Frank Schätzing - Limit

Chen balled his hands into fists. His knuckles bulged, white, but his face remained expressionless. Jericho knew they were getting closer to the crux of the matter, the real reason why Tu had sent his friend here.

‘You have checked, haven’t you?’

‘No, I haven’t!’ Chen seemed to chew the words before spitting them out. ‘I can’t! I can’t check with the authorities without risking putting them on Yoyo’s trail.’

‘So it’s not certain that Yoyo has been arrested?’

‘Last time I was left in the dark for weeks as to which police station she was in. But the fact that she had been arrested at all, well, I found that out just a few hours after it happened. I should mention that I have managed to build up a few important contacts over the years. There are people who are willing to use their influence for Yoyo and me.’

‘Like Tu Tian.’

‘Yes, and others too. That’s the only reason I knew that Yoyo had been arrested back then. I asked these – friends, but they claimed not to know Yoyo’s location. It wouldn’t surprise me if she has given the authorities new reasons to hunt her down, but perhaps they haven’t even noticed.’

‘You mean that perhaps Yoyo just got scared and decided to lie low for a while?’

Chen kneaded his fingers. To Jericho, he looked like a taut bowstring. Then he sighed.

‘If I go to the police,’ he said, ‘I could end up sowing mistrust into a field of ignorance. Yoyo would become a target again, whether she’s done anything wrong or not. Any reason would be enough for them. Yoyo avoided provoking them for a while, and it seemed to me that she’d learned her lesson and made her peace with the past, but—’ He looked at Jericho with his weary, intensely dark eyes. This time he didn’t blink. ‘You understand my dilemma, Mr Jericho?’

Jericho looked at him in silence. He leaned back and thought. As long as Chen continued circling the issue like a wolf around a fire, they wouldn’t make any progress. So far his guest was only dropping hints. Jericho doubted Chen was even aware he was doing it. He had internalised the sidestepping in such a way that he probably thought he was walking in a straight line.

‘I don’t want to press you too much, Mr Chen – but could it be that you might be the wrong person to contact the authorities when it comes to dissident activities?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I’m just voicing my suspicion that Yoyo isn’t only being hunted down for her own actions.’

‘I understand.’ Chen stared at him. ‘You’re right, not everything in my past is to Yoyo’s advantage. But regardless of that, I’d be doing her a disservice if I went to the police. Can we leave it at that for now?’

Jericho nodded. ‘You know the focus of my work?’ he asked. ‘Did Tu Tian put you in the picture?’

‘Yes.’

‘My hunting ground is the internet. I imagine he recommended me because Yoyo has become active online.’

‘He thinks a great deal of you. He says you’re the best.’

‘I’m honoured. Do you have a photo of Yoyo?’

‘Oh, I have more than that! I have films.’ He reached into his jacket and pulled out a mobile phone. It was an older model, one that wasn’t compatible with 3D projection. Chen turned his attention to it with his now familiar blinking, pressed a few buttons in succession, but nothing happened.

‘May I offer my assistance?’ Jericho suggested.

‘Yoyo gave it to me, but I hardly ever use it.’ A trace of embarrassment crossed Chen’s face. He handed the device to Jericho. ‘I know, it’s laughable. Ask me something about cars. Old cars, vintage. I know all the models, but these things here—’

These things, thought Jericho, are already vintage too, in case you didn’t realise.

‘You’re interested in cars?’ he asked.

‘I’m an expert! Historical Beauty, in Beijing Donglu. Haven’t you been? I manage the Technical Customer Service department. You must do me the honour of a visit; we had a silver Rolls-Royce Corniche in last month, with wood and red leather seats, a splendid specimen. It came from Germany, sold by an old man. Do you like cars?’

‘They have their uses.’

‘May I ask what you drive?’

‘A Toyota.’

‘Hybrid?’

‘Fuel cell.’ Jericho turned the mobile over in his hand and glanced at the connection points. With an adapter he could have projected the contents onto his new holowall, but it wasn’t being delivered until the evening. He clicked through to the folder. ‘May I?’

‘Please. There are only three films on it, all of Yoyo.’

Jericho pointed the device at the wall opposite and activated the integrated beamer. He focused the picture to the size of a standard flat screen so there would be enough clarity despite the penetrating sunlight, and started the first recording.

Tu Tian had been right.

No, he hadn’t done her justice! Yoyo wasn’t just pretty, she was extraordinarily beautiful. During his time in London Jericho had familiarised himself with the most differing of theories about the existence of beauty: facial symmetry, the shaping of particular features like the eyes or lips, proportioning of bone structure, the amount of childlike characteristics. Studies like these were used in the psychological fight against crime, and they were also used as the basis of tracking down people disguising themselves with virtual personalities. Modern studies concluded that perfect feminine beauty was defined by large, round eyes and a high, lightly curved forehead, while the nose had to be slender and the chin small but clearly defined. If you processed women’s faces in a morphing program and added a certain percentage of childlike features, the rate of approval from male viewers soared spontaneously. Full lips trumped narrow ones, eyes which were too close lost against those set at a certain distance. The perfect Venus had high cheekbones, narrow, dark brows, long lashes, glossy hair and an even hairline.

Yoyo was all of this – and yet none of it.

Chen had filmed her during a performance in some badly lit club, flanked by musicians who might or might not have been male. Nowadays, young men cultivated an increasingly androgynous style and wore their hair down to their belts. For anyone who wanted to be someone in the Mando-prog scene, the only other option was to shave their hair off and wear a skull cap. Short hair was out of the question. They could equally have been avatars, leaning over their guitars and bass: holographic simulations, even though that would have been hugely expensive. Only very successful musicians could afford avatars, like the American rapper Eminem who, now over fifty years of age and wanting to relive his heyday, had recently projected numerous versions of himself onto the stage, which played the instruments, danced, and unfortunately displayed much more agility than the master himself.

But all of this – gender, flesh and blood, bits and bytes – all of it lost any meaning next to the singer. Yoyo had combed her hair back tightly and braided it into four ponytails at the nape of her neck, which swung back and forth with each of her sinuous, powerful moves. She was singing a cover version of some ancient Shenggy track. As far as it was possible to deduce from the mobile’s mediocre recording quality, she had a good voice, if not a remarkable one. And even though the bad lighting didn’t put her sufficiently in the limelight, Jericho still saw enough to know she was perhaps the most beautiful woman he had seen in the thirty-eight years of his life. It was just that Yoyo’s particular kind of beauty threw all the theories about what beauty was right out of the window.

The picture blurred for a moment as Chen tried to zoom in on his daughter. Then Yoyo’s eyes filled the screen – a gaze like velvet, slender eyelids, curtained by lashes which sank and then quickly lifted again. The camera wobbled, Yoyo disappeared from view, then the recording stopped.