Peter May: The Runner

‘It certainly would,’ Li said, unable to keep an edge of sarcasm out of his voice.

The Minister glanced at him sharply, searching for any hint of it in his expression, his smile dissolving quickly into studied reflection. After a moment he folded his reading glasses, placed them carefully on the table beside the sofa and stood up. Li immediately felt disadvantaged, still balanced uncomfortably on the edge of his armchair clutching his hat. But he had not been invited to stand.

‘However,’ the Minister said, ‘there are other, more consequential issues, raised by the death of Jia Jing tonight. You may not be aware of it, Li, but he is the fifth senior Chinese sportsman to die within the last month. All, apparently, from natural or accidental causes.’

‘Three members of the sprint relay team,’ Li said. ‘A cyclist, a weightlifter.’

The Minister looked at him thoughtfully and raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve been keeping your eye on the ball.’ He seemed surprised.

Li did not like to admit that he had only spotted the ball for the first time that night. What was significant to him was that others had been keeping an eye on it long before him. But now he was one step ahead of them. ‘You’re going to have to revise that figure, Minister. The number is up to six.’

The Minister had a young, unlined face, the merest trace of grey in his hair, although he was probably in his mid-fifties. He appeared suddenly to age ten years. ‘Tell me.’

‘I don’t have all the details yet. It appears to have been a suicide. A member of the swimming team. He was found hanging from the diving platform in the training pool at Qinghua.’

‘Who was it?’

‘His name was Sui Mingshan.’

The name had meant nothing to Li, but the Minister knew immediately who he was. ‘In the name of the sky, Li! Sui was our best prospect of Olympic gold. He should have been swimming against the Americans tomorrow.’ He raised his eyes to heaven and sighed deeply. ‘How on earth are we going to keep a lid on this?’ Then his mind took off in another direction. ‘It can’t be coincidence can it? Six of our leading athletes dead within a month?’

‘On the balance of probability, Minister, it seems unlikely,’ Li said.

‘Well, you’d better find out, pretty damned fast. And I don’t want to read about this in the foreign press, do you understand? It will be difficult enough to explain the absence of such athletes from this event with the Americans, but with the Olympics coming to Beijing in 2008, we cannot afford even the whiff of a scandal. The prestige and international standing of China are at stake here.’

Li stood up, still holding his black peaked cap with its silver braiding and shiny Public Security badge. ‘The investigation is already under way, Minister.’

The Minister found himself looking up at Li who was a good six inches taller than him. But he was not intimidated. The power of his office gave him supreme confidence. He scrutinised Li thoughtfully. ‘We can’t afford to lose officers of your calibre, Section Chief,’ he said. ‘This…personal problem that you have…How can it be resolved?’

‘With all due respect, Minister, I don’t believe that I am the one with the problem. There is no legal requirement—’

The Minister cut him off. ‘Damn it, Li, it’s not law, it’s policy.’

‘Then you could make an exception.’

‘No.’ His response was immediate and definitive. ‘No exceptions. You make one, others follow. And when many people pass one way, a road is made.’

‘Then I may have to pass on the baton before the case is resolved.’

The Minister glared at him. ‘You’re a stubborn sonofabitch, Li. Just like your uncle.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

The Minister stood staring silently at Li for several long moments, and Li was not sure if he was furious or just at a loss for words. Finally he turned away, retrieved his half-moons from the table and sat down again on his sofa, lifting the bundle of papers back on to his knee. ‘Just keep me informed.’

And Li realised he was dismissed.

Wu’s report was waiting for him on his desk when he got back to Section One. It was nearly midnight. He was too tired to change out of his uniform, throwing his cap on to the desk and slumping into his seat wearily to read the report, reliving the sad absurdity of the whole sordid tale. He got up and crossed to the door and shouted down the corridor, ‘Wu!’

After a moment Wu appeared, emerging from the detectives’ office, cigarette smoke billowing at his back. ‘Chief?’

Li breathed deeply as if he might be able to steal some second-hand smoke, waved him up the corridor and went back to his desk. When Wu came in he chucked his report back at him. ‘Do it again.’ Wu frowned. ‘Only this time, leave out the stuff in the bedroom.’

‘But that’s the juiciest bit, Chief.’

Li ignored him. ‘Our weightlifter arrived looking for our committee member, but before he could say why, he collapsed and died. Okay?’

Wu looked at him curiously. ‘That’s not like you, boss.’

‘No it’s not. Just do it.’ Wu shrugged and headed for the door and Li called after him, ‘And tell Sun I want to talk to him.’

When Sun came in Li told him to close the door behind him and turn out the overhead light, which left only the ring of light cast around the desk by its lamp. He motioned Sun to take a seat, then sat back so that he could watch him from outside the reach of the light. His eyes were stinging and gritty. It had been a long day. ‘Tell me why you think this swimmer didn’t kill himself,’ he said.

Sun said, half-rising, ‘I’ve finished my report if you want to read it.’

‘No, just tell me.’

Li closed his eyes and listened as Sun described how he and Qian Yi, one of the section’s older detectives, had arrived at the natatorium shortly after seven-thirty.

‘What made us suspicious initially was the security man on the door saying he didn’t see Sui going in. I asked him if there was any chance Sui had arrived when he was in the toilet. He said he’d been at his post for two hours, uninterrupted. So I asked if there was any other way in. Turns out there are half a dozen emergency exits that you can only open from the inside. We looked at them all. One of them was not properly shut, which had to be how Sui got in without being seen.’

Li thought about it for a moment. ‘Why would he have to sneak in through an emergency exit? Wouldn’t he just have walked in the front door? And if he did come in the emergency door, how did he open it from the outside?’

‘I asked myself the same questions,’ Sun said.

‘And did you come up with any answers?’

‘The only thing I could think was that he wasn’t on his own.’

Li frowned and opened his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

Sun leaned forward into the light. ‘I mean that he didn’t go there of his own free will, Chief. That he was taken, against his will, by people who had already got him drunk. People who had arranged to have that fire door left unlocked.’

Li raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘And all this speculation because the security man didn’t see him going in? Eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable, Sun. Memories are defective things. Maybe he did go to the toilet and just doesn’t remember. Maybe he was reading and didn’t notice Sui going past.’

‘And the fire door?’

Li shrugged. ‘Doors get left open.’ Sun seemed slightly crestfallen. Li said, ‘Tell me you’re basing your doubts on more than a security man and a fire door.’

Sun shook his head, exasperated by his boss’ scepticism. ‘Chief, I don’t know what to say. It just didn’t feel right. Everything about it. His team-mates said he never touched alcohol. Ever. Yet he was stinking of drink, and there was a half-empty bottle of brandy in the bag in his locker. And, I mean, if he’d drunk a half bottle of brandy, would he have been in any state to fold up his clothes and leave them hanging in his locker? And, anyway, why would he? And why would he shave his head?’