The Man From Beijing

by Henning Mankell

  ‘It’s normal for police officers with various specialities to work together.’

  ‘In order to find a lost bag?’

  ‘In order to solve a serious attack on a guest in our country.’

  She’s going round and round in circles, Birgitta thought. I’ll never get a proper answer out of her.

  ‘I’m a judge,’ said Birgitta Roslin again. ‘I’ll be staying here in Beijing for a few more days. As you seem to know all about me I hardly need to tell you that I’ve come here with a friend who is spending every day talking about your first emperor at an international conference.’

  ‘A knowledge of the Qin dynasty is important for an understanding of my country. But you are wrong if you think I know much about who you are and why you have come to Beijing.’

  ‘Since you were able to produce the bag I had lost, I’m going to ask you for some advice. What do I need to do to get entry into a Chinese court of law? It doesn’t need to be an especially remarkable trial, I just want to follow the proceedings and perhaps ask a few questions.’

  ‘I can arrange that for tomorrow. I can go with you.’

  The immediate answer startled Birgitta Roslin. ‘I don’t want to be a nuisance. You seem to have an awful lot to do.’

  ‘No more than I decide is important.’ Hong Qiu stood up. ‘I’ll contact you later this afternoon to let you know where we can meet tomorrow.’

  Birgitta was about to mention her room number, but then it struck her that Hong Qiu no doubt knew that already.

  She watched Hong Qiu walk through the bar towards the entrance. The man who had been carrying the bag and another man joined her before they disappeared from Birgitta’s sight.

  She looked at the bag and burst out laughing. There is an entrance, she thought, and also an exit. A bag is lost, and found again. But what actually happens in between, I have no idea. There’s a risk that I won’t be able to distinguish between what’s going on in my mind and what actually happens in reality.

  Hong Qiu called an hour later, just after Birgitta had returned to her room. Nothing surprised her any more. It was as if unseen people were observing every move she made and could say exactly where she was at any given moment. Like now. She came into the room, and the telephone rang immediately.

  ‘Nine o’clock tomorrow morning,’ said Hong Qiu.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’ll pick you up. We shall visit a court in an outlying suburb of Beijing. I chose it because a female judge will be on duty there tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m most grateful.’

  ‘I want to do everything we possibly can to make up for that unfortunate incident.’

  ‘You’ve already done that. I feel surrounded by guardian angels.’

  After the phone call Birgitta emptied her bag onto the bed. She still found it hard to accept that the box of matches had been in there rather than in her suitcase. She opened the box. It was half empty. Somebody’s been smoking, she thought. The box was full when I put it in my case. She took out the matches and looked inside. She didn’t really know what she expected to find. All it is is a matchbox, she thought. She felt annoyed as she put the matches back into the box and replaced it in her bag. She was going too far again. Her imagination was running away with her.

  She devoted the rest of the day to a Buddhist temple and a long drawn-out dinner in a restaurant not far from her hotel. She was asleep when Karin tiptoed into their room and she merely turned over when the light was switched on.

  The next day they got up at the same time. As Karin had overslept, she didn’t have a chance to do much more than confirm that the conference would come to an end at two o’clock. After that she would be free. Birgitta told her about the visit she was going to make to a Chinese court, but still didn’t mention her mugging.

  Hong Qiu was waiting in reception. She was wearing a white fur coat today; Birgitta felt almost embarrassingly underdressed standing by her side. But Hong Qiu noted that she was wearing warm clothes.

  ‘Our courts of law can be rather chilly,’ she said.

  ‘Like your theatres?’

  Hong Qiu smiled. She can’t know that we attended a Peking opera a few nights ago, Birgitta thought – or can she?

  ‘China is still a very poor country. We are approaching the future with great humility and hard work.’

  Not everybody’s poor, Birgitta thought cynically. Even my untrained eye can see that your fur coat is genuine and extremely expensive.

  A car with a chauffeur was waiting outside the hotel. Birgitta had a vague feeling of reluctance. What did she actually know about this woman she was following into a car with an unknown man behind the wheel?

  She persuaded herself that there was no danger. Why couldn’t she just be thankful for the kindness and consideration they were surrounding her with? Hong Qiu sat silently in a corner of the back seat with her eyes half closed. They travelled very fast down a very long street. After a few minutes Birgitta Roslin hadn’t the slightest idea in which part of Beijing she was.

  They stopped outside a low, concrete building with two police officers guarding the entrance. Over the door was a row of Chinese characters in red.

  ‘The name of the district court,’ said Hong Qiu, who had noticed what Birgitta was looking at.

  As they walked up the steps to the entrance, the two police officers presented arms. Hong Qiu didn’t seem to react. Birgitta wondered who her companion really was. She could hardly be simply a messenger girl whose job was to return stolen handbags to foreign visitors.

  They continued along a deserted corridor and came to the courtroom itself, which was wood-panelled and austere. On a high dais at one of the short sides sat two men in uniform. The place between them was empty. There were no members of the public present. Hong Qiu led the way to the front bench, where two cushions had been placed. Everything has been prepared, Birgitta thought. The performance can begin. Or is it simply that I’m being courteously received even in this courtroom?

  They had barely sat down when the accused was escorted in between two security officers. A middle-aged man with close-cropped hair, dressed in a dark blue prison uniform. His head was bowed. Sitting beside him was a defence lawyer. Sitting at another table was the man Birgitta assumed to be the prosecutor. He was dressed in civilian clothes, a bald, elderly man with a furrowed face. The woman judge entered the courtroom from a door behind the podium. She was in her sixties, small and stout. When she sat down, she looked almost like a child sitting at the table.

  ‘Shu Fu has been the leader of a criminal gang that specialises in stealing cars,’ said Hong Qiu in a low voice. ‘The others have already been sentenced. As Shu is the leader of the gang and a recidivist, he’ll probably get a stiff sentence. He’s been treated mildly in the past, but because he’s betrayed the trust put in him and continued his criminal activities, the court is bound to give him a more severe punishment.’

  ‘But not the death penalty?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Hong Qiu had not liked her last question. The answer sounded impatient, almost dismissive. That wiped the smile off her face, Birgitta thought. But is this a real trial or is the whole thing being staged and the sentence already decided?

  The voices were shrill and echoed around the courtroom. The only one who never said a word was the accused, who just sat there, staring down at the floor. Hong Qiu occasionally translated what was being said. The defence lawyer was not making any great effort to support his client – but then that was not unusual in a Swedish court either, Birgitta thought. The whole trial became a dialogue between the prosecutor and the judge. She couldn’t work out the function of the two assistants sitting on the podium.

  The trial was over in less than half an hour.

  ‘He’ll get about ten years hard labour,’ said Hong Qiu.

  ‘I didn’t hear the judge say anything that sounded like a sentence.’

  Hong Qiu made no comment. When the judge stood up, everybody else followed suit. The
convicted man was led away. Birgitta never managed to catch his eye.

  ‘Now we shall meet the judge,’ said Hong Qiu. ‘She has invited us to tea in her office. Her name is Min Ta. When she’s not working, she spends her time looking after two grandchildren.’

  ‘What’s her reputation?’

  Hong Qiu didn’t understand the question.

  ‘All judges have a reputation, more or less accurate. Seldom very wide of the mark. I’m reputed to be a mild but very firm judge,’ Birgitta explained.

  ‘Min Ta follows the law. She’s proud of being a judge. And so she is also a true representative of our country.’

  They went through the low door at the back of the dais and were received by Min Ta in her spartan and freezing cold office. A clerk served tea. They sat down. Min Ta immediately began to talk in the same shrill voice as she had used in the courtroom. When she finished, Hong Qiu translated what she had said.

  ‘It is a great honour to meet a colleague from Sweden. She has heard many positive comments about the Swedish legal system. Unfortunately she has another trial coming up shortly, otherwise she’d have loved to discuss the Swedish legal system with you.’

  ‘Please thank her for inviting me,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘Ask her what she thinks the sentence will be. Were you right in guessing about ten years?’

  ‘I never go into a courtroom without being thoroughly prepared,’ said Min Ta when she had heard the translation of the question. ‘It’s my duty to use my time and that of the other legal officers efficiently. There was no doubt in this case. The man had confessed; he’s a recidivist; there were no extenuating circumstances. I think I’ll give him between seven and ten years in prison, but I shall ponder carefully before deciding.’

  That was the only question Birgitta had the possibility of asking. Then it was Min Ta who fired a whole series of questions for her to answer. Birgitta wondered in passing exactly what Hong Qiu said in her translations. Perhaps she and Min Ta were in fact conducting a conversation about something entirely different?

  After twenty minutes Min Ta stood up and explained that she would have to return to the courtroom. A man came in with a camera. Min Ta stood next to Birgitta Roslin, and a photograph was taken. Hong Qiu was standing to one side, out of camera range. The two judges shook hands, and they both went into the corridor together. When Min Ta opened the door Birgitta noticed that the courtroom was now packed.

  They returned to the car and drove off at high speed. When they stopped, it was not at the hotel but outside a pagoda-like tea house on an island in an artificial lake.

  ‘It’s cold,’ said Hong Qiu. ‘Tea warms you up.’

  Hong Qiu led her to a room screened off from the rest of the tea house. Two teacups were waiting on a table, beside which stood a waitress with a teapot in her hand. Everything that happened to Birgitta today was meticulously planned. From having been just another tourist, she had been transformed into an especially important visitor to China. She still didn’t know why.

  Hong Qiu suddenly started talking about the Swedish legal system. She gave the impression of being very well read. She asked questions about the murders of Olof Palme and Anna Lindh.

  ‘In an open society you can never guarantee a person’s safety one hundred per cent,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘You have to pay prices in all kinds of societies. Freedom and safety are always jostling for position.’

  ‘If you are really intent on murdering somebody, it can never be prevented,’ said Hong Qiu. ‘Not even an American president can be protected.’

  Birgitta Roslin detected an undertone in what Hong Qiu had said, but was unable to put her finger on it.

  ‘We don’t often hear about Sweden,’ said Hong Qiu. ‘But just recently news has reached our papers about a horrific mass murder.’

  ‘I happen to know a bit about it,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘Even though I wasn’t involved. A suspect was arrested, but he committed suicide. Which is a scandal in itself, no matter how it happened.’

  As Hong Qiu was displaying polite interest, Birgitta described what had happened in as much detail as she could. Hong Qiu listened attentively, asked no questions, but occasionally asked for something to be repeated.

  ‘A madman,’ said Birgitta Roslin in conclusion. ‘Who managed to take his own life. Or another madman the police haven’t succeeded in finding yet. Or something completely different, with a motive and a cold-blooded, brutal plan.’

  ‘What would that be?’

  ‘As nothing seems to have been stolen it must be a combination of hatred and revenge.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Who should they be looking for, do you mean? I don’t know. But I find it hard to accept the theory of a lone madman.’

  Birgitta elaborated on what she called the Chinese lead. She started from the beginning, when she discovered she was related to some of the dead, and then the astonishing next phase involving the Chinese visitor to Hudiksvall. When she noticed that Hong Qiu really was listening intently, she found it impossible to stop. In the end she took out the photograph and showed it to Hong Qiu.

  Hong Qiu nodded slowly. Just for a moment she seemed lost in her own thoughts. It suddenly occurred to Birgitta that Hong Qiu recognised the face. But that was implausible. One face in a billion?

  Hong Qiu smiled, returned the photograph and asked what Birgitta intended to do for the remainder of her time in Beijing.

  ‘Tomorrow I hope my friend will be able to take me to see the Great Wall of China. Then we’ll be flying home the following day.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m busy and won’t be able to help you.’

  ‘You have already done more than I could ever have asked for.’

  ‘In any case, I shall come to bid you farewell before you leave.’

  They said goodbye outside the hotel. Birgitta Roslin watched the car with Hong Qiu leaving through the hotel gates.

  Karin came back at three o’clock and, with a sigh of relief, threw most of the conference material into the wastebasket. When Birgitta suggested a trip to the Great Wall of China the following day, Karin agreed immediately. But first, she wanted to go shopping. Birgitta accompanied her from one shop to the next, to semi-official markets in side streets and dimly lit boutiques filled with all kinds of bargains, from old lamps to wooden sculptures depicting evil demons. Weighed down with parcels and packages, they hailed a taxi as dusk began to fall. Karin was feeling tired, so they ate at the hotel. Birgitta spoke to the concierge and arranged a trip to the Wall for the following day.

  Karin was asleep, but Birgitta curled up in a chair and watched Chinese television with the sound turned down. She occasionally felt stabs of fear originating from the previous day’s events. But she had made up her mind once and for all to say nothing about it, not even to Karin.

  The following day they drove out to the Great Wall of China. There wasn’t even a breath of wind, and the dry cold felt less intrusive. They wandered around the Wall, duly impressed, and took pictures of each other or handed the camera to a friendly local who was only too pleased to snap them.

  ‘So, we came here in the end,’ said Karin. ‘With a camera in our hands, not Mao’s Little Red Book.’

  ‘A miracle must have taken place in this country,’ said Birgitta. ‘Not brought about by gods but by people with astounding courage.’

  ‘In the cities, at least. But poverty is apparently still widespread in the countryside. What will they do when hundreds of millions of peasants finally decide they’ve had enough?’

  ‘ “The current upswing of the peasants’ revolt is of enormous significance.” Perhaps that mantra has a fundamental truth built in, despite everything?’

  ‘Nobody in those days told me that China could be as cold as this. I’ve almost frozen to death.’

  They returned to their waiting car. Just as Birgitta was walking down the steps from the Wall, she glanced back over her shoulder, for one last look at the Wall.

  What she saw instead was
one of Hong Qiu’s men reading a guidebook. There was no doubt about it. He was the one who had walked up to her table with her bag.

  Karin waved impatiently from the car. She was cold, wanted to get going.

  When Birgitta turned round again, the man had vanished.

  25

  That last evening in Beijing Birgitta Roslin and Karin Wiman stayed in their hotel. They sat around in the bar drinking vodka cocktails, discussing various possible ways of rounding off their visit to China. But the vodka made them so tipsy and tired that they decided to eat in the hotel. Afterwards, they spent hours talking about how their lives had turned out. It was as if things had been predetermined by their youthful revolutionary dreams of a Red China. Now they had actually made the trip there and found a country that had undergone fundamental change, but perhaps hadn’t turned out as they had once imagined it would. They stayed in the dining room until they were the only ones left. Several blue silk ribbons hung down from the lampshade over their table. Birgitta leaned over towards Karin and whispered that perhaps they should each take one of those ribbons as a souvenir of their trip. Karin used a small pair of nail scissors to snip off a couple of ribbons when none of the waiters was watching.

  Karin fell asleep when they had finished packing their bags. The conference had been very tiring. Birgitta sat on the sofa with almost all the lights out. She suddenly felt old. She’d come this far; there was a bit still left to go, then the path would suddenly peter out, and she would be consumed by darkness. She had already begun to notice that the path was sloping downward, only slightly; but the bottom line was that she could do nothing to change its direction. Think of ten things you still want to achieve, she whispered to herself. Ten things you still have left to do. She sat down at the little desk and began writing in a notebook.

  What did she still have left that she really wanted to experience? One of the things she hoped for was to see and enjoy a grandchild, perhaps even several. Also, she and Staffan had often talked about visiting various islands. The only ones they had been to so far were Iceland and Crete. One of their dream journeys was to Galápagos, another to Pitcairn Island, where the blood from the mutineers on the Bounty was still flowing through the veins of the inhabitants. Learn a few more languages? Or at least improve her French, a language she had once spoken quite well.