The Princeling of Nanjing by Ian Hamilton Read Free Book Online

blood-alcohol level, wouldn’t cure jet lag, and wouldn’t make her any more alert, but she believed in the power of placebos; for her, warm, strong streams of water had somehow always worked. She stood in the shower for close to ten minutes and then quickly towelled herself dry. She threw on clean underwear, the PÖ T-shirt she’d got at the launch, and her Adidas training pants and jacket. She headed downstairs feeling, if not invigorated, at least refreshed.
    She almost walked right into Xu’s Mercedes when she exited the hotel. Suen was standing by the rear door. He opened it as soon as he saw her. She slid in and leaned over to kiss Xu on the cheek.
    “You’re lucky I checked my messages before going to bed,” she said. “If I’d gotten between those sheets I don’t know if anything could have wakened me.”
    “Are you okay?”
    “I took a shower. It helped.”
    “To the house,” Xu said to the driver.
    “Were things that bad?” Ava asked as the car pulled away from the hotel.
    “Let’s not discuss that until we’re home,” Xu said.
    Xu lived in the French Concession, a neighbourhood primarily west of the Bund. The land had initially been ceded to the French in 1849, and the territory was expanded around 1920. Its original street layout and architecture were mainly French with a touch of other European styles, but after the Communists took over in 1949, some buildings were torn down and parts of the area were badly redeveloped, until a public outcry ended the destruction. Xu’s neighbourhood had escaped the Communist-style development and still had the aura of a European enclave. He lived in a cottage that was accessed through a narrow alleyway with brick walls on both sides.
    She knew they were close to the house when the car slowed to a crawl and made a left turn down an alley with a fruit cart vendor at its entrance. The driver rolled down the window so Suen could talk to the vendor. Ava knew that at the other end of the alley was another fruit cart. They manned the alleyway twenty-four hours a day, and she was sure that under the piles of oranges and apples were a gun and an alarm.
    As the car moved down the narrow alleyway, a gate swung open to the left. They turned into a courtyard that was big enough to park three cars alongside a fish pond and a patio. Just inside the courtyard, two men flanked the gate, while a third stood near the door to the house.
    “I thought that after the issue with Guangzhou was resolved you wouldn’t need this much security,” Ava said.
    “I don’t think I’m in any particular danger, but security has become part of the structure, and Suen would be aggravated if I reduced it. Besides, I love it here and I don’t want to move,” Xu said.
    They left the car and began to walk towards the house. The front door opened before they reached it, and Ava found herself looking at a tiny grey-haired woman.
    “Auntie Grace,” she said.
    “Ava, I’m so happy to see you again.”
    “And I to see you,” Ava said, knowing that she was looking at the one woman in Xu’s life who could never be replaced. Auntie Grace had been Xu’s nanny from the day he was born and his housekeeper from the day he became head of the family.
    “I have congee,” she said.
    “I wish I could eat, but I’m stuffed.”
    “Noodles?”
    “Auntie, I can’t.”
    “Xu?” she said.
    “I’ll have noodles,” he said. “But first, bring me that bottle of whisky I’ve been saving and let me get started on that.”
    Auntie Grace stepped back into the house so they could pass. “I don’t like it when he needs that whisky,” she said to Ava as if Xu wasn’t standing next to her.
    “We’ll go to the kitchen,” Xu said, pretending not to hear.
    They walked through the living room and into the kitchen. The white-tiled floor was stained and chipped, and a folding table — the kind brought out for a game of mah-jong — had been set up in the corner with two folding chairs. The appliances