I
There were queues of people up ahead trying to get into the hard class waiting room. A female announcer with a high-pitched nasal voice cut above the gabble in the station to announce the departure of the 19.10 train to Shanghai, followed by information about a delay in the arrival of the 14.45 from Xian. Strings of red electronic characters streamed across information boards. A woman in a white smock was selling hot noodles in polystyrene cartons.
Li checked into the soft class waiting room and glanced at the departure board. As far as he could tell, his train would leave on time. A 7.30 p.m. departure, arriving back in Beijing at 2.30 the following morning. Seven hours! He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It seemed like an eternity.
The real Cao Xu was dead. Carried away in childhood by scarlet fever. He had the testimony of the old man and knew from him that there were others who worked at the orphanage back then who were still alive and would remember him, too. And there must be kids they could track down who would recall the real Cao Xu — and his passing.
But Li was the only person who knew how it all fitted together. The only one who could convincingly discredit the man who had stolen a dead child’s identity and lived a lie for more than forty years. That put Li, and everyone close to him, in danger. When he left this morning, his cellphone was dead. He had forgotten to recharge the battery. So Margaret had loaned him hers. He took it out now and dialled the number of the Harts’ apartment. Lyang answered. Her voice sounded dull and lifeless.
‘Everything alright?’ Li asked.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You want to speak to Margaret?’
Margaret’s voice was full of concern. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Yes. I found Cao Xu.’
There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end of the line. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He died, Margaret. From scarlet fever, aged fourteen. I’ve seen his grave. The orphanage where he grew up was destroyed by fire in the early seventies, along with all its records. He must have torched the place to cover his tracks.’
There was more silence from Margaret’s end. ‘But if he didn’t come from Taiyuan, how did he even know of this boy’s existence to be able to steal his identity? And if he set the place on fire, then he must have been there. Why didn’t he recognise the twin pagodas?’
Li thought about the overgrown remains of what had once been the Wutaishan Orphanage, almost in the shadow of the twin pagodas. It would have been impossible to have been there without seeing them. And if Cao, or whoever he was, had seen them, then he would have registered a MERMER response during the demonstration. A black cloud descended on his mind, obscuring the clarity he thought he had found here in Taiyuan City. ‘I don’t know. Either the fire at the orphanage was a quirk of fate, and he just took advantage of it, or…’ He hardly dared think about it. ‘Or someone else set the fire for him.’
‘Which means that someone else knows that he’s not who he says he is.’
‘Or knew,’ Li said. ‘It seems that people don’t live very long when they know the truth.’
‘Oh, Li Yan.’ He heard the fear in Margaret’s voice. ‘For God’s sake, be careful.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back sometime before three.’
He disconnected the phone, and dropped into a soft leather seat to stare up at the electronic arrivals and departures board, seething with a latent fury that had been building in him these last few days, determined that the killing would stop here, that he would get his life back again, and that the man who called himself Cao Xu would be brought, finally, to justice.
But he had no idea how he was going to make it through the next seven hours.
II
The lights of an airplane tracked their way across the vast expanse of black sky visible through the open curtain. Margaret lay on the bed twisted in her nightshirt. It was warm in the apartment, in spite of the subzero temperatures outside, and she had pushed aside the duvet in an attempt to cool herself. For a second night she could not sleep, too many thoughts crowding an already overcrowded mind. She had tossed and turned restlessly, too hot under the duvet, slightly chilled without it. Again and again she turned everything Li had told her over in her head. But still there was something that did not chime, something that did not quite make sense. And underlying everything, was a dread of what awaited her in just over twenty-four hours. Expulsion from China; the thought that she might be parted from her son; the fear that she might never see him again if she was.
It did not help that Lyang had fallen asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, and was now breathing heavily, turned away from Margaret and lying on her side. She had been poor company all day, morose and monosyllabic. Understandable in the circumstances. But Margaret suspected that she had also been taking some kind of sedative. Her eyes were dead, lacking the life that Margaret had seen in them when they’d first met only four days ago. She was slow in response to anything Margaret said to her, and she did not seem to have eaten anything all day. Margaret had done her best to keep the children amused, but it had been a strain. And now when she wanted to sleep, it was eluding her again.
The red digital display told her it was 1.14 a.m. She closed her eyes and felt the ache behind them. She tried to empty her mind and let sleep steal in to carry her off. Instead, she was startled upright by the ringing of a telephone on the bedside table.
Lyang moaned in her sleep and rolled over, but she did not wake up. The phone rang three, four times. Long, single rings. Margaret shook her by the shoulder. ‘Lyang, wake up for God’s sake!’
Lyang opened bleary eyes. ‘What…’
‘The phone!’ Margaret almost shouted at her. She was scared to answer herself in case the caller spoke Chinese.
Lyang glanced over at the clock, but couldn’t make out the blurred red figures. ‘What time is it?’
‘It’s a quarter past one.’
‘Who the hell’s phoning at this time of the morning?’ Lyang reached over and lifted the receiver. ‘Wei?’ She listened for a moment, frowning, then thrust the phone toward Margaret. ‘It’s for you.’
Margaret’s eyes opened wide in surprise. ‘Me?’ Her heart was still pounding. Who knew she was here apart from Li? ‘Who is it?’
‘Someone called Dai. He says you’ll know who he is.’
‘Dai?’ Now she was scared. She grabbed the phone. ‘Hello?’
‘Magret,’ Dai said. ‘Am so sorry to phone at this hour of night. I don’t wanna scare you, but Li Yan’s father, he is not well. His heart, maybe. I have telephone for ambulance, but who know when it arrive. Please come here. You doctah, right? He need help.’
‘Jesus…’ Margaret’s thoughts were racing. ‘Keep him warm, okay? Get him to lie flat with a blanket over him. Don’t let him stop breathing. You know CPR?’
‘Sure. It part of police training.’
‘Okay, hang on till I get there. How long by taxi?’
‘Fifteen minute, maybe. Not long.’
‘Okay, give me your address…’ She searched quickly through the drawer in the bedside cabinet and found a pen and a scrap of paper. She scribbled down the address and hung up.
‘What is it?’ Lyang asked. She was fully awake now, and watching Margaret, concerned.
‘I think Li Yan’s father’s had a heart attack. I’m going straight over there in case the ambulance doesn’t arrive in time. Will you be all right with the kids?’
‘Sure I will. They’re out of it anyway.’ She swung her legs out of the bed. ‘Let me call you a taxi. It could be long enough before you pick one up in the street at this time of the morning.’