by Mai Jia
There was no gun, and no one was about. Soft noises were coming from the room next door, but the door was closed, so, not knowing who was in there, he didn’t dare put down his gun. It was only when he saw through the corridor window the shadows of the guards watching the building opposite, carrying on as normal, that he finally relaxed and set down his weapon.
He knocked at the next-door room, to ask if anything was wrong; in fact, he wanted to see whether Police Chief Wang Tianxiang was in there or not. He wasn’t there, and there wasn’t anything wrong. Or at least, the two wiretap operatives in there didn’t have anything important to say.
He went downstairs.
The fat staff officer seemed tired from having been up all night torturing Wu Zhiguo and was lying on the sofa snoozing. He looked very menacing with his gun resting against his thigh. He was the sort of person who was keen to maintain a good reputation no matter how many vile things he did.
Hihara coughed and he woke up immediately, getting to his feet in alarm. His knees were trembling slightly.
‘Has he confessed?’
‘No.’
What a pain, Hihara thought to himself. He’s giving us so much trouble. ‘Where is he?’
‘In there.’ Staff Officer Jiang nodded towards the small guest room.
Hihara had intended to go in and have a look, but that didn’t happen because he suddenly felt terribly sick. When he got to the toilet, he realized this was no ordinary nausea. He was vomiting and had violent diarrhoea; in fact, he needed to go to hospital. Given how serious his condition was, he didn’t have time to yank Police Chief Wang out of bed; he had to call to the fat staff officer to get him there in a hurry.
2
Although he’d become violently ill very quickly, treatment began so fast that his condition soon improved.
At ten o’clock he returned from the city hospital with Staff Officer Jiang. As their car drove into the rear courtyard, he happened to glance towards the western building and saw that one of the sentries was shouting at an old man to go away. The old man was carrying a bamboo basket on a pole, with a towel wrapped round it; he looked like a rubbish collector. He was very tall and very thin. As he walked, he held himself ramrod straight, but his arms and legs swayed loosely, which made him look quite bizarre and caught Hihara’s attention. Hihara wasn’t particularly concerned by his presence, though, and didn’t think too much about it.
There was no sign of Police Chief Wang inside the east building, so Hihara asked the young soldier on duty to go and fetch him. Shooting a wary glance in the direction of Wu Zhiguo’s room, the soldier moved closer to Colonel Hihara and whispered, ‘Police Chief Wang has had to go out. Turtle has turned up and the Police Chief has gone to keep an eye on him.’
‘Who’s Turtle?’ For a moment Hihara couldn’t remember at all.
Staff Officer Jiang pointed to Wu Zhiguo’s room and said in a low voice, ‘His contact.’
Now Hihara remembered. He walked quickly to the door, from where he could see that Police Chief Wang and one of his men had taken their coats off and were pretending to do a bit of martial arts practice among the trees, all the while keeping their eyes trained on the old man.
Turtle had been forced to leave the western building by the sentries but was walking hesitantly, glancing from side to side, as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was going – it looked as though he might be coming towards the east building but couldn’t make up his mind.
Hihara summoned the staff officer. ‘Go and ask Turtle if he’s here to collect rubbish,’ he said. ‘If he says yes, tell him that there’s a sack of waste paper here that we’d like him to take away.’
The paper wasn’t actually waste at all – it was there for the people working the wiretaps to use – but they had to give Turtle something, and the sacrifice would be well worth it.
Thanks to this plan, Hihara was able to see and talk to Turtle, and with the assistance of the well-versed staff officer he was able to achieve two objectives:
One: although his conversation with Turtle was just an idle chat, with no concrete information discussed, it was conducted at a volume loud enough that Chief of Staff Wu Zhiguo would have heard every word from inside the other room. If Wu Zhiguo was indeed Ghost, he would have understood exactly what had happened – his comrades had come to find him! This ought to have made him desperate, and desperation made a person careless.
Two: when Turtle was collecting the boxes of paper, Hihara pretended to suddenly think of something and asked the fat staff officer if fruit had been taken over to the people in the western building yet. It didn’t matter what the staff officer said – that the fruit had been taken over or not – the point was to give the impression that he was genuinely concerned about the people in the other building. This would ensure that Turtle was even more deeply entangled in the web of disinformation that they were spinning.
The first of these objectives was a laxative; it was to make sure that Wu Zhiguo (Ghost) could neither sit nor stand, that his every waking hour would be eaten up with anxiety, forcing him into making a misstep. The second was an anaesthetic; Hihara wanted his enemies to be unconscious – he wanted both Turtle and Tiger to be sedated, he wanted to drug them into imagining that they were safe. With one side kept wide awake and the other in a drugged slumber, they would fit together like a mortise and tenon joint – precisely, tightly, with no gap. The trap would be set. Now all they had to do was wait; sooner or later there would be a reckoning.
As he watched Turtle walk away, Hihara felt strangely affectionate towards the old man. Turtle had arrived at just the right moment, had given him the opportunity to set his trap. This absolutely guaranteed that K and Tiger and all their friends would be captured in a couple of days’ time.
3
Hihara was still standing in the doorway, thinking, when Police Chief Wang appeared and filled him in on what had happened earlier.
‘About half an hour ago,’ he said, ‘the sentries by the main gate phoned to say that they’d just let an old man in to collect the rubbish – the same rubbish collector we have on base. I assumed it had to be Turtle, so I went outside to keep an eye on him. The old idiot has no idea that his cover has been blown and that he’s being followed by my people.’ Wang Tianxiang smirked self-importantly. ‘He fussed around the front courtyard for a bit and then he came all the way back here to the rear courtyard. That was pretty risky, seeing as no one normally uses this area – why would he even think to come back here and look for rubbish?’
‘Did he go straight to the western building?’ Hihara asked.
‘Pretty much.’
‘Don’t say “pretty much” – yes or no?’
Wang Tianxiang hesitated. ‘He stood at the entrance to the rear courtyard, looked around, and then went to the western building.’
‘Did you give orders to the sentries not to let him into the western building?’
‘Yes…’ Wang Tianxiang said uncertainly, then hurriedly added, ‘I didn’t know that you wanted to see him, so I didn’t dare let him in.’
‘Of course not! There are far too many people over there and if you’d let him in, anything could have happened.’ Hihara wasn’t angry with him, but he did seem to be cross with himself. ‘I summoned Turtle over here too soon,’ he said out loud. ‘Which means we can’t be sure whether Turtle was intending to come over here anyway, or whether he came because I called him.’
‘What difference does that make?’
‘It makes a huge difference.’ Hihara sighed. ‘If I hadn’t called him over and he’d just walked away, left the rear courtyard, I could have set one of our prisoners free straight away.’
‘Who?’
‘Gu Xiaomeng.’
Hihara explained that Turtle’s appearance today meant two things: he was trying to find out whether the information he’d received was genuine or not, and he was looking for an opportunity to make contact with Ghost. ‘He was lucky enough to find out,’ Hihara said, ‘via your
cleverly planted disinformation, that Ghost is here working on an important mission. But that was just something he’d heard – he had no evidence, so he needed to see it with his own eyes. Now, supposing he’d only gone to the western building to have a look and hadn’t come over here, what would you think?’
Seeing that Wang Tianxiang couldn’t answer, he prompted him, ‘The information you had him overhear – did it specify that Ghost was in the western building?’
‘No.’ Wang Tianxiang was quite sure about that.
‘Well…’ Hihara composed his thoughts. ‘If he’d just gone to the western building to make enquiries and hadn’t come over here, that would have meant that he knew in advance that Ghost was over there. You didn’t tell him that, so how would he have known? Who told him?’
He began speaking much faster now. ‘Ghost’s family has been here, to the estate; they know that Ghost is here. But Turtle shouldn’t have known that, so if he did, it means that one of the relatives told him. Why would they do that? Who pays any attention to an old rubbish collector? There would only be one possible explanation: Ghost’s family are Reds too! As you know, the only person who came from Gu Xiaomeng’s family was the housekeeper, and I got rid of her before she had a chance to join the dinner. She never came to the estate, so she can’t possibly know exactly where Ghost is.’ He sighed gloomily. ‘Which means we would have had sufficient evidence to eliminate Gu Xiaomeng from our enquiries.’
Police Chief Wang tried to cheer him up. ‘It doesn’t really matter. We know that Chief of Staff Wu is Ghost, so there’s no need for us to make any further deductions.’ He had his own reasons for saying this. He’d thrown the worst possible insults he could think of at Wu Zhiguo, had cursed the man until he was blue in the face. He’d also tortured him. So Police Chief Wang was now absolutely terrified at the prospect that Wu Zhiguo might turn out not to be Ghost.
Hihara shook his head and inhaled deeply. ‘I almost had the proof in my hands, but because I failed to take every angle into consideration, I messed it up. This is most unfortunate, it really is.’ This seemed to be a matter of professional pride. ‘I played a wrong move and I really shouldn’t have done.’
He really was angry with himself. He sighed again. ‘To go back to something you said earlier: we really need some more evidence. Wu Zhiguo is refusing to confess, which means that what we have on him isn’t enough, or at least he imagines that he can still deny everything. If we had more on him, could he carry on denying it? Would he dare?’
‘As long as he refuses to admit that he’s guilty, he’s just bringing pointless suffering on himself,’ Wang Tianxiang said.
‘You tortured him last night?’
Wang Tianxiang nodded.
‘Aren’t you worried that he might not be Ghost?’
‘What! You mean…? Has something happened?’
‘No.’ Hihara laughed. ‘Whatever happens, he needed a thumping, and you had my permission, so there’s nothing for you to be afraid of.’
‘I’m not afraid.’ And here Wang Tianxiang stuck his neck out stiffly. ‘It has to be him, it must be.’
Just at this juncture, one of the sentries from the main gate phoned to report an astonishing piece of news: Turtle hadn’t left the estate!
He’d handled the whole thing very cleverly – he’d gone to the kitchens to have a poke around and had got into conversation with someone who worked there. The two of them seemed very friendly, so it was possible they’d known each other for a while. Or maybe it was just fortuitous – the man worked in the bakehouse looking after the ovens and he also cleaned the dining hall, so they did similar jobs. They seemed to be getting on like a house on fire, and Turtle had decided to help him by chopping some wood. Chopping wood was really tiring work.
‘He won’t be going anywhere for a while yet,’ Hihara concluded. ‘He’ll want to hang around until after lunch.’
‘So he can make contact with Ghost?’ Wang Tianxiang asked.
‘Yes. He must have already found out from his pal that everyone goes to the front courtyard to eat.’
‘So what are we going to do?’ Wang Tianxiang gestured towards Wu Zhiguo’s room. ‘Are we going to let him join the others?’
4
Yes!
Of course!
The way Hihara saw it, Turtle was now the litmus paper that would reveal the presence of Ghost, the weathervane that would show the way the wind was blowing. They would drag Wu Zhiguo out, let Turtle get a good look at him, watch carefully for any sign of communication between them and then they’d know.
However, when he opened the door and saw what state Wu Zhiguo was in, Hihara knew that his plan wasn’t going to work. Damn!
In the space of a single night, Wu Zhiguo had become unrecognizable. The ECCC’s Chief of Staff was now a shadow of his former self. He was naked from the waist up: his jacket and shirt had been pulled up and wrapped round his head, and his back looked as if it had been flayed. Below the waist he’d been whipped with a leather belt. His trousers had been pulled down to below his crotch, and his underpants were clotted with blood – if he’d been a woman, you’d have thought he’d been raped.
Hihara immediately withdrew and ordered Police Chief Wang to tidy him up a bit and bring him out. He hadn’t expected the Police Chief would have been so brutal.
When Wu Zhiguo finally emerged, he didn’t look much better. He was bent over, stumbling, taking one slow step at a time. He looked like a defeated general snatched from a bloody battle in the nick of time. Thanks to Wang Tianxiang having wrapped Wu Zhiguo’s jacket round his head before he set to work, there were no obvious wounds or bruises to his face (Wang Tianxiang had wanted to avoid seeing into Wu Zhiguo’s eyes, and to muffle the noise and minimize the chance of disturbing Hihara). However, it seemed as though his jaw had been dislocated from having the pillowcase stuffed in it; he couldn’t close his mouth properly and it hung open in an O, with a line of blood trickling from each corner.
It was an appalling sight. Hihara barely glanced at him before waving him away. He couldn’t look at him, it was just too uncomfortable.
Wu Zhiguo struggled and shouted, furious at being denied this chance to protest his innocence.
Hihara walked up to him. ‘Stop shouting,’ he said lightly. ‘If you yell one more time, I’m putting this back in your mouth.’ He gestured at the staff officer, who was still holding the pillowcase.
Chief of Staff Wu shut up.
‘You will have heard through the door that someone came to see you just now,’ Hihara said.
‘Who?’ Wu Zhiguo appeared completely confused, or maybe he was just pretending.
‘Turtle.’
‘Who’s Turtle? I don’t know any Turtle—’
‘Stop with this pretence!’ Hihara snapped. He sighed. ‘I was actually hoping to have you see him again, but given your… appearance at the moment, that would ruin everything. So you’ll just have to go back to your room and wait.’
*
In the end, Hihara decided Turtle probably wasn’t going to be much help. He’d had two opportunities to get something out of him, but neither had come to anything, and he’d been put to an awful lot of trouble over this. He hadn’t even had time to get himself a glass of water. He was overstressed and thirsty, so he resolved to go upstairs and make himself a cup of tea. He also needed to take his medication.
He stood by the window in the upstairs corridor, looking out and sipping his tea. The sun was shining brightly on the western building opposite: the glass in every window glittered and the whole place seemed almost to be quivering slightly, as if countless ants were dismantling it one speck at a time. Everyone involved in this investigation must be wanting to go home, Hihara thought to himself. If only Wu Zhiguo would say the words ‘I confess!’
Unfortunately, Wu Zhiguo didn’t look at all like he was going to do that. He was prepared to die first. If he did die without making a confession, it would be impossible for Hihara to conclude the investigati
on. He’d have to widen the net; he might end up embroiled in a miscarriage of justice; he’d have to leave without ever finding out what had really happened… The more he thought about this, the more Hihara hated Wu Zhiguo. This focused his mind, and wave after wave of ideas began flooding in.
He headed downstairs.
5
Hihara held a meeting in the western building and announced that he had evidence to prove that Wu Zhiguo was Ghost.
‘You will naturally all be wondering why you haven’t been allowed to go home, even though Ghost has been arrested.’ He smiled and continued affably, ‘Well, there’s no need to keep it a secret any longer. Despite all the evidence against him, Wu Zhiguo still seems to think that he can get out of this. He is refusing to confess.’
He shook his head and allowed himself to appear mildly irritated.
‘Even with one foot in hell, he seems to imagine that he can escape into heaven. You Chinese have a saying along the lines of “when in Rome…” – he’s going to have to pay for this stupidity, and I’m afraid he’s unlikely to come out of it in one piece. The paperwork is done, but he just won’t sign it, so we’re all going to have to wait until he does.’
Having got this far, Hihara paused and looked around him. Gu Xiaomeng seemed to have something she wanted to say, but she was hesitating. He encouraged her. ‘Come on, Miss Gu, if you have something to say, then go ahead.’
‘What happens if he never signs?’ she asked.
This was what everyone was worried about.
Hihara laughed. ‘Is that likely? No, it’s not. When a fox falls into the water, is it likely that his tail gets left behind on the bank? Of course not! It’s just a matter of time. Wu Zhiguo is dreaming if he thinks he can get out of this, and now it’s time for him to wake up – nobody can stay asleep forever. If we can’t shout him awake, we can beat him until he comes to his senses. There’s nothing to worry about, you just have to trust me. He’s not going to get away with this – we will see to that, and so will you.’