Peter May - The Firemaker

Thursday Night

Red light refracting in hot humid air hung over the city like a veil as the sun dipped in the west, and darkness drew like a curtain from the east across the Middle Kingdom. Below them the lights of the city twinkled in the dusk. Red tail-lights of traffic in long lines snaked east and west, north and south, the growling of their engines a distant rumble. Somewhere down there, Margaret thought, people were crowding the stalls at the Dong’anmen night market, taking pleasure in eating, happy and free at the end of a working day. She wished she were among them.

They had entered Jingshan Park by the south gate, almost opposite the place where the woman in the blue print dress had been knocked off her bike and Margaret had stopped the bleeding from her severed femoral artery by standing on her leg. They were entering the park as most people were leaving. It would close in an hour. They had followed a winding path up through the trees to the pavilion that stood on the top of Prospect Hill. Halfway up, they had stopped briefly to join a crowd of people watching a very old lady in black pyjamas perform incredible contortions. She had laid a mat on the earth and, lying on her back, had wedged both her feet beneath a pole placed behind her neck, effectively folding herself in two. The crowd gasped in amazement, and there was a little burst of applause. The old lady remained impassive, but she was clearly enjoying showing off the suppleness of her joints and muscles. Margaret had guessed she must be in her eighties.

The pavilion was deserted when they got there, orange-tiled curling eaves supported on maroon-and-gold pillars, late evening sunshine throwing warm light on cold marble. Walking round, beneath the eaves, provided a 360-degree panorama of the city below. It took Margaret’s breath away.

Li squatted on the steps, looking south, over the symmetrical patchwork of roofs that was the Forbidden City, to the vast open expanse of Tiananmen Square. He liked to come here, he told her, in the late evening, when it was quiet and he could watch the city come to life as darkness fell around him. It was the most peaceful place in Beijing, he said, and it released him to think freely and clearly. She sat down beside him, their arms touching, and she felt the heat of his body and breathed in the musky, earthy smell of him.

For a long time neither of them spoke. Swallows darted and dived around them in the dying light, and below, among the trees, the screech of cicadas rose, pulsing, into the night air.

Eventually he said, ‘I’m scared, Margaret.’

She inclined her head towards him and examined his profile, bold and strongly defined. ‘Scared of what?’ she asked softly.

‘If I knew, I wouldn’t be scared,’ he said. ‘I have a sick feeling in my stomach. I think we are both in danger.’

‘In danger of what?’

‘Of knowing too much.’

Margaret released a tiny gasp of frustration. ‘But we know hardly anything. What do we know?’

‘We know that someone with power and privilege and something to hide had Chao Heng killed. We know that a professional hit-man was employed to do it, and that he killed two other, perfectly innocent, people for no other reason than to confuse the investigation. We know, or think we know, that there is a conspiracy to pervert the course of that investigation, involving one of the highest law officers in the land. And we know that the killer is out there, somewhere, watching us getting closer and closer.’ He paused. ‘We know far too much.’

She shivered, in spite of the heat. For the first time she tasted his fear, and she knew it was real. ‘What do you think they will do? Will they try to kill us?’ It seemed shocking, somehow, that she was even suggesting such a thing. It had not occurred to her before that they could be in any real danger.

‘I don’t know,’ Li said. ‘They will be scared of us, because of what we know, or because of what they think we will find out. And we know they are ruthless people. Whatever they are hiding, they have killed three people to protect it. If it is worth three lives, it is worth three more, or thirty more, or three hundred more. How can you draw a line you have already crossed?’

They sat in silence, each with their own private thoughts, and Margaret slipped her arm through his and held on to him for comfort. Below, the darkness among the trees grew around them, secret and hidden and menacing. Margaret felt surrounded. Isolated. What had seemed peaceful was now threatening. Beyond, among the twinkling city lights, people went about their lives, eating, loving, laughing, sleeping. Families gathering in hutongs around flickering blue TV screen light, eating dumplings and drinking beer, giggling at some programme. Normal lives. Something that neither she nor Li could possess. It was all so close, but just out of reach… She had seen Bertolucci’s film, and understood now the isolation of the Last Emperor, Puyi, shut away from the real world behind the walls of the Forbidden City spread out now beneath her in the dusk. Normality was just a touch away, but untouchable.

Her gaze wandered a little to the west, where the last light in the sky reflected on a long, narrow lake. She frowned, unable to place it. She had not been aware of such a large body of water in the centre of the city. ‘What is that place?’ she asked. ‘I can’t remember ever having seen it from the street.’

He followed her eyes. ‘Zhongnanhai,’ he said. ‘The New Forbidden City. It is where our leaders live and work. You have never seen it because it is hidden behind high walls, just like the old Forbidden City.’

She gazed on the dark forbidden lake and wondered if perhaps somewhere in all the villas nestling among the trees along its banks lay the answers to all their questions. The lights of a car briefly flashed across the water and turned into the drive of a distant villa where light leaked out through slatted blinds. She closed her eyes and let her head rest on his shoulder.

They had been up on Prospect Hill for nearly an hour. The sun finally slid down below the ragged line of distant purple hills, and stars twinkled in a dark blue firmament. Li had smoked several cigarettes, and for the last forty minutes they had not spoken much. Margaret’s arm was still through his, her head still resting lightly on his shoulder. The darkness now did not seem so threatening. It wrapped itself around them like a blanket, and she felt safe and hidden. ‘There is one other thing that scares me,’ Li said finally.

She waited for him to tell her, but he said nothing. ‘What?’ she asked.

He swallowed and turned to meet her eye. ‘Losing you,’ he said.

She felt a rush of blood suffuse her with warmth, a trembling inside that was something between fear and pleasure. She understood how big a moment it was for him to have given voice to his emotion. As long as you keep such feelings secret and safe, they cannot hurt you. They cannot be turned against you, or rejected, or laughed at. But the moment you share them you become vulnerable. And once spoken, the words can never be taken back. Her mouth had gone dry, her throat thick. Her voice was husky. ‘I don’t want to lose you either.’ It was almost a whisper. Now she had committed, too. They were equally vulnerable; the genie was out of the bottle.

He put a hand up to touch her face, and tracked his fingers gently down the pale, soft skin of her cheek. Then he ran them back through her golden curls, feeling the shape of her skull through the soft, silken hair. He put his other hand up to cup her face and draw her close. She rested her hands lightly on his arms and closed her eyes as his lips brushed hers once, twice. And she opened her mouth to receive his — soft and warm and smoky. And then their arms were around each other, the first tentative kiss giving way to a fierce, almost desperate passion. They broke apart for a moment, breathless, drinking each other in with restless, hungry eyes. And then they were kissing again. Urgently. Devouring each other. Bodies pressed together. He felt the hardness of her breasts pushing into him. They were on their knees now, his erection pressing hard into her belly. She wanted him inside her. She wanted to suck him in and keep him there. She wanted to consume him.