I stretch and relax, wanting to let go of the tension lodged in my shoulders and guts.
Piped music starts coming through speakers hidden in the foliage and then a man’s voice reciting something. I pick out numbers yi, er, san. Perhaps he is listing the rules of the park, or the attractions to be seen, or some principles of poetry.
I watch the ants running hither and thither around my feet, all the appearance of random panic, though I know they are organized, carefully following trails laid by others, working for the good of the colony. Two ants carry a burden, a grain of rice or perhaps an insect egg, wrestle it to a crack in the paving and release it there.
How much do the police know about Mr Du? Suspicious, half-formed thoughts hover at the edges of my mind, grotesque gargoyles, like the dragons that guard the gates in the park: teeth and claws, leathery scales, sulphurous breath.
Why does everything have to be filtered through Peter Dunne? Can’t they give the investigation to someone who can speak English, who can deal with us directly? I think of DI Dooley and the trip to report Lori missing, the enormity of it.
An ant runs over my foot. I dash it away, stand up and walk round the corner where there is a fountain in a circular pool.
Dawn’s words echo in my head, Weirdo… kept asking if she had a boyfriend. The last person to see her. Did she go back there? Was Mr Du the subject she was ‘making a start’ with?
A siren loops from across the water. Then I notice a break in the noise and wonder if the traffic lights have changed because, for two seconds, the roar of engines and the percussion of horns soaks away and birdsong, with the splash of the fountain, comes to the fore. Closing my eyes, I think of home, of clear, clean air and the peace of the garden. There is no way to concentrate with this barrage of sound. It takes so much energy just to shut it out that there’s little space left for coherent thought.
On the way back we pass a tuk-tuk parked on the pavement, with fruit piled high and a set of old-fashioned scales.
‘English?’ the vendor says, with a broad smile.
‘Yes,’ Tom says.
‘London?’
‘Manchester,’ Tom says.
‘Manchester?’
‘Yes, Manchester,’ Tom says.
‘You know Jackie?’ he says brightly.
We shake our heads.
‘Jackie in London. London, yes?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Chengdu, like?’
I have a spare leaflet in my bag, and show him.
‘Aah,’ he says sadly.
‘Have you seen her?’ I say, struggling to remember the Chinese. ‘
