‘And Zheng?’
‘Well, that’s different. American presidents may have been in hock to the oil lobby, or the steel barons or the military-industrial complex, but they were never totally identical. Even if that’s just because the big corporations are by definition private in democratic countries. It’s different in China – historically, they’re rooted in the State, but they do what they like.’
‘Are you telling me that the Party has lost power to the corporations?’ Jericho asked. ‘I’d be surprised to hear that.’
‘Rubbish.’ Yoyo shook her head. ‘Losing power implies that somebody has shoved you aside and now rules in your place. But you’re still there, for all that maybe you’re sitting in opposition. But nobody shoved anybody aside in China, it was more like a one-hundred-per-cent transformation, a metamorphosis. Every old communist who kicked the bucket made room for some bright young thing with a Party membership book in his pocket and a chair on the board of a profit-making company.’
‘It’s not much different in America.’
‘But it is. Washington has lost power to Orley Enterprises, and that probably makes the government stare out of the window cursing on rainy days, but at least there’s somebody to stare and curse. There are no State institutions left in China where that could happen. The whole shooting match might still call itself communism, but it’s really just a self-appointed government by corporate consortium.’
‘You can look at it the other way round though,’ said Tu, as though the two of them were moderating a political talk-show. ‘China is governed by managers who have a second job in politics. The Western world still has a few heads of state who’ll say No when private enterprise is saying Yes. Maybe the great big No dwindles away to a hopeless little bleating No, but at least there’s still something or someone defending a position. In China you just have to imagine what No looks like when it’s made up of a whole load of Yeses. When Deng Xiaoping decided to allow some experiments in privatisation, lots of people wondered how much privatisation would be allowed in future. Well, the question’s obsolete by now, since in the end communism itself was privatised.’ He put down his knife and fork, picked the schnitzel up in his fingers and bit into it. ‘And that, Owen, is why it’s simpler to get information about a Chinese company from abroad than it is in China. If you want internal details about Zheng, all you have to do is tap into the flow of intelligence in all the nations spying on Beijing. And as it happens, I know some people in the intelligence services.’
Jericho fell silent. He had no idea whom Tu knew, or when he had crossed paths with the Secret Services in his busy lifetime, but he knew that he had rarely been given such a clear picture of a world where either the governments had been taken over by the corporations, or the corporations had lifted themselves clear of all governmental control.
Who was their enemy?
Around ten o’clock he felt tired, drained, while Yoyo was suggesting that they check out the local night life and see what trouble they could get into. She was in frantic high spirits. Tu demanded a look at the Kurfürstendamm. Jericho logged into Diane and teased out a list of the hot clubs and karaoke bars. Then he said he’d go back to the hotel, using the excuse that he had to work, which even happened to be true. He had been neglecting some of his clients dreadfully these past two days.
Yoyo protested. He had to come along!
Jericho hesitated. He had basically made up his mind to go back to the hotel, but all of a sudden he felt like giving in. When she protested, some previously undiscovered reserve battery had flooded his system with energy. It felt like extra oil in his tank, a warm feeling around the ribcage.
‘Well, to be honest I really ought to—’ he said, for form’s sake.
‘Okay. See you later then.’
The battery spluttered and died. The world snapped back into the unending winter of his teenage years, when he had only ever been invited to parties so that people could say afterwards that they hadn’t forgotten him. It flashed through his mind that Yoyo would have plenty of fun without him, just as everybody else had been able to have plenty of fun without him back then.
How he had hated his youth.
‘Well?’ she asked, her eyes cold.
‘Have fun,’ he said. ‘See you later.’
Later turned out to mean after he had done absolutely none of the things that he had gone back to the hotel to do. He lay there wondering where he had taken that wrong turn in life, why he always ended up where he least wanted to be, as one did in a nightmare. He was like a traveller standing at the luggage carousel waiting for a lost suitcase, while it was probably being auctioned off somewhere at the other end of the world; he waited and waited, and the certainty crept over him that maybe all he would ever do in life would be to wait.
About two o’clock he was half watching a botched 3D remake of Tarantino’s classic Kill Bill when there was a shy knock at his door. He climbed to his feet, opened the door and saw Yoyo standing in the hallway.
‘Can I come in?’ she asked.
Automatically, he looked at the digital clock on his video wall.
‘Thanks.’ She shoved past him and came into his room, not quite steady on her feet. ‘I know how late it is.’
Her eyes were as sad as a dog’s. A cigarette between her fingers sent up its curls of smoke, and she’d evidently had a good deal to drink. By the look of her, they’d even run into a minor tornado somewhere on their adventures, which had left her rumpled. Jericho rather doubted that she’d had fun that evening after all.
‘What are you doing right now?’ she asked inquisitively. ‘Got a lot of work done?’
‘Not bad.’
There would have been no point telling her that he had spent the last few hours wrestling with his inner eighteen-year-old. ‘And you? Had a good time?’
‘Oh, fantastic!’ She spread out her arms and spun about, so that Jericho suddenly he felt he should hurry to catch her. ‘We ended up in some karaoke bar that was playing pure shit, but Tu and I managed to liven up the joint all the same.’
He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘You sang?’
‘And how.’ Yoyo giggled. ‘Tian doesn’t know even one line of lyrics, and I know them all backwards. A couple of guys hanging around there told us we should come along to a gig in a club. Some band called Tokyo Hotel. I thought they’d be Japanese! But they were German, old guys, dinosaurs of rock.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Yes, but I had to go and pee after half an hour, and I couldn’t find the loo anywhere. So we had to go in the bushes, and then on to the next pub that was still open. No idea where that was.’
She fell quiet all of a sudden, and slumped down onto the edge of the bed next to him.
‘And?’ he asked.
‘Hmm. Tian told me something. Do you want to know what?’
Suddenly he was seized by the idiotic notion of kissing her and finding out what Tu had said that way, simply sucking the knowledge out of her. Drunk and dishevelled as she was, pasty and drawn, she seemed lovelier than ever. He felt it briefly in his loins and then straight away felt the pain of knowing that Yoyo had come here to talk.
He stared at Diane, sitting there cool and sexless. Yoyo looked down and sucked the last life from her cigarette.
‘I’d like to tell you, you know.’
‘Okaaay,’ Jericho said, drawing out the word. He was turning her down flat and there was no way she couldn’t know it.
‘Well only if you’re not—’ She hesitated.
‘What?’
‘Maybe it is a bit late though. Is it?’
No, it’s just the right moment, the adult man in his head shouted, but he was on autopilot now, frustration and misery had taken charge and were consummately giving Yoyo the cold shoulder. They looked at one another across an emotional Grand Canyon.