Xin readied his weapon.
He yanked the door open and grabbed the man behind it, shoving him against the wall at the back, then pulled the door closed behind him and pressed the muzzle of the gun against the man’s temple.
‘Don’t make a sound,’ he said.
‘What did you say?’ one of the policemen asked.
The other pointed forward. ‘I think 727 is open.’
‘So it is.’
‘I reckon we needn’t think much more about which room to start with, wouldn’t you say?’
They had taken the lift down from the flight deck to the seventh floor and set out in search of the rooms which the Chinese mogul had taken. His picture had been stored in the airport databases, and was on their phones now, so they had a pretty good idea of what he looked like. On the other hand, they had no idea which of the three rooms he might be in.
‘We should have shown that guy on the roof Tu’s picture.’
‘What makes you think so?’ his colleague whispered back.
‘Just because.’
The other officer gnawed at his lip. They had only asked where the rooms were.
‘I don’t know. What can the guy on rooftop duty tell us?’
They could see a little way through the open door of 727 and into the hallway.
‘Whatever,’ the other man whispered. ‘It’s too late anyway.’
Xin listened.
His left hand was over the fat man’s mouth – he could feel sweat pearling under his fingers – and his gun was still pressed against his forehead. He would have liked the chance to ask a few questions, but now the situation had changed. Men just in front of the door to the room, at least two of them, trying to keep their voices down. They were doomed to failure there – Xin had ears like a beast of prey. As far as he was concerned, the two of them were not whispering but bellowing like drunks at a summer barbecue.
Right at this moment, they were very interested in room 727.
A muffled sound broke free from the man in front of him, a grunt from somewhere deep in the ribcage. Xin shook his head, a warning, and—
Tu held his breath. He stood there frozen like a statue, his eyes wide. The slightest mistake and things would be over for him, that much was clear.
Over and done with.
The police officers looked at one another. They readied their weapons, then one of them pointed to the door of the room and nodded.
In we go, he said wordlessly.
Xin ran through his options.
He could warn his victim: say one word, and you’re dead! Then he’d hide in the small toilet cabin next to the shower, and hope that the man was scared enough not to betray his presence. This was risky. It would be even riskier to take him hostage. How would he get a hostage out of the Grand Hyatt? He didn’t know who those men out there were. Since they were trying not to make any noise, they were probably security, maybe police.
Or maybe Jericho?
There were two doors to this bathroom. Both were drawn shut. All he could do was hope that the men would look first at the bedroom behind, and then come into the bathroom through that door. This would give him the chance to slip away unnoticed through the door to the hallway. But in order to do that—
Lightning-fast, without letting go of his gun, he placed his hands on either side of the fat man’s head, and with a practised movement broke his neck. The man’s body slumped. Xin caught him as he dropped, and slid him silently down to the floor.
The policemen crept along the short corridor. A mirror to their left cast their reflections back at them for company. On the right they saw a frosted glass door, which must lead to the bathroom. One of the two stopped, and looked at his colleague questioningly.
The other man hesitated, shook his head and pointed forward.
Slowly, they paced on.
Tu could breathe again.
When he had left his room and seen two uniformed officers in the corridor, his heart had sunk in his chest, right down to the threadbare seat of his trousers. Without even daring to shut the door behind himself, he had watched the policemen slow their stride at room 727, where they stopped and talked, too quiet for him to hear. They had their backs to him the whole time – although it was certainly him they were after, and there he stood, not ten metres from them, rooted to the spot as though paralysed, so that all they would have needed to do was turn round and scoop him up in their net.
But they hadn’t turned round.
For some reason, all their attention was on Yoyo’s room. And suddenly Tu knew why. The door was ajar. He understood it at the moment when the two policemen went inside, and he realised how outrageously lucky he had been.
Why had Yoyo left her door open? Hurry? Bad habits?
Who cared.
Quietly, he shut 717, tiptoed down the corridor past the lounge on the left and found the lifts. He pressed his thumb to the scanplate and looked up at the display.
All the lifts were downstairs.
Xin strained his senses, following the men. There were two of them, just as he had conjectured, and right now they were going into the bedroom, where their footsteps parted ways.
He glanced down at the dead body in hotel livery, its head at an unnatural angle on the broken neck. The man’s right hand still held the little bottle of shampoo that he had been about to put under the mirror. At the same moment, Xin remembered that he had seen a room-service trolley in the corridor. Not making a sound, he slid open the bathroom door to the front hall, slipped out and pulled it closed behind him. He spotted a uniformed arm and shoulder in the room, hoped that they had not left another officer in front of the door, and slipped out of the room, quiet as a cat.
Tu hopped from toe to toe, snorting, peering about. He spread his fingers out, then clenched his fists.
Come along, come along, he thought. Blasted lift! Just bring me up to the damn roof.
The levels were ticking by painfully slowly on the display. Two cabins were headed up. One was stopped on five, the other on six, right below him. For a moment Tu felt murderous rage at the people getting in and out of the lifts down there. They were taking up his time. He hated them with all his heart.
Come on there, he thought. Come on!
Room 727.
The policemen approached the glass door that led straight from the double bed to the bathroom. For a moment they paused there, listening for noises from inside, but all was quiet.
At last one of them plucked up his nerve.
They must be finding the body about now.
Pacing with care, Xin approached the turn in the corridor that led on to the lifts. He stayed calm. The police had not seen him going out. He had shut the glass door behind himself, ever attentive to detail. There was nothing to show that whoever had murdered the hotel employee had been in the bathroom just a few seconds before.
No need to hurry.
Seven!
Tu could have sworn that the lift had crept up those last few metres. Finally the gleaming steel doors swept apart, letting out a horde of young folk, expensively dressed. He shoved his way brusquely through them, put his thumb to the scanplate and pressed Skyport. The doors slid shut.
Xin rounded the corner. Hotel guests came towards him the other way. He saw one of the lifts just closing, headed for the next one, pressed the sensor and waited.
Seconds later he was on his way down to the lobby.