The Runner

by Peter May

  His father looked at him, disapproval clear in his eyes. ‘It is not traditional.’

  ‘We’re trying to make everything as traditional as we can, Dad. But my apartment is hardly big enough for everyone. Xiao Ling wanted to be there, and of course Xinxin.’ Xiao Ling was Li’s sister, Xinxin her daughter. Since her divorce from a farmer in Sichuan, Xiao Ling had taken Xinxin to live in an apartment in the south-east of Beijing, near where she had a job at the joint-venture factory which built the Beijing Jeep. Xiao Ling had always been closer to her father than Li, and maintained regular contact with him.

  His father stared at him for a long time before slowly shaking his head. ‘Why an American?’ he asked. ‘Are Chinese girls not good enough?’

  ‘Of course,’ Li said, restraining an impulse to tell his father that he was just being an old racist. ‘But I never fell in love with one.’

  ‘Love!’ His father was dismissive, almost contemptuous.

  ‘Didn’t you love my mother?’ Li asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then you know how it feels to be in love with someone, to feel about them the way you’ve never felt about anyone else, to know them as well as you know yourself, and know that they know you that way, too.’

  ‘I know how it feels to lose someone you feel that way about.’ And the old man’s eyes were lost in reflected light as they filled with tears.

  ‘I lost her, too,’ Li said.

  And suddenly there was fire in his father’s voice. ‘You didn’t know your mother. You were too young.’

  ‘I needed my mother.’

  ‘And I needed a son!’ And there it was, the accusation that he had never put into words before. That he had been abandoned by his son, left to his fate while Li selfishly pursued a career in Beijing. In the traditional Chinese family, the son would have remained at the home of his parents and brought his new wife to live there too. There would always have been someone to look after the parents as they grew old. But Li had left home, and his sister had gone shortly after to live with the parents of her husband. Their father had been left on his own to brood upon the death, at the hands of Mao’s Red Guards, of the woman he loved. And Li suspected he resented the fact that Li had shared an apartment in Beijing with Yifu, that Li had always been closer to his uncle than to his father. He fought against conflicting feelings of anger and guilt.

  ‘You never lost your son,’ Li said.

  ‘Maybe I wish I’d never had one,’ his father fired back, and Li felt his words like a physical blow. ‘Your mother only incurred the wrath of the Red Guards because she wanted to protect you from their indoctrination, because she tried to take you out of that school where they were filling your head with their poison.’ And now, finally, he had given voice to his deepest resentment of all. That if it wasn’t for Li his mother might still be alive. That they would not have taken her away for ‘re-education’, subjected her to the brutal and bloody struggle sessions where her stubborn resistance had led her persecutors finally to beat her to death. Just teenagers. ‘And maybe my brother would still have been alive today if it hadn’t been for the carelessness of my son!’

  Li’s tears were blinding him now. He had always known that some twisted logic had led his father to blame him for his mother’s death. Although he had never felt any guilt for that. How could he? He had only been a child. His father’s blame, he knew, had been cast in the white heat of the horrors he had himself faced in that terrible time, marched around the streets in a dunce’s hat, pilloried, ridiculed and abused. Imprisoned, finally, and brutalised, both physically and mentally. Was it any wonder it had changed him, left him bitter, searching for reasons and finding only blame?

  But to blame him for the death of his uncle? This was new and much more painful. He still saw the old man’s eyes wide with fear and disbelief, frozen in the moment of death. And his father blaming him for it hurt more than anything else he might ever have blamed him for, because in his heart Li also blamed himself.

  He stood up, determined that his father should not see his tears. But it was too late. They were already streaming down his face.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I have a murder inquiry.’ And as he turned towards the door, he saw the bewildered look on his father’s face, as if for the first time in his life it might have occurred to the old man that blame could not be dispensed with impunity, that other people hurt, too.

  ‘Li Yan,’ his father called after him, and Li heard the catch in his voice, but he didn’t stop until he had closed the apartment door behind him, and he stood shaking and fighting to contain the howl of anguish that was struggling to escape from within.

  VII

  Margaret had waited up as long as she could. On TV she had watched a drama set in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. It was beautifully shot, and although she had not been able to understand a word of it, the misery it conveyed was still powerful. It had depressed her, and now her eyes were heavy and she knew she could stay up no longer.

  As she undressed for bed, washed in the moonlight that poured in through her window, she saw her silhouette on the wall, bizarre with its great swelling beneath her breasts, and she ran her hands over the taut skin of it and wondered what kind of child she and Li were going to have. Would it look Chinese, would it be dark or fair, have brown eyes or blue? Would it have her fiery temper or Li’s infuriating calm? She smiled to herself, and knew that however their genes had combined, it would be their child and she would love it.

  The sheets of the bed were cool on her warm skin as she slipped in between them, disappointed that she was going to spend the night alone, that Li had not come as he had promised. She thought about Wen and her childish, smiling face, and that fraction of a second when it had clouded. You verr lucky, she had said of Margaret about Li, and Margaret wondered now if that moment of shadow had signalled that all was perhaps not entirely well between Wen and Sun. But it was no business of hers, and she had no desire to know. Her own life was complicated enough.

  For once she had not been the only mother-to-be whose partner had failed to turn up. Sun, of course, was not there. But for the first time that Margaret could remember, Yixuan had been on her own as well. Jon Macken had not been with her.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a key in the lock, and her heart leapt. Li had come after all. She glanced at the clock. It was nearly eleven. Better late than never. But as soon as he opened the bedroom door she knew there was something wrong. He only said, ‘Hi,’ and she could not see his face, but somehow his voice in that one word had conveyed a world of unhappiness.

  She knew better than to ask, and said simply, ‘Come to bed.’

  He undressed quickly and slipped in beside her. He had brought with him the cold of the night outside, and she wrapped her arms around him to share her warmth and banish the night. They lay folded around each other for a long time without saying anything. In the vertical world, outside of their bed, he always towered over her, dominant and strong. But here, lying side by side, she was his equal, or greater, and could lay his head on her shoulder and mother him as if he were a little boy. And tonight, she sensed that somehow that was what he needed more than anything. She spoke to him then, out of a need to say something. Something normal. Something that carried no weight to burden him.

  ‘Jon Macken didn’t turn up today at the antenatal class,’ she said. ‘First time since I’ve been going there.’ Li didn’t say anything, and she went on, ‘Turned out his studio was broken into last night. You know, he’s got some little shop unit down at Xidan. Secure, though. He had an alarm system and everything installed. So it must have been professionals.’ Li grunted. The first sign of interest. She knew that work was always a good way to bring him out of himself. ‘Anyway, the weird thing is, they didn’t really take much. Trashed the place and took some prints or something, and that was it. He says the police were useless. Yixuan thinks they probably didn’t care much about some “rich American” getting done o
ver. Insurance would pick up the tab, and anyway shit happens, and it’s probably better happening to an American than a Chinese.’

  Li snorted now. ‘That sounds like paranoia to me,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe it wouldn’t seem that way if you were on the receiving end.’

  ‘The receiving end of what? Does he speak Chinese?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So he’d have trouble telling the cops exactly what had happened, or what he’d lost. And they’d have as much trouble telling him that there were nearly fifty thousand cases of theft in Beijing last year, and that they’ve as much chance of finding the perps as getting a Green Card in America.’

  Margaret sighed. ‘Does that mean you won’t look into it for him?’

  ‘What!’

  ‘I told Yixuan you’d ask about it.’

  ‘What the hell did you tell her that for?’

  ‘Because she’s my friend, and I’m your wife. Well, almost. And what’s the point in being married to one of Beijing’s top cops if you can’t pull a few strings?’

  His silence then surprised her. She had thought she was doing a good job of drawing him out. She had no idea that she had touched a raw nerve. So she was even more surprised when he said, ‘I’ll ask about it tomorrow.’

  Finally she drew herself up on one elbow and said, ‘What’s wrong, Li Yan?’

  ‘Nothing that a family transplant wouldn’t cure.’

  ‘Your father,’ she said flatly.

  ‘According to Dad, not only did I abandon him, but I was responsible for the death of my mother, as well as … ’ But he broke off, and couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  Margaret had always known that Li had a difficult relationship with his father. And God knew, she understood well enough. Her relationship with her own mother was less than ideal. But she felt a surge of anger at his father’s cruelty. How could Li possibly be responsible for his mother’s death. ‘As well as what?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Yifu.’

  She heard the way his throat had constricted and choked off his voice, and she wanted just to hold him for ever and take away all his pain. She knew how he felt about Yifu, how the guilt had consumed him in the years since his murder. Why did they have to kill him? he had asked her time and again. It was my fight, not his. What right did his father have to lay the blame for that on his son? What did he know about any of it anyway, what had happened and why? Margaret was dreading meeting him, dreading being unable to hold her tongue. Her record in the field of tactful silence was not a good one. She sought Li’s lips in the darkness and kissed him. She felt the tears wet on his cheeks and said, ‘Li Yan, it was not your fault.’ But she knew she could never convince him. And so she held him tighter and willed her love to him through every point of contact between them.

  He lay in her arms for what felt like an eternity. And then, ‘I love you,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I know.’ His voice whispered back to her in the dark.

  She kissed his forehead and his eyes, and his cheeks and his jaw, and ran her hands across his chest and found his nipples with her teeth. It was their last night together before her mother would arrive tomorrow and invade her space like an alien. She wanted to make the most of it, to give herself to Li completely, to give him the chance to lose himself in her and for a short time, at least, leave his pain behind him. Her hands slid over the smooth contours of his belly, fingers running through the tangle of his pubic hair, finding him there growing as she held him. And then he was kissing her, running his hands over her breasts, inflaming sensitive nipples and sending tiny electric shocks through her body to that place between her legs where she wanted to draw him in and hold him for ever.

  The knocking on the door crashed over their passion like a bucket of ice cold water. She sat up, heart pounding. The figures on the bedside clock told her it was midnight. ‘Who the hell’s that?’

  Li said, ‘Stay in bed. I’ll go see.’ He slipped out from between the sheets and pulled on his trousers and shirt. He left the bedroom as the knocking came again. At the end of the hall he unlatched the door and opened it to find himself looking into the face of a skinny girl with straggling shoulder-length hair. It was a pinched face, red with the cold, and she was hugging her quilted anorak to keep herself warm. She looked alarmed to find herself confronted by the tall, dishevelled, barefoot figure of Li.

  ‘What do you want? Who are you looking for?’ he demanded, knowing that she must be at the wrong door.

  ‘No one,’ she said in a tremulous voice. ‘I’m sorry.’ And she turned to hurry away towards the stairwell and retrace her steps down the eleven flights she must have climbed to get here, for the lift did not operate at this time of night. In the landing light, as she turned, Li saw that she had a large, unsightly purple patch on her left cheek. He closed the door and went back along the hall to the bedroom.

  ‘Who was it?’ Margaret asked. She was still sitting up.

  ‘I don’t know. Some girl. She must have got the wrong apartment, because she took off pretty fast when she saw me.’

  Margaret’s heart was pounding. ‘Did she have a large purple birthmark on her face?’

  Li was surprised. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You know her?’ He couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice.

  Margaret had forgotten all about her. But in any case, could never have imagined that she would come at this time of night. ‘Her name is Dai Lili. She is the athlete who said she wanted to speak to me last night at the stadium.’

  Now Li was astonished. ‘How in the name of the sky did she find out where you live?’

  ‘I gave her my card.’

  Now he was angry. ‘Are you mad? When? Last night?’

  ‘She tracked me down to the maternity hospital this afternoon. She was scared, Li Yan. She said she had to speak to me and asked if she could come here. What else could I say?’

  Li cursed softly under his breath with the realisation that he had just been face to face with the only person in this case who was prepared to talk – if not to him. ‘I could still catch her.’

  Margaret watched anxiously as he pulled on his shoes and ran to the door. ‘You need a coat,’ she called after him. ‘It’s freezing out there.’ The only response was the sound of the apartment door slamming shut behind him.

  The cold in the stairwell was brutal. He stopped on the landing and listened. He could hear her footfall on the stairs several floors down. For a moment he considered calling, but feared that she might be spooked. So he started after her. Two steps at a time, until a sweat broke out cold on his forehead, and the tar from years of smoking kept the oxygen from reaching his blood. Five floors down he stopped, and above the rasping of his breath could hear the rapid, panicked patter of her steps floating up to him on the cold, dank air. She had heard him, and was putting even more space between them.

  By the time he got to the ground floor and pushed out through the glass doors he knew she was gone. In the wash of moonlight all he could see was the security guard huddled in his hut, cigarette smoke rising into the night. Even if he knew which way she had gone, he realised he could never catch her. She was a runner, after all, young, at the peak of her fitness. And he had too many years behind him of cigarettes and alcohol.

  He stood gasping for a moment, perspiration turning to ice on his skin, before he turned, shivering, to face the long climb back to the eleventh floor.

  Margaret was up and waiting for him, huddled in her dressing-gown, a kettle boiling to make green tea to warm him. She didn’t need to ask. His face said it all. He took the mug of tea she offered and cupped it in his hands, and let her slip a blanket around his shoulders.

  ‘What did she want to speak to you about?’ he asked, finally.

  Margaret shrugged. ‘I don’t know. And since it’s unlikely she’ll come back again, we probably never will.’

  ‘I don’t like you giving out your address like that to strangers,’ Li said firmly.

  But Margaret wasn’t listening
. She had a picture in her head of the girl’s frightened rabbit’s eyes at the stadium the night before, and the anxiety in her face when she spoke to her that afternoon. And she felt afraid for her.

  Chapter Six

  I

  Li pulled up on the stretch of waste ground opposite the food market and walked back along Dongzhimen Beixiao Jie to Mei Yuan’s stall on the corner.

  He had slept like a log in Margaret’s arms, but a wakened early, enveloped still by the fog of depression his father had brought with him from Sichuan. And he had known he would have to return to his apartment before his father woke, to prepare him breakfast, and to shower and change for work. The night before, Li had taken him a carry-out meal from the restaurant below, but he had eaten hardly anything and gone to bed shortly after ten. As soon as Li had thought the old man was asleep, he had crept out and driven across the city to spend his last night with Margaret.

  But when he returned this morning, the old man did not eat his breakfast either. He had accepted a mug of green tea and said simply to Li, ‘You did not come home last night.’

  Li had seen no reason to lie. ‘No. I stayed over at Margaret’s,’ he had said, and before his father could reply, cut him off with, ‘And don’t tell me it’s not traditional, or that you disapprove. Because, you know, I really don’t care.’

  The old man had been expressionless. ‘I was going to say it is a pity I will not meet her before the betrothal.’ He had waited for a response, but when Li could find nothing to say, added, ‘Is it unreasonable for a man to want to meet the mother of his grandchild?’

  It did not matter, apparently, what Li said or did, his father had a way of making him feel guilty. He had left him with a spare key and fled to the safety of his work.

  Now, as he approached Mei Yuan’s stall, to break his own fast with a jian bing, he thought for the first time of the riddle she had posed two days before. He had given it neither time nor consideration and felt guilty about that, too. He ran it quickly through in his mind. The woman had come to see the I Ching expert on his sixty-sixth birthday. He was born on the second of February nineteen twenty-five. So that would mean she came to see him on the second of February, nineteen ninety-one. He was going to create a number from that date, put her age at the end of it, and then reverse it. And that would be the special number he would remember her by. Okay, so the date would be 2-2-91. But what age was the woman? He ran back over in his mind what Mei Yuan had told him, but could not remember if she had said what age the girl was.