The Chemical Reaction

by Fiona Erskine

  Yan Bing leapt onto a chair and inspected the keypad.

  ‘Combination?’

  Xe Lin threw him a glance of contempt and unlocked the safe using the remote. The door swung open.

  Yan Bing reached in and recovered a small wooden box, reinforced with strips of iron. He set it on the table and opened the shutter door. Straw spilled out as he extracted the contents, sunlight catching the carved feathers of a wide-winged bird, the scales of a snaking dragon, the soft curves of flowers and pearls. He set the wedding cup down on the table and turned to Ru.

  ‘Give me the lid of flowers.’

  She clutched at her brooch. ‘It’s all I have left.’

  Lulu pointed her knife at Xe Lin’s swollen belly.

  Timur and Holger began to move, but Yan Bing raked the beams above their heads with bullets, the huge window shattering, showering them with glass as they dropped back to the floor.

  Ru detached the circle of flowers and handed it to Yan Bing.

  ‘Now you.’ Yan Bing pointed to Timur.

  Timur sprang to his feet. Ignoring Yan Bing, he advanced towards Ru, unzipping the front of his wetsuit to reveal a jade disc, a circle of dragon fire, on a slender gold chain.

  He pulled the chain over his dark hair and handed it to her.

  ‘Your father, Dmytry Zolotoy, sent me. He wanted you to have this. To prove he loved your mother, Nina, as he would have loved you if he had only known you. Banished from China before you were born, he believed that you died with your mother. He has never stopped trying to keep the promise he made to her, to reunite the three parts of the lovers’ cup.’

  ‘The dragon fire.’ Ru took it from Timur. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Timur Zolotoy, your brother.’

  ‘How sweet.’ Yan Bing swung the butt of his weapon towards Timur, who ducked just in time.

  Lulu advanced with a knife. ‘Get back.’

  Yan Bing grabbed the jade from Ru.

  ‘Pack it away,’ Yan Bing ordered. Xe Lin began to wrap the jade in straw, starting with the lids.

  The little dog continued running around in circles, yapping excitedly. Yan Bing kicked out at it and it sank its teeth into his ankle. With a cry of pain, he picked it up and grabbed a knife from the table.

  The shimmering steel, hurtling through the air, took everyone by surprise. Yan Bing’s gun clattered to the floor as the sword passed through his throat, pinning him to the wall.

  A woman in flowing white robes did a backflip and kicked the knife from Lulu’s hand, a second kick to the jaw sending her sprawling. ‘Sadistic psychopath.’

  ‘Mico!’ Jaq sprang to her feet. ‘Am I glad to see you!’

  Mico extracted her weapon from Yan Bing’s throat and his lifeless body slumped to the floor, his mouth fixed in an O of surprise.

  Ashen-faced, Mico turned to the wall and retched. The little dog skittered away to escape the spreading pool of blood and bile, jumping onto the table.

  The wedding cup began to topple.

  Timur made a desperate lunge towards it, but his movement only hastened the fall.

  The Qianlong wedding cup fell to the floor and shattered into thousands of pieces.

  In the confusion, no one noticed Lulu until an outboard motor roared into life. The police boat was moving away, back down the creek, towards the reservoir, Lulu at the helm.

  Jaq stood at the broken window and watched a new drama unfold.

  The damage to the boat had not been repaired. The trip across the reservoir had been fast, well ventilated enough to prevent further build-up of combustibles.

  Lulu was not so lucky. The boat had been sitting at the pier, the propane still leaking into the heads, torn fuel lines after the explosion adding to the incendiary mix. An accident waiting to happen. The fire started in the engine but spread quickly.

  As the boat emerged from the creek into the reservoir, the flames took hold. The blazing boat began to drift towards the dam.

  Lulu screamed as she launched herself into the water.

  Had she seen Timur and Holger swimming? Did she think she could do the same? Did she not realise that the men were professionals? Or was she unable to bear the pain any longer: the heat on her face, the smoke in her nostrils, her clothes on fire, the polyester police uniform melting onto her skin?

  Holger was the first to move. He made to go after her, but Jaq grabbed him by the arm.

  ‘It’s too late.’

  The current took Lulu, pulling her in the direction of the dam, sucking her towards the intake of the hydroelectric power plant, the long tunnel leading to whirling turbine blades.

  They saw her go under. She surfaced once, and then she was gone.

  Death by a thousand cuts.

  Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, China

  Jaq and Xe Lin travelled together in the Krixo private plane, a light aircraft with amphibious landing gear, leaving Timur and Ru behind. By the look of it, they had a lot to say to one another. The two women sat at the back, a new security guard in front with the pilot.

  The factory was hard to miss. In a wasteland of scarred earth, the shining towers stood out like a spaceship on Mars.

  As they circled overhead, Xe Lin pointed out the tanks of solvents and acids used to dissolve salts from the rock, huge silver towers filled with special resin beads to extract and capture the metals from the liquid, mountains of slaked lime, calcium hydroxide, to neutralise the steaming black liquor, banks of filters to remove the waste solid, a side factory to turn it into inert building material and circular ponds to clean and purify the waste liquids for recycling back into the process.

  They landed in a quarry, a runway cut deep into the earth where a car was waiting to take them up to the factory.

  There was movement everywhere: diggers and bulldozers with wheels the height of a man, an army of trucks to transport the feed to the main factory, and smaller-scale, mobile units that followed behind, cleaning as they went: vacuum cleaners that sucked and slurried and extracted and polished and discharged.

  Those who came before didn’t care about the land, neglected to fill the holes they dug, failed to replace the earth they removed or treat the water or clean up the air: strip, lay bare and plunder, exploitation as old as time.

  Cheaper to haul stuff out of the ground and move on. Even if there were some who tried to do the right thing – pay a fair wage, extract with care, landscape the land, leave the earth as they found it – someone else, somewhere else, would do it cheaper and drive them out of business.

  But one man’s waste is another man’s treasure. The early mining was crude. Gallons of acid were pumped into the hillside; streams of black sludge were channelled into steaming, leaky ponds. The extraction process was inefficient. Mountains of waste remained, containing valuable metals in concentrations that were viable for recovery, given the right technology.

  And that was the brilliance of Wang Ru. The Krixo technology had been designed to recycle metals from obsolete electronic devices: batteries, phones, tablets, laptops, games consoles, TV screens. But collecting them was difficult, and separating them from other materials proved expensive.

  Wang Ru had seen the opportunity to use the technology for something else, something dull and unsexy, something completely essential: land remediation.

  Jaq stared down at the valley. In one direction, a blasted heath. But in the other, where the mining waste had already been removed, green shoots had started to appear. People would follow, farming would return. Wang was bringing this land back to life.

  The most sophisticated technology to undo the crudest harm.

  There was dysprosium and neodymium in that waste; europium and cerium. Wang Ru was making a fortune.

  She was no eco-hero, no saint; she was a businesswoman with a keen eye for an opportunity. But was she something worse? Was she a killer, too?

  Dan came to meet them as the jeep entered the factory gates. He held himself with new confidence. Gone were the hollow cheeks and grey skin of the pale
wraith she had seen in Shanghai; he was back to the sparkling bundle of intensity she remembered from his student days in Teesside.

  His face lit up at the sight of Xe Lin, his expression turning to surprise as Jaq emerged from the jeep behind her.

  ‘Dr Silver!’ They embraced, but as he pulled away, his brow furrowed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Can we talk privately?’

  Dan spoke to Xe Lin and then opened the door. ‘Come with me.’

  Jaq followed him up some stairs to a conference room with a bird’s-eye view of the factory.

  ‘You got my message?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Lulu is an imposter. No police. Find Wang. Protect Xe Lin?’

  His face paled. ‘That was months ago. While I was in police custody.’ He ran a hand through his short black hair. ‘I sent you a message after that. To tell you I was OK.’

  ‘I didn’t believe it.’

  He bowed his head. ‘I am horrified to have caused you more trouble. Please . . .’ He gestured to a table with two chairs, pulling one out for Jaq and taking the other.

  ‘What happened, Dan?’

  ‘From the beginning?’

  ‘Yes, from the beginning.’

  A young man filled teacups with hot water, placing two on the table before bowing and withdrawing.

  ‘After you contacted me, I did some research. Discovered that an old friend worked at Krixo as research director.’

  Xe Lin.

  ‘We knew each other in England. I had tried to contact her a few times back in China.’ Dan blushed and cleared his throat. ‘But she never replied.’

  Xe Lin had been in Teesside at the same time as Dan. He was sweet on her, but she ignored him. She did her PhD with Charles Clark and then worked for him at Krixo. That at least explained why Dan had made the trip to Shingbo in person.

  ‘I turned up at the factory. Said I had been sent by my teacher from England, asked to speak to Xe Lin. They asked a lot of questions about you, then told me Xe Lin had moved on. I remembered that she was from Banqiao, so I asked if she might have gone back home. That’s when things started getting strange.’

  ‘Strange, how?’

  ‘As I left the factory, I was arrested and held in prison. The interrogation was weird – it was led by the head of the Art Police in person.’

  Yan Bing.

  ‘I had no idea what he was talking about. He had a scary woman working for him, knife-obsessed, unhinged.’

  Lulu.

  ‘She tried to get me to trap you. They seemed to think we were working together, trafficking ancient jade.’

  The art squad hunting down the Qianlong collection.

  ‘They released me from prison and held me under house arrest. I was watched all the time. But the knife woman left things lying around – a card from the translation agency SEITA. I guessed it was your interpretation service. I managed to write a message in code and seal it in an envelope with SEITA’s address. If the police found it, it wouldn’t make any sense. I dropped it out of the window. And prayed that someone would pick it up and post it.’

  ‘You sent that message before I came to your flat?’

  ‘Yes. Your visit surprised them. They made me dress up in a curtain and say I’d been at a monastery. Told me if I said anything more, they would kill you. I tried to give you a message in code.’

  SOS. 1975.

  ‘When you left China, they let me out. Just like that.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘I wasn’t giving up on Xe Lin. I tracked her down, here at the other Krixo factory.’

  ‘There were always two factories?’ Identical twins. One known to the joint venture, and the other a secret.

  ‘It’s more common than you think, Jaq.’ Dan at least had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘Western companies manage things differently because they are used to labour that is slow and expensive.’

  Expensive? Or paid its worth? And slow? Is it slow to plan, to design on paper before launching into construction with concrete and steel? Is it slow to do things right first time? China was the hare to the West’s tortoise.

  Except that China was winning the race.

  ‘Here in China we have many willing, deft hands.’

  Wang Ru built a shadow factory, a place where the Chinese team could run things the way they wanted, without interference from the joint venture partner. Jaq shook her head. Would she ever understand this bizarre country?

  ‘And, before you judge too harshly, have a look at what the English joint venture partners were up to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The English investors didn’t like the way things were going in Shingbo. No progress had been made recycling consumer goods. It cost too much to collect and sort them. They were worried they would lose their investment. The Clarks stole something that belonged to the boss. As collateral.’

  The Qianlong lovers’ cup. The object that Timur and Mico and Yan Bing had all been searching for. The Clarks had stolen it from Ru Wang.

  ‘There’s more to this than you are telling me, Dan. Why did you warn me off?’

  ‘I sent the letter telling you I was returning to the monastery to make sure you didn’t come back and lead them to Xe Lin.’

  She bit her lip. Dan was right. By rushing to Banqiao, she had put Xe Lin, put everyone in danger. Yan Bing had followed her, bringing psychotic Lulu. Without Mico they might all be dead. Jaq shivered.

  ‘Xe Lin is safe.’ It was all over now. ‘Yan Bing and Lulu are dead.’

  Dan shook his head. ‘That’s not who she is afraid of.’

  Dan left the room and returned with Xe Lin.

  ‘Who is it you are afraid of, Xe Lin?’ Jaq asked.

  Xe Lin shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Dan took her hand. ‘Tell her.’

  Xe Lin whispered something in Chinese.

  ‘Is it true that you are working for the English investors in Krixo?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Not any more,’ Jaq said.

  ‘She’s afraid that whoever killed Charles Clark—’

  Jaq opened her eyes wide. ‘Charles Clark was murdered?’

  ‘Stop!’ Xe Lin cried.

  ‘Yes, and whoever did it wants to kill Xe Lin too,’ Dan said.

  Jaq scratched her head. ‘But Charles died in England.’

  Xe Lin bowed her head. ‘He was given poison in Shingbo.’ Her voice was barely a whisper.

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘I can’t be sure.’

  ‘Your boss, Wang Ru?’

  ‘Never. They were friends.’

  ‘Even though he stole the lovers’ cup from her?’

  ‘Charles Clark didn’t steal the lovers’ cup.’ Xe Lin spoke more confidently now. ‘Ru gave it to him, in exchange for his share of the joint venture. SAFE foreign exchange rules make it easy for foreigners to bring money in, but much harder to get it out. The only condition Ru made was that he had to sell it to a museum. They trusted one another.’

  ‘But he betrayed her. He put it up for public auction.’

  Xe Lin shook her head. ‘Charles would never have done that. He was very ill at the end. It must have been done without his knowledge.’

  Jaq admired her faith in the man. In her experience, people followed their own self-interest. Or that of their family. Promises are easy to make, even easier to forget.

  ‘So, if it wasn’t Wang, then who killed him?’ Jaq asked. ‘Yan Bing?’

  Xe Lin laughed. ‘The police are too crude and stupid to hide something like that. Look how they operate. Their wake is littered with butchered bodies.’

  Mr Smiles and his driver, Speedy, the boatman, an auctioneer, a metallurgist, the hapless security guards. Who else?

  ‘Mico?’ The sword-wielding stuntwoman who had employed the Masters of Disguise to repatriate the jade? She was more than capable of operating outside the law. And she’d killed Yan Bing in front of Jaq’s own eyes.

  ‘Possible. Capable. But why? Charles was poisoned before he took the lov
ers’ cup out of China. What motive would she have had before that?’ And poison, in the hands of the best stunt fighter in China? Not her style.

  She couldn’t leave them out. ‘Timur? The Masters of Disguise?’

  Xe Lin laughed. ‘Fine athletes, gifted thieves, but not killers.’ Indeed, their mission had been to repair, not to destroy.

  ‘So, who killed him?’

  ‘Charles was murdered by the person who still has the real lovers’ cup.’

  ‘The real lovers’ cup?’ So, they hadn’t all been fooled. Jaq smiled. ‘Not the glass replica that smashed in Banqiao.’

  ‘You knew it was a fake?’

  ‘Only when it broke,’ Jaq said. ‘Nephrite doesn’t shatter like that.’ A hard mineral, a silicate of calcium and magnesium: Ca2(Mg,Fe)5Si8O22(OH)2. Cool to the touch. Tough as nails. ‘Did Wang Ru buy the fake at auction?’

  ‘No, the auctioneers certified it as genuine. Experts can tell the difference between jade and glass. The weight, the thermal conductivity, tiny bubbles and other imperfections. The switch must have been made after the auction, but before delivery.’

  ‘Then who has the real lovers’ cup?’

  ‘The same person who commissioned the fake and sent it to Wang Ru. The same person who brought me a box of sweets, laced with thallium.’ Xe Lin’s voice broke.

  Thallium. A tiny dose of poison administered in China, effective weeks later in England, with the doctors still scratching their heads. Unless you know what you are looking for, hard to diagnose. It brings an excruciatingly slow and painful death.

  ‘Charles was not the target,’ Xe Lin said. ‘I was.’ She crossed her arms across her swollen belly. ‘Because I’m carrying his child.’

  This had nothing to do with rare earth prices or stolen jade.

  Someone else had wanted Xe Lin dead.

  What had Martin at Selkie let slip? That the new English owner of Krixo, Sophie Clark, had come to supervise a difficult job. What job? Spare parts for mechanical seals? That didn’t sound like Sophie. Something else. Selkie had sophisticated tomography and 3D printers; they could scan and copy anything.

  Even a Qianlong lovers’ cup.