The Killing Room by Peter May Page B

of times, was strained to breaking point. At the end of a long corridor, they stopped at the open door of the detectives’ room. ‘You wait,’ the policewoman said.
    Margaret stood, silently fuming, and watched as the young woman crossed the busy office, and then for the first time she saw Li at a window on the far side of the room. He was deep in earnest conversation with an attractive Chinese woman who appeared to be hanging on his every word. He said something that made her laugh, a strange braying laugh that Margaret could hear above the noise of the office, and she saw the woman touch the back of his hand. Just lightly, with the tips of her fingers. But there was something oddly intimate in it, and Margaret felt a sudden surge of fear and insecurity, swiftly followed by anger. She had not travelled six thousand miles across the world to watch her lover sharing an intimate moment with another woman.
    The uniformed policewoman spoke to Li and he glanced quickly across the room to see Margaret in the doorway. His face lit up in a smile and he hurried across towards her. And for a moment Margaret’s anger and insecurity melted away and all she wanted was for Li to take her in his arms and hold her. But, of course, he couldn’t. And she saw that the woman who had touched his hand had followed immediately behind him.
    ‘Margaret,’ he said, strangely formal. ‘I thought you’d be here earlier.’
    ‘I would have been, if I hadn’t had to find my own way from the airport.’ Her voice could have frosted the windows on the other side of the room.
    Li frowned. ‘But I sent a car out to meet you.’ He turned to the Chinese woman. ‘You put in a request for one, didn’t you, Mei-Ling?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, looking very puzzled. ‘I do not understand what could have happened. I will make enquiries about it.’ She spoke in very good, clear English, with a slightly English accent. And Margaret knew immediately that Mei-Ling had somehow contrived to sabotage the pick-up. There was something in the smile she flashed at Margaret. Something slightly knowing, slightly superior. And all of Margaret’s instincts told her that this woman was after her man.
    Li seemed oblivious. ‘I am really sorry, Margaret. I would have come for you myself, but I have been up to the eyes.’ He paused. ‘This is Nien Mei-Ling. She is my opposite number here in Shanghai. We are working together on the case.’
    Mei-Ling gave her a winning smile and shook her hand. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Li Yan has told me so much about you.’
    ‘Has he?’ Margaret shook her hand a little more firmly than required. You did not cut through human ribs with heavy shears without developing greater than average hand strength. She saw Mei-Ling’s smile become a little more fixed.
    Barely a dozen words had passed between the two women, but there had been an unspoken declaration of war, clear and unequivocal, with Li as the disputed territory.
    Li had heard only the dozen words and had no reason to take them at anything other than face value. He glanced at his watch. ‘We had better move. The press conference is in half an hour.’
    Margaret forced her thoughts away from Mei-Ling. ‘Press conference?’ So Jack Geller really did know his stuff, she thought.
    II
    The press conference was held in the Peace Palace Hotel, directly across Nanjing Road from the Peace Hotel where Margaret was able to book in quickly and have her cases taken to her room. Geller had been right again. She barely had time to take in the marbled splendour of the place with its tall arched windows of polished mahogany, its stained-glass galleries with wrought-iron lamp holders and pink glass uplighters, before Li hurried her back out into the rain. They had not even had an opportunity to discuss the case.
    They joined Mei-Ling under the protection of two large black umbrellas, and dodged the traffic in the fading light to cross to the old Palace Hotel, recently acquired by its more