A Killing Air

by Nigel Price

  “Have you had the meeting at the airport yet?”

  “With Fangzhou? Yes.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Seemed okay. Why?”

  “There might be a problem. Can’t say more at the moment. I just wanted to tell you not to lose hope. In fact, things might even work out better for you.”

  Harry ran his fingers through his damp hair. “David, you’re a great guy but I don’t know what you’re talking about. Perhaps I can call you back later? I’ve had a bit of a rough night.”

  There was a chuckle at the far end. “Conference parties?”

  If only. “That’s the stuff.”

  “No need to call back. Point is, things with Fangzhou might not go as planned, but don’t worry. That’s all. I’m not at liberty to say more. Cat’s got my tongue. Just, don’t worry. Okay?”

  “Whatever you say, David. Is that it?”

  “That’s it. You off to conference now?”

  “Sadly, yes.”

  More chuckling. “You really are in the wrong job, my friend.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I’ll be in touch. Maybe sooner than you think.” Yet more chuckling.

  However much Harry liked his friend now was not the time for chat. “On that enigmatic note, David, I hope you’ll forgive me if I bid you good day.”

  “Okay, Harry. Don’t be a stranger. Bye.”

  “Bye, David.”

  He stabbed the mobile to death and stared at the corpse in his palm, loathing it.

  He got up, stripped and showered. He looked out of the window. Darkness had fallen. A few lights managed to penetrate the pall of muck still clogging the air between the hotel and surrounding buildings. Each brave light was ringed with a blurred yellow halo. It made Harry think of candles in church at Christmas. Only without any of the jollity, or comradeship, or promise of salvation.

  He took out the scrunched-up card the girl had given him. He had checked it earlier, located the restaurant it advertised, estimated distance and times of travel by the limited number of methods available. Taxi seemed best. The rush hour would be tailing off about now, though the roads out towards the airport were always rubbish. Nonetheless, it had seemed to the conference organisers the best location. Easier for delegates to get in, and then get the hell out. Without breathing more air than was absolutely essential.

  He slipped into a pair of jeans. Put on a shirt, then stooped to lace up a pair of well-worn Timberlands. He stamped his feet a couple of times, feeling they could march him to the ends of the Earth. Once a soldier, always … blah, blah, blah.

  He put on his jacket. Fastened the zip. Checking he had everything before exiting, he put a hand to his inside breast pocket. It was empty. He missed his gun. A lot. He thought back to the Chinese pistol in the old woman’s fist, half wishing he had taken it. Any port in a storm. But it hadn’t seemed right to pry it from the gnarled grip. Best leave it to aid her passage into the next world. Instead of a coin for the ferryman she could mug the bastard.

  A small taxi rank sat forlornly outside the front of the hotel. The drivers had little hope that any of the guests would venture out on a night like this. They stood in a huddle smoking. As if the air itself wasn’t stimulant enough.

  When they saw Harry emerge from the foyer, ‘Stupid Tourist’ written across his face, they perked up, silently checking with one another to see whose turn came next. A wire-haired youth with thick, smudged glasses stepped forward, shoulders hunched, cigarette between his lips.

  “Taxi?” He said it without hope. Harry nodded. The youth shrugged, hardly enthusiastic at the prospect of a fare. He shuffled towards a battered Volkswagen Jetta which looked as if it had lived a full, demanding life. It had once been red. Harry got into the back. The seat was a long, long way down. Springs no longer did their job. The interior smelled of stale food and sweat and something else. The driver sat cocooned in a scratched perspex box. A transparent flask of tea perched in a holder taped to the dashboard. A thick layer of ancient leaves swirled in the bottom of it as the car lurched when they got in. Harry half expected a miniature sea monster to poke out of them and inspect him.

  Harry leaned forward and handed the youth the card. The youth squinted at it, sighing crossly. He tilted it this way and that until he could decipher the print through a gap in the grease marks obscuring his glasses. He howled something at Harry.

  “What was that?” Harry asked in Mandarin.

  The youth perked up. A westerner speaking Mandarin was a rarity. He eyed his passenger. He repeated his question. It still made little sense, so Harry pointed at the card. “Take me there.”

  The simple directive seemed to unlock everything. The youth nodded sagely as if a great mystery had been unveiled. The epiphany was short-lived. As they approached the expressway they saw a jam clogging it in all directions. The youth swung his taxi in a dynamic arc that sent Harry to the other side of the car. Another howled enquiry.

  “You want to try an alternative route?” Harry tried, guessing the entire question from the two words he had understood. The youth nodded, hooting with merriment that he had been comprehended by a dog-faced westerner. In his rear view mirror he grinned and gave the thumbs-up. International sign for ‘you might be an arsehole but in the absence of anyone else you’ll do’.

  The car tore away, straight into a wall of darkness. The Jetta’s headlights fired pathetic yellow beams into it. The youth hunched over the steering wheel staring into the murk. Sparse buildings went by on either side. Pedestrians appeared like underwater explorers in deep sea diving suits, leaning into the water’s resistance. Captain Nemo might well have been out and about on a night like this.

  Harry checked his watch. He was going to be late. Would the girl wait for him? In some ways he hoped she wouldn’t. Was he mad doing this? Why was he doing what she asked? It was stupid. Who knew what he was getting into? Strangely, he found himself smiling. He’d been in a fight. He’d witnessed a death. He’d been courted and threatened by his main competitor. He’d encountered a beautiful woman of mystery. And he was smiling.

  Harry Brown settled back into the ruined seat and did what he hadn’t done for ages. He relaxed.

  Eight

  It was a quarter past eight when the Jetta coasted to a halt outside the restaurant. It was more of a running-out-of-steam than a deliberate stop. The youth and Harry stared in parallel through the filthy windows. The youth studied the crumpled card anew, looking up between scrutinies as if the truth would reveal itself with a drum roll. It didn’t. He craned round and gawped at Harry, wordless.

  Harry gawped back. Then, “This it?” in his best Mandarin. The youth nodded and shrugged simultaneously, leaving Harry to choose.

  With a sigh Harry hunted through pockets for cash. He looked between the front seats at the meter. It was bust. He should have known. Should have checked beforehand. “How much?”

  The youth grinned sheepishly. “Hundred Yuan.”

  “Get stuffed.”

  “Fifty.”

  Harry couldn’t be bothered to argue further. He peeled a fifty note from the wodge in his wallet and handed it over. The youth looked as if he’d won the lottery. It was less than five quid. Harry felt a bolt of shame and guilt. The poor little sod. He opened the door and got out. As the taxi drove off he looked after it, realising too late that he should probably have held onto it. In this muck he would be unlikely to find another when his rendezvous was over.

  Stepping onto the shattered pavement, he approached the frontage. Glass from side to side, it was misted invisible with condensation. The aircons must be turned up full blast. Inside it would be like a fridge. Terrific for incubating lung-dwelling bacteria or viruses. Well done China.

  He shrugged off his world weariness, stepped up to the door and pushed it open. A blast of icy air struck him. He might have been stepping outdoors from an Antarctic weather station. He pulled his jacket zip up to the chin and went inside.

  Against all expe
ctation the large room was buzzing with life. Tables choked the available space, every one fully garrisoned with excited diners. Whole families feasted on a mess of piled plates as waiters shimmied between the atolls, high hands bearing further sacrifices to the gods of gorge. It was a seafood restaurant. To the rear of the tables, vast tanks of pale green water bore future meals. Like Coliseum beasts and gladiators, all manner of fish awaited their appointment with Destiny. Vast, sinuous carp mouthed ‘oh my god’ at the encasing glass, while in adjacent tanks crabs and lobsters scuttled for an exit that would never be found. It was slaughter on a Nazi scale. Throughout the city – indeed, throughout the country, indeed, throughout Asia – a million such establishments were assaulting the ocean’s munificence. Harry took it all in and entered.

  The girl sat alone at a small table, standing out more starkly than if she had held aloft a banner. Harry smiled. Whoever she was, she was no secret agent. An immense pair of sunglasses completed her flunked disguise.

  He raised a hand in greeting and wove his tenuous way past the deafening debris of a dozen feasts.

  “May I?” he asked theatrically, pulling back the opposite chair. She stared at him flintily. He sat down. A waiter pushed up to the table and handed them bent greasy menus. Harry ordered a beer. He looked at the girl. She stared back blankly so he ordered her a beer too. Tsingtao. It was mostly formaldehyde like all the locally brewed stuff.

  The bottles arrived immediately. There was nothing else available. Caps were popped, glasses coated in fingerprints slapped down beside them. Harry and the girl poured in tandem. While Harry tilted his glass and achieved a successful fill, the girl’s ended with a head of froth more than half the height of the glass. Harry appraised her critically. She noticed. She didn’t like it.

  “So,” he began, “cheers.” He lifted his glass. She ignored him. Obviously lost in translation. “Now tell me. What’s going on?” Then as an afterthought, “Who are you?”

  That was the moment she chose to test her Tsingtao. It left a thick belt of foam across her upper lip like Santa’s moustache.

  “What is your name?” she asked.

  Harry considered the question. No point being coy at this stage. Too late for that. “Bond. James Bond.” He sipped his beer.

  “Can I call you James?”

  Harry sat forward. Put down his glass. Stared her hard in the face. “Please tell me you know that was a joke.” The slightest flicker in her eyes gave him the nod. Nice one, Harry thought. He held out his hand. “Harry Brown.”

  She shook it. Her hand was cold and wet from her glass. Firm. “It was you with the woman last night, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  Harry looked back at her levelly. No telling who she was. Could be one of them. Trying to smoke him out, the two thugs waiting round the back, guns and knives and baseball bats.

  “Woman?”

  She sighed. “Please trust me. I saw you.”

  “Then why ask?”

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” The stiff mask slipped and there was a note of pleading in her voice. She was coming from somewhere desperate. Not one of the muggers. Harry nodded.

  “Tell me what you saw,” she said. “What happened?”

  “You said you saw. Then you should know.”

  “In the underpass.”

  Thud. Pause. Thud. Harry flinched involuntarily as his memory was hot-wired back to the violence. “Those two bastards were beating the old woman to a pulp. Why? Who was she?” He thought. “Who were they?” Then again. “Why did they do that, for God’s sake?”

  The girl looked at her glass. Turned it slowly on the table’s chipped white laminate. “Her name was Yan Yajun. She was sixty-five. She was from a small village near Chengde in Hebei province north …”

  “Northeast of Beijing,” Harry added. “I know where that is. What the hell happened to her? I mean, why …?”

  “She crossed the wrong people.”

  Harry grimaced. “That’s for sure. Who were they?”

  “The two men you punched out?” She smiled. She took off her sunglasses. “Louts.”

  “Police louts,” Harry said.

  The girl was serious again. “The two are sometimes the same. It can be hard to tell.”

  “Not in this case.”

  The waiter who had brought them the beer returned and barked a question at them. The greasy menus appeared to be the subject of his enquiry. The girl seemed confused. She looked from menu to Harry to menu. “Do you want to eat?”

  “I doubt they’ll let us just sit here if we don’t,” Harry answered. He glanced over to the water tanks. The occupants seemed to be avoiding his gaze. “I’ll just have some egg fried rice,” he said in English. The girl snapped out a couple of sentences which placated the waiter. He snatched up the menus, spun on his heel and was gone.

  “What were you doing there?” Harry asked. “You said you saw me.” He thought back and added, “I didn’t see you.” He was mildly impressed, but then he’d had other things on his mind. Nonetheless, he’d been pretty certain that he’d been unobserved.

  “I had a meeting set up with Mrs Yan. We were to meet in Tiananmen Square. I got there just in time to see her being bundled into a car by the two men. My own car was nearby so I managed to follow them.”

  “In the fog?” Harry said, incredulous.

  “It wasn’t easy but I knew I had to, or I would never see her again.” She was nearing the bottom of her glass. She upended the bottle. It was empty. Harry signalled for reinforcements. They arrived immediately. He wished it had always been like that. Other times and places.

  With glass replenished, largely with froth, the girl went on. “I almost ran into their car out by the airport expressway. Luckily it was empty. I parked some way off, then came back to see what was going on. I had a pretty good idea. I didn’t dare go into the underpass. The next thing I saw was you and Mrs Yan.”

  “Why didn’t you introduce yourself? Come over and say hi?”

  She stared hard at him. “I didn’t know who you were. You were heading back to their car. I couldn’t see clearly. You might have been one of them.” She drank deeply. “Then the gunshot. I saw her fall.” She studied her beer, both hands gripping the glass.

  The food arrived in a whirlwind. A bowl of rice was chucked at Harry. Then a trolley was wheeled to the side of the table. Harry was about to say they’d made a mistake then realised it was the girl’s order. There was an empty bowl, a jug of some colourless liquid, and a larger glass bowl crawling with live prawns. Their translucent grey bodies writhed in their entrapped waterless world. The waiter deferred to the girl. She inspected them and nodded. He whisked off the lid, poured the entire contents of the jug over them, and slammed the lid on quickly, holding it firmly in place with both hands.

  The prawns erupted in a frenzy. Their bodies convulsed, twisted, and shot at the glass ceiling and walls of their see-through prison. The waiter beamed delightedly, looking at his customer for acknowledgement. The girl watched the performance expressionless. At the next door table, diners glanced over to enjoy the spectacle. A parent pointed it out to a child. The child stared in fascination at the danse macabre, round little mouth a perfect ‘O’. Even the distant carp seemed to stop and stare.

  Gradually the activity came to an end. The grey bodies, bent like tiny aged aliens, lay inert. A claw or two twitched. The waiter removed the glass lid, drained off the liquid and decanted the prawns onto a plate with a slop of cabbage or something on the side. Rice too. He slid it in front of the girl and wheeled away the trolley.

  Harry caught a whiff from the plate. The liquid had been alcohol. The girl tucked in, picking up her first prawn and tearing it apart with deft fingers. All talk of Mrs Yan and her mystery was silenced as she dived into her meal. On her plate, the next prawn in line moved. The alcohol had only stunned and flavoured them. They were being eaten alive.

  Nine

  Harry knew that in China eating was serious stuff. He was not surprised that the c
onversation’s pause button had been stabbed to allow him to watch the girl rip, tear and ingest her partly live meal. It was a wonder to behold. Her eyes rarely left the plate, shoulders hunched over the destruction. It was like watching strip mining.

  Eventually she sat back, content. A toothpick earned its keep, working industriously through all angles of her mouth. As she manoeuvred it, her eyes studied him, bemused. “How was your chao fan?”

  Harry clocked the hint of mockery. “Best I’ve ever had.” They both smiled. Broadly. Her freshly picked teeth glinted in the room’s harsh neon. “So after Mrs Yan killed herself …?” he asked.

  The smile was packed away for later. “I followed you.”

  Harry thought about this. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Just for a bit. Then I lost you.”

  “Where?”

  “When you jumped over the barrier and crossed the expressway. I thought of following but knew you’d see me.”

  That sounded more reasonable. “And you still didn’t call out or try to make contact?”

  “I was scared. I didn’t know who you were.”

  Again, reasonable. “So …?”

  “So I left. But went back this afternoon. And that’s when I saw you and your friends.”

  “What’s with the disguise? What were you hoping to find?”

  She looked sheepish. “I wanted to hide my identity in case the police were there. If they had been, I’d have left.”

  “If you hadn’t had a good look at me last night, how did you know it was the same guy today? When you followed me back to the hotel?”

  “You had to be the same man. I could tell. You knew exactly where she had died. You went straight to the spot and were inspecting it. Your friends just looked around. I could tell it was you. And that you were the one who had tried to help her.”

  “So at that point you decided to follow me?”

  She nodded.

  “Why? What do you think I can do?”