He saw Wu hanging up his telephone. ‘Any news?’ he called.
Wu shook his head. ‘Nope. According to the security man Fleischer hasn’t been back to his apartment for days. And that place out by the reservoir is some kind of summer house. It’s been shut up all winter.’
Li gasped his frustration. Doctor Fleischer, apparently, had disappeared into thin air. They had officers watching his apartment and the club. Inquiries with his previous employer, Peking Pharmaceutical Corporation, revealed that he had been running their highly sophisticated laboratory complex for the last three years, but had left their employ six months ago, just after his work permit and visa had been renewed. Li headed for the door.
‘By the way, Chief,’ Wu called after him. ‘Anything we put in the internal mail last night is history.’
Li stopped in his tracks. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Motorbike courier was involved in a smash on the second ring road first thing this morning. Mail was all over the road…most of it ruined.’
Li lingered in the doorway. Was it fate? Good luck, bad luck? Did it make any difference? He said, ‘What about the courier?’ He did not like to think that the fates might have intervened on his behalf at the expense of some innocent courier.
‘Broke his wrist. A bit shaken up. Okay, though.’
But even if his letter of resignation had failed to reach its destination, it was only a stay of execution. Li shook his head to clear his mind. It was not important now. Other things took precedence. He turned into the corridor and nearly collided with Sun.
‘Chief, is it okay if I take a couple of hours to go up to the hospital with Wen? I still haven’t made it to one of these antenatal classes yet and she’s been giving me hell.’
‘Sure,’ Li said, distracted.
‘I mean, I know it’s not the best time with everything that’s going on just now…’
‘I said okay,’ Li snapped, and he strode off down the hall to his office.
Tao was waiting for him, standing staring out of the window into the dark street below. He turned as Li came in.
‘What do you want?’ Li said.
Tao walked purposefully past him and closed the door. He said, ‘You had my personnel file out last night.’
Li sighed. It did not occur to him to wonder how Tao knew. ‘So?’
‘I want to know why?’
‘I don’t have time for this right now, Tao.’
‘Well, I suggest you make time.’ The low, controlled threat in Tao’s voice was clear and unmistakable.
It cut right through Li’s preoccupation, and he looked at him, surprised. ‘I’m not sure I like your tone, Deputy Section Chief.’
‘I’m not sure I care,’ Tao said. ‘After all, you’re not going to be around long enough for it to make any difference.’ Li’s hackles rose, but Tao pressed on before he could respond. ‘Seems to me it’s a serious breach of trust between a chief and his deputy when you go asking junior officers to pull my file from Personnel. Makes it look like it’s me who’s under investigation.’
‘Well, maybe it is,’ Li snapped back.
Which appeared to take Tao by surprise. ‘What do you mean?’
‘In the mid-nineties you were involved in an investigation by the Hong Kong police into the activities of Triad gangs there.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘You spent time working under cover. You got very close to what was happening on the ground. But you didn’t make a single arrest of any note. Not a single prosecution worth a damn.’
‘No one working on that investigation did.’ Tao had gone very pale.
‘And why was that?’ Li asked.
‘We never got the break we needed. Sure, we could have picked up all the little guys. But more little guys would just have taken their place. It was the brains behind them that we were after, and we never got near.’
‘I remember hearing a rumour that was because the Triads were always one step ahead of the police.’
Tao glared at him. ‘The insider theory.’
‘That’s right.’
‘There was never any evidence that they had someone on the inside. It was a good excuse thought up by the British for explaining their failure.’ The two men stared at each other with mutual hatred. But Li said nothing. And finally Tao said, ‘You think it was me, don’t you?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘That’s why you pulled my file.’
‘We’ve got Triads in Beijing, Tao. Anyone with specialist knowledge could be valuable.’
Tao narrowed his eyes. ‘You don’t believe that. You think I’m involved.’
Li shrugged. ‘Why would I think that?’
‘You tell me.’
Li turned and wandered towards his desk. ‘There are certain anomalies in this investigation which require explanation,’ he said. ‘The bottles of perfume removed from their apartments, the return visit by the thieves who robbed Macken.’
Tao looked disgusted. ‘And you think I was responsible for those…anomalies?’
‘No,’ Li said. ‘I had a look at your file, that’s all. You’re the one who’s jumping to conclusions.’
‘There’s only one conclusion I can jump to, Section Chief Li. You’re trying to smear my name so I won’t get your job. Some kind of petty revenge.’ Tao gave a small, bitter laugh. ‘Your parting shot.’
Li shook his head. ‘You’re obsessed with getting this job, aren’t you?’
‘I could hardly be worse at it than you.’ Tao stabbed a furious finger through the air in Li’s direction. ‘And one way or the other, I’m not going to let you fuck it up for me!’
Li said, ‘That’s ten yuan for the swear box, Deputy Tao.’
Tao turned on his heel and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. And Li closed his eyes and tried hard to stop himself from shaking.
Chapter Eleven
I
The snow had begun falling again. In spite of it, crowds jammed the Dong’anmen night market, where dozens of stall holders under red and white striped canopies were frying, barbecuing, steaming, grilling. The smell of food rose with the steam and smoke to fill the night air. Chicken, beef, lamb, fish, noodles, dumplings, whole birds impaled on bamboo sticks, grubs skewered for the grill. It was the most popular eating street in Beijing, where thousands of workers nightly stopped off on their way home to savour Chinese cuisine’s very own version of fast food. Licensed chefs in white coats with red lapels and tall white hats, kept themselves warm over sparking braziers and fiery woks, while hungry customers flitted from stall to stall in search of something special to warm their route home.
Margaret had to cycle hard to keep up with Dai Lili’s brother as he pedalled east, head down, along Dong’anmen, the feeding frenzy to their right fenced off behind red bins and white railings. There was very little traffic, and no one paid any attention to two figures cycling past, hunched against the cold and the snow in heavy coats and winter hats. Her legs were numb with the cold, even through her jeans.
As the lights and the sounds and smells of the night market receded, Margaret saw, looming in the dark ahead, the towering two-tiered Donghua Gate, the east entrance to the Forbidden City. They crossed the junction with Nanchizi Street, a corner grocer store blazing its lights out on to the snow-covered road. At this time, the traffic was usually jammed in all directions, but sense had prevailed and very few motorists had ventured out on untreated streets under inches of snow. The occasional cyclist crossed the junction, heading north or south. Dai Lili’s brother led them east into the dark pool of Donghuamen Street, in the shadow of the Donghua Gate. Normally the gate would be floodlit. But since the palace had closed for restoration work, the east and west gates had been shrouded nightly in darkness. The handful of shops on the north side had closed up early. No one in their right mind was venturing out in this weather unless they absolutely had to. The snow was falling so thickly now it almost obliterated the streetlights.