Peter May - The Runner

She grabbed her coat from where it was still dripping melting snow on to the kitchen floor, and pulled on her ski cap and gloves, a vision of the runner with the purple birthmark filling her mind with a bleak sense of urgency. She had only just stepped into the elevator and asked the girl to take her to the ground floor when the phone rang in her apartment. But the doors closed before she heard it.

Li tapped his desk impatiently, listening to the long, single ring of the phone go unanswered at the other end. He waited nearly a minute before he hung up. It was the third time he had called. He had phoned the hotel some time earlier, but she had already left. Reception did not know when. There was a knock at the door and Qian poked his head around it. ‘Got a moment, Chief?’

Li nodded. ‘Sure.’ He felt a pang of regret. After today nobody would call him ‘Chief’ any more.

‘I got that information you wanted from Immigration. About Doctor Fleischer.’ He hesitated, as if waiting to be invited to continue.

‘Well?’ Li said irritably.

Qian sat down opposite him and flipped through his notes. ‘He was first granted an entry visa into China in nineteen ninety-nine. It was a one-year business visa with a work permit allowing him to take up a position with a joint-venture Swiss-Chinese chemical company called the Peking Pharmaceutical Corporation. PPC.’ He looked up and chuckled. ‘Dragons and cuckoo clocks.’ But Li wasn’t smiling. Qian turned back to his notes. ‘The visa has been renewed annually and doesn’t come up for renewal again for another six months. He doesn’t seem to be with PPC any more, though.’ He looked up. ‘Which is odd. Because there isn’t any record of who’s employing him now.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, he has two addresses. He rents an apartment on the east side, near the China World Trade Center. And he also has a small country cottage just outside the village of Guanling near the Miyun Reservoir.’ Qian raised his eyebrows. ‘Apparently he owns it.’ Which was unusual in the Middle Kingdom, because land ownership was one of those grey areas which had not yet been sorted out in the new China.

Li knew the reservoir well. It supplied more than half the city’s water. A huge lake about sixty-five kilometers north-east of Beijing, it was scattered with islets and bays beneath a backdrop of towering mountains still traced with the remains of the Great Wall. He had spent many weekends there during his student days, fishing and swimming. He, along with a handful of close friends, had often taken the bus from Dongzhimen on a summer’s day, packed lunches in their backpacks, and wandered off into the foothills beyond the reservoir to find rock pools large enough to swim in, away from the crowds. On a clear day, from up in the mountains, you could see the capital shimmering in the distant plain. There was a holiday village on the shores of the lake now, and it had become a popular resort for both Chinese and foreign tourists.

He wondered what on earth Fleischer was doing with a house out there.

Margaret slipped into Zhongshan Park by the east gate. Through a huge, tiled moongate, she saw snow-laden conifers leaning over the long straight path leading west to the Maxim Pavilion. But she turned south, past ancient gnarled trees and heard the sound of 1930s band music drifting through the park with the snow. It seemed wholly incongruous in this most traditional of Chinese settings.

Mei Yuan and her mother were not amongst the handful of hardy tai chi practitioners in the forecourt of the Yu Yuan Pavilion. Margaret stood, perplexed for a moment, wondering where else they might be. One of the women recognised her and smiled and pointed in the direction of the Altar of the Five-Coloured Soil.

As she approached the vast raised concourse that created the boundary for the altar, the sound of band music grew louder. But she couldn’t see where it was coming from because of the wall around it. She climbed half a dozen steps and entered the concourse through one of its four marble gates. A gang of women in blue smocks and white headcovers leaned on their snow scrapers on the fringes of a large crowd of Zhongshan regulars gathered around a couple dancing to the music. Margaret recognised Glenn Miller’s Little Brown Jug , and even from here could see that the couple were gliding across the snow-scraped flagstones like professional ballroom dancers.

She searched the faces of the onlookers as she drew closer, and spotted Mei Yuan watching intently. But there was no sign of her mother. She eased through the crowd and touched Mei Yuan’s arm. Mei Yuan turned, and her face lit up when she saw her.

‘She’s wonderful, isn’t she?’ she said.

Margaret frowned. ‘Who is?’

‘Your mother.’ Mei Yuan nodded towards the dancers, and Margaret saw with a shock that the couple dancing so fluidly through the falling snow comprised an elderly Chinese gentleman and her mother.

Margaret’s hand flew to her mouth and she couldn’t help exclaiming, ‘My God!’ She watched for a moment or two in stunned disbelief, and then remembered her mother’s fall. ‘What about her leg? She could hardly walk yesterday.’

Mei Yuan smiled knowingly. ‘It’s amazing what a little sexual frisson can do to aid recovery.’

Margaret looked at her as if she had two heads. ‘A little what ?’

‘She’s quite a flirt, your mother.’

Margaret was shaking her head in disbelief, at a loss for words. ‘My mother !’ was all she could find to say.

The music came to an end, and the dancers stopped. The crowd burst into spontaneous applause, and the elderly Chinese gentleman bowed to Mrs. Campbell, before heading off to rejoin his friends. Mrs. Campbell hurried over to where Margaret and Mei Yuan were standing. Her face was flushed and animated, eyes brimming with excitement and pleasure. She was also more than a little breathless. ‘Well?’ she said, beaming at them both. ‘How did I do?’

‘You were marvellous,’ Mei Yuan said, with genuine admiration.

‘I didn’t know you could dance,’ Margaret said.

Mrs. Campbell raised one eyebrow and cast a withering look over her daughter. ‘There are many things you don’t know about me,’ she said. ‘Children forget that before they were born their parents had lives.’ She caught her breath. ‘I take it the fact that you were out all night is a good sign. Or do I mean bad? I mean, is the wedding off or on? I’d hate to have to go home early. I’m just beginning to enjoy myself.’

Margaret said, ‘Li is quitting the force. He posted his resignation last night.’

‘No!’ Mei Yuan put the back of her hand to her mouth.

‘He seemed to think that would make me want to marry him again.’

‘And did it?’ her mother asked.

‘Of course not. But I can’t win, can I? I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. And I’m damned if I’m going to be either.’

Mrs. Campbell sighed deeply. ‘Just like her father,’ she said to Mei Yuan. ‘Obstinate to the last.’

‘Anyway,’ Margaret said, ‘I’d hate to spoil your fun. Don’t feel you have to go home early on my account. I just stopped by to say I’m going to be busy today.’ She turned to Mei Yuan. ‘If you don’t mind babysitting for a few more hours.’

‘Really, Margaret!’ her mother protested.

But Mei Yuan just smiled and squeezed Margaret’s hand. ‘Of course,’ she said. And then her face darkened, as if a cloud had passed over it. She still held Margaret’s hand. ‘Don’t abandon him now, Margaret. He needs you.’

Margaret nodded, afraid to catch her mother’s eye, reluctant to show the least sign of vulnerability. ‘I know,’ she said.