Frank Schätzing - Limit

‘Yes, do it.’

‘Are we all available for questioning?’

‘There’s no point hiding, otherwise they’ll just pay us personal visits.’ Jericho furrowed his brow. ‘They may have already started. The first victim in Kenny’s dirty game was Grand Cherokee Wang.’ He looked at Yoyo. ‘Your flatmate. They’re going to be all over you like a pack of hungry wolves.’

‘They can go ahead,’ said Yoyo grimly. ‘Let’s see them try to eat me.’

‘Eat me, and I’ll eat you alive.’

‘Well remembered,’ snorted Yoyo, turning round and walking off to the kitchen.

Jericho was ecstatic to have Diane back again. Without holding out any great hopes, he checked the three websites which were supposed to be interchanged according to the report, and was disappointed. The mask hadn’t unearthed anything. It seemed they really had been taken out of circulation.

So that just left him with the Swiss films and a hunch.

He gave Diane a series of directions. With programmed courtesy, she informed him that the analysis would take some time, which meant it could just as easily take five years as five minutes. The computer had no plan on this front. He might as well have asked Alexander Fleming how long he would need to discover penicillin. As the films were three-dimensional, Diane had to go through data cubes rather than data surfaces, which threatened to drag the process out for a long time.

Joanna came in, bringing him some tea and English biscuits.

It was four years now since they had broken up, but Jericho still didn’t know how to act around the woman who had lured him to Shanghai and then left him out of the blue. At least, that’s how it had seemed to him: that Joanna had ditched him in order to marry someone who was hitting the big time in the Chinese boom, someone who didn’t conform in the slightest to what one might assume to be her ideal partner. But it was this very man who had become Jericho’s closest friend: a friendship, initiated by Joanna, which had started out within the cocoon of a business relationship, and developed in such a way that neither Tu nor Jericho had really realised it was even happening. It had come down to Joanna to alert them to the fact they had become more deeply attached, at the same time hoping to make Jericho realise it was about time he stopped seeing himself as indebted to everyone.

‘I don’t,’ he had retorted with a baffled expression, as if she had just suggested he shouldn’t walk to work on all fours any more.

But Jericho knew exactly what she meant. She had exaggerated a bit of course, which was in her nature, because Joanna went to the other extreme: she hardly ever felt guilt. This might lead to accusations of self-righteousness, but her behaviour was far from amoral. She just lacked the guilt that all children were born into. From the day you first come into the world, you find yourself being constantly admonished, lectured, caught in the act, always in the wrong, subjected to judgement and constant corrections, all of which are intended to make an imperfect human being into a better one. The extent of the improvement is measured by how much you live up to others’ expectations, an experiment doomed to failure. It normally leads to failure for all involved. Accompanied by good wishes and silent reproaches, you ultimately end up taking your own path and forget to grant the child within you absolution, a child accustomed to being scolded for running off alone. Rushing through the crossroads of ‘I can’t, I shouldn’t, I’m not allowed’, you always find yourself back in the same place you set out from a long time ago, regardless of how old you may have become in the process. Your whole life long, you see yourself through the eyes of others, measure yourself by their standards, judge yourself by their canon of values, condemn yourself with their indignation, and you are never enough.

You are never enough for yourself.

That was what Joanna had meant. She had developed a remarkable talent for freeing herself from the entanglements of her childhood. Her way of looking at things was genuine, as sharp as a knife, her behaviour consistent. She had considered herself fully within her rights to break up with Jericho. She knew that the breakdown of their relationship would cause him pain, but in Joanna’s world, this kind of pain was no more the result of culpable behaviour than toothache. She hadn’t robbed him, hadn’t publicly humiliated him, hadn’t continually deceived him. She paid no attention to what others felt she should have done or not done. The only person whose gaze she wanted to be able to meet was the one right opposite her in the mirror.

‘How are you?’ asked Jericho.

‘Well, how do you think?’ Joanna sank down into one of the cantilever chairs scattered around Tu’s office. ‘Very agitated.’

She didn’t look particularly agitated. She looked intrigued, and a little concerned. Jericho drank his tea.

‘Did Tian tell you what happened?’

‘He gave me an overview in passing, so now I know his version.’ Joanna took a biscuit and nibbled at it thoughtfully. ‘And I’ve heard Hongbing’s too of course. It sounds dreadful. I wanted to speak to Yoyo, but she’s in the middle of battling out her tiresome father–daughter conflict.’

Jericho hesitated. ‘Do you actually know what that’s about?’

‘I’m not stupid.’ She jerked her thumb in the direction of the door. ‘I also know that Tian is involved.’

‘And that’s not a problem for you?’

‘It’s his business. He must know what’s he’s doing. I’m too shamefully lacking in ambition myself, as you know. I wouldn’t make a very convincing dissident. But I understand. His motivations seem clear to me, so he has my unconditional support.’

Jericho was silent. It was obvious that Chen Hongbing wasn’t the only one who had eaten bitterness at some point in his past. Tu’s professional status implied all manner of things, but not collaboration with a group of dissidents. There must be something from way back that was influencing his behaviour.

‘Maybe he’ll tell you about it someday,’ Joanna added, eating another biscuit. ‘In any case, you’ve all been hunting, and now I’m coming to gather. And as Yoyo is otherwise engaged, I’m starting with you.’

Jericho briefly explained what had taken place since Chen’s visit to Xintiandi. Joanna didn’t interrupt him; that is if you didn’t count the occasional ahhs , mm-hms and ohhs which were ritually expressed in China as a form of courtesy to assure the other person of your attentiveness. During his report, she also devoured all of the biscuits and drank most of the tea. That was fine by Jericho. He still didn’t have even the slightest appetite. After he finished talking, they both fell silent for a while.

‘It sounds like you’ve all got a long-term problem,’ she said finally.

‘Yes.’

‘Tian too?’ It sounded like Me too? Jericho was just about to tell her that her own wellbeing should be the least of her worries, but stopped himself; perhaps he was reading too much into her question.

‘You can work that out for yourself,’ he said. ‘In any case, even Kenny will have to acknowledge the fact that he’s cocked things up. By now we could have confided in anyone under the sun. He missed his opportunity to eliminate everyone who knew about it.’

‘You mean he won’t keep trying to get Yoyo?’

Jericho pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache coming on. ‘It’s hard to tell,’ he said.

‘In what way?’

‘Believe me, I’ve met psychopaths who are bad to the core, ones who tortured their victims, filleted them, canned them, let them die of thirst, cut off this or that, things you wouldn’t believe. Their type are motivated purely by obsession. And then there are the professional killers.’