Bad Traffic (21 page)

‘Fuck this,’ said Jian. He got out of the van and pointed his gun at the figures on the ground, holding his arm out straight to make sure they saw the ugly thing. The woman gasped, and a man reached across and grasped her hand.

The keys to the sports car were still in the ignition. Black leather creaked as Jian got in. He was reclined far back and much lower than he was used to, and the pedals were small and close together.

‘Quickly, quickly,’ said Ding Ming, clambering in.

Jian ran from first to third and back again, getting used to the tight shifts, and varied pressure on the pedals to get a sense of the engine’s response. The thing was so powerful and sensitive it would take some getting used to.

He drove to the police car, and got out and chucked the utility belts, the medical kit, the tool kit and the map into the cramped space behind the bucket seats.

‘Hurry – they’re getting up.’

Jian put his foot down, sweeping the car right around the car park, and glimpsed upraised puzzled faces as he turned into the road.

‘This is a car,’ said the peasant. ‘Will you look at this? There’s a button here to change the angle of the wing
mirror
. That’s a CD player. I think this is air con. It’s like a spaceship.’

‘Don’t touch anything.’

Tilted back in the bucket seat, surrounded by illuminated dials and readouts, Jian felt more like a pilot than a driver.
The thing ate up road, but he still didn’t know if he was going in the right direction.

‘Get on and read that map. Find out where we are.’ He pointed. ‘There’s signs everywhere.’

‘That’s an advert. Keep going – we’ll come to a town, and then I can look it up in the index and work it out. Can you put a light on in here?’

Stealing this car had solved nothing. Those sex maniacs from the car park would ring the police and a call would go out, would be going out now: Chinese hostage-taker now travelling in black sporty number registration whatever whatever, take him dead or alive. Across the force, the crime would be taken personally. Every cop in the country would yearn to catch the man who’d stolen a squad car.

‘You said I could make a call. Can I borrow your phone?’

‘No.’

Jian no longer had his daughter’s pink mobile. He’d lost it in the lake, along with the wallet. It must have slipped out when he was swimming. He’d been concentrating on keeping the address book, he hadn’t given those others a thought.

‘You said as long as I spoke Mandarin to her, you’d let me. We had an agreement that, if I started the engine of that van, you’d let me phone my mother. I started the van.’

‘But it wasn’t any good, you set off the steering lock. Our agreement is void.’

‘Please.’

‘My mobile is out of charge.’

Which, he told himself, wasn’t really a lie.

‘I have to call my mother. They tied her to a chair.’

The man was like a scratched record. Jian repeated his earlier argument, working to keep the impatience out of his voice.

‘Think about it. They thought you died, with me, drowned in that van. There’s no longer any reason to threaten your mum. Or any of your family. You’re free. You know what? You pulled off a great trick. They think you’re dead, so they won’t collect the money you owe.’

‘Oh no – they told us quite specifically. If we die we still owe the twenty thousand. They’ll collect from my family.’

‘It’s going to be fine. Everything will work out so long as you help me get where I’m going.’

He injected an upbeat tone that he did not feel. This was like talking to children, something he had never been good at. He gave the peasant the address book. ‘Find this place.’

Out of the corner of his eye he checked that the lad was considering the road map. He would rather they travel in silence, but he couldn’t afford for the lad to start sulking.

‘Have you found it yet?’

‘The village isn’t marked. I think the scale is too big. This map only has towns.’

‘Find the province.’

Ding Ming showed him the back cover, a picture of the whole lumpy island.

‘It’s here. See? England is shaped like a squatting woman, and we’re heading to her big bottom.’

‘And which direction is that?’

‘I don’t know, do I? When you take me back,’ said Ding Ming, ‘do you think they’ll punish me?’

‘What’s in it for them? They’ll put you straight to work.’

‘I’m worried they’ll realise I helped you.’

‘Your story is, I abused you, then you escaped and made that phone call to your boss. After the van went in the water, you got that nice Chinese girl from the restaurant to help you find your way back.’

He prattled on, trying to sound convincing.

‘Just have that straight, and stick to it. Be glad you’re so beaten up – that’ll help convince them. They’ll see you’ve had a very bad time.’

Ding Ming fingered the bump on his forehead.

This was a future so distant it wasn’t worth thinking about, the peasant’s concerns were touching but absurd. The poor lad believed everything was going to work out. They’d get where they were going, and the peasant would wait in the car twiddling his thumbs while the people who needed to be killed got killed, and then they’d just drive back. As if this was all some country jaunt.

‘Everything is going to be fine. Can you work out what road we’re on?’

‘I’m looking, it’s difficult. You go so fast I can’t finish
reading
the signs. What are you going to do after?’

‘After what?’

‘After you drop me back at the mud.’

Jian reflected guiltily that, without the texted address stored in the pink phone’s memory, it would be much
harder
for him to return the peasant. In fact, it would be almost impossible.

‘That’s no concern of yours.’

Jian hadn’t thought about it and didn’t care to start
thinking
about it now. When he imagined the killing of the men who murdered his daughter, he could see possibilities,
strategies
and outcomes. But he could not envision a life
afterwards
. The prospect of more days to fill wasn’t pleasing. He realised that he expected to die.

Jian accelerated but he hardly felt it at all. Looking out of the windscreen was like watching TV, the car handled as if it was on rails.

‘This is a lovely car. She drives like a bullet. Chunky in lower gear, but when she gets over fifty she’s flying. Listen to that purr.’

A sniff made him look across. Ding Ming was gripping the edges of his seat and looked like he was about to cry.

‘What’s the problem now?’

‘I never thought I could be sitting in such a wonderful thing, but it isn’t making me happy.’

How could a great car make you sob? But the peasant had to be jollied along.

‘Don’t worry about it. Your mother is fine, you’re fine. I’ll get you back, you can save up and one day buy one of these.’

The snotty sobs irritated Jian. As if he didn’t have enough to deal with of his own. At least the lad hadn’t watched a film of his daughter being killed. His hands tightened on the wheel and he pushed the accelerator. A box at the side of the road flashed.

‘That was a camera,’ said Ding Ming. ‘They took a picture. They know where we are.’

You’re paranoid. Look, there’s a sign. Where are we?’

They entered a suburb and Jian slowed. He felt
uncomfortably
conspicuous around traffic, pedestrians and buildings. He stopped at a red light.

Ding Ming pointed. ‘Is that a police car?’

The squad car, unmistakable in its waspish war paint, sat in a layby ahead, hazard warning lights blinking. Jian
considered
turning and taking off, but then they’d certainly
pursue
. He could outrun one, but how many more would come? Roadblocks would be set up, marksmen deployed.

Perhaps after all, when the lights changed, he’d be able just to cruise past. His fingers drummed on the wheel. A man was crossing the road, pulling a dog on a lead. What was it with these people and their dogs? They appeared to dote on them more than children. Another car pulled up behind. Feeling boxed in, he shifted uneasily. Ding Ming was groping around the back seat.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m your hostage.’ The lad fumbled a handcuff onto a wrist and was about to snap it closed.

‘Don’t be an idiot.’ Jian snatched the cuffs away and sat on them. The lights changed to green. Ding Ming opened the door. Jian grabbed his collar and yanked him back.

‘I wasn’t going to go. I just thought I’d leave it open.’

The car behind parped its horn. The map book slipped off Ding Ming’s lap, out of the crack in the door and into the gutter. Jian pulled the peasant’s head close. He said, ‘One two three. Get out, pick up the book and close the door.’

The car behind tooted again.

‘Okay?’

‘Okay.’ The peasant got out, picked up the map book, got back in and pulled the door to. Jian took the car forward at a stately pace, past the police car, which was empty. He turned off and pulled in.

‘Are you going to panic all the time?’ he said. ‘Are you going to run around like a monkey? You’re no use if you’re just going to lose your head. If things are getting on top of you, count to three.’

He chucked the handcuffs in the back.

‘Don’t think you have to act fast. Think about what you’re going to do, then do it. Slow is sure and sure is fast. Read the map. Where are we?’

‘We’re in— the lad jabbered in English, a fluid twitter of birdsong. ‘We have to go through town and get on the –
birdsong
– which leads us to – birdsong – and then we head straight south on the – birdsong. And then we’re in the right province.’

‘About how far?’

‘Two hundred kilometres.’

‘We’ll get to the province, then take a better map.’

Driving in the town was stressful. Back home Jian rarely bothered to indicate and, if he felt like going the wrong way around a roundabout, no one was going to stop him. But here he did not want to draw attention to himself, so was careful to try and obey the rules of the road. But really, there were just too many of them. Certain streets only allowed traffic in one direction, on others right or left turns were
forbidden
, this lane was for turning off, this for going straight, this just for buses. Traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and speed bumps turned the road into an obstacle course. The sports car didn’t like crawling in low gear and he kept stalling it.

At least Ding Ming seemed to be throwing himself into his task. He found a page in the book which explained what road signs meant, and when a sign appeared would flick to it and frown through the explanation and shout, ‘You were meant to stop there’, ‘Dead end, dead end’, or, ‘this is a one way street, turn round, turn round.’

They were aiming for a road labelled with a letter and the number 46. After an exasperating series of roundabouts, they appeared to be on it. Jian realised he was craned so far
forward in the seat that his chin was almost touching the steering wheel.

The road opened up. It was a scene with few human
referents
– just lines and lights, and, at the side of the road, illuminated numbers and diagrams. Robotic and
entrancing
, it was a system a person plugged his car into, a system designed for speed, and Jian put his foot down. He kept the speedometer hovering around the ninety mark, about a hundred and forty-five kilometres an hour. He’d never had such a feeling of swiftness in his life. Even trains didn’t go this fast.

Ding Ming kept peering out of the side window. Jian could discern nothing that might be holding his attention. The roadside was deserted – no food stalls or cheap hotels, just a barrier, then fields. It reminded him of the wilderness back home, because that too was a harsh unpopulated
environment
a man felt all alone in.

He realised that was the first time he’d thought of home in hours. He cast his mind over his recent life like a man
probing
a bad tooth with his tongue, inviting a lancing shot of pain. He could not recall with much accuracy the faces of his colleagues or the bodies of his girls. He looked at this
figure
who caroused and cultivated connections and hankered after his very own Audi, and he saw an inconsequential man with silly preoccupations. Here was a house with a big TV and a karaoke set and a PC, all showy and hardly used. What a daft frittering-away, all of it.

A phone was ringing, he answered, and he asked how her studies were doing and what she was eating, and he was hurrying her along because he was drunk and didn’t want to be bothered. There was the pain, right there, and
masochistically
he jammed the sore point again – hurrying her along because he didn’t want to be bothered.

‘What are you doing?’ screeched the peasant, and Jian swung the car back into the right lane. ‘Concentrate.’

‘I’m fine, I’m fine. What are you looking at?’

‘Cows.’

‘Where?’

‘They’re all over. You spot one and then you see lots, like mushrooms. I don’t like them. They look selfish.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘One of those cows has more land than a Chinese family. It’s disgusting. And another thing. I look out and all I see are cow fields. Where are the vegetables? And where are the
factories
and the mines? It doesn’t add up.’

‘The fields and factories and mines are in other
countries
.’

‘They’re cow people.’

‘What are you talking about now?’

‘They’re like their big stupid cows. Their life is the easiest it is possible to imagine: they wander around their lovely park, all day going munch munch munch. Nothing to worry about, just munching the stupid grass all day long in a lovely big field. And people like me, we are the rats. We live in the ditch and eat shit and watch out for the hawks, and our life is
bitterness
and struggle, and we’re terrified all the time.’

‘Rats don’t eat shit.’

They shot past a police car parked in the hard shoulder.

‘Police, police.’

‘Fuck.’

In the rear view Jian saw the squad car set off and flash its lights.