Peter May - The Runner

Fan raised an eyebrow. ‘Did he?’ But he wasn’t volunteering any information.

Li said, ‘Perhaps we could have a word with her before we go?’

‘Sadly, that’s not possible, Section Chief. I fired her.’

‘Oh? What for?’

Fan sighed. ‘Inappropriate behaviour, I’m afraid. JoJo had one of our apartments upstairs. It went with the job. I discovered she was “entertaining” members up there after hours. Strict rule of the club. Staff are forbidden to fraternise with the membership.’

‘Which means you threw her out of her apartment as well?’

‘She was asked to leave immediately, and I put a stop on her cellphone account, which was also provided by the company.’

‘Have you any idea where she went?’

‘None at all. I do know she had a boyfriend in Shanghai at one time. Perhaps she’s gone off there to lick her wounds.’

When they were out on the street again, Li turned to Qian. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

Qian grinned. ‘I think if he’d offered me a cut-price membership I’d have bitten his hand off.’

Li nodded thoughtfully. ‘What I don’t understand is why he made the offer at all. If he’s got nothing to hide, he’s got nothing to fear from me. So why try and buy me off?’

‘You’re getting paranoid in your old age, Chief. Just think of the kudos he’d get from having Beijing’s top cop on his books.’

‘Hmmm.’ Li was thoughtful for a moment. Then he said, ‘I think we’ve probably been wasting our time on this, Qian. Better get back to the section.’

As they parked outside Section One, the first flakes of snow fluttered on a wind with an edge like a razor. Tiny, dry flakes that disappeared as they hit the road. There were too few of them yet for there to be any danger of them lying. Moments earlier, as they had passed Mei Yuan’s corner, Li had seen her stamping her feet to keep them warm. Business was slow, but Li had no time to eat and so they had not stopped.

On their way up the stairs they met Tao in the stairwell coming down and had a brief conference on the landing of the second floor. Li made an effort to be civil, and told him about the developments with Macken and their visit to the club.

‘So you think someone’s planning to rob the place?’ Tao asked.

‘It’s a possibility,’ Li said. ‘I’ve warned them of it. But their security’s pretty good, so I don’t see that there’s much else we can do.’

Tao nodded. ‘I have a meeting with the administrator,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in about an hour.’ He got a further half a dozen steps down the stairs before he stopped and called back, ‘You have heard about the athlete who’s gone missing?’

Li frowned. ‘No.’ And then he remembered Wu saying something about someone not turning up for a race.

‘Chinese three thousand meters indoor champion,’ Tao said. ‘Failed to show up for her race last night. Now, apparently nobody can find her.’

A dozen detectives were gathered around the TV set in the detectives’ room. A few faces turned towards the door as Li and Qian came in. Sun waved him over. ‘Chief, this could be important.’

There was a news bulletin on air, reporting on the aftermath of the China — USA indoor athletics meeting, and the failure of the Chinese distance runner, Dai Lili, to turn up for her race the previous evening. She had been favourite to win the three thousand meters, and if she had that would have been enough to tip the overall points balance in China’s favour. So there were a lot of unhappy people around this morning. And still no sign of Dai Lili. The American press had cottoned on to the fact that there was something strange going on, and given Beijing’s promise of free and open reporting during the Olympic Games, the authorities were reluctant to clamp down too hard on the foreign media. There was live coverage of a veritable media scrum outside the Capital Indoor Stadium, with both foreign and domestic journalists pressing for an official statement. In the background Li could hear an American reporter speaking to camera. ‘ The failure of Chinese champion Dai Lili to turn up for the event, comes on top of a disastrous month for Chinese athletics in which up to six of the country’s top athletes have died in unusual circumstances …’ So the genie was out of the bottle. And there would be no way now to get it back in.

Wu was saying, ‘She lives on her own in an apartment on the north side, Chief, but apparently there’s nobody home. Her parents say they don’t know where she is either. And given our current investigation, I figured maybe it was worth following up.’

Li nodded. ‘What do we know about her?’

‘Not much yet,’ Sun said. An image of her face flashing on to the screen caught his eye. ‘That’s her.’

Li looked at the face and felt the skin prickling all over his head. He had seen her for only a few moments in poor lighting on the landing of Margaret’s apartment, but the birthmark was unmistakable. She had wanted to speak to Margaret. Margaret had given the girl her address, and she had already turned up there once. Given the fate met by six of her fellow athletes, it was all just too close to home for comfort.

He said to Sun, ‘Get your coat. We’re going to the stadium.’

Li and Sun had to elbow their way through the crowds of reporters and cameramen gathered outside the official entrance to the stadium, bigger flakes of snow falling now with greater regularity. The mood of the media was more subdued than Li had seen earlier on television, the cold sapping energy and enthusiasm. Hostile eyes followed the two detectives to the door, where Li rapped on the glass and showed his ID to an armed guard inside.

Supervisor of Coaching Cai Xin was not pleased to see them. ‘I have better things to do with my time, Section Chief, than to waste it on fruitless police interviews.’ His mood had hardly been improved by defeat.

Li said evenly, ‘I can arrange, Supervisor Cai, to have you taken to Section Six for interrogation by professionals if you’d prefer.’

Which stopped Cai in his tracks. He looked at Li appraisingly, wondering if this was a hollow threat. Cai was a man not without influence after all. ‘I don’t see what possible interest the police could have in any of this,’ he said.

‘We have six dead athletes,’ Li said. ‘And now a seventh has gone missing. So don’t fuck with me, Cai. Where can we talk?’

Cai took a deep breath and led them to his private room, trackside, where he had spoken to Li and Margaret three nights earlier. The colour had drained from his face, a mix of anger and fear. ‘I could have you reported, Section Chief, for speaking to me like that,’ he hissed, and he glanced at Sun.

Sun shrugged. ‘Seemed perfectly civil to me, Supervisor Cai,’ he said, and Cai saw that there would be little point in pursuing his indignation. Better just to get this over with.

‘What do you want to know?’ he said curtly.

‘Who told the media about the dead athletes?’ Li asked.

‘I’ve no idea. But when six of your best Olympic prospects fail to turn up for a major international event, then questions are going to be asked. And some of those deaths are hardly secret. The car crash which all but wiped out my relay team was reported in the China Daily last month.’

‘Why didn’t Dai Lili turn up last night?’

‘You tell me? She seemed very cosy with your American friend.’

Li sensed Sun turning to look at him. But he kept his focus on Cai. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘I saw them talking out there in the lobby the other night.’

‘After you’d given your athletes strict instructions not to speak to either of us,’ Li said, and Cai immediately flushed.