Peter May - The Killing Room

Li had heard enough. ‘It’s Deputy Section Chief Nien to you, Dai,’ he said. ‘And I don’t approve of detectives referring to senior ranking officers in that way.’

‘Oh.’ Dai seemed surprised, but not unduly put out. He shrugged. ‘Sorry, Chief.’ He stood up. ‘Oh, by the way, top of that pile there’s a file on a lady called Fu Yawen. Comes from Luwan District in the old French Town.’

‘What about her?’

‘She and her old man worked in a small tailor’s shop on Songshan Road. She went missing about five months ago.’

When Dai had gone, Li pulled the file on Fu Yawen in front of him, but he couldn’t concentrate on it. He wondered what Dai had meant when he said Mei-Ling had a ‘thing’ for senior officers. What senior officers had he been talking about? Or was it just jealousy and gossip? He was aware that Mei-Ling was attracted to him. It was clear in her eyes, in the way she would touch him from time to time, in brief unguarded moments of intimacy. And yet, he had always had the strangest sensation that this familiarity she had displayed towards him, almost from the moment they met, was habitual, a transfer of feelings from another relationship.

He was reluctant to admit to himself that he found her attractive, too, that he enjoyed those fleeting moments of unguarded intimacy, the touch of her fingers on the back of his hand setting butterflies fluttering in his belly and a strange, distant stirring in his loins. For if he were to allow himself to acknowledge these emotions, they would surely be accompanied by a haunting sense of guilt, and raise questions he did not want to face right now about his feelings for Margaret.

And then he thought about Margaret, and her odd, paranoid behaviour, her antipathy towards Mei-Ling, the directness of her question about what was going on between them. Two attractive people thrown together on a stressful job in a strange city — it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened , she had said. And he remembered his guilt. Why had he felt guilty? And what instinct was it that had led Margaret, within hours of arriving in Shanghai, to suspect the existence of feelings he had not even admitted to himself? The instant hostility between Margaret and Mei-Ling had been immediately apparent to him, but still remained a mystery. Not for the first time in his life, he found himself being confounded by his own emotions, and thrashing his way clumsily through the uncharted waters of an uncertain relationship. He checked the time. He was due to meet Margaret for dinner in two hours, and somewhere deep inside he found himself dreading it.

He forced himself to focus on the file in front of him. Here, he thought, he would find himself on safer, more familiar ground.

Margaret found the note from Geller pushed under her door. I’m in the bar if you feel like a drink . She felt very much like a drink. But first she needed to shower, to wash away the olfactory residue of the autopsy room, to change her clothes and become that other person she was when she wasn’t being Margaret Campbell the pathologist. That other Margaret Campbell who always let her down, always said the wrong thing, always fell in love with the wrong people.

By the time she found her way to the bar she had relaxed a little. The hot water of the shower had taken some of the tension out of her muscles, and an overwhelming sense of fatigue had caused her to lower her customary defences. She didn’t really want to think too much about anything, just let a little alcohol course through her veins and forget for the moment all life’s little unhappinesses.

Geller was sitting on his own at the bar nursing what Margaret guessed was not his first beer. He glanced at her as she hoisted herself on to the stool next to him. ‘Vodka tonic?’

‘You learn quickly.’

‘I come from a long line of circus animals. We’re easily trained.’ He waved his hand at a girl who was hiding behind the coffee maker and she was forced to come out into the open. He ordered a vodka and another beer. ‘Good day?’ he asked Margaret.

‘As days go.’

‘You want to tell me about it?’

‘No.’

He shrugged. ‘Well, that’s pretty unequivocal.’

She grinned. ‘That’s what they call me. Unequivocal Campbell.’

‘Hey, sounds like the title of a movie from the nineteen fifties.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Jeez, was that really last century? Makes me feel so old.’

The drinks came, and Margaret took a long, appreciative pull at hers. The alcohol immediately relaxed her even further. She looked at Geller, then glanced around the empty bar. ‘Not exactly busy, is it?’

‘That’s because the prices are so outrageous,’ he said. ‘Of course, you wouldn’t know, since you always leave me to pick up the tab.’

She laughed. ‘Well, why don’t we just put this one on my room?’

‘Naw,’ he said. ‘I can claim it on expenses.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I keep forgetting. I’m just work to you.’

‘Pretty goddamned hard work, too,’ he drawled, and then grinned.

‘I’m surprised to find you on your own,’ Margaret said. ‘Didn’t you tell me that the press pack would be pursuing me relentlessly while I was here?’

‘Yep.’

‘So where are they?’

‘Probably camped out at the Westin Tai Pin Yang Hotel on the road out to Hongqiao Airport.’

Margaret was taken aback. ‘What are they doing out there?’

‘Could be that’s where they think you’re staying.’ He took a long draught of beer.

She looked at him with amusement. ‘And where would they get an idea like that, Mr Geller?’

He shrugged very casually. ‘Beats me. And, hey, it’s Jack. Okay? Nobody calls me Mister Geller except my landlord when the rent’s a week overdue.’

‘That’s very polite of him.’

‘You should hear what he calls me after a month.’

‘You don’t make a very good living, then?’

He rubbed thoughtfully at a jawline that needed a shave. ‘Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on whether the news is good or bad. If it’s good I can go hungry. See, Margaret … you don’t mind if I call you Margaret?’

‘It’s a lot nicer than what a lot of people call me.’

He chuckled, and she knew from the warmth in his eyes that he liked her. It was good to have someone liking her for a change. Too often it was hostility she saw in people’s eyes. ‘See, trying to sell a story idea to a paper or a newsmag is a lot like being pregnant — a heavy burden and lots of labour. Cynic that I am, I can also tell you that you are more likely to get screwed at the end of the project rather than the beginning.’

Margaret laughed. She liked Geller, too. He was easy company. Spoke the same language, shared a sense of humour. Nuance was no problem.

‘So I guess you’re still not going to tell me anything about progress on the inquiry?’ he said.

‘I’d say that was a pretty fair guess.’

Then he threw one out of left field and caught her completely off-guard. ‘So are you and Deputy Section Chief Li still an item then?’

For a moment she didn’t know what to say. There didn’t seem any point in denying it. He had obviously done his research. So she said, ‘For the moment.’

Something in her tone caused him to look at her more closely. ‘Trouble in paradise?’

She shrugged, trying not to show concern. ‘Oh, you know how it is: American girl meets Chinese guy, falls in love. Chinese guy meets Chinese girl, American girl can’t compete.’

‘Why?’

‘Language, culture, politics, you name it. How do you bridge a culture gap that’s five thousand years wide? She’s a fish out of water here, he’s a fish out of water there. What other pool can they swim in?’