The Firemaker

I

Tuesday Evening

Beijingers get their hair cut at all hours of the day and night. And so the ladies in their white coats and peak caps were still doing brisk business outside the gates of Yuyuantan Park on Sanlihi Road at six o’clock. No sooner had one customer vacated a stool than another would replace him. The sidewalk was littered with locks of black hair which the barbers would meticulously sweep up when they finished work. The park, too, was busy, people shifting back and forth in waves beneath the rainbow that arched across its entrance, joining dance groups on their way home from work, or catching some air after long hours in a factory or shop. Early evening traffic, beyond the trees that shaded the cycle lane, was manic.

Li wheeled his bicycle past the barbers at work and lifted it over a low railing into a shaded area of trees and shrubs between flagstone paths that led in various directions down to the river. Here the sound of the traffic seemed remote, the air cooler, shadowed as it had been through the heat of the day, and rising off the water to blow a gentle breeze through the leaves. Birds sang in cages that hung from the trees, their owners — old men mostly — gathered on stools round stone tables playing cards or Chinese chess. A woman had hung large red character posters from a line strung between two trees, and a couple of men, hands behind their backs, stood staring at them without comment. The woman watched their expressions with interest, but they showed no discernible emotion as far as Li could see. In a pergola hanging with creeper an old man played a violin, while a few feet away a dead-eyed young man in army camouflage trousers and skip cap was drinking alcohol from a plastic bottle.

Li found his uncle a little further on, sitting at a low stone table preparing to move in for the kill. The King’s Guide had made a fatal error, and Old Yifu was merciless in victory. His Horse jumped the river and the King was trapped. ‘Jiang jun!’ he cried, delighted with the pincer movement that had created his checkmate. His opponent scratched his shaven head and shook it in wonder.

‘I don’t know why I bother playing you, Old Yifu. I’m never going to win.’

Old Yifu smiled. ‘You will win,’ he said, ‘when you stop losing.’ He looked up and saw Li approaching. ‘Li Yan.’ He jumped to his feet and shook his nephew’s hand vigorously. ‘How was your first day?’

Li smiled ruefully. ‘Only three murders, Uncle.’

His uncle’s chess opponent lifted a birdcage down from the tree that had been shading their game, hung it from the handlebars of his bicycle and said, ‘I’m off for my dinner. All this excitement has given me an appetite.’

‘Zai jian.’ Old Yifu did not take his eyes off Li. ‘You’re joking,’ he said.

‘No.’ Li sat down on the stool the defeated chess player had just vacated. ‘Three. In different parts of the city. But they’re connected.’

Old Yifu sat down opposite him, both excited and concerned by the news. ‘You’ll give me a game of chess and tell me about it while we play.’

Li took out his watch. ‘It’s late, Uncle Yifu. We should eat.’

‘We can eat after. First you tell me.’ He rearranged the chess pieces, simple wooden disks engraved in black or red with Chinese characters, on the board. ‘Then we eat.’

Li shook his head fondly. He knew his uncle wanted to hear every detail, and his uncle knew that he wanted to tell him. He watched the old man as he laid out the pieces on either side of the ‘river’. He had a thick head of unusually curly hair, highlighted by an occasional strand of silver, and wore square tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. His eyebrows were raised in a permanently quizzical expression, and more often than not a smile would carve deep creases in his cheeks. He always wore colourfully patterned short-sleeved shirts over baggy trousers that concertinaed around open sandals, and carried a small satchel in which he kept a jar of green tea, his chess set, a pack of cards, a book, and that day’s newspaper. ‘Your move.’ Old Yifu waved a hand at him impatiently, and Li moved one of his Soldiers a single square forward. ‘Okay, tell me.’

But Li had other items on his agenda ahead of the murder inquiry. ‘There was a strange man in my office today,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ his uncle said casually, apparently focusing attention on his first move.

‘A feng shui man.’

‘Ah.’ Old Yifu seemed reassured by this and moved one of his Horses.

‘He said he was a friend of yours.’

‘Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm.’ Old Yifu feigned indifference. ‘Your move. Pay attention.’

‘He said you’d sent him.’

‘Well, of course he would.’

‘Because you did?’

‘Why else would he say it?’

Li sighed. ‘Uncle Yifu, it’s not that I have anything intrinsically against the idea of feng shui…’

‘I should hope not!’ Old Yifu was indignant.

‘In fact, I’m sure that many of its precepts are based on fundamental truths, and that there is practical value in them.’

‘Of course there is. Practical and spiritual. Come on, move!’

Li moved a Horse to protect his Soldier. ‘It’s just that… well, as you know, the authorities are not very keen on it. At least, not officially.’

‘Nonsense!’ Old Yifu was adamant. ‘No builder worth his salt puts up a new building these days without flying the plans past a feng shui man. State buildings, too.’

‘Well, that’s as may be…’ Li took a deep breath. ‘But the truth is, Section Chief Chen doesn’t want a feng shui man in the building and told me as much.’

‘Chen?’ Old Yifu snorted his derision. ‘What does that old fart know? You leave Chen to me. I’ll sort him out.’

‘It’s not just that, Uncle Yifu…’ There was a hint of desperation creeping into Li’s voice now. His trump card had just been dismissed. How could he tell his uncle that it was embarrassing? That his colleagues found it a source of great amusement? Besides, he didn’t want Old Yifu taking issue with Chen. It would be like a parent berating their child’s teacher. It could create bad feeling and rebound on Li. ‘I mean, I can take care of Chen. It’s just…’

Old Yifu moved a Soldier across the river, slapping the piece down on Li’s side. ‘Just what?’

‘Just… well, I’m too busy to get involved with that sort of thing just now,’ Li said lamely.

‘Don’t worry,’ Old Yifu said. ‘I’ll make sure the old boy doesn’t get in your way. With three murders on your plate, you’ll need all the free-flowing ch’i you can get.’

Li gave up. He wasn’t going to win without giving offence, and he would die before he offended his uncle. Still, sometimes it could be very difficult. He made a careless move, and Old Yifu leapt on his Soldier like a crow on carrion. ‘For heaven’s sake, Li Yan, you will never beat me at chess if you don’t pay attention!’

‘How can I pay attention when I’ve got three murders on my mind?’

‘Chess frees the mind and cleanses the intellect. You will think all the more clearly for it.’ His eyes were fixed on the board. He looked up. ‘Come on. Your move.’

Li sighed and examined the board. Old Yifu said, ‘I got a letter from your father today. Your sister is pregnant.’ He paused before adding, ominously, ‘Again.’

Li abandoned the game and looked at him in dismay. ‘She’s not going to have it, is she?’ He was horrified by the thought. His sister, Xiao Ling, was even more stubborn than himself. Once she had set her mind to something there was no dissuading her. And she already had a child. A wonderful four-year-old little girl, with a smile that was destined to break hearts. An impudent smile that dimpled her cheeks and lit up her eyes. Li could see her now, grinning at him, challenging him, hair gathered in ribbons on either side of her head swinging free as she cocked it to one side or the other. Xiao Ling was married to a rice farmer near the town of Zigong in Sichuan province. They lived with his parents and made a good living from the land. But they wanted a son — everyone wanted a son, for a son was much more valuable than a daughter, and under the One-Child Policy they could only have one or the other. And if Xiao Ling was pregnant and insisted on having the child, the months ahead would be intolerable. First her village committee would send representatives to try to dissuade her from proceeding with the pregnancy. Then she would be visited by cadres who would exert powerful and increasing pressure on her to have an abortion. She would be subjected to hours of psychological persuasion. It had been known, in cases of particularly intransigent mothers-to-be, for enforced abortion to be applied, usually with the connivance of the family. For if a second child was born, there would be hefty fines to pay, fines that most people could not afford. The families could also be penalised in other ways, with loss of free education, access to medicine, housing, pension. The pressures could be made unbearable.

Old Yifu nodded sadly. ‘She’s a difficult girl, your sister. She’s determined to go ahead.’

‘Has my father talked to her?’

‘Oh, yes. But, of course, she will not listen.’

‘What does her husband say?’ Li had never liked him. He thought, like many brothers, that no man was good enough for his sister.

‘I think,’ Old Yifu said, ‘that he would like the chance of a son, so he is sitting on the fence. He will neither support her, nor dissuade her.’

‘Bastard!’ Li said. He scratched his head. ‘She won’t listen to me.’ He glanced at his uncle. ‘The only person she might listen to is you.’

Old Yifu nodded. ‘Your father thinks so, too.’

‘What will you do?’

‘I will go and speak to her. But I will not tell her what to do. The One-Child Policy is a necessary evil. But a woman has a right to bear children. She must make her own decision, based on what is right. Not only for her, not only for China, but for both. And sometimes that is not an easy thing to do.’

They sat in silence for several moments, staring at the chessboard, but their minds were not on chess. Finally, Old Yifu clapped his hands to break their reverie and said, ‘Your move.’

Li blinked at the board and moved his Castle, without thinking, to threaten his uncle’s Bishop. Old Yifu frowned, perplexed, unable to see the logic in the move but suspecting a trap. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Tell me about your murders.’ And so Li told him — about the burning body in the park, about the small-time drug dealer found on waste ground, about the itinerant lying with a broken neck in a condemned siheyuan. ‘And the connection?’ his uncle asked. Li told him about the cigarette ends. Old Yifu frowned. ‘Hmmm. Not much of a connection. Can you prove they were all smoked by the same man?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Hmmm.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means, hmmm.’ Old Yifu took another of Li’s Soldiers. ‘Perhaps these cigarette ends do indicate a connection. But if you focus too much on that, you may miss other links.’

Li told him about the drugs connection and his intention to ‘have a chat’ tomorrow with The Needle.

‘Hmmm.’

‘What this time?’

‘The drugs connection links only the body in the park and the stabbing, correct?’

‘Correct. But there may well be a drugs connection with the itinerant.’

‘But you don’t know that.’

‘Not yet, no.’ Li was becoming exasperated. ‘But we’re interviewing every itinerant who has registered in Beijing in the last six weeks. We’re pulling in every two-jiao drug dealer and junkie. If there’s a link, we’ll find it.’

‘Of course you will.’ Old Yifu took Li’s Bishop. ‘And if there isn’t, you won’t. And you’ll be six months down the line and no further on.’

‘So what are you saying? That it’s a waste of time interviewing these people?’

‘Oh no, you must. There is no substitute for diligence in police work. “Where the tiller is tireless, the land is fertile.”’

Li was tiring of his uncle’s wisdom. He took a Horse with a Bishop, and banged the wooden disk down on the stone table, the first piece he had taken. ‘Jiang!’ he said, having put his uncle’s King in check.

‘The thing is,’ said old Yifu, quite unperturbed, ‘as the famous American inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, once said, “Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration”. All the perspiration in the world will get you nowhere without that one spark of inspiration.’ He blocked the check with his Guide and watched as Li manoeuvred his Horse, then slid his Cannon across the board. ‘Jiang si le!’

Li stared at his King in disbelief. There was nowhere it could go. It was indeed checkmate. He sat back and folded his arms. Of course, he hadn’t been concentrating. ‘So where do I look for this inspiration?’ he asked.

‘From within,’ Old Yifu said. ‘From what you know.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Tell me again about the way Chao Heng’s killer went about his business. In the apartment, and in the park.’

Li went through it all, replaying his thoughts, all the tiny clues, the moments of discovery and illumination. The CD still paused in the player. The blood on the carpet. His vision of the killer carrying the body downstairs and out into the darkness created by the removal of the lamp. The daring murder in broad daylight, Li’s vision of the killer walking nonchalantly from the park even as the blazing body of his victim was being discovered.

‘And what does this tell us about the killer?’ his uncle said. Li shrugged. ‘It tells us that he is a clever man who planned and executed this murder with a professional precision. In the normal course of events, you would never have discovered that his victim had not committed suicide. He could not have known that a visiting American pathologist, expert in the post-mortem examinations of burn victims, would be invited to perform the autopsy. For all our growing expertise in China, we still have a long way to go. Not many of our pathologists would have identified the fracture of the skull as anything other than a heat fracture. Very few of our pathologists have the experience of drugs that would have led them to guess at the use of a sedative — this… ketamine — on top of a heroin habit.’ He stopped, mobile eyebrows pushed high on his forehead, looking for an acknowledgment from Li.

‘You’re saying the killer was a professional?’ Professional killers in China were a very rare breed of animal. ‘In Beijing?’

‘Oh, he would have come from Hong Kong probably. “One country, two systems.”’ His smile reflected a certain irony. ‘Some Triad hit-man.’ Old Yifu jabbed a finger in Li’s direction. ‘These other two killings. No clues left at the scene. One is killed by a single thrust of a knife up through the ribcage and into the heart. The other by a clean break of the neck. These were no casual killings, Li Yan.’

Li’s breathing had become shallow. More rapid. He fought to make sense of it. ‘If they were professional killings, then that establishes a link beyond the cigarette ends.’ He shook his head, still perplexed. ‘But why? Why would someone employ a hit-man to kill a retired adviser in agriculture, a nobody drug dealer, and an unemployed labourer from Shanghai?’

‘Okay.’ Old Yifu waggled a finger at him. ‘Now you are asking the right question. The big question. But before you know the answer to that, there are many smaller questions to be answered. And this brings you back to the cigarette ends. Because without them you would never have made any connection. But then, why would a professional be so careless in this, when he had been so careful in everything else? This is not right. This is something to focus on.’

Li knew that all of this had been somewhere in his head, but it had taken his uncle, with a disinterested perspective, to crystallise it for him. He gazed thoughtfully at the chessboard, a battlefield, the scene of his ignominious defeat. Old Yifu was right. It was all about focus. His uncle started gathering the pieces and placing them in their box.

‘So,’ he said, ‘this American pathologist. She will continue to help?’

‘No!’ Li realised immediately he had been too quick, too definitive, in his response.

Old Yifu missed nothing. ‘She does not want to help?’

‘No… Yes… I don’t know. Professor Jiang at the university offered to make her available.’

‘And you said…?’

Li looked at his hands. ‘I said I didn’t need her.’

‘Then you are a fool.’

Li flared angrily. ‘We do not need some American showing us how it should be done!’

‘No. But you need an edge. You always need an edge. And the experience that this American has will give you an edge.’ Old Yifu slipped the box of pieces and his chessboard into his satchel and stood up stiffly. ‘Time to eat.’

II

All of Ma Yongli’s knives — for paring, scraping, chopping, slicing — were laid out on the stainless-steel worktop, reflecting in its shiny surface. One by one he ran them through the sharpener, three, four, five times, until they offered little or no resistance and their blades gleamed, sharp as razors. He glanced at the figure of his friend sitting on the worktop opposite, legs dangling. ‘Cheer up, Big Li. It might never happen.’

‘It’ll happen,’ Li said disconsolately. ‘Unless I die between now and tomorrow morning.’

‘Sounds like a good excuse for going out and drinking ourselves to death, then. At least we’ll die happy.’ Yongli paused and scratched his head, then smiled wickedly. ‘Mind you — happy? It’d be a first for you.’

Li made a face at him. He had arrived at the end of Yongli’s shift. Dinners at the hotel had been cooked, served and eaten. The duty chef, who would provide for the few patrons who made use of the twenty-four-hour café in the small hours, was out back smoking a cigarette. The kitchens were otherwise deserted and in darkness, lit only where Yongli was sharpening his knives.

‘So let me take a guess,’ Yongli said. ‘Would your mood have anything to do with your Uncle Yifu?’

‘Do I need to answer that?’

‘For God’s sake, man, get yourself out of there. Get a woman, get a life! Old Yifu’s a lovely old guy, but you can’t spend the rest of your days living with your uncle.’ This was not what Li needed to hear. ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t got you tucked up in bed by now.’

‘I should be,’ Li said grimly.

‘You see! You see!’ Yongli danced round the worktop towards him. ‘He’s got you thinking like him now. Bed? Shit, man, it’s only ten thirty. The night is young. And you are turning into an old man.’

‘I’m up at six tomorrow. I’ve got three murders on the go.’ Li drew a deep breath and sighed. ‘Only I know I wouldn’t sleep.’

‘Ah. So you’ve come to consult with Dr Ma Yongli, that well-known dispenser of sound advice for insomniacs.’

The nearest thing to hand was a pot, so Li threw it at him. Yongli caught it easily and grinned. ‘That’s more like it. A bit of spirit. A bit of life left in the old dog.’ He swung himself up to sit on the worktop beside him. ‘So what’s he done now?’

‘My first day, in my new job, in my new office, and I walk in to find a feng shui man sitting cross-legged on my desk.’

Yongli looked at him in astonishment. ‘You’re kidding!’ But it was clear he wasn’t. ‘And Uncle Yifu sent him?’

‘To balance my Yin and my Yang and get my ch’i flowing freely,’ Li said gloomily.

Yongli roared with laughter, slapping his thighs and then drumming his palms on the worktop.

‘Yes, yes, thank you, thank you,’ Li said sarcastically. ‘That’s exactly the reaction it got from the rest of the office.’

‘Are you surprised?’

‘No, I’m not. But when it happens to you, and your boss calls you in and tells you to get rid of him, and your uncle says he’ll fix your boss, believe me, it’s not funny.’

Yongli, still chuckling, dug an elbow into Li’s ribs. ‘Of course it is. Hey, lighten up, Big Li. You’re taking life far too seriously.’

‘When your life is dealing with death, then you take it seriously,’ Li said firmly.

Yongli looked at him and shook his head sadly. ‘What are we going to do with you?’

But Li was lost in his own thoughts. ‘And then there’s my sister. Pregnant again, and determined to go through with it. And then I’ve got to go in tomorrow morning and lose face to my boss, and to some jumped-up American pathologist who thinks she’s better than us.’

‘Woah, woah. You’re going way too fast for me. What’s all this about?’

‘My boss gets this American pathologist to do an autopsy for me. She’s lecturing at the Public Security University. He met her on a course in Chicago. It’s a personal favour.’

‘So far so good.’

‘It goes well. The university offers her services for the rest of her stay. I turn them down.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s complicated.’

‘I thought she did a good job?’

‘She did.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘God, now you’re beginning to sound like my uncle!’

‘Ah.’ Yongli nodded sagely. ‘Now we’re getting to the root of it. Your uncle thinks you should take up the offer.’

‘Which I’ve already knocked back.’

‘So if you go back and say you’ve changed your mind…’

‘I’ll lose face.’

‘And if you don’t?’

‘My uncle will be offended.’

‘And God forbid you should offend your uncle.’

Li turned on his friend, angry now. ‘My uncle’s been good to me. I owe just about everything I’ve achieved in life to Uncle Yifu. I’d never, never do anything to hurt him.’

Yongli raised his hands defensively. ‘Okay, okay. So you love the old guy. It doesn’t stop him driving you crazy.’

Li’s anger diminished as quickly as it had flared up. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it doesn’t.’

They sat in thoughtful silence for a full minute. Then Yongli said, ‘So, this American pathologist… An old battle-axe, is she?’

Li was evasive. ‘Not exactly.’

‘But she’s old, right?’

Li shrugged. ‘Not exactly.’

A worm of suspicion started to wriggle its way into Yongli’s head. ‘Well, if she’s not exactly a battle-axe, and she’s not exactly old… would you say she was young? Attractive?’

‘I guess. Sort of.’

‘Sort of young? Or sort of attractive?’

‘Sort of… both. She was the yangguizi at the banquet McCord gatecrashed last night at the Quanjude.’

‘Ah.’

‘What do you mean, “Ah”?’

Yongli waggled a finger at him. ‘It’s beginning to fall into place.’

‘What is?’

‘Your little head started expressing an interest and your big head put a stop to it.’

‘Oh, crap!’

‘Is it? I know you, Li Yan. I’ve known you for years. You’re scared of having a relationship, even if it was just sex, in case it interfered with your big career plan. First it was the university, now it’s your job.’ Yongli jumped down off the worktop. ‘You know what you need?’

‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

‘You need to get yourself laid a little more often.’ Yongli tossed his tall white hat across the worktop and started untying his chef’s apron. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You’re coming with me.’

‘Where?’

‘The Xanadu Karaoke Club.’

‘What?’ Li looked at him incredulously. ‘You’re winding me up.’

‘No, I’m not. It’s a new place, off Xidan. Open from eight at night till eight in the morning. The booze is cheap, the women are plentiful, and it’s not all karaoke. There’s live music, too.’ He hesitated. ‘Lotus is singing there now.’ And he saw Li’s face darken immediately. ‘And don’t start preaching at me, all right?’

‘For heaven’s sake, Ma Yongli, she’s a prostitute! A whore!’

Yongli looked at him dangerously. ‘I’ll take your fucking head off.’ His voice was barely a whisper.

Li softened his tone. ‘I just don’t understand how you can go with her when you know she’s been with other men.’

‘I love her, all right? Is that such a crime?’ Yongli looked away, clenching his jaw. ‘Anyway, she’s giving all that up. She’s making a career for herself as a singer.’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Li slipped down off the worktop. ‘I think I’ll pass, though. Wouldn’t exactly do me any favours to be seen consorting with a known prostitute.’

Yongli turned on him. ‘Can’t you stop being a cop for two minutes?’

‘No. I can’t ever stop being a cop. Because it’s what I am.’

‘Yeah?’ Yongli pushed his face into Li’s. ‘But you can stop being my friend, right? When it suits you. When you don’t like my girl. That how it goes? Well, fuck you!’ And he turned and stormed towards the door.

Li stood staring after him, his heart battering his ribcage. ‘Ma Yongli,’ he shouted. Yongli kept going. ‘Ma Yongli!’ This time he positively bellowed.

Yongli stopped at the door and turned, his face livid. ‘What?’

They stared at each other for fully a quarter of a minute. Then Li said, ‘I think it’s your round.’

By the time they reached the Xanadu, their spat at the hotel was forgotten. Or, at least, each kept up that pretence for the other’s benefit. It was about the last place in the world Li wanted to be right now, but he was trying to be a full-time friend as much as he was a full-time cop. Sometimes it wasn’t easy being either.

There was a queue to get in, and they stood for nearly twenty minutes, smoking and watching life drift by on the streets, talking about nothing very much. Groups of sullen youths stared lasciviously at groups of giggling girls in miniskirts and Wonderbras who flaunted their sexuality with a carelessness that, in the West, would quickly have led to trouble. They made Li feel old, disconnected somehow from their world, as if it were so much different to his. And, of course, it was. In thirteen years the world had turned and was no longer the same place he had inhabited as a twenty-year-old. He didn’t recognise the kids of today as being like he had been. They belonged to a new age. Everything — values, expectations, earnings — was different. He was still linked to a troubled past that owed more to the excesses of the Red Guards and the Smashing of the Four Olds.

Eventually Yongli caught the eye of a bouncer he knew, and they were waved in. There was a ten-yuan entrance fee and the first drink was free. A circular red symbol, impossible to read, was stamped on the back of their right hands, and they passed on through a cloakroom area to the bar, which stretched the length of one wall. A large floor area was crowded with tables and chairs, all filled by animated youths drinking and smoking. At the far end was a raised platform with microphone and speakers and a karaoke screen. A spotty boy with a shock of thick, coarse hair that fell across his eyes was singing some unrecognisable Taiwanese pop song. No one was listening to him. Wooden stairs led up to a gallery that ran around three walls, overlooking the floor below. It, too, was crowded. The noise was deafening.

They made their way to the bar and Yongli waved their tickets at the barman, and they got two half-litre glasses of Tsing Tao beer. Li looked around as he sipped his. Where did all these kids get the money? This was not a cheap night out. ‘You want to try and find a table?’ Yongli bellowed in his ear.

Li nodded, and followed as Yongli climbed the stairs to the gallery two at a time. At the top Yongli spoke to a waitress. Whatever he said, she laughed loudly, and from the way her eyes were fixed on him it was clear that she found him attractive. He grinned back at her and squeezed her around the waist and winked, and she flushed red. He had such an easy way with him. Li wondered, as he had often done in the past, what it was that women found attractive about him. He was far from conventionally good-looking. But there was something about his eyes, and his smile. Something roguish. He could have had almost any woman he wanted. And yet he had fallen for Lotus.

The waitress weaved her way to the far side of the gallery and bent over a table to speak to the group of kids that sat around it. They glanced over towards Yongli, then shrugged and reluctantly moved away, taking their drinks with them, in search of standing room somewhere else. The waitress beckoned Yongli across, and Li followed him to the table. She gave him a big smile, wiped their table clean and placed a fresh ashtray in the centre. ‘You give me a shout when you need a refill,’ she said.

‘You bet.’ Yongli grinned and winked again, and she flushed with pleasure, hurrying away through the tables. He flicked a cigarette across at Li. ‘Helps when they know you,’ he said.

Li laughed. ‘It’s got nothing to do with knowing you. All you’ve got to do is smile and you’ve got half the women in Beijing fawning at your feet.’ He lit both their cigarettes.

‘True,’ Yongli said modestly. ‘But it doesn’t do any harm that Lotus is a regular on-stage here.’

The music stopped then, and the sense of relief Li felt was enormous, like stopping banging his head against a wall. They no longer had to shout at each other to make themselves heard.

‘So, when is she on?’ Li asked.

Yongli checked the time. ‘About half an hour. There’s a guy plays keyboard, and another on guitar. And they’ve got one of these computerised drum things. They sound like a fifty-piece orchestra. They’re good.’

Li had never had much time for music, and he couldn’t imagine what Yongli’s idea of ‘good’ was. It was a measure of how far they had grown apart in recent years that a club like this was a familiar part of Yongli’s life, and completely alien to Li. He drank his beer and watched the faces all around him, high on alcohol and who knew what else, talking animatedly. Young men and women, drawn to this place in search of different things: romance, sex, a partner, an end to loneliness, an escape from the banality of their daylight lives. The ritualistic search of a boy for a girl, a girl for a boy, and perhaps for a few something in between. But there was a sad quality, desperate and slightly shabby, about it all. Painted and unreal. A gloss for the night on dull lives, which would have worn off by morning, when the veneer of partners picked up in this ersatz twilight world would not have quite the same sheen as the night before. Li felt only relief that he had missed out on this, was no part of it. And yet, was his world any better? he wondered. A world of murderers, pimps and drug dealers. A world in which, only a few hours before, he had stood watching a poor burned man being clinically dissected, had traced his last hours of life from a bloodstained carpet in an apartment to a fiery and agonising death in a park.

‘Hi.’ Li was startled out of his thoughts by a woman’s voice. He turned as Yongli’s chair scraped back and the big chef got up and put his arms around Lotus’s slender frame. His body seemed to envelop hers, and she looked up at him, smiling with clear affection, before he lowered his head to kiss her. He took her hand and stepped back.

‘You remember Li Yan.’

Li stood up and shook her hand awkwardly. ‘Of course,’ she said, smiling as if they were old friends and Yongli had asked a stupid question. A full-length green silk dress clung to every contour of her body, split on either side from ankle to waist, bare arms exposed by a sleeveless top, her shoulders and neck, by contrast, modestly hidden by a high choker neckline. Beneath her heavy make-up it was clear she was actually very beautiful. She was quick to notice Li’s appraisal and, as if by way of apology, said, ‘My stage outfit.’

Yongli seemed almost nervous in her company. Gone was the easy self-confidence and the twinkling smile. ‘I’ll get you a drink,’ he said, and he pulled up a chair for her.

‘Something soft,’ she said as she sat down. ‘Don’t want to be slurring my words when I’m singing.’ She smiled warmly at Li.

Yongli was looking around for the waitress from earlier, but she was nowhere to be seen. He seemed uncommonly agitated. ‘Where’s that damn girl gone?’ He tutted with irritation. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

‘No hurry,’ Lotus said. ‘I’m in good hands.’ She did not take her eyes from Li. Yongli hurried away across the gallery towards the stairs. ‘You got a cigarette?’ she asked. Li was aware of her strong Beijing accent, tongue curled back in the mouth to create the distinctive ‘R’ sound that formed almost in the throat. He held a pack open for her. She took one and he lit it. She drew deeply on it, threw her head back and blew a jet of smoke towards the ceiling. Then she levelled her gaze again and said, ‘You don’t like me much, do you?’

Li was taken aback by her directness. He had only met her a couple of times previously. He had always been polite, keeping, he had thought, his disapproval to himself. Perhaps Yongli had spoken to her of his friend’s feelings, or maybe she simply knew, by instinct, how a policeman might regard her. There seemed little point in denying it. ‘No,’ he said bluntly.

No sign of emotion rippled her exterior calm. She maintained a steady eye contact. ‘You don’t even know me.’

‘I know what you do. And I know what you are. That’s enough.’

When Yongli met her she had been working the joint-venture tourist hotels, raking in a high dollar income from wealthy businessmen with a taste for Asian girls. She had been based at the Jingtan when he started there as a chef the previous year, and he fell for her immediately.

‘What I was,’ she said evenly. ‘What I did.’

‘I see,’ Li said coldly. ‘So what you earn here as a singer allows you to maintain the same income and lifestyle as before? That what you tell Ma Yongli, is it?’

She suddenly leaned forward and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Don’t you dare judge me!’ she snapped. ‘You know nothing about me. You don’t know what kind of life I’ve had, what kind of shit I’ve been through. I do what I have to do to survive. I don’t always like me. But Yongli does. He always has. And he’s never judged me. He treats me like no one’s ever treated me before. Like a princess. And there’s not many girls get to feel like that in their lives.’ She leaned back in her chair, breathing deeply to regain her composure. Then she said, quietly, ‘So if you think I’m bad for him, or that I don’t love him, you’re wrong. I’ve never loved anyone so much in my life. And I’d never do anything to hurt him.’

With a tiny jab of remorse, Li heard an echo of himself in this, how he felt about his uncle, the passion with which he’d defended him to Yongli just an hour earlier. He heard the same passion in Lotus, and couldn’t doubt the sincerity in her eyes. He nodded and said, ‘I don’t want to see him hurt either.’

‘Fresh orange juice and ice, is that all right?’ Yongli put the glass on the table in front of her and sat down. ‘Sorry it took so long.’

Lotus smiled at him. ‘Fresh orange is fine,’ she said. She took a long draught, then put it down again, half finished. ‘But I’m sorry, lover, I’ve got to go get ready.’

‘Hey, that’s okay.’ He leaned over to brush her lips with his. ‘Good luck.’

‘Thanks.’ She stood up and smiled at Li. ‘See you later?’

Li shrugged. ‘Maybe not. I’ve got an early start.’

‘Next time, then.’ She touched Yongli’s face lightly with her fingers and moved away, gliding elegantly between the tables towards the stair. Yongli watched her go, doe-eyed and smitten, before becoming suddenly self-conscious and turning back to Li.

‘So what were you two talking about?’ There was a hint of anxiety in his voice.

‘You.’

‘Pretty boring topic of conversation.’

‘That’s what we decided, so we stopped.’

Yongli grinned. ‘You’re not really going to bail out early, are you?’

Li smiled and nodded. ‘I really am.’

Yongli shook his head. ‘You know, what you really need is to get yourself laid.’

‘You already told me.’

‘No, but really. I mean, what about this “young”, “attractive” American pathologist of yours? Sounds to me like she could get your juices flowing.’

Li laughed. ‘Gimme a break! She’s a yangguizi.’

‘So what?’ Yongli punched him mock-playfully on the arm. ‘You could turn on the charm if you wanted to. And she’d fall in a dead faint at your feet.’

III

Margaret cursed Li roundly. He was an arrogant, charmless, chauvinistic bastard! The doors of the elevator slid shut and she pressed the button for the ground floor. She saw herself reflected in the polished brass and realised she hadn’t even bothered putting on any make-up. She had simply changed into her jeans and a tee-shirt, a pair of open-toed sandals, grabbed her keycard and headed for the elevator. A couple of young attendants sitting playing cards cast curious glances at her through the open door of a utility room as she stalked past. She had noticed before that there always seemed to be cleaners or attendants around on her floor when she came and went. Always nodding and smiling and saying, ‘Ni hao.’ If she had thought about it at all, she might have been faintly surprised that they were still there at midnight. But her brain was otherwise engaged, and she needed a drink.

She couldn’t get Li Yan out of her head: his initial hostility, then his grudging acceptance of her professional expertise, followed by his warmth over lunch, and then his coldness after it, crowned by his refusal to accept her further help. She was glad, she told herself. She certainly had no desire to be where she wasn’t wanted. And she had no time for the mood swings and preconceptions of some precious Chinese policeman with a thing against foreigners. What was the word Bob had used…? Yangguizi. That was it. Foreign devil! It was sheer bloody-minded xenophobia!

Her mind had been full of such thoughts all evening. Anger, revenge, the things she would say if she ever got the chance. And then she would remember a moment over lunch when he had smiled at her, dark eyes full of mischief, the soft-spoken quality of his voice, his gently accented English with its errant emphasis on odd syllables. And it would infuriate her that there was something about him she found attractive, and then she would recall the humiliation she felt when summoned to Professor Jiang’s office for the second time that day. And the anger would flood back.

The hotel lobby was deserted as she strode through the south wing past reception and down steps to the bar beyond. There were still a dozen or more people sitting at tables in twos and threes, downing nightcaps and indulging in loquacious post-dinner conversation. Margaret paid them little attention, hoisting herself on to a bar stool and demanding a vodka tonic with ice and lemon, then deciding to make it a large one. The barman responded quickly, pouring her drink, and then laying out a square of white paper napkin, a small bowl of raw peanuts, and a tall glass that was misting already from the chill of the ice. She flashed her keycard at him, and as he opened an account, she took a long pull at the vodka and felt the alcohol flooding almost immediately into her bloodstream and into her brain, like a long, cool wave of relief. She started to relax, took a handful of nuts, and looked around the bar. There was a young Chinese couple smooching at a table against the far wall. A noisy group of three Japanese businessmen quaffing large tumblers of whisky. A short, middle-aged man who… Her heart took a jolt as she realised it was McCord. He was slumped in a seat at a corner table looking considerably dishevelled. Strands of greasy grey hair had broken free of the oil he used to plaster it to his scalp, and fell in loops across a forehead beaded with perspiration. His face was the colour and texture of putty, bloodshot eyes rolling drunkenly. A half-empty glass of Scotch was held in his hand at a precarious angle, and he appeared to be muttering to himself. She turned to the barman, flicking her head in McCord’s direction. ‘Has he been here long?’

‘Long time,’ the barman said solemnly.

She took another stiff pull at the vodka, warmed up her indignation, and headed across the bar to McCord’s table. ‘Mind if I join you?’ she asked, and sat down without waiting for an answer.

His head jerked up from some alcoholic reverie and he looked at her, startled, and for a moment, she thought, almost scared. ‘What d’you want?’ he barked, screwing up his eyes and peering at her in the gloom of the bar. It was obvious he didn’t recognise her.

‘Margaret Campbell?’ she said, trying to awaken some recollection in him. ‘Dr Margaret Campbell? You ruined my welcome banquet, remember?’ He glared at her. ‘I just wanted to say, thanks a million.’

He curled a lip and drained his glass. ‘Why don’t you fuck off?’ he slurred. And he got unsteadily to his feet and lurched out of the bar.

She sat for a moment in suspended animation. Handled that well, Margaret, she told herself, and then slumped back in her seat feeling suddenly very tired indeed. As she took the remaining few gulps of her vodka, she glanced at the English-language China Daily lying on the seat next to where McCord had been sitting. The headlines washed over her. Something about the House of Representatives approving the US President’s decision to continue China’s Most Favoured Nation trading status. An item about the completion of the laying of a three-thousand-kilometre fibre optic cable to Tibet. A piece about a 20 per cent increase in the export of rice from China to the rest of the world. None of it held her interest. To bed, she thought. To sleep, perchance to dream… She crossed to the bar to sign her bill.

When she got back to her room, Margaret kicked off her sandals and undressed quickly. She caught sight of herself in the mirror, white skin almost blue in the hard electric light. The frail, skinny girl that looked back at her was almost unrecognisable as herself. She was a hard-bitten, experienced forensic pathologist into her fourth decade. She’d been around, she’d seen a bit. And yet it was a child that stared at her out of the mirror. A child abused by life, hiding behind her job, her anger, whatever other barriers she could raise. But in her nakedness, in a strange hotel room on her own, thousands of miles from home, there were no barriers that could hide her from herself. She remembered why she had come here, and was engulfed by a huge wave of self-pity and loneliness. The air-conditioning raised goose bumps all over her skin. She dropped on to the bed, wrapping the sheets around her, curling up into the fetal position. The first teardrop splashed on the pillow, and she cried herself to sleep.

IV

Zhengyi Road was dark and deserted as Li wheeled his bicycle past the shuttered fruit-and-vegetable shop at the entrance to the apartment complex. The slightest breeze stirred the sticky humid night air and rattled the leaves overhead. Li nodded to the night sentry in the guard box as he passed. Row after row of twelve-storey apartment blocks rose up into the murky black sky. Beyond the glow of the streetlights there were no stars visible through the layers of dust and mist in the upper atmosphere.

Li parked and locked his bike and entered the block where he lived with his uncle — superior apartments, behind high Ministry walls, reserved for top Ministry officials and senior police officers. It was late and the elevator was turned off for the night. Li unlocked the stair gate and climbed the two flights to their apartment. There was still a singing in his ears from the music in the club and his hearing felt woolly and dull, but even as he opened the door, he could hear the deep rumble of Old Yifu’s snoring coming from the further bedroom. He went first into the kitchen, where he took a bottle of chilled water from the refrigerator and drank deeply, washing away the bad taste of cigarettes and beer, and then into his bedroom, where he sat on the bed for fifteen minutes or more, thinking, about the day that had just passed, about the day that lay ahead. He was tired, but not remotely sleepy. There was an ache at the back of his head, and acid burned his stomach.

He tipped forward and slid open the top drawer of a dark-wood utility dresser. Under an assortment of clean underwear, he found the collection of leather strapping he was looking for and pulled it out. He had never worn it beyond the first time he had tried it on. He had adjusted the buckles then so that it still fitted neatly to his shoulder, soft tan leather straps holding the holster firmly in place. It had been a gift from his lecturer in Chicago, a full-time cop, part-time lecturer, who had taken a shine to him and arranged for him to sit in the back of a squad car over several night shifts. It had been an extraordinary experience, frightening, sometimes bloody, often intimidating. It had opened his eyes to a crime culture and the means of combating it that was unknown in China. These cops were as hard and ruthless as the petty criminals, muggers and pimps, junkies and prostitutes they had to deal with. It was a world, Li reflected now, almost shocked by the thought, with which Margaret must be only too familiar. He wondered how it was possible to endure prolonged exposure to it without suffering lasting damage. He saw the soft, freckled skin of her forearm, the unfettered breasts pushing against the thin cotton of her tee-shirt, a recurring vision that somehow emphasised her soft, vulnerable femininity. How long could that survive in the dark, creepy-crawly world she inhabited beneath the rock of civilised Chicago society? How long before the shell she would make to protect herself from it enveloped her completely, making her, like the cops he had shared the night shift with, cynical and hard beyond redemption?

Quietly he slipped down the hall and carefully opened the door to Old Yifu’s bedroom. The snoring rumbled on, undisturbed. It would take something approaching ten on the Richter scale to waken his uncle once asleep. Li looked at his face, lying at a slight angle on the pillow, mouth open, and felt a wave of love and affection for him. Those bushy eyebrows were still pushed up quizzically on his forehead. For all his experience of life, of tragedy and struggle, there was still an innocence about him, emphasised somehow by the repose of sleep. His face was remarkably unlined, almost childlike. And for a moment, Li had second thoughts. Then he steeled himself. Uncle Yifu would never know, and what he did not know could not hurt him. He crouched down and opened the bottom drawer of the dresser. At the right hand side, at the back, was the shoe box Old Yifu had kept there for years. Li lifted it out and took off the lid. Inside, on a bed of carefully arranged tissue, lay his old service revolver from Tibet and a box of cartridges. Somehow he had succeeded in hanging on to them over the years, and kept them now as a souvenir. He had only ever fired the revolver in practice, he told Li once, and had never ever pointed it at another human being. Whatever else he might have inherited from his uncle, Li knew that he did not possess his even temperament, his sense of compassion. There was anger and a latent violence in Li, which he strove always to control. But tomorrow, he knew, he was going to ease back a little on that control and take a short cut of which neither his uncle, nor the authorities, would approve.

He lifted the revolver out of its box and slipped it into the holster. It fitted like a glove, almost as if the two had been designed one for the other. He counted out six rounds and dropped them in his pocket. Quietly, he replaced the lid of the box and returned it to its place at the back of the drawer and slid the drawer shut. As he stood up, his uncle turned over, and the snoring stopped. Li held his breath. But a deep grunt signalled its restart, and Old Yifu rumbled on in blissful ignorance of his nephew’s presence. Li drifted silently out of the room, gently closing the door behind him.