Peter May - The Runner

‘Can I help?’ he asked, and looked them up and down as if he thought they might be terrorists. Sun showed him his Public Security ID and his attitude changed immediately. ‘You’ll have come to see Sui Mingshan’s place. Some of your people are already here. I’ll show you up if you like.’

He rode up with them in the elevator to the fifteenth floor. ‘How long was Sui living here?’ Li asked.

The security man sucked air in through his teeth. ‘You’d need to check with the sales office around the corner. But I’d reckon about five months.’ He grinned at them in an inexplicably comradely sort of way. ‘Been thinking about joining the police myself,’ he said, as if that might endear him to them. ‘Five years in security. I figure that’s almost like a foot in the door.’

But neither of them returned his smile. ‘Better get your application in fast,’ Li said, ‘I hear there might be a vacancy coming up soon.’ And the doors slid open on the fifteenth floor.

As they stepped on to the landing, Sun asked, ‘Did he have many visitors?’

‘In all the time I’ve been on duty, not one,’ said the security man. ‘Which makes him just about unique in this place.’

The door of Sui’s apartment was lying open, yellow and black crime scene tape criss-crossed between the jambs. Li said, ‘We’ll call you if we need you.’ And he and Sun stood and watched as the disappointed security man walked back down the hallway to the elevator. They ducked under the tape into the apartment, and stepped into another world, feet sinking into a deep-piled fawn patterned carpet laid throughout the flat. The walls were painted in pastel peach and cream white. Expensive black lacquered furniture was arranged in a seating area around a window giving on to a panoramic view across the city. A black glass-topped dining table had six seats placed around it, reflecting in a large cut-glass wall mirror divided into diamonds. A huge still-life of flowers in a window adorned one wall, real flowers arranged in crystal or pottery vases carefully placed on various surfaces around the vast open living area. There were the sounds of voices coming from a door leading to the kitchen. Li called out, and after a moment Fu Qiwei pushed his head around the door. He was the senior forensics officer from Pao Jü Hutong, a small wizened man with tiny coal black eyes and an acerbic sense of humour. He wore a white Tivek suit, plastic shoe covers and white gloves.

‘Oh, hi, Chief,’ he said. ‘Welcome to paradise.’

‘Do we need to get suited up, Fu?’ Li asked.

Fu shook his head. ‘Naw. We’re just about finished here. Not that we found anything worth a damn. Barely even a hair. It’s like he was a ghost, completely without personality. Left no traces of himself anywhere.’

‘How do you mean?’ Li was curious.

‘Just look at the place.’ Fu led them into the bedroom. ‘It’s like a hotel room. When we got here the bed was made up like it had never been slept in. Not a trace of dust on any surface you might run your finger over.’ He slid open the mirrored doors of a built-in wardrobe. Rows of clothes, immaculately laundered and ironed, hung neatly on the rail. ‘I mean, you figure anyone’s ever worn this stuff?’ Polished shoes and unmarked white trainers were arranged carefully in the shoe rack below. ‘And I’m thinking, this guy’s what — nineteen? You ever been in a teenager’s bedroom that looked like this? And have a look in here…’ He took them through to the kitchen.

Every surface was polished to a shine. The hob looked as if it had never been used. Crockery was piled neatly in cupboards, cutlery gleamed silently in drawers. There was a bowl of fruit on an island in the centre of the kitchen. It was fresh, but looked as if it had been arranged. The refrigerator was virtually empty. There was an open carton of orange juice, some tubs of yoghurt. The larder was also sparsely stocked. Rice in a packet, some tinned vegetables, dried noodles. Fu said, ‘If I didn’t know the kid lived here, I’d have said it was a showhouse, you know, to show potential customers how their very own apartment could be. Totally fucking soulless.’ He chuckled. ‘Turns out, of course, they got housekeeping in this place. Maids come in every day to clean the apartment, change the sheets, do the laundry, replace the flowers. They even got a service that’ll do your shopping for you. Can you believe it? And hey, look at this…’ They followed him through into a small study, where a polished mahogany desk filled most of the available space. A lamp sat on one corner beside a handful of books pressed between bookends that looked as if they had been placed there by a designer. But it was here that they saw for the first time the only evidence that Sui had lived here at all. The walls were covered with framed winner’s medals, certificates of excellence, newspaper articles extolling Sui’s victories, photographs of Sui on the winner’s podium. Almost like a shrine. And Guo Li’s words came back to Li. He treated his body like a temple .

Fu opened one of the drawers and took out a glossy brochure on the Beijing New World Taihua Plaza apartments. A Perfect Metropolitan Residence it claimed on the front cover. Fu opened it up and read from inside. ‘Listen to this: Atop each apartment tower are the exclusive duplex penthouses for celebrities, featuring the extravagant vertical space of the floor lobby and parlours, generous natural light and open sunshine terraces to capture the magnificent views of the city — a lifestyle only the very rich and successful deserve .’ Fu looked at them, shaking his head in wonder. ‘I mean, have you ever heard any-fucking-thing like it? A lifestyle only the very rich and successful deserve! Did I fall asleep for twenty years or something? I mean is this still China? The Communist Party still runs things, yeh?’ He continued shaking his head. ‘How’s it possible? Only the rich and successful deserve shit like this? Is that how it is now?’ He tossed the brochure on the desk. ‘And I thought I’d seen it all.’

He turned to the two detectives. ‘You know, there’s a private gymnasium down the stairs, and a private pool. Every apartment has fibre optic broadband internet connection as well as international satellite and cable TV. Tell me, Li. This kid was a swimmer, right? Just a boy. How could he afford stuff like this?’

‘There’s a lot of money in international sport these days,’ Sun said. ‘Big prize money at the top events around the world, millions in sponsorship from commercial companies.’

‘Do we know if Sui had a sponsorship deal?’ Li asked.

Sun shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Then we’d better find out.’ Li pulled his gloves on and went through the top drawer of Sui’s desk. There were a few bills and receipts, neatly clipped, an HSBC chequebook, half a dozen bank statements. Li ran his eyes quickly over the figures and shook his head. ‘Well, his bank balance is healthy enough, but not enough to finance a lifestyle like this.’ He bagged the chequebook and handed it to Sun. ‘Better check out his bank. Maybe he had other accounts.’

They took some time, then, to wander around the apartment looking at everything in detail. Fu had been right. It was, indeed, as if a ghost lived here. There were virtually no personal belongings of any kind. No books — other than those placed for effect — no magazines, no family photographs. No loose change, no combs with hair stuck in the teeth, no subway tickets or taxi receipts.

The bathroom, like the rest of the apartment, was unnervingly immaculate. The bathroom cabinet revealed a spare box of toothpaste, two packs of soap, an unopened box of aspirin, a jar of cotton pads. Sun said, ‘Well, if he was taking steroids, or any other kind of performance enhancers, he didn’t keep them here.’