Li lowered his voice almost to a whisper. ‘Was that really necessary?’
‘What?’
‘Putting me on the spot like that?’
This was not how Margaret wanted it to be. She had taken a momentous decision, travelled a long way to be with Li, and already they were at one another’s throats. But there were principles at stake. ‘I’m the one who’s on the spot here,’ she said, struggling to keep her voice down. ‘You’ve brought me in on an investigation that some people would clearly like to see just disappear.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That press conference,’ she said, ‘was a joke. The Commissioner of Police is telling the press that these women weren’t murdered, even before the investigation’s got properly under way. And Dr Lan might be a very good pathologist, but I think he’s just fulfilling some wishful thinking on behalf of his bosses.’
‘Are you saying he’s concealing the findings of his autopsies?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Margaret said. ‘But maybe he’s just not looking very hard.’ She sighed. ‘You’re a good cop, Li Yan, but when it comes to politics you can be pretty naïve.’
Li frowned. ‘You think someone is actually trying to subvert the investigation?’
She shrugged. ‘Well, it’s all pretty embarrassing, isn’t it? For the authorities.’
Li said, ‘It was the Mayor’s policy adviser who put me in charge. It was he who gave me permission to bring you in.’
‘Then maybe there are others who don’t like decisions like that being taken over their heads.’
Li thought about it. His meeting with Huang and the Deputy Commissioner had been pretty frosty, and the Commissioner himself had been briefed by Huang. But he found it hard to believe that any one of them would contrive to hide the truth. Why would they?
Margaret said, ‘The point is, I have my integrity and a professional reputation to protect. Either I get full access and complete co-operation or I’m on the first plane home.’
For a moment, Li wondered where she meant by ‘home’. The United States? He was confused. She had stayed on in China to be with him and had only returned to the States to attend her father’s funeral. He dragged his thoughts back to the case. He said, ‘You have my guarantee on that.’
She nodded. ‘Then that’s good enough for me.’ And suddenly she wilted, fatigue etching itself on her face. She wanted to touch him, feel his skin under her fingers, his soft warm lips on her neck. ‘Let’s go back to the hotel. I need a shower, then we can get something to eat, and …’ Li looked uncomfortable. ‘What?’
‘We must attend a banquet tonight.’
She felt all the strength drain out of her. All the Chinese ever seemed to do was hold banquets. ‘Aw, Jesus, Li, not tonight. Please.’
He shrugged helplessly. ‘I have got no choice. It is being hosted by the Mayor’s policy adviser, and you and I are the guests of honour. I think he wants to show us off.’
Mei-Ling came out from the refrigeration room and cast Margaret a chilly look. She said to Li, ‘I will give you a lift back to your hotel after we have dropped off Miss Campbell.’
Margaret frowned and said to Li, ‘Aren’t you staying at the Peace Hotel?’
Mei-Ling answered for him. ‘I am afraid the budget does not run to two rooms at the Peace Hotel, Miss Campbell. We Chinese have to content ourselves with something a little more austere.’
For the first time, Li became aware of the friction between the two, and was puzzled by it. After all, they had only just met.
Mei-Ling said, ‘But do not worry, we will come back and pick you up on the way to the banquet tonight.’
Margaret bristled. ‘We? Do I take it that you are also going to the banquet?’
Mei-Ling smiled. ‘Of course.’
III
Margaret’s shower had lifted her appearance, but not her spirits. Her hair fell in freshly laundered golden waves across her shoulders. She had put on an elegant but conservative sleeveless black dress for the banquet. But her eyes were stinging from lack of sleep, she felt tired and depressed and in need of alcohol. She wandered in search of the bar along endless marbled corridors dominated by gold and pink squared ceilings and elaborate Art Deco uplighters. But there were no signs in English that she could see. In a lounge opposite the reception lobby, people sat drinking coffee and beer at tables, but it was not exactly what Margaret had in mind.
‘S’cuse me. You Miss Maggot Cambo?’
Margaret turned to find a smiling young Chinese man standing timidly in front of her.
He held out his hand. ‘Ah … My name … Jiang Baofu.’ His English was hesitant, but he was determined to persevere. ‘Medical student … Read about you in paper, Miss Cambo.’
Reluctantly she shook his hand.
‘How do you do?’
‘Ah … very well, thank you.’ He bowed slightly. ‘You … mmmm … very farmers, Miss Cambo.’
She frowned. ‘Farmers?’
He nodded enthusiastically. ‘
Very
farmers.’ And she realised suddenly that he meant ‘famous’.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
‘Oh, yes. I … mmm … wanna be pathologist like you.’ He smiled, still nodding enthusiastically. ‘I … mmm … night watchman, where they find bodies.’
And Margaret was immediately on her guard. She had thought, initially, that the young man was harmless enough, but now she had major misgivings. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘you are a material witness and we shouldn’t be talking.’
She strode off across the lobby, but he hurried after her. ‘I like to help,’ he said. ‘I like to help investigation. I like to help you.’
She spun around. ‘Just how did you know where to find me?’ she asked.
‘Oh …’ he said. ‘I give statement at 803. Aaa-ll day. I … mmm … follow you to hotel.’
Margaret was distinctly unhappy now. She looked at him again. She saw that despite the almost cringing obsequiousness of his demeanour, he was a powerfully built young man. He had a strong physical presence, and his lack of confidence was only in his English. ‘I think you should go,’ she said, and turned away. But he caught her arm, and she felt the strength of his fingers as they bit into her bare flesh.
‘No, no … I only wanna help,’ he said.
She pulled her arm free. ‘Don’t ever touch me again,’ she said dangerously, and with more confidence than she felt.
‘Lady in need of assistance?’ She turned at the sound of the voice on her right hand and felt a huge wave of relief to see the familiar smiling face of Jack Geller.
‘Yes,’ she said, trying to remain composed. ‘I was looking for the bar.’
‘Then you found the right man to take you there,’ he said. He glanced at Jiang Baofu, then steered her away past the currency exchange to a narrow wooden staircase leading up to a small mezzanine bookshop. ‘What was all that about?’ he asked.
She shrugged it off. ‘Nothing.’
‘Didn’t look like nothing to me.’
‘Believe me, women alone in hotels are always getting pestered.’ She looked around at the rows of books and racks of magazines. ‘Actually, when I said “bar” I was thinking more of something that sold booze, not books.’
He grinned. ‘Keep walking.’ They passed along a narrow corridor where tall, elaborate glass and wrought-iron lampstands stood sentinel. On one side there were large semi-circular stained-glass windows from floor to ceiling, on the other a marble balustrade protecting a view down into the well of the reception lobby below. The bar opened out before them. Big, comfortable armchairs and sofas gathered around low coffee tables, windows along one side looked down on to the lounge.
They sat on stools at a long, polished bar. An old-fashioned golfer in plus-fours and cloth cap peered at them through round spectacles with real lenses. He was all of three feet high, brightly coloured paint on glazed china. Margaret could imagine executives of Jardine, Matheson gathering here at the day’s end seventy years before to quaff their gins and tonic and discuss the day’s dealings. Although the bar was empty, their ghosts still haunted it. A young waitress in a
qipao
took their order.
Margaret had a long draught of her vodka tonic and felt the alcohol hit her bloodstream almost immediately. She closed her eyes and let the feeling relax her. Geller watched her with interest over the rim of his beer glass. He said, ‘Dead fodder for medical students. That’s all they were, huh?’
She opened her eyes slowly and looked at him. ‘You expect me to comment on that?’
‘You don’t have to. It’s all bullshit.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Aw, come on. Eighteen young women, most of them under thirty … ? I don’t think so. Life expectancy here is seventy plus, and there’s a hell of a lot more men than women. If they’d all died of natural causes, the law of averages would make most of them over fifty, and a majority of them male.’
Margaret made no comment. But she couldn’t argue with the logic. ‘And if someone had been conducting research on, say, declining fertility in young women across a twenty-year age range … ?’
‘Were they?’
‘I have no idea. I’m just making an argument.’
‘It would still be bullshit.’
‘Why?’
‘Because eighteen young women, all dead from natural causes and conveniently available for illicit medical research, still goes against the law of averages.’ He took another sip of his beer. ‘By the way, has anyone told you you’re very attractive for someone who cuts up people for a living.’
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve often been told how attractive I am by men who want to get into my pants. But a blow-by-blow account of how I dissect the male organ during autopsy is usually enough to put them off.’
Geller grinned, ‘I love it when a woman talks surgery.’
And, to her surprise, she found herself laughing. She looked at him a little more appraisingly and noticed there was no ring on the left hand. ‘Did anyone ever tell you you’re not bad-looking for someone who hacks people to pieces in print?’
‘Once,’ he said. ‘My editor. Sadly he was a guy. My kind of luck.’
‘You never married, then?’
‘Thought about it once. For a whole five seconds.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Or was it as long as that?’ He finished his beer. ‘You want another of those?’
She nodded. He ordered another round and she said, ‘So who do you work for out here?’
He smiled. ‘Remember I told you about the Whore of the Orient? Well, I am that whore. I’ll do it for anyone who pays me.’
‘And who pays you?’
‘
Newsweek
, sometimes.
Time
, A couple of wire services, some of the big papers back home when their regular correspondents go off on a rest cure to a massage parlour in Thailand.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a living.’
‘How long have you been in Shanghai?’
‘Too long.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re a fund of information, aren’t you?’
‘I try not to be. Listen, I’m the hack here, I thought I was the one supposed to be asking the questions.’
Their drinks arrived and Margaret lifted her glass. ‘The best way to avoid answering questions is to ask them.’ She took a long draught, then checked her watch. ‘Oh, my God! Is that the time? They’ll be waiting for me in the lobby.’ She took another hurried drink and put her glass back on the bar. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Geller, I’m going to have to love you and leave you.’
He shrugged ruefully. ‘I’ll settle for that – with or without the leaving bit.’ She grinned and slipped off the stool. ‘So where are you off to?’ he asked.
‘A banquet. Hosted by some policy adviser to the Mayor.’
If she thought he’d be impressed she was wrong. ‘Ahh,’ he said seriously. Director Hu. The Director is not a very nice man.’
IV
Mei-Ling eased the Santana through the crowds of people, cars and bicycles that choked Yunnan Nan Road. Two elderly women in the light blue uniform of traffic wardens were waving their arms at the junction, and blowing their whistles like demented birds. The Santana passed under a traditional Chinese gate and into a neon wonderland. Red lanterns and yellow banners were strung overhead. Every shop front and restaurant was lit in this narrow street, each fleck of coloured light coruscating in the rain. Steam rose from open windows where great racks of dumplings cooked over boiling water, smoke issuing from open barbecues, spicy skewers of lamb and chicken hissing and spitting their fat on the coals. A group of drunken young women with painted faces, staggering precariously on very high heels, banged on the hood of the car and leered in the window at Li. Margaret sat in the back, feeling remote and isolated from Li who sat up front next to Mei-Ling. There had been very little said since they left the hotel.
When Mei-Ling drew the Volkswagen into a tiny car park next to the twelve-storey Xiaoshaoxing Hotel, they made a dash through the rain to the front entrance. The elevator to the eighth floor slid silently up one of two glass tubes built on to the side of the building. From here they had an ascending view of the chaotic jumbled sprawl of rooftops and balconies below, washing hanging out across the street on long poles, wetter than when it had been put out.
They followed a waitress along quiet, panelled corridors, turning left and then right, past several private banqueting rooms. Director Hu and his guests awaited them in a large room at the end. They were standing in groups around a very large circular table, smoking and chatting animatedly, classical Chinese music playing quietly from large speakers in each corner. Li introduced Margaret to the Director. His eyes were on a level with hers and they ran up and down her appraisingly. His handshake, she thought, was limp and slightly damp. He had a wide smile, revealing unusually even and white teeth. He wore an immaculately cut designer suit, and she caught the briefest whiff of Paco Rabanne. She looked at his smooth, round face and thought that the aftershave was more for effect than any practical purpose. She resisted a sudden absurd urge to run her hands over his head to see if his closely cropped grey hair was as velvety to the touch as it looked:
‘Dr Campbell,’ he said, ‘I have heard very much about you. It is an honour to meet you.’ He turned and introduced her to his other guests – the Commissioner of Police and Section Chief Huang whom she had already met; the Procurator General, still in his uniform; another of the Mayor’s advisers, a square-set and unsmiling man; a personal friend, Mr Cui Feng, and his wife; and a couple of aides, younger men who nodded and smiled and ushered everyone to their seats. Li was placed on one side of the Director, Margaret on the other.