The Runner (The China Thrillers 5) Read online

  ‘Yes, yes, I suppose so,’ Yang said, and began himself to see the first glimmers of light.

  Li said, ‘And you’re saying someone has … genetically modified these HERV?’

  ‘It appears that some of them had been removed from our swimmer, modified in some way, and then put back.’

  ‘Why?’

  Yang shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have absolutely no clue, Section Chief. And neither has Professor Xu.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘But I have an idea that Margaret might.’

  Li said grimly, ‘If I knew where she was I’d ask her.’

  Yang frowned, but he had no chance to ask.

  ‘Thank you,’ Li said, and he tapped Tao’s arm and nodded towards the Jeep. ‘Get in.’

  Tao looked surprised. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Detective Sun’s apartment.’

  IV

  The van lurched and bounced over a frozen, rutted track. From the rear of it, where Margaret and Lili had been tied hand and foot and forced to sit with their backs to the door, Margaret could see headlights raking a grim, winter landscape. The skeletons of cold, black trees drifted in and out of vision. Big, soft snowflakes slapped the windshield before being scraped aside and smeared across the glass by inefficient wipers.

  She was racked by pain now, and knew she was in serious trouble. She felt blood, hot and wet, between her legs, and every bone-jarring pitch of the van provoked a fresh fork of cramp in her belly. Lili was absolutely silent, but Margaret could feel her fear.

  The only sound which had broken the monotonous drone of the engine during their journey was the whimpering of the man Margaret had set on fire. She could smell his burned flesh and singed hair. He lay curled up in the back, almost within touching distance, wrapped in a blanket. Margaret suspected it was fear more than pain which made him cry. His burns were severe enough to have destroyed the nerve-endings. It was possible he felt no pain at all. But he must know he would be disfigured for life.

  When they had dragged her from the copper pot, they pushed her to the ground and kicked her until she thought they were going to kill her there and then. She had curled into the foetal position to try to protect her baby. They did not care that she was pregnant. Eventually they had dragged the two women to the Donghua Gate and bundled them into the back of the waiting van. Margaret thought they must have been on the road for more than an hour and a half since then.

  She saw brick buildings and slate roofs now, walls and gates, the occasional light in a window. Stacks of bricks at the roadside. Pipes projected from the sides of houses, issuing smoke into the night sky. Margaret could smell the woodsmoke. They were going through a village of some kind. Margaret had no sense of the direction they had taken when they left the capital. They could be anywhere. But wherever it was, she knew, there was no chance that anyone was ever going to find them there. After a few minutes, they left the village behind, and entered a dense copse of trees before emerging again into open country. A solitary light shone in the blackness, and gradually it grew brighter as they got closer, before the van finally juddered to a halt outside the gate of a walled cottage. The double green gates stood open, and the light they had seen was an outside lamp above the door of what appeared to be an L-shaped bungalow.

  The driver and his passenger opened the van doors and jumped down. After a moment the back doors were thrown open, and Margaret and Lili nearly fell out into the snow. Rough hands grabbed them and pulled them out into the freezing night. Margaret was bruised and aching, and the joints in her legs had seized up, buckling under her. She could barely stand. The two men crouched in the snow to untie their feet, and they were led through the gate, along a winding path to the door of the cottage. Margaret could see that the red brick dwelling had been renovated some time recently. The windows were a freshly painted green, the garden trimmed and manicured beneath a layer of snow. Gourds hung drying from the eaves and the orange of frozen persimmons lined the window ledges.

  The door was unlocked and the two women were pushed through it into a small sitting room. One of the men flicked a switch, and a harsh yellow light threw the room into sharp relief. Whitewashed walls, rugs strewn across the tiled floor, a couple of old couches, a writing bureau, a round dining table under one of the windows looking out on to the garden. Two wooden chairs with woven straw seats were brought in from another room, and Margaret and Lili were forced to sit in them, side by side. Their feet were tied again, and their hands untied and then re-tied to the backs of the chairs.

  The men who had brought them in had an urgent conversation in low voices, and one of them went out to the garden to make a call on his cellphone. After a few minutes, he returned and waved his friend to follow him. The second man switched off the light as he left. Margaret and Lili heard the engine of the van coughing into life, and the whine of the gears as it reversed and slithered through a three-point turn before accelerating off into the night, its headlights dying into blackness.

  It was some minutes before Margaret found the ability to speak. ‘What did they say?’ she asked, and was surprised at how feeble her voice sounded in the dark.

  ‘They take their friend for medical treatment. The one who is burned. The driver talk to someone on the phone who say they will be here soon.’ Lili’s voice sounded very small, too.

  The ropes were burning into Margaret’s wrists and ankles, and she knew there was no chance of freeing them. They sat, then, in silence for what seemed like hours, but may have been no more than fifteen or twenty minutes. And then Lili began sobbing, softly, uncontrollably. She knew they were going to die. As Margaret did. Margaret closed her eyes and felt her own tears burn hot tracks down her cheeks. But they were more for her lost child than for herself.

  After, perhaps, another ten minutes, they saw lights catch the far wall of the cottage through the side windows, and they heard the distant purr of a motor. As it grew closer, so Margaret’s fear increased. She tried hard to free her hands, but only succeeded in burning the skin down to raw flesh.

  The vehicle drew up outside the gate. The headlights went out, and then they heard three doors bang shut. Footsteps crunched in the snow, and Margaret turned her head towards the door as it opened. The overhead light, when it came on, nearly blinded her, and a man she recognised as Doctor Hans Fleischer walked in. He wore a camel-hair coat with a silk scarf and leather gloves, and his suntan made him seem incongruous here, implausibly prosperous. He beamed at the two women, and then focused his gaze on Margaret. ‘Doctor Campbell, I presume,’ he said. ‘Welcome to my humble abode.’ His English was almost accentless.

  Another man came in behind him. Chinese, much younger, immaculately dressed.

  ‘I don’t believe you know Mr. Fan, my generous benefactor,’ Fleischer said. ‘But he knows all about you.’

  The CEO of the Beijing OneChina Recreation Club smiled, dimpling his cheeks. But he appeared tense, and he did not speak.

  Margaret became aware that a third man had entered. She craned her neck to look at him, but he had his back to them as he shut the door behind him. Then he turned, and for a moment hope burned briefly in Margaret’s heart. It was Detective Sun. And then just as quickly the flame died. He could not even meet her eye. And she knew that he was one of the bad guys, too.

  Chapter Twelve

  I

  An armed PLA guard, fur collar turned up on a long green coat, stood chittering in the sentry box at the back entrance to the compound of the Ministry of State and Public Security. Snow was gathering on his red epaulettes, on the shiny black peak of his cap, and on his boots. He glanced impassively at Li and Tao as Li turned his Jeep through the gate and then took a right along the front of the apartment blocks allocated to junior public security officers and their families. Lights from windows fell out in yellow slabs across the snow.

  Li pulled in outside the third block along, and he and Tao got out and took the elevator to the seventh floor. From the window on the landing Li could see the lights from his apartment i
n the senior officers’ block, and knew that his father was waiting for him there on his own. He had not seen him in forty-eight hours. And he had no idea for how much longer he would be able to call the apartment his. But none of that mattered. He did not care whether he was still a police officer tomorrow or just another citizen, whether he was married to Margaret or not, whether they shared an apartment or lived apart. All that mattered was that he would find her before they killed her.

  Tao knocked loudly on Sun’s door, and after a few moments Wen opened it. Li was immediately struck by how much she appeared to have aged in just a few days. There were dark rings beneath her eyes, and red blotches on pale cheeks. She did not appear surprised to see them.

  ‘He’s not here,’ she said dully.

  ‘May we come in?’ Li asked.

  She stood aside mutely, and they walked past her into a small hallway. She closed the door and led them through to a living room with a glazed terrace that overlooked Zhengyi Road below. It was almost exactly like the apartment Li had shared for so many years with his Uncle Yifu. There was very little furniture in the room, and packing cases were still stacked against one wall. Another stood in the middle of the floor, partially unpacked, its contents strewn around it.

  Wen wore a tight-fitting smock that emphasised the swelling of her child. She stood with her palms resting on her hips, just above the buttocks. A pose that Li had often seen Margaret adopt. It sent a jolt through him, like an electric shock.

  ‘Where is he?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’

  He looked at her contemplatively for a moment. ‘Why did you start crying when I phoned earlier?’

  She sucked in her lower lip and bit down on it to stop herself from crying again. ‘I never know where he is,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘I’ve hardly seen him since I got here.’ She threw her hand out in a gesture towards the packing cases. ‘I’ve had to do all this myself. We haven’t had a meal together in days. He doesn’t get in until two or three in the morning.’ And she couldn’t stop the sobs from catching in her throat. ‘Just like it was in Canton. Nothing’s changed.’

  ‘How was it in Canton?’ Li asked quietly.

  She brushed aside fresh tears. ‘He was always out. More than half the night sometimes.’ She breathed deeply to try to control herself and looked up at the ceiling as if it might offer her guidance. ‘If it had been other women, maybe that would have been easier to take. Maybe you can compete with other women.’ She looked at Li. ‘He was a gambler, Section Chief. He loved it. Couldn’t ever let a bet go.’ She paused. ‘How do you compete with that?’ She couldn’t face them, then, and turned away towards the terrace, folding her arms beneath her breasts in a gesture of self-protection, walking up to the glass and staring out into the snowy darkness. ‘He ran up terrible debts. We had to sell nearly everything. And then, when he got the job here, I thought maybe it would be a fresh start. He promised me … for the baby.’ She turned back into the room and shook her head helplessly. ‘But nothing’s changed. He behaves so strangely. I don’t know him any more. I’m not sure I ever did.’

  Li was both shocked and dismayed by her description of a young man he had once thought was like a younger version of himself. It was not the Sun Xi he knew, or thought he knew, the detective he had been nurturing and encouraging. What shocked him even more, was how badly he had misjudged him. He glanced at Tao. Had he also been as wrong about his deputy? What was it Police Commissioner Hu had said to him? Loyalty is not something you inherit with the job. You have to earn it. He certainly hadn’t done anything to earn Tao’s loyalty. Perhaps, after all, he just wasn’t cut out for management.

  Tao said to Wen, ‘When you say he’s been behaving strangely, what do you mean?’

  She gasped and threw her hands up in despair. ‘I found a piece of paper folded into one of his jacket pockets. It had a poem written on it. Some stupid poem that didn’t even make any sense. When I asked him about it he nearly went berserk. He snatched it from me and accused me of spying on him.’

  Tao was frowning. ‘What kind of poem?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just a poem. I found it a couple of days later between the pages of a book in his bedside table. I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want to be accused of spying again.’

  ‘Is it still there?’ Li asked.

  She nodded. ‘I’ll get it.’

  She returned a few moments later, with a grubby sheet of paper folded into quarters, well rubbed along the folds. She thrust it at Li. He took it and opened it carefully and spread it out on the table. He and Tao leaned over it. The poem was written in neat characters. It had no title and was unattributed. And, as Wen had said, appeared to make very little sense.

  We walk in the green mountains, small paths, valleys and bays,

  The streams from the high hills are heard murmuring.

  Hundreds of birds keep on singing in the remote mountains.

  It is hard for a man to walk ten thousand Li.

  You are advised not to be a poor traveller

  Who guards Kwan Shan every night, suffering from hunger and cold.

  Everyone said he would visit the peak of Wa Shan.

  I will travel around all eight mountains of Wa Shan.

  Li was completely nonplussed ‘It’s not much of a poem,’ he said.

  Tao said quietly, ‘None of the Triad poems are.’

  Li blinked at him, confused now. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s a tradition which has mostly passed from use,’ Tao said. ‘But there are still some Triad groups who practise it. Members are given personal poems to memorise. They can be interrogated on them to verify their identification.’ He lifted the sheet of paper. ‘But they are supposed to destroy them once they have been memorised.’

  Wen was listening to their exchange with growing disbelief. ‘What do you mean, Triads?’ she said. ‘Are you telling me Sun Xi is a Triad? I don’t believe it.’

  Tao looked at Li and shrugged. ‘Canton was one of the first areas in mainland China the Triads moved back into after the Hong Kong handover. If Sun had got himself into financial trouble with his gambling he would have been a prime candidate for Triad recruitment. And a big feather in their caps, too. A detective in criminal investigation.’

  ‘Even more so now,’ Li said. ‘Now that he’s an elite member of Beijing’s serious crime squad.’ He felt sick, suddenly remembering Mei Yuan’s appraisal of him. He lies too easily, she had said. And he had been Suns mentor and confidant. He had been succouring the cuckoo in the nest, his personal dislike of Tao leading him to look in all the wrong places. He was almost unable to meet his deputy’s eye. ‘I guess it’s me who owes you the apology,’ he said.

  ‘What are you talking about!’ Wen was nearly hysterical. ‘He’s not a Triad! He can’t be a Triad!’

  Tao paid her no attention. He said to Li. ‘Apologies are not what’s important now, Chief. Finding Doctor Campbell is.’

  II

  A small lamp on a drinks table somewhere close by cast the only light in the room. Fleischer had switched off the ceiling light. ‘My eyes have grown rather sensitive as I have got older,’ he had explained unnecessarily.

  Then he had leaned over her, as if wanting to get a better look. He had a warm, friendly face, avuncular, the smooth white hair and cropped silver beard lending the impression of an old family friend. Trustworthy, sympathetic. Until you saw his eyes. Margaret had looked straight into them when he leaned into the light, and thought she had never seen such cold, blue eyes in her life.

  She was having trouble concentrating now. She was gripped by almost unbearable cramps every few minutes, and feared that she was going to give birth right there, still tied to the chair.

  Fleischer was oblivious to her distress, and she had the impression that he was showing off to her, preening himself before someone who might just recognise his genius. He also seemed oblivious to the others in the room. CEO Fan and Detective Sun hovering som
ewhere just beyond the light of the lamp, shadowy figures whose impatience Margaret could feel, even through her pain. And poor Dai Lili. She simply didn’t count. A guinea-pig. A failed experiment. She whimpered quietly, slumped in her chair.

  ‘We selected seven altogether,’ Fleischer was saying. ‘Making sure we represented the major disciplines; sprinting, distance running, a swimmer, a weightlifter, a cyclist. Each of them was in the top half dozen in their respective sports. Already talented, but not necessarily gold medal winners. And that was key. They had to be good to start with.’ He was pacing in and out of the light, restless, energised by his own brilliance.

  ‘And what did you do to them?’ Margaret said. She pushed her head back and forced herself to focus on him.

  ‘I made them better,’ he said proudly. ‘I produced the first genetically modified winners in the history of athletics. Human engineering.’ He paused, and grinned. ‘You want to know how I did it?’

  And Margaret did. In spite of her pain and her predicament. But she was damned if she was going to let Fleischer know it. So she said nothing, just staring back defiantly.

  ‘Of course you do,’ he said. ‘You think I don’t know?’ He drew a chair out of the darkness and into the circle of light, turning it around so that he could sit astride the seat and lean on its back, watching Margaret closely as he spoke. ‘All the drugs that these idiot athletes around the globe are still using to improve their performances are synthetic. Copycats. All they can ever do is emulate what the body does of its own accord in the world’s best natural athletes. Real testosterone and human growth hormone, building muscle and strength. Endogenous EPO feeding oxygen to tired muscles. That’s what makes winners. That’s what makes champions.’ He shrugged. ‘In any case it’s hard to take drugs now without being detected. Here in China they cracked down after all those embarrassments in the nineties. They made it illegal to supply banned drugs to athletes. An athlete found guilty of doping faces a four-year ban here. His coach, anything up to fifteen years.’ He grinned again. ‘So we have to be a little more clever. Because now they can test at any time. With only twenty-four hours’ notice, if you have been taking a banned substance, there is no way to get it out of your system. So I do two things.’ He held up one finger. ‘First, I programme the body to produce naturally what it needs. If you run fast I increase the testosterone. If you run long, I increase the EPO. If you lift big weights, I increase the growth hormone.’ He held up another finger. ‘And second, if they want to test you, I programme your body to destroy the excess.’