Peter May: The Runner

She waved to the security guard at the gate of the university compound and saw his cigarette glow in the dark as he drew on it before calling a greeting and waving cheerily back. It was nearly an hour’s cycle from the hospital to the twenty-storey white tower block in Muxidi which housed the University of Public Security’s one thousand staff, and Margaret was exhausted. She would make something simple for herself to eat and have an early night. Her tiny two-roomed apartment on the eleventh floor felt like a prison cell. A lonely place that she was not allowed, officially, to share with Li. Even after the wedding, they would have to continue their separate lives until such time as the Ministry allocated Li a married officer’s apartment.

The elevator climbed slowly through eleven floors, the thickly padded female attendant studiously ignoring her, squatting on a low wooden stool and flipping idly through the pages of some lurid magazine. The air was dense with the smell of stale smoke and squashed cigarette ends, and piles of ash lay around her feet. Margaret hated the ride in the elevator, but could no longer manage the stairs. She tried to hold her breath until she could step out into the hallway and with some relief slip the key in the door of number 1123.

Inside, the communal heating made the chill of the un-insulated apartment almost bearable. The reflected lights of the city below crept in through her kitchen window, enough for her to see to put on a kettle without resorting to the harsh overhead bulb which was unshaded and cheerless. If she had thought this was anything other than a temporary address, she might have made an effort to nest. But she didn’t see the point.

Neither did she see the shadow that crossed the hall behind her. The darting silhouette of a tall figure that moved silently through the doorway. His hand, slipping from behind to cover her mouth, prevented the scream from reaching her lips, and then immediately she relaxed as she felt his other hand slide gently across the swell of her belly, his lips breathing softly as they nuzzled her ear.

‘You bastard,’ she whispered when he took his hand from her mouth and turned her to face him. ‘You’re not supposed to give me frights like that.’

He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Who else would be interested in molesting some ugly fat foreigner?’

‘Bastard!’ she hissed again, and then reached on tiptoe to take his lower lip between her front teeth and hold it there until he forced them apart with his tongue and she could feel him swelling against the tautness of her belly.

When they broke apart she looked up into his coal dark eyes and asked, ‘Where were you?’

‘Margaret…’ He sounded weary.

‘I know,’ she said quickly. ‘Forget I asked.’ Then, ‘But I do miss you, Li Yan. I’m scared of going through this alone.’ He drew her to him, and pressed her head into his chest, his large hand cradling her skull. Li was a big man for a Chinese, powerfully built, more than six feet tall below his flat-top crew cut, and when he held her like this it made her feel small like a child. But she hated feeling dependent. ‘When will you hear about the apartment?’

She felt him tense. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, and he moved away from her as the kettle boiled. She stood for a moment, watching him in the dark. Lately she had sensed his reluctance to discuss the subject.

‘Well, have you asked?’

‘Sure.’

‘And what did they say?’

She sensed rather than saw him shrug. ‘They haven’t decided yet.’

‘Haven’t decided what? What apartment we’re going to get? Or whether they’re going to give us one at all?’

‘Margaret, you know that it is a problem. A senior police officer having a relationship with a foreign national…there is no precedent.’

Margaret glared at him, and although he could not see her eyes, he could feel them burning into him. ‘We’re not having a relationship , Li Yan. I’m having your baby. We’re getting married next week. And I’m sick and tired of spending lonely nights in this goddamn cold apartment.’ To her annoyance she felt tears welling in her eyes. It was only one of many unwanted ways in which pregnancy had affected her. An unaccountable propensity for sudden heights of emotion accompanied by embarrassing bouts of crying. She fought to control herself. Li, she knew, was as helpless in this situation as she was. The authorities frowned upon their relationship. Nights together in her apartment or his were stolen, furtive affairs, unsanctioned, and in the case of her staying over with him, illegal. She was obliged to report any change of address, even for one night, to her local Public Security Bureau. Although, in practice, no one much bothered about that these days, Li’s position as the head of Beijing’s serious crime squad made them very much subject to the rule from which nearly everyone else was excepted. It was hard to take, and they had both hoped that their decision to marry would change that. But as yet, they had not received the blessing from above.

He moved closer to take her in his arms again. ‘I can stay over tonight.’

‘You’d better,’ she said, and turned away from him to pour hot water over green tea leaves in two glass mugs. What she really wanted was a vodka tonic with ice and lemon, but she hadn’t touched alcohol since falling pregnant and missed the escape route it sometimes offered from those things in life she really didn’t want to face up to.

She felt the heat of his body as he pressed himself into her back and his hands slipped under her arms to gently cup her swollen breasts. She shivered as a sexual sensitivity forked through her. Sex had always been a wonderful experience with Li. Like with no other. So she had been surprised by the extraordinarily heightened sense of sexuality that had come with her approaching motherhood. It had hardly seemed possible. She had feared that pregnancy would spoil their relationship in bed; that she, or he, would lose interest. To the surprise of them both, the opposite had been true. At first, fear of a second miscarriage had made them wary, but after medical reassurance, Li had found ways of being gentle with her, exploiting her increased sensitivity, taking pleasure from driving her nearly to the edge of distraction. And he had found the swelling of her breasts and her belly intensely arousing. She felt that arousal now, pushing into the small of her back and she abandoned the green tea and turned to seek his mouth with hers, wanting to devour him, consume him whole.

The depressingly familiar ring tone of Li’s cellphone fibrillated in the dark. ‘Don’t answer,’ she whispered. And for a moment she actually thought he wouldn’t. He responded hungrily to her probing tongue, hands slipping over her buttocks and drawing her against him. But the shrill warble of the phone was relentless and finally he gave in, breaking away, flushed and breathless.

‘I’ve got to,’ he said, and he unclipped the phone from his belt, heavy with disappointment, and lifted it to his ear. ‘ Wei? ’

Margaret turned back to her green tea, still shaking and aroused, desperately wanting to have sex with him, but knowing that the moment had passed. Angry with him, but knowing that it was not his fault. His work intruded on their lives all the time. She had always known it would. And there was even a time when she could have shared in it. But it was months since she had last worked on a case, performed an autopsy. Li had forbidden it, fearing that there could be health risks for the baby, and she had not resisted. Just one more erosion, one more piece of herself falling back into the sea she had tried so hard to build defences against. It was easier now just to give in, and she was no longer interested in his cases.