Free The Fourth Sacrifice by Peter May Page A

huge load of the round coal briquettes that fuelled the winter fires of Beijing. Finally he got past him, squeezing between the cart and an on-coming bus at the Dongsi Shitiao junction. Then he left the sights and smells of food behind as he free-wheeled along the final shaded stretch of road before the corner of Dongzhimennei Street, where he hoped his own lunch would await him in the form of a jian bing .
    Mei Yuan was busy preparing two jian bings for a couple of schoolgirls as Li drew up his bike. It gave him the chance to watch her as she worked the hotplate inside the small glass house with its pitched red roof that perched on the rear of her extended tricycle. Her dark hair was drawn back in its customary bun, her smooth-skinned face a little more lined and showing more strain than usual. She grinned when she saw him, cheeks dimpling, and the life immediately returned to her lovely, dark, slanted eyes. She had, he knew, a soft spot for him. There was an unspoken empathy between them. In some very small way he filled the space left by the son she had lost, and she the hole in his life left by the death of his mother – both victims of the Cultural Revolution. Neither made demands on the other. It was just something that had grown quietly.
    She poured some pancake mix on to her hotplate and watched it sizzle and bubble before breaking an egg on to it. He could barely resist the temptation to give her a hug. The previous week she had been missing from her corner for a few days, and finally he had gone to her home to find out why. He had found her in bed, sick and alone. One of the new breed of self-employed, she had no work unit to look after her welfare. He had cooked her a meal himself that night, and paid for a girl to go in every day to feed her and keep the house clean. The previous evening she had told him she would be back at her usual corner today, even although he felt she was not completely recovered. And here she was, pale and strained, and fighting to kick-start her life again.
    She flipped the pancake over, smeared it with hoisin and chilli, and sprinkled it with chopped spring onion and coriander, before breaking a square of deep-fried whipped egg white into its centre, folding it in half and in half again, and then handing it, wrapped in brown paper, to the second schoolgirl. ‘Two yuan,’ she said, then turned beaming to Li. ‘Have you eaten?’
    ‘Yes, I have eaten.’ He made the traditional response to the Beijing greeting, then added, ‘I’m sorry I missed breakfast. Work.’
    ‘That’s no excuse,’ she chided him. ‘A big lad like you needs feeding.’ She began another jian bing . ‘I’m beginning to think you’re avoiding me.’
    ‘Why would I do that?’
    ‘Because you don’t have an answer to the last riddle I set you?’
    He frowned. ‘When did you set me a riddle?’
    ‘Before I got sick.’
    ‘Oh,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I don’t remember it.’
    ‘How very convenient,’ she said. ‘I’ll remind you.’
    ‘I thought you might.’
    She grinned. ‘If a man walks in a straight line without turning his head, how can he continue to see everything he has walked past? And there are no mirrors involved.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ Li said. ‘I remember now. It was too easy.’
    ‘Oh? So tell me.’
    Li shrugged. ‘He’s walking backwards, of course.’
    She narrowed her eyes. ‘Yes, it was too easy, wasn’t it?’ She finished the jian bing and handed it to him. He bit into its spicy, savoury softness and drew out a two-yuan note. She pushed his hand away. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said.
    ‘I’m not being silly,’ he insisted, and reached beyond her to drop the note in her tin. ‘If your house was burgled and I was sent to investigate, would you phone my bosses and say, “It’s all right, you don’t need to pay him for this investigation, I know him”?’
    She couldn’t resist a smile. ‘Is this a riddle for me?’
    ‘No, it’s not. I don’t have one today. You