Peter May - The Runner

The sheets of the bed were cool on her warm skin as she slipped in between them, disappointed that she was going to spend the night alone, that Li had not come as he had promised. She thought about Wen and her childish, smiling face, and that fraction of a second when it had clouded. You verr lucky , she had said of Margaret about Li, and Margaret wondered now if that moment of shadow had signalled that all was perhaps not entirely well between Wen and Sun. But it was no business of hers, and she had no desire to know. Her own life was complicated enough.

For once she had not been the only mother-to-be whose partner had failed to turn up. Sun, of course, was not there. But for the first time that Margaret could remember, Yixuan had been on her own as well. Jon Macken had not been with her.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a key in the lock, and her heart leapt. Li had come after all. She glanced at the clock. It was nearly eleven. Better late than never. But as soon as he opened the bedroom door she knew there was something wrong. He only said, ‘Hi,’ and she could not see his face, but somehow his voice in that one word had conveyed a world of unhappiness.

She knew better than to ask, and said simply, ‘Come to bed.’

He undressed quickly and slipped in beside her. He had brought with him the cold of the night outside, and she wrapped her arms around him to share her warmth and banish the night. They lay folded around each other for a long time without saying anything. In the vertical world, outside of their bed, he always towered over her, dominant and strong. But here, lying side by side, she was his equal, or greater, and could lay his head on her shoulder and mother him as if he were a little boy. And tonight, she sensed that somehow that was what he needed more than anything. She spoke to him then, out of a need to say something. Something normal. Something that carried no weight to burden him.

‘Jon Macken didn’t turn up today at the antenatal class,’ she said. ‘First time since I’ve been going there.’ Li didn’t say anything, and she went on, ‘Turned out his studio was broken into last night. You know, he’s got some little shop unit down at Xidan. Secure, though. He had an alarm system and everything installed. So it must have been professionals.’ Li grunted. The first sign of interest. She knew that work was always a good way to bring him out of himself. ‘Anyway, the weird thing is, they didn’t really take much. Trashed the place and took some prints or something, and that was it. He says the police were useless. Yixuan thinks they probably didn’t care much about some “rich American” getting done over. Insurance would pick up the tab, and anyway shit happens, and it’s probably better happening to an American than a Chinese.’

Li snorted now. ‘That sounds like paranoia to me,’ he said.

‘Maybe it wouldn’t seem that way if you were on the receiving end.’

‘The receiving end of what? Does he speak Chinese?’

‘No.’

‘So he’d have trouble telling the cops exactly what had happened, or what he’d lost. And they’d have as much trouble telling him that there were nearly fifty thousand cases of theft in Beijing last year, and that they’ve as much chance of finding the perps as getting a Green Card in America.’

Margaret sighed. ‘Does that mean you won’t look into it for him?’

‘What!’

‘I told Yixuan you’d ask about it.’

‘What the hell did you tell her that for?’

‘Because she’s my friend, and I’m your wife. Well, almost. And what’s the point in being married to one of Beijing’s top cops if you can’t pull a few strings?’

His silence then surprised her. She had thought she was doing a good job of drawing him out. She had no idea that she had touched a raw nerve. So she was even more surprised when he said, ‘I’ll ask about it tomorrow.’

Finally she drew herself up on one elbow and said, ‘What’s wrong, Li Yan?’

‘Nothing that a family transplant wouldn’t cure.’

‘Your father,’ she said flatly.

‘According to Dad , not only did I abandon him, but I was responsible for the death of my mother, as well as…’ But he broke off, and couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Margaret had always known that Li had a difficult relationship with his father. And God knew, she understood well enough. Her relationship with her own mother was less than ideal. But she felt a surge of anger at his father’s cruelty. How could Li possibly be responsible for his mother’s death. ‘As well as what?’ she asked softly.

‘Yifu.’

She heard the way his throat had constricted and choked off his voice, and she wanted just to hold him for ever and take away all his pain. She knew how he felt about Yifu, how the guilt had consumed him in the years since his murder. Why did they have to kill him? he had asked her time and again. It was my fight, not his. What right did his father have to lay the blame for that on his son? What did he know about any of it anyway, what had happened and why? Margaret was dreading meeting him, dreading being unable to hold her tongue. Her record in the field of tactful silence was not a good one. She sought Li’s lips in the darkness and kissed him. She felt the tears wet on his cheeks and said, ‘Li Yan, it was not your fault.’ But she knew she could never convince him. And so she held him tighter and willed her love to him through every point of contact between them.

He lay in her arms for what felt like an eternity. And then, ‘I love you,’ she said quietly.

‘I know.’ His voice whispered back to her in the dark.

She kissed his forehead and his eyes, and his cheeks and his jaw, and ran her hands across his chest and found his nipples with her teeth. It was their last night together before her mother would arrive tomorrow and invade her space like an alien. She wanted to make the most of it, to give herself to Li completely, to give him the chance to lose himself in her and for a short time, at least, leave his pain behind him. Her hands slid over the smooth contours of his belly, fingers running through the tangle of his pubic hair, finding him there growing as she held him. And then he was kissing her, running his hands over her breasts, inflaming sensitive nipples and sending tiny electric shocks through her body to that place between her legs where she wanted to draw him in and hold him for ever.

The knocking on the door crashed over their passion like a bucket of ice cold water. She sat up, heart pounding. The figures on the bedside clock told her it was midnight. ‘Who the hell’s that?’

Li said, ‘Stay in bed. I’ll go see.’ He slipped out from between the sheets and pulled on his trousers and shirt. He left the bedroom as the knocking came again. At the end of the hall he unlatched the door and opened it to find himself looking into the face of a skinny girl with straggling shoulder-length hair. It was a pinched face, red with the cold, and she was hugging her quilted anorak to keep herself warm. She looked alarmed to find herself confronted by the tall, dishevelled, barefoot figure of Li.

‘What do you want? Who are you looking for?’ he demanded, knowing that she must be at the wrong door.

‘No one,’ she said in a tremulous voice. ‘I’m sorry.’ And she turned to hurry away towards the stairwell and retrace her steps down the eleven flights she must have climbed to get here, for the lift did not operate at this time of night. In the landing light, as she turned, Li saw that she had a large, unsightly purple patch on her left cheek. He closed the door and went back along the hall to the bedroom.

‘Who was it?’ Margaret asked. She was still sitting up.

‘I don’t know. Some girl. She must have got the wrong apartment, because she took off pretty fast when she saw me.’