The Runner

by Peter May

  Li asked him to hold that one on screen. ‘Do you know who these people are?’

  Macken said, ‘The one on the left is the CEO. The bigwig. The other two suits, I dunno. Other management, I guess. They all look like clones, these people. The guy in the tracksuit is a personal trainer. They got a gym down the stairs, you’ll see it in a minute. Members can ask the trainer to design workouts just for them. The guy in the beard, no idea.’

  ‘Can you give me a printout of that one?’

  ‘Sure. I can print them all off if you want.’

  ‘That would be good.’

  Macken resumed their journey through the remaining contacts. The gym was well equipped with every mechanical aid to muscle-building you could imagine, plus some. Macken cackled. ‘Looks like the kind of place they might have put you in the Spanish Inquisition.’

  There was a shot of the toilets, marble and mirrors in abundance. ‘Goddamn john smelled like a flower shop,’ Macken said. ‘Gives the lie to that old joke about Chinese toilets. You know it?’ Li shook his head. ‘How long does it take to go to the toilet in China?’ Li shrugged and Macken grinned. ‘As long as you can hold your breath.’ He laughed at his own wit. ‘But that place is so goddamn clean you could eat your dinner off the floor.’ Li was not amused.

  They came to a picture of a large office with a checkerboard wall at one end opposite a huge horseshoe desk and a glass meeting table with five chairs around it. One wall was also completely glass, with an armed security guard standing self-consciously by the door. The room was filled with potted plants, and a young woman stood by the desk dressed all in black, flared trousers and a polo-neck sweater. Her hair was drawn back from an attractive, finely featured face with a slash of red lipstick. ‘That’s JoJo,’ Macken said, and he turned to Qian. ‘You know, the one I told you about yesterday.’ Qian nodded.

  Li said, ‘The one you thought was missing.’

  ‘I don’t just think it,’ Macken said. ‘She is missing.’ His flippancy deserted him, his twinkling expression replaced by a frown of genuine concern. ‘After I spoke to you people yesterday I made a real effort to try and track her down. She’s not at her work. I phoned several times and they said she hadn’t been there for days. I’ve called her apartment about ten times. No answer. Her cellphone’s been disconnected. Her emails get returned as undeliverable. I even got Yixuan to call her parents, but they haven’t heard from her in weeks.’ He half smiled. ‘My reasons for wanting to find her ain’t entirely altruistic. She set this job up for me, but I ain’t signed a contract yet, and without a contract there ain’t no money.’

  ‘When did you take the pictures?’ Li asked.

  ‘Day before yesterday.’

  ‘So she’s only really been “missing” for two days.’

  Macken thought about it and shrugged. ‘I guess. Seems longer.’

  Li nodded towards the screen. ‘Why the armed guard?’

  ‘Oh, they got this big collection of priceless artefacts in the boss’ office.’ He pointed at a door beyond the desk. In there. ‘Vases, jewellery, ancient weapons, you name it. Worth a goddamn fortune.’

  ‘Do you have a picture of it?’

  ‘Nah. They wouldn’t let me in there. I was real damn curious. Asked, you know. But they weren’t having any of it.’

  Li turned to Qian. ‘I think we’d better pay this place a visit, don’t you.’

  II

  The Beijing OneChina Recreation Club was in the heart of a redeveloped area of Xicheng District on the west side of the city. The twin apartment blocks above it had views over Yuyuantan Park and the lake. The entrance sat back from the road, behind a high stone wall. Armed security guards manned electronic gates. Beyond, a small ornamental garden had been created in the heart of what was otherwise pure cityscape. A cobbled path serpentined its way through manicured grass to a summerhouse with exaggeratedly up-turned eaves at its four corners. An artificial stream, which in summer would be alive with carp, was frozen solid. Great attention had been paid to the feng shui of this place. Li and Qian climbed nine steps to the doors, and Li glanced into a large glass room displaying Ming vases and artefacts of war, bronze weapons two thousand years old, a skull of earliest Han man. Facing them as they entered were three gold statuettes fronting a huge tapestry woven in gold thread. Li had called ahead on his cellphone, and they were expected. Two girls in shimmering gold qipaos bowed to them in greeting as they entered, and a tall young man in a dark suit asked them to follow him.

  He led them through hushed corridors, walls lined with pale hessian, past polished beechwood doors, tables with statues and flowers, and unexpected groupings of sofas and lounge chairs in odd private corners. They passed the glass wall of what Li recognised as the communications centre. The girls at the computers glanced at them as they passed. At the end of the hall they took an elevator up two floors to the administration level and out into the office where JoJo had stood by her desk watching Macken take his photographs. Thick-piled carpets deadened their footsteps as the flunky led them past the armed guard at the entrance. He knocked on the door behind JoJo’s empty desk and waited until he heard a voice invite them to enter. Then he opened the door and let Li and Qian in.

  Li recognised the CEO from the photograph. He was young, perhaps only thirty, with the square-jawed, round-eyed good looks of a Hong Kong film actor. His silk suit was beautifully cut, and as he shook Li’s hand, Li noticed that his fingernails were not only manicured, but glazed with a clear varnish.

  ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Section Chief Li,’ he said. ‘Your reputation goes before you. I’m Fan Zhilong, chief executive of the company, and the club.’ His cheeks dimpled attractively when he smiled, and his manner was easy and confident. He gave Qian’s hand a cursory shake. ‘Come in, come in.’ He closed the door behind them, and they crossed an acre of cream carpet to a boomerang-shaped black lacquer desk. Three chairs were arranged along the near side of it, and Fan urged them to be seated while he rounded the desk to his executive leather. He lifted a couple of business cards and handed one to each of them and then sat back.

  Li glanced at the card. Fan Zhilong was CEO of OneChina Holdings Limited, a company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and owners of the Beijing OneChina Recreation Club. He looked up to find Fan regarding him thoughtfully. ‘What can I help you with, Section Chief?’ The desk in front of him was almost empty. There was a diary, a blotter, a pen holder and a leather-bound calculator. At the far end was a keyboard and flat screen monitor. Mr. Fan did not seem like a man overburdened with paperwork.

  ‘I am hoping that I can, perhaps, be of assistance to you,’ Li said. And as he spoke, he noticed the large alcove beyond the desk. The priceless artefacts of which Macken had spoken were arranged on black shelves lining the three walls, each with its own spotlight. Plates, vases, daggers, tiny figurines. A baby grand piano sat in the centre of the space, beautifully carved, polished and lit in the cross-beams of the various spots.

  Fan’s dimples reappeared. ‘I’m intrigued.’

  ‘We are investigating a break-in at the studio of the photographer you commissioned to photograph the club for your publicity brochure.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Mr. Macken. The American. Of course, the job has not exactly been promised to him. We still have to approve his submission.’ Fan paused. ‘A break-in?’

  ‘Yes,’ Li said. ‘What’s odd is that the only thing stolen was the negative of the film he shot here in your club.’

  Fan looked suitably perplexed. ‘Why would anyone want to steal that? Are you sure that’s what they were after?’

  ‘They came back the following night when they learned he had taken contact prints and demanded that he hand them over.’

  Fan frowned. ‘Well, I’m sure it’s all very puzzling, but I don’t really see what it has to do with us.’

  ‘Perhaps nothing at all,’ Li said. ‘But it turned out that Macken had copied his contact prints into his computer. So fortunately he still had copie
s that we were able to look at.’ He lifted a large envelope. ‘In fact he was able to run off prints for us.’

  ‘May I see?’ Fan leaned across the desk, and Li handed him the envelope. He drew out the prints to look at them.

  ‘It was while he was showing me them that Mr. Macken told me about the items you have on display here in your office, explaining that was why you have an armed guard on the door out there.’ Li paused. ‘That’s when it occurred to me that the people who were after these prints may well have been in search of pictures of the interior of the club in preparation for a robbery.’

  Fan glanced up at him. ‘You think so?’

  ‘It’s possible, Mr. Fan. Just what kind of price would you put on your … ’ he nodded towards the alcove ‘ … collection?’

  ‘The insurance company valued it at around five million yuan, Section Chief. They would only insure it if we provided armed security. We’re pretty well prepared for any eventuality. So I’m not too concerned about the possibility of a robbery.’

  ‘That’s reassuring to hear, Mr. Fan.’ Li held out his hand for the photographs. ‘But I thought it worth making you aware of what had happened.’ Fan slipped the prints back in the envelope and handed them across the desk. ‘I’ll not waste any more of your time.’ Li stood up. ‘It’s quite a place you have here. Do you have many members?’

  ‘Oh, yes, we’ve done brisk business since we opened six months ago. However, it was a massive investment, you understand. Three years just to build the complex. Which is a long time to tie up nearly thirty million dollars of your capital. So we are always anxious to attract new members.’

  ‘Hence the brochure.’

  ‘Exactly. And, of course, the photographs will also be going on to our Internet site. So they’re hardly a state secret.’ Fan paused. ‘Would you like a look around?’

  ‘I’d be very interested,’ Li said. ‘As long as you are not viewing us as prospective clients. One membership would cost more than the combined year’s earnings of my entire section.’

  Fan smiled ingratiatingly, dimples pitting his cheeks. ‘Of course. But, then, we do have special introductory rates for VIPs such as yourself. We already count several senior figures in the Beijing municipal administration among our members, as well as a number of elected representatives of the National People’s Congress. We even have some members from the Central Committee of the CCP.’

  Li bridled, although he tried hard not to show it. This sounded to his experienced ear like both a bribe and a threat. A cheap membership on offer, as well as a warning that Fan was not without serious influence in high places. Why on earth would he feel the need to make either? He said, ‘Is membership exclusively for Chinese?’

  ‘Not exclusively,’ Fan said. ‘Although, as it happens, all of our members are.’

  ‘Oh?’ Li pulled out the prints again and flipped through them until he found the photograph of the four Chinese and the Westerner. He held it up for Fan to see. ‘Who’s this, then?’

  Fan squinted at the picture and shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But that’s you in the photograph, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked at the picture again. ‘I think he was a friend of one of the members. They are allowed guests. But I can’t remember who he was.’ He held out his hand towards a door opposite his desk. ‘If you’d like to follow me, gentlemen.’

  The CEO led them into a private lounge, and then beyond a screen to double glass doors leading to the swimming pool they had seen in Macken’s photographs. The coloured light from the stained-glass windows shimmered across the surface of the pool in a million fractured shards. The air was warm and humid and heavy with the scent of chlorine. ‘One of the perks of the job,’ Fan said. ‘An en-suite pool. I can take a dip any time I like.’

  He led them down a tiled staircase to the sauna below. In a large chamber, walls and floor lined with pink marble, they sat on a chaise longue to remove their shoes and slide their feet into soft-soled slippers. Another dark-suited flunky led them into a long corridor flanked by pillars. At intervals along each wall, the carved heads of mythical sea creatures spouted water into troughs of clear water filled with pebbles and carp. The sauna area was huge. The floors were laid with rush matting, and the walls lined by individual dressing-tables with mirrors and hairdriers for the more vain among the members. There were private changing rooms, and cane furniture with soft cream cushions. The sauna itself lay behind floor-to-ceiling glass walls, and steps led up to a bubbling plunge pool that swept around a central column. More water cascaded from a modern sculpture, and hidden lighting created a dramatic visual effect to accompany the sounds of rushing water.

  ‘We’re very proud of our sauna,’ Fan said. ‘It is a great favourite with our members.’

  He took them through into the lobby which served the physiotherapy and massage rooms. A pretty girl in club uniform smiled at them from behind a reception desk. The rooms were as Li and Qian had seen them in Macken’s photographs, low beds covered with white towels facing large TV screens. Li wondered what activities other than the buying and selling of international stock really took place in these rooms.

  Upstairs, Fan took them through several conference rooms and into his own private entertainment area. Soft settees were set around low tables and a pull-down projection TV screen. There was a large, round banqueting table, and through an arch, the aural accompaniment to the food was provided in the form of a grand piano, with chairs and music stands set out for a string quartet.

  ‘Although, essentially, the entertainment room is provided for the use of the CEO,’ Fan said, ‘it can also be hired out by members. As, of course, can the main dining room itself, as well as several smaller dining rooms. But the tepanyaki room is the most popular for private functions.’ He led them down a corridor into a small oblong room where it was possible to seat eight around a huge rectangular hotplate where a Japanese chef would prepare the food as you waited.

  Li had never seen such opulence. And it was hard to believe that while China’s nouveau riche gambled their new-found wealth on the international exchanges, and sat here dining on exotic foods, or basking in the sauna, or swimming languidly from one end of the pool to the other, people a matter of streets away shared stinking communal toilets and counted their fen to pay for an extra piece of fruit at the market. He found it distasteful, almost obscene. A bubble of fantasy in a sea of grim reality.

  They followed Fan back through a labyrinth of corridors to the main entrance hall. Fan looked back over his shoulder. ‘Give you a taste for the good life, Section Chief?’

  ‘I’m quite happy with my life the way it is, thank you, Mr. Fan,’ Li said. He glanced at a plaque on the wall beside tall double doors. THE EVENT HALL, it read. ‘What’s an event hall?’

  ‘Just what it says, Section Chief,’ Fan said. ‘A place where we hold major events. Concerts, ceremonies, seminars. I’d let you see it, but it’s being refurbished at the moment.’

  They stopped at the front door to shake hands, watched by staff standing to attention behind desks that lined the hall to left and right.

  ‘I appreciate your visit and your concern, Section Chief, and in the light of what you have told me, I will consider asking for a review of our security.’ He nodded towards the glass antiques room. ‘We have exhibits in there worth several millions as well.’

  Li was about to open the door when he paused. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he said, ‘Mr. Macken seemed rather concerned about the whereabouts of your personal assistant, JoJo.’

  Fan raised an eyebrow. ‘Did he?’ But he wasn’t volunteering any information.

  Li said, ‘Perhaps we could have a word with her before we go?’

  ‘Sadly, that’s not possible, Section Chief. I fired her.’

  ‘Oh? What for?’

  Fan sighed. ‘Inappropriate behaviour, I’m afraid. JoJo had one of our apartments upstairs. It went with the job. I discovered she was “entertaining” members up there after hours.
Strict rule of the club. Staff are forbidden to fraternise with the membership.’

  ‘Which means you threw her out of her apartment as well?’

  ‘She was asked to leave immediately, and I put a stop on her cellphone account, which was also provided by the company.’

  ‘Have you any idea where she went?’

  ‘None at all. I do know she had a boyfriend in Shanghai at one time. Perhaps she’s gone off there to lick her wounds.’

  When they were out on the street again, Li turned to Qian. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  Qian grinned. ‘I think if he’d offered me a cut-price membership I’d have bitten his hand off.’

  Li nodded thoughtfully. ‘What I don’t understand is why he made the offer at all. If he’s got nothing to hide, he’s got nothing to fear from me. So why try and buy me off?’

  ‘You’re getting paranoid in your old age, Chief. Just think of the kudos he’d get from having Beijing’s top cop on his books.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Li was thoughtful for a moment. Then he said, ‘I think we’ve probably been wasting our time on this, Qian. Better get back to the section.’

  III

  As they parked outside Section One, the first flakes of snow fluttered on a wind with an edge like a razor. Tiny, dry flakes that disappeared as they hit the road. There were too few of them yet for there to be any danger of them lying. Moments earlier, as they had passed Mei Yuan’s corner, Li had seen her stamping her feet to keep them warm. Business was slow, but Li had no time to eat and so they had not stopped.