Chapter One

 

Nicola Horsham, half awake, sunlight streaming in the window, reached out a white arm across empty space. Xeng was gone from beside her in the narrow bed. She felt herself blushing self-consciously at the feeling of disappointment which that aroused and, sweeping short red hair from her eyes with the back of her hand, surveyed her surroundings. The flat was too cramped for his absence not to be confirmed at a glance. In the Chinese provinces even a headmaster did not command much living space. He had evidently dressed and gone, leaving her still sleeping. She looked towards the cheap plastic clock on the table. After eleven! She shot upright, the morning air cool on her nakedness, then seeing the note tucked under the clock she reached out and retrieved it. In Xeng's rather stilted English, it said. "My dear Nicky. There has been reported a difficult occurrence at my school. Stay here. I shall return swiftly to you as soon as possible my darling."

Smiling ruefully Nicola sank back, doing as she was told. She wondered if this Masterful approach from her newly acquired lover would begin to pall in the fullness of time. Of course she had known him in London for almost a year, but then he had been a student and they had always been part of a crowd, one always containing other female admirers. Re-encountered now, in this backwater Chinese town where he was considered as a man of standing, there was no real competition. University educated people were few and speakers of English even more rare.

In any event there was no immediate need to get out of bed. It looked as if she would have a long wait. She closed her eyes. Listening to the muted but unfamiliar sounds coming from elsewhere in this shoddily built Soviet style block of flats, she blushed again as her recollections of last night made her wonder how much of the noise she and Xeng had made had reached his neighbours' ears. She wondered jealously if he had brought other, Chinese girls, here.

She had found her lover's fiercely masculine persona curiously fascinating. It contrasted so strangely with the disparity in size between them. She felt an extraordinary enjoyment in feeling outsized and clumsy in public, overtopping all around her and yet, in private, playing the traditional submissive feminine role, being dominated by her virile little male.

Stretching her limbs, no 1onger cramped by a second body in a bed too small for her length, she looked about her. She had not had much time for contemplation of the furnishings last night. Spartan, bare concrete floors under the matting. Plastic topped table and chairs of aluminium tubing. The signs of privilege, big old cream coloured fridge, a new Japanese TV and video. There was a Hong Kong made combined radio and cassette player by the bed, but that had been lugged here from the party last night. There was a definite shortage of personal effects. Xeng had told her that the man who owned the flat was away in Beijing for six months. Nicola wondered why he had chosen to bring her here, rather than to his own home, when everyone at the school knew about her; but she supposed he was still diffident about producing a Western girlfriend too openly. Of course he had a position to maintain and people here were so conservative. She was probably regarded as a shamelessly abandoned creature after last night!

Time passed and she grew impatient. At last she threw back the duvet crossly and swung herself off the bed. She stood up, naked in the sunlight. Stooping, she gathered her clothes up from where they had been dropped as she had shed them. Not a long task! In honour of the occasion, fed up with baggy pants and drab olive or blue cotton jackets, she had been dressed, or perhaps undressed might be more accurate, in the currently skimpy Western style. Calculated, Xeng had said, to give the old men of the ministry fits! Nicola remembered then that her black tights had snagged on some projection in the truck and, after a quick inspection, discarded them, cursing, into the waste bin. After wriggling into black knickers and half bra, sliding into the little black slip dress and pulling it down onto her thighs, she padded barefoot to the single window, to peer cautiously down into the street.

Below her, she could just see a corner of the roof of the little Japanese truck she had borrowed right after the official dinner, still parked in a cul-de -sac behind the building. Six floors below, the street was unaccountably deserted considering the time of day, except for a single flying cyclist. That was how Xeng had got back to his school, she supposed.

Dressed, she paid a quick visit to the communal toilet, nose wrinkled, cautiously scouting the corridor in advance. The smell did not invite her to linger, the facility she guessed was shared with several other flats and she had no desire to become an object of uncouth curiosity. To these people she probably appeared like a creature from another world.

Safely back in the flat she found a comb in her small purse and tried to tidy herself. Xeng hated the boyish crop she normally wore and decent hairdressers were unobtainable here, so she had let it grow and now looked like a wild woman even to herself. She hesitated, comb in hand. The building was quiet and in the distance she had heard the unmistakable rattle of gunfire. She crept back to the window but the source of the firing was still a mystery. Last night it seemed a jolly prank to commandeer the Archaeological Institute's truck and sneak off from the stuffy official dinner to pursue their private celebrations, but sober now, she suddenly felt the hazard of being stuck in this alien place.

Doddering old Professor Dunn, so immersed in the richest discovery of tomb painting ever to be found in China, had refused to be rattled into abandoning the study. It hadn't worried Nicola either until now. After all she had Xeng and London was only a few hours away by air if things turned nasty, but now her friend had gone missing and she wondered if her boss had even noticed her departure from the dinner. She suddenly remembered, with a pang of guilt, that the latest batch of bronzes found at the dig were still in the back of the truck. If they came to any harm, it would probably be the end of her career.

The hours dragged by as Nicola prowled about the small flat. All the books on the shelves were in Chinese. She tried the TV. The local station seemed to have given up transmitting, showing nothing but snow. A badly broken up satellite channel showed talking heads interspersed with the same pictures she was sick of seeing, of a distant fuzzy blob on black space. The damned comet! More hysteria that she could do without! She had too much to worry about as it was. She spent much of her time leaning from the window, keeping an anxious eye upon the truck, anxious now for the bronzes. Occasional bursts of gunfire came from far off and once a convoy of a dozen military trucks full of helmeted soldiers roared past the end of the street. From within the building itself, feet sounded noisily on the stairs and the sound of raised voices came from somewhere below.

Nicola's nerves began to unravel. A thundering on the door startled and alarmed her. It persisted despite her silence, keeping her on tenterhooks until she realised that the noise was backed by a female voice, elderly and quavering. She was cautious all the same in opening up. Outside was an old woman she recognised as the one who had supplied the key when Xeng and she had arrived. The woman reacted to the Nicola's appearance with evident hysteria and excitement, shaking the stick she had been employing on the door under the English girl's nose. She barged inside as Nicola hastily fell back. Her harangue meant nothing to Nicola, but it didn't sound as if it referred merely to some technicality of the tenancy. Nicola knew cross-cultural couples were not generally approved of. Probably the nasty old woman had been emboldened by Xeng's absence to make her opinions clear.

Doors were beginning to bang elsewhere and voices raised in excited enquiry. Nicola had no way of making herself understood or even of knowing what she was accused of. These small town people had very likely only seen Westerners in propaganda films or war crimes exhibitions. She had visions of this mad woman raising a lynch mob. Guiltily remembering the truck and its bronzes below, she panicked. This place, like so many old Chinese towns, she knew to be built on a grid pattern and from the window of the flat she had recognised the buildings of Xeng's school only two blocks away. She would drive there now, whether he liked it or not, and he would just have to get her and bronzes back to the Institute somehow.

She made a dash past the old woman, risking the stick, and out down the metal- railed stairs. An old man in spectacles dropped the thermos he was carrying, goggling in horror as if she had been an escaping wild beast. She dodged round a flock of young children who shrieked wildly only half in play as she plunged on down, tottering desperately in her unsuitable heels, voices shrilling behind her.

The cab of the little truck seemed like a refuge. She threw herself into the driving seat, fishing in her purse for the key, gasping with relief as she turned on and the engine burst immediately into life. Trust Japanese efficiency! She grated the gears a bit, hampered by her high heels. They were not best suited to driving, but after all she had managed last night. Xeng, coming from a country where private motoring was rare, gave her more credit than she deserved for this routine ability.

Several people had emerged from the flats after her and were making gestures of halting the truck's departure. Conscious that her skirt was riding up on her hips and a good deal of white boob was struggling to escape her low neckline, Nicola declined to be interviewed, scattering them with a blast of the horn. She noticed only at the last minute that some of them wore a sort of red armband; the mark of one of those semi-­official functions that seemed to give people the right to interfere in their neighbours' business. She saw fists being waved in her rear view mirror and hoped fervently that she hadn't done any injury, then taking one corner then another, looked out for the school. She saw it down the next street, but there were more people about and, further on, the way was completely blocked by a milling, yelling crowd waving red and black flags. She saw faces turn at the edge of the crowd as she slammed on the brakes. Missiles began to arch towards her. Vehicles tended to mark the presence of privileged authority in these parts.

She reversed wildly, back round the corner out of the line of fire, but it was only to discover looking in the mirror that the people from the flats were still in hot pursuit. She swung the vehicle left down a narrow alley between two tall buildings. She swung right again at the exit from the alley, hoping to reach the school by a roundabout route. Some kind of street market had been in progress, wooden stalls lining the pavements. It was only sparsely attended with many of the stalls standing empty.

She zig-zagged madly between them, sounding the horn continuously, people leaping clear or gesturing angrily. She had almost reached the last of the stalls, when there came the sound of splintering wood and something fell across the cab, obscuring the windscreen. Not daring to stop, she started to wind down the window, hoping to drag the debris clear. As she did so a bright red motor scooter appeared right in front of the van. There was an appalling crash and she saw the rider, in unmistakeable police uniform, tumble under her bouncing wheels while his scooter went skidding away on its side in a shower of sparks.

Panicking entirely now, she drove round corners at random. Xeng's school was surrounded by a high dun-coloured brick wall, probably because it was a correctional facility and the kids were strictly controlled. Nicola easily recognised the wall as she drove past it and the three-storey modern school building was visible beyond it.

There was an iron gate topped by spikes in the wall, halfway along. With immense relief she rammed on the brakes and abandoned the van, hoping it had merely been reported stolen and would not be traced to her. She ran to the gate only to find, predictably enough, that it was padlocked. Beyond the gate she could see a stretch of concrete schoolyard and, temptingly close at hand, an entrance to the building with a glass panelled door standing open. She was tall enough to reach a convenient handhold provided by the cross pieces in the ironwork of the gate. Slipping off her sandals, she made good use of her advantage, climbing it easily. The short length of her dress made it no obstacle, bunching about her hips as she triumphantly straddled the spikes on the upper rail, blessing her long European legs. As she slid down on the inside though, she heard a shrill yell from across the yard.

She didn't wait to find out if the yell was meant for her. Retrieving her sandals, she ran barefoot for the door. There was no one in the small lobby and the long corridor and the glass fronted classrooms that opened onto it seemed deserted. Not trusting it as a refuge, she started up the stairs, hoping to gain time while any pursuers searched for her on the ground floor. The second floor seemed equally deserted. She peered down empty corridors in frustration. She had no idea exactly where the Headmaster's office lay. She was only familiar with the more public part of the school and she guessed that she had entered by an emergency stairway somewhere to the rear of the building.

She tried the top storey, another flight up without any more success, her only idea to find Xeng. On the top landing an ordinary wooden ladder was propped up to a trapdoor in the roof open to the sky. Nicola mounted it and peered across a vast expanse of flat roof scattered with glass skylights and various pieces of pipework. Along the nearest roof edge a row of banners had been erected on bamboo poles. It looked as if the ladder had been used to gain access for this purpose, but whoever was responsible seemed to have departed.

A bright idea struck her. She would get out onto the roof and pull up the ladder behind her. That would foil any searchers and give her a chance to check out the skylights along the roof. If she could locate the school hall where she had first been introduced to the pupils, she would be able to get her bearings.

She knelt and, after a struggle, drew up the ladder, laying it flat on the roof. She heaved the cover shut and sat on it with a groan of relief.

After some thought she lifted up the ladder again and laid it across the cover to weigh it down. Feeling more secure, she crept on all fours to the low brick parapet, peering between the parapet and the banner.

The main gate seemed to be guarded by school pupils, easily distinguished by their blue uniforms, and armed with sticks. Xeng had told her that the girls were a mix of criminals and politicals. She had assumed that the latter were Democratic dissidents, now she realised uneasily that their error might have been xenophobia. Other people were coming and going from the outside in small groups with much chanting and waving of banners. The banners were red with black borders, as were those along the roof edge above Nicola's head. One incoming group seemed to be bringing prisoners, a string of half a dozen figures linked with rope. They disappeared round a corner of the building and Nicola began to be afraid that her refuge was not as safe as she had thought.

Checking the security of the trapdoor first, she crossed to the opposite edge of the roof where even more noise seemed to be coming from. The asphalt was hot so she had to replace her sandals for the purpose. That side was the back of the building, where two lower wings enclosed a courtyard used for vehicular access. Military style trucks were parked there and there was a milling crowd of people. As Nicola peered over the parapet, a knot of people emerged from the central block centred upon one bowed figure in their midst. The group parted, leaving the bowed figure kneeling, a man in a suit and white collared shirt.

There was a sharp report and the man collapsed forward, his collar suddenly bright red. The rest of the group closed in again and, carrying his inert figure between them, slung it limply into the back of one of the trucks. Nicola's stomach heaved. She had eaten nothing since last night's banquet but it felt as if some of it wasn't going to stay down. Careless of the risk of exposure, she sprang up and fled back from the parapet. Wobbling on her high heels, she reeled against one of the opaque glass pyramids that ran down the length of the roof and thrust out a hand to save herself.

There was a crack beneath her hand as a rotten wooden frame gave way. She tried to recover and scramble away from danger but her high heels betrayed her. She slipped and fell bodily backwards against the skylight. The whole frame and its armoured glass panes gave way beneath her added weight, collapsing downwards. A rope struck her in the midriff and she folded up, clutched a hanging length of cloth that slid through her hands and fell the last few feet to land on amid shrill shrieks of alarm upon something softer than the floor with a thump that drove the breath out of her.