The Chemical Reaction

by Fiona Erskine

  Until the white angel joined them, a vision in flowing white silk, her silver sword cutting and slashing. The assassins fled from the whirling dervish.

  Jaq tried to reach out to her, but the pain came in a wave and everything went black.

  Shanghai, China

  ‘Welcome to China, Frank!’

  A small, rotund Chinese man bustled through the airport crowds, beaming through thick-rimmed spectacles.

  ‘My name is Joe, and I’m in HR.’

  Frank took the proffered hand and gave the plump white flesh a firm squeeze, letting go only after some discomfort passed across Joe’s smooth features. He hated the word Human Resources, and its abbreviation, HR, almost as much as he loathed the people drawn to it.

  ‘My name is Mr Good.’

  ‘I’ll be happy to show you around Shanghai.’ Joe gave a nervous giggle. ‘Mr Good.’

  Frank yawned. ‘Take me to my apartment.’

  The uniformed man holding the Zagrovyl sign tucked it under his arm and seized the luggage.

  ‘This is Tsin Ding.’ Joe introduced Frank to his official driver. ‘We’ll go to Jade Villas. It takes about an hour, OK? Very nice. Very top-class. Very convenient.’

  The apartment was part of a gated community in the south-east of the city. The car stopped at a security checkpoint to be searched before being allowed to meander slowly through cast-iron gates, past tennis courts and an outdoor swimming pool to a clutch of apartments and villas in shady gardens.

  Joe waited by the lift while Frank checked his new accommodation.

  ‘Everything OK?’ he called through the door.

  Everything very much OK. Much more spacious than expected, given the price of Shanghai real estate. The apartment was on the top floor, with a large living room and terrace looking out over Century Park to the west and Pudong golf course to the east. It had a well-equipped kitchen, the fridge already stocked with eggs and bacon and milk and a range of ready meals, separate dining room, a master bedroom with en suite bathroom, two further bedrooms, a family bathroom and a study. Graham had done him proud.

  ‘It’ll do, I suppose.’

  ‘And now? You rest? Meet later?’

  Frank refused Joe’s offer to take him to dinner. He wasn’t going to celebrate his first night in Shanghai with a minder from Zagrovyl. He had other plans.

  ‘Tell the driver what you want. He’ll take you where you want to go.’ Joe handed Frank a new phone, already programmed with the driver’s number.

  ‘Hamburger, hotpot, massage . . .’

  HR obviously meant something different here.

  ‘Anything you want, just say the word.’

  After a shower and a nap, Frank did exactly that.

  ‘Xītŭ.’

  The card came from a man at the golf club who was often in Shanghai on business, a discreet and exclusive nightclub. And the best knocking shop in town.

  Zhengzhou, China

  The bare room contained a narrow metal bed with a thin mattress, a washstand with a basin and jug. Watery winter light filtered through the bars of a small, high window. Hospital or prison? A cast-iron radiator clunked and clanged as hot water mixed with steam, but Jaq was glad of the noise. The room was so cold, she could see her breath as well as hear it. Small puffs of steam after each ragged gasp. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to move, it hurt even to remain still. She tried to move her limbs only to find that her wrists and ankles were tied to the bed. She called out, begging for some relief from the awful pain.

  The woman who tended her, a nun with shaved head, dark red robe and brown woolly cardigan, was as unsmiling as she was efficient. She put warm poultices on the bruises and gave Jaq a potion to drink, some ancient Chinese herbal medicine, perhaps – it certainly tasted godawful. What Jaq needed right now was codeine, ibuprofen, paracetamol, aspirin. But the nun spoke no English and Jaq was trapped in this spartan cell until she could move again. She gave in to sleep.

  By the time Jaq knew which day it was, she had missed the meeting. The event that had brought her to the Shaolin Temple, a meeting between Timur and Wang, had taken place without her. She had come all this way only to get the stuffing knocked out of her. Someone had beaten her up to keep her away.

  From Krixo?

  Or from Timur?

  The nun showed her the photo that the men had left beside her beaten body. Despite the poor quality, it was easy to identify both Jaq and Timur as they kissed. Was that why she’d been beaten up? A jealous lover? A nervous tour promoter who didn’t want anyone spoiling the illusion that the Masters of Disguise were only here to please Chinese women? To sell them beer?

  The next time she woke, a woman was sitting on her bed. She wore a loose white tunic and matching trousers. Her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  Jaq tried to sit up; pain flooded her body and she sank back down, defeated. ‘Wretched.’

  The woman patted the bed. ‘I’m Mico, by the way.’

  ‘Jaq.’

  ‘I know. You’re the one who was kissing my employee.’

  Jaq’s eyes flew open. Was this the jealous lover, come to finish the job? Play for time.

  ‘Your employee?’

  ‘I hired the Masters of Disguise for the Hop! tour.’

  So, this was the deluded Svengali who imagined that naked Western men could entice Chinese women into drinking beer.

  ‘And their contract forbids them from fraternising while on tour.’

  ‘It’s not what you think.’

  ‘You have no idea what I think,’ Mico said. ‘Or what I do.’ She turned sideways so that Jaq could see the scabbard slung across her back.

  Was this the murderer? The woman who had travelled to England to torture and kill?

  ‘Are you a thief, too?’ If Jaq was about to die, she might as well understand why.

  ‘My, someone is well informed.’ Mico frowned. ‘I think of it less as theft and more as repatriation on behalf of the Chinese people.’

  ‘You employed the Masters of Disguise to “repatriate” ancient Chinese treasures?’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘But what is your connection with Krixo?’ Why had Timur arranged to meet the boss of Krixo here at the Shaolin Temple? What was the link between the jade treasures and a vanishing factory?

  ‘Wang has the missing piece of the collection. We’re negotiating its return.’

  Negotiating. It sounded so reasonable coming from this softly-spoken woman with her perfect English. Was it negotiation when she sliced the young auctioneer to death? Or cut the retired metallurgist to pieces? And what about their innocent pets? Jaq felt sick at the thought. Was Wang in danger from this fanatic? Is that why the factory disappeared overnight?

  ‘How can a few bits of ancient rock justify so much harm?’

  ‘Sometimes the end justifies the means.’

  ‘And do the proceeds of their sale get “repatriated” to your pocket?’

  Mico chuckled. ‘It’s so much more fun than that. Not only did my trusty band of light-fingered athletes have to break into Western museums to acquire the treasures, they are going to break into a Chinese museum to return them. Nothing if not brilliantly symmetrical.’

  ‘That’s absurd.’

  ‘You think? Perhaps because you have no idea of how China works. To return the treasures through formal channels risks their disappearance. No: this is the only way. Imagine the surprise after a burglary to find that nothing has been taken. On the contrary, you open your museum one morning to find that the Qianlong jade collection has been returned, intact, to its former home in Henan. Once social media get wind of that story it’ll be harder to disappear those objects into the coffers of corrupt government officials.’

  The penny dropped. ‘People like Yan Bing?’

  Mico narrowed her eyes. ‘Perhaps you know too much, Jaq.’ She raised her hand to her left shoulder and pulled out a sword, the blade glinting in a shaft of sunlight that slid
between the bars of the window. ‘More than is safe.’

  ‘Are you going to kill me?’

  Mico threw back her head and broke into peals of laughter.

  ‘Oh, but you are precious! If I wasn’t already spoken for, I might just fall for you. Don’t you remember? I’m the one who saved you.’

  The white angel, the sword-wielding dancer, this was the woman who had intervened to stop the death-beating.

  ‘Lucky for you my stunt team were filming here. Lucky for me that Yan Bing’s idiot henchman tried to make some extra money by showing me the photo of you and Timur.’

  Ah, the photo again. Perhaps she wasn’t safe yet. Had she been saved only to be tortured afresh?

  ‘The kiss,’ Jaq said. ‘It meant nothing.’

  ‘Poor boy,’ Mico said. ‘He obviously thought differently. In fact, he’s on his way to rescue you right now.’

  Mico raised the sword.

  ‘Alas, I can’t wait for him.’

  Jaq closed her eyes.

  Shanghai, China

  Frank gave Tsin Ding the card for the club and relaxed into the leather seat to watch the city unfold. The driver kept up a running commentary as they approached the river, pointing out the sights of Shanghai.

  A giant pagoda sparkled with golden light. Jin Mao Tower, the Golden Prosperity Building, 420 metres high with its spiky tiered roofs and needle spire, looked like a huge prickly cactus.

  The iconic Pearl Tower glowed pink. Tonfon Mintsyta, a mad confection of eleven spheres linked by slender columns. Little lights sparkled, moving upwards from Space City, through the twenty-bed Space Hotel, up to the revolving restaurant and then the Space Module, rising up the slender antenna to a height of 468 metres. Up went the lights and then down again. Pink and cream pearls rising and falling, the lights reflected in the smooth jade plate of the Huangpu river.

  Nicknamed the Bottle Opener, the only building in the world with a trapezoidal aperture near the top, the Shanghai World Financial Centre had been transformed into a 500-metre canvas of shimmering lights.

  The Twisty Turny Tower, tallest of them all, was lit up by ascending red bars which drew the eye to the Chinese characters circulating like a crown at the top, a giant stairway to heaven.

  And still under construction, the Shanghai Tower seemed almost organic in form, the circular glass sheath twisting through 120 degrees as it soared 632 metres above the river.

  His heart beat a little faster as the car pulled over and his driver pointed to the sign. Frank descended the steps to the basement club, his finger trembling as he pressed the intercom. A shutter opened and closed, and the steel door slid open.

  It took time for his eyes to adjust to the low lighting inside. On a central stage three pole dancers, in high heels and stockings, gyrated to the music. Above them a series of cages held other girls in various stages of undress.

  A man in a waistcoat bowed and directed Frank to a booth. He demonstrated the function of the console in the middle of the red velvet horseshoe, flicking through pictures of drinks, food and other delights.

  Frank used the screen to order a beer and a light meal, ignoring the languid performers on stage. So far, so dull.

  He checked his watch. Not long to go until the auction.

  At midnight, the volume and tempo of the music increased and new girls, fresher ones, joined the pole dancers. They wore costumes that were crying out to be removed. A dominatrix led the way, a tall black woman in a black leather catsuit with zips in interesting places, cracking a bullwhip. Chinese twins in pyjamas, conjoined at the hip, clung to one another and the soft toys they carried. Frank followed the progress of a buxom girl in a blonde wig and shepherdess costume, leading other girls dressed as sheep, wriggling their bare arses as they crawled behind her on all fours, naked except for fluffy white hoods. Each of the girls had a number sewn to their costume and their details flashed up on the screen in front of him. One by one they paraded past the booths, the occupants hidden from one another, but the raucous shouts and lustful bellows perfectly audible.

  Two girls slid into the booth, one either side of Frank. Both impossibly young and slender, with spaced-out dark eyes and vacant expressions. They wore striped corsets and tight red shorts, Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The one on his left whispered something, but the music was too loud. Frank turned to the other girl, on the side of his good ear.

  ‘Which one do you like?’ Tweedledee brushed her pouting lips over his.

  Tweedledum laid a small hand on his knee and began to stroke his thigh.

  ‘Or you prefer à la carte? Something not on the menu?’ Tweedledee nibbled his earlobe, her breath hot and heavy. ‘Or something right here?’

  Perish the thought. Skeletal children with a drug problem was not Frank’s idea of a good time, however adroit the technique.

  His eyes were drawn to the shepherdess, admiring the milk-white thighs spilling over the tops of her pink stockings and vanishing enticingly into frilly panties. A very short skirt led to a tight, low-cut bodice. This one had more curves than all the other girls put together.

  ‘That one?’ whispered Tweedledum, following his eyes and finding details of the pert little newcomer on the screen.

  ‘First fuck is on the house!’ Tweedledee said, and touched the big green tick on the console. A light went on above the booth, a number flashing.

  The parade finished and the shepherdess approached. With her blonde wig and pert body, she reminded him of Sophie. The wave of sadness that washed over him was as unexpected as it was disturbing. Frank waved her away and got up to leave.

  Too late. The woman who pushed him back into his seat was not dressed for a nightclub. Surprisingly strong for her size, she wore a simple black trouser suit with a high-collared turquoise blouse. It wasn’t until she spoke that he realised who she was. Those sharp little features, the short bob of glossy black hair, the broken English. The maniac who’d attacked Sophie and threatened him was back.

  ‘Where is your friend?’

  ‘I don’t know who—’

  ‘Sophie Clark will come to Shanghai. She will bring what she stole.’

  ‘We’re not seeing each other any more. We broke up.’

  ‘Then make it up. A man like you will find a way to persuade her, I’m sure.’

  ‘This has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Oh, but it does.’ She laughed. ‘If you want to live.’

  ‘I can’t . . .’

  She laid an ice-blue velvet tube on the table, unrolling it to reveal a set of knives of increasing blade length.

  ‘Unless she comes before the Spring Festival starts, I will find you.

  ‘I will torture you.

  ‘And I will kill you.’

  Zhengzhou, China

  Jaq kept her eyes closed until she was sure that Mico was gone. She moved her limbs carefully, to find that the restraints had been severed. Bloody overdramatic way to release her. Mico had a lot to answer for.

  Timur arrived a few hours later.

  ‘Good Lord, Jaq Silver.’ He opened his eyes wide. A shade of green that reminded her of a storm at sea. ‘You certainly take your martial arts training seriously. You look terrible.’

  ‘You should see what I did to the other guys.’

  The nun said something in a low voice.

  Timur looked around. ‘Mico was here?’

  ‘Your boss?’ Jaq shivered. ‘I thought she was going to kill me.’

  ‘Mico?’ Timur laughed. ‘She wouldn’t hurt a fly. Lots of bluster and make-believe, but underneath it all she’s OK.’

  ‘She used her sword to trim my bandages.’ Jaq held up her hands to show the neat cuts. ‘I think it was a warning.’

  He approached the bed and knelt beside her, his face suddenly serious.

  ‘They tell me a bunch of thugs nearly killed you.’ He ran a hand through his short dark hair. ‘Shall we get you out of here?’

  Was it wise to go with him? The nuns had been kind to her, in their own w
ay. Why not stay until she’d recovered, involve the British Embassy, ask to be repatriated? Because she still hadn’t found Dan. And because Timur was in contact with Wang, the Chinese boss of the vanishing factory. And Wang was the key to Dan and Xe Lin. Timur knew more about Krixo than he was letting on.

  ‘Where to?’ she said.

  ‘Our show is in Zhengzhou this week. We have a place near here, up in the mountains, where the air is cleaner. Just the Masters of Disguise and a driver.’

  The driver appeared in the doorway. Jaq recognised him immediately – the motorbike man from Shanghai. ‘Speedy?’ The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

  He shook his head, a warning.

  Too late.

  ‘You two know each other?’ Timur frowned.

  ‘We met in Shanghai,’ Jaq said. ‘Speedy gave me a lift on his motorbike.’

  ‘I have a car now,’ Speedy said. ‘Official driver for the Masters of Disguise.’

  Timur glared at Jaq. ‘My phone.’ He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘So it was you who took it? And you gave it to Speedy to return? We liked him so much we gave him a job.’ He fixed her with a cool gaze. ‘I think you have some explaining to do, Jaq Silver.’

  ‘As do you, Timur Zolotoy.’

  She bit her lip to stop herself crying with pain when they carried her to the car. Lying on the back seat, she slept as Speedy drove them into the mountains, waking when they stopped outside a stone-clad guest house. The view over the valley was obscured by thick mustard-coloured smog. Four men came out to greet them. She recognised Holger, the giant water baby, and Ernest, the redhead from Durham, but the other two, one dark-skinned, one Chinese, were just a blur of beauty. Timur introduced her to Eusébio and Ting Bo. Alone in a house in the mountains with five beautiful men, and she couldn’t even breathe properly. What a bloody waste.

  A burst of warmth enveloped her as Timur opened the door to a ground-floor bedroom. He pulled back clean sheets and deposited her on a soft bed.

  Eusébio, a former footballer and physio in training, asked her permission before undressing her, unwrapping the bandages and gently probing each bruise with detached professionalism, before applying ice packs on the worst of the swelling.