Peter May - The Firemaker

Margaret was almost overwhelmed by relief at the ability to be able to communicate again in plain English. ‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘I brought quite a lot of slides, and if it’s possible to arrange it, you know, I think it would be great if we could take the students through a real autopsy.’

‘We can discuss this tomorrow,’ Mr Cao said, his rise to his feet apparently a cue for everyone else to stand. As Margaret shook hands with them all yet again, there was a knock at the door and Lily entered, nodding her acknowledgment to Professor Jiang.

‘Ready to take you to apartment, Doctah Cambo.’

‘Hotel,’ Margaret corrected her.

‘Apartment,’ Lily insisted. ‘Just down street here. We have apartment for unmarried lecturer.’

‘No, no. I’m staying at the Friendship Hotel. I didn’t want an apartment. I made that clear in Chicago. It’s all booked.’

The colour rose high on Lily’s face. ‘People’s University of Public Security cannot afford hotel. We provide apartment for lecturer.’

Almost twenty-four hours without sleep was taking its toll on Margaret’s patience. ‘Look, the hotel is booked, I’m paying for it myself. It was all part of the deal. Okay?’

There was consternation on Professor’s Jiang’s face as he struggled to make sense of this friction between the two women. Bob stepped in quickly, smiling and speaking rapidly in Chinese in an attempt to smooth Lily’s ruffled feathers. Then he turned to Margaret, still smiling. ‘Just a little misunderstanding. We’ll sort it all out.’

Lily looked far from mollified. She glared at Margaret, turned abruptly and marched out of the room. Bob smiled and nodded some more, uttering further soothing words in Chinese to Professor Jiang, and steering Margaret hastily out into the corridor.

‘Jesus, Margaret, what the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

Margaret was beside herself with indignation. ‘What have I done now? The hotel is booked. It was all agreed. I didn’t want to go home at night and have to start making my own bed and cooking my own meals.’

He drew her away from the reception room. ‘Yeah, but Lily didn’t know that. You don’t just go contradicting people here, Margaret.’

‘Don’t tell me. I made her lose “ mianzi ”.’

‘Oh, so you have read your briefing notes.’ Margaret resisted the temptation to put him straight. ‘The thing is, Margaret, the Chinese have got a thousand ways of saying “no” without ever saying “no”. And you’re going to have to start learning some of them, or your six weeks here are going to seem like six years.’

Margaret sighed theatrically. ‘So what should I have said?’

‘You should have said how grateful you were for the university’s offer of accommodation, but that unfortunately you had already booked a room at the Friendship Hotel.’ Bob stopped her at the top of the stairs. ‘I told you, they do things differently here. And if you want to get anything done, you’re going to have to start getting yourself a little guanxi in the bank.’

‘What the hell’s “gwanshee”?’

‘It’s what makes this whole society work. A kind of old boys’ network — you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I do you a favour, you do me one in return. And you’re not doing anyone any favours by making them lose face.’

Margaret’s head dropped, and to Bob she suddenly looked very small and very frail. He immediately regretted his impatience with her.

‘Hey, listen… I’m sorry. You’ve had a long day…’

‘ Two days,’ she corrected him, a hint of petulance in her tone.

‘And I guess this is all pretty bizarre stuff.’

‘Yeah.’ Now she was fighting an unaccountable urge to burst into tears, and became aware of her foot tapping manically on the top step. Bob was aware of it, too. His voice became soothing.

‘Look, Lily’ll take you to the Friendship. Have a shower, get changed, maybe even grab an hour’s shut-eye, and just let the banquet tonight wash over you. Enjoy it. The food’s great. And as for the other stuff… I’ll keep you right, okay?’

She flicked him a look that verged on the grateful, and a wry smile turned up the corners of her mouth. ‘Sure. Thanks.’

But her reassurance lasted only as long as it took to reach the car and the scowling face of Lily Ping, and Margaret’s heart sank again.

The young security guard nodded to Li as he passed through the staff gate at the rear of the Jingtan joint venture hotel on Jianguomennei Avenue. Li slipped in the back door to the ground-floor kitchen and looked around for Yongli. But there was no sign of him. Sous-chefs were chopping vegetables and preparing marinades, jointing chickens and basting duck for roasting.

Li stopped one of the waitresses. ‘Where’s Ma Yongli?’

She nodded towards the door. ‘Out front.’

Li crossed to the door, opening it a crack, and peeked out. Yongli stood by a hot plate and gas ring behind an ornate counter with a Chinese canopy. His white smock seemed to emphasise his height and his bulk, his round face solemn below his tall white chef’s hat. He gazed out at the early eaters in the twenty-four-hour Café China, his mind somewhere else altogether. He was on front-of-house duty tonight, cooking dishes from the day’s Special Menu in view of the customers who ordered them. But the serious diners were not yet in and, for the moment at least, he was idle, his mind free to wander. Li watched him affectionately for a moment, then issued a short, sharp whistle from between his front teeth. Yongli’s head snapped round and his face lit up when he saw Li. He glanced about quickly to see if any of the managers were watching, then hurried over to the door, pushing Li back into the kitchen with an irresistible force. ‘Well? Well? Come on, tell me. What happened?’

The smiled drained from Li’s face and he lowered his head and shrugged. ‘The Commissioner said it was Party policy to “discourage nepotism in all its insidious forms”.’

All the animation left Yongli’s expression. ‘Aw, come on, you’re shitting me, right?’

Li retained his grave demeanour. ‘It’s what he said.’ He paused, and then a big grin split his face. ‘But it didn’t stop me getting the job.’

‘You bastard!’ Yongli grabbed at him, but Li backed off, grinning stupidly.

‘Hey!’ Yongli shouted out to the kitchen. And heads lifted. ‘Big Li got his promotion!’ And he grabbed a couple of stainless-steel ladles and started working his way up a line of hanging pots and pans, beating out a tattoo on them as he went. A cheer went up from the staff, and there was a spontaneous round of applause. Li flushed and shook his head with embarrassment, still grinning like an idiot. Yongli reached the end of the row. ‘So the next time you get lifted by the cops,’ he shouted, ‘you can just say, hey, don’t you know who I am? I’m a pal of Big Li Yan. And they’ll let you go faster than hot coals.’ He turned a huge, sparkling-eyed, maniacal grin on his friend and stalked down the aisle towards him, taking Li’s face in two giant hands and planting a big wet kiss on his forehead. ‘Congratulations, pal.’ And the two embraced, to further applause from the kitchen staff.

They had been best friends since meeting on their first day at the University of Public Security nearly fifteen years before. Two kindred spirits, each instantly recognising the other. Big daft boys, then and now. It had broken Li’s heart when Yongli had dropped out in their final year. His results had been deteriorating in almost precise correlation to his pursuit of women and karaoke bars and a lifestyle he could not afford. It was the essential difference between them. Li took his career more seriously than his pleasures. But to Yongli the pursuit of pleasure was all. And he had jumped at the chance to train as a chef with a Sino-American joint venture.