Suiping, Henan Province, China
The black speedboat approached the fishing boat, and the fisherman shrank into his seat, head bowed, shoulders hunched, suddenly diminished. His hand trembled on the tiller.
The man standing on the prow of the speedboat lowered the gun and lifted a loudhailer to his mouth. The message was both distorted and clear. The boatman reached behind him and cut the engine.
‘What’s going on?’ Speedy turned to Jaq. ‘Who is that? How does he know your name?’
With a sinking heart, Jaq recognised the man standing on deck. Polished shoes, neatly pressed uniform, black gloves, police cap. Yan Bing, the policeman who had run her out of Shingbo. What was he doing here?
The speedboat came alongside, and another uniform grabbed the rail of the fishing craft and secured it with a rope.
Yan Bing spoke to the boatman. Clipped, precise words. The fisherman recoiled, each staccato burst from the thin lips of the policeman the lash of a whip.
Yan Bing turned to Jaq.
‘Dr Silver,’ he said. ‘What an unpleasant surprise.’
‘The dismay is mutual,’ she said.
‘Please, step across into my boat.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘Then I will arrest you all.’
‘On what grounds?’
‘This man here,’ Yan Bing waggled a dismissive foot at the boatman, ‘is profiteering. He has no licence to take tourists onto the reservoir. In fact, foreign tourists are banned from this area, so he is also breaching national security laws.’
Yan Bing nodded his head at Speedy. ‘And your translator, Peng Ran, is from Shanghai?’ Speedy nodded his head. ‘Therefore, not licensed to work in Zhumadian. Aiding and abetting a spy.’
‘A spy?’
‘Yes, Dr Silver. I have reason to believe that you are engaged in industrial espionage.’
‘That is ridiculous.’
‘I’m willing to hear your side of the story, but only if you come with me.’ He raised his voice. ‘Step across, right now.’
‘Jaq,’ Speedy whispered. ‘There’s something not right here.’
‘Silence!’ The click of a safety catch as Yan Bing raised his gun. He pointed it at the boatman. ‘Either you come with me, or your fisherman friend will suffer a most unfortunate boating accident.’
Jaq stepped sideways, directly into the line of fire. ‘Hardly an accident if you shoot us at point-blank range.’
‘By the time you’ve gone through the turbines, the bullet will be lost in the human mince, and no one will be any the wiser.’
Jaq shuddered. What sort of a mad bastard was this man? ‘You leave me little choice.’
Speedy grabbed her hand. ‘I’m coming with you.’
Jaq jumped across onto the black speedboat. Speedy followed.
‘This way.’ Yan Bing opened a door.
Jaq stepped inside, turning back at the cry, followed by a splash. ‘Speedy!’
Yan Bing stood in the doorway, blocking out the light.
‘Your translator fancied a dip in the water.’
‘You bastard.’
‘This reservoir has taken so many lives over the years.’ He shook his head. ‘Tragic, really.’
Jaq faltered as he raised his gun and pointed it at her.
‘Some people need to be protected from their own stupidity,’ he said. ‘Those who have no idea just how dangerous water can be.’ He stepped back from the door frame, into the light.
Jaq rushed towards him; the door slammed in her face.
She tried the handle. The door was locked. She put her ear to the keyhole, but all she could hear was the distant barking of a dog.
Suiping, Henan Province, China, 10 August 1975
Ru was woken by the sound of a dog barking.
‘Yinling!’ The call came across the water. A man was rowing a boat towards her, the sun behind him. All she could make out was the silhouette of arms even stronger than her own, his muscles bulging as he pulled the oars through the water. ‘Yinling, is that you?’
Her throat was so dry, she could only croak, but the boat came faster now until it was under the tree. She looked down to see a sturdy man, his square chin covered in dark stubble, a golden-haired dog barking wildly.
‘Oh.’
As their eyes met, a sob escaped him, then a long sigh as he caught sight of her withered leg. Double disappointment. Not only was she not his Yinling, but she was a cripple. He began to row away.
Ru dropped into the water and swam after him, grabbing the stern of the boat.
‘Help me,’ she begged.
He shook his head, rowing harder. ‘I need to find my wife.’
She gestured at the vast expanse of water, nothing above the horizon except for a few slender trees, the water heaving with bodies and flies.
‘The river dragon spared me for a reason,’ she said. ‘I can help you.’
He paused at this, then relented, holding out a hand to help her into the boat, balancing it as she struggled over the side. The dog licked her face as she flopped, like a huge fish, into the bottom.
‘Water,’ she begged. He handed her a stone bottle and she drank deeply. ‘Enough!’ he shouted and pulled it away from her, his eyes narrowing. ‘I’ll take you to land. Then you’re on your own.’
He wore a thick gold band on one finger. She eyed the contents of the boat. Fishing lines and nets. Clay pots which might hold food.
‘Where are you from?’ he asked.
She named the village, and then, in response to his blank expression, added the nearest town. ‘Near Suiping. And you?’
‘Banqiao,’ he said. ‘Upstream of the flood.’
‘But your wife, Yinling?’
‘She went to check on her mother last week. Near Zhumadian.’ He shook his head. ‘I told her not to go. The weather was too bad, flooding everywhere. I need to find her.’ He began to row again, calling out his wife’s name. ‘Yinling!’
She took advantage of his distraction to open the seal on one of the clay pots. Dried fish sprinkled onto a cold maize porridge. She kept her back to him and scooped handfuls into her mouth. The dog watched her, quietly complicit, so she allowed him to lick the pot before stowing it back with the others. Now she was thirsty again. But when she asked for water the man shouted at her instead. She lay down. The dog stretched out beside her and licked her face, as if to apologise for its master. She closed her eyes.
She woke to the rumble of the boat sliding onto gravel.
‘This is where you get off,’ he said.
She sat up and looked around. A slight rise in the middle of the water. An artificial island miles from anywhere. No village, no people, no fresh water, no food. Nothing to see in any direction except bobbing black pillows, where flies feasted on putrid corpses.
‘You can’t leave me here.’
‘The water’s going down. You’ll be able to walk to safety.’ He picked her up and heaved her over the side. The dog whined.
‘Wait!’ she screamed. ‘I can’t walk.’
He ignored her and pushed the boat back into the water, rowing like a demon while the dog whimpered.
Anger gave her strength. She hauled herself back into the water, slowly at first as she pulled herself over gravel and then sludge. But once the water was deep enough, she swam fast, long, clean strokes underwater, trying to avoid the buzzing carcasses each time she came up for breath.
If he’d seen her coming, he could easily have escaped, but after ten minutes’ hard rowing, he’d stopped to eat out of sight of the rise. On discovering a bowl of food licked clean by a canine tongue, he started beating the dog, first with his fists and then with an oar.
His brutality gave her strength. She caught the oar as he swung it sideways, pulling him off his feet. He hit the side of his head on the transom and shouted out in anger and pain. Pulling the side of the boat towards her, she rolled him overboard. He made a grab for her, but she dived under and pulled herself in on the other
side. Desperation made her fast and strong. She hefted the other oar and lashed out at him as he tried to climb back in, smashing the hands that grasped at the boat’s ribs until he let go. She propelled the boat away with the single oar.
‘Wait,’ he cried. ‘I can’t swim.’
She held onto the dog as they listened to him drown, then she took a long draught of water and went back for the other oar.
And his gold ring.
The fever started that night. However careful she’d been, she’d ingested several gulps of contaminated water. Every part of her body ached, and her skin burned with fire. The dog sat beside her, licking the sweat from her brow as the boat meandered wherever the weak currents took it.
The river dragon returned. She begged it to take her, let her fly away on its scaly back. But Moon-faced Boy appeared and whispered to the dragon, telling tales and lies, so it flew away. As it crossed the waxing sliver of moon, she saw that Stubble Man was on its back, brandishing an oar, towing a woman on a wooden door like a magic sleigh. The woman was holding a newborn baby, cradling it, singing to it, loving it. She dreamed of a place where her parents loved her. Surely she must have had parents once. Was she abandoned as a baby because she was a girl, or later because of the sickness that had wasted her leg? Tears streamed down her cheeks.
On the fifth night, the fever broke. The dog whimpered until she fed it, and then she ate a little herself. She nestled into his warm fur and then the shivering started.
They didn’t stop at the first village – she could see they were as wretched as she was – or the second. She waited until the food and water were finished and the putrid lake resembled a river again. Before they reached the next village, she found branches strong enough to act as crutches. She lashed the boat to a post and, with the dog by her side, limped her way into the village.
The ring was almost worthless. Law of supply and demand meant that plenty of destitute people were selling jewellery, and all anyone wanted was food.
So, she sold the dog instead.
Suiping, Henan Province, China
Jaq rattled the shackles that imprisoned her in the cabin of the police boat, her hands and feet cuffed to a sturdy metal post. It had taken three of them to restrain her, but now Yan Bing sent the other two away.
Breathe. Through the soles of your feet. Stay calm. Feet apart, chest forward, chin up. Drop your brain into your stomach. Quench the anger. Slow down. Now is not the time to lose your head.
‘What do you want?’ Jaq’s voice was low and calm.
‘Information,’ Yan Bing said. ‘Why are you here?’
Why dissemble? ‘I’m looking for the factory that vanished.’ And for my student who vanished with it.
‘You think I am stupid? You think I don’t know who you are working for? You and that disgusting bunch of perverts who take their clothes off for money.’ He spat on the ground. ‘You were with them in Durham on the day of the theft from the Oriental Museum. You were in Lisbon for the switch at the Museu de Arte Antiga, and in Sweden to collect the Drottningholm Palace haul. So where’s the stuff you stole?’
‘I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.’ Oh, Timur, what have you done?
‘I already know who ordered the theft.’
‘What theft?’
‘There’s no point in protecting Wang.’
Wang? The Chinese owner of Krixo, the shady joint venture partner who remained hidden?
‘I’m not protecting anyone.’
‘Where is Wang?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Why are you here then?’ Yan Bing sneered. ‘What is your real interest in Krixo?’
So, she was close.
‘What I’m really interested in is rare earth metal recycling.’ Not a word of a lie. If only it wasn’t for this damn mystery, she could be spending a lot more time on the things she cared about, like how to bring safe, clean energy to the world without destroying the planet. ‘I’m a chemical engineer.’
Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China, 1985
The wind cut like a razor, chilled and sharpened by its journey across Siberia. It howled across the dark lake, whipping up clouds of black dust at the shore. Through the grey smog wafting over from the distant factories, a long line of workers snaked up from the pits, each one carrying a hessian sack. Men, women and children queued outside the shack, bent double from the back-breaking labour, the exposed skin of their faces livid and scarred from the acid fumes, their ragged clothes filthy from scavenging the tailing ponds of an opencast mine.
Inside the shack, an abacus clattered, black beads sliding smoothly over wooden shafts. Ru pulled the cloth cap down over her ears and blew on her hands. The heat from the furnaces didn’t reach the intake bay.
Baotou, this godforsaken mining town in Inner Mongolia, was her reward for surviving the flood. In the end, it wasn’t the dam bursting that caused most of the deaths. Many more perished in the aftermath. Slowly. Painfully. Hopelessly. With no fresh water, scant food and medicine, disease spread quickly. Messages were sent out, but any help that came was too little and too late. The victims of the flood had been forsaken, left to die. For Ru, it was not the first time she had been abandoned, not the first time those with a responsibility to care for her had walked away. She was better prepared than most.
Leaving Suiping for the mines was her idea. Before the flood, a few men from her village had returned rich after only a few years away. A few boys, those who had lost everything, with no ties left, showed interest, but muttered among themselves that a cripple girl would be a liability. Ru showed them the ring, and persuaded them she had more treasure, enough to pay for the first mining concession, her only condition that they took her with them, convincing them that the river dragon was on her side.
And it was true: she had brought them luck.
Every few years they moved on, a cohesive group bound by the trauma of the flood. The band of peasants-turned-miners were used to hard work. Lean and wiry, they could survive on long hours and little food. She lost a few to sickness, injury or love, the latter being just another form of injurious sickness, replacing them with new recruits as news of success reached their poverty-stricken villages.
Ru learned to make herself invaluable. She couldn’t cook and didn’t fuck, but she made sure they were well supplied on both counts. She traded with villages far enough away not to be corrupted by the mining economy. She distilled crude spirit, keeping a small ration of the purest liquor for her men, selling the rough stuff to their rivals. She knew which palms to grease and which to avoid. She found ears receptive to vicious rumour, destroying the careers of government officials who could not be bought. She acted as banker, guarding her men’s earnings, controlling their expenditure, exchanging tokens for silver and gold and investing it.
Her new weighing scales consisted of two brass pans suspended by ropes from either end of a wooden beam, pivoted on an iron stand. The balancing weights were blocks of metal, each one stamped with a number. She had several sets of weights, one for the government inspectors, one for the suppliers, and now, one set for herself.
She’d learned early on that the mines were poorly run, all brawn and no brain. They relied on an inexhaustible supply of labourers: men and women who started with little choice, and as the mining and extraction activities destroyed their fishing lakes, hunting grounds and farmland, ended up with no choice at all. The methods used to extract the metal from the rock were dirty and inefficient, leaving much of the value behind. She knew there was money in muck.
Now it was her turn to prosper.
As each scavenger poured the detritus from the burlap sack into one brass pan, they watched as she adjusted the weights on the other. Once satisfied with the quality, she noted the quantity in a ledger, clicked the abacus and paid in tokens. Tokens could be exchanged for food and other benefits at a rate that she controlled.
The air in the shack was thick with dust. It would be cleaner to weigh the rocks inside the sacks,
but the lazy workers often cheated, filling sacks with bricks and any old rubbish. Ru had learned how to distinguish one grey-brown particle from another, to recognise quality.
And value.
She knew the names of her products now: kàng, yĭ, lán, shì, pŭ, nǚ, pŏ, shān, yŏu, gá, tè, dī, huŏ, ěr, diū, yì, lŭ. Better than a Tang dynasty poem, those trim little syllables tinkled with the sweet sound of money. She followed the prices of each metal. Hoarded a little as prices fell, sold when they peaked. Her luck changed when demand rose for nǚ – neodymium. That’s when she realised that the money was not in the hard, dirty work of mining. Viewed from Shanghai, she was just another filthy labourer in that long, grubby food chain. The people who became rich were not the miners, but the traders, those who speculated on the Shanghai metal exchange.
She didn’t tell her partners, the men who had come with her from Suiping, that she was selling up. They’d long outlived their usefulness, broken by a quarter of a century of hard labour, as crippled now as she was then. Thanks to a leg brace and many hours of physiotherapy, she had learned to walk. She didn’t need them any more.
Time for a change.
Suiping, Henan Province, China
The grinder whirred and sparks flew, illuminating the cabin as the policeman sharpened his long knives.
‘Interesting, isn’t it,’ Yan Bing said. ‘I studied art history at Durham University, you know. My final year dissertation was on the history of China as misrepresented by the West: fascinating stories of cruel and unusual punishments.’ He placed a book on the table, open to reveal an eighteenth-century woodcut. ‘Have a look at this. Lingchi. Slow slicing. Death by a thousand cuts.’
The picture showed a naked man tied to a tree. On the ground were his clothes, a priest’s collar and crucifix. The drawing was crude but explicit. It showed a Chinese swordsman, dressed as a soldier, removing slices from his victim. Blood poured from shoulder and thigh, and the man’s mouth was open, a black hole where his tongue should have been, in a silent scream. Jaq swallowed hard.
The Chemical Reaction Page 30