Peter May - Snakehead

They crossed Rock Creek again, just past Sheridan Circle, and found themselves passing into the precincts of Georgetown. The driver made his way down through quiet shady streets onto O and turned west, passing a towering red-brick church that dominated the east end of the street. When Li had paid the driver and they were left standing on the sidewalk, Xiao Ling looked around her in amazement. Painted townhouses with lacquered doors and Georgian windows, fresh-painted wrought-iron gates and chintzy shutters, crooked stairways and narrow alleys overhung by red-leafed ivy. Alarm systems everywhere, prominent on walls and in gardens. Expensive cars lining both sides of the street. She turned to Li. ‘You live here?’ All she had seen of America were filthy cellars, overcrowded apartments, night clubs and massage parlours in Chinatown. ‘All on your own in a house this size?’

‘Not on my own,’ Li corrected her.

Xiao Ling frowned ‘What do you mean?’ Like Margaret before her, she was jumping to the wrong conclusion.

He took her by the arm and led her gently up the path to the front door. Through glass panels they could see that there was a light on in the downstairs hall. He unlocked the door, almost certain that she would be able to hear the banging of his heart against his ribs. ‘I have someone living in,’ he said. ‘A nanny.’ He closed the door behind them. ‘I needed someone to look after Xinxin.’

Almost before she could react, Xinxin appeared from the kitchen calling his name. She was barefoot in her nightie, dressed for bed. Her hair, released from its bunches, was hanging in untidy clumps. She stopped abruptly, the smile frozen on her face. Mother and daughter faced each other for the first time in nearly a third of her life.

Li tried to react normally. ‘Hi, little one,’ he said. ‘Guess who’s here to see you?’

Xinxin took a couple of hesitant steps toward them, the expression on her face unreadable. Then she burst into a run, past Li’s bike leaning against the bannister, and up the stairs stuffing her fist in her mouth to stop herself crying. They heard her footsteps on the polished floorboards, followed by the slamming of her bedroom door and a howl that was almost feral. Li felt as if someone had just driven six inches of cold steel into his chest. Then his face stung and burned white hot as Xiao Ling struck him with her open palm, a blow of such force that he stumbled and almost fell. Their eyes met for only a moment, and he felt their hatred sear his soul. A deep sob broke in her chest, and she ran down the hall, through the first door that she could find, passing a bewildered-looking Meiping. Meiping looked at Li, alarmed. ‘Is everything all right, Mr. Li?’

Margaret sat in someone’s office staring at the shadows on the walls. A lamp on the desk burned a pool of light into a white blotter. Beyond it, only the shapes and shadows of the monsters that stalked her imagination moved in the darkness. Her body felt as if someone had been pounding at it with clenched fists. Her head ached and her eyes stung.

Tracking down Steve’s ex-wife had not been as simple as she had expected. Martha and her new husband were out to dinner somewhere, leaving Danni in the care of a teenage babysitter who gave Margaret a cellphone number. But the cellphone was turned off, and Margaret had been forced to call the babysitter back for the name of the restaurant. The girl said she would have to call home and find out, and that she would call back. In spite of Margaret stressing the urgency of the situation, it was twenty minutes before the babysitter returned the call, saying that her home line had been engaged.

When, eventually, Margaret got through to the restaurant, it was the husband who came to the phone. The banker. He took some convincing that this was not one of Steve’s practical jokes. Apparently there had been several. Margaret inwardly cursed Steve and his juvenile sense of humour but still was unable to resist a tiny, sad smile. She assured the banker that this was no practical joke.

Then Martha had come to the phone, truculent and ready to be difficult. How serious could it be? Did Margaret know how long it would take her to get there from West Virginia? And it was far too late to be dragging a young child out of her bed.

Margaret, patience strained to the limit, had said simply, ‘Martha, it might be the last time Danni gets to see her father. There’s a very strong chance he could be dead by the time you get here.’

And the silence at the other end of the line had stretched out for an eternity. Finally, in a very small voice, Martha had said, ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

There was a knock at the door and a wedge of yellow light fell in from the corridor as it opened. Margaret looked up expectantly and saw the silhouette of Felipe Mendez standing in the open doorway. He looked almost like a caricature of himself, tousled hair, creased and rumpled overcoat, a battered briefcase hanging from the end of his arm. She heard, rather than saw, his smile. ‘People who sit in the dark, my dear, are generally trying to hide from something,’ he said.

‘Life,’ Margaret said. ‘Or maybe it’s death.’

‘What’s the news?’

‘Temperature’s still creeping up. Lot of fluid in the lungs now. He’s very fevered. They’re pinning everything on this rimantadine.’

‘Ah, yes, the antiviral stuff. Unproven.’

Margaret nodded. He stepped in and closed the door behind him, placing his case on her desk and drawing up a chair. As he sat down, his face fell into the circle of reflected light from the desk and she saw him clearly for the first time. He looked tired, older somehow. She could smell the cigar smoke clinging to his clothes. He said, ‘I didn’t get word until I was back in Conroe. This is the earliest I could make it.’ He sighed. ‘At the very least, we might learn more about what it is that has triggered the virus.’

Margaret glanced at him. It was such a cold and unfeeling thing to say. And yet, what else did she expect? Steve meant nothing to Mendez. His concern was to try to find out what had made the virus active, in order that they could prevent it happening to thousands of others. Live or die, Steve gave him a case study.

‘The trouble is,’ Mendez said, ‘although we know exactly what he has eaten and drunk during his time in isolation, there were nearly forty-eight hours prior to that in which he could have consumed any number of things.’

‘Didn’t you ask him?’

‘Of course. The night he was admitted.’ He stroked his goatee thoughtfully. ‘He was very helpful. Went through everything he could remember.’ He exhaled deeply. ‘Unfortunately, the memory is a very unreliable thing. Often faulty. And as you know, my dear, science is only too exact. However, the more data we have to work with the more we can narrow our search.’ He laughed, but there was no humour in it. ‘From a speck of dust in the Milky Way, perhaps to something the size of a pebble.’ He smiled grimly. ‘You look weary, my dear.’

‘I could sleep for a week — if my nightmares would only give me peace.’

‘Ah, yes, the waking kind. They’re the worst. You can’t just open your eyes and leave them behind.’

‘Can’t close your eyes and lose them either.’

A uniformed nurse knocked and opened the door. ‘That’s Major Cardiff’s wife and daughter at front reception,’ she said.

Margaret stood up immediately. ‘I’ll be right there.’ She looked sadly at Mendez. ‘He wanted to see his little girl, in case it would be for the last time.’

Margaret had been unaware of creating expectations in her mind, but Martha still took her by surprise. She was not what she had been expecting at all. A strikingly good-looking woman, tall and elegant, she had a thick mane of shiny, black hair. Her face was madeup for her night out, elaborate eye colour and a slash of red lipstick, although Margaret could see that she was pale now beneath the powder. She still wore her long red evening dress beneath a man’s overcoat that had been placed over her shoulders for warmth.