It was bitterly cold as Margaret stepped from the northwest tower into the garden and hurried along the path by the small stream. She pulled her oversized anorak around herself for warmth. The area of white paving stones indelibly stained with the blood of Bill Hart had been replaced by a gang of workmen first thing the previous morning. The lighting in the garden was muted at this hour. Just enough for Margaret to see by. She crossed the stream and up steps to the entrance lobby on the south side. The night security guard looked up from behind his desk where he was reading some lurid magazine and creating a fog of cigarette smoke all by himself. She scarcely gave him a glance as she ran across the lobby and out through the gate to the street. A taxi stood idling at the kerbside. Margaret climbed into the front seat where she found herself separated from the driver by a metal cage. Through the bars, she slipped him the note in Chinese that Lyang had given her of old Dai’s address. The driver snorted and spat a gob of mucus out through the open window on his side of the cab. ‘OK,’ he said. He rolled up his window, passed her back her note, and the car juddered off into the road.
The streets were almost deserted as the taxi made its way on to the Third Ring Road and headed south. Margaret was aware of the driver glancing at her curiously. It was not often that some blue-eyed, fair-haired foreign devil would get into his cab in the middle of the night and ask to be taken into the heart of a Chinese residential area. He turned west off the ring road at the Huawei Bridge on to Songyu Nan Lu and drove along its treelined length without passing another vehicle. At the cancer hospital they joined the Second Ring Road for a short distance before turning south on Fangzhuang Lu.
Margaret’s initial panic was wearing off, to be replaced, as she sat thinking about it, by a growing unease. How on earth had Dai known where to find her? She supposed it was possible that Li had told him. But he had dropped his father off with Dai even before they knew about Bill Hart’s murder. Perhaps he had phoned later to leave a contact number.
She replayed the phone call in her mind. She had only met Dai on a handful of occasions, but been struck each time by just how perfect his command of English was. Tonight he had called her Magret. He had dropped his plurals and spoken always in the present tense. And yet his English had still been good. Perhaps under stress it was just not as good as at other times. She glanced nervously at her watch. If she had known how to, she would have told the driver to hurry up. He seemed to be taking the journey at an unusually leisurely rate.
They were in Pufang Lu now, heading west through a forest of tower blocks rising above trees rattling dying leaves in the wind. The driver dropped her on the corner opposite Dai’s block and pointed it out. She gave him twenty yuan. ‘Syeh-syeh,’ she said, and as she ran across the road the wind blew her anorak open to let the November wind caress her with its icy fingers. The cold made her eyes water.
She hurried down the path past the shuttered jian bing stall and turned up steps through the doorway on to the ground floor landing. It was gloomy in here and smelled of stale cooking and body odour. The elevator was turned off, and the gate on the stairwell was shut. She cursed, looking around for some kind of telephone entry system, but could not see anything. By chance she tried the stairgate and it swung open. Either the last resident to use it had forgotten to lock it, or it was broken. She didn’t care. She took the steps two at a time, pausing on the third landing to catch her breath, before running up the next two flights. On the fifth landing she stopped for several moments, leaning against the wall, her breath rasping and abrasive in her lungs. Then she heaved herself off the wall and ran along the doors looking for the number 504.
Of course, it was the last door she came to. There was no bell, and she banged on it hard with the flat of her hand. When there was no response, she banged again. Harder, and called his name. A door further along the hall flew open, and a man’s voice shouted imprecations at her. She ignored him and kept banging until, finally, she heard stirring within, the rattling of a chain, and the door opened a crack.
‘Mr. Dai, Mr. Dai, let me in! It’s Margaret.’
The door opened wider, and a pale-faced Dai stood blinking in the landing light, dressed in his pyjamas, a worn silk dressing gown hastily pulled around him. He looked both frightened and puzzled. ‘Margaret…What are you doing here?’
Margaret’s panic was returning now. ‘You phoned me!’ she almost shouted.
‘What?’ The old man looked at her as if she was mad.
‘Oh, my God. Oh, my God.’ Margaret was almost incoherent. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Li, is there?’
Dai was shaking his head. ‘Of course there isn’t. He’s asleep. Or, at least, he was. What in the name…?’
But Margaret pushed past him into the tiny apartment. ‘Where’s your phone?’
Lao Dai shut the door firmly behind them and led her through to a small, tidy sitting room. ‘I will not even ask,’ he said, and pointed to the phone on a low table beside the settee.
Margaret fumbled for the piece of paper with Dai’s address. Thank God Lyang had had the foresight to write her own telephone number on the back of it in case Margaret needed to call. Margaret dialled it now. The phone rang. Three, four, five times. ‘Come on, come on,’ Margaret urged through clenched teeth. ‘Answer, for God’s sake!’ But it just kept on ringing. By the time it reached the tenth ring, her insides had turned to jelly. How could she have been so stupid! She hung up and looked at Dai, as if he might provide her with the inspiration for what to do next. But he only looked perplexed and not a little scared.
Li Yan, she thought. He had her mobile. He’d know what she should do. She picked up the phone and dialled. But almost immediately the messaging service kicked in. Either the phone was switched off or there was no signal. She hung up the phone and knew she had to get back to Lyang’s apartment. Li Jon and Xinxin were there. She would never forgive herself if something had happened to them. And yet, why else would someone have lured her away with such an elaborate trick? She felt acid rising in her throat.
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered jumping quickly to her feet. ‘Mr. Dai, you’ve got to call the police for me. Please. My baby’s life is in danger.’ And she pushed past old Dai and fled down the hall to the front door and out on to the landing.
‘Where?’ he called after her. ‘Where should they go?’
She stopped, thinking furiously. ‘The Music Apartments…I can’t remember what it’s called. There are giant piano lids on the roofs. It’s where Bill Hart lived.’
She almost fell twice on the stairs, before staggering past the stairgate and running out into a wall of freezing cold night air.
Outside, the streets were empty. Not a taxi in sight. She remembered Lyang’s words. It could be long enough before you pick one up in the street at this time of the morning.
She started running east along Pufang Lu crunching dried leaves underfoot, stumbling on uneven pavings. To the south, beyond the sports complex, the lights of the Feng Chung shopping centre still blazed into the night. Every step brought deeper despair, a sense of complete hopelessness. And helplessness. It would take her an hour, longer, at this rate, and what kind of state would she be in when she got there? The tears came, then, turning almost to ice as they streamed down her cheeks. There were lights burning in the police station on the corner of Fangxing Lu, and Margaret hesitated at the steps leading up between chrome pillars to its glass doors. Through them she could see a large board on the wall of the lobby, photographs of every officer working out of that office. And she knew that not one of them would speak English. What could she say to make them understand? Some tearstained mad foreign woman running in out of the night, jabbering incomprehensibly. They would probably lock her up.