Mo Hayder - The Devil of Nanking aka Tokyo

‘Out. Out.’ The chimpira ushered the girls in the direction of the corridor. Other hostesses followed, corralled so swiftly that they all dominoed into each other, shuffling forward with surprised looks, squealing, pelvises forward in surprise as if they’d been goosed. The chimpira looked over his shoulder to where Fuyuki had dropped to the floor, on his knees, jerking and scrabbling at his throat. ‘Out,’ the chimpira shouted to the girls. ‘ Now! Out! ’

I was trembling. Instead of following the crowd I stepped away from the glass door and walked quickly towards the pool, heading for the far corridor. It was quiet in the courtyard, the red light flashing up off the water. Behind me in the lighted room the phone was ringing, someone was barking orders.

‘Ogawa. Ogawa!’ It was the first time I’d heard anyone address the Nurse by name. ‘Ogawa! Where the fuck are you?’

I kept walking towards the far doors, out into the silence, my head held erect and sombre, the light and the sounds fading behind me. Just as I passed the pool and was almost home free, the doors ahead opened and out came the Nurse. She walked dazedly in my direction, pressing her wig into place, straightening her dishevelled clothes.

Maybe the enormity of the situation was only just dawning on her because she was trancelike as she headed for the commotion behind me. At first I thought she hadn’t seen me, but as we drew close she automatically extended her hand to sweep me along, forcing me towards the room. I took a few steps backwards, keeping her pace, edging out sideways, wide, so I could slip out of her orbit and disappear back into the night. I glanced around – at the various doors and windows – for somewhere to slide into. Then, before I knew what was happening, the chimpira had appeared from nowhere, grabbing my hand as if I was a child.

‘Let go,’ I said, staring down at his hand. But he was pulling me back into the room, following the Nurse. ‘ Let me go.’

‘Get out of here. Go with the others. Now!’

He manoeuvred me through the doors, pushing me back into the noise and confusion. The room was in chaos. Men I didn’t recognize had appeared in doorways, people were running down the corridors. I stood where I’d been ushered, the other girls in an uncertain cluster round me, bumping and shuffling, not knowing what to do. The Nurse pushed through the guests, elbowing people out of her way. At the far end of the room a lamp fell to the floor with a terrifying crash.

‘My bag!’ wailed Irina, sensing we were all about to be thrown out of the apartment. ‘I’fe left my bag in there. What about my bag?’

The Nurse bent and lifted Fuyuki in one movement, catching him easily as a toddler round the waist, sweeping him immediately to a sofa under the window, shuffling his feet forward, bending him over. She put both arms round his ribcage, laid her face against his back and squeezed. In front of her legs his little feet lifted and dangled momentarily, marionette-like, then dropped to the floor. She repeated the movement. His feet made their little puppet dance again, then a third time, and this time something must have shot out because someone pointed to the floor, a waiter discreetly swiped it up with a napkin and someone else sank into a chair, hands on their temples.

‘ Arigate-e! ’ sighed one of the henchmen, clutching his chest in relief. ‘ Yokatta! ’

Fuyuki was breathing. The Nurse carried him to his wheelchair and dropped him into it. I got one clear view of him, slumped exhaustedly, his hands dangling limp, his head to one side. The waiter was trying to force a glass of water on him and the Nurse was kneeling at his side, holding his wrist between thumb and forefinger and timing his pulse. I didn’t have a chance to stay and watch – a fat man in winklepickers had appeared in the door and was guiding all the girls back along the corridor towards the lift.

Over two thousand years ago, so the legend goes, lived the beautiful Miao-shan, youngest daughter of the king Miao-chuang. She refused to get married, in spite of her father’s wishes, and in his anger he sent her into exile where she lived on a mountain called Xiangshan, the Fragrant Mountain, eating from the trees, drinking from the perfumed streams. But back at the palace her father was growing ill. His skin was diseased and he couldn’t move from his bed. On Fragrant Mountain Miao-shan heard about his illness, and knowing, like every Chinese girl, the importance of filial piety, she didn’t hesitate to pluck out her own eyes, or to instruct her servants to cut off her hands. Her hands and her eyes were sent back to the palace where they were made into medicine and fed to her father who, according to the myth, made a remarkable recovery.

Miao-shan was one of the beautiful links – she was one of the most perfect stitches in the tapestry I was about to unpick.

The Russians thought I was drunk or ill. In the confusion the three of us had got into the first taxi that pulled up outside the apartment block – I’d thrown myself into the corner and I sat all the way home with my head down, my hand clamped to my face. ‘Don’t throw up,’ Irina said. ‘I hate when people throw up.’

The house was freezing. I took off my shoes and went down the corridor to my room. One by one I pulled out the portfolios and stood in the middle of the room, emptying them so that all the notes and sketches floated down like snow and spread out across the floor. Some of them fell right side up, old faces looking at me. I took down all my books and built them into walls round the papers, making a little enclosure in the centre of the room. I put on the electric fire and sat down in the middle, my coat wrapped round me. Here was a sketch of Purple Mountain on fire. A long account of the bridge of corpses over the Jiangdongmen canal. Tomorrow I was going to go back to Fuyuki’s. You can always tell when you’re getting close to the truth – it’s as if the air starts to tingle. I had made up my mind. I was going to be prepared.

The front door opened noisily and someone clattered up the stairs. We’d left Jason at the apartment building. I’d seen him briefly in the smoked-glass lobby, standing silently among the other hostesses, his holdall strapped across his chest. The doorman was struggling to deal with taxis for everyone, four paramedics were pushing in the opposite direction through the crowd, using their bags to get to the lift, but in the confusion Jason seemed very still: his face was an odd, shocked grey colour, and when he raised his eyes and caught mine, for a brief instant he didn’t seem to recognize me. Then he raised his hand woodenly and began to make his way over. I turned, giving him the back of my head, and got into a taxi after the Russians. ‘Hey!’ I heard him call, but before he could reach the front of the crowd the taxi had pulled away.

Now I could hear him in the hallway, coming down the corridor, his footsteps heavy. I got off the futon and went to the door, but before I could touch it, he threw it open and stood in the half-light, swaying. He hadn’t stopped to kick off his shoes or hang up his holdall, he had come straight down to my room. There was sweat on his face and stains on his sleeve.

‘It’s me.’ He put a hand drunkenly on his chest. ‘It’s me.’

‘I know.’

He gave a short laugh. ‘You know something? I had no idea how perfect you are! No idea until tonight. You are perfect!’ He wiped his face clumsily, and licked his lips, looking down at my blouse, at the tight velvet skirt I was wearing. There was a faint dampness to him. I could smell alcohol and his sweat and something else. Something like the saliva of an animal. ‘Weirdo, I take my hat off to you. We’re as bad as each other. As sick as each other. Jigsaw pieces – we’ve both got exactly what the other needs. And I,’ he lifted his hand in the air, ‘I am going to tell you something you’re really going to love.’ He grabbed the hem of my blouse. ‘Take this off and show me your-’