‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’

‘He eventually moved over to the planning applications department but only after there was a whiff of scandal about him and his boss’s wife. Seems she liked rough treatment… and he provided it.’ Parker was frowning uncomfortably. ‘Not the sort of thing a decent chap would do.’

Theo was touched by his friend’s naïveté. There was something so defenceless about it. His own innocence had been swallowed up by a gunshot in an office in Kensington ten years earlier, and since then he had always expected to bump up against the bad in people. It just seemed to happen that way. Invariably. That’s why he liked teaching. Children were raw material; there was still a chance for them. And there was Li Mei, of course. Li Mei gave him hope. But Parker was an odd sort of fellow because the shiny edges were still intact, not dulled or chipped away by reality. Rare thing these days. Quite refreshing in its way. And there was something different about him today, something exuberant.

‘And,’ Parker lowered his voice, ‘he resigned from Planning after only eighteen months.’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘Rumours. Nothing definite, you understand.’

‘Get on with it, man.’

‘Kickbacks.’

‘Ah!’

‘Money under the table. Buildings going up where they shouldn’t. That sort of thing. Resigned in the nick of time and shipped out to Junchow. Lord only knows how he wangled a berth in the education department over here, but apparently he’s good at what he does, though not well liked by those under him. They wouldn’t say more. Frightened for their jobs, I suppose.’

‘Wouldn’t you be?’

Parker looked startled. ‘Of course not. Not if I saw corruption. ’

The girl came just then with another pot of steaming tea, and she poured them both a cup.

‘Xie xie,’ Parker said. Thank you.

Theo almost choked on the hot liquid. ‘Well spoken, Alfred.’

‘Well, I thought I’d learn some of the lingo while I’m here. Comes in useful in my line of work and anyway, you see, old chap, there’s someone I want to impress.’

Theo watched his friend turn quite pink.

‘Alfred, you sly dog. Who’s the lucky lady? Anyone I know?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, she is. The mother of one of your pupils.’

‘Not Anthea Mason, surely.’

Parker looked put out. ‘Of course not. The lady is called Valentina Ivanova.’ Just the mention of her name painted a shy smile on his lips.

‘For heaven’s sake, Alfred,’ Theo said sharply, ‘you must be mad. You’re asking for trouble.’

Parker blinked behind his spectacles, taken aback by the unexpected heat of the response. ‘What do you mean, Theo? She’s a wonderful woman.’

‘Oh, she’s beautiful, I grant you that. But she’s a White Russian.’

‘So? What’s wrong with that?’

Theo sighed. ‘Oh, Alfred, everyone knows those women are desperate to marry a European. Any European. The poor creatures are stuck here, no papers, no money, no jobs for them. It must be hell. That’s why half the prostitutes in the brothels of Junchow are White Russian women. Don’t look so shocked, it’s a fact.’ He softened his tone. ‘I’m sorry to burst your bubble, my friend, but she’s just using you.’

Parker shook his head, but Theo could see his confidence draining away. The journalist removed his spectacles and started to clean them thoroughly with a virginal white handkerchief. ‘I thought you’d understand,’ he said gruffly without looking up. ‘You of all people. About all this love business. The way it makes a chap feel quite…’ He paused.

‘Ill?’

Parker attempted a smile. ‘Yes, I feel ill.’ He replaced his spectacles and stared, immobile, at the carefully refolded handkerchief between his fingers. ‘I see her face everywhere,’ he said softly. ‘In the mirror when I shave, on the blank page when I type up my pieces, even on old Gallifrey’s desk blotter – he’s my editor – during deadline conferences.’

‘You’ve got it bad, old fellow. She has certainly hooked you.’

‘I thought you’d understand,’ he said again.

‘Because I’m with Li Mei, you mean? No, Li Mei is not with me for my money, I promise you that. For a start I haven’t got any, more’s the pity, and anyway she comes from a wealthy Chinese family that has turned its back on her because of me. So it’s a very different situation. I warn you, steer well clear of Valentina Ivanova. She’ll just walk away the moment you take her back to England.’

Parker’s mouth was taut. He pushed aside his cup untouched. ‘I did wonder what a beautiful and accomplished woman like that would see in a chap like me.’

‘Oh, Alfred, get a grip on yourself. Like I said, you’re a first-class diamond.’

Parker shrugged stiffly.

‘Look, why not just enjoy her company? Take her to bed for a few months and get her perfume out of your blood, then you don’t…’

‘Theo, you may possess a heartless heathen soul,’ Parker said without rancour, ‘but I do not. I am a Christian, you see, and as such I try to follow His commandments. So no, I won’t bed her and then abandon her.’

‘More fool you, my friend.’

There was a silence between them. A girl came offering sugared dumplings on a tray, but they both waved her away. Behind them a man shouted in triumph as he won his game of mah-jongg. Theo lit a cigarette. His throat ached; he’d smoked too many recently.

‘Leave her now,’ he said quietly, ‘before you get in too deep. I’m saying this for your own good. And don’t forget there’s the daughter as well. Not easy, that one.’

Parker ran an uncertain hand over his high forehead, trying to hold his thoughts together. ‘I don’t know, Theo, maybe you’re right. It seems to me that love is such a destructive force. Love of a person, love of an ideal, love of a country. It just wipes out everything else and causes havoc. And as for the daughter, don’t even mention her to me. That girl is beyond help.’

23

Chang stood in the dark. Still as stone. They were there, all around him. He could hear them. The rustle of a sleeve, the brush of thigh against wall, the scrape of shoe on gravel. It had been a risk. To show himself at the funeral. It meant they would track him down, he knew that. But it would have brought dishonour on him if he had shunned Yuesheng’s final moment. Yuesheng was his blood companion and he owed him respect, especially as it could so easily have been Chang’s own body lying dead in the cellar that night when the Kuomintang attacked. So now the Black Snakes were here. Death lay in the shadows, awaiting its feast.

He was in a cobbled square in the old town, his back pressed to a studded oak door, inset under an arch. Black figures flicked from one street to another, crouched and coming fast from all directions. Movement in doorways. Sharp eyes seeking him. No moon to highlight the blades in their fists but he had no doubt that they were there, hungry for blood.

He counted six of them in all, but could hear more. One was standing tight against a wall no more than ten paces to his right, guarding the entrance to a narrow hutong, an alleyway that led deep into the maze of back streets. He had a harsh way of breathing. With a silent leap and an upward slam of his heel, Chang put an end to it, but before the body had even touched the ground, he was into the hutong and running, low and lithe. Above him in an upstairs window a light flooded on and a shout sounded from behind, but he didn’t turn.

He moved faster. Ducked into deeper darkness. Feet skidding on rotting filth. He led them on through the alleys, stringing them out as they fought for speed, so that when the fastest man found himself at a crossroads twenty feet ahead of his companions, he had no idea what flew out of the shadows and thudded into his chest, snapping ribs like twigs, until it was too late and he couldn’t breathe.