The Runner

I

Li pulled up on the stretch of waste ground opposite the food market and walked back along Dongzhimen Beixiao Jie to Mei Yuan’s stall on the corner.

He had slept like a log in Margaret’s arms, but a wakened early, enveloped still by the fog of depression his father had brought with him from Sichuan. And he had known he would have to return to his apartment before his father woke, to prepare him breakfast, and to shower and change for work. The night before, Li had taken him a carry-out meal from the restaurant below, but he had eaten hardly anything and gone to bed shortly after ten. As soon as Li had thought the old man was asleep, he had crept out and driven across the city to spend his last night with Margaret.

But when he returned this morning, the old man did not eat his breakfast either. He had accepted a mug of green tea and said simply to Li, ‘You did not come home last night.’

Li had seen no reason to lie. ‘No. I stayed over at Margaret’s,’ he had said, and before his father could reply, cut him off with, ‘And don’t tell me it’s not traditional, or that you disapprove. Because, you know, I really don’t care.’

The old man had been expressionless. ‘I was going to say it is a pity I will not meet her before the betrothal.’ He had waited for a response, but when Li could find nothing to say, added, ‘Is it unreasonable for a man to want to meet the mother of his grandchild?’

It did not matter, apparently, what Li said or did, his father had a way of making him feel guilty. He had left him with a spare key and fled to the safety of his work.

Now, as he approached Mei Yuan’s stall, to break his own fast with a jian bing, he thought for the first time of the riddle she had posed two days before. He had given it neither time nor consideration and felt guilty about that, too. He ran it quickly through in his mind. The woman had come to see the I Ching expert on his sixty-sixth birthday. He was born on the second of February nineteen twenty-five. So that would mean she came to see him on the second of February, nineteen ninety-one. He was going to create a number from that date, put her age at the end of it, and then reverse it. And that would be the special number he would remember her by. Okay, so the date would be 2-2-91. But what age was the woman? He ran back over in his mind what Mei Yuan had told him, but could not remember if she had said what age the girl was.

‘I missed you yesterday.’ Mei Yuan had seen him coming and had already poured the pancake mix on to the hotplate.

‘I had a…’ he hesitated. ‘A meeting.’

‘Ah,’ she said. And Li knew immediately that she knew he was hiding something. He gave her a hug and quickly changed the subject.

‘I am in the middle of a murder investigation.’

‘Ah,’ she said again.

‘And my father arrived from Sichuan.’ He was aware of her eyes flickering briefly away from her hotplate in his direction and then back again. She knew that relations between them were difficult.

‘And how is he?’

‘Oh,’ Li said airily, ‘much the same as usual. Nothing wrong with him that a touch of murder wouldn’t cure.’

Mei Yuan smiled. ‘I hope that’s not the investigation you are conducting.’

‘I wish,’ Li said. ‘It would be an easy one to break. Only one suspect, with both motive and opportunity.’ Flippancy was an easy way to hide your emotions, but he knew she wasn’t fooled.

She finished his jian bing and handed it to him wrapped in brown paper. She said, ‘When the dark seeks to equal the light there is certain to be conflict.’

He met her eyes and felt as if she were looking right into his soul. And he was discomfited by it. Because he knew that all she could have seen there would be dark thoughts, resentment and guilt.

‘You have read the teachings of Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching,’ she said. It was not a question. She knew this because she had given him the book, the Taoist Bible — although Taoism was a philosophy rather than a religion. He nodded. ‘Then you know that the Tao teaches, be good to people who are good. To those who are not good be also good. Thus goodness is achieved.’

Li bit into his jian bing and felt its soft, savoury hotness suffuse his mouth with its flavour. He said, ‘You certainly achieved goodness with this, Mei Yuan.’ He was not about to swap Taoist philosophy with her at eight o’clock in the morning.

She smiled at him with the indulgence of a mother. ‘And did you achieve a solution to my riddle?’

‘Ah,’ he said, and filled his mouth with more jian bing.

Her black eyes twinkled. ‘Why do I feel an excuse coming on?’

‘I haven’t had time,’ he said lamely. ‘And, anyway, I couldn’t remember what age you said the young woman was.’

‘I didn’t.’

He frowned. ‘You didn’t?’

‘It is the key, Li Yan. Find it, and you will open the door to enlightenment.’

‘Is that also the philosophy of the Tao?’

‘No, it is the philosophy of Mei Yuan.’

He laughed, and tossed some coins into her tin. ‘I will see you tomorrow night,’ he said.

As he turned to head back to the Jeep, she said, ‘Your young friend came yesterday.’ He stopped, and she drew a book out from her bag. ‘He brought me this.’

It was a copy of the Scott Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby. ‘You haven’t read it, have you?’ Li asked.

‘No,’ Mei Yuan replied. ‘But neither has anyone else.’ She paused. ‘He said his friend gave it to him to lend to me.’ She ran her finger along the spine. ‘But this is a brand new book, never opened.’

Li smiled. ‘He means well.’

‘Yes,’ Mei Yuan said. ‘But he lies too easily. Tell him if he wants to give me a book, I will be happy to accept it. But I would prefer his honesty.’

Li stopped at the door of the detectives’ office. ‘Where’s Sun?’

‘He’s out, Chief,’ Wu said.

Li glanced at the TV, which was flickering away in the corner with the sound turned down. ‘And so is Deputy Section Chief Tao, I guess.’

Wu grinned and nodded. ‘All the swimming finals this morning, the athletics this afternoon.’

‘How are we doing?’

Wu shrugged. ‘Could be better. They’re ahead on points, but there’s some big races still to come. Do you want me to keep you up to date?’

‘I think I can live without it.’ Li glanced over at Qian’s desk. The detective was concentrating on typing up a report, two fingers stabbing clumsily at his computer keyboard. He had never quite got comfortable with the technology. ‘Qian?’ He looked up. ‘I want you to look into a burglary for me. It’s probably being handled by the local public security bureau. An American photographer called Jon Macken. He had a studio down on Xidan. It was broken into the night before last.’

Qian frowned. ‘What interest do we have in it, Chief?’

Li said. ‘None that I know of. Just take a look at it for me, would you?’

‘Sure.’

He was about to go when Qian stopped him. ‘Chief, I left a note on your desk.’ He hesitated, and Li had the distinct impression that everyone in the room was listening, even though they appeared still to be working. ‘Commissioner Hu Yisheng’s office called. The Commissioner wants to see you straight away.’ Several heads lifted to see his reaction. Now he knew they’d been listening. And why.

II

The noise of diggers and demolition resounded in the narrow Dong Jiaminxiang Lane. A couple of bicycle repair men sat huddled against the cold in the weak winter sunshine opposite the back entrance to the headquarters of the Beijing Municipal Police. The stone arch which had once led to the rear compound had been demolished, and the entrance was blocked by heavy machinery, a digger, a crane.

Li picked his way past them to the red-brick building which still housed the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department, although for how much longer he did not know. The building looked shabby, covered in the dust of demolition, windows smeared and opaque. Most of the sections had long since moved to other premises around the city, and the original CID HQ across the way — once the home of the American Citibank — was now a police museum.

Even in the outer office of the divisional head of CID, Li could hear the insistent rasp of a pneumatic drill and the revving of engines as machines moved earth and concrete in preparation for whatever new development was being planned. Commissioner Hu’s secretary called him to let him know that Li was there, and after a moment he emerged from his office pulling on his jacket. He nodded toward Li. ‘Section Chief.’ And then told his secretary, ‘Can’t think with all this goddamn noise. If anyone’s looking for me, we’ll be next door.’

They swung past the workmen crowding the old entrance, and Li followed the Commissioner up the steps of the museum, between tall columns, and through its high, arched entrance. Inside, they were confronted by an elaborately carved totem pole dedicated to the ‘soul of the police’, a bizarre-looking monument whose centrepiece was the crest of the Ministry of Public Security. But here, in this old marble building, the work of the demolition men outside was a distant rumble and there was a sense of peace.

‘I used to have my office on the top floor,’ the Commissioner said, and they climbed several floors, past exhibits which illustrated the history of the police and fire departments, gruesome murders and horrific fires. The top floor was a celebration of the modern force, mannequins modelling the new uniforms, an electronic shooting range where you could pit your wits against video baddies. But it was dominated by a huge curved stone wall, twenty feet high, carved with cubist-like representations of the features of policemen past. Eyes, noses, mouths, hands. This was the Martyrs’ Wall, a monument to all the police officers of Beijing who had died on active duty since the creation of the People’s Republic in 1949. There were strategically placed flowers to commemorate the dead, and a large book, on a glass dais, which named all of the fifty-nine officers who had so far gone to join their ancestors.

A group of uniformed policemen was being given an official tour, and a young female officer wearing a headset which amplified her voice across the top floor, was describing the history and purpose of the monument. When she saw the Commissioner, she cut short her speech, and the group moved discreetly away to try their luck on the electronic range. Li stood staring up at the wall. It was the first time he had visited the museum.

‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Commissioner Hu said.

Li looked at him. He was a short man with an impressively large head, and Li wondered if maybe he had modelled for some of the faces on the wall. His hair was greyer than the last time Li had seen him, and the first lines were beginning to etch themselves on an otherwise smooth face. ‘Unusual,’ Li said diplomatically.

‘You know your uncle is listed among the Martyrs?’

Li was shocked. It was the first he had heard of it. ‘But he did not die on active duty,’ he said. ‘He was retired.’

‘He was murdered by the subject of an active investigation. And in light of his outstanding record as a police officer, it was decided that his name should be included in the roll of honour.’

Oddly, Li found this unexpectedly comforting. His uncle had not passed into the unsung annals of history, to be forgotten with the death of living memory. He had been given immortality of a kind, a place among heroes, which is what he had been.

The Commissioner was watching him closely. He said, ‘There are two matters I want to discuss with you, Section Chief.’ He glanced across the floor to make sure they would not be overheard, and lowered his voice. ‘I received a call last night from the Procurator General regarding the official report into the death of the weightlifter, Jia Jing. It had been drawn to his attention that the report was not entirely accurate.’ Li opened his mouth to speak, but the Commissioner held up a hand to stop him. ‘His enquiries on the subject revealed this to be true. He also discovered that since you attended the incident you must have known this to be the case. And yet you signed off the report as being an accurate representation of events. The Procurator General is furious. And frankly, Section Chief, so am I.’

Li said, ‘And who was it who drew the Procurator General’s attention to this alleged inaccuracy?’

‘I don’t think that’s the point.’

‘I think it’s very much the point.’

The Commissioner took Li firmly by the arm and steered him closer to the wall. His voice reduced itself to an angry hiss. ‘Don’t play games with me, Li. I think you know very well who it was. Loyalty is not something you inherit with the job. You have to earn it. And I am hearing that all is far from well between you and another senior member of your section.’

‘If I’d been Section Chief at the time of his appointment, he would never have got the job.’

The Commissioner glared at him. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Li. The decision would not have been yours to make.’ He let go of Li’s arm and took a deep breath. Although Li towered over him, he was still a solid and imposing figure in his black dress uniform, with its three shining silver stars on each lapel. ‘Are you going to tell me why this report was doctored?’ Even his use of the word ‘doctored’ rang a bell for Li.

Li said quietly, ‘Perhaps you should ask the Minister, Commissioner.’

Hu narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you telling me the Minister asked you to alter an official report?’ Li nodded. ‘And do you think for one minute he would admit to that?’

And Li saw for the first time just what kind of trouble he could be in. He said, ‘One or two minor facts were omitted purely to save embarrassment for the people involved. That’s all. Nothing that materially affected the case.’

‘The fact that the Chinese weightlifting champion was screwing the wife of a senior member of BOCOG is hardly a minor omission, Section Chief.’

‘The Minister—’

Hu cut him off. ‘The Minister will not back you up or bail you out on this, Li. Take my word for it. In the current climate, he has far too much to lose. Everyone from the lowliest officer to the Minister himself must be seen to be beyond reproach. Don’t forget that his former Vice-Minister was sentenced to death for his misdemeanours.’

Li protested, ‘Li Jizhou took nearly half a million dollars in bribes from a gang of smugglers! Saving a few blushes over a marital indiscretion is hardly in the same league.’ But he was kicking himself. He knew he should never have agreed to it.

The Commissioner glared at him angrily. ‘You’re a fool, Li. Fortunately, it’s not too late to do something about it. Get the officer concerned to issue a full and accurate report, and we will redefine the current report as “interim” and withdraw it.’

Li knew there was no way around it. When the revised report found its way into circulation, scandal was inevitable. And given the high profile of Jia himself, there was a good chance it was going to find its way into the media as well. All he could think about were Jia’s parents, the sad old couple he had encountered on the doorstep of their son’s apartment. He said, ‘The current investigation into the death of Jia and several other leading athletes looks like turning into a murder investigation, Commissioner.’

The Commissioner was clearly shocked. ‘I thought he died of a heart attack.’

‘He did. But in common with all the others, he was suffering from what we think was a virally induced heart condition that would certainly have killed him, if fate had not delivered the blow first. At least one of those others was murdered — the swimmer Sui Mingshan. And three others who supposedly died in a car accident were dead before the car crashed.’

The Commissioner looked at him thoughtfully. ‘And your point is?’

‘That Jia looks certain to become attached to a murder inquiry that is going to shake Chinese athletics to the core, Commissioner. Bad enough with the Beijing Olympics looming on the horizon. How much worse if there is a link between Jia and a high-ranking member of the Beijing Organising Committee of the Olympic Games?’

The Commissioner took a long moment to consider his point. At length he said, ‘Take no action for the moment, Section Chief. I will speak to the Procurator General. And others. And I will let you know my decision.’ He paused. ‘But just don’t think you’ve got away with anything. Do you understand?’

Li nodded and felt the scrutiny of the Commissioner’s probing eyes trying to decipher what lay behind Li’s consciously blank expression. ‘You said two things, Commissioner.’

‘What?’

‘You wanted to speak to me about two things.’

‘Ah…yes.’ And for the first time Commissioner Hu avoided his eyes. ‘It is a matter I had intended to raise with you this week anyway.’

‘To tell me I had been allocated a married officer’s apartment?’

Anger flashed quickly in Hu’s eyes and he snapped, ‘You know perfectly well there’s no question of you getting an apartment!’

Li felt the resentment that had been simmering inside him for weeks now start bubbling to the surface. If the Commissioner thought Li was going to make this easy for him, he was mistaken. ‘Really? That’s the first time anybody has ever conveyed that particular piece of information to me. So I don’t know how I would know it, perfectly well, or otherwise.’

For a moment he thought the Commissioner was going to strike him. ‘You sonofabitch, you really are hell-bent on putting an end to your career, aren’t you?’

‘I wasn’t aware I had much of a choice, Commissioner.’

‘My office asked you several weeks ago,’ the Commissioner said in a very controlled way, ‘for information about your intention to marry the American pathologist, Margaret Campbell. That information has not been forthcoming.’

‘That information,’ Li replied evenly, ‘was provided in full detail when I made my application for married accommodation. Nothing has changed.’

‘So you’re still intent on marrying her?’

‘Next week.’

The Commissioner took a very deep breath and raised his eyes towards the faces gazing down on them from the Martyrs’ Wall. ‘You really are a fool, Li, aren’t you? You know that it is Public Security policy that none of its officers may marry a foreign national.’ He sighed his frustration. ‘In the name of the sky, why do you have to marry her? We’ve turned a blind eye to your relationship up until now.’

‘Because I love her, and she’s carrying my baby. And I’m not going to creep around at night making clandestine visits to see my lover and my child. If marrying her is such a threat to national security, I’d have thought conducting an illicit affair was an even greater one. And if you’re prepared to turn a blind eye to that, then aren’t you just being hypocritical?’

The Commissioner shook his head in despair. ‘I don’t know what your uncle would have thought of you.’

‘My uncle always told me to be true to myself. He used to say, the universe is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering.’

‘And there is nothing I can say that will change your mind?’ Li shook his head. ‘Then I will expect your resignation on my desk by next week.’

‘No.’

The Commissioner looked at Li in astonishment. ‘What do you mean, no?’

‘I mean I am not going to resign, Commissioner. If you are going to insist on enforcing this policy, then you are going to have to remove me from my post.’

The Commissioner narrowed his eyes. ‘You really are a stubborn…arrogant…bastard, Li.’ His raised voice caused heads to turn in their direction from the shooting range. He quickly lowered it again. ‘If you insist on following this course, then believe me, I will strip you of your commission and I will remove you from the force. You will lose your apartment, and your pension, all medical rights and rights to social security. And who will employ a disgraced former police officer?’ He paused to let his words sink in. ‘Have you really thought this through?’

Li stood rock still, keeping his emotions on a tight rein. In many ways he hadn’t thought it through at all. His application for a position with Beijing Security had been a half-hearted attempt to face up to the realities of his situation. But, in truth, he had been burying his head in the sand and hoping that somehow it would all go away.

‘For heaven’s sake, Li, you are the youngest Section Chief in the history of the department. You are one of the most highly regarded police officers in China. What kind of woman is it who would ask a man to give all that up for the sake of a wedding ring?’

‘Margaret hasn’t asked me to give up anything,’ Li said, quick to her defence.

‘What do you mean? She must know what’ll happen if you marry her.’ Li said nothing, and the Commissioner’s eyes widened. ‘Are you telling me you haven’t told her? That she doesn’t know?’

Li blinked rapidly as he felt his eyes start to fill. ‘She has no idea.’ And for the first time he saw what looked like pity in the Commissioner’s eyes.

‘Then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought,’ he said with sad resignation. ‘It is just a shame that your uncle is not here to talk some sense into your bone head.’

‘If my uncle were here,’ Li said stiffly, ‘I am certain he would be appalled by his old department’s lack of flexibility. He always said to me, if you cannot bend with the wind, then you will break.’

The Commissioner shook his head. ‘Then it’s a pity you didn’t listen to him.’ He snapped his hat firmly back on his head and nodded curtly. ‘You can expect notice to clear your desk in a matter of days.’ And he turned and walked briskly away towards the stairwell.

Li stood, a solitary figure, by the Martyrs’ Wall and felt their eyes upon him. The dead were his only company, and he was not sure he had ever felt quite so alone.

Heads lifted in only semi-disguised curiosity as Li strode into the detectives’ office. Tao was standing by Wu’s desk reading through a sheaf of forensic reports, peering over the top of his thick-rimmed glasses. He glanced up as Li came in, and his hand fell away, lowering the papers he was holding beyond the range of his lenses. Li looked at him very directly. ‘A word, please, Deputy Section Chief.’ And he walked into Tao’s office leaving his deputy to follow him in with every eye in the office on his back. Li closed the door behind them and turned to face Tao, his voice low and controlled. ‘I’ve been fighting an urge to kick the living shit out of you all the way across town,’ he said.

‘That wouldn’t be very smart.’ Tao removed his glasses as if he thought Li might strike him yet. ‘I would bring charges.’

Li said dangerously, ‘You wouldn’t be in a condition to do anything, Tao. They’d be feeding you with a spoon for the rest of your days.’ Tao held his peace, and Li said, ‘The only thing that stopped me was something my uncle taught me years ago. If you are offended by a quality in your superiors, do not behave in such a manner to those below you. If you dislike a quality in those below you, do not reflect that quality to those who work over you. If something bothers you from the man at your heels, do not push at the one in front of you.’

‘Sound advice,’ Tao said. ‘Pity you didn’t take it.’

Li glared at him for a long time. ‘You went behind my back on the Jia Jing report.’

Tao shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I tried to speak to you about it the other day, but you were “too busy”.’ His lips curled as he spat out the words. ‘A lunch appointment, I think.’ He hesitated, as if waiting for Li to say something.

‘Go on.’

‘I had a call from Procurator General Meng yesterday morning asking me to verify the details contained in Wu’s report.’

‘Why did he call you and not me?’

‘I would have thought that since you had signed off the report and he was seeking verification, that was obvious.’

‘So you told him I’d had it doctored.’

‘No. I had Wu come into my office and tell me exactly what happened that night. I then passed that information on to the Procurator General as requested. I play things by the book, Section Chief Li. I always have. And the way things are these days, I would have thought even you might have seen the merit in doing the same.’ His supercilious smile betrayed just how safe he thought he was, with Li’s expulsion from the force only a matter of days away. It was clearly an open secret now.

Li gazed on him with undisguised loathing. He knew he had been wrong to interfere with Wu’s report. He had ignored one of old Yifu’s basic precepts. If there is something that you don’t want anyone to know about, don’t do it. There was no such thing as a secret. A word whispered in the ear can be heard for miles, he used to say. And Li had also, as Tao took such glee in pointing out, ignored Yifu’s advice on treating others as you would wish them to treat you. And in the process had made an enemy of his deputy. It did not matter that he did not like the man. He had treated him badly, and that had come back to haunt him, like bad karma. What made it even worse, the salt in the wound, was the knowledge that Tao would probably succeed him as Section Chief. It was almost more than he could bear. ‘Even if you feel that I am not owed your respect, Deputy Section Chief, my office most certainly is. You should have spoken to me before you spoke to the Procurator General.’ Tao started to protest that he had tried, but Li held up a hand to stop him. This was hard enough to say without having to talk over him. ‘And in the future, I will try to make a point of listening.’

Tao seemed taken aback, realising perhaps that his boss had come just about as close to an apology as he was ever likely to get. It fluttered between them like a white flag of truce, as uneasy as it was unexpected. He made a curt nod of acknowledgement, and Li turned and left his office, ignoring the curious eyes that followed him through the detectives’ room to the door. As he walked down the corridor to his own office, he fought the temptation to feel sorry for himself. Next week they would take away the job he loved. But he was determined to crack this bizarre and puzzling case of the dead athletes before they did, to at least go out with his head held high. And to do that, he would need friends around him, not enemies.

III

Margaret’s taxi dropped her on the upper ramp at Beijing Capital Airport, a bitter wind blowing dark cloud down from the north-west, the air filled with the sound of taut cables whipping against tall flagpoles. She entered the departure lounge and took an escalator down to the arrivals hall below. The large electronic board above the gate told her that her mother’s flight was on time and she groaned inwardly. Any delay would have given her a brief reprieve. A few more moments of freedom before falling finally into the family trap that would hold her at least until after the wedding.

A sleazy-looking young man wearing a leather jacket with a fur collar sidled up. ‘You want dollah?’

‘No.’ Margaret started walking away.

He followed her. ‘You want RMB? I shanja marni.’

‘No.’

‘You want taxi? I get you good price.’

‘I want peace. Go away.’

‘Real good price. Only three hundred yuan.’

‘Fuck off,’ she breathed into his face, and he recoiled in surprise from this fair-haired foreign devil with the mad blue eyes.

‘Okay, okay,’ he said and scuttled off in search of someone more gullible.

Margaret sighed and tried to calm herself. But the imminent arrival of her mother was making her tense beyond her control. She had put off even thinking about it until the very last minute. Almost until she had gone in search of a taxi to take her to the airport. Although they had spoken on the telephone, they had not met face to face since Margaret’s trip to Chicago for her father’s funeral. And then, they had only fought. She had been her daddy’s girl. He had given her hours of his time when she was a child, playing endless games, reading to her, taking her to the movies or out on the lake in the summer. By contrast, her earliest recollections of her mother were of a cold, distant woman who spent hardly any time with her. After Margaret’s brother drowned in a summer accident, she had become even more withdrawn. And as Margaret grew older, her mother only ever seemed to pick fault with her. Margaret, apparently, was incapable of doing anything right.

The first passengers came through the gate in ones and twos, dragging cases or pushing trolleys. And then slowly it turned into a flood, and the concourse started filling up. Passengers headed for the counters of the Agricultural Bank of China to change money, or out to the rows of taxis waiting on the ramp outside. Margaret scoured the faces, watching nervously for her mother. Finally she saw her, pale and anxious amongst a sea of Chinese faces, tall, slim, lipstick freshly applied, her coiffured grey-streaked hair still immaculate, even after a fifteen-hour flight. She was wearing a dark green suit with a cream blouse and camel-hair coat slung over her shoulders, looking for all the world like a model in a clothes catalogue for the elderly. She had three large suitcases piled on a trolley.

Margaret hurried to intercept her. ‘Mom,’ she called and waved, and her mother turned as she approached. Margaret tipped her head towards the three cases. ‘I thought you were only coming for a week.’

Her mother smiled coolly. ‘Margaret,’ she said, and they exchanged a perfunctory hug and peck on the cheek, before her mother cast a disapproving eye over the swelling that bulged beneath her smock. ‘My God, look at you! I can’t believe you went and got yourself pregnant to that Chinaman.’

Margaret said patiently. ‘He’s not a Chinaman, Mom. He’s Chinese. And he’s the man I love.’

Whatever went through her mother’s mind, she thought better of expressing it. Instead, as Margaret steered her towards the exit, she said, ‘It was a dreadful flight. Full of…Chinese.’ She said the word as if it left a nasty taste in her mouth. Her mother thought of anyone who was not white, Anglo-Saxon, as being barely human. ‘They ate and snorted and snored and sneezed through fifteen hours of hell,’ she said. ‘And the smell of garlic…You needn’t think that I’ll be a regular visitor.’

‘Well, there’s a blessing,’ Margaret said, drawing a look from her. She smiled. ‘Only kidding. Come on, let’s get a taxi.’

At the rank, they were approached by another tout. ‘You want taxi, lady?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Margaret’s mother.

‘No,’ said Margaret

‘We do,’ her mother protested.

‘Not from him. It’ll cost three times as much.’ She steered her mother towards the queue. The wind whipped and tugged at their clothes, and destroyed in fifteen seconds the coiffure which had survived fifteen hours of air travel. Her mother slipped her arms into her coat and shivered. ‘My God, Margaret, it’s colder than Chicago!’

‘Yes, Mom, and it’s bigger and dirtier and noisier. Get used to it, because that’s how it’s going to be for the next week.’

A middle-aged man came and stood behind them in the queue. He was wheeling a small case. He smiled and nodded, and then very noisily howked a huge gob of phlegm into his mouth and spat it towards the ground. The wind caught it and whipped it away to slap against a square concrete pillar supporting luminescent ads for satellite telephones.

Margaret’s mother’s eyes opened wide. ‘Did you see that?’ she said in a stage whisper.

Margaret sighed. It was going to be a long week. ‘Welcome to China,’ she said.

Margaret’s mother stared in silence from the window of their taxi as they sped into the city on the freeway from the airport, and Margaret tried to imagine seeing it all again through new eyes. But even in the few years since Margaret’s first trip, Beijing had changed nearly beyond recognition. New high-rise buildings were altering the skyline almost daily. The ubiquitous yellow ‘bread’ taxis had been banished overnight in a desperate attempt to reduce pollution. The number of bicycles was diminishing more or less in direct relation to the increase in the number of motor vehicles. At one time there had been at least twenty-one million bicycles in Beijing. God only knew how many vehicles there were now on the roads. Giant electronic advertising hordings blazed the same logos into the blustery afternoon as you might expect to find in any American city. McDonald’s. Toyota. Sharp. Chrysler.

They hit the Third Ring Road, and started the long loop round to the south side of the city. ‘I’d no idea it would be like this,’ her mother said. She turned her head in astonishment at the sight of a young woman on the sidewalk wearing a miniskirt and thigh-length boots.

‘What did you think it would be like?’

‘I don’t know. Like in the tourist brochures. Chinese lanterns, and curling roofs, and streets filled with people in blue Mao suits.’

‘Well some of these things still survive,’ Margaret said. ‘But, really, Beijing is just a big modern city like you’d find anywhere in the States. Only bigger.’

It took nearly an hour to get to Margaret’s apartment block on the north side of the campus. Margaret’s mother cast a sharp eye over her surroundings — looking for fault, Margaret thought — while their taxi driver carried each of the heavy cases into the lobby, and stacked them in the elevator. There was no sign of the sullen operator. Just the debris of her cigarette ends on the floor and the stale smell of her cigarette smoke in the air.

The driver smiled and nodded and held the elevator door open for them to get in.

‘Xie-xie,’ Margaret said.

‘Syeh-syeh? What does that mean?’ her mother demanded.

‘It means, thank you.’

‘Well, aren’t you going to give him a tip?’

‘No, people don’t give or expect tips in China.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She waved her hand at the taxi driver. ‘Don’t go away.’ And she fished in her purse for some money. She found a five dollar note and held it out.

The driver smiled, embarrassed, and shook his head, waving the note away.

‘Go on, take it,’ her mother insisted.

‘Mom, he won’t take it. It’s considered demeaning to accept tips here. You’re insulting him.’

‘Oh, don’t talk nonsense! Of course he wants the money. Or does he think our American dollars aren’t good enough for him?’ And she threw the note at him.

The taxi driver stepped back, shocked by the gesture, and stood watching as the note fluttered to the floor. The doors of the elevator slid shut.

Margaret was furious and embarrassed. ‘That was an appalling thing to do.’

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Margaret, as soon as those doors closed you can be sure he was pocketing that note quicker than you could say…syeh-syeh.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Margaret angrily stabbed the button with the outward pointing arrows and the doors slid open again. Beyond the glass at the far side of the lobby they saw the driver hurrying down the steps to his cab. The five dollar note lay untouched on the floor. Margaret turned to her mother. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’

‘I don’t expect to be treated like that by my own daughter,’ her mother said, as they got the three huge cases into the tiny hallway of Margaret’s apartment. ‘We’ve never gotten along well, you and I, Margaret. But you are my daughter. And at least I made the effort to be here. No matter how much I might disapprove, I have come halfway around the world to be at your wedding. I think I’m entitled to a little consideration in return.’

Margaret kept her teeth firmly clenched and closed the door behind them. ‘Your bedroom’s this way,’ she said, leading her mother up the hall. For the first time, Mrs. Campbell stopped to take in her surroundings. She looked into the bedroom, whose double bed nearly filled the room. It was necessary to squeeze past an old wooden wardrobe to reach the small desk beneath the window which acted as a dressing-table.

‘You live here?’ Her mother was incredulous. She marched down the hall and cast an eye over the tiny kitchen before turning into the living room. A three-seater settee took up nearly half the room. There was one easy chair and there were two dining chairs next to a gate-leg table pushed up against the wall by the window. Margaret took most of her meals alone at the gate-leg, or off her knee in front of the twelve-inch television set. There was no disguising the horror on her mother’s face. ‘The whole apartment would fit into the sitting room at Oak Park.’ She turned earnestly to her daughter. ‘Margaret, what have you been reduced to in this God-forsaken country?’

‘I’m perfectly happy here,’ Margaret said, lying. ‘I have everything I need. And, anyway, after the wedding Li and I will be moving into family accommodation provided by the police. They’re big apartments.’

Her mother was struck by another horrifying thought. ‘Margaret, you do have another bedroom here, don’t you?’

‘Nope. Just the one.’

‘Well, I hope you’re not expecting me to share a bed with you?’

‘No, Mom, I’ll be sleeping on the settee.’

Her mother looked at her. ‘Is that wise? In your condition?’

‘Maybe you’d like to sleep on the settee, then.’

‘You know I couldn’t do that, Margaret. Not with my back.’

And Margaret permitted herself a tiny, bitter smile. That fleeting moment of worry about her pregnant daughter sleeping on the settee was the extent of her mother’s concern.

Another thought occurred to Mrs. Campbell. ‘I hope you’re not an early bedder,’ she said. ‘You know how I don’t sleep so well. I like to sit up late watching television.’

‘Mom, you can watch television as much as you like, but you do realise it’s all Chinese?’

‘What? Don’t you have any American channels?’

‘You’re in China, Mom. People here speak Chinese. They don’t watch American television.’

‘I suppose the Communists wouldn’t allow it.’

Margaret shook her head in despair. ‘Nobody would understand it!’

It took nearly an hour for them to unpack and find places for all of her mother’s clothes. And for the first time, Margaret realised just how limited her space really was. She could not imagine trying to cope in this apartment with a baby, and fervently hoped Li would be allocated their new home before the child was born. Her mother was clearly having doubts about whether she could last out until the wedding. ‘Is it really a week till you get married?’

‘Six days,’ Margaret said. ‘But we have the betrothal meeting tomorrow night.’

‘What on earth is that?’

‘It’s kind of where Li Yan officially asks me to marry him. In front of both families.’

‘You mean I’m going to have to meet his people tomorrow?’

‘Just his father. His mother died in prison during the Cultural Revolution.’ Mrs. Campbell looked shocked. Such things just didn’t happen in the United States. ‘But Li’s sister and his niece will be there as well. We’ve rented a private room in a restaurant, and we’ll have a traditional meal.’

Mrs. Campbell screwed up her face. ‘Margaret, you know I don’t like Chinese food.’

‘They don’t have Chinese food in China, Mom.’

Her mother frowned. ‘Don’t they?’

‘No, they just call it food here.’ And Margaret added quickly. ‘Just eat what you can. Another traditional thing we’re going to have, before the meal, is an exchange of gifts. Between the families.’

Mrs. Campbell was startled. ‘But I haven’t brought anything.’ She wouldn’t have liked anyone to think of her as mean. Particularly if they were Chinese.

‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing too elaborate. We’ll get what we need tomorrow.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, an easy one is money. Just a token amount. Usually ninety-nine yuan, or even nine hundred and ninety-nine. Nine is a very lucky number in China, because it is three times three, and three is the luckiest number of all.’

‘Hmmm-hmmm,’ her mother said. ‘And who is it who gives the money? Them or us?’

‘Well, I think we should, since we’re a little better off than they are.’ She knew that would please her mother. Anything that underscored her sense of superiority. ‘Other gifts are things like tea, dragon and phoenix cake, a pair of male and female poultry—’

‘I have no intention of giving or receiving hens,’ Mrs. Campbell said firmly, rising up on her dignity. ‘They’re dreadful, smelly creatures. And what would we do with them? You couldn’t keep them here!’

Margaret couldn’t contain her smile. ‘People in the city don’t exchange real poultry, Mom. Just symbols. Usually china ornaments, or paper cut-outs.’

‘And what would we do with a picture of a hen?’

Margaret shook her head and pressed on. ‘They also usually give candy and sugar, maybe some wine, or tobacco. But tea is the most important one. Because, traditionally, both families will want the couple to provide them with as many descendants as there are tea leaves.’

Mrs. Campbell cocked an eyebrow. ‘That would be a little difficult in a country that only allows couples to have one child, would it not?’

And for a dreadful moment, Margaret saw and heard herself in her mother. The tone. The withering sarcasm. And she was not at all sure that she liked it. Like catching an unexpected glimpse of your own reflection, revealing an unflattering side of yourself you don’t usually see.

Her mother went on, ‘I’m not sure I approve of any of it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This…betrothal meeting, and God knows what the wedding itself will be like! Margaret, it all smacks to me of heathen ritual. You were brought up a good Christian, I don’t know why you couldn’t have had a simple church ceremony. But, then, I suppose these Communists are all atheists.’

She headed back down the hall to the living room. Margaret sighed and followed, and found her, hands on hips, looking around the tiny room and shaking her head. ‘And if you think I’m going to spend the next six days sitting around in this pokey little place all day doing nothing, you’re very much mistaken.’ She delved into her purse and pulled out a brochure. Margaret recognised a photograph of the Gate of Heavenly Peace. ‘My travel agent told me if there was one thing worth seeing while I was here, it was the Forbidden City. Of course, I saw it in the film, The Last Emperor, but it’s quite another thing to see a place for yourself.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘And no time like the present.’

Margaret wished she had never even told her mother she was getting married. ‘Aren’t you tired, Mom? I mean, wouldn’t you like a lie-down. It’s the middle of the night back home.’

‘If I sleep now, I’ll never sleep tonight. And there’s nothing like a bit of fresh air for keeping you awake.’

IV

Li had all the reports on his desk in front of him. Autopsy, forensic, toxicology. Reports from officers on every case under investigation. The official results, faxed to Section One that morning, of all the dope tests carried out on the dead athletes in the weeks and months before their deaths. He had read through everything. Twice. From the accounts of the ‘witnesses’ to the death of the cyclist, to Sun’s accounts of their visits to the apartments of Sui Mingshan and Jia Jing. Still nothing made any sense to him. None of them, it seemed, had been taking drugs. The random urine tests, and the results from toxicology, bore each other out.

And why would anyone fake the deaths of people who had already died, apparently from natural causes? The odd thing here was that in the case of the three relay sprinters, none of them had even consulted a doctor in the recent past, so clearly they had no idea they were unwell. But where had they been when they died, prior to being bundled into their ill-fated car and sent speeding into a lamppost? And had they all died at the same time? Li found it baffling.

They had no evidence whatsoever that the cyclist had been the victim of foul play. But the witnesses to his ‘accidental’ death were, very conveniently, unavailable to them, and distinctly unreliable.

And he, too, had had his head shaved.

The shaving of the heads worried Li. He felt that somehow this had to be the key to the whole sordid mystery. Was it some kind of ritual? A punishment? And this mystery virus which would probably have killed them all. Where had it come from? How had they been infected? Who wanted to cover it up, and why? No matter how many times Li turned these things over in his mind, it brought him no nearer to enlightenment. There were so many blind alleys he might be tempted to turn into, wasting precious time and deflecting him from the truth. He was missing something, he was sure. Something simple, something obvious that he just wasn’t seeing. Something that would make all the difference and maybe, just maybe, tip him in the right direction.

A knock on the door disturbed his thoughts. He called irritably, ‘Come in.’

It was Qian. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Chief. I got the information you asked for on the break-in at that photographer’s studio.’

Li frowned, for a moment wondering what photographer Qian was talking about. And then he remembered. The American married to Margaret’s Chinese friend at the antenatal classes. He almost told Qian to forget it, but he had taken it this far, he might as well hear him out now. He waved him into a seat. ‘Anything interesting?’

Qian shrugged. ‘Not really, Chief.’ He sat down and opened a folder containing a one-page report from the investigating officers, and notes he had taken during a telephone conversation with the photographer himself. ‘Just a break-in. The photographer’s name is Jon Macken. An American. He’s worked in Beijing for more than five years. Married to a local girl.’

‘Yeh, yeh, I know all about that,’ Li said impatiently. ‘What did they take?’

‘Well, that’s the only strange thing about it, Chief. They didn’t take anything. A roll of film. That was it.’

‘Are we investigating petty robberies now?’ Tao’s voice startled them both. He was standing in the open doorway with an armful of folders.

Li said, ‘I asked Qian to look into this one for me.’

Tao came in and laid the folders on Li’s desk. ‘For signing, when you have a moment,’ he said. Then he glanced at the folder in Li’s lap. ‘What’s our interest?’

‘I don’t know,’ Li said. ‘Maybe none. Why don’t you draw up a chair, Deputy Section Chief, and listen in? Then we can decide together.’

Tao hesitated for a moment, but Li knew he would take up the offer. Curiosity, pride, and the fact that it was a first. Tao was hungry for Li’s job, and here was a titbit to whet his appetite. He brought a chair to the desk and sat down at the window end of it. Neutral territory. Neither one side nor the other. Qian recapped for him.

‘So why would someone go to the trouble of breaking into a studio with an alarm system just to steal a roll of film?’ Li asked.

‘It was a used roll,’ Qian said. ‘I mean, Macken had already taken a whole bunch of pictures with it and developed them.’

‘So it was the negatives that were taken,’ Tao said.

‘That’s right. They made a bit of a mess of the place, but that was all that he can find missing.’

‘And what was on the film?’ Li asked.

‘Nothing of much interest,’ Qian said. ‘Macken’s been commissioned to take pictures for a glossy brochure advertising a club that opened in town about six months ago. He’d been there on a recce the day before and taken a few pictures for reference. Just gash stuff. Nothing that you would think anyone would want to steal.’

‘Well, that’s something we’ll never know,’ said Tao, ‘since he no longer has them.’

‘Oh, but he has,’ Qian said. ‘Apparently he’d already taken a set of contact prints. He’s still got those. He told me he’d looked at them all very carefully, but can’t find a single reason why anyone would want to steal the negatives.’

‘Maybe they didn’t,’ Tao said. ‘I mean, not specifically. It might just be coincidence that it was those ones that were taken.’

‘This place that he’s been commissioned to photograph. What is it, a night club?’ Li asked.

‘No, nothing like that, Chief.’ Qian’s eyes widened. ‘Actually, it sounds like a really amazing place. Macken told me all about it. It’s some kind of investment club for the very rich.’

Li frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

Qian said, ‘It costs you a million yuan just to join, Chief. A million!’ He repeated the word with a sense of awe, as if in rolling his tongue around it again he might actually be able to taste it. ‘And that then entitles you to five million in credit.’

‘Credit for what?’ Tao asked.

‘Investment. This place is plumbed into stock exchanges around the world. If you’re a member you can buy and sell stocks and shares anywhere at the touch of a button. Macken says it’s got about thirty private rooms with TV and lounge chairs, two restaurants, four conference rooms, a communications centre that feeds the latest stock market quotes on to every TV screen in the place. There’s a sauna, swimming pool…you name it.’

‘A high-class gambling den, in other words,’ Tao said with a hint of disapproval.

Li was shaking his head in wonder. ‘I had no idea places like that existed,’ he said, and then he remembered Beijing Snow World, and thought that maybe he was more out of touch than he realised.

Qian shrugged. ‘Like everything else, Chief. It’s all change these days. It’s hard to keep up.’

Tao stood up. ‘Well, it doesn’t sound like there’s much there to interest us,’ he said.

Li said, ‘I agree. I think we’ll leave it to the locals.’

Qian closed his folder and got to his feet. ‘There was just one other thing,’ he said. Li and Tao waited. ‘Macken got the job because he and his wife are friends with the personal assistant of the club’s Chief Executive. She recommended him.’ He hesitated. ‘Well, apparently, she’s disappeared.’

Li scowled. ‘What do you mean, disappeared?’

‘Well, there’s not necessarily anything sinister about it,’ Qian said quickly. ‘It’s just, you know, she’s a young girl, early twenties. Lives on her own and, well, nobody seems to know where she is. Macken says he can’t raise her by phone, she’s not at her work…’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Tao said dismissively. ‘She could be anywhere. I mean, has anyone actually reported her missing — apart from Macken?’

Qian shook his head. Tao looked at Li, who shrugged. ‘Pass it back to the bureau,’ Li said. He had more important things on his mind.

V

Overhead lights reflected off the surface of polished marble on the floors and walls and pillars. At the top of the stairs, Margaret handed their tickets to a girl wearing trainers and an army greatcoat who turned timid, dark, inquisitive eyes to watch them descend to the platform below.

‘I don’t see why we couldn’t have taken a taxi,’ Mrs. Campbell said breathlessly.

‘I told you, Mom, it would take twice as long. The subway’ll get us there in ten minutes.’

‘If only it hadn’t taken us half an hour to get to the subway!’

In fact, it had taken twenty minutes to walk to the subway station at Muxidi, wind-chill reducing temperatures to minus twelve or worse. And her mother had complained every step of the way, tottering precariously on unsuitably high heels. Margaret had told her that the walk through the Forbidden City itself would take nearly an hour and that she needed sensible shoes. But her mother said she didn’t have any. Margaret suspected it was more a case of keeping up appearances. Image had always been very important to Mrs. Campbell.

They had only a matter of minutes to wait on the nearly deserted platform before a train arrived that would take them east to Tiananmen Square. Mrs. Campbell endeavoured to recover both her composure and her coiffure. The train was half-empty, and they found seats easily. A hubbub of chatter in the compartment ceased as they came in, but the silence was not at first apparent because of the recorded announcement in Chinese and English informing them which station was next. In this case, Nanlishi Lu. Then there was the rattle of wheels on rails. Margaret became aware of her mother nudging her.

‘What is it?’

‘Everyone’s staring at us.’ It was her mother’s stage whisper again.

Margaret glanced down the carriage and saw that nearly everyone was indeed watching them, in silent but unabashed curiosity. It was something Margaret had long since ceased to notice. But even today the sight of a westerner still drew stares of astonishment. Sometimes people would ask to touch Margaret’s hair, and they would gaze, unblinking, into her eyes, amazed at their clear, blue colour. ‘That’s because we look so strange,’ she said.

‘We look strange?’ Mrs. Campbell said indignantly.

‘Yes,’ Margaret said. ‘We’re a curiosity. A couple of bizarre-looking, round-eyed foreign devils.’

‘Foreign devils!’

‘Yangguizi. That’s the word they have for us when they’re not being too polite. Literally, foreign devils. And then there’s da bidze. Big noses. You see, you might think the Chinese have got flat faces and slanted eyes. They think we’ve got prominent brows and gross features, and have more in common with Neanderthal Man. That’s because they consider themselves to be a more highly evolved strain of the species.’

‘Ridiculous,’ Mrs. Campbell said, glaring at the Chinese faces turned in her direction.

‘No more ridiculous than those white, Anglo-Saxon Americans who think they’re somehow better than, say, the blacks or the Hispanics.’

‘I don’t!’ her mother protested.

But Margaret was on a roll. ‘You see, Mom, the lowliest Chinese peasant will look down his nose at the richest American, because he can look back on a civilisation that is thousands of years old. Their name for China translates as the Middle Kingdom. That’s because to them, China is at the centre of everything on earth, and its inhabitants superior to those who live on the periphery. And that’s you and me. So while you might like to look down on some people back home, here you are the one who is looked down on.’

This was clearly a revelation to Mrs. Campbell. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘Ridiculous,’ she said under her breath. But now she avoided meeting any of the eyes that were turned in her direction.

Margaret smiled to herself.

The wind almost blew them over as they emerged from the escalators at Tiananmen West, like the earth exhaling its frozen winter breath in a great blustering sigh. Margaret took her mother’s arm and hurried her along the broad, paved sidewalk, past the white marble bridges that spanned the moat, to the Gate of Heavenly Peace, red flags whipping in the wind all around Mao’s portrait. Mrs. Campbell, clutching her coat to her neck, turned and followed Mao’s gaze south. She had seen pictures of the portrait and the gate many times on the news. It was the cliché TV reporters could never resist, delivering countless reports to camera with Mao and the gate behind them. ‘Where’s the square?’ she said.

‘You’re looking at it.’

Mrs. Campbell’s eyes widened. ‘That’s the square?’ She soaked it up. ‘Margaret, it’s huge.’ In the dull haze of this windy, winter’s afternoon, she could not even see its southern end. The History Museum to the east, and the Great Hall of the People to the west were on the very periphery of their vision.

Margaret said, ‘We can walk across it afterwards.’ And she steered her mother through the arched tunnel that took them under the Gate of Heavenly Peace and into the long concourse that led to the towering roofs of the Meridian Gate and the entrance to the Forbidden City itself. Through lines of gnarled cypress trees a constant procession of people walked the concourse in either direction, well-wrapped for warmth, although here the grey-slated buildings that lined the enclosure afforded a measure of protection from the wind. Elaborate stalls in the style of the ancient city sold tourist trinkets and hot drinks. Young girls dressed in the clothes of royal concubines posed with visitors to have their photographs taken. Tinny voices barked constant announcements through megaphones mounted on poles, disembodied voices whose anonymous owners were tucked out of sight.

A scruffy looking man approached them obliquely. ‘You want seedy lom?’

Mrs. Campbell said, ‘Sadie Lom? What’s he talking about?’

‘CD Rom,’ Margaret elucidated, and turning to the tout said firmly, ‘No.’

‘How ‘bout DVD? Hally Potallah. I got Hally Potallah.’

‘Does my mother really look like someone who wants to watch a Harry Potter movie?’ Margaret said. The tout looked confused. ‘That’s a no,’ she added, and she whisked her mother quickly away. ‘If anyone tries to sell you anything, just walk away,’ she told her. ‘Don’t speak or meet their eye.’

She took her own advice several times as they then ran the gauntlet of touts trying to sell glossy guide books on the Forbidden City, only to arrive at the ticket office outside the Meridian Gate to find chains stretched between poles fencing it off, and a large sign in Chinese erected outside.

‘You want buy book?’ a voice at her elbow said.

She turned to the owner of the voice, an old peasant woman, and said, ‘What does the sign say?’

‘Close,’ the old lady said.

‘Closed?’ Margaret was incredulous. ‘It can’t be.’

‘Big work inside. They fix.’

‘Renovation?’

The old lady nodded vigorously. ‘Yeh, yeh, yeh. Renovation. You can still see. Buy book.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Margaret’s mother said. ‘What do I tell the folks back home? I went to China, and it was shut?’

Tiananmen Square was busy, perhaps because the Forbidden City was closed. But there were more people than usual strolling its vastness, in spite of the bitter wind that raked across it. The air was filled with kites that dipped and swooped in the wind, red faces turned upwards, gloved hands tugging on taut lines. Groups of peasants up from the country posed for photographs with the Gate of Heavenly Peace in the background, and the queues at Mao’s mausoleum seemed longer than usual, pan-faced peasants standing patiently waiting to see the body of the man who had led their country through so many turbulent decades, lying preserved now in its glass case. Margaret’s mother declined to join the line. She had had enough.

‘I’m getting tired, Margaret. Perhaps we should go home.’ Words Margaret was relieved to hear.

They went through the pedestrian subway and up the stairs to the north side of Chang’an Avenue where they could get the underground train home. As they emerged again into the icy blast, Mrs. Campbell, still tottering on her unsuitable heels, stumbled and fell with a shriek of alarm. Margaret tried to catch her, but her mother’s arm somehow slipped through her fingers. She clattered on to the pavings and sprawled full length, all thoughts of trying to retain her dignity vanishing with the pain that shot through her leg from the knee which took the brunt of her weight.

Margaret crouched immediately beside her. ‘Mom, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, I’m fine.’ But there were tears smearing her mother’s eyes, and as she turned to try to get up, Margaret saw the blood running down her shin from the gash on her knee. Her stocking was shredded.

‘Don’t try to move,’ Margaret said. ‘You’re bleeding. I’ll need to bandage it.’

As she fumbled in her purse searching for a clean handkerchief, Margaret became aware of a crowd gathering around them. The Chinese were inveterate busybodies. They always had to know what was going on, and to see for themselves. Once a crowd began to gather, like Topsy it just grew and grew. A woman picked up Mrs. Campbell’s purse and handed it to her. Another knelt down and held her hand, gabbling away to her incomprehensibly. Margaret found a packet of antiseptic wipes and started cleaning the wound. It wasn’t deep, a graze really, but her mother winced as the antiseptic stung. Someone offered her a piece of candy, but she waved it away. There were so many people around them now, they were cutting out most of the light. Margaret pulled out a hanky — she always kept a clean one for emergencies — and tied it around the knee to stop any further bleeding. ‘It’s okay, Mom, it’s just a graze. You can try and get up now.’ And she took her mother’s arm to help her up.

There was an immediate gasp from the crowd, and several pairs of hands drew Margaret away. One woman issued a stream of rapid-fire Mandarin into her face. Margaret had the distinct impression she was being lectured for some misdemeanour, and then she realised that’s exactly what was happening. She was pregnant. She should not even be attempting to help her mother up. The crowd was incensed.

To Mrs. Campbell’s extreme embarrassment, she was lifted vertical by many hands and put back on her feet. Her leg buckled under her and she yelped in pain. But the crowd supported her. ‘I can’t put any weight on it,’ she called to Margaret. Her distress was clear in the tears rolling down her cheeks.

‘We’ll need to get a taxi,’ Margaret said, discomposed by the fact that she appeared to have lost all control of the situation.

A small man in blue cotton trousers bunched over dirty trainers, and an overcoat several sizes too large, raised his voice above those of the other onlookers and took charge of Margaret’s mother. The crowd parted, like the Red Sea, and he led the elderly American lady through them, hobbling, to his trishaw which he had drawn up on to the sidewalk.

Mrs. Campbell’s distress increased. ‘Margaret, he’s touching me,’ she wailed. ‘His hands are filthy, where’s he taking me?’

Margaret hurried to take her elbow. ‘Looks like you’re getting your first ride in a trishaw, Mom.’

He eased her up on to the padded bench seat mounted over the rear axle of his tricycle. The flimsy cotton roof had flaps extended down the back and at each side creating an enclosure which afforded at least a little protection from the weather. Margaret climbed up beside her and told him their address.

The crowd was still gathered on the sidewalk, noisily debating events, and no doubt discussing whether or not Margaret should even be out of the house. Margaret smiled and waved her thanks. ‘Xie-xie,’ she said, and the thirty or more people gathered there burst into spontaneous applause. The driver strained sinewy old legs to get the pedals turning, and they bumped down into the cycle lane heading west.

It was a long and arduous cycle, taking nearly forty minutes. Mrs. Campbell, pale and drawn, sat clutching her daughter’s arm. Her face was smudged and tear-stained, her hair like a bird’s nest blown from a tree in a storm. All dignity was gone, and her pride severely dented. The bleeding from her knee had stopped, but it was bruised and swelling. ‘I should never have come,’ she kept saying. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have come.’ She shuddered. ‘All those horrible people with their hands on me.’

‘Those “horrible” people,’ Margaret said angrily, ‘had nothing but concern for your well-being. Do you think if you’d fallen like that on a Chicago street anyone would even have stopped to ask if you were all right? Someone would almost certainly have run off with your purse. And I can just see a taxi driver stopping to give you a lift home.’

‘Oh, and I suppose your precious Chinese coolie is giving us a lift out of the goodness of his heart.’ Mrs. Campbell was not far from further tears.

‘He is not a coolie,’ Margaret said, shocked, and lowering her voice. ‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’

When they finally reached the apartment block, the trishaw driver helped Mrs. Campbell out of the cab, waving aside Margaret’s offer of help, and insisted on taking her mother into the elevator and up to the apartment. Only when he’d got her seated in the living room did his expression of serious concentration slip, and a wide smile split his face.

‘Oh, my God,’ Margaret’s mother breathed. ‘Look at his teeth!’

He had one solitary yellow peg pushing out his upper lip, and three on the bottom. Margaret was mortified and delved hurriedly into her purse to retrieve some yuan notes. ‘How much?’ she asked him. ‘Duoshao?’ He grinned and shook his head and waved his hand. ‘No, no, you must,’ Margaret insisted, and tried to push five, ten yuan notes into his hand, but he just backed away. And Margaret knew that having once refused he could not change his mind without losing face, mianzi.

‘Zai jian,’ he said and started for the door.

Margaret caught his arm. ‘You have a child?’ she said.

He looked at her blankly and she looked around the room frantically for something to convey her meaning. There was a small framed photograph on the table of Li’s niece, Xinxin. She grabbed it and pointed at Xinxin and then at the driver. ‘You have a child?’

He frowned for a moment, perplexed, and then caught her drift. He nodded and grinned, then pointed to the photograph and shook his finger, before pointing it at himself.

‘You have a son,’ Margaret said. And she held up the folded notes and pushed them into his hand. ‘For your son.’ And she pointed again at the photograph of Xinxin and then at him.

Clearly he understood, for he hesitated a moment, uncertain if his pride would allow him to accept. In the end, he closed his hand around the notes and bowed solemnly. ‘Xie-xie,’ he said.

When he had gone, Margaret went back into the living room and stood glaring at her mother, who by now was feeling very sorry for herself. ‘You never even said thank you to him,’ Margaret upbraided her.

‘I don’t speak the language.’

Margaret shook her head, fury building inside her. ‘No, it’s not that. The truth is, he doesn’t count. Isn’t that right? He’s just some Chinese peasant with bad teeth.’

‘And an eye for a fast buck. I saw he wasn’t slow to take that wad of notes you pushed at him.’

Margaret raised her eyes to the heavens and took a deep breath. When she had controlled the impulse to strike the woman who had brought her into this world, she said, ‘You know, there was a time when I first came here, that I saw Chinese faces as very strange, quite alien.’ She paused. ‘Now I don’t even see them as Chinese. Maybe one day you’ll feel that way too, and then you’ll see them for what they are — just people. Just like us.’

Mrs. Campbell turned doleful eyes on her daughter. ‘In the light of my experiences to date, Margaret, that seems highly unlikely.’ And she let her head roll back on the settee and closed her eyes.

‘Jesus!’ Margaret hissed her frustration. ‘I wish I’d never asked you to the wedding.’

Her mother opened eyes that brimmed with tears. ‘I wish I’d never come!’