is. It can only be a matter of time. Detective Qian, I want you to co-ordinate this.’

Wu leaned back in his seat, cigarette hand dangling from the arm of his chair. His sunglasses were pushed up on his forehead and he was chewing reflectively on a ubiquitous piece of gum. ‘We still haven’t established motive on this one, boss, have we?’

‘Money,’ Li said. ‘He’s a professional. Probably thinks of himself as a poor boy made good. The truth is, he’s a bad boy made worse. What we don’t know is who hired him, or why. And when we get him I doubt if he’s going to tell us.’

‘So meantime we carry on trying to find the connection between our three victims?’ Wu asked.

‘Unless you’ve got a better idea.’ Wu hadn’t. ‘So, anything new on that front?’ Heads were shaken around the table. ‘Okay, we carry on interviewing. But there is one new piece of potentially important evidence. Chao may have had AIDS. I expect the result of a blood test to confirm that today. We know he had a penchant for teenage boys. Until yesterday afternoon we’d been concentrating on trying to make a drugs connection between Chao and Mao Mao. Thanks to our good friend, The Needle, we’ve been able to eliminate that possibility from our inquiry.’ Detectives around the table glanced at Chen, but he remained impassive. ‘Maybe there’s a gay link somewhere in all this. Someone with AIDS looking for revenge. I know there’s been no suggestion of homosexuality with either our drug dealer or the itinerant. But then, we haven’t been looking for it. So, I’m going to have AIDS tests done on blood samples taken from both of them. Zhao’ — he turned towards the young detective — ‘we need to start digging up the boys who were making regular visits to Chao’s apartment. And if someone was supplying them, then we need to know who, and we want to talk to him pretty damn quick.’

‘I’m on it straight away, boss.’ Zhao scribbled quickly in his notebook.

‘Okay.’ Li sat back. ‘Any thoughts, questions, ideas?’

Wu blew a jet of smoke lazily at the overhead fan and watched it scatter in the breeze. ‘Yeah, I got a question,’ he said. ‘Is that attractive American pathologist still working on the case with us?’ His colleagues choked back laughs of disbelief. ‘Because, I mean, you know, boss, it’s not fair you keeping her all to yourself. Some of us feel we could also benefit from her experience.’ He remained deadpan, for all the world as if it had been a serious question.

Chen had a face like sour milk. Li said, ‘Actually, Detective, I think you would probably benefit more from a couple of years’ experience on traffic duty in Tiananmen Square.’ Which allowed the others to release their pent-up laughter. ‘You and I can take shift about.’ More laughter. Li glanced at Chen, on whose face had appeared the faintest glimmer of a smile. ‘And in answer to your question, Wu, Dr Campbell will no longer be assisting us with the inquiry.’ He closed his folder. ‘That’s all just now, unless there’s anything else?’ There wasn’t. ‘Okay, let’s go catch Johnny Ren.’

As chairs scraped on the floor, and cigarettes were stubbed out in ashtrays, Li said, ‘Just one more thing. Keep the paperwork coming into my office down to a bare minimum, guys. Essential stuff only, please. I’ve got enough already in there to keep me fully occupied for the next five years.’

The detectives drifted out. Chen wandered up the table to Li and touched his shoulder lightly. ‘Keep me in touch with developments.’

Li sat for a moment after they had all gone, and found himself filled with a strange, aching melancholy. He picked up his folder and forced himself to stand up. He seemed to have lost all energy. Perhaps, he told himself, it was simply his hangover. He walked slowly back down the corridor. Although he had made light of Wu’s reference to Margaret, it had forced him to face the truth — that without her involvement in the investigation he had no real reason for seeing her. At least, not professionally. And the demands of the job were such that he wasn’t likely to have much free time in the foreseeable future. In less than five weeks she would be gone and he would be unlikely ever to see her again. So it would be pointless trying to pursue any kind of relationship in the few hours they might have together between now and then. And without the case to discuss, what would they talk about? It wasn’t as if they had much in common. In fact, it was insane for him ever to have considered that there might be something between them that could form the basis of a relationship. It was as well that an end had been put to it now. But however convincingly he told himself this, he remained resolutely unconvinced. He was deeply depressed at the thought that she might already have slipped out of his life for ever.

The corridor was buzzing with activity — detectives and secretaries and witnesses, phones ringing; somewhere the sound of a photocopier on a large print run, the whine of a fax machine spewing out images from the ether. As Li approached the door of the detectives’ office a man bumped into him, knocking the file from his hand. He walked quickly on without an apology. Li cursed and stooped to pick up the papers that had spilled from the folder. He had caught the briefest glimpse of the man’s face, pale and tense and intent on avoiding Li’s eye. From his crouching position, he turned and looked back down the corridor at the retreating figure, and a face swam into his consciousness: a face contorted with anger and intent; a face in black and white on the page of a fax; a face that was staring up at him now from a sheet of paper on the floor of the corridor; the face of the man who had just bumped into him.

‘Hey!’ he yelled. ‘Stop! Stop that man!’

Several people turned to stare at him in amazement. But not the man at the end of the corridor. He started running and had reached the stairs even before Li stood up. Li took off like a sprinter from starting blocks, papers from his folder flying in his wake. Someone got in his way, and with a bone-crunching collision went spinning into the wall. ‘Get out of the way!’ Li shouted. ‘Get out of the fucking way!’ Bodies scattered left and right. Detectives appeared in office doorways.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ someone shouted.

Li reached the stairs and could hear Johnny Ren’s footsteps on the flight below. He saw a flap of Versace suit, caught a glimpse of an expensive haircut, the flash of a face turned briefly upward. He took the stairs two at a time, screaming at people to get out of his way. Above him he heard a voice shouting, ‘What the hell’s going on, Li!’ It might have been Chen. But he wasn’t about to stop and explain. He reached the foot of the stairs gasping for breath, and the heat of the day punched through the doorway and struck him like a blow. The contrast between the dark interior of Section One and the white heat of the morning sun momentarily blinded him. He raised an arm to shield his eyes and glanced right and left.

There was no sign of Johnny Ren. Somewhere off to the right came the clatter of a bin. Li followed the noise, past the red-roofed police garage, into a narrow lane behind the shops in Chaoyangmen Nanxiaojie. At the far end he saw the running figure of the Marlboro man. A bin still rocked in the dirt where it had spilled its stinking contents into the sunlight. Li vaulted the bin and pounded down the lane after Johnny Ren, brushing the sweat from his eyes with his sleeve. At the end of the lane he saw Ren turn right. Left would have taken him out on to Chaoyangmen Nanxiaojie. Right took him into a maze of hutongs that turned and twisted through a jumble of crumbling brick courtyards and even narrower alleyways. He was already gone from sight by the time Li reached the turn. But he could hear his footsteps echoing off the walls. His lungs tore at his chest in a frantic attempt to suck in more oxygen, and for the first time in his life he regretted being a smoker. His only consolation was that Johnny Ren was one too, and would be sharing in Li’s pain. He was running with less conviction now, the excesses of the night before beginning to tell. His head was pounding. He turned a corner and crashed into a meandering cyclist lost in a world of adolescent fantasy. Li’s legs became somehow inextricably tied up in the front wheel and he twisted and fell, landing on top of the young cyclist. Just a boy, no more than twelve or thirteen, he yelled with pain and wriggled frantically to get out from under this big, heavy man who seemed to have dropped on him from the sky. Li cursed and staggered to his feet. Blood was oozing from a graze on his elbow, and his pants were torn at the knee. The boy was still yelling. Li grabbed his shoulders. ‘Are you all right, son?’

But the boy’s only concern was his bicycle. ‘Look at my bike! Look what you’ve done to my bike, you moron!’ The front wheel was badly buckled.

Li breathed a sigh of relief. Wheels could be fixed or replaced. ‘I’m a police officer,’ he gasped. ‘Go to the police station round the corner and wait for me there.’ And he started running again.

‘A likely fucking story!’ the boy shouted at his back. ‘You’re a fucking moron!’

Li reached a junction fifty yards further on. He stopped, fighting for breath, and looked right and left. Nothing. Trees stirring lightly in the breeze. All that he could hear, apart from his own rasping breath, was the distant rumble of traffic on Dongzhimennei Street. He went right, walking past arched gateways to decaying siheyuan on both sides, peering in as he went. In the entrance to one, an old woman was sweeping up with a straw broom. He held out his Public Security wallet. ‘Police,’ he said. ‘Did you see a man in a dark suit? He must have passed you.’

She shook her head. ‘I saw no one,’ she said. ‘Except for some small boys about ten minutes ago.’

He turned immediately and started jogging back the way he had come, passing the junction where he had taken the right turn, and carrying on down to Dongzhimennei. The street was thick with traffic, a blur of bicycles in the cycle lane, the sidewalk crowded with pedestrains, a couple of street cleaners, some vegetable sellers. No one even gave him a second glance as he stood breathing hard, his face shining with sweat, looking one way, then the other. Johnny Ren was gone.

‘Are you people blind!’ he raged at his detectives when he got back. ‘You walk out of a meeting where this guy is the main topic of discussion. You all have a photograph of him in your folders. You come back in here and you don’t notice him walking out of my office?’

They all stood in stunned silence. The whole building was buzzing with rumour and speculation. Li’s first stop had been Chen’s office, where he had demanded armed guards on all entrances to the building, and that everyone coming in and out have their IDs checked. ‘I can’t believe this man’s audacity, Chief. We’re in the meeting room talking about how we’re going to catch him, and he walks into the building, cool as you like, and has all the time in the world to go through anything he wants to in my office.’

‘Is there anything missing?’ Chen asked.

‘I don’t know. I’m going to have to go through everything on my desk.’

None of his detectives could say whether Ren had been carrying anything when he left Li’s office. ‘We just thought he was someone from downstairs in Administration,’ Wu said. ‘No one paid him any attention.’

Li slammed the door of his office shut and stood seething. He looked around the room and felt sick. It was tainted somehow, dirty, violated. Johnny Ren was either supremely confident, or he was insane. Probably both. He clearly had complete contempt for the police.

Li sat down and searched through the papers on his desk. As far as he could see nothing was missing, but so much had been dumped on it during the last two days he wasn’t sure himself exactly what was there. He looked around. Everything in the room seemed in its usual place. The dozens of transcripts piled under the window looked just as they had earlier. He went through the drawers. Pens, notepads, an address book, paper-clips, a stapler, old reports from his predecessor which he had meant to clear out, a pack of chewing gum, some letters. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. What on earth had Johnny Ren been after? And why would he risk walking into the lion’s den? What possible motive could he have had?

There was a tentative knock on the door and Zhao appeared nervously. ‘Sorry to disturb you, boss. While you were out there was a call from the Deputy Procurator General’s office. Apparently the DPG is concerned that the report he received this morning didn’t include the events of last night — in Ritan Park.’

Li closed his eyes. ‘Shit!’ How the hell had Deputy Procurator General Zeng got to hear about that already? Li hadn’t felt inclined to revise his report of yesterday’s developments at one in the morning. Now he was paying for it. He strode to the door. Zhao backed out of his way. ‘Qian,’ he barked. ‘You written up last night’s report?’

Qian said, ‘Just finished, boss.’

‘All right, get it copied and have a courier standing by to get it down to the Municipal Procuratorate. I’ll do a cover piece for it now.’

He cursed to himself, banged the door shut and dropped into his chair. He reached for his notebook, then hesitated. If he called the Centre of Material Evidence Determination now he might get the results of the AIDS test. If that went with the report it might mollify Zeng a little to be in receipt of the day’s most recent developments. He picked up the phone and asked the operator to get him Professor Xie. As he waited he ran through in his mind a summary of where they were at, for his report to Zeng: they had ruled out a drugs connection between the three murders, but with the possibility that Chao had AIDS they were running the rule over a possible homosexual link; they had, almost certainly, identified the killer, a freelance Triad hit-man from Hong Kong known as Johnny Ren, who was still at large in Beijing and, apparently, anxious to establish just how close the police were getting to him. ‘This is Professor Xie.’ The voice in his ear tore him away from his thoughts.

‘Professor, it’s Deputy Section Chief Li. Can you give me any idea when we might expect the result of the AIDS test?’

‘What AIDS test is that, Deputy Section Chief?’

Li frowned. ‘On Chao’s blood. Dr Campbell requested it yesterday.’

‘Not from me.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Li was caught off balance. ‘She told me she spoke to you some time after seven yesterday evening.’

‘I’m afraid not. And, unfortunately, such a test is no longer possible. Chao’s remains were incinerated this morning, along with all the samples.’

‘What?’ Li could not believe what he was hearing. ‘That body was evidence. You don’t go around destroying evidence in a murder investigation.’

There was a long hesitation on the other end of the line. When he eventually spoke, there was a strange quality to the professor’s voice. ‘I understand his family did not wish to be in receipt of the remains.’

‘That’s got nothing to do with it. Chao’s body was the property of the Chinese people until we decided otherwise.’

‘My department had authorisation to release the body for disposal.’

‘From who?’

‘I’m sorry, Deputy Section Chief, I’ll have to go. I’m in the middle of an autopsy.’ The professor hung up.

Li sat holding the receiver for fully half a minute before eventually replacing it. Something was very, very wrong here. His hand went instinctively to his belt, searching for the leather pouch that held his watch. It wasn’t there. ‘Damn.’ He remembered breaking the chain yesterday. Where had he put it? Top right-hand drawer. He opened it. There was no sign of the watch. He reached right into the back of the drawer. It definitely wasn’t there. He ran quickly through the other drawers. Still no watch. He hadn’t noticed its absence when he was searching the drawers earlier, because he hadn’t remembered it was there. Now he felt all the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. For some unfathomable reason Johnny Ren must have taken it.

IV

Margaret cycled without thinking, grim and determined, letting the city wash over her as she headed north through meandering, chaotic streets. She was hot and tired and angry and hurt, and thinking was a painful process. If she kept her mind empty, her feelings remained at bay, and she was able to effect a temporary escape from the world. But she could not escape China. At least, not yet. Her flight did not leave until the morning.

As she had crossed campus to get a taxi back to her hotel after her face-down with Bob, she had spotted Lily and taken a minor diversion. Lily had seen her coming, her face reddening, in spite of herself. Margaret kept it short and sweet, an exotic blend of profanities which would have made her mother blush. Even her father, an expert in the use of colourful language, would have been shocked. But whatever satisfaction Margaret had gained from her verbal castigation of the self-important former Red Guard, it was short-lived. She had lain down on the bed when she got back to her hotel and wept for nearly an hour. A hot shower had failed to ease her tension headache. A phone call to the airline office had achieved a rescheduled return flight for the following morning. There would be a considerable additional charge, the girl had told her. She didn’t care, Margaret had told her back.

Now, with a map and a guidebook in the basket of her bicycle, she was seeking an escape from the city, the opportunity for some solitude, time to sort out her feelings away from the chance of interruption. She passed the Beijing offices of Apple Computers, choking on the fumes that belched from the back of a diesel truck. She had been cycling for almost three-quarters of an hour, and didn’t appear to have made much impression on the route she had planned on the map. The streets always seemed so much longer in reality than they did on paper.

After another twenty minutes, negotiating busy street markets and crowds of lunch-time cyclists, she came to a major north— south — east — west intersection and saw, diagonally across the street, the gates of Yuanmingyuan Park, the Park of Perfection and Brightness. But there was nothing very perfect about the park. It was dusty and neglected, a shabby shadow of the royal playground it had once been during the middle years of the Qing Dynasty. Then, its rolling parkland had been filled with gilded halls, towers and pavilions, its centrepiece a collection of European-style marble palaces modelled on the French Sun King’s Palace of Versailles — an early experiment in the art of the joint venture. Sacked twice within forty years by British and French troops at the end of the nineteenth century, all that remained of it now were a few white marble skeletons and some weed-choked lily ponds.

Margaret left her bike at the gates and followed the paths that the municipal authorities had carved through the parkland. Past a boating lake, where forlorn red-dragon pedaloes bobbed at the water’s edge. Past stalls where painted girls chatted idly behind high counters of cheap mementos. Battered loudspeakers hung from lampposts and wooden poles at every turn, scratching out sad Chinese dirges performed on plucked stringed instruments. The historic sites were crowded, and with the aid of the map on the back of her admission ticket, Margaret navigated herself away from the beaten tourist track along a narrow tree-lined lane that cut into the farmland heart of the park. Away, at last, from people, the sound of sad music drifting distantly on the breeze, she finally slowed and lingered in the shade of some spindly birches, squatting at the edge of a brackish pond that was alive with frogs. Paddy fields, shimmering in the haze, stretched into the distance on either side. Green shoots of rice pushed up through the still brown water. It made her think of McCord and his super-rice feeding the hungry millions. She snorted her derision. What did people like McCord really care about those hungry millions? Perhaps she was just cynical, but she couldn’t help believing that the diseased, the dying and the hungry were simply convenient meal tickets for scientists anxious to grab as big a slice of the research cake as they could get their hands on. She thought of Chao and his association with McCord going back to their time together at the Boyce Thompson Institute. How that chance meeting had brought McCord to China, leading to the development of the super-rice and Chao’s elevation to adviser to the Minister of Agriculture. And Chao’s death had led her here, to the Park of Perfection and Brightness, to gaze sadly upon their genetically modified rice pushing its green shoots up through the still brown water.

All these thoughts filled her mind, blotting out the one thing she didn’t want to think about. Li Yan. If she had been on the receiving end of a dressing-down for spending the night at his apartment, what kind of wrath had rained down upon him from on high? He must have known there would be consequences. Much more serious for him than for her. After all, she was just some stupid American who didn’t know the rules. He was Chinese and a keeper of the rules. So why had he taken her back to his apartment when he could easily have dropped her off at the Friendship Hotel? She was frightened to think why. Frightened to believe that he might feel the same way about her as she felt about him. But then, what did she feel about him? What could she feel about him so soon after Michael’s death? Wasn’t there a danger of her throwing herself at the first man who showed any interest, of simply trying to fill the empty space that Michael had left?

She didn’t know any more. She was tired of trying to analyse her feelings, of attempting to find a context for them. She only knew what she felt, and she felt sick at the thought that she would never see Li again. When she got back to the hotel she would have time to pack, eat and sleep. And tomorrow she would be gone. Back to Chicago and the sham of a life she had left there four days ago. Was it only four days? It seemed like four lifetimes. She felt as though she had known Li all her life. Had she really thought him ugly and brutish and unattractive that first day when their car had knocked him off his bicycle? He had been furious. Angry as she had not seen him since. She thought of all the hours she had spent in his company in that time, how often she had caught herself wanting to touch him or kiss him, lightly, affectionately. No big deal. It had seemed so natural she had had difficulty stopping herself. She remembered catching a glimpse of his face reflected in the mirror through the bathroom door in her hotel room, knowing that he could see her as she stepped out of the shower. It had sent a tiny thrill of sexual desire through her loins.

But they were all over now, those little mind games and fantasies. What possible future could there have been in any of it? A few stolen nights of passion, a release of sexual frustrations. And then goodbye. She had no future in China. He had no future outside it. So what was the point? All this angst over a relationship that neither existed now nor ever could.

She picked up a pebble and lobbed it into the centre of the pond, sending frogs diving from leafy platforms into stagnant water. All that had happened was that she had made a mess of things. She had come to China to escape. But she had been totally unprepared for the demands it would make of her and hadn’t had the will to bridge the gap. She had met a man she found attractive, but it was the wrong place and the wrong time. And, in any case, she wasn’t ready for another relationship. It was the advice she would have given her sister or her best friend. Don’t go rushing into another relationship. You’d only be compensating. Give yourself a break from men for a while. Get out and enjoy life again. She smiled ruefully. How often it was that the advice you gave to others was the advice you would find hardest to follow yourself. Easy to give. Hard to take. She stood up. Just don’t think about it, she told herself. Take a taxi to the airport in the morning and get on the plane. Once you’re in the air you can start thinking about the rest of your life. Just don’t look back. At least, not until you’re far enough away to get a perspective on it. Like the rice paddies she had seen as her plane came into land, reflecting sunlight, she remembered, in a fractured mosaic like the pieces of a shattered mirror. How different from the view she had of them from here — green shoots poking through muddy water. Everything in life, it seemed, was about perspective. And she wondered what kind of perspective she would ever have on Michael.

But she felt better already for the perspective Yuanmingyuan had given her of the events of the last few days. Slowly she got to her feet. The secret was simply not to think about it. The most daunting thing ahead of her, she assured herself, was the cycle ride back to the Friendship Hotel.