Peter May - The Runner

‘May I see?’ Fan leaned across the desk, and Li handed him the envelope. He drew out the prints to look at them.

‘It was while he was showing me them that Mr. Macken told me about the items you have on display here in your office, explaining that was why you have an armed guard on the door out there.’ Li paused. ‘That’s when it occurred to me that the people who were after these prints may well have been in search of pictures of the interior of the club in preparation for a robbery.’

Fan glanced up at him. ‘You think so?’

‘It’s possible, Mr. Fan. Just what kind of price would you put on your…’ he nodded towards the alcove ‘…collection?’

‘The insurance company valued it at around five million yuan, Section Chief. They would only insure it if we provided armed security. We’re pretty well prepared for any eventuality. So I’m not too concerned about the possibility of a robbery.’

‘That’s reassuring to hear, Mr. Fan.’ Li held out his hand for the photographs. ‘But I thought it worth making you aware of what had happened.’ Fan slipped the prints back in the envelope and handed them across the desk. ‘I’ll not waste any more of your time.’ Li stood up. ‘It’s quite a place you have here. Do you have many members?’

‘Oh, yes, we’ve done brisk business since we opened six months ago. However, it was a massive investment, you understand. Three years just to build the complex. Which is a long time to tie up nearly thirty million dollars of your capital. So we are always anxious to attract new members.’

‘Hence the brochure.’

‘Exactly. And, of course, the photographs will also be going on to our Internet site. So they’re hardly a state secret.’ Fan paused. ‘Would you like a look around?’

‘I’d be very interested,’ Li said. ‘As long as you are not viewing us as prospective clients. One membership would cost more than the combined year’s earnings of my entire section.’

Fan smiled ingratiatingly, dimples pitting his cheeks. ‘Of course. But, then, we do have special introductory rates for VIPs such as yourself. We already count several senior figures in the Beijing municipal administration among our members, as well as a number of elected representatives of the National People’s Congress. We even have some members from the Central Committee of the CCP.’

Li bridled, although he tried hard not to show it. This sounded to his experienced ear like both a bribe and a threat. A cheap membership on offer, as well as a warning that Fan was not without serious influence in high places. Why on earth would he feel the need to make either? He said, ‘Is membership exclusively for Chinese?’

‘Not exclusively ,’ Fan said. ‘Although, as it happens, all of our members are.’

‘Oh?’ Li pulled out the prints again and flipped through them until he found the photograph of the four Chinese and the Westerner. He held it up for Fan to see. ‘Who’s this, then?’

Fan squinted at the picture and shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘But that’s you in the photograph, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ He looked at the picture again. ‘I think he was a friend of one of the members. They are allowed guests. But I can’t remember who he was.’ He held out his hand towards a door opposite his desk. ‘If you’d like to follow me, gentlemen.’

The CEO led them into a private lounge, and then beyond a screen to double glass doors leading to the swimming pool they had seen in Macken’s photographs. The coloured light from the stained-glass windows shimmered across the surface of the pool in a million fractured shards. The air was warm and humid and heavy with the scent of chlorine. ‘One of the perks of the job,’ Fan said. ‘An en-suite pool. I can take a dip any time I like.’

He led them down a tiled staircase to the sauna below. In a large chamber, walls and floor lined with pink marble, they sat on a chaise longue to remove their shoes and slide their feet into soft-soled slippers. Another dark-suited flunky led them into a long corridor flanked by pillars. At intervals along each wall, the carved heads of mythical sea creatures spouted water into troughs of clear water filled with pebbles and carp. The sauna area was huge. The floors were laid with rush matting, and the walls lined by individual dressing-tables with mirrors and hair-driers for the more vain among the members. There were private changing rooms, and cane furniture with soft cream cushions. The sauna itself lay behind floor-to-ceiling glass walls, and steps led up to a bubbling plunge pool that swept around a central column. More water cascaded from a modern sculpture, and hidden lighting created a dramatic visual effect to accompany the sounds of rushing water.

‘We’re very proud of our sauna,’ Fan said. ‘It is a great favourite with our members.’

He took them through into the lobby which served the physiotherapy and massage rooms. A pretty girl in club uniform smiled at them from behind a reception desk. The rooms were as Li and Qian had seen them in Macken’s photographs, low beds covered with white towels facing large TV screens. Li wondered what activities other than the buying and selling of international stock really took place in these rooms.

Upstairs, Fan took them through several conference rooms and into his own private entertainment area. Soft settees were set around low tables and a pull-down projection TV screen. There was a large, round banqueting table, and through an arch, the aural accompaniment to the food was provided in the form of a grand piano, with chairs and music stands set out for a string quartet.

‘Although, essentially, the entertainment room is provided for the use of the CEO,’ Fan said, ‘it can also be hired out by members. As, of course, can the main dining room itself, as well as several smaller dining rooms. But the tepanyaki room is the most popular for private functions.’ He led them down a corridor into a small oblong room where it was possible to seat eight around a huge rectangular hotplate where a Japanese chef would prepare the food as you waited.

Li had never seen such opulence. And it was hard to believe that while China’s nouveau riche gambled their new-found wealth on the international exchanges, and sat here dining on exotic foods, or basking in the sauna, or swimming languidly from one end of the pool to the other, people a matter of streets away shared stinking communal toilets and counted their fen to pay for an extra piece of fruit at the market. He found it distasteful, almost obscene. A bubble of fantasy in a sea of grim reality.

They followed Fan back through a labyrinth of corridors to the main entrance hall. Fan looked back over his shoulder. ‘Give you a taste for the good life, Section Chief?’

‘I’m quite happy with my life the way it is, thank you, Mr. Fan,’ Li said. He glanced at a plaque on the wall beside tall double doors. THE EVENT HALL, it read. ‘What’s an event hall?’

‘Just what it says, Section Chief,’ Fan said. ‘A place where we hold major events. Concerts, ceremonies, seminars. I’d let you see it, but it’s being refurbished at the moment.’

They stopped at the front door to shake hands, watched by staff standing to attention behind desks that lined the hall to left and right.

‘I appreciate your visit and your concern, Section Chief, and in the light of what you have told me, I will consider asking for a review of our security.’ He nodded towards the glass antiques room. ‘We have exhibits in there worth several millions as well.’

Li was about to open the door when he paused. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, ‘Mr. Macken seemed rather concerned about the whereabouts of your personal assistant, JoJo.’