A Killing Air

by Nigel Price

  He forced himself to carry out his task, strolling up to the desk beside the policeman, a big smile plastered across his face.

  Best be bold, he thought. “Excuse me,” he said, smile reinforced. “Sorry to interrupt. What floor’s the fitness centre on?” He had changed his mind at the last minute about a taxi. If the policeman spoke English, there was no point giving away information like departure date and time. And the clerk would need to ask him his name and room number to make the booking. Best keep that discreet too.

  The clerk looked up and smiled back. “Twenty second.”

  “Thank you.” Harry went to leave, then added, “And the opening times?” Might as well appear unhurried.

  “Six a.m. until midnight daily.”

  “Thank you.” Harry marched away. The policeman glanced at him and caught the tail-end of Harry’s smile. He didn’t seem especially interested one way or the other. Good, thought Harry. So presumably nothing to do with a manhunt. He felt himself relax. Manhunt. How absurd. Melodramatic. The very notion. This was China, after all. Things like the death last night probably happened all the time.

  A woman killed herself right beside you, a small voice whispered in his head. And you’re completely relaxed about it.

  A ripple of guilt washed over him. Once it would have been a wave. For a second the image of her face and shattered skull appeared. He reached into his pocket and took out the memory stick. Nothing unusual about it. Except the fact that it had fallen out of his jacket pocket. It didn’t take a genius to realise someone else must have put it there, because he knew he hadn’t. He remembered the old woman scrabbling for support, her hands all over him. It could have been her. But she hadn’t looked like the type to know what it was, let alone possess one. In the short time he had been with her, she had struck him as a peasant woman. The sort of labourer who crowded into the city looking for manual work of whatever kind they could get. Her hands had been those of a labourer, calloused and gnarled.

  Who else then? Someone at the conference? Harry realised he was going to have to open it. He didn’t like the idea of plugging it into his laptop as he had no way of knowing what kind of material was on it. A virus perhaps.

  There was no time at the moment. The bell had sounded summoning delegates to the next address. Harry popped the memory stick back in his pocket and returned to the conference hall. He paused at the door and scanned the crowd as people took their seats, identifying the ones he wanted to avoid. Most of them.

  Finding a place near the back of the hall, he settled himself down and waited for the address to begin. There was the usual messing around with the projector, general apparatus, the microphone and sound system. Finally the address began. As he had expected, it was good. He scribbled a handful of notes on a pad and resolved to have a chat with the speaker at some later point. He had worked in Japan himself and liked it there. The place was so unlike anywhere else. The Japanese culture fascinated him. The mindset especially. Such tight self-control, yet capable of expressing itself through exquisite beauty or, as the 1930s and ’40s had shown, through unimaginable cruelty. A strange, mystifying, intriguing place. He had taught himself the language and made good progress. He had an ear for words so languages came easily to him. It was an ability he kept to himself. Sometimes it was useful to do so. You could learn all manner of things if people assumed you were unable to understand their conversations.

  When the address was over, the speaker threw it open to the floor, inviting questions. After the first three, it was obvious to Harry that delegates were more interested in demonstrating their own knowledge rather than probing the speaker’s. Grateful once again that he had positioned himself near an exit, he slipped out.

  The hotel Business Centre was up another floor. Harry took an escalator and went quickly to the glass-fronted entrance. He was hungry and wanted to get to lunch before the masses hit the restaurant. This was important though.

  The centre offered computer terminals, each tucked away privately in its own little booth. He spoke briefly to the manager planted behind a polished desk, and was shown to a booth, along the way being told the costs and all manner of information he didn’t want. When the manager had gone, Harry sat down, took out the memory stick, slid open the tiny telescopic case and plugged it in. He stared at the screen, puzzled. He tried again. Then again until he was certain. There was nothing on it. The memory stick was absolutely clear.

  He unplugged it and looked at the inoffensive object in the palm of his hand. So. What next? He closed the stick and dropped it back into his pocket. He quickly signed a chit allocating the small charge to his room bill and left. On his way to the restaurant he ran it all through his mind. Who had put an empty memory stick in his pocket. And why? What was the point?

  He was still puzzling about it as he helped himself from the buffet, found a table all to himself, and sat down to lunch. He was irritated when three others came over, their trays laden with food, and asked if they could join him. Harry forced a smile and invited the newcomers to sit. Beery Brannigan again. Shit.

  “Harry here’s a loner,” Jim Brannigan announced, smiling aggressively. “I don’t know why you bother coming to these conferences, Harry,” he laboured on. “It’s painfully obvious you hate them.”

  “Not the conference, Jim. Just you,” Harry joshed. Brannigan’s two sidekicks looked from one man to the other, assuming the badinage denoted friendship. Jim was a big fellow. The sort who spoke loudly about robust, physical sports while privately going to fat. Perhaps he had once been fit. Now he was on the road to bar room bore.

  “Do you know Dave and Neville?” he asked, indicating his comrades with a jerk of the chin.

  Harry declined to interrupt his meal by shaking hands and nodded instead. The two dumbly grinned at him. “You must be with Alderton’s like Jim?” Harry ventured.

  “How did you know?” one of them was stupid enough to ask.

  “Just a guess,” Harry answered, keeping it polite. He didn’t say that, like Brannigan, they had ‘cretin’ written all over them. Alderton’s was his main competitor, going after the same business in the same neck of the woods. It seemed to be a corporate requirement that its employees be unimaginative and mediocre. As if to confirm Harry’s impression, both appeared to be flattered that he had so accurately fathomed them.

  “Are you doing much business in China?” Brannigan asked.

  Harry knew to be vague when probed for information by a competitor. “Barely a thing,” he answered. “You know how it is. The Chinese are much like the Japanese. They think they know it all.”

  “So why are you in Beijing?”

  “Same as you, I expect,” Harry said. “Conference.” What he didn’t say was that he had already had the latest in a series of meetings with the stern head of security at the airport. He was as good as hired. He would be writing and running a crisis management exercise for them. He had done one for Shanghai’s Pudong airport and it had been a great success. The head down there, David Lin, had become quite a friend. Harry had dug him out of a hole and saved his skin vis-a-vis his superiors over some small matter, taking the wrap for a minor oversight of David’s. Lin had sworn he’d never forget the debt he now owed. So an effusive recommendation had duly been made to the relevant party in Beijing and the performance would be repeated in the near future.

  Brannigan nodded sagely. Whether or not he believed the lie was irrelevant to Harry. It was just the usual fencing, which had once been described to Harry as ‘the conversation of blades’. Words replaced the tinkle and clash of steel. Each party vying for position and advantage.

  “Say, what are you doing this afternoon?” the man rejoicing in the name of Neville asked out of the blue.

  Harry looked up, wondering for a moment who was being addressed. Seeing three pairs of eyes upon him he cleverly deduced it was him. Conference proceedings ended around three. Before the events of the previous night he had intended either hitting the gym or catching up on some corresponde
nce. He had caught up on the work produced by his airport meeting. Now however he was considering getting out of the country.

  “Not really sure,” he answered almost truthfully. “Why?”

  “We thought we’d go for a walk. See what’s around,” Neville said. “Want to join us?”

  Harry noticed that he had deferred none too discreetly to Brannigan before popping the question. Ah, thought Harry, and wondered if Alderton’s had instructed them to make him an offer. Against all his ingrained cynicism, Harry was mildly embarrassed to find that he was flattered. Even if he held them in contempt, it was nice at least to be asked to jump ship.

  “I don’t think there’s much around here to see,” he replied, playing for time. “And if you were thinking of taking a taxi into town, to the Forbidden City or anywhere, the traffic will be shit by mid-afternoon. And the air’s unbreathable too. Not that I’m trying to put a damper on things.”

  “We thought we’d just step out and stretch our legs,” Neville replied. “Join us,” he concluded enigmatically. The three of them shared some kind of in-joke. Harry smiled. Why not?

  Also a thought had occurred to him, sneaking out of the corner of his mind where all things rash were filed. He had to revisit the scene of the beating and death. He was shocked by the stupidity of the idea. He would go all the same.

  Five

  The area surrounding the hotel was even uglier in daylight. The filthy air smudged the sky into a yellowy fug close overhead and on all sides. They found themselves moving in a tight little bubble of visibility like submariners voyaging through the ocean deep. From time to time, a passer-by would enter their bubble, consider them from behind a face mask, scrunched scarf and hat pulled low, then vanish, exiting from their limited range of vision.

  Prompted by sights like that, each of them turned up their collars and hunched their shoulders as if that would be sufficient to save their assaulted lungs. Eyes soon began to sting.

  “Geez, what a bloody place,” Brannigan summed up for the party. No one needed to answer.

  Harry was the only one taking a close interest in their direction. The others seemed content to let him take the lead. It was irrelevant to them where their stroll took them. Not so for Harry. The previous night he had been wandering aimlessly like them. Not now. This afternoon his steps had purpose, even though he was unclear what that was.

  Sure enough, when the group was comfortably free of the hotel, Brannigan gave a theatrical cough and broached the subject Harry had suspected.

  “How many years have you been with Delaney?” he asked, looking around boldly as if he was inspecting awesome tourist attractions rather than a shifting wall of gaseous muck.

  “Too many,” Harry answered with a truthfulness he hadn’t intended. His mind was on other things. He resented the interruption even though he had foreseen it. That said, he was glad of the company. It served his purpose. If anyone related to last night was watching the underpass, their group would be unlikely to attract attention. Four conference delegates taking an afternoon stroll. A lone westerner on the other hand would stand out more.

  Brannigan cut to the chase. “How would you like to join Alderton’s, Harry?” His tone was surprisingly chummy, stripped of the usual pomposity.

  “I’m flattered,” Harry answered.

  “I mean, you’re a miserable bastard,” Brannigan cut in, returning to form, “but I have to admit you’ve got a good reputation. People on the circuit speak highly of you. Say you’re trustworthy.” He paused, coughed, the words of praise sticking in his craw. “Folks tell me they like what you do, and the business-like, no-nonsense manner of your delivery.”

  At his side, his two faithful acolytes watched Harry closely like a pair of gundogs anticipating a treat.

  Under more normal circumstances Harry would have dismissed the approach with something witty but final. Today his attention was elsewhere. In any case, it would be interesting to tease Brannigan and see what information he could get out of him.

  “What would you be able to offer?” he asked.

  Brannigan seemed surprised. “So you’d be interested?”

  “I’d be stupid not to consider it. Alderton’s are clearly growing.”

  “You’ll have noted we’re expanding our sales force,” David chipped in, by which he meant himself and Neville, Harry presumed. This was the first he’d ever seen or heard of them.

  “We want to do more business in this neck of the woods,” Brannigan said, retaking control of the offer. “You’re best placed to help us achieve that. We know you do a lot out here. You’re known and respected. We’d like to buy that. It makes more sense than putting in resources ourselves.” He paused for effect then added, “Though of course we can and will do that if we have to.” The threat was clear. Join us or we’ll take you head on.

  They had reached the entrance to the underpass. Harry’s mind was a long way away from Brannigan and his offer. “So what would you be able to offer?” Harry asked again, senses alert, eyes focused on the underpass. Brannigan’s answer was a monotonous drone. They had entered the underpass. It was empty, pretty much as Harry had expected.

  “ … and of course there’d be a share option after two years …”

  They had reached the site of the beating. Harry slowed the pace. Studied the ground. There was nothing. Just some litter. No sign of the violence that had befouled the place.

  “Of course it would all be open to negotiation,” Brannigan laboured on, perturbed by Harry’s apparent coolness.

  They exited the underpass and started up the slope towards the trees. In polluted daylight it looked much the same as in the lamp-lit darkness. Fractionally brighter. It was as if a cameraman had swapped lenses, substituting a yellow filter to soften the effect.

  “There’s no great rush, but ideally we’d like a decision before we leave Beijing. If possible.”

  Harry had led them towards the spot where the car had been parked. They reached it and stopped.

  Brannigan and his companions looked puzzled. They glanced around as if expecting something. “What the fuck are we doing here?” Brannigan said. He stared at Harry. Frowned. “Harry?”

  The ground where the woman’s brains had been was darker than the rest. It had been sluiced down. Someone had thrown a bucket of water at it. Harry could see brush marks. Great crude sweeps of a broom.

  “Harry, have you been listening to a bloody word I’ve said?” Brannigan’s voice was cross.

  Harry looked up at him. “What?”

  “Fuck sake, man.”

  Time to recover. Quickly. “That’s very generous,” Harry gabbled, not recalling any of the offer. “Can you put something in writing?”

  Brannigan studied him suspiciously. “You haven’t heard a single fucking word I’ve said.”

  “Of course I have,” Harry answered lamely, trying to force some conviction into the response. “I’m just a bit taken back, that’s all.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, all these years we’ve been competitors. I suppose I just never thought we’d be working on the same side.”

  The smile that lit Brannigan’s fleshy face was that of a Halloween pumpkin, simultaneously friendly and threatening. “So you accept?”

  “I need to think about it.” Play for time. “Obviously something like this can’t be decided on the spur of the moment.” Trot out all the old clichés. “I need to weigh up the pros and cons.”

  It was just as Harry’s attention was working its way back towards Brannigan’s offer that a solitary figure popped up on the periphery of his vision. He turned to look. It was difficult to tell, but it looked like the slender, bent silhouette of a street sweeper. Perhaps it was the man tasked with mopping up the brains. If so, what of it?

  Harry decided it was time to snap out of his reverie. “That really is very generous of Alderton’s. Did this come from the old man himself?”

  Brannigan nodded. “Mr Control Freak in person.” David and Neville tittered to
hear their boss demonstrate power through disrespect. If they had been members of a wolf pack, Brannigan had just signalled to the Omega mutts that he was ready to challenge the ageing, moth-eaten Alpha.

  Harry chose to ignore the display. It was nothing to do with him. Yet. “The end of the conference might be tough to get you an answer.”

  “I hope you’re not just going to use this to coax a better package out of Delaney?”

  “Give me credit for some integrity,” Harry answered. Actually he didn’t give a shit what Brannigan thought. “Shall we head back?”

  They turned back towards the underpass. Harry dropped back and let the other three go first. He checked over his shoulder. The figure had disappeared. He began to wonder why he had bothered to revisit the site. What had he expected to find? Perhaps a taped-off area bustling with forensic experts and flashing lights. The fact the whole thing had been crudely sanitised told him all he needed to know. And had suspected. He took some comfort from it all. People were hardly likely to come looking for him. The worst thing he could do would be to make a fuss. If the perpetrators wanted it hushed up, who was he to disoblige?

  Honour too could be satisfied. Or at least appeased and told to shut up. He had acted honourably and done all he could. That mattered for Harry. It always had. It wasn’t his fault that the woman had killed herself instead of letting him get her away from the scene. And he had already examined and discounted the notion of reporting the crime.

  He lengthened his stride and drew abreast of the others. There was a new camaraderie between them. The three musketeers had become four. All for one. Harry was depressed by the prospect. Of course he knew he wouldn’t accept their offer, but for the moment he took a perverse pleasure in pretending that he had. As much for his own relief as for theirs. The fight and the death receded from his thoughts. The companionship of co-workers replaced it, however illusory.