Peter May - The Runner

The snow was lying thick on the basketball court behind the wire fencing. On a day like this the students were all indoors, and Margaret made the only tracks on the road south from the main campus to the Centre of Material Evidence Determination, where she had carried out her autopsies. Inside, the centre was warm and she pulled off her hat and made her way along the first-floor corridor that led to Professor Yang’s office.

His secretary smiled and inquired, in her limited English, after the health of Margaret’s baby, and then she knocked on the professor’s door and asked if he would see Doctor Campbell for a few minutes. Of course he would, he said, and Margaret was ushered in to a warm handshake and an invitation to take a seat. Professor Yang was a tall, lugubrious man with large, square, rimless glasses, and a head of very thick, sleekly brushed hair. He was sometimes a little vague, like an original for the absent-minded professor, but that only disguised a mind as sharp as a razor. It would be easy to under-estimate him on first meeting. Quite a number of people had. To their cost. He was an extremely able forensic pathologist in his own right. But it was his political acumen, and administrative skills, which had propelled him into his current position of power as head of the most advanced forensics facility in China. Samples from all over the country were sent to the laboratories here for the most sophisticated analysis. Its staff were regularly posted on attachment to other facilities around the world, to learn and bring back the latest refinements in DNA testing and radioimmunassay and a host of other laboratory techniques.

He had a soft spot for Margaret. ‘What can I do for you, my dear?’ His English was almost too perfect, belonging in some ways to another era. The kind of English no one spoke any more. Even in England. He would not have been out of place as a 1950s BBC radio announcer.

‘Professor, I have a favour to ask,’ she said.

‘Hmmm,’ he smiled. ‘Then I am certain to oblige. I rather enjoy having attractive young ladies in my debt.’

Margaret couldn’t resist a smile. Professor Yang took the Chinese system of guanxi —a favour given is a debt owed — very literally. ‘I’ve been working with Section Chief Li on the dead athletes case.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve been following it quite closely. Very interesting.’

‘I wonder if you might know anyone with a background in genetics. Someone who might be able to do a little blood analysis for me.’

Professor Yang looked as if his interest had just increased. ‘As it happens,’ he said, ‘my best friend from school is now Professor of Genetics at Beijing University.’

‘Do you think he might be prevailed upon to do me a favour?’

‘There is, my dear, a certain matter of some outstanding guanxi between myself and Professor Xu.’ It was odd how this strangely BBC voice became suddenly Chinese in a single word before returning again to the contorted vowels and diphthongs of his old-fashioned English. ‘So, of course, if I ask him, he will do me a favour.’

‘And then I will owe you.’

He beamed. ‘I do so much like having guanxi in the bank.’

‘I’ll need to retrieve some of the heart blood I took from the swimmer, Sui Mingshan. There should be enough left.’

‘Well, let us go and see, my dear,’ he said, and he stood up and lifted his coat from the stand behind the door. ‘And I shall accompany you to the university myself. I do not get out nearly enough. And I have not seen old Xu in a long time.’

Along with the blood, Margaret had sent urine, bile, stomach contents and a portion of liver for analysis. There was still a good fifty millilitres of Sui’s blood in the refrigerator available for testing. Margaret drew off most of it into a small glass vial which she sealed and labelled and packed carefully into her purse.

Professor Yang arranged for a car and driver to take them across town. Ploughs had been out on the Fourth Ring Road, and they made slow but steady progress through the lines of traffic heading north before turning off on the slip road on to Souzhou Street and driving deep into Haidian’s university-land.

Beijing University, known simply as Beida, sat in splendid snow-covered isolation behind high brick walls, an extraordinary rambling campus of lakes and pavilions and meandering footpaths. Professor Xu’s office was on the second floor of the College of Biogenic Science. He could not have been more different from Professor Yang — short, round, balding, with tiny wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of a very small, upturned nose. Yang always cut an elegant figure in his immaculately pressed dark suits. Xu sported a well-worn, padded, Chinese jacket open over a tee-shirt and baggy corduroy pants. He smoked constantly, and his brown suede shoes were covered in fallen ash.

The two men shook hands with genuine pleasure and clear enthusiasm. There was an exchange which Margaret did not understand, but which made them both laugh aloud. Xu turned to Margaret. ‘He always more lucky than me, Lao Yang. Always with pretty girl on his arm.’ His English wasn’t as good as Yang’s.

‘That’s because I’m so much better looking than you, Professor,’ Yang said. And he turned to Margaret. ‘He was an ugly boy, too.’

‘But smarter,’ Xu said, grinning.

‘A matter of opinion,’ Yang said sniffily.

Xu said to Margaret. ‘Lao Yang say you need some help. He owe me so-oo many favour. But I do favour for you.’ And suddenly his smile was replaced by a frown of concentration. ‘You have blood?’

Margaret took the vial out of her purse. ‘I hope it’s enough. I took it from a young man who was suffering from an unusual heart condition. Hypertrophy of the microvasculature.’ Yang quickly translated this more technical language. Margaret went on. ‘I am wondering if his condition might have been brought about by some kind of genetic disorder.’

Xu took the vial. ‘Hmmm. Could take some time.’ He held it up to the light.

‘We don’t have much time,’ Margaret said. ‘This condition has already killed several people, and may well kill several more.’

‘Ah,’ Yang said. He laid the vial on his desk and lit another cigarette. ‘Why you think there is genetic element?’

‘To be honest,’ Margaret said, ‘I don’t know that there is.’ She glanced at Yang. ‘I’m making a wild guess, here. That these people might have been subjected to some kind of genetic modification.’

Yang translated, and Margaret could see that Xu found the suggestion intriguing. He looked at Margaret. ‘Okay, I give it big priority.’

On the way back in the car, Yang and Margaret sat in silence for some time, watching the traffic and the snow. They were back on the ring road before Yang said to her, ‘You think someone might have been tampering with the DNA of these athletes?’ He, too, was clearly intrigued.

Margaret looked embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry Professor, I hope I am not wasting your friend’s time. It really is the wildest stab in the dark.’

A police Jeep, windows opaque with condensation, was parked at the front door of the Centre of Material Evidence Determination when Professor Yang’s car pulled in opposite the basketball court. As the professor helped Margaret towards the steps, the doors on each side of the Jeep opened simultaneously, and Li and Sun got out in a cloud of hot, stale cigarette smoke. Margaret turned as Li called her name, and she saw him limping towards her on his stick. At least, she thought, he still appeared to be in a job. She searched his face anxiously as he approached, and saw tension there. But also, to her surprise, lights in his eyes. She knew immediately there had been developments. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked.