by Mai Jia
Hihara then requested the transcript of Gu Xiaomeng’s conversation with Secretary Bai. ‘What do you get from this?’ he asked Wang Tianxiang. It appeared to be a rhetorical question. ‘What I get from this is two quite different Gu Xiaomengs. One is a spoilt young woman who uses her position to bully people, who does just what she feels like, and who is afraid of nothing and nobody because she is Daddy’s Little Girl; the other is the highly experienced, brave and intelligent Ghost who has successfully confused us all along with her daring and counter-intuitive actions.’
That was very deep. Wang Tianxiang was left speechless.
‘We’ve already decided that she’s been behaving like this just to be annoying – throwing her weight around,’ Hihara explained. ‘But if she wasn’t so rude to everyone, she’d be in the frame for being Ghost. What if she really is Ghost? She’s actually confessed – she’s admitted her guilt – but in such a way that we immediately discounted it. That’s very clever, very courageous. Isn’t there a story about that kind of thing from the Song dynasty?’
He paused and looked over at the Police Chief, as if waiting for confirmation. None came.
He elaborated. ‘A thief broke into the house of a rich man, but even though he rifled through the trunks and searched the cupboards, he didn’t find any treasures. It turned out that the man had hidden his riches in his storehouse, suspended from the roof beams among his hams and sacks of dried chillies. It was a counter-intuitive move, a kind of dirty trick, something that nobody would expect, and that’s why it worked.’
Wang Tianxiang could see that his boss was pleased as he said these astonishing things. He was clearly preparing to embark on a new phase of his investigation, and he was getting up his confidence and looking very excited. Since excessive excitement had rendered his own mind totally blank, he couldn’t think of anything worthwhile to say, so he just mentioned courteously, ‘Earlier, Section Chief Jin Shenghuo did say she was a Communist.’
‘I wouldn’t normally believe a word that Jin Shenghuo says,’ Hihara said darkly, ‘but when applied to the Gu Xiaomeng we have before us today – someone who is desperate to make contact with the outside world – we need to take it seriously.’
He told Wang Tianxiang to call up this Mr Jian immediately. ‘Tell him that Gu Xiaomeng is too busy at work to be able to get away but that she’s asked you to take him a present, and that you want to meet him.’
Mr Jian was absolutely thrilled when all this was communicated to him. He obviously had no idea it was a trap, and it was the work of moments to decide when and where they should meet.
Of course, the meeting needed to happen as soon as possible – Wang Tianxiang would set out straight away. As to where, well, at the man’s home would be best; that way he couldn’t escape.
Now they had the problem of what to take him. The item itself wasn’t so important, but it needed to somehow force Gu Xiaomeng and Mr Jian into revealing their true identities. It was Colonel Hihara’s view that if Gu Xiaomeng was indeed Ghost, then there was every chance that Mr Jian was another agent, either her superior or one of her juniors, and that the reason she was desperate to see him was undoubtedly to get a message out. In line with this theory, Hihara planned to secrete into whatever was chosen as a gift a slip of paper asking Mr Jian to go to a specific location to collect some equipment for Ghost.
In the end they decided on a tin of biscuits that Hihara had brought with him from Shanghai. The slip of paper was carefully placed right at the bottom, underneath all the biscuits, so that it wouldn’t be discovered by accident – you would find it only if you were looking for it.
4
Mr Jian was a northerner, a tall man who spoke standard Chinese, had a long scarf wrapped round his neck and wore glasses. There was, however, something odd about him. Given his height and build, he could have been a marine, and he was clearly very strong, but he also had the air of a scholar, thanks to his refined manners and polite way of speaking. As soon as he saw him, Wang Tianxiang was sure that he recognized this Mr Jian, and it soon became evident why. It transpired that Mr Jian was famous in Hangzhou; he was an actor and at the start of the year he’d had the lead role in a play about Sino-Japanese friendship, so posters with his face on it had been plastered all over the city. There’d even been a special performance put on for Police Chief Wang’s division at headquarters, so it was no wonder he remembered the face.
Mr Jian was living in a hotel, in a suite on the second floor. On the nightstand in his bedroom there was a cabinet photograph of Gu Xiaomeng, so the two of them were obviously very close – quite possibly he was even her boyfriend. The photograph had been tinted: her lips were red, her eyebrows black, and her cheeks peach-pink, a blush floating on chalk-white skin. At first glance, it didn’t look much like Gu Xiaomeng, but when you examined it more closely, it was an excellent likeness.
The other room in the suite was a sitting room cum library. Wang Tianxiang sat down on the sofa there, smoking a cigarette and chatting with Mr Jian. It was his considered opinion that Mr Jian seemed quite normal. He certainly didn’t appear nervous or suggest in any way that he was up to something, and their conversation was perfectly pleasant. He really didn’t look like a member of the Communist underground. However, the book that he’d left on the sofa was somewhat concerning; it was the latest work by the famous avant-garde writer Ba Jin, Autumn, which had been published the year before, in July 1940. Police Chief Wang looked at the bookcases and saw that they contained lots of Ba Jin’s other writings: The Family; Spring; Destruction and so on – all of his novels, in fact. He also noticed a lot of other works by left-wing writers such as Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Ding Ling, Jiang Guangci, Xiao Jun and Rou Shi. There were an awful lot of them. Did that mean that when he performed for the Imperial Japanese Army, it was all an act?
When Colonel Hihara was given this news over the phone, he ordered Police Chief Wang to keep Mr Jian under surveillance and arrest him the moment he went to the meeting place they’d identified on the slip of paper.
However, Mr Jian didn’t go anywhere, or at least not straight away. Having said goodbye to Wang Tianxiang, he went to the theatre and didn’t come out again. Wang Tianxiang remained on guard for two hours and by the end of it was very bored and irritable. When it began to get dark, he had a soldier take over while he went back to report to Colonel Hihara.
*
Yet again, things hadn’t worked out the way they’d hoped. Should they allow the situation to evolve naturally or should they stir things up with a big stick? Colonel Hihara favoured the second option. But how and with what sort of big stick?
Then Wang Tianxiang happened to mention that Gu Xiaomeng was a real gourmet, which immediately gave Colonel Hihara an idea.
‘Well, in that case we’ll organize a banquet and trap her that way!’
He could never have anticipated that it would be Li Ningyu who would draw all eyes upon her at dinner that evening.
5
Colonel Hihara himself joined them for their banquet, which he hosted in a private room in the dining hall. The food had been carefully selected; there was fish, chicken and very strong Daqu liquor. Hihara wanted them to drink as much as possible – to drink until they were drunk, to drink until they started turning on each other, to drink until they told him the truth.
So as soon as they got there, he poured them all a large glass of wine, right to the brim, then raised his own glass in the first toast. ‘Come on, everyone, raise your glasses. This is the first time I’ve been able to join you here for dinner, and I hope it’ll be the last.’
However, Li Ningyu refused to raise her glass. She was very sensitive to alcohol, she said, and never drank it. Hihara asked the others whether this was true, and they all said that they didn’t know. Since Li Ningyu never had anything to do with anyone else, nobody had ever had a meal with her before.
‘Clearly, Unit Chief Li here was very well brought up,’ Hihara said.
Li Ningyu remained stony-faced. ‘Of
course I was. Were you hoping otherwise, Colonel Hihara?’
Hihara laughed heartily at this. ‘Do you really think that one glass of wine would make you a fallen woman? What about having just have a sip?’
But Li Ningyu wouldn’t budge. Her refusal to join in ruined everyone else’s mood and made them feel uncomfortable about drinking, which was very annoying for Hihara. He studied Li Ningyu’s cold face, saw how determined she was to set herself apart and couldn’t help but wonder: is she afraid of getting drunk and revealing the truth? What followed, however, was rather more dramatic.
A quarrel broke out between Li Ningyu and Chief of Staff Wu Zhiguo about halfway through the dinner. This was bound to happen sooner or later: the two of them had come out as enemies very early on, and they’d both been spoiling for a fight. From the moment they took their seats, Wu Zhiguo had been glaring angrily at Li Ningyu, and at one point he actually balled his fist and shook it at her. When they’d finished eating and the toasts began, he said all kinds of strange things, some of which were barely veiled threats and others that were just pointedly sarcastic. Li Ningyu didn’t say a word. She just put up with it, pretending that she hadn’t heard. She was obviously a woman who could hold her nerve, but by letting him get away with it, she was also showing weakness. Finally, as if he’d suddenly thought of the idea, Wu Zhiguo demanded that she repeat everything she’d said the other day about her office and the contents of the top-secret telegram.
‘If she changes her story in any way,’ he said to Colonel Hihara, ‘that’ll prove that she’s been lying.’
‘But if I don’t,’ Li Ningyu said, ‘won’t that prove that you are Ghost?’
‘If you repeat it word for word,’ Wu Zhiguo said, ‘that just means you’re a really slippery customer, if you can even remember your own lies.’
‘In that case I’m not saying anything. Whatever I say, I’m going to end up in the wrong.’
‘You just don’t dare. You don’t even dare have a glass of wine in case you slip up and reveal that you are Ghost—’
Before he’d even finished speaking, Li Ningyu had grabbed a glass and hurled the contents at him. The wine hit him full in the face.
That caused absolute chaos. Fortunately, there were plenty of people present, and they were quick to separate the two of them, otherwise Li Ningyu would have been on the receiving end of some nasty kicks and punches. That was the kind of person Chief of Staff Wu Zhiguo was – he was a military man, he beat people up for a living, and he was used to using his fists and his feet. Li Ningyu might have been frosty and austere, but being a woman, when it came to trading punches, she was definitely at a disadvantage.
*
Hihara’s banquet-as-trap plan had been ruined. As he watched them file out of the room, his gaze was focused on one person: Li Ningyu. In his opinion, her behaviour that evening had served to tip her hand. She was a clever woman, but she’d made a clever person’s mistake.
She’d been so patient, putting up with all those insults Wu Zhiguo had hurled at her to begin with, so why did she suddenly snap? Had what he said really been so insulting? No, it had not. What he’d said had been perfectly straightforward, no swear words at all – no ‘fuck you’ or abuse about her family; at worst it was an unpleasant personal comment. Was that worth getting so angry about? The more he thought about it, the more Hihara felt there was something not quite right about it. Had she launched her sudden attack to avoid having to answer Wu Zhiguo’s challenge – because she was genuinely afraid that her story wouldn’t hold together? Which would mean she was actually lying. Which would mean…
It was becoming more and more complicated.
The strange thing was that Colonel Hihara wasn’t annoyed at this development – not at all. In fact, he seemed to be pleased. Perhaps in his heart of hearts he didn’t want Gu Xiaomeng to be Ghost. After all, her father was an important supporter of the puppet government; Nanjing had given him a lot of publicity, and he was regarded as a key figure, a model of cooperation. If his daughter had to be executed as a traitor, that would be really bad, for the government and for the army. The puppet regime had enough problems as it was; they didn’t need yet another scandal in its upper echelons.
Of course, no matter how much he might hope for a particular outcome, the facts were the facts, and it was still far too soon to come to a conclusion. They would just have to wait and see.
6
See what?
Police Chief Wang Tianxiang suggested analysing the group’s handwriting.
This was a good idea; Hihara had considered it himself. The only problem was that, in his experience, if targets were warned in advance, handwriting tests rarely worked. And these targets were already on edge, so if they were suddenly summoned to copy something out, how could they not smell a rat? Also, he already had the guilty party right where he wanted them, so why go to all that extra effort?
However, the situation was not as simple as he’d originally thought. He’d tried talking nicely to them, he’d tried threatening them, he’d tried tricking them, but all to no avail. Given the circumstances, then, he didn’t mind putting in a bit of extra effort. He decided to test their handwriting.
Colonel Hihara prided himself on his problem-solving abilities. It was very important to him that other people appreciated his intelligence and he hated it when he was caught off guard and made to look foolish. The fact that he wasn’t immediately able to come up with a plan for the handwriting test didn’t mean one wouldn’t come to mind shortly. Maybe he should go for a walk, go to sleep, dream – maybe the very thing that he was missing would emerge from nothing, from emptiness, from the darkness. Hadn’t these people’s ancestors always said that everything was born from emptiness?
Police Chief Wang thought it would be really easy to test everyone’s handwriting. ‘Just get them to copy out what Ghost wrote in that note in the cigarette packet. You read it out and order them to write it down.’
It would have been perfectly simple to do that, but very difficult to get a result. In order to make sure of achieving a result, Hihara was determined to make the whole thing enormously complicated. He put a lot of thought into his plan, and Wang Tianxiang and Secretary Bai were also required to wrack their brains.
Eventually, he decided that he would make the four of them – Wu, Jin, Gu and Li – write a letter home. The letter would say that although their duties had called them away, they wanted their families to know that they were safe and well. This letter was to be about a hundred characters long.
What was so difficult about that?
The difficulty lay in making the contents sound natural, because the letter had to contain every word in the note from Ghost. This was like trying to dance in chains or rake leaves into a pile on a windy day. Fortunately, Secretary Bai turned out to be very creative and on the ball, so the letter that he produced was not only worded with impressive elegance, it was also done quickly. When Hihara read it, he gave him full marks.
This would allow the handwriting test to proceed without the targets realizing what was going on. Why couldn’t they just write their own notes to their families? Because they might phrase them badly, inadvertently revealing the fact of their secret incarceration. That was a good enough explanation if you didn’t think too much about it. At the very least it would confuse them, and so this plan would achieve its primary aim in keeping them paralysed with fear.
*
Secretary Bai took charge of proceedings. The atmosphere in the western building was already dark and treacherous, and the row at dinner had made it even worse. The tests were designed in such a way as to impress upon the four that this affair was by no means over, not at all; in fact, it was only just getting started.
The four were kept isolated from each other and were called downstairs separately, one at a time, to trick them into thinking that they were the only one involved. Once the individual was seated in the conference room, Secretary Bai dictated the letter to their family on the spot, a
s if he were making it up as he went along. That way, they were obliged to write just one phrase at a time.
When the individual emerged from the conference room, they were taken to the sitting room, where Police Chief Wang made them copy out the message from Ghost three times:
Tell Tiger that 201’s special representative has been spotted.
Call off the Gathering of Heroes.
Ghost.
For immediate dispatch.
This time they were allowed to know what it was they were doing. There was the real test and the fake test, to make sure they remained in the dark.
Copying out Ghost’s message in triplicate took roughly the same amount of time as writing out the letter to their family, so it was possible to streamline the process. The first suspect was called downstairs, went into the conference room for Secretary Bai’s dictation, and then went through to the sitting room to copy out Ghost’s message; meanwhile, the next person had been called into the conference room and was writing out their letter. Wu, Jin, Gu and Li were moved up- and downstairs, into one room and out of another, writing letters and copying messages, keeping the whole building busy.
Right at that moment, Commander Zhang arrived, adding to the confusion. He had come specially to show Colonel Hihara a telegram that had just been received.
Over the past two days the Wireless Communications Division had been in frequent contact with Nanjing; just yesterday, six telegrams had been exchanged during their five periods of contact. These mainly concerned the precise whereabouts of K, and General Matsui’s instructions regarding the matter. An hour ago, having finished dinner and having nothing much else to do, Commander Zhang had happened to look in on the Wireless Division. By chance, they had received a very important message just moments before, which read as follows: