‘What did she want to speak to you about?’ he asked, finally.
Margaret shrugged. ‘I don’t know. And since it’s unlikely she’ll come back again, we probably never will.’
‘I don’t like you giving out your address like that to strangers,’ Li said firmly.
But Margaret wasn’t listening. She had a picture in her head of the girl’s frightened rabbit’s eyes at the stadium the night before, and the anxiety in her face when she spoke to her that afternoon. And she felt afraid for her.
Chapter Six
I
Li pulled up on the stretch of waste ground opposite the food market and walked back along Dongzhimen Beixiao Jie to Mei Yuan’s stall on the corner.
He had slept like a log in Margaret’s arms, but a wakened early, enveloped still by the fog of depression his father had brought with him from Sichuan. And he had known he would have to return to his apartment before his father woke, to prepare him breakfast, and to shower and change for work. The night before, Li had taken him a carry-out meal from the restaurant below, but he had eaten hardly anything and gone to bed shortly after ten. As soon as Li had thought the old man was asleep, he had crept out and driven across the city to spend his last night with Margaret.
But when he returned this morning, the old man did not eat his breakfast either. He had accepted a mug of green tea and said simply to Li, ‘You did not come home last night.’
Li had seen no reason to lie. ‘No. I stayed over at Margaret’s,’ he had said, and before his father could reply, cut him off with, ‘And don’t tell me it’s not traditional, or that you disapprove. Because, you know, I really don’t care.’
The old man had been expressionless. ‘I was going to say it is a pity I will not meet her before the betrothal.’ He had waited for a response, but when Li could find nothing to say, added, ‘Is it unreasonable for a man to want to meet the mother of his grandchild?’
It did not matter, apparently, what Li said or did, his father had a way of making him feel guilty. He had left him with a spare key and fled to the safety of his work.
Now, as he approached Mei Yuan’s stall, to break his own fast with a jian bing, he thought for the first time of the riddle she had posed two days before. He had given it neither time nor consideration and felt guilty about that, too. He ran it quickly through in his mind. The woman had come to see the I Ching expert on his sixty-sixth birthday. He was born on the second of February nineteen twenty-five. So that would mean she came to see him on the second of February, nineteen ninety-one. He was going to create a number from that date, put her age at the end of it, and then reverse it. And that would be the special number he would remember her by. Okay, so the date would be 2-2-91. But what age was the woman? He ran back over in his mind what Mei Yuan had told him, but could not remember if she had said what age the girl was.
‘I missed you yesterday.’ Mei Yuan had seen him coming and had already poured the pancake mix on to the hotplate.
‘I had a…’ he hesitated. ‘A meeting.’
‘Ah,’ she said. And Li knew immediately that she knew he was hiding something. He gave her a hug and quickly changed the subject.
‘I am in the middle of a murder investigation.’
‘Ah,’ she said again.
‘And my father arrived from Sichuan.’ He was aware of her eyes flickering briefly away from her hotplate in his direction and then back again. She knew that relations between them were difficult.
‘And how is he?’
‘Oh,’ Li said airily, ‘much the same as usual. Nothing wrong with him that a touch of murder wouldn’t cure.’
Mei Yuan smiled. ‘I hope that’s not the investigation you are conducting.’
‘I wish,’ Li said. ‘It would be an easy one to break. Only one suspect, with both motive and opportunity.’ Flippancy was an easy way to hide your emotions, but he knew she wasn’t fooled.
She finished his jian bing and handed it to him wrapped in brown paper. She said, ‘When the dark seeks to equal the light there is certain to be conflict.’
He met her eyes and felt as if she were looking right into his soul. And he was discomfited by it. Because he knew that all she could have seen there would be dark thoughts, resentment and guilt.
‘You have read the teachings of Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching,’ she said. It was not a question. She knew this because she had given him the book, the Taoist Bible — although Taoism was a philosophy rather than a religion. He nodded. ‘Then you know that the Tao teaches, be good to people who are good. To those who are not good be also good. Thus goodness is achieved.’
Li bit into his jian bing and felt its soft, savoury hotness suffuse his mouth with its flavour. He said, ‘You certainly achieved goodness with this, Mei Yuan.’ He was not about to swap Taoist philosophy with her at eight o’clock in the morning.
She smiled at him with the indulgence of a mother. ‘And did you achieve a solution to my riddle?’
‘Ah,’ he said, and filled his mouth with more jian bing.
Her black eyes twinkled. ‘Why do I feel an excuse coming on?’
‘I haven’t had time,’ he said lamely. ‘And, anyway, I couldn’t remember what age you said the young woman was.’
‘I didn’t.’
He frowned. ‘You didn’t?’
‘It is the key, Li Yan. Find it, and you will open the door to enlightenment.’
‘Is that also the philosophy of the Tao?’
‘No, it is the philosophy of Mei Yuan.’
He laughed, and tossed some coins into her tin. ‘I will see you tomorrow night,’ he said.
As he turned to head back to the Jeep, she said, ‘Your young friend came yesterday.’ He stopped, and she drew a book out from her bag. ‘He brought me this.’
It was a copy of the Scott Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby. ‘You haven’t read it, have you?’ Li asked.
‘No,’ Mei Yuan replied. ‘But neither has anyone else.’ She paused. ‘He said his friend gave it to him to lend to me.’ She ran her finger along the spine. ‘But this is a brand new book, never opened.’
Li smiled. ‘He means well.’
‘Yes,’ Mei Yuan said. ‘But he lies too easily. Tell him if he wants to give me a book, I will be happy to accept it. But I would prefer his honesty.’
Li stopped at the door of the detectives’ office. ‘Where’s Sun?’
‘He’s out, Chief,’ Wu said.
Li glanced at the TV, which was flickering away in the corner with the sound turned down. ‘And so is Deputy Section Chief Tao, I guess.’
Wu grinned and nodded. ‘All the swimming finals this morning, the athletics this afternoon.’
‘How are we doing?’
Wu shrugged. ‘Could be better. They’re ahead on points, but there’s some big races still to come. Do you want me to keep you up to date?’
‘I think I can live without it.’ Li glanced over at Qian’s desk. The detective was concentrating on typing up a report, two fingers stabbing clumsily at his computer keyboard. He had never quite got comfortable with the technology. ‘Qian?’ He looked up. ‘I want you to look into a burglary for me. It’s probably being handled by the local public security bureau. An American photographer called Jon Macken. He had a studio down on Xidan. It was broken into the night before last.’
Qian frowned. ‘What interest do we have in it, Chief?’
Li said. ‘None that I know of. Just take a look at it for me, would you?’