Peter May - Chinese Whispers

‘Believe it,’ Li said.

The Deputy cast him a sideways glance. ‘If I had a witness, you’d go down for this.’

‘I want Margaret and Li Jon now,’ Li said. ‘Or I’ll drop the fucking bar on your head myself.’ He cast his eyes around the gym. ‘No witnesses to that, either.’

The Deputy Chief got to his feet, folding his arms across his chest, and massaging aching upper arm muscles with his fingers. ‘We could only have held them for forty-eight hours. And after that it doesn’t matter. She’ll have to leave the country anyway.’

‘What?’ Li was caught completely off guard.

A slow, bitter smile spread across the Deputy’s face. A small revenge. ‘Didn’t you know, Section Chief Li? Your little American lover has had her visa refused. She’s got to be on a plane home by Saturday.’

* * *

By the time the Deputy Chief of the Yuetan police station was back in uniform he had recovered a little of his dignity and composure. He would not attempt to stop Li from taking Margaret and Li Jon away with him, but it was not something he would forget in a hurry. Li had made himself another enemy. He held himself stiffly as he took Li down to the ground floor and through to the control room. Officers sat behind glass at a bank of computer screens and telephones, in constant radio contact with all the patrol cars in the district

Li looked around. ‘Where are the cells?’ He had a grim picture in his head of Margaret behind metal grilles in a locksafe door, sitting miserably on a hard bunk bed cradling Li Jon.

‘We don’t have cells here,’ the Deputy Chief said, imagining the picture that Li had in his head, and bristling at it. ‘Suspects are detained in interview rooms, monitored by closed-circuit TV. Nobody gets abused in this station.’ They passed a glass-walled detention room and the Deputy stopped outside a door marked Family Room . ‘She’s in here. Normally we use this place to mediate in family disputes. Kind of appropriate, don’t you think?’ He opened the door.

Margaret was sitting at a highly polished, six-sided table reading her copy of the Ripper book, her coat hanging over the back of her chair. Li Jon was asleep in his buggy beside her. She looked up as the door opened and saw Li. She was on her feet and across the room and in his arms almost before he could cross the threshold. ‘Oh, God, Li Yan …’ Her fingers dug into the back of his neck. ‘I’ve been so scared. I knew you’d come and get me, I knew it.’ She broke away and looked at him, tears brimming in her eyes. ‘They’ve refused to renew my visa. They say I have to be out the country by Saturday.’

Li nodded grimly. ‘I heard.’

‘Can’t you do anything about it?’

He shook his head, overcome again by a sense of helplessness. ‘I don’t know. If the worst comes to the worst, you and Li Jon might have to go back to the States. Just for a few days, until I can get things sorted out.’

The Deputy Chief had been listening intently. Li had no idea if he spoke English or not. But now he waggled his finger at them. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘You cannot take baby out of country.’

Margaret stared at him. ‘Of course I can. He has a Consular Report of Birth Abroad from the American Embassy. That’s recognised worldwide as his passport. Even by you people.’

But the Deputy Chief just shook his head. ‘No. You did not register baby as foreign resident with PSB. It is law. You must register and pay fee. Consular Report no good now. Baby Chinese. Stay here.’

‘I’m not leaving without him!’ Margaret was almost hysterical in the back of the taxi. ‘You can’t look after him. Jesus Christ, Li Yan, you can’t even look after yourself. And then if they won’t let me back in the country, and they won’t let Li Jon out …’ It didn’t bear thinking about. There was a chance she might never see her son again. ‘I won’t go!’ To make things worse, Li Jon started to cry.

Li closed his eyes. His chest felt bruised, as if someone had taken fists to it. But it was just stress, and the hammering of his heart. For one brief moment, in the gym, he felt as if he had stopped falling, that he had found a ledge on which to steady himself before starting the long climb back to the top. But the ledge had given way beneath him and he was plummeting again, back into the abyss. ‘They’ll forcibly deport you,’ he said. ‘Physically put you on a plane. And there’s nothing I can do to stop that.’

‘I’ll take him to the US embassy, then,’ she said. ‘And once I’m in, I’ll refuse to leave. Then the Americans will have to do something about it. After all, as far as they’re concerned, we’re both American citizens.’

‘That’s crazy,’ Li said. ‘It could spark off a diplomatic incident. You could be in there for months. And then even if they did get you and Li Jon out of the country, there’s no way you’d ever get back in.’

‘I’m not sure I’d want to.’

Li looked at her, hurt, wondering what that said about them. About their relationship. Li Jon’s wailing was filling the car, and the driver glanced unhappily over his shoulder and turned up the radio. Unaccountably, Margaret burst into tears. She hated the image of herself as some feeble, tearful female, but she had reached the end of her tether, and control was finally deserting her. Li put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him.

‘My God,’ she whispered. ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, and he brushed away the tears from her face. ‘I wish I did.’

Margaret tipped her head to look at him. ‘They said you’d been suspended.’ He nodded. ‘What for?’

‘I’ve been accused of selling the Ripper story to the Beijing Youth Daily .’

She looked at him askance. ‘You’re kidding.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve also been charged with assaulting a police officer.’

‘And did you?’

He managed a half smile. ‘Just a little.’

Which also brought a smile to Margaret’s face. But it didn’t stay there long. ‘Someone’s got it in for you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who?’

‘Whoever murdered Lynn Pan.’

‘And you’ve still no idea who that is?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s hard to investigate a murder when you have no office, no car, no detectives and no authority.’

They fell into silence then. Margaret’s tears had dried up, her moment of self-pity passing. Li Yan was in even more trouble than she was.

They were heading east on Jinsong Lu in the direction of the Beijing Jeep factory. On their right, row after row of drab, run-down seventies apartment blocks were like old acne scars on the face of the new Beijing. Margaret said, ‘Where are we going?’

‘Xiao Ling’s apartment.’

‘Why?’

‘She’s been arrested for possession of cocaine. My father’s looking after Xinxin, and I think he’s just about at his wits’ end.’

They left the taxi idling in the forecourt amongst the dozens of bicycles huddled together there, as if for warmth. A handful of small boys was kicking a ball about through broken glass that littered the pavings. Li still harboured a sense of shame that his sister and niece should live in a place like this. But she did not earn much money, and the company provided the apartment. She could not afford to move anywhere else. Inside, a toothless old concierge sat behind a grilled window and told them that the elevator had broken down. They would have to take the stairs. As they headed for the open stairgate, Margaret heard her pulling phlegm into her mouth from her lungs and spitting it out on the floor. She held Li Jon tightly to her and followed Li up the steps.