The Chemical Reaction

by Fiona Erskine

  There was no overhead locker room left and she was forced to put her case under the seat in front. In the middle of a group of five seats, to her left were an American couple, large in girth, height and voice. In the throes of a major dispute, their raised voices attracted attention from all sides. To her right a pair of Chinese businessmen were vying for supremacy in a throat-clearing competition. The one closest to her appeared to be winning. The endless supply of phlegm didn’t bode well for the flight.

  Immediately after take-off, the man in front reclined his seat as far as it would go, strands of long greasy hair spilling over the top onto Jaq’s in-flight entertainment screen. Not that it made much difference to her viewing; the system wasn’t working in her section of the plane, which caused the American couple to redirect their wrath at the flight attendant, and a grumpy child behind her to alternate between kicking her seat and screaming in her ear.

  Far too cramped to get her laptop out, she settled for a notebook and pencil, going over the numbers she’d written down.

  71-71.

  Atomic number 71. Lutetium. One of the rare earths, a silvery-white metal. Not so rare – more abundant than silver – but sparsely distributed throughout rocks also containing yttrium. Used as a catalyst in the petrochemical industry, cracking crude oil to make useful products. Lutetium-176, one of the isotopes, has a half-life of 38 billion years, useful in cancer therapy and in dating asteroids. Symbol: Lu.

  Lulu.

  53-61-76-52-75.

  Atomic number 53. Iodine, a superb disinfectant. Symbol: I.

  61. Promethium, another rare earth, highly radioactive. Symbol: Pm.

  76. Osmium, the densest element found in nature, a hard, brittle, blue-black metal. Symbol: Os.

  52. Tellurium, a metal easily absorbed by the human body, causing garlic breath. Symbol: Te.

  75. Rhenium, one of the rarest elements in the earth’s crust. Symbol: Re.

  I Pm Os Te Re.

  Ipmostere.

  Imposter.

  Lulu is an imposter. Sim, senhor. That much she’d already worked out for herself. Slowly, far too slowly. When the first story, that Lulu was Dan’s sister, began to unravel, Jaq had been too quick to jump to the conclusion that they were lovers. She’d been suspicious from the start, when Lulu came to meet her instead of Dan. She’d let her guard down, her normal common sense distorted by the story of his disappearance.

  20-7-73-44-16-90-68.

  Atomic number 20, calcium, a soft grey metal, the fifth most abundant element in the earth’s crust. Symbol: Ca.

  7, nitrogen, a gas that makes up 80% of the air we breathe, symbol: N.

  73, tantalum, a rare, hard, blue-grey, lustrous metal used in mobile phones, DVD players, video game systems and computers. Symbol: Ta.

  44, ruthenium, a silvery-white metal found with platinum. Symbol: Ru.

  16, sulphur, brimstone, the foul-smelling ‘burning stone’. Symbol: S.

  90, thorium, a radioactive metal, more abundant than uranium, co-fuel for future nuclear reactors in China. Symbol: Th.

  68, erbium, a rare earth metal used in lasers. Symbol: Er.

  20 Ca, 7 N, 73 Ta, 44 Ru, 16 S, 90 Th, 68 Er.

  Ca N Ta Ru S Th Er.

  Can’t trust her.

  Couldn’t get clearer than that. Lulu was one person Jaq would not be contacting when she arrived back in Shanghai. Once bitten, twice shy.

  7-8-15-8-3-58.

  7, nitrogen, N.

  8, oxygen, O.

  15, phosphorus, P.

  8, oxygen, O.

  3, lithium, Li.

  58, cerium, Ce.

  N O P O Li Ce.

  No police.

  Yes, that also figured. Jaq’s only contact with the authorities had been the tall policeman with perfect English who ran her out of town. Yan Bing, the recently appointed head of the Art Police, his photo was everywhere, posing with Ming vases and silk paintings, the treasures of China recovered for the nation. So, what had he been doing in Shingbo? And why had he interfered with her Krixo investigation?

  9-53-60-74-47-7.

  9

  fluorine

  F

  53

  iodine

  I

  60

  neodymium

  Nd

  74

  tungsten

  W

  47

  silver

  Ag

  7

  nitrogen

  N

  F I Nd W Ag N.

  Find Wang.

  Wang, as in the Chinese boss of Krixo?

  59-8-52-43-54-3-7.

  59

  praseodymium

  Pr

  8

  oxygen

  O

  52

  tellurium

  Te

  43

  technetium

  Tc

  54

  xenon

  Xe

  3

  lithium

  Li

  7

  nitrogen

  N

  Pr O Te Tc Xe Li N.

  Protetc XeLiN.

  Protect Xe Lin.

  Something about the name Xe Lin had rung a bell. On the train from Aberdeen, she typed it into a search engine. Two thousand hits. She tried Xe Lin and Ning Dan. Still hundreds of hits. What about Xe Lin and Krixo?

  Claro. There it was.

  Dr Xe Lin, PhD in chemistry from Teesside University, supervisor Charles Clark, now research director at Krixo. What was her connection with Dan? Judging by the dates, they were contemporaries at Teesside University. Had their paths crossed? When Jaq asked about Krixo, had Dan realised he knew their research director? Had he decided to go and see Xe Lin in person?

  Or had he met a monk on a train and gone to an island monastery?

  As she couldn’t reach him by phone or email, there was only one way to find out.

  Shanghai, China

  The immigration official put up a hand to stop the next passenger from advancing. She switched her booth light to red, picked up the phone and dialled.

  ‘Ni hao.’

  ‘Yes? What is it?’ The deep male voice was brusque.

  ‘You asked to be informed of certain arrivals.’

  ‘Who?’ The head of the Art Police sounded bored, impatient.

  ‘Number forty-seven. Arrived a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Any problems?’ A spark of interest.

  ‘No problems.’

  ‘Good.’ Yan Bing’s voice softened for a moment. ‘Well done. Border control keeps China safe.’ The line went dead.

  After a moment of pleasant reflection, the official switched her booth light to green and waved the next passenger forward.

  In the arrivals hall, Bluetooth earpieces were winking.

  The square-faced driver scanned the emerging passengers. It wasn’t an easy job – Westerners all looked the same – but he spotted No. 47 without too much difficulty.

  He touched his earpiece twice for the others to stand down and followed at a safe distance.

  Shanghai, China

  The balcony of the old Spanish signal tower overlooked the busy Huangpu river. A flat barge, piled high with sand, chugged round the bend, trailing a cloud of red-gold glitter. Faster barges gave it a wide berth, hurrying to supply the massive cranes of Pudong with cement and gravel, wood and steel, copper and glass, all racing to add another skyscraper to the Shanghai skyline. The perfect view for an engineer trying to stay awake.

  Unable to sleep on the overnight flight, crammed in between noisy travellers in cramped and uncomfortable seats, Jaq felt wretched. Immigration had taken forever; she was among the last to disembark and the queue moved at a snail’s pace. Avoiding the expensive Maglev, she took a bus from the airport to a mid-price hotel in the suburbs. A far cry from the luxury that Sophie Clark had enabled. After a shower, it took all her willpower not to lie down on the bed, not to slip between smooth sheets, not to close her eyes. Her body was in turmoil, biolo
gical alarms screaming for sleep. Her period had started, and her lower back ached. Everything ached. What harm could there be in a short nap? So tempting. And the worst way to prolong the discombobulation. Sleep now would come too late and too briefly to do anything except befuddle. Best to keep going, hit the wall of weariness and punch through, go with the light and reset the body clock by delaying sleep until it was night again, China time.

  She dressed in clean clothes and walked to the metro, changing twice to get to a more familiar part of town. Her body needed to move and stretch after being confined for so long, but her brain had been replaced with cotton wool somewhere over Mongolia. Every step was a mental as well as physical effort.

  She walked as far as Huangpu Park at the end of the Bund, where she was confronted by an abstract concrete monument: three giant rifle barrels, with their tips meeting high above her. Dizzy from looking up, she sat on a step to study the bas-relief at the bottom. A monument to the people’s heroes, the plaque told her, to those who died in wars and the victims of natural disasters. It didn’t mention the man-made disasters.

  Heavy traffic rumbled on Zhongshan Road behind her. Fog limited the view beyond the river. She could just make out the skyscrapers of Pudong disappearing into a grey sky. Her eyelids began to droop. Get up. Keep moving. Every movement was in slow motion, the air a soup of cold treacle.

  The smell of roasting coffee drew her to the old Spanish signal tower – a small oval building made of alternating red and white stone. The slim tower, topped by a crow’s nest and mast, had been converted into a café and bar.

  She took a seat with a view of the river and ordered a double espresso. A poster caught her eye: a louche-looking group of Western men dressed in dinner jackets with dress shirts open and bow ties suggestively untied. She stood up and inspected the poster for the launch of Hop!, a new brand of light beer for women. She recognised the fake priest from her previous flight, Timur, one of five strippers. The Masters of Disguise were going on a pan-China tour. So, he’d got the job after all.

  The purple-bordered card was still in her silver case. In different circumstances she might have called him. But right now, she had more pressing matters to attend to.

  She called SEITA.

  Gateshead, England

  A black limousine cruised over the Tyne Bridge and pulled up outside the glittering snail shell of Sage Gateshead, its tinted glass lit up from within. The chauffeur sprang out, opening the door for his female passenger – pink stiletto heels followed by long bare legs, a short cream dress and white fur stole – and then for her more soberly dressed companion.

  ‘Have a great evening,’ PK said, touching his cap. ‘I’ll be waiting out here from nine.’

  Frank ignored him. Although he always asked for PK by name when he booked with Chariot Cars, it didn’t mean he was obliged to make conversation with his regular driver. PK was a reliable man of few words and boundless discretion.

  Frank took Sophie’s arm and led the way towards the auditorium.

  ‘Are you sure I’ll like it?’ Sophie hesitated outside the revolving door. ‘I’ve never been to a classical music concert before.’

  Frank pushed ahead. ‘What harm does it do to try?’

  In the mood to celebrate, he checked his pockets for the ring. Plan C. Sophie would come to Shanghai with him. As his wife. His rich and beautiful wife. Not exactly cultured, but he could change that.

  He’d selected the easiest programme he could find, the musical equivalent of baby milk with soft white bread, no crusts and a little crash-bang-wallop tomfoolery to help the paps down. God give him strength: Classical Music’s Greatest Hits was not the programme he would have chosen, given a free hand.

  One drink at the bar – a double Bloody Mary for Frank and a large Chardonnay for Sophie, the same on order for the interval – and he began to feel a little more optimistic as they took their seats in the familiar wood-clad auditorium.

  ‘How will I know when to clap?’ Sophie asked.

  Frank shuddered. ‘Just don’t, OK?’ Nothing worse than an audience who couldn’t count and applauded between movements, breaking the spell, ruining the magic. ‘Follow my lead.’

  At the interval, Sophie went to the bathroom while Frank collected the drinks from the bar and took them to a shelf overlooking the river.

  The melee at the bar was reflected in the glass. Depressing to see how popular this concert was proving. Compared to the superb Baroque season he’d attended last year, the audience was both larger and younger. And clearly stupider.

  Frank looked out at the dark river and illuminated bridge, now a shade of magenta, and his own reflection in the curved glass. A striking Chinese woman met his eyes and kept her gaze fixed on him as she approached from behind, swaying on killer heels, her blue sheath dress with thigh-high split tight on her body as she moved. She came so close to him that he could feel the heat from her body, smell her perfume with hints of lavender. He didn’t move away. Take your time, Sophie.

  ‘Your friend,’ she said. ‘Tell her to be more careful.’

  Frank turned and appraised the stranger. Even more desirable in the flesh than her reflection. Pulsating with repressed desire. Or anger. Hello, what was all this about? Some sort of catfight in the toilets? Had Sophie trodden on someone’s lipstick, spilled their face powder, nudged an arm while they were applying mascara?

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Is this hers?’ The Chinese woman extended a small hand towards the large glass of white wine, the short fingernails painted a shade of blue that complemented her satin dress.

  Without waiting for a reply, she curled her slim fingers around the stem, raised it to her crimson lips and slowly, deliberately, her eyes never leaving his, took a long sip.

  Frank was lost for words.

  ‘It’s not nice to take other people’s things, is it?’ She placed the glass back on the shelf, a smudge of lipstick on the rim, before opening a black sequined purse and removing a coin. ‘You have to pay for the things you steal.’ She dropped the coin into the wine. A little crown of golden liquid formed and then plopped back. ‘Or better still, give them back.’ She spat into the wine, a stream of saliva coalescing into a fat globule that bobbed to the surface.

  The interval bell rang, and she was gone.

  Frank remained at the window, gripping the rail. Where the hell was Sophie? What sort of trouble was she mixed up in? This was not going to plan, not at all. If she was as rich as he suspected, he was willing to overlook the mysterious case of a vanishing factory. But what else was she keeping secret? He moved away from the sullied wine glass and downed his vodka.

  The second bell rang.

  If Sophie didn’t come back in the next five minutes, he was tempted to return to his seat without her. It was perfectly obvious she had a tin ear, although she seemed pleased when she recognised a tune. ‘Platoon!’ she whispered excitedly after Samuel Barber’s interminable adagio for strings. ‘Elvira Madigan!’ Truth be told, he could happily give the second half a miss; there was something profoundly depressing about a meal that consisted of nothing but puddings, only so many times the bloody lark could ascend. But he wasn’t here to enjoy himself, he was here to tighten his hold on an heiress.

  He strode to the entrance of the women’s toilets and accosted a middle-aged woman as she left. ‘My companion,’ he said and pointed inside. ‘Can you check if she’s OK?’

  ‘No one there,’ she said. ‘I’m the last out.’

  The third bell rang.

  ‘Oops, better hurry.’ She bustled past him.

  Frank found a steward and explained his plight. She entered the toilet. He heard her knocking on the door of a cubicle.

  And then she screamed.

  Mount Putuo, China

  The giant statue of Guanyin towered above a sea the colour of mud. The gender-bending deity gleamed after an ill-judged regilding, the bright acid gold clashing with the subdued greens of the tropical vegetation and turbid sea below. Bodhisatt
va Avalokiteshvara shone with a harsh quality of mercy.

  Jaq’s head ached, and her eyes burned. She’d returned to her hotel too tired to seek dinner and fallen asleep. With the result that she woke at midnight, tossing and turning, hunger pains gnawing at her stomach, drifting off just as an alarm pierced her muddled dreams with a shrill peal.

  The journey to the island had been easier than Jaq had expected, a bus most of the way and then a short ferry ride, a trip she could easily have managed herself. But now she was saddled with Chang En, English name Brad. If he was named after the actor Brad Pitt, it had been an ironic appellation. She quickly developed an antipathy towards her SEITA interpreter, and as far as she could tell, the feeling was wholly mutual. One of the first truly overweight Chinese men she had ever met, there was something floppy about him that went beyond his paunch. Everything she said made him screw his face up with puzzlement or cause him to break into peals of high-pitched laughter. When he spoke, it was to trot out stock phrases, whether appropriate or not. He put her in mind of a weak-minded sloth. And moved at the same speed.

  Brad the Sloth slept through the bus journey and waited until they were on a crowded ferry before explaining to her that most of Shanghai and Ningbo would be converging on the island tonight for a grand karaoke party on one-thousand-step beach. This crowd were going to make the full-moon parties of Ko Pha-Ngan in Thailand look exclusive and refined.

  She had imagined Dan in a tranquil place, empty except for a few monks, silent apart from the tinkling of temple bells, remote from the city with only the scent of wood fires and incense. Had she known it was a crowded tourist trap, she would have reconsidered.

  The Sloth ushered Jaq onto a tour group that involved traipsing from one monument to another. He translated the local guide’s animated descriptions into a monotone, a litany of dates and periods: ‘Built in Ming Dynasty, 1368–1574. Renovated in Qing Dynasty, 1904.’ Everywhere they went, hundreds of people went with them. The temples had been refurbished in faux ancient style.