The Firemaker (The China Thrillers 1)

by Peter May

  He knew what was coming and sighed. ‘Can’t it wait?’

  ‘Now!’

  They walked into the detectives’ room, faces turning towards them in eager anticipation. Margaret marched straight through and into Li’s office, her face like the thunder rumbling among the storm clouds gathering in the heat outside. Reluctantly, and to the disappointment of the detectives, Li followed her in and closed the door behind him.

  ‘You bastard!’ Margaret almost spat at him. ‘That’s why you took me along this morning. So I would lie for you!’

  Li shrugged innocently. ‘How could I know you would lie for me?’ Her eyes narrowed angrily and she wanted to punch him and kick him, to hurt him any way she could. ‘Why did you?’ he asked.

  She turned her head away, counting up to five to herself, trying to keep control. ‘That’s a good question. I’ve been asking it myself. I think …’ She tried to keep her breathing slow and steady. ‘I think because I didn’t want to make your uncle ashamed of you.’ A sudden thought made her turn to face him again, eyes blazing. ‘Is that why you took me to see him this afternoon? So I would like him, and not want to see him dishonoured by the behaviour of his nephew?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I can’t believe how stupid I was not to realise this morning why you took me to the stadium. You wanted a witness. Someone of unimpeachable character. Someone you knew wasn’t going to rat on you, no matter how much they disapproved of what you did.’ She waited for some kind of reaction. None came. ‘Are you going to deny it?’

  He couldn’t think of anything to say. She stood for several moments, glaring at him, and then quite unexpectedly started to laugh. He looked at her in amazement. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘You. No, not you. Me. I actually thought you were shy. And sensitive.’

  ‘I am,’ he protested, a smile breaking across his face.

  ‘You’ – she jabbed a finger at him – ‘are a selfish, insensitive, calculating, cold-blooded bastard. And you’d better buy me dinner, ’cos I’m fucking starving!’

  *

  It was after seven thirty as the BMW swung south down the west side of Tiananmen Square. Great dark storm clouds were gathering in the evening sky. The light was a strange pink colour, as if the world were covered in a film of it. The air was oppressive, the heat almost unbearable. A hot wind gusted among the crowds in the square, blowing kites high into the blue-grey sky above the Great Hall of the People.

  The atmosphere in the car was oppressive, too. Lily was clearly displeased at not being apprised of events in Section Chief Chen’s office. She was even less pleased to be excluded from the arrangement that Li and Margaret had made to meet that night. Margaret was getting very tired of Lily Peng, and their last exchanges had been terse and tetchy. She was no longer sure whether Lily had been given some watching brief, or whether she was simply being officious and nosey. A third possibility that Margaret had toyed with was the notion that Lily might be jealous, that she had some secret fantasy about Deputy Section Chief Li. Whatever the truth was, Margaret was just anxious to shake her off.

  They turned on to West Qianmen Avenue and headed towards the university to pick up her bicycle. Shimei, the diminutive driver, had assured her that it would fit in the trunk. Lily had insisted that they drive her back to the hotel, and Margaret wasn’t about to argue. She also needed to call in at the Centre of Material Evidence Determination and ask Professor Xie to arrange further tests on Chao’s blood, to confirm that he actually had been infected with AIDS. Then back to the hotel, another quick shower, a change, and a taxi to meet Li outside the Foreign Languages Bookstore in Wangfujing Street.

  She felt a thrill of excitement at the prospect. She was hopelessly confused about her feelings for him now. All she knew was that for the first time in months her mind was being stretched, her emotions engaged, and she felt alive again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I

  Wednesday Night

  Above the Foreign Languages Bookstore in Wangfujing Street the sky was ominously dark, the evening light fading prematurely in the shadow of the black clouds congregating overhead. The heat was suffocating. Sweat soaked Li’s shirt, his third that day. On the way there from the railway station he had noticed a digital display on a tower block, alternating time and temperature, reading 20.10 and 37°C. Some time tonight, he knew, lightning would illuminate the sky, thunder would crash and rumble across the city, and it would rain. Hot, torrential rain that would swell the gutters and wash away the dust of weeks. And after, it would be fresher, cooler, and possible to breathe again.

  After writing his report for the Deputy Procurator General, he had turned up unexpectedly at the railway station to see his uncle off on the train. Old Yifu had been glad to see him. Surprised, but pleased. The old man had been quiet and solemn, and they had shaken hands before he climbed aboard the Sichuan express to take his seat in Hard Class among the smoking, eating, spitting travellers that jammed his compartment. Li had watched the train pull away from the platform, gathering speed into the misty evening. A deep depression had settled on him, an unaccountable sense of foreboding. He had wanted to call the train back and tell his uncle not to go. That his sister and her husband could look after themselves. His uncle seemed so fragile, somehow. Old in a way that Li had never seen him before. My only regret is that I was separated from my wife for that period. We had so little time together afterwards, he had told Margaret. Li had never heard him express his loss like that before. It had always been something held close and private.

  A red taxi pulled up at the kerbside and Margaret got out of the back. Li’s spirits lifted at the sight of her. She had put on a touch of fresh make-up, her lips warm and red, a smudge of brown on her eyelids emphasising somehow the blue of her eyes. She wore a pair of light, baggy cotton pants that hugged her behind and tapered to fine, slim ankles. She had a pair of white tennis shoes on her feet, and wore a short-sleeved silk blouse tucked in at the waist. A dipping neckline revealed a hint of cleavage, and emphasised the fullness of her breasts. Her hair cascaded back over her shoulders in loops and curls. Her smile was wide and affectionate as she ran up to him, and for a moment he thought she was going to reach up and kiss him. He experienced a mixture of fear and pleasure at the prospect. But she didn’t. ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi,’ Li responded, suddenly self-conscious. He thought she looked beautiful.

  Margaret had seen him standing in front of the bookshop as the taxi drew up. He, too, had changed again, and was wearing a red brushed-cotton shirt, and fawn pants pleated at the waist. Red suited him. Strong and vibrant against the jet black of his hair. He had seemed distracted as he stood waiting for her, something sad in his expression. But his face lit up when he saw her, and his smile had made her stomach flip. She’d had to resist the temptation to reach up on tiptoe and kiss him, a natural, instinctive response to the feelings of affection that filled her with warmth and weakness. Instead, she slipped her arm through his and said, ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘Not far,’ he said, and steered her north along the west side of the street.

  Wangfujing was the shopping street in Beijing, jammed with department stores, boutiques, photographic studios, jewellers. They were all still open, doing brisk business, crowds of evening shoppers thronging the sidewalks, cramming into fast-food restaurants, spending hard-earned yuan on fresh foods and fancy goods. Trolley buses and taxis and private cars and bicycles clogged the road. The east side of the street was in the process of redevelopment along most of its length. Li said, ‘They are building an underground street three hundred metres long on three levels under here.’

  ‘What for?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘More shops,’ Li said. ‘Chinese can’t spend their money fast enough these days. But then Wangfujing Street has always been a place for the rich. It is named after ten princes’ mansions built in the Ming Dynasty, and their sweet-water well.’

  Suddenly Margaret became aware of a smoky
-sweet aroma filling the sticky night air. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Something smells good.’

  He smiled, and they turned west into Dong’anmen Street. Margaret stopped and drank in the scene in amazement. ‘Dong’anmen night market,’ Li said.

  A row of food stalls stretching as far as the eye could see ran the full course of the north side. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people were crushed along its length, flitting from stall to stall buying a dish here, a bird on a stick there, eggs fried in batter, noodles. From beneath dozens of striped canopies set cheek by jowl under the trees, smoke rose from hot oil in giant woks on open braziers. All manner of foods were being stir-fried or deep-fried. Huge copper kettles on hot plates hissed and issued steam into the night sky, boiling water tipping from long curling spouts to make bowls of thick, sweet almond paste. Li steered Margaret gently through the crowds, past stall after stall groaning with skewered meat and vegetables, whole fish, barbecued baby quails impaled on chopsticks, heads and all. Dozens of chefs in white coats and hats sweated over steaming vats on hot coals, drawing out bamboo racks of steamed buns filled with savoury meats or sweet lotus paste. Rice and noodles and soup were served in bowls, with buckets set at the roadside for the dirty dishes. You bought and ate or drank on the spot. It was a meeting place as well as an eating place, whole families gathering with friends to eat and talk under lights strung from the trees overhead.

  Cooks shouted at Li and Margaret as they passed, beckoning them to try their fare. Three yuan a time, Li told her. Livings were made on the basis of volume sales. It was a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach, and just looking at all the food was making Margaret salivate. ‘Have what you want,’ Li said. ‘Just point and we’ll get it.’

  They had bowls of rice and barbecued satay with a wonderful spicy peanut sauce, eggs fried in dough, noodles and pickled shredded vegetables. Between each course, they thirstily devoured large chunks of watermelon, skewered on chopsticks, to cleanse the palate. They tried sticks of marinated pork, others of beef, stir-fried with sesame seeds and soy, chunks of pineapple coated in seed and seared over red-hot coals, soup, and almond paste dessert.

  ‘Stop, stop! I can’t eat any more,’ Margaret said finally, laughing. ‘Take me away from here. I’ll burst.’ It was impossible to look without wanting to taste.

  Li grinned. ‘Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.’

  ‘My stomach’ll be too big to squeeze into any of my clothes if I’m not careful.’

  She was holding his upper arm, quite naturally, and without thinking. And as she turned she felt her breasts brush his forearm, a tiny, tingling, thrilling sensation that stirred the seeds of desire somewhere deep inside her. She knew he’d been aware of it, because she felt him tensing. She released his arm and they moved a little apart, self-conscious and awkward, and started walking slowly. She did a quick mental calculation. Li had spent around fifty yuan, just over six dollars, for everything they had eaten. And with a pang of conscience, she remembered how poorly paid the Chinese were compared to affluent Westerners. Fifty yuan was probably a lot of money to him. She determined that the next time, she would treat him. They sauntered idly through the crowds in the direction of the Forbidden City. She took his arm again, and glanced up at him. Why had she ever thought he was ugly? ‘How come you never married?’ she said.

  His step did not falter, and he kept his eyes straight ahead. ‘In China it is policy to encourage people not to marry young.’

  She looked at him sceptically. ‘And that’s why you never married?’

  He reddened. ‘Not really. I guess I just never met anyone I wanted to marry.’

  ‘Cops,’ she said. ‘The same the world over. It’s not a job, is it? It’s a way of life.’

  Until a matter of hours ago, Li would have believed that to be true for him. His widowed uncle had been his role model. Single, driven, ultimately successful. Li had never met his aunt, never really pictured Old Yifu and his wife together. He had always known, because Yifu would never talk about it, how much he missed her. But today, in the park with Margaret, Old Yifu had revealed more of himself than Li had seen in twelve years. And for the first time, Li realised that it was the loss of his wife that had driven Yifu all these years. His work, his pursuit of success, had all been a means of filling the void left by her death. He would have traded it all for the chance of five more precious minutes with her. It was making Li question now what was driving him. If there was a void in his life, it had always been there. He had no memories of a life shared with someone he loved. He had no real sense of what love was, separated as a very young child from his parents, his mother torn away from him, never to be returned. His job, he understood now, wasn’t a way of life, it was an alternative to one.

  Margaret had watched the sadness descend on him in an instant, like a veil, his dark eyes deep and languid, almost mournful. ‘A yuan for them,’ she said.

  ‘Hmm?’ He looked at her distractedly.

  ‘Your thoughts.’

  He dragged himself away from them and forced a smile. ‘They’re not worth half that,’ he said. And, quickly, to change the subject, ‘Are you thirsty?’

  She nodded. ‘Very.’ All that salty, sweet food.

  ‘We’ll go get some tea,’ he said. ‘I know a place.’

  *

  The Sanwei Bookstore was in a small side street off Fuxingmennei Avenue, opposite the Minorities Palace. It was dark here, leafy spreading trees casting shadows from the streetlights, the noise of traffic on the avenue muffled by a bank of trees on the sidewalk side of the cycle lane. Dark hutongs ran off into a maze of siheyuan courtyards, dusty and crumbling and newly emerged from behind hoardings raised during the construction of a new stretch of Underground. Everywhere, families had left the cramped and unbreathable spaces they occupied in tiny houses and spilled out on to the pavements to sit on walls, drinking jars of tea and chatting idly. Men squatted in groups under the trees playing chess, and children chased up and down the sidewalks, burning up energy and their mothers’ patience in the stifling heat of the night.

  Li and Margaret had taken a No. 4 bus from the bottom end of Wangfujing. It was an experience for Margaret – standing room only, crushed among the bodies squeezed into the long articulated vehicle, curious faces staring at her with undisguised amazement. Yangguizi never travelled on buses. It was unheard of. And this one was particularly strange. Fair-haired and blue-eyed. A tiny child, clutching at her mother’s breast for fear the foreign devil would snatch her away, couldn’t take her eyes off Margaret for the entire journey.

  They missed their stop at Fuxingmen and had to walk back, past Radio Beijing and Beijing Telecom, crossing via a pedestrian underpass to the dark and decaying south side of the street. The Sanwei, which meant ‘three flavours’, Li explained, had an undistinguished window and a dark entrance behind a bus stop. A board leaning against the wall outside promised a jazz band every Thursday evening. Margaret thought it seemed an unlikely venue. ‘Is this it?’ she asked. ‘A cup of tea in a bookshop? And if we come tomorrow we get jazz thrown in?’

  He smiled. ‘The tearoom is upstairs.’

  He led her into a small entrance lobby. Down a couple of steps, and through glass doors, was the bookshop, row upon row of shelves lined with thousands of books, assistants idly wandering the aisles. It was not doing much business. They turned left through a door and up gloomy stairs into another world.

  Here was a room from another age, peaceful and hushed in its dimly lit elegance, cloistered and unreal, an oasis amidst the humid dereliction of the street outside. From its high ceiling, fans swung in lazy unison, stirring paper lanterns hanging over sets of lacquered dark-wood tables and chairs. Along one side ran a narrow passageway behind a low wall and tall columns. Along the other, ornately carved wooden screens were arranged to create private alcoves. Flowers grew in pots on every available space, vases stood on every table. The walls were lined with both modern and traditional Chinese paintings.

  A young girl
greeted them at the top of the stairs and led them across the tiled floor to a table in an alcove. There was not another soul in the place. The rumble of traffic was a distant memory, and the air-conditioning took the heat out of the night. The girl lit a candle at their table and handed them each a menu. Margaret was afraid to raise her voice, as if in a church. ‘This place is amazing,’ she said. ‘You would never know it was here.’

  ‘It’s popular with writers and artists,’ he said. ‘And musicians. It’s very crowded at the weekends, and there is usually music. But in the early week it is quiet.’ His eyes reflected the flickering candlelight like shiny black coals. ‘What would you like to drink?’

  ‘Just tea.’

  He ordered, and the girl brought a tray of delicacies for them to choose from. Margaret picked a small dish of toasted sunflower seeds to nibble on. The tea came in colourfully patterned china cups set in deep saucers and covered with lids. Hot water was poured over a sprinkling of dried green leaves in the bottom of the cups from a heavy, traditionally shaped brass teapot. The girl left it at the table for them to top up their own. The green leaves floated to the tops of their cups, expanding and turning fleshy as they rehydrated. Li replaced the lids. ‘Better to wait a few minutes.’

  They sat in silence then for some time. Not a difficult silence, not awkward or self-conscious, but comfortable. Words seemed unnecessary somehow. Li looked at her hands, clasped on the table in front of her. He marvelled at how pink the flesh was beneath the nails, how delicate the fingers that wielded the instruments of autopsy, cutting open corpses to unravel the mysteries of death.

  ‘What on earth made you want to be a doctor?’ he asked suddenly, almost without meaning to. And immediately he regretted it, fearing she would take offence at his tone.

  But she just laughed. ‘Why? Is it so awful?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to be …’ He tailed off and shook his head. ‘You know, when you told those students I was squeamish about being at autopsies, you were right.’