Frank Schätzing - Limit

She stood up and held out her hand. ‘Rest assured I will.’

‘So?’

Tu had come into the room. It was late afternoon by now; the skies were overcast and light drizzle was falling on Pudong. The investigators had retreated.

‘Nothing new.’ Jericho stretched. ‘Diane is keeping herself busy with the Swiss films. We’re also trying to trace the six websites back to a common source. So far there’s nothing to indicate that there is one, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ Tu pulled a chair over and sank down into it, panting. Jericho noticed that his shirt sleeves were pushed up to different heights. ‘How did the questioning go?’

‘How do you think it went? She didn’t believe a word I said.’

‘She didn’t believe me either.’ For some unknown reason this seemed to fill Tu with satisfaction. ‘Nor Yoyo. Hongbing was the only one she seemed to handle with kid gloves.’

‘Of course,’ murmured Jericho.

From the very moment Chen had first come into his office in Xintiandi, he had noticed something about him that was hard to define, something in his eyes, in his tautly stretched face, something which gave the impression that his soul had been peeled away. Now he realised what he had seen, and the investigator must have seen it too. The idea that this man could lie was inconceivable. Nothing in Chen’s features was capable of even hosting a lie. This left him completely at the mercy of his surroundings. He couldn’t bear dishonesty, neither from himself nor from others.

‘Tian…’ Jericho said hesitantly.

‘Mm-hm?’

‘There may be a problem with regard to how we proceed from here. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not—’ He searched for the words.

‘What is it? Out with it.’

‘I know too little about you.’

Tu was silent.

‘Too little about you and Chen Hongbing. I know it has nothing to do with me. It’s just – in order to judge what danger you’re in regarding the authorities, I would need to – well – I would need an idea, but—’

Tu pursed his lips. ‘I understand.’

‘No, I don’t think you do,’ said Jericho. ‘You think I’m being nosy. You’re wrong. I couldn’t care less. Well, no, that’s not it. I mean that I respect your silence. Whatever has happened in your or Chen’s past has nothing to do with me. But in that case you have to be the one to say where we go from here. You’re better placed to judge—’

‘It’s fine,’ mumbled Tu.

‘It’s your business. I respect—’

‘No, you’re right.’

‘Under no circumstances do I want to be inconsiderate of—’

‘Enough, xiongdi .’ Tu clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Consideration is the very foundation of your being; you don’t need to explain yourself. In any case, I’ve often thought about strengthening our friendship by confessing a little of my past to you.’ His gaze wandered over to the door. Somewhere in the great expanse of the house, Yoyo and her father were wrestling with the past and future. ‘It’s just that I fear I have to get back in the ring.’

‘To mediate?’

‘To take some of the heat. Yoyo and I have decided to clear the air. By the end of the day Hongbing will know the whole truth.’

‘And how is he taking it so far?’

‘I’m sure he’s not exactly over the moon.’ Tu belched. ‘But I’m not seriously concerned. The more pressing question is how long he proposes to brood in his anger. Sooner or later he has to see that you can’t earn trust by denying your child long-overdue answers. He’ll have to tell Yoyo his truth too.’ Tu sighed. ‘What happens then, I really don’t know. It’s not that Hongbing seriously believes a part of his life didn’t happen. He just can’t bring himself to tell someone he loves about it. Because he’s ashamed. He’s just an old crab really. And try telling a crab it should cast off its shell.’

‘Well, if he did he would be the first crab to be able to do without it.’

‘Oh, they shed them a lot when they’re young in order to grow. It’s a dangerous undertaking though, because the new shell is very soft for the first few hours. They’re very vulnerable for that time, easy targets, without any protection. But if they didn’t shed them, there wouldn’t be enough space for them to live.’ Tu stood up. ‘And as I said, Hongbing is a pretty old crab, but his shell has definitely got too small for him. I think he needs to shed it again so he doesn’t end up shattering into a thousand pieces from the pressure.’

Tu laid his right hand on Jericho’s shoulder for a moment. Then he left the room.

Dusk stole in, stuffy and damp.

Diane was still processing.

Jericho wandered through the house and went to see Joanna in her studio, a glass pagoda temple backing onto the artificial lake which formed the centre of the property. He wasn’t surprised to find her working on one of her large-format portraits. Joanna wasn’t the type to wander through the house wringing her hands if they could be put to better use. She had turned on bright lamps and was giving depth and contour to two beautiful socialites who were pictured arm in arm in front of a mirror, looking as if they had danced through three days and nights straight.

After Chen had emerged, flushed with anger, and disappeared into the guest rooms on the first floor, Tu had intensified the security around his villa and fled to his office. Yoyo had crossed Jericho’s path as he walked through the entrance hall. She looked as though she had been crying, and had waved her hands around as if trying to signal that he shouldn’t ask any questions. Just when she was about to climb the stairs, her father had appeared on the landing, heading stormily for the bathroom, which was enough for Yoyo to hastily change direction and wander off into the garden, where Jericho had just been coming in from.

All at once, he had felt terribly out of place.

Tu’s butler saw him standing around and rushed to attend to his needs. Jericho turned down hot lavender baths and Thai massages, ordered some tea and unexpectedly felt a craving for the kind of biscuits Joanna had brought him just hours before, only to scoff them all under his nose. The butler offered to make up the salon for him. For want of a better idea, Jericho nodded, paced around in a circle twice and noticed that the feeling of being out of place was accompanied by the quicksand-like sensation of helplessness.

Something had to happen.

And it did.

‘Owen? This is Diane.’

He felt a frisson of excitement, pulled out his phone and spoke into it breathlessly. ‘Yes, Diane? What is it?’

‘I’ve found something in the films that will interest you. A watermark. There’s a film within a film.’

Oh, Diane! thought Jericho. I could kiss you. If you looked only half as good as you sound I would even marry you, but you’re just a damn computer. But never mind. Make me happy!

‘Wait there,’ he called, as if there were some risk she might decide otherwise and leave the house. ‘I’m coming.’

Yoyo would have liked to convince herself she was past the worst, but she felt the worst still lay before her, and three times as intense. Hongbing had screamed and shouted. They had argued for over an hour. As a result, her eyes were sore and filled with salty tears, as if she had seen nothing but misery and hardship her whole life. She felt guilty about everything. About the massacre in the steelworks, the destruction of the apartment, her father’s despair, and finally about the fact that Hongbing didn’t love her. Almost as soon as it had appeared, this last thought entered into sinister alliances with all possible forms of self-loathing and gave birth to a new guilt, namely, having done Hongbing an injustice. Of course he had loved her, how could he not have? How low did you have to sink to assume anything else but love from your own father? But now just that thought alone made her undeserving of love, and Hongbing had taken the only logical step and stopped loving her. So what was she complaining about? She was to blame for the fact that his mask of a face had not melted, but shattered.