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  PRAISE

  Andy Oakes’s first novel Dragon’s Eye introduced us to Sun Piao, one of the great modern detectives and a hero for our times. Dragon’s Eye was both a critical and commercial success. The winner of The European Crime and Mystery Award for 2004 it has been translated so far into German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Serbian.

  Here are a few comments:

  “I don’t know if Oakes’s picture of China is accurate, but it is something better: convincing, filled with both impressionistic atmosphere and precise detail, scents and textures, sweat and silk, mud and guns, burning charcoal and peasant food. The poor old critic’s cell door suddenly opened wide after the long Christmas bang-up: Dragon’s Eye is a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card for the imagination.” Jane Jakeman in The Independent

  “For a debut novel, Dragon’s Eye is a remarkably assured piece of fiction. In terms of structure, Oakes displays a natural gift for suspense, and manages to tease the reader at all the right moments with just the right amount of information to keep the pages turning. The narrative pace is also impeccably created, with just the necessary amount of restraint at key places to keep things ticking along nicely. Add to that a real flair for description which immerses the reader in the strange and wonderfully alien world of modern urban China, and you’ve got a debut novel that will surely attract plenty of acclaim.” Doug Johnstone in Scotland on Sunday

  “The most compelling character in Oakes’ melancholy, evocative new conspiracy thriller is the present day city of Shanghai itself: dark and decadent and pulsing with menacing energy, with suggestion of the lawlessness of an Old West town or gangland metropolis.” Publishers Weekly

  “Eight gory, ritualistic murders discovered in a muddy river in the dead of night. A bitter loner detective with a troubled past. A web of deceit drawing together corporate greed, political corruption, gangsterism and a lot of dark, rainy, moody street backdrops.” The Scotsman

  “The pictures conjured up of Shanghai and of the complexities of a corrupt and claustrophobic China is gripping. Accurate or not, it is the long, stealthy shadow of the state falling across its pages that marks this crime novel out as something of an original in its genre.” Ranti Williams in The Observer

  “Yaobang, a marvellous creation of gluttony, stained ties, expletives and improbable, boisterous good humour.” James Urquhart in The Independent on Sunday

  “The following investigation is described in detail as brilliant and meticulous as the sanguine but relentless investigator, Sun Piao, around who the novel revolves. Oakes is a master of research and evocation and, with more twists and turns than a gyrating Chinese dragon, the story peels back the many layers of the country’s society to reveal a web of corruption and deception.” The Big Issue

  “It’s an excellent bit of storytelling – coarse, nasty and gritty – while at its centre is a decent and humane man. If you only read one detective novel this year …” Eugene Bryne in Venue *****

  “The chain-smoking detective at the centre of Dragon’s Eye is, naturally, cynical and jaded, but also metaphysically challenged – he hates his job, but could not be and, perhaps, would not choose to be anything else and is thus condemned to patrol the streets of Shanghai, a lonely and haunted figure. As the plot, which can fairly be described as labyrinthine, builds, so does the feeling of claustrophobia as the circle of investigation becomes wider and the people Sun Piao can trust become fewer. All told, a gripping and deeply involving genre piece.” Michael Harcourt in The Leeds Guide

  DEDICATIONS

  To Annie and Tom … always

  Fsi yp rz kfrnqz ufxy fsi kzyzwj … n znxm ymfy n mfi pstzs ztz.

  This book is dedicated to Manchester United Football Club, its players, past and present … and to its manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, and the memory of the great Matt Busby. Thank you for the dream.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book is written in memory of Molly and Cliff Wyatt, true and honest people. Alan Fisher, writer, teacher, cravat wearer, and gentleman. And Gary Jewell, a friend who I think about every day. Rest in peace.

  A book like this cannot be written without the help and support of many people, their expertise and skill. My special thanks goes to Juri Gabriel and Eric Lane, for their patience, insight, hard work, and faith in me. My manuscripts would simply be at the back of a bottom drawer if it were not for them! I would also like to thank Sean McMinn for his expert help on the diving scene within the book. Gaurav Kumar for his tutorial on NetBIOS computer hacking. Lee Geering for explaining the tutorial on NetBIOS hacking. And a thank you to Joel Griggs for our very enjoyable lunches together and our challenging conversations about writing … all of my best wishes go to you for success in your own writing projects. My thanks also go to my colleagues and friends at William Parker Sports College, Hastings, for their constant support and enthusiasm which have really re-fuelled me at the times when I have needed it the most. Also to my colleagues in the Youth Development Service, Hastings. A special mention must go to the CONNEXIONS team of Intensive Support Personal Advisers, who do such valuable work, ‘beyond the call of duty’, with young people and their families. It is a constantly moving pleasure working with you all. Thanks especially go to Sue Fenwick, Sally Thompsett, Bev Gibbs, Sarah Church, Ruth Adams, Steve Carter, Patrick Flynn, and Richard Lewis. A debt of gratitude must also go to all of the young people that I have worked with … your strength, resilience, and perceptiveness, amazes me. I am sure that you have given me more insights than I have ever given you.

  CONTENTS

  Title

  Praise

  About the Author

  Dedications

  Acknowledgements

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Part Two

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Glossary of Terms

  Copyright

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  THE NEW NATIONAL STADIUM. SHANGHAI, THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.

  A Red Flag pulling up. Four men piling from it. Four men fashioned from the same blueprint: flat-foreheaded, dull-eyed, gash-mouthed. And their smell, of st
rong fingers and hard hearts. Pulling the girl from the automobile. Red Flag. Prodding her forward with pistols nods and shakes. Following behind, as they herded her through mid-calf mud. Slipping. Hands, knees, into ooze. Pulling her up by her arm-pits. Pushing, prodding her on. Laughter. Taunts. But still no words from the girl. The sound only of rasped breaths, and a breeze, keen and sighing through a forest of scaffolding.

  Behind wire net fencing, curves of concrete. Skeletal banks of stairs, leading from mud to nowhere, and, rippling in the breeze, ribbons: red, yellow, black and blue in arc-lit shadows above two mud-spattered, five inter-linking ringed banners. One with the legend

  THE PEOPLE’S OLYMPICS … 2008

  The other.

  OLYMPICS 2008 … The eyes of the world watching the People’s Republic of China

  Beyond the fence, darkness; at its centre floodlit constructs, arc illuminated concrete edifices and bamboo forests of scaffolding. A country of the partial, a continent of the incomplete. The Olympic dream made real in rough textured materials, a vast oval enclosing a static ocean of mud. Half-lit, half-unlit. Around its edge, dark, shored-up pit holes, the foundations for the enormous banks of incomplete stands, that would seat the worshippers at the altar of the struggle between the clean and the doped bloods.

  At the far end of the crescent moon, activity, noise. A machine turning out its life. A rhythmic effort of cogs and pneumatics. As they approached, figures around the machine moving away into the night, as if a plague were approaching.

  Ankle deep mud, the shoeless girl dragged to the very centre of the oval. Left on her knees, wild-eyed, as the men separated, receding into darkness. Equal metres of black mud between them. Laughing as they knelt. Joking as they mimicked the pose of sprinters waiting for the starter’s pistol.

  Disembodied, a rasp of a shout.

  “On your marks.”

  Out of the night, a serrated whisper to the girl.

  “Run. Your last chance for life.”

  Head craned over her shoulder, the girl starting to run, slip, fall. Running again.

  “Get set.”

  In imaginary blocks, the men rising. Eyes pinned to the rag-doll fifty metres ahead, toppling, rising back up in an ungainly slip.

  Laughter, whistles, cat calls.

  “Go!”

  Four shadows in darker shadow, rising, slipping, sprinting, falling. Through darkness, gaining on the string-snipped puppet ahead. A cry as she saw them emerge from a floodlit oasis. Skidding towards her. Falling. Scrabbling back to their feet. Hearing their breaths, ripped. Closer. Closer. And in their hands, so bright, so sharp … cut throat razors, stainless-steel teeth aching to bite. Sobbing, falling, just picking herself up as the first was upon her. A blur of darkness and silver. So bright, never brighter. Hearing its slash through the air. Through the material of the back of her blouse. Through her brassiere strap. And instantly, a chilling coldness, followed by a roll of sticky heat. A wave, as warm as caramel, down her back. Falling to her knees, but unaware of the biting coldness of the muddy pool that she was kneeling in. Aware only of the darkness turning; of a fist, silver blade in its clasp. Black, her blood upon its razor edge. Watching as it fell in a deep track across her face, shoulder and arm. Watching, as her blouse succumbed to the warm tide. Cuts upon her as stinging rain. Frenzied fever of violence, sharp breath indented. Sable faces, shot with diamond-beaded sweat and panted exhilaration. Suddenly to his order, silence. Just breaths, excited breaths. And then he was over her. Slowly, as with a lover’s touch, a cut-throat razor gently slipping between the edges of her blouse. Buttons in slow fall. The sodden material eased aside. Silver blade to her skirt. Hands clawing at the material, pulling it adrift. Her clothes thrown aside, falling as kites’ tails. And then a pain set within so much other pain. Almost lost within it. The man with the pockmarked face making deep carvings into her abdomen. Each stroke of steel through her skin’s weak resistance, matched with a squeeze of his irises. Faintly laboured breaths of papercut lips. So much concentration, in mutilating. A comrade of immense focus, even in killing. With all of her effort, through lacerated lips, one word, falling faint against his cologned cheek.

  “Why?”

  He laughing, amused that she should even ask. His answer, lips against her torn ear, equally faint.

  “Because I can.”

  His blade slicing down her flank to the side of her panties. The fine material slipping frayed. Pulled aside. His hot breath. Laughter, as with torn hands, she attempted to hide herself. Gently, her fingers coaxed away with the cut-throat’s gleaming edge. And then as he walked away, pushing another towards her.

  “Your turn, Comrade Officer.”

  A reply. Words that she did not hear. Words that she had no wish to hear. Her gaze falling to a gap in the far bowl of the stadium structure. The city, so near, so very far.

  “I said, your turn, Comrade Officer. That is if you wish to be a member of our club.”

  Pushing him again. Nearer. Through the smell of blood, metal and pepper, his reek of vinegar sweat. And at the very horizon of her hearing, their voices chanting, goading him.

  Against the darkness of the night his arm in a scything sweep. Blade in a race through the cold air and across her soft throat. A shiver of excitement running through him. Standing back as he surveyed her. He, at that moment, a god, bleeding her life into the puddled mud.

  Her eyes, blind to her murderer dropping his trousers, deaf to his comrades’ jeers. Oblivious to his callous pumps into her. Her blood baptising him; the clench of her vagina around him, as she convulsed in death, forcing him to come prematurely. His seed falling cold within her. Dead by the time he had completely ejaculated. His arch-backed act caught in icy still frames, by the man with the pockmarked face.

  Withdrawing to applause. Buttoning himself as he grinned at the camera. Pats on his back as they dragged her through the mud to the very edge of one of the shored foundation holes. From the rear of the group, the man with the pock-marked face moving forward. His eyes meeting theirs. Only a nod, the act not even demanding words. A nod back, then booted feet kicking her from the arclight into darkness. Falling headlong into the hole, body tumbling, limbs flailing. Another nod from the man with the pockmarked face. A hand on a lever, a belch of diesel fumes with revs building and a deep metallic voice growing. The machine’s voice, by the second more potent. A vast iron flamingo, the veined machine dipping its piped neck forward, down. Revs drowning everything. Now a river, the fall of liquid concrete, rising over the chest, flowing thickly into the mouth and the nostrils. Congealing over upturned eyes. The dead girl, now a stone crucifix. The liquid concrete rising, until there was nothing to be seen.

  The man with the pockmarked face smiling. Unzipping his flies, and pissing into the hole. By the time he had re-zipped himself, adjusted his tailored-uniform jacket, the concrete had completely filled the hole, running into shallow channelled rectangular foundations either side of it. The man with the pockmarked face nodding again, one last time. A hand reaching for the lever, plunging it back. Silence. Just the pulse of the distant highways.

  Laughter, as they walked from the cloying interior of the half-formed national stadium. Laughter as they viewed images on the camera’s bright screen.

  Behind them figures moving from darkness, back to work. Behind them, life and the living of it. Safe now… the plague, receded.

  No words. Car doors slamming. The Red Flags’ engines fracturing the silence. Headlights fanning across draped banners.

  OLYMPICS 2008, CHINA … THE WORLD WILL BE WATCHING

  Cigarette smoke merging. Jokes, slaps on backs, and a silver flask of French brandy passed from hand to hand, and mouth to mouth. All but the man with the pockmarked face drinking. But he was watching, always watching.

  A gold ring knocking on the dividing glass that separated the driver from his passengers, proletariat from princeling … from tai zi. A deferential nod from the chauffeur. A deferential foot gently applied to accelerator.
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br />   There would be hot showers. Clean clothes made from the most expensive materials. There would be drinks, imported spirits and wines, waiting across the city. Waiting in the chrome-drenched Zhapu Road. Also food made from the finest of ingredients, enough to satisfy the Six Flavours of Chinese cuisine. The rich, fei. The fragrant, xiang. The fermented, chou. The crisp, song. The fresh, xiang. The full-bodied, nong.

  There would be opium, served in silver pipes. And whores… not yeh-jis bought for a brace of beers. Not diseased ‘wild pheasants’ … a fuck for a pack of China Brand, oral for a handful of loose change fen. But a choice of whores from a menu of the most exquisite faces, the most desirable bodies. Just a bleeper summons away. Dollars, green and American, by the thousands, buying insatiable exploration of their perfumed delights.

  Already the sensing of the opium’s sweet, breezing dream, the whore’s rouged nipples and her lipsticked lips. Anticipation, so often more fulfilling than reality. Even with the aphrodisiac of murder in your nostrils and tasted in the fine cement powder at the back of your tongue.

  On his wrist an alarm loudly bleeping from an oversized watch. A life lived in divisions of two hours. The man with the pockmarked face switching the alarm off and re-setting the timer. Sitting back into the antique leather of the Red Flag as they passed the silver flask once more, draining it dry. Lighting another cigarette, foreign and long. Basking in the smoke that he knew would be smoothing his face. He would watch them swill the concrete dust from their mouths, so dry, with a fine Merlot. The finest. What better mouthwash? And then whores’ mouths to theirs in a joining of business and pleasure.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Ankang’ – Peace and Health.

  Do not be a hua fengzi, a ‘romantic maniac’. One who looks dishevelled or unkempt. One who has an adverse effect on social decorum.