‘I don’t-’
‘Why wait?’
‘Maybe we should see what Superintendent Yin-’
‘Jo, we waited fuck knows how long to find out about the text to Shona. Now this guy and his-’
Tom’s phone rings. Anthony is downstairs. We’re leafleting outside Lori’s again.
‘Change of plan,’ Tom tells Anthony. ‘We’ll be down in a minute.’
I stare at him, wondering whether this is wise.
‘We just talk to the guy,’ Tom says to me, ‘ask if Lori photographed him or talked about filming anyone else. What harm can it do? I’m sick of doing nothing. Every day the chances-’
‘Stop!’ I say.
He looks away and drags on his cigarette.
Mr Du’s address is on Lori’s weekly schedule. It takes me a while, and my hand is trembling, but I find the street on the map, and when we go downstairs I show it to Anthony.
‘Where does he work?’ Anthony says. ‘Will he be at home now?’
We don’t know.
The weather is muggy today and the cloud is back, an iron sky. I can feel the pressure of it in my skull.
When we reach the right development, Anthony speaks to the guard at the gate, who lets us through without any further discussion.
The complex is built around gardens and fish ponds with a fountain in the centre, where four huge bronze frogs are spouting water. There are a lot of benches in the shade of the trees and most are occupied by people with toddlers and babies in buggies.
A television outside the lift shows an advert for cosmetic surgery, white coats and beautiful women.
We go up to the flat on the fifteenth floor, but there is no answer.
‘What now?’ says Tom.
A door opens along the corridor and a young woman, wearing a smart black dress and gold sandals, comes out from the next flat.
‘Nǐ hǎo,’ Anthony says. He asks her something, gesturing to the flat we’re interested in.
She replies to him, then smiles and says, ‘Zài jiàn.’ Sci chen, goodbye. She walks to the lift, the slap of her shoes echoing on the concrete floor.
‘He comes home for lunch,’ Anthony says, ‘about one o’clock. He works for a property firm.’
Like half the city, I imagine.
‘It’s twelve thirty,’ Tom says, checking his phone.
‘We could sit in the garden and wait,’ I say.
So that’s what we do.
The garden is planted with red and green acers and glossy palms. A very dark-leafed tree has racemes of shocking pink flowers, their fragrance reminding me of honeysuckle. Finches, with red and white markings, dart in and out of the trees, wiping their beaks on the branches. A bird, the size of a thrush, coloured brown with a white ring around each eye and a tuft on its head, flies down to the path and back.
