Peter May - The Runner

‘We’ve got Triads in Beijing, Tao. Anyone with specialist knowledge could be valuable.’

Tao narrowed his eyes. ‘You don’t believe that. You think I’m involved.’

Li shrugged. ‘Why would I think that?’

‘You tell me.’

Li turned and wandered towards his desk. ‘There are certain anomalies in this investigation which require explanation,’ he said. ‘The bottles of perfume removed from their apartments, the return visit by the thieves who robbed Macken.’

Tao looked disgusted. ‘And you think I was responsible for those…anomalies?’

‘No,’ Li said. ‘I had a look at your file, that’s all. You’re the one who’s jumping to conclusions.’

‘There’s only one conclusion I can jump to, Section Chief Li. You’re trying to smear my name so I won’t get your job. Some kind of petty revenge.’ Tao gave a small, bitter laugh. ‘Your parting shot.’

Li shook his head. ‘You’re obsessed with getting this job, aren’t you?’

‘I could hardly be worse at it than you.’ Tao stabbed a furious finger through the air in Li’s direction. ‘And one way or the other, I’m not going to let you fuck it up for me!’

Li said, ‘That’s ten yuan for the swear box, Deputy Tao.’

Tao turned on his heel and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. And Li closed his eyes and tried hard to stop himself from shaking.

The snow had begun falling again. In spite of it, crowds jammed the Dong’anmen night market, where dozens of stall holders under red and white striped canopies were frying, barbecuing, steaming, grilling. The smell of food rose with the steam and smoke to fill the night air. Chicken, beef, lamb, fish, noodles, dumplings, whole birds impaled on bamboo sticks, grubs skewered for the grill. It was the most popular eating street in Beijing, where thousands of workers nightly stopped off on their way home to savour Chinese cuisine’s very own version of fast food. Licensed chefs in white coats with red lapels and tall white hats, kept themselves warm over sparking braziers and fiery woks, while hungry customers flitted from stall to stall in search of something special to warm their route home.

Margaret had to cycle hard to keep up with Dai Lili’s brother as he pedalled east, head down, along Dong’anmen, the feeding frenzy to their right fenced off behind red bins and white railings. There was very little traffic, and no one paid any attention to two figures cycling past, hunched against the cold and the snow in heavy coats and winter hats. Her legs were numb with the cold, even through her jeans.

As the lights and the sounds and smells of the night market receded, Margaret saw, looming in the dark ahead, the towering two-tiered Donghua Gate, the east entrance to the Forbidden City. They crossed the junction with Nanchizi Street, a corner grocer store blazing its lights out on to the snow-covered road. At this time, the traffic was usually jammed in all directions, but sense had prevailed and very few motorists had ventured out on untreated streets under inches of snow. The occasional cyclist crossed the junction, heading north or south. Dai Lili’s brother led them east into the dark pool of Donghuamen Street, in the shadow of the Donghua Gate. Normally the gate would be floodlit. But since the palace had closed for restoration work, the east and west gates had been shrouded nightly in darkness. The handful of shops on the north side had closed up early. No one in their right mind was venturing out in this weather unless they absolutely had to. The snow was falling so thickly now it almost obliterated the streetlights.

To Margaret’s surprise, Lili’s brother dismounted under the high red walls of the Donghua Gate. ‘You leave bike here,’ he said. And they leaned their bikes against the wall and she followed him into the shadowed arch of the great central doorway. The gold studded maroon doors were twenty feet high. Lili’s brother leaned against the right-hand door and pushed hard. With a creak deadened by falling snow, it opened just enough to let them slip through. The boy quickly glanced around before he ushered Margaret in and heaved the door closed behind them. They were in a long, cream-painted tunnel that led under the gate and out into a winter garden, stark trees traced in snow. They could see buildings ahead, cast into shadow by the reflected light of the city beyond the walls. Within its walls the Forbidden City lay brooding silently in the dark, six hundred years of history witness to the virgin footsteps Margaret and Lili’s brother made in the snow as they followed a path east, through another gate, and out into the huge cobbled square where once prisoners of war were paraded before the emperor who watched from his commanding position high up on the Meridian Gate. The Golden Water River, which curled through the square, was frozen, its ice covered by a flawless layer of snow. The marble pillars of the five bridges which spanned it stood up like dozens of frozen sentinels guarding this deserted place where the last emperor had once lived in final, splendid isolation, learning about life outside from his Scottish tutor, Reginald Johnston.

Margaret was breathless already. She grabbed the boy’s arm to stop him. ‘What in God’s name are we doing here?’ she demanded.

‘I work for…’ he searched for the words, ‘…building firm. We do renovation work, Forbidden City. But work no possible with snow.’ He struggled again with the language. ‘I hide Lili here. No one come. You follow with me.’ And he set off across the vast open space of this ancient square towards the twin-roofed Taihe Hall. Margaret breathed a sigh of despair and set off after him, leaving shadowed tracks in luminous snow.

Slippery steps took them up to the ancient gathering place. Through an open gate, between stout crimson pillars, Margaret could see the next in a series of halls standing up on its marble terrace at the far side of another square, flanked by what had once been the gardens and homes of imperial courtiers. By the time they reached it, Margaret was exhausted, and alarmed by cramps in her stomach. She stopped, gasping for air, and supported herself on a rail surrounding a huge copper pot more than a meter in diameter. ‘Stop,’ she called, and Dai Lili’s brother hurried back to see what was wrong. ‘For God’s sake,’ she said. ‘I’m pregnant. I can’t keep up with you.’

The boy appeared embarrassed. ‘You take rest. Not far now.’

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, a tear in the clouds released a flood of silver light from a full moon, and the Forbidden City lit up all around them, eerie in its deserted silence, a bizarre, secret and empty place at the heart of one of the world’s most populous capitals. The falling snow was swept away on an equally sudden breath of wind, leaving the air clear and still for just a moment before it resumed its steady descent. Their footprints in the square below were an alarming betrayal of their passing there. An engraved notice on a stand beside the copper pot where Margaret leaned revealed that there were three hundred and eight of them in the palace grounds. They had been used to hold water in case of fire. During the winter, fires had been lit under them to keep the water from freezing. No doubt increasing the risk of fire, was the absurd thought that flitted through Margaret’s mind.

She looked ahead, through the next gate, and saw yet another hall, on yet another terrace, and regretted her decision to go with the boy. But she had come too far to turn back now.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s go. But not so fast.’

The boy nodded, and they set off again, at a more sedate pace. From the terrace of the Qianqing Palace, Margaret could see beyond the walls of the Forbidden City to the lights of Beijing. People were going about their normal lives out there. People in shops and homes and restaurants, people in cars and buses and on bikes. Normal people who saw only the high grey walls of the Forbidden City as they passed and had no idea that there were people in there. People in hiding, people in distress. People in danger.