‘What was he like, I mean as a person?’ Li asked.
Several of them ventured views not dissimilar to his coach. ‘He used to be a lot more fun.’ This from a tall, broad-shouldered boy called Guo Li upon whom high hopes were invested for the two hundred meters butterfly.
‘You’d known him a long time?’ Li asked.
‘We were at school together in Guilin. He used to be a good laugh. You know, serious about his swimming, but fun to be with. Lately he started taking it all a lot more seriously.’
‘How lately?’
‘About six months ago,’ one of the others said. ‘He started getting…I don’t know, too serious.’
‘And started winning big time,’ another of them pointed out.
‘He was a pain in the ass,’ someone else said. And when the others glared at him said defensively, ‘Well, he was. He’d bite the head off you if you looked at him the wrong way.’
Li remembered Wang’s observation at Jia Jing’s autopsy. There can often be behavioural changes with steroid abuse. Users can become moody, aggressive. He said, ‘Is there any chance he was taking drugs?’
‘No way!’ Guo Li left no room for doubt. And there was a murmur of agreement from around the changing room, even from the one who thought Sui was a pain in the ass. ‘He treated his body like a temple,’ Guo said. ‘His diet, his training. There was no way he would do anything to damage himself.’
‘And yet,’ Li said, ‘if appearances are to be believed, he drank a half bottle of brandy and then hanged himself. Hardly the actions of someone who treated his body like a temple.’
None of them had anything to say to that.
Outside, the sun remained winter low in the sky, and snow still lay across the concourse on the shaded side of the building. The road below remained white, too, and as they scrambled down the embankment, students rode gingerly past on bikes that were liable to slither from under them without warning. Sun had parked their Jeep opposite the student accommodation block. ‘Where to now, Chief?’
‘Let’s go and see where an Olympic gold medal prospect lives.’
II
Sui Mingshan, Chinese swimming’s best prospect of Olympic gold, rented an apartment in one of the city’s most up-market new housing complexes, above Beijing New World Taihua Plaza on Chongwenmenwai Street. Three shining new inter-linked towers formed a triangle around the plaza below. Eighteen storeys of luxury apartments for the wealthy of the new China. Out front, a huge Christmas tree bedecked with lights and foil-wrapped parcels dwarfed a gaggle of plastic Father Christmases looking absurdly like over-sized garden gnomes. An ethereal Oh Come All Ye Faithful in Chinese drifted across the concourse. External elevators ascended in polished glass tubes.
Sun parked in a side street and they entered the apartment block at number 5 on the north-west corner. Marble stairs led them to a chrome and glass entrance from behind which a security man in light grey uniform watched them advancing.
‘Can I help?’ he asked, and looked them up and down as if he thought they might be terrorists. Sun showed him his Public Security ID and his attitude changed immediately. ‘You’ll have come to see Sui Mingshan’s place. Some of your people are already here. I’ll show you up if you like.’
He rode up with them in the elevator to the fifteenth floor. ‘How long was Sui living here?’ Li asked.
The security man sucked air in through his teeth. ‘You’d need to check with the sales office around the corner. But I’d reckon about five months.’ He grinned at them in an inexplicably comradely sort of way. ‘Been thinking about joining the police myself,’ he said, as if that might endear him to them. ‘Five years in security. I figure that’s almost like a foot in the door.’
But neither of them returned his smile. ‘Better get your application in fast,’ Li said, ‘I hear there might be a vacancy coming up soon.’ And the doors slid open on the fifteenth floor.
As they stepped on to the landing, Sun asked, ‘Did he have many visitors?’
‘In all the time I’ve been on duty, not one,’ said the security man. ‘Which makes him just about unique in this place.’
The door of Sui’s apartment was lying open, yellow and black crime scene tape criss-crossed between the jambs. Li said, ‘We’ll call you if we need you.’ And he and Sun stood and watched as the disappointed security man walked back down the hallway to the elevator. They ducked under the tape into the apartment, and stepped into another world, feet sinking into a deep-piled fawn patterned carpet laid throughout the flat. The walls were painted in pastel peach and cream white. Expensive black lacquered furniture was arranged in a seating area around a window giving on to a panoramic view across the city. A black glass-topped dining table had six seats placed around it, reflecting in a large cut-glass wall mirror divided into diamonds. A huge still-life of flowers in a window adorned one wall, real flowers arranged in crystal or pottery vases carefully placed on various surfaces around the vast open living area. There were the sounds of voices coming from a door leading to the kitchen. Li called out, and after a moment Fu Qiwei pushed his head around the door. He was the senior forensics officer from Pao Jü Hutong, a small wizened man with tiny coal black eyes and an acerbic sense of humour. He wore a white Tivek suit, plastic shoe covers and white gloves.
‘Oh, hi, Chief,’ he said. ‘Welcome to paradise.’
‘Do we need to get suited up, Fu?’ Li asked.
Fu shook his head. ‘Naw. We’re just about finished here. Not that we found anything worth a damn. Barely even a hair. It’s like he was a ghost, completely without personality. Left no traces of himself anywhere.’
‘How do you mean?’ Li was curious.
‘Just look at the place.’ Fu led them into the bedroom. ‘It’s like a hotel room. When we got here the bed was made up like it had never been slept in. Not a trace of dust on any surface you might run your finger over.’ He slid open the mirrored doors of a built-in wardrobe. Rows of clothes, immaculately laundered and ironed, hung neatly on the rail. ‘I mean, you figure anyone’s ever worn this stuff?’ Polished shoes and unmarked white trainers were arranged carefully in the shoe rack below. ‘And I’m thinking, this guy’s what — nineteen? You ever been in a teenager’s bedroom that looked like this? And have a look in here…’ He took them through to the kitchen.
Every surface was polished to a shine. The hob looked as if it had never been used. Crockery was piled neatly in cupboards, cutlery gleamed silently in drawers. There was a bowl of fruit on an island in the centre of the kitchen. It was fresh, but looked as if it had been arranged. The refrigerator was virtually empty. There was an open carton of orange juice, some tubs of yoghurt. The larder was also sparsely stocked. Rice in a packet, some tinned vegetables, dried noodles. Fu said, ‘If I didn’t know the kid lived here, I’d have said it was a showhouse, you know, to show potential customers how their very own apartment could be. Totally fucking soulless.’ He chuckled. ‘Turns out, of course, they got housekeeping in this place. Maids come in every day to clean the apartment, change the sheets, do the laundry, replace the flowers. They even got a service that’ll do your shopping for you. Can you believe it? And hey, look at this…’ They followed him through into a small study, where a polished mahogany desk filled most of the available space. A lamp sat on one corner beside a handful of books pressed between bookends that looked as if they had been placed there by a designer. But it was here that they saw for the first time the only evidence that Sui had lived here at all. The walls were covered with framed winner’s medals, certificates of excellence, newspaper articles extolling Sui’s victories, photographs of Sui on the winner’s podium. Almost like a shrine. And Guo Li’s words came back to Li. He treated his body like a temple.