The Firemaker (39 page)

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

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

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

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

‘What do you mean?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘If you’re talking about The Needle …’

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

‘Chief?’

‘
Do you understand?
’

‘Yes, Chief.’

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

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

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

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

II

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

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

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

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

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

‘Shit, I’m sorry, Bob. I slept in.’

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

Margaret flushed. ‘I’m sorry?’

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

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

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

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

‘Yes. They do.’

‘How?’ She was incredulous.

‘Lily Peng.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III

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

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

‘Did you get all that stuff copied?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘It’s Lotus.’

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

‘She’s been arrested.’

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

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