Crimson China (24 page)

The two women, though uneducated, both seemed fiercely capable – as if the fact of their sex made them all the more determined to succeed. Both were single parents who had left a child behind with relatives; one was divorced, the other widowed. Little Red explained that her husband had died in an industrial accident three years before when a large crane had malfunctioned. The circumstances had all pointed towards negligence on the part of the company, but in spite of her repeated complaints, no compensation had been offered. Instead, she had received a small wreath of chrysanthemums, together with a note saying that her husband’s outstanding debts in the staff canteen would be cancelled under the circumstances. Since then she had struggled to make ends meet, but was determined that her only son would not suffer as a consequence of his father’s death. He would go to the best schools, she told them, her voice trembling with emotion, and lack for nothing. The boy was brave, Little Red added proudly, and would weather the separation. One day, no doubt, he would thank her.

With the exception of Wen, they had been drawn together by desperation and necessity. He was the only one among them who had no dependents, and the others seemed surprised when they learned of this. Old Wang had leaned forward, his eyebrows knit together.

“So you do not
need
to be here?” he asked doubtfully.

“No,” Wen had admitted. “I suppose not.”

“You came because…?” Old Wang’s voice trailed off.

The others listened with interest. Wen felt his mouth go dry. How could he explain? Despite coming from the largest country on earth, he felt crowded by his life and by his circumstances. Some mornings when he woke, he found he could not breathe, as if the life was being squeezed from him little by little each day. He had tried without success to explain this feeling to Lili. That day in the safe house, he had looked around at the bewildered faces of Old Wang and the others, and had decided to lie.

“I gambled badly on a business investment,” he said finally. “And lost. So here I am.”

Old Wang nodded several times, clearly relieved.

“For every millionaire in New China,” he said, “there are a thousand paupers just behind.”

After three weeks of pot noodles and no fresh air or exercise, Wen had begun to feel as dense and slack as a sack of grain. When they were finally told they would be moved, there was a brief bout of exhilaration, quickly followed by dismay. They were taken in the early dawn to three trucks transporting livestock and produce across the border. The trucks travelled in convoy and each day Wen and his compatriots were allocated to a lorry and instructed to hide in sealed compartments behind the driver, where they were forced to sit curled like foetuses in the dark for up to eight hours at a time, while a wooden lid was screwed shut over their heads. Wen thought the first day was bad, but on the second he was moved to a lorry carrying pigs, and the stench of faeces and urine was almost unbearable. At night they slept in barns, bedding down in hay lofts, relieved to stretch their cramped muscles.

On the fourth day, he and Little Red were told to climb into a box together. As she squatted down next to him she grinned.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s like the pain of childbirth. The further we get from it, the smaller it will seem. And one day, when we are back with our families living in a fine house built from our
earnings, this journey will be nothing more than a pinprick in our memory.”

Now, lying with his swollen face against the floorboard, Wen wonders what became of Little Red. He knew she was destined for an electronics factory in the north where a distant cousin of hers was already working. He hopes that her experience has been less fraught with peril than his own. But then the door opens and Little Dog enters, banishing the past in an instant.

“Time for a chat,” he says.

Lili spends the next few days almost feverish with apprehension. On the third morning, she rushes into school early to find Jin, but before she even has a chance to ask, the latter shakes her head.

“Nothing,” Jin says. “I’ve tried ringing several times but his phone is off.”

“If they let him go, he would contact us,” mumbles Lili worriedly.

“I don’t know.”

“I wish we knew more about the woman,” says Lili. “The one he was living with in Morecambe Bay.”

Jin frowns. “Actually,” she says, “I have an address.”

The following morning Jin persuades Fay to let them have the day off. They take a train from King’s Cross, changing once in Birmingham. Lili has never travelled on a train in England before, though it is much like a soft seat at home, she remarks to Jin.

“The toilets are cleaner here,” says Jin. “But the food is worse.”

For much of the journey, Lili gazes out the window at endless fields of winter stubble. The sky is overcast and the countryside looks bleak and inhospitable. At one point, she looks across at Jin.

“Did you take the train before? When you went to see him?”

Jin nods.

“And when you got there?”

“He met me at the station.”

Lili turns back to the window, endeavouring to quash the small pang of jealousy she feels whenever Jin relates a detail of her life with Wen.

It is lunchtime when they arrive at Morecambe. Two taxis wait outside the station. They climb in the first and Jin hands the driver a small scrap of paper with an address. The driver looks at it and nods, handing it back to Jin. They drive along the coast road briefly, and Lili scans the bay, wondering whether Wen will be waiting for them when they arrive. After a few minutes, the taxi leaves the coast and winds through a series of residential streets, eventually pulling up in front of a small detached house. The driver turns back to them.

“This is it,” he says.

Lili feels suddenly nervous and must force herself to climb out of the car. She watches as Jin pays the driver. When he has gone, Jin turns to her and takes a deep breath. Lili realises they are both apprehensive.
But it is too late now
, she thinks resolutely. So she turns and leads the way up to the door.

She rings twice. They can hear a stirring from within, and at length a dishevelled woman opens the door wearing a blue dressing gown, hastily tied up. She appears to be in her mid-thirties, with shoulder-length wavy brown hair and eyes ringed with dark circles. To Lili, she looks pale and vulnerable.

“Yes?”

“Good afternoon,” says Lili nervously. “We are sorry to trouble you.”

The woman frowns. Lili glances at Jin, her nerve faltering.

“We’ve come about Wen,” says Jin quickly.

The woman’s eyes widen. “Who are you?”

Lili takes a deep breath. “I am his sister.”

The woman looks at her intently for a moment, then steps back, opening the door wider. “You’d better come in.”

They follow her inside. An empty bottle of whisky lies on the floor by the sofa, with another half-drunk bottle on the coffee table. Next to it is an array of glasses and a plate of half-eaten, day-old pasta.

“Sorry about the mess,” she says.

Lili and Jin watch as she moves quickly around the room, hastily gathering up dishes and bottles. She carries them into the kitchen, piling them into the sink with a clatter. Then she fills the kettle with water, before coming back to them.

“Wen never told me he had a sister,” she says. “Do you know where he is?”

Lili and Jin exchange a glance. Jin’s eyebrows shoot up.

“We hope that you know,” says Lili.

The woman shakes her head. “He told me he had business in London. That was four days ago.”

Lili and Jin both hesitate.

“Is he gone?” asks the woman a little defiantly.

“Not gone,” says Jin.

“What then?”

“The snakeheads have him,” says Jin.

The woman looks from one to the other, swallowing.

“I think you’d better start from the beginning.”

Later, when there is nothing more to say, Angie drives them to the train station. As Lili gets out of the car, Angie stops her with a hand upon her arm.

“Please. Let me know. Whatever you hear.”

Lili nods, a lump rising in her throat. The two women stare at each other for a moment. She is terrified, thinks Lili.

The train home is more crowded. They sit by side rather than across a table. Jin says little, staring out the window.

“What did you make of her?” asks Lili.

“She’s a drunk,” says Jin flatly.

“She’s frightened.”

“So are we.”

“Yes, but…”

Lili’s voice trails off. Jin turns to look at her.

“But what?”

“It’s not the same. For her.”

Jin stares at Lili, her chest rising and falling with anger. Finally she turns away.

“Maybe not,” she says.

For the remainder of the journey, Lili cannot banish thoughts of Angie from her mind. She’d expected to be repelled, but instead she’d been drawn to her. The woman was not like other English people she had met. There was something unsettling about her, as if she did not fit so easily within her skin. Clearly she drank too much. But she was more complex than that: brittle and hard, yet still easily torn, like the shell of a chestnut. It was this curious mix of strength and vulnerability that had impressed her. Like a woman who has once been broken, but has mended herself, and will do so again if necessary.

The second beating is worse than the first. This time they use their feet instead of their fists. Wen remains on the floor, one arm handcuffed to the radiator, while Little Dog’s henchman kicks him repeatedly, pausing for an agonising moment in between each blow. It is the anticipation of what will come that makes it unbearable, he thinks through a dirty haze of pain. This is the last thought he has before the toe of the boot clips him squarely on the back of the head, and he loses consciousness.

When he wakes again, the room is dark and deadly still. He is lying on his stomach, and with considerable effort, manages to roll over onto his back. For several minutes he lies staring up at the ceiling. Over time, the light in the room shifts almost imperceptibly as the first glimmer of dawn comes through the blinds. He tries to take stock of his injuries, though the pain he now feels is so great that it radiates through his entire body. His front tooth is chipped; he can feel the sharp edge of it with his tongue. A pity, he thinks, as he has always had good teeth. His right eye is swollen nearly shut. And though he needs to urinate, he senses that to do so might be agony, for there is a throbbing in his back near his kidney.

With his free arm, he pulls himself up to a sitting position, sending a lightning flash of pain down his right side. Something is
wrong there too, he thinks. No doubt he has broken some ribs, though he hopes this is the extent of it. Black spots dance in front of his good eye, and he breathes in and out several times, hoping to disperse them. He has not eaten in two days, and can’t remember when he last drank anything. He manages to pull himself up so he can peer through the slats of the blind. He can see a narrow side street, and a row of small, stucco houses opposite. He sits back down again, contemplating his options; they appear to be few.

He thinks again of Angie. Has she come to hate him yet? If so, then it is no less than he deserves. For by now he would have been in Canada, walking the streets of an unfamiliar Chinatown. He has been a coward and a fool. If he dies here, chained to this radiator, it will be a fitting punishment for all those he has abandoned in this life: Angie, Lili, Jin, Miriam. And perhaps most of all, Lin.

He hears a stirring outside the room and braces himself. After a minute, a mobile phone rings, followed by Little Dog’s voice in the hallway. Little Dog speaks in low urgent tones at first, but after a minute, he raises his voice, swearing into the phone. Wen hears footsteps, then Little Dog shouting at the others, rousing them urgently. After a brief interval, one of them opens the door, checks to make certain he is there, then pulls it shut again with a slam. He hears the men descend the stairs and leave the house, and he pulls himself up to watch as all three climb into the car and speed off. Only when he can no longer see the car does he ease himself back down to a sitting position, breathing more easily. For now at least, Little Dog has bigger prey than him.

He looks at the handcuff on his wrist. His hands are small for a man, but not small enough. The radiator is the old-fashioned type, made of heavy cast iron. They have chained him to the base of it, the thin pipe that runs up from the floorboards. He knows nothing about plumbing, but realises that without proper tools there is no
way he can unscrew the pipe from the radiator. He pokes his index finger into the hole where the pipe comes out of the floor. The hole has been sloppily made, cut wider than necessary, and the floorboard itself is old and slightly warped. Perhaps if he can get some leverage he could loosen it and see where the pipe leads. He looks around the room. They have been careful to leave nothing within his reach. The only object within his grasp are the blinds, made of flimsy grey plastic slats. But then his eyes alight on the cord: it is made of stout nylon, and at its base is a hard rubber bulb. He grabs hold of it and gives a sharp yank. Unexpectedly, the entire blind comes down on top of him with a clatter and a shower of plaster dust.

He takes the hard rubber bulb and tries to force it through the hole in the floorboard, but the bulb is just slightly bigger than the hole. He lies down and with his foot puts as much pressure as he can on the pipe from the side, moving it fractionally towards the wall until the bulb slips through the hole. He sits back up and pulls on the cord: as he’d hoped, the bulb has lodged on the other side of the board. Now he slips the cord around the far top corner of the radiator for leverage, then wraps it around his free hand several times, positioning himself as best he can. He leans back, pulling as hard as he can on the cord, watching his hand turn purple with the pressure. The nylon cord bites into his flesh, but as it does he hears the floorboard creak under the strain. He redoubles his effort, giving several rapid jerks on the cord, until suddenly the board gives way with a sharp crack, and the bulb flies up at his face.

He slips his hand into the crevice and pulls at one side. The board splinters and breaks, and in a second he is looking down into the floor cavity. The pipe is joined to another that runs along the side of a joist. He grabs hold of this new pipe and gives a sharp tug upwards, putting pressure on the adjoining boards. In this way, he manages to loosen and remove the next three boards. At length,
after pulling on the pipe and surrounding boards for half an hour, he manages to break the far end of it. He bends it upwards to where it joins the other pipe just under the radiator and twists it round and round until it comes free. For a moment, he cannot believe he has succeeded. He sits staring at the jagged end of old lead pipe. Then he hears a passing car and quickly slides the handcuff downwards over the broken joint.

He jumps to his feet, forgetting his injuries, and nearly faints. He sways, leaning hard against the window sill, breathing in and out, trying to subdue the pain. After a minute he straightens, then walks out of the room and down the stairs. He pauses in the kitchen to drink some water, then crosses to the front door, peering out of a window. The street outside is empty. He tries the front door; to his surprise it is unlocked. Little Dog and his men were in too great a hurry when they left. He pushes the handcuff as far as it will go up his arm, grateful for the long-sleeved shirt he is wearing, and slips out of the house and down the street, heading instinctively in the opposite direction. He does not know where he is but he can smell the sea. He should be hungry but he isn’t. It’s as if his body cannot take too much at once. It is enough to be outside, unshackled, in the cool autumn air.

He reaches a main road and turns right, following the smell of the sea. After a few minutes, he passes a large hospital complex. It is early morning and the street is full of medical staff hurrying to work. He realises he must look dreadful, though in the rush no one seems to notice. For an instant, he fantasises about the hospital: the idea of a clean white bed with crisp sheets is tantalising. And he could use a painkiller or two. But he knows this is not an option, so he continues past the hospital down a long street of shops, and across more residential roads. He carries on walking for an hour – perhaps more – trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and Little Dog, all the while looking
around him constantly for fear he will be spotted. They have taken his papers, his money and his phone: he should have searched the house before he left, but the time to do so might have cost him his life, so perhaps it is better that he didn’t. At length, he crosses several busy roads and reaches a series of vast warehouses. Beyond them he can see docks and a grey line of water. For the first time he recognises the area: he is back in Liverpool, just as he suspected. He turns south and follows the shoreline for perhaps another hour. By now the docklands are behind him and he has entered a more prosperous residential neighbourhood. He walks down a long winding road that hugs the river.

Finally he reaches a park with gardens and benches. It is an attractive place, the sort that he and Angie might visit on the weekend, but at mid-week in late autumn, few people are about. He pauses at a wooden bench in an out-of-the-way spot, the tiredness overwhelming him. Fortunately the day is sunny and relatively warm for this time of year. He reckons he has walked for most of the morning. Perhaps he has come eight or nine miles, though it is difficult to gauge the distance. He is still terrified that Little Dog and his men will appear from nowhere. He takes a deep breath and forces himself to consider his situation. Little Dog would be unlikely to find him here: he would expect him to flee towards the city centre, to a bus or train station, not to a park on the outskirts of town.

He looks around again nervously, and without warning, a wave of longing washes over him. He misses Angie. The feeling takes him by surprise, for he had not expected it. He feels strangely hollow, as if someone had scooped out his insides and thrown them on the ground.

In the last hour, the pain in his side has begun to worsen, and coupled with the longing, he feels very low indeed. He needs rest and sleep for his body to recover; he does not know what will help his soul.

And then an idea comes to him. He will walk to Angie. He will walk to Morecambe Bay, just as soon as he gets his strength. He closes his eyes briefly. The sun is warm upon his face and the temptation to sleep is overwhelming. He stretches out on the bench, shielding his battered face with his unshackled arm, and sleep takes him almost instantly. He dreams that he is back in Morecambe Bay, cycling along the coastal path. It is low tide: the sands reach as far as he can see. He climbs off his bike and begins to walk across the marshy beach, but soon he feels a hand upon his leg, pulling at him from beneath the sands. He looks down and sees a hand clutch at him desperately. Though he cannot see the face, he knows with certainty that the hand belongs to Lin. He tries to pull free but cannot: the grip of the hand is too strong. He wakes suddenly, the winter air freezing, and realises that someone is shaking his leg repeatedly.

“Sir? Sir? Time to wake up.”

Wen stirs, lifts his arm and squints into the sunlight. Two dark shapes stand over him. He sits up, wincing with the effort, and tries at once to stand. But the blood rushes to his feet and he topples sideways.

“Steady on, mate,” says one of the men, grabbing his arm and easing him back down into a sitting position on the bench.

“Thank you,” says Wen.

He looks up at them. They wear dark uniforms and their jackets are laden with badges and equipment. Police. A year ago he would have run from them, but now he can only stare. With his free hand he eases the handcuff further up his sleeve, wondering whether they will notice its bulk.

“Do you speak English?” one of them asks.

“Yes.”

“There’s no sleeping here. This is a public park.”

“Sorry.”

The two men exchange a glance. They are both white, English
and dark-haired, though one is stouter than the other. Wen reckons they are a few years younger than he is. The smaller man purses his lips.

“Looks like you’ve had a rough night. Have you been drinking?”

“Drinking?”

“Alcohol.”

“No. No drinking.”

“What happened to your eye?”

“It… no problem.”

“Walked into a lamp-post, eh?”

“Sorry?”

“Were you in a fight?”

“No. No fight. Just…”

Wen’s voice trails off. Just what, he thinks? Drowning? Kidnap? Torture? How could he possibly explain what has happened to him? And where would the story begin? In Morecambe Bay? Or back home, in China?

“Are you injured, sir? Do you need a doctor?”

“No. No doctor. Please. I am fine.”

The smaller policeman is frowning at him now; he seems genuinely concerned. For the first time, it strikes Wen that these men might not be his adversaries. They may even be prepared to help him.

“You don’t look fine,” says the heavy-set policeman. “Do you have somewhere to go?”

Both men stare at him now, awaiting his response.

“Yes. I have friend.” Wen pauses, trying to organise the sequence of English words in his head. “My friend has house,” he says then.

“Does your friend live nearby?”

“No. Not near I think.”

The two men exchange another glance, and the heavy-set
one sighs, running a hand through his hair. The thinner one rummages in his pocket and pulls out a mobile phone.

“Here,” he says, handing Wen the phone. “Call your friend.”

Wen takes the phone and dials Angie’s number without hesitating. He imagines her moving towards the phone, and when he finally hears her voice he feels a small surge of joy.

“Angie?”

“Wen! Is that you?” Her voice is urgent, shot through with fear.

“Yes. Is me.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Bastard! Where
are
you?”

Wen cannot help but smile in response.
Bastard
. A term of endearment among the English. Where would he be without this word?

“Wen?” she says again.

Wen turns to the two policemen, who stand politely to one side.

“Excuse me. Where is here?”

The heavy-set policeman rolls his eyes.