Peter May - The Firemaker

The crack of a twig snapping under foot cut through the chorus of cicadas from the trees below, and lust was replaced almost instantly by fear. They broke apart, and Li was on his feet. A flashlight shone in his face, and he raised an arm to shield his eyes. ‘Who’s that?’ he called.

The light fell away to the ground, and an old man climbed several tentative steps towards them. He flashed the lamp briefly at Margaret, and said to Li, ‘The gates will be locked in five minutes.’

On the steep path down through the trees, Margaret slipped her hand into his. It felt big and protective as it gave hers a small, gentle squeeze. Staff at the gatehouse waited impatiently to lock up, glaring at them as they passed outside to blink in the bright streetlights of Jingshanquan Street. The traffic was heavy, the sidewalks thick with evening strollers and teenagers wandering in aimless, giggling groups. Despite the life in the street, Li and Margaret felt immediately vulnerable, exposed and open to view. He took her arm to hurry her across the road, dodging vehicles to a chorus of horns. They got halfway and were trapped by a seemingly endless stream, standing with a group of others on the centre line, traffic behind them snapping at their heels. They saw a break and made a dash for it. Crossing from the other side, a woman with a bicycle and a bird in a cage lost control of the bike in her panic to cross. The front wheel turned and twisted. She lost her hold on the cage and it fell to the road, its door springing open. There was a screech of brakes and a blasting of horns as the approaching traffic ground to a halt. A large black-and-white bird, a family pet perhaps, worth many weeks’ wages, flapped up from the road. The woman wailed and tried to catch it. Her fingers grasped at the feathers but could not hold on, and the bird rose from her outstretched hands and spread its wings, making for the opposite side of the street. Margaret reached up and tried to snatch it from the air as it lifted over her head. With a flutter of feathers beating the air in panic, it eluded her grasp and flew off into the night towards the park. The woman wailed at her loss, still juggling with her bicycle, the shopping from her basket spilling on to the tarmac. Margaret bent to help her, but Li grabbed her hand and pulled her away. ‘We must go. We are too exposed.’

Margaret glanced back as they reached the opposite sidewalk. The woman was gathering her things from the middle of the road, traffic all around her honking impatiently. Tears streamed down her face. There was something, Margaret thought, inestimably sad in her loss. Both she and Margaret had come so close to plucking the bird from the air. Margaret imagined she had almost felt its heart beat as her fingers brushed its panicked breast. Its instinct had been to escape. And yet, Margaret knew, it would die in the wild.

Li hurried her away along the sidewalk, turning south into the dark, still backwater of Beichang Street, where he had parked the Jeep under the trees. They stopped on the kerb by the car, and without conscious decision by either of them were kissing almost immediately, all the passion and lust of the park returning in a rush. They broke breathlessly and she held his face and gazed anxiously into his eyes. ‘What are we going to do, Li Yan?’

It was a big question, a question that was many questions in one. A question he could not answer. His only thought was to make her safe while he tried to decide what he should do next. ‘I should get you back to the Friendship Hotel,’ he said.

‘I don’t want to leave you.’

‘Just for a few hours.’

‘I don’t want to leave you,’ she insisted, and kissed him, then shook her head and laughed at herself. ‘Listen to me. Like some teenage girl.’ She took a moment to gather herself. ‘I want to love you. I want to make love to you. We don’t even have anywhere to go. Not your place or mine.’

Li grinned. ‘Not even the back seat of the car?’

Margaret laughed. ‘I wouldn’t dare. Lily Peng’s probably hiding in the trunk.’ And then both their smiles faded as they realised that all the jokes in the world could not put off the moment when they would have to face up to reality. They had no future. And she was scared that if they separated now, she might never see him again. Like the bird broken free from the cage, he would slip through her fingers and disappear into the night. He opened the passenger door for her. ‘What will you do?’ she asked.

‘I need some time on my own to think. Then I will ask my uncle’s advice. He is due home tonight.’

Li watched Margaret run across the forecourt of the Friendship Hotel and up the steps to the main door. He still had the taste of her on his lips. There was a constriction in his throat and his eyes were burning. He knew he would not see her again, and his sense of loss was far greater than he could ever have imagined. But it was important that she remain here, away from him, until her plane took her to safety in the morning. The forces arrayed against him would be happy just to see her go. And they could focus on him, alone — as he intended to focus on them. He had no idea how far or how deep the rot had gone, or from what it had grown, but he knew he could no longer trust anyone, and that a difficult course lay ahead of him. He gunned the engine and pulled away with a squeal of tyres.

Margaret turned at the top of the steps and saw the Jeep drive away at speed. Li’s words were still ringing in her ears. Go straight to your room. Lock the door. Do not answer it to anyone, even room service. Wait for me to call. If I do not call, get a taxi straight to the airport in the morning and get on your plane. She knew he had no intention of calling, that he believed she would be safe as long as he stayed away from her, as long as she left the country as planned in the morning. But she had no intention of leaving. Her visa was good for nearly five more weeks. What she felt for Li she had not felt for a man in a long time. And she was damned if she was going to throw away the chance of at least a few weeks of happiness after everything that she had been through. After all, she thought, she could be dead tomorrow, or next week, or next year. And she would have played safe for what? For a few more empty days, weeks, months? If she had learned anything from the last year, it was that you had to grab the good things in life when they were there, because they, or you, might be gone tomorrow.

She crossed the polished marble floor to the reception desk to pick up her key.

‘Margaret.’

She turned, surprised, to find Bob hurrying across the foyer from where he’d been sitting impatiently reading a paper, waiting for her return. It was not a pleasant surprise. ‘What do you want?’ she said, running up the short flight of steps to the elevators.

He hurried after her. ‘I was worried about you. Jesus Christ, Margaret, what have you been up to? Public Security were at the university this afternoon looking for you.’

She stopped and scowled at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Apparently you’re booked on the first flight out of here tomorrow.’

‘You don’t say,’ she said scornfully. ‘I brought the booking forward this morning after our little exchange. Only now, I’ve changed my mind.’

He looked at her in confusion. ‘But you can’t.’

‘I can do what I damn well like,’ she said pressing the call button for the elevator.

‘Not without a visa.’

‘My visa’s good for another five weeks.’

‘That’s the point. It’s not. These guys were from the Visa Section. Apparently your visa’s only good now till your flight leaves.’

The elevator arrived and the doors slid open. She stared at Bob in disbelief. ‘They can’t do that.’