Not the grey bellies. Don’t let it be because of the grey bellies.

Chills whipped through her body whenever she thought of their swords or their rifles pointed at his head. She saw the soldiers. With their armbands and the sun on their caps as if they owned the world. Strutting around the old town. It was madness but she went there, couldn’t stay away. She steered clear of the hutongs but scanned the crowds in the main streets, again and again and again, and found nothing but hostile eyes and jostling poles and mouths that shouted unimaginable words at her. Once she even spotted a neck with a Black Snake tattoo. But the man showed no interest in her. She didn’t run. Any more than she ran from the beggars who reached out at her with skeletal fingers or from the well-clad Chinese businessman who offered her a ride in his big black Cadillac. The chance of finding Chang among all this teeming humanity was…

She refused even to think the word.

‘Ah, Missy, my eyes are bright with the pleasure of seeing you again. It has been a long time.’ Mr Liu waved her to a seat and spread his hands to indicate his shop. ‘I hope my miserable premises are not too disgusting to you.’

Lydia smiled. ‘It looks different. Very modern. Your customers must come here just for the delight of viewing such a grand place, Mr Liu.’

Mr Liu’s stick-dry figure seemed to swell with pride, and he scuttled away to the stove where the teapot was waiting. It was a new one. Plain cream porcelain. In fact everything was new. Shelves, cabinets, door, window, even the stool she was sitting on. Gone was the bamboo one and the ebony table. In its place was a modern chrome and plastic one. The shelves and counter were the same: modern, clean and horrible. Only the black stove remained of what used to be. And the jasmine tea. That hadn’t changed.

‘I’m impressed, Mr Liu. Business must be very good indeed.’

‘Times are hard, Missy, but there is always someone who needs something. The trick is to provide it.’ His face was older, the dry walnut skin thinner than tissue, and his hair was short and white now, but the wispy beard was coming back. He fingered it constantly like an old friend.

She wondered what it was he had learned the trick of providing. Guns? Drugs? Information?

‘Mr Liu, if I wanted to find someone in old Junchow, how should I go about it?’

His eyes narrowed. Settled on her face.

‘You have this person’s address?’

‘No.’

‘Place of work?’

‘No.’

‘His family?’

‘No.’ She didn’t notice the his slipped in there.

‘Friends?’

She hesitated. ‘I know one friend. By sight only.’

‘So.’ He folded his hands into his sleeves and considered her for so long she started to grow uncomfortable. ‘So,’ he said again. ‘This someone. He could be in trouble?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘In hiding?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I see.’

She waited what seemed an age while he considered again.

‘The place to search, Missy, is the docks. Down by the harbour. There the world is lawless and nameless. The dollar is the only language that they speak. The dollar and the knife.’

‘Mr Liu, you are generous with your words. Thank you.’

‘Be careful, Missy. It is a dangerous place. Life there is worth less than a hair from your copper head.’

‘Thank you for the warning, I will remember it.’ She sipped her tea and looked around at the many objects on display. The metal leg by the door had gone but in its place stood a giant turtle shell. ‘I have something small you may find of interest.’

He drank his tea impassively.

Lydia pulled out an object wrapped up in a cloth. It was a handbag. Alfred had bought it as a present for Valentina and earned himself a kiss in return, but after he’d gone, Valentina had shuddered and thrown it under her bed.

‘Red!’ she’d exclaimed. ‘As if I’d ever be seen holding a red handbag.’

But it looked expensive. Satin covered, with tiny white pearls along the top. Lydia laid it on the new table. Mr Liu glanced at it but didn’t pick it up. His mouth pulled tight into a straight line.

‘Thirty dollars,’ he offered.

Lydia gaped at him. It was more than she’d expected. She certainly wasn’t going to argue. She nodded. He drew a roll of notes from inside his gown and counted six of them into her hand. His fingernails were long and clean.

‘Thank you, Mr Liu. You are generous.’ She rose to leave.

‘Take care, Missy. This life only comes once. Don’t throw it away.’

She buried it. The thirty dollars.

In a jar at the base of the big flat rock. Each time she went to Lizard Creek she used a pebble to scratch a line on the side of the big rock, just so that he’d realize she’d been there. Now she arranged pebbles in a small mound over the top of the spot where she’d buried the glass jar, like a cairn.

‘You’ll know, Chang An Lo. I’m certain you’ll know. It isn’t much, thirty dollars, but it’s something. I’ll bring more, I promise. It’ll help if you’re in need.’

She rested a hand on the top stone of the cairn and curled her fingers around it as if she could curl her fingers around Chang himself.

‘Don’t let him be in need,’ she whispered to his gods. ‘Except in need of me.’

28

Theo opened his eyes abruptly, breaking free from the fierce grip of his dreams. He was suffocating. His lungs would barely move, blackness was creeping into his head, a needle point of pain at his throat was…

His eyes finally registered what was in front of them.

The cat. For God’s sake, it was just the bloody cat. Yeewai was crouched on his chest, her evil yellow eyes no more than inches from his own and her talons kneading the soft skin between his collarbones. A noise like a steam engine was coming from her mouth but Theo had no idea whether it was a purr or a growl.

He pushed the animal down onto the eiderdown and instantly realised the warm body of Li Mei was no longer beside him in the bed. Oh Christ, what time was it? He sat up. His head exploded into ten thousand pieces, each one of them embedding into his brain, and the cat’s claw raked his hand in protest. Theo groaned, rolled his legs over the side of the bed, and let his hands do the work of holding his head together.

It was morning and his mouth tasted like the inside of a rat’s ass.

Another day. Sweet Christ.

He felt cold. Really cold. The air in the classroom was so chilly Theo expected to see his own breath rise like smoke from his mouth. He shivered. His limbs ached.

He was seated in his usual place at his high desk in front of the class, but there was a stove behind him and he was near enough to reach behind to feel it. The blasted caretaker must have forgotten it again. To his surprise the stove was hot and when he thought about it, the condensation on the windows meant the room must be warm, fighting off the northerly blasts outside. The pupils looked comfortable, not chilled. The pupils. Rows of them. Unruly creatures. Today they felt like leeches on his skin, sucking him dry, draining all the knowledge from his head into theirs. He shivered again and tried to concentrate on the pile of papers in front of him, but the writing kept blurring and his eyes lost focus. He had arrived late and set the class a history exercise to do while he tried to mark the homework he should have dealt with last evening.

That was the trouble with spending so many nights out on the river. These days he never seemed to be anything but cold and tired, the sort of tiredness that eats into your bones. The Chinese captains of the junks and sampans and the oarsmen in the scows were used to him now and he was used to them. No more scares. No blades. And no cats, thank God. And they knew only too well the way to ease the pain of the wind driving off the river and knifing down your throat where the damp rotted your lungs. So they taught him. How to make the wait seem shorter and the fear lose its edge. Just the thought of the pipe upstairs in the drawer by his bed set his hands shaking.