Li snorted now. ‘That sounds like paranoia to me,’ he said.
‘Maybe it wouldn’t seem that way if you were on the receiving end.’
‘The receiving end of what? Does he speak Chinese?’
‘No.’
‘So he’d have trouble telling the cops exactly what had happened, or what he’d lost. And they’d have as much trouble telling him that there were nearly fifty thousand cases of theft in Beijing last year, and that they’ve as much chance of finding the perps as getting a Green Card in America.’
Margaret sighed. ‘Does that mean you won’t look into it for him?’
‘What!’
‘I told Yixuan you’d ask about it.’
‘What the hell did you tell her that for?’
‘Because she’s my friend, and I’m your wife. Well, almost. And what’s the point in being married to one of Beijing’s top cops if you can’t pull a few strings?’
His silence then surprised her. She had thought she was doing a good job of drawing him out. She had no idea that she had touched a raw nerve. So she was even more surprised when he said, ‘I’ll ask about it tomorrow.’
Finally she drew herself up on one elbow and said, ‘What’s wrong, Li Yan?’
‘Nothing that a family transplant wouldn’t cure.’
‘Your father,’ she said flatly.
‘According to Dad, not only did I abandon him, but I was responsible for the death of my mother, as well as…’ But he broke off, and couldn’t bring himself to say it.
Margaret had always known that Li had a difficult relationship with his father. And God knew, she understood well enough. Her relationship with her own mother was less than ideal. But she felt a surge of anger at his father’s cruelty. How could Li possibly be responsible for his mother’s death. ‘As well as what?’ she asked softly.
‘Yifu.’
She heard the way his throat had constricted and choked off his voice, and she wanted just to hold him for ever and take away all his pain. She knew how he felt about Yifu, how the guilt had consumed him in the years since his murder. Why did they have to kill him? he had asked her time and again. It was my fight, not his. What right did his father have to lay the blame for that on his son? What did he know about any of it anyway, what had happened and why? Margaret was dreading meeting him, dreading being unable to hold her tongue. Her record in the field of tactful silence was not a good one. She sought Li’s lips in the darkness and kissed him. She felt the tears wet on his cheeks and said, ‘Li Yan, it was not your fault.’ But she knew she could never convince him. And so she held him tighter and willed her love to him through every point of contact between them.
He lay in her arms for what felt like an eternity. And then, ‘I love you,’ she said quietly.
‘I know.’ His voice whispered back to her in the dark.
She kissed his forehead and his eyes, and his cheeks and his jaw, and ran her hands across his chest and found his nipples with her teeth. It was their last night together before her mother would arrive tomorrow and invade her space like an alien. She wanted to make the most of it, to give herself to Li completely, to give him the chance to lose himself in her and for a short time, at least, leave his pain behind him. Her hands slid over the smooth contours of his belly, fingers running through the tangle of his pubic hair, finding him there growing as she held him. And then he was kissing her, running his hands over her breasts, inflaming sensitive nipples and sending tiny electric shocks through her body to that place between her legs where she wanted to draw him in and hold him for ever.
The knocking on the door crashed over their passion like a bucket of ice cold water. She sat up, heart pounding. The figures on the bedside clock told her it was midnight. ‘Who the hell’s that?’
Li said, ‘Stay in bed. I’ll go see.’ He slipped out from between the sheets and pulled on his trousers and shirt. He left the bedroom as the knocking came again. At the end of the hall he unlatched the door and opened it to find himself looking into the face of a skinny girl with straggling shoulder-length hair. It was a pinched face, red with the cold, and she was hugging her quilted anorak to keep herself warm. She looked alarmed to find herself confronted by the tall, dishevelled, barefoot figure of Li.
‘What do you want? Who are you looking for?’ he demanded, knowing that she must be at the wrong door.
‘No one,’ she said in a tremulous voice. ‘I’m sorry.’ And she turned to hurry away towards the stairwell and retrace her steps down the eleven flights she must have climbed to get here, for the lift did not operate at this time of night. In the landing light, as she turned, Li saw that she had a large, unsightly purple patch on her left cheek. He closed the door and went back along the hall to the bedroom.
‘Who was it?’ Margaret asked. She was still sitting up.
‘I don’t know. Some girl. She must have got the wrong apartment, because she took off pretty fast when she saw me.’
Margaret’s heart was pounding. ‘Did she have a large purple birthmark on her face?’
Li was surprised. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You know her?’ He couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice.
Margaret had forgotten all about her. But in any case, could never have imagined that she would come at this time of night. ‘Her name is Dai Lili. She is the athlete who said she wanted to speak to me last night at the stadium.’
Now Li was astonished. ‘How in the name of the sky did she find out where you live?’
‘I gave her my card.’
Now he was angry. ‘Are you mad? When? Last night?’
‘She tracked me down to the maternity hospital this afternoon. She was scared, Li Yan. She said she had to speak to me and asked if she could come here. What else could I say?’
Li cursed softly under his breath with the realisation that he had just been face to face with the only person in this case who was prepared to talk — if not to him. ‘I could still catch her.’
Margaret watched anxiously as he pulled on his shoes and ran to the door. ‘You need a coat,’ she called after him. ‘It’s freezing out there.’ The only response was the sound of the apartment door slamming shut behind him.
The cold in the stairwell was brutal. He stopped on the landing and listened. He could hear her footfall on the stairs several floors down. For a moment he considered calling, but feared that she might be spooked. So he started after her. Two steps at a time, until a sweat broke out cold on his forehead, and the tar from years of smoking kept the oxygen from reaching his blood. Five floors down he stopped, and above the rasping of his breath could hear the rapid, panicked patter of her steps floating up to him on the cold, dank air. She had heard him, and was putting even more space between them.
By the time he got to the ground floor and pushed out through the glass doors he knew she was gone. In the wash of moonlight all he could see was the security guard huddled in his hut, cigarette smoke rising into the night. Even if he knew which way she had gone, he realised he could never catch her. She was a runner, after all, young, at the peak of her fitness. And he had too many years behind him of cigarettes and alcohol.
He stood gasping for a moment, perspiration turning to ice on his skin, before he turned, shivering, to face the long climb back to the eleventh floor.
Margaret was up and waiting for him, huddled in her dressing-gown, a kettle boiling to make green tea to warm him. She didn’t need to ask. His face said it all. He took the mug of tea she offered and cupped it in his hands, and let her slip a blanket around his shoulders.