by Peter May
‘You know I don’t agree with that,’ he said.
‘Which is just about the only thing you and my uncle would have agreed on.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘I think the old way has its virtues, Chief. But we’re living in a changing world.’ Li glanced at his watch. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. The autopsy starts at ten.’
‘I’m afraid it doesn’t,’ Chen said, stopping Li in his tracks. ‘That’s why the Deputy Minister of Public Security was on the phone. The autopsy’s been delayed until this afternoon. And the Commissioner wants to see you at headquarters right away.’
II
The first blink of sunshine for days dappled the sidewalk beneath the locust trees in Dong Jiaominxiang Lane. The haze of pollution, as it sometimes did, had lifted inexplicably and the sky was breaking up. The city’s spirits seemed raised by it. Even the normally dour bicycle repairmen opposite the rear entrance to the municipal police headquarters were chatting enthusiastically, hawking and spitting in the gutter with renewed vigour. Li cycled past the Supreme Court on his right and turned left into the compound behind police headquarters. He alone, it seemed, was not uplifted by the autumn sunshine that still fell warm on the skin. As he passed an armed police officer standing to attention, and free-wheeled under the arch through open gates, he recalled his first encounter here with Margaret. Her official car in collision with his bicycle … his grazed arm … her insolence …
His smile at the memory was glazed over with melancholy.
He parked and locked his bicycle and walked apprehensively into the redbrick building that housed the headquarters of the criminal investigation department. He had stopped off at his apartment on the way to change into his uniform — dark green trousers, neatly pressed, pale green short-sleeve shirt with epaulettes and Public Security arm badge, dark green peaked cap with its red piping and loop of gold braid. He removed his hat as he stepped inside, ran his hand back across the dark stubble of his flat-top crewcut and took a deep breath.
The divisional head of the CID, Commissioner Hu Yisheng, was standing by the window when Li entered his office. The blinds were lowered, and the slats adjusted to allow thin lines of sunlight to zigzag across the contours of his desk. They fell in bright burned-out bands across the red of the Chinese flag that hung behind it. Li stood stiffly to attention as the Commissioner turned a steely gaze in his direction. He was a handsome man, somewhere in his early sixties, with a full head of iron-grey hair. He held Li in his gaze for what seemed an interminably long time. At first Li felt just uncomfortable, and then he began physically to wilt. It was worse, somehow, than any reprimand that words could have delivered.
Finally the Commissioner said, ‘I was sorry to hear about your uncle.’ And his words carried with them the weight of an accusation, as if Li had been personally responsible. His uncle was still casting a shadow over him, even from the grave. The Commissioner walked round behind his desk and sat down, leaving Li standing. ‘He wouldn’t have been very proud of the way you’re conducting this investigation, would he?’
‘I think he would have offered me good advice, Commissioner Hu,’ Li said.
Hu bridled at the implication. ‘Well, I’ll give you my advice, Li,’ he said. ‘You’d better break this case. And quickly. And let’s stick to conventional Chinese police methods, shall we? “Where the tiller is tireless, the earth is fertile,” your uncle used to say.’
‘Yes, he did, Commissioner,’ Li said. ‘But he also used to say, “The ox is slow, but the earth is patient.”’
Hu frowned. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’
‘Oh, I think my uncle meant that if you use an ox to plough a field you must expect it to take a long time.’
The Commissioner glared at him. ‘You’ve always been an advocate of assigning cases to individual officers, haven’t you?’
‘As the crime rate rises we have to find more efficient ways of fighting it,’ Li said.
‘Well, I’m not going to get into that argument here,’ the Commissioner responded tetchily. ‘Decisions on that will be taken well above our heads.’ He paused. ‘Like the decision to let the Americans carry out the autopsy on the latest victim.’
‘What?’ Li was stunned.
‘It has been agreed to let one of their pathologists assist. Which means, in practice, that they will conduct it.’
‘But that’s ridiculous, Commissioner,’ Li said. ‘Their pathologist hasn’t been involved in any of the previous autopsies. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘You want to tell that to the Minister?’
Li pressed his lips firmly together and refrained from responding.
Hu put his elbows on the desk in front of him and placed his palms together, regarding Li speculatively. ‘So,’ he said. ‘I understand you have taken on board your section chief’s admonitions regarding the American, Margaret Campbell?’
Li nodded grimly. ‘I have.’
‘Good.’ Hu sat back and took a deep breath. ‘Because she will be conducting the autopsy.’
Li looked at him in disbelief.
*
He emerged into the glare of the compound in a trance. He took off his hat, turning his face up to the sky, and let the warm sunshine cascade over him like rain. He closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind of its confusion, hoping beyond hope that when he opened them again the world might have turned in a different direction and all his troubles would be washed away. But he knew it would not be so. He had tried so hard to banish her from his thoughts, from his very soul. How could he face her again now? What could she believe but that he had somehow betrayed her? And in a way, he knew, he had.
He opened his eyes and they fell upon the place he had parked his bicycle. It was not there. He frowned, momentarily confused, and glanced along the row of bicycles parked up against the redbrick building. His was not among them. He glanced in the direction of the armed officer at the gate who was staring steadfastly into the street. Then he looked again for his bicycle. He must have put it somewhere else, or someone had moved it. The parked bicycles stretched all the way round the building to a long line beneath a row of trees. His bicycle was not anywhere to be seen. He could not believe this was happening, and he approached the armed officer angrily.
‘I parked my bicycle just there,’ he said, and he pointed along the inside wall. ‘Just there. Half an hour ago. You saw me come in.’
The officer shrugged. ‘People come and go all the time. I don’t remember.’
‘You don’t remember me parking my bike there, and someone else taking it?’ Li snapped.
‘No, I don’t,’ the officer snapped back. ‘I’m not a parking attendant.’
Li cursed. It was unbelievable. Someone had had the audacity to steal his bicycle from inside the municipal police compound. And who would think to question someone taking a bicycle from outside CID headquarters? He shook his head and could not resist the tiniest of ironic smiles at the barefaced cheek. There was not even any point in reporting it. Bike theft in Beijing was endemic. And with twenty million bicycles out there, he knew he would never see his again.
He pulled his hat firmly down on his head and walked the three hundred yards around the corner to his apartment block in Zhengyi Road. He picked up his mail and climbed the stairs to the second floor two at a time, and stormed into the apartment, throwing his mail on the table and his hat across the room into an armchair. ‘Fuck!’ he shouted at the walls, and the release of tension made him feel a little better. He went into the bedroom and stripped off his uniform and caught sight of himself in the mirror. He was tall. A little over six feet, with a good frame and a lean, fit body. He looked at his face and tried to see himself as Margaret would see him a few hours from now. He looked into his own eyes and saw nothing there but guilt. He didn’t want to see her. He didn’t want to see the accusation he knew would be there in her eyes. The anger, the hurt. He had thought he had put the worst of that behind him. And now fate had conspired to contrive
this unhappy reunion.
To his annoyance, he found himself choosing his clothes with a little more care than usual, and ended up throwing on his old jeans and a short-sleeved white shirt, angry with himself for even thinking about it. He stuffed his wallet and ID into his back pocket, his cigarettes and lighter into the breast pocket of his shirt, and grabbed Old Yifu’s bike from the hall and carried it down the stairs on his shoulder. He did not notice the letter with the Sichuan postcode that he had dropped on the table, delivered an hour earlier, only three days late.
He cycled east along East Chang’an Avenue, and then turned north, moving with a furious concentration, ringing his bell at errant pedestrians and growling at motorists who seemed to think they had the right of way. The sweat was beading across his brow and sticking his shirt to his back. He still felt like shouting, or throwing something, or kicking someone. Here he was being made to face the two demons he had been trying to exorcise from his life — forced to ride his dead uncle’s bicycle to a meeting with the woman he had been ordered to give up. If he could have brought his uncle back, and fallen into the arms of the woman he loved, he would. But neither of these things was possible, and there was nothing for it but to move forward and face the demons head-on.
Great woks of broth steamed and bubbled on braziers as preparations all along the sidewalk began for lunch. Li smelled dumplings frying in oil and saw women rolling out noodles on flat boards. Charcoal burned and smoked in metal troughs as skewers of spicy lamb and chicken were prepared for barbecue. People ate early on the streets, and for an hour beforehand there was a frenzied activity both by those preparing the food, and those preparing to eat it. Children spilled out of schoolyards in blue tracksuits and yellow baseball caps, and factories spewed their workers out into the sunshine. For a time, Li had been stuck behind a tousled youth toiling over the pedals of his tricycle cart, hauling a huge load of the round coal briquettes that fuelled the winter fires of Beijing. Finally he got past him, squeezing between the cart and an on-coming bus at the Dongsi Shitiao junction. Then he left the sights and smells of food behind as he free-wheeled along the final shaded stretch of road before the corner of Dongzhimennei Street, where he hoped his own lunch would await him in the form of a jian bing.
Mei Yuan was busy preparing two jian bings for a couple of schoolgirls as Li drew up his bike. It gave him the chance to watch her as she worked the hotplate inside the small glass house with its pitched red roof that perched on the rear of her extended tricycle. Her dark hair was drawn back in its customary bun, her smooth-skinned face a little more lined and showing more strain than usual. She grinned when she saw him, cheeks dimpling, and the life immediately returned to her lovely, dark, slanted eyes. She had, he knew, a soft spot for him. There was an unspoken empathy between them. In some very small way he filled the space left by the son she had lost, and she the hole in his life left by the death of his mother — both victims of the Cultural Revolution. Neither made demands on the other. It was just something that had grown quietly.
She poured some pancake mix on to her hotplate and watched it sizzle and bubble before breaking an egg on to it. He could barely resist the temptation to give her a hug. The previous week she had been missing from her corner for a few days, and finally he had gone to her home to find out why. He had found her in bed, sick and alone. One of the new breed of self-employed, she had no work unit to look after her welfare. He had cooked her a meal himself that night, and paid for a girl to go in every day to feed her and keep the house clean. The previous evening she had told him she would be back at her usual corner today, even although he felt she was not completely recovered. And here she was, pale and strained, and fighting to kick-start her life again.
She flipped the pancake over, smeared it with hoisin and chilli, and sprinkled it with chopped spring onion and coriander, before breaking a square of deep-fried whipped egg white into its centre, folding it in half and in half again, and then handing it, wrapped in brown paper, to the second schoolgirl. ‘Two yuan,’ she said, then turned beaming to Li. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yes, I have eaten.’ He made the traditional response to the Beijing greeting, then added, ‘I’m sorry I missed breakfast. Work.’
‘That’s no excuse,’ she chided him. ‘A big lad like you needs feeding.’ She began another jian bing. ‘I’m beginning to think you’re avoiding me.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because you don’t have an answer to the last riddle I set you?’
He frowned. ‘When did you set me a riddle?’
‘Before I got sick.’
‘Oh,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I don’t remember it.’
‘How very convenient,’ she said. ‘I’ll remind you.’
‘I thought you might.’
She grinned. ‘If a man walks in a straight line without turning his head, how can he continue to see everything he has walked past? And there are no mirrors involved.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Li said. ‘I remember now. It was too easy.’
‘Oh? So tell me.’
Li shrugged. ‘He’s walking backwards, of course.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Yes, it was too easy, wasn’t it?’ She finished the jian bing and handed it to him. He bit into its spicy, savoury softness and drew out a two-yuan note. She pushed his hand away. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said.
‘I’m not being silly,’ he insisted, and reached beyond her to drop the note in her tin. ‘If your house was burgled and I was sent to investigate, would you phone my bosses and say, “It’s all right, you don’t need to pay him for this investigation, I know him”?’
She couldn’t resist a smile. ‘Is this a riddle for me?’
‘No, it’s not. I don’t have one today. You didn’t give me enough time to prepare.’
‘OK,’ she said, ‘I’ve got another one for you, then. Much harder this time.’ He nodded, and continued stuffing jian bing into his mouth. ‘Three men check into a hotel. They want to share a room, and the receptionist charges them thirty yuan.’
‘That’s a cheap hotel room,’ he cut in.
‘Depends what kind of hotel,’ she said. ‘Anyway, for the purposes of the riddle it’s thirty yuan and they pay ten yuan each.’
‘OK.’
‘So, after they’ve gone up to their room she realises she should only have charged them twenty-five yuan.’
‘This hotel gets cheaper and cheaper.’
She ignored him. ‘She calls the bellboy, explains the situation, and gives him five yuan to take up to the room to pay them back. On the way up, the bellboy figures it’s going to be hard for these guys to split five yuan three ways. So he decides to give them only three — one each — and keep the remaining two for himself.’
‘Dishonesty,’ said Li, shaking his head sadly. ‘This is what I have to deal with every day.’
‘The question is,’ she ignored him again. ‘If each of the three men got one yuan back, that means they only paid nine yuan each. A total of twenty-seven yuan. The bellboy kept two to himself. That makes twenty-nine yuan. What happened to the other yuan?’
Li stopped chewing for a moment as he did a quick calculation. Then he frowned. ‘Twenty-nine,’ he said. Then, ‘But that’s not possible.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Therein lies the riddle.’
He did the calculation again and shook his head. ‘I’m going to have to think about this. Obviously it’s something really simple.’
‘Obviously.’ She delved into the bag hanging from her bicycle. ‘Oh, and I nearly forgot. I brought you this. I thought you might be interested to read it.’ She took out a battered, dark blue, hardcover book. ‘Redgauntlet by Sir Walter Scott.’
‘I know the name. I think my uncle might have had some of his books. Who is he?’
‘Was. He was a very famous Scottish writer. I saw the movie Braveheart recently, about the Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace. It made me interested in the country. So I’ve been reading Sir Walter Sco
tt. I think you might enjoy him.’
Li took the book. ‘Thanks, Mei Yuan. It might be a while before I can get it back to you. I’m pretty much up to the neck in a case just now.’
‘That’s all right. Whenever,’ she said. ‘What a friend has is never lost.’
Some people came for jian bings and she turned to cook them, and Li stood silently watching the traffic, reflecting on the tragedy of a dozen years of madness that had stolen the life of a clever, educated woman, and cast her eventually on to the streets to make a living cooking savoury pancakes. But by the time Mei Yuan had finished and turned back, his minded had drifted again to Margaret and the encounter he could not avoid. He came out of his reverie to find her watching him.
‘What’s on your mind, Li Yan?’ she asked.
How could he explain it to her? How could he even begin to explain it? He said, ‘What would you do if your heart said one thing and your superiors another?’
‘Is this a riddle?’
‘No, it’s a question.’
She thought about it for a moment. ‘This is a conflict between … what … love and loyalty?’
‘I suppose it’s something like that, though not quite that simple.’
‘If only everything in life was as simple as the solution to a riddle,’ she said, and touched his arm. ‘Is there no way to accommodate both? It is better to walk on two legs.’
He shook his head sadly. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t.’
III
Li walked past the games court, cracked concrete baking behind a chickenwire fence. A group of students was playing volleyball, shouting and laughing. Li felt envious of their youth, free from the concerns of the real world that lay beyond the campus. He had been a student here himself once. He knew how it felt, and he experienced a sense of loss at an innocence long gone.
He had been angered, on his return to Section One, to discover that the Americans had insisted on carrying out the autopsy at the Centre of Material Evidence Determination on the campus of the University of Public Security in south-west Beijing. Dr Campbell, apparently, had complained that facilities at Pao Jü Hutong were not good enough. He remembered just how much she had irritated him when they first met. She was having the same effect on him now.