The Man From Beijing

by Henning Mankell

  But the most important thing was for her and Staffan to succeed in reawakening their relationship. She sometimes felt very sad when the thought struck her that they might decline into old age without any of the old passion remaining alive.

  No journey was more important than that.

  She tore the sheet of paper, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the wastebasket. Why should she need to write down what was already posted clearly and unmistakably on the church doors of her inner self?

  She undressed and snuggled into bed. Karin was breathing calmly in the other bed. She suddenly had the feeling that it was time for her to go home, to be declared fit and start work again. Without her everyday routines she would never be able to fulfil any of the dreams lying in wait for her.

  She hesitated for a moment, then reached for her mobile phone and sent a text message to her husband. ‘On the way home. Every journey starts with a step forward. So does the journey home.’

  Birgitta woke up at seven o’clock. Although she had slept no more than five hours, she felt wide awake. A faint headache reminded her of the vodka cocktails the evening before. Karin was asleep, swaddled in her sheet, one hand hanging down to the floor. Birgitta carefully tucked it in under the sheet.

  The dining room was already busy, despite the early hour. She looked around to see if she could recognise any of the faces. She had no doubt that the man she had recognised at the Great Wall was one of Hong Qiu’s entourage. Perhaps it was just that the Chinese state had taken her under its wing, to ensure that no more accidents would happen?

  She ate her breakfast, leafed through an English newspaper, and was just about to return to her room when Hong Qiu suddenly appeared at her table. She was not alone. Alongside her were two men Birgitta had not seen before. Hong Qiu nodded to the men, who withdrew and sat down. She said something to a waitress and shortly afterwards was served a glass of water.

  ‘I hope all’s well,’ said Hong Qiu. ‘How was your trip to the Wall?’

  ‘The Great Wall was impressive. But it was cold.’

  She looked Hong Qiu provocatively in the eye, hoping to see from her reaction if Hong Qiu realised that the scout had been noticed. But Hong Qiu’s face remained expressionless. She did not reveal her cards.

  ‘There’s a man waiting for you in a room next to this dining room,’ said Hong Qiu. ‘His name’s Chan Bing.’

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘He wants to inform you that the police have arrested a man who was involved in the attack when you lost your bag.’

  Birgitta felt her pulse rate increase. There was something sinister about what Hong Qiu said.

  ‘Why doesn’t he come in here if he wants to speak to me?’

  ‘He’s in uniform. He doesn’t want to disturb your breakfast.’

  Birgitta Roslin flung her arms out wide in resignation. ‘I don’t have a problem with talking to people in uniform.’

  She stood up and put her napkin down on the table. At that very moment Karin came into the room and looked at them in surprise. Birgitta was forced to explain what had happened, and introduced Hong Qiu.

  ‘I don’t really know what’s going on,’ she said to Karin. ‘The police have evidently caught one of the men who mugged me. Have your breakfast in peace. I’ll be back when I’ve heard what the police officer has to say.’

  ‘Why haven’t you said anything about this before?’

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you.’

  ‘You’re worrying me now instead. I think I’m getting angry.’

  ‘You don’t need to.’

  ‘We have to leave for the airport at ten o’clock.’

  ‘That’s two hours away.’

  Birgitta followed Hong Qiu. The two men were still hovering in the background. They went down the corridor leading to the lifts and stopped outside a door standing ajar. As she stepped inside, Birgitta could see that it was a little conference room. At the far end of the oval table sat an elderly man smoking a cigarette. He was wearing a dark blue uniform with lots of stripes. His cap was lying on the table in front of him. He stood up and bowed to her, gesturing to a chair by his side. Hong Qiu stood by the window in the background.

  Chan Bing had bloodshot eyes and thin hair combed back. Birgitta Roslin had the impression that the man sitting next to her was very dangerous. He drew deeply on his cigarette. There were already three butts in the ashtray.

  Hong Qiu said something; Chan nodded. Birgitta tried to remember if she had met anybody with more red stars on his epaulettes than this man had.

  Chan Bing’s voice was hoarse when he spoke. ‘We arrested one of the two men who attacked you. We ask you to point him for us.’

  Chan Bing’s English was hesitant, but he could make himself understood.

  ‘But I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘Always you see more than you think.’

  ‘They were behind me the entire time. I don’t have eyes in the back of my head.’

  Chan’s face was expressionless.

  ‘You in fact do. In tense, dangerous situations you see through the back of your head.’

  ‘That might be true in China, but not in Sweden. I have never heard of an accused being found guilty because somebody saw him through eyes in the back of their head.’

  ‘There are other witnesses. It is not only you who will point out your attacker. Other witnesses will identify him also.’

  Birgitta looked appealingly at Hong Qiu, who was staring at a spot way above her head.

  ‘I have to fly home,’ said Birgitta. ‘My friend and I must leave this hotel two hours from now and go to the airport. I have my bag back. The help I’ve received from the police in this country has been excellent. I might well write an article for a Swedish legal magazine describing my experiences and the gratitude I owe to China. But I will not be able to identify a possible attacker.’

  ‘Our request for your cooperation is not unreasonable. The laws in this country say you have a duty to be at the police’s disposal when they are solving a serious crime.’

  ‘But I’m about to go home. How long will it take?’

  ‘Unlikely more than a day.’

  ‘That’s not possible.’

  Hong Qiu had approached without Birgitta noticing. ‘We will naturally help you to rebook your tickets,’ she said.

  Birgitta Roslin slammed her hand down on the table. ‘I am going home today. I refuse to extend my stay by another day.’

  ‘Chan Bing is a very high-ranking police officer. What he says goes. He can force you to stay in China.’

  ‘Then I demand to speak to my embassy.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Hong Qiu placed a mobile phone on the table in front of Birgitta and a piece of paper with a telephone number. ‘The embassy will open one hour from now.’

  ‘Why should I be forced to go along with this?’

  ‘We don’t want to punish an innocent man, but nor do we want a guilty man to go free.’

  Birgitta Roslin stared at her and realised that she would be forced to stay in Beijing for at least one more day. They had made up their minds to keep her here. The best I can do is to accept the situation, she thought. But nobody is going to force me to identify an attacker I have never seen before.

  ‘I must speak to my friend,’ she said. ‘What will happen to my baggage?’

  ‘The room will still be reserved in your name,’ said Hong Qiu.

  ‘I take it you’ve already arranged that. When was it decided that I should be forced to stay? Yesterday? The day before? Last night?’

  She received no reply. Chan Bing lit another cigarette and said something to Hong Qiu.

  ‘What did he say?’ asked Birgitta.

  ‘That we must hurry up. Chan Bing is a busy man.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  Hong Qiu explained while they were walking along the corridor. ‘Chan Bing is a very experienced detective. He is responsible for incidents that affect people like you, guests in our country.’
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  ‘I didn’t like him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Birgitta Roslin stopped. ‘If I’m going to stay on for another day, I want you to be with me. Otherwise I’m not going to leave this hotel until the embassy is open and I’ve spoken to them.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  They continued to the dining room. Karin Wiman was just about to leave her table when they arrived. Birgitta explained what had happened. Karin eyed her even more curiously.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything about this before? Then we’d have been prepared for something like this, that you might have to stay on.’

  ‘Like I said, I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want to worry myself either. I thought it was all over. I’d got my bag back. But now I’m going to have to stay until tomorrow.’

  ‘Is it really necessary?’

  ‘The policeman I just spoke to didn’t seem the type to change his mind.’

  ‘Do you want me to stay as well?’

  ‘No, you go. I’ll follow tomorrow. I’ll call home and explain what’s happened.’

  Karin was still hesitant. Birgitta steered her towards the exit.

  ‘Go. I’ll stay and sort this business out. Apparently the laws in this country say that I’m not allowed to leave until I’ve helped them.’

  ‘But you said you didn’t see whoever it was who attacked you.’

  ‘And that’s what I’m going to tell them, and stick to it. Go now! When I get home we’ll have to get together and look at our pictures of the Wall.’

  Birgitta watched Karin walk towards the lifts. As Birgitta had taken her coat down to the dining room, she was ready to leave right away.

  She travelled in the same car as Hong Qiu and Chan Bing. Motorcycles with wailing sirens cleared a way through the dense traffic. They passed through Tiananmen Square and continued along one of the wide central streets until they turned off into the entrance of an underground garage guarded by police officers. They took a lift up to the fourteenth floor, then walked along a corridor past uniformed men who eyed her curiously. Now it was Chan Bing walking beside her, not Hong Qiu. She is not the most important person in this building, Birgitta thought. Here it’s Mr Chan who calls the shots.

  They came to the anteroom of a large office where police officers jumped to attention. The door closed behind them in what she assumed was Chan’s office. A portrait of the country’s president hung on the wall behind his desk. She saw that Chan had a modern computer and several mobile phones. He pointed to a chair. Birgitta sat down. Hong Qiu had remained in the anteroom.

  ‘Lao San,’ said Chan Bing. ‘That’s the name of the man you will soon meet and pick out from among nine others.’

  ‘How many times do I have to repeat that I didn’t see the men who attacked me?’

  She suddenly felt afraid. All too late it occurred to her that both Hong Qiu and Chan Bing might know that she was looking for Wang Min Hao. That was why she was here. In some way she had become a danger. The question was: to whom?

  They both know, she thought. Hong Qiu is not present because she already knows what Chan Bing is going to talk to me about.

  The photograph was still in the inside pocket of her coat. She wondered whether she ought to produce it and explain to Chan Bing why she had gone to the place where she was attacked. But something told her not to. Just now it was Chan Bing playing the cat, and she was the mouse.

  Chan shuffled some papers on his desk – not because he was going to read them, she could see that, but to fill in time while he made up his mind what to say.

  ‘How much money was stolen?’ he asked.

  ‘Sixty American dollars. And rather less in Chinese money.’

  ‘Rings? Jewellery? Credit card?’

  ‘Everything else was returned to me.’

  There was a buzz from a telephone on his desk. Chan answered, listened, then hung up.

  ‘They’re ready,’ he said. ‘Now you see the man who attacked you.’

  ‘I thought there was more than one?’

  ‘Only one of the men who attacked you can still be interrogated.’

  So the other man is dead, Birgitta thought, and began to feel sick. She wished she wasn’t here in Beijing. She ought to have insisted on going home with Karin Wiman. She had entered some kind of trap.

  They went along a corridor, down some steps and through a door. The light was dim. A police officer was standing next to a curtain.

  ‘I’ll leave you alone,’ said Chan Bing. ‘As you understand, the men can’t see you. Speak into microphone on the table if you want somebody to walk forward or turn in profile.’

  ‘Who will I be speaking to?’

  ‘You speak to me. Take good time.’

  ‘There’s no point. I don’t know how many times I have to say that I didn’t see the faces of my attackers.’

  Chan Bing didn’t reply. The curtain was pulled to one side, and Birgitta Roslin was left alone in the room. On the other side of the one-way mirror were a number of men in their thirties, simply dressed, some extremely thin. Their faces were new to her. She didn’t recognise any of them – even if she thought for a brief moment the man on the far left was a bit like the man caught on Sture Hermansson’s surveillance camera in Hudiksvall. But it wasn’t him. This man’s face was rounder, his lips thicker.

  Chan Bing’s voice came from an invisible speaker. ‘Take time.’

  ‘I have never seen any of these men before.’

  ‘Let the impressions mature.’

  ‘Even if I stay here until tomorrow, none of my impressions will change.’

  Chan Bing didn’t answer. She pressed the microphone button in annoyance.

  ‘I have never seen any of these men before.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Now look carefully at this one.’

  The man standing fourth from the left on the other side of the oneway mirror took a step forward. He was wearing a quilted jacket and patched trousers. His thin face was unshaven.

  Chan Bing’s voice sounded tense. ‘Have you seen this man before?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘He’s one of the men who attacked you. Lao San, twenty-nine years, previously punished for many crimes. His father was executed for murder.’

  ‘I’ve never seen him before.’

  ‘He has confessed to the crime.’

  ‘So you don’t need me anymore, then?’

  A policeman who had been hidden in the shadows behind her stepped forward and closed the curtain. He beckoned her to follow him. They returned to the office where Chan Bing was already waiting. There was no sign of Hong Qiu.

  ‘We want to thank you for your help,’ said Chan. ‘Now remains only some formality. A record is being written out.’

  ‘A record of what?’

  ‘The confrontation with the criminal.’

  ‘What will happen to him?’

  ‘I’m not a judge. What would happen to him in your country?’

  ‘That depends on the circumstances.’

  ‘Naturally our law system works the same way. We judge the criminal, his will to confess and the special circumstances.’

  ‘Is there any risk that he will be sentenced to death?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Chan drily. ‘It is Western prejudice that in our country we condemn simple thieves to death. If he had used weapon it would be different.’

  ‘But his accomplice is dead?’

  ‘He resisted arrest. The two policemen he attacked are in intense care.’

  ‘How do you know that he was guilty?’

  ‘He resisted arrest.’

  ‘He might have had other reasons for that.’

  ‘The man you recently saw, Lao San, has confessed that it was his accomplice.’

  ‘But there is no proof?’

  ‘There is confession.’

  It was clear to Birgitta that she would never be able to overcome Chan’s patience. She decided to do what she was asked t
o do, then leave China as quickly as possible.

  A woman in police uniform came in with a file. She was careful to avoid looking at Birgitta.

  Chan Bing read out what was written in the minutes. Birgitta thought he seemed to be in a hurry now. His patience is at an end, she thought. Or something else. He has what he wants, maybe.

  In a long-winded document Chan Bing confirmed that Mrs Birgitta Roslin, Swedish citizen, had been unable to identify Lao San who was the perpetrator of the serious assault to which she had been subjected.

  Chan Bing finished reading and handed the document over to her. It was written in English.

  ‘Sign,’ said Chan Bing. ‘Then you can go home.’

  Birgitta Roslin read both pages carefully before adding her signature. Chan Bing lit a cigarette. He seemed to have forgotten already that she was there.

  Hong Qiu entered the room. ‘We can go now,’ she said. ‘It’s all over.’

  Birgitta said nothing on the way back to the hotel.

  ‘I assume there wasn’t a suitable flight available for me today?’

  ‘I’m afraid you will have to wait until tomorrow.’

  There was a note for her at the front desk saying that she had been rebooked with Finnair the following day. She was about to say goodbye when Hong Qiu offered to collect her later for dinner. Birgitta agreed immediately. Being alone in Beijing was the last thing she wanted just now.

  She entered the lift and thought of Karin, on her way home, airborne and invisible high up in the sky.

  She called home immediately, but had problems working out the time difference. When Staffan answered, she could hear that she had woken him up.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Still in Beijing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was delayed.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Here it’s one in the afternoon.’

  ‘Aren’t you on the way to Copenhagen now?’

  ‘I’m sorry if I woke you. I’ll be arriving at the same time I was supposed to arrive tomorrow, but a day later.’